Dave was now married, and his wife was pregnant with their fourth child. He was the first person I went to when the world confused me. Which it often did. “Do you know any gay guys?” I asked when he picked up the phone.
“Why? Are you switching teams?” I heard the low chuckle on the other end.
“I’m not sure. Maybe,” I answered sincerely. He laughed again, because that’s what everyone did when I told the truth. It was a little disconcerting.
“Yeah, I know some gay guys. And you do, too.”
“I know some gay guys?” News to me.
“Jake and Terry.”
“They’re not gay,” I argued.
“Yeah? You better tell them to stop sleeping together, then.”
“We played football with Jake and Terry,” I maintained. “They can’t be gay.” They were also cops, like us. I was sure I didn’t know any gay cops. The stationhouse didn’t have the most gay friendly atmosphere.
The silence on the other end was either him covering the phone to laugh, or him waiting for me not to be stupid. Usually it was the latter.
“This for a case?” There was a hint of amusement in his voice. I pulled the phone away and studied it, unsure of how to answer that question.
“No. I need to know about ass-sex.” Dave choked, ended up in a coughing fit and, from the clunk on the other side, I guessed he must have dropped the phone. I grinned, having already figured that would be his response. When the coughing had subsided, I attempted to change the subject—before he took me seriously. “How’s Marta?”
“Beautiful,” he answered.
“Am I still banned from Sunday night dinners?” Marta was Swedish, tall, and always pregnant. But I should have asked David if she was pregnant that last time I saw her, because Marta was also a very large woman—rotund, my grandfather would have said. And I was very congratulatory.
“Next time, ask me first. She was barely three weeks along. Not showing at all.” This sent us both into nervous laughter. Not only because we were ashamed. If she heard us laughing about it, she’d stop making those awesome Swedish brownies.
“I plan on it. Give my love to the rugrats. And tell her if it’s a boy, she should name him Austin.”
“I’ll skip that recommendation. You’re not at the top of her favorite people list.”
“Tell her I’m sorry.” Again. I sighed.
“Send her a pair of baby sneakers. She goes nuts for baby things.”
“She’ll have them by Friday,” I promised.
“Gotta go,” he replied, and in the background I heard screaming which sounded like their two year old, Petra.
“Go,” I laughed.
After we hung up I considered calling Terry or Jake, but I needed a game plan first. I didn’t really want another set of friends banning me from their houses—or house. I really should have asked Dave if they lived together. Terry’s cell was programmed into my phone. I made a mental note to call. Later. Tomorrow. Next month. Or January.
On another note, now that I thought about it, I seemed to get banned from a lot of friends’ homes.
Tapping my fingers against the computer desk, I considered what to do next. I was avoiding the computer because of the gay porn, avoiding Angelica because I was guilty of wanting to watch gay porn, and avoiding my friends because I had to ask them about gay porn—or being gay, same difference. I could have called my father, but it would be too tempting to piss him off by telling him I might be gay. Which I wasn’t.
I settled on a beer and ESPN.
By the time I crawled into bed, I refused to acknowledge the last few minutes of beating off while watching the Duke/Notre Dame lacrosse match. I rolled over and forced myself to go over my Sunday routine of workouts, sports bars and what to do in the absence of my normal Sunday dinner at Dave’s.
Chapter Two
Denial. How fucking works it?
Sunday morning I opened my eyes and immediately went into denial.
I was not gay. I was engaged. To a woman. I wasn’t gay. And I backed up my denial with some sound reasoning.
First, I masturbated to images of women. I fantasized about women. Sure, there were men in my fantasies, but they were always doing women. Everyone did that. There were never solo men in my fantasies. Or my porn—discounting the previous night’s anomaly. Therefore, I wasn’t gay.
Second, people didn’t suddenly wake up gay. Being gay wasn’t like changing eye colors; you couldn’t just get contacts and “Whammo!”—gayness. Point two for me. Not gay.
Third, I had sex with women. Six women, in fact, since I graduated from high school. I had even been engaged to women before Angelica—who I’d been with for three years now. A man didn’t date a woman in her mid-thirties without realizing commitment was going to be on the table—very prominently, lit up with flashing lights, stacked above everything else, on the table. If I was that eager to get into a committed relationship with a woman—point three in the ‘not gay’ column.