occasional grunt and labored breathing so I could tell that he was also getting slung in the sling. Outside, the clouds rebelled and suddenly I was being slung by a fierce downpour. Darting in between pedestrians and partygoers, I tried to run alongside buildings to escape the raindrops but when another call came, I was already so drenched I couldn’t see clearly and inadvertently hit CONFERENCE instead of HOLD and wound up in a three-way conversation with Lindsay and my mother.
“Stevie!” my mother shouted.
“Stevie!” my friend shouted.
“Can you hear me now?” my mother shouted louder.
“Can you hear me now?” my friend shouted even louder.
“Ma!” I shouted. “Hold on, I have Lindsay on the line and I need to disconnect.”
“Lindsay!” my mother shouted again.
“Hello, Mrs. Ferrante!” Lindsay shouted back.
“Um, Lindsay, now’s not the time,” I whispered.
“How’ve you been, honey?” my mother rattled on. “Have you heard from Nancy Kerrigan lately? Is she still complaining?”
“Yes, and it’s still ‘Why me? Why me?’ I’ll give you ‘Why’—ahhh!”
“Lindsay!” I shouted, desperately trying to disconnect the call but unable to see the touchpad.
“I’m sorry, Lindsay, I forget how badly the skating world treated you. You’re always asking, ‘Why pewter? How could I lose?’”
“Who’s your daddy?” said the man fucking Lindsay.
I felt my ulcer exploding deep within my abdomen as I frantically started hitting buttons on my phone.
“Ma! Hang up and I’ll call you back.”
“I said, ‘Who’s your daddy?’” the man fucking Lindsay repeated.
“Steven,” my mother started, “I did not know Lindsay was adopted.”
“Ma! Would you please, for once, do as I say and hang up?”
“Tell him I’m very good with genealogy. I found out your father was the fourth cousin of Sophia Loren’s brother-in-law.”
“Oh God! Yes!” Lindsay cried.
“That’s right, honey!” my mother cried in reply. “Mama can help you too!”
Finally, the Lord helped me and I was able to shut off my phone so my mother could let Lindsay get fucked in peace. If only she would extend me the same courtesy, my life would be a little less complicated. Or would it?
Before I went to bed I made one final phone call. Once again I got Frank’s answering machine. I listened to his deep voice one more time, then turned off my cell phone, not bothering to worry whether or not Frank was on the other end screening his calls or getting a late-night cup at Starbucks or lurking in the shadows at Lindsay’s sex party. Wherever he was, he wasn’t in my life because he chose not to be there. Flynn was right; I was already surrounded by love. Once I realized that, it was easy to look at my life like an audience member watching a nonsensical Bollywood movie. I didn’t analyze it, I didn’t judge it, I simply accepted it for what it was.
Chapter Five
Thank God It’s Friday. Catchphrase, Academy Award–winning motion picture, truth. Even though I’m not like most nine-to-fivers and I truly love my job, I still get that lightheaded feeling whenever I wake up on a Friday morning. It’s the feeling of possibility.
This Friday turned out to be one of those exceptional Fridays that come along once every six months or so. One of the actresses who recently graduated from her anorexia outpatient program brought in a dozen boxes of Krispy Kremes for breakfast, our ratings shot up another three-tenths of a point, and each scene was shot in one quick take, including the cliffhanger when Stroke Roger uttered his first word to Ramona. Purloin. Because Roger had always joked that Ramona stole his heart.
I got out early enough to fit in a quick workout before heading home to find my answering machine blinking madly and I knew one of those blinks had to be an invitation to party like it was a Friday in 1999. Sure enough the first message was from Gus imploring his mates to gather tonight at Marys and meet his latest fling. This would actually be the latest in a string of flings that had started almost a year ago when Gus determined to sow each and every one of his wild oats before turning forty. By the lustful sound of Gus’s voice on my machine this latest boy toy might prove to be the wildest oat of all.
The three other messages were from Flynn, Lindsay, and Sebastian, all telling me that we should meet at Marys at ten o’clock, with Sebastian adding that he had secured Splash for Gus’s birthday bash and that his Thursday night fuck buddy needed to switch to Wednesdays so if I knew of anyone looking for a regular Thursday hookup I should feel free to give them Sebastian’s number. I didn’t think our human resources department intended for our community bulletin board to be used as a networking opportunity for sex addicts so I shelved the idea of posting a notice at work. Sebastian might have to watch TV on Thursday nights like the rest of us.
I made a quick dinner out of leftover Chinese takeout while watching white-hot Anderson Cooper on cable and soon I was eating bok choy with a boner. It was time for porn.
From my favorite cable bottom-liner to my all-time favorite porn top, I watched Aiden Shaw plow the ass of Tag Adams, in some triple X-travaganza entitled Perfect Fit. Tag was the perfect poster boy for the conflicted gay bottom. His grunts of absolute delight were in total opposition to his facial expressions, which made it seem like he didn’t know if he could take another inch of Aiden’s huge uncut dick. All I knew was that my cock fit perfectly in my right hand and I was able to stroke myself to climax while my man Aiden pulled out and shot an incredibly powerful load (and I choose to believe it was an angry one, in response to Tag’s mixed messages) all over Tag’s stomach.
The beauty of imaginary porn playmates is that they are often the most satisfying. My pretend partner, who in most cases is Aiden, is always a consistent performer so I never have to feign interest. The extra beauty of these early evening imaginary play-dates is that I get sex out of the way so I can concentrate on initiating conversation and not inevitable copulation while cruising the bars. Masturbation, for me, is a survival technique.
Dressed in a vintage purple and gold Duran Duran T-shirt, low-rise jeans, and color-coordinated Pumas, I waltzed into Marys a few minutes after ten grinning like Simon Le Bon on a VH1-sponsored comeback tour and immediately saw Gus towering above some blond, barely-out-of-his-teens waif wearing a vintage Human League T-shirt. How dare he?
Gus introduced the waif as Brady, a bloke he’d met yesterday online in a chatroom for gay anglophiles. Before I could ask for proof that straight anglophiles exist, Brady launched into an animated monologue about the first time he laid eyes on Gus. He rhapsodized and gesticulated in a manner that would shame any anglophile, gay or straight, and told me how he and Gus were just supposed to have hot sex but wound up having hot sex plus stimulating conversation, breakfast, a quick lunch at Gus’s office (and by lunch Brady informed me that he meant blow job), dinner, more sex, and now a night at Marys.
“Are anglophiles allowed to be so spontaneous?” I queried.
“I’m really not an anglophile,” Brady confessed. “The accent just gives me a boner!”
Gus smiled hard and slapped Brady’s ass harder, which prompted me to get the beginnings of my own boner. Then Brady went on to confess that his parents had named him after their favorite sitcom family, which prompted me to lose my boner completely since The Brady Bunch was also my all-time favorite sitcom and I suddenly felt very, very old. I spied Gus’s index finger introducing itself to Brady’s ass-cleft and realized I was the only one bothered by the fact that nearly two decades of reruns separated us from this Brady boy. I firmly believe that chicken-love has its time and place, but I just couldn’t imagine how Gus could enjoy a blow job from a man named Brady without it conjuring up images