Chapter 7
SEVEN
REX
Of course this was one of the best first dates I’d been on in a long time.
Hanging out with Perry felt natural, and we were never short of things to talk about.
At first, I’d panicked a little at the idea that I had to figure out where to take him on a first date.
I opted out of the usual dinner date. Dinner dates were fine, but they could be awkward when you were trying to get to know someone.
It seemed like I’d just get the conversation going and there would be another interruption.
The art show at the community center had admittedly been an idea born out of panic and desperation.
With a dinner date off the table, it was up to me to find something else to do.
Movies were good if you wanted to hold hands in the dark, but they were bad if you wanted to get to know someone.
Which was the whole point of this venture.
Perry didn’t mind when I put my arm around him and basically followed him around the room, going from piece to piece, giving each one a thorough look before moving on. Perry was a thoughtful person, and it pleased me to know that Blue had such nice friends.
Perry took his time with each of the different pieces. Whether they were large or small, good or bad, he gave each piece his undivided attention. I wasn’t surprised when he lingered on the painting of the cat.
With his new painting in hand, we eventually left the community center and headed back toward our cars, but I wasn’t ready for the date to be over yet.
“Let’s go for ice cream,” I suggested. “We can drop your portrait of Gumball off at your car and continue our walk. There’s a little supermarket around the corner that has an ice cream bar.”
“No kidding?” Perry sounded excited. “I haven’t had ice cream in… I can’t remember the last time I had it.”
“No offense, but that’s kind of depressing.”
Perry tipped his head back and laughed. “None taken. It is depressing.”
“It’s also easily fixed.”
It might have been my imagination, or Perry might have drifted a little closer to me. I’d worried that it would be awkward to try and do things a boyfriend would do, like hold his hand or slip my arm around his waist, but so far, being with Perry was as natural as breathing.
“I’d love to have ice cream with you.”
“I keep waiting for you to say but.”
“No buts. Well, just the one that’s going to benefit from all this ice cream I’m about to eat.”
“Your butt is perfect, whether or not you have ice cream.”
“Well, I wasn’t fishing for compliments, but I’ll accept them all the same.”
As Perry grinned at me, his gaze flicked to my mouth, and I wondered what it would be like to kiss him. How soft were his lips? Was he a leader or a follower or a guy who gave as good as he got?
We dropped the painting off at his car, an older model Mazda that looked well cared for, and continued on, hand in hand, toward the supermarket.
Ted’s was a family-run business, one that had been a neighborhood staple for well over forty years.
It was practically an institution around here.
The high school was a few blocks away and during the school year, Ted’s would be flooded at lunch time with teenagers getting their ice cream fix.
Today it was far less busy and Perry and I were able to get served right away.
“I think you can tell a lot about a person by their ice cream order,” I told him as we meandered our way back toward the park.
“Oh? What does your chocolate ice cream say about you?”
“That I’m easy to please.” I liked to think I was an easygoing guy, that nothing much bothered me. That I didn’t need anything elaborate to be happy and could find myself quite content with simple pleasures.
“Maybe it says that you’re afraid to take risks,” Perry countered. “That you stick to safe choices rather than branching out and risking disappointment.”
“Ouch.” I laughed, not quite sure that he was wrong.
“Now tell me what my pistachio ice cream says about me.”
He popped a spoonful in his mouth, and I had to look away before I gave myself a hard-on by staring at the way his lips caressed the spoon.
“It says that you’re colorblind.”
Perry laughed and gently knocked his elbow into mine. “Be serious.”
“It says that you don’t indulge often, but when you do, you like to go for the most luxurious option. You like to spoil yourself.”
“Or maybe it says that I like having nuts in my mouth.”
“Well, it certainly didn’t warn me about your sense of humor.” I choked back a laugh, thankful that I hadn’t had a mouthful when he said that.
“If they had no chocolate ice cream,” Perry went on to say, “what flavor would you choose? And you can’t choose a basic flavor. No chocolate, strawberry, or vanilla ice cream exists.”
I scooped up a bite of ice cream and shoved it in my mouth to give myself time to think of a response.
“Cotton candy.”
“Really?”
“Surprised?”
“You just seem more like a cookies and cream or a butter pecan type of guy.”
“And what qualities make up a butter pecan ice cream guy?” This was easily the strangest and most fun conversation I’d had in a long time.
Maybe ever. Perry was easy to talk to. It was like we’d known each other for years instead of days.
The longer I was around him, the less like a first date this felt.
It gave me hope that we’d be able to pull off this whole fake boyfriend thing.
We stopped in the park and sat down on a bench that was perched on the top of a small hill. Perry stirred his ice cream around in the little bowl until it was smooth, resembling soft serve.
“Slightly bougie but still relatable,” he said eventually.
“Slightly bougie? I’m not at all bougie.”
“Your car begs to differ.”
“The sheer amount of animal hair inside it disagrees with you.”
“You’re a vet. I’d be worried if you weren’t covered in pet hair all the time.”
“What if I worked with birds or reptiles exclusively?”
“Do you get many different animals at your practice?” Perry asked.
“Mostly the usual suspects. Cats, dogs, the occasional bird. Bearded dragons are becoming more popular, but they’re really not my specialty so unless it’s something easy, I tend to refer them to a colleague of mine who has more reptile experience.”
“So, cats, dogs, birds, pigs.”
“I see goats from time to time. And there’s a ranch out of town that has called me in the past if they can’t get their usual horse guy out in time. But mostly I see household pets. I also work with the animal shelters and their spay/neuter initiatives.”
“Do you have a favorite patient?”
“I mean, I don’t want to see animals in my practice often because that usually means they’re sick or hurt.
But there’s this little French Bulldog named Captain Jack.
He has a list of health issues half a mile long, but his owners love him.
They bring him in fairly regularly for check-ups and he’s the life of the party.
So much personality is packed into his little body. ”
We stood and continued our walk, veering toward a trash can and disposing of our ice cream containers. Perry naturally fell into step next to me. Grabbing my arm, he draped it around his shoulders.
“Would it be too forward to ask you some questions about your work?”
Perry scoffed. “Of course not. I’m an open book. What do you want to know?”
“Well, how long have you been…” I searched for a better way to phrase it, but Perry beat me to the punch.
“You can say porn star. It’s not insulting. It’s literally what I am. I star in porn.”
“Why? I mean, I wanted to be a zookeeper when I was a kid, and then I wanted to be a marine biologist, and then I wanted to be a veterinarian. I don’t imagine porn star is on the list of careers young Perry was dreaming of when he was a kid.”
He let out an inelegant laugh. “When I was a kid, I wanted to be a firefighter. They were cool as hell, you know. They got to drive fire trucks and save kittens and run into burning buildings. And TV made them look even more badass. But as you can see, I am not a firefighter.”
“Why not?”
“Asthma. Not all the time. Like mine doesn’t come out of nowhere, but if I exercise too hard or if my lungs get irritated, like with smoke, for example, it’s not fun. And I like breathing and being alive, so no firefighter dreams for me.”
“I’m sorry. That’s tough.”
“There are worse fates.”
“Firefighter to porn star is quite the career jump. How did you make that leap?”
“When I came out, I wasn’t exactly smart or discerning about who and where I hooked up and it got me into a bit of trouble. Not with the law or anything, but there were a couple times when I walked away from an encounter feeling… unsafe.
“I met Blue by chance one night at a club and he was… well, you’ve met Blue.
You know what he’s like. We hit it off and I made a pass at him, but he said that he didn’t have sex outside of work and that’s when I asked him what he did.
And I didn’t hate the idea of it. I’d done a little bit of solo stuff and tossed it online but nothing professional. ”
“You got into porn because you wanted to fuck Blue?”
Perry nodded. “Basically.”
He came to a stop and looked at me. His brow furrowed, and I saw the way he chewed on his bottom lip. “You don’t mind that I’ve fucked him, do you? I know that might be weird for you because he’s your employee.”
“I sort of assumed that because you both are in the same line of work that there may have been some intimate contact.”
“Sorry, I know I keep asking if it’s okay.
And I know it shouldn’t matter because even if you minded, this is all just pretend anyway.
But a lot of guys say they’re okay with being with a guy who does porn, but what they mean is that they’re okay with being with a guy who is good at sex.
They try to leave out the fact that it means I have sex with other people too. ”
“It sounds like you're speaking from experience.”
Perry looked so dejected that I felt compelled to slip my hand into his. Weaving our fingers together, I squeezed gently. Perry looked down at our hands, then up at me and his smile transformed into something softer and more hopeful.
“Here’s to new experiences,” he said, and it was almost like he was drifting closer. Like we were magnets being pulled toward each other by an invisible force.
“May they be better than the old ones,” I finished.
If this were a real date, the perfect moment to kiss him would’ve been right now. It would be so easy to just step closer and slant my mouth down over his.
But despite how much fun I was having and how easy it was to be with Perry, this wasn’t a real date and he wasn’t mine to kiss.