Chapter Twenty-Five
Vince felt like he lived in a dream.
More and more lately he came home from work to find Trey in his house or evidence that he’d been there, and it wasn’t long before they started sleepovers. That first time, he’d taken Trey home, but now Trey stayed more often than he didn’t.
Nobody had penetrated anyone with a cock yet, though Trey had developed a regular habit of fingering Vin, which was fine by him. Part of Vin wanted to leave it at this stage, because he’d been surprised to find out how many gay men never had anal intercourse, giving or receiving. For some the pain was too great, and some simply didn’t care for it. On the one hand it felt like a huge weight off his shoulders.
On the other hand, he’d been looking forward to it quite a bit.
It helped that Trey hadn’t taken his subtle hints that he’d prefer to bottom rather than top but had embraced the idea. He’d worried a lot about that. He knew Trey liked it when he held doors for him and played big bossy Italian boyfriend. Sometimes he thought Trey liked the age difference between them too, though he didn’t think for one minute he’d been cast in the daddy role. Somehow it seemed to go along with everything else, of Trey being “the girl” in bed.
Someone had said that on one of the message boards Vin haunted, and the other guys had jumped all over the poster, telling him that was sexist and heteronormative, a word Vin hadn’t even thought was real. He got where the angry people were coming from, and maybe he did have to work on his thinking. After almost forty years, though, and from an Italian Catholic family? Yeah, there was a girl and a guy in the bed, at least metaphorically.
And fuck if Vin didn’t want to be the girl this time.
One night when he knew Trey wouldn’t be coming over because he had a late shift, a paper and an early morning, Vince went over to Rachel’s place with a pair of cigars—Warlocks, because he’d wanted to splurge—and after relieving her of a great deal of scotch, he confessed his desire to her.
She stared at him for a long time, then took a hit of the scotch right from the bottle. “Holy shit.”
He glared at her before reaching for his cigar. “Nice, sis. You really know how to make a guy feel good.”
“Shut up. It surprised me, all right? There’s nothing wrong with it.”
Her voice completely, utterly gave her away. “Bullshit. You think less of me for wanting to bottom.”
“No, I don’t—not less, it’s just not what I’d expect. I mean, maybe if Trey were older, or bigger—”
“Seriously? I can’t let anybody fuck me unless they outsize me?”
She winced. “Dammit, no—fucking hell, Vinnie, give me a second to catch up.”
“Well, be sure to let me know when I can get out from under all the goddamned stereotypes. I mean, am I going to have to wait until I’m fifty before I get to be who I really am? Could we maybe get this settled before my dick stops working altogether?”
Rachel pursed her lips. “Will you stop it? I’m on your side.”
She was, and somehow that made it worse. “Do you have any idea how hard it is to live your whole life for other people’s ideals? No you don’t, because you got to pack up and leave. You went off to live your dream, and you’re living it. Sure, they give you hell at family functions, and I’m sure Mom has weekly guilt trips prepared just for you—”
“Try daily.”
“Fine. You get a lot of flack. But once you hang up the phone, you go back to your job and your cool apartment and your frilly nightgowns, everything you ever wanted. Don’t you get it? What I wanted was so off the table I wouldn’t let myself even consider it. For thirty years.”
She threw up her hands. “I know. Vinnie, I’m on your goddamned side.”
“But I told you what I wanted with Trey, and you thought less of me for it. You didn’t like it. You decided I wasn’t a man.”
She folded her arms over her chest. “Okay, so I had a bad moment. It’s just weird is all.”
“Why? Because I can be gay, but as long as I’m the macho gay, not the gay-gay?”
For several seconds she glared at me, looking pent up and ready to pop. “Yes,” she said at last, deflating a little. “You happy? Yes. Yes, in my mind Fierros are big and strong and manly and tough, and I don’t like the idea of you not being like that, and I’m an ass.” She aimed a finger at him. “But you know, you wouldn’t act so hot if it was you hearing about my sex life. Case in point how you reacted to my nightgown, and I noticed you bringing it up now.”
Okay, that was fair. Vince picked up his cigar again and took a thoughtful puff. “I think that’s what I’m most afraid of.”
“My nightgown?”
He flipped her off, but he half-smiled too, because that was the smartass Rachel he knew and loved. “That this is what everyone will think. I keep telling myself I don’t want to be thrown out of the family. What I really fear is being thought I’m less of a man.” He sighed. “I’m sorry about the nightgown.”
She dragged her chair closer to his and gave him a sideways hug and kiss on the cheek. “It’s okay. But for the record, they don’t see me as fine. They do make me feel like I’m the Whore of Babylon for going off on my own, without a husband to keep me from fucking everything that moves, or whatever it is they think a steady man will do for me. It is hard, and it isn’t as easy as you made it sound, not by a mile. I’ll grant you the macho-man thing is probably going to be there. I could totally see Marco getting drunk some night and asking about it, making sure you’re the one poking Trey and not the other way around.” She leaned on Vince’s shoulder. “I guess the thing I tell myself, what I try to remember, is that I know deep down they don’t mean to hurt. They’re trying to keep us safe. The world is big and scary, and different is bad. If we all stay in the neighborhood and do the right thing, be the right kind, everything will be fine.”
“Jesus, that’s so not true.”
“No shit. But it’s kind of like church, isn’t it? The fairy tale is what makes it all okay. There’s a big dad up in the sky who will take care of us so long as we color inside the lines. Take that away, and everything’s just a mess.”
“Marco would so kick your ass for calling church a fairy tale.”
“You telling me it isn’t? Believe it or don’t believe it. There’s no proof, and there sure as hell isn’t a line of logic or visible payoff.” She reached for her cigar and eased into her chair, looking up at the night sky where they’d see stars, if there were any to be seen in the brightly lit Chicago sky. “I wish there were a way to get them to see that it isn’t the fairy tale that matters. It’s the people who believe in it. The people they believe in it for.”
Vince looked up at the sky too, soaking in his sister’s words, her scotch and some damn fine Nicaraguan tobacco. “Maybe we can help them get their priorities straight.”
“Maybe.” Rachel reached for his hand and twined their fingers together. “Maybe.”