Toronto is an awesome city. The people who live there and cheer the Comets rock…unless you’ve beaten their team like rented mules twice. Then they tend to throw glowers at you, as well as some pointed insults about your lineage, the size of your dick, and how your team should be wearing rainbow sweaters because they were so gay. The upset Toronto Comets backers were kind of right. We were the gayest team in the AHL. I spent lots of time thinking about why I was still hiding my sexuality amid such openly forthright players daily. There was no sensible answer why I was lingering in the closet.
Returning to Cayuga with two shut-out wins, I shoved around Mario getting off the bus. He and I were going through another strange time. The time before it had been me being sulky about him not feeling the same way for me I had for him. Looking back on that crush, it had been stupid of me to go there. I had known Lila was the person Mario lived and breathed for. I guess since I was hiding my gay away, it had been safer to crush on a taken man. I’d gotten through that, and we’d returned to being best buds. But now it was this Sal thing that was making things itchy and uncomfortable, like a sweater knitted out of stinging nettles.
“Hey, you want to hit Vespers tonight?” Mario asked as we waited outside the Rader for our bags.
“Vespers? Did someone mention Vespers?” Victor enquired as he strolled up with Dan at his side.
“What’s Vespers?” Mike Buttonwood asked as he walked up to join the little knot by the front of the charter bus.
“It’s this amazing new gay club in Auburn,” Dan told the group, his hand resting casually in Vic’s. “We should all go, to celebrate coming home with two wins!”
“Um, hold up, guys, gals, and Hobbits,” Victor said, and held up a long finger and pointed at Mike. “Why would we want to take Aunt Bea here to Vespers? Or Opie there?” he added quickly. Almost too quickly.
Mario and Dan looked right at me. I wet my lips. Time seemed to slam into a brick wall.
“I really wish you’d stop calling me that, Kalinski,” Buttonwood snapped, then jerked his toiletry bag from Archie, one of the equipment managers.
“I’m sort of gay,” I blurted out.
Mike stared at me as if I had sea urchins for ears. Victor, who I guess was crap at hiding his feelings, just gave me some odd sort of smirky-smile. Mario clapped me on the shoulder. It was the first sign of friendship from him in days. Not that we’d yelled or anything, but my roomie and I had pointedly not talked about anything personal aka Salvatore Castenada. Stiff would best describe how we’d been since the bus ride to Toronto.
“Wow, I feel like the odd duck being straight,” Mike muttered, then offered me his hand. “If you decide to come out to the rest of the team, let me know. I’ll gladly help in whatever way I can to ensure that things run smoothly.”
“How did you not know that Augie was gay?” Victor pondered aloud as me and Mike shook hands. “We all knew he was gay. Was it not obvious to the hets?” he asked his husband. Dan shrugged a shoulder, and I blushed hard. Who else had figured it out?
“So, yeah, Augie here is gay, and I think he should experience a bit of the gay male lifestyle before he decides to shack up with one man,” Mario announced to the others.
Mike was eying me strangely, like he was trying to figure out where this new and rare creature called “Homosexual Augie” had come from while still being all cool about it.
“What one man are we talking about?” Victor asked. I felt my face heat up like a Coleman lantern.
“Sal, the orderly who works with Heather. Tall, dark and hot as hell? Older dude? Was at the party drooling all over Augie the whole time we talked to him?” Dan waited for any sign that Victor remembered Sal. My cheeks were so hot now I could have thawed Manitoba in March with just my face.
“Aug and Sal are boning each other? Huh, why did I not know this? I think I’m feeling a little hurt at being left out.”
“By that he means he thinks a blowjob is in order to right the slight committed upon him—right, babe?” Dan gave us all a sly look.
“Preceded by a good rimming,” Victor replied, then slung his bag onto his shoulder.
“I can do that.” Dan winked, and I turned my burning face from the group.
Was this what being out would be like for me? Would Sal and I be able to joke in public about such personal stuff, or was that just Dan and Vic? It would be kind of nice to find out, I decided.
“So rimming is what, exactly?” Mike enquired. My ears were now roasting, I was so embarrassed. Maybe Sal and I were a little too shy to blab about tongue-to-asshole action standing beside a charter bus spewing out diesel fumes.
“Oh, wait, I have a call coming in.” Victor dug into the front pocket of his dress slacks, pulled out his phone, put it to his ear, then handed it to Mike. “It’s Barney Fife—he wants to know what time he and Andy should show up to escort you to the pie baking competition at the Mayberry County Fair.”
“Fuck off, Kalinski,” Mike muttered, but a smile played on his lips.
“Okay, moving out of Mayberry,” Mario threw out, then tossed his arm around my shoulders. “Let’s go home and change and meet back here in an hour. Lila will be thrilled. She loves Vespers.”
“I’ll grab my wife and we’ll meet you here!” Mike said cheerily, then jogged off to jump into his car.
“He’s bringing the missus to Vespers?” Dan asked as he walked off with Victor.
I spun on my heel to glower at Mario. The Italian-Scot gently removed his arm from my neck.
“You’re pissed off,” Mario said matter-of-factly.
Archie appeared again with Mario’s bag. We waited to start talking again after the equipment man lumbered off and the bus had pulled around to the side of the arena.
“Yeah, I’m pissed off. I don’t want to go to some gay club to hit on dudes. I want to go home to Sal. Man, why is that so hard for you to grasp?” I shouted at Mario. He leveled that grown-up look at me, and I got even madder. You know the look. It’s a placating one that says, “As soon as you’re done having your little tantrum, we’ll try to have an adult conversation,” and it for sure fired me up.
“I grasp it just fine, Augie. What you need to grasp,” he tapped the center of my chest with a big finger, “is that you need to cool your fucking jets with this man. If it’s love like you swear it is, it will hold up to you hitting a club for a few hours. What, is Sal the jealous type?”
“That’s so not the point,” I snarled. Mario folded his arms over his white dress shirt and planted his booted feet wide. “The point is I don’t want to do this. I just want to go home and be with Sal.”
“Augie…” he exhaled dramatically, then gave the now empty parking lot a long look. When his troubled eyes met mine, I saw compassion there and it weakened me a lot. “I’m just worried that you’re leaping into something you’re not ready for. There’s no such thing as love at first sight. No, do not argue with me,” he said when I opened my mouth to refute that point. “Lust at first sight, yes, but not love. You’ve had one male lover. One. And it’s to be expected that a kid with no previous romantic attention would throw himself at the first man who gives him the come-on. I get that, I really do.”
“It’s not about all that shit,” I argued, but in the back of my mind a tiny seed of doubt took root. “I just feel things for him—strong things.”
“Yeah, it is about those things, but I also get why you can’t see it. Just hang out with us for a couple hours tonight. Meet some other young gay men, talk to them…hell maybe even dance with them. And after a few hours, if you feel like going home to Sal, I’ll drive you there myself. Okay?” He held out his right hand. Knowing he would just stay on my back about this forever, I put my hand in his and we shook. “Good, now hop into that hot car of yours and go home to change. Lila and I will pick you up in an hour. And no, Sal can’t come along, so don’t ask.”
He walked off, his purple, green and white kilt swinging around his legs with each stride. I threw my bag onto my shoulder, then whipped it into the trunk of my Mustang. I hoped something inside it broke.
That was stupid. If my cologne broke it would make a mess on my dirty clothes.
I slammed the trunk and sent Sal a text.
Mario is a dick. Wants me 2 go 2 some club in Auburn. I do NOT want 2 go.
Sal hit me right back.
Is it a gay club?
Yeah, I typed back.
You should go.
I stared at the screen on my phone for a long time. Was he trying to make me hook up with some other dude? Had he grown sick of me while I’d been in Toronto? The vibration of an incoming text jarred me out of my worry.
Aug I’m not pushing you away, you know that.
I frowned at his words and sent a reply.
It kind of feels that way.
Aug, stop. I’m stuck working late shift. Go with the team. Celebrate how kickass you are.
My thumbs angrily battered out a reply.
I’d rather celebrate with U.
And I want to be with you, but here I am doing non-med supply inventory. Adulting sucks.
I fired back.
So do I.
Yes you do, and quite well too. I’ll see you around 6 am. Have a Labatt’s for me =)
He sent me a smiley face and I sent him four hearts. I hoped those emojis would be enough sweet stuff to carry us over until I was in his arms again.
“Wow,” Mike and I said at the same time. Vespers was unlike anything I’d ever seen. If the folks in Martens Bay, Manitoba could see this, they’d faint dead away. The club was this nondescript brick building on the border of a residential and industrial part of Auburn. If you drove past it during the day, you’d think you were passing an abandoned factory or something. But at night, you’d never mistake it for a factory. First off, the line of brilliantly dressed people waiting to be granted admission would tip you off. As would the marquee over the doors that glowed VESPERS in sensual red neon that lit up half the street.
We had been admitted quickly. I suspected it was because of Madame Lila. She led the way into the club like a true and wondrous matriarch. Her hair was down, her dress was long and slinky. It was a shade of rose that matched her eyeshadow. She moved with such grace you wanted to toss flower petals in front of her. The bouncers waved us in with just a glance at my ID. Most of the public could trip over AHL hockey players and not know who we were, so it wasn’t fame that got us to the front of the line. It had to be Lila.
“I’ve never seen so many shirtless men in my life,” Yvonne Buttonwood shouted over the pulsating tones of “You Spin Me Round”, that old 80s song by Dead or Alive. “And I once got an eyeful of the Cougars dressing room after a game.”
Mike pulled the tiny brunette in to his side. I kind of froze in place right inside the main doors. My eyes couldn’t take in enough information to appease my brain. The kind of drab exterior disappeared the moment you stepped inside. The nightclub grabbed you by the balls and led you inside to be devoured by a crush of hot men moving under rolling red, blue and purple lights on a huge dancefloor. I glanced up to see a second floor overlooking the dance area. Maybe that was the lounge?
“Come on, we’re blocking the door,” Dan said.
I shuffled along behind Arou, my gaze flying all over the club. Each man I passed looked at me as if I were a sexual being and not just a doofus hockey player from Manitoba. Some reached out to touch my arm, or tried to whisper something to me. I tried to be polite, but the music was too loud, too pulsing, too damn amazing to converse right.
Within ten minutes I had a dozen drink tokens resting in my hand. We had yet to sit down, because the Buttonwoods were shaking it out on the dance floor and we didn’t want to leave them alone while we climbed to the lounge. I tapped Dan on the shoulder to get his attention, then leaned up to shout in his ear.
“Why are all these guys buying me drinks?”
He chuckled and patted my shoulder affectionately. “Because you’re the hottest thing in this club tonight.”
“Not hardly,” I replied, then smiled at some tall guy with a big nose as he slid another plastic chip into my hand. “You’re hotter than I am.”
“I’m not at all, and even if that were the case…” He wiggled the finger his wedding band rested on. “Just enjoy the attention, man.”
“Are you hitting on my old man?” Victor asked, appearing, as he did, out of nowhere. I nearly swallowed my tongue, then shook my head vigorously. “Good thing, Opie. I’d hate to have to beat the white off you, since you’re playing so well.”
“I don’t get why they want me. They don’t even know me,” I shouted around Victor to Dan. “I could be a jerk.”
“Augie, they want to get to know you better,” Dan yelled at me. A dark purple light crawled over him. “You have no idea how rare it is for a dude who oozes innocence like you do to come strolling into a club. You’ll be able to cover your walls with all the drink tokens before the night’s over.”
“I’m so thrilled to be here on 80s night!” Lila said, then wiggled in between Dan and me. “August, I insist you dance with me.” She threaded her fingers into mine and pulled me onto the dance floor as Madonna’s “Vogue” began to play.
“I don’t know how to dance,” I shouted. Damp male bodies bounced off me. It wasn’t totally unpleasant.
“Just do what I do,” Lila said with a laugh.
She struck a pose like a fashion model. I did the same. Two guys on either side of me got all kind of dramatic with their posing. They gently slid in between Lila and me. I anxiously looked around the cute dude with the bright blue hair. Lila waved at me, then continued doing vogue moves. The twinky blue-haired guy grabbed my hand. The other guy ran his fingers down my arm. I threw a glance around for my friends, but they were all out of my range of vision.
“You look hot,” the guy with the sapphire hair shouted beside my ear. Sweat ran down my neck, so yeah, I was hot. The gyrating crush of hundreds of men made the air in the club thick with the smell of male, aftershave and sexuality. “Loosen up, pretty boy,” he instructed me, his lean body now flush to my hip. His bottom lip was pierced and his eyes were lined with kohl. He rubbed his dick against my hip bone. I tripped backward. Some big dude shoved me away from him when I stepped on his foot. I muttered an apology and spun in a circle, desperate to find a face that I recognized among the throng.
“Come on, kid.” Mario appeared out of the crowd, took me by the arm, and pulled me to a set of silver stairs leading to the second floor. “You look like a freaking mouse stuck in a room full of cats.”
I glanced back over my shoulder. Blue Hair Guy was now grinding against a tall black dude in a wild orgy of dance.
“This place is insane,” I yelled as I climbed the stairs in front of Mario, glad to see a large lounge area with fewer people bouncing up and down, although plenty were dancing up here too. We met up with our group, who had gathered on a long paisley-print sofa. I rolled the plastic drink tokens around in my pocket until a server appeared, then I tossed them all onto her empty tray.
“It’s on me,” I told her. I had no idea how drink tokens worked, exactly, but I suspected the different colored chips represented different dollar amounts. It confused me, to be honest, but I was a backwater kid from a town in Manitoba that still had dial-up internet for the five hundred and seventy-eight people who lived there. It seemed like cash would be easier, but what did I know?
I sat down on the end of the couch next to Mike. He and Yvonne were sweaty and smiling widely. Our drinks came a few minutes later. We were in the middle of a good talk about the next Olympic winter games when Vic gave Dan a look that shut us all up. Without a word said, Kalinski stood and extended his hand to his husband. Dan took it and they walked down to the dance floor. Of course, I shot up and ran to the railing to peer over.
Amid the crush of men, Vic had Dan by the hips and they were doing some real dirty dancing to Salt-N-Pepa’s “Push It”. It was mesmerizing how they moved in sync, as if they were making love with their clothes on. Victor spun Dan around, threaded his fingers into Arou’s long hair, and pumped his groin into his husband’s ass. It was the hottest thing I’d ever seen two men do while fully dressed. Who knew Victor Kalinski could move like that? Or that he knew all the words to an old 80s rap song?
“Hi!” Someone shouted to my left. I glanced over to see a man who looked to be in his mid-thirties, with glasses and thin blond hair. He was dressed kind of like a teacher, in khaki pants and a green polo shirt. He was a small guy—maybe five foot six with about a hundred and forty pounds on his frame. Totally underwhelming, but he had a friendly smile. “You’re August Miles, right? Starting goalie for the Cayuga Cougars?”
“Yeah, that’s right.” I stood up straight, and it really sank in just how much I towered over the man at my side, both in height and in weight. I put my bottle of Labatt’s in my left hand and offered him my right. It was super important to be friendly to fans. Plus I liked interacting with people who backed us. It was one of the best parts of playing hockey, aside from playing hockey.
“Want to dance?”
“Um, I don’t know. Maybe?” Having all these men wanting to spend time with me was unfamiliar and kind of flattering.
“You don’t have to if you don’t want to.”
“No, I’m here to dance, so…you know, I should dance.”
We headed down to the dance floor as Vic and Dan returned looking like they needed some time alone. That made me envy them, because I was stuck here talking to some random dude when I really wanted to be home with Sal. When we hit the packed floor I turned to my dance partner.
“Two things,” I shouted to be heard over “Personal Jesus” by Depeche Mode. “I suck at dancing and I’m sort of seeing someone.”
“I figured someone as good-looking as you would be seeing someone,” he replied, and looked a little embarrassed. It didn’t escape me that I had come out—sort of—to this stranger. Maybe coming here had been a good thing after all.
One song blended into another. We bounced around singing along to “Wannabe” by the Spice Girls and “Tainted Love” by Soft Cell. Arms over my head, white laser lights streaking back and forth, I danced and laughed as if I had always been this out, this free, this me.
“Oh man, we are terrible,” laughed the school teacher whose name I still did not know after what felt like a solid hour on the dance floor. I was panting as if I’d been doing side sprints, so I nodded in reply. “Let me buy you a beer. Labatt’s, right?”
“Yeah, thanks, man. I could use something cold.”
He pushed through the undulating crowd. I tipped my head back to check out the rolling lights. Tone Loc started playing, and I mumbled along to “Wild Thing”.
“Here you go!” Teacher Dude handed me an icy-cold bottle. “They open them for you. I don’t know what harm a damn bottle cap is going to cause.” He rolled his eyes.
“Augie!” I heard someone shout. I turned to see who was calling me and spied Victor coming at me, leading his husband through the undulating crowd. “Dude, no, just no.” He yanked the beer out of my hand and jammed it back into my dance partner’s chest.
“Hey, that’s my beer!” I barked at Kalinski, who seemed to be more interested in glowering at Teacher Dude so long and so hard that the guy crawled off into the mob of dancing men never to be seen again.
“Don’t ever take a drink from someone you don’t know,” Dan shouted beside my ear. I gave him a weird look. “It could be spiked with date rape drugs or who knows what. Always go to the bar to watch and make sure, okay?”
Honestly, I could not have felt more stupid. We never had that kind of worry back at Hank’s Bar in Martens Bay. After I got a fresh beer—which I had opened myself, so Teacher Dude’s claim about his beer did seem kind of suspect—I climbed back to the lounge, flopped down, and drank three beers in rapid succession. When someone poked me in the side, I woke up with a shout. The empty bottle in my hand fell to the floor. I looked up at Mario, then started laughing.
“You have red nose hair,” I pointed out before rolling off the padded bench onto the floor.
“You’re a cheap date, Augie,” I heard Mario grumble while hoisting me up from the floor.
I held on to him tightly to try to counteract the way the second floor of the club was tipping horribly to the left. “Is the world falling over?” I asked.
Someone patted my head as Mario led me down the steps, one at a time, and through the sweaty mob. The cool air outside did little to sober me up. My legs tangled with Mario’s. We fell against a car. Mario said things that made Lila remind him there was a lady present. Mike slid up on my left, and with him there and Mario on the right, we made it to McGarrity’s Highlander or Outlander or Bagpipelander without any further incidents. My face met the back seat. I burped loudly and for a long time.
“That’s quite charming, August,” I heard Lila say. She didn’t sound like she honestly found it charming at all.
“Thanks.” I rolled onto my back then slithered to the floor of the vehicle. “Take me to Sal,” I mumbled, coughed up Sal’s address, and promptly fell back to sleep with my head pillowed on my arms.
The memory of being moved from one place to another, lots of laughter, and someone gently removing my shoes then covering me up lingered the next morning. As did a headache so painful I feared moving my eyes might make me vomit.
The bed shook lightly. The puking part suddenly became real. Sal shouted something at me as I crawled over him, gagging and heaving. Sadly, I never made it further than the corner of his room. On the upside, there was a hamper there that served as a trash can.
“How much did you drink last night?” Sal asked as I hung over the side of the hamper, limp and soggy just like wet spaghetti. Thinking of spaghetti made me hurl again. Sal’s cool hand settled on the back of my neck. “You must have really partied hard.”
“Three or four beers and a pretty pink shot,” I croaked as my bones turned to glop and I slid to the floor and lay there like a big, dumb, goalie puddle. I threw my arm over my eyes. “Are you laughing at me?”
“No, of course not.” He was. I’d punch him in the face if I could move and not puke. “It’s just that three beers is kind of a small amount to get so sick from, especially for a guy of your size.”
“I’m not much of a drinker,” I freely admitted as he ran a hand over my damp skull.
“So I see,” he chortled, then slid an arm under me.
The trip to the bathroom was agonizing. Sal propped me up in the shower after peeling off my soiled clothes. The water pounding on my head made me whimper like the puny pup I was.
“Get cleaned up. I’ll get some food around. You have morning skate in an hour.”
“Just kill me now, please.”
Sal patted my naked ass, then pulled the shower curtain shut.
An hour later, I opened the front door of Sal’s apartment to find my ride to the Rader on the other side.
“You look like shit, kid,” Mario said as his gaze rolled from me to Sal, who had come up behind me. McGarrity didn’t look too happy.
“You should have seen him an hour ago,” Sal jokingly said, then pressed a kiss to my neck as his arms slipped around me from behind. “Maybe your coach will go easy on you?”
“Maybe, but it’s doubtful,” I grumbled, my head still pounding.
Sal helped me get my duffel bag up onto my shoulder. “Well, just try to drink plenty of water, and don’t take too many aspirin.”
“Okay.” I ignored the somewhat dark look from Mario and gave Sal a wet kiss goodbye. Mario said nothing until we were on our way to the arena.
“Look, I know it’s not my place to tell you who to date. After all, you’re an adult and can see who you want.” I wanted to roll my eyes toward the roof of the vehicle, but they hurt too much. Some old country singer guy lamented about his dead dog, then yodeled. Really? Yodeling? And people talk about modern music.
“But that’s not going to stop you,” I muttered under my breath, and started rubbing my right temple.
“See, the thing is that a young buck like you should be out rubbing the velvet off your antlers with lots of other young bucks, not just one long-in-the-tooth one.”
“Are we talking about moose? I don’t think moose men are called bucks.”
“What? No, we’re not talking about moose. Why the hell would you think we were talking about moose?” I squeezed my eyes shut, but the pain inside my head was just as bad and growing worse with every word Mario said. He didn’t exactly speak quietly, or listen to yodeling dog lamenters on low volume either.
“My head hurts.” Maybe if I told him I was in pain, he would back off about me and Sal.
“I was using whitetail deer, not moose. See, the point I was trying to make was that you shouldn’t tie yourself down to one guy. You and Sal, you’re cute, and sure, I hear how great a guy he is from everyone, but you’ve known him for what, two weeks?”
“My head still hurts.” Why was this ride taking so long? “Are you telling me I should be sexually promiscuous?”
“Of course not.” He sounded like he was getting peeved. I’d come to learn over the months that Mario had a rather short fuse at times. He claimed it was the Scots blood. Lila said blood had nothing to do with it, he was just a firecracker. “Why would you ask that?”
“Because you’re telling me that being with one guy is wrong but sleeping with a bunch of guys is good. Sounds to me like you’re saying I should be whoring it up. But whoring around is bad, so which is it? I need you to tell me which is good, because my head hurts, my stomach feels like I drank a gallon of vegetable oil, and when I open my eyes, the sun burns them.” I let my head hit the window, then whimpered pitifully.
“You’re mixing up my message, August.” He stomped on the brakes. I jerked forward, and my brain protested loudly. Some sort of primitive growl came out of me as we waited at a traffic light, or maybe a stop sign. Seeing what the holdup was would involve opening my eyes. “I’m not saying to be a whore.”
“Then what are you saying?!” I snapped, each word vibrating inside my already angry head.
“Sweet Mary Madonna, ain’t you in a mood?” The singer was now crooning about his farm horse, or maybe it was a plow horse for his farm? How freaking old was this music? “What I was trying to say was that sleeping around is high risk. I don’t ever want to see you doing high-risk stuff, Augie. You’re like a son to me. “
Now didn’t I feel like crap? “It’s okay. I get it.”
And I did on some other level. I got what he was saying. My folks always told me to date around too, because I tended to give my heart too easy—Mom’s words, not mine. Poor Mom and Dad. They were still waiting for me to bring home some nice girl. They’d fall over with strokes when I pulled up during the summer with Sal at my side. Why did everything have to be so hard?
“Just back off about Sal, okay? He and I are tight and getting tighter all the time.”
“All right, I’ll back off. Just be careful, Augie. This guy might be a real heartbreaker. Lila and me, we don’t want to see you get hurt.”
I cracked an eye open and rolled my head as gently as possible to look at him. “Thanks. I love you guys too.” Mario smiled at me.
Then I puked all over the inside of his spiffy clean Highlander. He wasn’t smiling when we pulled into the Rader parking lot, and neither was I. When Coach Young saw then smelled me, he wasn’t smiling either.