Josh Norris looked across the street at the doorbell, still a light year away. The house was a glowing oasis of warmth against the cloudy, frigid nighttime sky of Michigan.
He still remembered the ad in the
Metro Times
:
Let me lick every inch of your body. No crevice left untouched. Bicurious and married men welcome. First timers only. Can't wait to get a taste of you. I'm disease free and you should be too. B649.
The temperature within the car's cockpit began to plummet, and Josh could feel the icy air working its way underneath his parka and down to his skin. Like the ice of his marriage. He and Mary hadn't had sex in years. They even slept in separate rooms now. He only stayed with her for the girls, as well as to avoid the economic holocaust of divorce. The prospect of losing his daughters was unthinkable.
He had engaged in a few flings over the years. With single women who were always looking for more than he could give them. But he had never done anything like this.
He just needed to be touched. Just once to feel the physical passion that only men seemed to possess.
He remembered the time with Danny. When he had driven the shy young man home from the AA meeting those many years ago. Danny had wanted to touch him, looking at him with that intense pain that always lurked in his dark eyes. He should have let Danny do him. Hell, he should have done Danny himself. But not that purest of all heterosexuals, Josh Norris. He had turned the poor boy down cold. Probably with an involuntary look of repulsion on his face.
He wondered what had happened to Danny. He would do him now. In an instant.
Josh looked again at the house. It was the right one. 324 Greenhill Drive. Mary had the girls over at her mother's tonight. She wouldn't be home until late. If he was ever going to act, now was the time to do it.
Josh got out of the car and walked across the street.
The door opened the instant after Josh rang the bell.
"Hello, Josh, I'm Gary." The voice belonged to a much rougher looking man than Josh had anticipated. He was wearing jeans and a black tee shirt, revealing well-defined biceps. His crotch bulged, perhaps in anticipation. His hair was close-cropped, and a scar ran down the right side of his face.
"I've been watching you out there, Josh, since you pulled up. I wasn't sure you were going to come in," he said, pulling the door closed behind him.
"Neither was I," Josh confessed.
"You really have never been with a man before, have you Josh?"
Josh gulped and shook his head, looking at the ground.