"So, we're agreed that one's friends and lovers are two entirely separate groups," Richard Reed said, raising his beer after giving a young man at the table next to us a wink and a smile, which made the young man preen.
"Where, then, would friends with privileges fit?" Noah Goldman asked.
I could clearly see why Noah would ask about that. He was head of sales, also of gladhanding and smiling for the customers. He was a real hunk, of course, spending a lot of his time in the gym and at a hair and makeup salon--which went with the sales territory, I guessed. But I well knew that he was all about benefits for himself while being everyone's friend, but certainly not about commitment. Not that I had ever wanted a commitment from him. I couldn't deny that he wasn't a great cocksman. Friends with benefits defined him well.
The four of us had adjourned to Legends, a local gay bar in the mostly sleepy and conventional town of New Bern on the Neuse River, near the Atlantic Ocean, in North Carolina. We were the department heads--of miniscule departments--of a company, Caligula, that few would realize operated out of this sleepy--one could even say puritanical--southern town. Caligula was a mail order gay male sex supplies business. We operated by Web site and mail-order catalogs, and supplied everything from condoms and lube to sex toys to sexy role-playing cloths, underwear, and swim suits to BDSM equipment. Our building was a nearly windowless warehouse in an industrial area at the corner of Airport Road and a U.S. Highway 70E border auxiliary parallel road, conveniently located from the side of New Bern's Coastal Carolina Regional Airport that the FedEx office was located at and the U.S. Post Office toward the river on Old Cherry Point Road.
The four of us decelerating at Legends after a somewhat contentious management meeting at the office included Richard Reed, head of finance; Zack McKenzie, the fulfillment chief; Noah Goldman, the sales chief; and me, Logan Gibson, head of marketing and advertising. With the possible exception of Richard Reed, who was fairly new to the business and I hadn't figured out yet, we were all gay. That pretty much went with the territory, considering what we provided to the world of gay men. We didn't trumpet this in a town like New Bern, of course, but we had room here to exercise our lifestyle, if not flamboyantly.
Richard Reed had tumbled us into the question of friends and lovers by turning to me and, maybe innocently and maybe not, saying, "Oliver certainly was protective of your assistant, Michael, Logan. I thought the kid was being a little snippy about being called on the hours he keeps. So, are they friends or what? Or maybe lovers?"
He was only beginning to understand the convoluted nature of relationships in the office. Oliver Conover owned and headed up the company. Richard, who was the HR person in addition to doing the finances, had caused the explosion in the management meeting by suggesting that we let Michael go.
Knowing what sort of landmine that would set off, I had interjected myself in the discussion to forestall Oliver's explosion. Michael was, after all, my assistant. Richard should have brought this issue to me first and I would have avoided this unpleasantness.
"Michael's main duties are as a model for our catalogs and Web site displays," I said. "Much of that is done at night. We can't have just anyone representing the company's products in displays."
It was, after all a good point. Michael was young, a ginger, and gorgeous. We hired him for his looks as much as because he was in Oliver's bed, and Oliver could hire whoever he pleased to. He modeled for the early twenties set and I did so for the early thirties look. I well knew I'd also been hired for my looks, and, although I felt I had the business knowledge to do the full job, I had followed the progression from Oliver's bed onto the company payroll in my time as well. For a third model--the rough set look, we used our warehouse man, the partly African-American Jackson Davis, who was a body-builder bruiser type.
The sales chief, Noah Goldman, snorted. "Certainly not friends. Lovers, yes, but not that much friends, I don't think. Michael lives with Oliver. No doubt Michael leads the old man around by the nose. I wouldn't look to getting him fired, Richard."
Having been there before myself, I knew that Oliver was quite dominant--there no one was leading him around by the nose. But it was the fulfillment chief, Zack McKenzie, who was my one close friend in this group, who brought that to the floor.
"Don't make any mistake, guys," he said quietly, looking off toward the bar rather than at any of us, "Oliver is a master, not to be led by anyone." He said that in such a way that I wondered if he had direct knowledge. I did, of course. I had once been a regular in Oliver's bed. I knew he was in charge there. I hadn't had any inkling that Zack had any experience there. I knew he was a submissive, as I was, which was why we'd never be more than friends in this system of relationships we were discussing here at the table. But I'd never heard about anything between him and Oliver. In fact, Oliver had been keeping it out of the office other than with Michael, as far as I knew.
I followed his line of sight over to the bar and saw that our warehouse man, Jackson Davis, a 230-pound, six-foot-four muscular hunk of thuggishness, perpetual surliness, and meanness, had come into Legend and had bellied up to the bar. What was that with Zack, I wondered. Jackson was danger. He was sore temptation for me, challenging my underlying fetish to walk on the wild side, but I was holding off on that as best I could.
"A master," Zack repeated. Then he turned his attention to those of us at the table. "I think there's yet another form of relationship between gay men. There's friendship, pretty much devoid of sexual activity, other than sharing stories. And lovers, sharing it all. And, as noted, somewhere in between there's friends with benefits, sharing stories but also an occasional roll in the hay. But there's a strong third--masters. That would be a sexual relationship, but with one calling all of the shots. More sizzle than friendship or love."
"And maybe a bit on the rough, forbidden side," I couldn't help but mutter. If the other guys heard me, though, no one picked up on it.
"There probably are even more aspects of the relationship," Richard Reed said, standing up from the table. "But it's past time I should be home, so I'll have to fold my cards on this particular discussion."
Richard was married, with children, which was the basic reason we--or at least I--hadn't quite figured out where he fit in this highly gay sexual company.
As we were breaking up, I thought to ask if Zack still wanted me to come over the next day, Saturday, to help him paint his living room. But Zack already was up and headed toward the bar. My immediate reaction was to check where Jackson Davis was and to worry about whether Zack was headed in his direction. On the topic of masters, Jackson was, I thought, much too high octane for the likes of Zack. Zack was sensitive and easily hurt. Jackson would break him, I was afraid. I saw, though, that Jackson was at the beaded curtain-covered doorway to the back rooms, the more intimate areas, of Legends.
Before I could check on whether Zack was following Jackson, I caught the signaling coming from just inside the front entrance. Ward Helmer was standing there. Ward was an insurance broker in the offices that shared the building Caligula was in. He was signaling to me.
The other relationship we had noted but not discussed in depth at the table--that of the lover--was kicking in. I could definitely say that Ward was my lover--the relationship not being deep enough to consider being friends. It was still focused on sexual satisfaction and release and it was too complicated a relationship to be anything like a friendship. And as far as mastering, it was just too equal as yet to be that.
I didn't expect to see Ward there. Like Richard Reed, Ward had a family--a wife and children--to go home to. That was a principal complication of our relationship.
But he was there, at the door, having entered a gay club--almost--and was gesturing to me. I could do no less than to go to him.
Friends, lovers, and masters. All very complicated.
