Vienna retorted. “What I hate is people who watch talk shows and think they know everything there is to know about psychology. I’m upset because my husband left me.”
“Your husband didn’t leave you. He had an affair.”
“Same thing,” Vienna said. “He left me sexually.”
“The sex is always better on the other side of the fence,” Davii stated. “So this bad mood is all your ex-husband’s fault?”
“Isn’t everything?” Vienna asked.
“I meant—”
“I know what you meant,” Vienna said. “I was just using humor as a shield. I’m in a bad mood because a sales associate at Drayden’s brought up my divorce while I was shopping.”
“How did that come up?” Davii asked. “Did she ask, ‘Would you like to try on that dress? What size are you? An eight, or a divorcée?’”
“I’m a six,” Vienna lied emphatically. She told Davii what happened in the store, then said, “It’s not so much the divorce that’s bothering me. It’s the fact that it’s been two years since it happened and I’m still in the same place I was then.”
Davii looked puzzled as he said, “I thought that all happened in Bloomington.”
“Not literally,” Vienna said with an exasperated sigh. “I mean figuratively. Emotionally. Davii, I haven’t been with another man since Kevin.”
“I live in the same apartment. You don’t have to convince me.”
“Hey! I could be like you and have quickies all over this mall. You don’t know what I do outside our apartment.”
Davii rolled his eyes and smirked, his silence saying more about Vienna’s character than words ever could. They’d lived together for almost two years, and Davii was the only person that Vienna trusted with her secrets. If she had an illicit fling, Davii would be told. He knew that she had problems trusting people, especially men. She knew that he felt sorry for her, though he’d never say that out loud. Davii understood that Vienna was a romantic woman who grew up with notions of princes on horses who would rescue her from her bedroom window in Gary. Now that she lived with Davii on the eighth floor of the Galaxy Building, she wasn’t sure the princes would be able to reach her.
Davii said, “Don’t underestimate the power of a good quickie. It could be just what you need.”
“Do you see me disagreeing?” Vienna asked. “Davii, I bought lingerie today after work. Do you know how depressing it is to try on lingerie, look at yourself in the mirror, then realize you have nobody to wear it for?”
“You could wear it for me,” Davii said.
“Honey, that’s even more depressing,” Vienna said with a good-natured laugh. “I’m better off wearing it for myself.”
“At least then you’re more likely to have an orgasm. I can’t guarantee the same results as your right hand.”
“I’m left-handed.”
“Whatever.”
“I just want a man who respects me,” Vienna said. “A man who won’t give up on me would be nice, too.”
“So you haven’t given up on love?” Davii asked.
“No. But don’t let that get around. Unless you happen to run into Lenny Kravitz.”
“I’ll see what I can do,” Davii promised. He fingered one of Vienna’s curls and said, “I’ll bet Lenny would love a woman with braids.”
“With red extensions woven into them?” Vienna asked hopefully.
“I’ll see what I can do,” Davii repeated. “By the way, how is that friend of yours from work? Darren?”
“Derek?”
“The guy you brought by the salon?”
“That would be Derek,” Vienna confirmed. “He’s all right. I guess. I haven’t had much time to talk to him. He’s been in seminars learning how shoes are made.”
“Sounds fascinating,” Davii said dryly.
“No more fascinating than learning about lipstick and mascara. Anyway, once we’re settled into our new jobs—”
“You’ll quit and get a new one,” Davii interrupted. “You’ve had thirty different jobs in two years. All in this mall, too.”
“I don’t think it’s quite that many. Besides, if I hadn’t quit that job at the Fabric Mart, I wouldn’t have gotten a job as a receptionist in your salon, and I wouldn’t have met you. My job-hopping paid off, so lay off.” Vienna suddenly thought to ask, “Why are you asking about Derek?”
Davii examined his cuticles and said, “I don’t know. You’ve never brought a co-worker to meet me before, so I was curious.”
“Not to mention he’s cute,” Vienna added.
“Yes. There’s that. Is he single?” Davii asked.
“No. It’s not like I was presenting you with a gift.”
“Should I let that stand in my way?”
Vienna paused in thought. Finally she said, “I don’t know enough about his relationship to answer you, but I don’t think he’s looking for a rendezvous in the parking garage.”
“Who says that’s what I’m looking for?” Davii asked.
Vienna eyed him a minute, then said, “All this interest on the basis of one brief meeting?”
“I’m good at reading people,” Davii said. “It goes with my job.”
“Speaking of your job—”
“You only keep me here for your hair,” Davii said. “Let’s get started.”
3
Kept Boy
When Derek’s parents had sat him down the summer before his senior year of high school and asked what he planned to do after graduation, he certainly hadn’t blithely responded, “I want to be a kept boy!” Nor had that been his ambition while he was growing up. He hadn’t been sure what he wanted to do, but he knew he had a college fund. He assured his parents that lots of people started college without a set plan, found out what they were good at, then made their decision.
In due course, he went north to Terre Haute and Indiana State University. It was only a hundred miles from home, but that was far enough to be an inviting new world for him. He loved his parents, but they could be a little smothering. They’d married in their late twenties and tried unsuccessfully for fifteen years to have a child. His mother initially thought he was a symptom of early menopause.
He didn’t mind having parents who were the age of some of his classmates’ grandparents. His father’s tool and dye business provided a comfortable living. If he didn’t get everything he wanted, like a car, at least his parents hadn’t lived beyond their means or inflicted him with the messy divorces and child custody fights he saw all around him.
But George and Terri Anderson were also nobody’s fools. When they saw his lackluster grades at the end of his first college semester, Derek was warned to show improvement or continue his education while living at home. They knew what he was capable of, because he’d made good grades in high school. They were sure, and correctly so, that the only subject Derek had focused on was Party 101.
What they didn’t know was how enthusiastically he’d embraced the chance to be openly gay in a place where he found like-minded and able-bodied men. He wouldn’t have called himself a slut; he didn’t have to, since his friends said it for him.
Derek heeded his parents’ warning and finished