Damn that Freddy. Maybe he had shed some light. I just didn’t want to see what it revealed.
“Well…” I began when the DVD was done. We were sitting on the couch in front of my too-big-for-the-room fifty-five-inch TV, and I turned to see his face. “What did you think?”
“It was great. Like one of those jokes you’d hear from old comedians,” Freddy said. “A dominatrix, a gay porn star, and a purple dinosaur walk into a bar. Only the bar is really a TV talk show, and the bartender is a Long Island hausfrau who somehow wound up as its host.” He stopped.
“That’s a decent set-up,” I conceded. “But it needs a punch line.”
“Yeah, but the only one I can think of involves the reveal that the hausfrau’s son turns out to have done more kinky shit than the three guests put together, and I’m afraid if I say it, you’re gonna slap me on the head.”
I slapped him on the head anyway.
“So very big ‘ow,’ ” Freddy whined, rubbing his close-cut hair. “I hate it when I’m right.”
“Lucky for you it hardly ever happens,” I said.
“You know, you’re not too old for a spanking,” Freddy said. Faster than I could react, he reached out and threw an arm around my neck. “Come here, you little…”
“Would you cut it out?” I said, laughing.
“What, you think Mistress Vesper is the only gal in town who knows how to treat a bad boy?” He pulled more strongly and I pushed my hands against his chest. Pecs like granite pushed back. I might have felt his nipples swell under my touch, but everything about Freddy was so hard I really couldn’t tell.
Entwined as we were, it would have been tough for someone watching to tell if we were embracing or wrestling. We were both breathing hard. From exertion, I told myself. Between that and the grunting we were making a lot of noise.
Which is why we didn’t hear the door open.
“Ahem,” Tony said, his voice coming with no warning from the doorway. “Am I interrupting something?”
He didn’t sound friendly.
5
“Yeah,” Freddy said, still holding me. “Unless you want to join in.”
“Love to,” Tony said, walking toward us. “What’s it going to be? Noogies? Pink bellies?”
“That’s too good for the likes of him,” Freddy answered. “I was going for a full spanking.”
“I’ll hold his legs,” Tony offered.
For the longest time, I’d worried about letting Freddy and Tony spend time together. My feelings for each of them were too complicated to risk their being in the same room. It was like the threat of matter and antimatter combining.
Once things settled with Tony, though, it became inevitable I’d have to find a way to get them at least comfortable with each other. They were both too important to me to give up one. To my surprise, they got along pretty well. Turns out they actually enjoyed having someone to complain to about me. I didn’t mind being the butt of their jokes if it kept peace in the family.
Speaking of butts, mine was saved when Tony’s son, Rafi, raced in between his dad’s legs. “No ’panking Kebbin!” he ordered. He threw himself on my back, wrapping his arms protectively around my neck.
The message was clear-you’ll have to go through me to get to him.
I reached around to give him a reverse hug. “My hero,” I said. “How’s it going?”
Rafi craned his little head to whisper in my ear. “Were they weally going to ’pank you? ’Cause my daddy says ’panking is wrong.”
“Naw, little buddy. They were just funning.”
“Good,” Rafi said. “I missed you, Kebbin.”
“I missed you, too, little buddy.” I squeezed tighter. So did he. Which would have been very sweet if his arms weren’t crushing my windpipe.
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: Love hurts.
Tony saw my face turning red and stepped in to save me. “Hey, Rafman, I’m getting jealous.” He sat on a chair across from us and patted his thighs. “Get over here, you.”
Rafi abandoned me for the sweeter shores of his daddy’s lap, his favorite seat in the house. Mine, too, the little punk.
Freddy took that as an opportunity to make his exit. “Well, I’ll leave you to tonight’s reenactment of Two and a Half Men. Talk later?” he asked me.
“I’ll call you tomorrow.”
“And you,” Freddy said, sinking to his knees to meet Rafi eye-to-eye, “didn’t even say hello to me tonight.”
“That’s ’cause I thought you were gonna ’pank my friend Kebbin,” he said, still a little wary.
“Well, do I at least get a good night?” Freddy asked.
Rafi rolled his eyes in a way that looked hysterical on a five-year-old. “Goo’ night, Fweddy,” he said condescendingly.
Freddy laughed and kissed him on the forehead. “Good night, slugger.”
Tony held his hand out for a fist bump. “ ’Night, Fred.”
Unlike most of my gay friends, Tony didn’t hug or kiss other guys for hellos or good-byes. But also unlike them, Tony didn’t consider himself gay. He’d been married before we got back together (after a brief fling in high school). The only good thing to come from that union was Rafi (his “real” name, as Tony’s Italian heritage might have suggested, was “Raphael,” although no one called him that unless they were very cross with him). Tony always maintained the only male he ever had sexual feelings for was me. Much, much more importantly, he also told me I was the only person, of any gender, he’d ever truly loved.
Somehow, we both counted on that being enough to see us through his ongoing process of accepting life as half of a same-sex couple. Because, despite the fact that he’d finally admitted to me that he had a son, and even letting me into the boy’s life, part of him still held back.
Which is why, as far as Rafi was concerned, his dad was just my friend. Even worse, Tony had Rafi thinking this was his apartment and I was the roommate. Which meant, on the nights Tony had visitation, I slept on the couch while Tony shared my bedroom with his son.
The activist in me thought this was an unforgivable betrayal of everything in which I believed. An ugly cover- up born of homophobia and self-hatred to which I should never have agreed.
But that political part of me was eclipsed by the simple truth that I’d been in love with Tony Rinaldi since I was fifteen years old, and he was the lanky pony boy two years my senior who lived down the block. He was the sexiest goddamn thing on two legs back then, and he’s only gotten better with age. I’d walk on hot coals for Tony, take a bullet, crawl across broken glass, insert whatever cliche you want, I’d do it for this complicated man who held my heart.
I’d even participate in this terrible, soul-crushing, and painful farce in which Tony, the most honorable man I knew, lies to his own son about his love for me.
I knew it hurt Tony, too. It wasn’t in his nature to act like this. To mislead his own flesh and blood. I also knew he felt guilty asking me to aid in that deception.
“God, Kevin,” he’d said. “He’s only five years old. He’s my son. How can I tell him about this? About us? His mom and I just separated a few months ago. Just give me-give him-some time. Can you do that for me?”
“Of course,” I’d told him. “We’ll know when the time is right.”
The problem was, that time seemed right to me from the start, but Tony didn’t seem to find it particularly imminent. Tony had been brought up as hetero as they come. His family, co-workers, and friends were old-school Catholics. For years, he regarded the few months in high school in which we’d fooled around as a bizarre detour from his otherwise straight path.
As far as I knew, he hadn’t told anyone about us. It was a Herculean effort for him to admit his feelings even
