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Ray isn’t snooping. He would never. It’s true that he’s standing in Patrick’s room in the middle of the day while Patrick happens to be at work, but there’s a very good reason for that.
His tenant has been so busy, and clearly very stressed out, ever since last week when he officially signed on as David Rose’s business partner.
Ray doesn’t think the partnership is going well; Patrick seems tense and depressed. Not that Ray has seen him, much—that’s part of the problem. He spends his mornings hiking by himself and his evenings alone in his room, and sometimes Ray thinks he might be crying in the shower, he takes so long in there. Then there’s the fact that, while usually very polite, he’d gotten a bit snippy when Ray asked if he thought perhaps he’d made a huge mistake by investing so early, in such a risky venture, with such a flighty business partner. Patrick had thanked him for his concern, but everyone in Ray’s church group—they’d been in the living room for bible study at the time—had agreed that his tone was snippy. Which was surprisingly rude of Patrick, really, since Ray had been offering to add the store to the group’s prayer request list.
Naturally he doesn’t hold any of this against Patrick. Starting a new business is difficult, and if anyone knows this, it’s Ray. He just wants to help. An organized closet won’t fix everything, but it will ‘box up life’s unnecessary stress,’ as is says on Closets by Ray’s Facebook page.
So that’s why Ray is standing in Patrick’s closet at midday on a Thursday: he’s strategizing, so he can come up with a definite plan for the space before he pitches the idea to Patrick.
Patrick’s room actually has a much nicer closet than the master bedroom. It’s larger, for one thing, and has better lighting. The door is made of wood slats, which adds texture and interest to the room. Once it’s properly organized, it will look great on the Facebook page.
Lost in thought, Ray doesn’t realize someone is in the house until he hears Patrick’s footsteps on the stairs.
He’s probably just dropping by to pick something up on his lunch break. Remembering how snippy Patrick has been recently, Ray makes a split second decision—no need to stress him out further by springing the closet reorganization idea on him right now, when he probably doesn’t have time to think it through properly. They can talk later, after Ray has perfected his pitch.
Very quietly, Ray closes the door of the closet with himself inside.
To his surprise, he hears Patrick walk around the whole upper floor before entering his room. He doesn’t call out, though, so Ray stays quiet.
When Patrick’s door finally opens, Ray peeks through the slats quickly, just to be sure it’s not a robber. He relaxes when he catches a flash of blue shirt and brown hair. Instead of grabbing something and leaving again, Patrick closes his door and sits on the bed, which creaks loudly—that mattress needs replacing, it must be at least 15 years old. After a moment he kicks off his shoes and stretches out, the mattress protesting loudly at every movement.
Napping in the middle of the day is a sign of depression, isn’t it? Ray frowns. This may call for more than a closet reorganization—perhaps Patrick needs a weekend away. Ray’s sister owns a lovely little bed and breakfast in Elm Valley.
He’s beginning to regret hiding. Patrick could sleep away his whole lunch hour, and Ray doesn’t even have his phone to play Angry Birds. Frowning again, he weighs Patrick’s possible snippiness against a whole hour of boredom and lost productivity. Maybe he should just announce himself and explain about the closet organizing. There’s a chance Patrick’s gratitude would distract him from the slight invasion of privacy.
But then he hears Patrick unzip his pants, and he knows he’s lost his window. Patrick is very particular about nudity—he’d been quite snippy the time Ray poked his head into the bathroom to ask him about dinner while he was still drying off from his shower.
At first Ray assumes Patrick is going to remove his pants in order to get more comfortable for his nap. He can’t seem to settle, though, the mattress creaking again and again under his weight. Then, in a pause between creaks, Ray hears the sounds of heavy breathing and skin rubbing skin.
He looks through the slats very briefly, just to confirm his suspicions, and sure enough, Patrick is laying on his back with his pants barely tugged to his thighs, masturbating. It’s very businesslike—he’s not watching pornography or doing anything with his nipples, just stroking himself, quick and rough.
Ray waits in silence, again regretting the lack of his phone. He suspects that he would feel very awkward right now if he was either a homosexual or a voyeur. Since he’s neither, he’s mildly uncomfortable with the situation, but mostly just bored. He tries to see his watch in the dim light.
“Yeah, let- let me,” Patrick says from the bed, making Ray startle. When he looks back toward the bed, he’s half expecting to see that someone else has joined in—but no, Patrick is sucking his own fingers. Perhaps in preparation to put them somewhere else? But no, they stay between his lips. Patrick moans around them, starts moving them in and out of his mouth.
Then, very suddenly, Patrick starts to come over his hand. His fingers don’t muffle the harsh “Oh, fuck, David” that he groans out very audibly over the mattress springs.
Well, that paints a different picture of things, Ray thinks, rearranging the pieces of his tenant’s puzzling recent behavior. It’s good news, he hopes, for the general store.
“What the fuck?” Patrick says, clearly to himself. He’s completely still on the bed, now, like his strings have been cut.
A phone rings, making both of them jump. For a horrible moment Ray thinks it’s his, but then he notes the folksy ring tone. Patrick wipes his hand on some tissues from the nightstand and grabs his cell.
“David, hi. I’m on my way back now. Yeah, sorry. I know. The errand took longer than expected.” It hadn’t taken long at all, actually, in Ray’s opinion. Much faster than expected.
“Ray got to talking.” Ray smiles, pleased to be Patrick’s alibi. They are becoming rather good friends, aren’t they? He makes a mental note to play along in the unlikely event that David ever asks him what Patrick was doing on his lunch break—he’ll say they were taking about closets.
“Ok, not tuna. Or egg salad. Right. David. David, I get it! I’ll be there in a few minutes. Bye.” He drops the phone and lays still for a long moment before saying, “What are you doing?” to the ceiling.
His tone makes it obvious that he’s not talking to Ray, but he still wants to reply. In any other circumstances, he’d say something comforting. Patrick sounds very unhappy, in a way that merely reorganizing his closet seems unlikely to fix.
Patrick wipes himself off with more tissues and stands with a sigh. He puts on his shoes and leaves the room, closing his door behind him. Ray hears him in the bathroom, then hears heavy footsteps down the stairs.
Ray doesn’t like feeling so powerless to help. He decides to tell his bible study—in confidence, of course—to pray that David Rose has a thing for polite (if slightly snippy) brunet businessmen.
—
Over a simple turkey and marinara pasta that night, Ray pitches his closet organization offer to Patrick.
“… And if you’d like to see an example of my work, I finished the garage yesterday—I can finally park my car in there again!”
“Oh, you’ve been parking your car in the garage?” Patrick sounds mildly alarmed. “Not the driveway?”
“Yes, since yesterday. Why?”
“Just... I didn’t realize.” Patrick takes a few more bites, then asks very casually, “So what did you do today? Showing any houses, or…”
Oh. Right.
Ray viciously tamps down on the impulse to tap his foot. “I had a showing in the morning, then I was consulting for a closet organization.”
Patrick stares at him for a moment, then nods slowly. “Ok. Well, sure. Thank you, Ray. My closet is kind of a mess.”