Out

The Doorway

I have sex with a woman and all hell breaks loose. 

That’s how it was beginning to look to me. Everything was fine when I stuck to men. I knew the rules.

We were discreet. Sure, I’d done road trips with a few friends out to Provincetown. We had fun when were there pretending to be outwardly dating, courageous. But at home, we pretended that no one knew.

I liked that separation of sex and state. 

My mind raced back to when and where this all started like animated gifs flashing before my eyes. Click, click, click, click.

To be fair, it didn’t start with my first date with Katherine when I opened the door wearing my dishtowel. It didn’t even start with Thomas saying, ‘quick, in here.’ And my scuttling into the closet like a crab.

It started with Olivia. It started when I stood at the steps of the Green Point Country Club, feeling like a poor, unworthy but hungry outsider. I may have returned to the Sea Sprite that night to a lonely pasta with tunafish if she hadn’t invited me in.

Olivia swept me up and initiated me into a tribe that I could never and would never be a part of.

Now, I was melting. Standing beside Katherine in a muddy mud room at Thomas and Olivia’s, re-seeing Olivia’s face pulled from the water.

The faint sound of a ringing phone brought me to my knees.

Katherine guided me to the floor, sinking down beside me. I felt her hands on my back. I pulled myself tighter into a ball. I wanted to scream but it felt like my lungs were huge vacuums sucking in the air around me. Mucus flowed from nose, my eyes ran.

My body shook it in small bursts. Pa, pa, pa, pa, pa, pa, pa …

‘No, nothing …’ we heard a male voice say. But it wasn’t Thomas. It was Bobby. ‘Yeah, I’m sure,’ he said. ‘It’s dead quiet.’

I clammed up. Fear wins over pity like paper wraps itself around a stone in rock, paper, scissors. 

‘Yeah, well there’s nothing here,’ said Bobby. ‘And I’m not hanging around. People will notice soon. The Fontaine’s seem to know who’s coming and going even when they’re in the city. Probably have some type of motion detector surveillance system installed.’

He was quiet for a moment. Listening.

I wished I could hear the other voice. Who was he talking to?

‘No, I didn’t take any risks, came over the wall from the north side.’

Silence. 

‘Yeah, alright,’ said Bobby. ‘Alright. Yeah. Me too. Bye.’

Katherine pulled me in tight, but the heaving and sighing were gone. We waited, barely breathing. As he left a wave of silence rolled in flooding the house. We waited for it to settle into stillness, until the drone rang in our ears. I didn’t know what Katherine was thinking, but she was still as well. 

She started to stroke my back but I didn’t want to be touched. I stood up and her hand fell away.

‘What the hell’s going on?’ I asked.

‘I don’t know.’

‘But you know him,’ I said.

‘What are you trying to say?’

‘Well, what do you think? He warns me about you. He’s like obsessed with you or something.’

‘He’s not obsessed with me.’

‘How do you know?’

‘I know.’

‘Well, he’s still into you, that’s for sure.’

‘Are you jealous?’ she slinked closer.

‘I’m not jealous,’ I said.

‘You don’t have to be. He doesn’t hold a candle to you, not even a little birthday candle.’

‘Who do you think he was talking to?’ I asked.

‘I don’t know.’

‘Do you think it could have been Thomas?’

‘Right now I’d believe that it could have been anyone. Anyone but us.’

‘Let’s get out of here,’ I said.

We backed out of the house. I locked up and replaced the key in its hiding place.

I started to march down the drive.

‘What if someone sees us?’ she asked.

‘I don’t give a shit,’ I said. ‘I’m going to find out what’s going on.’

She pulled slightly away from me as we approached her house. ‘You can go if you want to,’ I said.

‘No,’ she said.

‘What about work?’ I asked.

‘I told them that I’d be remote for a few days. I’m all yours,’ she said.

I kept walking.

‘Grab your bike,’ we’re going to pay Bobby a visit.

She ran to her yard. I didn’t walk far down the pathway before she rolled in beside me. I made room for her, brushing my leg on a wild rose bush. The thorns scratched at the skin of my shins. It hurt, but part of me liked the occasional bursts of pain so I continued to walk beside her.

‘Do you think that’s a good idea?’

‘There’s something between you two. He threatened to show pictures of me with Thomas if I kept seeing you. You can deny it, but I think he’s obsessed.’

‘He’s not obsessed. Protective, maybe, but not obsessed.’

‘Why does he need to be protective? You said you just saw him a few times. Now he’s protecting you.’

‘You wouldn’t understand.’

‘No, probably not.’

I took a step in front of the bike, forcing her to slow down. I kept a steady pace until we emerged on the beach road by the cottage.

I grabbed my bike, hopped on and she kept pace beside me. I could feel her eyes as she glanced up at me from time to time but I didn’t look over at her.

Our first lover’s quarrel and I was winning. At least I thought so.

I peddled a bit faster, pumping in quick strokes. She lagged a few seconds and then caught up. I slowed and she slowed. We carried on faster and slower in a kind of bike tango until I saw the sign for McGuire’s Country store. Then I gunned it. It took her a few seconds but she caught up.

I ratcheted up through my gears. The race was on. The final sprint.

‘Ha!’ She said peddling up beside me and bearing down on her handle bars.

She was faster. Her bike was better. We skidded to a stop like ten year olds kicking gravel and dust up against the building like pellets from a bb gun.

She gloated without saying a word by swinging her hair back and pulling it tight behind her head. Her lips pouted, her eyes gleamed.

Yeah … you won, I thought but I wanted to dominate her and I knew I would later that day. Her winning made what I was planning feel like a fair fight.

I leaned my bike up against the shingled building and side stepped a wooden box filled with rhododendrons. Their pink and purple flowers still in late summer bloom.

I didn’t know what to expect inside, meeting Bobby. He had threatened me and now, here I was walking into his territory. He had the home team advantage.

I had hope.

We walked in through the door of the store.