Bad Stereotypes - 15. Monday 1st July 2013

The man who owned The Fish and Antlers was called Mack, and that week he changed the restaurants schedule permanently to give everyone the full day off on Monday, even Issac, who never seemed not to be thinking about either the restaurant or food in some way. Issac told me that Mack was really keen on staff bonding, so that Monday, which was due to be the hottest day of the year so far, he called a picnic and games afternoon and told all the chef’s not to cook anything at all.

Issac and I had seen each other again on Sunday when he’d swung by after work and sat in the bar with a cider until I’d finished with everything, cleaning up the glasses and mopping the bar down as quick as I could. For my trouble I got sweet and soft kisses and a Styrofoam tub containing something called a valentine of chicken and fondant potatoes. It tasted amazing, of course. And Issac invited me along to the staff picnic. I must have looked at him strangely.

“Well, all the other guys bright their wives and girlfriends and stuff. Mack brings his kids. I want to bring you.”

“I’m your…stuff?” I said it carefully, not wanting to jump the gun, not wanting to appear desperately keen. It didn’t work, Issac looked at me like I had slapped him.

“Oh… well, I was just thinking that…” he trailed off, looking sad, “Never mind…”

“No. I want...” I thumped the bar, then shook out my hand, “Can we start that over?”

“Yeah.” Issac turned to me, banging his knees again the bar. Something went clunk, “Come to the staff picnic as my boyfriend?”

“Yes please.”

We talked until late, and I got a really good kiss on the doorstep, running my hands over Issac’s strong frame until he stopped me, before we said goodnight and I waved him home.

Monday morning I woke early, thought about Issac for a bit and ran ten miles before the sun was fully up. Figuring that the day was going to be fairly active, I showered and changed into loose fit cargo shorts and an old but still decent Volcom shirt I’d been bought during my very short lived skateboarding phase. I had told Issac that I would meet him and everyone else at the park, which gave me plenty of time to wander into town and find a barbershop which I liked the look of.

I secretly loved getting my hair cut, not that I would tell anyone that, and always had it washed in order to get the scalp massage of awesomeness that you can only get from somebody else. So I relaxed in the chair with my head in the clouds and my scalp being worked over by a punky looking girl with a double Mohawk and thought about Issac. A boyfriend, my boyfriend. I’d never actually had a boyfriend before, not publically anyway, and it was sort of scary and exciting. Issac was lovely looking, long and lean and clean cut, and he smiled every time he caught me looking at him. And his smile was like a shortcut through my system, and not getting hard around Issac was difficult. For all that, there had been nothing past kissing, and while Issac had seen me shirtless, seemed to like appearing behind me and breathing on my neck to make my knees quake, I hadn’t seen him anything other than fully dressed. Except in my imagination, there he didn’t wear anything at all under his chef whites.

And then there was the calling me kid. That I didn’t like. Issac was eight years older than me, which wasn’t that much, but that ‘kid’ felt like a barrier, a way of keeping me at arm’s length. And why would Issac want to keep me at arm’s length and call me his boyfriend at the same time? I had my hair finished up with buzzed short back and sides and the top and front trimmed until my hair was no longer getting in my face. The punky girl put some textural product in the longer bit and mussed my hair until I looked like I’d just rolled off a Levi’s advert and sent me on my way. Though we’d been told not to show up with anything, I stopped by the off license and bought a six pack of fruit ciders as a gesture of goodwill-not-sponging, before heading to the park.

A big swathe of flat grass was occupied by blankets, rugs, picnic baskets and a stream of people carrying gear to and from a big seven seater people carrier which obviously belonged to Mack. Issac was standing chatting to the big man, and I took the opportunity to look him over without him noticing. It was sweltering, and Issac was the only guy in jeans. But he wore an open necked white short sleeve button down and I drank in the swathe of neck and collarbone which I had only imagined before. It liked what I saw. Drinks in one hand I wandered over to where he stood slow enough for him to notice me coming. Mack jabbed him with an elbow.

“This him?”

“Yeah,” I was close enough to see the sparkle in Issac’s eyes when he looked at me, “That’s Bay.”

“Well done.” Mack waggled his eyebrows, and waved to me before raising his voice, “You stronger than you look buddy? Carry this would ya?”

Boyfriend and pack mule, seemed to be the name of the game as I carried boxes of food and drink to where everyone was setting up. Mack introduced me quicker than I could, as ‘Issac’s friend’ and only Barny looked unhappy to see me as we unpacked all the food.

Issac sat on a folding chair and handed me one of the cider’s I’d bought.

“Are you only enough to drink that Bay?” one of the chef’s teased. I glowered at him.

“Shut up Harry,” Micky threw a bread roll at him, “God you can be such an arse.”

I sat down next to Issac on the grass and toed off my shoes.

“You cut your hair.” I looked up at him, his big smile making my heart jolt, “It’s nice.”

Issac made the introductions. The chefs were Barny, who was bottom of the heap and it charge of nothing much at all; Harry, who did sauces and soups; Hamish, who was the dark skinned laughing man in charge of the grill and all the meats; and Imir, the sous chef, who did garnishes and was Issac’s right hand man in the kitchen. The three kitchen porters were also there, and the front of house staff, and everyone’s wives, girlfriends, boyfriends and some children. I did not try and commit everyone’s name to memory, but the bartender in my took over and I chatted happily enough, inquired after people’s jobs, kids, lives and was generally good at being sociable. Micky joined me in drinking the fruit cider and we happily munched our way through crisps and sandwiches, grilled things and fruit and bits of salad.

It was Dom, one of the waiters, who first held up the neon yellow Frisbee, and I was all too quick to jump up to show off my skills.

“You coming?” I asked Issac as I stripped off my shirt. It was hellishly hot. I stuck the shirt in the belt loops of my shorts and made sure he was looking at me as I run a finger around the just visible waistband of my boxers.

“Yeah Robo-boy!” Imir rolled his shoulders, “Come show off your mad skills.”

“Can’t,” he called back, “Sorry Bay.” And when Mack looked concerned Issac explained with the words, “Wrong leg.” Apparently that was enough for Mack, who just nodded, by I simply stood there looking dumbstruck.

“I didn’t bring my athletic blade with me, and the high tech one is in for repairs, the bearing went the other day when we jogged to the market.” I obviously still looked totally lost, “Bay. I have a false leg.”

“Oh,” I glanced down at his jeans, wondering which one it was, he had trainers on both… feet, “Right.” Instinct told me to run until my brain had processed all of this, but I figured that would land me back being single pretty quickly, “Um…” Dom called my name, the Frisbee was being thrown about, “OK.”

I left Issac sitting there and jogged over to the match. Being good at sports was useful, partially to be able to show off and partially because, like running, I could let my brain focus on something simple while I worked out something complex. Issac had a false leg. This was not in itself a problem, except that I hadn’t known he had a false leg. The chefs called him Robo-boy. Robot chef. He had a bionic leg, part of him that wasn’t part of him. Something inside me wondered why I wasn’t freaking out, and part of my wondered why I was, even if only a little. I jumped up, snatched the Frisbee from the air and as I turned on one foot to throw it to Micky I saw Issac watching me.

I was under no illusions to how I looked. I was modest, but not that modest. I was skinny, wiry, tightly muscled with a smooth face and a shaped jaw. Sweaty and shirtless in the sun. I gave Issac my very best ‘I’m-sexy-and-i-want-you’ grin and flicked the Frisbee away. We played for another ten minutes until Dom declared it too hot to go on without beer, and I jogged back to where Issac was now standing chatting with Mack.

“Hey,” hot, sweaty and full of more boundless energy than I knew what to do with, I bounced a bit on the balls of my feet, “Is that why you’re wearing jeans?”

Issac blinked, then nodded.

“Is it because of me?”

“No! Yes…” Issac looked me up and down, “I didn’t want you to freak out. It’s not exactly something that casually comes up in conversation.”

“I won’t freak out. Show me.” I had to deal with this now. I liked Issac, he was the nicest guy I’d kissed in a long time, and the only guy I’d kissed who I’d cared about since… I decided to stay in the present. “You have shorts with you?”

Nod.

“Show me.”

“Mack, you mind if I use your van?”

“Go ahead buddy.”

I walked with Issac across the grass to where Mack’s massive car stood with all the windows open. From a distance, the gathering looked as wonderful as it was, a riot of colour and laughter, the kids chasing each other, people relaxing on the grass in the sunshine, Dom bopping the Frisbee about with a seven year old girl in a pink dress like a well-meaning uncle. The staff of The Fish and Antlers looked like a family. As we reached the van, I slipped my hand into Issac’s and pulled him back.

“Bay?” he looked worried, and I didn’t want that.

“Don’t call me a kid anymore OK? I’m your boyfriend.” I hoped that Issac could divine the meaning behind why I was saying this now, in this already tense moment.

“I… You’re right,” Issac tugged on our joined hands, “Sorry. You can hit anyone who says that to you, if you get to Barny first.”

“What’s with him?”

“Jealous? I dunno. He’s pretty new still.” Issac put his other hand on my jaw, tilting me towards him, “I don’t care so much.”

I loved kissing Issac.

He sat on the lip of the boot and turned to grab a small kit bag, locating a pair of jean cut-offs. I leant against the side of the car and watched him undone his belt and hook his thumbs into the waistband. Issac kept my gaze locked as he slid the jeans down and I felt all my muscles getting tight as his hips, narrow, clad in tight slightly shiny black and grey boxers, came into view. Then the legs. Leg.

It was… he looked unbalanced as he pulled off the jeans awkwardly and put on the shorts. One leg toned and shapely, born of running, decorated with that fantastic tattoo, the geometric flowers and the pattern of the tree that became a hare running around his thigh, birds vanishing into his boxers. The other leg… the thigh was there, as nice as the other one, and held tight in a cup-like mould made from dark grey plastic. There was an apparent mess of bolts and gears, steel and rods, and then the shoe. It looked so narrow, like he was floating.

“Bay?”

“Yeah?” I snapped my gaze away from the bionic leg and back to Issac’s face. He looked as scared as I felt, “It’s OK.”

“Yeah?” Issac smiled, “Not freaked out?”

“Maybe a little? Is that alright?”

Issac stood up, I don’t know why, but I sort of expected him to move different now that I knew the leg was false. He didn’t of course. As we walked back to the picnic, I grabbed Issac’s hand and grinned.

“You wanna make Barny really jealous?” I asked him with an arched eyebrow.

“You’re going to be the death of me Bay.”

I made sure that pretty much everyone was looking at us, and then I grabbed Issac’s face in both hands and kissed him until I was dizzy.