Chapter 2: Chapter 2
“Are you familiar with what the word husbandmeans?”
I shrugged. “Male spouse, I guess.”
She shook her head. “Not exactly. It means the male head of a household, but it also means manageror steward. It’s like when it’s used as a verb: someone husbands their resources; it means conserve them, use them frugally, like in a flood situation with limited supplies.”
“What are you talking about?” I asked, impatient at the moment of Carmen’s descent into her typical micro-lecture style.
She leaned forward in her chair. “You need someone to husband you, Marc.”
I stared, trying to decide whether to be offended or not. Then, to change the topic, I nodded towards the two men.
“You saw that exchange?” I said. “With them and that woman who passed?”
Carmen nodded.
“Did that sort of thing ever happen to you?”
Her eyelids lowered slightly and her lips pursed.
“Actually,” she said at last. “It has—not quite like that, but—yes.”
I stared in surprise, my mouth actually hanging open slightly. Then I realized what this reaction implied, and I brought myself under control, and looked at my friend objectively. She wasn’t a looker by any means, but still—
As if in answer, she told me about an experience she’d had one evening, running into a man on Yonge Street when she had been very drunk. He had been drunk too, and quite taken with her—so much so that they had gone home together. It was a short relationship, lasting only a couple of months. I had met the guy once or twice, but I had never heard how they had met.
“Oh,” I said, when she had finished. I didn’t quite see her point. I mean, I had gone home with guys from bars, but that wasn’t quite it.
“But that appreciation,” I said, nodding towards the two men. “That’snever happened to me.”
Carmen appeared to consider the point, and after several minutes of silence she tapped the table.
“It might have, you know. Only you’re too—well, uptight to see it. No, don’t get offended. I guess I mean—what? You’re too defensive. You have walls. That woman passing. She wasn’t like that.”
“Oh,” I said quietly. I thought I saw what she meant.
I made a grimace. “I guess I hide my light under a bushel, or something.”
Carmen laughed and nodded.
I sighed. Maybe I wasdefensive. Being fairly good-looking, as people have told me I was, wasn’t the easiest thing to be in the gay community. I mean, I got hit on, but it never seemed to be the kind of good-natured appreciation I had just witnessed. In fact, quite often it was a bit rude. I remembered one guy whose opening line after approaching me in a bar had been, “Say, you wanna come to my place and fuck?”
I still shuddered at the memory. At the time I had been mortified, convinced that I was somehow giving off a sense that that was the sort of come-on I would respond to positively. Thinking on it now, it seemed clear to me that the problem was that I didn’t have the presence, the confidence that woman had had. From there my thoughts continued onto more deleterious thoughts.
“I don’t sleep around!” I said, and was startled to realize that I had spoken the thought out loud.
Carmen chuckled and I flushed.
“Well,” I amended. “If I do, it’s because—”
But Carmen smiled gently and put her hand on mine again. “Yes, I know, Marc. You are looking for love. I understand, believe me.”
“Sex is the consolation prize,” I murmured unhappily. “And afterwards, I feel—I don’t know, like I never really made contact with the person.”
I looked at the two men, then back at Carmen.
“Straight men,” I said. “They’re—different.”
“How? Better?” Carmen shook her head. “You know about the grass on the other side of the street, right?”
I nodded, and sighed. Then I got up. “Washroom,” I said, and went inside the restaurant. As I went past the two men, the one who had glanced at me before did so again, but with minimal curiosity. I found myself stiffening in response to his gaze, and afterwards battled with mortification over this as I continued to the washroom.
I wasdefensive!
In the washroom, I thought again about the way that woman had walked, had been. I drew myself up, looking at my reflection, and affected an air of confidence. But, of course, it didn’t look quite right.
Don’t look! Don’t judge,I told myself. Just be it!
So, I closed my eyes, still standing very erect, and feltwhat I had seen in the woman. Reassuring myself that it was just being playful, I did my best to maintain this sense of elegance as I left the washroom.
Gifts
-- Gift
received Weekly Power Status
-- Power
Ranking 
-- Power
stone