Chapter 2

Another reason why I took a week in October off…I had a small cottage in the woods, along the Ohio-Pennsylvania border. Sometimes, I would take a man there and enjoy his company for a few days. Sometimes, I went alone. Sometimes, I didn’t go at all, staying in Bitter. Whatever my mood entailed.

The one-bedroom cottage had been in my family for years. It sat along a manmade lake called Willowbean. It didn’t look fabulous and high-end, but it did have some extraordinary niceties about it: the sloped yard that led to the lake, the view from the bedroom overlooking the autumn forest, the cedar aroma wafting about the place, and many other things that might make a man fall in love with another man during a three- or four-day trip into the deep woods.

I planned my trip to the cabin later in the week. Maybe Thursday through Sunday. For now, I had a few days to myself to relax, enjoy life, and do absolutely nothing. I did have a vice, of course. Not smoking. Not drinking. Not drugs. Something questionably sinister and darkly perfect. I liked books. And I liked to shop for books. Paperback mysteries. Horror hardbacks from the 1980s. Oversized coffee table books on cults, cannibalism, and various religions. I liked books on Cuba, art, skyscrapers, cats, WWII, and southern plantations.

I enjoyed cheesy romances, best-selling novelists, and books of short stories. You name it, and I relished it. Any kind of book. Any size. Any topic, almost. Books were my thing. As well as reading them, devouring them page by page, evening after evening slipping by. I couldn’t remember a time when I wasn’t enjoying four at once, keeping them in different rooms of my almost-paid-for Tudor. Books were my life when I wasn’t assisting wealthy clients with their money. My primal need, craving. My world. The blood that moved steadily through my veins.

* * * *

Kalin McCane. I enjoyed his company and conversation. To me, the guy wasn’t a waste of a human being and boring. Only thirty-five. A beauty if there ever was one in the world of men. Stunningly handsome. Brilliant with loads of charm. So adult-like, proper, and astute. Never had I met a man who acted overtly mature. Not a boy by any means. A man all the way. Perfectly weathered and beyond his years. I couldn’t smell him like other men three blocks away from the bookstore where he worked. I couldn’t taste his salt in the air. I couldn’t devour his every essence without the man being in my vicinity. How strange and uncomfortable he caused me to feel. I was drawn to him, but not sexually attracted to his refined handsomeness, needy of companionship as a friend. How richly extraordinary he caused me to feel: inadequate for his needs, lacking any sort of vibrancy, strangely disheartened, beneath the man.

Kalin worked at Hades Bookstore on Marsden Street in downtown Bitter. The store sat beneath Millton Brisk’s office, one of Bitter’s better attorneys. I knew Kalin had the title of assistant manager at the store. When he didn’t work there, he taught literature evening classes at West End College to freshmen and sophomores.

During one of our conversations within Hades and its many tomes, he told me, “I have amazing students. Clever. Delightful. Yearning to learn and to be mature.”

I watched him smile, happy to talk about his teaching: freckled and uplifted cheeks, pinkish lips, and bright green eyes. Such a beautiful man at six-two; a lot to handle, and a lot of handsomeness to take in, but I didn’t mind. Lean and fit with just the right amount of muscles from his daily runs through Coleman Park: under Coleman Bridge, through the tunnel, along the swerving trails that skirted the lake. He was always running and caring for his body. Never failed. Firm nipples in a too-tight white, Hades T-shirt. Broad shoulders. Cords along his neck. Ginger curls on top of his head. Deeper reddish-orange freckles on his arms. Jeans snug against his legs. Package between his legs a handsome mound, edible for all the right reasons. Simply gorgeous from toes to head.

Kalin wanted me. I’m not too humble to say this. I was exactly what he desired in a man. But I wasn’t his and never would be. Never. We were just friends. Always friends. Men who enjoyed books together, light conversation, and a smooth companionship.

If you want to know the truth, I knew he cared more about my good looks than the cellar of books, or even his teaching. Yes, Hades could have been considered one of his favorite haunts along the lake, even on the planet, and he had probably visited many like it in his days, but I somehow, someway drew his attention away from its dusty shelves, dismal lighting, and the strong scent of goat’s blood on old parchment (six periodicals that dated back to the 1600s). He had decided quiet early on in our friendship that I could be his companion for years to come, his partner here on earth, leaving him without complaints, satisfied.