When Love Takes Over - 2. What Happily Ever After Really Looks Like

When Love Takes Over

Chapter 2

November, 2014

I planned on going straight to the office after leaving the job site, but after thinking about my first meeting with Reed (and, if I was willing to admit it, a bit horned up by the luscious Rob), I decided to go home first. I knew Reed planned to work from home this morning before heading out of town on a business trip, so I hoped I could catch before he left and maybe, just maybe, convince him to give me a little afternoon delight.

Sadly, I wasn’t certain of the later as I had been in earlier days. Lately, we had both been so distracted and stressed by business and our various social commitments and responsibilities that our once active love life had become pretty lifeless. As I sat in traffic waiting for a train to pass, I made a vow to change that. I mean, there was a time when we couldn’t keep our hands off each other, and I wanted that back.

When Reed walked out the door of the showroom, I was scared. Scared because I had never felt such a sudden strong connection with someone, scared because I could already feel myself falling for him, and scared because I had been left too many times before with promises of “I’ll call,” I wasn’t sure he really would. But he did call me the next day, and after talking a bit about where to eat, I decided to ask him over to dinner at my house.

He had been intrigued by the stories of my childhood on a farm in rural Louisiana, so I wanted to treat him to a hardcore Southern dinner of smothered pork chops, fried okra, collard greens, and homemade biscuits with my step-mother’s homemade Mayhaw jelly made from Mayhaw berries gathered on the farm. Plus, I wasn’t quite ready to share him with anyone else, including strangers in a restaurant; I wanted him for myself only.

I had come out in my mid-twenties when I moved to New Orleans in 2001 and had embraced the gay scene after growing up in rural Louisiana and going to a local college only 40 miles or so from home. Don’t get me wrong, it wasn’t the awful ordeal it could have been. Sure I got called “sissy” a bit growing up and I was far from popular in high school, but I wasn’t ostracized or a complete outcast.

Part of it was my build. I wasn’t tall--I topped out at 5’10” my senior year, but I had always been husky, and helping my father around the farm had made me pretty muscular. I was sturdy enough that everywhere I went during high school and even in my first year or two of college, people regularly asked if I was on the football team. In fact, the football coach, had pleaded with me to join the team. It was a small school and every bit of brawn helped, but I needed to focus on my studies---my father had made it clear that a scholarship would be necessary for me if I wanted to go to college, and for reasons that weren’t exactly clear to be at the time, the thought of being alone with the rest of the team in the locker room made me very uncomfortable. Besides, as I had told the coach. “I might be big, but I have as much athletic ability and coordination as a tackling dummy.” And as he was also my P.E. teacher, he was forced to acknowledge the truth of that statement.

I ended up earning a full academic scholarship to a nearby college, part of the state university system. It was in one of the larger town in North Louisiana, Ruston, but with a population of around 30,000, not including the 10,000 or so students at the college, it wasn’t exactly a metropolis. However, considering how tiny my hometown was, especially since I lived on an 80 acre farm 5 miles from it, I had been okay with going to school there, especially since my scholarship included living in a dorm.

My first couple of years there, had been much like high school since so many of the people from my senior class ended up going there since it was so close. Gradually, especially after I had switched majors to Interior Design, I had begun meeting some different people, including gay guys who had become friends, and I had been able to gradually come to terms with being gay.

And even though coming out as gay had still been difficult for me, most of the reactions, even from family, had consisted of some variation of the following:

“Duh.”

“You’ve decided to tell people now? Good for you.”

“Oh course you are. I’ve known that since you were 3 years old.”

And after I had switched my major from Accounting to Interior Design, it had been even easier. I know that even in large cosmopolitan areas, most people assume a male designer is gay. In rural Louisiana, the moment I had answered someone’s question about my major by stating that it was interior design, they had invariably paused, had digested the info for a moment, had raised their eyebrows and had said, “Oh” in an appraising manner. It had not bothered me, in fact, I had appreciated that it had saved time and awkwardness.

At any rate, I had not minded the area where I had grown up, and, in fact, had spent a couple of years after graduation working for a local decorator (Ruston is a small town, but it’s got plenty of rich people). I eventually had gotten anxious to leave for greener pastures, though. And boy, after the deprivation of North Louisiana, the pastures of New Orleans had been as green as the Emerald City of Oz.

Now, it’s not fair to say that I had entered a slutty phase when I hit New Orleans at 25, still a virgin except for a bit of heavy petting. However, as new meat, I had managed to keep my dance card full for a while. I had been a late bloomer and very inexperienced when I had arrived in the City of Sin. I still remember the shock and awe of my first roommate (who never actually left his slutty phase and is still, to the best of my knowledge, in the middle of it) when he discovered my virgin status. In fact, he had referred to me as “The Virgin” to his friends, and I think he was secretly disappointed when I had surrendered the goods in one of my first relationships after moving.

I had held out on going all the way partly for romantic reasons---I had been waiting for The One, but honestly, it was more the slim picking in North La. I had not minded so much if it wasn’t The One, but I had not wanted it to be just anyone. Anyway, in the ensuing 6 years, I had dated plenty of guys, a couple for enough time to be considered boyfriends, but nothing serious. At 31, though, I had had enough fun and was ready to settle down, and I had hoped Reed was The One. I had known that I had never felt the same sort of connection I had with him, which felt so strong in spite of our very limited interaction.

To say I was useless at work after his call on Tuesday would have been an understatement. Diana, my boss, who was as almost as thoughtful as she was batshit crazy, could tell I was distracted, and since we weren’t particularly busy, let me leave at lunch. Since I worked on Saturdays, Wednesday was one of my days off, and I spent the rest of Tuesday and all of Wednesday in hardcore date preparation.

First, I had to clean my apartment; I was not exactly neat then---Hell, I was down right messy. Luckily it was a tiny attic apartment in the French Quarter, and after I had lost most of my possessions during Katrina, I kept my new home minimal. I loved that apartment: spare white walls, angled ceilings, light pouring in through dormers from all four directions at once. That said, I hated cleaning it, and was glad that long delayed chore only took a couple of hours.

I know that the stereotypical homosexual is neat and orderly, but as stereotypically gay as I could be in some ways---after all I was an interior designer --I had missed the neatness gene. I also preferred watching football, especially my beloved Saints, to ballet, and while I liked show tunes, I much preferred country music. I had driven a pickup, the bigger and more banged up the better, since high school. In case you’re not a fan of country music, there is a whole category of songs devoted to describing the impact of pickup trucks on women and how they turn the ladies on. Let’s just say, pickups work on a lot of gay men too.

More than once, I had noticed a distinct increase in a date’s interest after he saw my truck, especially after I made sure to walk him around to the passenger side, open the door, and help him up. Momma wasn’t entirely successful, but she had tried to raise a gentleman.

To be honest, it wasn’t the apartment and meal prep for the date itself that took so long to do---a couple of hours of cleaning, including fresh sheets on the bed which I hoped would be called into action, a quick trip to the grocery store and a stop by the liquor store (I remembered from our conversation that Reed wasn’t a big drinker, so I had high hopes that it would only take a bit of bourbon to lower his inhibitions. Though, to be fair, based on Monday, his inhibition bar didn’t seem to be set too high).

And as far as cooking the meal, no problem. My mother had died when I was 10, and until my father remarried, I had been in charge of the cooking, the cleaning, and the laundry. Neither of us particularly cared about the cleaning and the laundry, but with both liked to eat, so I had learned how to cook. After a few lessons with my Aunt Shirley, widely acknowledged as the best cook in the Ark-La-Tex, and a little bit of experience, I had become a wiz in the kitchen, especially with the Southern basics: fried chicken, fried okra, fried fish (are you sensing a theme?), homemade biscuits, homemade gray, etc.

The only thing that took a lot of time was getting the lighting right. As a designer, I knew the importance of lighting to set a mood, and I spent time on Tuesday night fiddling with lamps, candles etc. trying to get everything just right. I was going for that perfect level of bar lighting, where everyone looks good. In the words of Amy Sedaris, I wanted the lighting to say, “Can I get you another drink? not “Do I need to get you a cab?” So, no, prepping the house and cooking dinner wasn’t a big deal, it was prepping me that took hours and hours.

Tuesday night, instead of meeting my friends for my usual weekly hit of karaoke and drink specials, I turned in early, trusting in the power of beauty sleep. It had mixed results: I was so excited about my coming date and so horny, that I tossed and turned for hours. Only after jerking off to a fantasy involving twins that looked remarkably like Reed, was I able to settle down and get some sleep. Okay, maybe I had to jerk off twice.

I finally dozed off around 3 am, still horny and nervous. After I woke on Wednesday, cranky and with bags under my eyes, instead of my usual late breakfast of Eggs Benedict and Bloody Marys, I decided to go for a run along the Mississippi. I wasn’t that much of a runner, and there were long stretches of walking, but the magical river soothed me as always. Even though it was the end of fall, the fickle New Orleans weather decided to stop raining, and by 10 am, the sun was high in the sky, and the weather, balmy.

I decided to take advantage of the sun, and spent a bit of time by the pool in the courtyard of the building that housed my apartment-- a bit of color always brought out my eyes and highlighted my sandy hair--I was careful not to stay too long. After last night’s beauty sleep debacle, I was afraid of ending up looking like a boiled lobster. Afterwards, I showed up at my friend Robin’s salon and begged him to work me in for a haircut. I usually buzzed my own hair, but it had grown out a bit. Enough for a real haircut and some blonde highlights.

“I’m booked,” he said. “So sorry.”

“Please.”

“Look, I can’t.”

I went to the laptop on the reception desk and pulled up Reed’s picture on the university website to show it to him. (So I cyber stalked my date...sue me).

“That’s your date? Him? You have a date with that delicious hunk of man?”

I nodded “yes” and gave him my best puppy eyes.

“Get your ass in the chair,” Robin said. “Lola, this man needs a manicure, stat. Then shampoo him. Honey,” he said looking at me, “if we can help you get a piece of that, we will.”

By the time it was reasonable to expect Reed to arrive, I was your basic nervous wreck. I had never gotten so worked up over a guy before, and I had just enough sense of humor left to laugh at myself primping in the bathroom mirror like a high schooler on prom night, realizing that the average First Lady probably spent less effort in picking out her gown for the Inaugural Ball than I did deciding what to wear. Nothing is harder than trying to look fantastic while looking like you put no effort into looking fantastic.

As often happened to my best laid plans, I was still in my bedroom debating the merits of my low rise Calvin Klein briefs, a jockstrap, or going commando when I had heard a knock on the door. Shit! I thought. Reed! I momentarily debated opening the door naked and seeing how that worked out, but decided that I didn’t want to look quite that desperate.

To say time, I had gone the commando route, grabbing the last outfit I had tried on, some paint splattered olive work pants that I had cut into shorts that ended a few inches above my knee and a ancient denim western style shirt with pearl snaps that I had since college; I had washed it so often, it was as smooth as melted butter and the faded blue matched my eyes.

I had thrown the pile of discarded outfits back into the closet, slamming the door. I was already so excited by the nearness of Reed, even through a door, that I had to be careful zipping up the shorts. To be fair, they were kind of tight, and especially flattering to my ass, which was why they had made it to the final selection rounds, since my ass was one of my better features. It wasn’t quite a bubble butt, but it was firm and round and, as one of my friends once described it, one of those “thick, Louisiana butts that you can only build with beans and rice.”

“I’m coming,” I called racing to the door, trying to snap up my shirt straight. My heart was pounding, and not just from my last minute exertion. I opened the door, and there he was, looking even better than I remembered.

“Hi”

“Hi,” he said in reply. And just like that, everything was okay. All the feverish preparations, all my anxiety---it didn’t matter. He was here, and it felt right.

I opened the door, stepping aside to let him in. He paused looking around. “This is a great apartment. Here, I brought you something.” He handed me a gift bag.

“Thank you. You didn’t need to bring anything.”

“I know, but I wanted to, especially since you were going to the trouble of cooking.”

I sat the bag on the dining table, and looked inside. A bottle of Taittinger champagne, my favorite.

“I remembered you mentioned how much you like it,” he said, answering my smile. “I got you something else, too.”

I looked back inside. In the bottom of the bag was a small cardboard candy box, printed in a mix of vibrant colors. It was Turkish delight. I looked back at him with what I’m sure was a stupid grin. It wasn’t the candy itself--it was because he had really been listening to me on Monday night. Among the various things we had talked about were books, and we had spent a lot of time talking about childhood favorites, especially our shared love of the Chronicles of Narnia. I remembered I had mentioned that I had never actually had Turkish delight, the enchanted treat that bewitches Edmund in the story, and that I had always wanted some. And he had remembered.

Dinner was under control, so I suggested with break open the champagne and have a toast while I waited for the biscuits to cook. Somehow, though, after a few sips, the Taittinger and the biscuits were forgotten, and I had Reed naked on the sofa. It was intoxicating, the sweet taste of his smooth olive skin, the deep low moans issuing from his throat, the way his body shivered under my assault.

Luckily, in addition to bourbon, I had picked up condoms and lube, so when he begged me to take him, I was ready. I took him there in the living room, bent over the sofa, my body on fire as he came. I collapsed on top of him, panting.

“Sorry about the sofa,” he said, sheepishly, limp under my weight. I laughed as I staggered up, and went to the bathroom to dispose of the condom and get a warm rag to clean up.

“Don’t worry. It’s slipcovered, so I can wash the cover tomorrow. But considering our track record with sofas, if this relationship works out, it looks like I’ll need to invest heavily in Scotchguard.”

We went on more dates, and of course I ended up helping him design and restore his house; in fact, after a childhood spent on a farm and a couple of summers working on a construction crew during college, I had enough D-I-Y skills to do a lot of the work myself, surprising Reed.

Gay guys are just as bad stereotyping each other as some straight people, so I wasn’t shocked he thought an artistic, decorator type with a manicure and blond highlights didn’t know a jigsaw from a caulking gun. But after the first weekend I came over to his house in my pickup with a collection of power tools, he was impressed.

In fact, he was so impressed and turned on after an afternoon of watching me demo walls and frame new ones that he stripped me of everything but my boots, gloves, and tool belt, bent me over the work table and did things to me that still make me blush to think about.

That was only the first of many times we christened the house, because as it was nearing completion, he asked me to move in. It was my first time to live with a boyfriend, and I loved the feelings I had when we shopped together to stock it,

I felt like a young newlywed building a life with my Prince Charming. And after our hard work, the house turned out great. In fact, it was so striking that we won a restoration award from a local group and the house was featured in a local design magazine.

Not long afterwards, Reed received an offer to buy that was almost twice what he had paid, including the renovations. I had some minor regrets when he accepted the offer since we had had such great times there, but I love design and restoring houses, so I was eager to move on to another challenge. With his proceeds, Reed bought two flooded houses, one to live in and one to flip, and my work began again.

I had been able to work on one house and maintain my day job at the showroom, but there is no way I could work on and supervise subs at two sites and still spend 8 hours a day on Magazine Street, so after some long conversations with Reed, I decided to quit and focus on the two new houses.

“Are you sure you want to do this?” he asked. “I know you bitch about your job sometimes, but I know you love it. And I know you love working on Magazine.”

“Yes, I guess. But I have been there almost 5 years, and I’m burned out. I love working for Diana, but she can be exhausting. Besides, I’ve always planned to eventually start my own design firm and I’d like more time to work on my art. The potential profit from these houses is much more than a couple of year’s salary, and if things work out like last time, I’m sure to get a lot of good press from these. Plus, she’s still going to carry my paintings, and I make a decent bit of money from my art. Not enough to live on, but a nice income boost. Besides, I feel like this way I’m working toward our future.”

“Whatever you want,” he said, pulling me in for a kiss. After two years together, I still felt it down to my toes when he kissed me like that. In fact, I never quite lost the nervous twitch in my stomach when I walked into a room and saw him and realized that beautiful man was mine.

Those two houses again garnered quite a bit of attention after we finished them, and in the emerging excitement surrounded the rebirth of New Orleans, Reed ended up selling both of them for major profits. As the years moved on, Reed became so excited about restoring properties and so energized by the changes in our city as it recovered from Katrina, he left teaching to focus on real estate.

I continued to oversee the design of the renovations, as well as acting as project manager, though I stopped doing any of the physical work. It was fun, and I enjoyed it, but it did lack the magic I had felt when I was working on our own first home. I was so busy, that I never did take on any private design clients; however, I managed to find enough time to continue to paint, though never as much as I would like, and the paintings sold well enough for Diana that she was continually asking for more.

As our own personal homes became larger and more elaborate, I also fell into being kind of Reed’s social liaison. At this point, Reed had been in New Orleans for a number of years, but as a Northerner used to directness he was still baffled by all the various rules and customs of the South. I had been raised in Louisiana, and though I came from small, rural, unimportant town, I had been raised by real Southern ladies, so I was taught all the archaic rules and regulations.

Before I met Reed, I had largely rebelled against them, and in my early years living in New Orleans, I had embraced it’s bohemian and tawdry appeal much more than it’s decayed gentility. But since he had decided to move into a professional area that required moving among the city’s elite, I brushed off my childhood knowledge and put it in practice.

I traded my vintage jackets, graphic tees, and paint stained jeans for seersucker suits and linen shirts. I taught Reed the difference between fish forks, oyster forks, salad forks, pickle forks, and ice cream forks. I taught him how to navigate a place setting that included a bewildering array of plates, cutlery, and stemware. I taught him about mint juleps, and sazeracs, and milk punch.

I taught him about “Bless her heart,” and the proper usage of “y’all.” I started using the approved Uptown decorating conventions in our own house, and the “right” restaurants, and the “right” stores. Honestly, none of this was my thing, but he loved it. And when I would stand at yet another one of our cocktail parties, bored out of my mind talking about various Uptown scandals, I would look over our tastefully decorated (if boring) living room and see Reed, so tall and lean, so proud of his accomplishments, dressed in a pale linen suit that accented his black hair and olive complexion, holding his mint julep in its sweating silver cup wrapped with a linen napkins, and talking animatedly to our new acquaintances, and my heart would swell with love and pride. What’s a little boredom on my part, if a stupid cocktail party makes his face shine like that?

The years went on, good years, seven in total. Reed, the bastard, still looked as gorgeous as every, with only a handful of lines around those fine dark eyes to mark the passage of time. He worked out regularly, and his careful diet had preserved his lean figure. I must admit that I was not so disciplined. I had always relied on physical work to keep me fit, and as Reed’s success grew, I was doing less and less. We now had contractors and subs working on our projects, landscapers and gardeners working on our yards, and I no longer relied on the streetcars and walking to maneuver the city.

At the same time, I always seemed to be picking finishes or meeting with the architects or checking on a job site or, perhaps worse, schmoozing with potential clients and investors over lunch, dinner, or drinks. By the end of the day, working out just seemed like too much. At the same time, I had learned to love to rewind with a couple of Manhattans or some good Scotch at the end of the day, and while I hated the schmoozing, I can deny that I enjoyed eating at the city’s great restaurants.

At any rate, while I was still fairly muscular, thanks to genetics, the muscles were slowly being covered by a layer of fat. I honestly wanted to grow my beard, buzz my head, and just embrace being a bear, but Reed preferred a preppy look, so I kept my face shaved, my body hair trimmed, and my hair in a conventional hair cut. If that’s what he liked, I was okay with it.

But did he still like it? That’s really the question, isn’t it? That’s the thing that had been bothering me lately. Because the reason that I was so horny that I was ogling 22 year old tile layers was that Reed and I hadn’t had sex, besides the occasional drunken groping after a long night out or an increasingly disinterested hand job in months. I had chalked it up to our being busy and distracted by business.

Bigger projects brought bigger rewards, but also bigger stresses. All I knew was that I loved him and our life, even if it wasn’t exactly what I had pictured. I had planned for a life of us together in our first small cottage with me painting in the converted garage in the back and him grading papers on the back porch, potlucks with our neighborhood friends, and trips to the gay bars in the quarter. But somehow, life had had different ideas, and now we lived in an Uptown showplace, with cocktail parties for 100, and only went to the French Quarter to eat with the Uptown crowd at Galatoire’s. Those weren’t my favorite things to do, but I did them with Reed, so that’s what mattered, right?

Finally, after what seemed like an eternity, the train passed. I headed toward Uptown and Reed, excited to see him again before he left. I had given him a goodbye kiss earlier, but now I was ready to give him a proper send off, something for him to remember while he was out of town, a send off that would remind him of the love he had waiting at home..

I made my way through the tortuous maze of one way streets that make up New Orleans’ Garden District, a labyrinth made even worse by the proliferation of pot holes (some large enough to swallow small cars whole) and the never ending street construction. My friends all tease me about driving like a little old man, but even I was impatient with the snail’s pace I had been forced into by the various obstacles.

If I didn’t get home soon, Reed would already have left for the airport, even though his flight wasn’t until several hours. I’ve personally never been one of those waiting to the last minute, rushing through the airport types, but he had even me beat. I’d leave for the airport two hours before the flight. He wanted to actually be at the airport at the 2 hour point. In fact one of our few really major fights had occurred early in our relationship when I had offered to take him to the airport on a trip home to see his family. I had been held up at work and got to his house late; he was already pissed and upset, but then when we hit bad traffic, he lost his shit. I still made it well before the 45 minute cut off, but he was furious, and threw himself out of the car without even a “goodbye” the moment I came to a stop. He called immediately upon landing to apologize and even sent flowers to me at work to say he was sorry, but I made sure to never be in charge of his airport travel again.

After what seemed like an eternity, I finally dodged the final traffic hurdle, one of the many college aged students on bikes that blanket Uptown, one (without a helmet, of course) that was texting, wearing earbuds, and seemingly unaware that she was on an actual street and not one of the bike paths in Audubon Park, and pulled into a parking spot on the street in front of the house. Like many of the houses in this older part of town, it didn’t have a separate garage, and we parked in the street or the circular brick paved drive in front of the house.

Reed’s car, a black Mercedes convertible was parked there, as was the small black Mercedes SUV I normally drove (I was torn about the matching cars--with my eye for design detail, I had to admit the two black cars looked great in front of the red brick house with traditional white trim and matched the black front door and shutters, but I couldn’t get past thinking they were pretentious at the same time). Today though, since I had been delivering some tile and various other supplies to the jobsite, I had been in my trusty old pickup, the same one I had had since first dating Reed and usually parked on the street. In addition to our cars in the drive, though, was a third car, also a black Mercedes, but this time a sedan (“God,” I thought rolling my eyes at the row of similar cars as I got out of the truck and walked to the front door, “could Uptown people be anymore like sheep.” Then it occurred to me that I was one now, and I promptly stopped the eye rolling)

Our house wasn’t on St. Charles, but had a desirable spot a block or two from it. It wasn’t one of the great mansions or antebellum gems that line much of that street, but being built in the 1920s, its red brick facade had a lovely patina, and it was graciously proportioned, though far too big for just the two of us. It was handsome, though, I had to admit as I walked to the leaded glass front door. Built in the Neoclassical style popular in the twenties and thirties, it had a perfectly symmetrical facade.

It was a center hall style, with a hall wide enough for a seating area across from the staircase, and the french doors that opened to the back yard were positioned so that you had a direct view of the courtyard, pool, and pool house from the front entrance. To the right, an opening led to the huge dining room that had a table that could accommodate sixteen. Beyond that was a butler’s pantry, a large kitchen, and a breakfast area.

To the left was a large room, that I had reconfigured into a library/office, with floor to ceiling bookshelves. Behind it was tucked the graceful stairs that curved to the second floor; I had replaced the bulky wooden railing with a much more refined metal one that had been silver leafed and glazed (by yours truly) to a soft silver gilt. The back of the house had an enormous sunken living room with a built in bar tucked into one corner. All the rooms were decorated in the approved Uptown style--polished pale marble floors, creamy neutral wall colors except for the library which had been lacquered in a deep blue-green, a mix of antique furniture and plush upholstery which had been slipcovered in Belgian linen, all mixed with contemporary art and accessories.

It was beautiful, but honestly, I found it all a bit cold. I had much preferred the BoHo comfort of our first house, but I had agreed with Reed that our house’s decor needed to reflect the kind of interiors our potential clients wanted, and this was it. The bedrooms upstairs were more of the same, except for the pair of battered brown leather armchairs (they had been my first purchase for my apartment after Katrina and my first major furniture purchase ever) tucked into the guest room. The sinfully comfortable chairs were about the only furniture that had survived the various moves over the years.

The best part of the house though, and the only part I truly loved, was the courtyard. Except for the perimeter planting beds, it was paved in red brick that had been bleached by almost 100 years of sun. The same brick made up the walls that surrounded it, but they had been covered by vines of creeping fig. The same creeping fig crept up the small pool house that served as our primary guest quarters since it contained a small kitchen and full bath in addition to a large bedroom/ sitting area. But the absolute best part was the the small, but serviceable pool. Here was where I spent much of my precious free time, either in the pool or lounging in the shaded porch off the guest house.

Upon entering the house, I heard voices in the library. They stopped when they heard my footsteps echoing on the marble floor. I heard Reed call, “Hello?”

“It’s me,” I answered, stepping toward his voice. When I entered the room, I stopped for a moment and stared at him for a bit, as I often did. He was just so handsome. And he liked dressing up, even for travel, so with his expensive, dark washed jeans, he wore a slim cut jacket over a button down shirt, accented with a knitted tie. His sartorial elegance made me painfully aware of my own paint stained jeans and battered work boots I had worn to the job site. His luggage, a Louis Vuitton duffle and hanging bag in charcoal canvas lay on the sofa. I went over and gave him a hug and a kiss. I was disappointed he had company (“There goes any chance of a quickie,” I thought), but was glad to at least get the chance to give him a proper goodbye, since I had been in such a rush this morning.

“Oh, hi, John,” I said recognizing the guest. John was the realtor we had been working with recently, another gay team member, and a very handsome one. He was in his early 30s, and a tall, thin brunette with classical features, and piercing dark brown eyes. Looking at his well put together outfit, I felt even worse about not bothering to at least find an unstained pair of jeans to wear.

“Hi, Brandon,” he replied, somewhat stiffly. Noticing the clipped tone in his voice, and Reed’s own stony face, I got the feeling I had interrupted something unpleasant. “Well,” he continued, “I need to be going. Reed, I meant what I said. You need to make a decision, and soon.” With that he turned, and walked out, slamming the front door.

“What was that all about?” I asked, turning to Reed.

He sighed. “I really meant to talk about this when I got back.”

“Talk about what?” I said cautiously. I could feel my stomach knotting. “Does it have to do with what you and John were talking about?”

He sighed again. “Yes. I’m planning to sell the house.”

“What? You’ve decided to sell the house, and you’re just now telling me? I mean, I don’t love it, but shouldn’t I get a say in this?” I knew as soon as the words let my mouth I had handled it wrong. I mean, I was pissed, but after years together, I knew that he did not handle criticism well, and tended to go immediately on the defensive.

He flinched, a look of guilt flashing across his handsome features before they settled into a look of anger.

“Technically, it’s my house. My money bought it, my name is on the deed, and I can do what I want with it.” He saw the look of shock on my face and immediately put his hands over his face. I was too stunned by the vitriol in his voice to do anything, and a moment later he removed his hands, and the look of anger was gone, replaced by one of sadness.

“I’m sorry,” he said, “I didn’t mean to talk to you like that.”

I stood still staring at him. I noticed that despite what appeared to be genuine apology in his voice, he didn’t move closer to give me a reassuring hug or touch.

“But I do want to sell the house,” he continued. “I know you’ve never cared for it, and I’m not sure it’s what I want anymore. The market’s hot now, and if I put on the market soon, I know I can get the asking price, maybe more.”

I still felt on uneasy ground, hesitant to put a foot wrong. “I should be used to moving by now. I’ve almost lost count of the places we’ve lived.” I tried to laugh, but even to my ears, it sounded hollow. “So where now? We’ve tried MidCity, the Bywater, Uptown----maybe would could try Bayou St. John.”

“Brandon,” he said, then stopped and moved toward the luggage on the sofa, turning his back toward me. “I’ve decided on a condo on Tchoupitoulas Street.”

I tried to ignore the increasingly sick feeling in the pit of my stomach. “The warehouse district would be new,” I said.

He sighed again, dropping his shoulders and turned to face me. “The condo isn’t for us. It’s for me.”

I felt the blood draining from my face, seemingly from my body. I went cold, so cold I thought I would never be warm again. My voice, too was ice cold, though strangely calm, as I said, “What exactly do you mean by that?”

“I need to be alone. I need to sort some things out. I just don’t know what I want right now.”

“And where I am supposed to live while you “find yourself”’?” The ice continued in my voice. And indeed, the cold emptiness inside my was being filled with a blue white rage.

In most ways, I was like my father: sometimes distant, but pretty happy go lucky. Sure I got mad, sometimes easily, but it always passed quickly; a brief flare like kindling.

But deep inside, I also had some of my mother’s temperament. She had been what they used to call high strung, and what I suspect was an undiagnosed bipolar disorder. She had died when I was young, but I clearly remembered the tantrums, the plates and glasses being flung across the room, the slammed doors and squealing tires as she drove off from whatever innocuous comment of my father’s that had enraged her.

Witnessing the destruction her anger had left behind at family gatherings holidays, I had vowed never to left my anger control me. And on the few occasions it had threatened too, I removed myself from the source, fleeing to some dark corner to hole myself up alone like a wounded animal, until the rage had passed. And I had always been amazed that this towering anger was such a cold one, so unlike the brief heat that flared when someone cut me off in traffic or I realized that Reed had eaten all of the ice cream. This time, I let it fill me. I welcomed the icy rage.

“We’ll talk about it when I get back in a few days. I’m really sorry….I didn’t mean to lay this on you right before leaving. I promise you we’ll work it out when I get back. I would never just throw you out on the street.”

As the blue white rage rampaged through me, everything clarified.

“You’re seeing somebody, aren’t you? Who? Somebody I know?” His eyes widened, and he involuntarily glanced to the door. In some sort of divine flash, I realized who his whore was. “You’re fucking John.” It was a statement, not a question.

“It’s not like that.”

“He’s fucking you, then? Is that what it’s like?”

He looked down without answering.

“Was that why he was here, some ultimatum? Some sort of “Pick him or me” type of thing?”

“Yes,” he said quietly.

“Anything else you need to get off your chest? Are you screwing the pool boy? The gardener? Our friends?”

“No,” he said, still looking down. “Except for him, there’s never been anyone else.”

“How long have you two been fuck buddies?”

He finally looked up. “Honestly, it’s not like that. We have been working so close together, and it just happened,” he paused. “It’s only been a few times, but I feel something for him, something more than just sex.”

“Do you love him?” The question physically hurt to ask.

“I….I... I don’t know…..I feel something when I’m with him, but I’m so confused….I’m sorry.”

The vase struck the bookcase beside him with a force that it dented the wooden trim before falling to shatter on the marble floor.

“Jesus!” he said, jumping back. “You could have hit me!”

“I was trying to, “ I said. “Unfortunately, I’ve always had shit aim.”

He looked at me uncertainly, as if trying to figure out if I was serious or joking. I had habit of joking at tense times to relieve pressure. I always preferred laughing with sinners to crying with saints. This time, though, I wasn’t joking.

“You need to leave now,” I said. “You need to take your things and go before I really try to hurt you. Because I want to, I really do.”

I saw something in his eyes as he stared at me that I had never seen before and never wanted to see again. I saw fear, and that look of fear pierced my frozen heart, shattering the ice that had formed inside me. An empty shell without my anger, I stood staring straight ahead as he grabbed his luggage and fled. Only after hearing the door close, did I drop into the closest chair.

I’m not sure how long I sat, but at some point, I came too. I had no idea where I was going and certainly no idea of what I was going to do when I got there, but I couldn’t stay here any longer. Upstairs, I packed quickly, taking only what I needed. I ignored my own set of Louis Vuitton luggage that had been Reed’s last Christmas present to me, instead pulling out a battered leather duffle that had been a college graduation present and an old backpack.

The backpack was one of my hurricane evacuation tools and held my important paperwork, birth certificate, family photos, etc. and was always ready to go. I just added my pad, laptop, and some jeans and t-shirts to the duffle ignoring the rows of suits and stacks of freshly pressed button down shirts; I was finished within minutes. There was nothing else I wanted out of this house.

I did pause for a minute and pick up the silver framed photo that stood on my nightstand. Wherever we lived, whatever the master bedroom looked like, that picture had sat on my nightstand. It was a picture from early in our relationship. We were at a local music festival and looked so young, so happy, and so in love. I stared at it for a moment, and put it back down.

I took a moment to look through the duffle and backpack to make sure I had everything I needed for the time being, and headed downstairs. I paused in the hall, to take the key to the house and the SUV off my ring and leave them on the console. I didn’t need them any longer. At the door, I stopped and looked around at the house I was leaving. So beautiful. So cold. So empty. As I reached for the door, I noticed the watch on my left hand. It was a stainless steel Rolex.

A Rolex watch, despite the other trappings of luxury I had come to live with, was the only status symbol I had ever really wanted. I still don’t even know why owning a Rolex had mattered, but it had. And Reed, as he often did, had paid attention to me and my conversation. When he sold the first house for such a massive profit, he had bought the watch as a surprise for me.

I still remember the shock of opening the box, the excitement, and then the joy as I read the inscription “I love you. R.” I had worn it almost everyday since then, and it was scratched and a bit battered. Reed had tried to get me to let him upgrade it countless times, until I had finally convinced him how much the watch meant to me. That it was a symbol of his love, not an expensive watch to me. He had pulled me closed and kissed me when he realized how much his gift had really touched me.

I stared at it and stroked it with a finger. I had worn it for so long, it felt like a part of me, and the brief times I had to remove it for working on a project or to have it repaired, I always felt strange, naked. Like a part of me was missing. I closed my eyes, brought it to my lips and kissed it. I then took it off and flung onto the hard, marble floor. I heard the crystal shatter with a satisfying crunch. I opened the door and walked out.