Anything Could Happen (13 page)

“Wow.” Austin looked down at his coffee.
Why not
? he thought, and took a drink—at the same time hearing his uncle’s advice about sherry.
Sip! Sip, my boy
.
Let it lie across your tongue—absorb it.

He discovered something unexpected, something he should have known from Todd’s obsession with flavor. Sometimes you had to give something a chance. Even if you were sure you wouldn’t like it.

Austin found his coffee was everything Poindexter had said it was. Mellow, funky, and with a sweetness to it. It was a sort of… melon sweetness that emerged across his tongue after he swallowed. “Gosh.” He took another drink, and yes, there actually
was
a sweet aftertaste. Far better than the bitterness he was used to—and all without the benefit of sugar.

“You like?”

Austin could hear the hope in those two words. “Yes,” he replied. “I do.”

Guy’s face lit up.

Naturally, that made Austin’s heart skip a beat.
Why do you have to be so good-looking?
“I like,” he managed, not sure if he meant the coffee, or Guy. He shivered.

“You cold?”

“No, I’m fine,” Austin lied.
I’m anything but fine
.

“If you’re cold….”

“I’m
fine
.”

“If you’re sure….”

“Yeah, yeah,” Austin said and held back another shiver. It was a nice day, but he should have brought a jacket. He’d imagined they’d have their coffee inside. With the breeze, it was a tad chilly under the trees, where they were still in the shade even though the trees were starting to lose their leaves.

“You can wear my jacket if you want,” Guy said.

Had Guy just looked into his mind? He felt a little jolt. Guy had offered him his coat, like a gentleman did for a lady. Yet it didn’t feel like Guy was feminizing him at all. Was this one of the rules gay men got to break? A man could offer another man his jacket. It was exciting for some reason. Like he had joined some kind of club.

And to wear another man’s coat—one Guy had been wearing and that would hold his warmth. Why, the idea was delicious. Austin blushed. “No, that’s okay. I don’t need it.”
Even though I kinda want it
.

“Well, let me know.”

Austin nodded, carefully not looking Guy in the eyes. “I think Gram would really like this coffee too,” he said, changing the subject.

“You know,” Guy said and took a drink of his coffee. “You always talk about your grandparents, but I haven’t heard you mention your mom or dad. You lived with….”

Ah. The question
, thought Austin. He was surprised it hadn’t come up before. He took a deep breath. “My parents were killed in a car accident when I was little. Drunk driver. What else? It’s a miracle that I’m alive. They had me in a car seat. Neither of my parents were wearing their seatbelts.”

“Shit. Open mouth, insert foot. I didn’t realize….”

Austin looked away, not wanting to see the usual expressions on Guy’s face. Surprise, embarrassment, pity. “There’s no reason why you should have.”

“Oh, Austin. I don’t know what to say. Words are so empty when it comes to something like this. I’m sorry sounds so… stupid. I am just glad you had your grandparents. It sounds like they’re pretty special.”

Austin looked at Guy, whose face was totally open. He saw only kindness and support in those eyes. It brought tears to his own. “Yeah,” he managed. “Thank God for them.” He cleared his throat, willed the tears away. “You know, it was the whole parents thing that drew me and Todd together in the first place—why we became so close. He lost his dad when he was a kid, and I lost both my mom and dad.”

“I can imagine,” Guy replied. He reached out and laid his hand on Austin’s.

There. It was happening again. Austin tried not to look around to see who might be watching, but he couldn’t help it. The other two tables were occupied now, but the three women at one were far too busy with their own conversation to notice. Then, when he glanced at the other table, he saw something he would never have expected. Two men sat there, very close, heads almost touching, and one of them was looking at him with a smile and a nod.

Gay. They’re gay. And that guy…. He’s telling me it’s okay.
Austin felt a wonderful tingle rush across his skin, down his back.

Part of a club.

He
was
part of something. Something new and sensational and wonderful.

He was no longer alone.

T
HEY
sat for a while, neither saying anything, but then after a bit, Guy began to fidget. Finally, “Um, about the play.”

Oh God. That play
. Austin had been hoping if they had to get serious, it would be about their almost kiss the other night. They could talk about anything. The coffee. The gay couple at the next table. But why the play?

“I’m sorry that it upset you—”

“What upset me,” Austin snapped, “was that you thought about
me
when you were casting a sex-crazed, disgusting pervert.”

Guy flinched.

“I mean, for goodness sakes. You actually wanted me to say”—he dropped his voice—“‘worship my cock.’ And ‘drink my
ppp
….’ Well, I can’t even say it. What kind of men have sex—
sex
—in a public restroom? How sick is that? How sick are they? Who would…?” He stopped.

Guy was looking away, his expression…. Well, what was his expression? It was hard to read. There seemed to be several emotions warring for control of his face.

“Guy?”

“I would…,” Guy said quietly. “Did.
Did
. Not now. Not in a long time. But. But
I
did, Austin. I was one of those sex-crazed, disgusting perverts. Maybe I still am?”

Austin’s mouth fell open.
Wait. What?
What was he saying?
“G-Guy?”

“I’d like to think I’m not, but…. But sometimes, even today, if I have to use a public restroom—and I try to never to use one—I’ll walk in and suddenly I’m breaking out in a sweat, my gut clenching… I’ll even get dizzy. And it’s been
ten
years.” Guy closed his eyes, and when he opened them again, he was staring down at the table. He took a big gulp of his coffee, seemingly unmindful of the heat, as if it were alcohol. Almost desperately.

Austin sat frozen. He was stunned into an inability to think properly. Oh, there were thoughts, but they kept crashing into one another before they could go to any kind of logical conclusion or become fully formed. It was as if Guy had claimed he was really a woman, or as crazy as if he said he came from that planet Luke Skywalker came from in Todd’s favorite movies. The place Austin could never pronounce. Tattoo-Toonie or something like that. Why, it all made as much sense—which was to say, no sense at all.

“I was sixteen the first time. My mom and I were shopping for school clothes.” Guy laughed. “Isn’t that funny? Such a normal, normal thing to do. Something normal that normal moms and normal kids do. Except I got my first blowjob that day.”

Guy took another drink, this one a little less desperate. “I had to go to the bathroom, you see? Normal, right? I told her I had to go ‘number two’ so I’d be a little bit, and we should meet in—oh hell, I don’t remember—shoes or jeans or some damn thing. So I’m sitting there minding my own business, you know,
doin’
my business, when I see this hole in the stall wall. A circle about yay wide.” Guy held up his hands making a circle by touching thumb tip to thumb tip, forefinger to forefinger.

“I can remember thinking, ‘Gosh, someone might see me using the bathroom!’ and getting all anxious and nervous. And then the strangest thing happened. This finger appeared for just a second. Kind of ran around the edge of the hole and vanished. I was so startled, I jumped. Someone might as well have shouted ‘Boo!’ Then after a minute, it happened again. My heart started pounding. It reminded me of this Stephen King story called ‘The Moving Finger.’ The third time, though, I saw it was really only a normal old finger, and before I even knew what I was doing, I leaned forward and peeked through the hole, and there was this man with a big old boner.”

Guy stopped talking for a moment, and Austin wasn’t sure if he was glad or if he wanted Guy to continue. He was riveted to the spot, as shocked as Guy must have been all those years ago. How many? Ten—that’s what Guy had said. At least ten? Guy had been sixteen back then? Was he twenty-six now? Austin had figured him a little older than that.

“That’s when I heard this voice,” Guy continued, interrupting Austin’s musings. “The guy in the next stall said, ‘Stick it through,’ and me—being sixteen—said, ‘Stick
what
through?’” Guy gave a half laugh. “So the man says, ‘Your dick, kid. Stick it through and I’ll suck it.’

“Austin, I sat there stunned for a minute, and then he asked me again, and damn if I didn’t have a hard-on. Of course, when we’re that age, almost anything made us hard, right?”

Austin had a sudden memory of a Snickers commercial several years ago, where two men were eating the same candy bar and accidentally kissed. Hadn’t that made him hard as could be—right there in the room with Gramps? He hadn’t been able to stand up for ten minutes.

“And the guy asks again,” Guy continued. “Practically begs me to let him suck me, and before I knew it, I was standing and—well, you know—sticking it through.”

Guy closed his eyes. “Then I felt it for the first time. You know? That warm wet heat, a tongue, lips….”

Austin didn’t know. Todd had refused to return the favor. He could only guess at how it would feel. And dammit. Was this turning him on? He felt another shiver.

“It was fucking intense, and it was over in a minute,” Guy said, his voice almost a gasp. “I remember this moment of panic when I realized I was going to cum in his mouth, and I started to pull back and he grabbed me and then I was doing it. I thought I would pass out. My knees almost went out from under me. I finally collapsed on the toilet, and I was trying to apologize for not pulling out, and to my complete shock, he said, ‘Thanks kid. Your cum tastes great!’”

Guy opened his eyes, and Austin could see he was embarrassed. “I ran. I ran out of that stall, and I am surprised I waited long enough to pull my pants up. I just couldn’t believe it. I’d gotten a blowjob. I went looking for my Mom, sweating like crazy and just sure she would know what had happened. But no. She didn’t even notice I was wigging out.

“We went home, and I took a long shower. I kept washing my dick, worried that I might have caught a disease or something, and beating myself up. Wondering if I was some kind of sicko. A pervert.”

Austin looked away, embarrassed himself. Wasn’t that exactly what he’d said? But when he tried to imagine that sixteen-year-old boy, he couldn’t think of him being a pervert. Guy had succumbed to his hormones. He might have done the same thing in Guy’s place.

“I
hated
myself, Austin.” He let out a long sigh. “But that night, I had to jerk off at least twice before I could go to sleep. And a week later, I was taking the car to that mall and getting another blowjob. It was just too much to resist. At first I would feel so guilty. But God, the way the men practically attacked me. It was like in the script for
Tearoom
. I was like a god. They did worship me. Some paid me! They did. That made me feel guilty for about as long as it took me to buy something in the mall. After a while, I started justifying it. They weren’t complaining. Hell. They were begging. Why not take a little money? Or sometimes they would just buy me something. Ask me what I wanted and I would tell them, and they would suck me off and then take me into a store and buy me things. It was so fucking powerful. At school I was a nobody. A nerd. The kid who liked to star in the school plays. But when I went to the mall? I was a totally different kind of star and they
wanted
me.”

Guy looked up, and Austin could see something else in his eyes. Not embarrassment this time. Fear? Was it fear?

“I did this for almost two years.” Guy looked away again, took a breath, looked back. “Jesus, sometimes it doesn’t seem real. It didn’t seem real then. There were times I wanted to stop so fucking bad, but I would get horny and—
bam
—I was right back. It just felt so good. And I was young. Sometimes I would get off a couple, three times. I was hooked. I didn’t know it, but I was, like, one step from total addiction. Maybe I was addicted.” Guy shrugged. “Then one day I got arrested.”

Austin gasped.

“Tell me about it,” Guy said. “I wasn’t eighteen, so of course, they called my parents.”

“Crap.” God, poor Guy. It must have been horrible. Beyond horrible. Austin shook his head. He wanted to reach out and hug that poor kid from years ago. What would he have done if it had happened to him? What would his gramps have done? What would Gram have said? Yes, it turned out they were accepting, but what would they have done if he got arrested for having sex in a bathroom?

“They had to get a lawyer and everything, and the only reason I wasn’t registered as a sex offender for the rest of my life was that I was underage.”

“God.” Austin wanted to say something else, but what did he say? Platitudes. That is all it would be.

“It was bad.
Really
bad. Worst year of my life. At least to that point. They dragged me to church and people prayed over me, and I lied and told them I wasn’t gay. Got them to believe I was the total victim and that I had never done anything like that before. I was still sort of pretending I wasn’t gay, even to myself. A little bit. I mean, I knew. I didn’t have the least interest in girls. It was boys. But in all that time, I’d never sucked a dick myself. I wanted to. God, I wanted to. But I was afraid I would get AIDS—no one was sure if you could get it from sucking back in those days. Those days.” He laughed. “Twelve years ago, I think?”

Austin shivered again, and now he wasn’t sure if it was the cold or the picture Guy was painting with those words of his. Those writer’s words.

Guy paused. “You okay?”

“Am I okay?” Austin asked surprised. “I’ve been wanting to ask you the same thing.”