9.11 - 55. Chapter 55

October 2, 2001

Palo Alto, CA

”Oh no you don’t,” Dad said, stopping me. “You at least owe it to us to stay here and talk about this.”

I turned and looked at him, and was about to tell him I didn’t owe him a fucking thing, when all of a sudden my anger at him vanished. Here was this man who I loved, who was hurting, and I didn’t want to fight with him, especially about this. I sighed. This was so much easier back in the old days, when I could be a dick. But now I had an obligation to pick my battles where he was concerned. “Fine,” I said, shocking the shit out of him.

“Did you give Zach money for a car?” Gathan asked me rudely, only that got an entirely different reaction. While I was worried about my father, I wasn’t worried about Gathan. I walked up to him and got right in his face.

“What makes you think that you have the right to come up here to my home and ask me anything about my money, and what I do with it?” I asked him loudly, going just to the edge of Grand’s approved volume limit. “What I spend my money on, or who I spend it on, is none of your goddam business.”

“Just answer the question,” he demanded.

“Kiss my ass,” I said. “You can’t interrogate me. Get the fuck away from me.” There was no way I was backing down with him, and that surprised him.

“Since you won’t answer the question, we’ll just assume you did it,” Gathan said.

“No, what we’ve just established is that you have absolutely no right to even ask me the question.” I looked at the rest of them. “And the point I’m making is that applies to all of you.”

“It is a reasonable question,” Grand said.

“No, it is not,” I disagreed. “Seems to me you didn’t feel like you had to disclose how much money you gave to Brian. Now you’re saying I have to disclose whether or not I gave money to Zach?” I watched him struggle with that, and it was even funnier to watch my father and Stef give him their smarmy looks. But I didn’t really want to bust Grand’s balls either. “You want to tell me this is different, don’t you?” I asked with a smile, teasing him. Dad snaughed, the same gesture Robbie made, while Grand and Stef grinned.

“Perhaps,” Grand said, giving me his rueful smile.

I turned my attention to Dad and Stef, who were still giving Grand smarmy looks. “And are you telling me you guys never bought a car for a dude you liked?” That wiped the smirks off their faces, and added one to Grand’s. “Shit, you bought Kevin a Porsche and you didn’t even know his last name,” I said to Dad, then turned to Stef. “And you bought a car for him!” I said, pointing at Gathan. And with that, I’d effectively knocked Dad, Stef, and Grand out of the argument.

“So did he whine to you that he had to take the bus to school, and to practice?” Gathan asked. He was relentless.

“Did you ever notice how Hayes men are not only judgmental, they’re stubborn?” I asked my father, ignoring Gathan. He tried not to smile at that, and he almost succeeded, but not quite.

“He told you that, fed you that line, didn’t he?” Gathan persisted. “That’s what he’s been throwing at everyone else.”

“No, actually he told me that his host family were really nice to him, and drove him pretty much everywhere,” I said.

“Then what’s he need a car for?” Dad asked.

“Because he doesn’t want to be dependent on them, and he doesn’t want to have to inconvenience them for basic transportation,” I said. I held up my hand to stop them from going off on a different tangent. “Yeah, I know that they probably don’t mind, but he does. He has to rely on them, and they have complete control over him.”

“I am wondering why he feels he can tell you these things, and not his brother, or his parents,” Stef said.

“Because he trusts me, and because I can relate to his situation,” I said, and then looked at Gathan. “And because I’m not always trying to smack him down.”

“I don’t always try to smack him down,” Gathan said.

“He thinks you do. He sees you as a rival, a competitor,” I said simply.

“I’m not,” Gathan said.

“How would he know that?” I asked. “All he sees is some guy who’s threatened by him because he’s smart like you, and athletic like you. So to make sure you’re the golden child, and he’s the scumbag, you mess up his life.”

“I do not do that,” Gathan said, and he was really pissed off about that.

I shrugged. “You’re not listening, dumbass. What you don’t get is that it doesn’t matter if you do it or you don’t do it, what matters is that’s how he sees things, and that’s why he doesn’t trust you,” I said to Gathan, then turned to Dad. “It was a hellaciously bad idea to make Gathan the trustee on Zach’s trust.”

“No one else seemed to care,” Dad said.

“Zach does, and it was a bad idea,” I said firmly.

“You said you can relate to him. What the fuck is that about?” Dad asked, switching gears, probably to keep Gathan from completely losing it.

“Because he doesn’t like letting other people have control over his life. I didn’t like that either. Only in this situation, it’s some strange family he’s living with in New Jersey, and they can completely dictate where he can and can’t go,” I said. “I wouldn’t be fine with that at all.”

“They’re like surrogate parents,” Dad said. “Wally and Clara are comfortable with them, and they think it’s a good idea that Zach rely on them for transportation.”

“Well Wally and Clara are nice people, but they’re idiots,” I said. “They don’t get it at all.”

“They’re not idiots,” Gathan said, sticking up for them. “They just know how he can get out of control.”

“Alright Einstein, ponder this,” I said to him in a really nasty way. “Zach is gonna do what Zach is gonna do. He made some bad decisions in Claremont when he was living with Wally and Clara and he didn’t have a car. So somehow we’re supposed to logically conclude that if he doesn’t have a car, but he’s not living with Wally and Clara, he’ll be fine? That’s a great argument but all it does is show that they’re the problem, not him having a car.”

“You’re twisting this all around,” Dad said.

“Am I?” I asked Grand. He said nothing, which was as good as validating what I’d said, especially when I stared at him for damn near a solid minute. “I had to put up with one of the biggest control freaks in the world,” I said to Gathan, as I winked at my dad. “I fought so hard to be my own person, and put up with a lot of shit from him while I was doing it, because I love him. Zach doesn’t even like you. So why don’t you get out of his business?”

“It’s my responsibility,” Gathan said.

“And I’m saying that you having that responsibility is a mistake. It’s not good for you, and it’s not good for Zach,” I pronounced.

“Well that’s the way it’s set up,” Gathan said.

“Seems to me that if Zach doesn’t need to go hat in hand to you to get cash before he’s twenty-five, then it doesn’t matter if you control the trust or not,” I said.

“So that’s your plan?” he asked, full of righteous indignation. “You’re going to give him money instead.”

“That’s my plan,” I said. “I got him covered.” The rest of them wanted to threaten to cut me off, but they knew I had enough resources to fund someone like Zach without their help. “He doesn’t have to ask the rest of you guys, or Wally and Clara, for shit.” I hadn’t actually told Zach that was the deal, all I’d done was wire him money to buy a car. And I wasn’t being quite as carefree about things as I sounded, because I’d wired it directly to the car dealer, not to him.

“He’s still a minor,” Dad noted. “What happens if Wally and Clara take the car away from him?”

“Then I’m betting he comes out here and spends Thanksgiving and Christmas with us,” I said, pointing out that if they did that, Zach would pretty much disown them.

“It is not usually a good idea to interfere in the dynamics of another family,” Grand said, but not in a nasty way.

“I agree completely,” I told him. “But that decision was made when those trusts were set up. I’m just correcting a problem.”

“A problem no one asked you to get involved in,” Gathan said.

“You’re acting like you’re the speaker for everyone in your family, like you’re responsible for fixing all of their fuck-ups and making things right,” I said, basically stating a fact. “I’m not claiming that role, but in this situation I’m doing the same thing for my family.”

“You’re going to fix all of our mistakes?” Stef asked with a grin. “I think you will be very busy.”

I laughed. “Not all of them, just some of them,” I said.

“I’ll say this, and you should listen,” Gathan said severely, trying to be intimidating, “the smart thing for you to do is just back up, and keep clear of Zach.”

I nodded. “Actually, the smart thing is for you to do that,” I said. I turned to my father. “Did you need anything else?”

“No,” he said.

“And just so we’re clear, you guys all owe it to me to make sure that Austin has a good time this weekend, and feels like he’s a welcome guest,” I said firmly.

“You seem pretty into this guy,” Dad said.

“It doesn’t matter if I’m into him or not, that’s the right thing to do. But for the record, he’s just a friend, a guy I like hanging out with,” I said. I stared at them all, but no one said anything. “Never mind.” I walked out the doors and shut them behind me; then since no one was around, I eavesdropped.

“What’s he going to do now?” Dad asked.

“Well, he asked for our immediate and unconditional promise that we would be nice to his friend, and he didn’t get it,” Grand said. “I would expect that he will ask Isidore to explain it to us.”

“Shit,” Dad said. I headed back to my room, chuckling as I went. I’d just gotten back to my room when my phone rang: it was Zach.

“Dude, I have been getting crap from everyone all day,” he said right after we greeted each other. “I don’t give a shit. It is so worth it to have my own ride. Thank you so much.”

“You’re welcome,” I said. “I’ve been getting shit about it too.”

“I’m sorry,” he said. “Who’s giving you shit?”

“You tell me first,” I said.

“Well, the cool thing is that my host family is fine with it. They’re probably glad they don’t have to drag my ass around all the time.”

“No doubt,” I agreed.

“But I’ve been talking to my parents on and off all night. They threatened to take the car away, but that got pretty ugly, so they backed off on that.”

“So what are they going to do?”

“They said they were going to stop my income from the trust so I couldn’t pay the insurance, but I don’t think they will. They don’t want me driving without it,” he said, chuckling. “But that’s the big threat they’re hanging over me that they’ll cut off that income. It’s like $1,800 a month.”

“Let me know what happens,” I said.

“Who’d you get shit from?” he asked. I told him about my conversations in a pretty vague form, since I didn’t want to create any more problems with him and Gathan. “I wish all these people would just leave me the fuck alone.” He paused for a minute, as if he was thinking about things. “I don’t want to sound like a fucking ingrate, because you came in and totally made my life better, but I gotta ask you. Why are you doing this? I mean, I know I’m a great piece of ass, but I’m not that great.”

I laughed. “Maybe you are,” I flirted, and then got serious. “Dude, this past year has been a living hell for me. I’ve fought like a fucking tiger to be independent, to be in control of my own life, and to basically be responsible for myself. So I feel kind of sorry for you, because you’re dealing with the same thing.”

“No shit,” he agreed.

“Only here’s the deal, and this is what I had to get a handle on. Once you get that control, then you can’t fuck up, or they’ll use it to drag you back into the prison and lock your ass up,” I said, using the term ‘prison’ figuratively.

“Dude, having a car should not be this big of a deal. Half the guys I go to school with have cars.”

“Yeah, but that’s not what this is about. This is about you having your own money and being your own person,” I said. “And this is about you not needing your brother or your parents to make decisions about your life.”

“Wow,” he said, finally getting it.

I got a little more philosophical. “So when I went through this, the biggest thing my dad had to deal with was feeling like I was rejecting him, and that I didn’t love him.”

He was quiet for almost a minute. “Guess I need to call my mom and dad.”

“Good idea,” I said, and hung up.

October 4, 2001

Palo Alto, CA

Pedro had just brought me back from school, and while he was a nice guy, I could totally see where Zach was coming from with this whole car deal. It would be so nice to be able to drive myself around and not have to worry about someone else picking me up. I was walking down the hall to my room, determined to get my homework done and to squeeze in a nap before dinner, when I saw my dad heading up to the second floor. The only reason for him to do that was to access the attic. I put my book bag down and thought about the English essay I had to write, but I was in way too bad of a mood to tackle that right now. I chose to go see what he was working on instead.

I didn’t knock on the studio door, even though I felt like I should, but I made sure to stomp up the stairs to make lots of noise so he’d know someone was here. “Hey,” I said, trying to be cheerful.

“Hi,” he said, smiling weakly. He had his brush poised and ready to work on a picture, which was a pretty good start on a somewhat abstract portrait of Robbie. Interestingly enough, he hadn’t finished the eyes or the mouth. There were a few other partially finished paintings in the room, one which was a really dark piece that looked like a stylized version of the burning Twin Towers.

“If I’m bothering you I can leave,” I said.

“No, I’m just trying to figure out how I want to finish this one,” he said.

“It’s really good so far,” I said. “Did you leave the mouth unfinished so he can’t whine at you?”

He laughed. “That’s not a bad idea.” I walked up beside him and put my hand on his shoulder. “I’m trying to decide how I want his expression to look.”

“You can’t make him mad, because his nose isn’t right for that,” I said. When Robbie would get pissed, his nostrils would flare out, and the veins in his neck would bulge. “You should do a pissed off one of him someday, though. He was hot when he was mad.”

“True,” Dad said.

“You’re home early.”

“It’s my birthday, and I decided to take some time off,” he lied. I didn’t say anything; I just stood there with my hand on his shoulder, waiting for him to tell me the truth. “I really miss him.” He reached up and wiped away a tear, and I squeezed his shoulder supportively.

“I know,” I said. “Me too.”

“It seems like when I paint, all I do is pick subjects that depress me,” he said.

“I’ve got an idea for you,” I said. “You can work on my Christmas present.”

“What do you want?” he asked me with trepidation.

“I want you to paint a picture of each of the people in our family doing what they’re best at.” I was trying to get him to focus on the people still around him. “They can be small, but I want paintings of Grand, Stef, me, you, Darius, JJ, and Grandmaman.”

“Seven paintings? By Christmas?”

“You have a lot of work to do,” I said, smiling at him.

“I’ll think about it,” he said. He turned around and looked at me, his eyes zeroing in on mine, and got worried. “What’s wrong?”

“It’s nothing,” I said.

“I shouldn’t pry,” he said, and turned away, and then I knew I’d have to talk about it. In a flash of clarity, I noted how when he demanded info from me, I closed up, but when he backed off, I opened up to him.

I sat next to him, grabbed a brush, and started paint-doodling on a blank strip of canvas. “I called Kai and told him we’d be there this weekend.”

“He wasn’t happy about that?” Dad asked.

“He was happy, but nervous,” I told him. “He’s got a new boyfriend.”

“He moves fast,” he joked, and then he looked at me with concern. “I’m sorry.”

“No, it’s all good,” I lied. “I want him to be happy, and it’s not like we’re boyfriends or anything.”

“You were hoping to go over there and hook up with him, surf, and recreate the cool world you had last summer,” he said, reading my mind perfectly. I nodded. “You can’t go back.”

“What do you mean?”

“You have to enjoy the moment, because you can’t recreate it,” he said, sounding like a sage. “Even if he didn’t have a boyfriend, when you went back, it would be different.”

“Kind of like how if I lived in Malibu again, and if I went back to Harvard-Westlake, it wouldn’t be the same as it was before,” I said, thinking out loud.

“Have you considered that?” he asked.

“Not really. I don’t want to go back there. I like Menlo, and I like my friends here. It’s just one of those daydream things that I do when I have some assignment I’m working on that I hate.”

He laughed. “Yeah, I get that. It’s kind of like me being up here. It’s not like it was when I was younger. It’s different.”

“Do you like being here?” I was trying to be calm about this, because I didn’t want to pressure him to stay if he didn’t want to, but I liked having him around.

“I like it. It’s different than it was, but I like it.” He seemed to get philosophical. “I think that it doesn’t matter where I am, it’s who I’m with that’s important.”

“Makes sense,” I agreed.

“So you still want to go to Maui?” he asked. “With Kai and his new boyfriend, that could be weird.”

“I want to go,” I said. “I want to see the house, and it’s winter, so the waves will be kick ass at Ho’okipa.” The beach was good in the summer, but the waves were best in the winter months.

“They should be,” he said. “We can bail on Friday as soon as school’s out.”

“I told Austin to bring his shit with him, so you can pick us up and we can go straight to the airport.”

“It’s on Grand’s schedule, so I’m sure we’ll be there on time,” he said. “I’m sorry we were rude to Austin. We’ll be nice to him this weekend.”

“It’s kind of my fault too,” I told him. “I set him up to be my human shield so I didn’t have to argue about Zach, so it makes sense that he’d end up feeling like that. But I explained what was going on, and he’s cool.”

“He’s going to have to have thicker skin if he’s going to hang around here,” Dad joked, cracking me up. “We made some changes to Zach’s trust.”

“You did?” That surprised me.

“We removed Gathan as the successor trustee, and picked someone else to do it,” he said.

“Who did you pick?” Now I was worried. What if they put one of Robbie’s other nitwit relatives in charge?

“You,” he said.

“Me? Are you serious? Shit, he’s older than me,” I said, totally shocked.

“Well, it’s not about age, it’s about maturity. And since you said you’d shell out money for Zach anyway, it’s not that big of a deal,” he said, looking slightly annoyed.

“What did Gathan say?”

“I think he just wanted the whole issue out of his hair,” Dad said. “I think that he’s assumed the mantle of family leadership, much like you said, but he’s willing to write Zach off. He knows he has limited influence over him.”

“I’m not sure if me being the trustee is a good idea, but I’m glad he’s not,” I said.

“Well, you don’t get to step in unless something happens to me, so hopefully it won’t ever be an issue,” he noted.

“What did Zach say about it?” I asked.

“We didn’t talk to him about it yet,” he said, then changed his tone to be a bit more severe. “So if you’re willing to do this, I need you to promise me something.”

“Well before I do, I’m going to make sure Zach’s cool with it,” I said, which surprised him. He wasn’t as in to collective decision-making as I was. But he wasn’t tracking with me, he was still hanging on this promise I had to make. “What do I have to promise?”

“If you’re in a situation where you’re the trustee, even if you’re pissed off at Zach, you have to put those feelings aside and make the decision that’s best for him. Even if you want him to rot in hell, you have to focus on his best interests,” he said.

“That’s why Gathan gave it up,” I said, getting clarity. “He didn’t think he could do that.”

“That may be part of it,” he said, smiling that I got it. “Can you do that?”

“I think I can,” I said, then sighed. “Look, if it comes to that, and I’m pissed off at him but he needs a check, I’ll probably give him the money but rip him a new asshole just to make myself feel better.”

He laughed, really laughed at that. “I’ll bet that’s exactly what you’d do.”

“And you wouldn’t?” I challenged. He just shook his head at me, and then changed the subject.

“We met with Austin’s father this morning, and we’re probably going to fund this latest deal he’s working on.”

“You’re not just doing that because he’s my friend, are you?” I asked stupidly.

“No, we’re doing it because it’s a good idea, and he has the ability to make it happen,” he said. “Good entrepreneurs usually fail a couple of times at least before they’re successful. That’s important to remember.”

“I guess relationships are like that too,” I mused. “I’ll let you get back to your painting. You have a lot of work to do.”

“No shit,” he agreed.

I walked downstairs in a pretty good mood, and stopped in the central courtyard to call Zach. “What up?” he asked me casually.

“One guess. Wanna see?” I flirted. He chuckled.

“Absolutely. Listen, I’m on my way to practice,” he told me, so I’d get to the point.

“They made some changes to your trust,” I said.

“What did they do now?” he asked, all pissed off.

“They pulled Gathan off as the successor trustee, and they want to put me on there instead,” I said, and he had to hear how uncomfortable I was just from my tone of voice.

“So now I’m your bitch?” he asked, all pissed off.

“You act like you don’t want to be my bitch,” I flirted, to get him to calm down. “I’ll bet you do.”

“Whatever,” he said, mellowing.

“Look, I know how you feel, and if you aren’t cool with this, then I won’t do it. They’ll probably put your parents on instead or maybe Frank. And it probably won’t matter anyway, because it’s my dad’s job as long as he’s around.”

He was silent for a minute. “I’m cool with you doing it. I’m sorry. It just bugs me that they think I won’t have my shit together until I’m thirty.”

“Dude, I told you, I’d feel just like you did,” I said. “So I was thinking that I’ve seen your fine body do all kinds of things, but I’ve never seen you play football.”

“That’s what I’m best at,” he said, being cocky.

“No way I’m believing that,” I said, and could almost see him smiling through the phone. “Shoot me an e-mail and tell me if there’s a good game coming up, one I should go to.”

“You’d come out here to watch me play?” he asked, totally shocked.

“If I get a good enough incentive,” I said.

“Dude, you’ll get one monster incentive,” he said. “I gotta run. I’ll send you a schedule and point out a couple of games that you’ll want to make.”

“Awesome,” I said, and ended the call. My jubilant mood was even better now, as I almost skipped down to my room. When I got to the first floor and started walking down the hallway, I froze. Tony was standing in front of my door, knocking softly.

“Will?” he asked the door.

“Right here,” I said. He jumped a little bit, and then turned to look at me. He smiled at me, but it was a worried smile.

“Hey,” he said. “I hope you don’t mind, but I wanted to talk to you.”

“It’s good to see you,” I said, as I opened the door and led him in, closing and locking it behind me.

“I didn’t know if you’d think so, and you’ve had so much shit to deal with, I didn’t want to pile my crap on top of that,” he said. I knew Tony so well; I could tell that he was floundering. I walked right up to him, put my hands on his shoulders, and then slowly moved them around to his neck, pulling his face in to meet mine. Our lips meshed in the magical way that they did, and we kissed, a nice kiss, not a passionate kiss, just enjoying the connection. I finally broke it off.

“Convinced?”

“Yeah,” he said, grinning. I led him over to the couch and sat down with him. He pulled out an envelope and handed it to me. “From my mom.”

“Cool,” I said, putting it on the table next to me. I’d read that later; I knew what it would say.

“I went to see that shrink you told me to go see,” he said, acting all grumpy.

“He’s hot.”

He snaughed almost like Robbie did. “Maybe. Was I supposed to fuck him?”

I laughed. “Dude, let me know if it works. I’ve been trying.”

“Really?”

“No,” I said. “I just like to flirt with him. Freaks him out.”

“I’ll bet,” he said. “I’ve only seen him twice now, but he’s helping me get my life together.”

“So what’s going on?”

“Thanks to you, I pretty much knew that I’m gay, so getting that down wasn’t some massive struggle,” he said. “But that comes with all kinds of baggage, mostly because of my dad, so he’s trying to help me deal with that.”

“Good,” I said, smiling at him.

“So I came up here for a couple of reasons,” he said, getting all task oriented. I just looked at him, to tell him to go on. “The first one is to apologize to you.”

“Dude, you already did that. We so do not need to go there,” I insisted. I didn’t want to see him grovel again.

“No,” he said loudly. “I need to say this.”

“OK,” I said, backing off. “Talk to me.”

“When we were in Rome, remember when I told you that I loved you?”

“Yeah,” I said nervously, and was really worried he was going to tell me that was a lie. That would hurt.

“I meant it. I loved you then, and I still do. You’re just...amazing.”

“Dude...” I said, because I did not want to be put up on a pedestal.

“No, seriously, you really are. You’re like the only one who really got me, and who really understood me. All of me. The good and the bad.” I reached out and held his hand to prop him up. “I’m worried that I totally fucked us up.”

“I don’t get it,” I said.

“I’m so not at a place to be in love with someone, or to be in a relationship with someone,” he said. “All that shit we got because you were younger than me, well fuck that. I’m the one who’s too fucking immature to be in a relationship.”

“Alright, but I’m all about me, so tie this in,” I said with a smile. He was confused, and he was all over the place with this, so I was trying to ease the tension while figuring out what he was trying to say.

“I’m saying that if I’d have had half a brain, I wouldn’t have said that, I’d have waited until I was stable enough to be in love and not fuck it up,” he said.

“So you think you ruined us forever?” I asked.

“Yeah,” he said, and a tear actually fell out of his eyes. I wiped it away lovingly.

“Dude, we’re not ruined.” That got me a big smile.

“Casey said that you’re like one of my rocks,” he said. “He says that I’m going to need your friendship with all the shit I’m going to have to deal with, and that I should focus on that, and on not being with you.”

“He told you not to fuck me?” I interpreted.

Tony gave me the “Tony look”, where his face made the same movements as an eye roll, but his eyes didn’t actually roll. “Took him a lot longer to get to that point than you did.”

“That’s because he charges by the hour,” I joked.

“Dude, you do not have to pay for those sessions,” he said, thinking I was worried about the money.

“Tony, this is so not about the money. You’re going as often and as long as you want, and we’re paying for it. You know what Grand did when he got the bill?”

“What?”

“He smiled, and told me how happy he was that you were doing this,” I said. “So don’t worry about it.”

“Alright,” he agreed.

“So what’s this bullshit about us not fucking?” I demanded playfully, getting back on topic.

“He said that it’s not fair to lead you on, and to play with your emotions,” Tony said. He was nervous, because he was expecting an explosion from me, but that’s not what he got.

“I’m a big boy. I can take care of myself, and watch out for myself. As long as you’re straight up with me, I won’t get hurt,” I said. “Tell Casey I’m not your typical fifteen year old dude.”

“No shit,” he said. I stood up and took off my shirt, kicked off my shoes, then took off my pants. Tony was staring at me, completely transfixed. I took off my boxers in a slutty way, getting a grin, and then turned away from him as I bent over to take off my socks, flashing my ass at him. By the time I turned back to face him, he had that crazed look of lust on his face. “We’re too good together not to be friends with benefits.”

“I see your point,” he said, staring at my cock. I walked up to him and pulled his face to my groin, and felt his mouth inhale my dick. God, he was good at that. But that’s not what we wanted, what we needed. It seemed like we all but raced over to the bed and ripped off his clothes. I fumbled with the condom as I put it on him, more of an indicator of how excited I was, and then without much foreplay, and without much pain, he was in me, taking me on one of those amazing sexual rides he could take me on.

After we were done, and lying there panting, I lay on my side and stroked his chest. “You’re staying for dinner.”

“That’s not for another two hours,” he said.

“Yep,” I said, and kissed him. “We’ll think of something to do.”