Date: Sun, 17 Feb 2013 13:01:18 -0500
From: Morris Henderson <bigmoh@post.com>
Subject: Choices Chapter 3-A-1

CHOICES

CHAPTER 3, Version A-1

Steve's life was generally good.  He was very successful in his
career, having risen to the upper ranks of the company.  He had
the respect of everyone that worked for or with him.  He
thoroughly enjoyed his job—especially the frequent business
trips.  Traveling to and from a location was a pain in the rear but
the destinations, many locations in the U.S, Europe, South
America, and Japan, often afforded opportunities to spend time
as a tourist.  He relished being at home when he could spend
time with his children and grandchildren.  There was only one
part of his life that was not rewarding.  His secret self, his
yearnings, his fantasies of gay companionship, and his regret
for choosing a socially acceptable life were a recurrent source of
frustration.  For a time, he was able to experience sexual
pleasure with his wife but, although the marriage was still
cordial, it no longer included intimacy.  They each had a career,
Steve as a rising business executive and his wife as a surgical
nurse.  Both were contented...or so it seemed to the rest of the
world.

But both were concealing their frustrations.  Steve longed for
male companionship.  His wife was smitten by a doctor who had
lost his wife to cancer.  The attraction was mutual and they had
been secretly dating for several months.  The excuse of "Sorry,
Steve, there's been an emergency at the hospital and I have to
work late" was a convenient lie.  Instead, the widower and the
married woman would meet for dinner and conversation.  That's
as far as it went but both of them experienced increasing
affection for the other and wished they could unite as a couple.
Steve, meanwhile, would eat dinner alone and go to his home
office to catch up on email and memos that he had no time to
handle while in the office.

Steve was scheduled to fly to Miami on Wednesday afternoon
for a two-day meeting.  After breakfast on Wednesday he said
to his wife, "It will be a quick trip.  I couldn't get return plane
reservations until Saturday morning but I should be home
around noon on Saturday.  See ya then."

"Have a good trip," his wife said and left the kitchen to get ready
for work.

When checking his email at work, Steve was surprised to read
one that said, "Sorry, Steve.  We have to postpone our
meetings.  I hope it doesn't cause you any trouble.  I'll contact
you as soon as I can reschedule."

Steve was not upset.  It would have been a boring trip and it
gave him a lot of time to catch up on a backlog of work in the
office.  He asked his secretary to cancel the plane and hotel
reservations and got to work.

His wife, Laura, and the doctor, Ray, met for dinner that night.
Upon learning that Steve was out of town until Saturday, Ray
said, "I've thoroughly enjoyed the times we've been able to get
together.  And I wish it could be more often.  I hope you're not
offended if I ask you to spend the night with me.  Steve's away.
This is a perfect opportunity to demonstrate my affection for
you.  If you decline the invitation, I'll be disappointed but I'll
understand.  If you agree, however, you'll make me very happy.
And I'll do my best to make you happy."

Laura took no time to respond.  She broke into a broad smile
and said, "I thought you'd never ask, Ray.  Yes!  I'd love to
spend the night with you."

Steve got home at a little past six that night to find the house
empty.  There had been no message from Laura about working
late so he was puzzled and mildly concerned.  By ten his
concern intensified.  He called his wife's cell phone only to be
bounced to voice mail.  That was not unusual; using cell phones
was prohibited inside the hospital.  He left a message: "Call me
as soon as you can."

When he woke the next morning and found his wife's bed
empty, he was beside himself with worry.  He called the hospital
and, after considerable difficulty, was able to get the information
he sought.  There had been no emergency surgery the previous
day and yes, Laura Randolph had reported for work at the usual
time of eight that morning.

Rather than going to the office, he drove to the hospital.  After
more than an hour of inquiries and searching, he found his wife
doing paper work outside the ER.  The confrontation was ugly.
She refused to explain her absence overnight.  He got angry.
She berated him for not telling her the business trip was
cancelled.  Steve stormed out.  He was so angry that he knew
he would not be able to concentrate at work so he returned
home.  The rest of the day was unpleasant for both of them.

That evening, Laura refused to be engaged in conversation.
The atmosphere at home was chilly for weeks.  Neither could
tolerate being around the other.

The silence was broken when Laura, having been persuaded by
her doctor lover, announced.  "I'm leaving.  I'll be filing for
divorce.  You'll hear from my lawyer."

"Why?" Steve asked.

Laura said assertively, "Our marriage has been a sham for too
long.  It can't go on like that."

Steve found the explanation to be weak at best because even
without sex, their relationship had been marked with civility and
occasional friendliness.  His irritation exploded into an
accusation.  "Oh.  So you've found somebody else to give your
body to.  He must be quite a stud.  Who is he?"

"That's none of your business," she replied, unwittingly
confirming Steve's suspicions.  She marched out of the kitchen
and took refuge in her bedroom.  Steve, still stunned from the
unexpected declaration, sat at the table and tried to cope with
the questions that kept popping into his mind.

Within a week, Steve had an answer to at least one question.
He knew the name of the man who had lured his wife away and
made him a cuckold.  Many other questions remained.  Who
was to blame?  Laura?  The doctor?  Himself?  If all three
shared blame, what could he have done to preserve the
marriage?  How would their children react to the divorce?  To
whom would they give their allegiance?  The most troublesome
question was: Might being free of a wife, allow him to seek a
male partner?  He grudgingly answered that one.  Career and,
more significantly, his children and grandchildren dictated which
road he must choose: the façade of a straight man.  But could
he be discrete?  Could he finally enjoy what he yearned for?
Extreme caution might make that possible.

<><><><><>

The divorce was final.  The children had been almost as
stunned by the news as their father had been.  They expressed
their sympathy to Steve and continued to show their love for
him.  They said little in Steve's presence, however, about their
feelings toward their mother or their relationship with her.

After much deliberation, Steve accepted the unfortunate fact
that the male companionship he had always wanted was not to
be.  Again, career (especially in puritanical Utah) and family
were dominant arguments against seeking his goal.  But now
there was a third factor that influenced his reluctant conclusion.
His age made him less desirable to other men and had begun to
cripple his ability to achieve and maintain an erection.  Who
would tolerate an old man that couldn't perform?  The road not
taken was now unavailable to him.  He consoled himself with
the realization that there were an infinite number of roads to
follow but his circumstances presented a small fraction of those.
He resigned himself to the fact that the road to love with another
man was no longer available to him.  He cheered himself by
recalling the joys he had found along the road he had traveled:
achievements and success in a fulfilling career, children and
grandchildren who were a source of pride, and the contentment
of having lived honorably.

The internet became his sole source of vicarious, erotic
entertainment—Web sites with photos...videos...chat
rooms...stories—readily available and accessible anonymously.
But eventually that became less and less interesting.  Sitting at
his computer at home, he recalled an incident many years ago.
His youngest son was about to turn eighteen.  Steve asked what
he wanted for his birthday and was surprised to hear, "A visit to
a triple-X porno movie and stopping at a bar for a legal drink."
Steve granted his wish and took him to a sleazy theater in Elko,
Nevada (since there were none in Utah).  His son seemed to
enjoy the movie and the live strip-tease that followed but Steve
was barely aroused.  On the drive to a casino where the just-
turned-eighteen young man could get the legal drink he had
asked for, Steve asked, "So what did you think of the movie and
strip-tease?"

"Okay, I guess.  After a while, though, it was about as exciting
as watching a cow chew its cud."

That comment came disturbingly close to what Steve felt lately
while surfing gay sites on the internet.  The feeling was
particularly strong when he read stories many of which he
judged to be much too narrowly focused on bodies with orifices
and appendages and on transient gratification of primal needs.
Often, they seemed to be written by authors who failed high
school English.  Very few stories focused on the entirety of a
gay man—his fears and frustrations, his emotional needs and
satisfactions, and most of all his belief that pure sex was
pleasant but is infinitely more meaningful when it is but one
means of achieving, nurturing, and maintaining a loving bond.
In a moment of reflection, Steve allowed himself the arrogance
of thinking he could do better.  He wrote a few stories and
anonymously submitted them for posting.  He tried to weave a
plot.  He tried to develop characters as humans with a full range
of complexity.  You are reading one of the results of that
attempt.

THE END



NOTE TO READERS:
If my hunch is correct, virtually all readers of gay fiction will have
chosen the options in this story that led to sexual activity.  Very
few, therefore, will be reading this note.  To those (few?) who
read only the non-sexual parts, my thanks for your patience.  To
those who may have explored the other roads that branched off
between the beginning and this point, I congratulate you for your
curiosity and persistence in exploring the alternate roads.