CHOICES
CHAPTER 3, Version A-1
Steve's life was generally good. He was very successful in his career, having risen to the upper ranks of the company. He had the respect of everyone that worked for or with him. He thoroughly enjoyed his job—especially the frequent business trips. Traveling to and from a location was a pain in the rear but the destinations, many locations in the U.S, Europe, South America, and Japan, often afforded opportunities to spend time as a tourist. He relished being at home when he could spend time with his children and grandchildren. There was only one part of his life that was not rewarding. His secret self, his yearnings, his fantasies of gay companionship, and his regret for choosing a socially acceptable life were a recurrent source of frustration. For a time, he was able to experience sexual pleasure with his wife but, although the marriage was still cordial, it no longer included intimacy. They each had a career, Steve as a rising business executive and his wife as a surgical nurse. Both were contented...or so it seemed to the rest of the world.
But both were concealing their frustrations. Steve longed for male companionship. His wife was smitten by a doctor who had lost his wife to cancer. The attraction was mutual and they had been secretly dating for several months. The excuse of "Sorry, Steve, there's been an emergency at the hospital and I have to work late" was a convenient lie. Instead, the widower and the married woman would meet for dinner and conversation. That's as far as it went but both of them experienced increasing affection for the other and wished they could unite as a couple. Steve, meanwhile, would eat dinner alone and go to his home office to catch up on email and memos that he had no time to handle while in the office.
Steve was scheduled to fly to Miami on Wednesday afternoon for a two-day meeting. After breakfast on Wednesday he said to his wife, "It will be a quick trip. I couldn't get return plane reservations until Saturday morning but I should be home around noon on Saturday. See ya then."
"Have a good trip," his wife said and left the kitchen to get ready for work.
When checking his email at work, Steve was surprised to read one that said, "Sorry, Steve. We have to postpone our meetings. I hope it doesn't cause you any trouble. I'll contact you as soon as I can reschedule."
Steve was not upset. It would have been a boring trip and it gave him a lot of time to catch up on a backlog of work in the office. He asked his secretary to cancel the plane and hotel reservations and got to work.
His wife, Laura, and the doctor, Ray, met for dinner that night. Upon learning that Steve was out of town until Saturday, Ray said, "I've thoroughly enjoyed the times we've been able to get together. And I wish it could be more often. I hope you're not offended if I ask you to spend the night with me. Steve's away. This is a perfect opportunity to demonstrate my affection for you. If you decline the invitation, I'll be disappointed but I'll understand. If you agree, however, you'll make me very happy. And I'll do my best to make you happy."
Laura took no time to respond. She broke into a broad smile and said, "I thought you'd never ask, Ray. Yes! I'd love to spend the night with you."
Steve got home at a little past six that night to find the house empty. There had been no message from Laura about working late so he was puzzled and mildly concerned. By ten his concern intensified. He called his wife's cell phone only to be bounced to voice mail. That was not unusual; using cell phones was prohibited inside the hospital. He left a message: "Call me as soon as you can."
When he woke the next morning and found his wife's bed empty, he was beside himself with worry. He called the hospital and, after considerable difficulty, was able to get the information he sought. There had been no emergency surgery the previous day and yes, Laura Randolph had reported for work at the usual time of eight that morning.
Rather than going to the office, he drove to the hospital. After more than an hour of inquiries and searching, he found his wife doing paper work outside the ER. The confrontation was ugly. She refused to explain her absence overnight. He got angry. She berated him for not telling her the business trip was cancelled. Steve stormed out. He was so angry that he knew he would not be able to concentrate at work so he returned home. The rest of the day was unpleasant for both of them.
That evening, Laura refused to be engaged in conversation. The atmosphere at home was chilly for weeks. Neither could tolerate being around the other.
The silence was broken when Laura, having been persuaded by her doctor lover, announced. "I'm leaving. I'll be filing for divorce. You'll hear from my lawyer."
"Why?" Steve asked.
Laura said assertively, "Our marriage has been a sham for too long. It can't go on like that."
Steve found the explanation to be weak at best because even without sex, their relationship had been marked with civility and occasional friendliness. His irritation exploded into an accusation. "Oh. So you've found somebody else to give your body to. He must be quite a stud. Who is he?"
"That's none of your business," she replied, unwittingly confirming Steve's suspicions. She marched out of the kitchen and took refuge in her bedroom. Steve, still stunned from the unexpected declaration, sat at the table and tried to cope with the questions that kept popping into his mind.
Within a week, Steve had an answer to at least one question. He knew the name of the man who had lured his wife away and made him a cuckold. Many other questions remained. Who was to blame? Laura? The doctor? Himself? If all three shared blame, what could he have done to preserve the marriage? How would their children react to the divorce? To whom would they give their allegiance? The most troublesome question was: Might being free of a wife, allow him to seek a male partner? He grudgingly answered that one. Career and, more significantly, his children and grandchildren dictated which road he must choose: the façade of a straight man. But could he be discrete? Could he finally enjoy what he yearned for? Extreme caution might make that possible.
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The divorce was final. The children had been almost as stunned by the news as their father had been. They expressed their sympathy to Steve and continued to show their love for him. They said little in Steve's presence, however, about their feelings toward their mother or their relationship with her.
After much deliberation, Steve accepted the unfortunate fact that the male companionship he had always wanted was not to be. Again, career (especially in puritanical Utah) and family were dominant arguments against seeking his goal. But now there was a third factor that influenced his reluctant conclusion. His age made him less desirable to other men and had begun to cripple his ability to achieve and maintain an erection. Who would tolerate an old man that couldn't perform? The road not taken was now unavailable to him. He consoled himself with the realization that there were an infinite number of roads to follow but his circumstances presented a small fraction of those. He resigned himself to the fact that the road to love with another man was no longer available to him. He cheered himself by recalling the joys he had found along the road he had traveled: achievements and success in a fulfilling career, children and grandchildren who were a source of pride, and the contentment of having lived honorably.
The internet became his sole source of vicarious, erotic entertainment—Web sites with photos...videos...chat rooms...stories—readily available and accessible anonymously. But eventually that became less and less interesting. Sitting at his computer at home, he recalled an incident many years ago. His youngest son was about to turn eighteen. Steve asked what he wanted for his birthday and was surprised to hear, "A visit to a triple-X porno movie and stopping at a bar for a legal drink." Steve granted his wish and took him to a sleazy theater in Elko, Nevada (since there were none in Utah). His son seemed to enjoy the movie and the live strip-tease that followed but Steve was barely aroused. On the drive to a casino where the just- turned-eighteen young man could get the legal drink he had asked for, Steve asked, "So what did you think of the movie and strip-tease?"
"Okay, I guess. After a while, though, it was about as exciting as watching a cow chew its cud."
That comment came disturbingly close to what Steve felt lately while surfing gay sites on the internet. The feeling was particularly strong when he read stories many of which he judged to be much too narrowly focused on bodies with orifices and appendages and on transient gratification of primal needs. Often, they seemed to be written by authors who failed high school English. Very few stories focused on the entirety of a gay man—his fears and frustrations, his emotional needs and satisfactions, and most of all his belief that pure sex was pleasant but is infinitely more meaningful when it is but one means of achieving, nurturing, and maintaining a loving bond. In a moment of reflection, Steve allowed himself the arrogance of thinking he could do better. He wrote a few stories and anonymously submitted them for posting. He tried to weave a plot. He tried to develop characters as humans with a full range of complexity. You are reading one of the results of that attempt.
THE END
NOTE TO READERS: If my hunch is correct, virtually all readers of gay fiction will have chosen the options in this story that led to sexual activity. Very few, therefore, will be reading this note. To those (few?) who read only the non-sexual parts, my thanks for your patience. To those who may have explored the other roads that branched off between the beginning and this point, I congratulate you for your curiosity and persistence in exploring the alternate roads.