In Medias Res Read Online Free PDF Page A

pair of navy blue Duck Head shorts. I traded in my heavy boots for airy brown sandals. I activated the alarm that had given me such pause earlier, locked the front door, and headed down the steps. I took a left when I reached the sidewalk. According to the guidebook that rested on the coffee table in the living room, United Street crossed Duval, the crowded stretch of road that was Key West’s main drag for tourists. Bars, restaurants, and art galleries lined both sides of the thoroughfare.
    A few blocks from the house, down on South Street, was the Atlantic Shores, an oceanfront resort for gay men. A couple of blocks past that, back on United, was Pearl’s Rainbow, a sprawling guesthouse for women. I could hear the sound of music and raucous laughter drifting over the high privacy fence that surrounded the property. Good fences might make good neighbors, but they also make curious ones. I’m sure I wasn’t alone in wondering what went on on the other side of this one.
    On the street, rainbow flags flew everywhere. I wondered whose idea it had been to purchase a house so close to a gay enclave—mine, Jack’s, or our real estate agent’s.
    As I approached the former home of The Chicken Store on the corner of United and Duval, a woman on a Day-Glo yellow scooter slowed to check me out. Since scooters were the primary mode of transportation on the island, I couldn’t tell if she were a tourist or a local.
    She wore an orange bikini top and a pair of skimpy denim cutoffs. The bulging muscles in her firm bronze thighs were thick and corded, as if she worked them out constantly. Her feet were shod, if you could call it that, in thick-soled flip-flops. A pair of interlocked women’s symbols was tattooed on the outside of her right ankle. Her evenly tanned skin displayed no tan lines. Either she worked in the sun or spent a great deal of time playing underneath it.
    “Need a ride?” she asked.
    “No, I’m fine, thanks.”
    I kept walking. She shadowed me. “A tour guide then?”
    “I think I can handle it by myself.”
    I made a right turn. She followed suit. Combing her brown hair with her fingers, she pulled her wraparound sunglasses off her face and perched them on top of her head. Her blue eyes sparkled in my direction. “Are you sure?”
    I held up my left hand so she could see my wedding ring. “I’m married.”
    “Married doesn’t mean dead,” she replied.
    “But it does mean committed.”
    “I always thought commitment was for asylums. I’m Marcy. If you change your mind about that whole commitment thing, I’ll be around.”
    “I’ll keep that in mind.”
    She smiled, revealing peach pit dimples in both cheeks. “See you at the sunset celebration?”
    Every night in Mallory Square, tourists and locals joined the area’s artists, street performers, and musicians to celebrate the end of another day in paradise. “Maybe,” I said noncommittally. I was flattered by the attention but not interested. The last thing I needed was a vacation fling.
    She smiled again. “See you there.” She revved the scooter’s engine and did a U-turn, speeding off in the other direction. Mallory Square was at the beginning of Duval; she was headed for the end.
    I didn’t plan on taking her up on her offer to help me forgo my commitment to Jack. Even though I couldn’t remember it, I had made it. Nevertheless, her proposal intrigued me. Trying not to draw attention, I’d kept my head down all day. I’d barely given myself a second glance, let alone anyone else. But, on some level, I was attracted to her. Whether it was her carefree attitude or her killer thighs, I wanted to see her again.
    The fact that I was married made it easy for me to assume that I was heterosexual, but it didn’t guarantee it. I wondered if Marcy had stopped to talk to me because she saw me as a kindred spirit or as just another pretty face.
    I wondered, too, how I saw myself. Was I gay? Was I straight? Was I bi? Something as fundamental as