by Dorien Grey
When he sensed I was getting a little too eager, he broke the kiss and backed away. Now it was my turn, and I echoed his unbuttoning routine. It took every ounce of self-control I could muster, but I knew it was part of the game, so I did it. My turn to repeat the slow-motion kiss. When he broke it off—he had to, because I certainly wasn’t about to—I took a step forward and he took a step back. It was all part of a symbolic dance which guided us slowly toward the bedroom: one action (shirt-tails pulled out of pants; shirts slid off shoulders and dropped on floor; belt buckles undone, etc.), one step at a time. After eight years, we still timed it perfectly.
And by the time we reached the bed, we were in our shorts and I was about to explode. Neither one of us had said a single word, but we didn’t have to. Tom moved in front of me and pushed me gently back onto the bed, then slid my shorts off, then his, and slowly—really slowly, lowered himself on top of me.
He rubbed the side of my face with his chin and I felt the tip of his tongue tracing the outline of my ear. Eight years, and I knew exactly what came next.
“Foreplay over,” he whispered, and the lions came out to play.
*
I’d been invited to Tom and Lisa’s for dinner the following Friday, and the intervening week literally flew by. I was working for Glen O’Banyon gathering information on a patent infringement case with possible implications of fraud, which involved tracing down the paper trail of exactly which of the parties had gotten the basic product idea to whom and when. Hardly the kind of stuff that makes the hair on the back of your neck stand up, but I never minded working for O’Banyon because it paid pretty damned well.
Tom had started his job at the Montero, but he called me at least three times during the week, which produced a strong teenage-testosterone response every time. I mean, it wasn’t as though I’d been exactly celibate for the past eight years—or even the past eight days, for that matter—but maybe there was a large element of reliving a very nice part of the past that made it special. I realized, too, that Tom had probably been the first guy I’d really thought I was in love with. I had no illusions about Tom being Mr. Right—I was afraid our lifestyles were just too different for that—but it was certainly a pleasant interlude.
*
Friday evening finally rolled around, and I left the office a little early so I could stop at the liquor store near home and pick up a really nice bottle of wine as a housewarming gift. A quick shower and change of clothes and I was ready. I was for some strange reason mildly nervous about seeing Lisa—and, I was pretty certain, Carol—again, but….
It was a nice evening, so I decided to walk to their apartment rather than fight trying to find a parking place, and besides, I could use the exercise.
When Tom had said “Spring and Warner” he meant Spring and Warner—the building was a relatively new high-rise on the southwest corner. I rang the buzzer, and after a wait of no more than three seconds, was buzzed through to the small lobby. I took the elevator to the sixth floor and found my way to Apartment 6-G. I had my fingertip about half an inch from the buzzer when the door opened to reveal an incredibly handsome, grinning Tom. We shook hands and, as soon as the door had closed behind me, exchanged a bear hug. Over Tom’s shoulder, I could see Lisa and Carol coming out of the kitchen, smiling.
If I didn’t know better, I would have sworn I’d wandered into a typical heterosexual family scene. Both Lisa and Carol looked great, and both were what my lesbian friend Mollie Marino calls “lipstick lesbians”—very feminine. I doubt very much, had I not known them all before, that if I met them at a straight cocktail party, I’d have any idea they were gay.
I exchanged hugs and cheek-kisses with the women and we all went through the usual mildly awkward confusion that ensues when old friends first see one another again after a long absence. I handed Lisa the wine which she acknowledged with profuse thanks and then insisted that Tom and I sit while she and Carol went into the kitchen.
The apartment, I noticed as Tom and I sat side by side on one of the two love seats facing one another across a glass-topped coffee table, was very comfortable and, again, gave not the slightest hint that the occupants were anything than an average heterosexual couple.
Carol came back into the room carrying a tray of hors d’oeuvres, followed by Lisa with another tray with wine glasses and a bottle of wine, which they set on the coffee table.
“We’ll have your wine with dinner,” Lisa said. “This here’s chattin’ wine,” she added with a smile. Tom poured the wine as the women sat on the opposite love seat, and we all leaned forward to click our glasses together in a toast.
“To old friends,” Tom said.
“And to new beginnings,” Carol added, looking at Tom.
???? I thought.
*
It was a great evening. We talked about our college days and exchanged favorite memories, and caught up on news of classmates and mutual friends, and laughed a lot, and the years melted away and it was another place and another time.
Dinner was excellent—pork roast with garlic-roasted potatoes and some kind of succotash that Lisa’s grandmother had taught her to make, and a Bavarian torte for desert. The wine was pretty good, too, I was delighted to discover: I’d just asked the owner of the liquor store what he’d recommend—my knowledge of wine isn’t much above the level of Mogen David Port.
Tom and I sat on one side of the table with Lisa and Carol on the other. It was obvious that the two women were lovers, and had been ever since college. We talked a bit about it, and about the inconveniences of Tom and Lisa’s arrangement, which meant Carol and Lisa couldn’t live together. But they’d apparently worked it out to their mutual satisfaction, and while I couldn’t imagine such a situation for myself, it wasn’t my place to pass any sort of judgment on it.
“We’re so glad we found you again, Dick,” Lisa said. “We don’t have many gay friends here, and it’s going to be even harder now.”
I’m afraid on this yet-another-reference-to-something-apparently-important I couldn’t keep my face from reflecting the question I hesitated to ask.
All three apparently noticed my confusion and exchanged smiles.
“Tell him, Tom,” Lisa said, reaching across the table to tap his hand.
Tom turned toward me. “I’m joining the police force. I’m going to be a cop.”
“Whoa!” I heard myself say, and then just sat there like someone had just beaned me with a frying pan. The three of them sat quietly, looking at me with identical smiles.
“Are you sure?” I asked, feeling immediately stupid for having done so. “I mean, do you have any idea of what you’d be getting yourself into?”
He nodded. “I know. But it’s really what I’ve wanted all my life.”
“But…” I started, then couldn’t remember what I’d intended to come after it.
Fortunately, Lisa stepped in. “My dad was a policeman. You knew that, didn’t you, Dick?”
I shook my head. “No, I don’t think I ever did.”
She nodded and smiled. “Yes, he was. That was back in Hartford. He took early retirement just about the time I started college. But the interesting thing is that his partner for eighteen years was a man named Kensington Black.”
That was news! “Our Kensington Black?” I asked, as though there were thousands of men named Kensington Black….
She smiled again. “Our Kensington Black. He’s my godfather. And when he came out here to be chief, and then Tom’s dad wanted to send him here to help with the Montero, things just sort of clicked.”
I should have mentioned, when I was talking about the hassles in the police department, that finally, at the urging of the mayor, the Police Commission chose to eliminate the intra-mural hassling by going outside the department—and outside the state—for the new chief. They finally picked one Kensington Black, who had done wonders reducing the crime rate of one of the East Coast’s older, deteriorating cities. Chief Black was rumored by his many detractors in a
nd out of the department to be to be a closet liberal. Everyone in the gay community hoped they were right.
“Kismet yet again,” Tom said. “I decided it was time to make the change. And while Chief Black of course can’t guarantee that I’ll be accepted, having him as a family friend sure can’t hurt, and I’m sure he’ll be glad to put in a good word with the applications committee if one were needed. I submitted my application the first week we got here. There’s a lot of paperwork involved: background check, even a lie detector exam. Fortunately, if I was gay or not wasn’t one of the questions.”
“But…” I started again, and forgot again.
“And, no,” Tom said, apparently having a better idea of what I was trying to get out than I did, “he doesn’t know I’m gay.”
I took a deep breath. “I’m really glad for you if this is what you really want, but you must know how homophobic this police force has always been. I don’t want to be the voice of doom, here, but I’m not being melodramatic when I say you could very well be putting your life in danger.”
Tom shrugged. “I know, but this force isn’t all that much different from any force anywhere, and things won’t change until somebody makes them change: There’s got to be somebody willing to take the first step toward integrating the force: especially this one. I know it won’t be easy, but I know Chief Black, and I know he’s a good, decent man who’s determined to make changes that need being made. He won’t let anyone get out of hand.”
He grinned at me and moved his hand down to lay it on top of my leg. “Besides, it’s not like I’m going to go around waving the rainbow flag or hang around the locker room groping my crotch and drooling. But I know there are already other gay cops on the force—there have to be. Maybe, when there are enough of us…I just want to make a difference; to show the straights that we’ve got the ability—and the right—to be as good a cop as any heterosexual.”
I shook my head slowly. I was impressed by his altruism, but was really concerned about his walking into the lion’s cage without a whip and chair. Still, it was his life. “Well,” I said finally, “if that’s what you really want, and you realize what you’re getting into, go for it. I wish you the best.”
He grinned. “Thanks, Dick. I knew you’d understand.”
I wasn’t sure I did, but…. And I really wondered what Tom’s dad had to say about all this, or even if he knew yet. But it wasn’t my place to ask—at least not now. Knowing me, I knew I’d manage to bring it up at some point.
The grandmother clock on the credenza struck 11, and I automatically looked at my watch for verification.
“Wow,” I said, “it’s getting late. I guess I’d better be going.”
Tom, whose hand still rested on my knee, squeezed it slightly. “You don’t have to go, do you?” he said with a grin that made Western Union obsolete.
I felt a wave of…what?…awkwardness. I mean, here we were, sitting across from his wife (yeah, yeah, wife in name only, but still…) and his wife’s lover and I was suddenly feeling very midwest/middle class…well, stodgy. I hated that.
Carol deliberately reached over and took Lisa’s hand. “We’re going to go spend the night at my apartment,” she said as they exchanged smiles. “We thought maybe the two of you would like to have the place to yourselves.”
Oh, my, yes! my crotch—which was never much one for social conventions—said eagerly. I looked at Tom, who just grinned at me.
“Gosh,” I said. “If I’d have known, I’d have brought my jammies.”
“I don’t think you’ll need them,” Tom said.
And I didn’t.
*
Time has an annoying habit of sneaking by when you’re not paying attention, and that’s what happened to the next several weeks. The patent case I was working on dragged on and on and involved far more detail than I’d have any interest in relating here. In the end, however, I was able to determine that the defendant had indeed engaged in a little skullduggery. Unfortunately, it was the defendant whom Glen O’Banyon was representing. Oh, well, you can’t win ’em all, and even a lawyer as good as O’Banyon can’t always be on the right side. (In fact, it’s precisely because he was as good as he was that clients who knew they were in the wrong sought him out.)
Tom’s application to the Police Academy was accepted with what must have been unprecedented speed, and he was told there’d been a “last minute” opening in the very next class when one of the scheduled recruits had had to withdraw for personal reasons. The speed of the process surprised even him, and turned out to be a little more life-disruptive than he’d anticipated. He’d notified his father before putting in his application, and while the older man was understandably less than overjoyed by Tom’s decision to leave the family business, he knew his son had a mind of his own, and didn’t try to stop him. Tom had assumed he’d have at least a month or so before his acceptance came through, and even considered postponing entering the Academy for a class or two to give his dad time to make other arrangements for an assistant manager. But he realized that part of the speed of his approval was undoubtedly due to his association with Chief Black—though Tom had of course never even mentioned it in his application or in the pre-admission interviews. Postponing his entry was, he decided, out of the question. He entered the Academy exactly two weeks after our reunion dinner.
He did love the Academy, though, and he was like a little kid when he described everything he was learning. Apparently he was doing very well and was at or near the top of his class, which came as no surprise. While I still had my doubts about what he might be facing in the future, I was glad for him.
*
As for me, though most of my cases during those weeks were considerably less interesting than watching paint dry, my social life provided enough stimulation to keep me from getting totally bored. My friend Jared Martinson, who had been driving a beer truck for well over a year while he worked on his doctoral dissertation in Russian Literature (a long story), finally finished it and, after making his oral presentations, hoped to have everything tied up so that he could receive his official diploma at the next graduation ceremony. Though we were jumping the gun a bit, I and some of our mutual friends held a little surprise party at my place to celebrate. I’d not been used to throwing parties since when Chris and I were together, what seems like a couple hundred years ago, now. It took up a lot of time, pulling everything together, but it was worth it and everybody seemed to enjoy themselves.
Basically the same group of friends as were at Jared’s party had gradually established an informal weekly Wednesday night get-together at Bob’s bar, Ramón’s. I got a kick out of thinking of the group—for no other reason than that I’d heard the name as a kid and loved it—as “The Elves, Gnomes, and Wee-People’s Marching and Chowder Society.” But I kept the name to myself, lest one of the other “members”—not one of whom could be considered an elf, gnome, or wee-person…or a fairy, for that matter—not appreciate my humor and be tempted to punch me out.
I’d arrived early—surprise—for one of our get-togethers to find only Bob and his lover Mario there before me. Bob was behind the bar as a backup for Jimmy should one be needed, though Wednesday wasn’t the busiest night of the week and we met and disbanded fairly early due to its being a weeknight.
“Any news on the house?” I asked Bob as soon as I’d pulled up a stool and sat down. He and Mario had made an offer on a great old Victorian house in one of the areas being saved from the urban sprawl by gentrification. It needed a lot of work, of course, but it was basically solid with, they’d told me, beautiful woodwork and even a small coach house in back.
Bob grinned. “We should be closing any time now.”
“That’s fantastic! I’ll volunteer for the moving crew whenever you’re ready.”
“Glad to hear it. If you hadn’t volunteered, I’d have drafted you.”
Jimmy was at the front of the bar talking with a couple customers, and while I couldn’t hear the conversation, I d
id catch the name “Nightingale” several times. The Nightingale was a small bar on one of the side streets just off Arnwood.
“Something happen at the Nightingale?” I asked Bob when he brought my Manhattan over to me.
He nodded. “It got held up last night,” he said as he put two maraschino cherries on a plastic pick and dropped them into my drink.
“No shit?” I was sorry to hear it, but only mildly surprised. “There seems to be a lot of that going on these days.”
“Yeah. Way too much. Three guys just walked right in and robbed the place. Luckily, it was near closing and there weren’t more than three or four guys in the place, but still…. That takes a lot of balls.”
“Gang members?”
Bob shrugged. “Probably, I’d imagine.”
“Well, hopefully things will get better once Chief Black gets settled in.”
“I sure don’t envy him,” volunteered Jimmy, who had come to our end of the bar for another bottle of gin and who never seemed to miss out on much.
“I do know that business at Venture has sure picked up,” Mario observed. Mario was a bartender at Venture, which was closer to The Central and therefore considered relatively safe. “Kind of a double-edged sword, though…we’re glad for the extra business, but sorry it has to be at the expense of the Arnwood bars.”
At that point, Tim and Phil walked in and joined us. Tim hadn’t made it to the past few gatherings, the increase in business at the coroner’s office, where he was a junior medical examiner, having picked up considerably in wake of the police being distracted by the upheavals at headquarters.
Greetings exchanged and drinks ordered, Bob grinned at Phil and said: “You look a mite tuckered, Phil…Tim not letting you get enough sleep?”
Phil grinned. “Sleep? What’s that? It’s the trying to juggle a new job, go to night classes, and move all my junk and Tim’s to the new place all at once that’s wearing me out.”
