Daddy Issues

Chapter 1 “I’ve met someone.” I looked at my mother across the kitchen table. She’d called me at work earlier and invited me over for dinner one cold February evening claiming she had “big news” to share. “Really?” I asked. She nodded. “His name is Paul Everett, Dr. Paul Everett. He has a Ph.D. from Columbia and he’s an English professor at Glassboro Community College. We met at that teaching conference I went to in New Jersey a few months ago. He’s great.” I tuned out as my mother went on and on about her new boyfriend. We’d been down this road before. She’d meet a “great” guy, they’d go out for a few months, then she’d discover he wasn’t so great, and they’d break up. I suspected Mr. Everett would eventually just be one more loser added to the growing list. Two years ago when my mother turned fifty, she decided she was tired of being alone and made it her mission to try and find herself a mate. She signed up for online dating, went to speed dating events, took cooking classes, whatever she could find to meet men. Unfortunately, she still hadn’t found Mr. Right. Dating at any age can be a challenge, but dating as a middle-aged woman has particular difficulties. Men often want women much younger, leaving women my mother’s age to feel that they’re just not attractive or desired. Even in her early fifties, my mother was still a beautiful woman. Her shoulder-length, brownish-blonde hair (that had recently been colored to give it a more strawberry hue) was always perfectly styled, she kept her body in shape by working out, and she didn’t dress like some frumpy church lady. She was also smart. She held a doctorate from Temple and she’d been chair of the English Department at Philadelphia County Community College for the past eight years. My parents divorced when I was fifteen after nearly twenty years together and my mother and I moved from Bucks County to a nice house in Bala Cynwyd where she still lived. (After college, I moved out and into a small apartment in Center City.) My father remained in the huge Bucks County house with Dax, our golden lab, to keep him company. After the divorce, I spent weekends with Dad and Dax because that’s what the divorce agreement stated, but also because I felt bad about my father being left alone in that huge house. But as I got older, those visits slacked off, and by the time I was a senior in high school, they’d stopped entirely. “Jason Townsend,” my mother said, tapping my arm. “Are you listening to me?” “Sorry, Jill Townsend. What did you say?” “What are you doing Friday night?” I shrugged. “I don’t know.” “I want you to have dinner with me and Paul.” “Don’t you think it’s a little soon to be having a family dinner with this guy? I mean, you just met him.” “I didn’t just meet him. We’ve been going out for almost three months now.” That surprised me. My mother had been dating a guy for nearly three months and I was just now hearing about it? “So you’ve been keeping him a secret?” “Well, sort of. I guess I didn’t want to jinx it. You know I haven’t had much luck in finding someone. But Paul’s different. He may be the one, Jason. I have a good feeling about him.” It surprised me to see my mother so optimistic. Maybe this Paul really was “the one”, but I wasn’t getting my hopes up. “So you’ll have dinner with us?” “Sure. Just tell me where and when.” My mother told me she’d made reservations for us Friday at seven at a Cuban restaurant in Old City, not far from my apartment. I was glad she’d made reservations in the city and not somewhere out on the Main Line where she lived. At least I’d have a short walk home Friday if the evening went poorly. I told her I’d be there and that I couldn’t wait to meet Paul. “I just know you two will hit it off,” she said as I got up to leave. “Yeah,” I said with a smile. I wondered how long this one would last before I was invited for dinner with the next “Paul” or whatever his name turned out to be. My cell phone started to ring as I was backing my Volkswagen Golf out of the driveway of my mother’s house. I didn’t even bother looking to see who was calling because I already knew. My soon-to-be-ex-boyfriend Jared Theuer was trying to reach me. I should have dumped him months ago, but I just couldn’t seem to pull the trigger and do it. I kept telling myself that having him around was better than having no one, but having no one was looking better and better every day. As I drove home, I knew avoiding Jared’s call was a mistake. If he couldn’t reach me by phone, he’d just come to my apartment and if he couldn’t reach me there, I’d just see him at work tomorrow. Jared and I worked together—well, I worked for him. He was my manager. When he hired me six months ago as an assistant marketing coordinator at Axis Medical Publishing, we’d only known each other vaguely through mutual acquaintances (i.e., other gays around town). But soon after I started working for him, he and I started dating. We had to keep our relationship under wraps though, since he was my boss, so at work we played it cool. We never went to lunch together and only talked about work-related or mundane things in the office. But that didn’t mean the manager/employee boundary wasn’t crossed from time to time. Jared often sent me dirty text messages during the day (from his personal iPhone, not from the Blackberry he used for work—he wasn’t stupid). I’d hear my phone buzz and see that I’d received a message asking if I was wearing underwear or if my c**k was hard. And one night while we were both working late to finish some ads for a new neurology book, he cornered me in the men’s room and we had s*x in one of the stalls. I was scared to death that a cleaning lady or someone would walk in and catch us, but thankfully, no one did. Unfortunately, the thrill of dating my manager wore off quickly and I soon found myself growing tired of it all. Plus, Jared was kind of a d**k. Even though he was only seven years older than I was (thirty-one to my twenty-four), he acted like he was some kind of worldly sage whose life experiences triumphed over my own. He also thought he was big shot because he was an assistant marketing manager, a job I heard he’d only gotten after the previous manager left the company and the department was in a bind. He took special pride in bossing me and the other marketing coordinator, Ashley, around. He loved redoing the work we’d already done and returning ads to us for multiple changes. Make this text boldface. Move the picture of the brain over. No, I don’t like that, so move it back to where it was. Oh, and change the font. This kind of thing went on and on. Ashley and I were too low level to work on book covers or anything big, so we were stuck handling direct mail and journal ads, the kind of stuff no one really looked at. Since we reported directly to Jared, we were forced to deal with his wrath on a daily basis. Unfortunately, the title and power had gone to his head. Still, he was good at what he did and the changes he asked for did make the ads look better (most of the time). He had an eye for things and it showed in the work our department churned out. Thankfully, his Princeton degree hadn’t gone to waste. Yes, he was an Ivy Leaguer, adding a level of douchebaggery to his dickishness. So why date someone so awful? Because he wasn’t truly awful. He could actually be very sweet on occasion. And he was cute. And good in bed. And I’m an i***t. My phone started ringing again as I parked my car in an empty spot a few blocks from my apartment. Living in the Washington Square neighborhood of Philadelphia was challenging for people like me who owned cars. Street parking was ridiculous. My mother told me I should just bite the bullet and pay for a garage, but I refused. I paid enough in rent for my tiny apartment in a converted brownstone. Paying for parking was an additional expense I just couldn’t justify at the moment. I figured if I didn’t take whatever empty parking spot I saw on the street within a decent radius from my building, I’d end up circling for the next hour trying to catch someone pulling out. “Hello, Jared,” I said after answering the phone. “Where are you?” he asked. “I’ve been trying to reach you for the last hour.” “I was at my mother’s house.” “Are you home yet?” “No. What’s up?” “Nothing. I just want to see you.” I really didn’t feel like seeing Jared, but I was horny, so I told him to come by in half an hour. When I got to my apartment, I immediately opened a beer and turned on the television. Even though I enjoyed living alone, I found the silence of an empty apartment a little depressing, so I usually kept some kind of background noise going. Hearing other voices or music made me feel like I wasn’t alone even if I was. Since Jared was coming by, I cleaned up a little. Not that my apartment was a mess, but I wanted to make sure things were in their respective places when he arrived. I hated walking into someone’s home and finding dirty socks on the floor or crusty dishes in the sink. It’s one thing if someone stops by unexpectedly, but if you know someone’s coming over and don’t even bother to clean up, that’s just lazy and inconsiderate. I wasn’t a neat freak, but I did appreciate cleanliness (or at least the appearance of it). While dust bunnies surely lingered under my bed, at least the sheets on top were clean. I’d just finished loading the dishwasher when I heard the intercom buzzer ring. Figuring it was Jared, I buzzed him in, and he was knocking on my front door less than a minute later. “You really should just give me a set of keys to your place,” he said as he came into the living room before removing his jacket and planting himself on the sofa. The last thing I needed was for Jared to have access to my apartment to stop by whenever he felt like it. Plus, it wasn’t like he’d ever offered me keys to his place. Maybe he was waiting for me to give mine up first. I changed the subject and asked if he wanted something to drink. “What do you have?” “Beer, soda.” “What kind of beer?” “Corona.” He made a face. “Do you have any Diet Coke?” I got a can from the refrigerator and gave it to him before sitting on the sofa beside him. He looked good, as he usually did, dressed in jeans, brown leather ankle boots, and a blue V-neck sweater. His dark brown hair fell lazily across his forehead and he wasn’t wearing the glasses he normally wore at the office, so I had an unobstructed view of his deep brown eyes. Jared was everything I wasn’t: tall, dark-haired, preppy. He looked like the kind of guy you’d see mingling at a Republican fundraiser while I looked like the kind of guy you’d see serving hors d’oeuvres at that fundraiser. My short stature, dull, sandy colored hair, and fondness for T-shirts and cargo shorts didn’t exactly give the impression that I was a guy who was going places. Rather, they said I was suited for a dead-end customer service job that required wearing a nametag. Hello! My name is Jason! How can I help you? “How’s your mother?” Jared asked. “Fine. She has a new boyfriend. I’m meeting him for the first time Friday night. We’re all going to dinner together.” “That sounds nice.” “Does it?” “Yes. You should be happy your mother has met someone.” “I am…I guess. I’m just trying not to get my hopes up.” “You’re so pessimistic,” he said, before taking a sip from his can of soda and placing it on the table beside him. I slid onto his lap, straddling him, locking my legs around his waist and wrapping my arms around his neck. “I can’t help it.” Jared put his arms around me and slid his hands beneath my shirt so he could stroke my back. Then he kissed me long and hard before rising from the sofa with me still wrapped around him and carried me to the bedroom. Despite his thin, gangly build, Jared was actually quite strong. He carried me like he was toting a small child and never seemed to strain or struggle. Granted, he didn’t have far to go in my tiny apartment, but I wasn’t exactly light as a feather either. Still, being a relatively small man (5’4” and about 130 pounds soaking wet) sometimes has its advantages. Jared dumped me on the bed and pulled his sweater off over his head. “You’re putting on weight.” I rolled my eyes and started to get undressed myself. While Jared was only mildly annoying about my weight, he was a paranoid freak about his own. He worked out six days a week and was fanatical about what he ate. He was really into healthy foods like brown rice and steamed vegetables, stuff I hated. While I made an effort to work out and eat right, I wasn’t neurotic about my weight and I wasn’t going to deprive myself of a Tastykake if I wanted one either. Jared was on his knees with his head between my legs the moment I got my shorts off. He took me into his mouth so fast that I barely had time to react. I had been planning on going down on him, but I guess he had other plans. As he sucked my c**k and stroked my balls, I palmed his head and thought about my mother’s boyfriend. I wondered what he looked like. Was he tall, dark, and handsome, or short, pale, and ugly? I wasn’t even sure what kind of men my mother found attractive. Obviously, she’d found my father attractive years ago, but he didn’t resemble any of the other men I’d seen her with. She seemed to be an equal opportunity dater though, willing to give pretty much any guy around her age a shot. And maybe that’s why she hadn’t been successful in finding someone. Maybe she needed to be a little more selective. And maybe she had been with Paul. I was curious to know what kind of man he was. I hoped he was the kind of guy who’d treat her well and enjoy her company. I hated to think of her hopes being dashed once again if things didn’t work out. Sure, she’d put on a brave face and claim she was ready to move on, but with each failed date, each rejected suitor, she died a little inside. Jared was right when he said I should be happy she’d found someone. I wanted to be happy for her, but I was too busy preparing for disappointment. When Jared rose to his feet, he went to the nightstand drawer and pulled a condom and lube from inside. I rolled over onto my stomach and waited. I turned my head to watch him put on the condom before he climbed into bed with me. “You’ve got such a nice ass for a white boy,” he said, feeling each cheek of my ass before applying a generous heap of lube between them. I wished I could say the same for him. Jared’s ass was as flat as a pancake. Fortunately, he was blessed in other places. “I’m surprised you don’t think my ass is too fat,” I told him. “I never called you fat, Jason,” he said. “No, you just said I’d gained weight.” I sighed and rolled onto my back. “I guess there’s a subtle difference.” He frowned. “Are you trying to make me lose my erection?” “No. I’m sorry.” Jared leaned down and kissed me before spreading my legs and grabbing the backs of my knees. When he entered me, I groaned from the pressure, but when he pushed in deeper, I relaxed. Whatever negative feelings I had about Jared as my boss-s***h-boyfriend all disappeared when we were having s*x. The sniping and sarcasm were replaced by moans and cries of passion. Yes, baby. Oh, God. We eventually changed positions and I got up on my hands and knees so he could f**k me doggy style. And f**k me he did, slamming into me with such force that the bed was shaking beneath us. I came with an exhausted cry and Jared followed suit about a minute later.