“When? When are you going to have this conversation with me?”
“I’m not. Go home.”
“You’re so scared.” Ian came in closer, so close that Paul could feel the warmth of his body. Ian laid his hand on Paul’s cheek, parted his lips with his own, and invaded his mouth with his tongue. He tasted like whiskey.
Paul pushed him away. “Stop it! I’m not doing this with you. Not like this.”
“Like this?”
“I’m not having a drunken fuck with you so you can forget it ever happened.”
“Wow. They let ministers say ‘fuck’?”
“There’s a special exception. It kicks in when you’re talking about having sex in a church office with a guy who also happens to be half your age and shit-faced.” He shouted the last two words.
“You’re mad.”
“You think?”
Paul sat down at his desk and laid his forehead on his hands with the palms pressing into his eyes. Ian stood, chewing on his thumbnail.
Without looking up, Paul said, “Why do you have to make things so ugly? Why are you always playing with me?”
“I wasn’t playing with you.”
“Please just go home.”
Ian started to walk out the door, then stopped and turned back. “Hey, um, Paul?”
Paul looked up.
Ian was biting his lip. “I, uh, can’t go home. I can’t drive.”
Paul set his jaw. He jumped up from the desk and led Ian roughly by the elbow. They reached the lobby as the choir was filing out.
“Could someone drive this one home?” Paul asked the crowd as he released Ian’s elbow. Without waiting for an answer, he went back to his office and slammed the door. He hunched at the desk, his cheekbones resting on this thumbs, his hands in a steeple position, supporting his forehead. He sat there until he was sure all the people had gone.
The following day, Paul asked Julie to pick Ian up for work. When he arrived, Ian knocked on Paul’s door and peeked in. His hair was pulled back, and he was wearing the same Pillsbury Doughboy T-shirt he’d had on the first day they met. His eyes were nervous and sad. “Paul?” he said.
Paul was angry at him, angry at his perfect cheekbones, his soft lips, the eyes that changed color from green to blue. He was angry with him for looking like an angel and for refusing to be one. He resented the way Ian filled him with desire. Most of all, he was angry at Ian for making him confront his own instincts and passions.
They’d been through too much together now. It was way too late for it to be an “experience” or an “encounter.” Whether he was ready to admit it or not, Paul knew in his soul that they were already in love. If he took the leap and made love to Ian, it would be profoundly real. What would that make him? Paul would become a “gay man.” Maybe for the rest of his life. He couldn’t change his identity that easily.
“I don’t have time to talk to you today,” he said. “I’m very busy.”
“But, Paul, we have to talk about this.”
“Not today,” Paul said. “I’m very busy. Shut the door behind you.”
Ian pressed his lips together, then turned and walked out the door. Paul ate lunch at his desk with the door closed.
In the afternoon, Ian tried one more time to talk to Paul in his office.
“Not here,” he said. “I don’t want to have this conversation here.”
“I’ll call you tonight, then?” Ian asked. Paul didn’t answer.
He had Julie drive Ian home.