The card had been in my mailbox the day before, and I’d shoved it into the front pocket of my laptop bag on the way up to my apartment, promptly forgetting it until the next day.
My birthday.
I’d been putting off the phone call for hours, but it was nearly lunch and my work friend, Hendrix, would be by to grab me for our weekly lunch at the cafe down the street, so it was best to get the call out of the way.
I dialed my parents’ phone number with my eyes closed, the ten digits forever committed to memory. My parents had lived in the same house my entire life. The same phone number. The same furniture. The same hopes and dreams. The same beliefs.
A nice woman for me and grandchildren for them.
I wasn’t against the latter, but the former had never fit right, and I’d tried it on plenty of times.
My bisexuality was a secret.
Honestly, I wasn’t even sure it was the right label. I knew I wasn’t sexually attracted to women, and I’d tried. Lord, how I’d tried. I found men nice enough to look at, but I’d never…
Well.
I was too old to admit the things I’d never done.
“Hello?” My dad answered the phone on the third ring.
“Hey, Pop.”
“The birthday boy.” The enthusiasm in his voice was real, and in a hushed tone, like he’d pulled his face away from the receiver, I heard him call for my mom to come to the phone.
I closed my eyes, elbow propped on the desk and forehead in the cradle of my palm.
“Is that you, Colin?” Mom asked, sounding like she wrestled the phone away from my dad.
“It’s me.”
“Happy birthday, baby!”
“Thank you,” I said quietly.
“Having a thirty-eight year-old son makes me feel horribly old,” she said, a soft laugh in her voice.
My momwasold, or at least older. She was barely sixty, but her entire adult life had been spent as a wife and mother. Sometimes I wished she and my dad had other kids after me. Maybe if there were others to carry on the family name, they wouldn’t press me so hard about getting married and starting a family of my own, but that wasn’t the hand I’d been dealt.
“You’re not old, Mom.”
“Any plans for your birthday?” she asked. “Party or anything?”
“I don’t do birthday parties anymore,” I told her.
Birthdays weren’t something I enjoyed celebrating. It was just another day, another reminder that the clock ticked on and I’d been rooted in the same place for half my life. Yeah, I had a new job. It was a good one that came with a massive salary bump from my last gig, but personally…that’s where I’d turned stagnant.
The last birthday party I’d had was when I turned thirty. My best friend Henry had thrown me a party at a little restaurant. The whole thing had been a nice affair with lots of drinks and lots of laughs. His younger brother convinced us all to go to a dance club after, and I was convinced thirty was too old for that kind of thing, but he’d persisted.
A few more drinks worked to lubricate my limbs and I’d found myself on the dance floor with a stranger.
A man.
I still remembered the exchange like it was yesterday. He smelled a little like sweat, a little like deodorant, and a lot like vodka.
“You’re gorgeous,” he’d breathed the two words into my ear at the same time he slid a hand around my waist from behind. My back pressed against his chest, his half-hard cock against my ass.
“I’m sorry, what?” I turned my head to the side, trying to see his face. No one had ever said that kind of thing to me before. No one had ever touched me with such a sense of entitlement.
