Pink （2018）
Rio: Hey, can I ask you something? You busy right now?
Oren: Of course. I keep telling you, you can ask me anything.
Rio: Do you ever fantasize about me?
Oren: OMG. Yes. Sorry. Why?
Rio: LOL
Rio: Because I was hoping you did. I’m glad you do. I fantasize about you too.
Rio: I sometimes think of you sucking my cock.
Rio: Is that what you think of?
Rio: Don’t be shy now…
Rio: Hello???
Oren: Sorry. Yes, I’d love to suck your dick.
Oren: And I want to feel your dick inside me. I have a boner just typing this.
Rio: LOL. Sorry to be the cause of that.
Rio: And I want you to know I’ve visualized myself fucking you too.
Oren: I love that you visualize that.
Rio: And I think you’re the only male I would ever allow myself to do that with because of how I love you and our connection.
Rio: It’s really interesting. And a big turn-on.
Rio: There you have it. I figured you should know that before we died. LOL
Oren: God, I love you. I love that I’m the only man you can think of doing that with.
Rio: Loving you back!!
Tuesday, February 27, 2017, St. Jude—Rio messaged me this morning and told me he’s in Spain, sharing a house and a bed with a female “friend” whose bed happened to be empty.
When I asked why, he texted back: “I couldn’t spend another minute with Vi.
” He doesn’t know when he’ll return—he bought a one-way ticket.
He seems like a nomad. The total opposite of me.
Once I’d torn myself from the dirt of Locust Hollow, I’d wanted only to put down again my jagged roots.
I am surprised by how hurt I am by his news.
I’d thought we were on the verge of something.
I wanted to ask him why he hadn’t asked me to go with him, why he didn’t come here?
Stop it, I chided myself; I know I’m acting like I’m still that lovesick teenager pining for Rio.
Except then he’d been two desks away and now he’s more than halfway across the world sharing some woman’s bed on a whim.
Still, he had asked me, “do you ever fantasize about me?” Though he’d asked the question via text, I could hear it asked in that deep voice of his that had remained unchanged since puberty.
March 27, 2017
Rio: I’m baaack.
Oren: When did you get back?
Rio: Last night.
Rio: Did you miss me?
Rio: ??
Sunday, April 1, 2017, St. Jude—It’s Easter Sunday today.
This morning, I awoke to a text from Rio.
When I turned over my phone, I saw he had sent me the cutest picture.
It was of him, naked in bed except for on his head, which was propped up by his pillows, he wore a pair of pink fuzzy rabbit ears, and a collection of brightly colored plastic Easter eggs covered his crotch. “Happy Easter,” he wrote underneath.
Before I could respond, he sent another text, this one a close-up of his erection poking through the Easter eggs at his crotch. Underneath, he’d written with appalling irreverence, “He is risen.”
Rolling onto my stomach and pressing my erection into the mattress, I texted back, “He is risen, indeed!” Then, “What prompted that?”
“Lying here…thinking of you,” he texted back.
I rolled onto my back, luxuriating in the feel of my erection and the warmth of his lust. “Really?”
“Yes really, silly. I told you…I love you.”
Pondering his words and wondering how to respond, his incoming text broke my thoughts. “I hear Vi stomping around upstairs. I have to go. Text you later.”
Vi. Why are there so many women in his life?
April 20, 2017
Rio: Hey. Sorry I’ve been out of touch. Been busy.
Oren: You working on something? New music?
Rio: No. I want to take a break from music. I want to write a children’s book.
Oren: Oh…
Rio: I think you can help.
Oren: Sure. I have contacts—graphic designers, artists—who could help with stuff like illustrations, cover design, and such.
Rio: No, I meant you could help me write it.
Oren: I’m not a writer.
Rio: Modest. I read your LinkedIn profile. It says you’re a storyteller.
Oren: I helped global companies tell their stories to employees, customers, and investors to reduce attrition, build brand loyalty, and keep investors invested enough to not run at the first dip in earnings. That’s not the same thing as writing a book.
Rio: If you could tell a story to do all that, you can certainly help write a children’s book.
Oren: LOL. What would it be about?
Rio: Music. I’m thinking two clefs meet, a treble clef and a bass clef, and fall in love and decide they could make beautiful music together, so they create concertos and operas. I see the front cover with the two symbols embracing, which would form a heart…
Oren: Nice!
Rio: It could be a metaphor for us.
Oren: Oh. You’ve thought about this?
Rio: Sorry, I have to go. I hear Vi coming downstairs. She never comes down here. This can’t be good.
Oren: OK, text me later. Stay safe.
April 29, 2018
Rio: Hey.
Oren: Hey. What are you up to? How’s the book coming?
Rio: I haven’t started writing it yet. It’s too chaotic and toxic here. Maybe if I crashed with you for a few weeks, we could start something??!! LOL
Oren: Start something? You mean your children’s book, right?
Rio: Yes. Though, you never know what else might happen?!
Oren: You’re such a tease!
Rio: Maybe I’m not teasing. It’s been a long time since I last had sex. LOL. And I keep looking at that picture of you and MJ at that awards dinner. You look so dapper and damned sexy!
Oren: Hmmm. Well, you know I’d like to help…
Oren: And I know how that feels. I haven’t had sex since Jackson left.
Rio: Vi is selling the house, so I have to get out. Do you have a couch I can crash on next month for a couple of weeks??!!
Oren: Better. I have an entire guest suite with its own bathroom and balcony.
Rio: What, I’m not welcome in the master bedroom?
Oren: You asked for a couch!
Wednesday, May 9, 2018, St. Jude—Hearing the crunch of gravel, I looked out the window to see Rio coming down the driveway in his ancient bright-yellow Subaru Baja with its red-and-black pinstripe along the sides.
I walked outside to help him with his bags and was surprised by how little he had.
After an awkward hug (just the feel of his arms around me was enough to wake Roscoe from his slumber), I led him to the guest room to put his things down.
Then we retreated to the den. Beyond the windows, the clean, clear canal glittered like shards of mirror reflecting pink flowers on the cherry blossom trees, suffusing the room with a warm, rosy light.
Turning from the windows, he looked around the room curiously. Dotted around the room, often in clusters of three, were crystal vases filled with rocks. Picking one up and examining it, he asked, “Rocks? Why rocks?”
I shrugged, slightly embarrassed. “I think they’re beautiful. I like that thousands of people, longing for beauty but not expecting to find beauty, unwilling to look for it, assume it isn’t there and so walk right past it.”
“But why not flowers?”
“Flowers wither and die. I like permanence. I suppose that’s why I’ve never had a one-night stand or a hookup…”
“You’ve never—”
I shook my head. “I’m too romantic, I suppose. Besides, Jackson and I were together since we were sixteen years old.”
“I love that about you—you’re loyal and a romantic,” he said.
Love. There was that word again. I busied myself at the bar. “Martini, right?” I asked.
“Yes, very dirty.”
“Is there any other kind?” I handed him his martini.
“To us?” he asked, lightly. We clinked glasses. I hadn’t been this nervous since the first time I’d visited Jackson in his bedroom in his parents’ absence.
The sun was setting, coloring the room a deeper rose then eventually flooding it with dense pink light. I’d lost track of how many drinks we’d had; the charcuterie tray on the table in front of us held just some crumbs, a handful of deep purple grapes, and the rind of a cheese wheel.
I was thinking I should get up and start dinner for us, when Rio suddenly asked, “Do you…do you still like me?”
I hesitated. I’d already confessed too much since we’d reconnected months ago. “No…”
“No?” he repeated. He sounded surprised, disappointed, maybe a little hurt.
“No. No. I love you. I fucking love you.”
He smiled. I went on in a rush. “I spent so many years convincing myself my feelings for you were just a silly schoolboy’s dream.
I didn’t really know you, after all. Well, now I’ve gotten to know you, and you are exactly who I thought you were.
Everything I imagined and loved about you actually exists.
” I stopped abruptly, embarrassed by yet another unintended confession.
“You really were in love with me back then?”
“I was. Everyone was in love with you,” I said. “You weren’t just on the basketball team, you were the star player! You were in the band. You played the lead in every school play starting with the seventh grade—”
“Yeah, yeah,” he said dismissively. “Everyone was in love with the star, the hottest guy in school, but now I’m sure you were the only one who loved me.”
When I said nothing, he said, “I wish I’d known enough back then to love you back.”
“It doesn’t matter,” I said. “As long as you love me now.”
“I do,” he said, reaching for his drink.
So, I guess I shouldn’t have been surprised when after we’d bade each other a drunken goodnight, he walked into my bedroom and asked, “May I join you?”
When I nodded, he slid in bed next to me and, lying on his back staring at the ceiling, his hands crossed on his chest, said, “I have a confession to make.”
I propped myself up on my elbow and looked at him.