I drove mum mad with questions about the neighbours, hoping that I covered my tracks concerning my throbbing desire for Mr. Robinson by asking about the children and his wife as well. She could tell me frustratingly little and attempted several times to change the subject. My dad turned up with my younger sister, Terri, and the subject was mothballed for the time being. He asked polite questions about my studies, skirting the personal, and lauded my scholarly success. My little sister merely grumped that I'd come home to usurp her position as favoured child. She would have to share the accolade for the duration of my stay. It would be an uneasy truce.
I excused myself to shower and head out to see Troy who welcomed me with a hug as welcoming as my old bed and a chaste kiss on the cheek. I kept my inquisitiveness on a leash as I listened to him rave about his partner, Vince, who would be joining us later for dinner. I could read the love and affection he harboured for his boyfriend but it became mawkish and repetitive. In the midst of yet another long paean to his mate's perfection, I interrupted.
"What can you tell me about Mr. Robinson?"
I thought he would be pissed off, but he smiled indulgently. "Sorry, I do go on a bit. Mr. Robinson? So, you've seen him then?"
"He's hard to miss."
"That he is. And knowing your attraction to older men I knew you wouldn't miss him."
"Come on, spill."
"He's gorgeous. Built like a brick shithouse. Gay guys drive up the street on a Saturday morning just to ogle his body as he washes his car."
"What?"
"He does it stripped to the waist. Vince has driven past and says the street is a bottle neck around eleven in the morning. He has washboard abs, pecs of steel, although how anybody knows without touching them I'm not sure, biceps like outsize walnuts, and speaking of his nuts...well, no one knows because they've never seen them."
"Shit," I pouted.
"He's married with two kids. Never turns up at the bar, has never been seen at that toilet beat in the park, and absolutely nobody has snared him in one of the local gay social groups on the net. His kids are happy and well-adjusted while his wife is, I have it on good authority as I'm no expert, as appealing to heterosexual men and lesbians as he is to gay men and straight women."
When Vince arrived I warmed to him immediately, although he could add little to unravelling the Mr. Robinson mystique. The meal was top notch, Troy has a real flair in the kitchen, and we adjourned to the lounge room where Vince was content to sit back and listen as we two old friends waxed nostalgic about our years growing up together. When Vince started to get a little frisky I knew it was time to leave.
Over the next few days, impatient for Saturday to arrive and praying that the weather would be sunny, I sank back into the town's slower pace, meeting up with Troy and other old friends for lunch and gossip, most of which revolved around the fact I lived opposite the town's new sex god. It was probably just as well the poor guy knew nothing of his status among the gay mafia in town, let alone among the single women and not a few married ones. He would have run screaming for anonymity in a big city.
My fourteen-year-old sister, Terri, and her shrieking friends drove me insane in the afternoon with their ceaseless chatter and loud music, especially as I propped myself at the window to watch the subject of my unrequited lust drive up with his kids in tow after school. I had lectured myself severely on the morality or otherwise of desiring a married man with kids, especially a seemingly happily married man but, what the hell, it didn't hurt to look. If he was out of reach, I was only window shopping.
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