Chapter Twenty-Five
“My competition!” I was shocked and skidded the Dodge to a halt in Mike's drive.
“You don't think Frank sits home every night waiting for you to call, do you?” Charlie sounded impatient. “He's every gay guy's dream date! And you call him … when? Oh? When you're in the mood. When you have nothing else to do. When you have time on your hands. When your latest fuck is fucking somebody else. When ... “
“Alright, Charlie! I get it!”
Charlie's announcement made sense. Why wouldn't Frank be going out? And yet, it came as a complete shock to me. It was something that had never occurred to me. Frank: on the market! Putting an ad on Craig's List or something. Was Jody Frank's type? Did Frank even have a type? Why didn't I know? What had we talked about for the year we were together? Not Frank's ideal man, that was sure. Would Frank's ideal man be somewhat like me? A little like me? Totally different?
The details of Jody's appearance flashed before my eyes. To start with, he was dark, much darker than I am. His hair was lustrously black and thick. The son of a bitch probably used some kind of conditioner every morning, nobody had hair like that. His body had to be just as hairy. Probably all down his back. Ha! Did Frank like hairy guys? Why didn't I know?
What I did know was Jody had mesmerizing eyes. Really amazing. They were as dark as his hair, with thick lashes, so thick you almost had to touch them. And the shading … alright, I had to concede he was better looking than I am, in a dark, flashy kind of way. If you like that kind of thing. Maybe Frank did like that kind of thing. Maybe medium-everything me was the aberration of his life. The outlier. The exception. Maybe he always went for dark and flashy. Why didn't I know more about him? Oof! The porch floor came up at me.
“Watch your step, Grace.” Charlie chortled. He loved it whenever I did something clumsy, like trip on Mike's front steps. “You're home!” Charlie said, shifting his attention shifted to Mike.
“Yes … Frank dropped me ...” Mike was studying my photographs. He put them down and turned to Charlie. His face lit up instantly. He got up and hugged Charlie and then kissed him. It was a full-bodied kiss. I turned away, although neither one of them seemed to care. It felt as if I spent five minutes studying the floor boards before they broke their clinch.
“Refo,” Mike's voice was so thick I expected him to ask me to leave while they fucked; but he didn't. “Those pictures are the most wonderful things I've ever seen. Charlie looks so perfect, exactly the way I see him. Your camera and my eye … a total match up.”
“Thanks, Mike. I brought them for you.”
“For me? Really?”
“For both of you. I thought you might like ...” Mike enthusiastically pumped my hand and then hugged me in an unplanned bro' hug kind of way.
“Charlie, have you seen these? Have you looked at them?” Mike's attention shifted back to the photos and Charlie, looking for his reaction.
“Yes. We were just in Harrisonburg getting some wood. I thought - you being so talented with wood and all - you could make some frames,” Charlie explained.
“Frames! Of course! Oh my God! I've never had such a fine present.” Mike positively glowed with pleasure.
“Um … so, is Frank home now? I've got something for him in the truck ...”
Mike's eyes widened. The boy couldn't hide a thing. “Refo, uh … Well … No, probably not. I think he was planning to go out as soon as he changed.” It was Mike's turn to look at the floor.
“Oh ...” My mood crashed; I hadn't been expecting that. “Yes, I see. Wow. Um, I have this cider press for him and … Maybe I can just drop it off at his place and you could tell him I … dropped it off … or something. I have to return the truck ...“
“Why not leave it here?” Mike suggested. “Then you can come back any ol' time and use my truck to take it to Frank's.”
“Sure. Yes. Great idea, Mike. Tomorrow maybe ...”
“Tomorrow or whenever … I'll help you get it out of your truck. Nice truck, by the way ...”
We put the cider press on Mike's porch and Mike went back to look at the pictures again while Charlie said goodbye. “Refo, uh ...” I decided not to let him lecture me, if that was his plan, or console me, either.
“Charlie, that sweet boy loves you. Anybody can see it. Let him love you. You can trust him.” I opened the truck's door. “You're so fuckin' cute together.” I got into the big Dodge before he could notice the tears in my eyes.
By the time I got to Culpepper my eyes were dry and the hurt was gone out of my throat and I could think again. Of course Frank was going out. It was a Saturday night. Everybody goes out on a Saturday night. I couldn't expect to call him at the last minute and he'd be there.
I composed the picture in my mind. Frank's hair was lighter, not nearly as dark as Jody's. And Frank's eyes were light. Just as handsome, though. Put Frank a half a step in front of Jody to add contrast. They'd look … absolutely great together. Doing whatever it is people do in rural Virginia on a Saturday night. Charlie said there was a gay-friendly bar in Front Royal, they were probably going there. For a beer or two. Frank did like beer. He liked Heineken, the lager, “None of that light shit!” I could hear him say it. There! I did know something about him. I also knew he liked tarragon on his chicken. And he liked me. At one time, he did. I'm pretty sure he did.
I turned on the radio because the hurt was coming back into my throat. Eli Young's “Even if it Breaks Your Heart” was playing. I tried to sing along with the chorus, but gave up. It was followed by a beer ad and the sober advice to drink responsibly. I couldn't remember the last time I had been drunk. I hated being drunk. Messy, sloppy, out of control, not my thing at all. During college, yes, there had been times. God, I remembered the night, part of it, when I had first tried tequila. The lime, salt, and shot thing; it was like drinking gasoline. Never made it back to the dorm that night.
It was starting to get dark and just to change the mood I pulled into a place in Manassas. Quickie's Grill, the flashing sign advertised. A beer and something to eat sounded good. It was dark and had that smell of a place where more beer was spilled than ever got cleaned up. A nondescript bartender asked me what I wanted and then warned me the kitchen was closed. “Heineken,” I told him and waited for him to return with the beer. I ignored the grease streaked glass he placed before me but appreciated the small bowl of pretzel bits that followed. The pretzels were so soggy I couldn't believe they actually held together; but the beer was predictably good.
Heineken. Frank's brand. Frank gave the best beery kisses. You know, they kind right after you both take a sip, when you can taste the other guy's beer and your own at the same time. And he loved kissing. I drifted into a sweet recollection of the time we made out in his truck. It started out so innocently. We just had parked in a lot behind a movie theater, planning to go see “Argo”, when he took my hand, gave it a little squeeze, and kissed my fingers. We never saw “Argo” that night. Once we discovered that sex in a pickup, while physically possible, was going to be hugely uncomfortable, we drove back to the house and …
“How's it going?” The guy's greeting startled me out of my dream. “Hope you don't mind some company.”
“No, sit down. Don't eat the pretzels, though.”
He sat and told the bartender, “Another one for my friend here, and I'll have the same.” While waiting for the beers, he added, “I'll take your advice about the pretzels. Can you put the game on?” he shouted out to the bartender.
“TV's broke,” was his answer.
“Well, shit,” he replied, giving both words an exaggerated, multisyllabic pronunciation. “We're gonna have to talk, I guess. My name's Dexter.”
“Like the serial killer?”
“You like that show, too?” he asked.
The conversation meandered aimlessly through another beer which I bought and various topics mostly related to occupations that Dexter either had or wished he had. He emphasized his points with occasional claps on the back and gestures with his beer bottle. Just ordinary barroom chatter. Consequently, I was surprised when we left that he abruptly tried to kiss me in the parking lot. I successfully avoided his lips but not his hands as he backed me up against a wall. It seemed as if he had several more hands than usual as he held me and quickly popped open my jeans.
A decision was required and fast. Was I going to let him proceed? His hand was cupping me and trying to get into my underwear. He was trying to kiss me again. I had no idea where this was going. The decision was easy. “Fuck, no!” I shoved him away.
His motivation died instantly. “Sorry, I guess I misjudged you.”
“You didn't. I'm just not interested tonight.”
I don't know if he even heard my answer. He crammed his hard dick into his pants, jumped a low fence, and sprinted away. Before I buttoned my jeans and straightened my shirt, he was gone.
It could have been ugly, but it wasn't. I was back on the road almost to I-66 before I got the jitters. It could have been real ugly. I pulled to the side of the road and took deep breaths. I'd had one beer more than I should have. I felt fine, more or less; but I didn't know if I could pass a breathalyzer test. I waited a few minutes and then resumed driving - very properly all the way back to Washington, keeping to the speed limits and the slow lanes. I ignored a couple of incoming calls and checked them after I got home. One was Butch and the other was Charlie. Butch could wait.
“Charlie! 'S up?”
“I just wanted to check on you. You got home? You're ok, right?”
“Oh, yeah, sure. Why? What did you think I was gonna do?”
“I don't know … It's a Saturday night ... Get drunk … Pick up somebody …”
“Charlie, come on. We're not talking Pyramus and Thisbe here.”
“Well, ok. I was concerned.” He brightened. “You're a hero to Mike, anyway. He said nobody ever gave him anything as nice as your pictures. He's already drawing the plans for the frames. That one of the two of us? He said he's hanging that one in the bedroom.”
Then I called Butch and got his voice mail. “Call your grandmother, Butch. She's worried.”
