Shattered Glass (3 page)

face in the pictures. With a thumbs up next to my penis.

Having spent the previous years at an overseas coed Catholic preparatory school, I had no idea how to cope with students who were not rich and privileged. I went from being one of sixty students to one of fifteen hundred plus. On my first day of class, I wore my former school uniform: tie, blazer, tan pants, button-down shirt. I don’t remember much except dark lockers and so many wedgies that even at age twenty-six I couldn’t see a thong without cringing.

By the end of the day, a sophomore named David Buchanan had rescued me and taken me under his wing. We had been getting in trouble ever since.

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.

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.

And finally, being gay would seriously piss off my dad.

Something I enjoyed immensely. The fact that I was debating if I could possibly be gay, and not driving over there to watch him keel over in shock as I announced it—another tick for ‘not gay’.

That settled that, then.

“I’m not gay,” I told my ceiling.

Taking a deep breath, I crawled out of bed and grabbed a pair of track pants. After getting dressed, I tried to avoid all internal discussions and zoned out watching ESPN while running on the treadmill. That plan was shot to shit the moment I turned on the TV.

There was no way gay men watched as much ESPN as I did —another check to the 'not gay' column. My confidence was returning; that made five ticks in column ‘not gay’, zero ticks for column ‘gay’. I felt immeasurably better. Until I entered the shower.

Why were men, who weren’t me, figuring in my fantasies at all? That was the first question that popped up in my head. My subconscious, not-so-covertly, slipped into my head,
You’ve cheated on every woman you’ve been with
.

Yes, but with other women, I answered it.

Because you didn’t want to get married, it said.

The relationships weren’t working.

Shut up.

I didn’t even need my subconscious to argue why the relationships weren’t working: Sex.

It had never been exactly perfect. I never felt that burning sensation in my stomach when I was around women or when I met someone new. But I was twenty-six. Kids got that feeling, not adults.

Mitzi. That was the last time I had felt that sensation. She was a girl.
That was your first kiss, though, and twenty-some other kids were watching
.

Stop thinking about this!
Easy to say, impossible to do.

That wasn’t the last time, now that I was thinking about what-I-wasn’t-supposed-to-be-thinking-about. I paused in the middle of soaping up my chest.

I t
wasn’t
Mitzi. It was Jesse Chambroy, and I had been fourteen. I exhaled sharply and collapsed against the tile wall.

After standing under the spray, in shock, for a good ten minutes, I climbed out of the shower, carefully, and braced my hands against the counter top, dripping onto my bathmat. I stared up into the mirror. My stunned brown eyes staring back at me.

Jesse Chambroy, the captain of the varsity football team.

Muscled jock who’d had a smile like Tom Cruise. How could I have forgotten that? How could I have forgotten
him
?

“I’m not gay.” That wasn’t what I
meant
to say. At least not so bluntly. It had just become a mantra as I drove across town.

Repeated over and over so many times that, by the time I stood in the diner, confronted once again by this visceral attraction to a perfect stranger, the words tumbled out.

“Congratulations. Would you like a medal?” Bunny Slippers asked.

“I already have a medal. For bravery, not for being gay. I think you made me gay.”

“I
made
you gay?” He set down the napkin he was holding. “Is that better or worse than the person who made you stupid?”"

“Worse,” I answered automatically. Then I computed what he said. Ouch. “I have a degree.”

“What are pointless and obtuse bits of information, Alex?” “Austin,” I corrected.

“Right now, you’re Alex.”

“What?” This conversation wasn’t going at all like I planned.

“This is Jeopardy, right? You give all the answers, I tell you the questions?”

“You’re confusing,” I answered. Confusing and beautiful.

Jesus. So beautiful. His eyes were bright and angry, framed by thick copper lashes. Another white t-shirt wrapped itself tightly against his chest and stomach showing off his lean body. I might have drooled.

Bunny Slippers watched my appraisal for at least a full minute before clasping his hands and resting them on the table.

“You stand in the doorway, clothes sticking to you like you just got out of the shower and didn’t dry off.” I hadn’t dried off actually. “Your hair is wet like it’s been raining, but it’s near ninety outside. You glare at me for a good ten minutes before you come over. Sit across from me in
my
booth, without an invitation. Don’t introduce yourself. Don’t say hello. You announce you’re not gay, but that I made you gay, and
I
am confusing
you
?”

Well, when he said it like that. “I’m not gay. You just made m e
think
I was gay,” I clarified. I was frustrated and needed answers. Somehow I figured he had them. Logic: not one of my finer points today. Considering the last twenty-four hours of intense internal debate, I thought it understandable that I was being confusing, and feeling confused. I just wanted to stop thinking about him. Then I could go back to being not gay.

He let out an annoyed breath, blinked and grabbed another set of silverware from the tub to his left. “Go away, little boy,” he said as he rolled the utensils up into a paper napkin.

Teenager calling me little boy. Ouch again. I pulled a napkin from the stack and fiddled with it. “I might need to kiss you.” He grabbed the napkin from my hand. “Because you assume I’m gay.” Once again, this conversation was not going where I thought it should, or where I needed it to go. I had just assumed he was gay. Or, well, I hadn’t actually thought about his side of things at all. I just wanted these new feelings and thoughts to coalesce into something that made sense.

“I don’t think anything is wrong with being gay. I even have friends who are gay.” Now I did, anyway. Yesterday I had
a friend who was gay, until I talked to Dave.

“Why are you here then? You expecting me to fix it?

Something you don't even think is wrong in the first place?” “Not fix it.”
Yes, fix it
. “Just, people don’t discover they’re gay at twenty-six.”

“People have found out at fifty they were gay,” he pointed out, concentrating on his work. I wanted to take that tub of silverware and toss it through the plate-glass window, so he could give this crisis the attention it deserved.

“Yeah, but those are repress—” Oh. I rubbed the bridge of my nose and then gave him what I thought was my most sincere smile. “I have no reason to repress it. I really, really don’t think there’s anything wrong with being gay. In fact, if I were gay, I’d probably take out an ad. It would piss my dad off. I live to do that. There’s even a motto to that effect tattooed on my ass.” Wanna see?

“Listen, Alex—”

“Austin.”

“Austin, Alex,
Idiot
. Whatever. I don’t care. Not about your name, not about your gayness or not gayness, not about your parents or your friends. I don’t care about you perio—.” I leaned across the table and parked my lips a hair’s breadth from his.

Bunny Slippers took a shuddering breath mid-sentence as his eyes blinked to my mouth, and then his lips parted. I wanted to take advantage of that, but the fucking table was busy cockblocking me.

By the time I maneuvered close enough for our mouths to meet, he was glaring at me and pulling away.

Then he flicked my nose hard enough to make my eyes water.

“Ow! Shit.” I sat back down, rubbing the stinging skin and watched him slide out of the booth. He disappeared behind the kitchen doors without so much as a ‘fuck off.’ Not that I would have done anything even if he had stuck around. The fact that I had tried to kiss him at all had stunned me into a motionless blob. I had wanted that kiss. I had wanted to kiss a guy. Badly.

Then another thought leapt into my head before I had the opportunity to weasel my way back into denial.

Why had I gone directly to gay? Not bisexual. Not a passing