The Glass Ceiling
1
FRANK
After the initial shock, Frank did what any man should do in such circumstances.
"Hello, boss, I won't be in today, mate. Sorry, it's short notice." Frank coughed. One of those coughs that made it clear to anyone listening that he didn't actually have a cough.
"Right." Connor sounded half asleep, or at least as if he hadn't talked to anybody yet this morning.
"I'm supposed to collect a vehicle from the yard and then pick up Ben, Alfie, and Joe." Phone propped under an ear, Frank felt a little guilty as he plodded into his kitchen to make coffee. At six o'clock in the morning, Frank couldn't expect his manager to instantly recall the work schedule that he'd planned.
"Okay, Frank, I'll sort that. You aren't the only person who can drive an SHS van. Do you think you will be back tomorrow? And am I putting this down as sick leave?"
Sick leave simply meant a day without pay instead of one his twenty-eight days’ worth of statutory annual leave. According to the company rules, scaffolders had to apply for days off in advance, and it seemed pretty shitty to call up on the day and leave the team in the lurch unless you were feeling ill.
As just one of sixty operatives at Sky High Scaffolds, Frank was certain they'd get by just fine without him at a moment’s notice. In the same way, he'd get by as a single guy with no advance warning that his relationship was about to crash in to the rocks and die.
Frank had been dumped.
Among other things, he also had that in common with Connor, at the other end of the phone call. They were both senior scaffolders. They both worked for Sky High Scaffolds. They had both been dumped by the same person, although almost eleven years separated the two incidents.
It took days for it to sink in; twelve days, so far. It was Thursday, already, of the second week. Not usually so slow to catch on — especially after being told in no uncertain terms in a local café over a mug of steaming tea — Frank first spent a few days in denial. When the finality of it hit home he arranged an impromptu day off work, with the intention of getting so drunk that the next day he'd be far too hungover to drive. He'd need two days off work for this bender.
"I am feeling a bit rough; hopefully be back tomorrow, but don't count on it." Frank attempted a sniff, making it obvious to anyone listening that not only did he not have a cough, he also had no nasal congestion whatsoever. "I have a bad head, and not the drink related type. Oh, and a sore throat. I don't know if they're related." The sore throat claim may have been overdoing it.
After canceling work, Frank decided to start by taking his coffee back to bed. Half-lying, half-sitting in bed, with the cheerful September sunlight brightening up the room through the thin curtains, he watched morning TV and caught up with social media. He read the comments of too many football pundits and looked at a crateload of cute kitten pics.
Woodworking in his shed offered Frank his usual route for escapism, but a drastic change of life circumstances required a drastic alternative route of avoiding reality.
Finding himself single for the first time in ten years.
After being dumped on a Saturday morning, twelve days earlier.
After ten years together.
Frank started to come to terms with his new solo status and the desire to remove all evidence that Ash O'Donnell ever entered his life or his apartment. Clearing all the reminders wouldn't take long. They'd never lived together and had only ever left a toothbrush at each other's homes, nothing else; not so much as a pair of slippers or clean underwear.
He could get a dog. Loyal, faithful, and a man's best friend. A dog just might fill some of the gaping space in his life. The void that Ash had only partially filled anyway, having only ever been a part-time partner.
Frank flipped onto his photo album on the phone. Digital evidence that he hadn't imagined the weekends and holidays together.
The signs of a failing relationship had been there for a long time, and Frank had ignored them. Ash wanted to keep the relationship on the down low. Ash didn't want the world, their families and friends to think of them as a couple, which should've been a sign. Ash didn't think Frank was good enough: a lowly construction worker; a scaffolder who lacked ambition. It now seemed that it had always been just a temporary affair for Ash.
Frank wished he'd known.
Ten fucking years.
Nine years, forty-eight weeks, and three days, to be precise.
Gone.
The looming ten year anniversary would inevitably bring up the question of what the future held. Marriage? Kids? Living together? Perhaps even just acknowledging that they were actually dating and not just friends. Yes. Yes. Yes. Frank wanted all that with the right person, which Ash, apparently, was not.
The photographs remained as the only tangible evidence that it hadn't been a dream. Even amidst these photos, little suggested they were more than friends. Not much by way of displays of affection, and certainly nothing of the X-rated type that a lesser man could use as revenge porn.
Not even on their swinging profile.
Frank got custody of their joint profile by default. It didn't require a divorce court. On the website where their membership as a couple linked to his email address. He reached to pick up his tablet. Without even leaving his bed he could delete their joint hookup profile.
Not that they'd ever actually gone through with it.
Never had a real threesome.
Never hit the final approve button on their profile page.
None of it ever went live for the world to see. They enjoyed sharing hot fantasies just between themselves. They set up a profile while talking about what might happen if they met someone. Sometimes they'd amend the profile. The very thought of posting it, along with discussing it, got them hot and invariably led to some of their best sex.
Couple seeks a single woman to join them.
Ash was bisexual.
Sure, to many men it may have seemed ideal. And Frank had to admit it was fun.
A bisexual girlfriend who wanted other women to share their bed. It remained in the realm of fantasy, though; threesomes were something they talked about but never did. Even so, Ash wouldn't entertain the idea of another man in their bedroom. She'd shut down any conversation about bisexual men. In the realms of fancy, only one of them was allowed a same-sex imaginary partner that they could talk about. Frank kept his thoughts to himself.
Single, Frank could change the profile and hit the approve button. Perhaps that could provide the distraction he needed to get over Ash.
Removing all of Ash's images from the profile left just one of himself. A body shot, cropped to remove his head. He wouldn't want anyone he knew to recognize him. A particularly flattering photograph, taken on a beach. They had been mucking about by the sea and got completely soaked in their clothes, which clung like a second skin.
In the photo, through the translucent, wet, white T-shirt, his tattoos were visible, as were his erect nipples. But not so you could identify him, not by his partially obscured, clammy-cotton-covered tattoos. Or the nipples.
Looking as if he'd stepped out of a wet T-shirt competition, he had to smile. Though he thought it himself, he did look rather sexy in that image. It would get his attention, if he were someone else.
Amending the profile distracted Frank from the pain, hurt, and humiliation of Ash's rejection. If Ash had left clothes in the closet, Frank could have indulged in their cathartic destruction. The only thing they'd left in each other's apartments was a toothbrush. Instead, he removed every reference to Ash from the profile, so it was just him. Tall, muscular, tattoos, nonsmoker.
He'd never filled in the eye color. Who the hell bases their choice of meeting up with a total stranger on eye color?
And the question of definition flummoxed him.
Their couple profile had said F: bisexual, M: straight.
Despite the inaccuracy, it worked for the approved-by-consensus version of their fantasy.
Single man seeks … someone. It had always been women before.
Straight. Gay. Bisexual. Bicurious. Other. Prefer not to say.
Frank considered the options as they were presented. It seemed a massive step for someone who'd told no one but his girlfriend, who had refused to hear.
Up until eleven days ago, he genuinely believed Ash and he were going to be together forever. Frank had assumed he'd never experience anything physical with a man. He thought the ten year anniversary would be significant. He thought the swinging, threesome idea would remain just that: a sexy dream. He'd never imagined placing this kind of advert about himself as a single man: as a single bisexual man.
Before choosing bisexual to describe himself, he scanned the pictures of men seeking men. Nice guys with smiling faces who said they enjoyed candlelit dinners and country walks intermingled with contrasting headless torso and dick shots from men seeking hookups.
Frank wondered about deleting his profile completely. He wasn't even sure what he wanted. The explicit casual sex profiles scared, intimidated, and excited him.
He wasn't that kind of guy. Not the sort who could just hook up with a stranger online. At least he didn't think so.
But could he date these gay men who were looking for more when he had so little to offer?
No experience at all.
With only the scantiest information about himself and a sexy torso shot, he changed the setting to ‘single man seeking men’, and hit approve.