The Hidden Lives of Virgins

[ChrisGibson]

TONIGHT, A TRIP IS PLANNED AND ANOTHER ONE FOLLOWS

LUKE CRAWLED OUT of his bed in the study, and went next door to where Cedric and Ida and Ralph were still up.
They all looked up at him.
“I just wanted to say thanks,” he said. “Because no one’s ever... done this for me before. I mean... people aren’t like this. I just wanted to thank you guys—all of you. Mr. Fitzgerald, Mrs. Law— ”
“Oh, now stop,” Ida waved it off, smiling so that her face turned into a maze of crinkles. “Honey, that’s what life’s about.”

The whole January world was covered in white except for the black line of Michael Street, and the black square of the parking lot across the field. Vaughan was in the BBC- orium watching a taped rerun of Monarch of the Glen and debating with himself if he should try out for something next year. If even Tina Foster was getting involved in school, then maybe it was time to re-evaluate how he thought of involvement. Maybe he’d even get into the next musical.
“Ta! Da!”
Vaughan turned around to see Ian and Mackenzie.
“The two of you look so retarded,” he told them.
“Yes, that’s the point of a band uniform,” Ian told him. “I thought you knew that.”
“I’d had my sneaking suspicions.”
` “And if you had been in band,” Mackenzie said, flopping down beside his old friend, the visor of his large hat falling into his face, “then you would be going to Florida with us.”
“Flor...? What!” Vaughan shouted.
“It’s not in Chicago. We got third place for the band competition... which is Florida. Go fig.” Ian grinned. “I can’t wait to get out my Speedo.”
“And let the whole state see how pale and white we are?” Mackenzie raised an eyebrow.
“I can’t believe you’re going to Florida,” Vaughan said, sounding winded.
“If you’d just played that triangle like I suggest-= ”
“Stuff it, Mackenzie.”
Ian and Mackenzie thought that “stuffing it” would be a very good idea. They had already said that what would suck about it was not being able to take Vaughan along. They knew he would put on a good face about it, but this couldn’t be pleasing. It wasn’t until they’d left Vaughan’s house that they said anything.
“I don’t want to room with Fatass again,” Ian said.
“I don’t want Kirby and the Dorks Everlasting,” Mackenzie said as they were coming down the steps. Snow had begun falling, but he was suddenly conscious of the fact that his hair was one of his best features, and he didn’t want to hide it or his face under a hood. He was turning vain.
“Wanna room with me?” The phrase came out so quickly he wasn’t sure if Ian had comprehended it.
Ian looked like he hadn’t, and then, suddenly, he broke out into a smile and said, “Yeah. This’ll be great.”
For so many reasons, Mackenzie knew Vaughan could not have been present when he’d made that proposition to Ian.

FRIDAY EVENING, RODDER came bounding up the stairs of 1959 Michael Street. Madeleine, in a windbreaker and sweatpants, saw him from the living room window, and was about to tell him he was far too early and she was nowhere near dressed when she took in his blue jeans, his parka, and the ridiculous winter hat with its pom pom and knew he wasn’t either. She opened the door for him and he bounced into the house victoriously, pom pom bobbing on his head. He was wearing his glasses for God’s sake, and they were steamed over.
“Look!’ he shouted at Madeleine, and thrust the paper at her. “I almost killed myself getting over here.”
“Well that would have been counter productive,” she noted in a loud voice, and then shouted, “Oh, my God, you got into MSI! How did you?”
“I applied early,” Rodder shouted. “I applied early, and got accepted early and they want me to go down for an interview over spring break and….” Suddenly Rodder managed to catch his breath. “Maddy,” he said, “what are you doing?”
“Now or over spring break?”
“No. School wise, I mean?”
“School wise... I hadn’t really thought about it.”
“Well, it’s senior year,” Rodder said.
“And you have apparently been thinking about it a long time.”
“I didn’t want to say anything because I didn’t know what would happen.”
“But I don’t know if I should... Rod, I don’t even know if I want to go to school. I’m not you. I can’t do it all. I’m not a genius athlete. I can do one thing and everything else is sort of... Urgh!” Madeleine threw her hands in the air in frustration.
Rodder came near her.
“And yes, Rod, I’m very happy for you,” Madeleine said. She refrained from asking him, “Now what the hell am I supposed to do?”


“This mall blows,” Ian told his cousin as they crossed the crowded food court, and went into the Banana Republic.
“You would think there would be one place in here where I could find a nice shirt.”
“This is nice,” said Roy, who had wandered to a rack of soft, blue cotton long sleeves.
“Can I help you?” the shopgirl asked.
Ian shook his head, intimidated by the glamour of the clerks here. “No, that’s all right.”
She’s a clerk for God’s sake!
“Let me see that,” Ian murmured to his cousin.
Roy handed it to him.
“This is nice,” Ian discovered. “Shit, the price, though.”
“You could probably get the same thing at Wal Mart,” Roy instructed him.
Ian looked offended.
“I am not buying Mackenzie anything from Wal Mart for his birthday,” Ian examined the shirt. He liked the buttons that the tag said were made from cottonwood. “This is classy. He’ll look nice in this. He can even wear it when we go to... Well, no. It’ll be to hot. Maybe I should get him a short sleeve.”
“Maybe you should get him both.”
Ian, oblivious to Roy’s sarcasm, said, “Maybe I will!”
“That’ll be two weeks of allowance money and part of the stash Uncle Sam and Aunt Lee gave you.”
“Well, I wasn’t going to do anything else with that money except buy weed,” Ian said in a low voice. His eyes lit up. “Let’s find a short sleeve, now.”
The short sleeve they chose was yellow. Ian confessed he liked the blue best because it brought our Mackenzie’s hair.
“You’re nuts,” Roy said.
“What?” Ian turned to Roy as he stood in line with the shirts.
“You haven’t been this nuts over someone since Cindy.”
Ian frowned. He decided not to reflect on that too much.
“You’re nuts over Ryan right now,” Ian accused. “Why can’t I be nuts over Mackenzie?”
“You’re not nuts over Vaughan.”
“Of course I am,” Ian protested a little too loudly. “It’s not his birthday.”
“You don’t go on about Vaughan’s eyes and hair.”
“Shut up, Roy!” Ian said suddenly, looking around to see if anyone had heard. His cousin had gone white.
“Sorry,” Roy said.
Ian stared at the two shirts, feeling a little embarrassed.
“Go get yourself something,” Ian told Roy.
“What?”
“Go get yourself something. I’m buying.”
Roy knew better than to protest. One day he would ask his cousin why it was easier to spend money than say he was sorry.

“Vaughan’s my friend too,” Ian said while they were driving back up Willow Parkway, “I just feel differently about him than I do about Mackenzie. I think about him the way.... I think about you. I think about Kenzie different is all,” Ian said.
Roy wanted to holler Enough already! But he knew he’d better not, and he knew that Ian was talking more to himself than to his cousin.
In the back of both their minds was the fatal phrase Roy had let slip out.
“He’s my friend,” Ian said. “He’s not my girlfriend.”

Roy Cane privately believed that it had been suddenly being around so many Catholics that had filled him with a need to confess. But he didn’t want to tell Ryan what he’d said to his cousin. Ryan was Mackenzie’s brother after all. So Roy decided on Vaughan. It didn’t seem to matter that Vaughan was closer to Mackenzie than was Ryan and close to Ian for that matter. Vaughan could handle this confession.
He told Vaughan everything he’d said on the Friday of Mackenzie’s sixteenth birthday. Unlike Cedric, The Fosters believed in sending their children to school every day, and so Mackenzie had actually gone to class despite Vaughan’s disapproval and muttering. They were all going over to the Foster house later. Aileen had made a cake and Kevin, in his indulgence, had bought a bottle of real wine, not the sparkling grape juice he usually got for the kids’ birthdays.
“I wouldn’t feel too bad,” Vaughan told Roy as they were slipping their coats on, and heading downstairs. “You know, Ian’s a guy and guys get kind of sensitive when you imply that they’re queer.”
“But I didn’t say that Ian was—” Roy’s eyes bulged, and despite the fact that he was weedy and had Ian’s face, he looked just like Mackenzie whenever he was late to a discovery.
“I didn’t mean to say that Ian is... No wonder,” Roy shook his head. “Maybe I should tell him- ”
“Maybe you should drop it?” Vaughan suggested, coming down the stairs after Roy.
Roy nodded thinking this was good advice.

But Vaughan dropped nothing. He filed things away in his head. Mackenzie drove—badly—over to the house to meet them. Ian was already in the living room. He had said that he wanted to give Mackenzie his presents before the party, and Mackenzie danced into the house crying, “Presents! Now!”
“Don’t look at me,” Vaughan told him.
Ian handed Mackenzie his first box, and Mackenzie fiddled with the wrapping paper before Ian said, “Just open it already, Kenzie!”
Mackenzie squatted on the other side of the coffee table, and ripped open the shiny paper, and then lifted up the smoke blue shirt.
“This is.... This is too much! Did you spend this much money on me, Vaughan?”
Vaughan barked out a very dry laugh.
“Oh, my God,” Mackenzie went on, and Ian looked pleased, and then Mackenzie debated the rightness of hugging Ian, decided it was perfectly fine, and threw his arms around him. Ian handed him the second box and Vaughan watched his two friends, Mackenzie making much over the gifts and the giver, asking to try one on, Ian saying that he’d better. Mackenzie took off his cream colored sweater, and slipped on the blue shirt over his wife beater. He buttoned it, leaving the tails out, Ian tugged at the sleeves and the collar, carefully, pushed the hair out of Mackenzie’s face.
“Doesn’t he look nice?” Ian marveled.
Vaughan had gotten used to the fact that Mackenzie looked nice. His friend was medium height and well built, happy looking, with blue innocent eyes. He was in baggy cargo pants and a nice shirt from Banana Republic. He’d just turned sixteen today. What Vaughan was not used to was hearing Ian comment on how nice Mackenzie looked. Vaughan looked from one friend to the other, and then to Roy whose face bore no expression. Neither of them had ever seen a happily married couple in action. Not really. But Vaughan wondered if it didn’t look something like this.

That night, after Ian and Roy left, Mackenzie and Vaughan were sitting up in his bedroom in the Foster house. Vaughan looked around. He was hardly ever in Mackenzie’s room.
“Stay here, tonight,” Mackenzie yawned, stretching out in the bed in his good clothes. “I’m too tired to go to your house.”
“Tina would probably drive me.”
“No, I meant I wanted to spend the night with you, but we’re already here, so—” Mackenzie interrupted himself with a yawn. “Man, I better take these off before I wrinkle everything. Wasn’t Ian great?”
“Yeah. I mean, yes.”
“Vaughan, would you reach into my closet and get my pajama bottoms. You can have a pair of my sweats. Or I think there’s another set of pajama bottoms. Or you can have mine if you don’t feel like all that.”
Mackenzie’s closet was neat as ever. It was not hard to find two pairs of plaid pajama bottoms. They turned their backs to each other, changed, and turned back around, perfectly coordinated and not ever thinking twice about the miracle of such coordination.
They climbed into bed, Mackenzie handing over one overstuffed pillow.
“Say a prayer, Vaughan.”
Vaughan said the Our Father, both boys crossed themselves, Mackenzie reached over and turned out the little desk light over his bed.
“I should tell him,” Mackenzie said. “I don’t know how he couldn’t know.”
“Hum?” Vaughan said, yawning, and seriously not wanting to be awake.
“I should tell Ian about me. It’s weird. Did you see us? I felt like I was his wife or something.” Vaughan said nothing. “And he can’t know that’s how he makes me feel. I need to tell him. The band trip maybe... No, I need you to be with me.”
“Why?”
“What if Ian clocks me?”
“For being gay?”
“Vaughan, I’m pretty sure I like him.”
“I’m pretty sure he likes you.”
“I don’t mean that way.”
Vaughan was silent, and decided to pretend to sleep.

IT WAS WEDNESDAY, AND MR. WEAVER was feeling ticked off again. He tried to catch Vaughan Fitzgerald in the act, but he knew that however “not there” the boy was, he would always come together to answer any question thrown at him by a teacher, and he would answer it perfectly.
And Mr. Weaver knew that Vaughan was not daydreaming either.
He was scheming.
He’d seen that look in the boy’s eyes before. Right before a week of absences in which he’d managed to show up and still ace the exam. Right before he’d managed to get out of three weeks of detention or Bone McArthur’s Mustang had gone missing. And Mr. Weaver knew who had stolen it, even if nobody else did. This was a dangerous look for the rest of the world. Mr. Weaver thought. The boy in the front of the class looked dreamy, like a saint going to meet his martyrdom or a girl his sweetheart.
He was right. Vaughan was up to something. His heartache at not going to Florida had not lasted long before he’d decided that he owed himself a vacation, and currently he was sketching in his notebook all the things he planned to do, all the places he longed to go. More than anything he desired to visit Holy Spirit, the abbey Ralph Hanley belonged to. He had sucked up his courage and called them, and the same morning Ian and Mackenzie would be departing, Vaughan would be preparing for a two day stay.
Mr. Weaver, who knew everyone’s business, did not know this. What he did know was the immense stupidity of Mick Rafferty. Ashley Foster, a girl long considered up to no good, should have failed biology by now, but she was showing up after school for hours at a time, and Mick, lovable guy he was, was giving her a great deal of his time.
“George Stearne told me I’d better watch out,” Mick told Mr. Weaver. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
Mr. Weaver only cocked his head, and said in a low voice, “It means Ashley Foster’s a pretty girl with a pretty bad reputation.”
“She needs my help,” Mick argued.
“Still,” Weaver said, “George is a smart young man.”

It had begun at the end of the football season when Ashley’s grades had not shown improvement. She had to have known Mick would call her to his office, after all he’d said he would. When she began to cry as if the knowledge of her slipping grades were new to her, Mick suggested, “Maybe you could ask your sister for help?”
In the midst of her crying, Ashley had stopped, and her eyes had suddenly blazed up in anger.
“I’d rather die,” she said.
“Well,” Mick decided, “that could be a problem.”
The tall man stood on the other side of his desk, and stroked his chin while Ashley resumed her small series of sobs.
“We could... I have to coach the team at about four every day. If you could meet me before or sometimes after...? Here,” Mick said. “We could arrange something. Maybe?”
Ashley looked up in the midst of her tears and stopped sniffling.
“Mr. Rafferty, I would really appreciate that. I don’t want to fail. Not in my last year.” Then she said, “I hate being stupid.”
“You’re not stupid,” Rafferty said. “You just don’t.... You don’t know. High school’s not like the rest of the world. Some people get it. Some people don’t. Ashley, after this semester you won’t need to get it.” Then he added, “Unless you come back here and teach.”
Ashley suddenly smiled at that.
When Mick told George Stearne everything that night at the bar, the little man plucked his goatee and looked over his spectacles.
“Next time she cries,” Stearne said, “see if she’s ugly when she does it.”
Mick raised an eyebrow, and put down his beer.
“If a girl is trying to pull you by your dick, she’s never ugly when she cries. Real tears are gross. They redden your face and make snot come out of your nose. Look for that next time. If it’s not there, she’s shitting you.”
Mick shook his head wearily, and clapped Stearne on the back.
“George, George, George... How did you ever get to be so cynical?”
Stearne looked straight at him.
“Life,” he said.

MORE HIDDEN LIVES TOMORROW NIGHT!

 

[CharmedFan28]

Sounds like Mr Weaver has it in for Vaughan. I hope Vaughan doesn't get into too much trouble no matter what he did or didn't do. Mackenzie, Vaughan and Ian are all very cute about tiptoeing around their feelings. I hope they get to be honest with each other eventually. Great writing and I look forward to more tomorrow!

 

[ChrisGibson]

Mr Weaver's just a teacher with a troublesome student who's smarter than him, and that's a lot of teachers. I doubt he can ever truly get Vaughan in trouble, especially with a parent like Cedric. Vaughan is the soul of discretion and always right, except for when he's wrong. Too much truth too soon can be worse that evasion, but we'll see what happens with our friends, Vaughan, Ian and Mackenzie tomorrow night.

 

[ChrisGibson]

i i

The night before he and Mackenzie were to leave, Ian Cane called up Vaughan.
“What do you want from Florida?”
“You can’t afford to buy another thing,” Vaughan told him.
“Don’t you judge my bank account,” Ian said bravely, knowing that Vaughan was right. “Whaddo you want?”
“Miami.”
“Something a little smaller, maybe?”
“Disneyland.”
“That’s in California.”
“Oh, right. Can I have Disneyworld?”
“Well, if you’re not even going to be close to serious...”
“Look, I don’t know. Surprise me. I’m sure whatever you bring back will be fine, Ian.”

As Vaughan was getting ready to climb into bed, the phone rang again.
“Mackenzie?”
“Yeah. Hey, before we go I wanted to know—”
“If there was anything I wanted in Florida?”
“Yeah,” Mackenzie said, surprised at Vaughan’s clairvoyance.
“Bring me back an orange.”
“Vaughan!” Mackenzie reprimanded.
“Okay, bring me back Gloria Estefan. Look, I don’t really care. Have a good time. Don’t do anything stupid. And do spend too much money on the guilt present.”
“It’s not a guilt present. I always get you stuff when I go places.”
“Well, whatever it is, don’t spend too much money. And, you earned the trip... After having to wear those ridiculous costumes all year.”
“I think I look cute in my band uniform.”
“Goodnight, Kenzie.”
“I’m told it’s a real turn on.”
“Goodnight, Mackenzie.”

The next morning, which was Thursday, Vaughan showed up at the parking lot to watch the band kids get on the yellow bus that would take them to the airport in Fort Wayne. He had a duffle bag swung over his shoulder and a satisfied look on his face. After he’d hugged his friend goodbye Mackenzie cocked his head and with a knowing look, said, “You’re going somewhere, aren’t you?”
“Don’t you dare lecture me about cutting school.”
“Ordinarily I would, but... Does your dad even know?”
“He knows I’m going somewhere.”
“Oh, yeah. The whole Crawford Street Rule thing,” Mackenzie said, bored. Then he gave a funny shrug, made a face at his friend and climbed onto the bus.
Lindsay was making out with Derrick Todd. Tina was between her parents when she pointed and remarked, “Well look at that.”
Derrick immediately separated from Lindsay, and looked at Coach Foster and his wife who were wearing only mildly interested expressions.
Ian, who had shown up late, swung behind Vaughan and, pointing to Lindsay, said, “See, it won’t be all fun. She’s coming.”

The public transit system in Jamnia was shit as usual. The Number Two showed up more than ten minutes late. It took him the whole eastern length of Michael Street before heading up to the bus depot past Main. For the first time he took the Bashan Seven. It was as ordinary as any other bus, but it was one of the few that took you out of town. Vaughan wondered if you caught the right bus, could you ride mass transit all across the country. The idea intrigued him, sort of like riding the Chicago El across Illinois. The latter was impossible, but maybe the bus idea wasn’t.
“I will make it my goal, before I hit thirty, to see how well I can cross the Midwest on public transit,” Vaughan decided. The sky was overcast, and the snow on the tops of the houses the bus passed was grey. The bus drove docily down Main Street, and then turned into the residential area not far from where Rodder lived. The bus threaded through capillaries of little streets with little houses until it crossed Acorn Ditch and suddenly gunned it down Bashan Road. There weren’t many people on the bus now. Ever since Jamnia High School had been built, most people really felt no need to go to Bashan, Ohio. Whitened fields stretched out on either side of the road as the bus sped on. There were black trees in the distance. Vaughan was sure they were still in Jamnia City Limits, but Jamnia had a lot of building to do before its city limits were filled. Eventually this road would lead back to the sparse northern part of the city, but not until they passed Holy Spirit.
The road forked. To the east lay the highway, and Ian’s house. The bus went west and, in time, past the black trees and through the break in the woods, Vaughan could see the glimmering grey of Lake Clare in late January. Then rising up on the hill was the low, brick structure of Holy Spirit monastery.
Vaughan almost forgot to pull the cord. When he did the light went on over the driver’s head, reading STOP REQUESTED, and he looked back at Vaughan.
“At the closest drop off,” Vaughan told him.
“Son, there’s nothing here. Are you sure?”
“Yes,” said Vaughan.
When the bus stopped, trees had resumed. Vaughan thanked the driver. The bus pulled off. He was practically nowhere. He crossed the road. A narrow asphalt way went through the blackened trees. There was only the sound of crunching snow, and raspy crows. Overhead and beyond, the branches and tree trunks crisscrossed. Up and up Vaughan headed on the asphalt road until, finally, he began to see brick through the trees. Then the trees seemed to give way all at once.
Holy Spirit was a wide two story brick house with its back turned southwest upon Lake Clare. The main door was humble, carved with doves, and had a small brass handle. Across the slate roof, overlooking the lake, was a carillon over the steepled chapel, and it rang dolefully in the grey air.
Vaughan did not know what to make of Holy Spirit or of himself for coming to this place.
He moved toward the door. He had never been here by himself, so now it was strange. Vaughan was surprised to learn the door was not locked. Inside, the lobby was fairly dark, and what there was of sunlight glinted on polished terrazzo floors. Vaughan was conscious of space more than anything.
For a long time he stood there, not knowing what to do next. North, south, east and west was an equally plain door. One led out to the snowbound courtyard. Vaughan walked around the hall until the door to his right opened, and he turned about.
The young man in the brown robe beamed at him and said, “Are you Vaughan?”
“Yes,” Vaughan answered cautiously, as if this were a test and he were afraid of failing.
“Well then come on,” the man—the monk—laughed at him. “We’ve been expecting you!”

The monk was called Brother Paul. He was tall and open faced. Vaughan was shocked that a grown man could have such an open face, and he had marmalade hair. Paul wore glasses and was chatty, and Vaughan thought he might have been about twenty-five. The monk walked him up to the second floor of the house, and all around the quiet halls. Grey sunlight came through, and as they walked, Paul went on about how the friary was built in a square surrounding a preau—“Courtyard,” Paul substituted the strange word. He walked Vaughan to the side of the monastery, which faced Lake Clare, and looked at one plain wooden door as if expecting it to tell him something before pushing it open with one bare white foot.
Vaughan poked his head around and said nothing.
Paul said, “Is it too plain?”
“No,” Vaughan said.
Paul made way for him. They both stepped into the room. It suddenly occurred to Vaughan that Paul was a man, if a man in a brown robe, and was waiting for him to say something.
“I just can’t believe I’m here,” Vaughan said.
Paul sighed, seeming relieved, and then he grinned brightly.
“Yeah,” he said. “That’s how I felt my first time here. Put your bag down, and I’ll show you the rest of the place. How long are you here?”
“Whole weekend.”
“Excellent,” Paul beamed.

It was Paul who told him the whole schedule for that day and showed him the dining hall before showing him the chapel. Paul brought him into the chapel, which was practically below Vaughan’s room. He stopped when Vaughan sighed and again he said, “When I first came here, it got to me, too.”
“Where did you come from?” Vaughan’s voice was a whisper.
“Upstate New York,” Paul shrugged, contentedly. “Now my home is Jamnia, Ohio.”
The chapel was lit by hanging lanterns and, at the end, before a set of pews, Vaughan noticed what looked like the doors to a jail cell.
No one else was in the church but them. Paul, a considerably taller man, bent down and whispered to Vaughan, pointing into the darkness where the pews were, “That’s what’s left of the old grille.”
“Hum?”
“This place started out as a convent,” Paul went on in his same breathless voice. “It used to be for the Poor Clares. They were huge here. That’s why that’s Lake Clare our there. Sometimes you can almost feel them walking around, barefoot.” His voice took on a groovy rhythm, “Crowns of thorns on their heads.”
“What?”
“The Clares used to wear thorn crowns,” Paul explained. “Anyway,” the friar whispered on, “their numbers got smaller and then something else happened, but anyway they moved up north, toward Rhodes, and gave this to us. That was almost a hundred years ago.” Paul gestured around the chapel. Above their heads wood beams were crisscrossing into the dark. “We’ve built up a bit since then.”

“You’re Cedric’s boy,” said one friar who reminded Vaughan of Quazimodo.
“That’s right,” Vaughan said.
“Shouldn’t you be in school?” Then he broke off, yelling at another monk. “That’s right. You nut, I heard that!”
They were having lunch now, and at the table where they sat, Friar Jeremiah leaned over and said to Vaughan, “It’s helpful to ignore Mario when you can,” and he jabbed a thumb at the ugly friar.
“I will not be ignored,” Mario went on. “Prior, tell them not to ignore me.”
The little old man with his mild face stopped eating, smiled, and said, “Please, don’t ignore Mario. You know how he cannot bear it.”
“But you should be in school,” Mario said to Vaughan. “Shouldn’t you?”
“I’m in school right now,” Vaughan said. “It’s the school of life.”
“Smart ass,” Mario assessed.
Paul rolled his eyes and blenched. “Mario, you should have been a Benedictine.”
Mario said nothing.
The little prior remarked, “I always hated their habits.”
“There’s always the Trappists,” said Julian out of nowhere.
“Then you’d never talk again at all,” Mario said. “Look, kid, maybe you should be a Trappist. You don’t talk much do you?”
Vaughan took a sip from his water and said, “I’m having a hell of a time getting a word in around you.”
There was silence at the table.
Then Paul rolled his eyes and said, with admiration, “Oooooooh!”
Jeremiah sniggered. The prior smiled gently.
Vaughan figured, Two can play at this game.
“I’d better watch my step,” Mario told Vaughan.
“Not a bad idea,” the boy agreed, going back to his lunch.
“And so young to be so evil,” Mario commented. “I’ll pray for your soul.”
“By all means,” said Vaughan.

After lunch Paul offered to show him the grounds. Friar Julian showed up with a pack of cigarettes, and offered a Winston to Vaughan.
“I usually have Lucky Strikes,” Vaughan told him as they hopped into the Jeep, Vaughan between the two men who had hiked up their brown robes to get into the automobile.
The bald Julian assessed Vaughan to see that he, in fact, was not being shitted by a precocious kid and said, “You’ll fit in well, here.”
“I’m just visiting.”
“Wise answer,” Paul told him, and stuck the key in the ignition.
“You want one, Paul?” Julian offered. Vaughan was a little surprised to picture Brother Paul smoking.
“Not while I’m driving,” Paul said.
He showed them the old nuns’ cemetery, the convalescent home, and the new cemetery for the friars. “And this is the path with the Stations of the Cross. It’s cold, so we’ll drive it,” Paul said.
The Jeep rumbled under the black branches. Out of the snow arched blackened metal figures depicting Christ and those who had gone with him up toward Calvary.
“Stop the car,” Julian said at once.
They did. Paul looked to Julian.
“Look,” Julian gestured with his cigarette.
By Lake Clare, with no coat, walked a monk in a brown robe, and Vaughan wondered what was so amazing about him... To them.
“That’s the Floating Franciscan,” Paul explained, and Vaughan noted that he didn’t seem to be floating.
“Sometimes he’s called the Wandering Monk,” said Julian. “I’ve never seen him Float... Or do much wandering. But there he is.”
The three of them watched the other friar just stand at peace over the lake, his hands behind his back, his back toward them. Then finally Julian said, “Com’ on, Paul. Let’s go. It’s not nice to stare.”

After dinner that evening, Vaughan learned a great deal about the monastery. Julian and Paul were good friends. Julian had been novice master when Paul arrived, and though no specific age was given, Vaughan got the feeling that Paul was a little older than he had first assumed. Mario was the unofficial record keeper. In the middle of one of Brother Mario’s stories, Julian leaned back in his chair and affected a loud snore.
“I’Il forgive your rudeness and continue,” Mario said.
“I knew you would,” Julian sat up, winked, pulled a wry face, and passed a cigarette to Paul.
Mario went on to tell Vaughan how Cedric used to come here all the time.
“That’s how he met your mother. He was praying to God, waiting to enter the Order when all of a sudden, Marilyn fell through the roof on his head. I’m not lying, I saw him stagger out of the chapel. So did Julian.”
“I did not.”
Mario began to protest, but Julian added, “However I heard it about from Father Prior.”
Mario shrugged and went on, “And instead of getting Cedric, we got Ralph, which was a complete surprise. But now he’s over at Our Lady with that nutty Brumbaugh.”
“Carl wasn’t always nutty,” Julian said. “He was my novice master.”
“Yeah, but you’re a hundred and fifty years old. No wonder the old bastard’s mind is shot.”
Vaughan’s mind had been going over different lines altogether.
“My mother’s buried here isn’t she?”
“Yes,” Mario said, all at once growing quite serious.
“You were young when she died, weren’t you?” the prior said.
“She died giving birth to me.”
Paul stood up. “Do you want to go visit the grave... Now?”
“It’s almost dark,” Julian protested.
“Almost, but not yet.” Paul turned to Vaughan. “Meet me back here in five minutes, okay? I’m going to get a coat. I’ll take you to see where she’s buried.”

There was hardly any light left in the sky when they stood before the grave. Vaughan read over and over, trying to make a little sense of it: Marilyn Alexander Fitzgerald.
“I forgot my middle name is her maiden name,” Vaughan said. “I think she told me that.” And then he realized what he’d just said by the look on Paul’s face.
Paul smiled and said, “I’ll give you a secret for a secret. The first time I came here, I hated it. I had so much back home for me. I hated it because for the first time in my life I knew exactly what God wanted me to do. And I did not want to do it. I didn’t think I could. I was getting ready to pack and leave. I went to the chapel. I knelt down to pray. And then I felt this arm on my shoulder. When I looked up it was him. The Wandering Franciscan.”
Vaughan looked at Paul, waiting for him to continue.
“He never said anything. He just smiled, and then as he lifted his arm I saw he had... Wounds. In his hands. And I knew.” Paul stopped and suddenly looked very nervous.
“I shouldn’t say that,” he said.
“You think it was Francis,” Vaughan said quickly, feeling a shiver pass over him.
“I’m sure it was,” Paul said. “But it didn’t scare me. I couldn’t be scared. It wasn’t a ghost. It was a saint. It was... the opposite of a Halloween shiver. I’ve never told anyone. So you can tell me... what you were about to tell me.”
Vaughan nodded and then said, “I think because she died while I was being born, or maybe because I almost died... I’ve always seen her. Out of the corner of my eye. Now she only comes when I ask her to. I think she’s respecting my privacy. I don’t ask a lot. I don’t... need her a lot. I don’t ask lightly. But... she’s always been around. Once in a blue moon she pops up. Sometimes when I don’t want her too. Then sometimes when I do need her she’s not around at all. Every once in a while she tells me things. I don’t know when. Maybe in my sleep. I’m sure that Dad or someone else told me, but then I repeat them and Dad looks up at me, and I realize that it was my mother. Who told me. Things that only she knew. She doesn’t do it with my sister,” Vaughan said. “And I guess most people—people who die—don’t do this. So I just don’t talk about it.”
When Paul said nothing, Vaughan looked up and said, “You don’t think I’m crazy, do you?”
“Yes,” Paul said truthfully. “But not because you see your mother.” He smiled brightly.

MORE ON THURSDAY

 

[CharmedFan28]

That was a very interesting portion. I am glad Vaughan is visiting where his mother is buried. Loss is always hard but this loss would be especially hard for a person. I hope Mackenzie and Ian and co have a good trip. Great writing and I look forward to more of this story in a few days and the other story tomorrow!

 

[ChrisGibson]

From this trip will spring everything that happens from the rest of the book, and right now we are just beginning to understand Vaughan's strange relationship to his mother. Because I wasn't able to respond until now. I grant you one question.

 

[CharmedFan28]

I can't think of one at the moment so I'll get back to you.

 

[ChrisGibson]

TONIGHT MUCH IS REVEALED ON A BAND TRIP AND EVERYTHING CHANGES

i i i

“CAN I CONFESS SOMETHING?”
“You’re a man trapped in a woman’s body?”
“Hardly that deep.” Mackenzie said. He picked up a pebble and ran a pace ahead of Ian. He threw it into the deep blue water. Ian ran after him.
“What I was going to say,” Mackenzie said, “is that I generally expect things to go badly. I just knew it would rain the whole time. Or I’d be stuck with someone I hated.”
“Instead we’re the ridiculous duo,” Ian said.
“I wouldn’t say that,” Mackenzie told Ian. They walked along the shore now. The sky was long and wide. It seemed like the blue was a thin curtain about to fall away with nothing but burning light behind it
“Neither would I,” Ian said. “But Fatass said that. He said we’re the most mismatched friends in the world.”
“People say that about Vaughan and me, too,” Mackenzie said. “Maybe I just make a mismatch.”
But they did look odd together. They were about the same height, but Ian was spiky haired, olive skinned and had a dark line of hair running from his navel to his black trunks, a contrast to Mackenzie, in his red trunks and blond hair.
“What time is it?” Ian said.
“Almost time to get dressed for rehearsal.”
Ian sighed.
Mackenzie touched the other boy on the shoulder: “Hey, a few practices a day for a free trip to Florida during school is not a bad thing.”
Ian shrugged.
“Wanna skip out later and see town?” Ian suggested. He repeated himself as they headed back to the beach, and then he thumped Mackenzie.
“What?” the boy looked sharply at Ian.
“You keep doing that,” Ian said.
“What?” said Mackenzie.
“Exactly. Blanking out. You make me repeat myself. You’re cool for a minute, and then you’re out again. Roy does that. You alright?”
“Yeah,” Mackenzie said.

But Mackenzie screwed up in band practice, and got a dirty look from Lindsay. Stearne said, “Mr. Foster, I know it’s beautiful weather out here, and easy to daydream. But if we screw up, we’re defeating the real reason we’ve come.”
“We’ve come,” Douglas Totnes murmured behind Mackenzie, “to shake our asses and party.”
“Sorry, sir,” Mackenzie said.
But Ian worried more about Mackenzie’s screw ups than even Mr. Stearne. He saw more of them. His friend, whom he cared for, was increasingly distracted and worried.

At lunch Mackenzie was coming toward Ian and the group they were sitting with, when he suddenly dropped his tray, and all his food crashed to the floor. The band, as a body of dorks, turned around and applauded. Stearne only frowned and looked worried. Telling them to knock it off would only fan the fire. Ian stood up and helped Mackenzie clean up, all the time watching the spaced out look on his friend’s face. They would have to talk very quickly. They would have to eat and get back to the room so they could talk.
Lunch, making small talk, and having to make it with Fatass was unbearable.
Lindsay saying, “You’re weird as hell. What’s gotten into you, Kenzie?” was unbearable.
The way Kenzie just looked embarrassed and stupid and muttered, “I dunno,” was unbearable for Ian. No one like Kenzie should ever have to look stupid and embarrassed.
They took the elevator to the fourth floor. Ian went down the hall of the Budget Inn, and he unlocked the door. When Mackenzie entered, he shut the door right behind his friend.
“Now here’s the part where I ask what the hell’s going on in your head?” Ian demanded.
“Nothing,” Mackenzie said. Suddenly he threw up his hands and said, “I wish people would leave me alone.”
“I’m sorry,” Ian snapped.
“Not you,” Mackenzie shook his head furiously. “This—I told Vaughan. I told him that this would be the weekend that I said something. Did something.”
“What are you talking about?” Ian said.
“Sit,” Mackenzie pointed to the first of the twin beds.
Ian shrugged and sat down.
Mackenzie sat down next to him, and then got up again, stopped himself from pacing and turned around to look at Ian.
“I... You’re my friend, right?”
“God, Kenzie! Yes.”
“And you’d still be my friend... No matter what?”
“Did you kill someone?”
“Ian!”
“Sorry!”
“I,” Mackenzie took a deep breath and said, “Ian, I’m gay.”
Ian just stared at him, his mouth hanging open.
Mackenzie opened his mouth to repeat, “I said, ‘Ian, I’m—”
“I heard,” Ian said slowly, “what you said.”
Mackenzie waited for Ian to make a move. To clock him for being his roommate. To run out and tell everyone he was a fag.
“I thought I should tell you because... We’re in the same room and all,” Kenzie said.
Ian nodded dumbly.
Mackenzie repeated, “That’s why I had to tell you. And you’re my friend... I don’t want to hide that from you. And… us in the same room and everything... I thought this would be the right time to say something. But maybe there was already the right time... like before we got here... If you want to leave, get another roommate.... I... I’d understand.”
Then Mackenzie was suddenly silent, waiting for Ian to say something.
At last Ian spoke, sensibly.
“If you were... not gay, you could stay in the same room with girls. I mean,” he shrugged again, and realized he was shrugging a lot, “it would only be like a danger or something, or like deceiving her if you liked the girl you were in the room with. Or,” Ian added, “in your case... the guy.”
Mackenzie turned away immediately, realized what the instinct had given away, hoped that Ian had not picked up on it. They both froze as if maybe never moving again would stop time.
Mackenzie was hot. His body was prickling and bursting with itchy sweat. He felt like when he was in Showboat, on stage, under the lamp. Only right here he wanted to die. He actually was afraid to go on living. He didn’t breathe. Maybe if he stopped breathing then no more time would pass, or he would just fade right here.
Ian, say something!
“Kenzie,” Ian said gently. “Do you like me? That way, I mean?”
Mackenzie nodded very quickly, and then Ian stood up and touched his friend’s shoulder.
“Look at me, Kenzie,” Ian commanded.
Mackenzie turned to Ian, and he couldn’t hide anymore that he loved the face he was looking at. The face knew. The brown eyes knew they were loved. The cheeks blushed, the little triangle of hair under the lip, the hand on his shoulder knew they were loved.
“Mackenzie,” Ian said firmly. “We’ll work something out, alright? Did you hear me?”
Now it was time for Mackenzie to look stupid.
“Nod for yes,” Ian said, smiling gently at him. “We’ll work it out. I just need a little time to process it. This. Walk with me, okay? Across the beach?”
He was out of words. His voice had done all it could for the present. So Mackenzie nodded.

The two of them walked through town. This was no Miami. Or maybe it was, Mackenzie wondered. The streets were cracked, and baked to white-grey. Low white stucco buildings were everywhere, along with a few tired sea birds. The hotel Ian and Mackenzie were staying in wasn’t the only worn out hotel on the coast. As they climbed over the sea wall into the beach, they passed a clump of Hispanic kids kicking a soccer ball around. A breeze arose, blowing Mackenzie’s hair from his face. Looking back at the kids, Ian wondered if all towns were Jamnia.
“You haven’t really said anything,” Mackenzie said after a while.
“It’s my turn to give you the ‘I’m thinking,’ ” treatment,” Ian said. He grimaced into the wind. He gave Mackenzie a tight eyed smile until the gulf breeze faded away.
“That’s what my aunt would call a heavy trip,” Mackenzie said. “What I laid on you.”
Ian just looked at the water as he played with the fringe of black hair under his lip.
They walked until they were out of view of the hotel, and then Ian began to climb a pile of broken concrete slabs that probably made some kind of a barrier against high waves. Ian climbed over those, and held his hand out to Mackenzie whose brown limbs stretched over the rock, and sweat in the sun. Ian did not seem to sweat or to tan at all.
On the other side of the rocks, Ian said, “Look, there’s a boat.”
“If we fell off of these rocks, only the people in that boat would see us,” Mackenzie said. He turned around to make sure. “We’re hidden from the shore.”
“If we fell off they wouldn’t see us either,” Ian said with a wave of his hand, pointing to the boat out in the distance. “That’s not really a comforting thought.”
“When I was little, we used to go to visit our cousins who live up near Lake Erie, and we’d all go over the rock walls. But I wouldn’t go alone,” Mackenzie said. “Cause no one could see you out there. Anything could happen.”
“This whole coming out thing has made you a chatterbox again, I see,” Ian assessed.
Mackenzie looked at his friend—whom he was in love with—to see what Ian meant by this. Was he mocking him? Was he resentful? Since he couldn’t tell, he finally asked Ian.
“I’m actually flattered,” Ian said.
Then he said, turning to Mackenzie, “I know you’re not a girl.”
Mackenzie, not exactly knowing what to make of Ian’s knowledge, said, “Okay...?”
“I mean,” Ian explained, “When I—when me and Roy went shopping for your birthday present—he said that the way I acted with you was the way I used to act with Cindy. Like you were my girlfriend. You know? And I got mad at him for trying to say that I liked you that way. I mean... I do like you. And I don’t know why you chose me.”
Mackenzie still looked very confused.
Ian finally asked him, “How long have you been... Thinking about me?”
“Probably since Freshmen year,” Mackenzie said. Then he clarified, “Not dirty thoughts,” which wasn’t exactly true. “Just... I don’t know.”
“Well, I think that’s sweet, Kenzie. I mean, you’re the one whose funny and smart. And you’re nice. No, you’re a sweet guy. And you’re... I think you’re attractive,” Ian said at last. “Someone like you. I don’t know why you’re not- ”
“Straight?”
“That’s not what I was going to say,” Ian said. “I was going to say that I don’t know why you’re not attracted to someone else.”
Mackenzie gave Ian a strange look like a dog that’s heard a weird noise.
“This is turning out so weird. I thought—actually, I never honestly thought of telling you at all. I tried not to think of it. But when I had to think of it, I thought you’d hate me and now you don’t hate me at all. You’re telling me this is flattering and all of this. I don’t know what I’m supposed to… What are we supposed to do? You’re not gay, Ian!” Mackenzie reminded him, sounding a little frantic.
“Mackenzie, shut up,” Ian said, softly. “I’m trying to talk now. What I’m trying to say is that I liked buying you presents, and I liked seeing you go stupid over the things I got you. I... I had to put this thought out of my mind: that it was like getting things for my guy. Not my girl. My guy. What Roy said pissed me off because before he said it I didn’t have to think about it. Shopping for you was the most fun I’d had. I kept thinking about how you’d like this and like that, and up until now I’ve never had to think about the way I think about you. What I mean is when you told me you liked me, the reason I said we’d work something out is because I think you’re the only guy in the world... or maybe one of the only people I’d be cool about hearing that from. I mean...” Ian frowned. “I need to quit saying ‘I mean’. I don’t really know what I mean right now.”
They sat on the rocks a long time, feeling mutually blown away. Suddenly Mackenzie noticed Ian looking at him as if he were about to ask some sort of a question. Mackenzie looked back, and began to wonder about the brown eyes, the red lips, the blush in those cheeks, the funny, spiky hair, the smell of salt in the olive skinned boy’s flesh, how Ian couldn’t possibly know he was desirable. And then before Mackenzie could open his mouth to say it, Ian’s hands were in his hair, and Ian Cane’s mouth was pressed against his.
Mackenzie’s gut, Midwestern reaction was to pull away, no matter how gay he said he was. He only pulled away for a fraction of a fraction of a second. Not knowing what he was doing, not really having any experience with anyone except his pillow in those moments when no one was around, Mackenzie slowly lifted his hands, and placed them in the spikiness- which was very soft, actually,- of Ian Cane’s hair.
His mouth opened for Ian. He felt the other boy’s tongue. His own tongue began to loop with Ian’s, his mouth began to taste Ian’s over and over again. He pulled away. He kissed the eyes and the cheeks and the lips, the ears of Ian Cane. Ian held Mackenzie by the small of his back as Mackenzie kissed him over and over again. Mackenzie was getting hard. He felt like he was swimming, half asleep. This couldn’t be real.
Then he heard Ian say, weakly, “Stop.”
Mackenzie pulled away.
He realized he had halfway climbed onto the other boy. Climbing off delicately, he realized the other boy had a hard on under his trunks. Suddenly there seemed nothing more urgent in the world than to see Ian completely naked. These weren’t nasty fantasies anymore. This was real. Mackenzie was hot with sex and the sun.
Mom and Dad were younger than I am when they got together. Never before had he perceived what it must have been like, not a fantasy desire, but a need. Ash was the same age I am now, probably younger. And Madeleine and Rodder. Only... They hadn’t been with Ian.
“We need a room or something,” Ian said, trying to laugh. “We can’t do it here on the rocks.”
So Ian had admitted that they were about to do it. All sorts of questions were in Mackenzie’s mind. Shouldn’t they just kiss a little and stop at that? How would he ‘do it’ to another guy? Vaughan would have an answer? Where was Vaughan when he needed him?
Back in Ohio, the asshole!
Mackenzie suddenly held out his hand though he did not look at Ian.
“Let’s go back,” he said. “We got all afternoon.”
Ian kissed him lightly, but said nothing. He gave Mackenzie his hand.


They didn’t talk on their way back to the hotel, but they didn’t let go of each other’s hands either. When they went up the side steps and came onto their floor, Ian sighed and then began laughing. Mackenzie joined him. On the way to their room they both laughed and laughed, as if someone had gassed them with something. Ian felt light and strange, boundless.
Lindsay came out of her room when she heard them laughing.
“You two are so weird,” she said, storing all the hatred she could into the word weird.
“Thank you,” Mackenzie cut a bow and stuck out his tongue. Ian unlocked the door, and pulled Mackenzie in. They continued laughing against each other’s bodies until first Mackenzie, and then Ian ran out of laughs and half stood against each other, emptied of anything. They sat together on the edge of Ian’s bed.
Mackenzie realized that it was probably time for him to take control.
“You stay right there,” he told Ian, lifting a finger, and he got up to go to the little rest room.
Mackenzie’s heart raced. His best friend and brother was back in Ohio, but his best friend and lover was right here, waiting for him. He breathed deeply and touched the smooth place right over his heart. He made his mind practical. What would they do? He’d masturbated enough to know that there was going to be a mess. In a few swift moves he got a towel, wet cloths, and a bottle of lotion. It was water base. Good.
“Have you done this before?” Ian demanded.
Mackenzie, determinedly, only pushed Ian down and straddled him. At this, Ian started to quake with sudden nerves and Mackenzie looked down at him.
“No, stay,” Ian told him. “I want this. Just... I need to catch my breath. Nerves, you know?”
Straddled between Mackenzie’s thighs, Mackenzie sitting on his stomach, Ian tried to smile. Now, Mackenzie bent down and kissed him.
“You want me to do this?” Mackenzie whispered.
Eyes half closed, Ian brought Mackenzie’s blond head to his mouth. He whispered: “Fuck me.”
So Mackenzie did what he had always wanted to. He tasted the spot of beard under Ian’s lip. He tasted the black, thin beard. They didn’t fuck. At least not immediately. More than anything they danced on the twin bed, and neither mentioned how they wished the bed was bigger. Once they got up to pull back the scratchy comforter and be on the bed sheets. Once they moved to put the towel underneath them, and bring the lotion and wet cloths closer. But basically they tasted each other, dancing from top to bottom, moving in circles. Mackenzie pulled off Ian’s trunks first.
“Oh, my God,” he muttered, and then was on Ian’s penis, trying to see how far it would go down his throat. Ian’s hips bucked up fiercely. His hand planted in Mackenzie’s hair.
“Ah, shit,” Ian muttered. They moved like this a long time. Mackenzie working him until Ian hissed. “Move! I’m about to—Move, Kenzie!” his voice was half pleading, half angry.
Then he came violently. He cried out like he was in pain. Mackenzie moved back, and gagged a little, but stayed on him and kept sucking while Ian’s body heaved and seized with the impact of his orgasm.
When Ian had come, he was aware that he was still dripping, that his body was making a mess when Mackenzie’s mouth had moved away, and then the other boy climbed on top of him and kissed him and Ian knew they were passing his semen back and forth between their mouths. He had to shut off what he already knew Mackenzie had shut off - Mackenzie was a neat freak:
Sex is nasty.
Ian found himself moaning under the boy. Mackenzie’s sex had not gone inside him, not all the way really. It slid in and out from the spongy cleft of his ass, above his asshole. Mackenzie went between his legs, hard and larger than he thought possible. He went along his balls. He felt Mackenzie’s balls against his. The look on the blond boy’s face was determined. His tongue was between his lips. Sweat was dripping from his face. His body was so smooth, flowing around and through Ian’s. What else could be this smooth? Together they moved sharply. Together they moaned. Together they closed their eyes. Mackenzie shouted, arched up, and shot out and then together they lay in silence.


“You awake?” Ian whispered.
The other boy’s head was on his chest, and he nodded. Ian’s hands were still in his golden hair, stroking his hair.
He pulled Mackenzie a little closer to him. It was warm in that room. Their bodies were hot, and it was a sweet heat.
After they had made love, Mackenzie, in his fastidiousness, had removed the towel from under them and gently wiped Ian’s belly, Ian’s sex, then his own. He kissed him after that and let Ian pull him into his arms.
“I feel like if I talk I’ll cry,” Ian said at last. “So maybe I’ll stop talking.”

WHEN IT WAS time for dinner, Mackenzie whispered for Ian to wake up.
“I already laid your clothes out.” Mackenzie stood over him, hair tousled, bare chested in jeans, silhouetted by the sun filtering through the curtains.
“Oh,” Ian sat up, looking surprised, and swung his legs over the side of the bed.
He said, “Did you shower? I know you like to be clean and everything.”
“No,” Mackenzie shook his head.
This pleased Ian for some reason, and he said, “I feel like if I shower I’ll get you off of me. I like your smell.”
Yawning he stood up and began to pull on the boxer shorts Mackenzie had lain out for him.
“You smell- ” he said, coming close and smelling Mackenzie’s throat so that the other boy backed away and grinned, “better than cologne. I could smell you all day long.”
“You can have my smell then,” Mackenzie chuckled, and tossed Ian his favorite black tee shirt. “You can have it, bottle it, and sell it in France. I don’t want it.”
Ian pulled the tee shirt on after pulling on his jeans. He jammed his hands in his pockets, and biting on his lower lip, stared at Mackenzie, grinning.
Mackenzie reached up and stroked the hair under Ian’s lip.
“I think that’s...” Mackenzie swallowed, still a little nervous, “the cutest part of you.”
“This?” Blushing, Ian turned away to pick up the pile of towels and clothing on the floor, and murmured, “You’ve seen me naked and my stinger is the cutest part of me. I’m in trouble.”
“I didn’t say it was the biggest or the part that tasted the best- ”
Ian looked up at his friend in shock.
Mackenzie went on unperturbed, “- so don’t shave that off either.”
“You’ve grown vulgar in your old age,” Ian told him.
“Did I offend you?” Mackenzie tried to affect a Vaughan attitude, which didn’t work because he had turned completely red at his own words.
“Did you care if you did?” said Ian.
“Not really. Ouch! Hey, no beating your friends with towels!”

MORE TOMORROW!

 

[CharmedFan28]

Wow you were right, much was revealed and things changed! So Mackenzie came out to Ian, confessed his feelings and had sex with him, I think that is great. Ian and Mackenzie are cute together. I look forward to reading what happens next with them. Great writing and I look forward to more tomorrow!

 

[ChrisGibson]

I actually forgot it all happened in roughly five pages, but yes, that's finally a thing and the story from here on out will be... interesting. Any questions (that won't spoil the rest of the story?)

 

[CharmedFan28]

All my questions would spoil the rest of the story.

 

[ChrisGibson]

A FAIRLY LONG BUT IMPORTANT PORTION IN WHICH THE FIRST OF A SERIES OF REVEALS WILL BE GIVEN


TO VAUGHAN THE MOST MARVELOUS transformation was the one the men underwent upon entering choir. He parted from them early to enter the large, dark, heated chapel. He and a few others sat in the darkened pews looking past the grille, like spies, to the rest of the chapel with its choir stalls facing each other across the stone floor, and the altar ahead. The altar with its white cloth seemed quiet and expectant. Christmas was over. Lent was yet to come. There was a large mural of Christ with his heart open, and a woman kneeling before him. Vaughan could not see it clearly, just the hand open to the heart, the shadows of Jesus’s face, a trace of a hand. Above the little golden tabernacle, behind the plain altar, was a large crucifix of polished wood
Suddenly, from beyond the walls of the chapel, he heard the untrained chanting of old men.

“The Lord’s kindness is everlasting to those who fear him....”

The simple line stretched out, and then from either side of the chapel they came, arms tucked into the sleeves of their brown robes, filling the chapel in double file, bowing before the altar, and then to each other before heading their separate ways to either stall while singing:

Bless the Lord, Oh, my soul, all my being bless his holy name
Bless the Lord, Oh, my soul, and forget not his benefits.

The antiphon that stretched out across the chapel and rose up to the roof while the bells of the friary rang:

“The Lord’s kindness is everlasting to those who fear him...”

Over and over they took up the chorus until the whole body of friars stood behind their stalls.

The Lord’s kindness is everlasting to those who fear him...”

And so they began to chant the psalms.

Hidden away in the darkness, Vaughan heard the voice of praise. It wasn’t a monotonous drone, but something like thunder in the distance, natural and powerful, about to bring a storm. The lamps above the altar flickered over the mahogany body of Jesus stretched out on the cross.
So from then on, Vaughan did not miss an office. Friday night, he sat curled into the window casement of the spare, clean room he’d been given when there was a knock on the door. He never knew how large Lake Clare was. It had to stretch out a mile or so. On the other side were the small twinkling lights of Jamnia.
“Come in,” said Vaughan.
Brother Paul came into his room grinning, looking too tall for the place.
“It looks so far away. Doesn’t it?” Vaughan said, pointing out the window to the lights of the town. “Like it’s another world.”
“That’s how I felt,” Paul said, “when I first came here. It’s why I almost didn’t come.”
Vaughan looked up at the older man who shrugged and then said, “It’s also part of why I stayed. I came to say, you do know you don’t have to come to all the offices.”
“But I want to,” Vaughan said. “I don’t know what the point would be in coming here and missing that.”
Paul grinned at the boy’s seriousness, and then said, “Well, good then. Sleep well, Vaughan. We’ll see you in the morning.”
“Good night,” Vaughan said, and continued looking out the window.
He was only at the window for a few minutes, and had started to yawn when he risked threading his way through the monastery to find the chapel. He told himself that it was right under his room, so he shouldn’t have to go too far.
When he entered through a side door, it was darker than before with only a lamp over the white draped altar. The light shone on the beaten gold of the tabernacle, along with a red votive before Mary on one side and Saint Joseph on the other.
Vaughan’s bare feet padded across the cool stone floor, and he knelt before the altar. He looked past the shadow of the crucifix to the face of Jesus in the mural. It was a solemn, not unkind face. He looked capable of being amused by stupid things was all Vaughan could think. He knelt for a very long time, and then said, “Lord, if I knew what to say to you, I’d say something. But I don’t, so if you don’t mind, I’d just care to sit a while.”
The lamplight flickered on the somewhat amused face of Jesus, who seemed not to mind at all.

And now Vaughan’s head was filled with words of which he’d always assumed he understood the meaning. Words such as holy, and ordinary and extraordinary. These men were like none he had ever met before except, in many ways, Uncle Ralph and his father, which made sense because both had lived here. The one thing that made Julian and Paul and Mario and the others extraordinary was that they were really quite ordinary. It seemed that Vaughan met very few people who were content to be ordinary. Everyone was trying to be someone. Here Paul was yawning through offices while Mario jabbed his finger in his ear and scratched around.
And maybe this was what holiness was, and not the stale genuflecting and pious eye turning he sometimes saw in church. There holy people were special and holy people were holy by their own effort. Here it seemed like holiness was something that would come regardless if you asked for it or not. If you merely sat around and let it hit you, it would. Maybe?

Saturday afternoon rolled around and Vaughan was packing up, knowing he would catch the evening bus back into town- because buses did not run on Sunday in Jamnia. Vaughan went down to the chapel for a while to not-pray. He didn’t know what prayer was really. People begged God for things, and then when they didn’t get them said something pious like, “God works in mysterious ways,” or “His ways are not our ways” or “God never shuts a door without opening a window”. Vaughan was beginning to think that these were all ways of dealing with the fact that most of the things you asked for you simply did not get. That God did not give them. This had seemed blasphemous, but now Vaughan wondered why the creator of the universe even should be a galactic jinni.
Vaughan looked up at the mural that seemed older in the light of day, filmed over by candle smoke and dust.
“Actually, if you did give people everything they asked for, I’d start to wonder.”
“Hum?” Vaughan turned around and saw Friar Julian.
“I was just wondering,” Vaughan said, candidly, “if maybe God’s not giving us everything we ask for, and not talking is an elaborate ploy to increase faith.”
Julian chuckled. “You mean the further something is from us, the more we respect it?”
Vaughan was a little surprised the friar had caught on. “Yeah,” he said. “That’s exactly what I mean. But that doesn’t seem right.” At last, he said, “That would be like playing games, and that’s something... I would do.”
“Maybe,” Julian suggested, sitting beside Vaughan on the altar floor, “it’s just that God isn’t a big talker.” He looked up at the mural behind the crucifix. “I’ve often thought that’s what it is. I hate that newfangled business people give you about prayer being conversation with God. That’ll really mess you up if you believe it. Some people, they believe it so they even make up the answers in the their head. Pitiful, pitiful things.”
“I was thinking,” Vaughan said at last, screwing up his face, “when I came down here, I didn’t want to say anything because I didn’t know what to say. I just came to sit. Not sit and think. But just sit. Because it’s almost like thinking is a waste of time, is something you’re doing... You know. To distract yourself from God. I guess I just wanted to sit and... be?”
“This is prayer,” Julian said with a bright smile. “And not just to be, but to be available for whatever God has or wants. That’s love and that’s what prayer is.”
“I came here because I never learned much in school... Catholic school,” Vaughan clarified. “That’s why I told my father I wanted to go to public. That and all of my friends were going. In school it all... religion... seemed so stupid and I thought... there’s got to be more to it than this.”
“Is there?” Julian asked.
Vaughan held out his hand, tipped it, and said mischievously, “A little.”
The old friar threw back his head and laughed.

Paul wore black jeans and a parka to accompany Vaughan to the bus.
“You know, I’m sure one of us could have just driven you back home.”
The night was settling in.
“I had thought about that,” Vaughan said. “I chose not to ask, but I had thought about it. I also thought that since I came alone, I should leave alone... Have some time to think on the bus.”
As if ‘bus’ was a magical word, Paul pointed to their left, south to the road shaded by blue grey twilight and they saw the bus coming forward.
“I’ll tell you one secret,” Paul said as the bus approached. “Every night before you go to bed, for a week, ask yourself what the most important thing is to you. And then say your prayers. Don’t pray for it yet. After a week, pray for the most important thing.”
As the bus stopped, Vaughan looked at the friar quizzically. The boy climbed on, Paul handed him his duffel bag.
“Is there a morning secret?” Vaughan asked.
“That’s for when you come back,” Paul said with the slightest hint of a smile. Then his face was gone as the bus departed. The bus shot on through the night. Vaughan realized he’d caught the wrong one. He’d caught the one he’d started out on which meant it would go to Bashan before he got back to town. It sped through the night, occasionally touching Lake Clare, and then it went through the streets of Bashan. Nothing was happening here. It passed the large shadow of the old brick high school, and then turned around. Once the bus touched the highway. Vaughan checked the schedule again to make sure this bus actually went back into town. After a while they were barreling back into the city he’d spent his whole life in. This bus would stop right before Michael and then he’d have three or four blocks to walk home. There was no need to get a transfer for the Number Nine.
The bus stopped, and he thanked the driver and told him to have a goodnight. Maybe the man wondered what Vaughan’s story was.
It was so cold out here Vaughan Fitzgerald could see his breath. He could not wait to get home. His feet tramped on cold concrete. As he walked in Jamnia again, he thought about his friends and family. He wondered how Mackenzie and Ian were in Florida. He hoped they’d bring him something.
“I hope they won the band competition,” he said. Then watching his breath freeze on the air he realized he didn’t care.
When he entered the house the lights were on, but there was no sign of his father. After a few days of living in a house of peaceful men who lived and let live, Vaughan did not look for the old man, but climbed the steps, went to his room and undressed before climbing into bed.
Suddenly he flicked on the light and said, “What do I want more than anything? And.… Don’t forget to say my prayers.”

i v

MACKENZIE FOSTER HAD NEVER CARED for the word “secret”. It reminded him of the dirty little kid on the playground, desperate for a friend who would say, “I’ll tell you a secret if...” Secrets had never been a part of Mackenzie’s life. Yes, there were things that were no one else’s business, but that wasn’t quite the same, and he had never prefaced anything he told Vaughan or Tina with, “You can’t tell this to anyone...”
He and Ian had not said that to each other, but they moved about in sweet secret. He wasn’t sure which part of their protocol was a disgust of public displays of affection and which was the fear that someone would call them fags. But they sat at dinner, above the table normal as usual, their feet linking under the table, eyebrows arching, wondering if anyone caught on. Saturday morning, they sat together in the conference before band practice, close together, thighs pressed together. Went out from the rest of the band, roamed this wretched little Florida coast town laughing, catching hands, pulling back into secret places to kiss.
Kissing was only a part of it. For Mackenzie the best part was the ability to wrap his arm around Ian’s waist, to let the other boy stroke his hair and smile into his eyes, lie close beside him as they slept in the same bed, doing nothing but listening to each other breathe. The best part was how there was no wall between the two of them, how Mackenzie was free to look into the other young man’s brown eyes and see what was there, which was adoration.
No, the best part was sleeping in the same bed. The realization that really, if two bodies were spooned together they could fit in a twin bed, even when they weren’t doing anything. The give and take of the eventual lovemaking was wonderful. The heel of Ian’s hand pressed in his mouth to keep him from shouting was wonderful, the length of Ian’s body beneath him was wonderful. Ian biting down on the pillow in response to him was blessed. The smell of the bed that was the smell of them- this was wonderful too.
Mackenzie learned that the heart would instruct the body if the mind would shut off what it had been told for so long time.

The band competition was Saturday afternoon, and they had lost royally. The boys stood in their uniforms on the edge of the field, laughing with the band they’d lost to. It had been a group of kids from another Ohio town.
“Now we get to go to the finals,” Simon, a boy who looked like he was going a little bald a little early, said. “Which is in New Jersey!” The rest of them laughed.
“Lucky fuckers, quit while you’re ahead!” Sy told Ian and Mackenzie. They were standing with Douglas Tierney and Nick Stearne.
Lindsay came over to them and said, “You two are assholes!”
Mackenzie lifted an eyebrow. Nick Stearne stared in amazement.
“Stearne’s pissed off because we lost- which is probably because you- ” She pointed at Ian, “and you-!” she pointed at her brother, “have been goofing off the whole time, and now this!” she pointed at Simon and the boy and girl with him, in yellow and blue uniforms that looked just as ugly as Jamnia’s white and red.
Lindsay went on, the feathers of her hat tipping in her face, “You’re acting like a bunch of fags. Maybe because you are!”
The hairs on Mackenzie’s neck shot up, and smoke and iron filled the back of his throat. His skin pricked and he heard himself hiss: “And you’re acting like a two dollar skank whore with a stick up her ass.” Then he added, with a cold smile, “Maybe because you are.”
Lindsay went red and tramped away.
Ian looked at his.... Mackenzie… in shock. Doug Tierney said, “I’ve never seen you like that, Kenzie.”
“But she was out of line.... And wrong,” said Nick Stearne. “My brother doesn’t give a shit. Not really. And you guys didn’t screw up the competition anymore than anybody else did.”
Simon, the boy from the other school who had the thin marmalade hair, asked Mackenzie who “the bitch,” was.
“My sister,” Mackenzie replied.

That night they were supposed to hang out with Simon and his friend Andrew who went to Willoughby School in Lassador, Ohio. They’d all just be a few lucky Buckeyes who’d won a trip to Florida.
Ian remained quiet and brooding after Lindsay left, and while part of Mackenzie worried that this was trouble for their new relationship, the other part was turned on by Ian’s moodiness. On their silent way back to the hotel, all the visceral feelings that Ian incited in Mackenzie messed with his gut. I love you. I want you so much. What we’ve done has got me into so much trouble because if you ever turned your back on me after making love to me... I’d kill you. Or kill me. You’ve made me desperate.
Had he made Ian desperate? Or just disturbed?
When they got back to the hotel room, very business like Ian took him into the bathroom, and he planted his hands on the sink. Then, wordlessly, he took down his pants, and Mackenzie knew to take his down too. Mackenzie pulled out the Vaseline and Ian pulled him inside.
“I don’t want to hurt- ” Mackenzie started. Ian pulled him deeper inside. Mackenzie said nothing. There was no ripping, but it was tight in him. Soft as satin. Mackenzie felt like he was opening the door to something, and Ian’s hands were planted on his ass, bringing him in further. They couldn’t talk. There was no noise to be made. This was the holiest moment in the world. Ian moved him to where it began to feel good until Mackenzie came. It was so powerful that Mackenzie thought he would fall over and had to hold onto Ian’s chest, Ian’s heart beating through the material of the band cape he still wore.
On the floor, Mackenzie turned Ian around and beat him off until he came too, and the two of them were both kneeling on the floor, half dressed, holding each other.
Neither of them said anything. They washed, undressed, went to sleep. When they woke up, Mackenzie reciprocated, and nothing had ever felt as amazing as someone else entering a place he never knew could or should be entered. Nothing felt as good as Ian, groin striving against him, Ian’s body being pulled deeper. He had thought sadomasochists were weird, but maybe they were just ordinary people after all. Then there was nothing to think. There was pain and pleasure, yielding, and his eyes watered and Ian’s mouth was on his ear, and then, in a shock, Mackenzie screamed, and Ian’s hips bucked. He shouted and they both came. They lay together a little before climbing in the shower together and washing each other. Neither said a word. They climbed into the other bed together to sleep.
“We’ll miss dinner,” Mackenzie murmured.
“Fuck it,” Ian said. “We’ll see Simon and the others at nine. Let’s sleep.”

“Wear the yellow one,” Ian told him, “The short sleeve. I got it for Florida. Wear those faded jeans. Look at you. You look like summer.”
Ian dressed him and held him and kissed him on his lips, on his forehead, on his cheeks, stroked his shoulders. Love was flooding this whole room. It might go out through the windows and under the cracks of the door.
They snuck out the back of the little hotel, past the droning ice machine, arms around each others waists, chatting and chuckling about this and that. They threaded their way through the alley and to the San Rio, the four story white stucco hotel where Simon and the band from Lassador were staying. They had to unlink in order to walk up the narrow stair that led to the balcony wrapping its way around the second, third and fourth levels of the hotel.
“Our fellow Buckeyes are here!” Simon crowed from the lawn chair, stretching out his arms in welcome. He handed them each a beer, and Andrew waved tiredly. On a little stereo that was on the other side of the screen in Simon’s room, Liz Phair was promising, or rather threatening, “I’ll see you around....”
At first Mackenzie was troubled by the beer, though Ian cracked it open and drank heartily. Wouldn’t they get caught? But Simon’s room was the first- or the last- on this side, stuck on a corner of the hotel, and he and Andrew had no neighbors.
“Can you believe this?” Simon took out a large soft pack of Marlboro Reds, and gesticulated with a cigarette, offering one to Ian- who took it- and one to Mackenzie, who declined, “tomorrow we’ll all be back in cold ass Ohio.”
“I just wanna pretend it doesn’t exist,” Andrew said. He was a red head, but Mackenzie couldn’t get the color of his eyes in this light.
Simon frowned in concentration as he lit his cigarette and took the first drag. He handed the lighter to Ian. They were about the same height and Simon wore sandals that would have to go tomorrow and old faded jeans. He had on an orangish colored long sleeve, and Mackenzie realized that he was checking him out. Not wanting to have sex with him, but just assessing him. He wasn’t hot. He was average, hair orangish, prematurely balding, large forehead.
Ian had sat down on a crate, and patted the one beside him for Mackenzie.
“What year are you guys?” Andrew asked.
“I’m a sophomore,” Mackenzie spoke first. He wanted to talk. “Ian’s a junior.”
“Juniors!” Andrew hooted and gave Ian a fist up, “Simon’s graduating.”
Simon rolled his eyes, and finished the cigarette in a swift drag. He blew out a long tunnel of smoke in disgust.
“The only good thing about that is no more Willoughby High School.”
“And freedom?” Ian suggested.
“Yeah,” Simon shrugged. “Everyone says that,” he swigged from his beer, “but how many free adults do you know? Are your folks free?” Simon asked.
Ian shook his head, and Simon looked to Mackenzie.
“What about yours? See? High school sucks, but the rest of it isn’t much better.”
“God, lighten up,” Andrew said. “Sometimes you’re worse than an Albert Camus novel.”
Mackenzie decided to ask Vaughan who Albert Camus was when he got back to Jamnia.
“Tell me something else you heard at Mass from Father Whatsisname,” Simon said. He apologized for Andrew: “He’s a Catholic.”
“Mackenzie’s Catholic,” Ian said.
“Oh,” Simon blushed, “Sorry. I’m a non-practicing... something. I don’t remember what my folks are supposed to be.” Simon shook his head and took out another cigarette.
He offered one to Ian and said, “What are you?”
“Episcopalian.” He added, “Non-practicing.”
“Really,” said Simon. “Whaddo they believe in?”
“Good music and sticking their noses up in the air.”
Simon nodded. “Sounds like religion in general.”
“You mean you don’t believe in anything?” Mackenzie sat up.
“You do?” Simon said. “I mean, you see people in church, but you know they don’t really believe that stuff. If Christians really believed that Jesus died for them and all that, then would the world be as bad as it is?”
Mackenzie blushed and said, “I don’t know what I believe. I thought I did. If my friend Vaughan was here, he could probably tell you something smart. But it’s just me.”
“I used to say I was a non practicing atheist,” Andrew said cheerily. “I would tell Simon I was an atheist when I first met him. But my parents made me go to church. But then he started laughing at me and calling me altar boy, and he’s like, ‘You’re such a Catholic, Drew.’ Cause I guess stuff slips out if you’ve been fed that way your whole life, you know?”
Simon nodded, patiently, then said, “I never got fed on anything.”
“Your folks never went to church?” Ian said.
Simon shook his head. “They wanted me to ‘find out for myself’’.” He made quote marks with his fingers. “Now I don’t know fucking anything.”
“Well I don’t know fucking anything either,” Andrew said cheerily. “You want me to go down and get that bag so we can all partake of it? Before we say goodbye to Florida?”
“Yeah,” Simon said. “That’ll be real cool. But I don’t want you going alone to Valencia Street.”
“They’re straight down there, Sy,” Drew said, his hand on the screen as Liz Phair sang “Uncle Alvarez”.
“All the same,” Simon said.
“I’ll go too,” Ian said.
“If it’s dangerous- ” Mackenzie started,
“Relax, my fellow altar boy,” Andrew said. Beaming, he opened the screen, and Ian followed him.
When Simon heard the door of the hotel room close behind him, and was sure the other two were gone, he said, “Mackenzie, can I ask you a question?”
Mackenzie nodded.
“That girl after the band competition... Your sister. She said something about you and Ian acting like a couple of fags.”
A bolt of fear went right through Mackenzie.
“Yeah?” he said, trying to sound casual.
“Uh, I’ve been trying to figure out if Ian’s your guy or not?”
Mackenzie’s eyes went wide. He had to put together an answer. He had to not compromise Ian, no matter how unashamed he felt. He had to make sure he didn’t feel ashamed. He had to decide if Simon calling him gay offended him. Or could everyone see through the two of them?
Mackenzie asked, “What made you think that?”
Simon shrugged and smiled. “Just... You know what they say about band kids.”
“Do they say that in Lassador?”
Simon’s grin widened. “I think they say it everywhere. I wasn’t saying you two act like fags or anything. It’s just that guys tend to be really shitty to each other, and you all aren’t. So I thought there might be something more than you just being buddies. Plus you all sort of act like a couple.”
Mackenzie sat on the edge of his seat, and on the edge of a decision to say or not say the truth. Until this moment he had never really known what the truth was.
“If it’s none of my business, fine.” Simon said. “But if you’re holding your cards and wondering what move to make next... I’ll show you my hand.” Simon paused. “Me and Drew have been together for about two years.”
Mackenzie said, “You’re gay?”
Simon chuckled and said, “That’s one way to put it. I don’t know if Drew wants to call it that. I don’t think it’s as uncommon as you think. It goes on all over Willoughby, among the guys more than the girls. I used to think it was bullshit, right? And then one night me and Drew were having a good time. We were a little high, but not out of our minds, just relaxed and happy to be together, and then the next thing I knew I was on my knees thinking, ‘Holy shit, I’ve got Drew’s cock in my mouth.’ And the next thing I knew he was doing the same thing to me.”
Simon’s voice was very tranquil. Low and matter of fact. It was almost hypnotic. Liz Phair in the background, droning about “Shitloads of money” was hypnotic. The way how in the dark Simon lit the cigarette and the cherry glowed orange and traveled from his mouth and back to it was like something not quite real, out of a half sleep.
Simon went on.
“I think we realized then that all the rumors about guys hooking up weren’t rumors. And then I realized that this wasn’t like that weird shit. You ever heard of Butter the Bread?”
Mackenzie started to say no. But then he remembered Vaughan telling him about it. It was called Bread and Butter in Jamnia.
“Well, I realized that it wasn’t that shit. And I didn’t know if I wanted to call it gay cause that’s like theatre and Judy Garland and San Francisco and checking out dudes all the time and throwing your hand up in the air saying, ‘Girlfriend.’ I didn’t care about all that. The only thing I cared about was Drew. So we kept it secret. I don’t think we were ashamed. It was just private. It would have been like taking out your heart and laying it on a table. No one has any business seeing it there. And then you’d die if you did that anyway.” Simon chuckled.
Mackenzie’s throat was dry, and he had to try to speak twice. Now he asked Simon: “What did you all do? I mean... after the party, after you all had...”
For the first time Simon looked gentle. He didn’t speak right away. He let
the cigarette burn and his voice grew so quiet Mackenzie had to lean in to hear it.
“We were at my house. He was staying the night. I locked my door and I brought him into my bed and we made love. It’s weird, you know, what a bed is like after you’ve made love in it. I don’t mean fucked, but after you’ve been with the person you’re in love with.” Simon shrugged. “And we woke up together.
“Neither one of us talked about it really. And then my sister, who’s a book freak, was reading this book, Giovanni’s Room, by this guy- James Baldwin. And I was like, what’s that about? And she says it’s great. Wants me to read it. I read it and I start freaking out because it starts out with the two high school guys doing what me and Drew did. Only one of them betrays the other. That’s the lead character. Then later on he meets Giovanni and basically the same shit happens again. And I’m not gonna tell you the end, but I was just like... Shit!
“So a few days pass, right?”
Mackenzie nodded quickly, engrossed in the true story of this new friend of his.
“And I see Drew talking to this girl. And Drew’s a year younger than me, right? He was a Freshmen then. Which is a little early to commit to anyone. I played it cool while he was talking to her. Turned out to be his cousin. She had just moved to Lassador. I waited for her to go away. Then I went ballistic and I was just like, ‘If you ever cheat on me, you son of a bitch....’ This and that. And I told him, ‘Look, you’re my guy.’ And that’s when we looked at each other and the cat was out of the bag cause we called it what it was. And that was two years ago.”
Simon started laughing, and then Mackenzie did too and suddenly Simon said, looking like a cat on a mouse, “So, are you and Ian together?”
“You’re sharp,” Mackenzie said.
“Sometimes.”
“Yeah, Ian’s my…”
“Boyfriend,” Simon supplied.
“Boyfriend,” Mackenzie said, turning red.
“It’s alright,” Simon nodded. “I won’t tell anyone. I know how it is. You’re like, oh my God- I’m with a dude. But speaking of God, maybe there is one. For you. The God of outcasts who sent us to you. I didn’t have an older, wiser band member to come to me and tell me ‘It’s all right, I’ve been there before.’”
Simon leaned over and patted Mackenzie on the cheek like a mother, and then put the flat of his hands on the other boy’s head to test his temperature. The screen door came open, and Ian and Andrew stepped through, dropping a bag of marijuana on the little milk crate where Simon had set his ashtray.
Simon went into the room and came out with rolling papers. While rolling the first joint, he said, absently, “Drew, I hope you don’t mind, but I told Kenzie about us?”
Drew seemed at first not to know what the secret was, then his eyes widened, trying to read something in Mackenzie.
“Don’t worry,” Simon went on, “Ian and Mackenzie are hooked up too, can’t you tell?”
Ian looked at Mackenzie. Mackenzie shrugged.
When they started passing the joint the rotation went from Simon to Drew to Mackenzie, Ian’s hand went across Mackenzie chest and he took the joint.
“Mackenzie doesn’t get high,” he said.
Mackenzie looked at him strangely.
“Well you don’t,” he said. “Neither will I, tonight.” Regretfully he passed the joint back to Drew.
“Well, what’s the point then?” Drew said.
“Be quiet, Drew,” said Simon, who gently took the joint from Drew’s hand and, inhaling while his eyes narrowed, looked on Ian and Mackenzie. He smiled and passed the joint back to Andrew.


TOMORROW NIGHT THE CONCLUSION OF THE FIRST HALF OF HIDDEN LIVES OF VIRGINS WILL BE POSTED

 

[CharmedFan28]

Wow a long portion with lots going on! Mackenzie and Ian are still very cute. I wonder how Vaughan will react to them being together now? I'll have to wait and see. I am glad he went on a informative trip of his own while they were away. Great writing and I look forward to more tomorrow!

 

[ChrisGibson]

It was long, but cutting it would have either given to short a portion or cut into the middle of a scene. What did you think of Drew and Simon?

 

[CharmedFan28]

I liked them, they seem like nice guys.

 

[ChrisGibson]

And what is more, they come from Lassador, the same place as Jay and Michael and the same place as the action for The Beasts and the Blood : ) By the way, I have been revising those two and Beasts got a different ending I've added about 150 pages to the Blood, so it's a very different version than what you read.

 

[CharmedFan28]

Cool! I like how some of your stories connect like that!

 

[ChrisGibson]

Then I guess I should also point out what I know you don't remember, because I forgot myself, that Father Julian at the abbey is also the monk in The Houses in Rossford who is friends with Barb Affren and her husband and is the contact that meets Paul, Noah and Father Dan and takes the stolen money to the Cayman Islands to put it in a bank account.

 

[CharmedFan28]

That was something I forgot! Thanks for pointing it out!

 

[ChrisGibson]

Hell, I had forgotten it too! There are more tie ins, but for now that's it.