Taylor had secluded himself in the kitchen with a fifth of tequila, sitting on the counter top, knees hugged to his chest and his eyes fixed on the DVDs on his dining room table. They seemed to mock him, taunt him. Why had Flannery rented them? Sure it was a popular show and he knew a lot of people who had watched it and enjoyed it, but why had she brought them into his condo on the night she finally chose to confront him about her suspicions. She called it knowing and he called it both an accusation and a horrible betrayal of friend trust. Had she wanted him to see them? Had she hoped that they would watch them together, laughing and enjoying his newly admitted homosexuality? Was that what she had been predicting? Instead, he’d yelled at her for the first time since their meeting and he had never felt more confused in his entire life.
He put the bottle to his lips and took his sixth long sip, cringing at the taste of the liquid and fighting against the gag reflex that was threatening to fail. The doorbell rang several times in a row but Taylor made no moves to open it. If it was one of his brothers, they had a key and so did Tre. He knew that Flannery wouldn’t dare to come back over until he called her. It wasn’t her process. She was never the one to make an apology first, though when she reciprocated it was sincere. And so, he sat there while the doorbell rings turned to pounding fists and hoped that his eyes weren’t too red and puffy. Finally, the person on his front stoop unlocked the door and pushed it open.
“Taylor? Are you home?” Tre shouted out as he stepped tentatively across the threshold.
“I’m in here,” Taylor mumbled, his lips still wrapped around the mouth of the bottle, mid-swig.
“In where? Your bedroom? If you’re jerking off I’m just going to leave,” Tre laughed, “I missed you, but not that much– Jesus! What the hell are you doing?” He stopped short when he turned into the kitchen. Taylor wondered what he must look like to garner such a reaction. Instead of responding immediately, he just finished his sip before setting the bottle on the counter. “Is this about Zac’s bullshit, because seriously, this isn’t worth that. Zac’s an idiot.” Tre set his wallet on the counter before moving to stand in front of Taylor.
“Oh, this isn’t about Zac,” Taylor slurred, his eyes drooping despite his best efforts to keep them open, “This is about Flannery.”
“Did she stand you up for Jacob?” Tre asked, not that Flannery usually did that, but it was the only thing he could think of.
“She thinks I’m gay.”
“She told you that?”
“Oh yes, we had a lovely conversation and then I kicked her out.” Tre’s eyes opened wide and he moved closer.
“Okay, spill. What happened?” he demanded before snatching the bottle of tequila from Taylor’s hand and moving it out of his reach.
“We were watching ‘Eurotrip,’ and this guy licked another guy’s face, and I said it was gross, just in general that a stranger was licking another person’s face, and she made the comment that I wouldn’t mind something like that. And it escalated from there,” Taylor explained. Tre just shook his head in an attempt to figure out how best to respond.
“And you threw her out because you were mad of her accusing you of being gay?”
“No, I threw her out because she told me I was gay. She didn’t ask me if I was gay, she told me that it was about time I told her I was gay. Like it was the most obvious fucking thing in the world. Like everyone knows but me that I’m gay.”
“Well… are you gay?” Tre asked tentatively. Taylor planted his foot in the middle of Tre’s chest and shoved him away.
“Fuck off,” he muttered, rolling his eyes and crossing his arms over his chest.
“All I’m saying, Taylor, is that a typical straight man accused of being gay wouldn’t have reacted like this. He would have gotten mad, yelled, probably punched something or someone if he was a particularly big homophobe, but crying? Yes, I can tell you’ve been crying. Drinking tequila from the bottle? This isn’t the behavior of someone who knows they’re straight. This is the behavior of someone who isn’t so sure,” Tre told him. Taylor just sat there, staring at the cabinet and refusing to look at Tre, much like Flannery had refused to look at him a mere hour before. “Taylor, look at me.” Taylor sniffed and took in a deep ragged breath. He didn’t want to look at Tre because he knew that he was right. Before Flannery’s accusation he’d never even thought about it before. He’d always been so consumed with work since he was fourteen years old. He’d had girls throwing themselves at him and he’d taken some of them up on their offers. He’d never before taken the chance to sit back and think about why he avoided getting into relationships and why his “dry spells” had been getting longer and longer of late. The fact of the matter was that Flannery’s words had opened a floodgate of questions and general human discomfort.
“God, what would my parents say if I told them I was gay?” Taylor asked, wildly speculating not so much to Tre but to himself.
“I don’t know. Maybe you’ll get lucky and your mom will become a fag hag like Debbie Novotny,” Tre shrugged.
“Who the hell is that?”
“Debbie Novotny? From ‘Queer as Folk.’ Haven’t you been watching it?” he asked, gesturing towards the dining room table. Taylor shook his head and finally made the effort to lower himself back down to the ground. He half stumbled into the dining room both from the effects of the tequila and from the fact that his legs were partially asleep from being in that position on the counter for so long.
“Flannery brought these over! She kept them over here under the table in their own little bag. Wasn’t that sweet of her?” he asked, picking them up one by one and placing them in a neat stack.
“It’s season one… good shit,” Tre said, taking the top box from Taylor’s hands, “Any guy who can watch this show and not get a hard-on is straight. Seriously.” Taylor cocked an eyebrow and snatched the DVD back.
“Is that so?” he asked, heading over to the TV.
“Yup. Any honest to god gay man or straight woman I know thinks this show is insanely hot.”
“Straight women?” Taylor asked, raising an eyebrow at him.
“Yeah, for the same reason why hetero men like to watch two women go at it. It’s like… double the fun or something. I don’t know, but seriously. If you’re confused, this’d be an easy way to find out.”
“I really don’t think that watching an episode of a TV show is the best way to determine one’s sexuality, Tre,” Taylor huffed sassily. Tre threw up his hands.
“I didn’t say that. But it’s worth a shot, right?” Taylor shrugged and placed the DVD in the player.
“You want to stay and watch it with me?” he asked.
“I’d love to, man, but I have to go to work. Have fun with the show. I’ll call you tomorrow to see how it went,” he said, ruffling Taylor’s hair before heading for the door. Taylor didn’t even bother to say good-bye. He just waved his hand in the air and started the DVD. His gaze drifted down to his lap.
“Oh, it’s go time. You’re going to stay soft, god damn it! You’re going to do that and end all of this!” he scolded his penis as the menu music started to play. He danced in his seat, enjoying the techno beats as he cued up the first episode. “Bring it on, gay boys!”
He watched the pilot episode and actually found it to be quite amusing in his drunken state. The doorbell rang just as the guy in the alley was scoping out Michael, and he scurried off to answer it. No one was outside. He leaned out, hanging onto the doorframe and looking to his left and right. When he had determined that there was no one in sight, he looked down by chance and saw a stuffed giraffe sitting on his doorstep. He cocked his head to the side and looked at it for a second, making sure that he wasn’t drunk enough to be imagining it sitting there. Once he decided it was real, he bent down to pick it up and saw a note tied around its neck.
I saw this and thought of you, knew that you needed to have it. Please don’t hate me, Puppy, I only want you to be happy. I’ll call you tomorrow.
The note wasn’t signed, but it didn’t have to be for him to know that the note was written in Flannery’s curly scrawl. In the entire time he’d known her, she’d never been the one to make the first step towards reconciliation in any disagreement she’d been a part of, so he knew that she must have felt really bad about her accusation. Feeling quite validated, Taylor scooped the giraffe into his arms and cuddled it all the way to the kitchen where he grabbed the bottle of tequila and went back to his recliner just in time to catch the alley guy pull a fake ass out of the back of his pants.
“What the fuck?” Taylor laughed aloud, setting the giraffe deliberately on the arm of the recliner, “How could this show give anyone a boner?”
And with that, everything went fine. Taylor watched as Justin entered Brian’s loft for the first time, as Gus was named, and as Michael stopped Brian from jumping off the roof. He would have been the first person to admit that he was really only half paying attention as the tequila continued to flood his system and he found that making side comments to the giraffe was incredibly entertaining in his current state.
“Ha! ‘A, B, C, D, E, E, E!’ That’s awesome!” Taylor said to the giraffe, patting it on the head before looking at the screen again. Once his attention was refocused, Brian and Justin were back at Brian’s loft, picking up right where they had left off. Taylor watched with unwavering interest as Brian took Justin’s virginity. Under normal circumstances, he would have probably pretended to be uncomfortable with the scene, but these were definitely not normal circumstances. He was alone with a bottle of liquor, a newfound friend the stuffed giraffe, and he was still as confused as ever.
As the final credits rolled, he shook his head in an attempt to clear it from the fuzziness that was taking it over. He rubbed his hands all over his face before running them back through his hair, deciding that Flannery was right and he really did need a haircut. Taylor pressed stop on the remote and was about to let a smug smile overtake his face. Just as he was about to declare to the giraffe that he’d beaten the DVD, he finally ventured to take a look down at his lap.
“FUCK!” he screamed before grabbing the giraffe around its long neck and pulling its face even with his, “FUCK!! I’M GAY!”