* * * * Elroy didn’t want to be seen anywhere in Boston that night. If anyone did see him alone in a bar in Boston they would report back to Edwin Sutton and that fat little fucker would enjoy this too much. So he put on tight jeans, a tight black T-shirt, and drove to the Cape instead. He knew Halloween weekend in Provincetown would be filled with good-looking young men from all over the east coast. He figured if he was really lucky, he might even meet a nice gay couple looking for a threeway. He knew plenty of gay couples who went to Provincetown just for threeways. They would all claim they went for the shops, the beaches, the whale-watching, and the restaurants. But they really went there for the dick.
When he pulled onto Commercial Street, he found a parking spot near the post office, a comfortable walking distance from the bars. He reached under the seat and pulled out his trusty old handicapped card and hung it from the rearview mirror. Provincetown had the worst parking anywhere and Elroy hated to walk too far for anything. The best parking spaces were handicapped only, located in the center of town. He’d applied for a handicapped card after breaking his leg in a skiing accident two years earlier. At the time, he’d needed it to get around. After his leg healed he got so used to parking in handicapped spaces he decided to hold on to it for as long as he could. And it wasn’t as though Provincetown was filled with crippled people. Most of the time the handicapped spaces were all empty anyway and he hated to see them go to waste.
He went to one bar closer to the East End of town and didn’t see anything interesting. He was glad he’d worn his black leather jacket that night. The sea breeze there made it cooler than in Boston. After he left the first bar, he walked down Commercial Street with his hands in his pockets, staring down at the sidewalk. Everyone seemed to be with a group; no one walked alone. Many were wearing outrageous Halloween costumes that had glitter, feathers, and high heels. Most were high camp; some were downright hideous. Those who weren’t walking around in groups were couples walking hand in hand. He glanced at one couple kissing outside the drugstore and thought about Kyle at Edwin Sutton’s party. Without warning, a feeling of doom passed through his body and he couldn’t seem to shake it.
At a bar in the middle of town, on a small side street off Commercial Street, he paid his cover fee and walked to the end of a long bar and ordered a beer. This bar was the oldest one in town; he’d been there before and he knew the dance floor was uneven and lopsided. The music played too loud and people had to shout over each other in order to be heard. When he glanced at the annoying mob on the dance floor jumping up and down, with their arms waving above their empty gay heads, the same feeling of doom he’d experienced earlier grew even more intense. They all seemed to know each other. No one seemed remotely interested in cruising. Elroy had experienced this before, especially in Provincetown, and he started to think he’d made a huge mistake by driving all this way. When single gay men travel in groups they tend to stick together and they don’t allow their friends to know they are cruising. Or they are usually too intimidated to cruise other men. And they all wind up going home alone at the end of the night, so they can complain the next day to their best girlfriends about how they didn’t get laid. Elroy didn’t feel like playing games that night. He didn’t want to make new friends or bond with a bunch of queens in bad costumes. He wanted dick.
The air in the bar was thick and it smelled of old wine and cheap cologne. These were the times he missed smoking in bars. He moved closer to the end of the bar and leaned back on his elbows to watch the dance floor. But when he lifted the beer to take a drink, someone banged into his elbow and knocked the bottle right out of his hand.
A man touched his shoulder and said, “I’m sorry, dude. Someone pushed me into you. This place is so fucking mobbed. Let me buy you another.”
Elroy’s first instinct was to push him back. But he glanced at the man still touching his shoulder and said, “No problem.” He had to shout over the music, and even then he couldn’t hear his own voice. Then a big drag queen with a bad red wig bumped into him and he wanted to give her a shove right back. He would have shoved her if he’d been alone. But he continued to smile because he didn’t want this guy to think the worst of him.
The man leaned forward so he could speak into Elroy’s ear without shouting. “What were you drinking, buddy?”
He didn’t sound girly; a good sign. Elroy sent him an innocent look and shrugged. This time he reached up and rested his palm on the man’s chest and spoke into his ear. “Just beer.” He hadn’t expected this turn of events. The guy had thick black wavy hair, steel blue eyes, and just the right amount of dark stubble. He was one of the ten other people in the bar not wearing a Halloween costume. He wore a white button-down shirt under a brown leather jacket and jeans.
The guy set one hand on Elroy’s back and motioned for the bartender with the other, and he bought Elroy another beer. He handed it to him and spoke into his ear again. This time his lips touched Elroy’s ear. “Here you go, man. I’m Ricky.” His deep voice made Elroy’s knees weak.
Elroy took the beer and smiled. He leaned forward and said, “I’m Mike.” Elroy never used his real name in places like this when he was cruising for men. He knew this would be nothing more than a one-night stand and he didn’t want to take any chances with his real name. If a guy asked for his phone number later, Elroy would give him a fake one. It was the kind thing to do to with men who might wind up becoming too needy. He’d used the name Mike many times. It was as easy to remember as it was to forget.
Chapter Thirteen
The moment they stepped onto Commercial Street, Elroy noticed the gold wedding band on Ricky’s finger. It had been too dark to see it inside the bar. He figured Ricky had taken a short vacation from his regular life that night. Elroy didn’t ask any questions, and he pretended not to notice the ring. The ring spoke for itself louder than anything Ricky could have said. Elroy knew if Ricky had wanted to hide it he could have.
Ricky placed his hand with the gold wedding band on Elroypretending-to-be-Mike’s back and led him down the street. Even though versatile top Elroy had been in the mood to top that night, he wasn’t about to ignore this good-looking man on a mere technicality—the wedding band or the top issue. And Ricky was all man, indeed. From his scruffy dark beard to his large strong hands. That fat little fuck back in Boston, Edwin Sutton, would have given handsome Ricky a bank account in his own name just to sniff his underwear.