by Rick R. Reed
Dane shook his head and gulped down the rest of his wine. He leaned forward to refill his glass.
“I just thought—” Seth started to say.
Dane finished for him. “That I what? Had secret experiences behind my wife’s back? Or maybe, to give me some credit, played around a bit before I settled down and got married? Is that what you thought?”
“Well, yeah. I can’t imagine having an attraction like ours and never acting on it, especially when you’re in your twenties.”
“Katy and I got married when we were just out of college. Even in high school, we were the school’s ‘it’ couple all through school, from freshman year on. We lost our virginity to each other when we were both fifteen. It was fun. Hell, when you’re that age, any sex is fun.” Dane shrugged. “We always had an okay sex life, but toward the end, I thought more and more about men, and sometimes, in order to follow through, you know, I needed to fantasize.”
“That she was a man?”
“God, no!” Dane chuckled. “Katy was too much of a woman for that. And it wouldn’t have felt right for me. I would have felt like I was cheating.” He shrugged. “I imagined I was this hot straight guy.”
He peered into Seth’s eyes, Seth supposed, for understanding.
“It worked for me.”
“So you never, ever acted on it? Back when I was first coming out, I used to cruise some of the lakefront parks in Chicago, and half the guys I hooked up with were married. I guess I just assumed you did something like that. Sorry for making assumptions.”
“No. No, it’s not an unreasonable thing to think. I even know there’s a rest area out on Route 7 where guys meet up to exchange blowjobs.” Dane snorted. “Some folks around here refer to it as ‘Lollipop Park.’ I can’t say I wasn’t tempted to check it out once or twice… or more. But I could never go through with it. My family always meant too much. I mean, what if I got caught, got arrested? A high school teacher? In this little burg? Can you imagine?”
Seth leaned forward and touched Dane’s knee, which sent something akin to an electric jolt through him. “I can’t, Dane, I really can’t. Most of my life has been spent out of the closet. I never even really had a girlfriend, not a serious one, anyway.”
“So you never…?”
“What? Had sex with a woman? God, no. And I can’t imagine that either, nor would I want to try.” Seth gave a mock shiver. “I don’t even know if I could.”
“Now, now. It’s not that bad.” Dane drank some more wine, a little slower this time. It was relaxing him, or maybe it was finally opening up to someone about who he really was that was doing the relaxing. “I just realized, when you called me up in the middle of the night and asked me over, that it would be for more than hot chocolate and cookies.”
“What kind of cookies?” Seth wondered. “Because I do have some Chips Ahoy in the kitchen.”
“Shut up.” Dane punched Seth in the arm.
“Ouch.” Seth rubbed at his shoulder.
“I got really nervous. I am really nervous.” Dane searched Seth’s eyes for a glimmer of understanding. He was relieved to find some there, along with a measure of kindness.
Seth took one of Dane’s hands and held it fast. Dane could never have imagined that holding hands could be so sexy. The heat, the smoothness of Seth’s palm, were things Dane wanted to savor.
“You don’t ever have to be nervous with me, Dane. We can go as fast or as slow as you like. You can leave right now, and we can try this again after some dating, or do you call it courting around here?” He snickered. “Seriously. We can take our time. Start off with a kiss, like this.” And Seth leaned forward and very gently kissed Dane’s lips, just letting his tongue flick the top lip for an instant at the very end. He leaned back. “Or we can go faster.” His face morphed into an evil grin. “There’s no pressure, is what I want to say. If, or when, we’re together—and I do hope it’s when—it should be about having fun, pleasure, being close. None of those things are stuff you should get uptight about.
“And in case you’re wondering, I am totally cool with your virginity. I’m a teacher, for crying out loud.” He grinned. “So I won’t mind showing you the way. Making you do it over and over again until I’m sure you have it right.” He touched Dane’s face. “You’re such a beautiful man. You know something?”
Dane wasn’t able to speak, so he just shook his head.
“The moment I saw you, in the school parking lot, on my first day, I was a goner. I hate to sound all mushy and everything, but I think I fell for you in that moment… with the snow coming down all around you.” He sighed a little. “Just this gentle giant that seemed not only in command of himself but also, somehow, enormously kind and compassionate.” Seth drew in a breath and then said, “And so, so sexy.”
He leaned in and kissed Dane again, this time for longer. Dane allowed his tongue to slip between his lips, and Dane kissed back. The stubble on Seth’s face, curious and strange after years of only feeling Katy’s smooth skin against his own, was powerful and intoxicating.
Dane had no words. He leaned back into the couch, letting the taste of Seth, his kiss, linger on his lips with his eyes closed. He wanted him to do it again. And again. Forever.
But another part of him told him that now would be a good time to go home. It had to be getting close to dawn, and he didn’t want to be gone when Clarissa and Joey awoke. He and Seth had opened a door tonight, and he felt that portal had given them entrance to many rooms, which would take a long time to explore.
Dane surprised himself by saying, “Maybe we could just go in your bedroom and lie down for a bit?”
Seth grinned at him. “Just lie down? For a bit?”
Dane nodded. “Baby steps.”
“Okay, tiger. I’m buying what you’re selling.” Seth stood and tugged Dane up by his hand. He led him into his bedroom, blowing out all but two candles as they headed toward the threshold. He let go of Dane’s hand and lifted the two votive candles, letting their flickering light lead them both into the dark bedroom.
They stopped next to the bed. Dane could feel his heart, its beat staccato, pounding against his chest. He sucked in some air when Seth let his robe drop to the floor and stood before him, strong, erect, naked. Dane tried to swallow and found it difficult.
“Wow,” Dane murmured.
“We’re just gonna lie down,” Seth said, and did so.
Dane struggled out of his own clothes and lay down beside him, Seth’s naked body a silken thing next to him, a gift. He drank him in, like a man who hasn’t had a meal in ages: the furry chest, the line of hair that led down to his cock and balls, his strong, muscular legs. All of it had a sense of unreality about it. It was as though Dane had fantasized this image a million times and now was seeing it with not only his mind’s eye, but also his real eyes. And for once, reality surpassed fantasy.
He gently let his hand, barely touching, glide across the fur of Seth’s chest. “You’re beautiful,” he whispered.
“And so are you.”
There was no need to ask for a kiss. They simply came together, one body, one desire, no more hesitation. Briefly, in their coupling and the igniting of their passion, Dane had a thought. Why, there’s really nothing to know here. I didn’t need to worry. This is natural—just hang on for dear life and… enjoy. But then even that thought was wiped away by the ecstasy and language of the lips and the tongue, the hands, and the dicks… which fit together so much better than Dane could have ever imagined.
Their passion, like a wave, rose as they hungrily consumed each other’s mouth, then neck, working their way downward in synchronization until they both found they had the other’s cock in his mouth. The taste of Seth’s dick was so good, so natural, nothing odd… it was like coming home for Dane.
And he suspected Seth felt the same too, as he shot jet after jet of come into Dane’s mouth, which he swallowed… hungrily.
After, they fell asleep for a bit, Dane’s come and their warmth glu
ing them together and lulling them away.
The light filtering into the room was gray when Dane woke up. He kissed Seth’s closed eyelids and sat up. “My kids. I have to get home. But we’ll do this again. Soon.” He grinned.
Seth mumbled sleepily, “Promise.”
“Oh yes.” Dane groped on the floor for his jeans. “Tonight?”
“Mmm-hmmm,” Seth murmured. “And every night you’re up for it.”
Dane chuckled. “I’ll be back.” He leaned in, tenderly kissed Seth’s lips, and then got up and headed to the front door.
And the most curious thing? He didn’t feel the floor beneath his feet.
Chapter 16
DANE RETURNED home feeling like a kid again in so many ways. For one, dawn’s pearlescent light was just creeping over the hills to the east, making the world around him appear in washed-out shades of gray. Yet there was a dull glow to everything, as if the world had been gilded. Or maybe that feeling of things being touched with gold was in Dane’s head, a sort of afterglow. He smiled.
Sneaking home early in the morning like this made him feel like a teenager again. He recalled sneaking out of his bedroom window to meet up with the guys in the neighborhood to drink beer and other potables cadged from parents’ liquor cabinets or refrigerators. It seemed so wild back then! If they were lucky, sometimes Buddy Rogers would manage to steal a fat and resinous bud from his brother Jake—who was a sophomore at Youngstown State University and kept a stash in his sock drawer—and he and his friends would get high, lolling around and giggling over the stupidest things. Until someone broke out the Twinkies and Doritos….
Dane, locking the car and heading up to his front door, recalled those days with nostalgia, but also a kind of perverse pain. Although he tried his best back then to hide it, especially from himself, he had an enormous crush on Buddy Rogers, who represented all the best parts of the good, solid German stock from which he was descended: dishwater blond hair, a cleft in his chin, and a body that was beefy, stocky, broad, but without an ounce of fat. Buddy was strength personified—with a goofy grin. Dane would try to make himself believe he and Buddy were simply best buds. That was how he rationalized the fierce sense of affection he had for him. It was hard to use that to explain away how he would find himself simply staring at Buddy as he took a bong hit or told yet another rude joke, but he made a good effort of it nonetheless. Only in Dane’s adolescent dreams, he couldn’t escape the fact that he was filled with desire for his friend. In those dreams there would be kissing, sucking, caresses of body parts that rarely saw the light of day. Dane would awaken from these dreams filled with guilt and shame, even though he would rationally ask himself, “Who has control over their dreams?” Often he would awaken with the inside of his boxers damp with come, which only served to make him feel more guilt ridden.
Dane could now allow himself to smile at the memory and how it segued into this very moment because once again, Dane found himself sneaking into his home after a night of debauchery.
Only the things he did with Seth through the long night? Those were not the stuff of dreams or a tortured imagination. They were real and too delicious to let the appearance of guilt or shame mar them.
Today also reminded him of mornings when he would slip back into his dorm at Miami University, on the other side of the state in Oxford, after spending the night with Katy in her dorm. He would feel somehow accomplished, and when his roommate, Jeff, would wake up to give him a sleepy yet knowing grin, Dane was proud. Proud to be part of the brotherhood of the straight. Wasn’t that proof? Hadn’t he passed the test?
He unlocked the door slowly and opened it the same way, praying the door wouldn’t creak and that his kids would sleep through his reentry into the house. He had lingered much too long with Seth, and he knew it. But the kids, both of them, slept like long-haul truckers, and Dane usually would just about have to resort to beating on a saucepan with a wooden spoon to wake them.
Except for this morning.
Stepping into the entryway on what he thought of as silent cat feet, he immediately spied Clarissa, sitting with her arms folded and legs crossed on the family room couch. At the sound of his footfall, she whirled around and lasered a glare at him, eyes narrowed, lips pulled down into a frown.
Seeing her was so shocking and her expression so severe, it took Dane by complete surprise. So much so that he let loose a startled, nervous laugh.
“Oh, so you think it’s funny?” Clarissa stood. She wore a nightgown Katy had bought her the previous Christmas. It was full-length, red plaid flannel, and when Clarissa had opened it, she’d made fun of it, saying something about “Grandma-style.” But now she couldn’t have looked less like a grandma. She looked like exactly what she was: his little girl, even though she was sixteen years old.
She put her hands on her hips and said the words disappointed mothers had been saying in similar situations for eternity. “Where have you been? I’ve been worried sick.”
Dane simply shook his head and mumbled, “God.”
“What?” Clarissa stared at him, her mouth slightly open. There was something like terror in her expression. “That’s all you have to say? Are you going to tell me where you’ve been? I’m not used to my father sneaking in at dawn. And I shouldn’t have to be.”
And all at once, the joy Dane had felt after his night with Seth, a night that was truly a revelation, an awakening, a release in so many ways, evaporated. The evening and its joy withered in the face of his daughter’s wrath and indignation.
He crossed in front of his daughter, swearing an icy chill emanated from her as he passed her and her unwavering stare. He kicked off his shoes and plopped down on the couch with a sigh.
“You gonna sit down here? So we can talk?” He reached for her hand, barely grazing the skin before she snatched it away. “Clarissa…,” he pleaded. “Please.”
She whirled on him, actually shaking a finger close to his face. It made him want to laugh. It made him want to cry. It made him want to yell at her and ask, “Who’s the parent around here, anyway?”
She nudged him. “I want to know where you’ve been. I think I have a right to know.”
And Dane felt the first inklings of an emotion he hadn’t expected—indignation. Did she have a right? What were his rights? He breathed deep, trying to maintain some calmness, attempting to tell himself his daughter had been going through very rough times. Then he reminded himself that these were times in which he’d been available for her almost every nonworking minute of his life. And yet his almost constant availability and devotion were cast aside, as if they didn’t matter. And what of all of Dane’s heartfelt pleas for communication, for talking about things with her? Her reaction had been consistent, if nothing more. She would lock herself in her room, her head hunched over her laptop or phone. She’d whisk herself away down the street to her best friend Jerri Lynn’s house, whose mom had mentioned to Dane that Clarissa was beginning to feel like a second daughter.
Dane peered into Clarissa’s face for a few moments to see what he could discern, what he might read there besides anger. Her eyes were moist, red-rimmed. He realized she’d been crying. That hurt his heart and made him want to gather his little girl up in his arms, if she would let him—which he very much doubted.
“Well?”
Dane thought for a moment, thinking how what he would say next was important, that it mattered. He finally chose his path and knew she might not like what he was about to say. “Clarissa, I honestly don’t know that where I was is any of your business. Parents, believe it or not, do have a right to some privacy.”
“Oh, so you don’t want to tell me. Never mind, Dad, you don’t have to. You’ve always been great at keeping secrets, right?” She turned her wounded eyes away to stare out the window at their backyard.
“What do you mean?” Dane knew, and he bristled at the unfairness of her words. Or were they really unfair, or a justified reaction to his own lack of courage and self-acceptance through the
years? Again he told himself to choose what he said and how he said it very carefully.
She didn’t utter a word, a sound, for so long that Dane began to wonder if she was through talking to him—once again. Would she run off to her room? To Jerri Lynn’s? Would he never reach her again?
Or maybe she wasn’t saying anything because she somehow knew, knew exactly where he’d been and what he’d been up to? The thought caused a shiver to course through him.
But finally she spoke. “I wasn’t born yesterday, Dad. I heard you leave in the middle of the night, watched your car back out of the driveway. You looked like you couldn’t get out of here fast enough.” She laughed bitterly. “You were with some guy, weren’t you?” She shook her head.
Dane was a little relieved. At least the “some guy” reference gave him hope she didn’t yet know which guy.
“How is it we go all these months barely speaking, and the one time, because yes, Clarissa, this is the one and only time I’ve ever left you and your brother on your own for a few hours, this is when you take notice? And not only take notice but are outraged?”
“So it’s true?”
Dane debated whether or not to tell her. A lie was ready at his lips—someone from school, in trouble, needed him. He had spent the night with a sick or injured student at the emergency room at Summitville Hospital. It was credible, something Dane would do, and he took a small amount of pleasure in imagining the abashed look on Clarissa’s face.
But that pleasure was small and mean. Her question was giving him an opportunity, and he recognized it. He said simply, “I was with someone I care about.”
“A guy?”
“Yes. That does happen to be his gender. Is that important? Would you feel different if it was a woman?”
Clarissa shook her head, her lips pursing in a moue that could only be interpreted as disgust. “I guess not.” She shrugged. “Who cares, anyway?”
