by Rick R. Reed
“I don’t know if it’s really a goal, since I don’t see how I can ever seriously make it happen. It’s hard enough just paying my rent on my little attic room, which by the way, I was lucky to find, with that location and all. I think the only reason I can afford it is because Dee wanted someone to cut the grass in the summer and gave me a break for that and a few other handyman chores. She couldn’t keep that house up by herself, not at her age, and not with her arthritis.” He shook his head. “I live paycheck to paycheck, dude. I can’t even afford a car. I hope to get a secondhand bike one of these days, though.” He looked at Flynn and grinned. “But it’s cool. I still have lots of books to read, and the library is just down the street at Latona. And I have Hamburger—” He blurted the last sentence out and then caught himself, his mouth making a little O of surprise. “Sorry, Flynn, I meant to say Barley. And I don’t really have him.”
Mac quickened his pace, eyes on his feet. Flynn got the impression he didn’t feel much like talking, because he waited a while for him to continue, and Mac said nothing until they reached the Starbucks across from the lake. “Here we are.” Mac waited at the crosswalk with Barley for Flynn to catch up. “Remember—my treat.”
Flynn’s impulse was to protest, especially after what Mac had just told him, but he knew he’d actually be taking something away from Mac if he insisted on paying. “Great! I appreciate it. And next time it’ll be my turn, okay?”
Mac’s face lit up with a smile as they crossed Green Lake Way. “I’m glad there’s gonna be a next time.”
“Well, of course! We need to make sure you get enough quality time with this guy.” They’d reached the other side of the street, and Flynn stooped to pet the dog. He squinted up at Mac, wondering when the day had shifted from clouds and drizzle to full sun. “I figure I can stay outside with Barley, and you can go in and get our coffees. Is that okay?”
“What I was going to suggest. What do you like?”
At the question, Flynn’s mind took a nosedive into the gutter. Something about Mac’s impish face nudged him over the edge, and he thought of a completely inappropriate response to Mac’s query about his coffee. What do I like? Let’s see. I like long edging sessions with another guy, watching him build up to almost being right there, then letting go and building back up. I love sucking cock. Again, getting the guy all worked up and then stopping and starting back at square one. I like the feel of a man pumping his seed down my throat. Oh, and I love, love, love getting fucked, especially on my back so I can see the guy’s face when he comes.
Mac roused him from his reverie. “Dude! You’re blushing. Was there something embarrassing about the question?”
Now that he’d mentioned it, Flynn noticed the heat in his face, his neck, and even his upper chest. His cock, rock-hard, strained to bust the zipper of his shorts wide open. Flynn giggled and felt even more heat rise to his face. “Just a plain old drip coffee,” he blurted out, wishing and not wishing Mac would just go away.
“Really? That’s it? I’m gonna have a latte. Smoked butterscotch.” He wiggled his eyebrows. “Sure I can’t bring you one?”
“Yeah, that sounds good.” Flynn took the leash from Mac and watched as Mac headed inside. The rise and fall of his ass, which was high and firm, didn’t do much for watering down his lust. Stop it now, before you blurt out something you don’t mean to and really scare the poor guy off.
Flynn found a couple of wicker chairs and plopped down in one, letting out a big sigh. He tried to concentrate on the beauty of the lake across from him to help him lower the flagpole that had sprung up in his pants. “What’s the matter with me, Barley? Even I’m not usually such a perv.”
Barley barked once, and to Flynn it felt like admonition. Or maybe the bark was a question—Who are you trying to kid?
It wasn’t long before Mac returned, balancing two lattes and a couple of old-fashioned doughnuts. He set everything on the table between the two chairs Flynn had picked out. He sat and then picked up one of the coffees. “Help yourself. I wasn’t sure about the doughnuts, especially with you being a runner and all, so if you don’t want yours, I’ll eat it.”
“Oh, I think I can manage to choke it down,” Flynn said. He picked up the doughnut, took a bite, and was in heaven. Mac couldn’t have known how strenuously Flynn avoided carbs and sugar. Just the sweet taste in his mouth felt like mainlining heroin—well, at least as Flynn imagined what that might feel like—some kind of euphoria. But it did feel good letting himself go a little. And it was sweet that Mac not only sprung for coffee but treats as well.
“So, you said you love books. Any favorite writers?” Flynn asked.
Mac thought about it for a while, rubbing his chin. “Of course, I have my guilty pleasures like Koontz and King. Man, I’ve been reading both of them since grade school—honestly.”
“You like horror?” Flynn asked, his voice rising with excitement. “It’s just about one of my favorite genres. What’s your favorite King book?”
“I’d have to say Misery, but I like most of ’em. But Misery just tapped into some kind of insanity that was just wild and totally chilling. I also suspect it was one of his most personal books. A guy that huge can’t get away without having had a few stalkers.
“The movie adaptation was one of the few that I think did one of his books justice.”
Flynn nodded. “I loved that book—and the movie too.”
“I mean, they changed the part where she actually cut off his feet and cauterized his stumps with a blowtorch, but that might have been a little too extreme. The ‘hobbling’ was bad enough. Wack-a-doodle!” Mac cried and then burst into laughter.
Flynn joined him. He really liked this guy and kind of wished he didn’t. Unrequited love was something Flynn was no stranger to, and the worst level of that particular hell was when it was unrequited for a straight man. He sighed. “Me, I like Dolores Claiborne. Kathy Bates was awesome in that one too. But the book had this sort of dark humor that I really liked.”
“Exactly. They do this whole thing about shit having its funny side, which they conveniently left out of the movie.”
“What else?”
“What other books?”
“Yeah.” Flynn took a sip of his coffee. He reached for his doughnut, and his fingers came away empty. He was surprised he’d already devoured the whole thing in about two bites. Flynn guessed that’s what deprivation did to a person. Allow yourself a doughnut once in a while.
“Ah, I’m pretty indiscriminate when it comes to books. A bit of a slut….” Mac grinned.
Of course, the idea of Mac being a slut pulled Flynn’s mind and imagination right back into the gutter.
“But I like Southern gothic writers. Or at least ones that sound kind of gothic. Like Flannery O’Connor. She’s awesome. Her short story ‘A Good Man Is Hard to Find’ is one of my all-time favorites. I must have read it at least twenty times. It manages to be both tragic and hilarious. And her voice! Totally unique and original.”
“Who else?”
“You ever heard of James Purdy?”
Flynn wished he had. He shook his head.
“He’s probably, in my opinion, one of the best and most underrated novelists of the twentieth century. Try In a Shallow Grave. I guarantee it will blow you away.” Mac took a sip of his coffee. “His voice has a real gothic feel to it, and his stories, like O’Connor’s, revolve around warped people looking for love or redemption.”
Flynn sighed and without thinking, said, “Aren’t we all?”
Mac considered him for a moment but said nothing. He went on. “And I love Truman Capote. I only wish he’d written more.”
Here was an admission that made Flynn go hmm to himself. Sure, you didn’t have to be gay to like gay writers, but Capote was one of the most flamboyant. “You mean like In Cold Blood?” The true-crime novel was the only one Flynn was familiar with.
“Well, yeah, that’s a remarkable work, and the story behind it—and Capote’s relation
ship with the killer, Perry Smith—are fascinating, but my favorite books by him are, of course, Breakfast at Tiffany’s and his first book, Other Voices, Other Rooms. Have you read that?”
Flynn shook his head reluctantly. “No. I need to get on it.”
“It’s just an amazing, poetic story. Capote says he didn’t think he was writing autobiography when he wrote it, but he was. Seriously. His childhood was all laid out there. I don’t see how he couldn’t have seen it. I guess it shows how even the most sensitive of us can put blinders on to what’s right in front of us.”
He hazarded a quick glance at Flynn, which Flynn wasn’t sure how to interpret.
“That book really touched a nerve in me. I think it resonated so much because I read it shortly after my parents were killed, and the main character in Other Voices, Other Rooms loses his mother at about the same time I did.”
Mac paused, and Flynn watched as his face kind of withdrew, almost as if a shadow passed over it. Flynn’s heart went out to Mac because he could see the loss of his parents was something that still haunted him.
Flynn also felt a pang because, while he did have a mom and dad, he felt so little for them. Cold and distant were the two words that sprang to mind when he thought of them, and he desperately wished that weren’t the case. If wishes were horses…. “I’ll have to get a copy and read it.”
“Oh, I can loan you mine. Half of my room is taken up with books, but I know where every one of them is.” Mac smiled. “I do love my books.”
“I’d like that. You mentioned Breakfast at Tiffany’s. Do you have a copy of that too?”
“Are you kidding? Of course. You never read it?”
“Stop it! You’re making me feel like a complete rube. I do read, you know, just not as much as I like.” Flynn gave a weak smile.
Mac said, sort of under his breath, “We pretty much do what we want, don’t we?”
Flynn wasn’t sure he was supposed to have heard that, so he didn’t reply. “Yeah, I only saw the movie. And—I know all the words to ‘Moon River.’ Did you like what they did with it?”
Mac reached down to scratch Barley behind his ears, and the dog licked his hand. Mac didn’t seem to mind. “It was okay.”
“Just okay?”
Mac nodded. “I mean, who can argue with Audrey Hepburn? God! That woman was so beautiful.”
Score one for Mac being straight, Flynn thought.
“And the whole scene with the cat.” Mac patted his chest. “My heart broke. I cry buckets every time I see it.”
Maybe not so straight…. What kind of straight dude admits such things?
“But you know, with the movie, they totally removed the whole subtext, the whole basis for the two main characters’ relationship. And that really pissed me off. I know it was the 1960s and all, and God forbid they have a gay main character, but the book brought it out so beautifully, how a gay man can love a woman and be in awe of her, in a way, and the movie just steamrollered over that.”
Flynn wanted to get up and dance a little jig. Odds were looking better and better that his new buddy had the potential to be a fuck buddy—and maybe a whole lot more. It was thin evidence, but it was powerfully convincing, at least to Flynn. Or maybe, he allowed, it’s just more wishful thinking. Ah, the hell with it. Just ask. What have you got to lose? Flynn didn’t allow himself to waver. He’d been wondering about Mac’s orientation since he’d first spied him in the park, and now he needed to know, just know for sure. He hoped Mac wouldn’t be offended by his asking. And if he was? Well, they’d have to rethink this dog-sharing arrangement. But hey, it was 2016. They were in liberal Seattle. Odds were, even if Mac was straight, he wouldn’t take offense as Flynn asked: “So are you gay, Mac?” There. It’s out. So to speak….
Mac stared at him for a long while, his eyes narrowing. “Why do you want to know?”
The truth? So I can at least know there’s room for hope that I can jump your bones. Or vice versa. Flynn shrugged. Own up, Flynn. “Ah, I just wondered if we, um, shared that. You know, if we had that in common. Because, um, I am. Gay. Homo. Queer. Whatever you want to call it, I’m it. Gay as a goose.” Feeling like an idiot, Flynn produced what he knew was a very tepid and sickly smile.
“What? And you thought because I liked Truman Capote and Breakfast at Tiffany’s I have to be a big old queen?”
Mac threw back his head and laughed, so loud and hard that Barley paused from licking his own balls to look up at him and cock his head in wonder. He barked a couple of times. Or maybe he was laughing too.
Flynn felt familiar heat rise to his face. Now you’ve stepped in it….
It took more than a minute or so for Mac to rein in his laughter. When the chuckles and guffaws slowed to a trickle, he wiped his eyes and gave a little cough. He then turned completely serious. He looked Flynn in the eye. “You mean you didn’t know? It wasn’t obvious?”
Flynn wasn’t sure what to think here. Was his leg being pulled? “Um, no, I wasn’t sure.”
Mac started laughing again. And again, abruptly stopped. “I just assumed everybody could tell, everybody with an ounce of gaydar, that is. I was wondering about you.”
“About me?” It was Flynn’s turn to chuckle. “With this voice?” Flynn had always winced whenever he heard his own voice on a recording. He sounded, to use a totally politically incorrect and probably self-loathing term, so faggy. Even though no one else would ever agree with him—the closest anyone had ever come was Clara, and she said he had a “bedroom voice,” whatever that was—he could hear a breathless quality to his manner of speaking that reminded him of none other than Miss Marilyn Monroe.
“Your voice?” Mac wondered. “I think your voice is one of the sexiest things about you.”
He stopped suddenly, as though he had caught himself saying too much—which, truth be told, was not nearly enough for Flynn. Mac’s pale skin reddened a bit beneath his freckles. He looked away, staring down at the table and tracing a circle with his finger on its surface.
To the table more than Flynn, he said, “You just have this kind of deep, almost raspy quality that’s kind of velvety. I could wrap myself up in your voice, like a big fuzzy blanket.”
He gave a little chuff that Flynn could classify as a laugh.
“No, I like your voice. Very much.”
And then Mac did look up to meet Flynn’s gaze. His green eyes shone. There was an electric connection between them, so intense that Flynn had to look away.
Neither of them said anything. They simply watched the traffic pass by on the road before them, traffic that seemed to get heavier relative to the temperature rising and the sun’s brightness. Starbucks was getting more crowded too, and Flynn felt a little guilty, hogging this table and two chairs when it was obvious other people were looking for a place to sit. They’d both finished a while back. But damn it, Flynn didn’t want this moment to end.
“So, what?” Mac finally asked, a grin making his eyes crinkle and the green disappear for a moment. “We now run off and jump into bed? Because that’s what two gay fellas do, isn’t it? According to the fundies, we’re all animals, and all we think about is sex, especially anal sex.” Mac laughed.
Flynn wondered if the guy was kidding. Or reading his mind. “I don’t know what to make of you, Mac.”
Mac waved a hand at him. “Don’t let me scare you. I make jokes when I get nervous. Sorry.” He reached down and scratched Barley under his chin, and the dog responded with what looked very much like a smile.
“Nothing to be sorry about. I’m glad we know, um, about each other. Glad we have this in common.”
Mac sat back up. “Why?”
“I don’t know.” Flynn really wasn’t sure he was understanding Mac. He was trying to forge a connection here, and there was something, Flynn didn’t know, wary about Mac. “Just a point of common reference.”
Mac nodded. “Well, I will say that I’m probably not your typical gay man, other than crying too easily over things lik
e Audrey Hepburn losing her cat.” He laughed. “Or even, for that matter, knowing who Audrey Hepburn is. I guess what I mean is, I’m not into the scene much. I seldom go out to bars. One, I can’t afford it. And two, when I do, it’s just to scratch an itch.”
He winked at Flynn, and that caused his dick to twitch. It also ignited a totally unreasonable twinge of jealousy.
“Or get drunk. Even though I can’t afford it, I never mind a little drink or two.”
Flynn was about to say something like he never went out much either, but that would be a lie. He and Clara did a pub crawl almost every Friday night, she his faithful wingman, or wingperson. She was never shy about approaching guys he took an interest in. Maybe pimp was a better term for her. Flynn needed to head out to some straight bars with her now and then, just in the interest of fairness and equality. “Yeah, the bars can be kind of superficial.”
“How do you meet guys?” Mac asked. “Through this one here?” He patted Barley’s head.
“He is a bit of a man magnet.” Flynn looked pointedly at Mac. “Case in point.”
Just then, in one of life’s moments of truly regrettable timing, two young women came up to them. Both were clad in running gear. One had a blonde ponytail, the other a short dark bob. One was pushing a sleeping towheaded child in a running stroller. Both were eyeing the table with something approaching covetousness.
“Hi, guys!”
Blonde ponytail approached them with a perky cheerfulness that immediately grated on Flynn’s nerves. Go away! Leave us alone! He wanted to shout at her, because he knew what was coming. Instead he just looked up at her briefly. He didn’t smile. His expression, he knew, voiced a very weary one-word response to her greeting. “What?”
“My friend and I just noticed that it looks like you two might be done with the table, and, well, you can see we have our hands full here.”
She laughed. And it was true. The dark-haired woman held not only one of those cardboard coffee cup containers with two cups but also had a diaper bag slung over one shoulder. Does she run like that? Flynn wondered.
