Blind hearts - 8. Chivalric Male Chauvinist

Alex was a half-hour late when he pulled into the visitor parking area of Frank’s apartment. The sycamore shaded over the grainy hood of his car, and he could see through its reticule of leaves winged dots in the sky. A tingle still glowed at the base of his groin, the air soothingly damp down his nape. He wiped down his face and mussed his hair and hoped before the mirrors of his imagination he looked presentable enough. Leaning back against the hood, he called Frank, but not before sneering at the toilet color of the two-storey complex, its monk and nun roof tiling running off hues of the same toilet color, and the green blandness of the angular lawns. Frank’s parents, evil capitalists they were, paid for the rent and utilities of the two-bedroom apartment. Frank, niggard he was, divided the second room into two and rented at high college rates to the mousiest girls. Supposedly girls were cleaner and would bake him cookies in their simpering gratitude.

Alex descried bumping down the stairs a figure in straight leg jeans and lime green jersey, that same jersey Frank had worn when they were kicked out from a casino for making too much money on Black Jack. Alex’s eyes shriveled from the too-bright light of the day and slid away the portent of soon-coming mischief. And confirming all unease, Frank’s square face sharpened from the distant blur, and there was an annular bruise shading his left eye.

“Rawwrrr, you look ravishing, ma chérie,” Alex said in a fake French accent. Frank shot him a tiger look, daring Alex to contort an even dirtier face at him.

Frank’s face was still a beast of scowls; Alex gave his best poker face. “Sorry I’m late. Mom needed me to do shit for her.”

“Yeah, like sucking her nine-inch cock.”

“You said you loved my mom. I’m so, so hurt.”

Frank sneered as he made his around to the passenger side of Alex’s car. “You drive, darling.”

Something up in the sky was fucking with him, Alex moped, opening the door to his car. A drive down PCH open top in Frank’s convertible would have been a fitting addendum to topping Tony. But compromise… he had been late afterall.

After a few minutes of driving, Frank said, “Sucking dick on a Sunday morning... There ought be a law against that.”

“Fine by me. Tony was too fucking stoned to be the man this morning.”

Frank snorted. “Tony, snuck-into-the-Emmys Tony?”

“The one and only.”

Frank ticked his head ruminatively. “Man, you’re a walking cliché. I can count the number of chicks I’ve nailed on one hand. And you … God, I don’t even want to think about it.”

“Not my prob. You can always come over to the dark side,” Alex said.

“Yeah that, when the moon falls out of the sky.”

That unexpectedly hurt. Alex slid in his seat, blustered, “What the fuck happened to your face?”

“Janet is what. But don’t worry. We’re going to remedy that in a few hours.”

Oh boy. Alex didn’t want to ask. Surprises were better left as presents unopened. He rolled to a stop at the traffic and glimpsed Frank’s hand thumbing at the car radio. A small hand with astonishingly symmetrical and lean fingernails. A tightness grew below in his belt, and he flicked his eyes back to the panoptic of the parched brownness. Tony hadn’t been nearly enough. First time fucking the 6’ 2” of hard muscle though. Nice, great… He rarely did that these days but Tony had proved such a rickety intoxicated horse; it was easier to just roll him over and take charge. Now Something was unmistakable under his pants as the image flashed of Dimov under him moaning just as shatteringly as Tony did. Alex shifted, his balls tingling, loathed the restraining fact of Frank beside him. But Frank shouldn’t mind if he took care of it right there. Frank understands needs …dear God, Frank would—He looked back to the slim back profile of Frank giving his full attention to the window. Frank shouldn’t mind if he reached over and rough up the shingled layers of his black hair.

Now what would his mother think of his infatuation? Shock the cold ballast of her heart? Castigate him for being the weak soul that she had always knew him to be, falling for the son of failed parentage? Yes she actually called him that. It had been Frank’s mother Cassie’s fault.

When he was eleven, the beanstalk woman had railed at Susan for flaring Frank’s supposed allergies to high fructose corn syrup and red 40. Allegedly Frank had returned from a sleepover with a cold of some kind. Susan had apologized, even smiled and hugged her after she brought over a bag of approved snacks for Frank’s next sleepover, but then despite Cassie’s regular invitations, banned Alex from visiting Frank in their five and half million dollar castle of loonies. Alex never apprised Frank of Susan muttering ‘drunk cow’ after Cassie’s many slurry calls to establish sisterhood. Not that Frank would have been offended. He also remembered Susan vituperating to his father about the “millionaire hussy” who dared to invited him to join them on an expensive summer trip to Corfu.

Alex, in his roving manner, ignored Susan’s dislike of Frank’s family. As soon as Frank was handed a car on his 16^th birthday, he visited their house several times and could confirm that it was a castle of loonies. Between Cassie sobbing she was a bad old mother at the table, a husband on his knees and patting her lap uxoriously, an elder brother topping off her glass with champagne, his elder sister cooing that she didn’t look a day over thirty, and Frank flipping pages of the DSMV manual and lecturing Cassie on what particular disorder she exhibited that day, Alex could appreciate the frigid still at his own house but not for long. Soon enough he was jeering playfully of Frank the suave studmaster in their castle of cries, yells, laughter, their designer Shih Tzu yipping, the back and forth on Frank being the hardass bad son. Frank was king, arrogantly apart from the insanity, and he wanted to be king, but some point it was more than enough to be next to the king. For now at least, till the end of summer maybe, and then never more…

Alex had never given serious thought to confessing to Frank. Never saw the point of it. Even trained himself not to think about Frank erotically. But now looking at back of Frank pressed against the window, he wanted to wrap his arms around those small shoulders, say those three simple words, and be free. What was the harm? Sure Frank might punch him out and curse away to New York. But he would be free, far away from Frank’s perimeter of hurt, to think up all the nasty shit that he had so assiduously beaten back every night. Dreams were a lot hotter when there was no chance of fulfillment.

But take that chance? Alex drew back to the clean black streets of Irvine and the mindlessness rolled on by. The burger joint, the earth-toned colors, the inanity of green lawns when they said there was a drought, the six lane city streets, and then video-game maneuvering of cars on the 405 freeway, prissy storefronts in Santa Monica downtown, and the touching smell of salt and fish in the air, and then the narrow drive through Malibu hedged between mountain sides and the bluff views of the Pacific ocean roiling a touristic oblivion.

***

They arrived at the private road that led to a flower-fringed row of mansions but was stopped by a black guard at the gate. The stout man perused lists and radioed strange persons, but the verdict was the same: Frank and Alex had no invitation.

“Someone dropped the ball here.” Alex’s eyes darkened over Frank, but Frank jeered to the guard, “You sure about?” got out of the car and searched his wallet, and then presented the guard seated in the sentry-box with a family photo.

“I told you I’m Bill Matheson’s son. My father and Richard know each other. Bill came here last week, if I’m not mistaken.”

“Yes, you look like his son. But that was last week, and this is this week.” The guard came out and was looming like Everest over the short Frank. Then a familiar white bronco pulled up behind Alex’s car.

“Frank?” The raspy voice shook Alex to see in his side-view mirror the curly mane of Janet’s head vibrating outside the driver seat window. And from the front seat stepped out a muscled gorilla in a tight polo and jeans—Samuel Hoyt, Alex mouthed to himself and his tight balls.

“The fuck you doing here?” Janet asked Frank.

The question did not need answering as Samuel pounded excitedly to Frank and boomed, “I’m so stoked you came.” Samuel straightened things with the guard, leaving Frank smirking like a halloween pumpkin at the lady in a short sheer qipao. Then the gates unrolled, and before Frank returned to the car, he winked at Janet scowling up a wrinkly face marked up with blush and pink lipstick.

Alex parked beside a wall of crisp bourgavillaes. Frank was still that hideous smirking pumpkin with one bad eye, unsettling Alex. It was sure going to be peachy for the next few hours.

“You carry a picture of your family in your wallet?” Alex pulled the parking brake.

“Yeah, don’t you?”

Alex huffed. “Yeah so this shit … what should I know before going in there?”

“Your hot rod is Janet’s new boyfriend.”

Alex winced. Lucky Janet. “He’s tall, and very big. I approve.”

“Yeah fuck you too.” Frank simmered a moment, watching a white smooth leg slip out of the white bronco. He mumbled, “She said she hates poker. But she’ll drop it for rich geezers. What fuck does she see in him anyway? She hates idiots.”

“A big dick is involved. Anything’s possible.”

“I’m not taking this laying down.”

“Fuck me Frank, what exactly do you plan to do?

“Nothing… And you keep telling me to make up with her already. Can you believe this shit? She calls my brain testicle-sized then tells me I can’t handle real women, and I tell real women are ten pounds too heavy then she socks me one. I’m here to call her out. She should thank me for not being a feminist, but a chivalric male chauvinist.”

Alex gritted his teeth at the pain twisting his sides. Janet needed a stern talking to but first he came here for free good food, and he was damn well not letting Frank to spoil the chance of that.

Alex said, “We’re graduating. This is all bull that doesn’t matter anymore.”

“No shit Sherlock. Doesn’t mean I can’t do anything about it. You’re here just to make sure Sam doesn’t go roid rage on my ass.”

“I’m afraid I’ll be too busy looking at Sam’s package.”

“And I thought you thought my ass is hot.”

Alex shrank five inches before Frank’s easy stare. His body was tense with his pent-up breath, but the still moment fractured too quickly with Frank smashing himself out the door. And in the dizzying vacuum of Frank’s absence, Alex felt disordered. He wiped down his cold face and reminded himself he was only there for free good food then stepped out of the car with a strained calm. He sighed to the pale sky, to the distant murmur of ocean waves. A Frank scorned and motivated might just add the much needed color to the afternoon. But trouble came clopping in six-inch heels with Janet installing herself before Alex and demanding, “What the fuck you guys doing here? Are you stalking me, Frank?”

“We came here for food and the ocean, sweet heart. Alex wanted to see him some of Sam Hoyt’s cock,” Frank moaned.

However, Janet’s question surfed over Alex’s mind as he was instantly transfigured by her jiggle index. It was alarming all the lace looping that concealed so much but reveal just as much.

“That’s… em… very interesting,” Alex said to Janet. “They’re a bit distracting.”

Janet beamed, repositioned her breasts. “You think so? Thank you. I managed to catch your eye. Today will be perfect. Going fishing off geezers.”

“Fishing and sucking wrinkled dick too,” added Frank, “God it’s a crime to suck dick on a Sunday.”

She frowned a little. “Maybe I rip you in another one?”

“And you call yourself a feminist…” Frank, content with the droop in Janet’s blue eyes, turned around to the side-view mirrors to pick at his teeth.

Alex looked back to Janet muttering incoherently to herself. “This punching shit isn’t funny.” Janet looked at the sky, to the sentry box, rested on Samuel looking at a reflection of himself in the window of her bronco and mussing up his dirty blond hair.

“The wrong guy would have fucked you up, but good for you Frank’s a chivalric male chauvinist,” Alex said.

“What the fuck does that mean?” Jane spat.

“He didn’t hit you back because you’re a girl. Trust me on this.”

Her pink lips thinned to razor edges. “Did he now?” She removed her shoes with gothic spire heels, and arms swinging furiously, marched over to Frank on his way to meet up with Samuel. “Chivalric male chauvinist, eh?” She turned a cheek to him. “I owe you a punch. Hit me back.” Frank squirmed round to Alex tittering. “Hit me back. I owe you.”

“Calm down… No need to get emotional. Did I mention you look cute and slutty today?” Frank said, clenching and unclenching his fists to indecision.

“Calm down? If you’re going to give me this masculine bullshit of rationality, get on with it and hit me one!”

Alex stared at Samuel’s peach buttocks as they lopped rotten fruit in the air. Frank said she was loco again like when she was crying stupidly over a dinner she had demanded. Janet said any woman would go crazy with a drunk Chihuahua bitching about decent fake titties at a movie theatre. He said only a drunk guy can sit through a chick flick with ugly broads. She said it was a great thing she got herself SIX FEET SIX inches of a real man to take her out to a chick flick with ugly broads. Frank shouted, “not only are you a size queen, you’re a fucking BITCH.”

The last word was all that was needed to stop Samuel from preening in front of Janet’s car and catapult onto the squabble and tackle Frank against Alex’s car. A loud thump expanded between Alex’s ears and then a sickening moan sliding off to pain shivered him. Frank saw stars. Alex dreamt stars, wished he had been the one who was tackled instead of Frank.

But Frank would not be subdued into relenting. He recovered from the car groggily and bent his arm around Samuel’s wide waist to flip off Janet smiling like a newly-wed princess. Samuel was looming closer against, causing a severe constricting of Alex’s belly as Alex gulped before the I-will-fuck-you-up snarl twisting on Samuel’s face. Instinctively, Alex darted in between them ostensibly to calm down the emotions, but Samuel—muscle stacked muscle, the neck hard and thick as a Sequoia trunk, eyes tight and full of intent on Alex. Words and reason boiled away into a steam of hard hot need.

“Cubby, he’s checking you,” came Janet’s cackle.

“You, bitch!” Alex cried before Samuel butted him into the car, reverberating a jolt through his skull.

“You checking me out? Huh? Huh? I’m no fag.”

Alex was bursting with words and whimpering. “No, no. I’m good. I’m good. You’re not my type. Seriously. I have eyes only—” His eyes twirled around the ficus hedges the tatted net of a basketball hoop then zoomed into Frank sniggering right next to him. “Frank! I have only eyes for him.” He yanked Frank into a much disdained side hug. “I and him go way back. I and him. Just like you and Janet.”

“Fuc—” Frank shouted but stifled his cry as Samuel leaned into him with quizzical eyes. Moments ticked by to Janet’s mezzo cackle then Samuel softened, his eyes rounding like glossy gumball, scratched his head.

“Then what’s he talking all that stuff with my girl?”

“Nothing, nothing important, just queeny bullshit,” Alex offered quickly. “Please. I like little guys like Frank. Easier to maneuver.”

“You do?” Samuel scratched his head then nodded definitely. “I’m not a homophobe, but I’m no homo.”

“I know. Funny how people confuse the two.”

Samuel gathered him up and gave him a great big hug. Fresh sweat, a clean masculine scent enveloped Alex—death by smothering would be nice—he exhaled gratefully.

“We’re friends. No homo?” Samuel asked. Alex nodded desperately. Samuel turned around and carried up Janet and kissed her one, twice, thrice, and so more until she smacked his stubbly cheeks lightly and said he needed a shave. They skipped away to the flagstone walkway curving the green darkness of a front yard.

Alex, winded, collapsed to the ground and fell back relieved against the fender. At least, he got a free hug. That was good.

Frank stood in front of Alex, flicking harsh fingers in the air. “Great everyone in that damn house will think I’m gay. Fuck! Richard will talk to Dad about me being gay. Nice going Asshole.”

The tone jagged Alex, and he flipped him off. Frank flipped him off too, but with a smile that disconcertingly collapsed into hollow laughter.

“This is fucking sad. I’m the woman-hating asshole, and you’re fluffy, fabulous manwhore.”

Alex nodded in affirmation. There was a tragedy he grasped faintly of Frank, lover of women, forever trapped outside the cages of their soul. Perhaps Frank was not as straight as … Alex was aware now of an open hand offering to help to his feet. He dared not refuse.

They were close now; a thumb could fit in between their noses. Cheers of a carnival bright with laughter spiced the air, and the wind seemed to have bothered to intrude upon them. But Frank’s eyes never wavered off Alex’s. Alex hoped they would they stay like that forever, be unmarred of their earth-tinged intensity.

“Why the fuck are you staying in SoCal for a job?” Frank said.

Alex looked away to the black tar of the road, snorted into a chuckle. “I’m hungry. If you don’t mind, we’re eating then leaving. No poker.” He walked away quickly, something tiny but distinct still fluttering against his heart. He remembered too many things, too forcefully: Mom being anal, the interview he should be preparing for, Dimov begging him to stay, Frank’s voice lively and booming in his ears of a hot girl who played mean poker. But when he landed at the entrance to the walkway leading up to the steel-framed door, there was Dimov silent, strong, rueful over a potted petunia.

“Shit,” Alex muttered.