Between Boyfriends (35 page)

“And Frank demands payment on a daily basis,” he said, striding up.

I introduced Frank to everyone—much to my relief and Lindsay’s disbelief Frank didn’t remember him from our Starbucks encounter—and before I knew it Frank and I had joined the boys at their table to continue our date.

“I’ve had group sex before,” Frank said, “but never a group date.”

“Despite his inability to remember me, I approve of him,” Lindsay said.

Flynn agreed. “Me too.”

“Me three,” Gus added.

“Well, I’m glad I get the friends’ seal of approval,” Frank said.

“Me too,” I said. “Because you might as well know that if you’re dating me, you’re kind of dating them too.”

That had been a month ago and now instead of planning a celebratory dinner, Frank and I weren’t going to do anything special; in fact, we weren’t even going to be able to see each other, as Frank was on a plane flying back from Boston, where he’d attended a dental trade show. He had promised to bring back samples for my brother, who kept telling me every chance he got not to fuck this one up as he could use the connections for his dental practice. Brotherly love was a beautiful thing.

But even though we had no intention of turning our one-month marker into a party, Flynn had other ideas.

“I don’t care if you don’t want a party, I do.”

“But Flynn, I don’t want to make a big deal out of it. I’m trying to approach this relationship with a bit more maturity.”

“Mama no like Mature Steven, Steven! Saturday night I’m throwing a party for you and Frank. You can tell Frank it’s actually a party for me and Lucas since we’re officially co-homotating and I’ve signed Lucas up for domestic partner insurance at work. Your BF doesn’t have to know a thing.”

Fortunately, I knew Flynn too well. “Fine, but promise me you won’t make a
Happy One-Month Anniversary
banner.”

Flynn pouted. “I had to go to Chinatown to find the perfect glitter glue!”

“And there will be no cake shaped like the Starbucks logo.”

Flynn protested, “I would never be that tacky.”

“Or shaped like a cab hitting a pedestrian.”

Flynn proclaimed, “How did you know?”

“Because I know
you
! Promise you’ll take it back.”

“I’ll have them turn the cab into a limo and say it’s Lucas driving incognito and me stopping traffic.”

“What about the strawberry icing representing Frank’s blood on the pavement?”

“Damn you, Steven! I’ll have them turn Frank’s blood into a red carpet.”

“Thank you.”

“You’re like the big-budget blockbuster British import musical of the ’80s that ruined Broadway. Are you happy now that you’ve ruined my party?”

“Nope. I’m actually
very
happy.”

The mood at work, however, was not as festive. We were losing one of our own. Lorna Douglas had decided not to renew her contract since the pilot she’d shot six months before had been picked up as a midseason replacement. After she filmed her final scene today she would hop on a flight to L.A. to start her new acting gig in
Shrink Wrapped,
an ABC dramedy set in a rehab center that could only be described as
The Love Boat
meets the Betty Ford Clinic. The premise was that each week B- and C-list actors would guest star on the show as celebrities, politicians, and athletes who check in to dry out, regroup, or attempt to rejuvenate a sagging career with a fake personal scandal. Lorna played Mitzi McCall, the center’s events planner (a twenty-first century Julie McCoy for the coke and booze set) who would help the patients discover the joys of backgammon and cribbage while on the road to clean livin’. Since her character was a recovering sex addict, she’d no doubt also help them discover the therapeutic powers of the anonymous fuck.

“Steven!” Lorna hissed right before she started filming her celluloid swan song. “I’m counting on you to thank the gay community for helping me unlock the secrets of my new character.”

“I’m sure my fellow gays will be so happy to hear that we’re your role model for sexual compulsive behavior.”

I was obviously a better actor than Flynn, since Lorna didn’t detect a note of my sarcasm. “Thank God you people are practical—if you can’t love the one you want, fuck the one you’re with.”

During the farewell party Lorna raised her glass of champagne and toasted her coworkers and crew. “I hope I make you all proud.”

“You’ve
already
made us proud, Lorna,” Loretta said. “Simply by leaving.”

Lorna’s left eye twitched as she noted the jab. “How ironic that I’m leaving for a fictional drying-out clinic and when you leave it’s for a real one.”

It was time for Loretta’s left eye to twitch. “It’s at times like these that I wish I was still a raging alcoholic so I could throw up.”

“Laraby!” Lorna shrieked.

“Y-y-y-y-yes, Miss Douglas.”

“Why don’t you pull out the reel of Loretta’s scenes that failed to get her an Emmy nomination—for the twelfth time! I’m sure watching them will make her hurl.”

“Laraby!” Loretta countershrieked.

“Y-y-y-y-yes, Miss Larson?”

“Why don’t you pull out Lorna’s twelve-inch-thick medical file? She’s going to want to burn the proof once Hollywood hurls her out on her ass when they realize she acts with her tits!”

“Hollywood already knows I tit-act, you washed-up hag! And they know that I have more talent in my right tit than you have in your entire shriveled-up old woman’s body!”

“Women twenty years younger than me would sell their souls to have a body like mine!”

“
Sixty
-year-old women already have sagging knockers and cellulite! What the hell do they want yours for?”

“Miss Loretta does not have cellulite!” Lourdes cried as she raced toward Lorna. “She had all of it sucked out! Ahhhhhh!”

That was the last thing Lourdes said before she crashed into the Kraft service tray and then crashed to the floor, doing the horizontal electric boogaloo. And then Langley, the kindly stage-hand, did what no one else had thought of doing before, and what Lourdes hadn’t thought to do herself; he gave her a tape measure.

“Now maybe she can stay far enough away from Loretta and stop shocking herself,” Lucas said to me.

“Too bad,” I replied. “I think she’s come to like it.”

“Do you think Flynn would be willing to wear one of those ankle bracelets and bring electro-sex into our relationship?”

“Flynn’s very vanilla. He doesn’t like props in the bedroom.”

“You’d be surprised, Flynn’s changing.”

“TMI about my BFF. And incidentally, I’m sorry I couldn’t change their minds and stop them from making your character a philandering and possibly homicidal heterosexual.”

Lucas shrugged. “What was the alternative? A happy and content homosexual?”

“There is no such thing!” Laraby chimed in.

“Au contraire, mon cher,”
Lucas said Frenchly. “May I introduce you to the happy and content Steven Ferrante.”

I guess I
was
happy and content in a really-real, not-trying-too-hard-to-feel-it sort of way. I was even happy and content to be the silent guest of honor at Flynn’s quote-unquote moving-in party. He was true to his word, and nowhere in their apartment could be found a Happy Anniversary party favor, so Frank and I were able to mingle as just another couple and not the couple du jour.

As Frank spread some Brie on a Ritz for me, Gus, who I still thought was the best-looking over-forty gay I knew, but who I no longer thought of X-ratedly, joined us with his date du jour. Something was amiss, however, as this miss was well over the legal age limit.

“Can I guess his name, Gus?” I asked.

“It’s a bit unique.”

I love a challenge. “Gilligan?”

“No.”

“Gomer?”

“Sorry, mate.”

Names of sitcom characters raced through my mind, but I was a bit stymied. “Gidget?”

Gus’s older-than-usual boy toy brought my guessing game to an end. “It’s Gatsby.”

Would wonders never cease? I never thought I’d see the day when Gus upgraded from sitcom trash to classic literature. Maybe this aging gracefully thing was catching on.

“Gatsby works at the hedge fund my company just bought.”

“So this is sort of your own personal merger,” Frank said.

“Spot-on, mate!” Gus replied. “I made a wise investment in my future.” Gus clinked Gatsby’s wineglass with his own, making his new boyfriend’s intense black onyx eyes soften.

“Why Gus,” I gushed, “our little playboy is all grown up.”

Meanwhile, some playboys just kept playing with the boys.

“Full-fledged porn star coming through,” Lindsay announced, waving a DVD high overhead.

Could the former ice-skater have given up lamb’s wool sweaters for lambskin prophylactics? Could my unpredictable friend have gone the predictable gay midlife-crisis route and begun a second career as a porn star? Would I be seeing Lindsay’s dick again? All hopes of seeing Lindsay parlay his ice-skater’s flexibility into a blue-movie actor’s repertoire were dashed when Lindsay stepped aside to reveal Sebastian who, so that there was absolutely no confusion, wore a spandex T-shirt with the message
Me. I’m A Porn Star Now.

“Isn’t this going to destroy your chances of becoming a full-time professor at NYU instead of being just an adjunct?” I asked.

“
Chica,
I had no choice.”

I shook my head. “Sebastian, we all have choices.”

“No papi, not when you fuck with the Cabbage Patch People.”

Being Sicilian, I had heard many of the Mafia’s code names, but Cabbage Patch People was not one of them. I made a mental note to ask my mother, who would be arriving momentarily, if she knew of a connection between the mob and the supertoy of the ’80s. Turned out, however, the legendary dolls were connected to another group of ball-breaking, unscrupulous lawbreakers—the IRS.

“You know how back in the day doctors gave the little Cabbage Patch babies real birth certificates?” Sebastian explained.

A pop culture tidbit had slid past me? “No, I did not know that.”

“
Es verdad.”

“He means it’s true,” Lindsay translated. “And Sebastian has been collecting government-issued disability checks on account of the fact that Nathaniel Thomas Applethistle was disabled in 1985 in a terrible doll factory accident that severed both his legs, and could no longer work.”

Frank gasped. “The Cabbage Patch Scam is not urban legend, it’s
verdad.
”

Another thing I really liked about Frank was that he caught on quick and played along.

“As real as the sixty thousand dollars I owe in back taxes to the fucking IRS,” Sebastian cried.

Lindsay held up Sebastian’s DVD. “Which means Sebastian will be filming IRS, or Incredibly Real Sex as we say in the porn biz, for quite a long time.”

I caught a glimpse of the DVD cover and it was my turn to gasp. “That’s my Aiden!”

Of course it was only fitting that Sebastian the slut would have sex with my porn idol before I did. I looked at Frank and thankfully reflected on the way the real world could actually be better than fantasy if you gave it half a chance. I did experience one twinge of “what if” as I glimpsed the cover photo of Sebastian and Aiden, naked and oily, each with one hand on the bony shoulder of a twinkish Eurasian boy who looked as if he barely passed the mandatory age requirement the porn industry rigorously upheld. The title,
Mind the Jap,
hovered in big letters above their heads.

“Aiden and I play international spies based in London who have to protect an orphaned Japanese boy who is the only witness to his parents’ murder by an underground splinter group bankrolled by an unnamed foreign government.”

And I thought the plots on
ITNC
were convoluted.

“Every time we save his life we fuck him.”

“And that, people, is the true meaning of gratitude,” Lindsay declared.

I mentally pushed the metaphorical parallel and realized I was like that Japanese orphan with the well-lubed hole. I was grateful that Frank was in my life. I was also grateful that my family and my friends could merge and I didn’t have to compartmentalize my life like so many gays were forced to do. The special moments of my life crossed borders even if the participants of my special moments sometimes attempted to cross the line.

“Steven!” my mother shouted. “I’m going to be a grandmother!”

“Is Trixie having puppies?” I asked hopefully.

“No, stupid, I’m pregnant,” said Renée, beaming. She confessed that there hadn’t been any trip to Aruba; she and Paulie had gone to a clinic to fast-forward past their fertility problems. Renée had been having trouble conceiving, so they went to South America for a few days of sun and in vitro and voilà, Renée was pregnant with twins.

“Are you sure it’s only twins?” my mother asked. “You’re not having quintuplets like those women in the Midwest, are you?”

“No, Ma,” Paulie answered. “It’s just two, a boy and a girl.”

“Anj!” Audrey cried. “You’re going to have a grandson and a granddaughter all at the same time. You’re a very lucky woman.”

Even in the throes of her own unexpected joy my mother always placed me first.

“Those two kids are the lucky ones. They’re going to have the best uncle in the whole world!”

I congratulated my brother, hugged Renée and whispered to Trixie that she would still be my favorite no matter how many babies Renée and her fertility drugs popped out. Trixie licked my nose; Paulie, conversely, licked his lips in gratitude when Gwendolyn and Glenda asked Renée if she wanted to guest star in the New York installment of “Gay Girls A-Go-Go.”

“It’s okay if you want to be a lesbian for a few days,” Paulie mentioned casually. “As long as you film it.”

A friend as an adult reality star I could handle; a pregnant relative, not so much.

“Sorry bro, your wife only speaks hetero.”

The party, however, spoke hetero, homo, and every shade of gay in between. My mother had tears in her eyes when she gave Flynn and Lucas her housewarming gift. Flynn didn’t dare tell her that they didn’t need another Mister Coffee and said he couldn’t wait to get up and brew a pot of Colombian roast. Lenny had tears in his eyes when he wished me and Frank luck on our anniversary. I had misjudged the guy, which often happens when you judge people. Yes, he was sort of lecherous and STD-ish, but he was also thoughtful and worldly wise.