I got to the staff meeting room in the basement of Hefron Hall a little late for the scheduled inservice and had to scramble to find an available seat. Every MRA in the building was here and the small room was filled. Russell, from the other side of the room, made eye contact with me, smiled and silently nodded to the chair next to him. He saved me a seat. That’s when I realized that he liked me.
Russell had started here at Wrentham just a month ago. He was assigned to Ward D and I was in Ward A so we didn’t see each other that often but by chance it had turned out that his break and lunch schedule was the same as mine so we saw each other often in the breakroom.
You didn’t need to have a fine-tuned gaydar ability to pick Russell out of a crowd. While not overtly “queeny” he had a certain savoir-faire and gentility about him. His smooth Southern accent flowed gracefully from his mouth and he spoke with a refined and erudite vocabulary that surely, in these surroundings, only I fully comprehended. It always seemed as if he were getting ready to retire to the verandah and have his Mammy bring him a tall mint julep in a sterling silver cup.
But it was his clothing style that screamed out gay most acutely. Russell’s outfits were casual enough…they had to be in our line of work, but they were definitely not your usual blue collar fare. Egyptian cotton button-down shirts and Brooks Brothers khakis, even seersucker vests and the occasional straw hat. Yes, straw hat, ala 1930’s style! I think it was only a touch of humility and common sense which prevented him from further adornments such as sporting a Hermes ascot and TAG Heuer chronograph.
Despite his high-end fashion sense, Russell was at his core born and raised in the cornpone trailer trash set. His father had left his mother when Russell was just a baby and she’d struggled through the years as a single mother to barely put a roof over their heads.
When he turned 18 he left home and made his way north with his fag hag friend and came to settle in the sleepy suburbs south of Boston. How he ended up working here was beyond me. He didn’t seem the type. But it was better than working in a factory or something and paid fairly well when compared to other jobs in the area. I doubt he liked it though; he didn’t talk about it much.
As I sat in the seat he saved for me at that boring meeting I felt compelled to flirt with him and come-a-callin’ on him proper. I was intent on courtin’ me a Southern dandy.
The nurse conducting the inservice on something as dull as bloodborne pathogen precautions or something droned on. I revealed to Russell my panacea for getting through the scheduled hour long meeting; I’d hidden my Walkman cassette player in the pocket of my khakis and threaded the earphones discretely up from under my argyle cardigan sweater so I could listen to music. He smiled and complimented me on my good idea.
I had just received my newest Time-Life Classical Music of the Month cassette in the mail just before I'd left for work so I hadn’t yet listened to this tape. As the concerto played and passed to the second movement, my face flushed and my eyes started to well up with tears.
“What’s the matter?”, Russell caringly inquired.
“Nothing. It’s just that this is the most beautiful music I’ve ever heard…”, I replied as I dabbed my tears away.
I smiled, rewound the cassette to the start of the movement and handed Russell the headphones. I hit PLAY and watched him as he listened. I was thrilled to be sharing this with him. We’d talked before about classical music and I knew he was fond of it as well. As he listened, he smiled and our eyes locked in a dreamy gaze. Our friendship had crossed into the realm of lovers at that moment.
“What’s this called?”, he asked.
I read the cassette case, “Johann Sebastian Bach’s Suite No. 3 in D major…this movement is Air on the G string.”
We giggled.
Russell beamed a sly grin and leaned in towards me. He let his soft, warm lips touch my ear and whispered, “Maybe we could get together sometime and I could wear a G-string…”
So it was that a few hours later after our shift was over I drove him to his house so he could gather some overnight supplies including condoms and lube and took him to my apartment. We passionately fucked through the night and got very little sleep but when morning came we both had lots of energy. We were excited to be in love. Or, at least in lust.
Being a Saturday and a day off for both of us I suggested we spend the day together. We decided to go into Boston and visit the Isabella Gardner Museum. While getting ready for our daytrip, Russell saw that I had a women’s gold chain necklace with an opal and diamond pendant on my dresser.
“So do you do girls on the side or are you into drag?”, he joked holding the necklace up for me to see.
“No…”, I giggled, “I used to work at a restaurant and found that sitting in the lost and found box. Months went by and it was still there, so, I decided that if nobody were going to claim it, well then…”
“You stole it?”, he seemed excited as he ribbed me about my “procurement”.
“Well I wouldn’t call it stealing”, I earnestly defended my action. “It’s more like finders keepers…”
“…losers weepers”, he grinned, finishing the phrase. “Can I wear it under my shirt for the day?”, he begged, blinking puppy dog eyes at me.
“Sure. But please don’t lose it.”, I cautioned. After all, I too liked to wear this on occasion under my shirt. And I knew that if I needed money in a pinch I could hock it. It had to be worth a couple hundred bucks at least.
We took the train into Boston, caught the T to the Fenway area and had lunch at a nearby Au Bon Pain. We strolled through the beautiful galleries and gardens of the museum for several hours. As we were about to leave, Russell started patting his chest in panic.
“It’s gone!”, he exclaimed.
“The necklace? You think it slipped off somehow?”, I asked.
We retraced our steps but it was nowhere to be found. Russell seemed devastated and kept apologizing to me as we made our way back to Wrentham. I wasn’t that concerned since I never paid anything for it, but I was a little disappointed that he lost something of mine so quickly.
The mild disappointment morphed slowly yet methodically towards feelings of mistrust and regret. I couldn’t shake the tingling feeling that the necklace wasn’t really lost, it was in his pocket. I could never approach him about this suspicion though, that would be, well, uncouth.
As the train pulled into Franklin station and we got into my car so I could drive him to his car which was still parked at work from the night before, our previously comfortable ease with one another began to dry up. I drove in silence for the ten minute ride and I knew that as quickly as it had begun, this little fling was over.
We stayed friendly enough at work but the spark had fizzled. Within a month or two, Russell had finally burned out at work and quit Wrentham. I called him around the holidays and found out he was packing to move back to Tennessee. We promised to stay in touch, but as often happens, we never did.
Russell had started here at Wrentham just a month ago. He was assigned to Ward D and I was in Ward A so we didn’t see each other that often but by chance it had turned out that his break and lunch schedule was the same as mine so we saw each other often in the breakroom.
You didn’t need to have a fine-tuned gaydar ability to pick Russell out of a crowd. While not overtly “queeny” he had a certain savoir-faire and gentility about him. His smooth Southern accent flowed gracefully from his mouth and he spoke with a refined and erudite vocabulary that surely, in these surroundings, only I fully comprehended. It always seemed as if he were getting ready to retire to the verandah and have his Mammy bring him a tall mint julep in a sterling silver cup.
But it was his clothing style that screamed out gay most acutely. Russell’s outfits were casual enough…they had to be in our line of work, but they were definitely not your usual blue collar fare. Egyptian cotton button-down shirts and Brooks Brothers khakis, even seersucker vests and the occasional straw hat. Yes, straw hat, ala 1930’s style! I think it was only a touch of humility and common sense which prevented him from further adornments such as sporting a Hermes ascot and TAG Heuer chronograph.
Despite his high-end fashion sense, Russell was at his core born and raised in the cornpone trailer trash set. His father had left his mother when Russell was just a baby and she’d struggled through the years as a single mother to barely put a roof over their heads.
When he turned 18 he left home and made his way north with his fag hag friend and came to settle in the sleepy suburbs south of Boston. How he ended up working here was beyond me. He didn’t seem the type. But it was better than working in a factory or something and paid fairly well when compared to other jobs in the area. I doubt he liked it though; he didn’t talk about it much.
As I sat in the seat he saved for me at that boring meeting I felt compelled to flirt with him and come-a-callin’ on him proper. I was intent on courtin’ me a Southern dandy.
The nurse conducting the inservice on something as dull as bloodborne pathogen precautions or something droned on. I revealed to Russell my panacea for getting through the scheduled hour long meeting; I’d hidden my Walkman cassette player in the pocket of my khakis and threaded the earphones discretely up from under my argyle cardigan sweater so I could listen to music. He smiled and complimented me on my good idea.
I had just received my newest Time-Life Classical Music of the Month cassette in the mail just before I'd left for work so I hadn’t yet listened to this tape. As the concerto played and passed to the second movement, my face flushed and my eyes started to well up with tears.
“What’s the matter?”, Russell caringly inquired.
“Nothing. It’s just that this is the most beautiful music I’ve ever heard…”, I replied as I dabbed my tears away.
I smiled, rewound the cassette to the start of the movement and handed Russell the headphones. I hit PLAY and watched him as he listened. I was thrilled to be sharing this with him. We’d talked before about classical music and I knew he was fond of it as well. As he listened, he smiled and our eyes locked in a dreamy gaze. Our friendship had crossed into the realm of lovers at that moment.
“What’s this called?”, he asked.
I read the cassette case, “Johann Sebastian Bach’s Suite No. 3 in D major…this movement is Air on the G string.”
We giggled.
Russell beamed a sly grin and leaned in towards me. He let his soft, warm lips touch my ear and whispered, “Maybe we could get together sometime and I could wear a G-string…”
So it was that a few hours later after our shift was over I drove him to his house so he could gather some overnight supplies including condoms and lube and took him to my apartment. We passionately fucked through the night and got very little sleep but when morning came we both had lots of energy. We were excited to be in love. Or, at least in lust.
Being a Saturday and a day off for both of us I suggested we spend the day together. We decided to go into Boston and visit the Isabella Gardner Museum. While getting ready for our daytrip, Russell saw that I had a women’s gold chain necklace with an opal and diamond pendant on my dresser.
“So do you do girls on the side or are you into drag?”, he joked holding the necklace up for me to see.
“No…”, I giggled, “I used to work at a restaurant and found that sitting in the lost and found box. Months went by and it was still there, so, I decided that if nobody were going to claim it, well then…”
“You stole it?”, he seemed excited as he ribbed me about my “procurement”.
“Well I wouldn’t call it stealing”, I earnestly defended my action. “It’s more like finders keepers…”
“…losers weepers”, he grinned, finishing the phrase. “Can I wear it under my shirt for the day?”, he begged, blinking puppy dog eyes at me.
“Sure. But please don’t lose it.”, I cautioned. After all, I too liked to wear this on occasion under my shirt. And I knew that if I needed money in a pinch I could hock it. It had to be worth a couple hundred bucks at least.
We took the train into Boston, caught the T to the Fenway area and had lunch at a nearby Au Bon Pain. We strolled through the beautiful galleries and gardens of the museum for several hours. As we were about to leave, Russell started patting his chest in panic.
“It’s gone!”, he exclaimed.
“The necklace? You think it slipped off somehow?”, I asked.
We retraced our steps but it was nowhere to be found. Russell seemed devastated and kept apologizing to me as we made our way back to Wrentham. I wasn’t that concerned since I never paid anything for it, but I was a little disappointed that he lost something of mine so quickly.
The mild disappointment morphed slowly yet methodically towards feelings of mistrust and regret. I couldn’t shake the tingling feeling that the necklace wasn’t really lost, it was in his pocket. I could never approach him about this suspicion though, that would be, well, uncouth.
As the train pulled into Franklin station and we got into my car so I could drive him to his car which was still parked at work from the night before, our previously comfortable ease with one another began to dry up. I drove in silence for the ten minute ride and I knew that as quickly as it had begun, this little fling was over.
We stayed friendly enough at work but the spark had fizzled. Within a month or two, Russell had finally burned out at work and quit Wrentham. I called him around the holidays and found out he was packing to move back to Tennessee. We promised to stay in touch, but as often happens, we never did.