Parker saw him walk into the hardware store again and work his way around the outer aisle. Parker was helping a customer pick out paint and wondered if the good-looking man would work his way over to Parker's station, being attracted to Parker, or if this was the hardware store he had always come to and Parker just hadn't noticed him before his visit the other day. Parker regretted that the stimulating exchange had gone south the last time Gabe had been in the store.
Gabe. That's right, Parker thought. The man had told him his name was Gabriel, but that he preferred being called Gabe. He was all the things that Parker found arousingly attractive in a man, and a couple of things Parker found scarily attractive too. He was older. Parker was twenty-five, but he'd always gone with an older man. He liked to be daddied. The man wasn't exactly old, though. Maybe in his thirties. And he was good looking and built strong. He'd shown Parker a nice, easy smile when they'd talked before and the man had had an easy way of moving in to show interest in Parker—if, indeed, that was what he'd done. Under the circumstances Parker was a bit confused and more than a bit afraid.
The scary attractions were that Gabriel—if that's what his name really was—was black and he had a colored right sleeve tattoo that peeked out below the sleeve line of the polo shirt he had been wearing. A black sex partner and one with extensive tattooing were both worlds beyond anywhere Parker had ever gone.
There weren't that many black people who came to this small beach town—and practically none of them lived in this area—and tattoos. The combination spelled danger and taboo in Parker's mind. He kept more to a group of friends who enjoyed girlie talk and more talk than action, although all had experienced sex with men—or claimed they had. His experience and the experiences his friends talked about were usually with middle-aged businessmen coming into Gaucho on the sly for just a bit of sucking or, at the most, a quick fuck in the backseats of their cars in the dimly lit parking area. Something vanilla that Parker and his friends would feed on for weeks as they sat at a table together at Gaucho and shared coquettish stares with men bellied up to the bar.
The most flamboyant Parker got was that he occasionally had a "gone wild" Saturday night and danced on one of the poles at Gaucho for free drinks. He had a nice body, he knew, a dancer's body, and a face that was more pretty than handsome, And he was a favorite dancer for the Saturday night crowd at Gaucho. He usually had to be pretty pissed to dance the pole, though, as he wasn't the exhibitionist that some of his friends were. Truth be told, however, he was more in demand than any of his friends were.
Despite his shyness toward any man sniffing around him with any sense of danger or roughness to him, Parker had flirted with Gabe when he'd come into the store three days previously. Like today, Gabe had moved around the store, ostensibly looking at a variety of goods, but every time Parker thought to look in his direction, the black man would be looking at him—and smiling. And Parker was smiling back. He couldn't help himself. The man just looked too attractive and arousing.
When Gabe finally came up to him that first time, it was to use a variation on a line that so many men on the make with Parker in the store used. But when Gabe said it, all sorts of bells and whistles of interest went off in Parker's mind. And not only in his mind; his body was telling him he was interested in this man too.
Parker had opened. "Can I help you? Were you interested in paint?" Parker worked mainly in the paint department and that's where he was standing at this moment.
"I already have an eight-inch screw driver, so I guess it's paint I'm looking for today, at least at the moment."
"Well, screw drivers are interesting, but what I can help you with is paint," Parker had answered. He'd added a little smile to convey that he understood the code Gabe was using and wasn't turning away from it.
"I really do need paint," Gabe had said. "I've just bought a small vacation house here at the beach and it's sadly in need of a coat or two of paint. So maybe you can help me with that for starters. My name's Gabe—short for Gabriel, by the way."
"For starters?" Parker asked. "And, umm, my name is Parker." He lifted his thumb to draw attention to the store name badge he was wearing. The guy had already made a point of looking at his name, so there was nothing untoward in giving it to him.
"Yes. Me being new here in the area maybe you could help with where the best place to go for this or that is. You look like you might know. But, the paint. I'm not sure what colors I need—what would fit in with the beach community here? Do you guys ever leave the store to help a customer choose something like the right paint? I think I need someone in the know here to actually look at the house."
"Yeah, we make house calls . . . sometimes," Parker said, thinking that the guy moved kind of fast, if he wasn't misinterpreting the conversation. It was obvious by the way the guy had been eyeballing him that he was interested. But, although Parker had almost involuntarily responded because the man was such a hunk, he was black and he had those tattoos. This wasn't Parker's style at all. And maybe moving fast was a cocky black thing that was something beyond the pace he could keep up with. Parker didn't want to be send any false signals here that got him in too deep.
"But obviously not today—not now," he answered. "It's raining like there's no tomorrow out there now."
"I see," Gabe said, turning and looking out of the plate glass windows at the front of the store as if he just now was noticing the rain outside. "So, maybe a rain check on that."
"Yeah, that would be wise," Parker answered.
"I was going to ask where there was a good place to pick up a beer in this town too. Rainy days are good for supporting the local taverns."
"We have all kinds of beer joints and bars here," Parker said. "It sort of depends on the kind of place you'd be comfortable in."
"I've heard of a place called Gaucho. That sounds like a comfortable place. I'm looking for a guys' place."
Parker snapped his eyes around to look into Gabe's face. And he saw that Gabe was looking pointedly at him. More signaling, and pretty clear signaling, Parker thought. Gaucho was a gay bar—the one where he sometimes danced the pole on Saturday nights. He looked Gabe over again, still finding him attractive and arousing, even though he knew he shouldn't. He was still trying to formulate what to say next, knowing he should send out the signal that he went with a different crowd. But he couldn't say he wasn't interested and be telling the truth. Gabe saved him the decision of what to say.
"I've already been in there—at Gaucho—on Saturday night. Liked what I saw. Wondered if that's the only bar of that kind around."
So, he knew. He knew before he even walked up to Parker. Parker had danced the pole at Gaucho on Saturday night. And the place had been packed and filled with cigarette smoke. This Gabe could have been in there while Parker was dancing the pole, and Parker could have missed seeing him while Gabe could hardly have missed seeing Parker dancing the pole.
"What time do you get off work?" Gabe asked. "You could take a look at my house and I could stand you a beer at Gaucho for your trouble."
But before Parker could answer—before he decided what he wanted to answer and reconciled that with what he knew he should answer—two things happened. First a woman drifted in who wanted a can of paint mixed to the color of her choice and was a bit pushy about being served right away, and, second, the family arrived. As Parker turned to the paint-seeking woman to tell her he'd be with her in a moment, out of the corner of his eye he caught Gabe turn and step back as a young black woman and two of what obviously were her—and Gabe's, as well—young kids showed up. The woman was closing an umbrella and the boy and girl were brushing rainwater off the slickers they were wearing. All three of them were gushing at Gabe about what they'd found in the variety store next door.
When Gabe had a moment to turn back to Parker to get an answer on when the work day was over for him—and evidently then to move into reiterating the offer of a drink at Gaucho—Parker had let the circumstance make the decision for him and had moved off with the woman customer toward the paint-mixing machine.
And here it was, three days later, and the man was moving around the store, ever closer to him, waiting for Parker to be finished mixing paint for another man. This time there was no evidence of Gabe's family.
When Gabe got to him, he politely stood to the side, paint cards in his hand, while Parker finished up with an older man who was looking askance at the hulking black Gabe with something of a mix of slight fear and disapproval in his face. This was an affluent beach town in the American south, where blacks had been confined to the service industries for generations and lived and shopped elsewhere. It only was in recent years that there were blacks affluent enough to be building summer homes here as well—and needing hardware stores such as this.
And admittedly, with his overpowering musculature and that tattoo design peeking out below the right sleeve of Gabe's polo shirt and also up on his neck on that side, Gabe could be seen to be somewhat intimidating.
