I was only a high school graduate and working as a line cook with the title of Assistant Manager in a restaurant. On my birthday of all days the manager and his wife took off. The district manager decided at the age of twenty-five I should be made a manager. I move to day shift and make the server Martha on night shift the night manager. We hire a new line cook for night shift.
Meet Chris 27 bodybuilder and part time stripper at parties was also the new line cook on graveyard. He unfortunately got evicted from his apartment before he got his first paycheck. For the two days he crashed in the back seat of my truck without me knowing it. Day three I got all the way home before him passed out in the back seat. Against my better judgement I say he can crash at my place. I am off tomorrow.
It is eight at night. I have been at work since six am and he has been asleep in my truck for twelve hours. He was wide awake and hungry, and cooked us a grilled cheese sandwich with a fried egg in it. He had coffee I had a beer. I got him a pillow sheet and blanket for the couch. I explain the second bedroom is full of storage crap I cannot throw away yet and no bed. I told him to watch TV or play video games, whatever he wants.
I go to my bedroom to crush, and Chris suggests a back rub. He has worked as a professional massage therapist, and it is the lease he can do. Weird to be in my underwear in front of an employee. He was in fact awesome at this. I just fell asleep at some point. I woke promptly as always at 5:30 am as always. Except I was spooning with the night cook who was naked. I should start calling him Chris considering how up close a personal I was getting. He was wide awake and suggesting we do gay stuff without saying a word.
He finally breaks the silence in the room I have seen the second bedroom boss, let us do gay stuff. With my secret out and him volunteering to do gay stuff with me. I proceed to have gay sex for the first time with someone I work with.
I am in fact a closeted 25-year-old slightly redneck gay man that drives thirty plus miles or more once a month to do gay stuff out of town. It is a small town, and my history would suggest I am not an out of the closet gay guy. I like to keep my doing gay stuff private. I have a few select gay friends I choose to get naked with that I would never see at work and that is it.
Forty-five minutes later Chris knows a lot more about me than he should, and I realize the bodybuilder ladies’ man striper is just the closet he hides in. The man gets girly in bed and likes to be manhandled. We were in recovery when he suggested he would love to help me set up the second bedroom. Then I was clarifying he was not asking to move in just to use the equipment. I had to ask.
Me - The weight equipment or the leather stuff?
Chris - Everything.
Chris would go on to explain he got married and divorced right out of high school. A bodybuilding competition at eighteen was too much muscle in one hotel. He left gay and got a divorce two weeks later. His parents said they never want to see him again. It has been nine years, and he has not talked to them since.
I explain I came out after high school met and fell in love with a UPS truck driver who was into rough gay stuff. He died in a traffic accident and that is where it all came from. That was five years ago.
I then proceed to go off on a rant how important it is to me that any connection to gay stuff does not get back to work. Chris has lived here a while and understands and agrees. One strip shows a month net's him three hundred plus tips. Gay stuff would kill his side gig.
It was an odd day in general. I never have a house guest; I never spend time together in my underwear in front of someone. I was unpacking crap I had not seen or touched in four years or more. Two very closeted gay guys were spending time together hoping this moment would not come back to haunt them.
Ten minutes to find a support beam that crosses the room we could use. The second hook was flawless, the first will need a more that normal patch job. Chris offers to test it out to see if it will support his weight. It swings back and forth a good two feet, and Chris asks if he can sleep there tonight.
I suggest I need more that coffee, and we take a break for munchies. I made us a wine glass of yogurt, granola, bananas, and strawberries. I bring up he needs to find somewhere else to sleep. I get a look of disappointment. Which is why I do not do this crap. He tells me he is locked out of his place and has ten days to pay rent. Payday is two days away, and he will have a place to live again. I asked how much he needed.
Chris - Two hundred dollars.
Me - I can loan it to you.
Chris - I don't have the cash flow to pay my bills and by you back.
Me - Then do not it can be payment for that message you gave me.
Chris - I would take the cash for a dance.
Me - You perform a song for two hundred dollars, and we call it even and you go back to the room you rent.
Chris - Of course. We need to set it up, and you need a beer or two first.
I am cleaning my house and doing laundry which is the only thing I normally do on my days off. He has a single kitchen chair set up in the living room and his boombox or Karaoke machine not sure. It never occurred to me to strip you have put clothes on first. He finally yells to have a seat. I sit the Windex bottle down and grab my third beer.
The man comes out wearing a tuxedo and white gloves. It took him ten minutes to get to a g string and shortly after that he stopped the music and took me to the second bedroom where we spent most of the rest of the night.
I have never had this much sex in a short amount of time. We were more like a pretzel then two spoons. At 5:40 am, I slip out of a knot and make coffee. I hurt due to the exercise of having physical sex. The man's a bodybuilder twice my size and makes me work for both of our pleasure. It has been forever for that kind of gay stuff. That was my past life and around the age of twenty-one. When my lover died in the car vs a UPS truck that version of me died too. If anything, I crawled back into a closet of my own making. Five years of very limited normal gay stuff once a month.
Coffee has magical healing powers. I woke up Chris at seven am with a cup, he was grateful. Throw on some shorts to join me in the kitchen. He asks' if I can drop him off at his room, to pay his landlord. He has to work tonight at ten. It would give him a chance to do some washing before work. I said I will jump in the shower give me ten minutes. Three minutes into the shower he joins me. Which added an extra twenty minutes.
I had seen the building many times and wonder what it was. It was an old hotel with shared men’s or women’s bathrooms and showers on each floor. The managers were on the first floor across from the laundry room which was under repair. He was a jerk; He also wanted the next two weeks in advance. I explained Chris gets paid this Friday and would pay it then. It was not due yet. I follow them upstairs. He removes the padlock on the door so we can go inside. Reminding Chris if he has laundry to do, he will have to go to the one down the street.
The place looked ransacked, like they had dumped the contents of a dresser, mostly clothes, onto his bed. Chris starts picking things up and putting them back. The murphy bed diapers into a closet. exposing to chairs and a small table. Pulled out from the corner it was a different room then when we came in. Chris says I have lived here over six months, and he treats me like crap. I said I had to take a leak and he suggested we go elsewhere. I suggest I cannot and yet should have just peed myself. The place was just gross.
We left and stopped at the first fast food place where the bathroom was spotless. I buy us lunch, we say goodbye. I will see him in the morning. I get back to my closet and go back to being alone at home. It was nice not having to talk, I turned on some music and
I think about interruptions to my normal. How much I like my closet.
How much I enjoyed my last two days off. What are the chances he is going to tell everyone or anyone at the restaurant?
I went in the next morning, and he was extremely happy to see me. So was the night manager. Who pulls me into the office to explain she has a crush on our new cook. She thinks he is wonderful. I reminded her she had a crush on me several years ago for two weeks. Now that she is a manager, everyone will kiss her butt, even the customers.
The week flew by and if was both our "Fridays" again. Sundays we get hit by an after-church crowd but then it dies by seven pm. Chris asks if I have any plans and I say none, just hanging out at home. He asks if he can stop by. I asked if his laundry room were fixed yet and suggested he could bring his over to do at my house. He asks around eight. I say sure with a smile having to stop making eye contact.
At eight pm the doorbell chimes and I let Chris in. He drops his laundry. Pushes me against the wall and shoved his tongue down my throat and I managed to kick the door close. He starts chewing on my neck telling me to do gay stuff to him. So, I did, and we both got rug burns in the process. We move to the bedroom removing the sheets from the bed in the process. Mattress Burns.
A burn is defined as damage to a layer of skin. Depending on how deep the damage determined the level of "burn" and or the level of pain. Our need to press our flesh was sexual wrestling. Weird I would always win considering how much bigger and stronger he was then me. He loved making me work for it. As I was learning what buttons to push to make him concede. It was in fact an awesome weekend. A weekend play date that allowed us to be in the closet except at my house that would continue for months.
Chris gets notice form the city that the building has been unsafe. Everyone has 24 hours to evacuate. The Red Cross can help with temporary housing or shelter. I gave him a week at my place to find an apartment. On the condition we are just roommates until our weekend. The whole thing was silly. I got home at seven and he left for work at 9:30. We would see each other at work eight hours later at shift change.
Three weeks later no change in our arrangement. Three months later were kissing each other goodbye at home, and fist bumping at work. I would come home, and shower and he would join me that lasted a month until I got the water bill.
Corporate spent the weekend and seemed to be pleased. Then on the last night there they caught the night manager giving away free food to the same table as the night before. I was called in to work and deal with the problem. Then we pull all comped tickets, and she is comping four people eating almost the something five nights a week. She was sent home as temporarily suspended pending more investigation. She just flat out and quit admitting to doing it.
It was a corporate idea to offer the job to Chris. I got a raise and was able to give Chris more per hour. He agreed to clock out forty hours a week. Chris and I spent more time at work together now that he was an assistant manager. Things were in a weird place because we found a way to keep things separate.
It was my birthday again, and a year after I became manager. A year since I hired Chris as the nighttime cook. The police show up at my house at 2 am to say there has been a shooting at the restaurant. An employee and a customer have been taken to the hospital. They offer me a ride to the emergency room or the restaurant. I called the restaurant and the dishwasher explained Daniel was shot in his gut and it was by the previous night manager. Then she shot herself.
The ride to the hospital took a few minutes but seem to last forever. I just kept repeating over and over, not another one. I cannot lose another. Who was I losing? My night manager. He was being worked on when I got there. They had removed the bullet and were repairing the damage. He was expected to survive.
Things get weird when his parents show up. They live in Saint Joe thirty miles from here and were on his emergency contact list. I introduce myself as the manager of the restaurant. His mother said it has been ten years since they spoke, she has asked God for one more chance to tell him she loves him unconditionally. His father who he was a young version of sat next to her, with his hand in in hands.
I go to work and talk to the staff as a few customers that were still hanging out. I told everyone we reopen at seven which would give the morning crew a chance to make father adjustments. I spent thirty minutes on the phone with my district manager. He will be in town sometime tomorrow. I am to message him with any news on Chris.
The breakfast crowd hardly noticed the crime scene tape, or the one police car left. With everything covered, I headed back to the hospital.
Chris had been moved to a room to recover and was not awake. His parents were with him and, but I had no permission to see him and next of kin only issue. I left word with his mother to please call me when he wakes up. If she and her husband need anything to please let me know.
She calls with questions thirty minutes later.
Mom - Do you have his address? My husband needs to get some real sleep. He has keys but no address.
Me - Chris recently moved and he has not changed his address at work. The restaurant will provide you with a room across the street at the Marriott. I will call and make the arrangements and call you back.
Mom - Thank your young man. That would be great. Chris woke up for just a minute, saw us both and went back to sleep. The Doctor says he will wake up in a couple of hours very hungry.
Me - I can help you wake him up. Just yell loudly ...Chris your boss is on the phone.
Mom - Chris, your boss is on the phone.
Chris - My boss or my boyfriend?
Mom - Wow oh my god it worked. He is awake. Wait he asked his boss or his boyfriend what should I tell him?
Me - Tell him both.
Mom - You boys talk to each other.
Chris - Where are you?
Me - You must tell the Nurse to add me to a list to let me come back there to see you. I am on my way.
Weird that rug burns are due to uncontrollable friction and our skin loses. A burn that is not about fire but what you feel. It burns. A war wound, from a play date. This is the most important part. Rug burns are self-inflicted.
This too burns inside my brain like not again it would hurt too much to suffer this lose. A burn in my heart saying I do not care who knows hiding this is wrong. For so many reasons. I give my name on the desk yes Chris is expecting you and a buzz to get let through the door. Room C she says.
I walk into a room full of people. A doctor, a nurse, and two police detectives alone with their parents. We made eye contact. I asked if I should come back in a few minutes. Everyone in the room including Chris yelled no. Then everyone cracked up laughing. He insists I come over and come out by giving him a hug. He bursts into tears telling the room and me he loves me too much to not say it aloud. I say it back for the record and because he needed me to.
He shows me where he got shot and we answer questions posed by the detectives. He has three more days in the hospital and three days off work and then on light duty for a week or two. I go to the restaurant the next day, and everyone wants to know what is going on with Chris. I will explain he will be back to work in a week.
Out of the back of the crowd the graveyard dishwasher, who speaks just a little English ask.
Jaun - After Chris got shot, he told me to tell his boyfriend he loved him. Did you know Chris was gay?
Me - Yes, I knew.
Jaun - Oh, so boss, do you know who his boyfriend is? So, I can tell him.
Me - You just did.
Jaun was the only that got it. He spent three days telling everyone we were gay. Until Chris and I showed up at the restaurant together the day he got out. Chris was hanging on to me so tight, and very proud that he could. Jaun made fifty dollars off bets.
Not coming out was a self-inflicted wound, our personal rug burn.
My closet was to focus on work. Chris closet was to make money off ladies. Chris's parents had one of their own. They were going out of their way to make that burn heal. The four of us in a booth catching up on the last ten years with a slice of birthday cake few days late.
Rug Burns - Story Time Blog
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