Second Chance: The Sweetest Apple

If Matty Allan lived to be one hundred years old he would never get used to the stifling summertime heat in New Orleans. When he moved there twenty years earlier fresh out of culinary school to work in a brand new restaurant, he thought he'd get used to it. All these years later, from at least May until October, he still found himself walking around the house wearing either a flimsy pair of the sheerest cotton underwear he owned or nothing at all.
Matty's partner of twenty years, Archie Bartholomew, often frowned in Matty's direction on hot days. Sometimes he even shook his head and made a face that resembled a cross between a cringe and a foul taste. Archie and Matty now owned a chain of exclusive French restaurants and Archie took pride in his image and the image associated with all that he'd worked so hard to build.
The restaurant chain, La Bonne Auberge, had been featured globally in the best cookery publications. They'd won culinary awards, had been featured on television nationwide, and had published over one dozen French cookbooks. Celebrities, politicians, and the most privileged had been seen dining at La Bonne Auberge, from Los Angeles to Washington, D. C., which created such a buzz the waiting list for reservations in any given city was over two months long. And when Archie's partner walked naked or in sweat stained underwear around the house Archie often left snide remarks or impudent suggestions about the difference between what he thought of as crude and proper behavior for people who had obtained a certain position in life.
On one hot Monday morning in August, Matty loped into the kitchen wearing nothing but a sheer cotton cloth around his waist. The cloth rode so low along his lower abdomen traces of pubic hair appeared right above the protuberance between his legs. Archie was sitting at the kitchen table sipping tea in his crisp white polo shirt and light blue cotton shorts. He took one look at the way Matty was dressed and said, "The lawn man is here today. Maybe you should at least put on a robe long enough to cover your ass."
Matty reached for a packet of coffee above the expensive coffee maker he still couldn't figure out and rolled his eyes. He didn't feel like arguing with Archie that morning. It was too hot. Even though the big old mansion had central air-conditioning, the units were all installed in the attic above the third floor and the kitchen and most of the first floor remained the hottest rooms in the house. Those old homes had not been designed for central air-conditioning, but whenever Matty suggested they put small window units in the downstairs rooms Archie would make a face and tell him, "That would look terrible," in a dismissive tone.
Archie took another sip of tea and said, "The lawn man might see you walking around that way through the window and wonder. You know how people talk."
While the coffee started to drip into Matty's mug, he reached for a bottle of vodka he kept on a shelf next to the coffee packets and said, "I'm sure the lawn man will live. Besides, it's not the first time he's seen me naked. Last week I went swimming naked in the pool while he was trimming the boxwoods. He didn't care. I think he likes seeing me naked." He'd caught the lawn man watching him swim naked in the pool. The guy had been jacking off in the bushes.
Archie glared at the bottle of vodka and made another face. "Isn't it a little early for that?"
Matty turned to face him, lifted the bottle, and twirled it around a few times. "It's never too early, baby, especially not here in happy house." Then, in a move he knew would really make Archie clench his teeth, he set the bottle down, yanked off the towel, and scratched his crotch in such a vulgar, obnoxious way even he felt a little trashy doing it.