Alex in Wonderland (The Wonderland Series Book 1) (19 page)

3
2

You
Really
Can’t Go Home
Again

Alex was stopped cold, mesmerized
by Cord’s rugged beauty and the raw power it radiated. The reality of the
looming confrontation was both exhilarating and terrifying. It made him dizzy,
until finally, through sheer willpower, he ordered his feet to move. He inched
toward the iron gate and gripped its rusty spikes for support.

Stalled again, he watched and
waited.

Although the lawnmower had no
motor, it made quite a racket until Cord stopped and pulled a bandana from his
hip pocket. Alex watched him wipe his sweaty forehead and scan the yard, as
though sensing an intrusive presence. Cord squinted in the tropical glare until
the silhouette by the gate came into focus. He took a few steps forward and
stopped when recognition washed over him. His voice cracked with disbelief.

“Alex?”

“Yeah. It’s me.”

“But how did…what are you doing in Key
West?”

“Because you’re
here.”

“How did you find me?”

“I went to the cottage and your
father told me you’d left.”

“He did, huh?” Cord’s face went
dark and he looked nowhere in particular. “Did he also tell you he tried to
kill me?”

“No,” Alex said, wrestling with
more mental overload. “He…he was pretty drunk.”

“So what else is new?”

“I guess.” Alex rediscovered his
strength and pushed the gate back. He winced when it squeaked in protest.
“Sounds like this thing could use some grease.”

“Uh, yeah,” Cord said. He mopped
his brow again and shifted his weight from one foot to the other. “Just one of
a thousand things that need to be done around here.” He looked toward the
derelict house. “Need to clean out those gutters too.”

Alex frowned. He was dying to rush
into this man’s arms, aching to be told everything was alright and that all was
forgiven and that they could start over again right here and now. Instead, Cord
was reciting a laundry list of house repairs. Making matters worse, he backed
away when Alex approached, retreating until his heels hit the front steps. Only
then did he fully address a visitor’s presence by offering lemonade. This
mundane gesture of Southern hospitality pierced Alex’s heart like an ice pick.

“C’mon, babe,” Alex purred. Even in
the awkwardness of the moment, he couldn’t help noticing Cord’s pecs were more
tanned and buffed than before. “You don’t think I came all this way for
lemonade, do you?”

Cord winced, looking more
uncomfortable by the minute. “I’m sure you didn’t, Alex, but I don’t know what
else to say.”

“Try.”

Cord looked at his feet, at the fig
tree, the lawnmower, at everything except Alex. “I think we said everything the last time we saw each other.”

“We need to forget all that.

“I can’t Alex. You called me a
thief and a liar and—”

“And you said I was spoiled and
selfish and nothing but a CNN blurb. Just thinking about those awful words
makes me sick to my stomach, which is why I need to forget them.
We
need
to forget them.”

Sweat dripped from his forehead as
Cord hung his head. “We said some pretty terrible things.”

“Yes, we did.” Alex was encouraged
by Cord’s markedly gentler tone. “But everything changed when Daddy told me
you’d refused the ransom. I realize now that you wanted me and not the money.”

“I told you that a dozen times,
Alex. You never listened.”

“But don’t you see, Cord?” Alex was
growing frantic, pleas emerging in a single one long run-on sentence as he
struggled to make his case. “It was all because I was so damned scared and
didn’t know who to trust or what to believe, and I was running for my life and
I made a dreadful mistake.”

“Yes, you did. We both did.”

“That’s why I’m here, Cord. So we
can fix that mistake.”

“Oh.”

Cord looked up as a pair of wild
parrots fluttered between cocoanut palms, assaulting the quiet with
ear-splitting shrieks. Alex thought absently of Angelique's Sazerac, and when
it became evident that Cord wasn’t going to break the ponderous silence that
followed, he nodded toward the wide veranda with its jumble of wicker furniture
and broken overhead fans.

“Could we at least sit down and
talk about it?”

“I…I’m not sure there’s anything to
talk about.”

Alex fought this newest thrust to
the heart with another desperate overture. “Then how about that lemonade?”

“Sure.” Cord said. “Have a seat.
I’ll get the pitcher and be right back.”

The wild vegetation seemed
increasingly surreal as Alex settled onto the settee and grimaced when his
sweat-soaked shirt stuck to him. Until now he hadn't noticed the escalating humidity.
The air was absolutely motionless, palm fronds hanging limp and still, the
rusty paddles of the broken fan seeming to mock him. Even the feral parrots
looked wilted as they slumped against one another and dozed.

“This is a bad dream,” Alex murmured.
“It’s that bad dream where I can’t wake up and can’t find my way home. I’m
running through the fog again, looking for something that I’ll never—”

“Alex? My God! Is that really you?”

Yanked from his stifling reverie,
Alex saw a vaguely familiar figure waving from the gate. In a few long strides,
it traveled the sidewalk and leapt up the stairs. “Better late than never as
they say. Damn, it’s good to see you!”

Alex’s jaw dropped as he was
enveloped in a bone-crushing embrace. Adding to the unreality of the moment was
the appearance of someone he had totally forgotten about, someone who brought
back a flood of erotic memories and more.

“Chandler!”
he gasped.
“
Chandler
Wilde!”

“In person!”
Chandler said, beaming. “It’s good
to see you, but why on earth didn’t you tell us you were coming?”

Us, Alex thought weakly. He said
“us,” not “me.”

Chandler
released him and chattered on. “After that crazy business last month, I figured
I’d never see you again. Bitsy must’ve given you my new address, huh?”

No, Alex thought miserably. She
didn’t.

Oblivious, Chandler
swept his arm across the property. “Pretty amazing, isn’t it? Of course it
needs a ton of work, but Cord and I are doing our best to bring it back to its
former glory. He’s an absolute wizard when it comes to carpentry and
landscaping and…well, listen to me running on and on. How are you, buddy? You
didn’t go through with that damned wedding, did you?”

Alex opened his mouth, but nothing
came out. His silence, coupled with an agonized expression, made Chandler
realize his mistake.
 

“Oh, shit! Didn’t…didn’t Cord tell
you he called me when his father threw him out and that we’ve been together
ever since?”

“I didn’t have time, Chandler.”
Cord stood in the doorway with two glasses of lemonade, looking as though he
were staring down the barrel of a gun. “Alex appeared out of nowhere about five
minutes ago and…Alex, wait! Stop! Let us explain!”

Alex heard nothing more as he leapt
from the porch and fled to his car. The blue sky and verdant vegetation were an
aquamarine blur as he sped down the street, cursing himself when he drove into
the cemetery again. In his sorrow and confusion, he stumbled out of the car and
reeled blindly, oblivious to the stares of a caretaker and handful of sunburned
tourists. He wandered aimlessly among the tombstones and mausoleums until his
knees gave out and he collapsed onto the hard, sandy soil where he lay sobbing
until he thought his heart would break.

Over and over again, Alex
considered the irony of the moment, how he had come all this distance to
finally admit the truth about himself and embark on a new life with the only
man he had ever loved. He had finally found the courage to open the closet door
only to have it slam in his face.

Is this it, he wondered. Is this
what I’ve been running through the fog to find? Is this the final fucking
payoff?

Alex didn’t know how long he lay
there, but when he finally opened his eyes and squinted into the intense Florida
sunlight, something shimmered and blurred and slowly came into focus. Staring
him right in the face was an epitaph that somehow made everything else
irrelevant. He read it aloud.

“I Told You I Was Sick.”

His tears turned to hysterical,
uncontrollable laughter.

PART FOUR

“‘Curiouser and curiouser!’ cried
Alice
.”

-Lewis Carroll,
Alice’s Adventures in
Wonderland

33

Alex
Doesn’t Live There Anymore

Duncan
approached the bed naked, a cup of hot coffee in each hand. Alex shook his head
with envy. “I swear if I was that generously endowed, I’d fund my own
university.”

“It's yours to invest any
time," Duncan joked.
"Here. Have some coffee."

"Thanks."

Since Alex returned from Florida
the night before, they had been in the Ritz half of Duncan’s
split personality house on

“Very
funny."
The aroma of chicory-laced coffee always reminded Alex of
home and he grew pensive. “I feel more like a condemned man than a gay blade.”

Duncan
slipped back into bed and draped an arm around Alex's shoulder. “As someone who
has definitely ‘been there, done that’ I understand completely.”

“I know.” Alex snuggled against Duncan’s
heavy frame, and, feeling more secure, made overtures of a different sort.
“There are a lot of questions I’d like to ask you.”

“Fire away.”

“How do you keep up this constant
juggling act? I mean, one life is difficult enough, but two must make you crazy
sometimes.”

“I won’t lie to you.” Duncan
sipped his coffee thoughtfully. “It’s never been easy, living with the constant
fear of exposure, not to mention blackmail. I’m playing with people’s lives
here, and that makes for an enormous amount of pressure.
Guilt
too.
The only reason I keep it up is that there’s a light at the end of
the tunnel.”

“What do you mean?”

“In a few more years, Chuck and
Leslie will be out of school and on their own. When that happens I’m going to
divorce Felicity and move to the Quarter. Start over, so to speak.” Duncan
sighed heavily. “Or maybe stop lying to myself…and everyone else.”

“What will Felicity and the kids
think?”

“Felicity knows I’ve had affairs,
but she doesn’t know they’re with men. Either way, she won't complain. Before I
conceded to a preference to men, I had my share of women and believe me when I
say my wife is one of those gals who absolutely hates sex. Fact is, she’s the
closest thing to frigid I’ve ever seen.”

“Are you serious? Wow!” Although
Alex didn't sleep with women, he respected and admired them, and, like most
men, considered Felicity Stone a knockout. She exuded raw sexuality and had a
killer figure for someone in her forties. “That’s a surprise.”

“No one was more surprised than me
when I discovered she was a virgin on our wedding night. Felicity believed
everything her mama said and comes from that old school of ‘submitting because
a man has animal desires.’ Well, I was from the ‘Southern Gentlemen School’
myself, so I respected her wishes for years. When I finally got tired of the
nightly refusal, not to mention constant complaints that she couldn’t handle
something so big, I started looking elsewhere for fun.” Duncan
grunted and shifted his bulk. “I had quite a few affairs with the ladies,
including my secretary for God’s sake, and then one night after a long drinking
bout with old fraternity brothers I ended up in the Quarter and got my first
taste of man-on-man sex. I never looked back.”

Alex remembered his own
stumbling out of the closet. “Do you mind if ask who the guy was?”

“Promise you won’t laugh?”

“I promise.”

“A cab driver, for God’s sake. I
was too drunk to drive so my buddies poured me into a taxi. The cabbie was a
cute Cajun kid about your age, and before I knew it we were headed for his
apartment in the Bywater. Hottest damned sex I’d ever had. Whew!" Duncan
smiled at the memory.
“And no complaints about accommodating
me either.”

Alex thought for a moment. “You
didn’t know you were gay when you got married?”

Duncan’s
happy memories evaporated as the subject turned serious. “On some level, I’ve
probably always known, but like you I was so damned suffocated by all that
family honor and
noblesse oblige
crap that I suppressed it. What
happened to me was merely the spin of genetic roulette. I’ve since learned
about a slew of gay cousins over in Lake Charles,
and I’ve always had suspicions about my sister. I mean, if she wasn’t the
world’s butchest debutante I don’t know who was. Lord!”

Alex silently agreed. Melanie Stone
was one of the sweetest ladies he knew, but he wasn’t the only one who thought
she looked like a football coach in drag.
 

“In any case,” Duncan
continued, “I have to be honest and tell you mine is not a lifestyle I'd recommend to anyone, especially
you with that watchdog daddy. Think about it. You already know what it’s like
to live with this deep, dark secret. It seems manageable because you’re single,
but imagine what it will be like with a wife and family peering over your
shoulder along with Randolph Sumner.”

Alex visibly tensed against his shoulder.
“I don’t know Camilla well, but she doesn’t strike me as the kind of gal you
can leave home alone. To tell you the truth, I’ve always suspected some serious
heat was smoldering behind that vestal virgin facade.”

You don’t know the half of it, Alex
thought. Duncan's quip reminded him
of the ugly afternoon when he watched Camilla with the two hustlers. As angry
and upset as he had been to learn her ugly secret, he felt too guilty about his
own duplicity to expose her and, despite Jolie's pleas, jettisoned plans to
wreck the wedding. With his hopes for a life with Cord lost, along with the
strength that such a relationship would have given him, Alex was as adrift as
ever. Not only did he renege on his promise to Jolie that he would break his
engagement and come out to his family, he saw himself slipping inexorably back
into his father’s controlling fold.
  

With that awful reality in mind,
Alex reevaluated what Duncan said
as it might apply to him and Camilla. With his preference for men and her
voracious carnal appetite, he knew he could never keep her satisfied, just as
he suspected both would continue their affairs. For the first time it occurred
to him that they might strike a compromise. He could tell her the truth about
his sexual orientation, reveal that he knew about her secret life and suggest
they incorporate both lifestyles into their marriage. By maintaining discretion
and mutual respect, they could pursue their personal passions and give the illusion
of a happy marriage, something that would please their fathers and insure their
joint inheritance. Alex knew it was one wild-ass gamble, but the more he
thought about it the more he decided he had no other choice.
 
As Jolie often said, "D
rastic predicaments call for drastic
resolutions."
  

Jolie, Alex thought. Damn! Where is
he when I need his advice? Why did he have to rush off to Paris
for one of his madcap weekends?

“Are you listening to me?” Duncan
asked. “You look like you’re a million miles away.”

“I’m sorry. I just thought of
something that might solve my problem, but there are a lot of risks involved.”

Duncan
sighed. “There are no simple solutions because it’s not a simple situation,
Alex. Like I said, people’s lives are involved.”

“I know.”

Alex’s mind raced faster as he
reassessed his plan and realized, Jolie or no Jolie, time was running out. He
decided he'd get Camilla alone tomorrow night after a dinner party at the W and
spill everything. If he handled it right, it could be a win/win situation. If
not, he didn't want to think about it.

“I’ve lost you again,” Duncan
said. He pretended to knock on Alex’s head.
“Anybody home?”

“Sorry,
Duncan
.
I
think I just saw that light at the end of the tunnel you were talking about.”

Duncan
frowned. “Please don’t tell me you’re going back to the status quo with your
old man calling the shots.”

“No way, my
friend.”

“You’re sure this time?’

“Absolutely. Alex doesn’t live
there any more.”