The bungalow he shared with his lover was the kind of tiny, absurdly expensive property that real estate agents referred to as charming and upwardly mobile gay couples referred to as transitional. Still, Ben felt a surge of pride as he approached it; this was the only real accomplishment he had left. Six years ago, he had convinced his lover Ron to take on the mortgage at almost ten percent interest, a testament to the fact that Ben’s powers of persuasion were dependent upon the firmness of his ass.
Ron would be furious when he found out Ben had cancelled on his agent, so Ben decided to delay the inevitable as long as possible by entering through the side gate instead of the front door. Ben had spent the last 365 potential working days turning the backyard into a Zen meditation retreat, but he hadn’t done much of anything in it besides sneak the occasional cigarette. Squares of white gravel held rows of faux-bonsai trees and a stone Buddha sat cross-legged in the middle of the yard, a thin stream of water gurgling from a hole in the center of its bald head. Ron’s only contribution to the landscaping had been to repeatedly batter it with his gas-powered leaf blower, before one of the neighbors called to angrily remind him that gas-powered leaf blowers were illegal in the city of West Hollywood. That was Ron-ever successful in all of his business endeavors, he was convinced that this gave him license to remain ever defiant in the face of small rules designed to make other people comfortable.
Maybe I’ll sleep on the sofa, Ben thought. What on earth would he tell Ron if he woke up? Sorry, honey. I jeopardized my relationship with my agent so I could spend the night at Rudy’s. You remember Rudy’s, don’t you, honey? That trashy dance club you and I went to last Friday when we ran out of the things to say to each other at dinner? The one where you got a hard-on for that twinky little porn star they had dancing on the bar? I even pretended to be the progressive gay wife while you slid a five-dollar bill into his sweaty jock strap, remember?
When he closed his hand around the knob, Ben realized that the back door was slightly open. Like most of their friends, they had come to a specific agreement about sex outside of the relationship. Unlike most of their friends, however, they had both agreed not to have any. Suddenly, Ben realized that he had executed the kind of detective work a suspicious wife usually took weeks to plan-he had convinced his lover he would be out of town and had not given any indication that he was returning home early.
A fluid-filled groan came from the direction of the master bedroom, too low to be heard by anyone besides a startled lover hovering on the back steps. Ben was confident that Ron had made the sound, and in his mind’s eye, he saw the nubile young porn star from Rudy’s straddling Ron’s hairy chest, the kid’s hands gripping the headboard in front of him as he jammed his erection down Ron’s throat. Force-feeding was Ron’s favorite position and Ben had assumed it countless times, fearing the day when he would be too heavy for Ron to accommodate him without cursing. From what Ben could remember, the kid had almond-shaped blue eyes, enormous bleached teeth, and a compact body that was still one-quarter teenager. The night Ron tipped the kid so handsomely, Ben had gone online and found out that the kid’s professional name was Mike Ellis and his most recent credits included The Boners and Farewell My Daddy. In terms of output, the kid’s career was outpacing Ben’s two to nothing.
The bedroom door was open. His fingers going numb as he gripped the edge of the doorframe, Ben peered in and saw the lower half of his lover’s body, his back resting against the bed’s footboard, his legs splayed on the carpet in front of him. The white soles of his sneakers stared back at Ben like eyes without irises. Ron’s head and torso were blocked by the towering figure standing in front of him. The exertion of the guy’s thrusts drove his baseball cap back over his mop of shoulder-length hair. Ben couldn’t see the stranger’s hands but he figured they were gripping the back of Ron’s head.
Ben had left the back door open behind him. He stepped out of it, just as silently as he had entered, when Ron let out a sharper, more high-pitched sound that suggested the activities being carried out in the bedroom had grown more penetrating. Ben made it to the box hedges that concealed the back fence, then he fell to his knees and threw up. After he caught his breath, he realized what a tragic irony it was that he had rid himself of all the chemicals that could have kept him numb during this.
TV movies had taught him that there would be certain pivotal moments in his life, so like a good little actor, he had rehearsed for them. The emotional press conference he would have to give after his adopted daughter was abducted off their front lawn. The moment when Ron finally sank down on one knee and officially proposed. And, of course, the black day when he would walk in on Ron in bed with someone else.
Where was the tearful rage he had practiced? What had become of the venomous one-liners he had meant to hurl at the offending home-wrecker as he made a mad dash from the bedroom? Indeed, it was Ben who had headed straight for the back door, not the tall baseball cap-wearing stranger. Now, down on his knees in a dark corner of his own backyard, he tried to read some meaning into his own strange instincts.
Why had he run? Why was he still hiding? Because it wasn’t a confrontation he wanted. He had to get a good look at the man who had led Ron to stray. He had to observe him. Pinpoint just what qualities the man had that Ben had squandered. Maybe Ben could get some of those things back, even if he had already lost Ron.
He drew his knees to his chest and wedged himself between the back fence and the box hedge, readjusting until he was in a position that allowed him to see the back door. After only a few minutes of this, his back started to tense up, and his stomach clenched at the thought that Ron might ask this stranger to spend the night with him in their bed. Their friends Phil and Tom had been in an open relationship together for years, but both of them were always eager to recite their number one ground rule: Never in our bed. If the wait became unbearable, Ben would use his cell phone to call the house, claim that he and his agent had had it out and he had pulled over to collect himself on the drive home. Would be there within minutes. Surely that would send the tall dark stranger racing out the back door.
The stranger had been too tall to be Mike Ellis, prince of the sweaty jock strap. That left the blond Yale Law graduate he and Ron had met at a fundraiser cocktail party for the Equal Liberties Defense Fund two weeks earlier. Yalie had made a beeline for Ron after spotting him across the buffet table. The arrogant little prick didn’t even bother to extend his hand to Ben when Ron finally introduced them after several agonizing minutes of small talk. Like every other twentysomething queen fresh off an American Airlines flight from JFK, Yalie heaped generous amounts of disdain on a city that had already granted him a flawless tan and the most spacious apartment he had ever lived in, all while undressing Ron with sparkling chestnut eyes.
Overboard. That was the expression Ron had used when Ben had vented his annoyance about the little son of a bitch on the ride home. When he saw the look on Ben’s face, Ron had tried a sheepish grin and said, “Relax. I said overboard. Not over thirty.”
The touch of cold steel brought Ben back into his body, and he realized he was standing in front of the garden shed, fingering the padlock on its doors. The lock had been left open and the gas-powered leaf blower abandoned on the dirt floor inside. Another image struck him. Ron hearing the phone ring over the leaf blower’s dull roar, tossing it inside the shed before he ran back inside the house, steps quickened by arousal and anticipation. A set of manual hedge clippers hung from a nail inside the shed. Ben could just make out their silhouette, knew that if he opened the doors a few more inches the security light over the back gate would throw them into sharp relief, transform them into an invitation he might not be able to turn down. When Lorena Bobbit cut off her husband’s dick, it didn’t actually kill him, Ben thought. Ergo, while cutting a man’s dick off is a very dangerous thing, it doesn’t always end in death. Castration and attempted murder are two different things.