Red Light, Green Eyes, True Blue

Chapter 2

Chapter 2

Four Years Later

May, 2016

“Oh, oh, oh, oh. Yeah, yeah, yeah.” I tapped the steering wheel to the tune reverberating through my car stereo. “Oh, oh, oh, oh. Yeah, yeah, yeah.” The sun was bright. The sky was blue. It was a perfect eighty degrees in May, and I had all four windows in the car rolled down, belting out Todd Rochester’s “Oh, Oh, Oh. Yeah, Yeah.” at the top of my lungs.

“Good song, huh, Ginger?”

Ginger wasn’t speaking to me. I’d just picked her up from the vet’s after boarding her there for three days while I was away on business.

“Aww. I’m sorry.” I didn’t want to tell her we had to do it all again after the weekend.

My mom had eventually reached her limit with my lackadaisical ways. “Get a job or get out!”

So, I’d started a tech business of my own, which, after four years, was finally turning a healthy profit. Unfortunately, that meant a lot of traveling.

“Sing with me, Ginger. ‘Oh, oh, oh. I said. Yeah, yeah, yeah.’”

Rochester might not have been the best lyricist in recording history, but he put down some mad beats.

“Oh, no, you don’t.” I was in a hurry to get home, and the one traffic light in town had just turned yellow. Pressing harder on the accelerator, I was pretty sure I was going to make it through the turn la—”Shit.” My black Mazda jerked to a stop, causing Ginger to shift in her seat. “Sorry, girl baby.”

“Oh, oh, oh, oh. Yeah, yeah, yeah.”

I looked over and up to catch a glimpse of another Todd Rochester fan in the next lane. He had a pretty good voice—for a dog? A yellow lab sat in the driver seat with his head out the window, panting hard. Panting, but probably not singing, right? He seemed quite enamored with Ginger, who wasn’t giving him the time of day.

“Hey, buddy.” I leaned across for a better look. The dog moved, and there, under him, sat a tall—at least from the chest up—muscular dude in a blue tank top. “Nice,” I muttered.

When he brought his McDonald’s cup to his full mouth, the rich tan of his skin made the bulge of his bicep even more noticeable. Suddenly lost in his armpit hair, I felt a thickening in my d**k. When I got a hint of his side pec, my c**k got even stiffer. Suddenly, I wasn’t impatient for the light to turn green. I could have stared at this guy all day.

“Woof!” The dog was back at the window.

I agreed with his take. Woof was right. I wanted him to move so I could look at his master some more.

“Other side, Columbus,” the guy said during a quiet moment in Rochester’s rock song.

I liked how he spoke to his pup, with a smile and a congenial tone, that and a scruff of the Labrador’s head. Even when the beast—at least a hundred pounds by my estimation—was being raucous and naughty, Mr. Armpit Hair seemed patient and loving.

Whether or not he was following orders or just being rowdy, Columbus bounded back onto the passenger side. His owner turned my way then. Running my fingers through my dark curls, I hoped the wild wind from the open windows didn’t have me looking like Medusa—or perhaps “Harry Poodle,” a cross between the literary wizard and the curly-haired canine. Abby had come up with all that the first time she’d seen me with my current long, unruly do.

“Oh, oh, oh, oh. Yeah, yeah, yeah.”

My focus left my reflection and moved again to the driver of the truck beside me. The sun glinted off something at his throat, a golden music note on a chain. He nodded and shouted over the instrumental bridge.

“It’s not Sondheim, but good song, huh?”

I only got it the second time he’d said it, once I’d turned down the volume in my car after screeching, “What?” and putting my hand to my ear.

“It’s not Sondheim, but good song, huh?”

“Oh. Yeah,” I responded, adding, because I still wasn’t the best at small talk, “Nice dog.”

“Thanks.” Its owner whipped off his sunglasses, like a fashion model, or possibly some angry soap opera hunk. The eyes behind them, they were as green as the first renewed blades of grass after a harsh, bleak winter. He blinked a couple of times, smiled at me, licked his lips, and then, to my dismay, the light told us we could go. Even illuminated, its color didn’t deserve to be equated to that of the handsome stranger’s eyes. I wasn’t finished looking at them—at him—but just like that, the pickup truck was moving, and the dog, the man, and those eyes, they were gone.

The last thing that I noticed was the rainbow bumper sticker. “He’s gay!” I said to Ginger. “Thank you, gods of s*x!”

The blare of a horn behind me broke into my reverie.

“Yeah, yeah. I’m going.”

I thought about Red Light, Yellow Lab, Green Eyes most of the rest of the way home. When I finally pulled into my driveway, however, I forgot about him immediately.

“Major!”

He looked exactly the same.

“My God!” I didn’t even bother to close the car door. I had to hug him to make sure he was real. “You’re back.” He felt the same, too.

“How are you, Sally?”

“Me? How are you? Come in.”

“Who’s this?” Major bent over to pet the head in his crotch.

“This is Ginger, my other best friend.”

“It fits.”

My three-year-old baby girl was actually the color of cinnamon, but I’d nixed that name in favor of the other spice. We’d found one another at a shelter I rarely visited, but did send sizeable checks to at least once a month. I was glad I’d actually dropped in there the moment I’d seen her beautiful face.

“She’s been with me about a month now, and I’ve already boarded her twice because of work. I’m only home for two days this time. I’m afraid she’s going to think I’m abandoning her like the last people did.”

“Aww. Best friends don’t want to feel abandoned.” Major frowned.

“No.” I could count on two hands the number of times I’d heard from him since he’d left New York four years earlier. “Are you back for good?” I finally unlocked the door and went in.

“For a while, at least.”

“When did you get in?” I dropped my keys in the bowl on the credenza by the door. “Have you seen Abs?”

“Nice place.”

“Thanks.” My home was sort of cottage style, but the furnishings were modern, with lots of leather, glass, and metal. “Any respectable decorator would cringe at the dichotomy between the inside and outside.”

“Dichotomy?”

“I’ve been learning a word a day since barely graduating from SUNY. I try to work them in.”

Major smiled. “That’s my Sally.”

“Three bedrooms,” I said. “You’re welcome to stay in one…if you need a place. I’d love to catch up with you.”

“You’re my first stop.” Major was answering my questions out of order. “I should go.”

“Already?”

“Yeah. I want to get over to the cemetery before it gets dark.”

“Oh.” I touched his bare arm, lightly speckled with hair the same color as Ginger’s. “You want some company?”

“Naw. But thanks.” He was out the door, which I’d never shut.

“Okay. Well, stop in after. Think about spending the night. You’re welcome…really.” We were at his Jeep by the time I finished saying all that.

“Okay. I will.” He got in and started the engine. “It was great to see you.”

“You, too.”

Then he was gone again in a rush.

My next homecoming, a week later, held less surprise, but was definitely a little sweeter.

“I’m ba-ack,” I announced upon my entrance.

“Shh.” So was Major.

Though I hadn’t been able to get a hold of him throughout Saturday and most of Sunday, he’d shown up during The Simpsons, offering to sit with Ginger while I was gone again.

“I’m just not going to go,” I’d said over the breakfast he’d prepared on Monday morning. “We haven’t even gotten a chance to talk.”

“We’ll talk when you get back,” he’d promised. “Though there is more to life than work.”

I vowed I would try to remember that.

“Looks like you’re getting along.” I set down my travel bags.

“Shh.” Major shushed me once more from the couch, where Ginger was asleep with her head in his lap. She remained completely oblivious to the fact that I’d returned. I was a little jealous, but also relieved.

“What do you do?” Major asked.

“I work with small businesses and larger corporations, setting up their tech department, doing all their programming and…”

His attention had drifted, which was often the case. I’d gotten used to simply saying, “Computers,” and should have stuck with that.

Major was a forensic accountant. After a long, detailed explanation as to what that entailed, all I remembered was “money and numbers,” so we were pretty much even. He’d traveled the globe the first year he’d been gone, doing volunteer work with the underprivileged everywhere from Africa to just a hundred miles from where we were now reunited. After that, he’d settled in Chicago, and then, after one winter, spent a couple of years in South Carolina, where he “fell into” his current occupation. A few emails and Christmas cards over the years had revealed all that. I hadn’t gotten much more face to face.

“Any problems?” I picked up the stack of mail that had come while I was gone.

“Nope.” Major could be a man of few words.

“Did Abby come by?” I tossed it back down. It was mostly junk.

“Naw.”

“We’ll set something up.”

“I found my own apartment.”

“Cool. Though there’s no rush for—wait.” Did I dare get my hopes up? “Where?”

“Ten minutes away. One-year lease.”

“Fuckin’ ay, Maj!”

Ginger lifted her head.

“HRH!”

Major laughed as my baby girl finally bounded over. Her entire back end wagging side to side, her tail thumped wildly against my brown, leather recliner.

“Hey, sweetie. It’s about time you notice Daddy’s home.” I loved my dog—and that chair. I fell back into it like an old southern belle with the vapors and let Ginger climb up onto my lap. “So does that mean you’ve found yourself?” I asked without the slightest hint of sarcasm.

“I’m not really sure, Sally. We’ll see.” Major stood and stretched. I assumed that meant Ginger had been on his lap a while. Two steps across the room, and he had to stop to stretch again. Maybe he’d been sleeping, too.

“I hope so.” I poked his furry belly and looked up into his eyes. “Thanks for taking care of her.”

“Anytime.”

“Yeah? Sounds like Uncle Maj is staying. That’s the best news I’ve heard in a while.” I smiled at him.

“Remember that when you’re helping me move my stuff out of storage and up five flights of stairs.” He sat on the arm beside me. “How was your trip? Productive?”

“Mostly. I get to be home a whole ten days this time. Plan on seeing a lot of me.”

Up and back to the couch, Major seemed restless. “No significant other I’ll be sharing you with?”

“Actually, I did meet someone…rather recently, in fact. We’ll be hooking up very soon. He just doesn’t know it yet.”

Major was still stretching, now twisting his neck side to side. “At your conference or whatever?” The lack of understanding about what I did continued. “Going for a long-distance thing?”

“No. Close to home, I think.” I’d been hoping to run into Red Light, Yellow Lab, Green Eyes on the road again. No such luck.

“Nice. What’s his name?” Major was on the move again, this time to the fridge.

“No idea. See, I was in the turn lane, back last Friday. This guy—Red Light, Yellow Lab, Green Eyes I call him—he was going straight. I can’t get him out of my head, Maj. If there hadn’t been a semi in the way, I’d have cut in and followed him right then and there.”

“I’m glad common sense prevailed.” He walked back into the room with two glasses of iced tea and a plate balanced on top. “I made cookies…peanut butter. I hope you don’t mind.”

“My oven’s your oven.” I took the plate. “I better not, though.” I downed one before Major sat back across from me. “I can’t get afford to get fat, just in case I ever see my handsome stranger again.” I passed the plate. “He was into me, Maj.”

“You think?” Major devoured two cookies at once.

Man, how I envied straight guys who didn’t obsess about their bodies. He wasn’t fat. The little pooch he had was adorable. Though I worked out on all sorts of machines at the gym, my muscles were simply for show. I could barely run a mile. In fact, Major had always kicked my ass at anything athletic. He won all the blue ribbons at junior high field day and was always picked first in high school PE. I’d been left behind to look up the leg holes of his shorts many times as we both climbed the rock wall at the campus gym. Major was even named MVP in softball at his father-in-law-to-be’s community picnic the summer of 2012. Our teammates had been quite disappointed to learn I appeared far sportier than I actually was.

To me, “Do these baseball pants make my ass look hot?” was more important than whether or not I could catch a round, leather orb flying toward me at ninety miles per hour.

“He had a rainbow bumper sticker.”

“Ah.”

“And we were listening to the same song on the same radio station.”

“Sounds like destiny,” Major said.

“Right? And he had to be interested, why else would he have gone to the effort of talking to me if he didn’t want to hit this?”

“I used to talk to you all the time without hitting that.”

“You’re hilarious. Isn’t he hilarious, Ginger?”

“Arf!”

“Thanks, Gingy Dingy Doo.” Major leaned way across for a kiss.

“She said ‘Not really.’” I blocked him, which resulted in his lips touching mine.

“Yuck!” He landed back on the couch. “Who knows where that mouth has been over the past three days?” Like when Red Light, Yellow Lab, Green Eyes scolded Columbus, Major dissed me with a grin.

“Sadly, nowhere fun.”

“So, the sooner we track down this mystery guy, the better, huh?” Major ate the last cookie off the plate. I wondered if there were more. “What was he driving?”

“A truck…a pickup.”

“Have you ever seen said truck before?”

I gave that some serious thought. “I’m not sure.”

“What color was it?”

“I…I can’t remember.”

“You remember the rainbow sticker, but not the color of the seven-thousand-pound vehicle it was attached to?”

I scowled. “I know what color the hair sprouting out of his armpits was—black—like mine, except not trimmed back. I recall the hue of his perfect coppery skin and the light pink lips that touched the lucky, lucky cup he drank from. Also the tank top. That was blue,” I said proudly.

“If you ever witness a crime, suspect beware.”

“The dog was gorgeous, but the man…Lying in my hotel bed, I’d imagine him looking down at me with those eyes of his as he f****d me.”

“Green.” Major took a gulp of tea. “Yes.”

“Yeah, but not like yours…hazel…Not light green.”

“Allow me to apologize profusely for my wishy-washy DNA.”

“His are like The Wizard of Oz. You know that scene when the gates first open to reveal The Emerald City to Dorothy and her traveling companions? Like that, like glistening emerald.”

“Beautiful. Though I prefer brown. Maybe it has something to do with my affinity for chocolate.” Major was finally opening up. We were finding our groove again.

“Mine are all right, but his were amazing, and they wanted me.”

“That’s what makes a man attractive?” He stood and crossed to the kitchen once again. “Him wanting you?”

“It’s a start. When you add in the muscles and the hairy pits, facial stubble, and the fact that he knows all the words to ‘Oh, Oh, Oh, Oh. Yeah, Yeah, Yeah,’ well, it all adds up.”

“That song is rather intricate, I suppose.”

“How do I track him down?”

“Well…let’s see…”

Major handed me three cookies on a paper towel, leaving me no choice but to eat them.

“This is sort of my wheelhouse, only when I have to track someone down, I do it through bank records, expenditures, and stuff.”

“You have a job lined up here in New York?”

“I have some feelers out.”

“I thought maybe you would have switched over to teaching,” I said with my mouth full of creamy, sugary peanut butter deliciousness. “Like your parents.”

“Eh. Not my bag, Sally. Kids are kind of scary these days. Not all of them, I suppose. I shouldn’t generalize. I still love music…maybe as a hobby, if not a career. I actually enjoy the other stuff, the numbers and all that. I can sort of set up shop anywhere, bounce from job to job, like a PI.”

“Sweet! Major Gannon, PI, sounds sexy.”

“Hardly, but I think I have the brain for it. As far as your guy goes, I don’t suppose you got a license plate.”

“Nope.”

“Was it New York, at least?”

“Definitely.” I chewed my lip. The cookies tasted better. “Maybe.”

“Okay. Well, even if we can say he might possibly be from this state, we don’t know if he’s local or not.”

“He could be,” I said. “On the other hand, since he kept going straight, he could have ended up on the expressway, going who knows where?”

“Possibly just passing through.”

“Yeah. Oh, well. Come on, Ginger.” I coaxed her off my lap. “Want to take a walk?”

“You’re giving up so easily? I thought this guy was Mr. Right. Where’s your curiosity, your faith, your stamina?”

“Stamina? I got stamina, bro, enough to pound your ass all night.”

“Something I look forward to someday. For the moment, however, let’s concentrate on Red Light, Yellow Lab, Green Eyes. Ginger’s in no hurry for another walk.”

Though she had gotten down off my lap, she’d climbed right back up on the couch.

“We went less than an hour ago, over where I’m moving. The best part about my new apartment…there are a couple dozen acres of hiking trails right across the street—campgrounds and untouched land—where we can walk or just veg out. Ginger loves it there. I’ll show you after dinner.” Major grabbed his tablet and shoved me back toward the recliner. “For now, let’s keep looking for your drive-by boyfriend. We can start by going online.”

“You’re that interested in my love life?”

Major shrugged. “Sure. You were such a cheerleader for Abby and me, I…I owe you.”

“You owe me? Look how that all turned out.”

Major was typing away. “It ended up okay, actually. I adore Abby, and always will. We talk all the time.”

“You do?”

He looked up. “You don’t?”

Guilt poked at my gut. “I mean…some. I went to her dad’s picnic thing last year, and ran into her at Walmart one time not too long ago. She made fun of my hair for being so long.”

“If I had your hair, I’d grow it down to my knees.” Major’s was already thinning, even though we’d yet to hit thirty.

“Yeah, well, every once in a while, I pick up the sheers and think about shaving it all off again. I’m not sure the Chia Pet look is in.”

“You’re more handsome than ever, Sally.”

Our eyes locked just a moment.

“So are you,” I said.

Then Major looked away.

“As for Abs, more often than not, our communication is limited to Likes on f*******: and Instagram.”

“Hmm.”

“Hey!” I got him to glance my way again. “How come you talk to Abs more than you talk to me?”

Major went back to his screen. “Maybe I…Abby maybe understands more why I left all those years ago. I know she’s forgiven me. You…I’m not so sure.”

“Stop.” I got up and squeezed in between him and Ginger. Instantly, I was back in Geometry or a lecture hall, recalling how HRH had come to be. “This remind you of anything? Me in the middle…?” I got a smile if nothing more. “I don’t have to forgive you because I was never angry. Sad, yes, but never mad. All I want is for you to be happy. Abby, too, for that matter. In my fantasies, it’s still with each other.”

“I’m pretty sure that’s not in the cards.”

“Well, however it happens, in whatever configuration…HRH!”

“HRH.” Once again, Major’s was pretty half-hearted. “Here. I think your search for happiness may start online.” He passed the tablet.

“Like social media? How would we even know where to begin?”

“We don’t. So we’ll try somewhere else…like Grindr.”

“What do you know from Grindr?” I nudged him with my elbow.

“I don’t live under a rock, dude. I’ve heard of Grindr, one of many gay dating sites.” He snatched his iPad back. “Do you post on any of them?”

I reached for my tea. “Several, but only the ones that allow full frontal profile pics with no face.”

“It’s important to lead with the good stuff, they say.”

“Ha-ha.”

“Seriously, there’s way more to you than a c**k, you know. Don’t sell yourself short.”

“Thank you.” I scooched closer in order to look over Major’s shoulder. “Wait. Was that a shot about the size of my d**k?”

Major rolled his eyes. “Okay, so we’re looking for black hair and green eyes within a…let’s say, hundred-mile radius to start.” Major swiped the screen. “Him?”

“Nope.”

He showed me another. “Him?”

“Nope.”

Then another. “Maybe him?”

“Nope. But he’s cute. Swipe right.”

“I quit.” Major threw down the tablet.

“Now who’s giving up prematurely?”

“I am going to go put some chicken in the oven, and then take a shower. If that’s okay. I can’t move into my apartment until the first of the month.”

“You’re asking if it’s okay to make me dinner? How stupid would I be to say no?”

“Cool.”

“And that shower of mine does rock.” It had three jets at various heights—head, shoulders, and lower back, which was good for soreness after a long day of business travel, or, when I stood on tiptoe, not a bad stand-in for Red Light, Yellow Lab, Green Eye’s mouth a couple times.

“That it does. Keep scouring as many gay dating sites as you can find while I enjoy it.” Major turned to go.

“Hey.”

“Yeah?”

I quickly scrolled through a few pics. “Put in three pieces of chicken, just in case I find him and he’s free.”

“Will do.”

Major was barely out of the room when I switched over to HotGay4U. The first profile that popped up made me pause. It wasn’t Red Light, Yellow Lab, Green Eyes, but it was one hell of a beautiful naked man.

I heard the shower start in the other room and Major humming. It wasn’t “Oh, Oh, Oh, Oh. Yeah, Yeah, Yeah.” If I wasn’t mistaken, it was a Christmas song, the grating one about all the bells—bells this, bells that.

“Doofus.” I clicked through some more pics of Six Feet Into Feet, some close-ups of his alleged size 14½, and some wider shots of his whole body. “What have we here?” In the next one in the series, the camera was aimed right up between his legs, straight at his hole. “Damn!” I shuddered. It was a beautiful ass, all hairy and round, a beautiful pucker, all tight and pink.

My hand was down my pants. “How did that happen?” I wondered.

I unzipped them and let my hard-on out so I could stroke it. Ginger immediately got up and left the room, just like she always did when I jacked off. She was cool like that already. Enjoying the feel of my six pack with my hand under my shirt, liking the tightness of my thigh when I moved my fingers down there, I wondered if I was imagining feeling up the guy on my screen, or maybe somewhat of a narcissist. Considering the fact I was thinking as opposed to imagining, I settled on the later.

Lifting my ass off the recliner to take my pants off all the way, I gave myself a good rub there before I sat back down. One hand on my throbbing c**k, I ran all five fingers from the other between my crack while arching back to pop up the footrest to recline. “Mmm.” I noticed the bathroom door ajar, the angle just right to see up the stairs. That was likely where Ginger had settled. Even if she didn’t want to watch me masturbate, she always followed me into the bathroom, Major, too, apparently. She’d fallen for him as quickly as I had, fifteen years earlier when we’d been barely pubescent sixth graders.

“Hiya, Gingey,” I heard Major say.

He loved her, too. “Aww.”

I shifted in my seat for a better view upstairs and caught Major’s silhouette behind the frosted glass when he closed it again. He let the water run over his torso, then turned to face the other way, showing off an obvious protrusion in shadow that let me know I wasn’t the only horny man in the house.

“A little wet wanking,” I muttered.

Joining his rhythm, I came on my hard gut just as he thrust his lower half forward, no doubt firing a creamy load of c*m all down my shower wall. Watching made me come harder. Two fingers in my ass, my hole and my c**k both flexing, I let out a moan I was almost embarrassed about. An actual naked man beat the hell out of a picture of one. It had been more than half a decade since I’d last seen Major nude. I’d often talk him and Abby into skinny dipping in the pool at my parents’ when left home alone for days over school vacation. Hiding my erections had always been quite difficult whenever I’d watch them making out. Eventually, I decided not to bother.

“It’s just biology,” Abby said one time. “Major has one, too.”

As if I hadn’t noticed.

Sometimes, because we knew we were nerds, we went out of our way to be something else. Major and Abby had never gone all the way in front of me. Though I’d egged them on, Major swore they were saving themselves for their wedding night.

“Why?” My tone in reaction to the pronouncement had expressed way more than the single syllable. Personally, I couldn’t imagine such a thing.

“How long have you been having s*x?” Abby had asked me.

“You know the exact date and precise time I was with my first guy,” I’d reminded her as we’d bobbed up and down bare-assed in the pool. “I called you both halfway through it, remember?”

“And how many have there been since?”

“BTW, I expect the same courtesy from you two on your wedding night, or before, whenever it happens. It’s only fair.”

“Answer the question, Mick.”

In the summer of 2011, at age twenty-two, I’d left it at, “Several.”

There was one I could never have, though. I swore I could feel the steam in the living room when Major opened the shower door.

“Damn!”

I whipped off my shirt to clean myself up. I’d have to put on a clean one. Major would likely know why. The thought of that sent an extra jolt to my spent d**k, which started to thicken again as I watched him dry off with his back to me.

“Oops. Sorry.” As soon as he turned, he shut the door. I wondered what he was apologizing for, catching me with my d**k up—since he could obviously see me, too—or for flashing his. Either way, I wondered if I might have time to rub out another one before he came down.