Expected Visit, with Surprises

By Donovan Lee

Just after college, I moved to a middle-class neighborhood in Little Rock, Arkansas, not far from my job. I had a couple of gay friends who lived within walking distance. Phil was right down the block. Mitch lived a few blocks over, but I actually saw him more often, because we worked together and carpooled. They were both from Little Rock, unlike me, and had become friends while I was in college there.

Mitch was the better looking of the two—not that Phil wasn’t nice to look at. I just never saw either of them as possibly being more than my friend. Mitch had dark skin, eye brows that were thick without being too bushy, sexy lips, a cleft chin, and beautiful green eyes. His dad was white, but Mitch got his looks from his beautiful Hispanic mother. Both parents were cool about him being gay, and I liked his confidence and comfort about his sexuality. Coming out had taken me much longer, and I still wasn’t out enough to start looking for a boyfriend.

My first summer after buying my house there, the three of us often met in my backyard, because of my swimming pool. Little Rock can get pretty hot during the summer, but it’s perfect weather for swimming. Mitch and Phil sometimes even joked about us skinny-dipping in the pool, but I never took that seriously. I wasn’t as well-built as either of them, and I also wasn’t totally secure about being naked with other gay men. My few sexual encounters by that point had happened quickly and in the dark, with guys I barely knew. But the idea of being naked and unguarded around both of my two closest gay friends sounded good, and I kept hoping I would eventually get up the nerve to take them up on that suggestion.

One Saturday afternoon, that very thing happened with Mitch, in a big way. I had just set out a pitcher of margaritas in a bucket of ice, under a multi-colored umbrella that I pitched in the backyard. But Phil called and said he couldn’t make it. Just as I walked back out with two cups, I saw Phil waiting for me in the backyard, wearing a T-shirt and his usual baggy swim trunks.

Both at the same time, we said, “Phil can’t make it today.”

While we laughed at our timing, I poured Mitch a drink and handed it to him.

“Thanks,” he said, sitting down on one of three recliners that faced the west side of the pool. It wasn’t a very big pool at all—just ten feet long, four feet wide; in fact, it was less than five feet deep at the deep end. Still, it was nice for cooling off or lounging around. And I liked that the backyard was all cement or pool. Having grown up in apartments, I was never one for mowing lawns.

“I picked up some new CD’s,” I told Mitch, motioning at the CD wallet that I had set on the little player I always took out back with me. It was surprisingly loud for such a small box, and I probably should have asked him to turn it down first before he put in a collection of club mixes.

“I’ve been meaning to buy this one,” Mitch said, pushing play. “It’s funny how you’ve got what I want.” He cocked his head and grinned while he said that.