Nights in White Satin

[ChrisGibson]

“Are you gon get that?” Sharonda Story asked, “Or are you going to make your poor mother?”
Gilead had been distracted, and shook his head, rising.
“Thank you,” his mother said.
He left the kitchen, went through the hallway, thought the heat needed to be turned up, entered the foyer and opened the door.
“Are you going to just leave me standing on the porch?”
“What the fuck do you want?” Gilead said to Mark, bored.
“Can I come in?”
“Let me think about it.”
“Gil, who’s at the door? Don’t let the heat out.”
Gilead seemed to be thinking his answer over.
He said, “It’s Mark, Mom.”
“Let him in,” she said.
“Well, you heard her,” Gilead held the door open and shut it behind Mark.
Mark was in a parka and skull cap and looked a lot less regal than usual.
“You’re red.”
“I ran over here.”
“That wa stupid,” Gilead said.
“Mark, are you hungry?” Sharonda called.
“Actually—”
“No, Mother, he’s fine,” Gilead said.
Mark frowned.
“Can we talk?”
“I guess we can. I guess we can talk whenever you think it’s time to talk. I guess it’s all about you.”
“I deserve that.”
Gilead nodded.
“You do.”
“Gil—”
“Don’t touch me. For real. Don’t.”
“Please, can we talk?”
“I don’t really want you in my room.”
“We could go walking.”
“Why the fuck should I be cold for you? We’ll go to the laundry room. I have to wash bedsheets anyway.”



“You have a right to be angry,” Mark said while Gilead was sorting bed sheets. “I was a real jerk.”
Gilead thought he’d interrupted enough, and he certainly wasn’t going to deny what Mark had said, so he continued sorting laundry.
“I… was depressed,” Mark said. “I am depressed, actually. It’s why I ran here. Sometimes that’s the only thing that helps. And… the truth is you’ve never known me until recently. You don’t know the depressed me.”
“Firstly,” Gilead said, slamming the lid of the washer down and surprising himself with the crash, “I’m supposed to know the you you. The all of you. You’re supposed to be my… fuck boyfriend. Friend. You’re supposed to be my companion. You’re supposed to be there for me and I’m supposed to be there for you. Why the fuck don’t you know that?”
“I was embarrassed, Gil! I am embarrassed. I hate this version of me. I don’t want people to see it. I don’t—I hate feeling this way. I hate being this. I didn’t come to you so you could meet this fucked up version of me. And deal with all of my fucked upness. And… and when we got together I felt better than I had in a long time and so I thought it was gone, but it’s not gone because on top of the depression… On top of that is—”
“Joe’s death.”
“Yeah,” Mark said, his voice changing. “Joe. And the car crash and the—”
Suddenly Mark went silent and his fist banged on the washer. He was breathing hard and his eyes were closed and he shook his head.
“I…”
Gilead watched Mark, his shoulders taut, his head bowed, breathing in and out as he bent over the washer.
“Marcus,” Gilead said, “do you honestly think I didn’t know what was what was going on with you?”
“Fuck!” Mark growled turning away from Gilead.
“Fuck, I want to hit something right now. I don’t…. Gil,” he turned to Gilead, and his voice was shallow and his face was pale and Gilead could tell he was trying not to cry.
“I just feel like this all the time, and I’m not any good like this, and I just don’t want anyone to see me this way.”
Gilead blew out his breath and held in his words. He opened the washer and finished putting in the bed sheets and the towels. He added the laundry soap and turned the dials, listening to their satisfying clicks, and then he pulled out the knob and heard the water shoot.
“Mark, if you don’t want to trust me with the bad part of you as much as the good, then there isn’t any hope for us. I don’t know what else to tell you. I’ll go upstairs and you can be down here by yourself and do what you need to do. If you’re not ready to trust me, but… You need to trust me.”
Mark put his face in his hands and turned around to slide against the wall till he was sitting on the floor with his blue jeaned knees drawn to his chest. He pulled his hands from his face and sniffed up snot loudly.
“I…. push everything down. I never let people see me like this. I think that’s why I like you, cause you’re the same. I never want you to think of me as weak.”
Gilead sat on the floor beside Mark and decided not to say how cold it was.
“You are my weakness,” Gilead said.
Suddenly Mark’s shoulders shook, and he began to cry.
“The only thing I want to do is be there for you,” Gilead said. “It’s all I’ve wanted to do. Do you think…. Do you really think I wanted the smarmy track runner who has too much self confidence and swiped my journal? “
Mark was somewhere between crying and laughing and sucking up snot.
“You look really gross right now. It’s a good thing I love you,” Gilead said, rising.
Mark caught his hand and pulled him.
“I love you too, you know,” he said, wiping the back of his hand across his face.

TOMORROW MORE KING OF ALL THESE RUINS

 

[CharmedFan28]

I am glad Gilead and Mark are finally talking. It might still be tough for a while but at least Mark is letting Gilead in and they said they loved each other. Great writing and I look forward to more soon!

 

[ChrisGibson]

That's insightful. It may very well be tough for a while, but Mark has stopped putting a wall up between himself and the person he loves. And neither one of them is afraid to say they love the other. That's everything.

 

[ChrisGibson]

PART THREE

The
Sun




TEN


BODIES



“I’m just glad you all are talking again,” Russell said.
He amended, “I’m just glad you’re talking to us all again.”
Mark smiled and Russell saw that it was genuine.
He said, “I got depressed.”
Then he said, “I get depressed.”
Russell understood Mark was admitting something to him, and he said, “I get it. I’ve been there too. I’m sure I will be there again.”
Mark Young looked around as if making sure Gilead still hadn’t come back into the room.
“I thought about killing myself,” he said.
“I don’t mean to sound like my mom,” Russell said, “who is a psychologist. But have you ever thought about—”
“Seeing a shrink?”
“Well, that too, but telling your friends, I mean,” Russell said, bending to twist a shoe lace, “I didn’t think I had any friends, and I thought I was the only person who felt the way I did. I felt like I was—”
“Drowning.”
“Yes.
“But I wasn’t drowning,” Russell said, “And I wasn’t alone.”
“Thanks, Russell.”
“Thanks Russell what,” Gilead said, coming back into his living room.
“Russell was just helping me be a sane person.”
Gilead grinned at Mark, and Russell watched how Gilead buried his hands in Marks black waves, how Mark touched his hand and they sat side by side their long legs touching.
“I do have one question, though,” Russell said.
“Yes, Gilead is my boyfriend, and yes the sex is wonderful.”
Gilead frowned at Mark.
“Well, it is,” Mark said, swinging Gilead’s hand. “And Gilead is also amazed at the size of my penis.”
“Please stop.”
“He actually said he didn’t know white boys could be that big.”
“I’m about to throw you out.”
“I think girthy is the actual term he used.”
“And now you’re actual question,” Gilead prompted.
“It’s about Chris.”
“Knapp?” Mark frowned.
“Yeah. It’s not even my business, except Ralph said something that I don’t think is true.”
“Ralph is an idiot,” Mark said dismissively.
“He said Chris had an affair with his teacher back in K through 8, when he was fourteen or fifteen. And… it can’t be true,” Russell said. “Which makes me think… something else has to be true. Something worse. And he’s our friend.”
“Chris was molested,” Mark said baldly.
Russell remembered the look on Mark’s face when he’d heard Russell had been betrayed by Ralph and Jason. The same angry look was on his face now and his fist clenched and unclenched.
“How does a twelve year old have an affair?”
“Twelve?”
“We were in seventh grade, and yeah, Chris looked older than he was, but that’s like maybe he looked fifteen when he was twelve. He didn’t look like he was…. A grown up. That bitch was sick. We all knew she wasn’t right. I… I even felt like she was trying something with me. You felt uneasy with her. We all did. Chris was unsuspicious and obedient and…. It’s gross. I don’t really know the details. I’d have to ask him, and I would never do that to him. But you know people. Everyone knew what had happened and they made it a joke. Sometimes he made a joke of it too, But that’s where all the rumors come from.”
Gilead’s face was blank, and Russell felt sick and angry.
“Cameron was afraid to ask.”
“She should ask,” Mark said. “She’s probably the person Chris would tell, and he probably needs to.”
“She didn’t understand why he was so…. Well, why he’s not pressing her into anything, why he’s being a perfect gentleman.”
“Chris is a perfect gentleman,” Mark said, almost angry, though Russell understood the anger wasn’t at him.
“I’m pretty sure that except for whatever that woman did to him, he’s still a virgin.”



Winter was cold, and that was a stupid thing to say. It was even stupid to point out that it had been cold for so long that the usual flow of things had been off. They had been weird, Mark with Gilead, him with Cody. The Dwyers and the Armstrongs split up. Patti, who knew so much, seemed not to know quite what balance to strike with Cody. Russell thought it would have been best if none of them had known the truth.
And how he felt for Ralph was weird. In December Ralph had come to him and the Ralph who had been his enemy once, and then his new friend, and then the friend who had confused him, had become his lover, and now Ralph just seemed like the dumb friend who said silly things, and he couldn’t believed they’d shared the same bed or made love.
Jason was everything he had ever been. Jason was the same musky smell of cedar, tobacco and adult cologne and to Russell, summer or winter, Jason’s room was always warm, warm enough with the scent of sandalwood, and his kisses tasted like spearmint, and in the time when Mark seemed not be as cold as the winter to Gilead whom he had so shortly come to love, Jason was open and warm and inviting.
On the phone his cousin Jimmy called and asked him how “that whole situation was going.”
When Russell told him, Jimmy said, “Well, now, Cody is unavailable and off limits—and holding himself off limits. But Jason isn’t, so it seems like Jason’s the way to go.”
Jimmy was unsentimental about sex, or rather he loved sex so much he would never let sentiment get in the way. All Christmas he’d said, quite firmly, rubbing his hands together: “I’ve got the biggest boner for that Meg Rice, and I wanna put it in her.”
The night after Christmas, when Russell had come home he’d heard his uncle Fenn and Meg going at it in the spare room where Cody had stayed, Meg moaning and crying in shameless way. He’d gone downstairs for a glass of water only to hear his mother going on about how Finn had taken Cody to the bar.
“What?”
“Yeah. They’re out on that damn motorcycle and better return in one piece.”
When Russell had returned upstairs, Meg, hair a mess, was trotting out of that spare room with her head down and a moment later, pleased and smiling, Jimmy had come out in his boxers. His hair plastered to his head. He came toward Russell in a slower walk and embraced him, smelling of heat and sex and contentment and murmuring, “I fucked her like the Second Coming was at hand. It was awesome.”
Jimmy always made him feel sexual and open, and he could smell sex and amorality on his cousin. He almost wondered, if he kissed him, how would Jimmy respond. But there was more than enough incest in his life and so he had taken this desire three blocks down the street. It was one of the first times he had put Jason’s knees behind his head and spent the morning fucking him, rejoicing in the clapping sounds of body to body and sweat running down him, rejoiced in Jason’s hands up and down his body, clutching his ass.

It was like that this morning as Jason urged him on and the sweat beaded on his brow and rolled down his nose. He had come to Jason, and in the midst of standard sex they kissed and clung together, and emotion welled up and there was nothing between them. The coldness Russell had felt, he knew was in him, and he had held himself away from Jason, from the way his touch, his fingertips, his lips, opened him. Russell almost shuddered and sobbed at his reopening. It was when he penetrated Jason that Russell himself felt penetrated. When he blinked he saw fairy lights in the dark room, and when he bowed down he kissed Jason’s wet mouth. When he came, he did it roaring through gritted teeth and feeling the thin rivulet of sweat run down his spine to the cleft of his ass. The very weakness he showed in the spilling of his seed was like a confession. He came so hard he stayed lifted up on his arms, like someone in flight for some time before slowly settling down.
In the aftermath they lay face to face, knees drawn to knees and Jason said, “Russ, whatever happened before, and wherever your heart is, do you think we could love each other? We were loving each other right then. Do you think we could do it again?”
Russell pulled Jason to him, kissed him deeply, and held Jason in his arms, surrendering.

 

[CharmedFan28]

I am glad Mark is opening up to his friends and also Gilead of course. Poor Chris, what he went through is so awful. It seems like Russell and Jason have something there. I am fascinated to see who Russell ends up with. Great writing and I look forward to more tomorrow!

 

[ChrisGibson]

The truth is finally out about Chris and it's not pretty.Of course things like this happen all the timeAnd the abuse of young men is rarely taken seriously.Mark is now dealing with his pain. And Russell's getting to be helpful by sharing his. Meanwhile Russell learns that despite everything, he still has a passion for Jason.

 

[ChrisGibson]

A FEW HEART TO HEARTS TAKE PLACE IN ROSSFORD TONIGHT



“I just keep wondering if I’m going to hell.”
Anigel blinked and looked at Cameron on the other side of the table at Noble Red.”
“What the fuck for?”
“I know this is silly—”
“I bet it will be.”
“But for picking up Niall from the abortion clinic. I don’t know. I just feel like I had a hand in it.”
Anigel was about to burst in with something, decided to take a second and wait for wisdom, but when wisdom gave her nothing different, she said, “Look, a woman does what a woman has to. What Sonia did she felt like she had to do and I wouldn’t want to have a kid at sixteen and, not to be a bitch, but I wouldn’t want to have a kid by your brother.”
“Fair.”
“So I don’t even think that’s an issue. But what you did? You were there. You were there for two people when they needed you, and no one’s going to hell for that.”
“Ani?”
“Um hum?” Anigel thought she was through with the French fries, and then decided she wasn’t.
“Russell said you were an atheist, but you aren’t, are you?”
“I’ve seen a lot of shit,” Anigel said. “When you start calling yourself things because of what you believe, it’s like you’re saying you have something to do with it.”
“I’m not sure I follow.”
“Well, you know, if you’re a Christian you’re supposed to believe in all these things, just believe in these things that people tell you, and it’s supposed to mean something that you believe in them. But why should it? Why should it mean anything to anyone, especially God, that you… believe? I think you just have to live and be open. If that makes sense.”
“I wish,” Cameron said, “someone had said that to me some time in the last seventeen years.”

When Anigel was dropping Cameron off, she said, “Looks like you’ve got a visitor.”
“I have no idea who.”
“You’ll tell me tomorrow?”
“I may tell you tonight. Goodnight,” Cameron jumped out of the car. “Have fun at class.”
Anigel had moved only five feet when the front door of 1735 Breckinridge opened, and Patti Lewis came running out.
“Okay,” she said as Anigel rolled down the window, “so here are my psych notes. I mean, the ones for teaching, cause you want to be in that teacher’s mind. Some teachers like you to have your own thoughts, but some like you to have theirs. And then here is my first collection of Carl Jung’s essays. I mean, you won’t need them in an intro to psych class, but you’ll feel his good energy. Have a great time. Psychology is amazing.”
“Damn, thanks, Patti.”
“You know,” Patti said, “I think you’d make a hell of a shrink.”
“Really?”
“Yeah,” Patti said. “You listen well. You care a lot, but at the same time you don’t give a fuck, and that’s pretty important.”
Anigel was just about to drive away when the door opened again and she slammed her foot on the brake while Russell came out.
“Goddamnit, Russell, I love you but if I don’t get to class—”
“You actually left your textbooks here.”
“Oh, fuck. Oh thank you,” she rolled down the window.
“You are officially my favorite white person.”
“Am I such your favorite that you’ll drop me off at Chayne’s on your way to class.”
“Get you coat,” Anigel said. “But be quick.”
















“Psychology is the science of mind and behavior. Psychology includes the study of conscious and unconscious phenomena, including feelings and thoughts. It is an academic discipline of immense scope, crossing the boundaries between the natural and social sciences. Psychologists seek an understanding of the emergent properties of brains, linking the discipline to neuroscience. As a social science, psychologists aim to understand the behavior of individuals and groups…”

“Is this going to get exciting?” Nehru whispered, sitting low in his seat.
“Well, this is the very first class,” Rob said. “Let’s give it a try.”
The professor continued,
“A professional practitioner or researcher involved in the discipline is called a psychologist. Some psychologists can also be classified as social, behavioral, or cognitive scientists. Some psychologists attempt to understand the role of mental functions in individual and social behavior. Others explore the physiological and biological processes that underlie cognitive functions and behaviors…”

“I don’t know,” Nehru sighed, stretching his blue jean encased thighs in front of him, “I’ve given a lot of my time to being bored in classes, and I vowed I’d never be bored again.”
“Hell of a vow,” Rob smirked.

“Psychologists are involved in research on perception, cognition, attention, emotion, intelligence, subjective
experiences, motivation, brain functioning, and personality.
Psychologists' interests extend to interpersonal
relationships, psychological resilience, family resilience, and other areas within social psychology. …”

“I feel,” Nehru stopped drawing spirals in his notebook, “like I might want to take actual notes this semester.”
Rob looked outside, the early evening was going from grey to grey blue and he whispered, “Should we get burgers after this?”
“Would yawl please—” Anigel hissed, “shut the fuck up?”
Thank you,” the professor said, “thank you for that spirited request for quiet.”
Anigel blinked.
“I am so…”
“Enthusiastic,” her new professor said, “Your name is?”
“Anigel. Anigel Reyes.”
“Anigel Reyes. Welcome to my class. I look forward to getting to know you.”

“And you slept with this Jason again?” Chayne said.
“Yes,” Russell said. “Only, I thought I was seeing Flipper. I mean, I am seeing Flipper.”
“The boy from Ross’s college.”
“Yes.”
“Well,” Chayne said, exhaling cigarette smoke.
“Well is right.”
“So, we’re talking about you with this Jason or you with this twenty year old.”
“When you put it that way…”
“The way I wish,” Chayne said, “honestly, is that it was no way.”
“I kind of side with that myself. But Flipper feels real. And Flupper feels sensible.”
“Only Flipper doesn’t live here.”
“Right?”
“How often can you see him?” Chayne asked.
“If I’m lucky once a month.”
“And Jason’s right down the street.”
Russell echoed, “And Jason’s right down the street.”
“Do you….” Chayne thought, “have any clarification with Flipper about the nature of your relationship?”
“We didn’t really call it anything. That’s just it. I don’t even know if I’m assuming anything.”
“Realistically, and this is the time to be realistic. You’ve decided to be a grown up now—if you are with Jason, it’s highly unlickely that a twenty something year old living at college who has a sexual history is sleeping alone either.”
“Should we talk about it.”
“You should be a teenager and live your life and not be tangled in relationships like a fly in a spiderweb.”
“But I am.”
“Well, in that case I you should do the thing that makes you feel the most honest, and whatever you think is the most helpful.”
“Chayne, can I tell you the truth and you not judge?”
“Probably not, but I’ll wear a poker face so it will seem like I’m impartial.”
“Good enough,” Russell decided, then said, “Jason will never be a proper boyfriend, and I’ll never be properly in love with him, but I’m pretty sure I’m going to keep sleeping with him.”
Russell sipped from his coffee, and he said, “Isn’t that the most fucked up thing you’ve heard?”
“Nehru, Brad and Cody have a three way relationship and they’re all sleeping together,” Chayne said.
Russell sprayed coffee across the kitchen table. His mouth hung open.
“See,” Chayne said. “You’re not the only one with secrets. Now, go get a wet cloth and wipe off my table.”
“

















“Ani, it’s for you,” Chayne said when she walked through the door.
Anigel walked to the phone while Nehru and Rob put down their bags.
“Hello?”
“Ani?”
“Cameron?”
Cameron let out an angry scream, and Anigel held the phone away from her ear.
“What the fuck?”
“Do you know who was at my father’s house? Our house?”
“The car that was waiting when I got there?”
“Yes.”
“A LYNN.”
“What the fuck is a Lynn?”
“A Lynn,” Cameron began, “is the twenty-three year old slut my father has been fucking for months. He tried to make it sounds like it just miraculously started after Mom ended things, but a LYNN—”
“Hold on,” Anigel said.
“Chayne?”
“Um hum?”
“Did you know that Bill Dwyer was having an affair?”
“Oh, you mean the health spa he was going to all the time—”
“The health spa!” Cameron shrieked on the other end of the phone. “The goddamn health spa! I knew it.
“And that’s not all. He asked if maybe Lynn could move into the house!”
“Oh.”
“There must have been something in my face,” Cameron said, darkly, “that told them that was a definite no go.”
Anigel heard an intake of breath and said, “Please don’t scream.”
“Sorry, I’ll do it away from the phone.”
Cameron gave a long and thankfully muffled scream, and then said, “Thank you.”
“Cam, would you like to come over here?”
“Do you see how crowded this house is?” Chayne began.
“No,” Cameron said. “This is my home, and I have to live in it. This is my fucking family, so…. All sorts of goodies are supposed to be happening this week. I’m going to talk to Mom and Niall’s going to talk to Dad and we’re going to have some sort of coming together.”
“That could be…” Anigel searched for the lie, “healing?”
“No,” Cameron said, “it couldn’t.”

MORE TOMORROW

 

[CharmedFan28]

Some great heart to hearts in this portion. I am glad Anigel and Cameron have such a strong friendship. Russell may keep sleeping with Jason but at least he had the facts laid out to him by Chayne. Bill and now Lynn continue to be problematic. I am glad Cameron stood her ground about Lynn trying to move in. I am very interested to read more tomorrow! Great writing!

 

[ChrisGibson]

Cameron's very brave and very out and there, and with her parents she has to be. She just refuses to be run over. Anigel is the perfect confidante to have, a sort of sister figure who strengthens her backbone. And it's just good to see Chayne and Russell together again, and Chayne giving Russell the facts and Russell telling the truth. In the end, as usual, Chayne has the last word and Russell still ends up shocked, learning about Nehru and Cody and Brad.

 

[ChrisGibson]

THE DWYER FAMILY HAS A SIT DOWN, AND THE RESULTS ARE.... INTERESTING


Niall Dwyer was scratching the back of his head and looking away from Bill, and Cameron sat looking at Dena in the Armstrong living room.
“Dave,” Lee whispered, “stop spying.”
Dave Armstrong came back from where his head was peeked around the entrance to the dining room, staring into the living room that overlooked Breckinridge.
“I’m not spying,” Dave whispered, and Lee gave him a withering look.
“Niall,” Bill said. “Maybe this would be better if we went to another room? Took a drive.”
“I don’t wanna take a drive,” Niall said.
“Sweetheart,” Dena said, “oblige your father and go upstairs to your room, alright?”
Niall nodded, and pulled himself out of his slouch, walking ahead of his father and up the stairs.

“This is a nice room,” Bill said after a while.
“I guess,” Niall said.
“Uh… yes,” said Bill.
He didn’t quite look at his son and Niall sat on his bed, his arms crossed over his chest.
“Whose idea was this anyway?” Niall said.
“I think it was Dave’s,” Bill tried to laugh.
“That figures,” Niall said after a while. “I mean, I wouldn’t expect it to be yours.”
Bill wasn’t sure how to answer.
“I’m not afraid of you anymore,” Niall said.
“I… I don’t want you to be afraid of me.”
“Sure you do. Why else would you be so awful? And you were awful. I mean,” Niall said, “you were an awful parent. You are an awful parent.”
Bill had nothing to say.
“It’s so strange,” Niall said. “I keep waiting for you to grab me by the collar or shove me around. It’s so different being here, in this house, and people knowing about you.”
Bill had not known what to expect, and he had nothing to say. He felt in a sort of panic that didn’t show on his face, that hadn’t made it to his body. He wanted to say something in response, but he hardly knew how to reply.
“Is it true?” Niall began, “that you’ve got a girlfriend? That you’ve had her all the time you were stealing my weed and telling me what a piece of shit I was?”
“Where did you even get weed from?”
“Who cares?” Niall shrugged. “Really, who cares?”
“Is it true? About Sonia?”
“You know it’s true,” Niall said.
“Son…”
“Please don’t call me that.”
“What’s done is done,” Bill said. “I can’t take back what happened, but… We can start now. Do things over.”
“Look,” Niall said. “Things didn’t just…. happen. You did them. You did them and I did them. I got Sonia pregnant and you…. You were just an evil asshole every chance you got.”
“I know!” Bill said. “I know. But Niall…. Niall, listen to me. You’re sixteen. We’ve got a lifetime. You could… you could come back home and we could—“
“Come back to that house? Come back to your house where you can get at me—”
“I don’t want to get at you,” Bill said. “I want a second chance. If you’d come back—”
“You get your second chance here, old man,” Niall said. “I was scared every day of my life living with you. I will never, ever live in your house again. And if you bring that skank you’re dating there, I bet Cameron won’t either.”

The room actually seemed colder once Bill and Niall had left and Cameron finally said, because Dena wasn’t saying anything:
“Can I ask you a question?”
“Yes, Cameron, of course you can ask me a question,” Dena said in that annoyed tone she generally reserved for her daughter.
“You love Niall, right? I mean, you really love him.”
“I love both of you.” Dena said.
“I wonder,” Cameron said.
Dena looked at her.
“I mean, I try,” Cameron said. “I’ve always tried, but now I don’t really want to try anymore. I don’t know why I should.”
“Cameron, I don’t know what you’re talking about?”
“What I’m talking about,” Cameron said, “is…. Do you even like me? A little bit? Do you like me?”
“What kind of question is that?”
“Okay, well then do you love me? Not, do you think you should, but do you actually love me? Because you appear annoyed by me.”
“Cameron, this is nonsense.”
“No, please be honest. Be honest with yourself and just say how you really feel.”
“I didn’t want you,” Dena said, in frustration. “I got pregnant and then college ended and my life was interrupted and I made due. I made due. I did what I was supposed to. We put a roof over your head. What more do you want? I didn’t want you. You didn’t need me. Niall I wanted. I wanted Bill to have a son, not that he appreciated it, and I wanted a baby to keep me company. So… that’s the difference between you and Niall.”
Cameron stared at her mother, feeling her face prickle with… shame? Hurt? Anger… definitely a combination. Her eyes stung, Her throat hummed.
“Cameron—” Dena begin.
“You,” Cameron began, “are a horrible… old… bitch.”
Dena’s eyes widened.
“I hate you,” Cameron continued. “I’ve hated you for so long, but felt so bad about it. I can’t wait till you die so I can burn you and toss your ashes in a trash can.”
All of her feelings fed the fire she was riding on and Cameron leaned into Dena’s face, breathing out violence as Bill was coming down the steps, looking dazed.
“You listen to me, you wicked old hag, you’ve resented me for your own mistakes and I’ve wanted to say this for years. It’s not my fault you got pregnant or dropped out of college. That was all you, but since you’ve hated me for no reason all these years from now, look at me, look at me and know it this minute, from now on I will give you every reason to hate me. Any since of duty I ever had, any bit of love I ever tried to cultivate—is gone.”
Cameron turned to leave the room and then, before she departed she fixed her eye on a terrified Dena while Bill stood there with his face drained of color.
“The next time I see you, you horrible old witch, I’ll see you in hell.”



That night the rain started, and Bill Dwyer sat in the darkness of his room looking out of the window as late winter rain made trails across the window pane. Of course he could not bring Lynn into this house. Not now, at least. But he needed her. He needed her because he had ruined his life so badly, and maybe turning to her was a part of that ruining, but there it was. He had tried to hold himself together today at David and Lee’s house, and the practice of holding together was such an old one that it was only now he felt the pain rising in him that could not be contained. He had ruined things. He had gotten Dena pregnant, and he loved Cameron, more than the sun and more than the moon, but he’d given her a loveless mother, and he had been an unloving father, just like his own, a bully, someone that Niall was afraid of, and could not trust. This same afternoon, while Niall told him how much he despised and feared him, Cameron had, like a sorceress of old, lain a venomous curse on a mother whom, Bill realized, could use a venomous curse. How in God’s name had they gotten to this place?
And before he knew it, a sob had escaped, and he couldn’t stop it, so he jammed his pillow into his mouth and lay on his side, weeping for the damage that he could not be repair.


When Cameron Dwyer awoke the next morning she felt messy, the way you do when you’ve gone to bed in your clothes. She had gone to bed in her grief, and told herself not to cry, and she had lain in bed rumpled in her own misery until the storm had broken, and in the midst of the thunder she felt free to shed her tears. She had to get rid of them, but they were treacherous things. How could she shed a tear for Dena or for the knowledge that her mother did not love her? She’d always known that. And what was more, what was more, how could she grieve for what she knew now, that she did not love her own mother either. But she did weep. She sobbed until the pain left her tight chest and fled her muscles. She cried until she couldn’t cry anymore, and she remembered being a little girl, sobbing, and her mother coming to her room and saying, “Young lady, if you don’t stop crying, I’ll give you something to cry about,” but saying it with no real anger or care, just weariness, the same weariness with which Dena greeted everything. And Cameron remembered weeping in front of her and Dena being unmoved as stone and, at last, exhausted and perversely comforted from her tears, she passed into sleep.
This morning the very grey sky, heavy with blue and black, seemed to take up her weeping for her, and Cam lay immobilized until she could smell cooking from downstairs, and then she got up, put on her robe and came to the kitchen. Her father was in his housecoat, his ginger hair sticking up, and he was making eggs and bacon and biscuits from the canister, and coffee was brewing. She got herself a cup.
Quietly he made her plate and put it down in front of his daughter before serving himself. They did not say grace, but he crossed himself, and after chewing on a bit of bacon, Bill said, “I’m sorry. All of this is my fault.
“All of this is my fault and I can’t put it back together again, at least not right away. I never wanted to cause you pain. Or anyone. I just sort of lost who I was, I think.”
They were quiet a while, and Cameron said nothing, not because she was angry, but because she couldn’t think of what to say.
“If you don’t mind,” Bill said. “I’m taking off work, and I’d like you to take off school. I’d like to spend the day with my daughter.”
“Yes,” Cameron said, quickly.
Bill smiled, and she knew she was his girl, and she loved him, She always loved him, and she knew this love was one of the reasons Dena couldn’t love her. Whatever her father’s faults, he did love both of his children. Whatever he had done to Niall, he would try to make amends.
“Where should we go?” Bill wondered.
Cameron said, “Anywhere but here.”


THAT'S ALL FOR THIS WEEK. HAVE AN EXCELLENT WEEKEND

 

[CharmedFan28]

Well they certainly had a sit down and they all spoke their minds. Seems like they are even more divided then before. Bill and Dena have been a bit selfish blaming their kids for how their lives turned out. I hope they take some responsibility. Great writing and I look forward to more next week! I hope you have a excellent weekend too!

 

[ChrisGibson]

TONIGHT, BRAD AND NEHRU HAVE SOME ALONE TIME

“You pick me up from class, whisk me away in your car and bring me here,” Nehru said, looking around the restaurant. “It’s like a date or something.”
“It is a date,” Brad told him as he unfolded his napkin and placed it on his lap. “And we’re going to be doing a lot more of this a lot more often.”
The waitress arrived and asked what they would have to drink.”
“I’ll just have water,” Nehru said.
“Could you just bring us a pitcher?” Brad asked, and the waitress said she could. “And I’ll take a Heineken and I’m going to get a strawberry margarita for my friend here.”
The woman nodded and as she left, Brad said, “I told you, this is a date.”
“You don’t have a lot of money.”
“I have enough money to take you out to a medium class restaurant,” Brad said.
“Accepted,” Nehru said.
“Out of al the things you can fight me on, don’t fight me about wanting to be good to you.”
“Nehru threw up his hands and said, “I won’t. But you will help me eat the tandoori chicken?”
“Agreed. Now what looks good?”
“Butter chicken. It’s been a long time. Chicken korma looks good too.”
“I was actually getting that. Why don’t we just split our plates?
“Fair.”
“And lamb biryani?”
“I was afraid of lamb,” Nehru said. “But I like it now. “Lamb biryani it is. Garlic naan.”
“Garlic naan, yes.”
The server returned with the water pitcher and when he had poured two glasses and left, after promsing drinks were on the way, Brad said, “I have a surprise, and I hope you liked it?”
“Oh?”
“Cause it’s paid for.”
Nehru raised a cautious eyebrow and then said, “Well, then I love it.”
“You know that semi fancy B and B by the lake?”
“Yeah.”
“We’re going tonight. I already got an overnight bag packed for you.”
“Does Cody know?”
“Cody suggested it. I told him how I needed to treat you special, and he said, before I could, that we needed time together, and this was a good place to be.”
“Well… yes,” Nehru said “It is.”
“It seems like this whole relationship has been uncommon. Thank you—” Brad said at the server brought his beer and Nehru’s margarita. “But at the end of the day you’re mine, and I want you to know that. Know how I feel. I want us to have the time together we need.”
“And on the lake?”
“I know how much you love Lake Michigan in March.”
Nehru laughed. “You’re joking, but I do. I’ll walk it this evening after dinner. You’ll walk it with me?”
Not caring what anyone thought—it was the year 2000, after all, Brad Long reached across the table and squeezed Nehru’s hand.
“Sir,” he said, “I will walk anywhere with you.”

It was not nearly as cold as Nehru thought it would be, and he wouldn’t have been able to stay away from the lake even if it was. This was one of those evenings when the sun was staying up longer, and the water was a a deep grey blue that reflected the sky. The sand was flat and hard packed after the winter and he and Brad stepped around piles of seaweed. He remembered a day only last summer, when they had walked Silver Beach and Brad had talked about Debbie and how that relationship wasn’t working out and now that all seemed so far away. When he stepped into a dibbit, Brad caught his hand and pulled him, and Nehru laughed, but he did not let Brad go. They walked along the shore watching and watched the white thumbprint of a young moon come up slowly where the sun had disappeared.
“We should write a song about this,” Brad said.
“I don’t know if I have a song in me at this moment. I don’t want to think about lyrics. I just want us to be right here.”
The small waves quietly washed to the sand, and then went back with lazy energy. There was no wind tonight no sound really, and Brad thought how the moon would be full in a few days and he felt full already incredibly happy to be with the person he cared for most in this world. He had never felt so much himself, and he loved the life at the Noble Red, and he loved everyone in that life, but just to be here with Nehru was:
“Not a dream come true?”
“Huh?”
“I was thinking of how being with you isn’t a dream come true, because I didn’t really have the courage or the imagination to dream it.”
That heated Nehru all over and moved him in a place between his heart and his loins. Brad was his best friend, and here they were watching the moon rise and the night become itself, the first stars slowly prick the night sky, And when Brad stood behind him now, and wrapped his arms around him now, and pressed his chin on his shoulder, Nehru knew they would go back to the car soon, touching hands, and soon they would be in their room again.
His love for Nehru was solid and firm, literally. Thinking about how much he loved him, how tender he felt for him, made him swell in his pants. Often his dick hurt he cared so much for him, and this had never been the way he’d felt for anyone.
Brad tried to keep his foot off the gas while they drive back to the bed and breakfast where they will enter the common room that used to be a living room and wave politely to the people there. They will say nice things to the old woman at the desk, and if someone is sitting in the reading room, they might say hello as well. While Brad is driving, his mind is already to them walking upstairs, slowly, to the third floor where there are no neighbors at this time of year. He isn’t made of money, but in March with few visitors he takes the suite with two adjoining rooms, not, of course because tey will need two rooms, which is probably what those old people two floors below think, but because of the space, and because of the privacy.
While the moon rises to their rights, over the trees that are between them and the lake, Brad is already in the hotel room, with the curtains open to see the moon making a silver path on the water. He’s already with Nehru who was lain across the bed, but has risen to arch his back, and by the light of one lamp, the gentle entry becomes slow pushing in and pushing out, becomes the frantic, then slow, then quick, and them timeless rhythm of sex.

They lay naked together, Nehru on his side, and Brad, worn out from the intensity of their sudden sex, and comfortable in their love, lay face down while Nehru ran a hand over his shoulders, his back caressed his ass, brushed his long thighs. He still throbbed with the feeling of Brad inside of him, a feeling which he never got over. Brad was so tender to him, so loving, Nehru marveled over those moments when they had both let go and Brad became the piston, the two hundred pounf engine slamming into him, when he could feel the surrender to desire in Brad and it was his surrender too.
They didn’t speak. There was no need. They had been talking for years. They relished the freedom of being in a place where they didn’t even need to close the curtains, and the black night came in. Nehru got up to smoke and he had Brad his pack. Before long they would fuck again. At three in the morning, Nehru would lay on his side and think of how beautiful Brad looked, perched naked on the edge of the bed, cigarette dangling from his lip while he scribbled notes to a new song. At three thirty, Brad would lay flat on his stomach while Nehru fucked him. They would sleep. AT five thirty Brad would sit on the side of the bed while, on his knees, Nehru sucked his cock, always marveling at how it seemed to grow and fill his mouth more and more. They would do this all night. Each time would take them to something new. The thoughts that moved through them were not forbidden, would come out by morning. That it was good to be alone together. That would day they would be alone together. That it was wonderful when Cody was here, and despite all things they didn’t want to get rid of him, that Cody still loved Russell and was still touched by loneliness. That a baby was coming, and that more than fear, Brad was filled with joy and wanted Nehru to be. That they would be a family, and what a strange family.
In the blackness of six a.m. when they had finally turned off the light, and they both throbbed with the penetration of the other, when they were like lazy spiders stretched out on the great rumbled bed smelling of men, they traced circles and shapes on each others skin and Nehru murmured: “What a family we will be. What a family indeed.”

MORE TOMORROW

 

[CharmedFan28]

I am glad Nehru and Brad had some alone time and and time away. It was nice to read and I think they needed it. I may not have approved of them at first but they are good together with Cody occasionally with them too. Excellent writing and I look forward to more tomorrow!

 

[ChrisGibson]

AND NOW WE RETURN TO OUR REGULARLY SCHEDULED... GESHICHTE FALLS.... WHERE RUSSELL FINDS OUT A THING OR TWO


Anigel said she was going up to Saint Alban’s for the weekend to visit Ross and would Russell like to come along to see his cousins and hang out with Flipper. How much Anigel knew about his relationship to Flipper, Russell was unclear, but he said yes.
“We should ask Cameron too,” he thought, and Anigel said that was a good idea.
“I would love to go,” Cameron said, “But I’ve been snagged into meeting Chris’s parents.”
“That’s a good thing.”
“I guess, Cameron said to Anigel. “I hardly want to be around my parents, I can’t imagine wanting to be around someone else’s.”
The ride was two hours, and Russell was excited about seeing Flipper. More, he admitted, that he was about seeing Jimmy or Macy. He would have to visit them first, of course, and theyd all have lunch together. He would bring Flipper with them. It would be just like this winter. He looked foraward to a college like saint Alban’s or maybe even saint Alban’s itself. The world made sense there.
Anigel was not someone who believed you had to for conversation. They took turns controlling the radio and knew every song, and Anigel said she like psychology better and better and Russell said school was easier than it had ever been. While he did not go into his love life, he had no trouble going into Gilead’s and Mark’s.
“They weren’t talking for a while Mark was going through some things. But they’re good now.”
“Mark is fine,” Anigel said, frankly. “I have to keep reminding myself he’s still a kid.”
Two hours later they were in Saint Alban’s, parking before the three story renovated convent that was Abelard Hall. They walked uo the steps as if they owned the place, and the dormitory was warm and seem full of life, for none of its residents were on their way to class on a Saturday. Anigel and Russell made their way to the common room where Jimmy and Ross were already sitting up smoking, and the boys came, laughing, to greet them.
“Russ, I didn’t know you’d be here,” Jimmy said.
“Last minute. Sort of a surprise.”
“Well, we’re glad to have you,” said Ross. “What’s going on in the high powered world of Our Lady of Mercy.”
“Not much,” Russell said. “Nothing so high powered I couldn’t come with Ani.”
It was, Russell remembered some match or some game that Mark was in, and he had originally planned to go with Gil, but Gil didn’t seem to mind him not coming.
“Go and get your man,” he said.
While Ross and Jimmy and Anigel planned out the rest of the day, and Anigel said, “We’ll head out around noon tomorrow?” Russell only nodded and paid the briefest attention. He was waiting to say that he needed to slip away. That he was going upstairs to the men’s restroom.. He needed to find Flipper.”
Russell had been having sex, but he had not been sexy, not thought of himself in anyway. It was aonly a few weeks ago when he was naked in half light, he had turned to see himself in the mirrow, and regarded the length of his nearly six feet, clear and milky, well made shoulders, good chest, the dark red of his hair, his eyes, and realize he was goodlooking. He felt it. Looking and up and down himself, for the very fisrt time he felt like a sexual being, and he felt so beautiful to himself he was trhilled. He thought only Chayne, or possibly Cody would know how he felt, but he told it to Gilead and Gilead said, “I know what you mean. It happened to me one night while Mark was sleeping next to me. I saw myself the way I see him. The way I see me. It was almost like losing my virginity a second time.”
So today Russell had worn brown courdoroys that fit snug like Cody’s and like Cody he wore no underwear. He wore the fitted turtle neck that Flipper would wear, and he came like this to Flippers room and knocked on the door.
“It’s open,” Flipper called in something between merriment and laziness.
Russell went in and almost shrieked and then stammer, “I’m…. shit. I’m…”
He closed the door and heard Flipper swearing, the other voice in the room mumbling.
Of course, they were grown ups here and used to Flipper. And of this friends would have known what was going on, and who but his friends would be hear, but he had not expected Russell, and Russell had not expected to find Flipper, mostly naked, lounging in bed with a completely naked Andy.
Russell would have felt foolish for running, so he waited for the door to open and Flipper to come out in his boxers, some of his black hair sticking up.
“I…” Russell started.
“I had no idea you were coming,” Flipper said.
“I was surprising you.”
“You….uh… succeeded.”
“Are you mad?” Russell said.
Flipper frowned. “No. I’m…. are you mad? Are you okay? Are…”
“We’re all going to lunch in a few minutes. Are you coming?”
“Yeah,” Flipper said, looking back into his room, where Andy was. “Yeah.”

Lunch was odd because Andy came with them, and Macy whispered, “He never does that shit.”
But by the afternoon, the usual suspects were back in Abelard Hall planning what do with the rest of the day, and Coral had suggested the mall, but her heart wasn’t in the suggestion, and Money said she had these friends down in Miskatucket, and there would be an interesting party.
When Money says interesting,” Ross noted, “I usually am interested.”
“We don’t have to stay all night, and the guys’ll be chill.”
This meant some pot and maybe a little bit of blow, but some people just sitting around drinking and smoking, nothing loud, nothing crazy, and hour away from campus. They agreed. Russell went up with Flipper, because Flipper seemed to want to talk to him.
“We never said anything about how we were to each other,” Russell said before Flipper could say anything. “We never said anything about what was going on when we weren’t together. And we weren’t together. I mean, we don’t see each other except for twice a month, so…”
Russell was, if anything fair. That moment when he had turned and seen himself in the mirror had been in Jason’s bedroom, after they’d had sex, and he and Jason were definitely going to have sex again. He couldn’t really fault a grown Flipper for doing the same.
“Gee,” Flipper dug his hands into the pockets of his joggers, “You got it all figured out.”
“I don’t have anything figured out,” Russell said, a little sharply. “But this,” he made a vague gesture to Flipper’s room, “isn’t worth flipping out about.”
“You could stay with me tonight.”
Russell shook his head.
“That feels weird,” he said.
“Can we just hang out?” Flipper said. “Can we ditch everyone else and just you and me hang out?”
“Sure,” Russell said. “Hanging out is kind of what we do best.”

When you enjoyed being around someone, nothing was boring. You didn’t have to look hard for things to do. They walked through the streets to the south of the campus till thye came to old quarry lake and stood by it, watching the sun shine like bronze on the water. Flipper skipped rocks, and Russell sat and watched him, and then they sat together in silence looking the fragile spring around them. They got up and walked some more and went around the old graveyard, looking at the names of folks gone a long while. They stopped in at the library, and the WalMart and got ice cream coens at the Tasty Freeze that was just opening, and then went through the basement under the church and Abelard Hall where the coffee shop and the ld cafeteria was. One wad closed down and the other was a a flurorescent lit space, overhead they heard Mass, and Ross went up the little stair well that led to the sacristy, where he could hear clearly:

Therefore, I have now brought you the firstfruits
of the products of the soil
which you, O LORD, have given me.'
And having set them before the Lord, your God,
you shall bow down in his presence. The word of the Lord."

The student congregation intoned: Thanks be to God.
“I’m going to miss Church this week,” Russell whispered, as the choir began to sing:

“Be with me, Lord, when I am in trouble!”

“You’re on the choir, right?” Flipper remembered.
“Yeah?”
“You wanna sit and listen now?”
“Kind of,” Russell said.

“No evil shall befall you,
nor shall affliction come near your tent,
For to his angels he has given command about you,
that they guard you in all your ways.”

“We could actually go inside,” Flipper suggested comically. “I could make myself sit through a Mass.”
“No,” Russell said. “This is good enough.”

Flipper had a flip phone, which made Russell laugh. He was one of the few people Russell knew who did, and he had just gotten a call that they would all meet for dinner at about six, then rest and head to the party. It was when Flipper and Russell, I great spirits, came to the lower level cafeteria, that they saw Andy sitting the usual companions, and Macy and Coral both shrugging at Flipper.
“Flip,” Andy said, “can I talk to you?”
Flipper looked at Russell, and Russell nodded and Ross said, “Let’s get in line and get food.
Russell agreed. From the line they could just as easily see, past the glass wall of the cafeteria, Andy getting more and more worked up, telling off Flipper, who seemed to be a littlie irritated himelf, and then Andy marching up the stairs and out of the student center and Flipper gesticulating and then stomping back into the cafeteria and coming quickly to the line.
“Is anything wrong?” Ross asked before Russell, who would have felt disingenuous asking could say anything.
“Nothing is wrong,” Flipper said. “It’s just Andy being stupid.”
“If you need to go call him, or make it up with Andy you should,” Russell said as they were all sitting around Abelard Hall in those hours before heading out to the party in Miskatucket. “He’s always here. I’ll be gone tomorrow.”
“Well then,” Flipper returned, tying his laces with especial fierceness, “I’ll handle it tomorrow.”

MORE AFTER THE WEEKEND

 

[CharmedFan28]

That was an excellent portion! Russell did find out a thing or two but I am glad he didn’t go off at Flipper. They never said they were exclusive or what they were really. He is really growing up fast. I was glad to read that Cameron is meeting Chris’s parents. Great writing and I look to more after the weekend! I hope you have a nice one!

 

[ChrisGibson]

“Where’s Macy?” Anigel.
“Probably in bed.”
“Where’s Jimmy?”
“Probably in bed with someone. But where is Russell?”
“With Flipper, or didn’t you notice that?” Anigel said.
“I noticed that fight Flipper had with Andy. Andy’s not terrible, but he gets jealous about a lot for no reason.”
“Are you sure it’s for no reason?” Anigel said.
Ross raised an eyebrow.
“Flipper came down with you to Geshichte Falls, but he definitely come for my sake. And we’ve barely seen Russell.”
“You think they are…?”
“Russell’s taken up with stranger people that Flipper. I don’t ask, and I don’t completely know, but…”
“Do you care?”
“Only a little.”
They were on the roof of Abelard Hall, over the coffee shop, smoking cigarettes, and with the las exhale, Anigel put all thoughts of gossip out of her mind.
“What I always like about this place is how I can see the stars,” Anigel said.
“You can see the stars in Geshichte Falls,” Ross said. “It’s hardly Chicago or Detroit.”
“You can,’ Anigel nodded. “But not like this.”
They were both in baggie jeans and hoodies and Ross thought how pretty his friend was, and how she didn’t even know. What a wonder she was of a human being. Jimmy had been watching her this whole afternoon, and the girls had been in envy of her tumble of black hair.
“I have had the maddest thought,” she said.
“Tell me.”
“To go to church. To go back to that church. In the convent. I think about my life, what would make me happy, and the oddest thing is it’s a religious life. It’s a serious life. You know what I think?”
“Huh?”
“I think I love God. I think I always did. I just don’t like the silly things I was told. The first time I started to get it was at the monastery in winter, and when we went into the little church, that plain church, with those monks and nuns the local people. Nothing else mattered. Not all the dumb politics, not the Vatican, now much I hated most of Catholic school. Not even the hypocritical assholes. Just this silence.”

Russell Lewis was harder on himself than anyone ever would be. In a day he would be bothered and in a couple of days he would be in a mild depression he pushed away long enough to deal with his friends. This was because, aside from whatever else Flipper was, Flipper saw sanity. Flipper was clarity, and this day with Flipper had not been clear at all. He had come, planning to sleep with him that night, be his boyfriend, and even though he recognized completely how unfair it was to think Flipper would be sleeping alone and waiting for him, he had not planned to see Flipper in bed with Andy. What was more, when Flipper suggested they sleep together that night Russell had been repulsed by the idea of being in bed with someone who had, less than a day, been in bed with someone else. Andy was still in those sheets, an Andy who didn’t like him very well. They would have their day together, be friends together. And if Flipper came back to town later on, well then, they could see where things went.
But none of that meant much when they had returned, a little fuzzy, a little drunk and in high spirits, from Miskatucket, when they had all sat on the roof smoking and Russell felt like a human being and was glad for his friends. When they all left Anigel and Ross on the roof and Russell, who was headed for Jimmy’s room took Flippers hand, when he held it out and went to his room. Flipper unlocked the door with one hand, and with the other held Russell’s It was like that first time. After all the day separated, they kissed, heatedly, and Russell lifted up Flippers shirt while Flipper lifted his. They were so quick to it, or maybe not because a whole day of doing had passed. Russell made sure the window was shut. He didn’t want to be heard, Lube came out, quickly He bent on his hands and knees and arched up and Flipper, his underwear around his knees, his jeans around his ankles, shoved himself inside of him. They both cried out with a relief The fucking was quick and necessary and only a few minutes later, Flipper pulled out and Russell felt a shower of hot semen across his butccoks, in the well of the small of his back, his shoulders, on the pillow case. Flipper made a staggering, whistling sound while he felt Russell’s hips, while Russell ached with him. Slowly the two of them collapsed to lie side beside. The first act had been done. Now Russell felt something in him melting. Contended Flipper turned to pull Russell to him. They would be together the whole night.


“Are you going to get up?”
“I’m not the one running,” Gilead said
“But you are the one watching.”
“I don’t have to shower to watch. Come to think of it, You don’t have to shower to run.”
“Gross,” Mark said.
“But you’ll be gross by the time it’s over.”
Gilead spoke lightly, lying on his side, the heavy blankets of Mark’s bed still around him. Mark sat up in the sunlit Saturday morning, and Gilead traced a finger down his spine, in love with his long back.
“I can’t decide if I like your soccer uniform better or you track one. I know I like the shorts. Certainly. I miss last year, you in your soccer shirt running across the field—”
“I honestly didn’t think you were paying attention.”
“I used to sneak to the games and watch.”
“Remember when I just asked you to come?”
“And you would do a…. something—”
“Score a goal?” Mark turned and grinned at him.
“Yes, or something. And you would look all cocky and give me the nod. That nod.”
“I think I may have been showing off.”
“For the school, no doubt.”
“No, dummy. For you. Like you would see what a bad ass I was, which is crazy cause, as you’ve already demonstrated, you know nothing about sports.”
“I couldn’t stop looking at you, though, in that polo shirt, or soccer shirt I guess. Those shorts, those calves. when you would lick your lower lip and look aggressive.”
“I guess it worked, then.”
“I guess it did.”
“How long did you like me Gil?”
“I probably always did, and just didn’t know how to say it.”
“Same,” Mark said.
Gilead started to say something and then stopped, but Mark turned to him, and stretched out on the bed.
“What? Tell me?”
Suddenly it flashed before him, the first time they’d made love. How Mark had undressed, and looking serious, like a man, turned to him, turned back the bed and climbed into him, touching him gently, as if he’d done this several times before, kissing him gently, drawing him to him. Mark reminded him of some hero from a 1940’s movie when men were men and…. Gilead’s mind went to laughter and then back to Mark, looking at him seriously, requiring an answer.
“When you… wouldn’t talk to me—”
“I’m sorry for that.”
“No. It’s only…. And I haven’t been able to tell this to anyone, I realized my father left and never came back, and I assumed that you were doing the same, that after all this long build up, after me… giving myself to you…. You to me…. You were just ending it. You know. Some people do. I’ve hear of it. Guys who are like, it was all a mistake, this never happened. I thought that might be what was going on. I’ll admit, I felt a little abandoned.”
“Oh, my God,” Mark said quickly. “Oh, my God. No. I never,,, I’m so stupid. I didn’t even think about that. It’s just… Gil, you’re the strongest person I know. I just…. I didn’t know how to talk to anyone. I never had plans of getting rid of…. Anyone. I just didn’t… I love you,” Mark touched his face. “Goddamnit, I love you, don’t you get that? I’m sorry.”
“Yes,” Gilead said sitting up and not wanting to cry or do anything foolish. “I know.”
“Maybe you don’t,” Mark said, sitting up next to him. “Maybe you don’t know you mean everything to me.”


MORE TOMORROW

 

[CharmedFan28]

That was a great portion! Well Russell may be a bit sad that he isn’t the only person Flipper is sleeping with but he isn’t monogamous either. I was glad to read Mark and Gilead really opening up about how much they mean to each other. They are so cute. Ross is learning more about who is sleeping with who and Anigel continues her faith journey. Excellent writing and I look forward to more tomorrow!

 

[ChrisGibson]

TONIGHT IF A NEHRU CENTRIC NIGHT, BUT GILEAD ISN'T PUTTING UP WITH HIS COUSIN'S BULLSHIT... AND MARK REVEALS A THING OF TWO...


Nehru knew he was being foolish ,but he didn not care. Once, at Chayne’s house, his cousin had been reading Tarot cards and pulled up the Fool, in his almost jester’s costume, dog at his side, tripping along with a bundle at the end of the stick he carried across his back. He was about to fall off a cliff, or maybe he wasn’t. The dog was about to keep him from jumping or maybe not, and Chayne had said, “all things begin with the fool. Sometimes you have to be the Fool.”
So that morning when he ran down to the beach and the sky was grey blue and water was grey and grey green and beach was grey tan and Brad followed after him. Nehru had a plastic bottle and he was going to take away a gallon of Lake Michigan, he’d done it before. In the summer you went into the water and plunged the plastic gallon bottle down and it bubbled and bubble and when it stopped bubbling ,it was filled.
But it was not summer now. This morning, he skated along the edges of the freezing March water, trying to scoop up some little water until, at last,
“Nehru, what the hell are you doing?”
His green jade beads were around his neck. His Jewish mother who was half a Hindu who had named him after the first Prime Minister of India. He remembered one warm summer when the waters were blue and green and Indian men had been in the water with a baby Krishna, dipping him. It was Janamashtami, Hindu Christmas, the birth of the Lord Krishna. They had been on a sand bar, he’d passed them and fallen in the water laughing, and they laughed with him and the sun was hot and the water was hot and Lord Krishna smiled upon him.
This was not Hindu time. This was Nordic time. This was Loki time. Before he could think he took of his shoes and socks and rolled up his pants and went into the freezing water. His hands would chap, his skin would try and he would rub it in special lotion till all the old skin fell of and new skin appeared. You could make your will and your mind move past the cold, past most things. He plunged in the plastic gallon jar and his legs, his toes grew to almost love the cold as he watched it bubble and bubble, stop bubbling, be full.
“You’re nuts,” Brad says in exhaustion while he walks with Nehru to the rocks, so he can put his shoes back on. “I’m keeping the heat on in the car. I don’t want you to catch a cold.
Nehru only catches something like extreme happiness, On his way back, the heat on his feet, he is glad they have an almost two hour drive, two hours for him so scribble notes, to look at the brown fields to look at Brad who pretends to be put out, to look at him, to look at him, to look, to love, to love.

A sentence will save us. Listen, if you want to write
poetry it is as simple as speaking the truth,
collapse the cheap house with all its bullshit,


How long have you sat at this window,
not looking out this window imagining it
was anything else? Alright.
So no matter how many words
this feels like the first word,
this feels like the first groping
toward something,


He pitied anyone who was not in this moment, who had not experienced eternity, who did not know like he knew right now that this moment would never end, and that, though he still longed for, last night, when he was reduced to sound and sensation, when he was an ass, a home, a receiver and Brad was a seeker, a pilgrim, a cock, a dumb cock and they were fucking on the bed, someplace, somewhere, that piston mostion was still happening, He was still running into the water, Brad was still scolding him and helping him to put on his shoes, still driving beside him shaking his head. Still kissing im tenderly on the cheek and going to pay for gas and return with a drink and a hot deli sandwich


I, I, I
forgot how many volumes I had messed
up my mind with
the memory of finer things.
I divine here, another thing.
I have lived eight years here and before
that I never lived at all.
They lied, they lied about it all.
They said it was a hawk
when it was just raven
They lived, they lied so tall
making mountains out of mole hills
and beaches out of shavings,
fingernail clippings
and this is where the bugs are.


Somewhere they were in apartment above the Noble Red, putting music to that poem Brad and Cody, heads close together, tearing a poem together to make it a song, and Nehru had retired to write down more poetry. He knew many of his words would not be set to music. While the guitar trills, he makes coffee. He makes sandwiches The head is turned up, his feet are bare. He thinks he is like a wife with two husbands. Cody sings.


“The mercy of sandmen came to put me to sleep
Such a little mercy and it made me weep
The sandmen have to put me to sleep and I don’t know
who brings the morning.”


Artificial night is made. Artificial night is made. The bed and breakfast was beautiful, but this place is twice as wonderful. While Cody lays beside him, tracing his face with the back of his hand, and Brad lays on the other side, the scent of marijuana drifting from the ashtray as he blow smoke into Nehru’s mouth, the Bible passes through Nehru, the ancient story of his first ancestors. Jews who nt only were not white, but were not yet Jews.


”And Laban had two daughters: the name of the elder was Leah, and the name of the younger was Rachel.
Leah was tender eyed; but Rachel was beautiful and well favoured.”

Ah, but they both have soft eyes. The softest brown eyes, the softest peat colored eyes, looking on ism with love, the softest lips, on his lips, on his ches,t on this nipples, now, oh, God, on his cock, Cody’s mouth so warm, and such hands, kneading between his thighs darting in his asshole, that mouth that mouth, all of the deep soft hair. Brad’s gentle moan, his chin rest on Nehru’s shoulder, his back pressed to him, his cock, heavy as a club, or as love, rising pressing between his buttocks.




They are half singing half saying, Nehru is half remembering the rest of poem that will be the song, that is their life

Here in this shameless time.
this is a time you cannot shame
someone into doing the right thing.
asking guys to face their ghosts no longer avails us.
if of very little avail.


Sighing, and opening and closing, the tender shouts, arms closing over arms backs to chest to chest to back, the bottle held to the nose the fumes that dizzy, take one out of the body, the entry, Brad into him, so slowly, fitting like a key, Cody’s mouth, the house for his own growing sex.

Here in this shameless time….
Here in this shameless time….
Here in this timeless time.

The amber daylights stars wink and a world is in them, Nehru moans and presses back, Brad is in him. They move, with quiet laughter and rejoicing. Both Nehru and Cody cry out as Nehru enters the most heat of Cody Barnard. They move together.
Time without time
Time without time.


It’s Brad who cries out first, locked in Nehru. Nehru feels the flood of him, heat blooming inside of him even as he is taken to his crisis and feels himself shooting in Cody. Even as heat sprays across the bed sheets, makes a sort of baptism.

Stop lying, start unlearning
Leave behind the old dead country
Love again, love your skin, love the one who lies beside you
Love me.

They are without motion, locked together by the strength of passion, by absolute bliss and perfect trust.

Love again.
Love me.



“What the fuck?” Gilead Storey groaned when his bedroom door flew open.
Sharonda would never have just walked in his room, and then there was the fact that he usually locked his door. Mark, sleeping with his back to him, hogging the top comforter grunted, and Gilead slapped him on the shoulder.
“Whaa?”
“Good morning, cousin!” Nehru Alexander greeted Gielad, pulling a ladder back chair from under his desk and straddling it to look at Gilead, “and good morning cousin’s boyfriend, and are you two naked under there, and does Sharonda know about that?”
“Why the hell are you here?” Gilead demanded while Mark knuckled his eyes and pursed his lips.
“Cause I’m going to a party, going to a party, going to a party, and thought you might want to go too. Both of you.”
“I’m invited?” Mark said, yawning, and Gilead raised an eyebrow at him.
“Of course,” Nehru said although, of course, Mark hadn’t really been in his mind thirty seconds ago.
“What kind of a party?” Gilead wondered, his head was starting to hurt.
“A Purim party. All night long.”
“A what the fuck?”
“Purim, The Festival of Lots,” Mark said.
“It’s Jewish,” Nehru said.
“Is it with your mother’s family?”
“You know my mother’s family is my family too?” Nehru said.
“I always forget you’re Jewish.”
“I’m the New Jew,” Nehru said. “It’s the year 2000. Anyway, Chili Comet Sundae is playing. I’m singing, so it’s a job, not just a party. And it’s a lot of money cause like—”
“Jews have money.”
Nehru scowled at his cousin.
“Look, it’s like eight in the morning, and I honestly thought that’s where you were going.”
“No,” Nehru said, “It really wasn’t.”
Suddenly Nehru bursts out with:

Shoshanat Yaakov, tzahala v’samecha birotam yachad tchelet Mordechai.
Shoshanat Yaakov, tzahala v’samecha birotam yachad tchelet Mordechai.
Shoshanat Yaakov, tzahala v’samecha birotam yachad tchelet Mordechai.

And then Mark sat up and sang:


T’shuatam hayita lanetzach vetikvatam b’chol dor vador,
lehodia shekol kovecha lo yevoshu v’lo yikalmu lanetzach kol hachosim bach.

Nehru looked at Mark in appreciation and both of them sang:

Arur Haman asher bikesh l’abdi, baruch Mordechai haYehudi.
Arura Zeresh, eshet mafchidi, beruchah Eshter ba’adi.
Arurim kol hareshaim, beruchim kol hatzadikim.
Vegam Charvonah zachur latov.

“What the fuck just happened?” Gilead said.
“I’m the New Jew,” Mark said.
“What are you….? Gilead turned to Nehru. “You’re spreading your weirdness.
“My dad is Jewish,” Mark said.
“You never told me that.”
“You never asked.”
“You don’t tell me a damn thing, Marcus.”
“I dunno,” Mark knuckled his ear and shrugged. “It’s probably cause I feel like you know everything about me.”
“So are you guys going to the Purim party?” Nehru demanded.
“We’ll be there,” Mark said before Gilead could open his mouth.
“Is Russell coming?” Gilead said.
“He could, but I had thought about you first because you’re always huddled with your boyfriend these days.”
“We’ll pick up Russell,” Mark turned to Gilead. “He’s too mopey these days. He can be a third wheel.”
“Russell,” Gilead noted, “has no problem finding fourth wheels.”

MORE TOMORROW

 

[CharmedFan28]

That was an excellent portion! Not knowing much about Judaism and reading that was cool. I felt like I could understand why Nehru went to get water from Lake Michigan. Mark revealed some things about himself and Gilead was very assertive rightfully so with his cousin. Great writing and I look forward to more tomorrow!

 

[ChrisGibson]

Mark seems to always be revealing something new, but then part of that is there is so much to reveal when you meet someone, and as Mark said, he just assumes Gilead already knows everything! Gilead is, understandably, put out with both him and Nehru! I love that you said you understood Nehru getting the water, because that was an important--and odd part. To him the lake is sacred. I'm glad you enjoyed this night's portion and snuggled down into it.