The Ends of Rossford

[CharmedFan28]

I am glad the dinner party went well. Looks like Fenn and Bryant like each others company but I don't think that is going to last. So much happening and so much to come in this story. I am enjoying it a lot! Great writing and I look forward to more in a few days!

 

[ChrisGibson]

Or..... you could say that they will like each other, but there's going to be a decade or so problem that interrupts things! Hopefully nothing is turning out as you expected it, even if you do know how it turns out, sort of. I hope you're having a great afternoon and have a good evening.

 

[ChrisGibson]

AND NOW WE'RE BACK TO ROSSFORD!


When Bryant’s brother came to visit, Fenn invited them both over for dinner. He made etoufeé and the young boy, whose name was Sean and who was close to Todd’s age, said, “I don’t know anything about Creole cooking.”
“My mother’s family was Creole,” Fenn said. Then corrected: “Or is Creole. I can’t tell. I don’t feel very Creole,” he admitted. “At any rate, I suspect you can’t do any cooking at all. Come around the stove and I’ll teach you.”
Sean got up, and Bryant came with him.
“Can I watch?” Bryant asked.
“Of course.”
For some reason, Bryant couldn’t resist putting his chin over Fenn’s shoulder to watch. He couldn’t resist being around Fenn. He wasn’t even angry anymore at Tom’s love, which made perfect sense. Bryant himself was charmed by this gracious man, and he imagined that somehow, in some place this thing could work, Fenn would understand what was happening when he wasn’t around.
“Some recipes start with a roux. Now that’s flour and oil that are stirred into a mixture that isn’t oily and isn’t floury. I don’t know how to master that. I imagine cornstarch would do the trick better. At any rate, when I do it I put olive oil straight in the skillet. Like this. And then I wait for it to boil. Sean, get me that whole bowl of shrimp.”
Sean moved over and said, “That’s a huge amount.”
“Well, yes. There’s no half assing Cajun food. And Bryant, get me the red pepper and the salt. Where’s the onion? Ah, right here.”
Bryant was handsome in khakis and a reddish dress shirt open a little at the collar.
“I can’t find it,” he said.
Tom came forward and said, “Right here,” pulling it out. They exchanged a comical look like brothers, or like… Fenn shook it away. He just kept thinking, Bryant’s a nice looking man. He’s nice to have around. If I wasn’t with Tom…
“Here you go,” Bryant set it down, still leaning against Fenn.
“You are incredibly close,” Fenn told him.
“Do you mind?”
“We both will in a minute,” Fenn said. “Back away. I need to put in the shrimp. When that happens, it’s really going to sizzle.”


“So,” Sean Babcock asked his brother when they were both sitting up in the same bed, the way they had as children, “which of them are you sleeping with?”
Instead of pretending to be insulted—he did feel a little insulted, though—Bryant, paying more attention to his nails than his brother, said, “Tom.”
“Then what the hell kind of game are you playing with Fenn?”
“I’m not playing any type of game.”
“You can’t stay away from him. You make yourself totally ingratiating to him. Are you trying to blindside that man? I can tell right now he’s very nice and all. But he’s not stupid.”
“I know he’s not stupid,” Bryant said, though that warning did strike him.
“And I’m not trying to… ingratiate myself to him. I just…”
“Oh, my God,” Sean whispered.
“What?” Bryant said.
“You’re in love with both of them.”
Bryant looked at his brother blankly.
“You started with Tom and now you have half a thing for Fenn!”
“I think it’s time for light’s out.”
“Cool,” Sean said, reaching up and pulling the chain and shutting off the light in the ceiling fan.
“But I want to know this?”
“If your must,” Bryant said. “I really don’t feel comfortable talking about this.”
“If you could have Tom to yourself, would you?”
“In my ideal world Tom would be with me, Fenn would understand and we would be friends too.”
“That is an ideal world,” Sean chuckled.
Bryant got up, suddenly turning on the light.
“What?”
“Look,” Bryant said, heatedly. “You’re a kid. You don’t know what it’s like to be in the place I am. One day I hope you figure it out. I hope you figure it out and you know what it feels like to be in love, deeply in love with a man who is with someone else, to be making love to someone who is going home to someone else. And that someone else is a someone you respect. He is someone you like, someone you like more and more but someone who…. When it all comes down to it—you would gladly take his lover from.
“I would,” Bryant said, heatedly. “I would take Tom and not bat an eyelash. I do it everyday. I don’t regret it when we’re together. I don’t regret lying to Fenn. That’s what I am. Maybe it’s what I always was. But there is a little part of me that looks at what I’ve become and thinks, Bryant Babcock, you’re a fucking monster.”
Sean put a hand on his brother’s shoulder. Bryant was bigger than him, but Bryant’s shoulder felt surprisingly narrow. He loved his brother. It was five years ago, when Sean began to think he might not be straight, that Bryant came out and told him the truth. To have a brother who was as gay as he was meant everything.
“Bryant,” Sean murmured, “You’re not a monster.”
Bryant turned off the light and lay back down in the bed.
“Yes I am,” he said in the dark.

Tara’s shoulder was aching. It had been a very long day. She was living with Yolanda, but this apartment was still a second home.
“I’ve got a great idea,” Tom said, sitting down beside her.
“Yes?”
“The four of us—I mean me and Fenn, you and Bryant—take a trip to Chicago. They’re doing the Carmina Burana at Symphony Hall on Michigan—”
“Oh, we haven’t been there in so long!” Tara said.
“I don’t really want to go to the symphony,” Fenn admitted.
“Me neither,” Tara said. “I was just saying it had been a long time.”
“Well, I’m not simple,” Tom said. “Me and Bryant will go to Symphone Hall. He’s going to be conducting eventually, anyway. And you and Tara can run around.”
“On the North End,” Fenn finished the thought off.
“Absolutely,” said Tom.
“Oh man,” Tara stretched her sore arm out, and Fenn began to rub it for her. “When do we go?”
“I’m thinking next Wednesday,” Tom told them. “Can you get out of class?” He looked at Fenn.
“Did you really need to ask that?” Fenn said to him.

It was arranged. They went up the next week. They got off the train at Randolph Street and parted ways.
“You’re taking the L?” Bryant said.
“If we want to get anywhere,” Tara told him.
“But…. It’s under the ground.”
Tara looked at him incredulously, and Fenn just shook his head and pulled her down Randolph, past the library.
“You get used to him after a while,” Fenn said. “And then you get to like him.”
After they had crossed Wabash, though, Tom and Bryant looked at each other. Tom caught Bryant’s hand and pulled him in the opposite direction to Michigan Street. They were going down it, toward Symphony Hall when a bus pulled up, and they got on. It rode down Michigan. It went past Symphony Hall. It went eight blocks further. It went in front of the Essex Inn, and they got off there. They entered the old hotel. Bryant raised an eyebrow and made sure not to touch anything. Tom leaned down across the desk and said, “We made reservations for a room a while ago.
“Giaccomo Tosca and,” he gestured to Bryant, “my good friend Tony Vivaldi.”
“Vivaldi?” Bryant mouthed.
“Here you are, sirs,” the young man at the desk said. He was Black, but much darker than Fenn.
Tom signed for both of them, and then the young man handed over the key.
“You have until eleven a.m. tomorrow to check out.”
“That,” Tom decided, “will be perfect.”

“It’s a done deal,” Tom said as he signed the last of the papers and then pushed them toward Fenn.
Fenn watched his own hand sign the signature: Fenn Houghton. And print as well. And the date. His hand froze over the date. He couldn’t remember. Tom told him and Fenn shrugged, signing.
So they owned the house on 4848 Versailles Street now. Well.
And Fenn kept waiting for something to happen. This was supposed to mean something, after all. His life was supposed to be starting with this. Right? He’d been having, for some time now, the feeling that his life was about to begin despite the fact that it had been going on for nearly thirty years. He was sure something was about to happen, and the something was this. Wasn’t it?
“We can move in some stuff today, and a little bit through the week,” Tom was saying in an animated voice. “And then next weekend, that’ll be the big day. When everyone’s going to help.”
“It’ll be just like when I was a kid and we had those big moving parties,” Fenn reminisced. “Start really early, and then in the middle of the day sit around and drink beer. I’ll do a nice gumbo later on. It’ll be something else.”
But the whole time Fenn spoke, a part of him was away from himself. He felt like an animated tongue, just trying to fill the space made by this strange emptiness.
“You wanna kid?” Tom said.
“Yes,” Fenn said. “A kid’s just what we need.”
Even as he said it, he wondered how Tom could believe it.

When he came back to town after junior year it was with great relief. Only one more year left, and that would be a party. And then Mom was better. The cancer was gone. Kidneys still shot, but cancer gone. You couldn’t have everything. Todd knew that now.
When he got home Adele was there. He asked about Fenn and she told him that not much was going on. He was slouching through graduate school, but he and Tom had gone to Chicago a few weeks back.
“For the symphony,” Nell murmured, digging the dirt out of her fingernails. “I wish someone would take me to the symphony.”
“Well, can’t you take yourself to the symphony?” Todd said.
“That’s a good point,” Adele agreed. “But Tom and Fenn didn’t go together. Fenn and Tara went shopping and bar crawling, and Tom went with Bryant.”
“Who’s Bryant?”
“You met him.”
“I did?”
“Maybe you didn’t,” Adele shook her head. “He teaches over at the college now. Anyway, he’s just like Tom only bigger.”
“Um,” Todd said in a tone that left no one uncertain of how the tall young man with the thick black hair felt about bigger versions of Tom.
“I should go and visit,” Todd decided. “Mom, you need anything before I go?”
Nadine was smaller and balder, and she shook her head. “I’m perfectly fine,” she told him. “Your sister’s taking great care of me.”
“Alright, then,” Todd said. He looked at his sister. “I can borrow your car tonight?”
“I’m not going anywhere,” she told him.
Todd nodded, swooped down and kissed her and then Nadine, and went down the hall for the keys on the table by the stairwell.

An hour later Adele called her brother. They talked for a while, and then she said, “I should let you go.”
“Why?”
Adele sounded surprised: “Because it’s rude to keep Todd waiting.”
“Oh, you’re with Todd?”
“No,” Adele said. “You are.”
Then, at the silence, she said, “You aren’t?”
“Nope,” Fenn said. “What’s going on?”
“I don’t know,” Adele told him.
She hung up the phone.
“What was that all about?” Nell asked her.
Adele thought it was best to say: “Nothing.”


MORE TOMORROW !

 

[CharmedFan28]

After that great portion I am intrigued to find out where Todd went. Things seem to be coming to a head with Bryant, Tom and Fenn. I know what happens in the end but its still very interesting to read what happened in the past. Great writing and I look forward to more tomorrow!

 

[ChrisGibson]

Oh, I'm glad you could read tonight. There is so much going on and so very much coming to a head. Or several heads. Like a hydra! Todd's whereabouts shall soon be revealed.

 

[ChrisGibson]

ON HIS WAY TO FENN'S, TODD IS WAYLAID.... BECAUSE SOMETIMES OLD HABITS DIE HARD


Todd had not lied, not intentionally. He told himself that it would be best to go to Fenn’s, but in the end he kept driving north. He drove onto the highway and he went east. He went east for an hour and a half and pulled into a town that didn’t matter. He went down its main street, and then through an inside street to an apartment complex. He parked his car. His body was fevered now. He locked it and, whistling and skipping, hands deep in his pockets, he crossed the parking lot, went up a flight of steps and tapped on a door.
Kevin Reardon opened it, his eyes boring through his glasses. He looked, honestly, like someone that everything had been taken away from.
“Come on in,” he said.
Todd did. He ducked his head and looked around the apartment. It was as sterile as the hotel room where he’d come to Kevin over a year ago.
“You thirsty?” Kevin said.
“I’ll take water.”
Todd never welcomed himself into Kevin’s apartment. He never made himself feel at home.
“You’re jumpy,” Kevin said as he returned with the water.
“I got a lot of stress in me. I got a lot to get out.”
Kevin pulled Todd to him. They were the same height and the same strength now.
“God, you’re such a man now,” Kevin’s voice contained a strange growl. “You get a lot of sex over at that college of yours?”
Kevin’s hand reached into Todd’s shorts and now Kevin was firmly gripping his penis.
“Tell me about it,” Kevin commanded.
He pulled Todd, by his cock, to the sofa, and kept stroking him.
Kevin was different this way. It was like some weird, growling voiced demon came out of him that needed to be fed on these stories.
“I…eh, went to Lafayette and fucked this guy who had been writing me for a long time.”
“Was it good?”
“It was.”
“Did you shoot inside of him?”
“No.”
“Where did you come?”
“I came on his face.”
“Nice,” Kevin said. “Did you have those cute little earrings on when you did it?”
“Yup. And there was this couple.”
“Gay or straight.”
“Gay. Two guys. They’d both really liked me.” Todd found himself building up to the climax, his penis becoming firmer and thicker in Kevin’s fist.
“I went to visit them. They were both on this bed and I climbed on top of both of them and rode them. They felt so good inside of me. It went on all night.”
“You want me inside of you?” Kevin growled in a dirty voice.
“Yeah,” Todd’s voice came out in a fragile breath.
“Tell me you want me to fuck you.”
“I want you to fuck me.”
“Say: Kevin, I want you to fuck me right now.”
“Kevin, I want you to fuck me right now.”
Kevin pushed Todd to the floor, and he lost his breath as Kevin yanked down his pants. He wanted this, didn’t he? This roughness. This is what he’d come for? Right?
There was the sound of Kevin hocking up phlegm. There was spit in is ass, being rubbed into his asshole and next he felt Kevin. It hurt so. It was just what he’d wanted. Kevin’s hands pressed on his shoulders sharply. Kevin’s cock was deep in his ass, the tip of it pressing someplace he didn’t even know existed until Kevin was there. He opened his mouth and, half of his face pressed to the rough carpet, he gave into it. It was gentle for all of a few moments. And then it was rough. While Kevin slammed into him over and over again, his two hundred pounds crashing on him, the thickness of his penis pounding deep into Todd, Todd realized there was so much Kevin needed to get out. This was deep and mutual need, and he realized, as his body began to hurt, as the carpet burned his face, how much Kevin hated him, and how much he needed that hatred.

“I had promise, once,” Kevin said.
They had moved from the floor to the bed.
“I had the wife, the kid. The respect. A nice little house. I had it.”
And then you got caught having sex with me, and that was the end of it. No wonder you hate me.
“Now I can’t even see my own daughter.”
This wasn’t exactly true. Kevin had never expressed much of a desire to see his Dena.
Kevin was beautiful naked. It was the way Todd had felt the first time they’d had sex, when he was fourteen and confused and the only thing he could know for certain was how manly, how perfect, Kevin looked. He still exercised. His arms and thighs and stomach were defined, like a runner’s. Hair went gently up and down his legs. Todd placed a hand on his thigh. Kevin removed it.
Darkly amused, Todd thought of all the men like Kevin he had been with since Kevin.
“You are a socially awkward person,” Todd said.
“What?” Kevin looked at him, as if he were just seeing him.
“You are doomed to spend your whole life alone. You can’t touch. You can’t be touched. You can only fuck and be fucked. That’s all you can do.”
Kevin looked like he didn’t know what to say.
Todd, who was still naked, and lay on his side on the bed laughed.
He was the opposite. He opened and was easily opened. For the first time he was a little proud of that. He had just been opened and pounded, his face was still red from rug burn, his ass sore from being fucked, his shoulders and back a little bruised.
While Kevin was still looking at him, Todd got up and began to dress.
“I need to leave,” he said.

Kevin’s mouth had touched him. Kevin’s cock had penetrated him. But Kevin wasn’t in him. Not yet. He needed to go before the misery that followed Kevin Reardon wherever he went was inside of him too, before he began to hate himself.
“I don’t hate myself,” Todd murmured. “But I hate picturing myself with him.”
He didn’t want to think about it. For the first time in… ever, it was clear. It had never been clear to him. He saw himself being brutalized by Kevin. He saw the kid on the floor. He shuddered. He stopped at McDonalds for a shake and some fries and then got back on the road. For the first time he saw everything. It wasn’t the sex. It wasn’t the quantity of it, but rather the quality. Since he was fourteen, Kevin had been coming into his room, bringing him into the library, taking him on camping trips and fellating him, being fellated by him, fucking him and teaching him how to fuck. Kevin was, if not a total child molester, then someone who liked to have sex with young men he overpowered, and Todd had always been overpowered by him. Even as an adult, he’d always felt like a child. What was more and what he didn’t want to face—
“But you have to face it,” he muttered, pulling on the shake. “Or you’ll never get your shit together.”
What was more; he liked it. He liked it while he hated it. He needed it while it made him sick. Shame was always there. It always had to be. Fear as well. Fear of hell then, when that had gone, fear of being caught. At last, fear that Kevin, who hated him, might kill him and leave his body somewhere. But that was all part of it. And he sought it out all the time. He sought it putting ads in papers and driving to strange places. He sought it going down to Potato Creek or Lake Monon in the middle of the night, getting down on his hands and knees and letting hillbillies fuck him on the dock. He courted death and danger. He had longed for it. He had lusted for shame. Especially in the last year, especially when he thought he might not have a mother.
And now it was gone. Just like that. There had been a little part of him that had despaired of being free of the cycle. Most of him had thrown up his hands long ago. Now it was over. Now he was saved. This was the altar call. So this is what it felt like! Only those holy rolling assholes were fake. They’d be back doing the same thing the next week. He was done with it. He knew. Not the sex. No, not that. He wanted to fuck the whole world. He wanted to have sex with everyone, ball all night. But he wanted affection, touching, true giving, true release, mercy and actual heat. All the things he’d never felt.
“I may have never done it before. Never had real sex,” Todd murmured.
But suddenly he had to stop the car.
The moon was bright tonight, and he saw the silvered antlers of a stag on the road. The stag was looking straight at him, like the God of the Forest. They had those funny faces that looked like they were frowning a little. In the headlights, he blinked, and then he crossed the road followed by a few friends.
But now they weren’t leaving. Suddenly the road was filling up with deer. Thirty, forty, fifty? Then at least a hundred. A regular conference under the white moon. All of them were silver white, their horns silver grey. How he wished he could capture it.
He reached into the back of Nell’s car, and rummaged through it until he pulled up the camera. It was not hard to turn it on. He set it on the dashboard, mildly fascinated by the little red light, then sticking his eye to it, he watched the deer. He watched them standing there, some watching him. And then they crossed the road and in time they were gone, and Todd was left with the white moon, the blue night and the grey road.
He sighed. He left the camera on a little longer before turning it off.
That was Todd Meradan’s first film.

MORE TOMORROW

 

[CharmedFan28]

Interesting to see more of Todd in this time. He seems to be in a sad place at the moment but hopefully for him things will turn around soon. Great writing and I look forward to more tomorrow!

 

[ChrisGibson]

Well, it is definitely the nadir of Todd's life. He has referenced it, but now we have become part of it.

 

[ChrisGibson]

TONIGHT, IN OUR FIRST DOUBLE PORTION OF ROSSFORD, THE TRUTH FINALLY BEGINS TO EMERGE


When Todd reached Fenn’s apartment, he only knocked on the door and waited. Fenn answered the door and stood there looking up at him. He was about to say, “Where have you been?” or “Your family has been worried about you,” but instead he said, “Oh, God.”
The boy with the diamond studs in his ears looked like “Oh God,” had happened to him. There was no describing it. Fenn took Todd’s hand and brought him into the living room.
“Sit down. What do you want to drink?”
“I don’t know.”
“I’ll get you tea.”
Fenn was gone a few minutes, and when he came back it was with a great mug of steaming tea.
“It’s hot, and it’s got lemon in it,” he said.
“You’re something else,” Todd told him. He almost smiled, but not quite.
“If you need me to go to my room and leave you here in peace I can do that,” Fenn said.
Todd looked at him.
“When I can’t get through a whole smile, or a whole sentence it usually means I’m about to cry.”
Todd opened his mouth again, but he couldn’t speak and Fenn nodded, touching his arm and walking out for a while.
He came back a little while later, and Todd’s face was redder than it had been when he came in the house.
“Do you know where I was tonight?” Todd said.
“You told your sister you were coming here.”
“And I even thought I was,” Todd said. “But that’s not what happened.”
Fenn waited.
“This is hard,” Todd said. His voice seemed almost as if it was going to break again, and he turned his head away.
“I can say it because I know it’s never going to happen again. I know it. Not the way people say it when they want it to be true. But when… when it is.”
Fenn waited patiently, and Todd continued, “I went to see Kevin.”
“Kevin Reardon?” Fenn looked incredulous.
Todd nodded.
“I’ve been seeing him for years. I never stopped.”
Fenn held his tongue determined to say nothing.
“He’s what I knew. He got me when I was a kid. Every man I’ve ever been with. It’s like being with him. I feel like I’m always looking for him.”
Todd stopped talking a while and then he said, “It’s not right. But it’s over. And that’s why I’m here.”
“Do you want to stay here tonight?” Fenn said.
Todd nodded.
“Fenn?”
“Yes?”
“Where is Tom?”
“He went somewhere with Bryant,” Fenn said. “I think he’ll be back in the morning.”
For the first time Todd looked hard. He looked like he was about to say something, and then he said, “I’m glad I can stay tonight.”
“Todd, you can stay any night. You know that.”
Suddenly he added, “Please don’t go back to that man.”
“I won’t,” Todd told him, “And now that I’ve told you, I can’t.

“Before it was private. Nobody knew, and there was no one I could tell. But I knew I could tell you. I always knew that.”
Fenn nodded.
“Do you know what I did?” Todd’s voice changed, sounding somewhat childlike.
“No,” Fenn said, not sure if he wanted the truth.
“Oh… nothing terrible,” Todd told him. “Nothing else terrible.
“I saw these deer. I don’t know where they were. A whole herd of deer in the road. I just sat and watched them, and they just stood on the road. So beautiful. I can’t talk about it. But I filmed it. It was like a gift. There’s so much in the world, you know? I’d love to film it. I hadn’t thought of that before, not seriously. What it would be like to film things. Not stupid movies, but life, real people.
“People are so beautiful. Life is so beautiful.”
Todd stopped talking.
“What is it?” Fenn said.
“Nothing,” said Todd. “I just wanted to make sure you’re alright.”
“I’m alright? But I thought we were making sure you were.”
Todd didn’t want to say what was on his mind. He loved Fenn too much, and Fenn had given him tea. He only said:
“Well, let’s make sure we’re both alright.”

Todd waited until the next day. When he went home the girls were in the kitchen and Nell was making breakfast for her mother.
“You’re home,” Nadine said. “Fenn and Tom put you up for the night?”
“Almost,” Todd said, meaning more than he said by that almost. “Tom was gone. And that’s what I want to talk about.”
“Girls,” Nadine addressed the children.
Layla and Dena looked up at her.
“Could you all go play in the library?”
“It must be something bad,” Dena told her friend, sagely. “Com’on, Layla.”
The two girls left.
When the sound of their footfalls indicated they were in the library, Nell stood beside her mother and they both waited for Todd to speak.
“I think it’s great to have friends and everything,” Todd told them. “And I think it’s wonderful that Fenn trusts Tom so much.”
“But you think he’s cheating,” Nell said. “Don’t you.”
“He was gone the whole night. And then you said when they went to Chicago, Fenn and Tom didn’t stay together. I don’t want to think it,” Todd said. “But I can’t not.”


Friday night before the move, Tom said there was a school function around eight.
“Do you want to go?” he asked Fenn. “I thought you’d just rather stay home.”
“I’ve got school functions all day,” Fenn said. “This Masters is no joke.”
“And the radio station,” Tom sympathized.
“Very well,” said Tom, “I can go alone. Don’t worry about that.”

So Fenn made dinner for Todd and Tara and Adele, and Nell came over. Their girls brought Brendan over and Tara said, “This will be so much better tomorrow when you have a house.”
“If you all think that once I get my house, you’re just going to be popping in unannounced and hanging out...” Fenn let it hang there.
“We’ll let that simmer,” Fenn said, and sat back at the table before the small pile of bills. Fenn liked to turn in things as soon as possible, never the day of, and there was much to transfer too.
“Here’s something funny,” he said, looking at the credit card statement.
“What?” said Adele, but Fenn turned to Tara.
“We didn’t stay downtown.”
“Downtown when?”
“When we went to Chicago.”
“No. We never do. We were up in Evanston. You know that.”
“And.... here it says Evanston. So this is our room, but...”
Fenn furrowed his brow and handed the bill over to Adele.
“Fenn,” Adele turned to him. “When you all went to the hotel room, did you take the card with you?”
“No,” Tara said. “Fenn said he knew the hotel people and they had his card already. Our room was paid for ahead of time.”
“Tom had your card,” Adele said, flatly.
“Well, yes,” Fenn said.
“Fenn,” Adele said. “You’re looking at a room at the Essex, and do you know what isn’t on here?”
Fenn waited for her to continue.
“The tickets to Symphony Hall.”
Fenn said nothing.
“Tom never went to the opera. So neither did Bryant. They went to a hotel for the day. Chiefly, they went to the Essex.”
“He’s cheating on you!” Todd burst out.
Fenn looked at him, and Todd continued. “Everybody sees it, or everybody suspects it. He’s cheating on you!”
For a while Fenn said nothing, and then he heard the pot bubbling over, and rose to take it off the eye. The world was grey and dead now. Something grey and dead had been crawling around, a dull serpent at the edges of things. Now it slithered up, large and poisonous. It’s appearing was almost a relief.
“Is it true?” Fenn said, quietly. “Does everybody see this but me?”
They all looked up at him. Adele and Nell had forgotten the children were in the room. Brendan looked up at him with sad wide eyes.
“How stupid could I be?” Fenn said. And then before anyone could answer he said, “How stupid will I not be from now on! Tom’s got the car. Somebody give me some keys.”
“Fenn, you can’t drive like this,” Adele said.
“He won’t have to,” Todd said. “Com’on,” he pulled his keys out of his pocket, jangling them.”
“Can I go?” Dena demanded.
Todd and her mother looked at her, and she didn’t even need to think of asking again.
Todd was pulling his jacket on, and he held Fenn’s out to him.
“Com’ on,” he said hotly. “Let’s go.”

MORE LATER TONIGHT....

 

[CharmedFan28]

I am glad Todd was honest with Fenn about where he had been. Hopefully he sticks to his promise. Things are getting very interesting and I am glad Fenn isn't in the dark about Tom anymore. Great writing and I eagerly await the next portion later!

 

[ChrisGibson]

Yes. Everything is coming out into the light. I checked back here because on Fridays you usually read early. I'll post more soon.

 

[ChrisGibson]

SECOND PORTION


“That’s just fucking unbelievable,” Todd said when they pulled up in front of the house.
Fenn turned to him and Todd said, “I’ll shut up now.”
Fenn kissed Todd on the cheek and said, “Wait out here.”
“Are you sure?”
“Yes,” Fenn said.
What was unbelievable was that the lights were on in the house. What was unbelievable was that should Fenn happen to leave the apartment and want to go look in the house he would find Tom there. Tom’s lie was so flimsy. That was what was unbelievable.
But then maybe the truth was that Tom was here to put some finishing touches on the house. He was here to surprise him. What he really wanted was—
But no.
Tom’s car rested in front of the house, but as he came closer, the kitchen light shone on the red hood of Bryant Babcock’s Mazda.
The door was not even locked. He just went right in. He just went right up the stairs. He knew what sex sounded like. He’d heard it before. He went past the master bedroom. It was still empty. He went to the one across the hall, the one that would be a guest room. The door was open. He walked right in. He just stood there.
Objectively, they were two beautiful men, dark haired and tousled in the midst of love’s embrace, now looking as ashamed and frightened. Time stopped. Nothing was happening. No Todd outside, nothing beyond the tableau.
And then, in a blind rage, Fenn hopped across the bed onto Bryant. There were a few moments when Tom tried to intervene. Fenn just hit him too. It was such a white, methodic rage, burned through in a moment Fenn could not remember clearly, did not wish to. In the end he dragged Bryant bodily out of the house. Tom sat naked on the edge of the bed. Then he went between scrambling for the dignity of putting back on his clothes, and creating an explanation, mouth opening, and closing, lips flapping. Outside they could hear the squeal of Bryant’s car.
“You get out too,” Fenn said, calmly. “Get the fuck out.”
Tom did get the fuck out. He didn’t know where he was going. Surely not to their apartment. It hardly mattered. Fenn stood in the empty kitchen for some time. The refrigerator in the corner hummed at him sarcastically, and he picked up a plate and threw the dish at it.
Just then Todd came in.
“Let’s go,” Todd told him.
“Where?” said Fenn. “I don’t want to go back home.”
“We won’t go back to the apartment,” Todd told him. “Just...”
Todd held out his hand. Fenn took it and then, shutting off the light and locking the door, they left. They went to Todd’s car and Todd said, “Where does Bryant live?”

So they drove across town and when Fenn asked, “Why are we here?” Todd only said, “There it is.”
He got out of the car. He was in shorts despite the weather and while Fenn sat in the car wondering what Todd, who was standing at one of the open windows, was up to, he suddenly realized:
“Todd’s pissing in the car.”
After the boy rang himself Fenn was certain of this, and then Todd took out his keys and ran them alongside the car before, with a sort of expert precision he knocked a window out.
Satisfied, but not even really smug about it, Todd returned to the car and got in.
“And you don’t even have to worry. I’ll totally take the rap for it.
“Whaddo you want to do now? You wanna just drive?”
“Yes,” Fenn said. “I think I’d like that.”

They drove past the West Side toward the airport where houses gave way to country and then they went further on.
“I should have known,” Fenn admitted. “I ought to have suspected something. A little.”
“You’re not a suspicious person.”
“But I’m not a stupid person either.”
Fenn made a long, shuddering sigh.
“Oh,” he said, at last. “The truth is it’s over. I’ve been trying to find a way for it not to be over, but…”
Fenn didn’t say anything for a long time, and then he said, “Be a friend and pull over a moment.”
Todd nodded. He set his taillights on and parked.
Fenn got up and went into the country by the road. There was a little defile, and then he went into the bushes. Such a long time since this had happened. But he knew it was about to happen, that some block in him had been holding it off. He put his face in his hands now. How surprising. He’d expected the tears to take longer in coming. They unscrewed in one painful burst and were quickly gone. He waited for more. He sat in the bushes, waiting and waiting. Please don’t let Todd call out. Please don’t let him ask if I’m okay.
Fenn got up and came out, wiping his face with the back of his hand.
“I’m alright,” he discovered. “And not alright in that, I’m going to cry in another five minutes. I’m alright,” he told Todd. “And I’ve done with crying. I’m not going to be crying again.”
“What do you want to do now?”
“I’m tired,” Fenn said. “And I’m overwhelmed. Really, I’d like to go home.”
Todd nodded and they got back in the car.
“I want an ice cream cone,” Todd said when they were on the Dorr Street Strip and back in civilization.
“I could be happy with that too,” said Fenn.
“My treat?”
“No, no. I’ve been cheated on, not impoverished.”
Fenn got a Blizzard. In the end, Todd did too. They sat in the parking lot of the Dairy Queen eating them and watching the cars pass by. Todd stopped to look at Fenn. Fenn looked at him.
“Tom’s a fool. I’ve always thought that. How could anyone cheat on you?”
Fenn laughed a little and said, “Well, someone found a way.”
“I think you’re adorable.”
“Well, I’m not fine,” Fenn said. “I’ll take adorable.”
Todd just kept looking at him. Fenn knew the look and he waited and then Todd put his ice cream on the dashboard and leant down to kiss him. It felt so good, his hands in Todd’s hair, the soft firmness of his lips. Fenn ran his hands under his shirt. Todd had always been off limits. Well, in the last decade all men but Tom had been off limits. Todd was stronger than Tom, and he was young, and Todd moved out of his seat and shoved himself against Fenn with urgency. He was a good kisser. He was full of passion, but skill too, and his head, held between Fenn’s hands, all that lovely dark hair, was so wonderful.
Todd would have fucked him in this car. He sort of wanted him to.
Fenn pushed away, but only a little. He let Todd pinion his arms and kiss his throat and then he said, “Enough.”
It was hardly a word because he hardly wanted to be heard.
“Enough,” he said again, this time gathering strength and sense.
Todd blinked. His hair was tousled. To his credit, the gangly boy with the clean shaven face and his two stud earrings didn’t ask why. He just nodded and climbed off of Fenn.
“This would be nothing but wrong,” Fenn said, breathing heavily and rearranging himself.
“It would make for a very bad story after it happened.
“What about us going out?”
“I just ended my life with Tom.”
Todd was quiet a while and then he said, “That was very shitty of me. I’m so sorry. I really am.”
Fenn shook his head and put his seatbelt back on.
“If I have to fall in bed with someone when I’m on the rebound—it’s not going to be you.”
“Why not?”
Then Todd said, “Is it because I told you about Kevin?”
“No!” Fenn said. And then he discovered, “Yes. Yes it is.”
Todd waited to be offended, but Fenn said, “You don’t get it.”
“Well, then explain it.” Todd’s voice was a little heated.
“Kevin did something wrong. Because how he felt about you. Well, I feel strongly about you too. I don’t want to do something wrong—”
“I was a kid. I’m not—”
“I’m almost thirty and you’re not even out of college.
“No. I won’t do it. I—”
“You’re doing this for me?”
“Yes,” Fenn said. “It’s exactly for you. I’m certainly not doing it for me. Well, a little, I am. I can’t date you. I can’t sleep with you.”
Todd put his key in the ignition. They pulled back onto Dorr and began driving to the apartment.
“Fenn, is the reason you won’t be with me because Nell is my sister?”
“That’s something to do with it. I washed you in the kitchen sink and changed your diapers.”
“Well, when we get old, the shoe’ll be on the other foot, so what’s the difference?”
“Nicely played,” Fenn said. “But I’m still not dating you.”

When they reached the apartment, both Todd and Fenn were surprised to see everyone there.
“You’re alive,” Adele said, wrapping her arms around him.
“What the hell is that supposed to mean?” Fenn pushed his sister away while Nell was hugging Todd now. Todd looked at Fenn ruefully, and Fenn said, “Did you think I’d kill myself over Tom Mesda?”
“He came here,” Adele said. “He scrambled over here looking… Oh, he looked so scared and… You hit him!”
“I must have,” Fenn said, really not remembering.
“He has a big black eye. I’ve never seen anyone look so… ashamed,” Adele continued. “He just looked at us all, and then turned around and left.”
“Where did he go?” Todd said.
Adele shook her head. “I don’t know.”
“It doesn’t matter,” Fenn said in a hard voice, because he thought he knew exactly where Tom had gone.
“But, Fenn,” Tara asked him, “where do we go? I mean tomorrow? Where do you go? It was supposed to be moving day.”
“We go to 4848 Versailles Street,” Fenn said, gravely.
“Tom is gone. That’s that. It’s over. It was so over I knew it when I’d finished drying my tears.
“Go to bed, or stay here, but let’s get some sleep. When I woke up this morning, tomorrow morning—which is only a half hour away—was supposed to be moving day. It still will be.”


THAT'S THE END OF THIS CHAPTER, AND THE END OF PART THREE. WHEN WE RETURN THERE WILL BE MORE ROSSFORD, AND A NEW SHORT STORY.

THERE WILL BE NO POSTING UNTIL SATURDAY NIGHT MY TIME. I HOPE YOU HAVE AN EXCELLENT WEEKEND

 

[CharmedFan28]

Poor Fenn. His life has been turned upside down. I know things end up ok for him but I still feel sad for what went down. Great writing and I hope you have an excellent weekend too! I look forward to more in a few days!

 

[ChrisGibson]

Yes it really is a mess even knowing how things turn out, and all too painful. But I wonder, how do you feel about Todd at this point?

 

[CharmedFan28]

I like Todd at this point but I can understand why Fenn doesn't want to date him at that moment. Todd still seems to be figuring out who he is.

 

[ChrisGibson]

Yes, very much so. But props to him for pissing in Bryant's car. Todd is still very young, and probably a little wounded. And, of course, now you know how Fenn got the house, and now you even know how it was paid for, the marital agreement Hoot had Fenn make with Tom so that, in effect, they were married and Fenn could afford to live in the house and have his life and Tom legally had to retain him. As sad as Fenn was, he was always practical, and he never passed up the chance to have something like alimony. I am only pointing this out because when he decides to move into the house, he is saying that Tom may be gone, but financially things have not changed.

 

[ChrisGibson]

PART
FOUR

THE MODERN
WORLD



NINE



RESOLUTION ​

Logan was bored with life in Rossford. The running of Casey’s studio had become incredibly dull. He only managed things. He didn’t do porn anymore. It had lost its thrill.
A year or so back, Ashton Reed wrote a book—well, someone wrote a book and the star’s name was on it—where he talked about his life in porn, how he faked enjoying being fucked by men, how he just wanted money, was really straight and despised the whole thing. Now it was all over. Now he was doing… what? Logan hadn’t thought there would be too many people who wanted to read a book like that, but he had been unpleasantly surprised. Now that Logan ran Casey’s old studio and was starting to run Port Ridge, he dressed as Casey had, lots of sweat pants, his weary eyes finally surrendering to glasses he actually didn’t mind wearing in the house. Reading an online article about this washed up pornstar turned author caused unpleasant reflections.
People were full of shit and hypocrisy. They wanted to read that the porn stars they delighted in beating off to were penitent, that now that these men had been as hot and uninhibited as their viewers would never be, they were sorry for it. The happy moral ending. And at the same time they wanted to hear that, even though they couldn’t make it out of their door to get laid, or even though sex filled them with shame and guilt and doubt, the low paid kids they watched were having the time of their lives.
Or worse one, all those poor fucks who stayed home alone and typed to each other on the Internet about the lives of their favorite gay porn stars—can you imagine that?—and though they would never find anything sane in their real lives, developed and wrote about crushes on Danny, on Sander on Logan himself, on Noah Riley back in the day, and especially Johnny Mellow. Oh, he’s so sweet. Oh, he’s so kind! Look how they’re doing it. You can tell they’re really into it. You can tell there’s real love….
Blah blah blah.
Logan took a swill of wheat juice—which he had come to like. He’d seen the recipe on a web show called A to Bajay. Bajay, who had been a hot and deeply slutty porn star—Logan had fucked and been fucked by him—briefly went on to be a mixed martial arts fighter and then become a personal trainer. Now he had a web show where, scarcely or scantily clad, he taught exercise and nutrition tips. In an interview Logan had done of him, Bajay said, “I don’t regret a thing. Everything I’ve done is part of who I’ve become.”
But as Logan learned, not quite ten years back when he had gone into a modeling shoot and ended up having sex with the producer, it was all porn. Bajay walking around naked, cooking horrible meals, was still being looked at, lusted over, and feeding the lust of people, feeding the hard eyes of the limp dicked.
Here was the truth. People picked out bits of truth and made it the whole truth. Ashton did have a girlfriend, and he was the type of person who, looking at money options, would think—sex work, drugs or thievery. He would never think college and job. It was also true that he despised fucking men. And poor Billy, working as a veterinary assistant in Indiana who had fifty videos of himself getting joyfully slammed and slamming back, well it was true that he was frightened and irritated of people tracking him down. It was true that he hated what he had done. It was also true that there was Viagra and numbing cream and often as not no real affection.
But this business was a rush. It was true that it fed your desire to be loved, to be looked at, to be desired, to get off. It brought you to your dark side, and everyone wanted to know that dark side. There was a part of everyone he’d known, the sweet, the devious, the loathsome, the now become holier than thou, that longed for the dark side. Everyone longed for the trip to the dark, but not everyone could survive the journey. Once you loved it, if your experience was good with it, the truth was you became a little addicted. He knew people who had three strains of HIV and were willing to do porn till they dropped dead.
Maybe, in some way, it always remained a part of you. Casey didn’t make a damn film, but he still ran a business and did the filming. He’d stopped participating in them a long time ago. Noah worked downstairs at his strange academy for pornstars. Paul Anderson was a performer on the stage, but still a performer, and now his son was sleeping with two guys at the same time.
All Logan knew was, back in the day, when people would have felt sorry for him, when they would have said, “Look at that poor boy, selling himself in corners of clubs, doing it in cars, just barely paying his rent, taking off his clothes,” the truth was there had always been a rush. Whenever he was fucking a forty year old married man against a wall, or whenever he was being bent over a car, there was that part of him that felt how desired he was, that responded to the lust of the man he was with. There was that rush.
Running Casey’s studio was not a rush. It was boring. These people were boring. And what was more, even though, he’d spent so long doing what they did and enjoying it, when he saw the excitement on these boys, or the boredom he himself felt, he couldn’t help but think they were really fucking stupid.
And so several nights ago, when his phone vibrated on his desk he looked down at it, and smiled.
“Larry?”
“Good morning, Logan. How would you like to see what finally happens to Brunhilde?”
“The last part of Wagner?”
“Yes? A limo could arrive at four, and you could be here by six for an early supper. We could go on to the opera. And then you could spend the night?”
These days it was things like that which excited him.

MORE TOMORROW

 

[CharmedFan28]

Sounds like Logan is a bit bored with his life at the moment. Hopefully his night with Larry is fun. I totally forget before new parts that we are switching between timelines. Its cool to see what happened at different times though. Great writing and I look forward to more tomorrow!

 

[ChrisGibson]

Well, yes, but to make it simple, we are only moving between two time lines, each with a progressive direction, which actually a little more simplified than say, the Cade and Donovan stories. As for boredom, what do you do about boredom?

 

[ChrisGibson]

Maggie was eating raw mushrooms and shredded cheese from a small Tupperware box. It wasn’t that she was especially healthy, in fact it was the other way around. But she had been watching a news segment on the Today show that said the second meal of the day should be produce, and if she was real with herself, she didn’t do produce so well, so… here was a stab. It wasn’t fancy, in fact she frowned to realize there was still dirt on some of the mushrooms, but it was better than the crap she usually ate.
“I don’t understand why everyone’s in such a tizzy,” Maggie said.
“Because Maia’s married,” Dena told her.
Again, Maggie was not in Dena’s kitchen because she enjoyed Dena so much, but rather because she thought it was a positive step toward forging some type of bond with her family, or rather with her half siblings, her father, and the woman he married. She was, after all, Meredith’s sister—well, sort of her sister—and Ed loved Meredith even if Maggie couldn’t see why.
“Well, that’s too bad,” Maggie came as close to sympathy as she could, lifting a salted mushroom and sticking it in her mouth, “but Maia is a grown woman—”
“Look,” Dena said, “Maybe you don’t get it, but Maia is my family, and I don’t wish to see my cousin ruin her life.”
“Dena, not only do I not get it,” Maggie told her, “I don’t care about it. And, at any rate, you and Dad have been together since you were younger than Maia and Bennett, and his life isn’t ruined.”
“Dena’s just saying—” Milo began.
“Or maybe your life is ruined,” Maggie looked at Dena.
“This is what always happens,” Dena said. “Every time you come here.”
Maggie chuckled and said, “If you had your way I wouldn’t come here at all.”
“Are you and Mom fighting again?” Cara looked up at them.
“No baby,” Dena began while Maggie said, “Not yet.”
“See, that’s just it,” Dena said. “It’s your confrontational attitude.”
“Oh, you’re such a bitch,” Maggie said.
She turned to her father.
“I’m not going to let you have an awkward moment. I’m just going to get the hell out of here.”
Maggie picked up her dish of mushrooms. Then, on inspiration, she emptied it out on the table.
“Pick that up,” Dena began.
“Bite me, Dena,” Maggie said, and walked out the door.
Dena stood there, infuriated. Outside the car squealed.
“Why don’t you do something?” Dena rounded on Milo.
For not the first time in the years since Maggie had come into the picture, Milo looked deeply desperate.
“I don’t know what you want me to do.”

“That woman is a bitch!” Maggie declared walking into the house where Jonah stayed.
Ruthven Meradan looked up from the sofa and tugged the bit of beard under his chin.
“By that woman I’m assuming you mean my cousin, Dena?”
“Oh, that’s right!” Maggie said, approaching him with a dangerous glimmer in her eye.
“Hey, don’t kill me over it. We’re not close like that.”
“She’s just so nasty to me. It’s my mother. She’s upset because my father made me with another woman.”
“That probably doesn’t help,” Kenny said, coming out of the kitchen. “But you smashing out her windows and fucking her car up probably didn’t help either.”
“Kenny, I hope you’re not taking her side,” Maggie said.
“The two of them are kind of alike,” Ruthven commented.
“Yeah, it’s scary fucked up,” Kenny agreed.
“I am not like her,” Maggie began. “I hate her.”
“Look,” Kenny put a hand on her shoulder.
“Did you know that she used to be Brendan’s girlfriend?”
“Brendan Brendan? Your ex Brendan? Her best friend, Brendan?”
“Yes. For a long time. Anyway, Bren found out some stuff about himself and the two of us started cheating behind her back.”
“Really?” Maggie smiled, delighted.
“A little less, glee, Mags. Please. This is ancient history. You weren’t even born.
“Anyway, to make a long story short, when she found out about it, she went to the grocery store where I worked—the Martin’s up on Dorr—and she checked out a bunch of shit in my aisle, and then she leaned across the register and cold cocked me. She actually went to jail for assault.”
“I don’t know to laugh or what?”
“A little of both,” Kenny said. “But my point is, I know what it is to be on the bad side of Dena Affren. I know how she can be. And I know you also helped to get her there.”
“And what’s more,” Ruthven added, “we know how you can be, Maggie.”
Maggie took a very deep breath.
“There’s no use pretending you’re anything close to an angel,” Ruthven continued.
Kenny said: “You all need to make up.”

“What’s up?” Matthew said.
“I was looking for Dylan.” Thackeray said.
“Well, now your brother can’t be with you all the time.”
“I know,” said Thackeray.
“No,” Matthew said, seriously. Then he called across the room, “Riley?”
The narrow, golden skinned boy with the reddish hair came to the couch with them.
“We’re your family,” Matthew said to Dylan. “Isn’t that right?”
“That’s exactly right,” Riley told him.
“You don’t have to always be looking for Dylan. You’re not on your own, and he won’t be here in a few days anyway,” Matthew said.
“But,” Thackeray began, and then was quiet.
“What?” Riley said.
“Nothing,” said Thackeray. “It’s just that it’s easy if you’ve always been here.”
“I’m adopted,” Matthew said, simply. “My brothers—one who just married Todd’s daughter—are not even blood related to me. Just to each other. And they are both my dads’ real kids. I know how you feel. But…” Matthew turned to Riley.
“But we’re family,” Riley said, simply. “And speaking of your other brother…”
“Com’ on,” Matthew said.
The other boys jumped up and followed him.
“Where you off to?” Claire said.
“I don’t know,” Riley told his mother, and headed out of the door, and around the house.
“We are going to the apartment,” Matthew said.
Matthew reached the apartment and turned the door handle. The other boys followed him down and then Matthew cleared his throat.
“What the nut!” Elias started.
Thackeray, a step above, covered his mouth while Riley laughed.
“Thack!” Dylan’s voice was a little high. He and Elias had been making out.
“What are you all doing here,” Elias moved off of the couch.
“What are you all doing not locking the door?” Matthew said back.
“One big brother just got married and the other’s about to get naked with the door wide open. If we were blood related, would I have gotten the stupid gene too?”
“I’m locking the door behind you,” Elias said, getting up.
Dylan got up, though, and went to his brother.
“I’ll be up in a minute, buddy. Alright?”
“Sure,” Thackeray said. “Don’t worry about it.”
“You sure?”
“Yeah,” Thackeray said, feeling less than sure, but remembering what Matthew and Riley had said, “You can’t be with me all the time.”
He hugged his brother quickly and then headed up the stairs. As the boys left, he heard Elias say, sourly, “Don’t forget to lock the door, Dyl.”
Matthew chuckled, walking ahead of them.
“Is Elias always mean to you?” Thackeray said to Matthew.
“He’s not mean,” Matthew said. “He’s just my brother.”
Thackeray paused over this. He couldn’t imagine Dylan being anything but what he was which was warm and protective.
“They’re going to kiss,” Thackeray said.
Matthew looked at Thackeray.
“What?”
“Don’t be rude,” Riley said to Matthew. “How would he know?”
“You don’t really know a lot of gay people do you?” Matthew said.
“Well, I guess I do now.”
“They’re going to have sex,” Matthew said, plainly.
Thackeray went red.
“They’re together,” Matthew said. “They’ve been together. And now they are… being together.”
Thackeray was totally red, and unable to comprehend his brother and Elias and what they were doing downstairs.
“I don’t even know… how it works.”
“Well, you don’t really need to,” Riley said. “I mean, unless you end up swinging that way.”

MORE TOMORROW