Chapter 1 – Chapter 1

I rolled over in the bed, reaching for Esteban, but he wasn't there, setting off in me a mild zing of irritation. He'd gone to sleep last night while I was fucking him and now he wasn't there at all in the morning. This brought the decision I had to make back to mind and was, perhaps, yet another nail in the decision—two decisions actually. I had an opportunity to head up the Radio y Televisión Martí radio transmission operations from Marathon Key targeting to Cuba what we called information and the Cuban government called American propaganda. So that was one decision. But another decision was whether to ask Esteban to go with me or to encourage him to stay in Miami. It's unlikely the Miami Herald would have anything for him to do on Marathon Key.

I smelled the coffee brewing out in the kitchen. That might have been what woke me up to begin with. Groaning, I crawled out of bed and stumbled toward the shower. I had a full day's work to wedge into a half day in the office before I started out driving from Miami down to Marathon Key and then on, the next day, down to Key West to check out our Cuban radio-monitoring activity down there. And I hadn't even packed yet.

I'd needed a good fuck last night or this morning. I was strung out, and I needed something to siphon off some of the tension. Esteban had let me down. Esteban had been letting me down a lot lately—not least by letting himself go. We'd been together, what, fifteen years now? And it had only been of late that he'd slowed down. And it was showing in his waistline and the effect of gravity on his face.

This was all bringing my decision to a head. Maybe I was in a rut. Maybe Esteban was getting too old and slow and uninteresting for me. Something to think about. This had a great deal to do with going down to see the operation at Marathon Key. I didn't really have to see that operation for a decision on whether I wanted the job there. It was the further trip down to Key West that was motivating me to take this exploratory journey. Key West was less than fifty miles from Marathon. I could live there and just do with the overnight facilities at the Marathon office when I couldn't be more than an hour from work. Sometimes it took me more than an hour through traffic just to drive to work across Miami from my apartment.

Key West was where it was at; Key West was where it was happening. Life was short, and I had a lot of delicious young men to go through yet.

I started to include that I wasn't getting any younger, but that gave me a twinge. I looked into the mirror over the bathroom sink and then at myself full length in the tall mirror on the bathroom side of the door, and I choked down those words. I looked damn good. And I worked hard to stay that way—unlike what Esteban had been doing of late, whenever he took the time to try to keep in shape.

Esteban was just pouring the OJ and coffee and setting out an omelet and toast when I got to the kitchen.

"Gotta gobble fast," I said as I sat down to it. "Gotta pack. I'll be leaving from the office."

"You're all packed," Esteban said, as he sat down in a chair across from me and looked at me. I hadn't told him anything about the Marathon Key operation offer, but I could tell that he sensed there was something going on. "I did that last evening while you were on the computer—you'd left most of what you'll need out on the chair in the bedroom. I packed after I got the Jag gassed up for your trip."

"I'm packed? I wanted the glen plaid suit—"

"I'd taken it to the cleaners," Esteban said. "You somehow struggled with some marinara sauce at the paper's annual banquet last weekend, so I took it out to have it cleaned. Got it back yesterday afternoon, though, and it's packed with all of that other stuff you put out. You're taking an awful lot of party clothes for a business trip, I must say."

"Have you seen the radio script I brought home last night for editing? I thought I left it by the computer, but when I looked for it—"

"It's in your briefcase. I edited it for you. It's a good piece, but you really should read those aloud more when you write them, Carlos. It's not like written essays. Certain words don't come out right in spoken form when they are put together."

"You're always saying that."

"Because it's always true. I've been editing your radio copy for what? More than fifteen years now. I edited your copy before we hooked up—before I left the station and went to the paper."

"Yeah, yeah. I picked you because of your editing abilities."

The kitchen went silent. Esteban gave me a hurt look and went to the kitchen stove, turning away from me, and moved pots around in meaningless patterns on the stove top.

Embarrassed at having said that, and not meaning it, of course—we'd really had something going, at least until late—I swallowed my coffee in big gulps and stood to gather everything I needed and hit the road. He was so sensitive, getting to be high maintenance.

He wasn't at the door when I left; he was still puttering and pouting at the stove, facing away from me. I was relieved, really. We had a rule that when either of us left the apartment, the other one would be at the door for a kiss. Esteban was pretty adamant about that ritual. The man he'd been living with before he had hooked up with me had left one morning without a kiss, was run over by a hit-and-run driver, and died without ever returning. Esteban always said we needed to treat even the most temporary good-bye as if it was our last. But I wasn't in the mood for that sort of contact this morning; I thought that maybe all he had to do was look into my eyes and he'd know where I really was going—and why.

At the door, not wanting to leave in silence, I called out. "I think we're out of red wine."

"I'll stop and get some more on the way home tonight," he answered without turning.

"Well, I'm off."

"Have a good trip."

It was almost as if he knew what I was thinking about our relationship and how this trip might end it.

There was no kiss at the door.