Daddy Issues

Afterward I was stretched out on top of him, eyes to the lighted tree, harmonizing the calming of my panting with his. "Shit, that was good," I whispered.

"Sorry," he murmured.

"What for? That was great. I needed that," Who knew it could be so good with a fit guy near my own age?

"I mean the bareback. I hadn't planned any of this?"

"You mean you had no desire to jump my bones?" I asked.

"No, that is not what I meant. Now we'll both have to get checked."

"You fuck around a lot."

"Yes."

"Good. We'll get checked and then we can bareback a couple of more times until one of us does it with someone else."

"Are you telling me you're a slut too?" he asked.

"Yes."

"Good," he said and then he laughed.

"I guess I should be going," I said, rolling off him and sitting up. "Time to cross the landing to my dad's apartment."

"The guest bedroom here is closer," Daniel said.

I smiled. "I don't think I'd get much sleep."

I was right. I didn't get much sleep that night. We were young and fit and athletic. Sometimes sleep can be overrated.

The first time I woke the next morning, it was to the sound of the shower going in the guestroom bathroom and I was alone in bed, on my back, my legs open and bent, with me wondering if I'd ever be able to close them again. The second time was to the smell of brewing coffee, and, with a groan, I rolled out of the bed and took a shower.

When I came out of the bedroom and into the living area space, Chuck was rolling around his specially outfitted kitchen, preparing a farmer's hearty breakfast for us all. Daniel, just in a terrycloth robe, looking as sexy this morning as he did the previous night, was sitting at the kitchen island counter sipping coffee.

Whatever there had to be said to Chuck about Daniel and me in the night had already been spoken. Chuck was all smiles but he made no reference to that. What he was, pointing at the coffee table, was, "It's Christmas morning. I think you should unwrap your dad's gift while I finish making breakfast."

It was a hefty photo album, containing photos but so much more. It was about me and who I was and what I liked doing. It was photos, but more—program bulletins, team rosters, ticket stubs. And it included my parents too—and not just my mother. Dad was there too. So much that I forgotten or let myself deny. Dad wasn't always absent, even after the divorce. He was often there, sometimes when I didn't know it. As Chuck had already told me, Dad had been there for some the activities I'd been in that I had thought he disapproved of. And obviously he hadn't disapproved of them. He'd be supportive—to the extent that family dynamics and a mother sensitive to him leaving her for another man allowed. I had been living an illusion. I'd been seeking daddy approval that already had been there.

"He spent a lot of time pulling that together," Chuck said, as I drew close to the end of the pages. "He knew he was coming to an end and that there was unfinished business between the two of you that needed to be put to bed."

"Thanks," I said. "I needed this."

"Yes, yes, I think you did," Chuck said, his voice quiet. "I doubt you'll ever get a Christmas present as good as that one."

* * * *

We played doubles at the university's indoor courts in the early afternoon of December 27th. The athletic director, Harold Somebodyorother, a former Marine office who was a fifty-year-old, very-fit, buzz-cut hunk and a half, who was Daniel's boss and had been my dad's too, heard Daniel was getting up a doubles match and he wanted to play. I soon got the impression from the way he leered at me from across the net, as Daniel's partner, that he played male-on-male bedroom games too. He was just what I was used to happily going under in a daddy session.

My partner was a Thai student who couldn't make it home for the holidays and was happy for the contact. Chumporn and I were very good; Daniel and Harold were better. The match was a real workout, a slugfest between four very fit athletes, even though one of them had hit fifty.

Harold was hitting on me with all cylinders, but I really didn't think of that until later. My attention was fully on Daniel, who had laid me so well on Christmas Eve going into Christmas Day and with whom I had a date after this match to lay me again in my dad's condo. As some point, Harold turned his attention to Chumporn, who was receptive, and, after the match, we paired off, Daniel and me and Harold and Chumporn to skip off to our respective beds.

Daniel and I fucked like young gymnasts all over my dad's apartment. It was only later, after Daniel had gone and I was getting ready to go over to Chuck's apartment for dinner that it occurred to me that I was turning some sort of corner. Before I'd come to Fort Collins for Christmas, I would have latched into the former Marine officer's show of interest. He was a hunky older man—a daddy figure. I normally would have left this afternoon with him, for his bed. But I'd gone with the younger man. I hadn't needed approval from a daddy.

At dinner, Chuck asked me, "When do you plan on going back to Washington? I think all that's left here is putting the condo in a Realtor's hands and deciding whether to try to sell it furnished or engage someone in estate sales. I ask because I have this New Year's Party. I don't know if you'll be here for that and whether we can use your dad's condo—I guess your condo now—as well as my apartment."

"Will Daniel be at the party?" I asked.

"Of course," Chuck answered.

"I'll still be here. Sure, you can use the apartment. And I've been thinking I'll just keep it. I've been looking into the job market here. I think I might just be staying in Fort Collins."

Chuck gave me a knowing little smile.

I couldn't claim he was wrong in what he was thinking.