Men Who Love Men (17 page)

She shakes her head. “You know my brother. He’d go ballistic. He’d be down at that school, screaming for the coach to be fired.”

“Maybe he should be.”

“Maybe.” Ann Marie doesn’t seem to want to finish her drink. She sets it on a table nearby. “But I think to cause a scene at this point would make the situation even worse for J. R. It would draw attention to it. Right now J. R. just wants some time to himself.”

I think about how pervasive homophobia really is, how long its reach. Even cool little straight boys can get hit with it sometimes.

“You know,” Ann Marie says, her earlier light-hearted mood now completely gone, “I should really get going. I’m taking J. R. for lobster at Clem and Ursie’s tonight. It was the only offer that seemed to entice him out of his room.”

“I’ll go with you,” I tell her.

She manages a smile. “Oh, no, you don’t. You have that blond number to attend to.”

I make a face. “Do you know how
tired
of the whole scene I am right now? I couldn’t
bear
meeting someone new.”

“Henry, stop lying to yourself. What if he’s Mr. Right?”

“I thought you said he doesn’t exist.”

“He doesn’t. But deep down I want you to prove me wrong.” She gives me a kiss on the cheek. “And if not him, maybe you can find Shane. You know, of all your boyfriends, I liked Shane the best.”

I smile. “I think maybe I did, too.”

I watch her go. At least Ann Marie has J. R. to go home to. I don’t even have a dog. In that instant I miss Clara more than I’ve ever missed her before.

I take a deep breath and turn to face the blond guy in the gray T-shirt.

Sure enough, he’s looking.

What if he’s Mr. Right?

I decide to approach. He’s with two friends, who seem oblivious to our cruising each other.

“Hey,” I say to Blond Guy.

“Hey,” he says in reply.

I grip Blond Guy’s hand firmly.

“Couldn’t help but notice you over there,” Blond Guy says. “Your friend leave?”

“Yes. She has a son. Dinner time.”

“Cool.” He seems both surprised and delighted that I actually came over. His smile is pushing his cheeks up into his eyes. “My name’s Evan.”

“I’m Henry,” I tell him.

“Good to meet you, Henry.”

We’re still shaking hands, and now I’m smiling just as broadly as he is.

“Oh,” Evan says, finally breaking eye contact with me, “this is Curt.” He indicates the dark-haired, taller guy standing beside him. I let go of Evan’s hand to shake with Curt. “And this is…”

Evan gestures toward the third guy, a young twink with reddish spiky hair whose name he seems to have forgotten. I quickly grasp that the twink is another new acquaintance.

“Andy,” the twink reminds him.

“Andy,” Evan echoes. I shake with Andy, who smiles but quickly returns his gaze to Curt.

So that’s what this is. Evan was feeling shut out by the fact that his friend had found a potential trick, but he hadn’t, so he aggressively sought one for himself. I can’t help but wonder: is he really attracted to me—or did he just settle on anyone in close proximity?

No matter. He seems genuinely pleased now that I’ve approached, and I must admit Evan is even more handsome up close than he was from a few feet away. Rare that such a thing happens. Usually it’s the other way around.

We exchange the usual small talk. Where he’s from (New York), what he does (manages an art gallery in SoHo). In fact, the more we talk, the more we seem to have in common: we’re both Jewish, brought up without strong connections to our roots; we’re both into grunge music, both owning original EPs of Soundgarden’s
Screaming Life
; we’re both former insurance company drones who made last-minute escapes before corporate dementia overtook us; and we’re both originally from western Massachusetts. Evan grew up just fifteen minutes north of me on Interstate 91 in the town of Holyoke. “No way!” we both say in unison, and we laugh. We’re also nearly the exact same age, just off by a couple of weeks. I feel as if I’ve found a long-lost twin.

“You have a great body,” Evan says, looking me up and down and clapping me on both shoulders.

I’m all set to protest, to point out my love handles, but I resist the urge. Instead, I simply clap Evan’s shoulders in a similar way and return the compliment. “Are you a trainer at the gym?” I ask.

“Me? A trainer?” He laughs. “Oh, you mean the T-shirt. No, I just bought it on my last visit. Thanks for thinking so, though.” He shakes his head, patting his belly. “Actually, I need to get back to the gym. It’s been a while. I’ve gotten out of shape.”

“Out of shape?” I make a face in disbelief. “We should all be so lucky if that’s out of shape.”

“Dude,” he tells me, “
you’re
the lucky one.”

It’s in that moment that I realize how distorted we all are about our bodies. Here’s this guy with great shoulders and biceps, thinking he’s “out of shape.” And for all my fretting about the tire tube around my waist, I am sure for some guys I represent a physical goal they’ve given up all hope of ever achieving.

Immediately I like Evan even more. He’s not like Gale, with his perfectly sculpted body, every ounce of fat worked off by those goddamned twists around the pole. He’s not like Luke either, cocky with youth. Instead, he’s like me, just making his way the best he can.

“So,” Evan says, “you want to come back for a drink and a dip in the hot tub?”

I smile. “What guesthouse are you guys staying at?”

“Oh, Curt and I share a place here,” Evan says, glancing over at his friend, whose conversation with the other guy—Andy—now appears very intense. “It’s not far from here.”

“Sure,” I say. “Why not?”

Evan smiles at my agreement, then leans forward to whisper something into Curt’s ear. Curt nods, putting his arm around Andy’s shoulders and guiding him toward the exit. Evan does the same to me.

All the way down Commercial Street, Evan and I stay about four feet behind Curt and Andy. Evan’s arm remains firmly around my shoulder. I snake mine around his waist.

“God, I love this place,” Evan is saying, inhaling deeply the tangy salt air. “When I get here, I just
breathe
. It feels like I never take a breath in New York. Here I breathe in the air and breathe out all my stress.” He whistles in appreciation. “The smell of the sea in the air gets me high.”

“That’s why I moved here,” I tell him. “Why I left behind my corporate job and made a new life for myself.”

“And you’re one hundred percent happier, I bet.”

I smile, but I don’t answer. Of course I’m happier than when I was schlepping through that soulless job. But given my recent angst, I can’t wholeheartedly commit to being
happy
. I’m not so different from J. R., feeling cut off from the world at times. J. R. can’t find a good movie in the off-season, or a store that sells the latest Xbox. I can’t find a boyfriend.

But Evan’s arm around my shoulder feels good. It may be Labor Day and winter may be looming right around the corner, but right now I feel good. I look over at Evan and he kisses me. He might be rolling—the kiss seems possibly fueled by ecstasy—but it might also simply be a rush of heartfelt emotion, suggesting Evan likes me as much as I’m starting to like him. Could it be possible? Dare I let myself imagine?

For once, this guy is definitely my type. Finally—a mature, well-muscled, handsome man. I like how solid Evan feels. I move my hand up from his waist to feel his back. Hard, sinewy muscles. I begin to get an erection.

“Do you know what I love best about Provincetown?” Evan is asking, as we round the bend that Commercial Street makes at Perry’s Liquors. “I love the
love
. Do you know what I mean?”

“I think so, but say more.”

“I don’t want to sound syrupy,” he says. “But I mean it. From the moment I get here from New York, I feel like I
belong
here. That this is my real home. That I never want to leave again.”

I smile again. This is one sweet man. Not many guys would allow themselves to come across as so emotional, so soft, this quickly. Evan’s the kind of part-time resident I always think about when some year-rounder stands up at Town Meeting and laments the houses bought by out-of-towners that sit dark all winter. Sure, I understand the need for more housing for those who make Provincetown their full-time home, but to castigate the seasonal people as leeches or selfish rich boys just isn’t fair. Most of them, I suspect, are like Evan, who deeply love this place, who cherish every moment they can spend here, and wish they could spend more.

Evan shares my love of this place. That much is clear. He sees beyond the standard images of Provincetown that are shared by most gay men—the gaudy parade of street theater under a blazing hot sky, Cher on a motor scooter, shirtless gay men holding hands, dykes on bikes roaring through town. He’s found the other face of Provincetown, the way I have and, for him, this is
home
, not merely a vacation destination. The hardy band of tough-skinned, warm-hearted folk who populate this village year round can no more claim ownership of Provincetown than the person who has just stepped off the ferry for the first time. No one can claim Provincetown as more theirs than anyone else’s. It belongs to all. That’s the beauty of the place, the enchantment.

Last summer, one of our guests, a young gay man who had never before set foot in Provincetown, was particularly sad as he checked out. “I feel as if I’ve been waiting to come here all my life,” he said to me.

He knew nothing about local politics—about the history of conflict over the late-night gatherings at Spiritus, for example—only that those assemblages of hundreds of gay men and women was an incredibly affirming experience for him. He didn’t know that some in town didn’t really want him here, that instead they wanted to redirect the town’s tourism to focus on straight families. All this young man knew was that he couldn’t wait to return here again next year to walk among people like himself.

So many things he didn’t know about Provincetown. He’d probably never heard that a pirate ship had been found in the harbor, or that a rare species of tree frog populated its woods, or that Divine once worked here slinging hash. He may have had some inkling that Provincetown was a famous art colony, but I doubt that he could have told a Hensche from a Hoffmann—as if I could.

Yet, despite all this, the town was
his
. This young man, like so many others, felt the mystical lure of the place where the land meets the sea, where the road ends. Four days were all he spent here, in the middle of the Fourth of July crush, but when he left he shed tears at our front desk. “This is the warmest, happiest place on the planet,” he said to me just before he boarded a Cape Air flight and flew out over Hatches Harbor back to his home in the Midwest. I believe this firmly: Provincetown belongs to him as much as it does to me.

Evan’s making that whistle of appreciation again. “God, smell that air,” he says. “I wish I could bottle it and take it back with me to New York.”

Overhead there’s a slight rumble of thunder.

“The forecast said we might get some rain,” I report.

Evan peers over at me and offers a goofy, boyish grin. “You know what else I love?”

I smile back at him. “There’s more?”

“Fuck, yes.”

I nuzzle his nose with my own. “Tell me.”

“To run barefoot along the beach when it’s raining.”

I think I’m already a little bit in love with Evan as we turn down a daisy-lined path toward his house. It’s a small attachment to a larger residence that may have once been a garage.

Once inside, Curt mixes us martinis while Evan opens the spa out on the deck. I’m not really in the mood for an orgy, but given that Evan has paid no attention to Andy and Curt has paid no attention to me, I suspect the dip in the hot tub will only be foreplay. Afterward, we two couples will each head off separately—though, as I look around the place, I see only one door that might lead to a bedroom.

Still, I disrobe without thinking too much, enjoying the floating sensations courtesy of the alcohol. I’m struck at once by how beautiful Evan is—hard, square pecs, defined abdominals, all covered in soft blond fuzz.

The water in the spa is hot—over one hundred degrees—and I need a few seconds to adjust before I crouch down onto a seat. The water rises to my shoulders. One by one the others get in. Evan makes a beeline to me. We clink our plastic martini glasses and begin to kiss. Out of the corner of my eye I notice Curt and Andy are now liplocked as well.

“You are so sexy, Henry,” Evan whispers in my ear. “Don’t disappear from my life after all this is over. Promise?”

At that moment, the axis of the earth shifts. Everything around me—the water, the other guys, the sky above—disappears. Suddenly I’m sucked feet first into a time tunnel, and I’m zipping along faster than the speed of light, my head rolling back and forth, barely able to catch my breath. When I open my eyes and take a look around, I see Evan sitting in a rocking chair on the front porch of a beautifully restored Victorian house, gazing out over the ocean. And wonder of wonders—I’m sitting next to him. A bottle of champagne rests on a table in front of us. Evan reaches over and takes my hand. We’re celebrating our tenth anniversary. At our feet is our dog, another pug, who we’ve named Clara II.

“Dude?”

I blink. Evan is looking at me over the rim of his martini glass.

“You seemed to zone out there for a moment.”

“Sorry,” I say.

I reach over and kiss him. His tongue fills my mouth.

Just then it starts to rain. I feel a light tickle of drops on my forehead.

“After we make love,” I whisper to Evan, “let’s walk barefoot on the beach in the rain.”

He smiles—but it’s a smile that’s interrupted by Curt, who floats over to ask Evan quietly, “Honey, did you close the skylights? I don’t want the rain getting in.”

I freeze.

“Yeah,” Evan replies. “I closed them before we left for Tea.”

Curt nods and returns to Andy.