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Pink （2018） #2

“I’ve been trying to tamp down my feelings for you for months.

My love for you, my attraction to you feels so foreign to me.

Yet it exists, and I can’t deny it anymore.

I went to Spain hoping to get some perspective.

I thought putting distance between us would extinguish my feelings for you.

It didn’t. If I’m honest, I was miserable the whole time I was there. I missed you so much.

“Hush,” I said. “Stop talking, stop thinking, and just feel…”

I felt his lips on mine and then he was inside me. He entered me again this morning. In between, I got to taste his come, which is thick and sweet as corn syrup.

As he slid inside me for the first time, I thought I might expire from sheer ecstasy.

Now, I love being fucked in general, but this was next level.

Maybe it was because I’d dreamed of just this for so many years in high school.

Maybe it was because it has been so long since I’ve had sex.

Or maybe it was because it was he; because it was I.

He wanted to have breakfast on the deck off the kitchen, so we did. Eggs Benedict, bacon, and mimosas. He was really quiet.

“Are you OK?” I asked, worried he already regretted last night and this morning.

“I’m fine,” he said, digging into his eggs. “Why?”

“You seem pensive. I thought you might be regretting…what happened between us.”

“You serious? I loved being inside you. The sex was pretty hot—even better than I imagined.”

“But? Pun intended,” I said nervously.

“I was just thinking that none of the women I’ve been with would believe this—or understand it.”

“What would you tell them?”

He put down his fork, took a swig from his glass, and said, “I’d tell them it was only because it was he; because it was I.”

“Parce que c’était lui; parce que c’était moi.”

“Huh?” he said.

“You just quoted Michel de Montaigne. I just repeated it in the original French.”

“Mr. Fabricant would be thrilled.”

“Indeed.”

Wednesday, May 30, 2018, St. Jude—“Rio all settled in?” MJ asked.

“I guess,” I said, looking around the room and realizing there was no evidence of his presence—except for the two coffee mugs in the sink and the bag of Cafe Bustelo in its distinctive yellow, red, and black packaging.

“How’s it going?”

How could I tell her it’s been three weeks and we are both nearing sixty but are as horny for each other as teenagers?

“Fine,” I said. “Getting to know each other and catching up on what we missed over the years.”

“How long is he staying?”

“I’ve no idea. He doesn’t seem to plan much in advance. He doesn’t seem to own much either. Just some clothes, his music equipment, and his car—”

“That hooptie in the car port?”

I nodded.

“Good for him,” MJ said. “Remember how, back in college, we all swore we wouldn’t be tied to possessions like our parents? We would just have books and clothes and maybe a nice stereo?”

“Not me,” I said. “I wanted things. I grew up with nothing, so accumulating stuff was always important to me.”

Thursday, June 7, 2018, St. Jude—I woke up from a dream about Jackson this morning.

Unusually, Rio was still in bed beside me, snoring lightly.

I dream of Jackson more often than I like to admit even to myself.

I’ll open my eyes suddenly in the dark, waking from a dream of him, erect and slightly nauseous, my mouth filled with the taste of barbecue enflamed by too much lighter fluid.

The dreams are always searing, hot, like sex with Rio.

I’ll whisper to myself, “I love you, Jackson,” even as I snuggle up to a still-sleeping Rio.

I know it’s insane. I still love Jackson.

I love Rio, too. But differently. I don’t know him.

Still, I hope he knows that despite what happened and whatever comes next, I will always love him.

We grew up with so little love that I hope he never feels unloved again.

Tuesday, June 12, 2018, St. Jude—“What was your relationship like?” Rio asked me. We were sitting on the back patio, having drinks and watching the ducks play in the canal.

“With Jackson, you mean?”

He nodded.

“I don’t know. I never thought about it. We just were, you know?”

He kept his eyes on me, and I felt the need to keep talking to try to explain, though whether I was explaining to him or myself, I don’t know.

“The few guys in my life—you, Juan—were like pieces of the puzzle of me.”

“Juan was the guy from the orchard, right?”

“Yeah. Anyway, with Juan, I learned a little more about myself. But when Jackson came along, he fell into my life like the final missing puzzle piece. With him, I got to see the first complete picture of myself, of my life.” I paused, shook my head. “Does that make any sense at all?” I asked.

“Yeah, it does.” He paused. “Can I ask you another question?”

“Of course.”

“So where do I fit into this puzzle of yours?”

“Honestly, I don’t know. You’re the puzzle piece I didn’t even know was missing.”

We went back to studying the ducks in companionable silence.

Saturday, October 6, 2018, St. Jude—“So what’s up with Rio?” MJ asked me.

“What do you mean?”

“It’s been six months.”

“So?”

“So, are you in love with him?”

“I don’t know. Maybe. I don’t know. I know I really, really like him. I think he’s sexy as hell. Sometimes I think, if I can’t be with Jackson, it doesn’t really matter who I’m with as long as he’s nice. You know?”

She just shook her head. She is as baffled by our affair as I am.

Maybe I’d been seduced by Rio’s near-constant declarations of love.

Until him, only Jackson had told me he loved me.

He’d rarely said the words, but love was in his eyes when he looked at me, was in his touch when he held me, was piled high on the plate of coq au vin he made for dinner on a winter’s night, was stacked between the ice cubes in the negroni he’d meet me at the door with every night after work.

“Do you think, it’s just because he needs a place to stay?”

I looked at her in surprise.

She blushed slightly. “Sorry. I’m just worried that he might be using you—”

“Everybody uses everybody, don’t they?”

MJ laughed, and the moment passed. “Oh, no, Miss Thing, you did not just quote Tony Manero to me.”

The truth is I don’t feel used by Rio, any more than I feel I’m using him.

My hunger to feel him inside me is genuine, but it’s more than just lust, for he is the little Dutch boy, and I am the leaky dike; his cock, the boy’s finger plugging up the hole in me, causing my waters to rise and teem again with life.

And with each orgasm he pulls from me, I feel as if I’ve won a pair of silver skates.

Maybe loving me has enabled Rio to express a side of himself he hadn’t been comfortable with before. I worry that he will tire of this adventure and go back to loving women, withdrawing his cock and causing my waters and the life they sustain to ebb away. Again.

“So…back to Rio,” MJ said, pulling me out of my thoughts.

“What about him?”

“Is he gay?”

I shrugged. “He says he’s not. He insists I’m the only man he’s ever been attracted to.”

“So, he’s like only gay for you?”

I shrugged. “I guess…”

“But what do you think?”

“It doesn’t matter what I think. I can’t decide his orientation for him.

“I still don’t get it.”

“It’s not as unheard of as you may think. There’s even a trope in gay romance—mostly written by women for other women—known as ‘gay for you only.’ It’s quite controversial. A lot of people don’t believe such a thing exists. Like a lot of people claim bisexuality isn’t real.”

“But that’s just it. Rio isn’t even claiming he’s bisexual.”

“No. I actually don’t think he is. Bisexual, I mean. Orientation is simply a pattern of attraction. His attraction has only been to women. For whatever reason, that pattern broke when we reconnected and got to know each other.”

In truth, neither Rio nor I can explain his attraction to me. The closest way to explain it, I think, is still as Michel de Montaigne wrote: “Because it was he; because it was I.”

MJ sighed. “I suppose I’ll never understand any of this.”

“What?”

“Romance, being in love, sex.”

Rio walked into the room and the conversation ended.

Saturday, December 15, 2018, St. Jude—“O?” Jackson said, unsure.

“Jackson,” I said, startled. He was the last person I expected to run into at the mall.

“How have you been, O?”

“OK,” I said, not trusting my voice.

The little boy standing beside him tugged at Jackson’s pant leg. “Who’s he?” he asked, glancing at me.

“He’s my friend, Oren. I knew him before you were born.”

The little boy looked perplexed, as children do at the concept of a parent having a life before they were born, that there was even existence before them. “Hello,” he said to me. “We have the same name.”

“We do?”

“This is my son,” Jackson said. “His name is Oren.”

Surprised, I shot him a questioning look.

“I insisted,” he said.

I cocked my head, studying him for a moment.

“It means ‘laurel,’ which symbolizes the resurrection of Christ.”

“Still the preacher’s kid.”

He smiled.

“How’s Kitt?” I asked.

“Kitt is Kitt. She moved to Vancouver. Took Frankenstein and left.”

“I’m sorry?” I said. It sounded like a question. Perhaps it was. I wasn’t sure I’d heard him right, or more correctly what he’d meant.

“No, you’re not. And you don’t have to be. I have Oren.”

I turned my attention to young Oren, squatting so we were eye to eye. He was a beautiful boy; he looked like his father, I realized. “Nice to meet you, Oren.”

Looking up at Jackson, I asked, “How long had it been going on—your affair with Kitt, I mean?”

He glanced at little Oren. “It wasn’t an affair. It was one time. Once. She got pregnant.”

I saw Rio pulling up behind us. He insists on parking at the farthest corner of every parking lot.

I hate that, so he always drops me off first and then goes to get the car and picks me up after.

Oren looked at us curiously, and I saw a different ending to our story. “My ride’s here,” I said, standing up.

Rio leaned out the car window and called out, “Hey, babe, your chariot awaits.”

“Is that…Rio?” Jackson asked.

“Yes,” I said. “I had to learn to live without you.”

“I had to learn to live without you too, you know.”

I felt my long-simmering anger rising to the surface. “I didn’t throw us away. You did.”

“She threatened to have an abortion if I didn’t leave you. I couldn’t live with that…”

Suddenly I saw Jackson as I had before, once again sixteen years old, this time doing the “right” thing, the expected thing.

“Poor Jackson, still my preacher’s kid,” I said more sharply than I’d intended.

“Look, if I had refused, she would have had the abortion and told you anyway, which would have destroyed us. I chose the option with the least collateral damage.”

“I have to go,” I said and turned to walk away.

Seeing me approach the car, Rio swung open his door, hopped out, and with more vigor than I’ve seen to date outside of sex, and despite his bad hip, he raced around the car to open the passenger door for me.

This wasn’t unusual; he often opens doors and carries packages for me, but the baleful look he shot Jackson was. Jackson, for his part, glared at Rio.

As Rio and I pulled away from the curb, Jackson knelt behind his son and wrapped his arms around him as they both waved goodbye.

Jackson’s love for Oren was palpable, even from the distance of the car.

I marveled at that, given Jackson was a son unloved, despised by his own father, yet he was able to love and cherish his own son.

I went back to thinking about Rio’s odd behavior.

MJ had recently observed, “Jackson was always a gentleman, and that he cared for you was obvious, but he still treated you like a man. Rio treats like you’re his girlfriend.

” This makes sense to me; Rio is straight, so he has only his relationships with women as a blueprint for our relationship, ergo if he is the man, I have to be by default the “woman.” But the possessiveness he’d just displayed couldn’t be traced to his understanding of the gender binary.

Was he, I wondered suddenly, actually jealous?

“He still looks like a thug,” Rio said, breaking into my thoughts.

“Jackson? Maybe… There’s nothing of the thug in him, though. Never has been. He’s a gentleman.”

“Unlike me?” Rio shot back sharply.

“You? There’s nothing gentle about you. You’re a sexy beast.” And he is. If Jackson had been my preacher’s kid, Rio is my bad boy.

We fell silent. Rio seemed to be thinking hard about something.

“You’re awfully quiet,” he said, breaking the silence.

“Just thinking,” I said. Seeing Jackson had been like rereading an old favorite book—it’s not quite as you remembered it, and there are some favorite parts you’ve forgotten and still others you remember and still love. “He named his son Oren,” I added.

“Do you think that means anything in particular?” Rio asked in his usually incisive way.

My mind flashed back to the first terrible days after Jackson’s betrayal.

I’d demanded to know what happened. He’d shrugged in frustration and said, “I love you. But now I have to love someone else.” In my hurt and confusion, I’d assumed he’d meant Kitt, but what if he’d meant Oren, his unborn son, the child he couldn’t bear to have aborted? Would that change anything?

“No idea,” I said, effectively ending the conversation but continuing to think over everything Jackson had said in our brief conversation.

Rio squeezed my shoulder. “Hey, babe, we’re home.”

I started.

“Where were you?” he asked. “You seemed so far away.”

I just shrugged, but in truth, Jackson had left me with a puzzle.

When he’d raised his left hand in goodbye, I’d noticed he still had his wedding ring on.

The one I’d given him. And I was puzzled by the odd possessiveness Rio had shown in front of Jackson.

As for Jackson, well, I was puzzled by…everything.

As I got out of the car, I wondered if it was my fate to be perpetually confused by the men in my life.