Chase of a Lifetime (3 page)

Jim shoved his hands into his pockets and
sent him a blank glance. “What’s that?” He detected a slur; he suspected Mr.
Kroll had been drinking for a while.

Mr. Kroll moved closer and rested his palm
on the back of Jim’s neck. He smiled and said, “Social media.”

Jim gulped. Kroll began to massage the back
of his neck in a way that rode the thin line between friendly and sexually
suggestive. “What about it?” The only thing Jim knew about social media was
that a lot of people often became addicted to it to the point where they posted
every mundane aspect of their lives, from what they ate to when they went to
bed at night. The few times he’d checked out social media, he been surprised at
how dull it was and stunned that anyone in social media could make money based
on just advertising alone. He doubted anyone would ever use social media if
they had to pay for it on a monthly basis.

Mr. Kroll smiled wider. “Social media is the
future, my man. Just promise me you’ll think about it.”

Jim nodded. “Okay. I’ll think about it.”

Mr. Kroll looked him up and down again and
licked his bottom lip. “You promise, big guy?” he asked.

“Yes, Mr. Kroll. I promise.”

Then Kroll leaned forward, gave him a tight
hug, and patted Jim’s rear end three times. Before he left, he winked at him
and said, “Social media. I can make you a star.”

Though Jim wasn’t into flirting with his
father’s friends, he had to admit the pat on his ass caused a stir between his
legs. He hadn’t been held by a man that way before and it wasn’t the worst
feeling in the world. Of course it would have been a lot nicer if a man his own
age had hugged him and felt him up. In the same respect, he couldn’t help
feeling more attractive after Kroll left him standing there alone. If the idiot
hadn’t used a cheesy line like, “I can make you a star,” Jim might have taken a
chance and flirted back.

As he turned in the opposite direction, a
group of his mother’s friends near the pool spotted him and rushed over to talk
to him. One tall, thin woman in spiked heels said, “There’s our boy. Come over
here and let’s get a nice big hug. I want you to meet my daughter.”

Jim knew she had a single daughter. So he
smiled, lifted his arm, and said, “I’ll be right back. I have to go somewhere.”

The women stopped short and gaped at him.

Without waiting for them to respond, he
turned and headed back toward the house. When he entered the kitchen, more
people grabbed him and congratulated him. He passed through the dining room and
heard his mother talking about his yearbook. “Listen to this,” she said, with a
sing-song voice she only used with company. “These are all the things Jim has
been up to while he’s been away at school.” She started reading a list of his achievements,
beginning with a school play he’d done his freshman year. He felt a lump in his
stomach and a wave of nausea passed through his entire body. He didn’t think
he’d done anything that great. He’d done what he was supposed to do and he’d
spent the rest of his time shoving a big black dildo up his ass. He didn’t know
how to respond to all this attention and he needed to be alone and take a few
deep breaths.

His mother continued to read from his
yearbook and he headed toward the main hallway. A short bald man stopped him at
the entrance to the living room and congratulated him. While the man spoke, Jim
glanced across the room and saw Cain Mayfield’s father, Len Mayfield, standing
beside the fireplace. In that light, Cain and his father could have been
mistaken for brothers. Jim wondered where Cain was that night. He’d been
certain Cain would have at least showed up for a few minutes. Evidently, he’d
been wrong.

Jim made eye contact with Cain’s father for
a second and turned around fast. The walls started to close in and it became
harder to breathe. He left the short bald man in mid-sentence and headed to the
staircase. He climbed the steps two at a time and rushed to his bedroom. When
he entered, he closed the door to drown out the noise from the party and sat
down on the edge of his bed.

While he was gazing out the window at the
group of women who were still standing near the swimming pool, one looked up,
held out her hand, and the other turned to leave. It must have started to rain.
He’d heard there might be a chance of rain that night.
 
As he turned, his bedroom door opened wide and
Len Mayfield leaned into the doorframe and said, “I thought this was the little
boys’ room.”

Jim sat up straight and said, “Ah well, no,
Mr. Mayfield. It’s down the hall to the left.” Len wore a dark suit jacket that
night with light stucco slacks. Though he was old enough to have a son
graduating from college, he still had thick brown hair, a tight lean body, and
a deep tan. According to local legend, Len had worked his way through college
as a male model. He’d even posed for Playgirl magazine in his senior year.
After college he’d put all that aside to build a career as an investment
banker. Jim had overheard his mother and father talking about how often Len
Mayfield worked out at the gym and how careful he was about his diet. They
spoke about Len with snide tones, as if they were jealous he looked so good and
they didn’t. People often mistook Cain Mayfield and Len Mayfield for brothers
instead of father and son.

Instead of turning to leave, Len walked into
the bedroom and pulled a pack of cigarettes out of his breast pocket. “How are
things, man?” he asked. He lit the cigarette and sat down on Jim’s bed.

Jim’s mother had a no smoking rule in the
house and he knew she wouldn’t be thrilled about Len lighting up in his
bedroom. “The bathroom’s not hard to find. It’s just at the end of the
hallway.” He didn’t want his mother to think he smoked inside the house.

Len inhaled deeply and ignored him. He
glanced around the bedroom and blew a stream of smoke through his nose. Jim had
left one of his jock straps on the end of his bed. When Len noticed it, he
picked it up and smiled.

“Smoking’s not good for you, Mr. Mayfield.”
He’d never seen Len smoke before. He wondered why Len seemed interested his
dirty jock strap.

Len puffed harder and set the jock down on
the bed where he’d found it. “I’m a grown man, Jim. Besides, I only smoke
socially. I’m not addicted. A pack can last me six months. I might not smoke
again after this for six more months…maybe never again.”

Jim’s heart pumped faster. He wanted to be
alone. “I really have to take care of something,” he said. “I hate to be rude
but…”

“I need an ashtray,” Len said. He inhaled
again and laughed. “I guess this is a non-smoking area. Your mother would
probably kill me if she saw me doing this in here. She’d accuse me of
corrupting her handsome young son with that vile, hideous,
legal
substance, tobacco.”

There wasn’t an ashtray in the entire house,
so Jim bent down and picked up a trash can beside his desk. He set it on the
bed and shoved his hands into his pockets. Then he glanced up at the ceiling
and wondered how long Len Mayfield would sit there. He couldn’t be rude to his
best friend’s dad; Jim had been raised to be polite to his elders.

After a moment of silence, Len blew smoke
through his nose again and said, “Is it your love life, man? Is that the
problem?”

Jim flung him a stare. “Huh?”

“Are you upset about your love life?” Len
asked. “Something is clearly wrong. I’ve been watching you since you came
downstairs. Is it a girl?”

Jim felt his chest cave in. Len had seen
through his façade. He couldn’t tell Len the truth. He couldn’t say he was
confused about what to do with the rest of his life, he couldn’t admit he was
gay, and he definitely couldn’t tell Len he wanted to suck his son’s cock more
than anything else in the world. “It’s just a lot of things, Mr. Mayfield. I’ve
got a lot on my mind right now, is all.” He tried to smile; he tried harder to
keep his voice even.

Len smiled. “So it’s nothing serious. You
seem so confused.”

Jim looked up at the ceiling. “No. It’s
nothing serious, Mr. Mayfield. Thank you for asking.” He couldn’t tell Cain
Mayfield’s dad he was so frustrated about being in the closet he wanted to sit
on his bedpost and scream, “Fuck me.”
 

Len stood up and tossed the burning
cigarette into the trash can without giving it a second thought. He gazed up
and down at Jim and said, “Well, congratulations,” and then he left Jim
standing in the bedroom alone.

When Jim thought he was alone, he reached
into the trash can to put out the cigarette so the house wouldn’t burn down.
While he did this, Len walked back into the bedroom and said, “I need a ride
home. Do you mind?”

“A ride?”

“Yes. My wife left early and took the car. I
suspect she’s going to visit her tennis instructor. She’s been spending a lot
of time with him, if you know what I mean.”

Jim swallowed hard. “No, Mr. Mayfield. I
don’t know what you mean.”

Len frowned. “That’s not the point, Jim. I
need a ride home. Will you take me in your new car? Or are you going to make an
older man walk along dark empty roads all alone?”

The last thing Jim wanted to do was get
trapped inside a car with Cain Mayfield’s dad. If Len Mayfield knew the filthy,
dirty thoughts Jim often had about his son, he’d probably throw him out the
bedroom window. So Jim picked up the keys to the new BMW and handed them to
Len. “You can take the car,” he said. “We’ll pick it up tomorrow.”

Len glanced down at the keys in his palm.
“Your father told me it’s a manual transmission. I don’t know how to drive a
manual. I never learned. You’re going to have to drive me yourself.”

“Ah well, Mr. Mayfield.”

“If you’d rather I walk, I guess I could
take my chances. But it did start to drizzle a minute ago.”

He couldn’t let the poor man walk home
alone, especially not on a dark wet road. Besides, it would have been
disrespectful to refuse. He took a quick breath and said, “Okay. I’ll take you
home, Mr. Mayfield.”

Len looked him up and down again and said,
“I’ll wait for you downstairs by the car.” Before he turned to leave, he tossed
the keys over Jim’s shoulder and they landed on the jock strap at the end of Jim’s
bed. “Don’t be long, Jim. I don’t like to wait.”

When Jim went down to the driveway, it had
stopped raining and Len asked him to put the top down. Jim put on his seatbelt
but Len made no attempt to put on his. When they pulled out onto the main road,
Len lit up another cigarette without asking for permission and kept his head
straight. He focused on the road as if he were driving and didn’t say a word.

By the time they turned down the long dark
road that led to Len’s large ranch a few miles away, Jim felt relieved that he
would soon be alone again. He parked in front of the house and put the car in
neutral. He waited for Len to get out, without switching off the motor. Len’s
house was even newer than Jim ’s father’s…a huge red brick Georgian Mac Mansion
with black shutters, a white portico, and bright white molding at the top of
each window.

For a second, they remained silent beneath
the portico. Len finally said, “Could you come inside the house with me? I hate
to go into a dark empty house alone.”

“Ah well. I really should get back to the
party.” He wasn’t planning to return right away. He’d planned to drive around
for a while and catch the tail end of the party.

“I didn’t set the alarm before we left. Who
knows what’s lurking in that big empty house.”

Jim switched off the engine and opened the
door. They climbed out at the same time and Jim followed Len to the front
entrance. When Len unlocked the front door and turned on the lights in the main
hall, he leaned back against the door frame and said, “You go in first. I’ll
follow.”

This was turning into a strange experience. Jim
didn’t know what to say. “I really have to get back to the party now, Mr.
Mayfield. My mom will be looking for me.”

“She’ll be fine,” Len said. “She’s probably
still reading off lists of accomplishments from that insufferable yearbook of
yours.”

Jim almost smiled. Len had a point about his
mother and the yearbook. At one point, Jim felt like slamming her face into the
yearbook just to shut her up. But he would have felt disloyal if he’d agreed
with Len. Jim loved his mother; he was just so confused right now. So he walked
around Len and entered the house first. Len closed the front door and locked
it. He passed Jim in the main hallway and led him to the back of the house to
what they considered a huge family room off the kitchen.

Len switched on the lights in the family room
and removed his dark suit jacket. He walked over to a glitzy mirrored wet bar
with a black granite counter and asked, “What can I get you? A martini?”

“Ah well, Mr. Mayfield. I don’t like to
drink and drive. I’m fine, thank you.”

Len removed his tie, opened his shirt to his
waist, and laughed. “One drink certainly won’t do any harm, Jim. It might even
help. You’re a man now, a college graduate.” He sent him a sideways glance.
“From what I can see, you’re all man.”

Jim turned and said, “I really have to be
going. I’m sorry, Mr. Mayfield. I hope you understand. I’m going through a lot
of emotions right now and I’m not sure what I’m doing. It’s a rough time. I’m a
little confused.”

Len smiled wider and said, “That’s even more
of a reason to have a drink. It’ll loosen you up.”

Jim took a deep breath and started walking
toward the front hall. “I drove you home, I came inside, and now I have to
leave. You’ll be fine.”

“I’ll make you a small martini,” Len said.

Jim stopped and turned around. Len didn’t
seem to be getting the message. And there was something weird about this that Jim
couldn’t figure out.