Tales of the City 07 - Michael Tolliver Lives

website,” I explained.
    Another blink.
    “CLEANCUTLAD4U?”
    Finally he smiled. There was a fetching gap between his two front teeth, which only enhanced the fuckable Norman Rockwell image.
    “I could’ve sent you my profile,” I told him, “but I figured it was easier just to chase you down the street.”
    He laughed and stuck out his hand. “I’m Ben McKenna.”
    “Michael Tolliver.”
    “I saw you inside with that lady.” He had held my hand a little longer than actually required. “Was that your mother?”
    I chuckled. Anna would love to hear that. “Not exactly,” I said.
    “She looks interesting,”
    “She is, believe me.” We were rapidly veering off the subject, so I decided to take the bullock by the horns. “I have to get her home, as a matter of fact. Would you mind giving me your phone number? Or I could give you mine.”
    He looked almost surprised. “Either way,” he said with a shrug.
    We went back into the restaurant for pencil and paper. As Ben scribbled away by the cash register I looked across the room and saw that Anna was watching this transaction with a look of smug accomplishment on her face. And I knew this would not be the end of it; something this juicy could amuse her for weeks.
    “My, my,” she said as soon as I returned. “I hope you carded him.”
    “He’s thirty-three. Cut me some slack.”
    “You asked him his age?”
    “I read it online.”
    “O Brave New World,” she intoned melodramatically. “Shall we head down to the park, dear? Before we call it a night?”
    “Thought you’d never ask,” I said.
    So I walked her down to Washington Square, where we sat in the cool foggy dark and shared a quick doobie before bedtime.

2
    Hugs, Ben
    I’ ll give you a moment to do the math. Ben is twenty-one years younger than I am—an entire adult younger, if you insist on looking at it that way. But I really haven’t made a habit of this. My first lover, Jon, who died back in ’82, was a year older than I was, and Thack and I are only months apart in age. It’s true that lately I’ve gone out with guys who might be described as, well, less than middle-aged, but it never lasted very long. Sooner or later they would bore me silly with their tales of “partying” on crystal meth or their belief in the cultural importance of Paris Hilton’s dog. And most of them, I’m sorry to say, seemed to think they were doing me a favor.
    Before Ben I’d had little experience with daddy hunters. I knew there were young guys who went for older guys, but I’d always assumed that it was largely about money and power. But Ben claims he’s lusted after older men since he was twelve in Colorado Springs and began jerking off to magazines. He remembers rushing home from school to search the latest issue of his dad’s Sports Illustrated for the heart-stopping image of Jim Palmer in his Jockey shorts. And several years later, in the same magazine, he read a story about Dr. Tom Waddell, the retired Olympic decathlete who established the Gay Games. The very fact of this aging gay gladiator filled him with the hope that some of the men he wanted might actually want him back. And all doubt was finally removed when he moved to San Francisco after college. The daddies Ben met down at Starbucks or the Edge were sometimes slow to read the gleam in his eye, but given half a chance and a little encouragement, they could leap whole decades in a single bound.
    God knows I did. Ben called me the very next morning, and I invited him over for dinner the following night. I told him I was making pot roast, just in case he didn’t consider this a sex date. And just in case he did, I popped a Viagra half an hour before his scheduled arrival. He appeared at the door exactly on time in well-fitted Diesel jeans and a pale-blue T-shirt, bearing a bottle of Chianti that clattered to the floor as soon as I grabbed him. When we finally broke from the kiss, he uttered a sigh that suggested both arousal and relief, as if he, too, had worried that we might have to eat pot roast first.
    “You should know,” I said, releasing him. “I’m positive.”
    He looked in my eyes and smiled. “About what?”
    “Don’t get smart with your elders,” I said, leading the way to the bedroom.

    “You know,” Ben said afterward. “I think I’ve seen you before.”
    He was lying in the crook of my arm, thoughtfully blotting the wet spot, his fingers arranging my chest hair with serene deliberation, like a Zen