Bedrooms and Bath Houses

[ChrisGibson]

As Mike drifted off, he heard a bus pulling down Fullerton, and he felt Ben sink back onto the mattress. Timidly, Ben reached for him, and to encourage him, Mike pressed himself into Ben and took his hand, and the next thing he knew it was morning.



Ben’s long hands.

Life had been lonely enough, especially the stretch of years he didn’t care to talk about. Michael loved waking up like people in the movies, with the sun in his face, coming through his window, even if he was about to get up and shut the blinds. He loved waking up in Ben’s arms, long and strong, powerful and gentle, with the bridge of Ben’s long nose pressed into his back. He loved when Ben came all the way down here for him and spent the night in his apartment. He loved Ben’s stuff lying around, his pants, his socks, his comic books.

He remembered the first time he’d gone to a comic book store with Ben. It was in Boystown, not far off Belmont, with high ceilings, wood floors and inward people, and Ben had browsed the racks telling him all about manga and the difference between a graphic novel and a comic book compilation, and he had loved it because Ben loved it and he was such a nerd and he felt tender to him because by then they’d been sleeping together for a month and his bed sheets smelled like Ben and the Old Spice Ben wore, because he was kind of an old man, scented the little apartment off Fullerton regularly. After all that talk, Ben hadn’t bought anything that day, and as they left, Mike said, “Can you really do that?” and Ben shrugged and said, “You can do all sorts of things.”

They walked Clark Street hand and hand and Mike had never felt owned, never felt like he belonged to someone. He was a treasure, and it was pleasure for his hand to be enfolded in Ben’s large one, and Ben asked where they should go to lunch and Mike shrugged and said, “Shwarma sounds nice,” because he’d heard of it but never had it, and he wanted to be a man of the world.

He thought of those things as he lay still half asleep, naked, his body heated and clothed by Ben’s naked body, Ben’s long arm draped over him, Ben’s long hand in his, Mike tracing with fascination his fingers, running over the bumps of his knuckles the lines in them. His answering machine was flashing, and Mike stretched and thought to kill two birds with one stone, closing the shade and checking messages. Ah, three stones—though that was never a phrase—and make the coffee before climbing back into bed with the sleeping Ben Forrester.

“Hello, Michael,” it was Swann Portis sounding formal. “I just wanted to call to say we are back in town, and we would love for you to call back. We will be here all morning, and if you don’t get to us, well then we may call you from Evanston tonight. Around 7:15. Cheers.”

Mike almost forgot he was nude as he stood before the phone, hip cocked, tongue rolling in his mouth. Ah, that was clever. Swann was always clever. Doug would have told Swann everything and Swann being Swann, he would have had no judgment, but he would have had advice, and he would have told Doug he couldn’t very well call himself. He could, but it might be awkward. So Swann had called saying we, we, we, meaning Doug was back. Doug wants to talk to you at 7:15.

Mike moved to the kitchenette and rinsed out the coffee pot, looking at Ben over the divider between the two rooms. Ben made him feel like the innocent person he wanted to be. Even when they were fucking. Even when it was rough and dirty, there was something Catholic school and simple about Ben. The whole reason they were a couple was because of that. One night stands sat badly with Ben, and the idea of being friends with benefits or anything like that was off to him. If you liked and cared for someone, and you were fucking them on a regular basis, of course he was your boyfriend. And because Mike wanted to be like Ben, what made sense to Ben made sense to him too.

He poured the water slowly into the reservoir of the coffee maker, listening to the ripple and glug of it’s flow. He made sure to stop at the six cup mark.

If being with Ben made him feel like the innocent Midwestern Catholic school boy he wanted to be, then the thing about even the mention of Douglass Perrin, was that it instantly made him the person he really was, and that person he had been ashamed of, but now, as he returned to bed, he realized he was beginning to love himself. Michael feared that person a little, and wasn’t sure he always wanted him around. But he would hold tight to him because it was, after all, the actual him, and it was that him that never really stopped yearning for Doug.

END OF CHAPTER ELEVEN​

 

[CharmedFan28]

That was a great end to the chapter and portion! I liked hearing more of Mike and Ben together. Swann is very wise about others as always. I am really loving this story and look forward to more!

 

[ChrisGibson]

That was a great end to the chapter and portion! I liked hearing more of Mike and Ben together. Swann is very wise about others as always. I am really loving this story and look forward to more!

Thank you, Matthew. A great part of me wants to apologize for not posting more frequently, but the other part says: hey, that stretches the story out a little more.

 

[ChrisGibson]

Chapter Twelve





























“Imma ride with Doug and Joe,” Deborah said.

“You going back up north?” Donald asked unnecessarily.

“It’s about that time. We should have left yesterday.”

“Why should you have left yesterday?” Pamela demanded. “This is your home.”

“It’s been a crowded home,” Donald commented.

“Shut up,” Pamela said.

“You staying, Tommy?”

“A little longer, then I need to head back. Make sure they didn’t burn the place down or kill each other.”

“You make a monastery sound like a frat house.”

“A monastery is literally a frat house, Pamela.”

“You know what you need, Tommy?” Deborah said.

“Please don’t say to get laid, cause that’s out of the question.”

“Well, it may be true, but it’s not where I was headed. What you could use is a vacation. A real vacation. Not just to here and not to that monastery. To let your hair—your metaphorical hair—” she said, touching his shaven scalp, “down.”

“I’m not going to to say you’re wrong, Deb.”

Rose came in with her coat over her shoulder and said, “Are we still stopping at Miss Florence’s?”

“Swann already went. With Doug. And came back with so much food,” Pam said. “Tommy, when you see your mama tell her she cook too much.”

“It’s no telling Mama anything,” Tommy said, lifting the can of Miller’s to his mouth.

“Speaking of,” Rose said, her voice lower.

“Speaking of?” Donald looked up at his niece.

“I’ve been thinking about talking to Swann’s grandmother.”

“About what?” Donald and Pamela said.

“About how it’s time for her to leave that big old house… that’s Swann’s anyway.”

“You got a problem with him staying with you?” Meech asked.

“No!” Rose snapped.

“I love it when they all stay with me,” Deborah said.

“That’s fine,” said Rose, “but that house is his, and she’s just been sitting in it all this time, and I think I thought it was his job to tell her to leave and he would do it in time. But really, I want to tell her to get the fuck out.”

“Then tell her to get the fuck out,” Donald said while Jason shook his head.

“How?”

“Like this,” Prynne said. “Get the fuck out.”

“I can’t say it like that!”

“Didn’t she call you fat and stupid?” Prynne said. “Didn’t she call you that at her son’s funeral. I was there for that.”

“Oh, that evil old bitch,” Meech swore.

Popeye nodded.

“Yeah she did,” Rose’s face changed.

“Give me that phone while I still have confidence.”

Jason stretched, revealing a flat stomach ,and revealing his own feelings, Donald placed his hand on it. Jason handed the phone to Prynne who handed it to Rose.

She dialed the number quickly.

“Ma Porter. Yes, Ma Porter. Well, it’s good to hear from you too. And happy Easter. And.. there’s just… I wanted to discuss something with you. And—”

Deborah seized the phone from her cousin and said, “This is Deborah Merrin. Remember me. Yes. You need to get the fuck up out that house cause Swann and my son are coming up there with all their friends, and they’d kind of like it.”

“That’s not quite how I would have said it,” Pamela murmured.

“You want to…. Speak to Swann?”

“That’s not fair!” Rose snapped.

“Swann!” Meech bellowed, rising from the table and navigating around her sister and father, “Swann!”

“What, Meech!” Swann came into the room.

“It’s your grandma.”

“That’s impossible,” Swann said.

“Not Sefra, fool.”

“It’s still impossible, that old witch never calls.”

“Don’t call your grandmother an old witch,” Rose said, the phone pressed to her breast.

“Actually, she didn’t call this time either,” Donald said.

“I called to tell her it’s time for her to leave that house and let you live in it.”

“But I’m still in school.”

“But half the time you’re here, and it’s yours, and she’ll never leave,” Rose said.

“Hello!” Ma Porter’s voice squawked through Rose’s ample breasts.

“In a minute,” Rose shouted to the phone and clamped it back over her bosom.

“She’s going to ask you if you want her out of the house,” Rose continued. “And you need to be courteous but firm about your answer. Alright?”

A little more dazed than Swann normally was, he nodded and took the phone while Jason said, “He’ll never tell an old woman to leave.”

“She has several other places to go. The Porters are not poor,” Prynne said.

“Still… he won’t do it.”

“He he he he,” Donald laughed darkly. “I thought you knew Swann better than that.”

“Yes, Grandma. Oh, yes, Grandma. Well, yes, Grandma. Well… yes.”

There was silence and then he said, “Well, I would. I’d like it very much. Because it’s mine you see, and the home where I grew up and my mother and father lived. You have a home. You should go to it….”

“That’s cold as fuck,” Meech murmured in admiration.

“How soon can you leave?” Swann said.

“Excellent. When you do, leave all the keys at my mother’s place. Thank you so much.”

He hung up the phone, but it was Rose who murmured, “Bitch.”





Swann Portis could trace a very long family tree. Sal had asked about the woman on the wall in the oil painting at the Bitches, and assumed she would be the source of Swann’s long family tree. After all, she had been the grandmother of his grandfather, and left Louisiana with her lover before the end of the Civil War. Her whole French family had traceable roots that stretched back for generations if anyone cared to look. But Swann had said, in passing, noting the large ring he placed on Sal’s finger, that she was not the only long line of kin he came from.

Mary Porter had been a free English Black girl, which was a story in itself, but no one seemed curious about who had come before her or how she’d found herself on a boat to America in the very late 1600’s as an indentured servant, except she came to Maryland and worked for the Jesuits, so maybe it was a Catholic thing.

At the end of her servitude, white people had done what they did so well and lied. They simply failed to acknowledge she was free and kept her as a slave and that part of the story always made Swann’s back itch. It was one of the few things his father had ever told him.

Mary had children, though how the children had come no one said, and Swann only imagined what no one else was willing to, a history of rape covered up in civilization, and the usually story of the lascivious ways of hot blooded black women. She’d had many children and passed on her education and the knowledge that they should be free. Faded names written in an old Douay Rheims Bibles



Matthias 1689-1760

Rebecca and Felix (1720, 1725)

Marion Felix (1750-1814)

Marion Matthias 1775

Alice 1778

Stephen 1882

Marion Jefferson Porter 1887



All of those names, all of those people, writing in a spidery hands, in ink that ran brown, their dignified names indicating an undignified and unimaginable life.

During the War of 1812, the Jesuits had fled, leaving the Porters to guard the wealth of their church, and the Porters were devout Catholics. To hear it told, though they thought they should be free, they believed in the justice and kindness of white folk, that the priests would be grateful for the slaves who guarded the treasures of their church.

Whatever became of the Porters who remained, in the night, Marion Matthias and his cousin had entered the church and stolen the crown of the Blessed Virgin and the Crown of Christ, stripping the gold from the altar, and amidst the battle bombs that created the Star Spangled Banner, fled. It was audacious, but the best time for a fleeing and with the aid of a blacksmith, and old Acadians, they had melted the gold and melted the silver and pocketed the jewels for sale. A Negro with wealth had to be careful how he carried it, and had they not ended up in Canada and had Americans not hated most Catholics more than they despised Negroes, they could have never carried out their plan. But that was the basis of the Porter wealth, invested first through white factors. Whatever became of Marion’s siblings, he and his cousin established a well of and very careful line, a free line which stayed out of the States until after the Civil War, which found its way to Michigan and then Illinois and eventually to one Porter who married a man named Perrin and had a grandson who married one Deborah Portis, and another Porter who married a woman named Rosalee who bore him a son called Swann whom he could never love because he could never love anything but who, in the end, he left everything to, including a thick silver ring, a thick gold ring and six other rings which were made from metal melted down long ago to crown a Virgin and a Christ prayed to by priests who had enslaved his ancestors, before taking his own life,.





Eutropisu Prynne returned from Rome the same time Abbot Merrill was presiding as abbot again. After the years he had been gone he was surprised by so many things, such as how small the house seemed to look, though it was as large as it had ever been or how parochial Indiana and even Chicago was. Father Merrill looked small. And old. Even the warmest summer sky lacked the depth and the gold or the heat or the tone of the Roman sun on walls and red sloped roves. For someone who had never wanted to travel, Eutropius Prynne was, in fact, in a bit of a depression. He didn’t trust himself to say much of anything as he adjusted to his life back at Holy Angels.

Abbot Merrill waited a while before he called Prynne to a dinner in his private dining room one night.

“Would you like to go back?” he said, simply.

“What?”

“Would you like to go back? To Rome? You belong to the whole church. You belong to a large order. Would you like to do something else?”

“This… is my home,” Prynne said, because he was supposed to.

 

[ChrisGibson]

“That’s true. But monks leave home, and you are full of intelligence and I presume, even if you don’t admit it, ambition.”

“I… I don’t know. It just takes some getting used to. Being here.”

Abbot Merrill nodded

“I was in Puerto Rico five years after my stint in Rome,” he said.

“I had no idea.”

“Yes. If you need the change, then you have to let me know.”

“Yes, Father.”

“And of course we have to talk about some other things.”

“Yes?”

“One other thing especially.”

“My ordination?”

“Yes. It can happen anytime now.”

“I still don’t feel like a priest. It’s still not really a thing I want.”

“Thomas,” Merrill had said, startling Prynne by using his birth name.

“If it happened that to day I needed you to take over as abbot, would you do it?”

“Yes, I would,” Prynne said without pretense.

“Well, one day I will, and when that time comes, will you accept the priesthood?”

“I will,” Prynne said with a little more distaste.

“Though I don’t believe it’s my gift.”

Merrill nodded and said, “The only thing I needed to hear is that you will. I have staked a lot on that answer.”

“But why? Anyone could be the abbot.”

“No,” Merrill said. “That isn’t so. I’ve been here for… fifty years, and since the time I was your age, though a few took turns at it, I have been the abbot for over thirty years. Even when I wasn’t, I was. And when I am gone, and you cannot doubt that I will be gone sooner than later, someone else who is strong, who is capable who is… Abbatical… will have to do this, and that someone is you.”

Every morning when he rose at Lauds in the dark, his body no longer tortured by rising in the five a.m. darkness, the words of blessing passed over him as he dressed



“Clothe me, Oh Lord, with the new man, who was created according to God, in justice and holiness of truth. Amen.

“Gird me, Oh Lord, with the girdle of purity, and extinguish in my veins the passions of lust, that the virtues of continence and chastity may remain in me. Amen.



But other words passed through him every day now as the scapular went over the robe and the rosary went around the waist cinch, chinking heavily at his side, as he slipped his feet into his sandals, or the heavy black shoes, and crossed himself before hanging the cross about his neck



“The abbot does not run the school. That is the principal’s job. The principal has a vice principal and they have a board, half of that board is made of our order. They know their jobs.

“The abbot does not run the goings on of this house. That is the prior’s job, and under the prior there is the novicemaster, there is the master of music. There is the head of the kitchen staff, and Father Eugenius runs the cheese factory, and Brother Pictorius takes care of the fudge. The abbot does not run the motherhouse. That is under the care of Francis, Dominic and Raoul. Enough of the priests and the brothers are administrators and accountants, mathematicians and former businessmen. This whole community is made of several moving parts with several departments to run. Your job is not to run those.”

“So the Abbot’s like the Queen of England? A figurehead?”

“No,” Merrill shook his head.

“Then, if you don’t run the school or the house or the businesses…”

“You run the men who run those things,” Merrill said.

Prynne, not wishing to sound like a fool, said nothing.

“Before monasteries had schools or shops or guesthouses they had men, brothers, who were drawn together, most often, around one man or a woman, the source of holiness, the one who loved them all and held them together. They lived under his rule and under his protection. That was the abbot. That is an abbot. Before the large houses and the schools and the companies was the abbot, and when its all done there will still be the abbot. As long as a good one lives in the house, it is the difference between a company and a family The abbot keeps his hands off, until it is time not to. The abbot lets all his brothers do their jobs until it is time to interrupt. The abbot moves on as if he only has his few tasks, but knows everything that is going on.”

“Father,” Prynne shook his head, “that’s impossible.”

“Yes,” Merrill said. “Now you’re beginning to understand.”

 

[CharmedFan28]

That was a fascinating portion. Interesting to hear some more of the history of Swann’s family. His grandmother sounds like a piece of work. Also good to get some much of Prynne again. Great writing and I look forward to more soon!

 

[ChrisGibson]

Thank you for reading, as always, Matthew. I adore your comments as I adore you. This traveling around has made posting not as easy as usual, but I try.

 

[ChrisGibson]

After this, Prynne, no longer wore the habit except to come to choir. He moved out of the little hermitage and took a room in the monastery. It was called a cell, but it didn’t feel much like a cell with its wide windows, large space and basin. He left, often, for if Andy was a good face for the school as principal, then Prynne was a good face abroad, to travel to other monasteries and convents or go on the business trips when others actually handled lthe details but a friendlier face was needed to smooth things over. He was tempted to complain about being needed in so many things and pulled in so many directions but he knew what everyone else knew, that he was being trained in all aspects of the running of the house that in time he would take over. It was apparent to everyone that their old abbot, a man who could remember Abbots Everard and Fox, was getting old himself, and that it was not a matter of Prynne taking over one day, but that he was, little by little becoming Abbot Merrill’s right hand.

When the abbacy passed over to two others for a while, it was more apparent than ever, that the house was run by ancient Father Merrill, and by the cheerful, smiling, calm, but uncompromising Brother Eutropius Prynne. When he returned to Saint Francis from a brief stay at a religious house in Tennessee, like bees about the queen, the brothers slowly surrounded him, leaving all manner of matters at his door.

“How much do you know about…..” Prynne would ask Herulian, “or about…” and Herulian would say, “Often I know as much as you tell me.”

“Well, that isn’t right is it? After all, you are prior.”

“Yes, but largely I’m your prior, Tommy. Father Merrill is old and Abbot John is a figurehead.”

“Hum,” Prynne said non committally.

“Abbot Merill’ll take one more turn as abbot, and after that it’s going to be you in name and deed,” Herulian said. “Unless you deny it. And you can’t deny it.”

“It could always be Andy.”

“It’ll never be Andy.”



Andy had come to realize the same thing. He had said he never wished to be abbot anyway, and he had the whole running of the school, and certainly he was one of the most influential members of the house. He was, after all, the nominal pastor of the chapel,the priest who always gave the sermons and went out into the city as the face of the school. One year he and Prynne and Herulian, Abbot Casson and Abbot Merrill stood waiting for the new postulants. It was only three that year and one of them was a priest already.

“Maybe he’ll be the next abbot,” Andy joked, flashing a toothy smile.

“What’s his name.”

Prynne made a small noise and pushed his classes up.

“Theodore,” he pronounced. “Father Ted Roberts.”

Even as the young men were stepping out of the van that had brought them to Saint Francis, Andrew Reed stopped his jaw from dropping. Very handsome and slim, all in black, black polished shoes, impeccable white Roman collar. His brown hair nicely buzzed as was Andy’s, here was Ted, more than grown up, and a postulant to the Abbey of Saint Mary and the Holy Angels.





“You didn’t tell me you were coming?”

“It’s good to see you too,” Ted Roberts said as he placed his few clothes in the dresser. The good thing about already by an ordained priest was he knew how to live with little.

“It is good to see you,” Andy said. “You know it is. But…”

“I didn’t know if I’d go through with it,” Andy said. “So there was no use in telling you. But now I’m here.”

Andy nodded.

“Andrew, I hope that’s not a problem.”

Andy closed the door and placed his back to it.

“Isn’t there a rule against that?”

“What are we going to do?” Andy said. “And, as I recall there was a rule against it in seminary, and it didn’t seem to matter at all.”

“This isn’t seminary,” Ted said, looking up at him steadily. “This is home. Your home and hopefully mine.”

“Ted.”

“Yes,” the young priest answered as he calmly placed his polo shirts in the little drawer.

“How are we going to handle this? What are we going to do?”



Because Andy felt alone in this, it would be some time before he could explain himself. Often when he tried to think out the situation, he sat like a condemnatory third party, wrinkling his nose at the whole thing, very unimpressed with his excuses. It would be years before he could tell the full story, and when he did he would be filled with shame, and then filled with something else, the something else that had fueled the whole story in the first place.

When he had returned exhausted from New York, and Herulian had come with him and Prynne had stayed a few days in Chicago, it was that night, in his shorts and tee shirt he went to Ted Roberts, and he knew what he was going to do. He knew what he wanted. They stayed together all that night and at the end of it, as morning was approaching and he was on his way to Lauds, he promised Ted he would return the next night.

He had been no virgin when he’d come to the Order. Indeed, he’d been experienced in sex since he was twelve, and it had been one of the very priests of this house who had initiated him. But when he’d come into this house as a religious, he had taken his vows with the utmost sobriety, and what was more, he believed the words of Scripture, that one in Christ was a new creature, that what had happened before mattered no more. So he had lived all of his life as a virgin until those desperate moments back in New York when the bath house had answered something deep in him he knew had died. For him sex was never the empty feeling that people sometimes talked about, the sad leftover sense of lust fulfilled, bodies used, hollowness afterward. For him sex had always been communal, a discovery, a complete giving of himself, and a humble taking of the offering, not being too prissy or too good for what came to you, or for what you became. To him sex was nothing less than its own type of Eucharist, and having had it once for the first time in many years, when he came to Ted that night, he had no intentions of not having it again.

 

[ChrisGibson]

It wasn’t only that he wanted Ted, and he did. It was that he knew Ted wanted him. Every time they had been together recently, his body reacted like a magnet, penis lifting, nipples prickling, flesh hot, and he felt the heat in the boy, understood—because Ted told him—his mutual desire. So it seemed stupid and futile not to be with him, and that night, when they finally were together, Andy was something different. He wasn’t the older brother figure, or the reserved priest or the coach, or the tutor or the assistant principal. He was himself. Ted’s hands on his body, his own Ted, Ted lifting his legs, placing them around his neck while Andy entered him, eyes stinging with grateful tears. The silence when it was done and they lay together in the dark, clinging to each other.

“I’m so scared,” Andy had said while he held Ted to his him and his hand stroked the young man’s shoulder.

“What for?”

“What if I’m just like all of those other priests who tell themselves what they did was okay. That he wanted it, he liked it. That this was just fine.”

Ted said nothing, and finally Andy said.

“What if I raped you? What if that’s all this was? What if I’ve just harmed you because I’m selfish and—”

Without turning around Ted pressed his fingers to Andy’s lips.

“I did want it,” he said. “I did like it. And it was more than fine.”

He turned around now and said, “And I do know my own mind, thank you very much.”

“I know,” Andy said. “You do.”

Ted pressed his fingers to Andy’s lips, and then he kissed them.

“Stay with me to the morning,” he had said.



Throughout the day he remembered he was sleeping with a high school student. He was an assistant principal having sex with a student. He was a monk on the way to ordination who was an assistant principal having sex with a seventeen year old male student. Or had he just turned eighteen? And did that really make a difference? It caused an occasional abrasiveness, not so much aimed at other students as at himself. After all, if he was going to fail his vows in this one regard, he would be rigorous in all others.

But when he came to Ted every night it was in reverence. It was in his housecoat and shorts and tee shirt. He would tap on his door, and then they would sit in his room and discuss the day. He would help him with homework or they would plot out soccer strategy and then yawn and go to bed. Almost always they made love in the middle of the night, somewhere after Vigils. Often they slept side by side in each others arms.



He allowed himself to think about the future just enough to realize that the sin he was committing would come to an end. Ted would be gone, and then so would this, and he didn’t let himself think about how much pain the loss of Ted would cause him. If he had, he would have said something like, why don’t you go to Saint Damian’s, that way we can still see each other. The idea of asking Ted to shape his eighteen year old life around his desires disgusted Andy.

On some level, Ted knew this. When he got his scholarship it was to another Catholic school, but one further south and deeper in the cornfields of Indiana. Andy, busy with the track team and school and of course with the life of a monastic, could hardly drive down there and spent time with him. The letters came, though, full of love and yearning. Ted rarely spoke of sex. He spoke of everything else, though, and he spoke of how much he missed “their time together” Andy missed that too, the long spaces in the evening when the two of them were huddled in the little room going over homework or over track strategies, sitting side by side in bed, shoulder to shoulder before the lights went out.

So the love affair was lessened, but hardly destroyed. At first it was Andy making the trip once every few months an hour or so down south. No one there knew who he was, and no one asked too many questions if he came on campus. Ted couldn’t stand roommates, so Andy was the older guy who sometimes paid Ted weekend visits and left early Sunday morning.

“This isn’t enough,” Ted said.

“It kind of has to be,” Andy told him as he sat naked on the edge of the bed and reached for his underwear.

“No, I mean, it shouldn’t just be you driving this far to see me.”

“It’s not that far.”

“But it is seldom. I’m going to come up there in two weeks.”

“How?’

“Driving.”

“That’s not what I mean.”

“I’m going to come up there, and I’m going to get a hotel room. We can have a whole Friday or Saturday.”

Andy stood up so that for only a moment Ted saw his ass before it disappeared into his white briefs and then he pulled on his trousers.

“Unless…” Ted said. “You don’t want me to.”

“I do want you to,” Andy said, seriously. “I just don’t want you to waste your life on me.”

“Well, it’s too late for that now,” Ted said, ruefully, and laughed.

 

[CharmedFan28]

Thanks for posting and I adore you too! That was a well done portion. I am glad the characters are questioning their actions rather than just barrelling through. The whole church hierarchy is fascinating. Great writing and I look forward to more!

 

[ChrisGibson]

Things changed by the time Ted was about to graduate and, indeed, Andy assumed they should. But Ted was quieter when they met and the sex was less, and in a way Andy was fine with that. The truth was his libido in his mid thirties wasn’t what it had been, and his desire to be with Ted had always been more about companionship than penetration. But it was the dead silences that bothered Andy because they reminded him of his own, and finally Ted said, “I don’t want you to mock me.”

“What are you talking about? I’d never.”

“Listen,” Ted said. “Listen. I’m going to Notre Dame.”

“For graduate school? That’s great—”

“Sort of for graduate school.”

“Okay?” Andy waited for Ted to continue.

“I’m going to the seminary.”

Andy cocked his head.

“I’m going to be a priest.”



Andy had a million thoughts about Ted’s choice and they all ended in him blaming himself. Was it to be like him or to be close to him? Had Ted assumed that if he was a priest he could easily sneak off on the weekends and do what suited him? What had he seen of the priesthood except what Andy had shown him, and Andy had shown him a thirty year old man who was content to have an affair with a teenage boy.

“You should give this a second thought,” Andy said as sternly as he could say anything to Ted.

“I will give it a second thought,” Ted said. They were on the track field behind Saint Francis, doing stretches. “I’ll give it a third thought and fourth one too. But I’ll do it while I’m in the seminary.”



When Ted Roberts went to seminary, that was the end of their affair. There was no way for either one of them to regularly travel the distance, and their relationship became letters after letters. The few times Ted came to Indiana to visit relatives, it seems wrong to him and to Andy to meet and do anything but talk. For the first two years Andy hoped Ted would leave the seminary and realize the life was not for him, but then he got over that, knew he was wrong. He even knew Ted had been ordained. The one thing he did not know is that Ted Roberts had planned to come to the Monastery of Saint Mary and the Holy Angels, and now, as an ordained priest, he was here.



The day Ted arrived, Andy Reed went to his uncle’s office and knocked on the door.

“Nephew,” Abbot Merrill greeted him. Prynne was sitting with him and rose.

“I’ll leave you to your business.”

“No,” Andy said, “that’s not necessary. And you all have your own business.”

“Not, really,” Prynne shook his head.

“Why don’t you pull up a chair and stay?” his great uncle offered.

“I—” and then Andy shrugged and said. “Okay.”

“What did you have to ask me?” Abbot Merrill asked while Prynne turned around and pulled out a new cup and then poured coffee.

“Did you know that Ted Roberts was coming here as a postulant?”

“Of course I knew.”

“Did you remember he was a student?”

“I don’t remember him personally, but he did say so.”

“I remember,” Prynne said, sitting down and sipping his coffee.

“He was on the track team,” Prynne shrugged. “He was your assistant. Now he can be your assistant again.”

“Nephew,” Abbot Merrill said. “Is there a problem. Is there something I should know.”

“I thought you’d be happy,” Prynne said.

“It does make me happy,” Andy said almost spitefully. “I just want to make sure that… I’m not a distraction. That we just don’t become… a frat house or something. That we remember why we’re all here.”

Prynne sat back, crossing one leg over the other and reaching for his cigarettes, and Abbot Merrill spread out his hands.

“Andrew, we are a frat house. Literally. And that IS why we are here.”

 

[ChrisGibson]

Chapter Thirteen





























I guess I could go over and see her,” Swann said.

“What the hell for?” Doug said, sitting down beside his cousin at the round kitchen table in his mother’s house.

“It would just be nice.”

“You’d still be throwing her out, and it’s not like she ever wanted to talk to you before. Besides, keep in mind, when you throw her out of there she’s got other places to go.”

“I wish,” Swann said, “that I could have you around all the time to make me meaner.”

“Firstly, I am around all the time and secondly, you don’t need my help to be mean.”

The phone was ringing, and even Deborah had been ignoring it. The heat had been down in the house, and the first thing she had done was turn it up while Rose came from upstairs reporting, “It’s an ice box.”

“Well, of course it is. Heat rises.”

“Well, I hope it rises soon.”

Chris came into the kitchen with the cordless phone and said, “It’s for you, Doug.”

Doug made a noise, took the phone and said, “Hello?”

“Douglass,” the voice sounded formal, but it was Mike’s.

“Michael.”

“I heard you were here.”

“You did?” Doug looked to Swann, who shrugged, while Chris sat down beside him.

“Yeah, and I was wondering what you were up to tonight?”

“Well, I don’t really know. We’re all at my house, and tomorrow I think we’re going to go to Swann’s. And when I say all, I mean, everyone.”

“Well, Jill’s not here,” Swann murmured.

“I don’t think he meant Jill,” Chris said.

“Well, I mean, I was with Ben. I’m going to stay up here tonight and I wondered if you’d want to see us? You know, like on Christmas?”

“I would,” Doug said. “But… I would have to ask. I mean the house is already filled with people.”

“If you want,” Rose said, “you all can go over to the condo.”

“I don’t want to sleep in that bare assed place,” Swann said.

“I didn’t say sleep,” Rose shook her head. “I meant if you wanted to entertain.”

“I think she meant if you want to be loud, do it over there,” Deborah said.

“Stop putting words in my mouth.”

“I won’t look a gift horse in the mouth, Mama. And I don’t blame you.”

Swann held out his hand and Doug, who had seen this exchange, said, “Yeah. Definitely come over. But we’re all going to my cousin Rose’s place. Because it’s empty. I mean, it won’t be empty, but… Look, that’s where we’ll be. On Sheridan Square.”

“I’m going to put on coffee, cause it doesn’t seem like they’ll be here anytime soon,” Swann said.

“I guess I’ll get cups,” said Doug who followed his cousin to the counter.

“So,” Swann said.

“Huh?”

“You’ve done it. You’ve invited Joseph and Michael into the same space.”

“Actually Mike invited himself.”

“Yes, and he’s bringing Benjamin with him too.”

“Why are you pronouncing everyone’s full name?” Doug asked while Swann filled the reservoir of the coffee pot with water.

“Because, Douglass,” Swann said. “Joseph, Michael and Benjamin are holy names, and I have a feeling that things are about to get most biblical.”



But things were mannerly. Things were actually almost fun except that, try as he might to effect non chalance, Swann worried for what might happen with his cousin. He looked from Joe to Benjamin and wondered if he would fight them should the necessity come. Would he win? With Ben yes, with Joe, probably not. He played with Sal’s ring around his finger and hoped things didn’t come to that.



Swann Portis had always kept a journal. He always scribbled down the things he noticed and those things he could not scribble, he committed to memory. He was old enough to be surprised and fascinated by misremembering, how a thing, once it had happened, seemed to have happened several different ways, and he was delighted in noticing the smallest things, Sal’s Adam’s apple that rose and fell while he slept, the little almost transparent hairs that invisibly lined Chris’s body, which had been peach fuzz when they were boys, the smell of lilac and how it gave way to lavender as May became June. But it was this night, Easter Tuesday, that Swann knew he would be a writer, that before his eyes he saw a story blossom and knew it had not begun here, but years ago.

 

[ChrisGibson]

If he were to write down how it had all happened, plot it out, plan it out, then there would have been subtle hints, little conversations, digs, perhaps even barbs, which is something boys didn’t really engage in, not because they were too good for it, but because they were usually too blunt. Chris and Sal were sitting on the sofa in his mother’s house, and he was sitting between Sal’s knees as Sal negligently rubbed his shoulders. Mike and Doug were laughing about something, also sitting on the floor, and Ben was sitting in a chair, shaking his head and smiling over it when Joe, who sat in the chair beside Ben just said, “Well, I guess if you’re okay with it, I’m going to have to be okay with it too.”

“Okay with what?” Ben said.

And before Swann, who was vowing to never stop paying attention again, could overhear and understand what was happening, and certainly before anyone else could, Joe continued:

“I don’t think I’m stupid or old fashioned or jealous. It’s just that I don’t really know you or Mike, so we can’t really have what they have,” he said gesturing to the sofa where Swann sat with Sal and Chris.

Ben cocked his head and said, “I’m not quite sure what you’re talking about, but I’m sure we can all be friends.”

It was then that Doug and Mike noticed a shift in the room and stopped talking while Joe said, “No, that’s not even what I’m talking about. You know what I’m talking about.”

“Joe, stop talking,” Sal said before Swann could.

“What’s going on?” Ben said.

Sal looked at Chris, and Chris said, “Nothing’s going on.”

“No,” Ben stood up, rolling his tongue around in his mouth. “There is definitely something going on, only no one’s telling me what it is.”

Then he pointed at Joe.

“You were telling me what it is because you thought I knew.”

Joe lowered his eyes and said, “I need to shut up.”

And then he said, “But why should I shut up. I didn’t do anything wrong.”

“Will somebody please tell me what the hell is going on?”

“Benny,” Mike said, sitting up, “nothing’s going on. Something went on, but nothing is going on.”

“What the fuck’s that supposed to mean?”

For one of the few times he had known his cousin, Swann thought Doug looked definitely troubled.

“I was going to tell you at the right time,” Mike said, “And we were going to figure things out.”

“Look,” Ben said, wildly, “I don’t like this. Whatever it is. Tell me now.”

“Maybe you should go out in the hall,” Swann heard Sal say, and was grateful he hadn’t had to.

Mike nodded and he led Ben out of the apartment into hallway.



“What are they talking about?” Ben demanded out in the hallway. “What is Joe talking about?”

“I was trying to find a good way to tell you, Benny,” Mike said. “In my time.”

“Well, since you haven’t found a good way, tell me in the bad way.”

“I love Doug.”

Ben, who had been pacing in the little hallway, stopped.

“You, what the fuck?”

The way Mike had said it, there was no interpreting it differently than it was meant to be interpreted.

“I love him. I’ve always loved him. We’re…”

“Please don’t tell me you’re soulmates.”

“It’s different than that. We fell apart. We could have been together, but I fucked things up. Maybe we both fucked things up. And now he’s back and he’s in my life, and I want him to stay in my life, and I love him, Ben. I love him.”

“And now you wanna fuck him?” Ben said disdainfully, cocking his head.

Michael didn’t say anything and as Ben looked at him, he understood and said, “Fucking hell. You already fucked him.”

“Ben, listen—”

“When did you fuck him? You been fucking him every time he stays over? What’s that? Months now?”

“No,” Mike said. “No, not months now. And no, it doesn’t matter.”

“It matters to me!”

One of the doors came open and someone stared out in the hallway, but Mike said, “What the fuck are you looking at?”

And they shut the door.

“Great. Now the police are coming,” Ben muttered.

“Then stop shouting,” Mike reached for him, but Ben pulled away.

Ben went to the end of the hallway where a little balcony looked down on the first floor lobby and a staircase wound down from it.

“Okay, well what about us?” Ben said.

“I love us,” Mike said. “You know Swann?”

“Of course I know Swann. I knew Swann before you ever did.”

“Well, him and Chris and Sal. They all… they have an understanding.”

“They all fuck each other?”

“Why do you have to make it like that?”

“You’re the one making it like that. You’re standing here telling me that you wanna fuck Doug and stay with me, and he’s fucking Joe while you’re fucking him and then we’re all just going to get together like some great big orgy. Get out the oil and rub it all over each other.

“Just tell me something?”

“Okay,” Mike looked tired.

“What is better about Doug? Why is he better than me?”

“I didn’t say he was.”

No, Mikey, see that’s how it works. You don’t cheat on your boyfriend with someone worse.”

Mike sighed, “Sure, Ben.”

“What the hell is that supposed to mean, sure Ben?”

“It means at least I told you, but you didn’t feel the need to tell me when you were fucking your best friend—and Swann’s ex, who is currently pretending to be a monk—Jack fucking All Star Knapp.”

Ben’s eyes went wide.

“Don’t ask how I know. I know cause I’m not stupid. I pretended I was stupid, and I bet when it happened it was the best night of your life because he’s hot, and you’re the guy that was best friends with the hot guy. I bet the moment he finally took his clothes off for you there was no way in hell you could say no. I don’t doubt it, and I don’t blame you. So don’t blame me.”

Ben stood in the hallway, paler than usual, and trembling with what he wanted to be rage, and Mike seized the advantage.

“Benny, don’t you get it, don’t you see… Even us? We were friends. We were friends and then you saw me in a bath house and we both got horny and went home and fucked and because there was no one else, and probably because we were Catholic, we just stayed together and—”

Mike was completely surprised by the power in the back of Ben’s hand. Lying flat on the ground now, he touched his bruised cheek while Ben stood over him.

“Hit me again,” Mike said. “If it makes you feel better.”

“We just stayed together cause there was nothing better?” Ben’s voice came from behind ground teeth. “And then you found something better? Doug Perrin’s the something better.”

 

[ChrisGibson]

“You don’t know anything about me,” Mike said. “You don’t know anything about me, and Doug knows everything.”

“Like what? Does he see down into the depths of your poetic soul? Do the two of you sit around doing that fucking Buddhist meditation together and talking about lotuses and shit?”

“He knows I was whore!”

“The fuck?”

Mike, on his feet, brushed himself off and said, “He knows I was prostitute. He knows that for two years I would go to that bath house, and hang around places where I knew I’d meet men and for money I’d suck their cocks. I’d let them suck my cock, I’d bend over and let them fuck me, fuck me without a condom for a little more, go to apartments and pent houses and let anyone do what they wanted to my body. Doug knows that. And you didn’t.”

“You’re fucking lying,” Ben said, each word coming out of his mouth with a thud.

Mike looked dead at him. He looked dead and tired.

“Am I, Benny?”

Ben shook his head wearily, and with equal weariness he said, “I hate you.”

A moment later the door opened, Ben entered, followed by Mike and he said, “Thank you for a lovely evening. Good night.”

“Benny!” Mike start.

“Do not Benny me,” Ben said.

“We just got here.”

“We did not JUST get here,” Ben said. And then he said, “But you can stay. Why don’t you stay? After all, your other boyfriend’s here.”

“Ben—” Doug began.

“Do not—” Ben wheeled on him. “Do not say anything to me. I don’t even know you, Doug. I almost liked you, but now I’d like to spit on you.”

“Hold on, now,” Joe started.

“You fuckin’ hold on!” Ben growled. “You’re so dumb, you don’t’ even give a shit that apparently your precious boyfriend is the love of my very ex boyfriend’s life, that the two of them are fucking each other and being soulmates and sharing the same heart and whatever the fuck else soulmates do and you know what, DOUG?”

“What Ben?”

“Oh, you’re so calm. You’re just like fucking Swann. You Portises are so fucking chill.”

“What the hell did I do?” Swann started.

“Oh, God, Swann, shut the fuck up,” Ben said.

“Doug, you can have Mike. You can have this little slut right now, but when you do I want you to remember I had him this morning. This morning I fucked him. I was deep in him. He was crying, you know how he cries, please Benny, please Benny, and I was fucking him on the edge of the sofa and he told me how hard my dick was, he cried, Doug, and he told me to come inside of him, and I did I’ve come in his ass, in his mouth, all over his chest. Whatever you do to him I’ve done to him first and how ever cool he acts it doesn’t matter cause all last night I was fucking him I was inside him, not you.”

“I would appreciate it if you modified your tone around my boyfriend,” Joe said, beginning to stand up.

Ben laughed out loud.

“You’re sharing your boyfriend with my boyfriend and I’m supposed to share my boyfriend with you, and we just all go fucking each other because apparently—and this is no surprise—Doug over here learned it from Swann.”

“Excuse me?” Swann said.

“That’s always the way you were,” Ben said.

“Even when you were a kid. Jack loved you so much. He was so in love with you, and the whole time Chris was waiting in the wings to take his place.”

“That is not exactly the way it was—” Chris began.

“And then, by the time Jack came back, when he was a junior in college, still thinking about you, you’d apparently made your way through Chris and were with that Greek guy. And now, look, years later you’ve got Chris AND Sal, and you’ll probably swing around for Jack too if you get the time!”

“Wait a fucking minute,” Doug said. “How the hell did you make this about my cousin?”

“Because I honestly can’t believe that two people in the same family could be so independently evil, and I want to punch both of you, but I will settle for him.”

Swann, calm as the earth, sat there and listened to Ben rage, and he hadn’t so much as opened his mouth when he felt Sal standing up behind him.

“Chris is your friend,” Sal said, “and he wants to be a diplomat. But I don’t know you, and if you say another word to disrespect my boyfriend, I’m going to put my foot up your ass.”

“Your boyfriend! You know—”

“Say something else,” Sal’s voice was deadly calm.

Swann could not look up at Sal from where he sat, but he could see Ben’s face.

“That’s great,” Ben said. “You’re all great. Well… Enjoy Mike. He’s a slut like all of you. Did you know he was a prostitute? Did you know he paid his rent by sucking dick? Getting fucked too, apparently. So, Doug, if you don’t mind that my nut’s all inside of him, you probably don’t mind the others.”

“Please shut up,” Sal said.

“And you, Chris…” Ben said, reaching for his coat, “that you’re in this bullshit too! Well, Good night.”

“Ben, don’t leave in a rush,” Swann said. “Don’t leave like this.”

“Let him go!” Sal said, and Swann touched the inside of his leg.

“I’m gone,” Ben said. “Fuck all of you.”

And the door slammed behind him.

Mike was about to run out the door, but Doug said, “Don’t.”

Mike turned around.

“Don’t embarrass yourself, Mike. Just sit down.”

Mike was still standing, looking at the door, and Joe said, “I fucked that up.”

“You sure did,” Sal said.

Joe looked up and said, “I didn’t mean to.”

“Of course you did,” Sal said, stepping over Swann so Swann took his seat on the couch.

 

[ChrisGibson]

“You absolutely meant it. Cause there is something about you, Joe. You do whatever you want to do, but you spit on people’s happiness. Someone has got to be feeling shitty whenever you’re around.”

“That’s not fair.”

“It is fucking fair, and the proof is right here. Cause we were all happy ten minutes ago.”

“Where is this coming from?”

“This is coming from everything since we were twelve!” Sal raged. “When you couldn’t be a real boyfriend, but you couldn’t leave me alone. When you told me everything I felt was… dirty, and a sin, and I should… Go find a girlfriend. And I wasted my time doing all this stuff I hated with girls I couldn’t possibly love, and you still couldn’t leave me alone. Even when I was with Courtney. You wouldn’t be shit to me, but you hated for me to be with anyone else, and for ten fucking years I’ve just spun around in this spiral. Until Swann. And then you open you big fat, stupid, fucking mouth, in Swann’s apartment, and now here we are. Just because I’m happy, we’re happy,” he pointed to Chris and Swann, “and you can’t understand that, and you can’t understand Doug and Mike because fuck forbid that people have any happiness that isn’t yours.”

The whole room sat in silence, Sal breathing heavily, almost exhausted by his anger as he stood in the center of the room, and because no one knew what to do, Swann stood up and took Sal’s hand.

“We’ve all been as loud as Mom thought we might be,” Swann said. “Why don’t we go back to the house?”

He looked at Chris and at Doug, at Mike and Joe.

“Why don’t we all go back to the house?”



“I love you,” Swann said, as Sal lifted his arms and Swann lifted his tee shirt.

He sat on the bed behind Sal and held him.

“No one’s ever done that. Shouted anyone down for me. It was very—”

“Crazy?”

Swann leaned forward to press his cheek against Sal’s unshaven cheek.

“A little, yes. But the word I was looking for was gallant.”

Sal chuckled,

“I don’t know about that.”

“When we were juniors I was so shy about you. I remember seeing you next to Chris, and I thought how you looked like this knight. You were so dark and handsome looking and… honest looking. You looked noble and sweet, and once you made a joke, you said something to me, and even though I was never embarrassed by anything, I was nervous around you. With your wavy hair, and your quiet ways. You always looked like there was something funny you were keeping to yourself. And to see you like that just now. For me. Standing up for me.”

“Of course I’d stand up for you. You’re my guy.”

“I know, but—”

“You’re my guy. You’re my man. I’ll beat the shit out of anyone who says a word against you.”

“As horny as that makes me—”

Sal laughed low in his throat.

“As horny as that makes me,” Swann continued, “let’s not go beating anyone up today.”

“I swear I was gonna kick that Ben’s ass.”

The two of them swayed together and Swann kissed the back of Sal’s neck. Sal’s hands reached up to embrace Swann’s arms embracing his. He kissed Swann’s hands.

“You’re the best thing that ever happened to me.”

“I’m ONE of the best things that ever happened to you,” Swann said.

“What’s that mean?”

Swann rubbed his hands up and down Sal’s chest and Sal said, “We’re gonna fuck tonight, aren’t we?”

“Yes,” Swann said, “but before we do, I need you to make up with Joe.”

Sal made an irritated sound in his throat and he felt distinctly less sexy.

“You said a lot to him.”

“And I’m sure I meant it.”

“I’m sure you did too. He’s your oldest friend. There’s a lot you all need to talk about that you never have. He knows it too. Go talk to him.”

“I will, Baby.”

“Baby?”

“Do you mind?”

“I don’t mind. It’s just new.”

“Okay, well, I promise I’ll talk to him in the morning.”

Swann separated from Sal, and hisfingers on his back struck him like little talons.

“Go talk to him now.”

“Oh,” Sal straightened. “It’s like that.”

“It’s most definitely like that. Go.”

Sal cleared his throat and stood up, shirtless in his jeans.

“Yes, dear,” he said. “At once dear.”

 

[CharmedFan28]

Wow those were eventful portions! The intermingled sex lives of these characters really blew up into a huge fight. I sort of see why both sides are mad and I look forward to reading what happens next.

 

[ChrisGibson]

Oh yes, things are coming to a head. The story is coming close to its conclusion!

 

[ChrisGibson]

Joe Stanley had decided to shut the fuck up. He sat in Deborah’s large living room between Doug and Mike, and now he looked up when he saw Sal come down the stairs and enter. They all looked up at him, and Doug said, “You know what? Michael and I are going to the kitchen.”

“That’s not necessary,” Sal said.

“Of course it is,” Doug said.

As he left he touched Sal’s arms. Well, yes, he had always known Doug, long before he knew Swann. Doug was family, and he’d never considered that, and Doug reminded him so much of Swann.

“You seen Chris?”

“He’s in the kitchen,” Doug said as he and Mike left. “He was giving you and Swann some time to talk. Or… whatever.”

Sal waited until they were crossing the darkened dining room, and then he sat down next to Joe on the old couch.

“I said a lot,” Sal said.

“You did,” Joe said.

“I shouldn’t have.”

“You should have,” Joe said. “You should have. You were right. I never apologized to you. I was never what I was supposed to be.”

“That’s a little harsh.”

“No it’s not. If it was harsh you wouldn’t have said what you said. I tried to control you. Sort of. I wanted you when I wanted you and didn’t when I didn’t. I told you to go off and get girlfriends and then I was mad when you had them. I know that. Same as that night when I wanted to be with you and Swann. I wanted it. We did it. Then I’m crazy every time Doug and Mike look at each other. And you know what? It’s apparent that if I stand up and say, no more, I won’t have it, and walk away, they’ll still be in love with each other. You can see it when they sit together. All they have to do is touch hands and you can see it. That’s why I was sure Ben had to see it.”

“Whaddo you think would happen if you told Doug to never sleep with Mike again?”

“I think he’d obey me, but they’d eye fuck each forever. Or phone fuck or… Whatever. Some people are in love. They’re… Do you believe in soulmates?”

“No,” said Sal. “But I believe two people can really love each other so much that they might as well be soulmates. And… I kind of think it’s a shitty thing to try and destroy that. Actually, I don’t know if you can destroy it because it doesn’t happen a lot. Most people aren’t that loyal. So when they are you can’t get in its way.”

“What are we?”

“Best friends who spent so much time getting in each other’s way and being afraid to be more that we were never a couple.”

Joe nodded.

“I like Mike. He’s a good guy. I just wish we had the same thing you all have.”

Sal shrugged.

“Chris is my friend. And… I know it’s weird, but it’s like…Have you ever heard about those kinky couples where they like to see their spouses get it on with other people, and then they say they like it because they can’t watch themselves when it happens?”

“You like watching Chris have sex with Swann?”

“That’s not what I meant. I’m not explaining it right. I really love Swann, and he really loves me. And it’s neat to see him and Chris play that out. It’s neat to know someone else loves him that much. And it’s nice to grow with Chris and start to feel that way for him.”

“Maybe I just don’t trust that Doug loves me,” Joe said.

“He always loved you,” Sal said.

“But, Mike wasn’t there.”

“Of course he was. He was right down the hall. You just didn’t know it.

“And can I just remind you that the whole time he was falling in love with you and you were romancing him, you were having sex with me? And then we were doing all sorts of stuff I don’t want to talk about right now… With other people. It’s not like either one of us was innocent.”

Joe was quiet and then he said, “Maybe that’s it.”

Sal was going to say, “Maybe what’s it?” but he waited for Joe.

“Maybe I just don’t…. believe that Doug should love me. Maybe I don’t believe he could.”

While Joe was having this revelation, Chris came walking swiftly from the kitchen and passed upstairs followed by Mike and Doug. But Doug turned around and came into the living room.

“Mike got a message on his beeper from Ben.”

“Okay?” Sal looked confused.”

“He’s at the hospital. He’s been a car wreck.”













Mike was trembling and tapping his foot, and Doug was holding him as they drove to the hospital as quickly as they could without getting in a wreck themselves. They took Chris’s SUV, and Swann sat beside him while Sal and Joe sat in the middle.

“You know he’s okay,” Doug said, “Because he’s the one who called you. If you’d gotten a call from the hospital that would have been the bad thing.”

Twice Swann remembered the calls that had come from the hospital. He remembered picking up the phone and handing it to his mother when they told her that his grandmother was about to die. And he remembered the call he received that said his father was already dead. He turned away from both of those awful moments. No, Doug was right, whatever had happened, Ben was alive and well enough to make a call for himself.

 

[CharmedFan28]

Damn what a cliffhanger! I am glad Sal and Joe had their talk. I hope Ben is ok! Great writing and I look forward to more!

 

[ChrisGibson]

Damn what a cliffhanger! I am glad Sal and Joe had their talk. I hope Ben is ok! Great writing and I look forward to more!

I had not even seen that you read this.