Blank Space

by Francis Gideon

  Table of Contents

  Blank Space

  Book Details

  Dedication

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Epilogue

  About the Author

  Blank Space

  Francis Gideon

  After a reunion concert for their favourite band, Curtis and Adrian remember all the things that used to keep them together before they met their wives and had kids. When Adrian's conversation suddenly turns sexual, Curtis isn't quite sure how to proceed. Their past together is long gone, but the unrequited feelings still remain. Curtis and his wife have always gone by the rule of look, but don't touch, so talking, he figures, is okay.

  As their conversations grow in frequency and intensity, Curtis starts to wonder more and more about what might have been with Adrian and what it could be now. Curtis still loves his wife, his family and their life together, which he thinks leave him with no happy options for anyone's future...

  Blank Space

  By Francis Gideon

  Published by Less Than Three Press LLC

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner without written permission of the publisher, except for the purpose of reviews.

  Edited by Emilia Vane

  Cover designed by Aisha Akeju

  This book is a work of fiction and all names, characters, places, and incidents are fictional or used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual people, places, or events is coincidental.

  First Edition April 2016

  Copyright © 2016 by Francis Gideon

  Printed in the United States of America

  Digital ISBN 9781620047828

  Print ISBN 9781620047835

  For Travis

  Chapter One

  Adrian slammed his hand over the car stereo, turning off the radio. "If I have to hear that pop song one more time, I'm going to lose it."

  Curtis snorted. He knew this plight all too well. "I guess that's the danger of having young girls, huh? The latest artist from the Family Channel is always playing and everything's always pink."

  "Not really, actually. Kayla's not too into pink right now. She keeps stealing Simone's black shoes and skirts and insisting she fits into them. All and all, I figure I lucked out with them."

  "That's cute, actually," Curtis said. He reached in the back of Adrian's car to find the CD booklet he kept back there, so they could drown out the sounds of the parking lot with something other than pop music. "How does Simone feel about sharing?"

  "She likes it. Wants to take Kay shopping. I used to come along, but it's all the stores that keep playing those inane pop songs. Again and again."

  "Ah. Just when you think you can escape, another Family Channel prodigy appears again."

  The two laughed quietly. Around them, cars filtered in and out of the Molson Amphitheatre's large parking lot. The two had just seen the Pixies—one of their many favourite bands growing up—for a reunion concert tour. This concert had been a surprise for most Pixies fans since Kim Deal had left the band and they'd kept changing her replacement. But fans, especially fans of the Pixies who had already undergone a long, long hiatus, knew how to be patient. Curtis and Adrian had waited over the summer as the band released several EPs as a tease before finally announcing another tour. When that email update had come, Curtis and Adrian had been completely overwhelmed with excitement. The Pixies had been their band, more than anything else. When their wives surprised both of them with excellent seats for the Molson Amphitheatre show as a Christmas present, Curtis knew that his patience had paid off.

  Now, halfway through February, the concert that they had literally counted down the days to, as if they were still kids, was done. The sweat still clung to Curtis's face and he felt a chill build along his hairline. Though they weren't in the pit like they used to be all the time when they were younger, Curtis still felt battered and bruised, as if each note of the music had hit him straight in the jaw. He smiled at the thought and tried to describe his own mental state with some of Black Francis's screamed song lyrics.

  A car horn honked. Adrian tried to nudge the car out of their parking spot, only to sigh as another group of people stepped in front of them.

  "Okay, I don't think we're getting out of here anytime soon." Adrian turned off the car's engine and then idled it back so they could still keep the music on. Curtis turned up the volume on a mix CD he'd put in the car stereo. When "Like a Stone" came on louder, Adrian furrowed his brows.

  "What CD did you pick?"

  "A mix."

  "Ah. That's why this song is the first. What year is that from?"

  "Um..." Curtis turned back to the book and flipped to where he'd found the CD. Some of the tracks were written on a post-it note inside the CD pocket, but it was old and water damaged so it was difficult to read. Not that Adrian's handwriting was all that clear to begin with. "Probably at least ten years. I think 'Wish You Were Here' is on it."

  Adrian's eyes lit up as he remembered. "University days. I probably made this just before we met at that hardcore show."

  "Ah yeah. Makes sense, then." Curtis suddenly grew quiet. They stared back out at the cars pushing in and out of the lot. A few couples ushered to their vehicles, their coats undone and their cheeks flushed. When they dropped an empty beer can, Curtis realized how they stayed so warm.

  "Man," Curtis sighed and rubbed his hands together. "We're not going to anymore concerts in the winter. I forgot how hard this was."

  Adrian made a small noise in agreement. He flicked up the heat in the car and fiddled with some of the tracks on the CD, skipping forward and backwards, a hard look of contemplation on his face.

  "What's up?" Curtis asked. "I pick the wrong CD?"

  "Nah. It's nothing." Adrian leaned back in his seat, a thoughtful expression on his face. Curtis knew he would just have to wait before Adrian would eventually reveal himself.

  "I was…" Adrian began. "I was just thinking about how we didn't have a car when we went to most of those shows together. So at least we have that going for us right now."

  "Yeah, but we didn't have to wait in traffic."

  "No, just a bus stop next to homeless people at like two in the morning." Adrian laughed and nudged Curtis. "Come on, not everything was better back in the day. Sure, Pixies may have played to a smaller crowd, and we wouldn't be stuck in traffic, but the two hour ride on a bus is something I'll never go back to. Too many smelly men. And it's so much harder to fuck in buses, anyway."

  Curtis laughed uneasily. "Wouldn't know."

  Adrian made a small noise. He drifted once more into the music as they waited. "U-Mass", a song from the last Pixies album before their hiatus, came on next. Curtis remembered those bus stops Adrian described in vivid details, as if they were heading back to their dorms in Toronto during their university days and not in their mid-thirties now. As cold and unfriendly as those stops seemed to Curtis, he knew they were also a godsend—because he had met Adrian at one. At first, Adrian had been just a good-looking stranger who Curtis couldn't keep his eyes off of on a Greyhound. Then, as Curtis had arrived at the dive bar where the show was taking place, Adrian was already in the cen
tre of the mosh pit. The two had made consistent eye contact without exchanging a word until the show was over, when they walked the other back to the Greyhound station. Between hurried conversations about Pansy Division and Black Flag, they had realized they went to the same university in different programs. It was only a matter of time before they'd started hooking up at house parties—but never in the back of dirty buses.

  Curtis shook his head and rubbed his hands over the heat vent. He'd always loved and hated this aspect of music; certain songs and bands were like flashbulb moments that brought him back in time. Sometimes, like with "U-Mass", it was a good time period with nothing bad about it. The music empowered him. But other times, like the next song on the CD, this one by Pearl Jam, Curtis remembered a particularly bad break up and felt his skin go tight. He leaned forward and skipped ahead a track.

  Adrian glanced at him and shrugged. "I never liked that song anyway."

  For a moment, Curtis wondered if he could dig into the CD binder again and find Pixies. Maybe a greatest hits or something like that. Though they had just seen them play, that could work in their favour. Pixies's music held a new memory attached to it now—a reunion tour after years nearly ten years apart.

  Adrian shifted in his seat, peering around in the parking lot. He sighed again and cranked the heat higher to stay warm. "So, I have a game we can play."

  "A game? Is this really as bad as a child's road trip?"

  Adrian narrowed his green eyes at Curtis before he ran a hand through his dark hair. He would need a haircut soon, Curtis observed. Adrian always let the ends of his hair near his neck grow too long in the winter, so long that by the summer he was almost unrecognizable from his wife at the back—except for height. Curtis touched the sides of his buzzed head self-consciously as Adrian seemed to formulate his thoughts.

  "Fine. Then we'll play an adult game. Like Never Have I Ever, maybe?" Adrian said.

  "I thought you needed more people for that?"

  "Nah. We could carry on the game. I was just thinking, anyway, about how graphic some of the Pixies's lyrics were. I forgot about that. And how Surfer Rosa had a topless woman on it, too. I remember carrying it off into my room when I was younger."

  Curtis nodded and shifted uncomfortably. "So, we've both done that. But what else could we compare? Is this how you're even supposed to play?"

  Adrian grinned playfully. "Sort of. But now I know you've never really played this game or had sex on a bus. But… what about a threesome?"

  "Nah," Curtis laughed. "You?"

  Adrian waved a hand in the air in a fifty-fifty motion

  "Well, that's not really an answer," Curtis complained. "Also, how did I not know this?"

  Adrian shrugged. "I wasn't sure if it really happened for a while. I made out with a guy at a party, then his girlfriend walked over and caught us. She sat in my lap to kiss him and we kind of passed him between us for a while. I was really, really drunk so I thought for a long time that it was just a fantasy. But nah, I'm gonna claim it as real."

  Curtis swallowed hard. He suddenly pictured everything Adrian said in vivid colour and emotion. The baseline on the song over the speakers didn't help things either; it reverberated through the car and by Curtis's leg. He shifted and tried to focus. "Just the kissing, then? You two didn't head to a back room and make it all official?"

  "No, I'm pretty sure it was just some kissing and heavy petting."

  "Ah. I see."

  There was a pause for a while. Curtis wondered if that would be the end of their game; he kind of hoped so, because the sudden confession from Adrian had caught him off guard. Had he gone to that party too? Was that when he met Darcy in the backroom, lecturing someone about the merits of Jawbreaker and why it was a travesty that they'd broken up? Curtis couldn't remember. For a time during university, he and Adrian had been so close. They always went to parties together, no matter if they had no idea who was hosting them. If one of them couldn't go, they told one another everything about it later. So why hadn't Curtis heard about the random party make outs between girls and guys? Even as just a half-baked fantasy? Curtis felt unmoored, not being able to place this particular event in his own memories.

  "I'm going to ask another thing, since you've gone quiet," Adrian declared, sending Curtis a subtle—but playful—wink. "Ever had sex in public?"

  "No. I think Darcy would kill me. She likes privacy."

  "Fair enough. What about semi-public spaces? Not a bus, obviously, but maybe an airplane?"

  Curtis was about to answer no, when he stopped and nodded his head.

  Adrian's eyes lit up. "Tell me!"

  Curtis laughed. "I totally forgot, but it was on our honeymoon. On the way back from Manhattan. We were on a train and it was nearly three in the morning. No one was around, so she went down on me. That counts, right?"

  "Definitely. Simone's done something similar in a parking garage. And then I did the same to her at a boutique. She was getting something fitted and asked me into her dressing room for an opinion. And well, things happened."

  "Nice," Curtis said. He wasn't quite sure if he was commenting on Adrian's prowess or the location itself. It didn't seem to matter to Adrian.

  "How about being tied up?"

  "No. Not really into it." Curtis paused. More cars had left the lot now and weren't clogged by the two exits. They could probably leave if they wanted to, but Adrian made no movements forward. Probably doesn't want to be stuck in traffic, Curtis told himself. He suddenly saw the rest of the night laid out before him: go home, debate showering because he felt sweaty and gross from the heat of the lights, but probably not shower because he didn't want to wake up one of his girls, and then to bed for work in the morning. The reality of his life hit him like a wave. He suddenly missed the flashbulb burst of memory that music—especially music with Adrian—gave him. Curtis wanted to keep playing this stupid game, even if all this talk about sex made him feel half-hard in his pants. "You? Simone ever tie you up?"

  "Yes, kind of. But it was when I broke my wrist, so I don't know how much that counts as being tied up if I was in a sling. You remember that break, right?"

  Curtis nodded. It had been during a time period when they were distant; Adrian had moved into the city with Simone while Curtis lived outside of Toronto. They had still talked—that was what Facebook was for—without hanging out as much as they did in school. Curtis could recall Adrian posting a photo of himself next to a ladder and another photo holding up a blue cast with a caption that read: "Fool me once, shame on you ladder. Fool me twice, and I spent the afternoon in emerg."

  "Well, it was kind of like being tied up when I had that thing," Adrian explained. "The sling was so awkward, but as soon as Simone realized she could tie both my wrists above my head and against our headboard, then she could ride me without problems."

  "You like it?"

  "Yeah, it was nice. I like being pinned, but it's hard with Simone because she can't really pin me all that well."

  Curtis made another small noise of agreement. He often pinned Darcy if she asked for it—just her arms and sometimes a light hand around her neck. It was never rough, never forceful, more like holding in her place as they fucked. He had never really thought of his actions beyond the four minutes or so that it would last during sex, and he had never really considered it bondage. He was about to correct himself, adding his own story, when Adrian cut in again.

  "What about men?"

  "Hmm?" Curtis said, his throat suddenly dry. He looked over to Adrian behind the wheel and back to the visor in the passenger side. "What about men?"

  "You ever have sex with them?"

  "Well, define sex."

  "Genitals coming into contact with one another, maybe? Genitals are involved, s'all I'll say and leave the rest up to you."

  "Oh." Curtis thought for a moment. He was used to defining sex as penetration in some way. Darcy had gotten him out of thinking that way when it came to the two of them, especially since it had been really, re
ally hard to fuck when she was pregnant with their second kid and they had pretty much relied on oral for the latter half of her pregnancy. But Curtis hadn't thought about what 'real' sex was for when he was with men. He had never fucked—or been fucked—by a guy. So no anal, but he had done plenty of other things with guys during his youth before he'd met Darcy. And a lot of those instances were with Adrian, he suddenly realized. Curtis paused, his palms suddenly sweaty in the chilled air of the car. By this definition, he and Adrian had had sex.

  "Um." Curtis paused again. "Yeah, I suppose I have then. Sex with guys, I mean. I've done that. Yeah."

  "Same here. Though I suppose that's obvious."

  They were quiet for some time. Is it okay to ask more for this question? Curtis wondered. When they talked before, most of their actions had been with their wives, so they knew their names. Or, as with Adrian's threesome example, they were people who had no names. Could Curtis probe for a question where he could easily be the second participant in some of Adrian's stories? Or was that weird? Curtis wasn't even sure if he could remember everything he had done with Adrian because he had kept it buried for so long. Now Curtis felt the tug of memory for his old hardcore shows and venue parties, where Curtis could see Adrian dipping behind closed door with other men and women, before the two of them had locked eyes and realized they'd been on the same page with one another all along. Before they realized they had really wanted the other all along.

  Curtis was about to open his mouth—to say what, he wasn't sure—when Adrian spoke again.

  "You know, sometimes I miss guys. I know it's stupid to say. I love Simone and Kayla with all my heart."

  "Of course."

  "But..." Adrian went on, after a quick glance towards Curtis. "I just. I miss the feeling of cock. It sounds so ridiculous because I don't want to reduce all dudes to just cock. I know gender is more of a spectrum than that. And sexuality is also about personality too, even though I had no idea about anything with that guy at the party and his girlfriend. But men also smell different, they taste different, they do different things. I just miss that every so often. It's like… I sometimes get these small moments of, my god, I wish I could fuck him. Even if it's only for a second and inside my head. I would never..."