Eliot Prince
The day after I ask for advice, my family visits a local vineyard. Robert steers clear of me, but in the bathroom I glance at Grindr and notice that he’s online. Stupid asshole. People only use this app to find guys. Is he checking for me? Or is he looking for other guys?
I send him a simple message: Hey. He doesn’t respond. Ugh.
During our tour of the winery, David acts incredibly strange, too, drinking too much and standing really close to me. He keeps sharing glances with Gracie and my mom, too, like that night at the restaurant. My patience with him is wearing thin. What’s gotten into him, and why is everyone acting so weird?
But time and again, I am reminded that whatever connection I have with Robert, it is not fading. He is everywhere I go, he is everything I think about. Wherever I go, there he is…
After we get home, I notice I have eighteen Facebook notifications, all from the post I made and then forgot about. But does it even matter anymore, now that Robert apparently isn’t coming back?
Just for shits and giggles, I decide to read everything and engage, anyway:
Yikes, Melissa says. I’m speechless. Dating your former stepdad? Abort mission immediately. I repeat: abort. It’s not worth losing your mother over.
I’m not so sure, ClaudiaLezar98 has chimed in. Eliot, let me get this straight: this man never acted as your father figure, right? And didn’t really live with you? I don’t see a huge problem, then. Follow your heart. And your penis. Just don’t let anyone find out yet.
I’m confused. Did you never notice this connection before? Michelle asks under that. How are you just now realizing you had feelings for him?
Can’t you read? Because he hasn’t seen the man in ten years, someone else responded. And he says they never really knew each other.
Good point. Sorry. Just trying to understand. What do you really think your mom’s reaction will be, then? Michelle has said.
I open up the dialogue box and respond: Hi. So. I know my mom very well, but her reaction is still a mystery. She owes me a lot, and she can’t be THAT mad when she’s never been much of a mom to me, in the first place. My hunch is that she will either be much better than expected, or much worse. She’s a very either/or type of person. But if it falls under the “worse” category…we are talking D-Day levels of disaster and mayhem here. I really can’t predict it.
Eek, the anonymous person says after a minute. I’ll be sending prayers.
I bite my lip. Then I click “reply all” to get their opinions on it from another angle. Hey. This is for my younger gays. Have any of you dated much older guys?
YES, AND IT IS AMAZING, Freddy says almost immediately.
Why? I ask.
Because they’re really good at sex, they’re very protective, and they pay for things. Lots of things.
I mean…can’t argue with that, I reply. But one response in particular catches my eye:
I think you’re worrying about the wrong thing here, Hector says. Everyone always wants to paint older men as desperate and lonely. Often it’s the opposite. I know older men who have entire lines of younger guys waiting to date them or entertain them. If this guy is as much as a catch as he sounds, maybe you should stop being so hesitant and work on keeping him around, instead…
How rude, I think to myself. But then I realize…he’s kind of right. Actually, he’s extremely right.
Forget about our issues for a second: Robert is still sexy and rich and apparently amazing at hooking up, and yet I’m sitting here fretting over whether I should date him or not. Maybe I’m the delusional one here. And why am I so torn up about this to begin with? Guys always say they like me because I’m so chill and nonchalant. I’m never like this. Why am I starting now?
And the final thing – what if he never even talks to me again?
I scroll some more and eventually see a message that stops me dead:
Hey, your post caught my eye, and I thought I’d share my story. I’m 86. In 1972 I fell for a man named Jo, no E at the end. I can still smell the smoke in the air – we were at a bonfire on a cold spring night, and he ran off with my heart. We loved each other from the first moment, but our town in northern England looked at that love as something bad and sinful and shameful. We were afraid, so we never did anything about our love, aside from a sex session here or there. He died eight years ago, and I still see him when I close my eyes. I can still smell his jumpers.
Societal disapproval is societal disapproval. If you feel for this man as strongly as you say you do, don’t wait – you may not find that again. I would know. I never found another Jo.
Godspeed to you.
I try, but for some reason I can’t get this story out of my head for hours…
~
That night is Gracie’s birthday party. She’s turning twenty-one, and all the aunts are excited she’s stayed at Woodhouse Lawn instead of going on some trip with her girlfriends to Vegas or Atlanta or wherever. With that in mind, we all want her to have a good time – and David and I are drunk pretty quickly.
Gracie, David and I break off in a little group, and start playing a drinking game in the breakfast nook while the aunts talk and drink wine in the family room. I’ve been so strained and lost in my own head, it feels good to let go of everything for a minute and be around people my own age. I deserve it.
“Ahh, Robert!” Gracie says a minute later, speaking of him. Robert turns around from the fridge, wearing black joggers and a black shirt. Even in workout clothes, he looks chic and fit, and I have to look away to control my reaction – and to hide it from David, too.
“Come have a shot with us!” Gracie begs. “Please? I’ll put you on my Instagram story and make all my friends think I’m on a date with a really hot guy. Sorry, but you are hot, can’t help it.”
“But I don’t play for that team,” he smiles, a little nervously.
“Of course you don’t. But these bitches don’t know that.”
Cautiously, Robert sets down his water and joins us in the booth, sinking down next to Gracie. But I’m indignant. Now he’ll be near me? What about before?
David is a little uneasy, and he and Gracie keep exchanging those weird looks, but nobody says anything outright.
After a shot or two, Gracie produces a card game from a drawer, one of those Truth or Dare type things. She’s insistent that we play. I don’t want to go anywhere near this, but at the same time I don’t want to raise any suspicion, either – so I agree when Gracie demands that I pick the first card. Then I groan – it’s asking us to list, out loud, the sluttiest thing we ever did.
“I’m not doing that,” I say, setting down the card.
“Oh, sorry, is that weird to say in front of your dad?” David asks, making Robert flash a mortified grimace. That’s when I snap.
“Okay, you know what? He’s not my dad, and never was, and I don’t feel weird about it at all. And to prove it, I’m going to answer. Gracie, cover your ears.”
David stares at me. I know I revealed too much emotion, but I don’t care. I don’t want to seem like some sexual freak, but at the same time, I don’t want David to think I’m petrified by my former connection to Robert, either. So I take a deep breath. Robert’s expression is unreadable.
“Okay, once, at the gay bar, these two hot guys seemed really close, and they came onto me together. You know, buying me drinks, touching me. I assumed they wanted group play, which I’d never done before – so I invited them home eventually. Just to try it out.”
My face burns. I can’t believe I’m saying this in front of Robert, but I continue.
“Anyway, one thing leads to another, and we all hook up. No sex, just fooling around, but it was hot. When they get ready to leave, though, they casually mention that they’re first cousins.”
“Get out,” David says.
“It’s true. Isn’t that weird? I didn’t believe it, and made them show me their driver’s licenses – and it was true. They were cousins.”
“So you don’t have problem with family relations,” David says, glaring over at Robert, and I stutter. Fuck. If he’s not joking, and if he really knows, this could be bad…
“Oh, God, I wasn’t making a connection to my…ugh, never mind. Wrong story, I guess. David, your turn.”
David reluctantly tells some story about hooking up with two guys in one day – honestly, I’m not even listening, and I don’t care. My eyes are all over Robert, and his are all over me, too. His biceps, his newly trimmed beard – everything about him is turning me on. So much so, in fact, that I am becoming completely uncomfortable. I can feel my blood in my ears. I can feel my heart in my chest. Being around him makes me connected to the physical in ways I’ve never known. Just like the first day, I am alive everywhere. But he won’t talk to me.
When it’s his turn, he finally speaks. “Eliot, are you sure you’re okay with me sharing? Considering…”
“Considering that you were barely married to my mom, a decade ago, and haven’t spoken to me since? Yes, I’m fine.”
“Well, then,” he says angrily, as Gracie and David exchange a look. “I’ve been in…in an orgy once, on a yacht. Everyone played safe, and it was…amazing, really. One of the hottest days of my life.”
“Tell us more,” Gracie sighs in a dreamy tone, but I roll my eyes. “I’m not the one who’s related to you.”
“No, I think we’re done here,” I say as I reach for my drink. “No more games. Let’s just drink.”
“No, I want one more question,” Robert says, staring me in the eye and making me shiver. “What’s the oldest guy you’ve all been with?” Then he turns to David. “You first.”
David looks confused, but he still blushes. “Well, um, Eliot doesn’t know this, but once there was this guy who was probably, um…like, fifty-five? It was really hot…”
“How was it hot?” Robert asks, his eyes twinkling.
“Um, he just knew what to do. He was good, I guess. Why are we talking about this?”
“Because we are. Eliot, now it’s your turn.”
I go red in the face. He can’t toy with me like this when he won’t even speak to me. I won’t play this game. “Sorry,” I say snidely. “I’ve just never been into the older guy thing. It’s not for me.”
Just to get even more revenge, I do something crazier: I reach over and wrap my hand around David’s leg. I know it’s childish and stupid, but I don’t care. Robert chose to ditch me. He can live with the repercussions.
David looks over and smiles. He’s been incredibly clingy today, and I get a little sad at how happy he looks. “Hi. I didn’t know we were touching.”
“Yeah…well, things happen. Let’s keep playing, I guess.”
Gracie picks a card and tells a story which I cover my ears for, since she’s like a sibling to me and that is just weird. The whole time, Robert’s eyes are still on me, and I can’t really read his expression. He could either look frustrated or bored or maybe just hungry – I can’t tell. So to elicit a reaction, I lean in and start whispering nonsense into David’s ear, and licking him now and then, too.
Robert’s eyes grow, and he gives me a taste of his own medicine – smirking, he takes out his phone, and then I hear the unmistakable sound from Grindr, the gay hookup app. How dare he. I know I’m dangling David in his face, but Grindr? Really? That’s a step too far, so I lean in and kiss David on the cheek.
That’s when I hear Robert slap his hand down on the table. Everyone goes silent.
“Okay,” he bellows. “That’s enough.”