Swimming in Basements

[ChrisGibson]

“But I’m so young. And I have my whole life ahead me. I can’t do this,” the girl standing on the stage, under the spotlight declared.

“I’m scared. My friends are right. My body is my body. I’m not going to have this baby.”

Suddenly a high note was pinged from a piano.

In the darkened auditorium, Swann Portis looked at Jill Montgomery, the two of them playing their old game of holding a serious face until one of them broke.

From the stage they heard plaintive voice cry: “Mama?”

They both turned from each other, knowing they would burst into gales.

On stage, senior class president of Saint Anne’s, Victoria Sanders, turned around, her blond hair sweeping about her like some fantastic curtain.

“Hello?”

“Mama,” the plaintive voice continued as the piano began to play. “I’m your baby. I love you. Don’t you love me?”

“I do!” the girl, who was Mama, wailed to the unseen baby. “I do. But… I’m all alone, and I’m scared to have a baby, and it’s so hard.”

“I love you, Mama!” the voice said while Swann threw his hands over his mouth to stifle laughter, and Sister Crucifixion stared daggers at him.

“Then if you love me:” the little voice chimed, “let me live!”

And then, as the blackness beyond the stage began to lighten, the children’s choir from the day school in town run by the brothers and sisters began to sing:



“Let me live!

Mama, won’t you let me live

Mama, please, let me live

Oh, won’t you let me live!



In the intervening years, Swann and Jill added lyrics to it, but in their sophomore year, for reasons they could not quite understand they were… well, sophomoric, and as the play went on, all they could do was stop themselves from becoming even more obnoxious, giggling in fits.



“Let me live

Please

Mama, won’t you let me live



Give me the best that you can give

Woah woah mama, won’t you let me live!



Let me live,

Mama, com’on, com’on, com’on

and let me live

There’s not that much that rhymes with live!

(—except give!?)

Woah mama, won’t you let me live!



Over the years, memory made the musical increasingly dramatic. They added dancing fetuses in top hats, brandishing canes. There brassy trombones. The priests and nuns were getting up and dancing. Now the babies in diapers lifted up Victoria Sanders and spun her around as she raised her hands to the heavens and sang: “I’ll let you live.”

However, in the midst of the trombone solo and the fetal can-can line, Swann and Jill, who’d had the sense to be seated near the outside aisle of the auditorium, both slipped out, exiting into the day to smoke cigarettes and watch the cars pass. When Swann looked to his left he saw, not far off, the great brick expanse of Saint Francis. This was one of the rare times that, in their shared programs, the boys came to Saint Annes and not the other way around.

“Let me live!” Swann sang.

Jill snorted and coughed on her cigarette.

The door opened and Father Reed was looking impatient as usual.

“I need you all to come back in.”

“We can’t,” Swann said. “We’re smoking.”

“Put your cigarettes out and come in.”

“Yes, sir,” Swann said. “We’ll be in shortly.”

Father Reed glared at them through his glasses, and seemed to be debating how much he wanted to continue this fight, then he simple grunted and turned around, heading back to the auditorium.

“You don’t give a fuck, do you?” Jill said.

“Sort of,” Swann exhaled.

Then he said, “The Number Seven’ll take us to the mall. Wanna go?”

“We have to go back in…” Jill started, but Swann was already walking across the faded macadam and up the long driveway to the road where the bus would come.

“I’ve got money for us both!” he shouted.

When Swann did not stop walking, Jill realized he had planned this. That was why he said don’t bring your bookbag. This was why he already had money. She stood up, brushing dust from the back of her skirt, and ran to catch up with him. When she had he grinned at her and said, “There’s my girl!”

 

[CharmedFan28]

Thanks for posting, I missed this story. School is starting up and I am glad all the characters have each other to settle in. That musical bit was funny! Great writing and I look forward to more soon!

 

[ChrisGibson]

I hope you're having a great time. And I'm glad you've enjoyed my little tale. More soon. In fact, more now.

 

[ChrisGibson]

Chapter Twelve































Swann had memorized the ends and outs of the Calverton and Ashby bus schedule, and from the moment he knew they were having Sex Respect Week, which would culminate in two days of pro-life plays and activities, he had planned this excursion, knowing the right time to head out would be around eleven at the auditorium at Saint Anne’s. Before twelve they were in the food court of the mall, eating pizza by the slice and drinking big Cokes, and then they went through Spencer’s, were obnoxious at Abercrombie and Fitch because there was something so very obnoxious about it. They collected perfume samples from vendors and went through the incense and crystal shops, bought CDs at the record store that smelled like the incense it sold and finally made their way to the huge bookstore.

Later that afternoon, when it was time to start heading back to school, and possibly to trouble, they went and got Tarot card readings on Dock Street, and catching the Five to catch the Seven, Jill noted, “The Tarot card lady didn’t say anything about us getting in trouble, so that probably means we won’t!”

Whatever it meant for Jill, who would get off a moment later in front of Saint Anne’s, Swann came up the road more of less sure he was okay, came into the school, wound his way up to his rooms and entered them only for every one of his roommates to stare at him.

“Yes?” Swann said, putting his shopping bags down.

“You’re in so much trouble,” Chris said, and Swann detected that he was almost happy about it.

Brad said, “Father Reed wants you to see him as soon as you get in.”

“I’m tired,” Swann said. “If I’m already in trouble, I’m just going to lay down.”

“Swann,” Pete said, “you don’t seem to understand how serious this.”

As Swann threw himself on his bed, he said, “Peter, you don’t seem to understand how fucking bad my feet hurt. Get Father Reed and bring him here, if you must, but I’m sure not going to seek him out.”

The usually lively boys all seemed troubled by Swann’s lack of care, and when the phone rang, he picked it up and declared, “Big Black Mama’s Abortion Clinic. How can we scrape ya, today?”

And everyone heard Father Reed roar: SWANN PORTIS, COME TO MY OFFICE IMMEDIATELY!!!!







While Swann was waxing the altar floor, Chris came into the chapel and sat down to watch him.

Swann continued buffing the wood around the altar, and then said, “Yes?”

“Why didn’t you invite me?”

“Really?” Swann scowled up at him.

“Do you know what it felt like when everyone found out you and Jill had skipped off and you didn’t even tell me.”

“Do you see how I’m the one on my knees buffing a church floor and you’re the one sitting down complaining?”

“I would have been there right with you. We’re supposed to be best friends.”

“You would have said no.”

“I wouldn’t have.”

Swann went on, implacably buffing the floor.

At last Chris said, “Okay, I would have. But… still. You should have asked.”

“You’re right,” Swann said.

Chris sighed and said, “Give me a cloth.”

“What?”

“I miss you. Give me a cloth. We’ll get this done together quicker.”

“Tomorrow I have to mop the whole nave,” Swann said, “and I’m supposed to get up and help serve dinner to the priests and brothers.”

“Reed’s really laying it on thick.”

“Reed doesn’t know me at all,” Swann said, calmly as he continued buffing the floor.

The boys were polishing the floor when they heard footsteps from the retro choir, and stopped to look up and see Abbot Prynne.

“Father Abbot!”

Even Swann straightened up.

The middle aged man looked amused and he said, “Well, don’t you all look like something out of the first half of Cinderella! You know there’s a buffer in the janitor’s closet.”

“Father Reed gave me this can and some cloths.”

“Father Reed could get us sued,” Prynne noted. “Come with me. I’m not taking you off punishment. I’m just bringing it into the twentieth century.”

They followed him out of the quiet church and into the school, to the janitor’s closet where they pulled out a large machine that looked like a vacuum cleaner and, despite his robes, Prynne helped the boys prepare it and plug it in.

“Now… in about an hour it will be time for evening prayer. But in about an hour you can probably get all of this done and spare yourself work tomorrow.”

“Thank you, Father,” both boys chimed.

Prynne nodded, and then stopped to look at Swann.

“You just can’t help yourself, can you?”

“I can,” Swann said. “I mean, I know the trouble’s coming when I break the rules. It’s just that breaking the rules is so much fun it’s almost worth it.”

Eutropius Prynne raised an eyebrow, and then threw back his head and laughed so loud it rang from the lacing ribs of the church. He turned around and, walking through the retro choir back into the monastery, left the boys to their work.

 

[ChrisGibson]

“They’ve been running me ragged!” Jill declared when Swann met her in class. They always took at least one class together, either at Saint Francis or at Saint Anne’s, and this year it was sculpture, and neither one of them was much good, but it allowed them time to talk because there was very little lecture.

“I had to polish the chapel pews.”

“Me too.”

“By hand!”

“We started out by hand,” Swann said.

“We?”

“Chris came to chew me out for not including him, and then he ended up helping me. And then Abbot Prynne said this was ridiculous and took the buffer out of the closet.”

“Damn, I need an Abbot Prynne!”

“You need someone not named Sister Crucifixion.”

Jill burst out laughing, and then she said, “Annette and Megan did come and help out, though, so I can’t complain too much. And, we should have invited Chris except he’s so good. He’d tell us we shouldn’t. He’s such a Boy Scout.”

“He is a literal Boy Scout,” Swann reminded her, then said, “It’s hard to believe he’s not a virgin.”

“That’s right!” Jill remembered. “Didn’t he get with a bunch of girls or something?”

“Well, I guess if it doesn’t happen on campus it’s okay.”

“But we went to all those parties! Has he changed?”

“Chris is the same as he’s always been. Upper classmen took us to those parties, and the only one that was actually something we snuck off to against school rules was that first one.”

“The one where you met Jack.”

“Yeah,” Swann said in a voice that was longer and sadder than he meant it to be, and because Jill was a good friend, instead of asking how Jack was, or for him to talk about his feelings, she switched the subject completely and said, “You should find me a boyfriend.”

“Oh? What about Matt?”

“What about him? He’s all the way the fuck in Indianapolis. I need someone here.”

Swann shook his head and laughed.

“We’ll do that.”

“Maybe you need someone here too.”

“I’m good.”

“Are you sure?” Jill said, gripping him by the shoulder and giving him a look that said he had time to tell the truth.

“For now,” Swann said. “But why don’t we think about you?”

“We can think about me, and we can think about Annette too.”

“Annette?”

“My roommate.”

“What about her?”

“She likes one of your roommates?”

Swann frowned.

“Who?”

“Brad Crist.”

 

[CharmedFan28]

An excellent start to the chapter! I am glad the group that went out didn’t get punished too harshly and they learnt about the buffer eventually. I am really enjoying this story and I look forward to more soon!

 

[ChrisGibson]

An excellent start to the chapter! I am glad the group that went out didn’t get punished too harshly and they learnt about the buffer eventually. I am really enjoying this story and I look forward to more soon!

I've been so slow in posting, but then I assumed you were vacationing. I'm glad you're still enjoying the guys.

 

[ChrisGibson]

“They’ve been running me ragged!” Jill declared when Swann met her in class. They always took at least one class together, either at Saint Francis or at Saint Anne’s, and this year it was sculpture, and neither one of them was much good, but it allowed them time to talk because there was very little lecture.

“I had to polish the chapel pews.”

“Me too.”

“By hand!”

“We started out by hand,” Swann said.

“We?”

“Chris came to chew me out for not including him, and then he ended up helping me. And then Abbot Prynne said this was ridiculous and took the buffer out of the closet.”

“Damn, I need an Abbot Prynne!”

“You need someone not named Sister Crucifixion.”

Jill burst out laughing, and then she said, “Annette and Megan did come and help out, though, so I can’t complain too much. And, we should have invited Chris except he’s so good. He’d tell us we shouldn’t. He’s such a Boy Scout.”

“He is a literal Boy Scout,” Swann reminded her, then said, “It’s hard to believe he’s not a virgin.”

“That’s right!” Jill remembered. “Didn’t he get with a bunch of girls or something?”

“Well, I guess if it doesn’t happen on campus it’s okay.”

“But we went to all those parties! Has he changed?”

“Chris is the same as he’s always been. Upper classmen took us to those parties, and the only one that was actually something we snuck off to against school rules was that first one.”

“The one where you met Jack.”

“Yeah,” Swann said in a voice that was longer and sadder than he meant it to be, and because Jill was a good friend, instead of asking how Jack was, or for him to talk about his feelings, she switched the subject completely and said, “You should find me a boyfriend.”

“Oh? What about Matt?”

“What about him? He’s all the way the fuck in Indianapolis. I need someone here.”

Swann shook his head and laughed.

“We’ll do that.”

“Maybe you need someone here too.”

“I’m good.”

“Are you sure?” Jill said, gripping him by the shoulder and giving him a look that said he had time to tell the truth.

“For now,” Swann said. “But why don’t we think about you?”

“We can think about me, and we can think about Annette too.”

“Annette?”

“My roommate.”

“What about her?”

“She likes one of your roommates?”

Swann frowned.

“Who?”

“Brad Crist.”



“Are we like… the chaperones?” Chris asked as they all sat in their suite surrounding Brad, whose hair seemed to spike even more with excitement, and Annette who simply stared at him.

“Looks like it,” Swann said. “In fact, I’m not even going to smoke.”

“Maybe one of you should say something,” Jill suggested.

“I really liked you in Quiz Bowl,” Annette told Brad. “You showed those kids at Eisenhower something. Especially with that question about Genghis Khan.”

“Genghis Khan killed 800,000 people when he destroyed Baghdad in 1258,”

Brad said, eyes gleaming as he leaned forward, chewing his gum.

“You’re so smart.”

“I….” Brad said, slowly, to make sure Annette understood, “am going to kiss you.”

“We’re literally right the fuck here,” Jill murmured.

Brad did not hear or did not care, and swooped down on Annette, and she received and returned his kiss, and in the middle of the room the tall blond boy and the smaller brown haired girl were making out, and Swann looked at Chris and then Jill and said, “You wanna go out on the roof and smoke?”

They did, leaving Brad and Annette for Pete, James and Harry. The three of them must have put up with it for a while, but when they were through, Swann looked up to see Brad and Annette, hand and hand, coming to the roof all smiles, to join him, Chris and Jill.

“Is it just me or is this shit awfully intense for two people who just met each other?” Swann asked.”

“It’s not just you,” Chris said.

“Was I like this with Jack?”

“Not really, of course, you couldn’t have been.”

Swann nodded to the truth of this, and Brad had lain an old blanket on the rooftop, so he and Annette sat down on it and watched the stars. Brad kept waving at them and finally he got up, ran to them, and grabbed Swann and Anne’s shoulders.

“Thank you, thank you, thank you guys!” he said, and then ran back to Annette.

They were all coming down, Annette relenting to Jill saying they needed to get back to Saint Anne’s. After all, when Anne cautioned someone it was worth listening, and a bunch of boys, Mike Buren in the midst of them came running down the hall and crashed into them. Swann found himself on his back with Mike sprawled across him.

“Sorry, Swann! Hey, Chris! Really, really sorry.”

“Just,” Swann said, shaking himself off, “look where you’re going.”

“Where ARE you going?” Chris asked.

“Come on, Mike!” Jim Hanna, who was on his way downstairs, shouted back.

Mike lunged forward and whispered, “We’re breaking into the swimming pool! Come on!”

As he ran off, Swann said, “I swear I was about to go to bed, but—”

“Come on,” Chris said.

“Really, Christopher?”

Chris rubbed his long hands together and nodded.

Annette looked at Jill.

“I guess we could head back a little later,” Jill said.

Brad grabbed Annette’s hand. They were already running down the hall.

Pete stuck his head out of the suite.

“What in the world is going on?” he pushed his glasses up his nose.

Chris looked at Swann and Swann looked at Jill.

She said: “Pool party.”



“Are you thing ringleader?” Father Reed asked Swann two hours later when fifteen dripping students were standing before him in the natatorium.

“I resent that,” Swann. “Besides, “I’m not even on the swim team.”

“Leave Swann alone!” Mike shouted.

“Michael!” Swann grabbed the mostly naked boy’s shoulder.

“I’m the ringleader,” Mike continued. “We decided to go swimming, and we invited everyone else.”

“And yet, you all are still here. No matter how you got here. And you! Again.”

“The name is Jillian Montgomery.”

“You keep getting in trouble here. And I see you’ve brought a friend this time.”

“She’s my girlfriend, sir,” Brad, stork like in his BVDs, stepped in front of Annette.

“Well, isn’t that lovely. And Christopher!”

Chris, in snug dark blue Jockey’s that Swann noticed more than usual, tried to look duly ashamed while Swann looked at Chuck Gibson of the perfect brown body beaded in water, grinning unrepentantly in his Speedo next to Jim Hanna.

“Well,” Father Reed shook his head, “I hope you all enjoy detention for the next week. Maybe it’ll teach you to stay out of trouble but…” he looked at Swann and Jill, “I doubt it.”



Jill and Annette were escorted out of the building, but the boys, including Mike, all trooped up to the second wing, and most of them, though it was almost midnight, piled into the suite.

Swann took a deep breath and said, “Before anyone says anything, I’d just like to say—”

“I would like to say,” Brad stood up in his full pajama suit, pounding his fist into his palm and looking for all the world much like he did at a Young Republicans meetings, “Swann Portis is the greatest guy in the world, and I have finally, finally discovered why he’s always breaking rules. It’s fun!”



Detention Week, as it was ever after called, had a binding effect on the group. Of course, Swann, Brad, Pete, Chris and James were already roommates, but Swann and Chris had never been close to Brad or James, and Pete was just coming into their world. Jill and Annette were roommates but none of them had hung out with Mike, Chuck, Jim and Kyle or Pat, and the girls barely knew Gretchen, who was Pat’s girlfriend and on the Saint Anne’s Lady Swimmers. From then on, they only had to look at each other and they remembered they were part of the Detention Gang. They wouldn’t always get along, but there was the look, and the look always reminded them of the small crime that united them, and of the week where, for an hour after school, they all sat together in almost silence, grinning at each other before running out shrieking, and still not quite wanting to be parted.

For Swann, perhaps the best part of being in the Detention Gang was that he sat directly behind Chuck and for an hour every day, and every day he smelled his particular essence which was… sweat was the wrong word, but that salty scent of a boy becoming a man, the smell coming from his sandy brown skin, and every day he could see his round, athletic ass pushing out of his desk chair, and everyday, satisfying a rising desire, Swann would lean forward and press his knee into the firmness of his ass and Chuck, it seemed, pressed back. For five days they pressed and pressed in the silence of that room,

Varlon and Vincent always ate lunch with Swann, and now Mike did too. Being rounded up and in trouble with a bunch of sophomores lifted him above the Freshmen and as Swann said when Mike was strutting across the cafeteria to get more milks—Varlon and Vinnie had requested this—“Mike needs to strut.”

“Whaddo you mean?” Vinnie said.

“He feels small,” Swann said.

Varlon and Vincent and Chuck were day students. After choir and track they went home and Swann and his roommates went to dinner, taking Mike with thim. That night there was a mood in the school, and Swann didn’t want to ask about it. He saw Abbot Prynne walking around, which was unusual, and during dinner Brother Herulian rang the bell and called for attention.

“Guys, listen up. This is not mandatory, but we sure would appreciate if you joined us for evening prayer tonight, 7:15 in the chapel. Thanks. God bless.”

Brad sat upright. A French fry dangling from his hand.

“Whaddo you think is up?” he said.

Swann shrugged and Chris only frowned.



“I call upon You, O LORD; come quickly to me.

Hear my voice when I call to You.

May my prayer be set before You like incense,

my uplifted hands like the evening offering.”

 

[CharmedFan28]

That was a great portion and I am glad to get back to this story! Swann and co seem to continue to get in trouble but thankfully it doesn’t seem to bother them much. Excellent writing and I look forward to more soon! I hope you are having a nice weekend friend.

 

[ChrisGibson]

That was a great portion and I am glad to get back to this story! Swann and co seem to continue to get in trouble but thankfully it doesn’t seem to bother them much. Excellent writing and I look forward to more soon! I hope you are having a nice weekend friend.

I'm glad you're feeling better and safely back home, and always glad that you have a good time reading.

 

[ChrisGibson]

We return to sophomore year at Saint Francis Boy's School, and Swann has a choice to make....
Varlon and Vincent and Chuck were day students. After choir and track they went home and Swann and his roommates went to dinner, taking Mike with them. That night there was a mood in the school, and Swann didn’t want to ask about it. He saw Abbot Prynne walking around, which was unusual, and during dinner Brother Herulian rang the bell and called for attention.

“Guys, listen up. This is not mandatory, but we sure would appreciate if you joined us for evening prayer tonight, 7:15 in the chapel. Thanks. God bless.”

Brad sat upright. A French fry dangling from his hand.

“Whaddo you think is up?” he said.

Swann shrugged and Chris only frowned.



“I call upon You, O LORD; come quickly to me.

Hear my voice when I call to You.

May my prayer be set before You like incense,

my uplifted hands like the evening offering.”



“I wonder,” Swann whispered, “if we would be able to come here every night.”

“Why, Swann!” Brad whispered beside him, “I didn’t know you were so religious.”

“I like church,” Swann said, simply.

Very few of the boys had not come. Prior Herulian was the sort of person who asked very little, was always kind and gentle and said things like “Guys, guys. Hey guys, calm down.” If Father Reed had come to them, turning a deaf ear would have seemed like welcome defiance.







“Set a guard, O LORD, over my mouth;

keep watch at the door of my lips.

Do not let my heart be drawn to any evil thing

or take part in works of wickedness

with men who do iniquity;

let me not feast on their delicacies.”



Because the students were here, the brothers were not in retrochoir, but on the altar tonight, two bands facing each other. No one put the little psalters out for the boys because no one expected boys, Catholic boys, Catholic boys who had just eaten, to chant psalms back and forth to each other. It was just enough for them to be here. Earlier on, Herulian and Prynne had come to Brad and Swann.

“Brad could you read the intercessions? Swann could you do the scripture reading?”

The boys nodded and Brad smiled at Swann. They felt strangely joined, two people who hadn’t really known each other, or known if they could be friends.

As the bells were ringing and the boys were leaving the chapel, Chris dipped his fingers in holy water, crossed himself and noted, “We haven’t seen Jill.”

“Or any of the girls,” Brad said.

“Maybe they came when we were at church.”

“If they had, Swann,” Brad said, “wouldn’t they have just come in and joined us?”



Darkness was setting in early, and though Swann thought of running to Saint Anne’s, it was common for the girls to come to them. There was always something presumptuous about inviting yourself into the girls’ school, Across the field the stars rose over the peaked roves and the chapel steeple of the convent school.

The boys were in the suite’s common room when they heard some upper classmen walking by, laughing.

“I would have bent her over and fucked her bloody too,” one said out loud and then he said, “What are you looking at?”

Swann turned to see that Brad, who was sitting on the floor against the sofa, had put his book down and was staring, wide eyed into the hall at the upperclassman who had said spoken.

“What the fuck are you looking at?

Brad’s jaw hardened, but Chris got up, looked down at the upperclassmen, and firmly shut the door.

“That’s right,” they heard on the other side, “you better—”

“Enough,” Swann said, getting up, but, Chris put up his hand, opened the door and looking down on the boys said, “Better what?”

He repeated: “Better what?”

“Fuck! Forget it,” one boy said, and he and his friends walked away.

An hour later, Abbot Prynne and Prior Herulian, who technically were their RAs and should have done this every night, came to them, quietly and said, “Boys, it’s time for lights out.”

“Or at least the pretense of it,” Prynne said.

“Things have to be different for a few days,” Herulian said, sadly. “But, “we’ll all be alright.”

“What is going on?” Swann said. “And we haven’t even seen Mike or any of the Freshmen tonight.”

“They’re already in bed,” Prynne said. He looked as if he was deciding something, and then he said, “Something very bad happened, and… it’s being looked at, and hopefully we can bet back to normal soon.”

Then suddenly he said, “You all are good kids. You get into stuff, but you’re good kids. What happened was evil, and I’m sorry it has to effect you.”

No one much felt like staying up after that. Brad and Chris still had homework, and they did it quietly. James watched reruns of Star Trek the Next Generation on his little TV, the volume down, but he looked more like someone in a trance. In their room, not wanting the light off, Chris and Swann lay on their bed and opened the partition between them. Swann had radio on that just barely got the NPR station out of Chicago.

Pete had been gone most of the night, and when he came into their room he was wet from the shower, large towel wrapped around him, and he paused in the middle of combing his hair. Even now he smelled like aftershave and responsibility, and despite all of his confusion over this night, Swann was surprised by how good he looked, surprised by his curiosity about the shape of Pete’s body under the towel.

“You guys alright?”

“Pete, do you know what’s going on?” Chris demanded.

Pete, the way Jack had been, was always in the know.

“Yeah,” he said. “But, I don’t feel right talking about it.”

He stood there looking, to Swann, very sympathetic, but also very sexy. He was at a loss for words and very briefly Swann imagined unwinding the towel from Pete and bringing him into his bed, perhaps bringing Chris too. No, what the fuck! We’re not even thinking about stuff like that right now.

“Good night you guys,” Pete said, and turned around leaving Swann confused as he watched the shape of his ass through the towel.



The next morning in sculpture, Jill practically ran to Swann.

“Oh my God, I wanted to see you so bad! All you guys. I wondered if you would worry about what had happened to us.”

“Last night was weird, and no one will say what the fuck is going on.”

Jill blew out her cheeks, and standing beside Swann she whispered quickly, “Mandy Gates was raped by three seniors. It must have happened during the Detention Week, but it just came out.”

“Fuck!”

“Yeah. We’re under lockdown.”

“We are too,” Swann said.

“I’m so sorry for her, but I don’t want to be locked in my room for the next three years.”

“No wonder everyone is so….”

“Depressed.”

“Yeah.”

“I almost broke out and ran over to you guys, but I thought that would have been a bad idea.”

“Jillian,” Swann said, “that would have been a terrible idea.”

“I know, well….”

“Wait till I tell Jack.”

“You going to see him this weekend?”

“I hope,” Swann said. “It was supposed to be two weekends ago for his football game. But something came up.”



But it wasn’t that weekend either. On Thursday night Swann got the phone call that, “Something came up,” again.

“What?” he said when he saw Chris’s angry face.

“That’s really shitty,” Chris said. “Things don’t just come up. Not three times in a row.”

“It’s fine.”

“It’s not fine, Swann. It’s disrespectful. I thought better of him.”

“It’s not fine,” Swann agreed. “It’s just that I told myself I wouldn’t get bothered by it.”

“But you should be. I mean, do you think he found someone else?”

“I think he found college,” Swann said. “And I’m not part of it.”

Chris sat down to process this, and Swann said, “And if I’m not part of it, then he’s not part of this, and I don’t really want to live like some widow, or like I’m waiting for someone to come back from the war.”

Swann got up.

“Christopher, I need a pen and paper.”

“Okay?”

“I’m writing a letter.”

“A love letter?” Chris said, standing.

“A break up one.”


We've broadened our scope for Christmas time around my downtown, so please consider contributing what you can: https://www.gofundme.com/f/Fundraisingforhousing

 

[CharmedFan28]

That was a great portion and I am so glad you posted. Wow that is heavy what happened on campus. That poor girl. I think Swann does need to write that break up letter, he can’t wait around for Jack forever. Excellent writing and I look forward to more soon!

 

[ChrisGibson]

Hello, I'm just getting around to looking at comments. Good grief, time is flying. Jack does need a letter, and things are about to get much more interestng

 

[ChrisGibson]

“I should move in here next year,” Jill said.

“You should have moved in here last year,” Swann told her.

“I’m so sleepy.”

“Stay?”

“What about Sal?”

“What about him?”

They both burst out laughing.

“Look, you take the other bed, or the easy chair, and just stay. Don’t walk all the way back to Justin.”

“It’s really not that far away.”

“True, but this is cozier, and I want my old friend.”

“Fine, fuck it. I’m staying!”

“And there’s hard cider in the fridge and we got smokes and everything. And if Sal does wake me in the middle of the night, then… I’ll just tell him he has to wait till tomorrow.”

“That,” Jill said, snuggling onto a twin bed, “is a lie from the pit of hell. If Sal comes, you’re going to sneak of to his room and kick Joe out and make him go to Doug’s.”

Swann chuckled.

“He’s probably already at Doug’s.”

“So… Mike Buren.”

“Yeah.”

“That was crazy. After all these years you saw Mike.”

“We saw Mike. We all went to dinner.”

“Right. And he’s with Ben. Our Ben! I wish I’d seen him.”

“He looks totally different. Well, that’s not true. He looks like… Grown up Ben, Ben with an executive hair cut and clear skin and clothes from Banana Republic instead of stained baggy jeans and oversized flannels.”

“Well then that is totally different, because I can’t imagine him any other way.”

Then Anne said, “Ok. So now, here’s the thing.”

“Yeah?”

“Did they really give you Jack’s number.”

“They did. Mike did.”

“And are you going to call him?”

“Damn, I don’t know.”

“Can I offer some advice?”

“Please.”

“Let him call you.”







Chapter Thirteen





Mike Buren always had the sense of walking into the second season of a TV show or entering a book in the middle of the story. But, he had finally realized, this was because most of his friends and companions were older than him. He’d always wanted to be with the big boys, even when he finally was one of the big boys. He was getting self knowledge now, and he realized he had always felt small.

Of course, Mike reflected, if he was someone who came in at the middle of the story, he was sort of a mystery himself. No one knew where his story started, not that they asked, and no one knew the middle, where he had disappeared to, the roads he had been down before he had popped up again and, again, nobody asked. He’d thought he was grateful for this, but now he wasn’t sure.

When he had met Ben again, he appeared to be what he looked like and what Ben had known, a clean cut nominally Catholic kid from central Indiana, an ambitious little German boy who had made good at DePaul and was innocently happy about water polo and coming out. The things that had passed between graduation from Saint Francis and the time when he ran back into Ben, no one could guess, and Mike had preferred it that way.

They were on Morse now, and the Red Line pulled out, suddenly slow. Michael couldn’t’ decide if he loved the El or hated it, the incredible slowness with which it approached Sheridan, curving slowly, slowly and crawling toward Addison, the jangling speed by which it shuttled through Lincoln Park, rattling back and forth as if it were about to jump the tracks. Now he looked out the windows at the snow bound houses of Rogers Park, the approaching apartments as they slowly rolled toward Jarvis. After Jarvis came Howard, the end of the Red Line, and though Mike could board the Purple at Howard and ride on into Evanston, Ben always came here to pick him up and drive them to his high rise apartment in graduate student housing.

They embraced, but not for long, after all they saw each other all through the week. It was just that Ben usually came down to him. And then they went to Clark and up Clark where it turned into Chicago Avenue. Mike felt a little sad because traveling east they would have taken Sheridan, and Sheridan brought them close to Portis country, Swann’s house, and his mother’s home. They would have passed, possibly, Deborah’s house, where Doug had grown up, and Michael felt a little sentimental about this.

To their left was the continuous palisade, interrupted now and again by viaducts, where the El ran. When they approached the intersection with South Street and the little El station, Ben noted, “Down there is where Swann and Doug’s homes are. Sucks they aren’t there.”

Of course, Ben had been friends with Swann before Mike had, and as they came down Chicago Avenue, Ben said, “You’re gonna love Jack.”

Mike never realized just how big Evanston was. It was a suburb of Chicago, and Benton and Calverton weren’t suburbs of anywhere—unless they were suburbs of each other. But Evanston was bigger than both. He felt they were taking forever to get to downtown let alone Northwestern and maybe this was because Jack Rapp was waiting at the end He had known this was Ben’s best friend who he’d never met, and recently coming back into contact with Swann and Doug he had sort of intimated that he had been Swann’s boyfriend. He almost remembered seeing Jack’s name on trophies, so he knew he was a big deal

“Mike, you alright?”

“Huh?”

Ben grinned at him and shook his arm.

“You’re my little Sunshine. You’re always going a hundred a minute about your week and teaching me all the stuff I didn’t pay attention to when I was an undergrad. You’re so quiet.”

“I’m just feeling quiet is all.”

“Ok?” Ben said as they entered downtown. “But if you need to—”

“I’m fine.”



Mike had put himself together by the time he met Jack. He was sitting on the couch and rose when they came in. Michael couldn’t remember having seen any pictures of him before. He felt big and tall and he had Jesus blue eyes, those eyes ringed about by dark lashes like that one painting his grandmother had that alternately freaked him out and attracted him. He took Mike up in a big bear hug. He smelled good, and Mike felt himself melting.

“It is so good to finally meet you,” Jack was telling him.

Mike had the curious feeling that he and Ben were in Jack’s house and Jack was welcoming them, but he didn’t mind it at all

“Ben says you’re a real genius and you’re giving everyone a run for their money over at DePaul.”

“I don’t know about that,” Mike began.

“Mikey is super modest,” Ben said, gripping Mike’s shoulder. “It’s his one flaw. He never believes a compliment, and he never thinks he deserves what he gets.”

“Well,” Jack said, “I get why the two of you are together now. You’re a lot alike. Mike are you a comic book head too?”

“Nah. I mean, I try.”

“I do not bore Michael with my private obsession.”

“But Ben, it’s really cool. You just own so many. I don’t know where to start.”

“You can start anywhere.” Mike and Jack said, looked at each other, and grinned.

“So, it was like Freshmen year, and I had just met Ben,” Jack started, “and I come into his room and he’s got X Men and Spider Man, and all this stuff I’d never heard of, and I thought, ‘he’s different. We should get to know each other’. And then after a long time prowling in his room, he was sitting on the bed, kind of ignoring me, I think, kind of wanting to get rid of me, and he says, ‘You know you can just take one.’

“And then I say, ‘I don’t know where to start’. And that’s when he says, ‘It’s doesn’t really matter’. And it kind of doesn’t,”

“So,” Mike said, “this is going to sound kind of stupid, but when I was little my dad was gone a lot and I used to watch the soaps with my mom. Well, I would watch her watch them, and I was sick one day and so she puts me on the couch and I just have to spend five days watching Another World, and all of a sudden, I’m hooked. She feels me in on the background—which is like twenty five years—but...”

“The Fantastic Four is just like Another World,” Ben said, solemnly. “Except with with superheroes instead of stilettos.”

“Mike, help me with something,” Jack said as if he’d known Michael forever. He followed Jack into the kitchenette and Jack said, “So I was working on this while you all were gone, cause, might as well be of use.”

There was chili bubbling on the stove.

“I think it’s fine, but I don’t trust my own judgment.

He handed Mike the spoon.

“Wow, this is great.”

“More garlic or less.”

“Always more garlic,” Mike said. And then he remembered something and said, “White people are afraid of flavor.”

Jack’s eyes narrowed and he grinned.

“You really do know Swann.”

It was funny. Of course Ben brought them together, but at different times, they had known one other person, and sure it was Doug who had said this to him, but that was bird of a feather.





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[CharmedFan28]

Great to read a new portion! A lot going on and Jack and Swann really need to talk I think. Cool to learn more from Mike. Excellent writing and I look forward to more soon!

 

[ChrisGibson]

Ever since he’d seen Jack, the guy with the buzzed brown hair and the fashionable scruff had reminded him in mannerisms, in hand movements and even in the way he held court over this home, of Swann Portis.

“I talked to him,” Mike said.

“Oh?”

“Actually, I talked to his cousin, who talked to him. About you.”

“About me?” Jack’s thick eyebrows were trying to look neutral.

“I have his number, and I’m going to give it to you. He says,” Mike cleared his throat, “that it’s for you to call him, and not the other way around.”

“Yeah,” Jack said, looking serious. “He’s exactly right.”



Jonathan Evan Rapp, better known as Jack, was not a man who was often surprised by his feelings. He even understood that what was going through his head right now was not new, only exacerbated by how right Ben and Michael looked together. They weren’t showy, they weren’t over motional. They were just content with each other. Most of the time Jack had known his friend, Ben had been the wingman, the second, the supporter, the hard worker who went under the radar and never called attention to himself and slowly and steadily he’d made his way to being this graduate student in a high rise with a good looking, smart boyfriend. Jack thought Mike had probably had to fight for attention as well, that he was one of those people who didn’t know he was handsome, or didn’t believe it. His resting face was almost insolent, almost sullen, and not just a little dangerous, and the self effacing guy he had talked to all afternoon would probably deny all of those things.

When Jack saw the way that Ben casually stroked Mike’s hair, or the relaxed way the two of them shared the couch together, he realized there was less of an age difference between him and Swann than between the two of them. Over chili, while planning the night ahead, he thought, about how he’d felt so much older than Swann, and how coming down for Swann on the weekends seemed like such an interruption to his new college life. But then, how much further was Saint Anthony’s from Saint Francis than DePaul from Northwestern? And even later, when Swann had come to Saint Damian’s, then it was still the same issue of Jack leaving for the wide real world the next year.

Jack had been feeling very grown up and in charge when he’d gotten a letter from Swann, and in the moments before opening it, realized he’d never known who Swann was, realized that writing him off as a fifteen year old who was part of a juvenile world had been a stupid thing to do. Very shortly, with very little passion, Swann had formally broken things off. It was over. And Jack didn’t remember quite how he’d responded, but he didn’t fight too hard because he had wanted it to be over.

Jack wasn’t different from most men. He did things and chose not to meditate on them. As they came to the restaurant, and with only semi mock graciousness Ben pulled the chair out for Michael, Jack finally understood that he had been more than wrong. He had been selfish, and he’d been disloyal. He hadn’t been true and he had dressed it all up in how he was growing up, and there was distance and this and that and the other. He had loved Swann powerfully. Swann had been the love of his life. There had never been anyone else, and because he wanted to be something like free, he had walked away from him thinking that someone else, a grown up college version of Swann would show up, and so this thing that he could have had, this love that was right before him, he had cheated himself from having.

What was more, Swann, whom he knew had loved him, hadn’t been anything like a victim about it. Next time he’d heard about him, because he asked all the time, he was with Chris Navarro, and they were strong together. It made sense in a way, even though the guy had been banging a bunch of girls. Jack knew he was in love with Swann. But, being someone who felt the need to bang girls, he’d gotten some chick pregnant. When Jack had heard this he’d wanted to murder Chris, not just for his disloyalty but his stupidity, cause he was doing the same thing that Jack had done, and though Swann had started that friendship up again, Swann had moved on to that Greek kid whose name and face Jack could barely remember.

And now Sal Goode? Remember Sal Goode? He hadn’t really been part of their world, but he was the cousin of Justin Goode, and they were both… the 1950’s word dreamy was an apt description. So Jack was proud for Swann, proud that Swann had never let any of the guys stupid enough to break things off with him break him, proud that he could always find someone good as or maybe even better than the boy before. After all, if Jack’s memory of Sal Goode as a fifteen year old was of someone who was hot, what did he look like in his twenties?

Mike touched his hand solicitously, the way a lover or a best friend would, and he looked extremely fierce, like he’d kick someone’s ass to make things better.

“You alright, Jack?”

“Huh?”

It was so touching Jack laughed, and seeing the concern in Ben’s face, he felt a little chastened.

“Yes, guys,” he said. “I am. Now.”



One of them said something about being embarrassed to be an old man, but all of them began yawning and talking about going to bed. Jack said that he was sorry they weren’t going to tear up Evanston and Ben commented that you could only tear up Evanston so much any night of the week, even Saturday. They all went through the ritual of teeth brushing, showering and what the not, and Ben left the kitchen light on. His roommate was almost never here on the weekends, including this one. Jack took his room, and slept nearly as hard as a log.



When he woke up it was still very dark. He always got up in the middle of the night when he was away from home. Jack went to the window and looked down on the sleeping city. A few cars were going up and down Sherman and Davis, but most everyone had gone to bed. He needed the bathroom, or at least to walk about a bit, and he headed there. It was quick and on his way back he stopped by Ben’s door because he could hear Mike’s voice which was young and alto, but younger now, crying out, and he was saying Ben’s name, and Ben’s lower voice was murmuring something, and he heard movement, the small sounds of sex. He didn’t see the point in turning away. He listened to bedsprings and the sudden movement of the boxboard, to Mike’s cries while Ben fucked him, to Ben’s quiet grunts. He was afraid they would know he was listening, that one of them would come to the door, but he didn’t turn away. And when the bedsprings and their voices became more frantic, when Mike let out a loud cry, and then a few minutes later, Jack heard his best friend come, he stood there a few seconds before he heard movement on the other side of the door, and tipped quietly back to bed. He heard the door open, one of them go to the bathroom and piss loudly. There was movement, and then it seemed like they weren’t going back to bed.

Jack got up and came to the living room, the TV was on and Xena Warrior Princess was swinging her sword. Mike and Ben were on the sofa and Ben looked up and said, “We didn’t wake you, did we?”

“No,” Jack shook his head, aware that he was the only one shirtless. Ben was also in boxers, but Mike was in a tee shirt and sweats.

“We couldn’t sleep,” Mike said, which seemed strange to Jack because sex had always made him sleepy.

“The night’s still pretty young,” Ben said. “We were just being old people.”

Jack remembered being in a relationship. He remembered wanting to go to bed early, stretching, yawning, even legitimately feeling tired. They weren’t being old people. They’d just wanted to fuck.

“You wanna go on a drive?”

“Sure,” Jack decided. “But…. I need to get some stuff together first.”

“Sure,” Ben nodded. “Take your time.”

On his way to his room, Jack paused at the open door into Ben’s room, the mute scene of intimacy just a moment before. Jack closed his door and sat on the bed, and then for reasons he knew were not entirely about jealously, he stuffed his tee shirt into his mouth and cried.







“All I really, really want our love to do
Is to bring out the best in me and in you too.


All I really, really want our love to do
Is to bring out the best in me and in you!”

 

[ChrisGibson]

Swann, Doug, Jill, Katy and Trisha and Chuck swayed together, singing at the top of their lungs, bangles and bracelets jangling or clattering from their wrists. Swann removed the rings from his fingers and dropped them in the little butter dish near his bed while they continued, shouting:




“I wanna talk to you, I wanna shampoo you

Wanna renew you again and again

Applause, applause, life is our cause

When I think of your kisses my mind see-saws!”


Swann howled:



“Do you see, do you see, do you see how you hurt me, baby?

So I hurt you too-ooo-ooo!”


This was when Sal and Joe entered the room. If virtually the entire dorm was having a party in Room 42, under the amber lights, then no one was really disturbed, and Swann got up and brought Sal a cup of cold grape juice, and then got one for Joe.

“Drink this up real quick.”

Sal did, and halfway through it, stopped to kiss Swann, but Joe said, “Is this liquor?”

“It’s not liquor at all,” Sal reported.

“There can be liquor,” Doug offered.

Joe shrugged. He was used to soccer parties, and beer stands. He downed the drink and Sal was already done.

“Now we’re all at the party.”

“Actually, me and Joe were going over to Merlini,” Sal said.

“Well, you can,” Swann said, “if you want. But it would be safer if you stayed with us.”

“Merlini is the safest place in the world for track runners and soccer players.”

Doug cocked his head.

“Maybe not if you’re on psilocybin.”

“What the fuck are you talking about, Doug?”

Katy laughed, but Doug said, flatly, “You’re on psilocybin. Both of you..”

Sal looked at Swann.

“Shrooms,” Swann said. “Perfectly natural. Dissolved in grape juice.”

“You’re fucking with me,” Sal said.

“Nope.”

“You drugged me! You drugged us.”

“In a good way, though,” Doug said.

“What the fuck is wrong with you?” Sal demanded. “Who drugs their boyfriend?”

“Actually lots of people, but usually to kill or rape them,” Swann said. “And before you get all mad, in all fairness, who just drinks a giant glass of grape juice without asking what it is?”

Sal frowned at Swann, and Joe said, “I did ask what it was.”

“You asked if it was alcohol, and I said no,” Doug reminded him.

Chuck said, “You might as well just sit down and enjoy the ride.”

Swann led an upset Sal by the hand into the room across the hall he shared with Joe and shut the door.

“I’m mad at you,” Sal said.

“I know,” Swann said squeezing him and hugging him tight.

“God, you’re so sexy. You feel so good.”

“Are you high, already?”

“Yes, but it’s not like I’m lying. Let’s have sex before it kicks in.”

“I told you, I’m—fuck Swann.”

Swann slipped his hand into Sal’s jeans and began rubbing him. He bit down on Sal, sucked on his ear.

“You’re so hot,” he kept murmuring. “I love your body so much. I’ve wanted to bang you since I was sixteen. Take off your clothes.”

Sal was a little sullen, but more horny than sullen, and Swann said, “I’m gonna suck your dick for a while, okay? Let me blow you?”

Sal disapproved of how easily seduced he was. He felt once again like Swann was two steps ahead of him, but it didn’t help him too much to resist it. Swann was the guy always sitting around reading a book or bringing up the readings at Sunday Mass, telling you which fork to use and about the best classical music station, but who also raked his fingernails over your ass and told you to fuck his mouth as hard as possible. Sal had spent a huge part of his life dealing with the sides of himself that didn’t match up, but with Swann they all did.

He was fucking the shit out of Swann when Joe came into the room, and Joe was only half surprised. Sal was almost embarrassed and realized the only reason Swann wasn’t was because he was tripping when all of a sudden Sal cried out, and it wasn’t with orgasm, it was because everything lurched, and the dim colors in the room changed, and then he felt like he was flying out of his body and beneath him, Swann reached up and curled his finger’s in Sal’s wavy hair.

“It just hit you.”

Joe had never left the room. He was collapsed in the easy chair under the window, glassy eyed, and Swann said, “It hit him a while ago.”

“Whaddo we do?” Sal asked him.

“I suppose you should just keep fucking me.”

Sal realized he was incredibly hard and his body seemed to be melting. It seemed in a way like the only solidity he had was his lips, his ears that Swann kept touching, his hips, which Swann’s legs were straddled about, his swelling penis. He pressed it down deep, slow inside of Swann, and they both sighed with his entry.

He did it again, and then again, like a pulse.

There was no time, no hurry, and he’d always thought this was true before, but now it seemed especially true. Neither was there a self conscious moment. Even when Joe came into the room it didn’t matter, because he was part of it too. Even when, blinking very slow, he saw Joe getting naked and rubbing himself, it didn’t matter. It all seemed to make sense, to be beautiful, Mark’s slow pumping, his slow entry, his remaining and remaining, pumping again, made a syncopation with his heartbeat and with this soundless music. Like a dancer, Joe moved around, touching his own body, pulling at his cock, making it large and larger, but not as large as Sal’s body which lengthened and grew so it became all the earth, and his kisses lingered and his tongue bore down into Swann’s mouth the same way his penis bore down into his anus and the same way his ass clinched Sal, his mouth sucked Sal’s tongue, taking all of him in. Joe stood above them now, and now and again Sal reached up for him, helped him stroke. Now, thirty stories high, Swann saw Sal lean up and thirstily suck Joe, and then he brought Joe down into the bed with him, For a while he didn’t know who was how, who was kissing him, sucking him. And then he did know—of course he knew—the length of Sal, Joe’s broad shoulders. He knew their two bodies sliding up and down his. He knew what he’d always wanted. He even knew that it would be best to never discuss it again. Was the door locked? It hardly mattered. This night they were all drawn together like magnets and so, when Sal began to lube his penis, when Swann felt his penis growing larger and harder under Sal’s hand, he was only half surprised when Joe cried out and he penetrated him. He was relieved. This was the thing part of him had always wanted, this piston like relentless fucking of Joe Stanley. He came in Joe like lightning, seizing his hair. For a time all three of them lay together, an exhausted creature of eight limbs, floating on the waves.

 

[CharmedFan28]

That was an excellent weekend portion! I am glad Jack had a serious look at how he treated Swann and realised how foolish he acted. I am interested to see what happens when he sees Swann next. The sex scene at the end was hot! Excellent writing and I look forward to more soon!

 

[ChrisGibson]

When Doug Merrin was a Freshmen at Saint Francis, he’d gone walking through the woods with Mike and Chris, just like they did at summer camp, except this time Swann. Jill and Pete Agalathagos had come with them, but they had been far behind.

“Holy hell!” Doug had pointed out, and Mike followed him.

“I didn’t think they’d be here.”

“Help me out? Is that?”

Around the trees, their hoods like penis heads, their stalks long and thin, were mushrooms.

“The fun kind,” Doug said. “Not that I’ve ever tried them.”

“We could try them,” Mike looked at him

It sounded fun. When he looked at him with that conspiratorial smile and his bronze hair fell in his eyes, Doug realized he was in love with Mike Buren. He realized he sort of always had been. That was reason he turned his head when they were in the locker room or in showers at camp, and refused to look at him. And Mike was a junior in high school now. Mike, grinning at him, had no idea what was going through his head and Doug put the thought of love away. He hadn’t met Joe yet, and Joe had a way of making Doug forget others.

“We should…. Absolutely not do that,” Doug said, but like a scientist he gathered the mushrooms anyway.

One weekend, when he and Swann went back to Chicago, he presented them to Donald, Popeye and Jewish Jason, and they said, “This is the good stuff.”

“You got a good eye,” Donald congratulated him.

“A friend said we should try them, but I thought that might not be best.”

“Then you also have a good head.”



The first time he did try them was when Swann was a Freshmen. He tried them with Swann and his friends because Swann wasn’t the kind of cousin who shielded you from things. He came back to school on Monday, a little worse for wear, but that fall, as Swann was trying things for the first time, so was Doug. Before Christmas he would be growing shrooms in his room. By May he would be poisoning his classmates.

And now he was a Freshmen all over again, though a little late to the game. When Swann had gone after Sal, presumably to make nice, and never come back, Doug decided he would go outside. Jill came too, and the rest followed. He had heard that all colors of the spectrum were in white, and now the snow sparkled with them, the yellows, the purples, blues, indigos and reds winking off great crystals the size of salt and expanding, till you could see your face in one facet of snow. When the world spun and Doug sat down, there was that old heavy feeling of being pressed into the earth like one ball of clay to another. There was that desire for an end of separation, a need to strip off all of his clothes and slither into the underground labyrinth of the earth.

“What time is it?” he asked Jill, and watched his white breath turn to solid icy clouds.

When she told him, he said, “I had to idea we’d been out this long. That can’t be safe. We should go inside.”

“Shrooms are definitely a summer thing.”

“Where is Joe?”

Jill looked around. Katy and Chuck were staring at the moon.

“I don’t know.”

“Should we find him? I will,” Doug decided. “What are you all gonna do?”

“Bring them in,” Jill said. “Then we’ll see.”

When Doug found himself on the porch of Dwenger Hall and looked back, none of them had moved.

Getting back up to the third floor was a long journey with many stops for reflections on the natures of banisters and carpet patterns. The walls shimmered around him, and a rainbow halo vibrated about each fluorescent light.

Drugs always made Doug slightly surprised by very common things, but never horrified, never shocking, and in the end, never unbelieving. When he came into Joe’s room, Joe was still glassy eyed and open mouth in the easy chair, but he was naked and slowly masturbating, and in the dim light his erection was massive and curved up to his stomach. He was looking lazily at the bed where Sal, laid out long as a serpent, was slowly pumping Swann. Of his cousin all he saw was a long brown hand in no hurry, stroking the back of Sal’s neck, rubbing his back. Everything was relaxed and in slow motion except that before he knew it, Doug was taking his clothes off. He was naked. He was approaching Joe who looked at him, eyes wide open, not drunk at all, but something else. That handsome goofy face was looking up at him, and his athletic thighs were open and his chest was damp and glossy. He smelled powerfully of musk. Doug reached into his desk drawer and took out the lube and waxed Joe’s club of a cock shiny, and then he straddled him, till his anus rested on the head. He took the little blue bottle beside the lube, shook it, opened it, inhaled it, screwed it shut, and as the fumes combined with his high, he pressed himself down on his boyfriend and watched Joe Stanley’s eyes widen.







When Sal had resumed making love to him, and Joe had eventually gone back to his chair, Sal just kept on murmuring, “That was beautiful, babe. That was beautiful.”

This was just a long unending journey, a winding trip through a strange and beautiful land which involved Sal’s body. A brief stop in it had been the exhilaration of fucking of Joe Stanley, He had done that, exploded like star shot deep in his ass while Joe cried out for it. Now he heard Joe fucking someone, fucking them slow and slow and then faster and faster and suddenly Sal was fucking him, suddenly all of their voices were raised. Swann thought, “Who is Joe...? Doug must be in here.”

But he could see him. He could only feel Sal. He lay on his stomach and gripped the pillow. He took Mark’s poppers, inhaling them till his eyes went wide and he was nothing but sensation spread out, allowing himself to be fucked silly. Sal came with a furious groan, and so they passed into darkness.



Chapter Fourteen





























When Swann felt like he was half crushed under six feet of Sal as opposed to melded with him, he decided it was time to get dressed. They did so silently and a little unsteady, and both looked at the other twin bed where Joe had fallen asleep on top of Doug, their arms and legs wrapped together. Sal grabbed his keys and his tee shirt, and they entered the lit hallway, blinking.

“I have to go to the bathroom,” he said.

Swann nodded and sat on the floor for some time before he realized he’d been on the floor for a half hour and he had Sal’s key and not his. He trundled to the bathroom, and then found his own stall, his stomach twisted by shrooms. He didn’t know how long he was in the stall before he flushed and found Sal. He didn’t call for him. He sucked in his breathed and slithered under the stall where his boyfriend was half asleep on the toilet. He hung the lanyard over Mark’s neck and took his own keys out of Mark’s hand.

“I’m a giant worm,” Sal declared.

“You keep being that worm, baby, alright?”

“It’s so fucking cool,” Sal said.

“Great, now I’m going to reach around you and hit this flusher because… you stink, And I’m going to let you be that worm.”

As the toilet flushed Sal said, “I am being sucked into the earth,” and Swann opened the door and closed it behind Sal.

“Sal,” he said. “Lock it.

 

[ChrisGibson]

Sal locked it and Swann realized they were in that place where they thought the trip was over, but it wasn’t. And for Sal the trip might be far more powerful. He left the smelly bathroom and went back to his own room, reflecting that for the first time he’d watched Sal take a shit and he was unfazed by it. As he opened the door he thought he was hallucinating, not because of the strange probing of the amber lights in Room 42, but because the phone was ringing. He let it ring a while, still not believing it, and then he picked up the receiver and said, “Hello?”

“Swann?”

“Yes?”

“It’s Jack.”





“Jack?”

“Yeah.”

“This is… A surprise.”

“You told Mike… Well, you told your cousin, and your cousin told Mike that it should be me who calls you. And… Mike gave me your number.”

“Okay,” Swann nodded.

“Yeah.”

“Did he give it to you at 3 a.m., cause that’s about what time it is.”

“I thought you would be up. And… I had to talk to you.”

“Well… Well, I didn’t expect this, so, you’re going to have to be the one who does the talking because I don’t really know what to say.”

“I’ve been thinking about us.”

Swann nodded, but he said nothing.

“Thinking about how great things were. And how I ruined it.”

“Yeah…” Swann allowed. “You did.”

“This isn’t coming out as strong as I wanted it to, but I wanted you to know I know that now, that things were my fault because… I’m staying with Ben for the weekend, and Mike’s over here, and they’re great together. Mike’s a great guy. And I thought how that could have been us if I had been smart.”

“I don’t know if it could have been,” Swann said.

“What?”

“Please understand I’m very high right now. I’m at the end of a shroom trip, so I’m not sure what I’ll say, but I know it’s going to be true. I don’t know if we would still be together. We were so young.”

“But I never met anyone else. Not really.”

“But I did, and I don’t know that it would have worked if I’d stayed with the first boy I kissed when I was fourteen. We shouldn’t… It isn’t good to wish too much to change the past. The past is what it was… was what it is… was what is... whatever... And it happened the way it did.”

“Did it hurt?” Jack asked. “When I did what I did?”

“When you pulled away, and started breaking engagements? After you said how much you loved me? When I was fifteen and vulnerable? Yes, Jack, I suppose it hurt a great deal. But if you’re asking if I took out the pain you dealt, polished it and gave it pride of place next to my mother’s narcissism, my father’s casual hatred and then, yes, the next year, my father killing himself with no resolution, then no, Jack, I didn’t.”

“Did you just say your dad killed himself?”

“Yeah. That’s a little something no one told me until very recently. It actually makes me like him better.”

“I haven’t seen you in two years.”

“Whose fault is that?”

“I know you’re angry.”

“I’m really not.”

“I’m up at Saint Francis these days.”

“What the fuck for?”

“I’m a postulant.”

“You’re a what?”

“I’m becoming a brother.”

“I now what the fuck it means, but… Seriously?”

“Yeah.”

“At Saint Francis. With Prynne and Reed and Herulian and all of them.”

“Uh uh.”

“Oh.”

In the middle of Swann’s borderline sarcasm, came that the desire to laugh at everything, the elasticity of the room and that odd descending feeling.

“I’m sorry. As I said before, I’m fucked up. Now… the monastery?”

“I wasn’t just distant because of… whatever. I had been thinking about it before we met. And then I met you, and when we were apart I thought about it again. Every time you were around, you were all I could think of, but in the times I was away from you I began to think about it again and that’s why I was the way I was. But, I still think of you.”

“I’m with someone.”

In light of the night that had passed, this sounded flimsy. As if on cue, the door opened, and Swann half expected Joe Stanley to come in, but it was Sal, rubbing his stomach and collapsing on the bed.

“I know. Mike said he’s amazing, but still… Can I see you?”

Swann was irritated that this phone call had come, interrupting his high. Part of him said that he should make no decisions right now, but what he said was, “I guess so, but call ahead.”

“I’ll do that.”

“And, Jack?”

“Yeah?”

“Are you with Ben and Mike now?”

“Yeah.”

“Maybe you all should have a threesome.”

“Wha—?”

Swann hung up the phone.

Why should he be the only discombobulated person tonight?