Running in the Rain Ch. 02

She wouldn't answer the phone. Damn that Caller ID.

A week went by, then two. I had to see her and somehow make things right. Suddenly the week with Barry seemed like a bad dream. I was a normal guy, damn it, not one of those fags or queers. I had a good job and a wonderful girl I was going to marry. The life I had planned was about to slip out of my grasp and I couldn't let that happen.

I left my job half an hour early one afternoon, drove to her office building, and waited in the parking lot for her to come out. I was hoping she'd be alone, but when she did appear she was with a guy, a sandy blond with a buzz cut, dressed like a dweeb in a short-sleeved shirt with a necktie. That made me mad. I stepped out of the car and walked rapidly toward them.

"Patti," I called. Patti had been smiling and chatting with her companion. As soon as she caught sight of me she stopped in her tracks, her smile vanishing.

"Sean, what are you doing here?"

"Patti, could I talk to you?"

"She doesn't want to talk to you, bud, can't you see that?" her companion said, his jaw rising. I ignored him and looked straight into her eyes.

"Please. Just for a minute. Then I'll go if you want."

Something flickered in her face. She turned to her co-worker. "Mike, it's okay."

"You sure?" he asked, still staring at me, unwilling to give in.

"Please, Mike, just go. I'll be fine."

He left, casting a baleful glance at me over his shoulder, and Patti faced me.

"Well?"

"Can't we go somewhere?"

She shook her head. "This is as good a place as any."

"Then walk with me." Unwillingly she fell into step beside me as we started down the sidewalk. There was a concrete bench at the first corner and Patti sat on it, holding herself very straight and looking straight ahead.

I perched beside her. "Patti, let me explain."

She wheeled around to face me, her eyes blazing. "Explain? I know what I saw, Sean. I'm not stupid."

I floundered. "I know, I know. I--Patti, all I can say is it will never happen again. I promise."

She closed her eyes and sighed. Then she shook her head. "I wish I could believe you. But--I don't."

"Why not, damn it? Why can't you believe it was just a stupid mistake? He--that guy, he talked me into it. He forced me."

A ghost of a smile. "You? No one could force you into anything, Sean." Her expression clouded again. "I was standing there for quite a while before you saw me."

I felt sick. "Why didn't you say something?"

She shook her head violently. "I was too shocked. I opened my mouth and no sound came out."

The image of her horrified face rose before me.

"I couldn't stop looking. I was looking at your face. Your expression. He was--doing that to you and you were in heaven. You never looked like that when we were making love. Not ever."

She stared ahead again. "I'm not--you know, prejudiced. I have gay and bi friends. I think everyone should be free to love anyone they want. But, I don't want a lover or--a husband--like that. I'm just not that open-minded." She tried to smile as her eyes filled. "Call me old-fashioned."

I sat silent. Patti rose, dabbing at her eyes.

"Goodbye, Sean."

Her footsteps receded into the distance.

As if things weren't bad enough, it had become clear that Barry was avoiding me. He left me messages canceling our dates to run together, saying he was sick. I kept getting his voice mail both at home and at the office. One day, while I was on my way to run some errands, I saw him coming toward me, jogging in the bike path along the other side of the street. I raised my hand in greeting and honked my horn. I was sure our eyes met, but he kept right on running without the slightest sign he'd noticed me.

It was a month after the day Patti had walked in on us when he finally called me at the office. "Sean, I'm sorry I've been out of touch. Can I meet you somewhere after work?"

A few hours later we sat in a booth in a noisy, impersonal chain restaurant along the highway.

"Sorry I haven't called," he said. He stared down at his beer.

"It's okay," I said, pretending a casualness I didn't feel. "I know you've been busy."

"I have some news. You know the economy's been bad--well, the company's eliminating my position."

"Tough luck, Barry," I said, really sympathetic. "If there's anything I can do-"

"No," he cut me off. "Actually, it's not so bad. They have an opening in their Dallas branch and they offered it to me. I'll have to take a pay cut and they can't cover moving costs, but hey, it's a job. I accepted their offer."

"Oh." I was stunned but tried to keep my cool. "So, that's too bad. No more running in the rain, eh?" I tried to smile. "Dallas isn't that far. I can come up on weekends, twice a month, at least--"

"Sean." His eyes met mine at last. "Look, I'm thinking in terms of us just being friends from now on."

I gave up then and just sat, staring at him. Barry started explaining, which only made things worse.

"That day your girlfriend saw us--that weirded me out. I never meant for it to go this far. It's just too much for me to deal with right now."

"There's no girlfriend any more, Barry. You think there would be after what she saw? We're history."

"We both need space," he insisted. "We need to step back and take a deep breath, think things out. Away from each other."

He was gazing steadily at me with that movie-idol face. The thought that he might actually believe what he was saying was the only thing that kept me from throwing my Diet Coke at him.

"Well, fine." I rose. "Thanks for having the guts to say it to my face." I tossed a couple of bills on the table and turned to go, just like in the movies. I'd always wanted to do that.

"Sean." I looked back. "I'll call you once I get settled, okay?"

"I won't hold my breath." I left before he could answer, pushed open the door and strode rapidly to my car in the parking lot. Something was wrong, though--my key wouldn't go in the front door lock. I was cursing under my breath before I looked in the window and saw a pack of cigarettes on the front seat. I didn't smoke. This wasn't my car.

I stood, forcing myself not to look up to check whether Barry had seen the conclusion of my grand exit.

It was a couple of months later. Barry hadn't called, not that I had thought he would. I was flipping through the Sunday paper at home and caught a glimpse of a familiar face in a photograph. I stopped and turned back until I found the picture in the Society section. Sure enough, it was Patti, pretty as ever, with a man who seemed familiar. They looked relaxed and happy. The paragraph below announced the engagement of Patricia Richards and Michael Fulton. I remembered Patti's co-worker in the parking lot that day after work. It was him.

I worked up the nerve to call her a few days after I saw the announcement. My hand was trembling as I held the receiver. Let it be her machine. I could leave a casual congratulations and have done with it.

"Hello?" Patti's voice said.

I opened my mouth, but nothing came out.

"Hello? Sean?"

"Patti," I finally managed. "How did you know it was me?"

"Caller ID."

"Well, I'm surprised you answered, then." She didn't respond to my weak attempt at a joke, so I hurried on. "Listen, I won't keep you long. Just wanted to say congratulations on your engagement. I'm sure Mike's a wonderful guy."

A pause, then she said, "Thank you, Sean. It's nice of you to call. I mean that."

She didn't say anything about inviting me to the wedding. Had I expected her to? Somehow I had to say something else before I let her go.

"Patti." A lump rose in my throat and I had to struggle to get the words out. "I also wanted to say... I'm sorry." Silence at the other end. "Sorry for what I put you through. You didn't deserve it."

"Sean," she finally said. "Could I ask you something?" Her voice was shaking now, no doubt about it.

"What?"

"This... thing. With the other man. It just happened, right?"

"What do you mean?"

"It...it wasn't going on all the time we were together?"

"No," I said as firmly as I could. "I would never have done that to you, Patti. You've got to believe me."

"Okay," she said, her voice a little brighter. A pause. "Are you, like, going with guys now?"

Something lurched in my chest, and I realized that I was on the verge of tears. "I--don't know, Patti. I don't know anything. Except that I'm alone and I'd give anything to be with you again." I knew it was hopeless but I had to say it.

Silence at the other end, then, "Sean?"

"Yes?" I could barely get the word out.

"I think about you too. I want you to be happy."

This was too much. I choked out, "Bye," and hung up the phone before I lost it.

I wasn't telling Patti the truth, or not the whole truth, at any rate. I did miss her terribly--her eyes, her laugh, her willingness to listen, her warm, fragrant presence when we were in the car or at the movies. But late at night, alone in my bed, it wasn't her body I wanted next to mine. It was a hard male chest I felt pressing down on me in my dreams, rough stubble raking across my cheeks as lips pressed against mine and an urgent tongue darted into my mouth. I saw Barry's steely blue eyes boring into mine as he drove his cock home, splitting my body and soul wide open.

Once I awoke in the middle of the night, crying out, to find that my body and the sheets were covered with sticky, cooling fluid. In my dream Barry and I hadn't even been fucking, just running around the track at the high school on a cool and cloudy morning, good buddies out for a run, happy and carefree. I lay, staring into the dark emptiness of my bedroom. Finally I rose to clean up the mess.

The summer days passed slowly by. One day I came home after getting a quick dinner at the barbecue place near my house. It had been cloudy and humid all day, and as it grew dark the clouds became more threatening.

I sat in a chair in my office and paged through the messages on my answering machine, hardly listening to most of them. The last one started. I recognized the voice and sat up, alert.

"Sean, it's Barry. Sorry I haven't called. Seems like I'm always apologizing." A short, embarrassed laugh. "Anyway, things are going okay but--I miss you. Call me back if you feel like it."

He said his number. I slumped back down in my chair as the computerized voice from the machine informed me there were no more messages.

As I sat watching TV a bit later, I saw the flash of lightning outside my window and heard the rumble of thunder. In a moment the patter of rain sounded on my roof and quickly increased to the steady drumming of a massive downpour. Minutes passed and the deluge showed no sign of abating.

I was alone and the only light in my house was from the TV. Impulsively I turned it off. Now I was surrounded by darkness and the sound of the rain, punctuated now and then by the abrupt glare of a lightning strike and the deep, rolling rumble of thunder. "The gods are bowling in heaven," my father used to joke.

I went to the back door and opened it. A cool, moist breeze struck me in the face, the smell of fresh dirt and the peculiar odor of storm-charged air wafting into my nostrils. Rain was falling in steady rivulets off the awning. I unbuttoned my shirt and pulled it over my head, then pulled off the rest of my clothes and my shoes. When I was naked I stepped out onto the wooden deck. It was dark and no one was going to see me. I raised my head and opened my mouth, letting the rainwater pelt my face and run over my body.

A memory rose unbidden in my brain. It was a broiling hot summer day when I was a boy of eight or so, playing with my best friend Russ in the back yard of my family house in a small town in West Texas, running through the sprinkler that my father had thoughtfully set up for us. My parents had gone off on some errand, warning us to stay in the yard. Obsessed as we were with our activities, we didn't notice the cloudburst coming until the first crack of thunder sounded loud above our heads. Then the rain began to fall in large, heavy drops.

I started for the house, but Russ said, "Why are you going in?"

"We're going to get wet," I started to say, then realized how silly that was, even before Russ laughed. A mischievous grin spread across his face. Even as a little boy I thought him handsome.

"Let's play a new game," he said. "Greek Olympic runner."

"How do you play that?" I asked, puzzled.

"Well," Russ replied, "You have to take off your bathing suit."

"Why?" I said, sensing danger.

"'Cause, stupid, the ancient Greeks ran without anything on when they raced. Don't you know anything?" He added, placatingly, "Don't worry. I'm going to do it too."

This piqued my interest. "Okay," I said. "You first."

"No, you," he said immediately. "Okay then, let's strip together. First one to touch the back fence wins. Ready, set, go!"

Before I lost my nerve I quickly grabbed the waistband of my suit and pulled it off. The rain was pouring down around us and the sprinkler, ridiculously, was still going. Russ peeled his trunks down and flung them high into the air, letting out a whoop as he began to dash across the yard. I pursued him, feeling the rush of air between my legs, reveling in the glorious freedom of running naked, watching Russ's butt muscles pumping as he ran toward the fence, the water pelting down on us both. We might have been struck by lightning in that instant but I wouldn't have cared.

As I stood there in the dark, that day from my childhood faded and blended seamlessly into a much more recent memory, the Saturday afternoon early that spring when Barry and I had come back to my house laughing, out of breath and soaked to the skin. I thought of how every cord of muscle in his back had been visible through the soaked cotton of his T-shirt, how the fabric of his shorts had clung to his buttocks. We had gone inside to dry off, and then my life had turned upside down.

My hands clenched into fists. By now I was trembling violently with cold and my teeth were chattering, but I took no notice, aware only of the hot pain inside me that threatened to burst my chest. Tears started out of the corners of my tightly closed eyes, running down my cheeks and momentarily warming the skin on my face.

I dropped my head forward, my body collapsed and I sank to the deck, the wet wood icy against my forearms and knees. A sob escaped me, then another. After the third I opened my mouth in a wail as a storm of grief shook my body. The indifferent rain continued to fall, and another rumble of thunder shook the earth. No one saw me in my cold misery. No one heard me crying.

END