Daddy Issues

Chapter 2-3

Dinner with my mother and Paul was, well, awkward. He and I managed to be cordial and I hoped my mother didn’t notice our suspicious glances across the table and the overall weirdness between us. If she did notice, I hoped she’d chalk it all up to general nervousness at meeting each other for, supposedly, the first time. Thankfully, she carried the bulk of the conversation, keeping us entertained with her teaching tales of woe. Paul would chime in with his own tales from time to time, but I could sense apprehension in his voice. He certainly wasn’t the cool, calm, and collected man I’d met in New York. He seemed a little rattled and off his game. I looked at his clothing and his watch and wondered how he could afford such nice items on a teaching salary. I vaguely remembered him telling me something about his deceased mother’s estate when we were in New York. Maybe family money enabled him to dress so stylishly.

When my mother got up at one point to go to the ladies’ room, leaving me and Paul alone at the table, he chuckled as he poured himself another glass of wine from the bottle on the table.

“Well, this certainly is uncomfortable,” he said.

“I want to die,” I said, burying my face in my hands.

“At least dinner’s almost over.”

I looked at him. “And then what, Paul?”

He heaved a heavy sigh. “And then we talk…privately. Can we meet later?”

I gave him my address and he agreed to come to my apartment after he drove my mother home. Maybe it was a mistake to invite him to my home, but I really didn’t want to talk with him in a public place. Plus, it wasn’t like we were going to end up in bed together again. I looked at him across the table. God, he was handsome. His crisp, white shirt was unbuttoned at the collar to reveal only the slightest hint of chest hair. I remembered how I’d licked that chest, teasing each n****e with my tongue. I found myself getting hard just thinking about it. Christ.

“When Jill showed me a picture of you, I thought you looked familiar,” he said. He laughed a little. “At first I thought maybe you’d been a student in one of my classes. It never occurred to me that you were the man I’d met last summer in New York, but I’d had a lot to drink that night.”

“That makes two of us,” I mumbled. Knowing I had to get out of the restaurant and away from Paul as soon as possible, I waited until my mother returned to the table before telling her that I had a terrible headache and needed to go home. I offered to give money towards the bill, but Paul waved my cash away, just as he’d done at the bar in New York, telling me he’d take care of it. I kissed my mother’s cheek and told her I’d talk to her later.

“I hope you feel better, Jason,” he said, shaking my hand. “It was nice meeting you.”

“Yeah,” I mumbled, pulling my hand away before bolting out of the restaurant. I actually ran home, hoping the extra exertion would kill some of the anxiety and horniness I’d built up during the evening. By the time I got to my apartment, I was already on the phone with Carmen.

“What’s up?” she asked. “How was dinner?”

“Oh, God, Carmen.”

“What’s wrong? What happened?”

“I slept with my mother’s boyfriend.”

“Come again?”

“Paul? My mother’s boyfriend? He f****d me last year while we were in New York.” I told her how Paul and I had met at the hotel bar the night she was sick. I’d never told Carmen about my one-night stand because I didn’t want to hear her b***h at me for being so reckless with a total stranger. Carmen, while incredibly understanding, could occasionally be very uptight and conservative especially when it came to s*x, particularly my s*x life. She claimed to be worried about me becoming HIV positive or acquiring some other sexually transmitted disease, but I suspected there was a little jealousy involved, too. Just because she’d hit a dry spell in her own social life didn’t mean she had to be a hater about mine.

I was met with silence at the other end of the line.

“Carmen? Are you there?” I asked, wondering if the call had dropped.

“Yeah,” she finally choked out. “I’m speechless.”

“That makes two of us.”

“Are you going to tell your mother you slept with him?”

“God, no. I can’t.”

“Why not? She’d drop him and you’d never have to see him again.”

“They’ve been seeing each other for months. Hell, they’ve probably already slept together. I can’t tell her. She’d be devastated and I’d feel like shit.”

“Then what are you going to do?”

“I don’t know.” I told Carmen that Paul and I talked while my mother was away from the table and agreed to meet at my apartment later to privately discuss the entire situation.

“Do you think that’s a good idea? Maybe you shouldn’t be alone with him.”

“He’s not a r****t, Carmen.”

“What if he hits on you or something?”

“I doubt that will happen,” I told her, although I secretly hoped it might. I wasn’t sure what I’d do if Paul came on to me again. The smart thing to do would be to spurn his advances, but I wasn’t exactly the smartest guy when it came to men. Hell, I was sleeping with my boss. Clearly, I lacked judgment when s*x was involved.

“You’d just better be prepared to deal with whatever he throws at you and you’d better call me later and tell me what happened.”

After promising to call Carmen later, I hung up and changed into a T-shirt and a pair of sweatpants before opening a beer. My alcohol buzz from dinner was gone, so I needed something to mellow me out before Paul arrived. I wished I had some weed to smoke. That certainly would have calmed me down. But since I didn’t, I stuck to beer and tried to burn off some nervous energy by tidying up my apartment. I loaded and ran the dishwasher, folded and put away the laundry that I’d done a few days ago, changed the sheets on my bed (in anticipation of what, I don’t know), and ironed two shirts before Paul arrived. I buzzed him into my building and waited for him to climb the flight of stairs to my apartment. When he knocked lightly on the door, I opened it and felt my heartbeat increase as he stood before me.

“Can I come in?” he asked.

I stepped aside and let him in. After closing the door, I leaned against it and folded my arms across my chest.

“I don’t even know what to say,” I told him.

“Neither do I,” he said.

“I can’t believe you’re seeing my mother.”

“She’s a wonderful woman.”

“Yes, she is. So why are you dating her?”

Paul shot me a confused look. “I don’t know what you mean.”

I couldn’t figure out if he was serious or bullshitting me.

“Paul, we slept together. You’re gay.”

He shook his head. “I’m not gay.”

I laughed. “What? You f****d me and sucked my c**k and you loved it. If that’s not gay, I don’t know what is.”

He frowned and sat down on the sofa. “The night we spent together was great, but I haven’t been with another man since then.”

“You expect me to believe that?”

“Yes, I do. It’s the truth.”

“So I turned you into a heterosexual?”

“You didn’t turn me into anything. I’ve been with men and women, and I just prefer being with a woman.”

Right. “Why’d you sleep with me?”

“Because I wanted you.”

“And now you want my mother?”

“Yes.”

“Have you slept with her?”

“That’s none of your business.”

“I’ll take that as a yes.”

“I like Jill a lot.”

“And she seems to like you a lot. Too bad you’ll have to dump her.”

Paul c****d his head. “What?”

“I said it’s too bad you’ll have to dump her,” I repeated, figuring he hadn’t heard me.

“I have no intention of dumping Jill.”

Now it was my turn to say, “What?”

“I’m not going to stop seeing your mother, Jason.”

I stared at Paul, waiting for him to burst into laughter and tell me he was joking, but he was totally serious.

“How can you keep seeing her after what happened between us?”

“What happened between us has nothing to do with my relationship with her.”

“The hell it doesn’t!” I snapped. “You can’t f**k me and then turn around and f**k her!”

Paul narrowed his eyes at me. “What, exactly, is your problem with me seeing Jill?”

“How can you even ask me that? You know what the problem is!”

“No, I don’t. Why don’t you tell me?”

I struggled to come up with the words to reply. “I—You—It’s not right! I’ll tell her about us,” I threatened.

“No, you won’t.”

“What makes you think I won’t?”

“Because you would never hurt your mother like that.”

He was right. I couldn’t tell my mother about my night with Paul. The admission would crush her, so Paul needed to come to his senses and just stop seeing her. Yes, she’d still be hurt, but not as hurt as she’d be if she knew we’d slept together.

“Let me ask you something,” Paul said, settling back against the sofa cushions and stretching his long legs out before him. “Are you upset because I’m seeing your mother, or because I’m not seeing you?”

The question gave me pause. I wanted to be outraged at the mere suggestion that I was jealous of my own mother but, damn it, I was jealous! Paul should have been having dinner and drinks with me, not her! What did my mother have that I didn’t? A v****a. Right.

“Well?” Paul asked.

“I love my mother very much,” I said, ignoring the question.

“I’m sure you do.”

“Then why can’t you see how difficult this all is?”

“It may be difficult for you, but it’s not difficult for me.” Paul rose from the sofa. “Look, Jill and I are having a good time together right now and I don’t see any reason to put an end to that.”

He made his way to the front door where I was still standing with my arms folded across my chest. “I’d like to leave now.”

I moved away from the door, but not before purposely bumping him in the process. It was a d**k move, but I didn’t care. I was angry, angry with Paul for dating my mother, angry with my mother for dating Paul, and angry with myself for being angry with my mother.

Paul sighed. “Is this the way it’s going to be between us now?”

“No,” I told him. “I’m sorry.”

He stepped in front of me, so close that I hoped he couldn’t feel my hardening d**k through my sweatpants.

“Jason,” he said softly, staring into my eyes, “I’d like for us to be friends, okay?”

I couldn’t even speak. I just nodded like an i***t and Paul grinned before clapping my shoulder, telling me to have a good night, and leaving my apartment. As soon as he was gone, I rushed to the bathroom to jerk off over the toilet.

* * * *

After a restless night with a lot of tossing and turning and very little sleep, I dragged myself out of bed early Saturday morning and went to the gym. Then I went to the grocery store, the dry cleaners, and the liquor store. Jared and I were having dinner that night at his apartment and he’d asked me to bring a bottle of white wine. We really didn’t go out much mainly because he was afraid of someone from work seeing us together. He preferred that we spend our time together in the comfort of my apartment or his. He lived in the Art Museum section of the city in a high rise much nicer and much larger than my little hole in the wall on the other side of town. But my place was more conveniently located, so that’s normally where we ended up. Normally. Jared preferred to cook in his own kitchen, so when dinner was offered (and when he was the one doing the offering), we’d have it at his place.

I didn’t mind going to his apartment. However, I did mind his dinners. I always made sure I ate before I went to Jared’s. His weird, restrictive diet made eating dinner with him a challenge. He enjoyed using me as a sort of guinea pig for strange, health-conscious recipes he found on the Internet. Here, try this tofu hoisin. Taste the pumpkin soup. Isn’t it good? God. Sometimes I just wanted a couple of tacos and a beer. At least he still liked to drink. If he gave up alcohol, we’d seriously have to start seeing other people.