SYNOCOPATION by Steve Nugent
BLURB:
Sam believes that his life is out of control. In his relationship with John, he feels powerless and impotent. Intolerant of his psychologist's help, he abruptly breaks with John and embarks on a distrustful and defensive liason with Richard, a man he meets at a music recital. Each man sees himself in the other, creating a dynamic that prevents them from getting too intimate. Can they risk their budding relationship and finally allow themselves to love?
This story appears in the author's print collection, Attractions.
EXCERPT:
During the interval at the Glenn Gould Studio, the guy sitting on the other side of a vacant seat from Sam leaned across and asked to borrow his programme. This led to a conversation Sam would have normally avoided due to a natural stand-offishness, but he found himself responding to an intensity of gaze and dark good looks that never failed to get him hooked. He agreed, with enthusiasm, that the baritone’s voice was well suited to the programme choice, and it was absolutely essential to a singer’s career to very carefully choose his material, and so on. They commented on how interesting it was that boy sopranos, as this one had been, often matured into competent baritones. At this point Sam recognised, with a freezing anxiety that sometimes gripped him, that he was beginning to flounder in a sea of musical ignorance, having played out his repertoire of appropriate remarks. He now lacked any substantive facts to contribute further to the discussion but couldn’t cut his gaze loose, and by the time John returned, he was lost in a fantasy of what might happen if he could ever get this guy into bed.
While standing to applaud, the guy returned the program, thanking him, maintaining a hold on it for a shade more time than Sam thought necessary. Filing out, John asked, from the corner of his mouth, “Who was the guy coming on to you?”
“He wasn’t coming on to me. That’s in your mind.”
At home Sam found a business card tucked into the programme -- Richard Jones, financial analyst with a Bay Street firm. He put the card in the back of a drawer classifying it as a “perhaps sometime.”
* * * *
The next morning John was reading aloud the review of the concert at breakfast and, on finishing, casually said, “I wonder what your friend thought of it?”
“What friend?” Sam knew who was meant.
“The one who fancies you at music recitals.”
“But only at intervals,” Sam added with a mock sigh, and spooned in his cereal.
John fidgeted with the paper for a while, then got up and left, tight-lipped, obviously not trusting himself to make a reply. Sam looked at the paper in a heap on the table, continuing to sip his coffee, reflected on how effective sarcasm could be when used sparingly, and decided to call Richard Jones sometime during the day.
Richard answered on the second ring and sounded as if he was expecting the call. “Actually I’m known as Rick to my friends. You must have thought I was either irresponsible or desperate or both, to do what I did, giving you my business card like that. If we meet, I can explain what it’s about.”
Following more unproductive tiresome chit-chat about the concert, Richard (Sam never got around to calling him Rick) quickly ended it by suggesting drinks at Byzantium a few days later. Putting the phone down, Sam thought it all sounded more like a business appointment than a social meeting -- certainly unlike his first encounter with John.
* * * *
Sam had picked up John about two years previously at the crosswalk at Balmuto and Charles when driving home around 2 A.M. on a Sunday, feeling horny and pissed off with a guy who had taken up the whole evening at Sailors, looking certain to work out, then suddenly taking off to the washroom not to be seen again.
John, black haired and deep eyed in the tightest jeans and tank top, looked slightly drunk. He lurched a bit while staring at Sam as he crossed, which was enough for Sam to turn the car into a lane off Balmuto and leave it running. John took his cue, followed, got in and straight away shoved his tongue in Sam’s mouth. With a smell of booze mixed with cologne, he unzipped Sam’s fly and then his own. In cramped conditions it was a hit-and-miss session, but afterwards John said he’d like to see him again, and Sam reluctantly gave his cell phone number; post-sexually he tended to want to quickly forget those designated as “casuals off the street.”
“I may be hard to get. I’m pretty busy at work just now.”
“Don’t worry, I’ll get you.”
And he did.
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