The Ends of Rossford

[ChrisGibson]

S I X



EXTENDED/ FAMILY

Logan Banford’s grandmother had been one of those tedious Christians who, come to Jesus late in life, mixed with the dumb conviction of the old a convert’s zeal long after most women who had persisted in their religions were old enough, and wise enough to be concerned with their own affairs. She was always talking to him about knowing Jesus, about true salvation, about the real God, and part of him wondered if she wasn’t right. Of course he wasn’t right with God. She told him all about Saint Paul on the road to Damascus, the blinding light. He half way believed it. He’d been close to something like it. But suddenly he knew that if his grandmother wasn’t totally full of shit, then she must have been a little filled with shit because here, here was the blinding light, the road to Damascus, the vision that made him ask: where have I been all this time?
Brunhilde, sword raised, sang on and on and Logan didn’t need a translation. The moment George had said he was taking him to see Wagner’s Ring Cycle, Logan had studied the story, even seen clips of the opera. It wasn’t over until the fat lady sang. And now the fat lady was singing. It was over. Sigfried was being placed on the funeral pyre. The fire was leaping. Well, not real fire, but the opera had caught his mind so it might as well have been true fire. Brunhilde, face alight, was calling for a higher fire, now calling for her horse, Grane. Now she was on the horse, triumphantly singing “Hojitoho! Hojitoho!” She rode into the fire to be burnt to ashes and reunited with Sigfried. The Rhine overran its banks and washed the fire and ash away. The Rhine Maids had their ring. Hagen, greedy for the ring, leapt into the water and drowned. Where had this spectacle been Logan’s whole life?
“You really weren’t bored?” George said as everyone rose to their feet. The applause shook the floor of the opera house.
“No,” Logan said, amazed, clapping his hands, thinking that, in his amazement he probably looked like a rube. He didn’t care.
Out onto the stage came Gunther. He stood there, and with a mixture of humility and pride he received the applause.
“I’ve never seen anything like it,” Logan said. “I need more. I want more.”
Now came Sigfried and the crowd roared with delight.
“More? You’ve had four nights!”
“And I didn’t get tired of any of it,” Logan said. “Oh, I was such a dumb kid.”
Not the current Logan. At thirty-five he wasn’t a kid at all. He was a decade older than he looked, golden haired, fine faced, slim and beautiful in a tuxedo. He looked nothing like a high priced escort. Or maybe he looked exactly like a high priced escort. How many of him were here? This crowd whose hands shook the house and made the air vibrate could certainly afford them.
Out came Brunhilde. He was in love with this woman. He had been in love with her for three nights. He wanted to see it all over again, see her steal Sigeliende away, watch her run to her sisters for help, watch her sing with Sigfried of the twilight of the Gods, not knowing it would be her twilight as well. Roses, bouquets of flowers went onto the stage. Whistling and clapping went up for her. Hojitoho! Logan wanted to say.
Those kids back in school: the theatre fags, the choir fags, the ones with the sticks in their asses who got shoved into lockers and whom no one really liked—who knew they were right. They must have known all about this world. And here he was coming to it just now.
“Les Troyens is next week,” George whispered to him. “Would you like to come with me?”
There were worse ways to make money, and this was only a side job in addition to running Guy McClintock’s company.
“Yes,” Logan told him. “Yes, I absolutely would.”

Logan Banford had been sixteen in the hey day of the chat room and discovered man after man who was much too old for him. He found himself, once, in a car with a forty year old who tried to rape him. He got away, but was stranded on a stretch of road between Rensselaer and Knox. Eventually he was able to call home and be rescued. He decided he’d have to be smarter, but he didn’t really know how to be. The Web was full of lonely men, most of them old, and not only old but married and socially awkward. The wrong attention was better than no attention. And then he hoped to get the right attention, to get the nineteen year old of his dreams who spoke to him in the right way. What he got was a lot of: “You’ve got a cute little butt, Sugar.”
He’d take it.
He hated working in the grocery store, but it was work, and he did want to get the fuck out of here. College was never a serious option. One of the men told him, “You’re such a cutie pie you’d make a good stripper.” So he headed to the strip club in town. There were no Chippendales. He would have loved to strip for women. He didn’t quite trust men. But he ended up at a club that was a plain white building. There was a long stretch of country road, the road that had preceded the toll way, that took one from South Bend to Chicago by strange back ways, and in one of these back ways was The Butt Hutt.
“Just take off your clothes, Sugar, and let us see whatcha got,” the man said. He wasn’t mean about it. Logan stripped and when he got to his underwear the man said, “That’s enough. Now dance for me.”
Logan did. It seemed like the man enjoyed the dancing a little too much. He asked Logan, “Can you start tonight?”
“Yes.”
“You’re eighteen, right?”
Logan nodded. “Um hum.”

At first he did his homework during the hours his parents thought he was at work. He did it in the public library. And then he stopped doing it because who cared? There was supposed to be no touching, but one night a lonely man—he looked so sad, men were always so sad, put his hands on Logan’s ass. He left them there while Logan danced and he made his first hundred. After that he began to get invitations to strip in private. Once men more rich than Logan believed lived in Indiana, invited him to a Saturday cook out. He couldn’t believe people like him, people as hillybilly as himself, had wealth like this. They had boats, planes, houses, and took it for granted. He couldn’t believe the people he met. He could afford his own place now and a decent car. He had no license, so he took back roads and took them slowly. He stripped for a sad faced Mormon who paid him more for the pleasure of pressing his face to Logan’s crotch. The money was good, but the men were so sad. He never said he catered only to men, but women never seemed to need what he had to offer.
When Logan moved to Miller at eighteen, he didn’t need the Butt Hutt anymore. He was stripping at a much nicer place in downtown Rossford. He was also very strong. He gave his days to working out. So when a man approached him on the way to his car, Logan wasn’t afraid.
“Can I help you?” he said.
“I will give you a thousand dollars if you let me get in this car with you and suck your cock.”
There wasn’t much to think about. Sex happened, and not always pleasantly. He had never been paid for it, though. Now, in the darkness of a parking lot off of South Birmingham, a well dressed, church going man, possibly with a lovely wife and two kids, was leaning over in the passenger’s seat, choking himself on Logan’s cock and, truthfully, giving him the best blowjob he’d ever received.
A week later the same man said, “I will give you two thousand if you take me back to your house and fuck me.”

And so it began. His grandmother had called him telling him he should come to her church and turn on this television because Jimmy Swaggart had a special Christmas message. In the living room, casting a bright blue light, Jimmy Swaggart’s large face wept for the sins of the world and the choir sang. But louder than that was the gasping, groaning and shouting of the business man he held by the hips as, with the snow falling outside of the window, Logan fucked him.

NOW, IN A LIMOUSINE, Logan went up the Magnificent Mile on his way back to the elegant building where George, most gentle of men, stayed, and his eyes filled with tears the same way his grandmother would at a preacher going on about the Cross. None of that did anything for him. Jesus was the most underwhelming thing Logan had ever encountered. But not Brunhilde. Her notes, mindshattering, heartbreaking, were still in his head, shaking his body, and he heard her. Logan saw her mounting the horse, counterposed to the ignorant boy fucking a forty year old man in his apartment on Christmas Eve who thought that this was all there was, who braced his face and orgasmed while thinking of the easy money the man, bent over that he was ejaculating inside of. was giving him for this. He didn’t know anything. His world had been so small. He’d never known anything at all.

“This is the place I come when I need peace,” George told him. “This place is completely removed from the world. You’d almost think you weren’t in a city.”
They were in a night dark garden, and water was shooting from a fountain, tinkling back down into its pool. A gravel path led off into trees. It was hard to believe they were on the top of a building.
“When I was very little, I used to hear that people were the image of God,” George said as Logan sat down beside him.
“My mother said that you had to be careful because if you entertained someone, you were entertaining angels unaware, that Jesus was in everyone, that people were the faces of God.”
Logan was about to say that he’d heard the same thing and nod sympathetically.
“I think that’s a load of nonsense,” George said.
“If there is a God, the only time I believe in him is up here. Or by myself. The trees reflect God. The water. The birds. Nature. They don’t let themselves get in the way. God is in them perfectly. People?
“People are mean and vindictive. Weak and stupid.” George shook his head. “Tiresome too. Wear-ee-some. Small… Petty. That’s the reason you call a saint a saint, cause he’s the one that’s actually not getting in the way, actually showing God. That’s rare in human beings. That’s why you have to call it something. Holy. Saintly. You know, Logan, every blade of grass is a saint. Every wave. They don’t have to try. They just are.”
George talked like this a lot. It was one of the reasons Logan liked being around him. Logan didn’t usually say anything back. Not that George wouldn’t have let him. Only, George usually said things he actually wanted to hear, and his stupid chatter could get in the way of it. But he did speak tonight because the opera was so beautiful and it was still effecting him, because he saw the best in life right now and because he was a little offended by George’s words at the same time he thought they might be true.
“Tiresome? Wearisome? Small?” Logan asked. “What about you? Are you all of those things?”
“I’m the meanest, weakest and stupidest of them all,” the middle aged man, graying, balding a little at the top, declared. He threw up his hands. “They say that the powerful climb to the top, but I’m here at the top and it’s not because I’m so powerful. I did what I was told. I always did what I was told. It is why I am divorced and alone.”
Then there was that dark place. Every client had a dark place, hence the reason they hired companions. Logan knew he had a dark place too, or why would he be a companion? That’s what he said.
“No,” George disagreed, tenderly.
“There is a goodness in you. There’s a lightness in you. You don’t have to be here with me.”
“I’m paid to be here.”
“You ought to be. We ought to be paid for your work. But you do more than just fulfill the job description. You know that.”

MORE TOMORROW...

 

[ChrisGibson]

S I X



EXTENDED/ FAMILY

Logan Banford’s grandmother had been one of those tedious Christians who, come to Jesus late in life, mixed with the dumb conviction of the old a convert’s zeal long after most women who had persisted in their religions were old enough, and wise enough to be concerned with their own affairs. She was always talking to him about knowing Jesus, about true salvation, about the real God, and part of him wondered if she wasn’t right. Of course he wasn’t right with God. She told him all about Saint Paul on the road to Damascus, the blinding light. He half way believed it. He’d been close to something like it. But suddenly he knew that if his grandmother wasn’t totally full of shit, then she must have been a little filled with shit because here, here was the blinding light, the road to Damascus, the vision that made him ask: where have I been all this time?
Brunhilde, sword raised, sang on and on and Logan didn’t need a translation. The moment George had said he was taking him to see Wagner’s Ring Cycle, Logan had studied the story, even seen clips of the opera. It wasn’t over until the fat lady sang. And now the fat lady was singing. It was over. Sigfried was being placed on the funeral pyre. The fire was leaping. Well, not real fire, but the opera had caught his mind so it might as well have been true fire. Brunhilde, face alight, was calling for a higher fire, now calling for her horse, Grane. Now she was on the horse, triumphantly singing “Hojitoho! Hojitoho!” She rode into the fire to be burnt to ashes and reunited with Sigfried. The Rhine overran its banks and washed the fire and ash away. The Rhine Maids had their ring. Hagen, greedy for the ring, leapt into the water and drowned. Where had this spectacle been Logan’s whole life?
“You really weren’t bored?” George said as everyone rose to their feet. The applause shook the floor of the opera house.
“No,” Logan said, amazed, clapping his hands, thinking that, in his amazement he probably looked like a rube. He didn’t care.
Out onto the stage came Gunther. He stood there, and with a mixture of humility and pride he received the applause.
“I’ve never seen anything like it,” Logan said. “I need more. I want more.”
Now came Sigfried and the crowd roared with delight.
“More? You’ve had four nights!”
“And I didn’t get tired of any of it,” Logan said. “Oh, I was such a dumb kid.”
Not the current Logan. At thirty-five he wasn’t a kid at all. He was a decade older than he looked, golden haired, fine faced, slim and beautiful in a tuxedo. He looked nothing like a high priced escort. Or maybe he looked exactly like a high priced escort. How many of him were here? This crowd whose hands shook the house and made the air vibrate could certainly afford them.
Out came Brunhilde. He was in love with this woman. He had been in love with her for three nights. He wanted to see it all over again, see her steal Sigeliende away, watch her run to her sisters for help, watch her sing with Sigfried of the twilight of the Gods, not knowing it would be her twilight as well. Roses, bouquets of flowers went onto the stage. Whistling and clapping went up for her. Hojitoho! Logan wanted to say.
Those kids back in school: the theatre fags, the choir fags, the ones with the sticks in their asses who got shoved into lockers and whom no one really liked—who knew they were right. They must have known all about this world. And here he was coming to it just now.
“Les Troyens is next week,” George whispered to him. “Would you like to come with me?”
There were worse ways to make money, and this was only a side job in addition to running Guy McClintock’s company.
“Yes,” Logan told him. “Yes, I absolutely would.”

Logan Banford had been sixteen in the hey day of the chat room and discovered man after man who was much too old for him. He found himself, once, in a car with a forty year old who tried to rape him. He got away, but was stranded on a stretch of road between Rensselaer and Knox. Eventually he was able to call home and be rescued. He decided he’d have to be smarter, but he didn’t really know how to be. The Web was full of lonely men, most of them old, and not only old but married and socially awkward. The wrong attention was better than no attention. And then he hoped to get the right attention, to get the nineteen year old of his dreams who spoke to him in the right way. What he got was a lot of: “You’ve got a cute little butt, Sugar.”
He’d take it.
He hated working in the grocery store, but it was work, and he did want to get the fuck out of here. College was never a serious option. One of the men told him, “You’re such a cutie pie you’d make a good stripper.” So he headed to the strip club in town. There were no Chippendales. He would have loved to strip for women. He didn’t quite trust men. But he ended up at a club that was a plain white building. There was a long stretch of country road, the road that had preceded the toll way, that took one from South Bend to Chicago by strange back ways, and in one of these back ways was The Butt Hutt.
“Just take off your clothes, Sugar, and let us see whatcha got,” the man said. He wasn’t mean about it. Logan stripped and when he got to his underwear the man said, “That’s enough. Now dance for me.”
Logan did. It seemed like the man enjoyed the dancing a little too much. He asked Logan, “Can you start tonight?”
“Yes.”
“You’re eighteen, right?”
Logan nodded. “Um hum.”

At first he did his homework during the hours his parents thought he was at work. He did it in the public library. And then he stopped doing it because who cared? There was supposed to be no touching, but one night a lonely man—he looked so sad, men were always so sad, put his hands on Logan’s ass. He left them there while Logan danced and he made his first hundred. After that he began to get invitations to strip in private. Once men more rich than Logan believed lived in Indiana, invited him to a Saturday cook out. He couldn’t believe people like him, people as hillybilly as himself, had wealth like this. They had boats, planes, houses, and took it for granted. He couldn’t believe the people he met. He could afford his own place now and a decent car. He had no license, so he took back roads and took them slowly. He stripped for a sad faced Mormon who paid him more for the pleasure of pressing his face to Logan’s crotch. The money was good, but the men were so sad. He never said he catered only to men, but women never seemed to need what he had to offer.
When Logan moved to Miller at eighteen, he didn’t need the Butt Hutt anymore. He was stripping at a much nicer place in downtown Rossford. He was also very strong. He gave his days to working out. So when a man approached him on the way to his car, Logan wasn’t afraid.
“Can I help you?” he said.
“I will give you a thousand dollars if you let me get in this car with you and suck your cock.”
There wasn’t much to think about. Sex happened, and not always pleasantly. He had never been paid for it, though. Now, in the darkness of a parking lot off of South Birmingham, a well dressed, church going man, possibly with a lovely wife and two kids, was leaning over in the passenger’s seat, choking himself on Logan’s cock and, truthfully, giving him the best blowjob he’d ever received.
A week later the same man said, “I will give you two thousand if you take me back to your house and fuck me.”

And so it began. His grandmother had called him telling him he should come to her church and turn on this television because Jimmy Swaggart had a special Christmas message. In the living room, casting a bright blue light, Jimmy Swaggart’s large face wept for the sins of the world and the choir sang. But louder than that was the gasping, groaning and shouting of the business man he held by the hips as, with the snow falling outside of the window, Logan fucked him.

NOW, IN A LIMOUSINE, Logan went up the Magnificent Mile on his way back to the elegant building where George, most gentle of men, stayed, and his eyes filled with tears the same way his grandmother would at a preacher going on about the Cross. None of that did anything for him. Jesus was the most underwhelming thing Logan had ever encountered. But not Brunhilde. Her notes, mindshattering, heartbreaking, were still in his head, shaking his body, and he heard her. Logan saw her mounting the horse, counterposed to the ignorant boy fucking a forty year old man in his apartment on Christmas Eve who thought that this was all there was, who braced his face and orgasmed while thinking of the easy money the man, bent over that he was ejaculating inside of. was giving him for this. He didn’t know anything. His world had been so small. He’d never known anything at all.

“This is the place I come when I need peace,” George told him. “This place is completely removed from the world. You’d almost think you weren’t in a city.”
They were in a night dark garden, and water was shooting from a fountain, tinkling back down into its pool. A gravel path led off into trees. It was hard to believe they were on the top of a building.
“When I was very little, I used to hear that people were the image of God,” George said as Logan sat down beside him.
“My mother said that you had to be careful because if you entertained someone, you were entertaining angels unaware, that Jesus was in everyone, that people were the faces of God.”
Logan was about to say that he’d heard the same thing and nod sympathetically.
“I think that’s a load of nonsense,” George said.
“If there is a God, the only time I believe in him is up here. Or by myself. The trees reflect God. The water. The birds. Nature. They don’t let themselves get in the way. God is in them perfectly. People?
“People are mean and vindictive. Weak and stupid.” George shook his head. “Tiresome too. Wear-ee-some. Small… Petty. That’s the reason you call a saint a saint, cause he’s the one that’s actually not getting in the way, actually showing God. That’s rare in human beings. That’s why you have to call it something. Holy. Saintly. You know, Logan, every blade of grass is a saint. Every wave. They don’t have to try. They just are.”
George talked like this a lot. It was one of the reasons Logan liked being around him. Logan didn’t usually say anything back. Not that George wouldn’t have let him. Only, George usually said things he actually wanted to hear, and his stupid chatter could get in the way of it. But he did speak tonight because the opera was so beautiful and it was still effecting him, because he saw the best in life right now and because he was a little offended by George’s words at the same time he thought they might be true.
“Tiresome? Wearisome? Small?” Logan asked. “What about you? Are you all of those things?”
“I’m the meanest, weakest and stupidest of them all,” the middle aged man, graying, balding a little at the top, declared. He threw up his hands. “They say that the powerful climb to the top, but I’m here at the top and it’s not because I’m so powerful. I did what I was told. I always did what I was told. It is why I am divorced and alone.”
Then there was that dark place. Every client had a dark place, hence the reason they hired companions. Logan knew he had a dark place too, or why would he be a companion? That’s what he said.
“No,” George disagreed, tenderly.
“There is a goodness in you. There’s a lightness in you. You don’t have to be here with me.”
“I’m paid to be here.”
“You ought to be. We ought to be paid for your work. But you do more than just fulfill the job description. You know that.”

MORE TOMORROW...

 

[CharmedFan28]

That was interesting to read about Logan's past. Thanks for that. I hope for good things in Logan's future. Great writing and I look forward to more tomorrow!

 

[ChrisGibson]

I wonder, what would you see in Logan's future?

 

[CharmedFan28]

Hopefully happiness and maybe a new career, I don't know.

 

[ChrisGibson]

I do wonder what Logan in a new career would look like. It could go anywhere. And soon we'll see.

 

[ChrisGibson]

LOGAN EXPERIENCES THE HIGH LIFE AND FENN GETS FAR MORE THAN HE BARGAINED FOR...

The penthouse was so high above the city that it didn’t need curtains. It was a glass house, surrounded by trees and at the top of everything. While he lay on his back, his strong thighs wrapped around George, the older fucked him. Logan looked out into the blackness, studded with the lights of other tall towers. His hands went over George’s scalp and down his back while the older man pushed himself deep inside of Logan. They rested on his buttocks while George struggled inside of him making gasping, drowning noises. George was so urbane and cultured, so full of wisdom. Only when he fucked him did he realize that George was as weak and lonely as he said. But then Logan felt weak and lonely too. The desperation of George, clinging to his shoulders, made Logan free to cry out. He hadn’t had a true love in years. His best clients took him to a place, he believed, most people went to with their best lovers. Together he and George moved in the night. George’s hand tugging expertly on Logan’s cock. With a staggered and synchronized scream they came together. It was like bucking up and down on hills, and when it was over the two men lay quiet, George collapsed between Logan’s legs, their mouth’s dry and open in wonder.
Slowly George rolled from Logan and lay on his back, pulling the condom off and putting in on the dresser. He exhaled in a long breath.
Logan lay on his side, in knees drawn to his chest, the better to feel the presence of George which remained long after his absence. Over time he’d urged George to slow down because he loved the size of him, loved having George inside of him. With George looking at him tenderly, the dark night of Chicago outside of the window, Logan drifted off peacefully, feeling the throb of George still deep in his ass. George’s hand caressed his ass and the older man pressed his body to him.
You cannot buy love, maybe, Logan reflected, as he fell asleep. But you can buy affection. Can’t you?


“Are you finally awake?” Elias said.
Dylan, who was on his side, face nearly pressed to the wall, nodded without opening his eyes.
“You’re about to bang your head,” Elias told him.
They were in Dylan’s room, at Tom and Lee’s house. They’d arrived late last night, too tired to eat, too tired to shower or talk, just awake enough to go upstairs, put on pajama bottoms and pile into bed with a thick old comforter over them.
Dylan moved away from the wall and into Elias’s arms.
“I have the biggest boner,” Dylan said, frankly.
“There was a time I would have taken that as an offer.”
“There was a time,” Dylan said, sitting up with an old man groan, “that it would have been one. Now it’s just information. Plus, I have to pee. I never understood those morning sex pornos where the first thing people do is start going at it.”
Dylan climbed over Elias, pulling a tee shirt on, and headed out the door presumably toward the restroom. Elias lay on his back and waited for Dylan to return. This house was more lavish than Fenn and Todd’s. Dylan’s room here was bigger, virtually an apartment. This was the house Frank Lloyd Wright would have built if he built for people who weren’t rich. The door opened and Dylan returned, climbing into bed.
“My head hurts and I’m really, really fucking tired. I cannot face the world right now.”
He turned around and faced the wall instead.
“By the way,” he added, “don’t go in that bathroom for a while.”
“Thanks for the heads up.”
“No true friend would do otherwise.”
Elias put his arms back around Dylan and said, “So what are we going to so?”
“About what?”
“About Thackeray?”
“We,” Dylan punched his pillow and resituated himself, “are not going to do anything.”
“Eileen Wehlan can’t just drop dead and then say, ‘Oh by the way, you have a brother. Please raise him.’”
“This is weird.”
“The whole thing is weird.”
Dylan gave up on trying to sleep, and lay on his back.
“So let’s see,” Elias began, “it turns out the story we thought we knew isn’t quite true.”
“Yes,” Dylan said.
“Eileen deep freezed Tom for years, and then used a little bit of him to make a little you. That much is true.”
“You put it so eloquently.”
“But when she fertilized her egg it split?”
“Seems to be the case.”
“But she could only have one, so she froze the other and then you were born and she gave you to Tom and Fenn.”
“Yes.”
“And then she put Thackeray on ice, had him later, couldn’t handle it again—”
“Do you see a pattern developing?”
“But all those years ago, when she came back for you, she planned to get you and Thackeray and raise you together.”
“And that!” Dylan said, clapping his hands, “is the bullet I fucking dodged!”
“But not Thackeray,” Elias said.
Dylan, who was dealing with his own anger, stopped and looked at Elias, sitting in bed next to him.
“What?”
“Me and Ben have the same mom and we always had each other. And Matthew, even though he doesn’t talk about it, always felt a little left out. No one even knows who his birth parents are. But all the same, he’s our brother. He’s got two parents and two brothers who love him. But Thackeray never had anyone.”
Dylan turned away from Elias.
“I know it’s not fair to you,” Elias said. “What Eileen did. But it’s really not fair to Thackeray. It’s weird as hell, and something out of a sick soap opera, but he is your twin brother—”
“Could we drop the twin thing and just concentrate on the brother part?”
“Well, then he’s your baby brother, Dylan. Right now he’s over at Liz Callan’s and that’s fine. But you have to look after him. Which means I do, too. Alright?”

“Are you serious?” Lee demanded, taking out a cigarette.
It wasn’t Dylan, but Elias who nodded.
Tom sat at the kitchen table, half gripping his coffee mug, his brow furrowed.
“This crazy woman—excuse me—” Lee said, realizing that the crazy woman was, after all, Dylan’s mother and currently dead, “went ahead and had another baby and gave it away?”
“I think she thought that since the egg was already fertilized she should give it a chance to become a person.”
“Unbelievable,” Lee murmured, sitting down beside Tom. “And yet, it makes a strange sort of sense.”
“I have another son,” Tom said, blinking. Then he looked up at Dylan.
“You have a brother.”
“It appears so.”
“I…” Tom stood up. “I guess I ought to go see him.”
“Yeah, you should,” Lee said.
“We,” Tom said to Dylan, “need to go see him.”
“I need a cup of coffee first,” Dylan told him.
Elias pushed Dylan down into his chair, and went to make it for him.
Tom was standing there looking a mess, his hair sticking up in a sort of Beethoven wildness.
“And then I need to call Fenn.”
“What the fuck for?” Lee said.
Tom didn’t answer. He just sat back down and then suddenly began to laugh.
They all looked at him but for Elias, who was always a cool customer. Finally, by the time Elias had returned to the table with a cup of coffee for Dylan and one for himself, Tom’s wild laugh had ascended into a slightly mad cackle.
“Baby, you alright?” Lee said, touching Tom’s shoulder.
“I got another kid,” Tom said. He began slapping his forehead rhythmically with both hands, and then took them through his thick, mostly dark hair.
“Holy fuck! We got another kid.”


The first thing that happened was Bennett arrived.
“Fenn, I have to speak to Maia.”
Perhaps Bennett expected some resistance, he was so gallant in how he spoke. But Fenn didn’t really care. He opened the door, and pointed to the sofa where Todd’s daughter was sleeping.
“Maia,” Bennett told her, shaking her awake, “we need to talk.”
“You’re damn straight we do,” she said. She stretched, then said, “Excuse me, Fenn.”
Fenn just went back to the kitchen to make coffee.
“You exasperate me!” he heard Maia saying. “You do the stupidest things without thinking. You probably didn’t even really think about coming here, did you? You just came.”
“He who hesitates—?”
“Has time to think things out,” Maia said. “And you still haven’t paid my father back that three hundred dollars. Oh, you’re such an idiot!”
“I know I’m an idiot,” Bennett agreed. “I’m an idiot, and I’m crazy and I’m crazy for you.”
“That’s a good one,” Fenn noted, sitting back down beside Maia.
“Did you bring clothes with you?” Bennett asked Maia.
“I brought some.”
“Well, then… pack them up.”
“I’m not going back to Rossford.”
“No,” Bennett said. “Don’t go back to Rossford. Come with me. We’ll take a little trip. Sort things out. How’s that sound?”
“It sounds terrible,” Maia said, stubbornly. “You screw so much up.”
“Well maybe we can make them better. Together.
“By going on a trip?”
“Yes!” Bennett clapped his hands together.
“We need to be back before term starts.”
“Of course.”
Maia looked doubtful, but she stood up, anyway.
“Fenn, will you tell Dad me and Bennett are gone?”
Fenn nodded.
“I can do that.”
“Thank you.
“I need to shower.”
“No you don’t,” Bennett told her.
“I’m going to shower,” Maia said. “And then I’m going to call my mother.”
Maia dressed and Fenn was afflicted with Bennett Anderson’s conversation. While Fenn loved all of Paul and Kirk’s children, he realized he had no patience, especially this early in the morning, for Bennett’s chatter and at last he said, “If you don’t shut up, I’m going to hit you.”
This shut Bennett up. Fenn took out another cigarette and smoked it, then Maia was dressed and ready with a bag over her shoulder, and after kissing Fenn, she and Bennett were gone.
They weren’t gone five minutes when the phone rang and Fenn picked up saying: “Elias and Dylan’s”
“Fenn, it’s me?”
“Tom?” Fenn sounded doubtful, because Tom sounded crazy.
“Yeah! Guess what?”
“I’m not in the mood for guessing. Bennett just left, so it’s been a long morning.”
Reflecting on his times alone with the red headed boy, Tom agreed: “That could make for a long morning. Why was he there? Never mind. Guess what? You don’t want to guess. Nevermind. I’ll tell you. We have a son!”
“We’ve had one for years.”
“No! Another one! “
“What the fuck are you talking about?”
“It turns out Dylan is a twin! Isn’t that absolutely wild? Eileen Wehlan had Dylan, but put the other twin on ice and had it later and now she’s dead—which is too bad, but I never knew her—”
“Eileen’s dead?”
“Focus, Fenn. And this other boy: his name is Thackeray, and he’s in town and me and Dylan are going over to see him, and look, now we’ve got two kids!”
“No, Tom,” Fenn said, carefully. “Now you have two kids. From what I’m gathering.”
“Look,” Tom said, “If Dylan’s our son, then his twin is our son too. If you had a hand in him, you had a hand in Thackeray. Simple as that. I’m going over to meet our son. I suggest you come home so you can do the same.”
Tom was absolutely and utterly serious.
Tom hung up the phone and left Fenn sitting in the empty apartment dumbfound.
All Fenn could say was:
“Fuck.”

MORE IN A COUPLE OF DAYS

 

[CharmedFan28]

I am very interested to hear more about what Thackeray is like. I hope the meeting between Fenn, Dylan, Tom and him goes well. I definitely did not expect this new development in this story but I am enjoying it all the same! Great writing and I look forward to more in a few days! Have a great week!

 

[ChrisGibson]

Well, I think you enjoy it because you did not expect it. What kid of story teller would I be if I gave you what you expected? Yes, before this chapter is done there will be all manner of surprises. More Tuesday.

 

[ChrisGibson]

TONIGHT LOGAN IS AMAZED, TOM IS AMAZED, DYLAN IS AMAZED AND FENN IS FLABBERGHASTED.


When Logan woke up, George was gone. This had happened before, so Logan simply rolled over and went back to sleep. On the television, people always woke up with the sun coming through their curtains to the singing of birds. In real life, as far as he knew, people got up before the sun, yawning, and struggled to work. It was one of the reasons he stayed in this life. He had never, in his life—well, maybe one or two times—gotten up early to get some place early. But he had rarely done it in a bedroom the size of an apartment, in a bed the size of a small boat. He rolled over, luxuriating in comfort.
When he finally got up, the first thing Logan felt was that someone besides himself was in the house.
“George?” he called, going back to find his underwear. He pulled on his briefs and went back out calling, “George?”
Out of the kitchen came a tall, dark haired boy with glasses and a round face.
“George is gone,” the boy said. Well, now he really wasn’t a boy. And he seemed like he might be about six feet tall.
“Who are you?” Logan said.
“More to the point,” the boy sat on the huge leather sofa overlooking the city, and crossed one leg over the other, “who are you?”
Logan opened his mouth, but the boy said, “Actually, I’m not stupid. I know who you are. So,” he tilted his head. Some of his black hair stuck up, “you’re what money can buy? Nice.”
Logan liked the boy a little bit less then, and said, “But I still don’t know who you are.”
“I am Howard. And George is my dear old dad. He had the luxury of divorcing, moving into a penthouse and doing whatever he wants. When I came out—because I actually had to come out—” Howard shrugged, “it wasn’t so easy.”
Howard kept talking, which was just as well because Logan didn’t really know what to say.
“Please stay. You don’t come from here and the South Shore leaves in an hour, but you seem more like an Amtrak kind of person. That doesn’t leave until tonight. Or did you drive?”
“George—your father—actually arranged to bring me here last night.”
Howard nodded. “Then I guess I can arrange to have you sent back when the time comes. Fair enough? Or did you already have it planned out?”
“I was taking the morning train.”
Howard shrugged. “Well, as we’ve already discussed, you missed it. Go help yourself to some food. I just made it. Sit with me,” Howard charged. “We can talk.”
Logan was mystified by the man-boy He’d never known George to have a son, let alone a gay one. What he did know was that he was hungry, so he went to the kitchen.
“Oh, and do you have name?”
“I’m Logan,” Logan said, still nonplussed.
“Okay,” Howard said. “Well, Logan, I’m not saying you have to put clothes on. I mean, it’s a great view. But I was just thinking you might have forgotten you’re not actually wearing any.”

Meg was surprised by the arrival of Tom and Dylan, though she wasn’t sure why she should have been.
“You’re here for Thackeray?”
“I’m here to meet him,” Tom said.
“Of course,” Meg said. Her brow furrowed. Dylan thought she had the look of someone who had never considered that Tom would want to see the boy.
“Come in.”
Tom nodded and followed Dylan, saying, “How long have you known about him?”
“I’ve known about Thackeray for a few months.”
“A few months!” Dylan started.
Tom put a hand on his son’s shoulder.
“It was her secret and…” Meg said.
“Well, that’s one reason he has a hard time thinking of you as family,” Tom said.
Meg looked at him, and he said, “Let me meet my son.”
She thought of saying something else, but whatever it was, she went back into the house calling, “Thackeray.”
“If Lee was here,” Tom murmured, finding his way to the living room sofa and gesturing for Dylan to follow, “he’d say ‘Bitch didn’t even offer us a chair.’”
“Well, Lee did kill her father.”
Instead of raising an eyebrow over something Tom thought Dylan hadn’t known, he only chuckled.
“Lee killed her father. She covered up my son’s existence. Tit for tat.”
“She didn’t even think about him being your son,” Dylan said.
“That’s what pisses me off more.” Then he said, “Do you think about Ed Callan being your grandfather?”
Dylan opened his mouth to reply, but just then the boy came into the room with Tom.
“Holy shit!” Dylan said.
Tom was staring at the boy.
Dylan was so wrapped up in the boy being his brother, he’d paid little attention to what he really looked like. The whole twin aspect just had to be taken on faith. They were years apart and didn’t look very much alike. But, unlike Dylan, this boy didn’t cut his hair, and maybe because of that, it was easy to see in him the image of Tom Mesda.
“You’re my Dad,” Thackeray said, frankly.
Tom looked at the boy, biting his lower lip. The way Thackeray had said it was… He wasn’t excited. He wasn’t bored either. Tom was trying so hard to figure it out, that it was a while before he nodded.
“Yes, Thackeray, I am.”
“You didn’t know about me.”
“No. I just knew about Dylan. I mean, you know I never knew your mother.”
“Yeah,” Thackeray said.
“I explained the whole donation thing to him,” Meg said.
Tom looked up at Meg, a little irritated with her, and then turned back to Thackeray.
“It’s a little more complicated than that,” Tom said.
“I had a feeling it would be,” the boy said, gravely.
Tom just kept looking at the boy, and finally Thackeray said:
“If you want to touch me or hug me you can.”
Tom laughed out loud and said to Dylan, “You hear that? He’s a lot like you. I bet there’s some of Fenn in you too.”
“That’s the second time I’ve heard of him. He’s Dylan’s Dad?”
Dylan nodded.
Tom held Thackeray’s hands in his, looking up at the boy.
“Dad, you look like you’re about to cry.”
Tom admitted, “I kind of am.”
“We’ve got a lot of explaining to do,” Dylan said, sitting down beside his father. He said to his brother, “You’ve come into this story so late.”
This was the first time Thackeray laughed. His hands still in Tom’s he said, “That’s not my fault.”
And then he said to Tom, “Can I come home with you? Right now?”
Before Meg could say anything, Tom said, “Yes. Get your stuff. We’re going home right now. You should have come home fifteen years ago. Get your stuff, we’re going home.”
“I’ll help,” Dylan said, following Thackeray, and he nodded to his aunt.
“Dylan,” Thackeray said, as they went to the room where he’d been staying. Dylan looked around. This was Ed’s room.
“Yeah?”
“Who’s Fenn?”
“He’s my Dad. And… he’s your dad too.”
“How?”
“You know our Dad’s gay, right?”
“Well, since you have two dads I kind of figured. He doesn’t seem very gay. But…” Thackeray shrugged. “I guess I don’t know what I’m talking about.”
“Well, we are their kids. Eileen was… the surrogate. We didn’t know about you. But Eileen brought me to my Dads. They weren’t together by then, but they both raised me, and they both love me and they love each other a lot, and maybe you think it’s weird, but you’re my twin and well… you don’t have a mom either anymore, so it just makes sense that we have the same parents. If you’re cool with that.”
“I’m cool with it,” Thackeray handed Dylan one of his bags. “It’s just yesterday I had a mother I didn’t know—who I didn’t like that much—and she told me I was going to get two dads and a brother. And today I met one, and the other one…”
“Just roll with it,” Dylan said. He put an arm around his brother’s shoulder and was warmed by the way the other boy looked up at him.
“Can you do that?” Dylan asked him.
“Yeah,” Thackeray decided, “I can.”


After Tom’s last bizarre phone call, Fenn only had to look around the empty apartment to realize there was no point in staying here. All the action was in Rossford. The next train left at twelve thirty, and so he gathered his things, brushed his teeth, left some money under the cookie jar and, making sure the apartment was locked and all electric off, all candles blown out, he headed out onto Magnolia. He rolled his little suitcase to the station at Loyola, and then took the El downtown. The train was slower than ever, and when he had the chance to get off on Belmont and take another he resisted, remembering the last time. At last he reached downtown, crossed Monroe, went down Wabash, crossed it heading for the station and heard someone calling out, “Fenn!”
There must be hundreds of Fenns, but he looked anyway, and saw someone shouting from a limousine. He blinked and, improbably, it was Logan Banford.
What killed Fenn about Chicago was that he could actually almost leisurely roll his suitcase across the street, a thing he would never attempt on a Rossford street.
He approached the limousine.
“What the hell is going on?”
“I’m going back to Rossford,” Logan, said. “Need a ride?”
“Well, holy Hell,” Fenn remarked as a car passed beside him. “I think I do.”
Another young voice said, “Sanders, open the trunk for our friend.”
A man in black came out of the driver’s seat and moved around Fenn to open the trunk. Fenn was about to lift the bag when the man said, “No, sir, allow me.”
Fenn did, and then the man guided him around the car and opened the door for him, ushering him to step in.
The door closed, and Logan smiled at him saying, “It’s good to see you, Fenn.”
“It’s good to see you too.”
“You have to have some of this cheese,” Logan said as the limousine went down Randolph and turned onto South Michigan. “How the hell have you been?”
“Flabbergasted,” Fenn said, paying more attention to the bottle of wine. “Absolutely flabbergasted.”


MORE TOMORROW

 

[CharmedFan28]

That was all very interesting! Its nice to see Logan interacting with Fenn. That was a surprise! I think Thackeray is going to fit right in with his new family. I am very interested to read what happens next tomorrow after todays portion! Great writing and I look forward to more tomorrow!

 

[ChrisGibson]

Yes, it seems like Fenn and Logan's worlds come together very seldom, and I can't really remember them being frequently together, but Fenn and Lee did help Logan and Sheridan get rid of his would be rapist's dead body way back in book four, and it seemed that these two characters who inhabit the same world and love the same people should come back together again,

 

[ChrisGibson]

Elias entered his parents’ house uneventfully through the kitchen door, and went straight to the refrigerator. Kirk was coming downstairs, and Elias said, “‘Ey, Dad.”
“What are you doing here?”
“Is it allowed?”
Elias poured a glass of orange juice.
“Of course it’s allowed,” Kirk said.
Like Elias, Kirk Stanley was compact and dark haired. But his hair was always buzzed and he wore glasses.
“But I thought you were in Chicago and Fenn was staying with you.”
“He was. I mean, I suppose he still is. But Dylan got the call that his mother was dying. And well, she’s dead now.”
“What? You didn’t tell me.”
Elias checked the smart ass urge to say, ‘I’m telling you now’, realizing that he, in fact, had not told his parents much of anything lately.
“I’ve been so tired,” is what he said. “I’m really sort of a shitty son.”
“Not shitty,” Kirk said, taking the juice from him and pouring himself a glass. “Just not as communicative as you could be.”
“It’s the whole Dylan thing. Dad didn’t react well to that.”
“Well, could you blame him? I didn’t either.”
“No, I can’t blame either of you,” Elias said, sitting at the table. “But it also doesn’t make me as quick to talk as I used to be. You’ve got to understand that.”
Kirk nodded. He did. His gay life was a great secret from his family. Even when he was out, he wasn’t truly out because there were some things he just couldn’t talk about. But he had never expected that his children would feel the same way about telling him things.
“And you know Bennett went to Chicago last night, chasing after Maia?”
“I knew he wasn’t home when I called this morning. My children don’t tell me anything, anymore.”
“Well,” Elias said, seriously. “I’m going to amend that. Actually, I’m going to start by telling you something else.”
“Yes?”
“Dylan has a brother.”
Kirk looked at his son.
“Apparently the real reason Eileen wanted to see him was because she gave birth to another kid. It’s Tom’s. His name is Thackeray.”
“Really? And how old is he?”
“Fifteen. But he’s Dylan’s twin.”
“Wha?”
“I’ll explain it later. Anyway, they’re all at Tom’s house right now and….” Elias shook his head. “I needed a break.”
“Are you staying here the night?”
“I’m pretty sure I am.”
“Great. Matthew and your father will be thrilled to see you.”
“Um,” Elias looked around the house. “Speaking of Dad and Matthew, where are they?”

“I feel like you spend half of your life under that garbage disposal,” Matthew Anderson remarked, looking at Todd Meradan’s long, denimed legs hanging from under the sink.
“Less talking and more hand-me-the wrench,” Todd said.
Matthew did so. Paul came back into the kitchen with the snake.
“You still need this?”
“If it’s the snake,” Todd’s voice echoed from under the sink, “then I definitely need it. Lay it over here, man.”
Paul did so, and said, “I feel kind of useless.”
“Well, you would be even more useless down on the floor in your pretty clothes.”
Paul was in fawn colored pants and a white dress shirt, more or less the middle class way he dressed now, gold watch, short trimmed auburn hair. He looked like a more refined version of Bennett or, for that matter, of himself, far different from the Johnny Mellow who had stumbled into this house half drunk and high twenty years ago.
“Besides, you are here to offer entertainment.”
“Oh, well,” Paul sat down, “I think I can do that.
“Like, how do you feel about this Tom having a kid thing?”
“There really isn’t much of a way to feel—holy shit, I think I’ve done it.”
They heard Todd fiddling around, and then the long tall man came from under the sink, turned the faucet on, flipped a switch and as the disposal growled he said, “Jesus goddamn alrighty then!”
When Todd flipped off the disposal, Paul said, “What I meant is how do you feel about the fact that Tom and Dylan expect Fenn to adopt some kid he’s never seen?”
Todd began washing his hands in the sink and said, “Look, I’ve given up on trying to control things.”
Paul shrugged dubiously.
“Maybe it’s a good rule for you to learn with Elias,” Matthew said.
Paul frowned at his son but Matthew only shrugged.
“It’s really a question of how Fenn feels,” Todd said.
The phone rang and Todd said, “Well, maybe that’s him now.”
Paul and Matthew looked at him, and when Todd broke into a smile and said, “Hey, baby, what’s up?” they knew that it, indeed, was Fenn.
“Uh, they’re all at Tom’s,” Todd said, after a while. “Stop there first? I was going to pick you up. What? Well, okay. I love you too.”
Todd hung up the phone, frowning a little bit.
“What was all of that about?” said Paul.
“I don’t know,” Todd said. “But I don’t think Fenn really does, either.”

Dena Affren entered her sister’s house with her daughter running ahead of her to find the mass of little children known as “the cousins”. Meredith took the bottle of wine from Dena and said, “I may just need two of these. Where is Layla?”
“She’s with Jonah, planning and plotting something literary,” Dena said, putting a satchel of food on the counter. “Claire is off with Radha and Shelley, and someone needs to show up here, or the two of us will be fat as houses.”
“Or drunk as bitches,” Meredith said.
She hadn’t even stopped for a glass.
“Thank God for screw tops,” she took a quick swig.
“Seriously?” Dena eyed her. “Do we need to talk?”
“About AA? No. About my family? Yes.”
Dena poured herself a glass, nodded, and said, “Alright, then.”
While Dena poured Meredith a similar glass, the younger sister spoke.
“Okay, Meg is great. Especially when you consider she is the first wife and everything But, goddamn, when she gets going! And she’s really got going this time.”
“Does this have anything to do with that whole Dylan’s mother thing?’
On her way to the living room with their glasses, Meredith stopped and said, “How much do you know about that shit?”
“Not much at all. I heard something from Layla this morning.”
“Well, yeah. Apparently Dylan’s mom had this fifteen year old, and she picked him up from the orphanage, and he was staying with Meg, not that Meg needs any more kids, and then Tom just showed up this morning and said wanna go with me. The kid said yeah, Dylan packed his bags and they’re off.”
“So what’s her problem?” Dena sat down while Meredith’s children, sandy haired and brown skinned, ran behind Cara while the little girl led them in whatever game six year olds thought they should lead children in.
“She feels slighted and unappreciated.”
“Does she want custody? Cause that could get ugly.”
Meredith shook her head. “Would you want custody of Maggie?”
“There’s a lot I want for her, but that’s not part of it.”
“Still not forgiven?”
“Forgiveness was always the Christian virtue that gave me trouble,” Dena confessed, knocking back the last of the wine in the glass, and then pouring some more.
“And in answer to your question—” Meredith continued, folding her legs up on the couch, “—no. She does not want custody.”
“Um,” Dena suggested, “if that’s true, then next time she comes over you should probably tell her to shut the fuck up.”
As Cara began giggling, and the other children clapped their hands, Dena ruefully reflected: “I need to stop cussing in front of babies.”


Tom noticed that Thackeray had been looking across the living room for some time and finally he asked, “What is it?”
The boy pointed across the room and said, “Is that a Bosendorf?”
“Yes,” Tom said. “They don’t teach piano brands in school. How did you know that?”
Instead of answering, Thackeray said, “Can I play it?”
“Of course you can,” Tom told him. “You can play anything you want. You can play the pots and pans if you want.”
Thackeray smiled at Tom and said, “For now I’ll stick with the piano.”
“What’s going on?” Dylan called, coming downstairs.
But Thackeray had rounded the piano and lifted the lid.
Tom thought that what he would hear was something like Chopsticks. Or maybe Heart and Soul. But Thackeray’s fingers fell to the keys instantly, and Dylan’s mouth opened, then he looked at his father.
Tom sat there watching the boy with the mess of dark hair play, bent over the piano. This wasn’t Amazing Grace, or even really lovely church music coming out.
“He can play Beethoven?” Dylan said.
Tom didn’t say anything.
The boy sat at the piano playing Beethoven’s Fourteenth Piano Sonata, the music turning and turning like urgent wheels, like falling rain, rising and falling. And he wasn’t just playing a little bit. He played all the way through, without stopping. Lee came out from his study and looked to the piano thinking it was Tom, and then turned back and saw Tom sitting right there. Quietly, Lee came and sat down beside him.
When it was over, they heard a contented sigh from the other side of the piano.
“You can play Beethoven?” Dylan said in a tone that implied, “What the fuck?”
“Not like that,” Thackeray said. “Never like that. I’ve only used rinky dink pianos before. This one is no joke.”
“How did you learn that?” Tom said. “Where did you learn it?”
“I lived with a church pianist for a while,” Thackeray said. “And then every orphanage has a piano. Not always a good one. But they have them. And schools have them. My teacher, Mrs. Arquette, was like, ‘Thackeray, you have a gift’, and she gave me Schubert and Hayden and a lot of different music, and then I just learned what I could.”
He shrugged and looked at his father.
“The music gets everything out, you know?”
Tom was nodding in amazement and then Lee said, “Now what the…?”
They all followed his gaze to the picture window that looked out onto the street.
“Dylan?” Thackeray said, “What is that?”
A black Cadillac stretch limousine came down the street, and then pulled up as close to the house as it could. Next came a chauffer who rounded the vehicle and pulled out a carry on bag, and then he rounded it and opened the door. Out stepped, in a fedora, a bespectacled medium brown man of medium height, seemingly in middle years, and then the chauffer waved him off and he was rolling his bag up to the door.
“That,” Dylan told Thackeray, “is my father: Fenn Houghton.”

MORE TOMORROW

 

[CharmedFan28]

Wow lots going on and I am enjoying it! Sounds like Thackeray has a gift for piano which is cool. I wonder how him meeting Fenn will go? I guess I just have to wait and see. Great writing and I look forward to more tomorrow!

 

[ChrisGibson]

Everything you said is true.

 

[ChrisGibson]

CONCLUSION OF KINDRED



“And you have my old room,” Dylan was saying.
“But there’s an extra room here,” Tom said.
“Well I meant at Fenn’s house,” Dylan said.
Fenn looked at his son.
Dylan seemed not to have noticed, and Tom said, “Yeah, and we can swap days, or do like you used to do,” he told Dylan. “Three days here, three days there. Whatever. We’ll make it work.”
“What about the whole religion bit?” said Dylan. He told Thackeray, “You know Todd’s Jewish. I used to go to synagogue all the time.”
“But what are we?” Fenn noticed that Thackeray had included him in the we.
“I am Catholic,” Tom said. “And somewhere along the line, Fenn carried my son off into Hinduism.”
“That’s a bit dramatic,” Fenn said.
“That sounds cool,” Thackeray continued. “I don’t like church.”
“Who brought you home in that limo?” Tom said.
“Logan Banford.”
“Logan Ban—” Dylan began. “What the F?”
“And speaking of what the F,” Fenn said, “We need to talk about this whole odd arrangement.”
The three of them, Tom and his two sons, so similar, looked up at him.
“Are we agreed that it was bizarre for Tom to ask me to adopt his firstborn son ten years after we had broken up?”
“Yes,” Tom said. “We established that a long time ago.”
“Then are we not even more agreed that my adopting a fifteen year old from a man I haven’t been in a relationship with for thirty years is even stranger?”
“You don’t want me,” Thackeray said.
Fenn blinked at the boy.
“That’s neither here nor there. The question is why in the world would you want me? You haven’t met me. We’re not genetically related.”
“Look,” Dylan said to his father, “of course it’s weird, the whole thing’s weird. We’re a weird family. But it’s not as weird as you’re making it. You love Dad. Don’t you?”
“Don’t you love me, Fenn?” said Tom.
“Shut up,” Fenn said.
“And no matter how weird you thought it was then, I’m your son now, right?”
“Of course you are,” Fenn said. “You know I didn’t mean—”
“Well, then, Thackeray is the same as me. The exact same thing as me, Dad. We’re genetically linked. You say it doesn’t make any sense. It doesn’t make any sense for you not to adopt my brother.”
Fenn was about to suggest Lee, but he knew that wasn’t an option. Lee scarcely had parental skill or will for Danny.
“Don’t you think every child deserves two loving parents?” Dylan said.
Fenn cocked his head, and said, “Really, Dyl? Seriously?”
The three Mesdas sat looking at him, and Thackeray’s look was the strangest of all. He couldn’t say he felt a pull of ownership on the boy. After all, he hadn’t known he existed forty-eight hours ago. But there was something. There was something, for that matter, in the fact that Tom and Dylan asked this of him.
“After all,” Thackeray continued, “you and Dad gave us to Eileen so that she could give you a family.”
Fenn looked at Tom and Dylan, unfamiliar with this version of the truth.
Tom stared daggers at Fenn who said, “I guess you could say that.”
“Then that’s taken care of,” Thackeray said, happily.
This strange Tom like-Dylan like boy assumed that Fenn was his father, and that was what made Fenn’s decision.
“Fine,” Fenn said, as graciously as he could feel at being presented with a second son.
“You all draw up things and… We’ll make it official.”
“Great!” Thackeray leapt up and embraced Fenn while, over the boy’s shoulder, Fenn stared out at Dylan and Tom and wondered what he had gotten himself into.

Fenn’s motto for getting used to things was, “This is the way it is,” and so this was how he came to be Thackeray’s father. Two decades ago, when he had agreed to take on a squalling, shitting white baby—his words—with little or no parental instinct, there had been the internal worry about if love would ever come, if he would ever be a fit parent, if he could possibly feel like this baby’s father. This was so long in the past, and Dylan was so much a part of him, his favorite person on the planet—again, his words—that when Thackeray came along, Fenn just operated as if he had always been there.
Dylan’s room would cease to be the shrine lived in only when the boy came home. From now on Dylan could take the apartment in the basement. At first Todd volunteered to take it, but Fenn said, “No, I like having your studio right down the hall from me when I go to bed. I like being able to hear you.” Besides, now that Dylan was permanently involved not only with one man, but two, it was almost inappropriate for them to be staying down the hall from him.
“How did sex down the hall from your father work?” Laurel asked Dylan once.
“Very quietly.”
So Dylan’s room became Thackeray’s and while Thackeray put on new bed spreads, Dylan thought about all the sex he’d had on that bed and wondered if it was right for his innocent little brother to be sleeping there.
“I like that shelf right there,” Thackeray was telling Dylan.
“You know, Thack,” Dylan sat down in a chair beside the bed. “You don’t have to keep all of that on the shelf. Those are my music books that I don’t need. You can start to make the room your own, now. Put all your stuff in here. Get rid of mine.”
Thackeray stopped, and he looked very thoughtful. A little embarrassed.
“What, buddy?”
“Dylan, I don’t have stuff. This is it.”
Now it was Dylan who felt embarrassed. He felt more than embarrassed.
“That was real dumb of me.”
How lucky he was that when Eileen had dumped him off, Tom had wanted him. Tom had wanted him before he knew that Dylan was his son. He had believed Dylan was a gift from God. And how lucky that Lee, who was not his father and not interested in being his father, had stayed with Tom instead of leaving once a baby showed up. Or that Fenn had put two and two together and remembered where Dylan had come from—Eileen never told Tom or him—and that when Tom had said Fenn was responsible too, and should be the parent, Fenn had agreed, and so they were sitting in this house right now. How blessed he had been, and how hard done Thackeray had been until now.
“I’m glad you’re here,” Dylan told him. “I’m glad we’ve found you.”
Suddenly Thackeray hugged Dylan and Dylan had never had a younger brother. He’d never had a boy who looked up to him and loved him like this.
“I’m glad you turned out to be cool,” Thackeray told him.
“Well… I’m glad you’re cool too. Dinner’s going to be ready soon.”
“What is it?” Thackeray sniffed the air.
“I don’t know, but I think it’s Cajun or something.”
“I’ve never had Cajun or anything,” Thackeray said.
Despite the fact that Thackeray was just a little smaller than him, Dylan had a great urge to piggy back him down the stairs. Suddenly he said, “Get on my back.”
“You’re nuts.”
“Try it.”
Thackeray shrugged and a few moments later the two of them came lumbering down to the kitchen where the skillet was sizzling and at the table Fenn was sitting with Todd and Adele, smoking a cigarette.
“Really?” he said as Thackeray climbed off of Dylan and they both sat on the floor laughing. “Is this what I have to look forward to?”
He didn’t mean it. He exhaled. Dylan looked happier than Fenn had ever seen him, and this boy, Fenn imagined, hadn’t had much happiness in his life until now.
“Thackeray, say hello to your aunt,” Fenn told him.
Thackeray blinked at the stout, pretty woman with gold earrings, and she got up and hugged him.
“I’m Adele.”
“Hi, Aunt Adele.”
“If it makes you feel better you can just go with Adele,” she told him.
“Layla and Will’ll be over later,” Dylan told Thackeray, grabbing his brother’s shoulder, “You’ll love them.”
“Layla?” Thackeray said.
“She’s my daughter,” Adele said.
“Oh,” Thackeray turned to Dylan. “She’s our age then.”
“Bless you, how old do you think I am?”
“You look like you might be thirty.”
Adele bent down and squeezed him to death, kissing him on both of his cheeks.
“You are my favorite nephew!”
“Layla is thirty and plus,” Fenn said, impatiently, “with a half grown son. Adele hasn’t been thirty in—”
“Don’t make me kick you, Fenn,” his sister said, sitting down. “If Thackeray says I’m thirty I’m thirty.”
“Thirty my… Go wash your hands,” he told his sons.
“Are they funny like that all the time?” Thackeray whispered as they disappeared into the bathroom while Dylan said, “Pretty much.”
Elias showed up soon after, and Fenn commandeered all of the boys to help Todd unfold the dining room table and set the plates.
“It’s Sunday and we’re going to have lots of people,” Fenn said, standing up to turn off the stove. And Thackeray?”
The boy came back.
“Are you staying here, tonight?”
“I don’t know.”
“You are. You’ve been with Tom since you got here. He’s not going to teach you anything practical. I’m going to start teaching you how to cook. You should have learned years ago.”
“I’m only fifteen.”
Fenn just stood by the stove, looking at him.
“Do not argue with him,” Dylan said, taking his little brother’s hand and leading him into the dining room.

Will and Layla arrived with Liam, whom, Elias noted to Thackeray, was also adopted, and then Tom came with Lee, and eventually Claire and Julian arrived with Riley and the other children. Lastly arrived Caroline, who embraced Adele, and then immediately began talking with Layla.
“Is this my whole family?” Thackeray whispered to Dylan.
“Nope,” Dylan told him with a smile. “Just some of them.”
Dylan was taking plates away, and Thackeray was helping. Simon had arrived and was talking to Julian in a corner and Adele had gotten up to prepare dessert when the front door opened.
Because no one ever used the front door, everyone immediately turned to look through the dining room and living room to the entrance of the house.
Todd, glass of wine in hand, squinted and stood up.
“Maia?” he and Tara said.
Beside Maia Meradan stood Bennett, which is why Elias stood up.
Coming back in, Dylan cocked his head and Thackeray thought it was best not to ask.
“Everyone,” Bennett told them, grasping Maia’s hand. “We have an announcement to make.
“Honey?” he turned to Maia.
“What’s going on?” Thackeray whispered.
“Nothing good,” Fenn murmured.
But as Maia came forward, she looked at Todd and then at Tara on the other side of the table.
“Mom, Dad,” she told them. “Me and Bennett just got married.”



WELL, THERE WILL BE MORE AFTER THE WEEKEND, BUT THAT DOES ROSSFORD FOR TONIGHT..... SOMETHING ELSE WILL POP UP BEFORE THE NIGHT IS OVER

 

[CharmedFan28]

I am glad Fenn decided to adopt Thackeray as his son even though he thought it was weird at first. Dylan and Thackeray seem to get on well which is great. I can't believe Maia and Bennett got married! I look forward to the next part and whatever you post later!

 

[ChrisGibson]

I feel like Fenn didn't think there was much of a choice and Fenn wouldn't have been Fenn if he had said no. That said, once he's decided on him, its as if he's always been around and Thackeray is on cooking duty with a roster of chores no time flat! Maia and Bennett are now married... Let's do the relationship math. Todd and Paul are in laws, (Fenn is a step in law there) Fenn and Paul are in laws because of Elias and Dylan. Paul and Fenn are both great uncles to Julian and Claries children who are both Lawdens and Andersons. And Brian Babcock's neice is Pauls sister in law.... to name a few relationships.....

 

[ChrisGibson]

PART
THREE

TRIANGLES



SEVEN



BRYANT
​

The sun had set. In the distance the noise of the town could be heard, and overhead the sky was a deep gold blue, with stars arising. The other young man’s strides were strong and long, and Tom had to catch up with him. The moment Tom knew… well the moment he KNEW, he instantly realized, and felt guilty for realizing that this was the first man, aside from Fenn, he’d actually somewhat fallen for. This was the most gorgeous man he’d ever seen.
He turned around, holding a hand out for Tom, “If I’m going to buy you a coffee I should probably know you’re name.”
“Uh,” Tom began, and then chuckled, feeling foolish.
“Yeah. It’s Tom Mesda.”
“Tom Mesda,” the other man said, cocking his fedora so only one gleaming dark eye shown while he shook Tom’s hand.
“It’s good to meet you, Tom.
“I’m Bryant Babcock.”
“I’m Tom Mesda,” Tom said, and then at the look on Bryant’s face, he realized he’d just said that.
“I’m tired,” Tom laughed.
This was a lie. He wasn’t tired. He was enraptured. There was no way to describe it because he’d only felt this way once before.
“Well, if you’re tired maybe we’ll meet again some day.”
That they would meet again in a place called Someday was too terrible to contemplate. After all, Someday was right next door to Nowhere.
“No,” Tom said, and it was warm and summery and the sky of Izmir, Indiana still held some sun in it. “I’ve got something in me yet.”
“Then you want to grab a coffee?”
Everyone wasn’t grabbing coffees back then, so it didn’t sound clichéd and Tom said, “Yes.”
“Great.” Bryant turned and started walking down the street in the direction of, Tom presumed, a coffee shop, “I know just the place.”
They turned their backs on the bulk of Sainte Terre monastery that was becoming a massive hump of dark buildings as the night set in, and made their way for the downtown with its lamps and shops, its college life. It reminded Tom a little bit of Rossford, and he felt like—for the first time in a long time—after being Fenn Houghton’s accompaniment, he was off on his own adventure.

“So how did you get to Izmir?”
Across the table from Tom, Bryant laughed, and sipping from the large mug of coffee he said, “Well, how did you?”
“I got a job teaching at the college in Rossford, and that’s where I met Fenn. Fenn is a friend of the priest who got ordained today, but you know that. So,” Tom shrugged. “That’s my story.”
“Com’on,” Bryant clapped the tabletop. “That is not all of your story. I refuse to let that be your story.”
“Well, I do a lot of music for churches, and I’ve had some concerts.”
“You’ve had concerts?”
“Yeah. I went to Europe a couple of times.”
“See,” Bryant held out his hands. They were strong hands, long fingered. “And you say you don’t have a story.
“Did you do organ concerts?”
“Yes.”
“Fantastic. I can’t find anyone who likes listening to the organ.”
Tom grinned. “It’s a select crowd. Even Fenn doesn’t really like it.”
“Well, that’s crazy.”
“No,” Tom said, “I mean, he goes to all the concerts. He’s always there. But… he doesn’t see what I see in the organ.”
“I know,” Bryant said. “He doesn’t get how beautiful it is. How you can feel your whole soul going through a church. It’s like… it’s the moment I’m sure of stuff. It’s when I touch God.”
“If Fenn heard you say that he would laugh. It’s the way I feel, but he would laugh at me too.”
“Does he laugh at you a lot?”
“Not… He doesn’t ridicule me. It’s just. Well, he does laugh at me a lot, but I don’t get offended. It just means we’re different people.”
Tom pondered this and looked out of the window.
“Still it is nice not to feel like different people. Not to feel like I’m a little silly.”
Bryant didn’t say anything to this for a while, and then Tom said, “But you haven’t told me anything about you.”
Bryant put out a hand and listed off on each of its long fingers, and its thumb:
I come from Pennsylvania. I don’t like my family. They don’t like me. They hate music. I went to Julliard as a dancer and… this is for my other hand, No one I know cares.”
“That’s awesome,” Tom said. “I mean, not the whole nobody caring, but… You’ve done so much and people don’t…”
Neither one of them said anything for a while, and then Bryant said, “Let’s blow this pop stand. You wanna listen to some music?”
“Where?”
“I have a room on the other side of the monastery. In the guesthouse.”
“Are we allowed to play music?”
“I am, because I’m not really a guest. I’m an employee and that’s where they put me.”
This was the only person who understood him Tom felt. He couldn’t lose him. This night could not end.
“Let’s go,” he said.

“So I danced for about a year, and then I applied to Sainte Terre for the Masters program and got a job here playing organ. The rest is history. I’m working on my doctorate in musicology and then living here.”
“This is a nice place,” Tom said looking around at the room. It was wide and the walls were cream colored. Warm summer air came in from the quad below and the old mullioned windows were opened. The music was sixteenth century madrigals and Tom said, “I don’t even know anyone that knows who Canon Tallis is.”
He was instantly aware that this was a lie. Fenn knew everything Tom knew about music. His knowledge was encyclopedic, and those things he hadn’t known when meeting Tom, he remembered after Tom told him. But it was nice to sit here with Bryant, so swarthy and dark, cheeks sort of hollowed, face artfully stubbled, drinking wine and discussing music, side by side, thighs pressed together as they sat on the sofa.
Bryant’s hand was on his thigh. It was such a frank transgression and Tom looked at Bryant who smiled a little at him, his white teeth showing. Tom looked away, but put his hand on Bryant’s thigh as well. They sat like that a while.
Bryant opened his mouth to talk, but decided against it and moved his hand further up. Tom, in response, did the same. Quietly, they began to stroke each other, heads back, mouths open, music playing.

Forgive me, Lord, for thy dear son
The ill that I this day have done
That with the world, myself and thee
I e’er I sleep at peace may be

Drunkenly—though neither was drunk—they both looked at each other at the same time. Tom’s erection ached against his pants, under Bryant’s hand, and he could feel the size of this other man. They leaned forward to kiss and Tom topped him savagely, lying across him on the sofa until the taller man pulled himself from under Tom. In a swift movement, he pulled shut the curtains, and then pulled Tom to him again. They were fused, and then, suddenly, Bryant parted from him, came back with a small bottle and began undressing, swiftly. Tom took off his clothes just as quickly.
When they were both naked, Bryant pulled Tom to the bed and, linking arms and legs, they began to turn over and over again, making love up and down each other’s bodies. Bryant was over him, between his legs. Tom placed his hands on Bryant’s shoulders, and then ran them up and down his arms, down his torso.
“Do you want me?” Bryant’s voice was hoarse. “Do you want me inside of you?”
Tom nodded. This would never happen again, so it should be just as he wished right now.
“Over there,” he said, pointed to the windowseat.
They put a pillow on the window ledge. They turned out the lights. Tom wanted to be on his back with Bryant kneeling between his legs. He wanted to see the stars, hear the far off traffic of the city, the church bells from the campus, the life of the world beyond them. He wanted to stifle his cries and hear Bryant’s groans and grunts of pleasures. So he lay on his back head out of the window.
That’s how Bryant fucked him.
In the end Bryant couldn’t be quiet. He cried out loud, scaring Tom, and Tom liked the fear as this beautiful, polished man, so thick, so deep inside of him that it hurt, lost his balance and Tom had to hold him while he came like syrup, like honey.
After that they both went to the bed and lay side by side. Neither spoke. Tom put his hand to Bryant’s stomach and turned to look at the clock.
“It’s almost midnight,” he said. “I have to go home.”
“Let me walk you home,” Bryant said.
Tom wanted to say yes, but he knew the answer should be no.
“Alright,” Bryant said. Neither one of them had moved.
“Then, do you never want to talk to me again?”
“No,” Tom said. “I’m not like that.”
Tom stood up.
“You’re so beautiful,” Bryant said, looking at him. Tom was small and perfect to him. His hair thick, his face young and lovely.
“And you are too. Get dressed,” Tom told him. “I need to get back.”


MORE TOMORROW NIGHT

 

[CharmedFan28]

Looks like Bryant is bringing complications as usual! I wonder how long till Fenn finds out about what has happened? I will have to wait and see. Its very interesting to see how these characters first met. Great writing and I look forward to more tomorrow!