Orchard Street

Author's Note: This story was inspired by a conversation with a friend about the attractiveness of femme gay dudes. So thank Dragon Cobalt for this little slice of M/M, and maybe give some of his works on Literotica a read!

*****

"Vinnie, dear?" Elaine called. "You might want to come take a look at this."

Vincent set down the socket wrench he was working with. He walked out of the garage to where his wife was standing, wiping his hands on a rag. Elaine had paused in the middle of watering her hydrangeas, standing with one hand on her waist and the other on the top of her wide-brimmed sun hat.

"What is it?" he asked her.

"Don't be obvious!" she hissed. She inclined her head to the right, towards the Jefferson's house. "Just look over there."

Vincent looked with his eyes, not moving his head. The Jeffersons were out in their front yard, sitting in the lounge chairs they kept near their driveway. Mr. Jefferson looked as he always did, with his blond hair pulled back into it's ponytail and his goatee waxed to a neat point. His wife wore her usual flannel, jeans and boots ensemble, laughing at something he'd said. They were talking to a woman Vincent had never seen before, yet she looked incredibly familiar. "Who's that thin woman?" he asked Elaine.

"Vinnie," she said, her voice tense. "That's not a woman. That's Dante."

Vincent blinked. "You're fucking with me."

Then the "woman" turned her head slightly, and Vincent realized his wife wasn't kidding. The Jefferson's boy had drastically altered his appearance since the last time he'd been home over the summer. The sides of his head had been buzzed short, but the top had been left long, his black hair spilling down in long curly strands. His face was clean-shaven, accentuating his elfin features - sharp cheeks, soft jaw, hawkish nose, and bright green eyes. He'd slimmed down, at least a full size, his black Sisters of Mercy shirt looking like it had come off a Youth rack at the department store. Dante laughed at something his father said, his voice light.

"That boy's definitely what I suspected," Elaine clucked. "Glad Tobias didn't turn out like him."

Vincent set his jaw slightly, biting back his comment. Tobias had explicitly asked him to keep his secret. He felt bound as a father to do just that, even if it was his wife he was keeping it from. "Yeah," he said absentmindedly.

Elaine sniffed and went back to her flowers. Vincent went back into the garage to keep working on his bike, but kept glancing out across the street at the other family. They'd been neighbors for years. Dante was only a year Tobias' junior, and the two had gone to the same middle and high schools. Seeing what the quiet, young teenager had grown up into was surreal to him, a hard image to reconcile with the boy that had played with his son in their front yards.

He twisted his socket wrench a few times. Things change, he reminded himself. People grow and change. I'm not the spring chicken I once was. He looked down and patted his paunch ruefully.

Though neither is Elaine, a part of his mind grunted. He chided himself. Elaine was still beautiful. If a bit arrogant. And frosty. And haughty.

"I'll be inside, dear," Elaine said as she walked behind him through the garage. "I swear if it wasn't a motorcycle I'd think you were, well, dipping your oil stick into something else." She patted his shoulder.

Vincent changed out the socket on his wrench. "Not on your life, dear."

"That's my man." Elaine walked up the steps into the house. Vincent watched her go for a moment. No kiss, no touch, no nothing. He didn't know when the life had gone out of their marriage. They still had sex on occasion, but to Vincent it seemed more like some strange obligation they felt to one another. It was never remarkable, not like it had been when they'd been dating and in the early years of their marriage when they couldn't keep their hands off one another. Even when Tobias was young they'd been insatiable, Vincent waiting behind their bedroom door to rip off Elaine's nightgown after she'd tucked Tobias in for bed, or her waiting for him naked on the bed when that job fell to him.

If he had to guess, it was probably when Elaine became much more active in her church life that the fire had started to chill between the two of them. Vincent was Catholic, that hadn't changed, and he still wore a wooden cross around his neck that he'd carved out of a hunk of redwood when he was a teenager. But in his adult life church had always been a place to go on Sunday to chat with all the other suburban dads about who they thought were going to win the football games that afternoon. However, many of them had drifted away from going regularly, and for the past four years Vincent had only set foot in church on Easter and Christmas. Elaine, meanwhile, hadn't just doubled but tripled down on her church habits. She was there four times a week, including most of Saturday and Sunday as she taught faith classes - sometimes Fridays too. Vincent didn't think he'd have minded so much if she hadn't started making passive-aggressive remarks about Matt and Marshall, the gay couple that lived down the block, or ones like what she'd just said about Dante Jefferson.

Vincent stared at the bike he was fixing, then got to his feet again and walked out of the garage. Across the street, Mrs. Jefferson and Dante were heading inside their house, leaving Mr. Jefferson outside to fold up the chairs. He perked up as he saw Vincent walking up their drive. "Vince!" he boomed, extending a calloused hand. "How the hell are you? That bike of yours running yet?"

"Still got a ways to go," Vincent answered, shaking the hand. "Gonna spend the rest of my vacation fiddling with it, I think. I saw Dante's back."

Mr. Jefferson nodded. "Jessica went and got him from campus yesterday. It's good to have him back."

Vince searched for the right thing to say. "I'd imagine. He looks so...different. Didn't recognize him at first."

Mr. Jefferson shrugged. "Well, he's twenty-one now. Maybe when he was eighteen I could've done something about it, but in my opinion he's his own man now and can look however he chooses." Before Vincent could speak, Dante emerged from the house, jogging down the steps. "Dad! Mom wants to know if..." He perked up when he saw Vincent. "Mister Leonard! How are you?"

"Just fine, Dante," Vincent said, shaking the younger man's hand. Dante's slender fingers were almost completely enveloped by his bigger ones. "Quite the new look you've got there. Thought you were someone else entirely when I first saw you from across the street."

"I've been getting that a lot lately," Dante giggled, reaching up and brushing his curly hair back, his fingers lingering on the buzzed hair on the sides of his head. "You like it?"

Vincent blinked. "Well, I, erm...I think it's definitely distinctive."

Dante giggled again, then looked at his father. "Anyway Dad, Mom wants your help with something in the kitchen."

"Got it." Mr. Jefferson shook Vincent's hand again. "Duty calls. By the way, are you and Elaine coming to the garden party the day after tomorrow?"

Vincent blinked. "Shit, I almost forgot about that. I'll be there. Elaine's a solid maybe."

Mr. Jefferson beamed. "Excellent!" He spun around and hurried inside, bouncing up the steps.

Vincent and Dante watched him go, the latter putting his hands on his cocked hips. "They are adorable," he said.

Vincent took a moment to ponder the strangeness of a son remarking on how "adorable" his parents' relationship was before asking, "How's college going?"

"Pretty good," Dante said. His fingers hooked into the waistband of his jeans, pulling the denim down slightly and exposing a bit of his slender hips. "I'm on track to finish on time in another year."

"That's good!" Vincent said. "You're in the vet program, right?"

Dante waggled a finger. "That comes after. I'm getting a Bachelor's in Biology first, then I do the vet program."

"Right, right." Vincent nodded.

"Hey, how's Toby?" Dante asked. "I haven't heard from him in weeks."

"He's been busy," Vincent said. "He's actually not coming home for break this year to catch up on his work."

"Is

that

what he told you?" Dante said coyly.

Vincent raised an eyebrow. "Did he tell you something else?"

Dante smirked a little. "He told me about a month ago that he, and I quote, 'didn't want to spend a holiday with his absolute cunt of a mother,' end quote." Dante's expression grew more serious. "You know he's gay, right Mister Leonard? Like, I don't have to spell that out for you, right? It's fairly obvious."

Vincent blinked. He knew that there were issues between Tobias and his mother, but he hadn't thought they were that bad. "No, I knew," he said quietly. "Elaine doesn't, though. He asked me not to tell her." After a pause he added, "And please, Dante, call me Vince or Vincent. 'Mister Leonard' just makes me feel old."

Dante smiled. "Fair enough...Vince."

Something about the way the casual form of his name sounded on Dante's tongue made Vincent feel...something. "I'll have to call him," Vincent sighed. "Maybe we can resolve whatever it is before Christmas."

"Maybe!" Dante chirped. He put his hand on Vince's shoulder, his touch light. "Are you going to be at the garden party Friday?"

"I will, but Elaine won't," Vince said. "She's got church stuff every day this weekend."

Dante nodded, his expression mischievous. "I'm looking forward to seeing you there, Vince. It'll be a good time to catch up! You can tell me what's been going on on Orchard Street, and I can help you relive your college glory days," he teased.

Vince arched an eyebrow. "Hey, I was the party

king

back in my day, okay?" He paused. "And I can tell you what's been going on around here right now." He lowered his voice. "Fuck all," he murmured conspiratorially.

Dante grinned and patted him on the shoulder. "I should get back inside. Mom's already starting with the vegetables to make the dip, and she wanted my help to make it happen." Dante walked away, back up the steps to the house, waving over his shoulder. "Seeya Thursday!"

Vincent waved back, feeling an odd sense of giddiness at the thought of the party with the younger man being there. He wondered what had caused it as he turned and walked back to his garage.

He spent the rest of the evening fiddling with his bike, then cleaned up his tools and wandered inside for dinner. In the early days of their marriage, he and Elaine had split food duty. Nowadays Elaine seemed content to make every meal they ate at home. When Vincent had pressed her about it, she'd simply waved him off, saying it was "her place" to make the food. It had boggled his mind ever since - that was usually the tripe that came out of the conservative nutcase sections of the church congregation they studiously ignored every time they'd went.

The two of them ate in relative silence, making occasional small talk about the next few days. Elaine wanted to make a trip to the hardware store to look at new countertops, even though they'd just replaced them six years ago. Vincent hated the color, a red mineral that contrasted with the stark white of their tile kitchen walls and made him feel like he was standing in a tacky burger joint. But he'd caved in. He'd thought the concession would revitalize their relationship. It hadn't.

After dinner they cleaned up and watched the news for a while, until Vincent yawned and got up to go to bed. He gave Elaine a cursory peck on the cheek, then shuffled up the stairs to their bedroom, where he stripped off his shirt and crawled under the covers. Elaine would stay up for another hour or so to read the Bible, and then would slide under the covers on the other side of the bed.

Tomorrow would come, and it would be rinse and repeat.

"Are you sure you don't want to come?" he asked Friday morning. Vincent had been woken by Elaine putzing and getting ready for her day of teaching Bible classes. She stood in front of the mirror, in a rare moment of what any other couple might think of as intimacy. She hadn't yet put a shirt on and the thick strap of her bra was visible to Vincent.

"I'm sure, honey," Elaine said, taking a brush in hand and tugging it through her hair. "I literally have to be there in two hours. I can't back out now!" She reached for her shirt and started to put it on.

Vince sighed and flopped back onto the bed. "I know, I know."

"Then why did you ask?" Elaine said, her tone testy.

He sighed and looked over at her. She was looking at him in her reflection in the mirror. "I just feel like we never do anything anymore," he said.

"You

could

come to church," she offered. "I'm not going to force you, but it's an easy thing for the both of us to do."

But you're the only one who wants to do it!

he wanted to scream. "Maybe," was what he wound up saying. "We'll see."

Elaine said nothing, just resumed getting ready. Vincent rolled over and drew the cover up over himself. He stayed like that, and dozed off at one point, because when he became aware that time had passed Elaine was gone. He sighed and went through his morning motions.

When it came time for the garden party, Vincent dressed casually in a t-shirt and jeans, along with his favorite pair of boots. He walked across the street to the Jefferson's house, where he could already hear the buzz of conversation behind the house. The side gate was open, and he walked through.

The Jeffersons invited

everyon

e to their parties. Vincent saw people that had lived in the neighborhood since he and Elaine had moved there, along with newer faces. In addition, there were parents of kids that had gone to school with Tobias and Dante, people who he hadn't spoken to since the last one of these parties. Scattered among the adults were the kids themselves, most of them in their early twenties.

"Hey, Vince!" Vincent turned to see Dante winding his way through the party, a beer in each hand. One was half empty, the other was full with an orange wedge jammed into the neck of the bottle. He wore a button up shirt with the top few buttons undone, exposing some his pale chest, along with jeans and sandals. Dante passed him the full one. "Glad you could make it."

"Dante," Vincent greeted him, pushing the orange wedge down into the beer and taking a swig. "How are you?"

"It's been like forty-eight hours since we last saw each other," Dante teased. "Nothing's changed."

"Right, right..." Vincent muttered.

"Couldn't get Mrs. Leonard to come?" Dante asked, taking a sip of his beer.

Vincent waved a hand. "Off at some church thing. Like she always is."

He was taken aback at the bitterness in his voice, and he knew Dante picked up on it by the way his face twitched for a moment. "She's really gotten into that, huh?" Danted asked.

"Yeah," Vince said, smoothing out his tone. Dante was half his age - he didn't need to know about his marital problems.

Dante started to say something, then looked past Vincent at someone. "I'll catch up with you more later," Dante said, patting Vince on the shoulder. He brushed past him, calling out, "Mark! Micheal! What's going on?"

Vincent turned to see Dante go over and start talking animatedly with the married gay couple from down the block. He looked around, trying to find a place where he could blend into the conversation. Without Elaine to lead him, oddly enough, he felt rather lost. Eventually, he sidled over to Mr. Jefferson and most of the other neighborhood dads, and the conversation went through the familiar motions of football, kids, and spouses - the usual topics, the kind of conversation that you can carry while also being completely zoned out.

Vincent sucked down his first beer rather quickly, then noticed that the cooler with more was just sitting there by the grill where all the dads were. So he helped himself to another, then another. He was on his fourth before it started to hit him, but age combined with his large frame and give him a high tolerance, so he didn't really start to feel off until the fifth one. By that point almost two hours had gone by, and the party had swelled in attendance considerably. People were coming up to him and shaking his hand, and Vincent knew that even if he'd been sober he'd have had trouble recalling their names. When Mrs. Jefferson brought out the food, he got himself a plate of fruit and burgers and excused himself to a corner of the backyard to eat.

He saw Dante again, the young man among a crowd of people, looking like he was on the same beer he'd been drinking when Vincent had first walked in. Dante was telling some story or another, his hands animated and akimbo as he recited his tale. He'd undone the rest of the buttons on his shirt, leaving it open and exposing his bare chest. Vincent realized his assessment had been wrong. Dante

had

slimmed down, yes, but he'd done it without looking skeletal. He was still lean and toned, not ripped.

Then Vince realized he was staring and blinked, looking away and trying to find something else to look at. Why the hell had he been staring at Dante's torso and not his face?. Did he...no, he couldn't. He was married, for Christ's sake. The redwood cross on his neck felt like it weighed a ton.

Vincent hurriedly finished the rest of his food, then dropped the plate in the trash can. He looked around at the party, desperately trying to find some niche to squeeze himself into, some conversation he could contribute

something

to. But then he realized he

could

contribute something to the conversations, but he just didn't want to. His shoulders slumped and he jammed his hands in his pockets. He turned and left the backyard, slipping out the same side gate he'd come in through.

He got halfway across the street before he heard Dante call after him. "Hey! Vince! Wait up!"

Vincent turned. Dante skidded to a halt in front of him, his big eyes wide. "Where are you going? Is something wrong?"

Vincent shook his head. "No. Just didn't feel like staying."

Dante pouted. "Why not?"

Because the lingering issues with my wife nag at my every step.

"I'm just not feeling it today. It's not your family's fault."

Dante hooked his thumbs into his belt loops. "So you're just headed back home?"

"Yep. I'll probably just work on the bike some more."

Dante raised an eyebrow. "I didn't know you were working on a bike."

Vincent shrugged. "It's a personal project. Just something to keep the hands busy. Since I'm on vacation this week I've had a lot of time to work on it."

Dante's eyes lit up. "Can I see it?"

Vincent's eyes narrowed a fraction. "You want to leave the party?"

"Oh, it'll be there when I get back." Dante took hold of Vince's arm, his fingers splaying. "Please, let me see it! I

love

bikes."

Vincent was damned if that touch wasn't doing things to him. It was casual, the very thing he craved from his wife but that she didn't seem inclined to give him. He felt like he should've pushed Dante away, but his youthful green eyes were wide and earnest. He coughed once. "Well, alright. Come on."

The two of them went through Vincent's front door, through his house, and into the garage. He flicked the light on, and Dante gasped. "Oh,

wow!

"

"I found the frame at a junkyard," Vincent said, going to the corner A/C unit and turning it on. "It still had a few bits and pieces attached to it. Bought it on a whim. Been a pain in the ass trying to find parts that work, but it's not like this is like, y'know, some big serious project for me."

Dante ran his hand over the frame. The bike was mostly complete, but still lacked a few key parts, namely the right kind of mufflers along with front and rear wheels. It also needed to be repainted - the frame was sturdy, but Vincent hated the chrome color. "This is still really cool though," Dante said. "Did you ride bikes when you were younger?"