Chapter Forty-Five
Sunday was a perfect day. Frank and I worked, made love, worked some more, made love some more, and nobody bothered us. I say nobody; that actually means nobody in person. I did get one interesting text from Euie. He asked, “It is possible to have too much sex?” I told him no, which is true, I think. If you've had enough, you don't get hard. It's a self-regulating process. Of course, there's priapism, but that's more of an urban legend that a condition to worry about.
“Are you sure about that? I thought priapism was real,” Frank commented.
“It is, but it's rare and it's painful. It's not as if the priapics just go through life ready for sex all the time.” Frank hugged me and I could feel his cock pressed against my ass. “You're NOT priapic, Frank.”
“I'll ask again: are you sure?” He nuzzled my neck. I could feel his lips sucking gently on me and the flick of his tongue. That set off another session of making love. He was so ardent and attentive that I needed a nap afterward. The pleasure of post-sex sleep is a gentle delight known best to lovers, I think, and not to people engaged in casual sex. Pleasant drifting, pleasant dreams, and pleasant awakening. I thought I was awakening to Frank's loving ministrations, but instead it was Merle, rocking the bed and enjoying a solitary bout of licking himself vigorously.
“I'm sorry you don't have a lover, Merle,” I told him. He ignored me and kept licking while I got dressed. Then the two of us went outside to find Frank completing his installation of the window frame.
“Can you hold this trim piece, Reef?” I held the lower border of trim covering the flashing while Frank sank three brads with single strikes of his hammer. “There,” he said with satisfaction. “Now we can go back to fucking.” I gave him a look. “Just kidding. I'm happy just to hold you … for now.” He embraced me from the front and kissed me. “This is the best day of my life, I think.” He kissed me again and leaned back to survey the results. I was doing my best not to cry and partly succeeded. No tears were spilled although my vision was blurry. I closed my eyes and rested my head on Frank's shoulder.
He smelled so right. No perfume or aftershave could come close to the sexy natural smell of a man. And he felt perfect, combining the strength of a young man's lean muscles with a hint of a mature man's vulnerability. “I love you,” I whispered.
We took Merle for a long hike. He would dash ahead, come back to us to make sure we were still there, and then reconnoiter laterally to our path. We could watch him crashing through the undergrowth. It was brisk but not cold until the sun began lowering. Then a chill came and drove us back to the warmth of the barn or, should I say, the relative warmth of the barn.
“Have you thought about a furnace, Frank? What's this place going to be like in February?”
“This winter I think we'll have to make do with a fireplace and a stove. Civilization comes next year.”
“We could get some space heaters,” I proposed.
“Ceilings are too high,” he explained. “The traditional method, you know, was just to go to bed. That's why couples used to have such big families. And we can always have a 'one dog night' with Merle here.”
“Merle … that reminds me. I better see what Sarah wants to do with him.” I called her and got a very sharp reaction.
“Do you know? Do you have any idea what you interrupted? For the sake of ...a dog. Some dog that YOUR incompetence has made homeless?” Her voice was breathless and shrill.
“He's not homeless. He's got a wonderful home with Frank and ...” At some point during those words she clicked off. A looked at the dog peacefully asleep at my feet and suddenly felt very sorry for the bleak, lonely, and often brief lives of lab animals. “Dinner?” I said to my companions. Merle perked up instantly, while Frank smiled curious about what would come next.
“We don't have any food, to speak of.” I announced. “We might could go out … or we might could ...”
Frank pulled me into a kiss. “You and your 'might coulds',” he chuckled. “You sound like Mike putting off facing the facts. It would be a serious drive to go anywhere and we have left over sandwiches that Charlie left.”
“Not very warming … cold sandwiches.”
“That's where the moonshine comes in ...” Frank said. After fetching two glasses he got a Mason jar of clear liquor out of a small cabinet and poured us a generous three fingers each.
Merle stayed sober, of course, but Frank and I went to bed slightly buzzed. In the morning I thought I remembered us eating a couple of Charlie's sandwiches, but I wasn't sure. On the other hand, I was pretty sure that if I had been a colonial housewife, I'd be pregnant again this winter. I was still jelly-legged at the memory of Frank's cock in me.
It was a cold Monday morning and work called. We dressed very quickly. “What do we do with Merle?” I asked.
“For the first few days, we tie him up so he doesn't try to follow us,” Frank said. “Then it's up to him what he does with his days.”
“The first few days?”
“He's our dog, Refo. Sarah is never going to go to any trouble for him.”
I wasn't so sure about that, but headed for the city with Merle tied in the old paddock. I got to my house and it looked abandoned. It's amazing how quickly a little neglect can permeate a place. The bed was unmade and I wasn't sure who had slept in it last. The kitchen was a mess. And a ton of mail had piled up. Ads, mostly; they were easy to toss; but there were bills as well. I piled the bills up to take to work. Finally there was another letter from Krol Farms. It included a check that wasn't as big as the last one; but still, at eleven thousand dollars, it was nothing too trivial.
I deposited the check in the ATM in the lobby at work and looked at the receipt, that listed my balance at over thirty thousand. That was something of a shock, because I had never in my life had that much ready cash at one time before. Thirty-two thousand and change, to be more precise. I closed my eyes to try to imagine thirty-two thousand, but all I could think of was lying under Frank feeling him take possession of me. I relived the feel of him in me and how automatic wrapping my legs around him had been, and … I shook my head, trying to bring myself back to earth. I thought I was going slightly crazy, but the buzz was just my phone in my pocket.
“Yes, Euie?” I said while I waited for the elevator. Others waiting for the car, politely pretended not to be listening to me. “Say again? Encore une fois, as some Canadians say.” I tried to keep it breezy; I couldn't have hear his first statement correctly. “What? You got engaged? But you only met him on Saturday!”
I could tell the people near me were reluctant to get into the elevator as I stood in place and nearly shouted my surprise. “You were the one who wanted to avoid too much sex! From virgin to slut in twenty-four hours!” I could see the mix of fascination, horror, and titillation on the faces of those who boarded the elevator. As the doors slowly closed, they seemed to lean ever closer to their shrinking access to my world. “I hope you took precautions!” I gasped and pressed the button for another car. “Yes, alright. I'll meet you for lunch.”
I whispered those last words to avoid involving the growing new group awaiting the next elevator. Thank God the lab was empty when I finally got there. It seemed like a blissfully quiet sanctuary. I sat at my desk, looked at my bills, and then felt a need for coffee. I have always felt bills should not be opened on an empty stomach. I got a blueberry muffin to go with my coffee and opened the first bill. It wasn't actually a bill but rather an ad for carpeting cleverly disguised as a bill. Alright, I thought, you got me to open it, what's on sale?
Quite a lot, it turned out. Thousands of rugs, in fact. Going out of business this very weekend. No reasonable offer refused. Feel the incomparable luxury of your own thick carpet underfoot. Comfort rivaling the best hotels. Call Erhan Pamuk, it said.
Well, I wouldn't know about the best hotels, but Frank's bedroom with its icy floors could use some improvement. I called Mr. Pamuk with high hopes. As it turned out, Mr. Pamuk was not overjoyed to hear from me. I was not the highlight of his morning. The call ended unsatisfactorily with Mr. Pamuk promising in a vague way to call me back. I put my phone down and turned back to the pile of bills, noticing motion in my peripheral vision.
“Do you have any idea how INCONVENIENT your call yesterday was?” Sarah Felsen challenged.
“Sorry,” I muttered. “It was about Carter's dog.”
“Oh, that silly looking thing? We're not going to pursue that project. It was kind of a weak idea anyway. What was that last call about, anyway?”
“I'm thinking about getting a rug for a country barn.”
“REALLY! Why didn't you say so! Tell me more.” Her involvement was immediate.
So I told her about the cold floor and Mr. Pamuk's ad.”
“Pah! Pamuk … probably not even Turkish. Probably Syrian or something. And the local rug merchants sell either overpriced junk or overpriced museum pieces. Refo, sweetie, why didn't you SAY you were looking for rugs?”
“I just did.”
She ignored me. “Now, I have a cousin in New Jersey who works at a fabulous store ...”
She was still talking about rugs when I told here I had to meet a friend for lunch. She was still talking about rugs when I eased out of the lab. I'm not sure she noticed I was gone.
I met Euie at Clyde's. I got a booth and waited for his arrival. Instead of Euie, I watched a spectacularly overdressed man make his way toward me. Only at very short range could I tell it was Euie, a Euie writ large, in several bold type faces.
“Aren't you going to congratulate me?” He said as he sat. “A Negroni, please. With vodka instead of gin, and absinthe instead of vermouth, skip the campari, and heavy on the bitters.”
The waiter wrote frantically and then stopped with annoyance. “We call that a Green Moon vodka, sir.”
“I call it a Negroni with vodka, absinthe, and bitters,” Euie retorted airily. He intently watched the waiter walk away. “I'd tap that,” he commented to himself. He turned back to me. “At least that's what Arcuri calls it.”
“Your hair ...”
“Like it? Arcuri suggested the style and the stylist. What as ass he has!”
“If you were in a punk band, maybe ...”
“I feel so silly about that text Saturday, Refo. As if too much sex were even possible ...” He chuckled at the memory. “Arcuri says it all depends on the placement of one's prostate. Mine, apparently, is very favorably located. And HIS! His is practically external! Just pat that man on the butt and he cums!” Euie was overcome with his own hilarity.
“Your NEGRONI, sir,” the waiter mocked. Have you ever noticed how some gays of a certain type can set each other off just by being in the same room? “Very BITTER!” the waiter added.
“Take it away. Too much protein,” Euie said, pointing to a hunk of something floating on the surface. The waiter snatched it, spilling it on himself in the process. The waiters demeanor changed. “I'm very sorry,” he said to both of us.
“So … Engaged ...” I tried a new subject with a very different Euie. “A romantic proposal?”
“You know, I don't remember exactly,” Euie said. “In fact I don't even remember proposing. But after we ...uh … you know … fucked ...,” he whispered the operative word in a sudden fit of shyness, “Arcuri said … 'You don't even have to say it. I know without even hearing the words … and YES! I can't refuse you. I will marry you, Eustace!' So, I'm engaged, Refo. I'm going to be married.” Euie spoke with a mixture of pride and bewilderment.
“When?”
“Thursday afternoon. At the District Court House. I think that's what Arcuri said. Thurday, Refo.” Euie's look had become outright scary.
“Euie, you don't HAVE to do it … Nobody can make you marry somebody.”
Through the course of eating out cheeseburgers Euie explained that he wanted to marry, he just wasn't sure about the suddenness of th esituation. “It's the sex, Refo,” he confided. “Now that I've started, I can't stop. And Arcuri is available and willing and experienced, and … I can't stop, Refo.”
I spent the rest of the meal arguing that he should take his time and listening to Euie counter with the fact that he might never have another chance. It was the waiter who made my point for me. As we were about to leave, he placed a folded piece of paper in front of Euie and mouthed the words “Call me.”
“What does the note say?” I had to ask.
“Two oh two, three three seven,” Euie began reading off.
“Wow … A Georgetown number, Euie. You're moving up.” I winked at him.
“But I know this number, Refo. It's Randy Krol's in-town number.”
