Robert Glazer
“I’m sorry,” I say for the tenth time as we sit in the café along King Street, Boone’s main drag. “I’m sorry.”
We tried walking up and down the charming sidewalks of town, looking at antique stores and new-age herbal tea counters and mountain-type knickknack stores filled with expensive boots and belts and scarves. Every building here is probably a hundred years old, and the mountains rise above it all like an oil painting. But he was tense and quiet, and so I found a suitable place and ordered us two glasses of their best sauvignon blanc.
“I’ve told you ten times,” I continue, “my windows are tinted the darkest they can legally be tinted. I’ve even been pulled over twice by cops who thought it was too dark to be legal, but I brought out the shade guide both times. She saw nothing.”
“Why would you be sorry?” Eliot finally asks me. “I’m the one who did it.”
“I…I don’t know.”
“I’m not mad it happened,” he says. “I’m just mad I let myself take it that far.”
“You shouldn’t be,” I say soon. “You’re an adult, Eliot.”
“So are you. And you’re also my mom’s ex-husband.”
“When it put it that way…”
“Sorry,” he says soon, sitting taller. “Even if Sherry did see something, she’d never tell. She didn’t become my grandma’s most trusted employee for nothing. She’s always been very…judicious, with what she says, I guess you could say. She’s not going to run amok, creating drama.”
“Maybe you were right, though,” I sigh. “Maybe I still should’ve known better.”
“Why?” he sneers. “Let me guess, because you’re older? It’s not like you don’t mention that every single day.”
I just stare at him.
“Okay, sorry,” he says, looking away. “I just…I know this is dumb, and you don’t have to act like you’re the God figure, letting it all happen. I’m a willing participant. I have been since the first day. Don’t infantilize me.”
“I never thought I was,” I whisper soon. “The truth is…all long, you’ve felt like an equal in my eyes. You’re a very old soul, Eliot, and you don’t even realize it.”
Our eyes meet. The strangest, deepest emotion bubbles up between us, and in that moment I swear the rest of the café melts into the background. The only thing that exists is Eliot and Robert, Robert and Eliot.
“I will risk this,” I whisper soon. “I think you’re worth it. You are.”
“So are you, Robert, as scary as that is to admit.”
A tear forms in the corner of his hazel eye. “What do you like about being with me? I want to know.”
“You first. Don’t infantilize you, remember?”
He sighs and looks out the window again. “I like…I like things about you that I’ve never even noticed about anyone else. I like the way you speak, I like the way your body touches mine, I like how calm I feel around you, like the shape of your upper lip. Mostly I like how you look at me, like I’m a disassembled puzzle and some of the pieces are gone. I like you, I like me when I’m with you, and I like us.”
I cannot find a response. Soon he looks at me. “What do you think of me? How do I feel to you?”
“Eliot. You feel like…everything good and bright and new that I’ve been looking for. You feel like the future, now.”
“What do we do now?” he asks, after a blush. “This person knows something, that person knows something. And that letter…”
“Letter?”
He shakes his head and changes course. “Never mind, nothing. Anyway, this is happening, and we can’t make it un-happen. So…let’s start thinking about what we would say if my mom hears something. Okay?”
My head spins. “God. I don’t even know where we would start.”
“But we’re going to have to deal with it eventually. That is, if you want this to continue at all…”
“Eliot. Stop. You know I do. God, did we switch places? How are you so mature for your age?”
“You know why,” he shrugs. “My mom was a mess. People with chaotic parents are forced to grow up way too quickly.”
“You’re exactly right. I just wish more people understood that. Because of my repressed childhood, I’m a decade behind mentally, and because of your issues with your mom, you’re a decade ahead.”
“They’ll learn eventually.”
It must be poetic justice, because right then, Something to Talk About by Bonnie Raitt comes on the speakers. I smirk at him, but he shows no reaction – and that’s when I remember he’s probably totally unfamiliar with this song. His equivalent must be some Taylor Swift kiss-off song. And my hunch is right – as the chorus hits, I can see he has no idea.
“Speaking of that,” I say, “it’s so easy to forget we actually do have a generational difference happening here.”
“Not really,” he says, a little defensive, his eyes twinkling. “I’m an old soul.”
“You know what I mean. Do you know Bonnie Raitt?”
He blinks. “Is she a friend? A neighbor?”
Oh, God. Maybe I really am old. “No. Do you even know any Madonna songs?”
“Um, they play Hung Up in the club sometimes.”
“Hung Up? Come on, I’m talking about real Madonna, the ‘80s stuff.”
“She kissed Britney?” he shrugs, and I burst into laughter.
“Okay, that’s a no.”
“Hey, don’t knock the newer generation,” he says. “Taylor Swift is one hell of a writer. Her album Speak Now changed my life, actually.”
“Introduce me, then,” I say, my eyes burning.
“Oh, God, I’d love to.”
I think more deeply about our May/December age difference. I’d been so focused on the family aspect, I wasn’t even thinking about this. “What’s your favorite movie?” I ask him.
“Titanic. I know it’s old, but I saw a rerun on HBO when I was a kid, and the way I lusted after Cal Hockley pretty much confirmed that I was gay. What’s yours?”
“Old? Ha. And mine is Sixteen Candles.”
“Never seen it,” he says.
“Not surprised…”
“What’s your favorite song?” he asks.
“Probably Fleetwood Mac’s Landslide.”
“God. I do know that one, but it’s so depressing. Mine is Green Light by Lorde.”
“Never heard that, either.”
“Don’t worry, we’ll have a listening session one day.”
This lends some fun to our day. A lot of it, actually. For a while we forget about everything, and I take him to a record store and tell him about the Spice Girls, New Kids on the Block, all the stuff he missed by being born when he was. (I still can’t even bring myself to calculate the year. I would feel too old.) In return, he takes me to a bookstore. Over two coffees, he takes out his phone and explains all the parts of the modern gay world I’m too ancient to know about – all the apps, all the slang, all the scandals. I might watch Drag Race, but I’m not that hip, and sometimes I barely understand the language used by the younger guys at the gay bars.
Speaking of gay bars: we pass the same one from before, and I brush up against him.
“Don’t,” he says after a make eyes at him. I look around.
“What? Don’t touch you? Is someone around, or something?”
“No. You’re just going to make me want you again.”
“Oh. I didn’t know you were in the mood…”
“Are you serious? I’ve never been this way with anyone before. Being around you is being in the mood.”
“Let’s get a drink, then. I need to calm the hell down. This tension is killing me.”
But on the way across the street, we stop at the crossing sign near two women in their thirties. They’re whispering about us, and at first my hair stands on end. Surviving a gay childhood means panicking whenever you’re in the public crosshairs for the rest of your life, because you never know when whispers or stares can escalate into much more. But after I listen I realize these women aren’t evil, they’re just incredibly ignorant.
I freeze and stare ahead, and notice Eliot does the same. They’re a foot behind us now, but we can hear most of the words.
“I told you they were a couple,” one of them murmurs over a giggle. “Look at how they’re standing. Yep, they’re fucking. God, that’s so hot – could they save a little hotness for the rest of us?”
“But they don’t seem gay,” the other says. “Look at how muscular they are. And they’re not faggy at all. They’re, like, masculine. They seem normal.”
The sign changes, telling us to cross. But before I can process what happens next, Eliot turns around.
“I might not be what you think a gay guy should be like,” he says with a smile on his face, but his voice is sharp. “But just so you know, I’m gay because I really like dick, so that’s what makes me gay. Toodles!”
My face turns bright red, but I’m so proud. He’s so passionate, he’s so evolved – ugh, I could just kiss him right now.
But the fireworks don’t stop there. We head into the dark, sticky-smelling bar. And from the first moment, the bartender is all over me. I don’t know why, and I’m embarrassed, but he makes a big fuss over me, making a fuss over the stools we choose, telling me every single bar special while batting his lashes at me, and leaning just a little too close for comfort. When we finally order, Eliot nudges me.
“What?”
“What do you mean, what?” he laughs. “Looks like you’ve found your next conquest.”
“No,” I say, “I’m already with my next conquest.”
“I didn’t say I minded,” he tells me. “Actually, it’s kind of hot. I like knowing that my man is a little desired.”
My body is jolted – he’s never called me “his man” before.
The bartender returns, then looks over at Eliot, as if noticing him for the first time.
“Oh, hi,” he says, his face falling. “So how do you two know each other?”
My heart stops. I look over at Eliot, who stares back.
“Um,” I say. “It’s complicated.”
“So you’re together?”
I take a hard gulp. “I mean, you could say that,” I smile, and the bartender rolls his eyes and moves down the bar. When I look back at Eliot, his cheeks are flushed and his mouth is open in that way that happens when he’s horny.
“What?” I ask, and he looks away.
“Drink your drink. We’re about to have round two in the bathroom.”
“We are? Why?”
“Because you just said we were together, and it was really fucking hot.”
So I guess we really are together now, which fully makes me throw caution into the Boone winds. From there, the buzz only grows. I don’t care about the consequences so much. I don’t care about the danger. David is gone. I guess that’s one domino down in the path to us being together. And for now, I am okay with that. Because I want him. I crave him. I need him.
We’re back in the gay bar bathroom for the second time, but so much has already changed. Eliot pushes me up against a wall. He unzips me and take me soft, and unexpectedly it’s the hottest thing I can remember in ages – the sensation of going hard inside him just makes it all that much better. Soon I’m harder than a Carolina cliff inside him, and he really knows what he’s doing – he makes it wet, he uses his hand, he’s just intense enough without using his teeth and hurting me. If I got this same blowjob every day for the rest of my life, that’s it – that’s all I would need.
I whine and start to get close to coming, but he looks up and tells me not to. Damn, he’s never been this dominant with me, and he’s really good at it.
“You’re so forceful today.”
“I’m sick of you being in charge,” he says. “You can’t run the show all the time. Today, I’m headmaster.”
That sends me over the edge. I spurt down his throat, and he starts to swallow – then stops.
“I want you to taste yourself,” he says with a mouthful, as he rises and kisses me.
“Fuck,” I breathe. “I thought I was in charge here?”
He bats his eyes. “Who ever said that?”
“Good point.”
On the way to Woodhouse Lawn, I start to get a little panicky again. And not only because of the gardener. We only have two days before I am supposed to go back to Atlanta, and Eliot to Raleigh. Two days, and yet I am starting to feel him down to my bones…
But can I really lock this down before we leave? Or will Mary Kate stand in my way? And the biggest question of all…does Mary Kate deserve to be in my way?