“I don’t know aboutslave,” I grumbled. “I just don’t see the point in denying myself a bit of fun if someone else is down for it too.”
“That depends,” he said, turning to walk away. I followed him.
“What does it depend on?” I asked as we left the session room behind us.
“Why someone would deny themselves in the first place,” he answered easily. “If they’re going to deny themselves because what they want is wrong, that makes sense. If they’re denying themselves because it’s neither the time nor the place? Also good. And maybe if they’re doing it because instant gratification isn’t nearly as gratifying as people think it is, and that they perhaps enjoy the anticipation, the build up before they decide to crest that hill, then why condemn them for it?”
“Good points, all of them,” I admitted. “But now I’m wondering if that oddly specific final thing was you speaking from personal, maybe evencurrent, experience?”
“Your persistence would be irritating if it weren’t a little endearing,” he chuckled. “But to finish off, if someone is denying themselves as a punishment, or out of a sense of shame? Then they should do some reevaluating to give themselves more freedom.”
“Okay, but seriously,thatwas oddly specific,” I said as he came to a stop. “Looking for something?”
“I would like something to drink that isn’t a bottle of water,” he said, frowning.
“This way,” I said, nodding toward a new hallway.
He followed me without hesitation, even though it took us away from the main area of the resort. “It might surprise you, but in my line of work—myformerline of work, that is—there was a lot of other people’s shame and guilt that I had to contend with.”
I thought about it for a minute and then nodded. “That makes sense.”
“Does it?” he asked as I led him into a small lounge and gestured toward the machines tucked into the corner. The seating was rarely used, but the drink and snack machines were popular.
“I mean, yeah, it does,” I said as I dropped into one of the seats while he looked over the selection the machines offered. “It’s funny when you think about it. People get obsessed with sex over the years. Teenagers are either obsessed with getting laid or staying pure, depending on the time period. Adults like to get laid, but feel they should go about it a certain way. People always want to get laid, but they don’t always want to admit it. Marriages crumble because someone doesn’t feel they’re getting enough sex, or someone else feels they’re being used as a sex toy. It always comes back to sex, but we get so hung up on it, we get all up in our feelings about it.”
“Not to twist your words,” Isaac said as the drink machine thunked and a drink slid out smoothly. “But that sounds like a specific, and if I might say, personal experience you’re speaking of.”
I shrugged. “I mean, I don’t go around broadcasting it, but I’m not exactly hiding the fact that I wasn’t always into sleeping with guys.”
“No?”
“Nope. I spent my first twenty-four years pretending I was only into women. Didn’t matter that I liked it a lot when another guy noticed me, or that sometimes I wanted to spend time alone with guys I knew were into guys, or really, into me. I never did anything about it because I wasstraight, you understand?”
He chuckled as he took a drink. “I’m familiar with the attitude, yeah.”
“And that’s just how it was,” I said. “Until a few years ago. I finally got my head out of my ass and admitted I wanted to be in other guys’ asses.”
“You know, I love how you can take a defining moment of your life and turn it into a sex joke as if it wasn’t important at all,” he said with a smile, tightening the lid of his drink. “You really know how to emphasize the scope and depth of that sort of life-altering revelation and self-acceptance.”
“It’s a gift.”
“Is it a gift in the same way that your ‘charm’ is charm?”
“Exactly.”
He chuckled, slipping into a chair and looking around as he ran his fingernails back and forth over his wrist in repetitive motions. “I suppose I can’t even pretend to be surprised that you ended up where you are now through a process that involved soul searching and acceptance.”
“Why’s that?”
“In my experience, people who are so free and open about their sexuality, particularly when their sexual orientation is outside the norm, come in two forms. Those who have gone through a process where they’ve been forced to accept what’s going on with them, what’sreallygoing on with them, that is. And those who are so far in denial of what’s going on in their hearts that they cover it up with sex and lust.”
I stared at him for a moment, feeling a guilty twinge in my gut. “Oh yeah? So I get a nice little gold star for self-awareness and acceptance then?”
“I never said that,” he said with a snort. “You’ve obviously done the sort of work that lets you feel comfortable being sexual with other guys. That doesn’t mean you’re not using that acceptance as a way to keep people away from the real you, or like a lot of people do, keep something from yourself.”
I decided I no longer liked the conversation, but there was no way to get out of it without alerting him that he was too close to the truth. “Sounds like you know something about keeping things from yourself. That from your experience as an escort, or is that personal experience coming out?”
He gave a small smile. “A little bit of both. If there’s one thing people are good at, it’s lying to themselves. Hell, I bet if you were able to make people comfortable enough, they’d admit there are several things they keep from themselves.”
