Marie Sexton - Coda 02 - A to Z (2 page)

“I’ll stop by here and pick you up at six.”

 

I hadn’t had a date in months. I was definitely counting the hours.

Later that afternoon Ruby stopped in. Ruby owned the holistic bookstore next door to my shop. She was in her sixties, at least. She was barely five feet tall and probably weighed less than a hundred pounds. Her hair was silver, cut short and well styled, and she always wore smart-looking pantsuits. Today’s suit was charcoal gray, with a sky blue scarf around her neck that matched her eyes. She looked like somebody’s rich grandmother.

That illusion was always shattered the minute she opened her mouth. That was when you realized she wasn’t quite playing with a full deck.

“Hey, Ruby,” I said. “Did you meet the new landlord?” “Of course I did,” she said in disgust. “What a terrible man.”

“Oh?” She was so serious, and I was trying not laugh. “Why do you say that?”

“He had no soul,” she said, as if it was the most obvious thing in the world. “Couldn’t you tell? Just dark, all around.” She shuddered. “He’s going to be trouble, Zach.” She shook her finger at me. “You mark my words.”

“Okay.” What else could I say?

 

“That’s not what I came to talk to you about, though. I want you to know I had a vision about you last night.”

Ruby claimed to be psychic. She was always having “visions.” I’m not much of a believer in that kind of thing, but I never had the heart to tell Ruby that. “Is that right?” I asked casually.

“It’s the truth. I saw you. You were standing with an angel. You were in an auto-parts store, and you were handing out plates of chicken Alfredo.” She looked at me expectantly.

I never knew what to do or say after hearing her “visions.” Was I supposed to clap? Or be astounded? Or look frightened? “Ummm….” I stammered, instead. “That sounds very interesting.”

“I thought so too.” She was still looking at me with anticipation, like I might suddenly break down and admit that I had indeed been serving pasta at Checker just the other night with Gabriel himself at my side.

“An angel?” I asked dumbly.

“Why, yes!” She beamed at me. “Isn’t it wonderful? I keep hoping you’ll meet a nice girl, and now I know you will!” Never mind that I had no interest whatsoever in meeting a “nice girl.” I had told Ruby at least twenty times that I was gay, but she always acted like she hadn’t heard me. I was pretty sure she thought it was just a phase and eventually I’d grow out of it. “I just had to tell you. I thought you would want to know.”

“Of course, Ruby. Thanks.” I managed to keep a straight face when I said it too. “I appreciate that.” She nodded sagely, then turned and headed out the door. She was just pushing it open when a thought crossed my mind. “Ruby,” I had to ask, “was I dead?”

She looked back at me in surprise. “Of course not, dear. Why would you be dead?”

“Well….” I felt silly, but now that the thought was in my head, I really wanted to know. “If there was an angel there, then I must have been in heaven, right?”

She shook her finger at me. “Don’t be a smartass, Zach. There aren’t any cars in heaven.”

After her came Jeremy. Jeremy’s head shop was on the opposite side of Ruby’s bookstore, but Jeremy was no long-hair, sandal-wearing hippy. He was the father of three teenagers, he wore a tie every day, and he was an active member of the PTA as well as the city council. In addition to all that, he was a staunch supporter of the Libertarian party. Most of the time that didn’t matter, but this was an election year, which meant that Jeremy was in full-blown campaign mode.

“Zach, I want to know if you’ve thought about who you’re going to vote for in the presidential election.”

I was woefully uneducated when it came to politics. “Do we even know who the candidates are yet?” I asked. Weren’t there primaries or caucuses or something first?

He shook his head at me in disgust. “Zach, it doesn’t matter which talking heads the Republicrats put up as their candidates. Either way you’re voting to maintain the status quo. Is that what you want?”

“Ummm….”
“Are you pro-choice?”

“Sure, I guess.” Abortion’s not something a gay man has to think about often.

 

“And you must be in favor of allowing gays to marry?” “Of course.” But I’d have to actually date somebody first, right?

 

“And you believe in the decriminalization of marijuana?” “I suppose.” There was no way I was going to argue with a man who sold bongs for a living on that one.

“Don’t you think you should be able to vote against our out-ofcontrol welfare state without having to vote against those basic rights? Basic rights which
should
be protected by our constitution?”

“Well—”

 

“Have you even read the constitution, Zach?”

I had to stop and think about that. I didn’t remember having read it. How could I get through twelve years of public education and five years at a major university, without ever reading the constitution? “I don’t think so,” I admitted in surprise.

He shook his head at me. “Neither has the president, Zach. Think about that.”

 

He left a stack of pamphlets on the counter and headed for Ruby’s. It was going to be a long campaign season.

Since it was Friday, all of my regular customers came by as the afternoon wore on. First there was the punk, who had left shortly after Tom, but before Ruby’s disclosure of her angel and pasta vision. Then came Jimmy Buffett. I couldn’t remember his real name, but he was a dead ringer for the “Margaritaville”-man himself. He always seemed to be embarrassed when he brought his movies up, and I could only assume it was over the terrible Hawaiian print shirts he wore. Next was Eddie. That wasn’t his real name, but he always had on an Iron Maiden T-shirt with the ghoulish Eddie on the front, and he sported the same hairdo as the lead singer. He always seemed pissed at me. I blamed the music. Last, there was Goth Girl. Black hair, thick black eyeliner that always made it look like she had been crying, and three piercings in her bottom lip. She glared at me challengingly as she paid for her movie, and then it was time to lock the doors.

I had worried through the last hour of the day that Tom wouldn’t show, but he arrived promptly at six. He took me to a fabulous restaurant. We drank a bottle of Chianti and made small talk. There was no doubt that he was flirting with me. Afterward he drove me back to A to Z, then walked me to my car.

“The previous owner was facing bankruptcy, so I got the building at a good price. He wasn’t much of a landlord. Do you realize you don’t even have a lease at the moment?”

“Yeah, Mr. McBride wasn’t that big on contracts. I paid the rent, and that was enough for him.” I realized that also meant I could now be evicted at the drop of a hat.

“I’ll be writing up new lease contracts soon. The bad news is, I don’t know if I’ll be able to keep the rent the same. The building needs a lot of work and I am, in the end, a businessman.”

That was definitely bad news for me. I barely managed to make ends meet now. If he raised my rent, it could be a problem. “How much of an increase am I looking at?”

“I’m not sure. I haven’t worked through everything yet.” He stepped up close to me, and my heart started to race. “Can you afford a rent increase?” Somehow he made that question sound unbelievably sexy.

“Not really,” I managed to say. He put his hand up and brushed my cheek.

 

“I don’t want to run you out of business,” he said as he stepped closer. He was now almost pressing against me.

 

“That makes two of us.”

He smiled, and I thought my knees would give out. He pushed closer and brushed his lips over mine. He smelled amazing. I leaned into him, and then he really kissed me. His tongue pushed into my mouth. I felt both of his hands grab my ass, and he pulled me hard against him. Even fully clothed I could feel how firm and muscular his body was. The kiss ended much too soon and left me breathless. “Maybe,” he said in that low, sexy voice as he pulled back, “we can work something out. Would you like that?” he asked.

“Absolutely.”

 

“Good.” He smiled and stepped back. “I can’t wait to see you again.”

As I drove home in my old Mustang—the same one I’d owned since college—I couldn’t help but wish that I had invited him over. The lingering excitement from that one kiss wasn’t quite enough to alleviate the loneliness I felt as I climbed the steps to my apartment. At least I only had a couple of hours to kill before I could go to bed.

I poured myself a glass of wine and turned on some music. I had a half-finished jigsaw puzzle spread across the dining room table, and I sat down to work on it. A lot of my evenings were spent working some kind of puzzle—crosswords, Sudoku, whatever would pass the time.

Jonathan’s cat, Geisha, wandered in. I still thought of her as Jon’s cat, even though he hadn’t been there to take care of her for almost ten years. She had long silver hair and green eyes. He was the one who had left her behind, but she had never forgiven me for not being him. She eyed me with open contempt, as only a cat can, and then disappeared through the cat flap in the living room window.

I remembered how excited Jonathan and I had been when we brought her home. We’d had so many plans.

 

It was all such a long time ago.

How had I come to this—still living in the same apartment, working at the same video store? I had managed to survive the DVD revolution but for what? I had no love for my business, and yet I couldn’t imagine doing anything else. I knew it was only a matter of time before I was forced to close. I should have done it years ago. And yet I had no idea what else I could do.

I was just drifting along, like a man in a life raft, waiting for the next storm to sink me. It was too depressing to contemplate. I finished my wine and went to bed.

T
OM
called me the day after our date to tell me he’d had a good time and to assure me that I would be seeing him again, although he didn’t say when. A couple of days passed, and I didn’t hear from him, but I wasn’t worried. I was actually too busy to be worried. I had exactly one employee, a twenty-two-year-old named Tracy. Or maybe it was Tammy. I had a hard time remembering. She was always high and practically bathed in patchouli. She had just noshowed for her fourth shift in a row. I decided it was safe to consider that her resignation.

The problem was, it had actually been a pretty busy day, and I really could have used some help. The rush had finally ended. The skinny punk with the attitude was back. Today he had returned
Blade Runner
. I’d never seen it, but at least I knew it went in Sci-Fi. I watched the punk. He stopped and picked up a movie. He looked over at me, shook his head a little, then walked over and put it on a different shelf. Was he moving stuff around? I couldn’t find anything to begin with. I didn’t need him making things worse.

I was about to say something to him when Tom walked in. Like before, he was wearing dress slacks and a crisp white shirt with the top buttons undone. He looked amazing.

He leaned on the counter and looked into my eyes, and I knew I had the most ridiculous smile in the world plastered across my face.

“Hey,” he said in that smooth sexy voice. “I’ve been thinking about you.”

 

“Glad to hear it.”

 

He looked around the shop and saw the punk, then turned back to me and whispered, “Will he be long?”

I shrugged. “Maybe.” But right then, the punk grabbed a movie off the shelf and brought it up to the counter.
Mad Max
. Good. I knew where that one went too, which would save me time when he returned it the next day. I barely paid attention as I took his money, and then he was gone.

Tom followed him to the door and locked it after he left. Then he turned back to me with a smile. “Alone at last.”

My heart was suddenly pounding. My palms were sweaty and I had a hard-on that was threatening to rip the buttons off of my jeans. Tom walked over, still smiling. He nodded at the door behind me. “Where’s that go?”

“An office.”
His smile got even bigger. “Perfect.”

He led me through the door and closed it behind us. Then he turned and pushed me gently against the wall. He pressed his body against mine and his lips brushed my neck.

“I mean it, Zach. I haven’t stopped thinking about you since we had dinner.” His hands were sliding down my back and then squeezing my ass. “I know we hardly know each other. But I really feel like there’s something between us.” Something other than two very erect cocks? I certainly wasn’t going to argue the point. He kissed my neck some more and pushed his groin into mine. “I think we should get to know each other better. What do you think?”

“I’d like that,” I said.
“How about dinner tonight?”
“That sounds great.”

He squeezed my ass one last time, then pulled away. “I’ll pick you up at six.”

He took me to the same restaurant. He ordered a bottle of wine again. He talked incessantly about stocks and portfolios and investment returns. It would have been terribly boring if his hand hadn’t been slowly moving up my thigh at the same time.

After he paid the bill, his fingers brushed the growing bulge in my pants. He leaned over and whispered in my ear, “Can I come over?”

“Of course,” I said, relieved he hadn’t left it up to me to invite him.

As soon as we got in the door of my apartment, Geisha came out of the bedroom. She hissed at Tom, then streaked past us toward the cat flap in the window.

“What’s wrong with your cat?” Tom asked.
“She hates people.”

But I had no intention of wasting time talking about my exboyfriend’s pissed-off cat. I put my arms around his neck and kissed him. His body was strong and hard against mine, and I couldn’t wait to see more of it. He backed me against the wall. His kisses were aggressive and insistent. His tongue brushed the roof of my mouth, and his hands were grabbing my ass again.

I felt like I was on fire. I hadn’t been with another man for more than eight months, and even that had been nothing more than a drunken fuck, forgotten as soon as it was over. This felt completely different. I couldn’t get enough of him. I put my hands under his shirt, feeling his chest, which was covered with thick, coarse hair. I ran my thumbs over his nipples and heard him moan.