This is gay erotic fiction. If you are offended by graphic descriptions of homosexual acts, go somewhere else.
Neither this story nor any parts of it may be distributed electronically or in any other manner without the express, written consent of the author. All rights are reserved by the author who may be reached at cepes@mail.com.
This is a work of fiction, any resemblance of the characters to anyone living or dead is pure coincidence and not intended. They are all products of the author's overactive imagination.
The Interviewee Part 7
Sitting at my desk, resigned to having placed the ball squarely in Alex's court, I knew I had to begin concentrating on work. It was already almost 2.00 on Monday afternoon and I had accomplished nearly nothing in all that time. On my plate, I had an unfinished presentation due on Thursday and I needed to perform some research for two different proposals we were submitting to prospective clients in the next few days. I would much rather be sitting on a couch in a college library, reading up to write some silly ass paper for a class; how I missed college on days like this.
I neutralized the turmoil in my mind and turned to the presentation. I had huge piles of source material I had been collecting and analyzing for a client; I now had to figure out how the hell to present it. For two hours, I distilled hundreds of pages of research, interviews, charts, graphs, and everything else into an outline. Thirty slides; a two-hour presentation. I had gotten through drafting the content of three slides when I heard the e-mail ding and decided it was time for a break.
After I read through the e-mail, I almost wished I had decided to call in sick that day. With the new burden the e-mail foisted on me, on top of trying to track down Alex, stay sane, and keep from getting sacked due to slipshod work, I definitely had the beginnings of a severe, long-term headache.
In short, the slightly bubbly e-mail informed me that I had the great privilege of being staffed on a new engagement as of Monday, next week. I knew that my current engagement wasn't ending, but it was slipping into a less time consuming mode. True, it was firm-wide practice to work on two or more projects at a time. Recently, though, with the instability of the economic climate, I had been working on one engagement at a time and had been putting in a reasonable, not insane, amount of time into my work. I really enjoyed being able to focus on one project; the increased quality of life was a nice bonus, as well. Now, it was back to the two-at-a-time drill. Purgatory, that's what it would be: not quite hell, but close enough for comfort. God, I hated being a salaried worker sometimes.
The rest of the e-mail, from the head of the consumer products practice in Boston, told me to look forward to a lovely week-long trip to Cincinnati. Funny, I thought. For me, that place ranked right up there with Indianapolis and a few other choice places as the most boring areas to spend a week. Plus, it was really unusual to spend an entire week somewhere; unlike other consulting firms, mine did not emphasize 100% on-site work.
And, the e-mail continued, I needed to review everything in the company's library on the current topic. Great. I'll just add that to my plate: fifteen, or more, hours of research for next week's gig, one major presentation, and two speculative sets of research and proposal writing.
Just about the time I had calmed down again, my mentor came by and said she wanted to talk. Julie was a medium sized, fairly elegant Korean woman, nearly thirty. She had been my assigned mentor for about 3 months. In my firm, a mentor is sort of a boss-type figure who is supposed to help make sure younger employees don't get lost in the cracks of the system. One's actual boss, the partners on the cases you're assigned to, changes so often, on an engagement by engagement basis, that advice from the actual boss wouldn't be helpful for a long-term career. A mentor is supposed to provide continuity, an ever-present source of advice.
Previously, this system seemed to work well. But, now, I wasn't so sure I wanted an ever-present source of advice. Julie was, frankly, horrible as a mentor. I had no idea about her professional credentials or ability to get work done, but there is no way Julie could be qualified to advise someone else. Particularly when the advisee was me. My previous mentor, Michael, had been superb. We had stayed paired together since I joined the firm out of college; he had guided me and coached me; he got me fastracked for a promotion. When he left 4 months ago to become a vice president at one of his clients, I seriously thought about taking him up on his offer to move with him. What held me back was having to physically move myself--to Denver. I had rejected it for that reason alone and hadn't even told Chris about the opportunity; he was all about taking opportunities when they present themselves. I didn't want to plant any seeds in his head.
Where Michael was intelligent and giving, Julie was petty and ignorant. Ordinarily, I avoided her whenever possible and pushed off having mentor meetings with her as long as I could get away with it. Today, she decided to come by my desk, instead of trying to get me to come to her.
She launched into a review of two of my most recent finished engagements. Once an engagement ends, the partners and senior managers write reviews of each staffer: a copy goes to staffing, one to the person reviewed, and another to the mentor (when there was one). I had already read these reviews several weeks ago. They were very positive; one had even mentioned that I should receive another promotion.
In Julie's mind and in the comments she made, these positive comments got spun into negatives, places for improvement, and many other types of comments completely unsubstantiated by the reviews in her hands. "You're not working hard enough." "You haven't developed quantitative skills; your modeling is below par." All sorts of things came out of her mouth. All things I had actually received praise for in the reviews.
I knew she didn't like me, but I didn't know why. I had never worked with her. She had nothing to go on really besides a couple of lunches over the past few months. But, whatever it was, all this random, painful material spewed from her lips and into my unwilling, tortured ears. I decided to just stop resisting, let her say everything on her mind, and get through with this as quickly as possible.
Despite my best efforts, including my valiant act of holding my tongue aided by an unknown infusion of strength and willpower that just came to me, she did not stop for twenty minutes. She hadn't even asked if I was busy; instead, she just came over, unannounced, and unloaded vitriol all over me. By the time she finished, I was absolutely livid. I answered her only in acid glances and monosyllables. She may be elegant, but she was absolutely vapid in her head and cruel as Stalin in her heart. Nothing of what she said made any sense; it was cruelty for cruelty's sake.
I decided then and there: I was going to talk to staffing and get myself a new mentor. If they wouldn't go along, maybe I would call up Michael or one of my old, local clients and find a new job.
After Julie finished her ritualized flaying of me, I knew my mind would not be able to perform anywhere near the mental standards required to continue writing this presentation. Emotional detritus littered my entire consciousness.
It was time, I decided, to take one of those rare, but necessary, early exits from the office. I left my suit jacket on my chair and my computer on (but locked). Old tricks I had heard from some friends who worked on Wall Street for investment banks. Good for getting away to go to the gym, leave early, fuck someone in the restroom, whatever. At least I had the presence of mind in the face of one of the worst days in recent memory to do that much to cover my tracks.
Once I was in my car and on the street, I didn't have the slightest clue where I was going. I didn't care. Driving, except in bumper-to-bumper traffic, made me feel better, helped to clear my mind. Every mean or exaggerated thing I could possibly envision for Julie floated through my mind. As I thought, I drew closer and closer to considering a clean break from the place, a resignation. I had put in nearly four years; they had even waived the requirement for me getting an M.B.A. before they gave me the promotion. I was obviously worth something to these guys; I would be worth something to another employer. If my firm would legitimately assign me to Julie, she was their official face to me; it was a hateful face. They weren't doing their job in keeping track of her conduct. I hated her; my mind began to hate the firm for attaching her to me.
If I had been thinking rationally at the time, I would have realized hashing this out with staffing would be a better place to start (with a resignation still an option for an ending point). But, my mind had seemingly already moved to considering and savoring the end game.
I suppose I would have moved on to considering how to write the resignation letter or something similar, but I then noticed I was in unfamiliar surroundings. Residential area, I must have been off the main streets for a while. I kept driving, coming around a curve in the street. All of a sudden, on my left, I saw a large park. Now, that jogged my memory. It looked like the place where I had dropped Alex on Friday after I put the damper on my taking advantage of his virginity. No, it didn't just look like it; this was the place.
Unsure how exactly I had gotten here when my mind was all afire with Julie and leaving the firm, I guessed my unconscious mind was still focused on fulfilling my promise to Chris to find Alex and let Chris meet him. I decided, as long as I was here, to stop my car and see what there was to see. I knew Alex's last name; I suspected he lived close to this park; I was also pretty sure he wouldn't be returning to classes until next week because of the oddly positioned, long vacation he had from school, one of the quirks of a year-round schedule.
I got out of my car and walked over to the park. It was good sized, it seemed. Quite a few trees, a jogging path along its outer border, some benches, some playground equipment. I started walking along the path, eying each house on the other side of the street, looking for mail boxes sporting the surname I was hoping to find.
I walked around the entire park while it was still light out. After I had been there maybe an hour in total, while I was sitting on a bench, thinking about my predicament, the light started to fade. I realized that seeking out Alex, as some part of my mind had wanted me to do, would not be an easy task in the darkness. I returned to my car, turned on the headlights, and started back on the street. This time, my mind clear, I knew I was heading for home.
I got back into my apartment a little after 6.30, what with traffic and all. I was pretty sure Chris would be home in an hour or so. I could do one of two things: lay around and moan about the awful day I'd had, much of which I was feeling better about after walking around and sitting in that park, or I could surprise Chris with dinner. Chris had made me pretty competent in a couple of dishes that I now felt comfortable preparing. I needed something to keep my mind busy, so I opted to make dinner.
I went into the bedroom to change into kitchen clothes, ratty sweats or something else that wouldn't mind a few more stains. When I was stripping I had the idea to not wear anything at all in the kitchen--to give Chris more than just one surprise. Maybe he would get it into his mind to thank me right there in the kitchen, too.
I bobbed back out of the bedroom and into the kitchen, my tumescent friend waving in front of me. I was almost never completely naked in the house, even when alone; this decision to go au naturale was a definite turn on to me. As an added bonus, the more my friend stuck out and the more blood he consumed, the further back in my head I could push the events of today due, perhaps, to reduced blood flow. Erections are useful in multiple ways, I was beginning to learn.
I opened the fridge to inspect the produce. Peppers, mushrooms, hmm. I knew a great pasta dish with small-diced peppers, onions, mushrooms, and a touch of sherry wine vinegar that Chris had taught me; we both loved it. It would require a lot of chopping of vegetables, though. My knife skills were nowhere in Chris' league. It might even take me a whole hour to get this dish together. `What the hell,' I thought. I started pulling out what I would need.
I got the pasta water started. I started making a small dice out of an onion; then an orange pepper; and a yellow pepper. I reduced a couple of cremini mushrooms into cubes and squeezed some lemon juice on top to keep them from turning even more brown. I put the skillet on and warmed some oil, adding the onions, peppers, and mushrooms at the appropriate times. I let that continue to sauté as I threw some linguine in the water, along with some salt and some oil.
I dipped my spoon in the pan and tasted the peppers and mushrooms. `Needs salt,' I thought. Chris had spent countless hours with me in the kitchen battering into my head the importance of salt. Conversely, he railed against how most home cooks were too afraid of that seasoning to use it well and what a tragedy that was. All of America eating unnecessarily bland food. Well, for Chris, I would make it perfect, just the right amount of seasoning. I tasted, adjusted the salt and the pepper, and tasted again. Better. Much.
I added the sherry vinegar to the sauté pan and let it mingle with the other flavors off heat. I pulled the pasta out the water and drained it in a colander. I was just about to throw the pasta into the sauce to coat it, when I realized I didn't know exactly when Chris would be getting home. I turned the sauce on low and left the pasta sitting in the colander in the sink. I called his cell, hoping he was on the road. The cell didn't pick up; it just tried to drop me into voice mail. I was surprised; his cell was always on and he almost always answered, unless he went into a meeting. At 8.00 in the evening, I doubted he was in a meeting. I decided to try him at his desk, which I rarely had to do because the cell was always on. I got dropped into voice mail again. `Curiouser and curiouser,' I thought.
My own stomach decided the matter. Not knowing when Chris would walk through the door, my hunger prompted me to toss the pasta into the sauce and add a generous pat of butter to finish the dish. I left it on low heat so the pasta would more easily soak up a generous coating of the butter and vegetable juices. I speared some linguine and tasted it: delicious.
After I had finished a bowl of it, topped with some good, freshly grated parmesan, I realized how silly I felt sitting at the dining table in the nude. I had never been particularly comfortable with my own body; it was definitely weird to be eating and looking at my lower half through the glass-topped table. The whole effect would have been cute, seductive, and more than worth it if Chris had been here; now that he was half an hour later than I expected, this nudity was just not working anymore. My half hard cock just looked ridiculous. I took my bowl to the sink and went into the bedroom to put some clothes on.
I flopped on the couch, reaching for the remote control at the same time. Flipping, flipping, flipping, a hit. It was a James Bond movie, with a middle-aged Sean Connery kicking some guy's ass. At least that was something I could handle. Better than the empty network sitcoms. I watched for a few minutes and realized it was Diamonds Are Forever, not one of my favorites. After watching a few more minutes, I was rudely reminded why this one ranked so poorly in my estimation. I saw the main henchmen come on the screen; then, I saw read. They were parodic gay men, constantly spritzing cologne and mintzing around. They also happened to be sociopaths who cracked jokes about the people they had killed. I sat, sickened but riveted, waiting for their next appearance. The entire movie, after that, was a train wreck. My anger at Julie and everything else from earlier in the day transferred over to the small screen and the campy, catty Mr. Kidd and Mr. Wint.
I wanted to console myself by thinking that popular culture had changed since the 1970s; that queer representations were more authentic and sensitive. As I was trying mentally to make this case, my eyes flashed onto my DVD collection displayed on a bookshelf next to the television looking for good examples. As I looked at the case for Traffic, I sat stunned, remembering how this movie, too, had a gay hitman. The only gay character in the very large cast of that otherwise fine movie is a psychopath who works for drug dealers and likes to blow people up. In fact, he gets apprehended by the Mexican authorities at one point because he picks the wrong guy up in a bar; he's even coded as promiscuous. The only thing worse than an assassin is a promiscuous gay man. That hitman thing got me thinking about James Gandolfini in the regrettable The Mexican. Another gay guy who turns out to be a hitman. This time it was doubly complicated: Gandolfini's character was actually imper! sonating another hitman he had already murdered. Will & Grace, my ass. We were a bunch of murderers in straight pop culture. My mind went onto tangent after tangent slipping into all the films, books, and other media I could remember. The list of offenses got longer and longer.
Eventually, I couldn't take this obsession any more. It was closing in on 11.00 and Chris hadn't come home yet. I tried calling his cell and his office one more time; voice mail was my only contact both times.
Mentally exhausted, confused at Chris' absence, and unable to process anything else, I fell into bed and off to sleep. Even with an agitated mind, I had a good night's rest. In the morning I awoke much earlier than usual, saw that Chris had returned and was asleep in our bed, and decided to get up and into the office early. I had work to do. For the time being, I decided in the light of day, I would try to get staffing to find me a new mentor. I wouldn't play the resignation card, not yet, not until I was sure I needed to.
I kissed Chris on the forehead; he was so beautiful asleep. I was very curious about his whereabouts last night, but I would ask him and find out everything later tonight after he and I both returned from work.
With the shower, a scant breakfast, and my commute completed, I arrived at the office at 7.15. As I walked to the kitchen to get some tea before starting work and diving into the presentation, I noticed that Jane was already at her desk. She was the head of the library for Los Angeles; she was also one of the first people I had met here. She was in her late thirties or early forties; she had been with the firm for more than ten years. She knew absolutely everything, not just in the office, but firm-wide. You could describe, in very general terms, an engagement a couple of years ago that you had heard one of the partners vaguely refer to; she would not only know it, but she could summarize the kinds of materials available in the library on that case and every other engagement like it. She knew everyone and everything that had passed through the firm. Not only a great resource, I considered her one of my friends.
I hadn't had a chance to chitchat lately. Seeing as I was in early, I decided to stop and talk with her. Jane was glad to see me, by admission and by facial expression. We talked about my recent cases. She told me how the library had been doing. I put her on notice about the new one coming up; she just nodded her head. I knew the next time I came around, there would be a stack as big as three phonebooks just waiting for me to peruse.
Then, I saw a glimmer in her eye. Her next question surprised me.
"So, about two weeks ago I saw you kissing this really hot looking guy before you got out of his car downstairs. Anything I should know about?"
Immediately, I remembered the day. I had taken my car to the shop the night before and got Chris to drive me to work that morning. He got me there very early so he would be able to make it to his job on time. It looked like no one was around. We exchanged a little kiss, nothing remarkable, before I opened my car door and walked into the building. Well, I guess it was remarkable because someone was talking about it.
"Jane, that was Chris. We've been together for three and a half years." I was a little nervous as I said this, not knowing what kind of reaction to expect.
"Well, damn, lucky you. Why are all the beautiful ones gay?" She smiled broadly. I felt relieved.
As much as I loved Chris, I didn't want to share him or my personal life with everyone at the office. It wasn't like I was hiding him. My close friends at the office knew. Michael, my former mentor, liked Chris a lot. The three of us had had dinner together a couple of times to celebrate my career milestones, few as they were. Michael and I would sometimes talk about him, or about his wife, during our mentor meetings. Some of the other people I worked with I had invited over to the apartment. But, I did not want my life used as a general topic of conversation around the office. Privacy was something I prized highly
Jane and I chatted for a few more minutes before I excused myself and got my tea. When I made it to my desk, I looked at the phone longingly. I would have loved to pick it up and call home to see if Chris were still there. I really wanted to know what had happened yesterday: longer than usual work day or maybe something else? But, my sense of duty prevailed and I decided I would reward myself later in the day--if I worked hard--with a phone call to Chris. I reached forward and pressed the power switch on my laptop's docking station. Time to get my mind focused and have a productive day.
To be continued.
Author's Note: I appreciate hearing your comments on this story or anything else. You can send me a message at cepes@mail.com. I will respond to all messages I receive.