Free Heres to You Mr Robinson by Barry Lowe Page B

feeling of warmth and security I get when I slip under the familiar covers, I’d be a wealthy man.
    The sound of kids play screaming woke me an hour or so later. It was an unfamiliar sound in this neighbourhood and I sat up in bed. A deep masculine voice shouted, “Don’t go on the road, you hear me?” I’d never heard that voice before but I sensed immediately to whom it belonged: Mr. Robinson. Luckily, my upstairs bedroom faced the street and I was at the window in seconds. Pulling the curtains aside, I peered over the road and down a few houses.
    I was right. Mr. Robinson had obviously picked up his son and daughter from school. He chased around after them making them laugh and shout, enough to disturb the whole neighbourhood. He must have realised because he stopped suddenly and looked about as if guilty. Then he raised his eyes and looked directly at my window. I gasped. Even from this distance I could see his eyes flutter wide revealing their intense blue. He seemed surprised, as if he weren’t expecting to see anyone watching him, and then his face broke into a wide smile. He clapped his hands and gathered the boy and girl to take them into the house all the way keeping his eyes on my window where I was paralysed with desire, too excited even to swallow.
    I drove mum mad with questions about the neighbours, hoping that I covered my tracks concerning my throbbing desire for Mr. Robinson by asking about the children and his wife as well. She could tell me frustratingly little and attempted several times to change the subject. My dad turned up with my younger sister, Terri, and the subject was mothballed for the time being. He asked polite questions about my studies, skirting the personal, and lauded my scholarly success. My little sister merely grumped that I’d come home to usurp her position as favoured child. She would have to share the accolade for the duration of my stay. It would be an uneasy truce.
    I excused myself to shower and head out to see Troy who welcomed me with a hug as welcoming as my old bed and a chaste kiss on the cheek. I kept my inquisitiveness on a leash as I listened to him rave about his partner, Vince, who would be joining us later for dinner. I could read the love and affection he harboured for his boyfriend but it became mawkish and repetitive. In the midst of yet another long paean to his mate’s perfection, I interrupted.
    “What can you tell me about Mr. Robinson?”
    I thought he would be pissed off, but he smiled indulgently. “Sorry, I do go on a bit. Mr. Robinson? So, you’ve seen him then?”
    “He’s hard to miss.”
    “That he is. And knowing your attraction to older men I knew you wouldn’t miss him.”
    “Come on, spill.”
    “He’s gorgeous. Built like a brick shithouse. Gay guys drive up the street on a Saturday morning just to ogle his body as he washes his car.”
    “What?”
    “He does it stripped to the waist. Vince has driven past and says the street is a bottle neck around eleven in the morning. He has washboard abs, pecs of steel, although how anybody knows without touching them I’m not sure, biceps like outsize walnuts, and speaking of his nuts…well, no one knows because they’ve never seen them.”
    “Shit,” I pouted.
    “He’s married with two kids. Never turns up at the bar, has never been seen at that toilet beat in the park, and absolutely nobody has snared him in one of the local gay social groups on the net. His kids are happy and well-adjusted while his wife is, I have it on good authority as I’m no expert, as appealing to heterosexual men and lesbians as he is to gay men and straight women.”
    When Vince arrived I warmed to him immediately, although he could add little to unravelling the Mr. Robinson mystique. The meal was top notch, Troy has a real flair in the kitchen, and we adjourned to the lounge room where Vince was content to sit back and listen as we two old friends waxed nostalgic about our years growing up together. When