Coda 02 -A to Z

any conscious decision to do it, I did, and when he saw it, he groaned, and then he came too. He held my head as far down on his shaft as I could go, and it felt like I was going to choke on all that wet saltiness squirting into my throat. I tried to pull back, but he was holding me too tight. I swallowed fast, feeling like I couldn’t breathe, hoping I wouldn’t gag, and still he held me there, until I pushed hard on his legs and pulled myself away, coughing.
    “What’s your problem?” I gasped. I had managed to swallow it all, but my throat burned from it.

    He pulled me up and wrapped his arms around me. “I’m sorry, baby. I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean to do that. I just couldn’t stop.” I pushed him away. “Whatever,” I managed to say, but my voice still sounded a little rough.

    “Where’s that wine? Let me get you a glass.”
    Wine didn’t seem like the thing to soothe my throat, but I didn’t complain. I had already opened the bottle anyway. I went into the bedroom to change my pants, since the ones I had on now had a big wet spot on the crotch. When I came out, he handed me a glass, and we sat down on the couch.
    I sipped the wine and tried to figure out what I was feeling. He really did turn me on. It was like I couldn’t keep my body from responding to him. Still, I had to admit to myself that this wasn’t exactly what I had been hoping for when we first started seeing each other. Despite his words to the contrary, it was becoming more and more obvious that he was only in it for the sex. And the sex wasn’t even that good. I felt cheap. I felt used.
    I felt like a fool.
    I thought about the movie and why Angelo had picked it. That made me even more ashamed of what had just happened. “Did you buy your ticket for Folk Fest yet?” I asked him.
    “Not yet. First thing tomorrow, I promise.” He pointed to the table with the puzzle on it, sitting off to the side of the living room. “Why’s that in here?”
    “We moved it in here so we could watch the TV while we worked the puzzle.”
    “Who’s ‘we’?”
“Me and Ang.”
    “Oh.” He couldn’t have sounded less interested. “Who’s Ang? Your sister?”
    Seriously? I had told Tom about my sister Lauren, who lived in Chicago, and I had certainly mentioned Angelo plenty of times. It only proved how little he actually listened. And how little he cared. If I had been a different man, I might have punched him. I wished for a minute that I was Angelo—that I could think fast and lash out with my words. Instead I closed my eyes, fought back my anger.
    Suddenly I knew exactly what I was going to do.
    I looked over at him. “Yeah, Ang is my sister,” I said as casually as I could. “She came by last night. I was telling her about us going to Folk Fest, and she decided to come too.” Obviously a lie. But I had a theory, and this was the test.
    “Sure, baby. Whatever.”
“The thing is, I’m not really out with her.”
    “So we can’t spend the weekend together?” He didn’t sound annoyed, exactly, but he didn’t quite sound sympathetic either.
    “Of course we can. We just have to play it straight. It’s no big deal, right? We’ll still have fun. And it will give us a chance to get to know each other better.”
    “You bet.” But I could tell he didn’t like it. He was staring at his wine as he twirled his glass between his fingers. “That sounds great.”
    I got up and turned on some music, then sat down at the table and started working on the puzzle. He sat and watched me for a couple of minutes, then drained his glass and said, “Listen, I gotta go, but I’ll call you tomorrow, okay?”
    That, at least, I had no doubts about. I didn’t walk him to the door.
    I finished the bottle of wine, catching a pleasant buzz in the process, then went in the bathroom and took a scalding hot shower. I washed it all away. The evidence of my activities with Tom, dried into my pubic hair. The taste of him in the back of my throat. All of my anger and bitterness and resentment. I let it all go. I didn’t hate him. But I sure as hell didn’t need him either. He was nothing to me.
    It surprised me when I realized that.

    The phone at the store was ringing the next morning, five minutes after I arrived.

    “Bad news, Zach. We have this—”

    I interrupted him. “You’re not coming.” It wasn’t even a question.
    “I’m sorry, baby. I’ll make it up to—”
“Sure thing, Tom. See you later.”
    It seemed like I should