The City of Rossford

[ChrisGibson]

It's been a lot going on, and right now it sort of seems like just about anything can happen, BUT this whole sister thing will be interesting.

 

[ChrisGibson]

EIGHT


THE ONLY WAY TO KEEP
FROM GOING CRAZY CONTINUED



The Monday after Christmas, Sheridan was on the clock. In fact, he had promised Casey that he would work all day as long as he was on vacation. The work was almost backbreaking, but it was always exciting. He was around this energy, this sex, this honesty. And he never got tired of it.
He did worry, however, about seeing Chay. He didn’t want to see him. He didn’t want to discuss what had happened. Often as not though, he rarely saw Chay who was usually on the first floor, answering phones and editing Casey’s page.
Will tapped on his door and Sheridan, brushing his hair, said, “It’s open.”
Will entered, handing his brother the phone.
“It’s Noah Riley?” there was a question in Will’s voice.
“Hello?” Sheridan said, taking the phone. Depending upon what capacity Noah was in, sometimes he was Mr. Riley, but usually he was Noah.
“Chay needs a ride to work,” Noah told him. “And he didn’t want to call you for some reason.”
“Oh,” Sheridan said, feeling much less confident than he sounded. “Well, I’ll be around in a few minutes, then. I’m just about ready.”
“Is there a reason I had to call you and Chay would not?”
“Uh… Stuff. You know?” Sheridan said.
“I guess,” Noah allowed, and then said, “Well, I’ll see you soon. Thanks, Sheridan.”
Will had been standing there the whole time, and he said, “Is there a reason Noah called?”
“Is there a reason you’ve been staying at Layla’s for the last three nights?”
Unfazed, Will said, “Yes. The reason is because I’m moving in with her.”
When Sheridan reached James and Noah’s little yellow house, Chay came out right away with a hard look on his face and his bag tossed over his shoulder. He rounded the car and as Sheridan leaned to open it, fell in.
“Hey, bud,” Sheridan greeted him.
But Chay only grunted, and Sheridan’s greeting sounded lame in his own ears.
They drove on in silence and Sheridan wanted to say something, but he didn’t know what to say. Anything that came to him sounded….dishonest, really. It had snowed over the weekend and the streets were grey and white, the ground crunchy and sometimes slick under the wheels of the old car as they went further and further out of the city to Casey’s house.
When they arrived in silence, Chay got out. Sheridan expected him to walk quickly. In fact Sheridan hoped for it and planned, himself, to be as slow as possible in following. But the whole time they walked up to the house together, as far apart as possible, up the steps on opposite sides of the porch.
Logan was standing in the large living room turned lobby that let onto the solarium where Casey and Chay usually worked.
“What’s cracking, peoples!” he greeted. “Happy holidays.”
Sheridan returned the greeting lamely, and Chay grunted something while retreating to the solarium.
Logan, folding his arms over his chest so that the tattoos of his muscled arms rippled, looked after Chay, and then looked to Sheridan and said, “What the fuck was that all about?”

Logan was busy doing a photo shoot and an amusing online interview that day. Burt was visiting from Florida, doing a film up in Port Ridge for Guy McClintock, and he shot the video and did the interview, porn star to pornstar. Logan’s jeans were on, his shirt was off and he was lifting weights, trying to sound affable and attentive, but as soon as Burt was done, he put the weights down and approached Chay.
“So… What’s going on?”
“Whaddo you mean what’s going on?”
“You’re snappish. You’re mean. You’re mean to Sheridan.”
“Sheridan deserves whatever he gets.”
“Well… maybe,” Logan allowed. “I just want to know why he deserves it.”
Chay was mum.
“Did he kiss you again?”
Chay gave Logan a hard look.
“Hey, Short Man—”
“Don’t call me that,” Chay warned.
Logan put up his hands, only half in mock defense.
“Just… Let it go.”
“Fine,” Logan said. “That’s how you want it. That’s how it can be.”
And that was exactly how Chay wanted it.

Logan Banford only halfway meant what he said. He didn’t really have that many friends and Chay was the closest thing he knew to a little brother. What was more, even though his life was the stuff of drama for some, personally, Logan had very little drama. There wasn’t much “he said” “she said” in his life. He couldn’t help himself. Curiosity got the better of him. He went to Sheridan.
“I don’t really want to talk about it,” said Sheridan who was decorating a room for an orgy that Logan would be participating in.
“You film me pulling a train on some dude. You know the size of my cock and even the pills I take sometimes to keep it up. You’ve cleaned up my ass water, but you won’t tell me a about your little bitty teenage dramas?”
“It’s gotta do with Chay,” Sheridan said, ducking away and making entirely too much of a fuss over a fake bonsai plant.
“Well, duh, yeah,” Logan said.
“And I don’t feel like I should share it.”
“Did you kiss him?”
Sheridan looked at him. Sheridan frowned.
“Did you make out with him?”
“It’s not that,” Sheridan said, irritably, making to resituate a bed pillow. “Not teally.”
“Did you fuck him?”
Sheridan stopped with a jolt.
“Oh, my God!” Logan said, all glee gone from his voice.
Sheridan took a long time in turning around. He looked stricken. Logan suddenly felt very sorry for him.
“I don’t want you bringing it up again,” Sheridan said. His voice very heavy. He sounded like he was doing a lot to keep it together.
“Everything’s ruined between us now,” he continued. “I tried to stop myself, but I got weak. I always knew. I always knew that would happen.”

When the work day was over, and Sheridan had gathered his courage to meet Chay and prepare for the long drive home, he came down the stairs and was greeted by a much subdued Casey.
“Chay’s gonna stay with me a little bit longer,” Casey said. “And then I’m going to bring him home. I already called Noah. Okay?”
Sheridan was caught off guard by this. His eyes swept the large room for his little friend and, upon not seeing him, he said, “Sure. Yeah. Thanks.”
As Sheridan was walking out, Casey called him.
“Yeah?”
Casey gave him a brave smile and said, “You’re a real good worker, Sheridan. You’re a good guy.”
“Thanks… Casey.”
Sheridan headed out of the house, not entirely sure if he was relieved or not about going home without Chay. Everything was all fucked up inside of him. He needed to talk. To Will? No. Mathan and Meredith? It didn’t seem likely. Why would he talk to a shrink? Logan seemed the best candidate. And Logan wanted to hear him out.
Logan took his clothes off for people all the time, and had sex with complete strangers. Sheridan, for all of his sexual experience, was intensely private. He didn’t know how to share, and he was scared now as he started the car because, as he turned around carefully and pulled out over the gravel and the snow, he realized he would die if he didn’t open up to someone.


The spring semester had just begun at Loretto, and Sheridan was sitting in his bedroom talking on the phone to Shelley who had just returned.
“I don’t know when I’ll be over. I’ve been busy a lot. I’ve been doing a lot.”
“You know what, Sheridan?” Shelley returned, “I’ve been busy a lot too. I mean, that’s what being in college is. And I have to take my Uncle BJ’s course over again—”
Sheridan laughed in the middle of this.
“Uncle BJ.”
“Yeah, yeah.”
That joke had died for her a long time ago.
“The point is I shouldn’t sound like some dejected bitch. I’m actually pretty good looking, if you hadn’t noticed that.”
“I do notice. Believe me. I notice.”
“I’m not asking for your hand in marriage. God,” Shelley added, “I thought high school boys were supposed to like sex.”
“I do,” Sheridan said, pushing himself up off the bed. “I’ll be right over. Alright?”
But when he got off the phone he noted that he was saying it the way he would tell Chay he’d be right over, or the way he would tell it to Meredith. A few months ago, he would have leapt out of bed and gotten in a car accident over the chance to get laid.

“That was…” Shelley said.
Sheridan climbed off of her and lay on his back.
“That was…”
“That was what?” said Sheridan.
Shelley turned and looked at him.
“It was the way it’s been a lot, lately. It used to be magic. That night… But your friend died that night…”
“When I couldn’t perform?” Sheridan said, an edge in his voice.
“No,” Shelley shook her head. “Afterward. When you did. When you did real hard. That was… It was wild, but it was like I had to catch up with you. It was like you were some place else. And I haven’t had sex with you since then. And I haven’t had sex with anyone since then. And… this time you were somewhere else too. Not with me.”
Shelley seemed to be debating something, and then she said, “Well… I hate to ask it.”
A sharp chill went up and down Sheridan.
“Is it us? I mean… Is it me? Is there something you don’t like about me?”
So Sheridan told her:
“I think I’m turning gay or something.”


When he was gone, Shelley Latham sat in her room, in a housecoat. She analyzed her upset. It was the upset that you get when you’ve taken a good long bath and then the phone rings or someone knocks on your door, and ruins your rest and your cleanness by making you do something long and arduous. It was like the bath never happened. All the effects of it are gone.
Well, that was how it was when you thought you were going to be having good sex. When your clit really lit for it and then it was over and the sex was crappy and you were as stressed out and angry as before.
Years ago, before Sean had come out, she had been eavesdropping on a conversation with his then fiancé. She had been talking to Shelley’s mother.
“He told me… that he wants to be with guys sometimes. He told me he has these… he called them homosexual tendencies.”
“Oh, damn, he’s gonna be like BJ. The Babcock name will die in this generation,” Shelley’s mom paused over this. “I never really liked the name Babcock anyway.”
“No, Sean’s going to be straight,” his fiancé went on to the surprise of Erin Latham. “I told him it was alright. We would work it out.”
Well, they didn’t work it out, and Shelley was angry. She felt slapped in the face. Her face was heavy. Her eyes stung. She wished she was one of those bitches who just knew how to cry, who could just sob. Those girls could cry in front of their girlfriends. She didn’t have any girlfriends.
Sheridan was never her boyfriend. She couldn’t imagine that even if he was, she would invest so much in a man that if he said he was gay, she’d keep him. The truth was she was offended. She was pissed off. How many faggots could there be in this city, for Christ sake? What did a bitch have to do to get laid? She would not see him again.
She didn’t ask how he knew, or what made him feel gay, or what was going on inside of him. She didn’t offer to be a friend. Fuck all that. She got in the shower, and she stayed in the shower for a very long time until it was alright to let go because if the water falling over her lips tasted like salt, she could blame it on the weird conditioner she was using.

In her room and in her right mind she knew what she needed. She opened up her little black book, which was a blue steno notepad, and grabbed her cell phone, which didn’t hold numbers, because she had never learned how to install them, and she called up an old friend.
“Hey, Matty. What’s going on?”


Sheridan sat in his basement, curled in a ball and weeping. He really hated his life right now. No. Correction. He hated himself. How had he turned into this? How had he become the boy who was telling a beautiful girl, who was sort of a stranger, that he was gay? And how had he turned gay? It didn’t sound right. It couldn’t be true. The word made no sense. Not for him. Sheridan was… There had to be another word. Brendan Miller was gay. Kenny was gay. He was Sheridan.
I could talk to them.
He couldn’t talk to Bren. Bren would want that, but he couldn’t. Maybe one day he would, but not right now. He just couldn’t. He didn’t even know how to get the words out of his mouth. He wanted to stop hurting people. He had been with Robin, and then she had died. He’d been with Chay and then turned his back on him. He’d been with Shelley, and Shelley had thrown him out. And even before them, what kind of seventeen year old had rolled out of so many beds with so much ease?
He flipped on his phone and went through numbers. He looked at one for a long time, and then he shrugged and decided to call.
“Talk to me,” the bored voice on the other end commanded by way of salutation.
“That’s so ignorant,” Sheridan said.
“I think it works. Is this Sheridan?”
“Yeah. What are you doing?”
“From the way you sound, taking you out, I guess.”
“Thanks.”
“I’ll be there in about ten. That cool?”
“Yeah, Logan.”

 

[CharmedFan28]

That was one interesting portion. Poor Sheridan. I know how he handled the Chay situation was screwed up but realising that you are gay is hard for anyone. I hope Logan helps him and that he makes up with Chay. Great writing and I look forward to reading whatever happens next.

 

[ChrisGibson]

Sheridan is not an alter ego. I know him, but I don't understand him. The things he does are a surprise to me, though he is a dear character. What's about to happen is going to be even stranger than what's happened already.

 

[ChrisGibson]

EIGHT


THE ONLY WAY TO KEEP
FROM GOING CRAZY CONTINUED


“You smoke?” Logan offered him a fat cigarette.
“Uh…” Sheridan looked around. “Sometimes.” He took the cigarette from Logan.
“Yeah,” Logan said, as the server slid them two beers and Logan nodded at him. “This is sort of a shady place. But it’s safe enough. And I feel… I never feel like I’m not good enough for it. You know?”
Sheridan nodded, his fingertips poised on the beer mug, lifting his elbows from the sticky booth table.
“I told this girl that I’m turning gay,” Sheridan said.
“Did you,” Logan made a a hand gesture, “fail at lift off?”
“No,” Sheridan shook his head. “I failed at actually being there. Or liking it.”
“You are a rare man, Sheridan Klasko,” Logan raised his glass. “Now, most guys: they get married, have a wife and kids and think if they can stick it in a chick, they’re straight. But you, my friend, have arrived at a new level of consciousness.”
“Are you making fun of me?”
Logan thought about this, and then, sticking out his lip, said, “I think I’m probably just making fun of the world.” He shook his head, “Sometimes I hate people.”
“I loved being with Chay,” Sheridan said, simply.
Logan looked at him.
“I know it’s weird,” Sheridan said. “But I love coming to work. I love being there and working on the shit and seeing guys and… I was hot and bothered, but I feel like I wouldn’t be if I could just be with guys. I just… want to be with guys. And I know that at first I was like… you only want to be with guys cause you’re seeing it all day at Casey’s. But why would I work for Casey if… I didn’t want to be with guys in the first place? I just… I never felt sexy before. I never felt turned on. Not the way I do all the time now. And… I’ve fucked around a lot, with a lot of girls. And I always felt like I was trying to be somebody. But… with Chay it was real natural. I knew just how it went. I…”
Sheridan leaned in close.
“I had him fuck me. No one’s done that to me before. I didn’t know I even wanted that. I don’t think I can go back to chicks after I know what it’s like.”
Logan, in his open blue sweat jacket, listened to all of this, his arms folded over his chest, a cigarette burning from his right hand.
“If you loved it so much, why don’t you give it a go with Chay? That’s why you feel so bad. Why don’t you just let yourself love him?”
“It’s too late for all that. I was too scared. I thought I could put it behind me and walk away. Be straight.”
“This is Indiana,” Logan said, his lip jutting out. “Lots of guys do.”
“But are they being happy? Are they being true to themselves?”
Logan laughed out loud and took a puff from his cigarette.
“Listen to you! Happy! True to yourself. You sound… all existential Jean Paul Sartre and shit! You think anybody gives a fuck about that? People do what takes the least amount of work. Half the men I’ve been with hate themselves. Gay, straight. Whatever. Being true to yourself doesn’t mean fuck.”
“I’m not ready to be Chay’s boyfriend,” Sheridan shook his head. “I’m no good for him, and we both know he’s got shit going on with Casey. I just… I just want to sleep with guys. Does that sound bad?”
Logan reached into his wallet and handed it to Sheridan.
“Count that shit,” he said.
Sheridan raised an eyebrow, and then began rifling through the wallet, counting off bills. Midway through it, he looked up at Logan.
“I make my money having sex in front of a camera. For the most part,” Logan told him. “The rest of it? I turn tricks for depressed lonely men. On Christmas Eve I went over to a minister’s house and I let him fuck me in the ass with no condom. And once a week, or sometimes twice, I go to him and a couple of other preachers. A rabbi too. And they suck my dick. Or I suck their’s or… I fuck a married man while his wife is gone.
“I’ve stopped judging people. I’ve stopped judging myself,” Logan said, though to Sheridan, his eyes had become distant. The cigarette was abandoned in his hand, a pile of ash dropped on the shellacked table top.
“It’s the only way to keep from going crazy.”

CHAY WAITED FOR CASEY to say something. After having known him this long, he could tell when a silence in the room meant something. He gathered his knees to his chest and came to the head of the bed where Casey was already sitting.
Casey didn’t speak; he only turned his head and looked at Chay, waiting for the boy to speak.
“What?”
“My question exactly.”
Chay shrugged.
“That is a very good impersonation of a sullen fifteen year old. Now, what’s going on? You and Sheridan… You’ve been weird toward him.”
“I don’t think I want to talk about it,” Chay said, trying to sound equal and mature.
“I bet you do,” Casey differed. “You want to talk about everything.”
Chay shook his head.
“Did you fuck him?”
Chay looked at Casey in surprise.
“After all this time, did the two of you go home and fuck finally?”
And because Chay was mad at Casey for saying it, and because he wanted to one up him he said, “Yes. That’s what happened. So what?”
“And he chickened out? Sheridan’s the kind of guy who would chicken out.”
Chay didn’t say anything.
“It was the best sex of your life. Even better than the sex you have with me because this was the sex you’ve always been dreaming about. Sheridan, all defenseless…”
“Are you trying to make fun of me?”
“No,” Casey dismissed that. “Not really. It’s just, I think I’m trying to show you that everything you think no one understands but you, is everything every gay guy has gone through before you. It must have been hot, Sheridan finally coming undone. You all must have done all the freaky shit you always dreamed about. And then the next morning he just got scared and turned into himself again. Like, like… I was happy for once last night. I can’t go on being happy. That’s too much. And so you’re mad. You’re mad at yourself for letting it happen. You’re mad for how you let go of something too. Because you finally believed that what you never believed in could happen. And you’re mad too because… you still think about it. That whole night’s still in you. It gets you hard, as much as you’re mad at him, thinking about him still turns you on.”
The whole time Casey talked, Chay sat on the bed, touching his toes, one by one, his hair hanging in his face. He spoke from behind the curtain of his chocolate hair.
“How do you know all this?”
“All this is my business. All this is how I make a living. On mens’ strong desires and the weakness that makes them unable to carry them out. Of course I know… all this.”
“Are you mad at me?” Chay said.
“For?”
“For sleeping with Sheridan?”
“How can I be? I sleep with everyone else. You know that. But you still come back to me, right?”
“Right.”
Casey curled up close to him and Casey’s arms came around Chay. He smelled so good. He smelled like the sweat of their sex. He smelled like bread. His breath was like milk and Chay could smell the dampness in his hair.
“We have something different,” Casey said. “It is what it is, and what it is, I think, is good. We can’t question it too much. You know?”
Chay only nodded.
“But, I have to admit, I am a little jealous.”
Chay said, “I never would have done it if I thought you would be. I thought…”
“The thing about what you thought and what I thought and… all of that,” Casey said, “is it’s hard to know what is what until we do something. Does that make any sense?”
“No,” Chay said, frankly.
“I mean that you know my work is my work, and you know that what we are is something different. I know that Sheridan is… competition. And I never knew that until I knew you all had been together. Or until I realized I was kind of glad it didn’t work out.”
When Casey said this last, he separated from Chay and lay back down in the bed, his arms folded under his head.
Chay looked down at him. He looked like a marble sculpture. He looked strong and breakable and sweet all at the same time and Chay wanted to touch his red lips. He wanted to smell his body again. Instead he spoke:
“Well… what does that make us? You and me?”
Casey turned his head, and with a little smile said, “Something totally inappropriate, and totally illegal.”

 

[CharmedFan28]

That portion made me think. I am glad Sheridan is ok. Logan seemed to be a help to him. I hope that Sheridan and Chay make a go of it being together but life doesn't always work out that well. I am eagerly awaiting the next portion because I don't know what is going to happen next. Great writing!

 

[ChrisGibson]

How did it make you think? Personally, it made me feel rather the same way, and I want to go back and read it again.

 

[CharmedFan28]

It made me think about Sheridan and how he is figuring himself out sexually. Also Logan's line about people trying to be straight by staying in marriages to women could be true for a lot of people I think.

 

[ChrisGibson]

I went back and read the scenes and as much as I was struck by Logan's wisdom, it was Casey's knowledge that I really identified with, and his acceptance of everything that had gone on between Chay and Sheridan as well as his realization that he does view Sheridan as competition and is in love with Chay. And of course, both Logan and Casey are right. Desirs is their business, so they understand men very well.

 

[ChrisGibson]

EIGHT


THE ONLY WAY TO KEEP
FROM GOING CRAZY CONCLUSION


When Claire went to answer the door, she was surprised to see:
“Matthew?”
From upstairs Julian called, “Who is it?”
“Well, are you going to let me in or what?” her younger brother demanded.
“Come on in,” Claire gestured, and shut the door behind her red headed brother, gesturing for him to follow her upstairs.
“Something smells good.”
“It’s dinner, Matt.”
“You cook this, or Julian?”
“I can cook you know,” Claire said as they came up into the living room, shutting the door behind them.
“It’s Matt!” Claire called down the hall.
Matthew Anderson could hear the sounds of sizzling, and before they reached the kitchen, Claire said, “I can cook. It’s just… I didn’t today.”
“Matthew,” Julian said in surprise. He was stirring something in the hissing skillet.
“What are you doing here?”
“Visiting my big sister with the bun in the oven. Speaking of, when are you coming to E.C. to see Mom?”
“This Sunday, actually,” Claire told him. “You are going to stop by and see Paul, right?”
“I had planned to. Since I’m here.”
“But why are you here?”
“I just—”
Claire held up a hand, “I don’t believe for a minute you came to town on the spur of the moment to visit me and Paul.”
Matthew, who looked like a rougher, redder version of Paul, a real version of the cornfed farmboy Paul had been as Johnny Mellow, only shrugged. He was large in the shoulders and his hair was dirty gold-red, thick and in need of cutting.
“Well, then let’s just leave it at me doing my business.”
“Of course you’re staying to eat,” Julian said, reaching up and pulling out three wine glasses.
“Of course,” Matthew said with raised eyebrows that meant he didn’t know he’d been invited.
“Unless your boodie call needs you right away,” Claire said.
Before Matthew could say anything, Julian said, “I’m sure Matty has a cell phone and that means he can tell his boodie call he’ll be a little late.”
“I don’t need to call anyone,” Matthew declared. “All I need to know is if I can smoke in your kitchen.”
“Of course you can,” Claire said. “We haven’t gotten that prim and proper.”
And then she put her hands to her hips in surprise and said, “Of, course you can’t! I fucking forgot I’m having a baby.”
“She’ll remember at about five-thirty in the morning when she’s running to the toilet,” Julian commented.
“Say,” he added, “do you think we should call Paul and Kirk and… No, then they’d bring the kids. No. It’ll be just us. I was feeling in a real family mood, but its enough Mathan and Danny are coming.”
“Haven’t seen them in a long time,” Matty murmured. “They should come down to East Carmel and show the town a thing or two. So, why are you feeling so… familial… is that the word?”
“That is the word, little brother,” Claire said. “And the reason,” she told him, looking at her husband like the cat with the canary, “is because Julian and Layla found out they have a new sister.”



“A sister?”
Beside Julian, Vanessa Lawden nodded.
Layla had always believed that it was her mother’s, and maybe her uncle’s duty, to get on with Vanessa, a task they had never really accepted regardless of her being their half sister. Now, Layla realized she wasn’t sure how much she liked Vanessa, the woman who made her half brother into her first cousin.
“She was before Julian,” Vanessa explained. “She was when I was very young. I was in college. I actually thought about not having her for a while. But then I just went through with it.”
Layla suppressed an urge to say, “How kind of you.”
“I was going to school down South. At a Black college. None of that would affect my life back up here. I gave the baby up for adoption.”
Layla sat down in the chair. Julian, beside Claire, looked unfazed and Will kept looking at Layla every few minutes as if expecting her to scream.
Instead, Layla said, “Vanessa, that is… one interesting story. But what it all comes down to is Julian has a sister and I have cousin.”
“Well, no,” Vanessa said.
Layla looked at her aunt. To Will, for a moment, they looked very much alike, same length of face, same long nose and slightly pointed chin, same sweep of black hair.
“Whaddo you mean, well no?”
Except Layla looked much meaner.
“Year laters, when I got together with your father,” she said to Julian, and then added, “with both of yours’ father, he brought up the one… wild night we had in college. That’s where we met the first time, but he went back up north. It wasn’t until he was long gone that I realized Hoot Lawden had gotten me pregnant.”
“Damn,” Layla muttered while Julian said, “Well, how many of us does he have floating around out there?”
His mother eyed him, but Layla shook her head before saying: “And you just… left her at some orphanage in the South?”
“I gave her to Catholic Childrens’ Services.”
“Please tell me she at least grew up with Black folks?”
“Well, I don’t know that she did,” said Vanessa. “And what’s more, I don’t know that it matters.”
“Of course it matters,” Layla said to her aunt’s surprise.
When Will looked at her she said, “What? How fucked up would you be if you were raised in a houseful of Black folks and never met one of your blood relatives or anyone who looked a little bit like them?”
Vanessa was looking at her niece, almost like she wanted to say something back. Almost, but not quite.
“Well… why are you telling us now?” Layla said.
“Yeah, Mom, after twenty-six years.”
“Well, in her case it’s actually about thirty,” Vanessa said.
Layla and Julian looked at each other.
Julian blew out his cheeks and caught his breath.
“Don’t look at me like that,” Vanessa said to him. “Don’t you dare give me that look!”
“I’ll will,” Julian said.
“Now,” he took another deep breath while Claire touched his hand, “why are you telling us about this sister now?”
Vanessa’s tongue rolled around in her mouth. She was thinking, though what she was thinking about Julian could not guess. Probably how much she wanted to tell the truth.
Finally she said, “Well, she’s here. She’s come to Rossford.”

When Matt Anderson saw her, the girl was on the side of the road and his headlights caught the gold glint of her hair. He stopped the car and she looked up. There wasn’t hope. There was a grim look on this girl’s face, and she had just risen from tinkering under her hood. She wasn’t just ready to be saved. She was ready to cut someone’s face open if she had to.
“Hey! Peace!” He held up a hand as he came toward her. “I’ve seen you before.”
She frowned, not in anger, but trying to remember, and let her hands fall.
“You’re Dena Affren’s little sister, right?”
Before Meredith could say anything, he said, “I’m Matty Anderson.”
“Oh,” she let out a great sigh of relief.
Meredith said, “I am on my way someplace, and for once I don’t have my phone, and my cousin—who did I mention is also sort of my brother-in-law’s—truck is shot.”
Matty scratched his chin and thought a moment.
“What if I tinker around a bit for you? Move aside,” he said before she could answer.
A few moments later the car came to life and Meredith said, “There is a God!”
“Did you doubt it?”
“Honestly?” she said. “I was beginning to. Yes.”
“Take this,” Matty handed her his phone.
“I…”
“You can return it to… someone if you don’t see me before I leave. I’m here for the night. Alright?”
Meredith took a deep breath.
“Yes. Thanks. Thanks a lot. Things have been…” then she just said, “Thanks.”

A few minutes later she was at the diner on the end of Route Two, and there was Naomi Riley, hair in a bun, sitting in one of the booths smoking a cigarette. Meredith entered and waved for a moment, and then she sat down at the booth where the boy with the wide blue eyes waved to her timidly.
“Hi,” she said to Kip Danley.

There was a rapid knock on her door and Shelley Latham shut the books quickly. She thought of stacking them neatly beside the bed and then, impatient, simply threw them off and ran to the door.
“What was that noise?” Matty said when she let him in, but she just grinned, pulled him into the room and closed the door.
She jumped up on him, her thighs around his waist so that he lost his balance and went with her to the bed, lying on top of her while she laughed and, removing his ballcap from his head, ran her hands through his thick marmalade hair.
“Matty,” she laughed in a low voice. “I need you in a bad way tonight.”
Already hard, he shifted a little to unbuckle his belt and murmured, “Happy to oblige, ma’am. Happy to oblige.”

 

[CharmedFan28]

That was a great conclusion to the chapter! This Matthew is an interesting character. Looks like him and Shelley are about to have some fun. I am excited to see what this new sister of Julian and Layla's will be like. With so much going on with other characters in this story it was nice to read about these ones for a change. I am still anxious to know how the whole Chay/Sheridan situation will turn out. Excellent writing and I look forward to more soon! Hope you are having a nice night!

 

[ChrisGibson]

It is nice to get away from the old and intense drama of the whole Chay/Sheridan business and onto some new (old) studd, Julian and Lay's sister, Shelley having some successful romance with Matty. Yes, its definitely time for some fresh air. Thank you for your good wishes. I hope you're having a great night as well.

 

[ChrisGibson]

NINE



HIGHER
EDUCATION


“DO YOU SMOKE?”
“No. Not really.” Meredith shook her head. “Not at all, actually.”
“Do you mind if I do?”
Kip Danley’s hands were trembling.
“Not really,” Meredith said, though she instantly regretted it.
A few minutes later, the boy was puffing away on a cigarette. His eyes were especially bright, and his cheeks went hollow everytime he sucked on the Marlboro. White smoke gushed out of his nostrils.
“Kip?” Meredith began. “It’s good to see you. But I’m already late for school. So… You had a reason for calling me up?”
“I wanted to talk,” he said.
“You’re alright?” Meredith said. “You don’t look alright.”
“I wanted to talk about that night.”
“Alright,” Meredith said. “Okay.”
Kip still didn’t say anything, and Meredith decided not to force him. After all, it was only about nine, and though she hated driving in winter, it hadn’t snowed in days. This was Naomi and Danasia’s place. She was safe.
“You didn’t grow up around here, did you?”
“No,” Meredith said. “I came from New York.”
“The state or the city?”
“City. Long Island really. Which isn’t the city.”
“Well, then you’re lucky,” Kip finished the cigarette and began savagely crushing it in the dirty tray. “You don’t really know what it is. To come from a fucked up place. I bet you see it from the outside. What was Long Island like?”
“Rich.” Meredith shrugged. That was the only way to describe it. “At least where I was. Then I went to private school. Boarding school.”
“Get out! Like in the movies?”
“Well, I guess it depends on which movies,” Meredith told him. “I went when I was about eight and that was the same time my parents split up. I hated being there, and I wanted to leave, but my mom said no. Dad said yes. So, to make a long story short, he sprung me and got custody and I came here.”
“I bet this place sucks compared to Long Island.”
Meredith looked around the white walls of the diner, out of the window into the black night. She shrugged.
“I don’t think of it that way. This place is my home. More than anywhere else. And… my family isn’t really rich anymore, so none of them lives on Long Island.”
Kip Danley folded his arms and rested his elbows on the white Formica tabletop.
“All I know is this fucking town. I don’t know how to do anything but be a hillbilly.”
Meredith opened her mouth, but Kip said, “That night… Wally was in control of everything. Wally’s fucking going to jail. The case starts tomorrow. I’m going to testify. Maybe I’ll go to jail too. Maybe we all will. All of us who are left now that Russell’s dead.”
“What happened that night?” Meredith said as Naomi came by, quietly, with a cola, and put it down in front of her.
Kip waited until Naomi was well away, then leaned in and hissed: “Wally made her blow everyone. He said, ‘Now suck my dick.’ He… had her doing everyone. Some people. They were really rough with her. Some guys were totally scared, but they tried to be rough. Do… what they call a face fuck.”
“I know what that is,” Meredith said, trying to sound neutral.
Kip nodded.
“It wasn’t like everyone was silent. Some of us kept saying, ‘Don’t do it. Let her stop’.”
When Kip didn’t continue, Meredith put her hands together.
“Did she do it to you?” she said.
Kip looked at her.
“You? Did you make Robin perform oral sex on you?”
“I didn’t make her do anything,” Kip said.
Meredith blinked at him.
“I wouldn’t expect you to understand. You’re a girl, and you’re a different type. You and all your friends. You don’t get it. We were terrified. You think I wanted that?” Kip leaned across the table and hissed in her ear. “You think I wanted some poor girl I don’t know blowing me in a parking lot while ten other guys are looking? You think half of us weren’t terrified?”
Meredith felt like she was going to throw up. Her face hurt.
“If Robin had said no,” she began, “she would have been raped, which she was. Or maybe killed, which it turns out she did to herself. If you had said no… Then, what?”
Kip blinked at her, his face hard.
“Then what?” she said again.
“We were scared.”
“Scared?
“Scared of… looking silly? Being called a sissy? Scared the boys wouldn’t like you, or you wouldn’t be enough of a man for your loser friends? So scared that half of you let her… fucking blow you, and then you watched as she got raped. Or… let me guess? Some of you were scared while you were raping her?”
“You don’t even understand,” Kip shook his head. His eyes had glazed over, as if he was backing away from the old thing. “It’s scary… Being a guy.”
One retort after another shot through Meredith Affren’s quick and angry mind. Halfway through each response another, more violent one came. She discarded them all, her head beginning to spin.
“I can’t…” she murmured.
Meredith rose up.
He reached out to her.
“No,” she said, her voice suddenly loud.
“I can’t see you. I can’t talk to you. I can’t be near you.”
She got up and began buttoning her coat.
“Meredith,” Danasia called from the counter, where she was tallying receipts.
Meredith blinked and came near her.
“You alright? You alright to drive?”
Meredith frowned and swallowed.
“Yeah,” she said. “I just… I just sort of hate people right now.”

“RISE AND SHINE!” Brendan Miller cried as he entered the house in a crisp white shirt, white tie, black slacks, and shades on top of his head.
Layla eyed him.
“That shit is so unnecessary.”
“You ready?”
“This bag, this thermos, and the big ass coat I’m wearing say I’m ready,” Layla told him. “But we can’t go to Valpo just yet.”
“Whaddo you mean?” he closed his black car coat over his chest and frowned.
“You look really gay,” Layla said.
He frowned at her.
“I mean… in that New York way. That metrosexual way. Where a woman says, ‘He’s fine but he’s either too vain to bother with or… gay.’ ”
“Thank you,” Brendan said, awkwardly, lowering his shades.
“If it’s any consolation, I think it’s a lot better to be gay than a vain straight man.”
“Layla,” Brendan said. “You just told me something about we can’t go to Valpo yet.
“Oh yeah,” Layla said. “Well, we can. Only sooner or later I’m thinking I want to make a stop over to that shop on Main, past downtown, the one with the Tarot cards and the psychic readings and shit.”
“What for… If I may ask?”
“You can ask,” Layla said. She lifted a giant furry hood over her head as they left and added, “By the way, if you look fine, I look like a Negro Eskimo.”
Brendan grinned and pointed out, “You do. A little.”
“You’re supposed to say, ‘You’re always pretty, Layla.’”
Brendan shrugged and said, “I know lawyers are supposed to be dishonest, but I’m trying a different tactic, Lay.”
She looked at him. “Snarky?”
Brendan shrugged, “Just gay. As you point out so often. Now where are we going?”
“To see my sister.”


Meredith Affren made right for Mathan’s locker.
“Why are you the only guy here with any sense?” she sighed, and lay against the wall.
He closed the locker and raised an eyebrow, looking down on her.
“I guess that’s your way of saying good morning?”
“I went to the diner last night. You know, Danny and Naomi’s.”
“Yeah.”
“I was going to meet Kip Danley.”
“Kip Danley?”
“He… you know he was involved with the whole Robin thing.”
“Yes,” Mathan said, his voice becoming firmer. He made a sharp gesture with his head to indicate that they should go down the hall toward class.
Meredith sighed and heaved herself from the locker wall, following her boyfriend.
“I wanted to know something good. I wanted something good to come out of it. He told me he needed to talk. I don’t know,” Meredith murmured. “I thought he would tell me something new. Something that made things better.”
Mathan didn’t say anything. He just let her continue.
“It made everything worse. Uh!”
Chad North blinked as he bumped into Meredith.
“I’m sorry… Mr. North,” said Meredith, who had always had difficulty negotiating the line between music teacher and friend of the family.
“Obviously,” Chad pushed his glasses up, “you weren’t the only one failing to pay attention. Good morning, Mathan,” he added.
“Mr. North,” said Nathan, who had never known him as anything but a teacher.
“And don’t be late for choir again. It’s in ten minutes,” Chad told her, heading down the hall with his books.
“Are you going to tell me about what Kip Danley said?”
“I don’t want to repeat it, Mate. It’s like when I’m alone thinking about all that he said, the first thing I want to do is tell it, and when I get ready to, I never want to talk about it again. I feel… For some reason I wanted to believe he was the good guy. Now I feel creepy about him. I don’t really want to talk about it.”
Mathan wrapped an arm around her waist.
“And Chay and Sheridan…” Meredith began.
“I don’t know.”
“You need to talk to them. You need to talk to Sheridan,” Meredith said. “We’re all supposed to be friends and I feel like we’re drifting apart. I feel like they’re drifting apart from us. And from each other.”
“I think,” Mathan said, standing at the door to his calculus class, “that we’ve just been afraid to ask them what’s wrong because then they might tell us, and maybe we’re not ready for the answer.”
“Maybe we’ve got too much shit to deal with already.”
“Well, I’m going to talk to Sheridan today,” he told her.
“Good. He’s lonely, you know?”
Mathan nodded.
“I gotta get to class. Chad—Mr. North… seemed really sort of…”
“Distracted?”
“Yeah. What do you think grown ups worry about?” Meredith wondered.
“Well,” Mathan decided, “it can’t be anything that different from us. Since we more or less are grown ups.”
“Really? I don’t feel grown up,” Meredith confessed. “I’m not even sure I believe in grown ups anymore.”

 

[CharmedFan28]

That was interesting to have a Meredith centric portion. The trial is coming up sooner then I expected and I hope she can make it through that. Kip seems pretty sorry for what he did to Robin but I still think he deserves some punishment in a way. I also hope Mathan and Sheridan can have a good chat. Sheridan seems to be pretty lonely and confused at the moment. He definitely needs friends around him. Great writing and as usual I look forward to the next bit of this wonderful story.

 

[ChrisGibson]

Thank you. It was good to get back to Meredith and to really let her say what she had to say, for her sake and for Robin's. She is one of my favorite characters, and she has been biding her time. What do you think of what Kips says? We've seen his point, but Meredith doesn't seem to think much of it.

 

[CharmedFan28]

I get that Kip was scared and in a bad situation but I think he could have handled what happened when it was actually happening in a different way. I don't know what different way but I guess I am still wishing that Robin had lived.

 

[ChrisGibson]

I know exactly what you mean. I wish there was no Robin. I mean, I wish such a thing hadn't happened in fiction or in reality. Thinking about Kip I remember the phrase that for evil to happen all that is needed is for good men to stand by. I don't think that's true. I think goodness is hard, and people who stand around are not good. People who participate certainly aren't, and if Kip isn't evil, I can't really see him as good either.

 

[ChrisGibson]

WEEKEND PORTION PART ONE


NINE
HIGHER
EDUCATION CONTINUED

Choir no longer met in the afternoon. One of the trade offs when City of Rossford Public Schools was going through cutbacks was that certain of the arts would become classes instead of extra curricular activities. So Choir was a first hour course now. Originally this had made the choir twice as large and half as talented. But eventually, as Chad began to re-apply his vigorous standards, the herd thinned, and now things were pretty much back to normal. While he set up the music on the podium, and then went to the piano to make sure the program of practice music was undisturbed, Chad opened his cell phone that had just buzzed.

I JUST WANT YOU TO KNOW THIS MORNING WAS EXCELLENT.
-BRY

Kids were entering the classroom; he nodded to them and some said, “Good morning, Mr. North,” as Chad texted.

ME TOO.

He didn’t expect that Bryant would be by his phone, but a few seconds later, as ten or so girls entered, and then Meredith Affren came in with Chay, a new message appeared.

I CAN’T WAIT TO FUCK YOU WHEN YOU GET HOME.

Chad’s face went red.
“I have to take a message out in the hall,” he told his students.
Another message appeared.

I DON’T KNOW WHAT’S COMING OVER US. IT HASN’T BEEN THIS HOT IN A LONG TIME.

Chad’s heart was beating fast. It hadn’t been like this forever. When had Bryant texted him early in the morning to talk about the hot sex they’d had earlier? Since Christmas, things had gotten hotter and hotter. Even now he couldn’t get enough of Bryant. He needed to get back to class, to get back to his job, but he was getting stiff in his pants thinking about a man who was twice as hot as boys half his age, thinking about the exciting lovemaking they were going through all the time, how uninhibited it was, all the fun.
And then a new text appeared.

I MISS YOU. COME BY ON YOUR BREAK AND SEE ME.
-SEAN.

“Morning, Mr. North!”
The last of the kids was coming in. The bell was ringing for class to begin. There was no time to think, only to feel. When he was with Sean it was like being with Bryant. When it was Bryant it was like being with Sean. Sometimes he dreamed that the two of them were making love to him, and then to each other and he woke up in a sweat, hot for both of them, in love—no matter what conventional wisdom said—with both of them, certain that the reason things were so fiery between he and Bryant was because he was sleeping with Bryant’s brother.
So he texted Sean back :
“YES.”

“YOU ARE IN A STRANGELY good mood,” Fenn Houghton observed as he went about the grey living room, opening up the curtains and twisting open the shades.
“One might even say silly.”
Pale gold light entered the house. Bryant, in his track suit, got off of his Blackberry and grinned.
“I just finished texting Chad.”
“You are twice as silly as you were when you were half your age,” Fenn told him.
Fenn’s hair, long uncut, was in cucklebugs and naps, and at eight in the morning he was in a black house coat. With his coffee mug he headed back into the kitchen and Bryant followed.
“Well, I feel half my age,” Bryant insisted. “No. I feel better than half my age!”
“Good, because when you were half your age, you were sort of an asshole. Now do you want one teaspoon or two in your coffee?” He gestured to the sugar bowl.
“None. And I’m off coffee. At least for a while.”
“Really?”
“Yeah. It’s lots of All Bran. Lots of the exercise ball.”
“That ridiculous black thing that looks like a cross between a bowling bag and millstone?”
“You laugh, Fenn,” Bryant told him, opening the refrigerator and taking out a water, “but I’d like to think it keeps me looking good.”
Fenn was about to say, “That and hair color,” but that was going too far and, besides it couldn’t be denied, Bryant, like Tom, looked better than he had in his twenties.
“You know how… sometimes the sex and the relationship cool down…”
“No,” Fenn, admitted, taking out a cigarette. “I don’t know anything about that.”
Bryant frowned.
“Well, good for you,” he said. “But back to me… Anyway, things have heated up. Me and Chad are having the greatest sex in the world!”
“I’m so glad Tara and Tom have the kids.”
“And it’s like… We’re just inspired. To do new stuff. You know?”
Fenn couldn’t pretend to be disinterested. At this, he pushed his glasses up his nose and made to pay attention.
“Yesterday… before church? I’m in the shower. Like this is before ten o’ clock Mass. He walks into the bathroom, takes his clothes off, gets in the shower and just starts going down on me! I mean he’s just deepthroating me! And then I’m doing him, and then he’s fucking me on the floor of the tub.”
Fenn blinked.
“Oh, don’t pretend you don’t want to hear this!”
Fenn made a face, and then he laughed.
“I do love a good nasty story.”
“I know you do. This morning before work, I just throw him against the door and start plowing him. And it’s just so hot. He’s like… like the whole time, he’s reaching back and putting his hands in my hair, and touching my back and raking my ass and we’re just crazy!”
Bryant sat there, a monkey like expression on his wide mouth, his elbows touching the table, and his eyes in wide blissful contemplation of the morning.
“It’s almost like we were afraid to touch each other for a long time. And now we can’t stop. I’m so in love with him. It’s like we just met.”
“Except—”
“Except I’m not a professor and he’s not a student. See, after almost twenty years I can anticipate every remark you’re going to make.”
“Really? How?”
“I just think of the bitchiest response possible.”


At lunch she let the cafeteria noise run over her. Once the chatter of her friends would have contributed to it. Mathan tried to make conversation between Sheridan and Chay, and they both gave awkward responses. Meredith kept glancing at her boyfriend.
You are so good. I need you to stay good. I left that diner last night wanting to throw up at the idea of men. I hate men so much right now. I need to hang on to something. I need you be who you are, Mate. I need you to keep on being ten times the man all these fuckers are. I need to remember Dad. I need to remember all the good men I know. I need my friends back. I need them to stop this. To stop this silence. I need Chay and Sheridan back.
“Mere?” Mathan said, turning to her.
“What?”
“Your breathing,” he said.
She raised an eyebrow.
“You were breathing real crazy,” Sheridan said, leaning forward.
“I’m so tired of you,” Meredith lamented. She looked at Chay now. “I’m so tired of the both of you. If you could just understand…” she began.
Then she got up, stepping over the bench.
“I’m sorry, Mathan. I can’t take this right now.”
Meredith got up and began making her way out of the cafeteria.


Before class began, Mathan turned in his desk toward Sheridan and said, frankly: “I might as well let you know, you’re driving her crazy.”
Sheridan blinked.
“In fact, you’re driving us both crazy. You and Chay. First it was just you, but now it’s you and Chay.”
“I have a lot on my mind,” Sheridan said.
“Well, we all have a lot on our minds,” Mathan dismissed this. “The point is: we’re friends. And friends are supposed to share the shit on their minds and not shut each other out.”
Sheridan shook his head.
“The stuff on my mind… You wouldn’t get it.”
Mathan looked at him.
“Do you know the family I come from? Your brother walked in and ruined my cousin’s wedding.”
“Yeah,” Sheridan said. “I know that. Half the town knows your family history.”
“Then you know there’s nothing I don’t get. There was a time when you told me everything.”
“I know,” Sheridan said. Then he continued.
“Look, I don’t even get what’s going on in me. When I get it, then I’ll tell you all about it?”
“Is it about Chay?”
“It was. It might have been. He’s part of it.”
“Are you messing around with him?”
“What?” Sheridan looked shocked. “No! I mean… It’s complicated.”
“It’s not that complicated,” Mathan muttered.
Mathan stopped, because Sheridan seemed something like beaten down, and also because Mr. Sinclaire was coming into the classroom.
“Look,” Sheridan whispered, “When I figure it out, then I’ll tell you everything.”
“Well,” Mathan muttered. “You better figure it out damn quick cause I’m getting tired of the new Sheridan Klasko who keeps everything to himself.”

 

[CharmedFan28]

That was an excellent weekend part one portion! I think Chad may like sleeping with both Brian and Sean but I think Brian is going to catch on eventually. Poor Meredith. I hope she can find some peace eventually. I also hope Sheridan and Chay can sort out their issues so it stops affecting everyone else so much. Great writing and I look forward to the 2nd portion later!

 

[ChrisGibson]

Thank you so much! There's so much going on right now, and there is so much that needs to be resolved. Meredith is really feeling the weight of it. And by the way, what about Layla and her sister? Portion II coming soon.