I all but sprinted into the bedroom, closed the door behind me, and then rested my forehead against it with athunk, staring down at my jeans which had started getting tighter the second Julian’s lips had saidfucking likebunnies.
I knew Julian probably thought I was having some kind of heterosexual freakout because people thought I was gay or that we were together. In truth, I couldn’t even think about any of that. I was too busy freaking out at my own body’sreactions.
What the hell was I doing? This was getting ridiculous andunignorable.
Julian Ross was aguy.
Adude.
Myfriend.
And let me reiterate, every inch a leanly-muscled, facial-hair-sportingman.
And I wasstraight. Always had been, and therefore always wouldbe.
“Straight as an arrow. Straight as a line. Straight as… a very straight thing.” I slapped my palm against the wall. “Fucking metaphors. Whatever. Straight guys don’t spring wood for other guys. This is afact.”
But Jesus, it was getting harder and harder—no pun intended—to believeit.
A pair of judgmental green eyes met mine, and I felt myselfblush.
“What?” I demanded of the cat currently cleaning herself on my bed. “I was having a private conversationhere.”
She-Ra, whose “badass” name I had not picked and would never admit I sort of enjoyed, was more hair than body. She gave no indication that shetook me or anyone else seriously, which was sort of comforting in its ownway.
“Look, it’s not that I don’t believe people can be bisexual,” I whispered to her. “Of course they can. It’s just that I don’t…didn’t… believeIcould be. Like, surely it should have come up by now? I lived in Manhattan, for fuck’s sake. I wasmarried.I’m not sexually repressed. I’m an open-mindedindividual!”
And I was trying to rationalize my sexual orientation to a cat. Who was busy licking her owngenitals.
“You’re a shit therapist,” I said, throwing myself down beside her and scratching behind her ears, willing my dick to deflate. “Should’ve named youBoudica.”
My life in the city hadn’t been simple—there wasn’t a goddamn thing I missed about the place or the people I’d known, including my blonde, model-pretty wife—but at least I’d never had reason to question my basic biological responses to stimuli. Hot girls like Ingrid were supposed to get my dick hard. Guys were not. That was the lesson I’d learned when I was young, and I’d never once had a reason to questionit.
Until July, when the fucking heatwavehit.
* * *
~Last July~
“I’m dying. Actually, physically dying,” I said, looking up from where I was sprawled on my back on my porch to where Julian was sitting in my Adirondack chair. “I can feel the cells of my bodycooking.”
“And yet you still have the energy to complain.” Julian shoved his damp hair back off his forehead. “You’re a medicalmarvel.”
“Make that myepitaph.”
“Done,” he snorted. “And who shall I notify of yourdemise?”
I made a face, taking the question a little too seriously. I thought about telling him the name of my accountant, who’d likely be the only person concerned, at least on a practical level, but I was pretty sure Julian wouldn’t find it funny. God knew Ididn’t.
“Alert the national media, obviously,” I said instead. “Medical marvel Daniel Michaelson expired from massive heat stroketoday—”
“Massive heat stroke? Is that worse than regular-sized?”
“While his friend Julian Ross mocked him and hissuffering—”
“Nice of you to mentionme.”
“To the bitterend.”
