The Families in Rossford

[ChrisGibson]

FRIDAY PORTION


When Chay answered the door, he was caught in a great embrace from Sheridan, and then Brendan stooped to give him one as well.
“Now I know,” Sheridan began, “why you never come back to Rossford. If I lived on State Park, I’d never leave either. Not even for Christmas.”
Chay waved it off. “It’s not all that.”
“It is the home of your empire,” Sheridan differed.
Logan came into the room with Casey, and Brendan said to him, “I didn’t expect to see you.”
“I had a photo shoot down the street,” Logan explained. “Now I’m just hanging out here for the rest of the day.”
Here was a white carpeted modern looking first floor, cleanly remodeled so that a large passageway opened onto an unused dining room and made for an expansive cream colored space. An electric fire blazed on the wall across from the stair, and Sheridan asked, looking up the stair: “Any movies going on today?”
“Last one just wrapped up,” Casey told him, rubbing his hands together. He looked very business like, a little nerdy now in his horn rimmed spectacles, and checked jacket.
“Do you know Sean Cody—a fellow I find increasingly creepy—actually stays in a tower and doesn’t see people, but has his movies shot down below?”
“Are we sure of this?” Brendan said.
“I am,” Casey said, stirring him a cocktail at the bar. “And my point is I am just the opposite. Always have been, even back in Rossford. You walk in and the first thing you see is my lovely home. Only now my home is lovelier than it used to be. You enter, walk around. Maybe have a drink. No food if you’re bottoming. Second floor: bedrooms and offices. Top floor: that’s where the magic happens.”
“And you really don’t mind it?” Brendan wondered. “You doing your living and people traipsing up and down the stairs doing film shoots?”
“But Brendan, you have to understand,” Casey told him, “they are my people, doing my business, paying for my lovely house. So, how could I mind? I’m not one of those who has to divorce himself from what he does.”
“Guy was like you,” Logan said.
“Guy McClintock?” Sheridan said.
Sheridan was too young to remember, unless he’d heard about it, but Chay’s father had been one of Guy’s Rude Boys. In fact, this was Brendan’s first memory of Noah, and because he feared it was a sensitive subject to the man who disapproved of his son Chay’s business, he never brought it up.
“Exactly,” Logan said. “Now that man was a prince.”
“He’s quitting the business,” Casey said.
“No! He was one of the good ones,” Logan protested.
“He doesn’t want a separate studio, and he wants his house to be a house, not a porn studio slash party place on Saturdays. He’s getting older.”
“But what’s he going to do?” Sheridan said. “Just live off or his reruns?”
Brendan had forgotten that Sheridan, having worked for Casey and dated Logan, was acquainted with this world.
“Well, no,” Casey explained. “I’m taking it over.”
“Really?” Logan said, excitedly.
Casey nodded. “I’m going to take his guys, and he’s going to be the silent partner more or less. I mean, they’re still going to be Guy McClintock’s Rude Boys, but I’ll be the new Guy.”
“The only problem,” Chay said, “is that we need someone to supervise it. Casey’s got his hands full, and frankly, so have I. I’ve never been directly involved with the movies and I’d like it to remain that way.”
“What about me, then?” Logan said suddenly.
Casey looked at Logan, waiting for him to continue.
“I need something more to do. And I can’t just do modeling and escorting and light porn forever. I need something real. Let me at that!”

They arrived at the Fromms in the late morning, and Marta embraced Laurel and kissed her hard on the cheeks but, and this was surprising, she embraced Layla with equal warmth.
“Welcome to the family,” she said, and when Layla looked at her, she said, “Israel.”
Layla laughed, putting a hand to her face.
“I never thought of it that way,” she said, as Marta touched Will affectionately on the shoulder and closed the door behind him.
“You’re getting a whole people,” Marta said. “Even the ones you don’t want. And,” she dropped her voice, “let’s be honest, there’s going to be a lot of those.”
Moshe came down the hall in white shirt and black pants. Laurel saw him fight to keep the grin off of his face and Layla looked at her neice and noticed the same thing in her.
“You are scandalous,” she whispered.
Laurel felt her face go hot.
“It’s good to see all of you,” Moshe said. “Welcome to my home. You’re just in time for lunch.”
“The truth,” Marta said, wrapping one arm about Layla and another around Laurel as they walked into the living room, “is that if you arrive anytime in the next four hours, you’ll be in time for lunch.”

Over lunch, Mr. Fromm said, “So you’ve started practicing?”
“Yes,” Layla said.
“She’s not new to this,” Will told him. “She’s been going with me and my mother since she was in high school.”
“But you never thought of converting until now?”
“I thought of a lot of things,” Layla told Mr. Fromm. “But I wasn’t getting married before.”
“What if I told you it could take three years to have an Orthodox conversion?”
“I would say I need to go to city hall because this marriage has to happen.”
“But would you still want to be Jewish?” Mr. Fromm asked.
“Mr. Fromm—”
“Please call me Leo.”
“Leo,” she said, “marriage is wonderful, but it’s a poor reason to make a religious conversion.”
She put down her fork.
“Look, marriage or not, Orthodox or not, this is what I am. When I go through mikveh or… whatever, it won’t be to make me something. I grew up in a very Catholic world, went to a very Catholic school. It was nice, most of the time. But—and I don’t mean to sound foolish—it wasn’t in me. Not like this is. I am doing this because it’s in me already, no matter what happens, or what you or your rabbis say.”
Layla shook her head. “I can’t make it any clearer.”
She did not notice Leo Fromm smiling at her across the table. She only noticed the silence, and finally she said, “What?”
“Miss Lawden,” Leo Fromm said, “you are the most earnest woman I have ever met, save possibly your niece. You must come from an extraordinary family.”
“Oh, we do,” Layla said, turning to Laurel.
“I am going to do everything I can to make sure it doesn’t take three years,” Leo Fromm told her. “You’re going to get your wedding.”

Sheridan found Brendan in the kitchen and said, “It’s almost time for us to head out and meet Layla and Will.”
Brendan nodded and Sheridan came closer.
“What’s wrong, Bren?”
“I don’t understand you people,” he said.
“You people?”
“Yes! Logan’s all like, I need something new to do. Let me run your porn studio! Something new. I got an idea. Go to school. Get a real fucking job.”
“It is a fucking job,” Sheridan said, laughing. “In fact, it’s a job that consists wholly of fucking.”
Brendan looked at him sourly.
“Look, Bren,” Sheridan said. “You’re a lawyer—”
“Who does not live in a house in Lincoln Park!” he hissed, pointing to the patterned tin ceiling.
“Are you going to let me finish?”
“Sure. Finish.”
“You’re a lawyer. You’ve given your life, since you were twenty-three, to law, and if you do anything lucrative it will be in law. They’ve given their lives to the male entertainment industry, and it’s the same thing. Logan’s not going to be an attorney, or a banker. If he gets Guy’s studio that’s a great move for a porn star who wants to stop doing porn and is getting long in the tooth.”
“He’s younger than me,” Bren said, roughly.
“You’re not in porn.”
“No, and—”
“And I know you wouldn’t be. But… I’m just saying…”
“Saying what?”
“Saying stop being a hypocrite.”
“I am not a—”
Chay came into the kitchen.
“Am I interrupting something?”
“No!” they both said.
Chay nodded as if he didn’t believe it, and then turned and left.
“I’m just saying Paul turned it around and so did Noah and—”
“Casey did too.”
“By becoming the head of a porn empire?”
“Who cares?” Sheridan said.
Brendan folded his arms over his chest and Sheridan said, “You look so pompous when you do that.”
“So, I’m pompous!”
“A little bit.”
“I thought I just had good moral judgment.”
“When your moral judgment concerns your personal choices it’s good. It’s fine as hell, Brendan. But when it starts to look down on other people, it’s being pompous.”
“I think we should leave now.”
“I’ve been saying that for ten minutes.”
Sheridan began to walk out ahead of him while Brendan said, “This discussion isn’t over.”
“No,” Sheridan muttered, “How good it be? Oh, and by the way?”
“Yes, Sheridan?” Brendan muttered wearily.
“This isn’t Lincoln Park. This is River North. For such a clever lawyer, you ought to know one from the other.”


END OF CHAPTER TWELVE

 

[CharmedFan28]

An excellent end to another great chapter! I liked Brendan and Sheridan's discussion and while I love Brendan I can see where Sheridan is coming from with regards to Brendan's judgement of Logan. I am glad Layla and Will are going to be able to get married where they want to even if it will take time. I look forward to more in a few days and once again I hope you have a good weekend!

 

[ChrisGibson]

Brendan and Sheridan are in many ways alike, but Sheridan is a lot more relaxed than Brendan, and he's been around this business and not only that, but is Logan's best friend. Brendan is a lawyer and therefore pretty legalistic and a natural born square. So, they're just having those first conflicts with being themselves around each other, and of course, Brendan might be, just might be, not only a little jealous of Casey's wealth, but jealous of Logan and Sheridan's past. Brendan, one of my favorite people either on or off the page, is as usual, not perfect. Now, I will see you again on the other side of the weekend,and I hope you have a good one.

 

[ChrisGibson]

THE BEGINNING OF THE LAST CHAPTER OF THIS ROUND OF ROSSFORD


JONAH HAD GONE TO Keith’s Friday night. It had been strange because Sean was there, and since Sean had returned he’d been thinking about him, worried about falling into bed with him. And now Keith wanted the three of them to travel to his home in Maryland together. Jonah had seriously thought of sitting Sean down and having a serious talk, of saying that he could not simply be safe with him. But then when he was in Keith’s presence everything changed. When he was actually before Keith any feeling for anyone else disappeared. There wasn’t much of a contest. And when he knew it was time to go to bed, he didn’t think of anyone else. If Keith said, as he had on Friday night, “I’m getting sleepy,” and he stretched, and then made his meandering way to bed, resetting the coffee pot and brushing his teeth, changing into boxers and whatever; and if Jonah nodded his head and came ten or twenty minutes later, still the whole time he thought of what it would be to come to the bedroom, to undress, to climb into bed, to be held by Keith, to be in Keith’s arms, to sleep beside his friend and put his head to the beating of his heart, to smell, at three in the morning ,the gentle bread and milk scent of his breath. All of these things preceded the thought of making love.
On Saturday he and Sean and Keith left Michigan, traveling south for the Ohio Turnpike. They left at ten in the morning and only stopped twice. Early the next day they passed through Washington and Keith said, “Don’t worry, I promise we’ll come back.”
Washington appeared on the horizon among cords and bands of concrete floating highways. It appeared as a surprise among roads cut deep into hills behind which red barns and tribes of cows peeked occasionally, and then they were driving away from this, back into country, and on their way to Phanariot, Maryland and Keith Redmond’s family home.


THIRTEEN



FAMILY



Chay came out to the porch and stood beside Logan.
“It’s warmer than usual, but it’s still not warm he said, looking over the little yard beneath them.
“I don’t really feel it,” Logan said, puffing on his cigarette, and then exhaling in the opposite direction of Chay.
“You know Casey’s going to give you that job, right? And that’ll be just the thing you need.”
“That’s great.”
“You don’t sound like it’s great.”
“No,” Logan turned to him. “It absolutely is.”
“Then what’s bugging you?”
“I don’t know,” Logan said.
“You know,” he said to Chay, “I honestly didn’t think I would be bothered to see Sheridan with Brendan. Brendan’s a nice guy. I mean he really is a great guy. That’s the worst part. He’s good looking and smart and talented and a good man for Sher. I mean, you look at him and you know he’ll take care of him and that they’re right for each other.”
“But you just wish that you were right for him.”
“Yeah,” Logan said, in a lower voice.
“I felt the same way,” Chay reminded him, “when he left me for you.”
“Ouch.”
“No ouch about it,” Chay said. “It was just how things should have been. I needed to go through Sheridan and he needed to go through me.”
“And then through me.”
“Clearly. To get to Brendan.”
“But how many people do I have to go through to find my one?”
“You had your one,” Chay said.
Logan looked at him, puzzled.
“All that one true forever stuff? I think that’s bullshit. You had Sheridan. And maybe you’ll have someone else. I loved Sheridan with all my heart and he broke my heart. A few times. And then Casey was always there, and there was a time when Casey slept with other people, for work, but he always came back to me. The same arrangement you had with Sheridan. He couldn’t take it. I could. And now Casey only sleeps with me. Even if he didn’t, I couldn’t leave him, and he couldn’t leave me. That’s how it is. And who’s to say you won’t find that too. Only… I didn’t know you wanted to.”
“I didn’t know either,” Logan said.
“Do you want it?” Chay asked him.
Logan thrust out his lip and thought.
“I don’t know,” he admitted.


“I guess you guys will leave after we light candles?”
“Yes,” Laurel said, looking out of the window. “Then we’ll go up and join my uncle.”
“I’d like to meet him.”
“He’s gay.”
“And?”
Laurel looked at him.
“Look, maybe we’re Orthodox, but… Well my aunt is gay and… people are people.”
“I knew I liked you.”
“I’d like to think you love me.”
“I probably do,” Laurel admitted. “A little.”
Moshe grinned and shrugged. “I’ll take it.”
“So, Layla is going to officially be Jewish.”
“Wonderful!” Moshe was saying as the day went toward evening. “It really will be like you’re in the family.”
He told Laurel, “I already feel like you are.”
“Wouldn’t that make what you’re trying to do incest?”
“I’m going to ignore that,” Moshe gave her small smile.
“Is that Alex guy so great?”
“I think he is,” Laurel said.
“Greater than me?”
“Well see, now I’m going to ignore that.”
“Laurel Houghton, I’m not going to give up on us.”
“That’s good,” she said, “I like a man with perseverance.”

“Well,” Fenn said, putting the phone down. “They’ll be here soon.”
“Weren’t you going to tell me something?” Dylan reminded him.
Fenn looked at him.
“This morning, when I was in the shower,” Dylan sat down on the other side of the sofa. “You said that it was about that Meg Callan and why she mattered? How it was something about my family I didn’t know?”
“Yes,” Fenn said. He looked like he genuinely had forgotten, not as if he were trying to pull Dylan along.
“That’s right,” Fenn remembered. “Now, how to tell you?”
“Tell me straight.”
“There isn’t a lot that’s straight in this world, though,” Fenn said.
“I’ll tell it like this,” he decided. “As long as you’ve known us we’ve been well off. Not rich. But well off.”
Dylan nodded.
“We own the theatre and the house. A few other things. We’ve never worried for money.”
“Because of the theatre.”
“No,” Fenn said. “In fact, it’s the other way around. And this all goes into how we know Bennett and Elias’s parents and how we know Noah and James and Chay. You know a long time ago what Noah and Paul used to do.”
“They were in porn with Casey, right?”
“More or less. Yes. Though we don’t talk about it now. But when I met them they were working for Guy McClintock. If you know who that is.”
“I know who that is,” Dylan said, knowingly.
Fenn sighed.
“Of course you do. Anyway, he contacted Todd to ask him to do a documentary about his business, the life of a porn director and so on. Todd went to his house for a few weekends and once I went with him. But before we could get there the house was raided by the police. Paul had escaped the house before the raid, and he came to us and told us Noah was there… sick. Well, hell, fucked up on drugs. This was a long time ago, don’t repeat it. We went into the house to get him before the police found him, but I found money. I mean a hell of a lot of money. And I took it.”
“Okay,” Dylan said, still waiting.
“Later I found more money behind that money.”
“Are you telling me that this is where all of our money comes from?” Dylan said.
“Yes,” Fenn said.
“Holy shit!”
“Dylan.”
“I mean holy crap. But Dad, you gotta admit, that’s kind of worth a holy shit.”
Fenn nodded.
“You are always telling me something balls tripping about you, Dad.”
“Well, not always.”
“What about when you told me the reason I exist is because you jacked Dad off and sold his semen to my mother?”
“Well, yes,” Fenn said. “But in all fairness, that’s not always. I told you that three years ago. And as I recall, you were telling me balls tripping things too. Anyway, this story is about you as well.”
“Oh great!”
“So just listen.
“Anyway, this money was drug money, and the man looking for it eventually came after Noah, tracked him to our house. He had Noah at gunpoint. He would have killed us all. Barb Affren was there too.”
“Meredith’s grandmother?”
“Yes. With her gun.”
“Her gun?” Dylan sat up, “What the hell? Was this a showdown?”
“Sort of, but shut up and let me finish. That gangster is gone now.”
“Dead.”
“Yes.”
“Did you… did someone kill him?”
“He is gone,” Fenn said more firmly. “And no, I did not kill him. But how he left this world… well, I am sitting on top of that. At any rate, Meg Callan came to town looking for that man.”
“Was he her boyfriend?” Dylan said. “And what does this have to do with me?”
“His name, the name of the drug lord who’s money we took, whose money paid for the house, the theatre, much of your education, whose money we invested until it did us very well, was Ed Callan. And he was Meg Callan’s father.”
Dylan thought about this a moment, and then he tilted his head, and then he scowled at Fenn and said, “Are you trying to tell me that some drug lord you all bumped off cause he tried to bump you off and sold his drugs to porn stars was my grandfather?”
“Yes, Dylan,” Fenn said. “I don’t think I could have put it better myself.”

MORE TOMORROW

 

[CharmedFan28]

Wow so Dylan's grandfather was the drug lord where all that money came from? That is a very interesting development. I am a bit sad that this is the last chapter of this book of Rossford but the story is starting to come together nicely. Great writing and I look forward to more soon! I hope you are having a nice weekend!

 

[ChrisGibson]

Well, now Matt, it's good that you're sad because that means the story's been good. But all good things must come to an end, at least for a while. And I have to say this has been my favorite Rossford. I am having a truly lovely night/slash early morning. And don't get too sad. as long as I'm around there will be plenty of stories.

 

[ChrisGibson]

In the background the drums snared and Dave Matthews sang from the stereo behind the glass case.

You've got your ball
You've got your chain
Tied to me tight tie me up again
Who's got their claws
In you my friend
Into your heart I'll beat again
Sweet like candy to my soul
Sweet you rock
And sweet you roll
Lost for you I'm so lost for you
You come crash into me
And I come into you...

The remains of their party, the empty beer bottles, the large bowled empty wine glasses Chay drank from, stood on the table, and Logan took a hit from the joint. It had been so long and the smell was so pungent and the taste was just what he wanted. He wasn’t exactly high, because when one had been away from the stuff so long it was harder. Chay sat on the sofa, his hair a tumbled mess, looking like a more Mediterranean, more delicate version of his father back when Noah had been at his height. He held his hand out for the joint and Logan shook his head, but passed it to him. Chay coughed on it and Logan chuckled a little and then took it back. Chay took it this time, holding the smoke in his mouth now. He put down the joint and beckoned to Logan with his little finger.
Logan bent forward and Chay pulled his face toward him. He planted his mouth on Logan’s and blew the smoke into it. High on Chay’s mouth, Logan fell deeper into the kiss.
“Wha?” Logan began. Casey was in the next room and, now Logan was sure that though he’d been with Casey and Sheridan, he had never been with Chay.
“Shush,” Chay murmured, wrapping his arms around Logan and bringing him down on top of him.
So buzzed he was a little numb and his head swam, Logan shrugged a little and fell into the kiss. He felt Chay’s small hands in his hair, and then Chay kissing the back of his neck.
But what? How could Chay be at the back of his…?
He turned around a little and Casey, glasses off so that those grey blue eyes were beautifully half focused on him, was kissing up and down his neck, lifting his shirt. Go with it. Go with it! He lay on the couch, kissing Noah, and over them both, Casey kissed him up and down. Logan felt Casey pulling up his shirt now, and why make it difficult for him? Logan stood up, lifting Chay with him. He turned to the large window that looked over State Park, but heavy curtains were drawn across it. Chay was down to his underwear now, and Casey shirtless. Logan turned around and kissed Casey’s throat while Chay moved up and down his back. Logan felt Chay’s fingers on his belt, pulling down his pants. He stepped out of them. Chay’s hands were on the band of his underwear, pulling the trunks down, running hands over his sides, kissing his buttocks, darting a tongue between them, shocking him while, what was this? His cock was taken in Casey’s mouth. They were both making love to him down there, and then coming back up, now going down. Logan stood eyes closed, penis hard like an exclamation point, swallowed by Casey’s tight mouth while Chay’s tongue darted inside of him. Logan’s hands opened and unopened in shock, and the two men, the slight blond one approaching middle age, the little brunette, gently guided him through the hall, to their bedroom.
In the living room, Dave Matthews taunted

I’m the king of the castle, you’re the dirty rascal!
Crash into me!

And even though he’d never much cared for Dave, as Casey and Chay stretched him out on the bed, and Chay’s body covered him, while Casey lay under him, he liked the singer now.

SUNDAY, ELIAS ENTERED the coffee shop, got a table in the back with a notebook, and ordered a drink and a tall glass of water. Then he just sat there all afternoon. Somewhere after two o’ clock, Elijah Layton came in with some friends he must have made since moving here, and one of them, a long haired girl, began reading her poems in a low voice. They were not aiming for an audience, only a few people were here. She read:

how long has it been since
you lay long beside me?
how long has it been
since the time you were
before me?
how long must i dream?
and why can’t i love?

I go on praying
over and over again
making songs of
lust and longing

And then Jonah read:

i am dizzied with the need to stumble off
this roller coaster, stomach still
reeling with the feeling not,
that the earth is moving,
but that i am commanded to move
and you are standing still.
i believe that all of this talk of
god's will and of your destiny
and of my purpose is all
foolish.

God put you on this earth to,
God put me on this earth to,
this is meant to be.
no, see
we are placed, hurled, tossed,
spewed out in blood onto this
world's realm to breathe it,
and grasp it and take it
and make of it what we will.

He read some more, and then Sean Babcock entered, and Elias watched Sean stoop and kiss him Elijah. Even though Sean was significantly older than Jonah Layton, not only a two or three years difference, it reminded Elias of Dylan and of Lance, and of how it felt when Dylan held him, or when Lance stooped down and touched him.
“I want to hear you read,” Sean said, and Jonah shook his head and said, “This time, I want to hear Mariel again.”
And Mariel did read again, and then Jonah read one more, but while Elias was observing him, he heard a laugh and blinked.
Mariel was pointing at him.
“I think we have an audience.”
Elias stammered, but Sean said, “It’s Elias. Kirk and Paul’s son. Come on over.”
“Don’t be strange,” Jonah echoed. “Come on over.”
And because Fenn also said, “Don’t be strange,” Elias smiled and he did come over.
“You all are just so good!” he said.
“Well, he may be young,” Mariel allowed, “but at least he has discerning taste.”
“You were here a little while ago when I was here with my…”
“You were here with that boy,” Jonah said.
“He’s my boyfriend,” Elias tried the word out. He had never actually had one before.
“I love young love,” Jonah commented and Sean swatted him on the head:
“You are young love.”
“To you,” Jonah corrected.
“Did you drive over?” Sean asked.
“No, I rode over on my bike.”
“That’s a distance.”
“It’s only three miles or so,” Elias shook his head. He told Jonah, “Your poems made me feel so… like someone was talking to me. I came back because I hoped you might be here. And you were. I needed my mood lifted, and you did.”
“Mood lifted?” Mariel commented. “But you are in the midst of a young love!”
“He left for the weekend.”
“It’s Sunday afternoon,” Mariel reminded him.
“Yes,” Elias said. “But I got a call from someone yesterday.”
“A love triangle?” Jonah looked excited.
Elias debated telling them this. He didn’t really know these people. But then, that was what was good about it. And he realized that in some ways he didn’t really know anyone. He was very isolated from others.
“I loved him once. We had a relationship once. And he is also my boyfriend’s ex boyfriend.”
“Wow,” Jonah said.
“Yes. And now he is coming back for spring break.”
“All this drama for a young college student,” Mariel said.
Elias looked at her, confused, and then said, “Oh, I’m not in college. I’m sixteen.”
“Wow,” Jonah said again.
“And,” Elias rushed on, not wanting them to get lost in this, “it would be one thing if I was over Lance, but the fact is I am pretty sure I am deeply in love with him. And Dylan too. And that Dylan is in love with me, and loves Lance, and that they both love me, and that I love them, and it’s a real mess.”
“Yes, it is,” Jonah said, shaking his head.
“Jonah,” Sean reminded him, “it’s not so unlike…”
Elias looked at them, and Jonah said to Sean, “It’s not unlike us at all, actually.”
“Is there a story coming?” Mariel said.
Jonah looked at Sean and Sean looked at Jonah.
“For the sake of our new young friend,” Jonah said, “I think there had better be.”

MORE ROSSFORD ON TUESDAY NIGHT

 

[CharmedFan28]

Wow Elias, Dylan and Lance have some feeling to sort out about each other! Chay, Logan and Casey having sex was a surprise! This last chapter is getting good and I look forward to more of it in a few days! I hope you had a great weekend!

 

[ChrisGibson]

I did have a great weekend Thank you, Matt. And it was a surprise to me too. I forgot that happened. Even though... well, I wrote it. But it seems right that it happened, like that would be how Casey and Chay expressed their love for someone who was starting to not feel loved.

 

[ChrisGibson]

TONIGHT, JONAH TELLS A STORY AND BENNETT IS DEEPLY HURT



SUNDAY, ELIAS ENTERED the coffee shop, got a table in the back with a notebook, and ordered a drink and a tall glass of water. Then he just sat there all afternoon. Somewhere after two o’ clock, Elijah Layton came in with some friends he must have made since moving here, and one of them, a long haired girl, began reading her poems in a low voice. They were not aiming for an audience, only a few people were here. She read:

how long has it been since
you lay long beside me?
how long has it been
since the time you were
before me?
how long must i dream?
and why can’t i love?

I go on praying
over and over again
making songs of
lust and longing

And then Jonah read:

i am dizzied with the need to stumble off
this roller coaster, stomach still
reeling with the feeling not,
that the earth is moving,
but that i am commanded to move
and you are standing still.
i believe that all of this talk of
god's will and of your destiny
and of my purpose is all
foolish.

God put you on this earth to,
God put me on this earth to,
this is meant to be.
no, see
we are placed, hurled, tossed,
spewed out in blood onto this
world's realm to breathe it,
and grasp it and take it
and make of it what we will.

He read some more, and then Sean Babcock entered, and Elias watched Sean stoop and kiss him Elijah. Even though Sean was significantly older than Jonah Layton, not only a two or three years difference, it reminded Elias of Dylan and of Lance, and of how it felt when Dylan held him, or when Lance stooped down and touched him.
“I want to hear you read,” Sean said, and Jonah shook his head and said, “This time, I want to hear Mariel again.”
And Mariel did read again, and then Jonah read one more, but while Elias was observing him, he heard a laugh and blinked.
Mariel was pointing at him.
“I think we have an audience.”
Elias stammered, but Sean said, “It’s Elias. Kirk and Paul’s son. Come on over.”
“Don’t be strange,” Jonah echoed. “Come on over.”
And because Fenn also said, “Don’t be strange,” Elias smiled and he did come over.
“You all are just so good!” he said.
“Well, he may be young,” Mariel allowed, “but at least he has discerning taste.”
“You were here a little while ago when I was here with my…”
“You were here with that boy,” Jonah said.
“He’s my boyfriend,” Elias tried the word out. He had never actually had one before.
“I love young love,” Jonah commented and Sean swatted him on the head:
“You are young love.”
“To you,” Jonah corrected.
“Did you drive over?” Sean asked.
“No, I rode over on my bike.”
“That’s a distance.”
“It’s only three miles or so,” Elias shook his head. He told Jonah, “Your poems made me feel so… like someone was talking to me. I came back because I hoped you might be here. And you were. I needed my mood lifted, and you did.”
“Mood lifted?” Mariel commented. “But you are in the midst of a young love!”
“He left for the weekend.”
“It’s Sunday afternoon,” Mariel reminded him.
“Yes,” Elias said. “But I got a call from someone yesterday.”
“A love triangle?” Jonah looked excited.
Elias debated telling them this. He didn’t really know these people. But then, that was what was good about it. And he realized that in some ways he didn’t really know anyone. He was very isolated from others.
“I loved him once. We had a relationship once. And he is also my boyfriend’s ex boyfriend.”
“Wow,” Jonah said.
“Yes. And now he is coming back for spring break.”
“All this drama for a young college student,” Mariel said.
Elias looked at her, confused, and then said, “Oh, I’m not in college. I’m sixteen.”
“Wow,” Jonah said again.
“And,” Elias rushed on, not wanting them to get lost in this, “it would be one thing if I was over Lance, but the fact is I am pretty sure I am deeply in love with him. And Dylan too. And that Dylan is in love with me, and loves Lance, and that they both love me, and that I love them, and it’s a real mess.”
“Yes, it is,” Jonah said, shaking his head.
“Jonah,” Sean reminded him, “it’s not so unlike…”
Elias looked at them, and Jonah said to Sean, “It’s not unlike us at all, actually.”
“Is there a story coming?” Mariel said.
Jonah looked at Sean and Sean looked at Jonah.
“For the sake of our new young friend,” Jonah said, “I think there had better be.”


PHANARIOT WAS SOUTH of Washington D.C. The main road through it went into the Pennsylvania border, and there Keith’s family maintained one of the large houses over the bay, looking across to Carthage. Maryland. When Dr. Redmond wasn’t in the sun room criticizing his son, it was a restful place and, as far as Dr. Redmond was concerned, Jonah could do no wrong. Jonah wasn’t sure how he felt about this, because he thought that as far as Dr. Redmond was concerned, his son could do no right.
The fifteen hour trip had landed them in Phanariot around three in the morning, and the Redmonds saw no reason this meant Sean and Keith shouldn’t go to Mass. Jonah pled Islam, ignoring his mother’s Catholicism and his years of Catholic education. Being a guest he slept in. Monday was the day they recovered, but Tuesday was the day Keith needed to get out.
“Take Sean,” Jonah told him. As they were parting, both in khakis, Keith in a blue knit shirt, and Bryant in a black one. The two of them looked so beautiful to him. He thought of a strange world with two husbands, and then he thought of the one they lived in and chose Keith again. As the men departed, looking so much like a couple, so much like lovers who would do things together out of his presence, Jonah wondered why he had bowed out of going with them, and then he retired to the solarium to read and write his poems. It was so strange. After meeting with Sean last Thursday, he had squirmed all day and gone home and masturbated out all of his fantasies. Keith was in his mind now, and how he and Keith had not slept together since Friday. After the day’s outing Keith came to him eagerly and whispered, “Come to me tonight, alright? I miss you.”
Jonah wasn’t entirely sure how much Keith’s parents knew, but he knew he couldn’t kiss his boyfrtiend on the mouth in front of them, and he knew he deeply wanted to. He looked at his smiling face and nodded.
“Alright,” he said. “I will.”

Sean Babcock got up out of his bed, and the only way he could describe how he felt was primal. He knew what he had to do. If there was a God, and he strongly sensed there was, he was not in the sky, keeping a polite and Victorian record of how things were done on earth. He was driving this need. There was only one law and the law was do as his balls dictated.
He was almost itching as he pulled on his sweat pants and tee shirt, and in the darkness of the large house the Redmonds kept, went down the hall. He went into Keith’s room, and he shut the door. He wondered why they had not locked it. It must have been a sign.
In the darkness only colored by the blue light of a moonlit night, a streak of moonlight coming across them, Sean looked down at them: Keith dozing on his back, mouth opened, Jonah on his side.
Take me in!
Take me in!
Room for me?
Room!

Sean began stripping slowly until he was naked, and his erect penis bobbed up to the moonlight. Then he crawled into the bed between them.
Jonah stirred but did not look. Keith went on sleeping, murmuring a little to himself until Sean scrabbled tighter into the bed, tight between them. Then Keith opened his eyes and blinked. He looked only mildly surprised.
Sean looked at him but said nothing, and the look on his face was unreadable. And then Keith felt Sean’s arm tighten around him, pull him closer. He felt his penis stretching, going hard, though he was soft and yielding everywhere else. Sean pulled him closer with one arm, gently waking Jonah with the other. For a moment Jonah awakened. He looked at them both, and then put his head into the heat of Sean’s chest, and Keith pressed his body to Sean’s back, his sex pressed to him, his chest in his spine, his arms around the warmth of Sean until he touched Jonah who was already sleeping again.

In the morning they packed in near silence, not silence from each other but a united silence against the Redmonds, against Dr. Redmond who had so clearly stated his disapproval of his son and of Sean Babcock.
“Let Sean take shotgun,” Jonah said. “I am going to sleep in the back.”
“Is it possible for us all to be in the front of the car?” Sean asked.
“It’s possible,” Keith allowed. “But it’s not legal.”
“Let’s be illegal,” Sean said.
They drove off with Jonah beside Keith, Keith’s hand on his thigh contentedly, and Jonah’s hand in Sean’s. Sean patted it. He looked, at last, satisfied and happy.
“We’ve got four days left till we get back,” Keith announced as they drove through the streets of Phanariot, the windows down, letting the air blow full on them.
Keith’s hand on his thigh felt so good. Sean’s hand in his felt so wonderful. He switched his weighr from Keith, driving, to Sean’s chest and felt Sean’s kiss on his head.
“You two, how long do you think we can keep this up?” Sean said.
“We are free human beings in the free world,” Jonah replied, with solemnity, “and that means we can do whatever we want, as long as we want, in order to love each other.”
“That’s right,” Keith said, patting Jonah on the leg again as they drove into the sun. “So just shut up, Sean. And let me drive.”



“THERE’S NOTHING LIKE A BICYCLE,” Fenn declared as they braked on the path along the park that ran by the beach. “Except maybe flying.”
He dismounted and straddled his bike, and Dylan did the same.
Fenn said, “When I was much younger, I used to follow my uncle up and down through the city. This was a biking place. It still is. We could see the city in a whole afternoon. Your Aunt Adele and your grandmother and I would walk or catch the bus to the store every Saturday. We used to stop in all the shops, especially on Sheridan. Rug shops, just bunches and bunches of rug shops. We would go down Foster, cross Ridge. Take a bus back because that was uphill with groceries.”
“It must have been neat to grow up here,” Dylan imagined, looking from the beach, through the trees, to the large old houses across the street. Now and again a car came up or down Sheridan, but it was mostly quiet.
“It was,” Fenn said. “And now, as I grow older, the memories are sharper.”
“You’re not old, Dad.”
“I didn’t say I was old,” Fenn said. “I said I was older. And, however it may be, the truth is, if I’m not old, I’m certainly not young. I like to bring you here so you can see where I came from. It’s part of where you come from. You come from other places, obviously, but you come from me.”
Dylan looked pleased at this, and then Fenn said, “What if we ride through Northwestern, and then to the L stop to catch the Purple back into Downtown?”
“Right in time for the train ride home.”
Dylan jumped on his bike.
“I’ll race you.”
“I will not race you,” Fenn said. “And not just because I‘m old, but because if we run over a student on campus, I’ll feel really bad.”

As the train went south slowly, passing Morse, and then Jarvis, coming toward Loyola, Fenn, his voice taking on the incantory tone of the wheels on train tracks, said, “In eighteen hundred Madeleine was born in Haiti. This is the story I know, though it was a long time before I ever heard it. Her mother was a slave, and the story goes that she was told not to go out at night. But she did and French soldiers caught her. A whole troop of them. They did what powerful white men did to slave girls. All night. Amazing that Madeliene’s mother survived—”
“Is this true?”
“Yes,” Fenn said, looking over the modern city of Chicago. The day was sunny. It was warm for early Spring.
“Did her mother have name?”
“She must have. Of course she did. But the worst part of history is everything save the rape is forgotten. But from that horrible thing came Madeleine, and when she was a girl, during one of the many revolts, she and her family fled Haiti for Louisiana. They lived there for years until our branch of the family, the DuFresnes and the Sandavauls, moved to Ohio. There are many descendants of Madeleine. There are many Dufresnes. My grandmother Lula’s grandmother was another woman called Madeleine. It is a family name.”
“It’s a nice name.”
“It’s a witch’s name,” Fenn said.
He said it with such seriousness, that Dylan blinked.
“The first Madeleine was reputed to be a voodoo queen, and so was this one. One of her sons was Lula’s father. Lula’s mother brought her up to Chicago as a little girl to be raised in Jewtown—what they call Maxwell street now—which is where my mother, Anne, was born and where Lee’s parents were born.”
“How did you get to Rossford?”
“Long ago, the mafia did liquor and drug runs between South Bend, Detroit and Chicago. Toledo as well, the whole Turnpike. That was one of the reasons the highways existed. Rossford was a good stopping point.”
“Does it always go back to the mafia for us?” Dylan lamented.
“You are mildly upset because you’ve just learned who your grandfather was,” Fenn said. “But for us it is not simply crime. It is a manner of flying.”
“I don’t get what you mean.”
“Listen, and you will.
“Lula’s brother worked with the mafia in running liquor, and he bought that house, your grandmother’s house now, the one I was eventually raised in, to run and distill liquor from.”
“He was never caught?”
“He was Catholic,” Fenn said, as if this was everything. “You have to understand something about white people. Though, especially in the past, they could be deeply, violently racist, even to co-religionists, Polish Catholics against Italian and what the not, for some reason, if your skin was black, but your religion was theirs, they took you in. The whole police force in Rossford was Irish and Italian. They helped my great-uncle. One of his biggest helpers was Clive Affren.”
“Affren?”
“He was chief of police, sheriff and eventually mayor, second generation Irish. You never new Bob Affren: Meredith and Milo’s grandfather. But Clive was Bob’s father, Barb’s father-in-law. So Houghtons have known Affrens forever.”
Now they were rolling closer to Wrigleyville, and the skyline of the Loop was growing large.
“But I came to Rossford when, lovely as Evanston was, Mama could no longer afford it since Leroy was no help. She came back to live with her mother and uncle in that house. That is how we came to live in Rossford.”
“Because of liquor runs.”
“And because we were in a family of flyers.”
“Now, you’re going to explain that to me.”
Fenn nodded.
“I have told you the story of the flying Africans.”
“Yeah.”
“Then you already know. And you read Song of Solomon. You know.”
“The old story; that some of the African slaves could fly. One day they got tred of being slaves and they just said, ‘It’s time to go.’ So they flew back to Africa.”
“Yes,” Fenn sad.
“And that there are still people who can fly.”
“Yes, but had you ever asked yourself why they didn’t fly right away? Why it took so long for them to remember they could fly? Why it took so long to get tired of being slaves? How long does it take to get tired of that?”
“Or,” Dylan said, “why they would want to go back to a place from which they were sold?”
“See,” Fenn told his son, as the train slowed at Addison, and apartment buildings topped by bleachers overlooked Wrigley Field, “there are many ways of flying, and some of them may even be by flapping your arms. But the magic of our family is that we knew that flying means leaving boundaries other people have set for you. We transgress the norm. We step on the wild side to find our freedom and happiness. And we have always been expert at that. Because you are mine, and this is your heritage, you will be expert at it too.”


Elias came home elated, and Paul and Kirk looked at their son.
“I just met the coolest people,” Elias said, simply. He hugged Kirk, and then he hugged Paul. And then for good measure he hugged Matthew too. He ran upstairs to find Bennett.
The door was open and Elias was surprised to find Bennett crying, quietly.
“What the hell, Ben?” Elias closed the door and went to his brother.
Bennett looked up at him, but his face was happy.
“She lied,” Bennett said. “She told me everything. Told me the whole truth.”
“Well, that’s good,” Elias said, touching his shoulder.
“It’s bad, El,” Bennett said. “It’s real bad.”
Bennett continued to cry quietly.
“It’s bad that someone could lie like that, do that to another person.”
He shook his head and took a deep breath.
Eyes still wet he looked at Elias.
“How can people be like that?”


MORE TOMORROW

 

[CharmedFan28]

Another excellent portion! Poor Bennett, I feel so sad for him that he was lied to like that. Lots going on as usual and I am looking forward to more tomorrow! Great writing!

 

[ChrisGibson]

Poor Bennett, indeed. He didn't want to be a father, and he's g;ad to be off the hook, but still the magnitude of being used like that is painful, and someone like Bennett just can;t understand how people could be so cruel.

 

[ChrisGibson]

TONIGHT ON ROSSFORD, A LOT OF NEW FAMILIES ARE GETTING FORMED.... AND IT COULD BE PAINFUL


Alex sat in the large room of the house Laurel and Caroline maintained outside of downtown. It had never felt so old or so empty or, for that matter, so strange. He looked forlorn and flat. He had been a good boyfriend to her.
“I don’t know what’s happening to you,” he said. “I don’t know what’s happening to us.”
Then he said, “No, I do.”
“You do?” she said, quickly, wishing he would tell her something good, something she wanted to hear.
“Nothing,” he said. “That’s what’s happening. I feel like I haven’t been a part of your life, a part of your story, for a long time.”
Well, there it was. She couldn’t remember the last time she had seen him, really.
“Is this Moshe guy better than me?” he began, and then he said. “No. That sounds whiney. That’s not true. I don’t feel that way. I feel like you have something going on. You have something going on that’s not a part of me.”
Laurel nodded, sadly, acknowledging this.
“Are we done?” he said.
“You say we are,” Laurel told him. “You came to tell me that.”
“No,” he shook his head. “That’s not enough. You owe me that much. I need to hear from your own mouth that it is done.”
“You’re right,” she agreed.
Laurel opened her mouth to prepare to say those words, but she couldn’t shape her mouth around them. It was just too much.
“I need you to tell me,” Alex said.
“It’s over!” she said quickly.
“And not for Moshe, either,” Alex surmised, standing up.
Laurel shook her head.
“I guess it’s done because it’s done.”
Alex kissed her on the cheek, and then he said, “Well, I guess, I’ll see you, Laurel.”
“You can always see me,” she said.
There wasn’t anyone else. There was the idea of Moshe, and that might not work out. As of now, he was only an idea.
Alex nodded.
“Maybe I’ll take you up on that,” he said.
He left the large living room. Laurel was too stupid to see him out, which is how she castigated herself some time later. She heard the door close and sat there, feeling very alone, waiting for the approach of evening and Caroline to return from the shop.
She thought she would feel bad, but suddenly she wanted to call Moshe. She didn’t know what she would say to him. We’re free? I’m free? Let’s make a go of it? She just wanted to talk to him. Anything she said would have something about Alex in it, and though she couldn’t explain it, she was ashamed of that. It seemed embarassing to call this boy who wanted her and tell him that her relationship was over. Would he think he had ended it? Had he ended it? It was too much.
“Maia,” she decided.
She got up and went to the old phone. It seemed to take forever to get there, turn the rotary for the number, and hear her friend pick up.
“Laurel,” Maia’s voice was anything but thrilled. No, it was excited to hear her, but… she was unhappy.
“Yes?” Laurel used her expectant voice, the voice that put away all of her issues in order to hear someone else’s, the voice Dylan told her she used too much.
“Now, you know how much I hate bitches who cry,” Maia began, sounding like she might rapidly be turning into one such bitch. “But I need to come over. Or have you come over.”
“I’ll be right over. I’ll leave a note for Mom and put the foyer light on. I don’t feel like sitting around here right now.”
“Great,” Maia said. “I’ll… I’ll put some tea on.”
“Tea?”
“That’s what women are supposed to do. That or eat lots of ice cream, and I don’t want to be fat so I guess I’ll put some tea on.”
Laurel didn’t argue with this, she just said, “I’ll be over in ten minutes.”

“So, he’s not the father?”
“No.” In her bedroom, Maia shook her head.
“So this girl put him through a pregnancy scare, and then it turned out she was lying.”
“Exactly,” Maia said.
Before Laurel could speak, Maia said, “And so you may be thinking, what’s the problem, then?”
“No, I’m not,” Laurel said, soberly. “You thought he was yours. He was supposed to be. You had an understanding. Everyone knew that. And he went and had sex with this girl. I get it.”
Maia nodded.
“I always thought I would be with him,” she said. “I counted on that, and now I am. But…” she shook her head.
“You know,” Laurel began, “he didn’t have to tell you. He could have kept it from you.”
“I wish he had!” Maia burst out. “Why did I have to know that?”
Next, she sounded more as if she was speaking to herself than Laurel.
“But then I wouldn’t want to not know it. No, I would want to know. I’d have to know! I wouldn’t want someone who kept things from me.”
Maia’s face went flat.
“I don’t know.”
The girls sat there quietly, and Laurel said, “I know he loves you.”
“Yes, I know it too.”
Laurel took a sip of her tea and said, “I’m not really into tea.”
“Me neither. It was a sophisticated idea. I don’t know,” Maia continued. “Maybe that’s the problem. Too much sophistication. After all, I’m sixteen, what does all this matter?”
Maia got up from the bed. She picked up Laurel’s cup and saucer, and then her own. She walked out of her room into the hall, and Laurel could hear her talking to Melanie in the kitchen.
When Maia came back in, she looked at Laurel.
“There is something going on with you. I’ve been talking so much, and something is going on with you.”
“I’m not ready to talk about it,” Laurel said.
Maia looked at her, cocked her head.
Suddenly, Laurel said:
“I broke up with Alex today. It’s over.”
Throwing her hands across her face, Maia burst out weeping.



Dylan Mesda sat opened mouthed, looking at Elias.
“He gets home tomorrow,” Elias said, “so we better work something out.”
“Why didn’t you tell me this before?”
“How was I supposed to tell you? In what way, in what method, at what time? We’ve been steady all of six weeks.”
Dylan put up a hand.
“I’m not mad at you.”
“You don’t get to be mad at me,” Elias was a little put out.
Neither one of them spoke immediately, and then Elias said, “I used to think you did, though. Both of you. But I’ve told you, and now I’ve got to tell him, and hit him with the double whammie.”
“I knew you’d been with someone else,” Dylan clarified. “I wasn’t so vain as to think I was the only one. I just… didn’t know it was Lance.”
“And he doesn’t know about you.”
“Fuck,” Dylan said.
“Well, what are we going to do?”
“What are you going to do?” Dylan said.
“Me?”
“Right,” Dylan told him. “I know what I’m going to do. You’re my boyfriend. Lance isn’t. He already cleared that up.”
“If I choose you, and you choose me, then what about Lance?”
Dylan looked at Elias.
“We can’t leave him out in the cold,” Elias murmured.
“What are you talking about?”
“You know what I’m talking about.”
“Yes,” Dylan said, impatiently. “Only, I’m not exactly sure what we’re supposed to do about it.”
“We need to talk to him,” Elias said. “I love him. You love him. He loves us. We’re a family. Just like you said at New Year’s.”






“Alright,” Lance said over the phone. “Whaddo you need to talk about?”
“You sound so calm,” Elias said.
“Of course I’m calm. Why wouldn’t I be? Cept I’m excited to get home to you guys tomorrow.”
“You guys?”
“Yeah, you and Dylan.”
“You need to be quiet and listen to two things. Three things maybe. Possibly four.”
Lance chuckled, but Elias said, “No. I’m completely serious.”
“Alright, Eli,” Lance said, gently. “You got my ears.”
“I am dating Dylan. I am his boyfriend.”
“Really?” The sound of Lance’s voice was indescribable.
“Yes,” Elias said. “You can’t just have him and not have him.”
“I know that.”
“Or me for that matter.”
“I wasn’t expecting it.”
Elias didn’t believe that, but he continued, “The other thing is this: I am in love with you. The more I fall in love with Dylan, the more I am in love with you. I am in love with us.”
“What the hell are you saying?”
Elias shook his head, but realized Lance couldn’t see that.
“Look,” he said. “I’m not even sure. I’m just… ”
“Are you talking open relationship or something.”
“I don’t know,” Elias said, even though he realized this was exactly what he was talking about. “Just… Just think it over. Good night.”
Nervously, he hung up the phone.

“So this is your apartment,” Milo said, looking around.
Maggie nodded, and swung her joined hands behind her back.
“Yup,” she said. “This is it.”
“Nice.”
“Mom makes a fair amount of money,” Maggie explained. “And then I’m working at the drugstore too.”
“Great,” Milo nodded, walking around. “Great.”
There was an awkward silence, and then Milo said, “I’ve never had a daughter before.”
“Of course you have,” Maggie pointed out. “That Dena has one.”
“Cara is a baby. Almost a baby. My God,” he looked at Maggie. “You’re a woman. You’re like a grown up. And I never knew about you. How come I never knew about you?”
“I don’t know,” Maggie said. “I always thought Mom had a reason for not talking about it, so I didn’t ask. You could have been a murderer or a rapist or, I don’t know, her brother. Her father. Weird crap like that.”
“Well, then when did you ask?”
“About a year ago. And I don’t know why,” she headed off the next question. “I just knew I had a father and a family out there and I didn’t have a lot of family in New Mexico. Or anywhere. So Mom told me who you were, your name. I looked you up. Everyone is look-up-able now, and I just came to live here, see if I liked it. I needed to be away from her, but close to family. And so…”
Maggie shrugged.
“You’ve done a lot of damage.”
“That Dena—”
“Dena is my wife, and you can’t call her That Dena.”
“I don’t like your wife,” Maggie said. “She’s got an attitude.”
“She’s a nice woman.”
“No, she’s not,” Maggie said. “And neither am I.”
“You have so much family,” Milo said. “You’re an Affren.”
“I’d rather be a Biggs, no offense.” Then she added. “At least for now.”
“A’right,” Milo nodded. “You’ve got a little sister and a little brother. You’ve got cousins. Meredith lives in town. You’ve got a grandmother, my mom, but you might not want to get excited about that.”
“Why, is she a bitch?”
Milo looked like he was about to reprimand her, but then he said, “Dena doesn’t like her.”
“Then she might be my kind of person.”
“And,” Milo went on, ignoring this, “you have a great-grandmother who would love to meet you. That is, if you want to be a part of this family.”
“Do I have to like your wife?”
“You have to respect her.”
“Can we just settle for being civil?”
“Civil’s a good place to start.”
Maggie folded her arms across her chest, and then she shook Milo’s hand and nodded saying, “Daddy’s—little—girl.”

TOMORROW NIGHT, THE WEEKEND PORTION WILL BE COMPLETELY DEVOTED TO THE END OF THE FAMILIES IN ROSSFORD.

 

[CharmedFan28]

Sorry I am posting so late, I had work then got a new phone so it has been a busy day. Lots going on and I am enjoying it. I am glad Milo and Maggie are trying to be in each others lives, I hope it works out well. Sounds like Bennett might have lost his girlfriend in the process of being honest, I will have to wait and see about that. So Laurel is single now? Interesting. I am glad Dylan and Elias were honest with Lance and I am excited to see what happens with the three of them. Great writing and I look forward to more tomorrow!

 

[ChrisGibson]

Well, of course people have lives and of course if you're in Brisbane you aren't posting late at all, but be aware that with fourteen hours difference, after about five o clock your time your might not hear back from me. There is so much to come and it will all be revealed tonight. In two parts.

 

[ChrisGibson]

THE END OF CHAPTER THIRTEEN: FAMILY


Dylan and Elias were waiting for the Greyhound to pull in, and when Lance got off, gym bags hanging from his shoulders, Dylan took one and Elias the other while Lance, in the middle, chuckled and threw an arm over each of them.
“Elias had been talking crazy,” Dylan said as the three of them went to the car.
Lance squeezed his shoulder and his hand caressed Elias’s back.
“Have you been talking crazy?” he said, indulgently.
Elias looked at both the older and the oldest boy, Dylan a very little taller, Lance nearly taller by a foot.
“I don’t appreciate the two of you talking down to me. I think I’m the only one of us who has any sense half the time.”
Lance and Dylan looked at Elias, who hefted the bag into Lance’s stomach and then said, “I’ll be in the car, and the two of you can look clever and old on your way to meet me.”


“It is crazy!” Lance said, later on in his garage, “when you’re talking about me fucking you and you fucking Dylan and all of us just piling in and having threeways and orgies and what the not.”
“Oh, my God, that’s not what I said!” Elias said.
“Then what did you say?” Dylan jammed his hands in his pockets and looked troubled.
“Both of you have done far more crazy shit than I’ve ever done, so why are you looking at me like I’m the Antichrist for citing the obvious?”
“I don’t do… orgies and all that.”
“But you will sleep with girls to prove you’re straight.”
Lance frowned and corrected, “I did sleep with a couple of girls. And I was younger.”
“You were my age,” Elias returned.
“Exactly,” Lance said, losing patience. “A very foolish age.”
“It’s not the age that was foolish,” Elias muttered.
Dylan opened his mouth, but Elias continued, “And you… let’s not start with you.”
“Don’t,” Dylan said, looking suddenly dangerous. “You are my boyfriend. Don’t you dare fire back at me things I told you in the dark.”
“I’m not.”
“You are,” Dylan’s voice was heated.
“Maybe,” Elias allowed, his voice cool. “But the two of you are so hung up on sex—and on convention—that you’re not hearing what I’m saying.”
“What are you saying?” Lance sounded desperate.
“That we should be a family. It’s done all over the world. Polygamy, polyamory. I’m not talking about threeways, though…. If we wanted that, so what? And is it wrong if all three of us sleep in the same bed? We’ve done it before.”
“We weren’t,” Dylan stumbled over his words. Suddenly he understood what it was to be his father, to be someone liberal and uninhibited finally confronted with his limitations. “We weren’t all having sex in one bed, though?”
“But so what if we did?” Elias pled.
“You want that?” Lance looked upset.
“Why wouldn’t I want it?” Elias said. “What would be so bad about it?”
The two older boys turned away.
“But that’s not the point,” Elias continued. “The point is Dylan is mine. You’re mine,” he said to Dylan. “But I want him to be yours, too,” he said to Lance. “I’m giving him to you. I want to go home and be at peace about the two of you being with each other, and me being with you and all of that. I want us to be a family. Not an orgy, not with a fourth member. And I don’t want us lying and sneaking around each other’s backs, hurting each other, leaving one out. I want… A threeway marriage. Not a three way.”
Neither Dylan nor Lance looked at each other, or Elias for that matter. Elias went to Dylan and turned Dylan’s face to look at him.
“I’ve never seen you look afraid,” Elias told him. “Until now.
“And you,” he said to Lance, “shouting at me and twitching every five seconds.”
“No one’s shouting at you—” Lance began, but Elias ignored it, saying, “I think the only reason the two of you are fighting me so much, and acting so shocked, is because you want this too. But… you don’t think you deserve it.”
He let Dylan go and went to the side door of the garage.
“Elias,” Lance said, reaching out for him.
“I’ve said what I have to say,” Elias Anderson told them. “The two of you can work the rest out for yourselves.”

“Why are you telling us this?” Laurel said, and Maia nodded.
From where he sat on the bed, knees pulled up to his chest, and looking for all the world like a blue eyed, well hairstyled grasshopper, Lance said frankly, “Because you’re not crazy.”
Maia nodded.
“If it’s just something secret, then… well, maybe we’re nuts,” Lance went on. “Some sane people, people from the outside, can tell us if this is crazy.”
“Crazy as in sick,” Dylan said miserably, and looked out of the window, fiddling with the curtain.
“You know there’s no way you can tell your father,” Maia told him. “I mean, not everything. This is too much.”
“Yes,” Dylan agreed. “I’ve got that.”
“We know it’s weird,” Lance said with mild impatience. “But is it wrong?”
Maia looked to Laurel.
“It’s wrong for me,” Laurel said, slipping her finger into her shoe to loose an imaginary pebble. “But it seems pretty practical for the three of you.”
“Besides,” Maia added, “if you all didn’t want to do it, you wouldn’t be sitting her talking to us about it.”

In the hallway Dylan said, “You alright?”
“Yeah,” Laurel said.
“Alex was a good guy.”
“He still is a good guy,” she added. “He’s just not my good guy.”
Dylan jammed his hands in his pockets and leaned against the wall, “So, when do I get to meet this Moshe?” he over pronounced his name.
“I don’t know. I don’t even know if I’m ready to meet him.”
“Is he hot, at least?”
Laurel shrugged. “I think you’d fuck him.”
Dylan laughed and turned away.
“Since when did that count for anything?” he said.

“Dad, can I stay at Lance’s?”
“Um hum,” Fenn waved him off, and Dylan kissed him on the cheek and went up the back stair. Fenn ashed his cigarette and continued sucking his smoothie through a straw.
“So,” Todd wondered, the very tall man looking up the staircase, “Whaddo you think’s going on with him and Lance? And with Elias and all?”
“I don’t know,” Fenn said, unwrapping his taco, “and tonight I don’t care.”
He reached into the bag at the middle of the table for cups of sauce.
“Ah!” he said with delight, pulling out the plastic cup with the chili sauce.
As Fenn opened the chicken tacos, and he began to pour on chili sauce he said, “They have lives. But we’ve got lives too. We’ve got much more important things to worry about than what our children are doing all the time.”
“Like our love,” Todd said affectionately.
“Well, yes,” Fenn acknowledged, touching Todd’s hand with a brief, impish smile.
“But I was thinking more about these chicken tacos.”

“Are you going to tell me about you and Dylan?” Paul said.
“I wanted to make sure there was something to tell first,” Elias told his father.
Paul’s nose seemed to be getting even larger, sniffing for revelation.
“There is,” Elias said. “There is and, if it’s alright, we’re going to be dating.”
Elias self edited. He certainly would not bring up his suggestion which had nearly thrown the worldly Dylan into shock, and he certainly wasn’t going to let on that he and Dylan had been having sex. He remembered one of the first times, and how sex was sometimes more about love than either pleasure or skill, how they had readjusted and readjusted and fumbled and Elias had lain flat while Dylan fucked him. Dylan came almost immediately, staggering and mumbling an apology through his orgasm. For a while he felt Dylan, still inside of him, thrusting in the aftermath. Dylan came out and turned on his side, looking at Elias like, “So, how bad was it?”
They had been together long enough to have mediocre sex, and that had to say something.
“What’s on your mind?” Paul asked.
Elias shook his head and chuckled.
“Love,” he said.
There was a knock on the back door, and a few moments later, Kirk came up the hall.
“It’s for you, Eli.”
Eli made a face, moved past Paul and past Kirk and went to the kitchen.
Dylan and Lance were in the kitchen, in hoodies, Dylan in a white tee shirt, Lance in a polo shirt.
“Stay with us tonight?” Lance said.
Paul said, “That’s a great idea.”
“Go on upstairs,” said Kirk. “Pack for tomorrow.”
Elias looked to Dylan and Lance who looked unreadable. Lance had never been stupid. He just didn’t have the mercury of Dylan or of Elias. Lance was, in many ways, like Elias’s fathers. He was solid, stalward; deliberate thinking, very much one generation removed from an Indiana farm town. That was the worst thing about him, how you couldn’t tell what was going on behind his eyes. Elias nodded and went upstairs thinking that, if either of his parents had any idea of half of what was going on between the three young men, they would never have let Elias go off with Lance and Dylan.

Lance’s bedroom was bigger than he remembered. Elias sat very quietly between the two people he loved most in the world. Well, no that wasn’t right. But there was a way of loving that only went toward these two. They filled his heart. Had he said something wrong to them? Had he taken them too far? Had he accused them of both being stupid? Yes.
Dylan took his hand, very shyly. Elias looked to him, but Dylan looked down at his lap.
With equal shyness, Lance kissed Elias on the cheek.
Now Dylan turned and kissed him too. It was all very formal, and Elias let himself be kissed by both of them. He moved away from them and brought their faces together. Elias watched the two of them kiss with growing passion, hands in hair, shyness forgotten, and then they both turned to him. It was unbelievable. He felt out of himself. He felt himself growing hard, his cock stretching painfully in his jeans, and he understood that, even though he’d said it didn’t have to be like this, he wanted it like this, Lance on one side, kissing up and down his back, Dylan kissing his eyes, reaching under his shirt, the two of them stopping to fiercely kiss each other, Lance working to pull his belt off. Suddenly no one was nervous anymore, but Elias felt like, should he speak, his spirit would become so light it would fly out of his mouth. Dylan’s mouth went to his throat while, fiercely, Lance tugged down Elias’s jeans. The two people he loved most were going to make love to him.
“Dill,” Lance said, businesslike, “Get up and make sure the door’s locked.”
Dylan held Elias’s face and looked into his eyes. Then he kissed him hard, got up from the bed and, shirtless, still in jeans, went to lock the door.
He hopped back on the bed. Elias was in his underwear, Lance in his boxer briefs. Dylan quickly undressed and got on the bed with them.
“So we’re gonna do this?” Dylan said.
Lance nodded, suavely as he ran a hand over Elias’s shoulder, down his arm, over his side.
“Alright,” Dylan said smoothly, running his hand under the band of Elias’s dark briefs, and pulling them down, “then let’s do this.”


WHEN WE RETURN, THE EPILOGUE

 

[CharmedFan28]

That was a great ending to this chapter! I am glad Elias, Dylan and Lance worked things out to come to what they wanted to be. I look forward to the epilogue later on!

 

[ChrisGibson]

E P I L O G U E

The last time Layla Lawden had worn a white gown upon entering a house of worship was ten years ago, when Will had thwarted her wedding to Kevin Royce. Then it had been just after Thanksgiving, now it was late in summer, right after the time of fasting that ended at Tisha Bav. She was in piles and piles of white. Her mother and her grandmother, Marta Fromm and Laurel Houghton, had to help her out of the car. Maia straightened the veil over her face. She came out a thing of beauty.
The bells from the steeples rang merrily, for these were the carillons of Saint Barbara’s. The long and short of it was how long it took for a conversion to go through, and how good the priest at Saint Barbara’s was about letting a fourth generation member marry here, especially when she and the spouse had been students of the school. And then there was the rabbi.
There was no a rabbi in Rossford who would perform the wedding, and not a rabbi amongst their Orthodox friends who could. And then Layne Brown, the wife of Rabbi Brown at Or Chodesh Reformed revealed that she was a qualified rabbi.
“I did to see if I could.”
She, to her husband’s consternation, would perform the wedding.
The Fromms, who seemed to not care about the lack of Orthodoxy seeing as Layla was an impressive woman on her way to being a Jew, and the aunt of Laurel, whom their son had his eye on, gathered together a choir knowing that, “Liberal Jews like that sort of thing.”
“This time I didn’t bet against you,” Fenn whispered, squeezing his niece’s hand.
Neither Tom nor Bryant were in the loft. Bryant sat with his brother, talking to Jonah, and Tom kept looking back from where he and Lee sat with Dylan, Elias and Lance Bishop.
As the women straightened Layla’s gowns, from the loft the choir sang:

Ashrei!
Avrid me, galanica que ya va 'manecer.
Avrid me no vos avro, mi lindo amor.
Esta noche yo no duermo, pemsando
en vos Yale, yale, yale, bombon.

“It sounds Mexican,” Elias commented.
“It is Mexican,” Lance said. “Sort of. It’s Ladino.”
“How in the hell did you know that?” Dylan whispered on the other side of Elias.
“Am I not allowed to know things?”
“Here we go again,” Elias murmured.
Along with spring break and Easter, and then with the extended summer that was ending, where Lance would go back to school, and Dylan would begin at Loretto, the dimensions of their new relationship were being learned. Because all three of them were amorous and affectionate, three to a bed sometimes worked. But they were all also fairly temperamental and solitary, and so for one of them to say, “You take him, I’m sleeping at home,” worked too. By May they had infuriated each other. By the end of May Elias, at least, was sure he could not live without either of them.
Logic said that Bennett should be the one in a happy relationship, but Maia was not ready to forgive, or to trust just yet. Elias did not exult in this. Bennett was his twin, and then a shadow passed over him so often thinking of his love with Lance, and with Dylan. He remembered talking to Jonah soon after the three of them had come together.

“I want all three of us to be together forever.”
“Well, why won’t you be?”
“It didn’t happen for you.”
“I didn’t want it at the time.”
“Do you think of Keith?”
“God, yes,” Jonah confessed. “Now all the time. More than ever. It seems like the more I love Sean, the more I appreciate Keith.”

But an unsympathetic voice interrupted Elias’s thoughts and Dylan and Lance’s squabble.
“Do you all think you could have your lovers’ squabble after the wedding?” Maggie Biggs leaned forward and whispered. She was sitting beside her great-grandmother, and never had an old woman been so pleased as Barb Affren at a new addition to the family.
“Are you really going to always be around us?” Elias asked her sourly.
“Manners,” Lance reminded him, affecting to pay attention to his shoe.
As the wedding party processed toward the altar, that today was a bema, a hand reached out and caught Laurel’s, and Dylan looked to see the handsome, swarthy face of Moshe Fromm. Laurel was right about him, but he had eyes only for her and she for him. He kissed her hand, and she turned away to hide her smile. On their side, beside Dylan, Bennett and Matthew sat, Bennett looking at Maia.
“I see you,” she mouthed, and with a smile she turned away.
And of course there was Will. Well, of course the bride was the star, but Will in black suit and beautiful white tallit, white kippah on his head, was her heaven. By him stood Liam and also a blond woman named Pam with two other Brits who claimed to be from the adoption agency in England. Will came to receive his wife under the canopy. She, all flowing in white, circled him once, twice, seven times, and joined hands with him before Layne Brown. Then, the rabbi’s wife who complained that she could never cantor, chanted the ketubah.
“He looks sharp as hell, doesn’t he?” Sheridan whispered to Brendan.
“That’s our Will,” Brendan said.
“Almost makes you want to live back in Rossford.”
“Almost,” Brendan said. “But only almost.”
Casey and Chay sat beside them. Logan Banford sat on the other side of Brendan, and he said, “Sheridan, you’d look good in a get up like that.”
“It’s called a tallit and a kippah,” Casey said precisely.
“My, don’t you get high and mighty when you put those glasses on,” Logan rejoined. “At any rate, you and Bren standing up there doing the same thing: it’s an idea.”
Sheridan looked at Brendan, who gave a casual shrug and said, “Well, now that’s true. It is an idea.”
“I think,” Kenny said behind him, “it’s a good idea.”
“What about us?” Ruthven asked him with a wink.
“No, Ven,” Kenny differed. “That’s not a good idea at all.”

Layne Brown stepped out and said, “And now I present to you, at long last, Mr. and Mrs. William—”
“Lawden,” Will said quickly.
“What?” Layla said.
“Your name means everything to you.”
“That’s right,” Layla said. “And that’s why I’ve been thinking about taking yours all this time.
“Klasko,” Layla said. “Layla and Liam Klasko.”
Layne beamed back at them and cried, “I present to you the Klasko family!”
Everyone stood up to cheer and, at the altar, Adele, who was weeping, hugged the crying Margaret Klasko, and then she said to Fenn, “Are you crying too?”
Putting the back of his hand to his face, Fenn grumbled, “This sun is so damned bright. It’s so bright.”
“It’s not bright,” Todd argued. The tall man took a handkerchief out of his breastpocket. “And I am crying.”

That night the families in Rossford rejoiced. There was a great reception at the large white house Hoot and Adele had bought thirty years ago and children, Claire and Julian’s children, Meredith’s son and daughter, Bob and Cara, ran up and down the stairs and through the yard until they were sleepy or irritable and it was time to be carried off to bed. In one grand concession toward peace, Maggie told Dena, “I will take Bob and Cara home. You can stay here.”
At Dena’s wary expression, Maggie said, “Or you can forget me offering to do anything for you again.”
While Maggie walked out with the children, Dena said, “She reminds me of someone.”
“Yes,” Meredith and Layla said together, not daring to look at each other, “she does.”
Elijah was asleep on Meredith’s lap, and Mathan came for him. Then Charlie came for Meredith and said, “Shall we?”
Charlie’s son waited for Maggie to come downstairs with her little brother and sister, and when she returned he said, “Shall we?” and she nodded regally and said, “We shall.”
Well into the night, the tall Moshe Fromm danced with Laurel and Layla, sitting down beside Brendan, said, “She’s going to be the new belle of the ball. I can see it. Can’t you?”
As the night wound down, Jonah Layton approached her.
“Thank you for coming,” she said, wrapping her arms around him. She hugged Sean too.
“Thank you for inviting us.”
“I hope you took some food.”
“We had enough.”
“No, get some cheesecake, and one of those bottles of champagne. We got too much.”
Sean shrugged and, feigning humility, said, “Well, if you insist.”
While Sean was gathering up things, Elias spoke with Jonah. Now and again he looked to Lance and Dylan, remembering what he had said to Jonah:

Sean and Jonah drove to their apartment in high spirits, and as Sean parked, Jonah said:
“You leave the lights on?”
“Could have sworn I turned them off,” Sean muttered. He climbed out of the car, followed by Jonah. Jonah opened the door without reaching for his key and frowned when it turned out to be unlocked.
“Who’s in here?” Sean barked, walking in ahead of Jonah.
The place smelled glorious, though, as if someone was cooking. Jazz played low on the stereo.
“Who?” Sean barked again, “is in our house?”
“Relax,” a voice shouted back. “Relax already.”
They heard the sound of a flushing toilet and then, in khakis and a white shirt, his glasses in his breast pocket, he stepped out.
“Ohhh,” Jonah said breathlessly.
Keith approached them, and Sean and Jonah looked like the disciples at the empty tomb.
Suddenly Sean kissed him, and Jonah embraced him, kissing him on the cheek.
“Keith! Keith Richmond.”
“I found you,” Keith said, kissing Jonah’s ear and rubbing his shoulder fiercely.
“I found you.”


THIS CONCLUDES THE FAMILIES IN ROSSFORD. THE NEXT ROSSFORD STORY, THE ENDS OF ROSSFORD WILL BE, JUST AS IT SUGGESTS, THE END OF OUR LONG ROSSFORD DRAMA, BUT WE WILL HAVE SOME MORE STORIES BEFORE I POST THAT.

ALSO, THE BONUS SUPPLEMENT COULD NOT BE POSTED HERE BECAUSE OF FORMATTING ISSUES,SO MATT, PLEASE CHECK YOUR EMAIL FOR IT.

 

[CharmedFan28]

That was a very well done ending! I am glad Layla and Will were finally able to get married. I am also glad that Liam seems to be able to stay with them. I hope he can at least. I thought this was the last Rossford story so it was a happy surprise that there will be another one eventually! Great writing and I got your email so thanks for that! Have a wonderful weekend!

 

[ChrisGibson]

Liam's there's for keeps, after six stories, Will and Layla are married with a kid, not to mention all of the other stuff. I'm not quite sure what I'm posting next, but it will take us out of the Rossfordverse for a while until we get to THE LAST STORY. There have been other stories posted here that take place after Rossford, but I had to erase the Rossford characters from thembecause it would reveal final outcomes, so the Rossford folks never really go away. Thanks for reading and following everyone so far. It means a great deal.