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Bits and Pieces

ELIAS REMEMBERS HIS ADOLSCENT PAST JUGGLING DYLAN AND LANCE, WHILE IN THE PRESENT, AS A RESPONSIBLE ADULT HE SETS ABOUT THE BUSINESS OF BABYSITTING THE BABYSITTER


And he did think Lance was terribly damaged. They spent the night together, and when Lance was dropping Elias off, Elias knew—or thought he did—that Dylan was stronger. He had the feeling that if he had touched Lance in the right way they would have ended up making love, and he was sure this was a bad idea. He needed to find Lance again. He needed Lance to become his friend. Dylan had been his friend all along. When he went to sleep he dreamed of both of them and when he awoke—thank God he’d always had his own room—he touched himself imagining both of them and when he came, slick in his hands, it was to the image of Dylan.
So three days later, when he was in Dylan’s house, and they were in the middle of a movie he lunged across and kissed him.
“What the fuck?” Dylan shrank back.
Elias went red, but wouldn’t let himself be cowed.
“You didn’t like it?”
“Not from you!” Dylan protested.
“Why not?”
“You’re my friend.”
“You don’t like me.”
Dylan stood up.
“You’re not just my friend, You’re fourteen.”
“That’s not true,” Elias chided him. “I’m fifteen in two weeks.”
“Well…” Dylan stumbled, “I am seventeen. Honestly seventeen.”
“You don’t want me?” Elias said.
Dylan’s mouth worked. He looked confused.
Elias thought there was nothing for it. He reached out and touched Dylan between his legs and Dylan shuddered and made a noise.
“You…” he said, “Don’t want me…”
Dylan closed his eyes, and let Elias knead him,
“Please Dylan,” Elias murmured, “Let me just have this.”
“Okay,” Dylan said, standing there, shoulders stooped. “We can both have it.”
Dylan sat down on the couch and let Elias’s hands slip into his pants.
“Just… a little…” he said. “We shouldn’t be…”
Dylan cut himself off. The only other person he’d been with in a long time was Lance, and this felt so good. Elias’s hand felt so nice, and then he felt a rustling and unsettling and he knew Elias was working with his shorts.
“You don’t have to…” Dylan said hoarsely. “Please don’t.”
“I want to,” Elias said.
Dylan looked down at him helplessly, and Elias felt helpless too. He held Dylan in his hands surprised by the size of him, the increase of the other boy’s erection.
“I knew it,” Elias said.
“You knew…” Dylan said. “What?”
“You were always my friend,” Elias said, not look at Dylan’s face. “I think people think friends are Ken dolls. I wondered if I could ever face this.”
He held Dylan’s penis in his hands and Dylan closed his eyes.
“I wish I could tell you to stop,” he said. “I wish I could mean…”
Dylan cried out and Elias pulled him into his mouth. When it happened, there was no noise and it went on for a long time, Elias was better than he should have been, Dylan was able to hold himself back until his fingernails gripped Elias’s back like claws, and he said, “Stop. I’m gonna…”
But Elias didn’t stop and Dylan surrendered with a groan as he felt himself shooting into Elias’s mouth. It felt so good. And he’d always wanted to do that. He knew now he’d wanted to have sex with Elias. Even as he came in his mouth, and Elias gagged, Dylan came harder and felt relieved, defeated and afraid to know he wanted fo fuck him.
“Rinse your mouth out, Eli,” Dylan said, shallowly. “I need to wipe up. I don’t want to drip in my shorts.”
Elias stood before him solemnly and Dylan watched the other boy swallow his semen.
“I’ll get a cloth for you, though.”
When he came back, Dylan cleaned up and Elias asked:
“Are you mad at me?”
Dylan kept cleaning, and folded the cloth as he laced his shorts.
“You have every right to be mad at me,” Elias said. “But… if you couldn’t stop, I couldn’t either.”
“I’m not mad,” Dylan said. “I’m just really fucking confused.”
Elias nodded his head.
“How do you feel?” Dylan said. He turned red. “I… I’m a little embarrassed.”
“Dylan, we’ve already started. Can we have sex this weekend?”
Feeling odd and defeated, Dylan nodded his head and said, “Sure, Eli.”
“You act like you don’t want to.”
“I shouldn’t want to,” Dylan said. “And that’s almost the same thing.”


When he did come over that Friday night, Elias brought his usual overnight bag, and they ate in the kitchen—they never used the dining room—with Fenn and Todd. Laurel and Maia were there too. They all went out to the mall after that, and when Maia asked if anyone wanted to see a movie, and Dylan seemed hesitant in answering, it was Elias who said no, and that he was tired and they should all go to the movies tomorrow. As they departed, Laurel said she wondered how Lance was, and nobody answered.
They hadn’t talked about sex since the time Elias had brought it up, and he was eager now to get it over with and, at the same time, thought how strange it was that he should think of it as “getting it over”. But Dylan had promised it to him, and he had already gone down on him. This thing was hanging in the air about them, and had to be done, and his stomach shook with nerves almost until he was sick, because he realized he would be the one to make it happen. Not Dylan. No, left to Dylan this electric would hang in the air forever.
When they got back to the house on Versailles, Elias went into the shower. He wasn’t stupid. He believed in study, and he had read about this already.

Anal sex is often seen as the definitive form of gay love-making. You might think, and be pressured to think, that if you’re not doing it, be you top, bottom or versatile, you must be some sort of second rate closet case. But is it for you? It can hurt (a lot) at first, comes as something of a shock to the system, and might well be termed an acquired taste. If you fancy it, here are a few tips on how to begin to acquire that taste…

That was the most unappealing thing he’d ever read, but he read on.

Spend time on your own discovering your anus before having sex with others. Run a bath and get naked. Go to the toilet. Then put some lube on a finger, work it around the outer anus, stay there awhile, and start pushing it in.
The sensations you get might already be quite intense. If you’re unsettled, use your other hand to masturbate and reassure yourself with feelings with which you’re familiar. Allow yourself to enjoy the new feelings. Relax and feel free to fantasise. Explore and get a sense of the shape and texture inside you. Then, when you’re comfortable, try inserting a second finger. Be careful, but rest assured your anus can certainly cope with this.
When you withdraw you might feel you want to defecate again. This is normal. Probably nothing will happen. If anything does, don’t worry. Clean up when you’re done, and there’s no shame attached. It’s just a reflex reaction.
You might also want to experiment with something more life-size. If so, use a proper dildo – not a deodorant canister or a cucumber. You don’t want to scratch the lining of your anus or have something nasty break off in there. And, yes, the guy in the sex shop may well take one look at you and know exactly where it’s going to end up. But so what? He’s seen it all already. Just acknowledge to yourself that you’re doing this as part of your exploration of yourself as gay.

He had already tried it a few times, and he used the enema bottle tonight in the little bathroom down the hall, and then he showered, He hadn’t been able to buy a dildo There was just no way to be fifteen years old in Rossford and do that, but be had used a few fairly safe things and pulled them out, surprised by the pleasure of their entry and then surprised by cleanness of his ass. But would he make a mess with Dylan? More than the possible pain or any idea of how he or their relationship would come away changed from all this, the embarrassment of making mess a terrified him.
When he had come out of the shower and dried himself, he stood looking in the mirror at a boy—did he look like a man? Man enough?—with a square face, square jaw, dark eyes, serious expression, short cut hair that spiked a little and looked almost black after the shower. He was square shouldered, and his white body was loosely muscled with coral nipples on lightly defined breasts. He pulled away his towel to look at his sex, but he couldn’t judge it. He had only seen his brother naked. He didn’t like to take his clothes off in the locker room, and he never seriously looked at the other boys. He had seen Dylan’s, the other day, but never Dylan totally naked. Would he be good enough for him? No, none of that! He was good enough for him. He would have to be.
When he came back into the bedroom in red shorts and a tee shirt, Dylan said, “You took forever. Is there any hot water for me?”
Elias tried to grin.
“It’s all back now. Most of the time I was just fucking around with my hair.”
“I don’t know why,” Dylan shrugged, picking up his night shorts, “We’re just going to bed.”
Of course, every Friday night they just went to bed, but it sounded so different when Dylan said it now, and still he wasn’t entirely sure what Dylan meant by it, if he remembered what was supposed to happen tonight.
When Dylan came back to the room some time later, Elias remembered that the older boy, who was only a little taller than him, never had those awkward feelings about his body. He didn’t come in wearing a tee shirt, but bare-chested, his boxer shorts almost hanging off of him, his torso like white marble—and it was so strange, because Dylan took so much pride in his Black family—muscled like a Renaissance statue, and he was wearing that good cologne.
“What?” Dylan frowned, looking worried.
Elias came up and pulled his face down and kissed him, wrapping his hands around Dylan’s waist, wanting to pull down his shorts. Dylan didn’t respond in fear, but fell right into it, kissing him hard, his tongue pressing into his mouth. He had just brushed his teeth and his tongue tasted like Listerine. He smelled so good and so clean and his hands were strong, gripping Elias’s shoulders. Elias’s eyes stung. He hoped Dylan didn’t notice. It was only, Dylan did want him. He wanted him after all. But he kept himself so aloof. Seeing Dylan come in, so much more confident, so much more beautiful than Elias ever felt, was too much for him. He would have to be accepted all the way, or rejected. That was why he had made his move. His hand gripped Dylan’s penis and began to massage it, but Dylan pulled away.
“Wha?” Elias said, dumbly.
Dylan put a finger to his lips. His erection, thick, pushed out of his boxers. He didn’t care about that, though. He moved back to lock the door, and then came back to Elias. They stood in the room holding to each other, kissing and not quite pulling off each other’s shorts, though Dylan had pulled off Elias’s tee shirt and bent to kiss his throat, suck on his nipples, run his hands down Elias’s body.
“You’re so perfect,” Dylan marveled, and Elias wanted to cry because that someone so perfect thought he was perfect. Dylan went past his shorts and kissed his thighs and his knees and his feet, and then slowly, reverently, took down his shorts and pulled him into his mouth. Elias’s eyes went to the ceiling, but before he gave in, he looked to the windows to make sure the blinds in Dylan’s room were closed. He placed his fingers in Dylan’s short buzzed hair. Goddamn, why did he want to cry since the moment Dylan came into this room and how could Dylan make him feel this good? The only thing that would make him feel better was making Dylan feel like this.
Though they couldn’t stop touching each other, they weren’t quick about it. Soon they were on Dylan’s bed, pleasuring each other, and Dylan’s mouth was on him while he filled his mouth with Dylan and his hands, in reverent wonder, ran over his round ass, over the line from anus to balls and he mimicked all Dylan did to him until, mouths full, they cried out as best they could. When Dylan finally fucked him it was slow at first until Elias’s leg’s linked around him, told him he didn’t want it gentle. He bit Dylan’s shoulder to not make noise while, like a piston, the other boy fucked him. It was now, his finger’s slipping on Dylan’s sweaty back, that he understand all of Dylan’s reserve had been to hold back an intense desire. Dylan had wanted this for a long time.
“I’m about to—” Dylan began, but Elias wouldn’t let him pull out. Even though it was his house, and Dylan was worried about the noise, he did cry out, as if he had stubbed his toe, and he felt Dylan, pulsing inside of him, his semen, like a fountain with a heartbeat, pumping and pumping, as his body twitched and stretched and he came.


After the cold snap of November, this Sunday it was nearly fifty degrees, and only getting warmer. Elias woke up with a little too much energy, wishing he could sleep and trying to make himself sleep longer on Bren and Sheridan’s bed but, at last, getting up to make coffee. Rafe and Rob were already up because, Elias imagined, you had to be eighteen to appreciate sleeping in.
“He’s fed,” Rob said, pointing to Rafe.
“We had Mc.Donalds.”
Elias frowned.
“I got you a sausage biscuit and an orange juice,” Rob said, and Elias smiled.
“Thank you. Who wants coffee?”
“Coffee’s gross,” Rafe decided.
“I want it, but I don’t know how to make it, and I didn’t think about it.”
“I will make it,” Elias promised, “if I can just find the coffee and the filters.”
Elias mused, “No matter what, things are never where you thought they would be in someone else’s house.”
After a little while, Elias found both coffee and filters in a cupboard that made him murmur, “Why the fuck would you put that there?” and set to making the coffee. By now he was slightly frustrated, and in need of the toilet and, he decided, going back to bed.
Elias sat up in bed, drinking coffee. He had made a pallet on top of Sheridan and Brendan’s made bed, and knees drawn to his chest, his sipped the coffee and reflected that, all in all, last night had been a nice vacation from his strange marriage. Rob came into the bedroom and said, “I’m going to cook.”
“Yeah,” Elias decided. “I could eat again. What’s in the cupboards?”
“I’m making pancakes and sausage and eggs.”
“What part do you want me to do?” Elias asked, putting down his coffee and climbing off of the bed.
“Eggs? I always want them fried and get worried when I turn them over.”
“I can fry and egg,” Elias said.
“But Rafe will want scrambled. Cause… he’s a kid.”
“Bennett only eats scrambled,” Elias reflected, “but he has the mind of a kid.”
The day was full of sunlight. When Brendan and Sheridan entered the house smelled like breakfast and the television was on with Rob half asleep on the couch. Rafe was sitting at the table and he jumped up, but Elias wagged his finger and wiped the boy’s mouth.
Rafe leapt up onto Brendan and then to Sheridan, telling them, “Rob wanted us to see scary movies, but Elias said no. And then we did and there was this little boy, but his mother was a dog and he had a baby sitter and she jumped off a balcony because she loved him so much.”
“You let our kid see The Omen?” Brendan looked at Elias and Elias couldn’t tell if it was amazement or reprimanding, and then decided he didn’t really care. If they wanted their child to watch something better, then they shouldn’t go to all night parties. Elias took Rafe’s plate to the sink.
“You don’t have to clean,” Sheridan said. “We got that.”
“But I already got it,” Elias said, “And now that you’re here, we’re about to head home.”
“That’s crazy!” Brendan said. “Visit a little. We don’t want to toss you out.”
“But you forget,” Elias said, “I’ve been here since last night, and I’m ready to get back.”
He almost stopped talking. There was something different about Brendan. Negligently, he touched Sheridan affectionately and Elias was reminded of those those times when he was separated from Lance and Dylan, like when he would return to them in an hour or so, and he would see that something had changed between them. They had remembered something.
“Rob probably wants to see some more of the city before he leaves,” Elias added, shouting:
“Rob, what time is the train?”
“I don’t know!” he called back, followed by, “4:43. Mom said it would be too late, and she didn’t want me traveling in the dark, but I told her the only one before that is like 1:30. I dunno.”
“What are you guys cooking?” Elias wondered as he was preparing to leave, hoisting his bag over his shoulder.
“Nothing,” Sheridan said. Then he said, “For dinner?”
“Yes,” Elias said as if Sheridan was stupid, “that is what I meant.”
“McDonalds most likely,” Brendan told him.
But Elias was looking from Brendan to Sheridan and Brendan said, “What?”
“There’s something about you two,” Elias said. “You two… I know how it is with me and Dylan and me and Lance. I…” Elias shook his head.
“How about I take Rafe with me and you can come down and have early dinner with us? How’s that sound? You know it might even be quicker if you get in that squad car and drive.”
“We couldn’t,” Brendan started, but Sheridan touched his hand. “We could.”
Brendan looked at Sheridan. He said, “We’ll be down after four.”
Now, why had he done that? Did Elias just need to feel needed. Or, Elias wondered, did he want to have a child and a little brother? Was that, in some way what having Lance and Dylan was like? Was he so used to be a sort of a mother? And, he wondered, wasn’t that king of an insult to them?
“Fuck it,” he murmured.
“Huh?” Rob said as they were going toward the El station.
“Nothing,” Elias said.


MORE ROMORROW
 
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That was a great look at the past and present of this story. Hearing about Elias and Dylan’s early relationship is cool. I hope there is some more of that. Excellent writing and I look forward to more tomorrow!
 
WE END CHAPTER THREE TONIGHT AND BEGIN CHAPTER FOUR, LOOKING IN ON THE LIVES OF BRENDAN AND SHERIDAN


Neither Dylan or Elias thought in much detail about the weeks afterward. They wanted two different things. Elias took to sex like a fish to water. He had already seen porn and knew his staid Christian father had been involved in it. They went to Saint Barbara’s most of the time, but there was this gay Christian church his parents dragged them too—which he kind of hated—and there were a bunch of former tricks there. Elias, who prized having his own room—late at night watched porn and was glad that his dad had ended his career so long ago he wouldn’t be easy to find. He’d watch pornos where two svelt hot things were fucking in a chair, a guy with an oily tight ass swiveling up and down on the other guy’s large dick, and then they would switch positions and he’d be getting fucked doggy style.
“Oh, yeah!”
“You like that shit?” the other guy would pound him harder.
“Fuck, yeah!”
Elias realized this is what he wanted. He would have loved if Dylan would hold his hips and fuck him mercilessly, and he understood just as quickly that this was something Dylan would never do. Even that first time, even the other times that weekend, Dylan had tried to be so gentle with him, and when the weekend was over he had left Dylan, knowing his friend was uneasy and uncertain. Elias didn’t have anyone to tell. Dylan was his closest friend. But he felt like he had used him.
Elias avoided Dylan that week, chiefly because he did feel like he’d used his friend. As Friday night approached, he knew he would have to make some sort of decision. He came Thursday night and told Todd and Fenn, quite loudly. “I haven’t seen Dylan in a week, and we have a lot to talk about. I think I might have some apologies to make.”
But that Friday night he didn’t make any apologies. They went to bed early, Dylan wearing a tee shirt for once, and Elias climbed into bed next to him and pressed himself into Dylan’s arms. It was a closeness they’d never experienced before, and as they drifted into sleep, neither one of them said a thing.



F O U R



"There’s no such thing as too much choice.”

-Dylan Houghton Mesda


That Sunday before Christmas, Brendan and Sheridan watched Elias leaving with Rob and taking Rafe by the hand. Rafe, The letters Brendan had not looked at were in the dresser, and now that they were less tempting, he felt more able to read them. When it was only the two of them, Brendan looked at Sheridan a long time.
“We’re alone right now,” Brendan said. “At last.”
And because nothing was rushed, suddenly nothing was rush, and he was filled with this desire for Sheridan and yet, they stood there, simply touching hands, simply looking at each other as they had not in so long.
“Elias saw it,” Brendan said. “He saw the change.”
Sheridan reddened and said, “I hope he didn’t see everything.”
“He saw that I love you,” Brendan said. “He saw that I got my spirit back—a horrible term.”
“We got our spirit back,” Sheridan corrected, “and it doesn’t matter how cliché it sounds, or how it happened.”


Only weeks ago, Brendan had been blackout tired, so tired that in the middle of thinking of going to bed, he passed out for a moment, blinking and wondering where he was. He was that tired where you went to pre make the coffee for the morning, and in the middle of the kitchen, in front of the island, you fell asleep. Sheridan, God bless him, had pre made the coffee tonight, and so that was just an example. But it was not an example that Brendan fell asleep on the toilet twice. So when the letter came from Kenny McGrath, though he was intrigued, he did not open it until four-thirty in the morning.
Kenneth was in the past. So much was in the past. Most of Rossford was in the past, old loves were in the past. From the time he was seventeen until the time he was thirty-five, long enough for Dylan Mesda to start as a baby and become a man, Brendan had been with Kenneth. There were a few bumps, a few interruptions, on both their sides, brief interim lovers, but for eighteen years it had been the two of them until they had staggered into entropy and finally, Kenny had had the sense to end it. Brendan still reflected on how very real the ending had been, Bren, still wanting to hang on, coming back to their house, to their bed, hoping to rekindle some romance on Christmas night, only to find Kenneth making love to Ruthven Meradan.
Sheridan had happened almost immediately after that and now, in Brendan’s thirty-ninth year, when he saw the other man, thin, reddish brown haired, still freckle faced, in his bed he thought, “We are going into entropy too. We are becoming ho hum.” The two of them with their little house, and his little practice, Sheridan’s steady job, their son, were dull.
“Bren, are you coming to bed?”
“Yes.”
No, Brendan reflected. We are not dull. I am dull.
This weirdness he had been feeling was boredom, was more than boredom, was close to unhappiness.
I am dull. I turn everything dull. I am turning our marriage dull.
Brendan came into the bedroom.
“What time is it?” he asked.
“Nine o clock. Too late for Rafe, two early for us.”
Sheridan stretched and yawned.
“But what can you do?” he said, surrendering to it, going deep into the covers and patting the space beside him so Brendan could climb in.
“We’re getting old,” Sheridan said.
“You’re twenty-eight.”
God! What luck had he had to snag this kid, Brendan wondered as he stripped to his trunks. What did he see in him, standing here on the edge of forty?
“Well, then you’re getting old,” Sheridan told him as Brendan climbed into bed beside him. “and I’m getting boring.”
Oh God. He feels it too.
` A week later, another crisp square letter came in the mail. It’s clean whiteness shone against the drabness of a day when Brendan could no longer ignore the approach of winter. The broad leaves from the sycamore trees fell like crunchy brown carapaces out of the grey sky and Brendan read:


KENNY McGRATH


And promptly put the letter away.
A week later, when the snow came there was another letter, but this wasn’t from Kenneth at all, He found that out on the verge of pitching it in the trash. It was addressed to.

Brendan Miller
And
Sheridan Klasko
Esquires



From

Your Noble Graces
Chay Lewis-Riley and
Casey Williams


Again, Brendan was seized with a desire to throw the invitation—for it must have been an invitation—in the trash and go on about his day. That was foolish though. Chay would just call Sheridan and make sure he’d gotten it. Or Logan would call, for surely whatever they were invited to, Logan was as well. Brendan closed the door, realizing he was letting out the heat, and put the envelope on the kitchen table, upright, under the little white vase of fake flowers.


MORE TOMORROW
 
That was a well done portion! Elias has a lot on his mind. It seems like he could do with some more friends but I am glad he has Dylan and sometimes Lance. Great to hear about where Brendan and Sheridan are at this time and I look forward to more of that. Excellent writing and I look forward to more soon!
 
You know what? That's a very good point. Elias is someone who could use more friends in his life. I am glad you enjoyed this weeks portions, and it was good, wasn't it, to get back to Brendan and Sheridan?
 
AS WINTER APPROACHES, BRENDAN QUESTIONS HIS FAITH AND THE MEANING OF HIS LIFE

Later, when Sheridan, in his policeman’s uniform, came with Rafe, whom he had picked up from nursery school, he went straight to the letter, opened it, and cackled.
“Casey’s throwing a Christmas party. I mean, he usually does. But it’s always business one.”
Brendan was about to say, “Porn business?” But then he knew Sheridan would eye him and say, “What other business is Casey in?” and then this would lead to Sheridan calling him a snob and a prude, and of course he would be right and…. Why the fuck go into it?
“But he never invites us,” Sheridan reflected. “I wonder what that’s all about?”
“Us and a bunch of porn stars?”
“The invite,” Sheridan flashed a card with several naked men wearing Santa hats, “says leaves the kid at home.”
“I don’t know how I feel about this.”
“Brendan,” Sheridan said, “are you as bored with yourself as I am with myself?”
For a moment, Brendan had thought Sheridan would say, “Brendan, are you as bored with yourself as I have become bored with yourself?”
Brendan nodded.
“We need some spice,” Sh
eridan said, slapping his lover’s shoulder with the invite.
“This little party with some of our naughty friends—who we don’t see anymore—could be our spice.”

When they went down to Rossford that weekend, Brendan was already exhausted with the thought of having to see family, having to listen to his mother, his stepfather, visit Carol and Mathan, see his nephews and nieces. Even as he got on the train, cradling Rafe, and closed his eyes, he dreamed of climbing into a bed, sleeping and turning the whole business off. The only thing he really wanted to do was sit in Layla’s house, or possibly in Fenn’s, and talk. Life was so exhausting.
“And I just can’t figure out why.”
Sheridan seemed blissfully unaffected by what so exhausted Brendan. He was so young, not even thirty, when Brendan was on his way out of his thirties. After the South Shore stopped at Van Buren, the sky opened up, and though the clouds they rode past, that were high over high rises, were white with morning light and the sky was a sharp blue, Brendan thought, “Why can’t I feel it?”
And he thought, what had happened? Where did the time go? Wasn’t I twenty and not that long ago? In my twenties, a little younger than Sheridan is now, and a lawyer? Remember when none of it had been done, and all of it was possible? Everything was possible. We could do anything. What could be done now? Half the time Brendan could barely get out of bed.
He thought of that movie, The Hours. It was a book, but he didn’t have time for the book. He thought of that one character, Julianne Moore’s character, who one day got up and just left her kids and husband. Never came back. More and more Brendan could understand it. He could understand getting in his car and leaving and never coming back.
Rafe squirmed on his lap and placed his cheek against Bren’s chest.
And leave this little one? Parents loved their children. Married people loved marriage and their children. And hadn’t gay people fought to live just like ordinary people? Did he really fantasize about getting up and leaving this little guy? He tried to imagine getting in the car, but putting Rafe in the childseat. But then this meant taking Sheridan too. And… no… if he left he would have to leave it all. It’s what his father had done after all. Many fathers had. Now, as the train pulled into Hyde Park and he was acutely aware of his desolate feelings, he understood why.

“It shouldn’t be this hard,” Brendan said as Fenn moved about his kitchen, deftly slicing the loaf of bread and then putting the slices in the microwave while he came to the table with a pitcher of orange juice and butter, then turned around and pulled out the bread.
“I know,” Fenn said.
“No,” Brendan said. “I literally mean there is no reason it should be this hard. I don’t do enough for it to be hard, Fenn. I saw this woman over near downtown, who had set up a tent under a bridge for herself and her kids. She had a gas stove and everything. I see people with hard lives everyday. This is not hard. Why the fuck can’t I do it?
“Holy fuck, this bread is delicious.”
“Cigarette?”
“Sheridan would kill me if he found out,” Brendan said, but Fenn handed him a cigarette anyway.
As he lit the cigarette, Brendan said, “And you know what? Here’s the thing. Church doesn’t help.”
Fenn Houghton, who felt that speaking was greatly overrated, only blinked.
“It’s really no help. I feel exhausted trying to be this good Christian, and it…. Well, I just feel bored and exhausted.
“Fenn?”
“Yes.”
“Did you ever want to leave? Leave your kids? Leave Todd?”
“Well, I did leave them. I left a lot,” Fenn said. “You have to understand, I was older than you are now when Dylan came, and Dylan was always split custody. So was Thack. Maybe what you need is space. Or even adventure.”
“Adventure,” Brendan said. “Me and Sheridan got an invite to Casey and Chay’s Christmas party.”
“Well, that seems like just the adventure.”
Brendan was silent for a moment. He tore a piece of warm bread, then reached for the butter.
“I’ve always kept them at a distance.”
“You didn’t want to be polluted?” Fenn gave him a hooked grin.
“I don’t know. Maybe I didn’t want to be like them? Maybe I didn’t want to be around Sheridan’s old life. I don’t know.”
“Maybe the reason you’re so bored and so frustrated is because you’re away from everyone,” Fenn suggested. “You’ve made a world with you and Sheridan and Rafe and nobody else, and no unpredictability. Maybe it’s time to expand.”


The first Sunday of Advent it was sunny outside and forty-eight degrees, but the church was swathed in purple with purple candles in the wreath relieved by one pink. And Brendan felt hope. He took Rafe to church and Sheridan came too, one of the few times he did.

Oh, come, oh, come, Emmanuel,
And ransom captive Israel,
That mourns in lonely exile here
Until the Son of God appear.
Rejoice! Rejoice! Emmanuel
Shall come to you, O Israel!
Oh, come, our Wisdom from on high,
Who ordered all things mightily;
To us the path of knowledge show,
and teach us in her ways to go.
Rejoice! Rejoice! Emmanuel
Shall come to you, O Israel!
As the organ roared above them, and the priest, in purple, came up the aisle, swinging incense, Brendan felt a thrill of hope. The weary world rejoices, he sang in his head and laughed at the pun. The church was full as it was every advent. Something was happening, the world was moving toward what it should be. The normalcy of church, the ordinariness of ordinary time was shifting again.

Father Lennahan sprinkled the Advent wreath before praying:

Bestir, O Lord, Thy might, we pray thee and come; that, defended by Thee, we may deserve rescue from approaching dangers brought on by our sins, and being set free by Thee, obtain our salvation. Who livest and reignest, with God the Father, in the unity of the Holy Ghost, God, world without end. Amen.


“I almost thought,” Brendan said, as they moved down the little wooden boardwalk, “ that you would say it’s too cold to go to the beach.”
“It is too cold,” Sheridan said. “It’s December. But…. It’s weird and we’re weird, and now that we’ve been a here a while let’s go.”
“Are we weird?” Brendan said as Sheridan made sure Rafe’s jacket was buttoned, pulled his hat down and bound his little scarf around his neck till only the little boy’s eyes blinked out at them.
He held out his hand and Rafe’soft, warm little fingers linked with his. There was strength in the boy’s hand and as they walked across the packed sand, Bren still in his Sunday clothes, sand going into his loafers, it was as if Rafe was saying, “I have you, Papa. I won’t let you go.”
Don’t ever let me go. Even when I feel like I want to leave.
Beside him, suddenly Sheridan, his nose pink, his winter hat pulled over his head and peaking up like a condom, kissed him. There was a little bit of ginger colored beard because he had forgotten to shave.
Don’t either of you ever let me go.
They stood on the edge of the water, and it stretched out grey blue with hints of green, milky and clear at the same time, leaving lank, spinach dark sea weed (Lake weed Brendan wondered) on the gold grey beach shore. To their left water swirled into the eddies of the rocks piled under the little park behind the apartment building next door.
“Hold Rafe’s hand while I do this.”
“Are you about to do something crazy?”
“A little,” Bren said.
As Sheridan took their son’s hand, Brendan went to the rocks and climbed them, taking from the pocket of his black coat, a holy water vial. It was empty and plastic with a faded gold cross, and as the water came in every few seconds, sometimes making his shoes wet, now his socks, sometimes swirling in depressingly low, swirling amidst shining bits of mica, Brendan dipped the vial into the cold water, freezing his hands.

At the altar, under the artificial yellow light of Saint Jerome’s the priest intones.

“Almighty God, grant us the will to greet our Savior with our good works when He comes, so that we may be worthy to be on His right hand and possess the kingdom of heaven.”

Amen, Brendan says, lifting the water and capping it, seeing grains like glass and bits of pearl swirl to the bottom of the holy water bottle.
The hem of his stylish pants, the fine pants he came to Chicago in years ago, when he wished to be a real lawyer but couldn’t keep Kenny because…. He didn’t love him enough…. is wet. Now Brendan climbs down to join his son and his husband.
He is remembering Kenny McGrath’s signature on that envelope.
Did I love him enough? He wonders as he joins his family. Do I love anyone enough? I was a good Catholic. But hell, I was a gay Catholic, having sex with a man, maybe one man, though there were occasionally others. And when I was a kid, I was having sex with Dena and lying to my friends to be a good Catholic.
The water swirls in the vial in his pocket.
Maybe being a good Catholic has nothing to do with goodness.
The wind lifts the back of his hair and touches his neck.
“It’s cold,” Bren says.
He forgot his ear muffs. He rarely wears his hat. Once people noted how golden his hair was, how the older he got the more it went from being brown to bronze to brass to golden and the older he gets, in a way he feels he’ll take whatever praise he can get. It’s so fucking vain.
“I love you,” Bren says to his son and his husband.


MORE TUESDAY
 
Sounds like Brendan has gotten a little bored of his life. I am glad he didn’t just leave. Hopefully the party is good for him. Excellent writing and I look forward to more in a few days!
 
END OF CHAPTER FOUR


He is so cold when he gets home but he wants to take care of his family. He wants to rub Rafe’s little feet until they’re warm and he laughs. He want to give him cocoa and he wants Sheridan to have tea, and he wants to get them both lunch, really make sure his men are taken care of. Only then does he go to the shower, stand under the hot water, now and again squirting the still cold lake water on him, rubbing it in with soap, the grit of the ancient sand, older than the world, older than religion, truly blessed, he thinks. Something Fenn would do, he thinks.
I have no idea why I had to go to the beach. Why I emptied out that holy water vial and then filled it with lake water. Except…
Sometimes it feels like the energy that goes into being a good and thoughtful free soul, an honest Catholic, a whole moral person inside the church, a free person inside that life, is like the energy one puts into finding out how to run, how to get a little exercise, without ever having to step outside. You can only jog in place so long. You can only spin on an exercise bike or crack the window open and stick your head out of the window.
Maybe, in the end, even goodness has nothing to do with it.
As the hot water runs down Brendan’s body he thinks.
Maybe it’s true. Maybe being a good Catholic has nothing to do with being a good. It actually seems to have a lot to do with being exhausted.
“We should go to the party,” Brendan says to Sheridan. “I feel like you’d already decided, but I’m just letting you know I’ve decided too. We should go. We need to go. We need to see… our friends.”
Brendan unloosed the towel from his waist, baring his body to Sheridan as he began to towel himself.
Maybe being a good Catholic has nothing to do with being a good. Maybe in fact, goodness has nothing to do with what is important. Maybe it is something else entirely that matters.



On the Third Sunday of Advent, a pink candle is lit, a little golden flame on the top of that rose colored pillar. Yesterday, just as small as golden flames, Brendan saw the first crystals of snow, white against the encroaching darkness. In Chicago it gets dark at four-thirty in the afternoon, and the city is pitched into darkness by five. There is a nip in the breeze and the nip is hope, as if the entropy of things, the freezing of things, the year winding down to a close after all the fast paced-ness of things means that something new must be born. Something wonderful is surely coming.
Last night he walked the streets alone and saw little yellow lights of house windows, winking lights draped from the porches on Oak Street. It is coming. Christmas is coming. Something is coming. The dullness he had been feeling passes. It is like this every year.
In church, on Sunday, the priest prays:
“O Almighty God, gracious provider and giver of life, we anxiously await the celebration of your birth. Like the people of long ago, our ancestors in faith, we, too, are in need of light, in need of direction, in need of your Word, to show us the way. Our busy lives and the consumerism that surrounds us make it difficult to recognize your kingdom and to hear your voice. Help us Lord, to focus on you. We pray that you hear our prayer in the name of Jesus. Amen.”

That afternoon they go to Dylan’s apartment. He is far more graceful, they all are, than Brendan ever was at that age. Dylan is so like Fenn. Sitting on the sofa, hosting them, Dylan says, “The roast will be ready in under an hour. There’s plenty to drink, but we won’t get you too drunk. After all, you’ve got a kid and you have to get home.”
“We’d love if you stayed the night,” Lance chimes in.
“That’s not even possible,” Elias says. “They’ve got to get Rafe to school.”
Elias is clasping hands with Rafe, playing a game of clap with the boy, and as always.
“Did you guys drive?” Dylan says.
“We did,” Sheridan tells him.
“If you had taken the El you could get as fucked up as you wanted to. We could walk you there, put you on the train and it would take you almost right to your door. You’d have to wait for the Purple Line a little bit, but…”
“I wonder that a couple with a son wants to wait on a platform for the Purple Line in early winter on a Sunday night,” Elias said.
“We’ve done it,” Dylan said.
“It’s different,” said Elias.
Looking around, Brendan sees the house altar Dylan always keeps caticorner to the long picture window overlooking Magnolia Street. It is accompanied, but not incongruous to a Nativity scene.
“Did Lance’s family send that?” Sheridan says.
“No,” Dylan shakes his head. “Dad. Fenn.”
“Yes! I have seen that,” Brendan remembers. Fenn has put that out every year. He’s seen it so often, so old, so well crafted, not like those plasticky, poor done crèches.
“I wonder how he does it? How you do it?”
Dylan blinks. Then he says, “Well, now, Bren, I didn’t make the crèche. I just set it up.”
“No,” Brendan said. “Make peace with things. Find your own way. Deal with God.”
“I think,” Elias notes on his way to the kitchen, “Bren is referring to his struggle with Catholicism, with that thing that better Catholics than I have ever been talk about so much.”
“Well, I guess the answer to that is I was never much of a Catholic—or a Christian for that matter,” Dylan said. “If anything, growing up there was too much choice. No, I take that back. There’s no such thing as too much choice. Is that party Chay is having next week or what?”
“It’s Saturday,” Sheridan said.
“Do you need us to watch Chay?”
“Rob is, actually,” Brendan said.
“Rob is coming all the way from Rossford,” Elias stuck his head out of the kitchen, “when we are right here?”
“Right here with your own lives,” Sheridan said. “And Rob already offered, and it will be good for him to get out of town.”
“And Rossford is only an hour away,” Brendan added.
“Rob,” Lance pronounced, “is flaky as fuck.”



Rob Affren, aged seventeen, was the son of Milo and Dena Affren, and the great-nephew of Todd Meraden. This made him a sort of cousin to Dylan, who had said nothing when Lance called him “flaky as fuck.” For Lance, Rob was the best friend of his younger brother, and to Sheridan Rob simply was. As for Brendan, Rob was his godson, and a reminder of Kenny’s letter hidden away in the drawer. How could he not be, for his other godfather was Kenny McGrath.
“I’m in the city,” Rob called them around eleven o’clock. “I just went to the bathroom in the cultural center which is by far the nicest place in town to take a dump, and now I’m looking at the exhibits. I may go across the street to the art museum. I’m gonna bum around, but I’ll be up there by five.”
“That’s fine,” Brendan said.
“What time you guys need me?”
“We’re leaving at eight.”
“And I’ll stay with Rafe for the night.”
Put that way it sounded like a horrible idea, and Brendan thought, we should have left him with the boys.
“Yes,” was all Brendan said.

Rob arrived a little after five, and when he did arrive a little after five, Brendan had to remind himself that, yes, it did turn dark at four-thirty and no Rob was not really late. His nephew smelled like the cold and he pushed his dark red hair out of his olive complexioned face.
“What up, peeps?” he demanded. “You left pizza money, right?”
“Well, we’re not gone yet, Rob,” Brendan said.
“What time are you guys getting ready?”
“Brendan thought we should actually get there at eight,” Sheridan said in a voice that implied how naïve that was.
Brendan, sitting on the couch between Rafe and Rob looked up at Sheridan, aggrieved.
“I mean,” Sheridan continued, “this is going to be a serious party. Like, for real. Serious parties don’t start at eight. Which is why we are staying the night.”


MORE ON TUESDAY
 
That was a great end to the chapter! Brendan is still having some issues but hopefully the night out will help a bit. I am really enjoying being back with these characters and I look forward to more tomorrow!
 
It is good that we're all back here together in Rossford, and Brendan is very much in need of a party. We'll see where it goes.
 
WE ARE MOVING AHEAD WITH POSTING TONIGHT BECAUSE.... WELL, REASONS.

THE CHRISTMAS PART AT CHAY AND CASEY'S GOES TO AN UNFORSEEN PLACE


F I V E





“I want us, whatever we are right now. Us. Like we were, always coming back to each other.”

-Sheridan Klasko


“Do you ever wish we lived here?” Sheridan said as they came up State Parkway. Only a few cars passed tonight, and on either side of them, out of the dark, Christmas lights lined the brick townhouses and the lower levels of stylish apartment buildings.
“No,” Brendan said, honestly.
“Look at that stone porch,” Sheridan nodded casually.
“All I see,” Brendan said, “is something we can’t afford, and other things we don’t need.”
A moment later, as they were approaching the townhouse where Casey and Chay lived, Brendan said, “I think I used to want this. I think I used to be jealous of it. But I love what we have. If I could live anywhere else it would be near Lance and Elias and Dylan.”
They came up the steps and Brendan rang the doorbell. It bonged inside the house, and Sheridan squeezed Brendan’s hand and said, “I love what we have too.”
“Oh, you guys are here!” Casey opened the door, and Brendan was surprised when Casey hugged him warmly and brought him into the foyer, and then he embraced Sheridan and let him in as well.
But Brendan, looking around, could already sense something and when Chay came and said, “Let me get your coat, Bren,” Brendan said, “Where’s everybody else?”
“Everybody else?”
“Are we early?” Sheridan said, while Casey took his coat.
“What are you guys talking about?”
But Brendan had assessed the situation. This was an intimate party among friends and Brendan shook his head saying, “Nothing, Casey, absolutely nothing.”
They came into the large living room, and Casey said, “Where in the world is that Logan?”
But it was Ruthven Meradan sitting on the couch with Jonathan Turner, and Brendan couldn’t help but think they had both been with Kenny. Hell, he had come to his house five years ago, walking into his bedroom only see Ruthven fucking Kenny. Then there was some beautiful Arab looking guy Brendan didn’t know, and this one said, “He’s making drinks.”
“He certainly is,” Logan agreed, coming down the hall, and through the living room. He handed first Sheridan and then Brendan a Brandy Alexander, warm and chocolatey in a tall glass, frothy, and surprised Brendan by kissing him on the cheek the same way he kissed Sheridan.
“Now we’re all here,” Logan said. “All the important people.”



The name of the beautiful brown skinned man was Samir Jodorowsky and Brendan simply waited to find out what in the world was his story. He did not have to wait long, for he had that quality many, but certainly not all gay men had, of openness and charm nearly to the point of flirtation.
“My mother’s family is from Syria,” he said, “but my father’s family is French, but—as you can guess by the name—originally from Poland. So, international. I’m not international. They’re international. I’m just a mutt. Like any other American.”
Then Samir added, “Only I’m an American who has been put on a no fly list a couple of times and called a towel head which is ridiculous because why you would you put a towel on a head of hair like this?”
“Samir is the hottest thing in porn,” Logan said while pouring more butter onto the popcorn that Jonathan said already had enough.
“There’s always room for more butter,” Logan said, pushing it aside while Samir said, “I hate to sound like that asshole….”
“Then don’t sound like that asshole.”
“But I will because speaking of asshole I’m about to shoot something on Monday, and all that butter is going to make my ass bigger than it is.”
“I think your ass is just big enough,” Logan said, resting a hand on it.
“Just big enough,” Samir agreed, not removing the hand, “And we don’t need it to get any bigger.”
Brendan was enjoying himself, feeling pleasantly buzzed after two Brandy Alexanders, (Brandies Alexander? he wondered) and now, on his way to straight brandy. He had discovered that he didn’t have to say anything, only smile sometimes, and this is all he wanted to do.
“What is this playing in the background?” Sheridan wondered.
“Some bullshit,” said Chay, whose head was rested comfortably on his old friend’s shoulder.
“I feel like I’m in a church I don’t want to be in,” Sheridan said.
“There’s no church you want to be in,” Logan returned, and Ruthven was the first to laugh.
“I think church is greatly overrated,” Samir stated. He frowned and added, “And so is this music.”
“Alright, already,” Casey said, and only now did Brendan realize Casey’s arm was draped over him, had been the entire night.
“Irma,” he shouted to the speaker, “give us Nirvana!”
“You named it Irma?” Jonathan said.
“That is so futuristic,” Ruthven said as the drums kicked off the beginning of “Smells Like Teen Spirit”.
“Not anymore,” Casey said. “Now it’s distinctly unfuturistic. In fact. It’s 1992.”


It was well into the night, and they were all close and comfortable when Casey said, “I hadn’t planned to be this drunk. I don’t want to be quite this drunk.”
“I’ll make us some coffee,” Brendan suggested.
“Do you know where it is?” Casey asked, hopeful.
Brendan admitted that he did not.
Casey smiled at him affectionately, and Jonathan said, “I will go get the coffee.”
“I’ll be of assistance,” Chay said.
“No,” Samir said rising, and frankly watching Jonathan’s ass, “I will.”
While the coffee was being made, and Samir was coming out with cups, Brendan said, “I realized tonight that I’d always been jealous of you, and that’s why I’d been so standoffish.”
“You’re not standoffish, Bren,” Logan said. “You’re the best.”
“And you have a really nice ass,” Ruthven added.
When Logan frowned at Ruthven, Ruthven said, “But what? It is nice. Bren’s always been a looker.”
Brendan laughed, more flattered than he wanted to admit. He was close to telling Ruthven how good he looked to when Casey spoke.
“I thought you hated me sometimes,” Casey admitted. “But that’s cause you have done good stuff.”
“No I haven’t.”
“No,” Logan agreed. You really have. And…. I feel like we need to stop talking because there is so much that has happened between us. We might say stuff we shouldn’t because we’re so wasted.”
Briefly Brendan’s mind passed the memory of Sheridan, seventeen, killing that man for Logan. Him and Lee and Fenn showing up to clean the whole mess up. Brendan nodded as Samir and Jonathan came out with the coffee service and, methodically, Ruthven began to take out rolling papers and a bag of a marijuana.
“We can’t do that!” Sheridan protested. “Not with Brendan.”
“Wha?” Brendan said, giggling as Samir poured him coffee and he said, “Thank you, Samir.”
“Brendan doesn’t smoke,” Sheridan began, “anything.”
“How could you say that?” Brendan demanded, sounded both amused and offended. While Ruthven and Chay set to rolling joints, Casey and Chay looked on.
“Because I’ve never seen you smoke anything.”
“I’ve smoked Marlboros for ten years,” Brendan said suddenly. “I keep them under my writing desk.”
Sheridan blinked at him in shock.
“It’s you who don’t smoke.”
“I smoke Camels,” Sheridan said. “I keep them in my squad car.”
“Why the fuck don’t we know this about each other?” Brendan wondered.
“You smoke weed too?” Sheridan said.
“Once,” Brendan said. “Once or twice. But now I want to. Now I want to start doing everything I’ve been so afraid of.”
Samir took a deep hit and then another and passed it to Brendan.
“Do you smoke it like a cigarette?” Brendan asked while Samir was holding it in his lungs and the pungent smoke was leaking from his nose.
Samir had not answered, Brendan only imitated him.
“That’s how you do it,” Samir said, smiling. The smoke was leaking from Brendan’s nose.
“My fucking lips are numb,” Brendan laughed.
He didn’t feel especially high, just mellow. He had wondered what Casey meant by saying he didn’t want to feel this drunk and then pulling out weed, but this was different, cleaner than being drunk, and all of his senses felt turned on at the same time he felt mellow. Samir was blowing smoke into Ruthven’s mouth, and the smoke was coming back out of Ruthven’s nostrils, Sheridan’s hand was comfortably on his thigh and his arm around him, and everything felt right. Ruthven was frankly making out with Samir and then Jonathan, and then Samir was making out with Jonathan while, appreciating, Ruthven watched. How did Logan feel about that? Hadn’t they been… but no, these folks were more open minded about that kind of thing. And where was Logan, anyway? And Sheridan was looking half asleep between Chay and Casey and Casey looked like he was going to cry, like he was so moved while he stroked Sheridan’s head against his breast.
But… Brendan wondered, blowing smoke into Sheridan’s mouth while Sheridan stroked his thigh, if Sheridan was with Casey, then how could Sheridan be with him, and then he felt so stupid, because it was Logan he was shotgunning, and Logan who kissed him.
He looked across the room where Samir was being kissed by Ruthven, then Jonathan, and now Jonathan was pulling up Samir’s shirt. Casey’s eyes were shining with unshed tears.
“I never knew we loved each other this much,” Sheridan said, and though his head was still on Casey’s chest, his eyes were open and he was looking at Brendan kissing Logan as if it were nothing at all, or as if the something it was did not diminish him. Across the room, his bobbing brown cock thick as a baby’s arm, Samir now stood naked while Ruthven, shirtless, wrapped his arms about him, kissing him and Jonathan, on hands and knees, buried his face in the bronze man’s ass.
“I’ve always thought the world of you,” Logan said. “Since that day you showed up in your shirt and tie, so dignified and helped Sheridan. Helped us both. When he went to you, I knew you were what he deserved.”
“He deserved you too,” Brendan said. “He still does.”
And then Brendan stood up. And he was so stiff and so hard, that he loosened his trousers and then pulled down his briefs and he pushed his cock into Logan’s open mouth, and Logan pulled on him so sweetly, and he heard, behind him, Sheridan say, “Yes, Bren,” and he was aware that he’d wanted something like this all night, and then he sank to the couch, closing his eyes while Logan went to his knees, sucking him. For some time he wasn’t aware of what everyone else was doing, only that they were not watching him, that he was not the star of this show anymore than he was watching them. When he finally did open his eyes, when he was half dressed with Logan, he looked around and the room was empty.
Logan said nothing, but led him upstairs. In that room, Logan undressed him and they were on the bed, Logan sucking him, licking him, massaging him. Logan saying, “Fuck my face now.” And so Brendan did fuck his face on the edge of the bed, a thing he’d never done, and it felt so good to plunge his dick into someone’s mouth while they sucked on it, to rub his own body the same time he rubbed Logan’s, to tease his own nipples and then, when he slid across that same face, and Logan licked his balls, and the place between his balls and his ass and finally darted his tongue deep into his asshole. As Brendan slid across him on hands and knees calling out, he was dimly aware that the door was open, that Sheridan had seen him, and that, as Logan, under him, said, “Fuck me now.” he would.


MORE TOMORROW NIGHT
 
Wow that did not turn out like I expected. I guess Brendan is really letting his hair down. I wonder how Sheridan will feel about this? Great writing and I look forward to finding out tomorrow!
 
Brendan's letting more than his hair down! Yes, this is going to a different place altogether. How Sheridan feels tomorrow, or how Brendan will feel even will be interesting to see. But the night isn't over yet.
 
OUR REGULARLY SCHEDULED POSTING HAS BEEN INTERRUPTED TO BRING THE CONCLUSION OF CHAPTER FIVE. WE WILL RESUME ELEGY TOMORROW


When Brendan woke up and pushed himself from the bed it was not because he wanted to leave, but because the whimpering sound was familiar. He knew the voice. It came out of his childhood. Right now he felt so good, perhaps better than he’d ever felt before, lying close to Logan, the other man’s legs twisted with his. He pulled himself away from him, trying not to wake the man he realized had always been his doppelganger, the other lover, the one who was exciting and wicked.
But now I am exciting and wicked… I… Brendan could not make himself think about what he had done just a few hours ago. It was like the first time he’d been with Kenny, suddenly taking his pants down, suddenly reacting to his lust before he could reject it. Though he could not phrase it, he saw himself, unloosening his trousers, taking down his snug black underwear, pushing his bopping cock into Logan’s mouth, felt the pleasure of being that person again, the person he never was, felt the pleasure of Logan’s tongue on him, the sucking of his mouth, the intimate attention of someone he had always scorned because, on some level he scorned the version of himself doing this, living in this night.
Now Brendan moved out of the dark room where Logan still slept crossing the half lit hallway, coming out of his drunkenness and his high to understand, as he stood in this bedroom, lit by the red and yellow and green pinpricks of Christmas tree lights that the whimpering was familiar because he’d first heard it when Sheridan was just a little boy and Will was away, and now here was Sheridan, but it was a whimper of pleasure, perhaps. He accepted without question that there was a Christmas tree in this room. It’s warm light shone on Sheridan splayed eagle, crucified, the side of his face pressed against the mattress while Casey fucked him, and Bren watched, his own penis rising again while Casey’s muscles bunched and unbunched and the cords of his neck strained. Sweat covered both of them, and they both seemed to be crying. Brendan wanted to cry. He felt afraid for both of them, sick and sad, but not exactly sure why. Something had died. Something was dying here. Casey’s eyes opened, shining on Brendan, and Sheridan was looking at Brendan who was standing there, hard and naked and covered in Logan. Brendan sat on the edge of the bed and he clasped Sheridan’s hand and Sheridan’s hand tightened in his while Casey fucked him. It was if the three of them were moving together and Brendan bent to kiss Sheridan on the cheek, and even though Casey was deep in this fucking, there was a pleading look on Casey’s face, so that Brendan kissed him too.
Only now did he realize Chay was on the other side of the bed, his face solemn, and Brendan rose, releasing Sheridan’s hand and going back to the room where he slept with Logan. Feet padded behind him, Chay’s feet.
“Tonight everything will happen,” Chay said as they came back into the room where Logan was sprawled out in the middle of the bed, asleep. Brendan was terrified. He felt, suddenly, very alone. Not the married man, but this man, whatever type of man this was. He had always been the good guy. This was not the good guy.
“Brendan,” Chay said in a pleading tone. Brendan hadn’t even noticed until now that Chay was naked too. Chay climbed onto the bed beside Logan. For a moment, Brendan thought he would climb on the other, but he climbed on the same side as Chay, aware of how hard they both were. His terror gave way to deep sorrow, and in Chay’s arms, Chay’s mouth pressed to him, Chay’s firm erection pressing to his own, the sorrow turned into yearning, into comfort, into…. This, their bodies moving together to find sleep, but in the end finding, at the same time Casey and Sheridan did across the hall, a climax that pulled itself from his body, bunching his muscles, clenching his jaws to sacred silence as, helplessly, he spilled, and spilled, desire, lust, tenderness, need and love all over Chay’s body.


In this time of the year it is hard to tell what time it is after dark. Sheridan wondered. It might have been four or five or seven. He stretched out and Casey, long asleep, was soft against him. He had never imagined Casey would be so soft. Brendan is standing in the room, right past the doorway, and Sheridan wonders, is this what woke him up? He comes around the bed, across the room. He puts his head on Bren’s chest, feels Bren’s arms about him, wraps his arms around the solidness and warmth of him. They stand like this for some time. Bren smells of the cologne he put on before they left, and his normal scents along with weed, along with Logan and liquor and smoke. They stand like that in the dark, their hands hardly moving, holding each other, until Brendan brings him to the bed where Casey is sleeping. Brendan sees a blanket piled on the floor at the foot of the bed and takes it up, covering Casey.
Sheridan goes back to where he was, lying across from Brendan on the other side of Casey, who is curled up like a baby.
“I never realized how small he was,” Sheridan says, stroking Casey’s pale hair. “He was always so strong to me. I always thought he…”
“Despised you,” Brendan murmurs, while he looks at Sheridan on the other side of Casey.
“Thought I was weak. Thought I wasn’t right,” Sheridan says. “And I wasn’t.”
“Clearly he loved you,” Brendan said.
Sheridan’s face changes. He looks a little pained. Brendan reaches across to touch him.
Casey blinks and closed his eyes again. He yawned. He turns over and put his arms around Sheridan.
“I never hated you,” he says, almost asleep. “I never hated either one of you.”
Casey spreads the cover from behind him and pushed it over Brendan. Reaching behind him he draws Brendan into the warmth. They descended into sleep.

Sheridan Klasko remembers this is the most beautiful sunlight he’s ever felt, coming through this window, that this is what living on State Parkway, waking up on a Sunday morning is supposed to be like. There is no reason they can’t get a shower with good water pressure like this, pulsing on your head as you arch your neck under the water, as you bow to receive the steady heat. As the water beats his back he remembers the passage of the bullet during his second year as a cop when, though he knew it was real, he finally knew it was real. The gun wound, the memory of it always reminds him that, though he never killed anyone as a cop, he has killed a man. He does not feel about it, not anymore, not really. But he is amazed by it, by this potential to kill, to protect what he loves, a thing he never discusses though he hears so many men who could never do it, who play with guns like toys and don’t know Sheridan did it with his hands at seventeen.
His mind doesn’t run from that. It just leaves, casually. Neck rolls, arms stretches, arching his back, he yawns. When he woke up this morning, Chay had come into the room, and when he woke up, Bren and Casey were asleep under the blanket holding each other.
“I never realized how much they look alike,” Sheridan said.
Then he said, “They don’t. Not really. But… in a way.”
Chay looked on them, considering, and then returned to more practical matters.
“I’ve been up a while,” Chay said. “I washed your understuff and put your clothes in the drier with one of those scent balls. I’ll have some breakfast ready.”
Sheridan blinked at him.
“Over here, no one’s going to get up till twelve,” Chay said. “You all have a real world to get back to.”
He added, “Brendan was never the type of person who slept past nine.”
It is only when Sheridan is almost done that Brendan comes into the shower, yawning and rubbing his eyes, his gold hair dark and bronze, plastered to his head. He still smells of last night, and Sheridan realizes, after many years, after tell tale signs, that while he was showering, Brendan has probably finally made love to Casey. He knows what Brendan is like after sex, which is sleepy, and not looking for more of it. Brendan gives him a perfunctory kiss. Sheridan gets out of his way, steps out of the shower, begins to dry himself, not sure how he feels, but knowing how he does not feel. He does not feel the way he is supposed to while he watches Brendan yawn and shower. He does not feel possessive. He does not feel angry. He does not feel defeated. Or jealous.
They don’t really talk at breakfast, but then they don’t really have much of breakfast, Neither one of them ever has. Coffee and orange juice, a muffin. Casey is up by now.
“Unless you stay till one you won’t see Ruthven or Logan or Samir,” Casey says.
“Don’t forget Jonathan,” Chay says.
“I always forget Jonathan,” Casey says, as if this is a conscious choice.
Casey lives here and has had no need of a shower. That can happen anywhere. He still smells and looks of last night, and the smell and look, Sheridan realizes, is not bad. It reminds him it really happened. None of this was a dream. He can still see Brendan, in open shirt, drinking orange juice, looking nearly as suave as usual, naked, riding Logan, sweat dripped from his forehead, down his nose, running over his body. He can still feel Casey inside of him when they make love on the bed, Casey pounding him again and again.
“It’ll be quicker if you take the subway, but it’ll be nicer if you take the Metra. On a Sunday morning like this, I would take the Metra.”
On a Sunday morning after sex and drugs when no one wants to speak much and no one knows what to say, you do want to take the Metra, Sheridan understands. As the city moves under them, them, in the semi lonely train, Sheridan half asleep, puts his head on Brendan’s chest. The neighborhoods, brick and limestone house, shops, streets shooting east and west, branching out, sloping up, trees revealing, trees hiding, undulating beneath them in changing patterns, rising and falling like Bren’s heart beneath his chest. He feels Bren’s hand stroking his head.
“You haven’t said anything,” Sheridan said. “We’ve hardly said a word.”
“I don’t know what to say.”
“When I was young—”
“You are young.”
“When I was a little kid. Just at that age where you start to feel stuff, you were this big brother to me, and I looked up to you. Probably more than to Will. And then one day I came to you and Kenny’s. You didn’t know I was there. I saw the two of you. Together.”
“You mean having sex.” Bren sat up.
“Yeah?”
“And I didn’t look away. I watched. I stayed. Something changed in me that day. I began to realize what I was, and what you were. And I started to look at you differently. I started to fall in love with you.”
“Okay.”
“And last night, crazy as it seems, seeing you with Logan, seeing you with other people, seeing you that way, it made me want you again. I don’t mean that I don’t want you. I just mean…”
“We’re so used to each other.”
“Yeah,” Sheridan said, sitting up. “We are so very used to each other. We take each other for granted, climb into bed and have sex because we have to. We have become a world of two people. And last night I saw you for the first time in a long time, Bren. I know it sounds crazy, but I saw you. You haven’t been hungry with me like that in a long time. Remember that first time? You had split up with Kenny. I was half way with Logan. We got drunk. I’d wanted you to look at me like that for so long.”
“I felt so guilty,” Brendan said. “I feel like my whole life I’ve felt guilty for lust. I’ve always thought that I was the good guy. Above things. But… I’ve never been the good guy.”
“You used to look like you couldn’t wait to fuck me,” Sheridan said. “Now you look at me like you’re my husband. And I’ve been looking at you the same. And last night, watching you with Logan, being with Casey—”
Brendan looked around the train car desperately. He said, “This is everything I thought was wrong. I came into the room and I saw Casey… I saw him with you, and… I wanted you so bad. I… You’re right. I don’t know if it’s right or wrong but later, when I came to you, when we found each other and held each other…. I’m starting to figure it out now, Sher….”
But Brendan didn’t say anything for a while. They were both trying to figure it out.
“After Kenny left me, when you came to me, when I was staying in Fenn’s basement, do you remember, when I was writing the book, when we made love that first time, I mean when we really became a couple?”
“Sure I do.”
“It was the first time I saw you. Like, the first time, or the second time, that we weren’t playing these roles and I wasn’t Will’s best friend and you weren’t Will’s brother. You were this tall, narrow guy with secrets and… tea colored hair, and freckles, and I knew I’d made love to him and wanted to do it again. It was the first time I was seeing you. It’s how I felt last night. And this morning, when I came to you in the shower, when I was… In love is the wrong word. We use it too much. I was seeing you, and wanting you. I’ve wanted you so bad since I’ve got on this train, but more than anything, I want us to see each other again, to be excited again. To not be closed up.”
“Bren,” Sheridan discovered, “I don’t really want to be your husband.”
Brendan looked alarmed.
“Whaddo you want then?”
“Us,” Sheridan said. “Whatever we are right now. Us. Like we were, always coming back to each other. I don’t want a gay imitation of something I hate seeing straight people do. I want us.”

When they got to Main they walked down a block and up a block. It was mid Sunday morning. Church bells were ringing. Brendan wondered if it was Saint Nicholas, or the old AME church, and then put it out of his mind.
“It’s warm,” Sheridan said.
After the promise of winter, it was nearly fifty degrees, and only getting warmer. The day was full of sunlight. As they entered the house it smelled like breakfast and the television was on with Rob half asleep on the couch. Rafe was sitting at the table and he jumped up, but Elias wagged his finger and wiped the boy’s mouth.
Rafe leapt up onto Brendan and then to Sheridan, telling them, “Rob wanted us to see scary movies, but Elias said no. And then we did and there was this little boy, but his mother was a dog and he had a baby sitter and she jumped off a balcony because she loved him so much.”
“You let our kid see The Omen?” Brendan said.
Elias only shrugged and took Rafe’s plate to the sink.
“You don’t have to clean,” Sheridan said. “We got that.”
“But I already got it. And now that you’re here, we’re about to head home.”
“That’s crazy!” Brendan said. “Visit a little. We don’t want to toss you out.”
“But you forget,” Elias reminded, “I’ve been here since last night, and I’m ready to get back, and Rob probably wants to see some more of the city before he leaves.”
Elias shouted back, “What time is the train?”
“I don’t know,” Rob said, followed by, “4:43. Mom said it would be too late and she didn’t want me traveling in the dark, but I told her the only one before that is like 1 30.” They heard Rob’s shrug. “I dunno.”
“What are you guys cooking?” Elias wondered as he was preparing to leave, hoisting his bag over his shoulder.
“Nothing,” Sheridan said. Then he said, “For dinner?”
“Yes,” Elias said. “That is what I meant?”
“McDonalds most likely,” Brendan told him.
But Elias was looking from Brendan to Sheridan and Brendan said, “What?”
“There’s something about you two,” Elias said. “You two… I know how it is with me and Dylan and me and Lance. I…” Elias shook his head.
“How about I take Rafe with me and you can come down and have early dinner with us? How’s that sound. You know it might even be quicker if you get in that squad car and drive.”
“We couldn’t,” Brendan started, but Sheridan touched his hand. “We could.”
Brendan looked at Sheridan. He said, “We’ll be down after four.”
The two of them watched Elias leave with Rob, taking Rafe by the hand. Rafe, glad to see his parents, was equally glad of more of an adventure with Elias and Rob, and they did not close the door immediately right because it was so warm, and the grass was so green. In that dresser were the letters from Kenny Brendan had not read, and he burned to read them and when they closed the door he burned to hold Sheridan. They looked at each other and then held onto each other for a long time.
“We’re alone right now,” Brendan said. “At last.”
And because nothing was rushed, he was filled with this desire for Sheridan and yet, they stood there, simply touching hands, simply looking at each other as they had not in so long, the trace of a smile, the vein up a hand, and then Sheridan turned around and went outside and Brendan admired the curve of his ass against his jeans, the way his shirt hung from his shoulders, the jaunty way he walked, and Brendan walked over to his writing desk. When Sheridan entered the house with his cigarettes in his breast pocket and one hanging from his lips, Brendan reached out and lit it with the burning end of his Marlboro. They grinned at each other and then went to the porch, inhaling, exhaling, blowing trails of white smoke from their noses, ashing onto the porch step. Church bells began ringing again.
“Bren,” Sheridan said, “what’s the prayer for the fourth Sunday of Advent?”
Brendan said, “I don’t know.”


MORE IN A FEW DAYS
 
That was a great end to the chapter. So I see both Brendan and Sheridan slept with other people at the party. I am glad it did not split them up even if it made them realise some things. Excellent writing and I look forward to more in a few days!
 
Yes. There was a lot that happened at that party, and a lot that was happening psychologically. I enjoyed the conclusion as well, and thought it was the only thing that should be posted tonight.
 




P A R T

T W O





S I X




“I don’t have to be big, but I gotta get out. I gotta live.”

-Kyle Norman



“All those times I was angry,” Paul began, “I was afraid.”
After years of friendship, conversations began with no context, and Fenn accepted it.
“I mean every time I worried about Dylan and Elias. Or every time I blew up. Or the times we didn’t talk. You must have thought I was a terrible asshole.”
“No,” Fenn partially lied. “You had seen things I hadn’t. I,” Fenn stopped to think. “I always figured you were dealing with things.”
Paul grinned out of the corner of his mouth.
“You think I’m still a fucked up person.”
“No,” Fenn shook his head. “I think I am really difficult, and it really is something that we have stayed friends all of these years.”
“You are my best friend!” Paul said, shocked, heartfelt and earnest.
“I hope I am,” Fenn said. “I’ve tried to be. But there were times you hated me. Or almost did.”
“I was angry at Dylan.”
“And at me. I thought I had seen the end of you.”
When Paul had learned about Dylan and Lance and his son, it had been happening for a year. Elias was safely off in Chicago. In his own house, Paul had spiraled into a rage, and against Kirk’s counsel, driven to Fenn and Todd’s, screaming and shaking his finger. Todd had stepped between Fenn and the red headed man.
“I was embarrassed,” Paul said. “I was embarrassed for a long time about how I had behaved.”
“I think we both were.”
“You?” Paul said. “But you didn’t do anything.”
“Yes,” Fenn agreed. “And I always did something. That whole time I couldn’t do anything. I couldn’t even tell you the truth. What a bad time that was.”
Paul’s hand went over Fenn’s and clasped it. Paul was just turned fifty, and though in his early life, the accidents of long nose and big ears had gained him his fame, he also had the good looks of an ex model who cared for himself. Fenn looked at his friend, at the faint fan of lines around his grayish green eyes, and was surprised to see so much love in them.

East Carmel was certainly not the smallest town in Indiana, and Paul was well into his twenties before he knew it had a reputation for being racist, or indeed that any small town in Indiana had that reputation. How could he have known? He had never met anyone who wasn’t white until he was nineteen. There were the Mexicans who did field work and sent their kid to the high school, but they were seen more than talked to.
It is odd, Paul thinks over thirty years later, that he could have believed he was sophisticated when at sixteen he didn’t even think he lived in a small town. A fairly new school with a great football team had been built a few years back, and Paul was in drama and choir. He had ideas of New York. His father had made the offhand comment that he was turning into a queer and once, coming out of choir, laughing with his friends, some members of the soccer team walked by and muttered, “Fucking faggots.”
It was time to play a sport.
Paul’s father wasn’t easy to talk to, and he would have been embarrassed to ask his mother, so he went to his little sister, who was only seven, and said, “Claire, what’s a good sport.”
The little girl was impossibly white with bright red hair and she put down the Barbie doll she was beheading with a butter knife, looked reflective, and then said, “You’re good at running. Every time those boys chase you, you sure can outrun them.”
It takes almost thirty years to remember this clearly because for a very long time it was just too painful, and Paul conceived of himself as the constant athlete, the man of all talents, without asking why. He was a born runner, or a made one, track, cross country, triathalon. He couldn’t keep up choir, but he could do the annual musical. And if anyone had anything to say to him now, fuck them. And if anyone had anything to say now, well then he also had long, wiry muscles, defined thigh muscles, triceps, a young, fluid, strength and a circle of friends that resisted fag bashing.
And then came the girlfriend.
Whatever people said about Paul or sensed in him, he never felt gay. It was in track, in the locker room, in the showers with his new friends that he began to feel different. Not just about their bodies, but his own. There was a great pleasure in seeing the muscle play on his own body, in running with his friends and knowing girls were looking at them in the shorts that hung low revealing that V of flesh that descended to the sex unseen, their strong calf muscles, their buttocks, rounding under their shorts. And the mutual admiration of fellow runners in the shower, casually touching each other, muttering, “You’re looking better and better everyday, Anderson.”
And he noticed his friends were looking better and better too.
So when Mariah showed up, and they were kissing in the back of his car, he noticed how much he didn’t noticed, how much he’d rather be with his friends. She was nice though, very good, and he thought it would be okay to confirm his suspicions.
“I think I might be gay.”
“You’re a Christian, right?” she said.
He was Catholic. He was devout. He went to the little stone church, Saint Stephens, the only Catholic church in East Carmel.
“Yeah,” he said, sounding more doubtful than he should have felt.
“Then you can’t be gay,” Mariah said with confidence.
To prove it to him, she said they should have sex.
“You don’t want to be gay, do you?”
He liked the way he felt with the guys. He liked it when they would touch his hip and he would get excited. He liked looking at his friends in the shower, and the way he smelled after a work out. If he had thought about it, his answer would have actually been yes. His answer would have been, “I don’t like your question.” But he didn’t think about it, and so he had sex with her that night. Anyone who thinks it is impossible is underestimating the power of the promise of sex on a seventeen year old boner. When he came, she patted his head and while he was still hard inside of her, she said, “See, I knew you weren’t gay.”
When he thinks of humiliation, even with all the things that happened to him after this, it is this moment that comes to mind.

But when he remembers joy, he remembers Wyman. When he thinks of Wyman, Paul thinks of the bright hot sun in late spring, and his legs stretching, barely touching the earth as, gazelle like, he almost flies over the track. And it isn’t that pain isn’t there. There is pain aplently. Only it doesn’t matter. He almost thinks he could run like he used to, and then he stretches out his arms and his legs, looks in the mirror and remembers he is fifty. He stands looking a little longer and notices a little white at the temples and the little bit of lines around the eyes, but goddamn, he looks good. Real good. He has even taken off his clothes and looked at himself naked. No, he isn’t seventeen, but he is beautiful the way only an adult can be. He thinks, if only he weren’t married he could probably get a young thing like the young thing he once was.
He thinks, can it really have been thirty years ago? How can it be? There is almost a violence in the idea that thirty years have passed since he was running track. Thirty… more. When he thinks of Wyman it is all just happening. They are seventeen and he wonders if Wyman—frankly—looks as good now as he does. If you can see the boy in the man. They were best friends senior year, exchanged knitted caps and stayed the night with each other. When Paul saw Elias doing that with Dylan he was so glad. No boy should miss that friendship. And when he thought of what had happened between himself and Wyman, well, Dylan was Fenn’s son, and he would never hurt Elias the way Wyman had done him. But, still, Paul feared. All these years later, with all that happened, that first night when he and Wyman were nervous on the bed together, and then Wyman offered him the comforter his grandma had made and they played footsie and then began the tentative touching that led to kissing, that led to pressing bodies against bodies that led to coming…
When it was over, in the dark room, neither one of them said anything for a long time.
“This isn’t like being with a girl,” Paul said, making his voice work. It hardly wanted to.
“No,” Wyman said.
“I did it with her cause I had to,” Paul said, and understood the same thing had happened to Wyman. “I didn’t feel like I’d lost my virginity. I just felt like a fool when it was over. Right now, now I feel like I just lost my virginity.”
“I love you, Pauly,” Wyman said simply.
They lay face to face, heedless of the slickness on their chests or the sweat on their bodies.
“No one ever told me that before,” Paul said.
“Come’on,” Wyman said. “I know that’s not true.”
“My mom,” Paul said. “I guess.”
Then Paul wrapped his arms around Wyman and smiled.
“You’re so goodlooking,” Wyman said.
“Everyone says I look like a rat,” Paul said. “Or at least they used to before…” Paul pulled the covers down to display his lightly muscled body.”
Wyman could not deny Paul’s long nose, slightly sharp face, his—yes—faintly murine appearance. So he shrugged, touched Paul’s nose and said, “Fuck, I like mice.”


MORE SUNDAY
 
Great to hear from Paul and more of his past. I am glad he has a friend like Fenn. Excellent writing and I look forward to more in a few days. I hope you have a great weekend!
 
The weekend is not quite upon us and there are still things to do, but the night is good enough. Yes.
 
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