Blood Noir - Laurell K. Hamilton [12]
Jason leaned on the bedpost, staring at us with serious blue eyes. He’d enjoyed the show—that showed in his face, and his body—but there was something a little lost around the edges of his eyes. We were his friends, maybe his best friends, but it wasn’t the same thing. Even with sex added, it wasn’t the same thing.
5
WHEN WE COULD walk, we cleaned up. Then all three of us went back to lie on the bed and recover a little. I ended up in the middle, as I did most of the time. Jason said, “You are so uncomfortable with sex, Anita, but once you decide to do it, you give yourself over so completely. It’s amazing.”
“You’re pretty good at it yourself,” I said, and my voice still sounded breathy.
He laughed, and that one sound made it all worth it. Even if the sex hadn’t been incredible, hearing him sound like himself again made it even better.
“My dad thinks I’m gay.”
Nathaniel and I looked at him. “Why?” I finally asked.
“My friends in high school were mostly girls, and my best guy friend was, and is, gay. I also didn’t want to play sports. I stayed in dance from elementary school to senior year.”
“The lone guy in a room full of girls,” I said.
He nodded, grinning. “I was the only one who could do the lifts, and tote and fetch the girls. It was fun. I was the male lead in most of the musicals in school.”
“I didn’t know you could sing.”
He laughed. “I dance better than I sing, but I can act, and I can sing, and I can dance. The combination is sort of rare in a small private high school, especially among the guys.”
This was a side of Jason I hadn’t known anything about. “I thought you were going to college for a business degree when I met you, not theatre.”
“My parents wouldn’t pay for a theatre degree. They would pay for a business degree.”
“If you didn’t have to pay for college, why get a job as a stripper?”
“Bugging the hell out of my parents was some of the charm. But it was a way of performing that I could do on the weekends, which meant I could go to college full time.”
“Does the rest of your family think you’re gay?” I asked.
“My oldest sister does. I don’t know about the rest. Probably. I’m a stripper and I live with Jean-Claude.”
“They think you’re doing him just like Perdy did,” Nathaniel said.
“Yeah,” Jason said.
I stroked my hand along Jason’s stomach—not sexual, just trying to be comforting. “Her issues must have reminded you of your family.”
“Yeah, bad fucking timing, huh?”
Nathaniel went up on his elbow, his hand resting on my hip. “What can you do?”
“Short of getting the kind of job that my dad thinks is a manly job, getting married, and starting a family, not a damn thing.” He cuddled down in the pillows, putting his arm across my stomach, his face against my shoulder. “You’ll never believe what my mother wanted me to do.”
“What?” Nathaniel and I asked at the same time.
I felt Jason smile against my shoulder. “She wanted me to bring my girlfriend home to prove to my dad I’m straight. So he can die in peace.”
“Bad timing for you and Perdy to break up,” I said.
“I couldn’t have taken her home, Anita. You have no idea how bad the jealousy had gotten. She’d flip out when the first old girlfriend said hi on the street.”
“Like crazy jealous,” I said.
He nodded, snuggling closer, as if I were his life-size teddy bear. “I told her that Perdy and I broke up. She said, ‘Pick a friend, I know you have other friends. Bring a girl home and make your father happy.’”
“What did she mean about the ‘I know you have other friends’ comment?” I asked.
“I was a slut in high school and college. I slept with any girl that would have me. The entire town thought my best friend and I were a couple. At best, they thought I was bisexual, and to most people there ain’t no such thing.”
“You’re either gay or straight,” Nathaniel said, and something in the way he said it made me look at him.
“You have trouble with people thinking otherwise?” I asked.
Nathaniel shrugged. “I did; now I know what and who I am, and I’m okay with it. But when you’re young, it’s harder.”
“You’re twenty-one, that’s