We Are Going to Be Together

Chapter 2

We Are Going to Be Together

By R.W. Clinger

Let’s talk about Darsey…Darsey Haas. If you don’t want to hear about him then I suggest you leave the room and walk away. Get out of here. Don’t look back. Keep moving. If you decide to stay and hear how handsome he is—short black hair, glow-in-the-dark-like blue eyes, narrow lips, ski slope nose, massive shoulders-chest-pecs-thighs, and a plump center where he has a lever for a c**k—then you’re in luck. Stick around. Stay for the free show. Enjoy it while you can. Suck it all in like I do every day, 24/7. Darsey stands at six-two, weighs one-eighty, and has no fat on his bulky and beautiful and (sometimes) bronze, beefy, and banging frame. He’s a top, grade-A athlete and a rugby god on the field. The inside center is about as smart as a whip—the oldest cliché in the modern English language, but quite accurate—and a graduate of Temple with a degree in chemistry.

If only our chemicals can mix. And mix. And mix. And mix. And we can be together. If only he can make me the happiest left wing (me! me! me!) of our amateur team, called the Templeton Thundercats, by having me over to his flat for a few drinks (dry martinis), become sloppy with him (a minimum of three martinis, extra strong), chat it up with him (light conversation, nothing heavy like politics or religion), undress him (first his jersey, shorts, sock tape, socks, boots, underwear), kiss him (on his bare and plated chest, next to his tight navel, against an inner and muscular thigh), and do things with his chiseled body that happen between two naked men who find each other remotely attractive and…

He’s a fulltime professor at Union College in Colling Township on the outskirts of Erie. He teaches chemistry: the division of science that deals with the identification of the substances of which matter is composed; the investigation of their properties and the ways in which they interact, combine, and change; and the use of these processes to form new substances. Blah. Blah. Blah. Whatever. I’ll stop boring you. Let’s get back to the man I want to marry and spend the rest of my life with.

On the weekends Darsey and I play rugby with a bunch of other handsome men who happen to be our best friends, among other men: Ricky Darshaw, Liam Baxter, Joe Canterwalk, Gill Bellows, Tim Dresdon, Raymond Cello, Will Washington, to name a few. Saturday mornings from eight until noon. Sunday mornings from nine until one. There are eight teams in the area that battle each other: Templeton Thundercats, Cradle Colts, West End Eels, Baxter Hole Bears, Rendell Rockets, Yull Yaks, Umberton Torandoes, and Pillson Pikes. It’s what we do. It’s who we are. Rugby at its finest. Men of men. Us. Grrrrrr!

I know so much about Darsey that it might turn your stomach, and mine. His flat is on Espy Street in the Market District of Templeton. The place where vendors sell flowers and fruit in the mornings and on weekends. He drives a red Mazda 5. His parents are Rudy and Elanor Haas. They’re happily retired from the United States post office and live in Tempe, Arizona in a comfy trailer next to a red rock the size of the Pentagon. Darsey has one older brother, David, who looks just like him and could pass as his twin. David’s in the Navy, posted somewhere in the Indian Ocean. Darsey spends his evenings watching professional rugby games from around the world, drinking beer, and eating pizza, and is usually in my company, palling around with me, since we’re close friends. Not best friends, but close friends.

* * * *

Darsey has a boyfriend. I hate him. Okay, hate is a strong word; another cliché. Clifford McGregory. This is his name, although I call him Cliff. A Catholic dog who wears too-tight clothes and shows off his muscles. An ex-underwear model in his early thirties who thinks his s**t doesn’t stink. One of these natural redheads with green-green eyes and freckles around his nose. Darsey’s lucky charm; or so he says. A V-shaped, model-perfect-everything-is-just-right, handsome, rugged with broad shoulders and narrow hips dude who tries to keep Darsey away from me, because Cliff knows that I have a thing for his man. What Cliff likes to call boner radar.

Cliff is someone who wears winter sweaters too tight, khakis snug around his junk to show it off, and comes across as easy all the time. Bubble-butt mania all the way. Every time I see him I think he’s going to explode out of his clothes, tight-chested, tight-bottomed, tight-crotched, tight-thighed, tight-everything. Sometimes he needs mouth-to-mouth resuscitation because his clothes are too tight, but he seems to be breathing just fine.

Cliff’s two years younger than Darsey and me, thirty-two. He works down at First Blood Center on Collateral Street. He collects blood from donors. A. A-. B. B-. AB. O. You get it. I sometimes call him Edward Cullen, the vampire from the Twilight saga, although they don’t look anything alike. Maybe this is why he loathes me, among other reasons, I’m sure. He hates everything about Twilight and calls its creator, Stephenie Meyer, a fake and a thief, unoriginal since she swiped the romance idea of all her books from Shakespeare.

Anyway, Cliff hates me. Not because I want in his boyfriend’s pants, but because we’re complete opposites. He likes the sun and I like the moon. He’d rather read about the stock market and I’d rather read about two male professional wrestlers falling in love and having a romantic dinner together, then enjoying a round of heated s*x on a sweaty mat. The main reason he probably doesn’t like me is simple: he found out I called him the C-word once and he’s never forgiven me for that; not that I blame him. You know. The C-word. Catty. I probably wouldn’t like someone if they called me the C-word behind my back, either. Shame on me. We live and learn. Moving on.

Cliff keeps a close eye on Darsey. Deep inside I know that he’s aware of my bottomless crush on the rugby player, his boyfriend of five months, and want to steal him away. Cliff’s radar is on when it comes to Darsey when I’m around. High range. Full alert. Although he won’t admit it to me that he’s noticed my tongue-wagging when it comes to his man, he tries not to let the two of us alone together; not that I blame him, because God only knows what I will do to Darsey if we are in the same room for too long, just the two of us, side by side, and make eye contact. Things can happen that I might not be able to control. Wicked, sexy, temperature rising, and devious things. Actions that will send Cliff over the edge. No wonder he keeps his radar on, ready to battle me.

* * * *

Time: almost noon. I’m starving. My stomach rumbles. I have to eat, and soon.

Place: the three of us are at Darsey’s flat. The flat is quite masculine with lots of steel, glass, and stone. Nice, but kind of more business-like than homey. Darsey and I return from a Saturday morning rugby game at Templeton Stadium, across town. Cliff is hanging out at the flat. He’s not happy to see me: vampire teeth pointy and sharp, wide eyes, shoulders up, hisses at me, an appetite to devour me whole.

Darsey’s in the bathroom showering (naked, wet, soapy…oh my) when Cliff decides to pin me to the wall.

I’m a sweaty mess from the game and don’t have a shirt on. I’m next to take a shower. It’s not uncommon for me to use Darsey’s shower after a rugby game. Sometimes the showers at the stadium locker room are jammed and we don’t want to wait around. We’re friends and can use each other’s showers. Right? Why not?

My chest is covered in a layer of sweat and pumped muscles, and I stink. I need a shower, and badly. Our team has won: 7, Templeton Thundercats / 5, West End Eels. I’m excited about the win, and my chest proves the labor of the victory.

Cliff doesn’t give a s**t about rugby and winning. Out of the blue, before I realize what’s happening, he grapples my throat, tosses me against a living room wall, blocks air off to my brain with his right palm and fingers, and demands of me, “Put a shirt on, Wayne. Cover those t**s. My boyfriend shouldn’t have to look at them. And I don’t want to see them either.”

I find his comment mysterious, odd, and questionable. Maybe I have a better-looking chest than he does. Probably. No way. Not a chance. I’ve seen his chest. It’s model-right. Perfect. Sculpted bliss. He shouldn’t be jealous of me. He’s ten times better looking, with or without his clothes on.

“Why?” I gurgle, dying by his hand and pressure. I can’t breathe and begin to lose consciousness a little, slipping down the wall. I gag somewhat, become confused, dizzy, lethargic, and sick to my stomach.

“Because…because I just do. So listen to me.” He releases my throat. First his thumb, then his fingers.

I cough…cough…cough.

“Buck up, p***y boy. Although I want to kill you, I won’t.”

Once I come to and stand up on my own, I tell him, “I’m not putting a shirt on.” I’ve dealt with bristlier super villains. f**k him! “You’re over-reacting. We just got back from rugby and I want to get a shower.”

He growls at me, “I know you want to shove your tiny-miniscule-shrunken boy-d**k inside my man and squirt your baby load, but it isn’t going to happen. Not on my shift while he’s my boyfriend. So put a shirt on.”

Hmmm. Why does he say this? I think I know why. No. Not true. I know why he says this.

Listen. Things are about to get most interesting.

* * * *

That afternoon, following my shower, I don’t tell Darsey that his pissed-off boyfriend almost murdered me. Instead, I eat the salad he makes for lunch, eventually leave his flat, and give him the night off from my ogling and compliments. Cliff the wanna-be-killer can have him for one evening. Besides, I have to work down at Templeton Stadium, as second-shift Lead Security Management person. There are four of us who work the shift. Moss has the North Gate. Hamilton has the South Gate. Peterson has the East Gate. And I get the West Gate. We communicate by radios throughout the nine-hour shift to stay in contact. If something goes bump during the hours of four P.M. until one in the morning, all of us know about the ruckus, and we handle it like pros.

Honestly, it’s a quiet job. We watch a number of monitors for any questionable and illegal activity by interlopers. Plus, we do rounds, walking for hours. Any and all trespassers are arrested; we simply call 911 and the local authorities handle the emergency situations. It’s easy work that pays well; money I probably don’t deserve. Also, I get a loaded package of benefits. Good for me. I’ve been working there for six years now. No complaints on my end. Keeps the money rolling in. Can I get an Amen?

When my shift ends, Hamilton asks me across the parking lot next to the West Gate, “Hey, Joslin, Roddy’s doesn’t close for an hour. Do you want to get a beer?”

Although Hamilton is the same age as me (thirty-four) and sports muscles out the wazoo, a striking head of canary-colored hair, and intense ice-blue eyes, I don’t have him on my “boyfriend radar” and have no plans to go to Roddy’s with him. One, Roddy’s is a Smut Hut. All the queers that hang there want d**k, right out in the open. I’m not into public d**k like that. No way. I do want d**k, I just don’t want d**k against a bar’s wall or in one of its sticky corners. Besides, I want a particular d**k. Only one d**k. Darsey Haas’ d**k. I don’t tell Hamilton this, though. It’s none of his business. We’re friends, but not this tight of friends.

Two, Hamilton has a crush on me. He wants in my Dickies, which isn’t a problem, because most guys do. The problem I have with him is much more complex: he wants to hump-and-dump me. I’m a d**k on his chart of the men he hasn’t slept with; a name and number that he wants to conquer. The canary wants to bed me and place a tick by my name on his grid. If he doesn’t think I know about his dry board of names, he’s got another thing coming, because I do. So f**k him. I’m not going to Roddy’s with him. And nor will I sleep with him.