An Evening Out

"Have a lovely evening out. You deserve it and it's about time you did it."

I tucked the sheet under Raymond at the side and gritted my teeth. I was getting irritated at everyone saying that to me. Raymond's night nurse, Chester, had said it when I'd come into Raymond's bedroom to say goodnight to him. Raymond's lawyer and president of the Asheville Gay Men's Chorus that both Raymond and I had belonged to before Raymond entered his last, bedridden months and that Raymond was a principle patron of had told me that when he'd insisted I come to the choir's Valentine's Day concert this evening and then on to his party afterward.

Raymond had backed him up. In that gaspy voice he'd now acquired, Raymond said, "A young man from Atlanta we want as the choir's new director will be at the concert and party, checking us out. I want you to check him out for me and let me know if he's worth the money we're offering. I want you to be nice to him, and I want you to enjoy the evening. You've run yourself ragged taking care of me."

We both knew why I was sticking so closely with Raymond these last few months as cancer was pulling him down into the depths. We'd been together for twelve years, but I hadn't taken the relationship seriously for the first four. He'd fallen in love early, and I'd fallen in like initially. But that hadn't kept me from catting around for the first four years. He was thirty-eight years older than I was. It had taken a dust-up and the fear that he'd throw me out that made me realize I loved him too. And I'd spent the next eight years trying to assure him that I did. This was my last chance.

Even his doctor had told me I needed a break from this, and when finding out that Raymond wanted me to go this concert, had virtually ordered me to go. I gave in to them all, but I knew I'd fret the entire evening and would have to pretend to have a good time.

People lifted their eyebrows when they first learned that Raymond and I were a couple. They assumed he was an old fool and I was a gold digger. It took them to know us to know we were as good as married—and had been at least for the last eight years of our twelve-year relationship.

The arrangement had started in New York, where I was a wet-behind-the-ears, but randy gay young man trying to make it as a song and dance man on Broadway. Raymond, a rich businessman, was one of those "Broadway Angels" who made it possible for plays to get to the stage. I was good, but so were so many other young hopefuls trying to break into Broadway. I'd made it into the chorus line of a musical by being willing to go on my back and open my legs for men important to the production. That wasn't a real problem for me; I was randy and needy. I gauged men by their cock size and backswing more than by any other factor in those days.

I was nineteen and Raymond was fifty-seven. He was a handsome, confident, elegantly dressed fifty-seven, though. And he could keep it up and quickly reload seven-and-a-half thick inches. The play's producer, who was bedding me, invited Raymond to an after-rehearsal party one evening when he needed to gin up more money to keep the production on the tracks. He asked me to be very nice to Raymond and offered Raymond the use of one of his bedrooms. Raymond took me to the bedroom and was seven-and-a-half inches good to me for a half hour. Then he offered me a ride in his limousine around the park and he was seven-and-a-half thick inches good to me in a missionary on the backseat of his car. The limousine took us to his Fifth Avenue penthouse apartment, and Raymond was seven-and-a-half inches good to me in a doggie fuck on his bed.

He kept me. He claimed it was love at first fuck for him. He used that as a joke line among select friends, and it always drew a laugh and, I must say, some licentious looks in my direction from contemporary-age friends of his.

I was impressed with his wealth, his seven-and-a-half inches, and his ability to reload quickly—even at fifty-seven. He also always treated me well and with near reverence. He wasn't shy to say he was a lucky man to have me. He claimed never to have fallen out of love with me. I knew I learned to love him for much more than his money—or even his seven-and-a-half inches that he had still been able to harden until the last few months of his inevitable fading away. But because of those first four uneven-commitment years, I had forever maintained a guilt and a need to prove my love and devotion to him.

All of the forces at play had to mobilize to get me to leave him even for an evening to check out the new choir director prospect. We were in that stage where he could go at any moment and quickly entering the stage where release would be a blessing for him.

The concert was fine, packed with romantic songs and references and making me nostalgic for when Raymond and I both were in it, me as a tenor, Raymond as a low baritone. The men in the choir were all supportive of us. For them, the thirty-eight years' difference in our ages meant nothing. They could see and understand that we were devoted to each other. It had been a good move to come to less hectic and demanding Asheville from New York City after Raymond had retired—officially, although he still had his hand in the management of his companies. Or he had until he'd been taken ill. Now I was taking up the slack there too. Luckily, he hadn't let me just be his kept boy toy these twelve years. I'd been given responsibility in his businesses. I knew them almost as well now as he did. It was clear I would inherit them—and that our employees would accept me. Raymond had done that for me. All I could do for him now, I thought, was to be loyal to him to the end.

The choir director prospect from Atlanta was even finer than the concert had been. I didn't meet him until the after-concert party at Aaron's house. He was at the concert, but I wouldn't have been able to pick him out in the audience there. He was young, in his mid-twenties. He was much too young to fit his résumé. Aaron told me, when I asked, that he had been a child prodigy, accumulating accolades from his early teens and graduating from college and his music training before he reached twenty. He was, Aaron said, the assistant director of the Atlanta Gay Men's Choir now and obviously was underutilized in that position. Aaron told me we wanted him here in Asheville and to be very nice to him. And then he introduced us.

Jason Ward was a hunk and a half. He did look like he was in his mid-twenties, and he looked like both a movie star and an athlete. He was solidly built, trim but muscular. He dressed elegantly; spoke with refinement; had sensual, dark looks and a ready smile and eyes that concentrated and captivated the one he was speaking to; and his voice enveloped me in a rich, resonating baritone.

The effect he had on me was that I went hard for him. That wasn't unusual for me in engaging with a man I could imagine lying under. Being attached and loyal to Raymond hadn't kept me from being aroused by a desirable man, and Raymond had understood that. In our more active years, we'd made a game out of it. When he'd seen me being attracted by a man, we'd talk about what attracted me later, in bed, as he was covering me, and he'd bang the hell out of me while whispering a scenario in my ear of me with the other man. If Raymond had still been up to it, my report on Jason to him would have led to such a night in bed.

That didn't mean I'd actually been unfaithful to Raymond after those first four, uncommitted years in which I was still sowing oats even though I slept in his bed. I think that Raymond would have endured my going with other men, especially as he got older, as long as I slept in his bed, and thus how freely we went with imagining me doing so and Raymond being the voyeur, but I was determined to try to give him the same commitment he'd given me after he'd taken me back. Thus far I had managed that.

Once introduced, Jason stayed with me, even with others drifting by to speak with him and try, not to subtly, to convince him to come to Asheville. He was attentive, witty, and knowledgeable, although we spoke mostly in general terms and didn't get into the nitty-gritty of music. I felt like maybe he was being grilled enough by others on that and I kept more to the delights of living in Asheville as a gay person. I assumed he was gay himself to be involved in gay men's chorus. He certainly responded to me in the natural way of one man being interested sexually in another man.

I found myself hoping he was gay and then checking my thoughts. I mustn't stray from my loyalty to Raymond, I thought. Although, if I was to construct the perfect man lover in my mind, Jason would fit the bill. If Raymond had still been up to our games, I would have climaxed left and right while he was fucking me but whispering about Jason fucking me.

At the end of the evening, I asked Aaron if I could use his telephone to call a taxi. I'd found the batteries in my cellphone were dead. But before Aaron could speak—he, strangely, looked at Jason rather than me when I asked that—Jason broke in and said, "Nonsense. Don't spend money on a cab. I have a rental car. I'll drive you home. I'm ready to leave too."

At the door, while Jason was saying his good-byes to those still at the party, Aaron said, "Be nice to him. I think you know what I mean by that. We want him here. And have a lovely evening. You deserve the break. Raymond and I have discussed this; he wants you to have this evening."

Before I could respond to that, Jason was there, at my elbow.

He drove, not to Raymond's and my penthouse apartment on Grindstaff Drive, but to the Residence Inn on Biltmore Avenue, four blocks short of my street.

"I'm further up the road," I said.

"This is where I'm staying," he said. "Please come in for a while and keep me company. I have a unit with a living area and nice kitchenette. I have questions about the men's chorus, questions I need to pursue before deciding whether to come here. I can't be sure about the answers men would give me who are active in the choir. I understand you once were in the choir but no longer are. You are in a unique position to fill me in on some of the particulars. I have wine on ice. I'd like to have someone to share it with me."

I knew I should demure. Raymond was at home. He needed me and I needed to assure him of my loyalty. But he had told me to be nice to Jason Ward, to help convince him to come to Asheville. Aaron had said the same, adding that Raymond wanted me to have my pleasure. I couldn't deny the request to help with the decision as a nominally independent voice was a reasonable one.

In the back of my mind, I knew I shouldn't open the passenger door and step out. But I did.

* * * *

We were sitting beside each other on the sofa, looking into the gas-log fire. Jason had his left arm around my neck, holding me close into his side. We had stopped talking and were looking at each other, eye to eye, for the longest moment. He dipped his face into mine and kissed the corner of my mouth, moving quickly away to gauge my reaction with his eyes again. I tried not to react, not to show him how needy I was. I hadn't had a man between my legs for months; I hadn't had any man other the Raymond between my thighs for years. Raymond had been sick for a couple of months. I had managed to give him some pleasure and release with my hands, but I had had to take care of my own needs.

I was vulnerable. Jason was compelling. All doubt had evaporated about his intentions for the evening. I couldn't help but be flattered. I was six years older than he told me he was, although I'd kept my looks and my body. Men still made passes at me—not often gods like Jason was, though. My eyes went to the bed, just over there, in the soft-lit area off the living room, beckoning to us. I was weak.

But Raymond had been sick for a couple of months. We had been together for so long. I'd done what I could to keep him assured of my commitment to him.

But Raymond hadn't asked me for total commitment and he'd clearly signaled otherwise for tonight.

My reaction must not have been what I intended, because Jason took the wine glass out of my hand and leaned over and placed it on the coffee table that was between the sofa and the fireplace. When he sat back into the sofa cushions again, his lips came back to my face and he kissed me directly on the lips. The kiss was tentative, testing, to begin with, but I heard myself moan as he pressed the tip of his tongue between my lips and, without intending to, I opened my lips and let his tongue inside.

"I hope I'm not being too forward," he whispered when we came out of the kiss. "Aaron told me that you might be willing—"

"Yes," I murmured, cutting him off from naming it out loud.

"Yes to what?" he asked, smiling at me.

"Yes to the kissing, at least," I answered. I think we both knew it wouldn't stop there, though, but that he had to take it slow. He didn't seem concerned that I hadn't surrendered to more yet.

He took my mouth with his again. I felt his right hand at the buttons of my shirt, undoing them and pulling the front of my shirt out of my trousers. The pressure of the kiss became more possessive and he was running his hand over my chest, my hard pecs, and down my flat belly while his tongue at first flicked in and out of my mouth and then invaded further, taking my breath away.

I reacted then, pulling away from the kiss.

"Let's go over to the bed," he murmured.

"No, please. I should go," I answered in a breathless voice.

He moved his lips to my throat. His hand didn't stop gliding and rubbing across my chest—and my nipples—though. We both felt me shudder and heard my soft moan. Neither of us heard me tell him to stop again, or mention leaving, or sensed me pushing him away from feeling up my chest.

He came back to my lips for a kiss, and I was even quicker this time to go soft and to open to his tongue. His right hand went to my basket and he was feeling me up through the material of my trousers. I couldn't hide that I had gone hard. So much was going through my mind: Raymond telling me to be nice to the new director prospect for the men's choir; Aaron asking me to do the same. Jason being the new choir director prospect. My need to have a hard man between my legs. Raymond, my mate of twelve years lying on his deathbed. How careful I'd been to show Raymond that I loved him, would be faithful to him as if we were married.

The feel and sound of the zipper of my fly being lowered is what turned the tide, what galvanized me into fighting my submissive nature. I put my hand on his hand at my zipper to signal that he was to go no further, and I pulled away from the kiss and lowered my head so that he didn't have access.

He kissed me on the head and said, "I'm sorry. I thought it was what you wanted." Then, gently disengaging me, he rose from the sofa and walked over to the king-sized bed that was in an L space jutting off from the Living room-kitchen combination separated by the breakfast bar.

I didn't look at him directly, but was very attentive to his actions by the bed. He had taken his empty wine glass, which he put on the nightstand by the bed. He took his wallet out of his pocket and put it on a nightstand as well. Next to come out of his pocket was a soft pack of cigarettes and a lighter. He lit up the cigarette and stood there, momentarily, looking at me. I ached for how beautiful he was, and upbraided myself for not letting him go further. I should have been flattered. I was a good six years older than he was. He was in great shape. Perfect in every way I could see.

I had once been him—well, younger than he was—when Raymond had picked me out of a Broadway chorus line. And what was six or seven years? Raymond was nearly forty years older than I was.

But I had been faithful to him for twelve years—well, for eight of the twelve years. The last eight years.

Jason unbuttoned and slowly took his shirt off his back and draped it over the back of a straight chair within reach of where he was standing. Was he trying to tease me? If so, he knew the ammunition he had. His chest was magnificently developed. Not overdeveloped. He had a light covering of curly dark hair, but it almost looked like it had been groomed to be sexy as hell. His torso was hard, his pecs bulging, his nipples taut, a ripped six pack, a flat belly. And swirls of dark hair.

He gave me a teasing smile and sat down on the bed, facing me, spread his legs, leaned over and put his elbows on his knees, and puffed on his cigarette. He used the empty wine glass as an ashtray. He sat there, his eyes on me. Challenging me. Seducing me.

"I did want it," I squeaked quietly. I'd either meant to say it louder or intentionally said it softly enough that he couldn't hear it but that I could say I admitted it.

"What did you say?" he asked in that rich baritone voice of his. I assumed that he wasn't just a choir director, but probably was quite a good baritone soloist as well. I wondered if there was anything he didn't do well, but that made me think of how cut his torso was, of him stroking my chest and rubbing my nipples—and of how delicious and dominating his kisses had been, and I tried to push the images out of my mind.

Not successfully, however.

"I said I did want it . . . that I do want it," I said more loudly. "It's just that . . . it's complicated."

"Come over here. Sit beside me," he said. "It doesn't have to be complicated. Sex can be quite simple. We tend to tie too much into what is a simple biological need, one that can be satisfied without adding any strings to it or hurting anyone. Let's talk about this." The request sounded so reasonable, and I'd drunk more wine than I should have. And I needed the attention he was offering so badly.

"I don't think so," I said—but it came out softly again, me knowing he couldn't hear it. I pulled myself up from the sofa and walked slowly to the bed. He smiled at me and crushed his cigarette out in the wine glass.

When I got there, I stood by the bed. He had to take my hand and coax me to sit beside him.

"You are so tense," he said. "Twist away from me." When I did he put his hands on my shoulders and massaged them. He paid some attention to my neck too. He did that long enough that I thought that was going to be it. Mixed feelings of relief and disappointment fought inside me.

He was a master; he waited for the disappointment to push away the relief. I felt his hands come around me and cup my pecs inside my open shirt. He lightly pinched my nipples between his thumb and a finger on each side and rolled them. His chest pressed into my back and he kissed me on the back of the neck. This lasted only for a few seconds, though, before he pulled my unbuttoned shirt off my back and tossed it over to the straight chair where his shirt was draped.

He was rubbing my nipples with his fingers again. "Umm, nice," he said in a murmur. "You're in great shape. I love a man who keeps himself up." I certainly was up. My erection was tenting my trousers. I wondered if he had chosen his words carefully. "I bet you work out regularly."

"Yes," I said. What else could I say? Should I have said he was in great shape too, I wondered. Wouldn't that be the same as saying, "Fuck me"? And although I knew now that's what I really wanted—and he obviously intended to do—it would be defeat of all I should be saying and doing here to admit it to him out loud.

"Aaron tells me you once were in the Gay Men's Choir."

"Yes," I whispered. His attentions were making me breathless. "So was my partner. We both had to quit when he got sick. He needed attention." I needed to bring Raymond into this as a defense against his foreplay. I needed to keep Raymond in the room with us.

"We all need attention," he said, and then returned to his line of approach. "That means you were what, a tenor?"