ChrisGibson
JUB Addict
I thought it was loving. I thought it was super aggressive. he fallout will be interesting. I feel like what they did isn't just about Laurel.
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The Lovers in Rossford
- Thread starter ChrisGibson
- Start date
ChrisGibson
JUB Addict
ROSSFORD CONTINUED
“Where’s my son? There’s my son!” Tom sang, coming into
the bathroom where Dylan was brushing his teeth. Dylan bent
to spit and rinse out his mouth and Tom added, “Don’t forget
mouthwash,” while Dylan reached for it.
“Do you still want to talk?” Tom said.
For his whole life, Tom had done two things, one on a
nearly nightly basis, which was sing “Where’s my son? There’s
my son!” and in times when he sensed Dylan needed it, asked
if he still wanted to talk. The proper answer was always yes.
“When I was young,” Tom said, “My parents always said it
was time to talk when they wanted to talk.”
Tom always said this when he was sure that his son needed
to say something, but didn’t know how to.
Tom went downstairs and he came up with two cups of
cocoa. These, presumably, had been made by Lee, who kept to
the background and always helped maintain the delicate
relationship in which he was Tom’s partner, but not the father
of Tom’s child.
“What do you want to tell me?”
“Not everything,” Dylan said, honestly.
Good naturedly, Tom nodded and stuck out his bottom lip.
“But there are some things? Like Lance?”
“Yes.”
“I’m sort of dating him.”
“I sort of knew that.”
“I don’t know if I’m really in love with him.”
“Well, love is complicated.”
“Did you love Dad?”
“Fenn?”
“Yes.”
“Very much,” Tom said.
“He said you cheated on him.”
“Um,” Tom looked like he had a toothache.
“I asked him. I asked him about why you all weren’t
together. Why he was my dad. He told me everything.”
“Really?”
“Yeah.”
“And how do you feel about that?”
Tom looked deeply concerned, but Dylan said, “It’s kind of
neat and funny. I mean, I didn’t think I really had anything to
do with the two of you. I didn’t know you all were… involved
after he met Todd—”
“He really did tell you everything!”
“That’s what I said, Dad.”
Dylan added, “That last time. When I was made. Sort of
made… I mean, when Fenn did what he did… Did you love
him?”
“Yes.”
“Did he love you? I mean, what was it about?”
Tom put down his cup of cocoa and said, “We’re having a
grown up discussion now.”
“Yes.”
“Well,” Tom said, “I think that he did love me. But he
couldn’t go back to where we had been, and I wanted us to. I
used to think it was because I’d hurt him so badly. Now I think
it was because he really had moved on. I had a hard time with
that.
“I’m telling you things that I usually think you’re too young
for. But I’m going to tell them anyway. You can love someone,
but not love them enough to make it work… I know that men
and women get married and now men and men get married
and that’s love. But there is more to it. Your father and I were
at a ‘more to it’ place. Finished as partners, becoming friends,
deeply attracted to each other. It was… very sweet,” Tom
finished. There was a far off look in his eyes and then he
remembered Dylan was there, blinked and smiled at his son.
“Dad said that he tried to hold onto you, and wouldn’t let
you go to the places you wanted and do what you wanted. He
said he made you sacrifice a lot of your dreams to be with him,
and that’s why you went to Bryant.”
“What?”
“He didn’t say it to me,” Dylan clarified. “He’d never say
that me. He said it to Brendan when we were in Chicago, and I
overheard it. He said he should have let you go and do what
you wanted instead of clinging to you or making you
compromise.”
“Kenneth,” Layla said that night at their house, “might I ask
what the hell you’re looking at?”
They were sitting around the table, and she had just kissed
Will on the cheek and pushed back his hair.
“You guys look so happy is all.”
“Well,” Layla said, a question in her eye, “we are.”
She stopped and said, “I’m sorry, but you and Sheridan
look terrible. Don’t they, Dena?”
“Milo,” Dena turned to her husband, “do you want to take
Kenny, and Will take Sheridan, or what?”
“Are you divvying us up?” Sheridan looked amazed.
“Yes,” Milo said. “Com’on, Kenny.”
Will dragged Sheridan to the kitchen, then Layla and Dena
looked at each other, before walking away to allow Kenny and
Milo some privacy.
In the guest room, Kenneth asked Milo: “Do you know if
Chad’s coming here tonight?”
“No.”
“He isn’t?”
“No,” Milo said. “I mean, I don’t know.”
“Oh,” Kenny said.
“Why?” said Milo. “Did you guys fight? Do you want him
to come? What?”
“I don’t know,” Kenny said. “I mean, I do know. I would
not be adverse to him coming.”
“Would not be adverse…” Milo began. “What? Are you
Will now?”
“We hung out last night. Me and Chad that is,” Kenny
explained.
“Well, cool.”
“And then we ended up having… really, just the most
intense sex I’ve had in a long time.”
Milo’s eyes bulged out.
“Repeat?” he said.
“I’m not repeating it,” Kenny said. “We ended up sleeping
together. It made sense this morning, but I don’t know if it will
make sense again.”
“Are you split up from Brendan?”
“Bren’s in Chicago. He’s cheating on me with Cook County
and doing it in my face,” Kenny said. “How the hell do I know
if I’ll ever see him again?”
“But do you want him?”
“I don’t know?”
“Well…” Milo cast about for something else. “Do you
want Chad?”
“I don’t know.”
“Logan?”
“Don’t say it like that,” Sheridan told him.
“Well, how else should I say it?” Will raised an eyebrow.
“You were with Chay for years. You’ve known him your
whole life. A few days ago you asked him to move in with you,
and then no sooner do you do that then you get Logan?”
“I love him, Will.”
“He’s a pornstar, Sher!”
“I know. I’ve struggled with that.”
“Poor Chay,” Will said, sitting down in the kitchen.
“Don’t you think I know that?” Sheridan said.
“You running off with Logan, and then Meredith and a
rapist… Honestly.”
“You’re my brother,” Sheridan said, standing up. He was
thinner than Will and looked taller. “You’re supposed to
support me.”
“I am supporting you.”
“No,” Sheridan said, “you’re judging.”
“Cause what you’re doing is stupid.”
When the kitchen door swung open and Layla stuck her
head in, Will realized how loud he’d been.
“Can we just go out and eat?” Sheridan said, miserably.
“Yeah, Sher,” Will snapped. “Yeah, let’s go.”
In the living room, Milo had returned from the spare room
with Kenny, and they were all sitting down when there was a
knock at the door.
“Who the hell could that be?”
“Oh,” Dena said, “I thought as long as we were having a
little get together, we could invite a few more.”
“Cool,” said Will, while Layla shrugged.
Kenny watched Dena open the door, and standing there
was Radha Hatangady, with Chad North beside her.
“So,” Nick Ferguson said. “We’re sitting on your couch, and
we haven’t been watching this jazz business for some time.
When are you going to tell me something about yourself?”
“Well, whaddo you want to know? I mean you know a lot
already.”
“Um… you know about my love life.”
“I don’t really know anything about your love life,” Bryant
Babcock said.
“You know that it’s complicated.”
Bryant was about to say that he didn’t know that infidelity
was really that complicated, but let it rest. Why did he need to
act superior? What was that?
“I would like to know about Chad North.”
“What about him?”
“Is it true that you and he were together?”
Bryant colored a bit and sat up.
“Who’s been talking?”
“To me, specifically? I don’t really remember. But I heard it
someplace.”
“Well, it was a very long time ago,” Bryant said.
“Um. Was it brief, or did you live together?”
“We were together for seven years.”
“That really is a long time,” Nick said, appreciatively.
“That’s a common law marriage.”
“I suppose it is.”
“So he was…. How old is he now?”
“I don’t remember.”
“Well, now you can’t forget that. He was with you for a
long time.”
“I guess he’s about thirty three.”
“And you’re…” Nick smiled at him a little fiendishly, and
Bryant grimaced.
“What?”
“You’re significantly older. He must have been a student.”
“We was my top pupil.”
“Wow! That’s what I call giving an apple to the teacher.”
At the infuriated look on Bryant’s face, Nick said, “Boss,
I’m sorry. I’m sorry.”
He reached for Bryant’s hand.
“I didn’t mean to be out of line.”
“Well, you were.”
“I know. I didn’t want to offend you, Bryant,” he said,
patting his hand. “I didn’t. I just wanted to—”
And then Nick’s mouth was on Bryant’s, and Bryant felt his
fingers in his hair along with the deeper pressure of Nick’s
mouth.
Bryant pulled away and, groggily, shoved Nick from him.
“We could do more,” Nick said. “Why fight it? Why fight
all these feelings. Let’s just be who we are.”
“I spent years being who I was, and not much good came
from it.”
“Don’t you want to…?” Nick leaned in and held Bryant’s
hands. “Don’t you want to fuck? Right here. In your bed or in
this room. Just let go. I know you feel the way about me I do
about you.”
“You have to go,” Bryant said, looking for his coat.
“My coat’s over there,” Nick pointed to the closet as he
stood up. “And don’t pretend you didn’t invite me here with
sex in mind.”
“You’re right,” Bryant said, taking his coat. “I did. But the
good thing about being forty-seven is now I know I can
change my mind.”
At the door, he handed the coat to Nick.
“This is probably not a good idea, because I can’t really
trust myself around you. And I need to be able to trust myself.
Good night, Nick.”
Nick put on his coat with an expressionless face and said,
“And don’t come back?”
Bryant told him, “It might be better that way.”
“Where’s my son? There’s my son!” Tom sang, coming into
the bathroom where Dylan was brushing his teeth. Dylan bent
to spit and rinse out his mouth and Tom added, “Don’t forget
mouthwash,” while Dylan reached for it.
“Do you still want to talk?” Tom said.
For his whole life, Tom had done two things, one on a
nearly nightly basis, which was sing “Where’s my son? There’s
my son!” and in times when he sensed Dylan needed it, asked
if he still wanted to talk. The proper answer was always yes.
“When I was young,” Tom said, “My parents always said it
was time to talk when they wanted to talk.”
Tom always said this when he was sure that his son needed
to say something, but didn’t know how to.
Tom went downstairs and he came up with two cups of
cocoa. These, presumably, had been made by Lee, who kept to
the background and always helped maintain the delicate
relationship in which he was Tom’s partner, but not the father
of Tom’s child.
“What do you want to tell me?”
“Not everything,” Dylan said, honestly.
Good naturedly, Tom nodded and stuck out his bottom lip.
“But there are some things? Like Lance?”
“Yes.”
“I’m sort of dating him.”
“I sort of knew that.”
“I don’t know if I’m really in love with him.”
“Well, love is complicated.”
“Did you love Dad?”
“Fenn?”
“Yes.”
“Very much,” Tom said.
“He said you cheated on him.”
“Um,” Tom looked like he had a toothache.
“I asked him. I asked him about why you all weren’t
together. Why he was my dad. He told me everything.”
“Really?”
“Yeah.”
“And how do you feel about that?”
Tom looked deeply concerned, but Dylan said, “It’s kind of
neat and funny. I mean, I didn’t think I really had anything to
do with the two of you. I didn’t know you all were… involved
after he met Todd—”
“He really did tell you everything!”
“That’s what I said, Dad.”
Dylan added, “That last time. When I was made. Sort of
made… I mean, when Fenn did what he did… Did you love
him?”
“Yes.”
“Did he love you? I mean, what was it about?”
Tom put down his cup of cocoa and said, “We’re having a
grown up discussion now.”
“Yes.”
“Well,” Tom said, “I think that he did love me. But he
couldn’t go back to where we had been, and I wanted us to. I
used to think it was because I’d hurt him so badly. Now I think
it was because he really had moved on. I had a hard time with
that.
“I’m telling you things that I usually think you’re too young
for. But I’m going to tell them anyway. You can love someone,
but not love them enough to make it work… I know that men
and women get married and now men and men get married
and that’s love. But there is more to it. Your father and I were
at a ‘more to it’ place. Finished as partners, becoming friends,
deeply attracted to each other. It was… very sweet,” Tom
finished. There was a far off look in his eyes and then he
remembered Dylan was there, blinked and smiled at his son.
“Dad said that he tried to hold onto you, and wouldn’t let
you go to the places you wanted and do what you wanted. He
said he made you sacrifice a lot of your dreams to be with him,
and that’s why you went to Bryant.”
“What?”
“He didn’t say it to me,” Dylan clarified. “He’d never say
that me. He said it to Brendan when we were in Chicago, and I
overheard it. He said he should have let you go and do what
you wanted instead of clinging to you or making you
compromise.”
“Kenneth,” Layla said that night at their house, “might I ask
what the hell you’re looking at?”
They were sitting around the table, and she had just kissed
Will on the cheek and pushed back his hair.
“You guys look so happy is all.”
“Well,” Layla said, a question in her eye, “we are.”
She stopped and said, “I’m sorry, but you and Sheridan
look terrible. Don’t they, Dena?”
“Milo,” Dena turned to her husband, “do you want to take
Kenny, and Will take Sheridan, or what?”
“Are you divvying us up?” Sheridan looked amazed.
“Yes,” Milo said. “Com’on, Kenny.”
Will dragged Sheridan to the kitchen, then Layla and Dena
looked at each other, before walking away to allow Kenny and
Milo some privacy.
In the guest room, Kenneth asked Milo: “Do you know if
Chad’s coming here tonight?”
“No.”
“He isn’t?”
“No,” Milo said. “I mean, I don’t know.”
“Oh,” Kenny said.
“Why?” said Milo. “Did you guys fight? Do you want him
to come? What?”
“I don’t know,” Kenny said. “I mean, I do know. I would
not be adverse to him coming.”
“Would not be adverse…” Milo began. “What? Are you
Will now?”
“We hung out last night. Me and Chad that is,” Kenny
explained.
“Well, cool.”
“And then we ended up having… really, just the most
intense sex I’ve had in a long time.”
Milo’s eyes bulged out.
“Repeat?” he said.
“I’m not repeating it,” Kenny said. “We ended up sleeping
together. It made sense this morning, but I don’t know if it will
make sense again.”
“Are you split up from Brendan?”
“Bren’s in Chicago. He’s cheating on me with Cook County
and doing it in my face,” Kenny said. “How the hell do I know
if I’ll ever see him again?”
“But do you want him?”
“I don’t know?”
“Well…” Milo cast about for something else. “Do you
want Chad?”
“I don’t know.”
“Logan?”
“Don’t say it like that,” Sheridan told him.
“Well, how else should I say it?” Will raised an eyebrow.
“You were with Chay for years. You’ve known him your
whole life. A few days ago you asked him to move in with you,
and then no sooner do you do that then you get Logan?”
“I love him, Will.”
“He’s a pornstar, Sher!”
“I know. I’ve struggled with that.”
“Poor Chay,” Will said, sitting down in the kitchen.
“Don’t you think I know that?” Sheridan said.
“You running off with Logan, and then Meredith and a
rapist… Honestly.”
“You’re my brother,” Sheridan said, standing up. He was
thinner than Will and looked taller. “You’re supposed to
support me.”
“I am supporting you.”
“No,” Sheridan said, “you’re judging.”
“Cause what you’re doing is stupid.”
When the kitchen door swung open and Layla stuck her
head in, Will realized how loud he’d been.
“Can we just go out and eat?” Sheridan said, miserably.
“Yeah, Sher,” Will snapped. “Yeah, let’s go.”
In the living room, Milo had returned from the spare room
with Kenny, and they were all sitting down when there was a
knock at the door.
“Who the hell could that be?”
“Oh,” Dena said, “I thought as long as we were having a
little get together, we could invite a few more.”
“Cool,” said Will, while Layla shrugged.
Kenny watched Dena open the door, and standing there
was Radha Hatangady, with Chad North beside her.
“So,” Nick Ferguson said. “We’re sitting on your couch, and
we haven’t been watching this jazz business for some time.
When are you going to tell me something about yourself?”
“Well, whaddo you want to know? I mean you know a lot
already.”
“Um… you know about my love life.”
“I don’t really know anything about your love life,” Bryant
Babcock said.
“You know that it’s complicated.”
Bryant was about to say that he didn’t know that infidelity
was really that complicated, but let it rest. Why did he need to
act superior? What was that?
“I would like to know about Chad North.”
“What about him?”
“Is it true that you and he were together?”
Bryant colored a bit and sat up.
“Who’s been talking?”
“To me, specifically? I don’t really remember. But I heard it
someplace.”
“Well, it was a very long time ago,” Bryant said.
“Um. Was it brief, or did you live together?”
“We were together for seven years.”
“That really is a long time,” Nick said, appreciatively.
“That’s a common law marriage.”
“I suppose it is.”
“So he was…. How old is he now?”
“I don’t remember.”
“Well, now you can’t forget that. He was with you for a
long time.”
“I guess he’s about thirty three.”
“And you’re…” Nick smiled at him a little fiendishly, and
Bryant grimaced.
“What?”
“You’re significantly older. He must have been a student.”
“We was my top pupil.”
“Wow! That’s what I call giving an apple to the teacher.”
At the infuriated look on Bryant’s face, Nick said, “Boss,
I’m sorry. I’m sorry.”
He reached for Bryant’s hand.
“I didn’t mean to be out of line.”
“Well, you were.”
“I know. I didn’t want to offend you, Bryant,” he said,
patting his hand. “I didn’t. I just wanted to—”
And then Nick’s mouth was on Bryant’s, and Bryant felt his
fingers in his hair along with the deeper pressure of Nick’s
mouth.
Bryant pulled away and, groggily, shoved Nick from him.
“We could do more,” Nick said. “Why fight it? Why fight
all these feelings. Let’s just be who we are.”
“I spent years being who I was, and not much good came
from it.”
“Don’t you want to…?” Nick leaned in and held Bryant’s
hands. “Don’t you want to fuck? Right here. In your bed or in
this room. Just let go. I know you feel the way about me I do
about you.”
“You have to go,” Bryant said, looking for his coat.
“My coat’s over there,” Nick pointed to the closet as he
stood up. “And don’t pretend you didn’t invite me here with
sex in mind.”
“You’re right,” Bryant said, taking his coat. “I did. But the
good thing about being forty-seven is now I know I can
change my mind.”
At the door, he handed the coat to Nick.
“This is probably not a good idea, because I can’t really
trust myself around you. And I need to be able to trust myself.
Good night, Nick.”
Nick put on his coat with an expressionless face and said,
“And don’t come back?”
Bryant told him, “It might be better that way.”
CharmedFan28
JUB Addict
That was a great portion! It was nice to read Dylan and Tom having an adult discussion about the past. I don't know what Dylan is going to do about the Lance or Ruthven situations but it will be interesting to read what he decides. I also don't know if Sheridan has made up his mind properly about being with Logan. If he is going to be judged so much by family and friends he might just go back to Chay. Who knows? I guess ill just have to wait and see what he does next. I think that despite what he says Bryant is probably going to end up sleeping with Nick. Well done writing and usual and I look forward to more soon!
ChrisGibson
JUB Addict
I think you've proven that, especially with Bryant who's been around since the beginning, you know these characters very well. There is one thing though, you haven't thought about. Ruthven and Lance have their own decisions to make so its not like Dylan's just free to decide and pick who he wants and the same thing goes for Chay. No matter how Sheridan feels, do you think Chay will take him back, especially not that he has Casey? I'm not giving anything away. I'm just asking.
CharmedFan28
JUB Addict
You are right, Ruthven, Lance and Chay all can make up their own minds about their situations. I don't think Chay will take Sheridan back, there has probably been too much drama and sadness for him where Sheridan is concerned. I could be wrong but I think he feels that Casey has been good to him despite the fact that Chay was underage when they first got together.
ChrisGibson
JUB Addict
That's true. Chay's been through a lot with Sheridan, and his family is in a lot right now and Chay's just no fool. Also, if he went back to Sheridan, his family would probably say a lot about that now. He was very much underage, and there is still and age difference, but now they're legal. I won't say anything else because that tips into spoiler territory. More tomorrow night.
ChrisGibson
JUB Addict
SEX AND LOVE AND SEX
CONCLUSION
After dinner, Kenny noticed Radha continuously nudging
Chad. He was glad no one did the same to him. The night was
tense and strange. Sheridan looked unhappy and Kenny was
curious as to why. Suddenly, Chad stood up and said, “Kenny,
you wanna help with the dishes?”
“He sure does,” Milo said before Kenny could do anything,
and so he shrugged and followed Chad into the kitchen.
Once the door swung shut, rolling up his sleeves, Chad
said, “The bad thing about making up the excuse of doing the
dishes is now we actually have to do the dishes.”
Kenny smiled and nodded, rounding Chad, and bent to
take the dishwashing liquid out of the sink.
“I didn’t know if it was too early to call,” Kenny said. “I
really enjoyed last night, and I didn’t want to be pushy or
anything.”
“Me neither,” Chad said, taking the bottle and turning on
the faucet to rinse the dishes. “I was just trying to do the same
thing. Not be clingy. I don’t really do these things so well.”
Chad squirted detergent into the sink and added, “And I
don’t even know what this thing is. I don’t exactly know what
we’re doing.”
“I thought we were just having a good time,” Kenny said.
“I’ve been with Brendan since high school. I never got the
chance to have a good time.”
“I was with Bryant. A very intense relationship. Then his
brother. Intense and wrong. No, I know what you mean,”
Chad put the plates into the sink. “I’ve never just… had an
affair.”
“Is that what we’re doing?” Kenneth said.
“We don’t have to call it anything,” said Chad.
“Good, I’m alright with it being what it is. Are you?”
Kenny asked him.
“Does what it is involve us going back to my place
tonight?”
“Yours or mine,” Kenny shrugged, thinking of kissing him
in the kitchen, but still hanging back.
Chad smiled. “Well, then I’m alright with it.”
“And what is this?” Todd said, looking at Fenn as he eagerly
unwrapped the package.
“You’re about to find out.”
“Oh, this is nice, baby!”
“You needed a new Siddur. This is a Koren. It’s so much
fun I might have to convert.”
Todd chuckled as he lifted the heavy little prayer book. He
turned the pages from backward to forward. “I think you’re
beyond conversion,” he told Fenn.
“I’m as Jewish as I’m going to be and as Christian as I ever
was, and I’ve got Dylan reading the Bhagavad Gita. Open the
last gift so we can go to bed.”
Todd leaned to the side to wrap his arm around Fenn. “Is
there going to be another present when we get to bed?”
“I never thought I’d say some tired shit like this, but… not
tonight because my head actually does hurt.”
“Oh,” said Todd. “Then I’ll just open this now. Oh, crap,
Fenn!”
“A Koren Siddur and a Koren Bible. A King James just
won’t do for you anymore,” Fenn said. “Now you get to have a
Bible with all the funny names. No more Moses, only Moshe
for you. A Bible chock full of Yehudas, Rivkahs and what the
not.”
“I love you, you know that?”
“Well, I like you too,” Fenn said smoothly.
“Sometimes you’re terrible.”
“Todd,” Fenn kissed him, “after twenty years I think I’d
even go as far as saying I love you too.”
Bryant nearly ran across the room when the new email came
up.
He opened it and read: “This is the right address from
Craigslist?”
Is that all he had to say? Bryant should have sent an IM.
“Yes,” he typed back.
He paced around the house, dizzy and tingly for a moment
until the next one came up.
“You like to fuck or get fucked?”
Bryant typed quickly: “I wanna get fucked tonight.”
Then he typed, his dick getting harder, “I want to suck on a
nice cock and get fucked real hard tonight.”
He sent the email off.
Since Nick had left, and he’d known how close he was to
having sex with him, how close he was to having sex with
anyone, he’d gone through the webpages and Craigslist,
looking for suitable sex to wear off the need. Something deep
in his asshole had ached to be touched. It had been so long,
and he was tired of living like a hermit. A new email came up.
“I’m a truck driver. I’m in a truck at the Walmart parking
lot in Miller. Is that alright?”
“You want me to get fucked in a truck cab?”
A moment later the response came back.
“That’s kind of the way it has to be. I don’t mean to
offend.”
Bryant typed back:
“Do you have condoms?”
He was going to write other things, but other things didn’t
matter, and he was horny and dizzy and kept growing hard.
There was an iron taste in his mouth. He was so close to what
he’d wanted for such a long time. The email came back.
“Yes.”
Bryant had almost hoped he would write ‘no’, but there it
was; a straightforward, but slightly tacky proposition for the
sex he wanted. For a moment he thought about what it would
look like if people knew. But who would know? Who was he
being honorable for? Part of him was a little bit angry.
I always thought if I was good for long enough good things would
happen.
Well, what was he bitching for? Good things were
happening, just not all the good things he thought should
happen. He was chair of his department with his own home
and the chance for sex. He sat down to write another email.
His heart was pounding hard in his chest, like before some of
his very first sexual experiences. It had been so long he almost
felt like a virgin again.
He wrote back:
“Fine. I’ll be there in about a half hour.”
Chay drove past his grandmother’s diner. He thought about
stopping to see Naomi, or maybe Danasia, but it was late and
he had some place to be.
The drive around the outskirts of town lasted a while
before he went up the gravelly road and pulled up to the
ramshackle house where Casey Williams ran his studio and
lived his life. When Casey had first started, the studio was
actually in the house, and some things were still shot there. But
as he’d become more successful, he added the white building
behind. Chay parked in front of the house, and with a yawn,
climbed out of the car. He headed up the steps and as he
opened the porch door, Logan came out of the front door.
He stood there, his mouth open, much taller and stronger
than Chay would ever be and yet, awkward.
“Chay?” he began.
Chay took a set of keys from his pocket and placed them
firmly enough in Logan’s palm for them to hurt.
“These belong to Sheridan. That’s his car out there. Tell
him he can come and get it. Thanks.”
Chay moved past Logan and went into the house, heading
for Casey’s office and not even willing to look behind him.
Casey wasn’t in the office, and that meant he was upstairs. In
one of the studio bedrooms, he was closing up the camera
while a few assistants were cleaning, and his face lit up when he
saw Chay.
“Are you staying?”
“I better stay,” Chay said to the blond man with his hands
shoved into his hoodie. “I just gave Sheridan’s keys to Logan
on his way out.”
“Ouch,” Casey said, moving closer. He touched Chay’s
hair. “You alright?”
“I’m as alright as I’m going be,” he said. And then he said,
“No… I am alright! You shoot a movie here today?”
“Um hum.”
“With Logan?”
“Yes… it’s like,” Casey’s eyes danced with a touch of scorn,
“his big hurrah before leaving porn.”
“Did you fuck him?”
Casey looked at Chay.
“Not today I didn’t…” he said, a question mark at the end
of his voice.
“I have no idea why I asked that.”
“Jealousy maybe?” Casey grinned.
“No,” Chay said. “I’m really not jealous at all. I think I
asked maybe cause it would drive Sheridan crazy in the end to
know that Logan was fucking you in movies.”
“I hardly take an active part in my stuff anymore,” Casey
said. “It’s a job and, as you get older it becomes more of a
job.”
Casey gestured for Chay to follow him out of the room.
“C’mon. You hungry?”
“Now that you mention it, yes.”
“But back to the whole, it’s your job?”
“Yes?”
“What about boyfriends and stuff?”
They were at the top of the stairs, and as Casey trotted
down a pace he said, facing backward, “I thought you used to
be my boyfriend?”
“I guess,” Chay said. “But… What about now?”
“I don’t have them. Unless you mean you. And Keith. But
that was before you.”
“And fun. Recreation?”
At the bottom of the stairs Casey grinned and cocked his
head.
“What?” Chay said.
Casey pushed up his glasses.
“Are you trying to figure out when the last time I had sex
was before you?”
“No…”
“As a recreational thing, actually about four months ago.
And as a professional thing I did a movie. With Logan if you
must know. And now you know everything.”
“I didn’t have to know everything,” Chay said, primly. He
stood on the step so he was eye to eye on with Casey.
“That,” Casey said, “is a fucking lie. And unlike certain
people I know when you’re lying and when you’re ticked off,
and that’s why we belong together.”
He balanced himself over the steering wheel and closed his
eyes, feeling the glass of the window against his lips as the
trucker fucked him. Now, toward the end, it was quicker and
quicker and Bryant grunted as the pretty, blond trucker pulled
his hair back. Bryant groaned and came, momentarily shaken
out of his body, trembling on the edge of existence as semen
spilled out of him and, admiringly, the trucker said, “Nice.
That’s nice man.”
From Bryant’s orgasm, the trucker gained inspiration and
began fucking him harder and deeper, right here, at the very
edge.
“Don’t come in me. Come out of me,” Bryant whispered.
And then he felt the gentle soreness, the necessary
throbbing deep in him where the trucker had been. The
condom came off and the guy pulled at himself a little, and
then there was that slick hotness, across Bryant’s back, on his
spine, about to dribble to the cleft of his ass.
“You’ve got a really tight ass,” the guy said, admiringly
running his hands over Bryant’s sides.
Bryant didn’t know what to say to the compliment, so he
said what was sensible. His pants and underwear were in the
passenger seat, but his shirt was pulled up around his chest.
“Do you have something I can clean up with?”
“Yeah,” the young man said, still under Bryant.
“What about this?”
He handed Bryant an old flannel shirt.
“Really?”
“I’ll wash it soon,” the man told him.
Bryant ran it over his back and groin, then climbed off of
the man’s naked lap, his damp but still risen penis, and reached
for his underwear and his trousers. Bryant wiped a little longer
on his back before letting his shirt down.
They were silent for a minute and then Bryant said, “Well, I
think I should go.”
“That was just what I needed, man.”
“Me too,” Bryant said, trying to sound as cordial as
possible. He looked around for his coat, for his keys, for the
pair of glasses he kept in a case in his coat.
“Good night, now,” he said.
And then he kissed him because the trucker suddenly
looked like a very winded, very open little boy, and Bryant
could see he was longing for something else.
“I’ll be here for a couple of days,” the boy told him.
“Alright,” Bryant said and, carefully, climbed out of the cab.
He needed to think about this. As he walked across the
Walmart parking lot to his car, he thought this needed to be
processed, absorbed. He knew that as much as he loved his
friends, this was something he would never tell anyone. When
he had come out in his twenties, he assumed that he would
have some wonderful gay life, the same life his other siblings
had only not straight. He would have kids and a home, only
he’d have a husband instead of a wife. Being gay was a minor
wrench in his plans, and a very unimportant one. The world
would be his oyster.
Instead, here he was, closer to fifty than forty, with the grey
hairs to tell and, distinguished chair of the music department at
Loretto College, he had just climbed into a truck and let a
twenty something year old trucker with a GED fuck him
against a steering wheel. That was as much of a love life as he
was going to get.
After putting his key in the ignition, he pulled out of the
space, and turning around for the road he muttered, “If I think
about this too much, I’ll probably start to cry.”
They were both red faced and breathing heavily when they
turned on their sides to face each other. The bed sheets were
damp and Casey gave a laugh, as much to reduce the intensity
of the moment as anything else before speaking.
“Now I know why you like me so well!”
Chay smiled at Casey, whose butter colored hair was
sticking up a bit and he said, “No… That’s not the reason
why.”
He took his index finger and his middle finger like a peace
sign, and going toward Casey’s face, opened them so that one
set down on both of his eyes.
“These are the reason why,” he said.
Casey opened his eyes as Chay withdrew his hand.
“The way you looked at me when I came back… That
shine… No one ever had it for me. That’s why,” Chay said as
Casey smiled at him. “That’s why.”
END OF PART TWO
CONCLUSION
After dinner, Kenny noticed Radha continuously nudging
Chad. He was glad no one did the same to him. The night was
tense and strange. Sheridan looked unhappy and Kenny was
curious as to why. Suddenly, Chad stood up and said, “Kenny,
you wanna help with the dishes?”
“He sure does,” Milo said before Kenny could do anything,
and so he shrugged and followed Chad into the kitchen.
Once the door swung shut, rolling up his sleeves, Chad
said, “The bad thing about making up the excuse of doing the
dishes is now we actually have to do the dishes.”
Kenny smiled and nodded, rounding Chad, and bent to
take the dishwashing liquid out of the sink.
“I didn’t know if it was too early to call,” Kenny said. “I
really enjoyed last night, and I didn’t want to be pushy or
anything.”
“Me neither,” Chad said, taking the bottle and turning on
the faucet to rinse the dishes. “I was just trying to do the same
thing. Not be clingy. I don’t really do these things so well.”
Chad squirted detergent into the sink and added, “And I
don’t even know what this thing is. I don’t exactly know what
we’re doing.”
“I thought we were just having a good time,” Kenny said.
“I’ve been with Brendan since high school. I never got the
chance to have a good time.”
“I was with Bryant. A very intense relationship. Then his
brother. Intense and wrong. No, I know what you mean,”
Chad put the plates into the sink. “I’ve never just… had an
affair.”
“Is that what we’re doing?” Kenneth said.
“We don’t have to call it anything,” said Chad.
“Good, I’m alright with it being what it is. Are you?”
Kenny asked him.
“Does what it is involve us going back to my place
tonight?”
“Yours or mine,” Kenny shrugged, thinking of kissing him
in the kitchen, but still hanging back.
Chad smiled. “Well, then I’m alright with it.”
“And what is this?” Todd said, looking at Fenn as he eagerly
unwrapped the package.
“You’re about to find out.”
“Oh, this is nice, baby!”
“You needed a new Siddur. This is a Koren. It’s so much
fun I might have to convert.”
Todd chuckled as he lifted the heavy little prayer book. He
turned the pages from backward to forward. “I think you’re
beyond conversion,” he told Fenn.
“I’m as Jewish as I’m going to be and as Christian as I ever
was, and I’ve got Dylan reading the Bhagavad Gita. Open the
last gift so we can go to bed.”
Todd leaned to the side to wrap his arm around Fenn. “Is
there going to be another present when we get to bed?”
“I never thought I’d say some tired shit like this, but… not
tonight because my head actually does hurt.”
“Oh,” said Todd. “Then I’ll just open this now. Oh, crap,
Fenn!”
“A Koren Siddur and a Koren Bible. A King James just
won’t do for you anymore,” Fenn said. “Now you get to have a
Bible with all the funny names. No more Moses, only Moshe
for you. A Bible chock full of Yehudas, Rivkahs and what the
not.”
“I love you, you know that?”
“Well, I like you too,” Fenn said smoothly.
“Sometimes you’re terrible.”
“Todd,” Fenn kissed him, “after twenty years I think I’d
even go as far as saying I love you too.”
Bryant nearly ran across the room when the new email came
up.
He opened it and read: “This is the right address from
Craigslist?”
Is that all he had to say? Bryant should have sent an IM.
“Yes,” he typed back.
He paced around the house, dizzy and tingly for a moment
until the next one came up.
“You like to fuck or get fucked?”
Bryant typed quickly: “I wanna get fucked tonight.”
Then he typed, his dick getting harder, “I want to suck on a
nice cock and get fucked real hard tonight.”
He sent the email off.
Since Nick had left, and he’d known how close he was to
having sex with him, how close he was to having sex with
anyone, he’d gone through the webpages and Craigslist,
looking for suitable sex to wear off the need. Something deep
in his asshole had ached to be touched. It had been so long,
and he was tired of living like a hermit. A new email came up.
“I’m a truck driver. I’m in a truck at the Walmart parking
lot in Miller. Is that alright?”
“You want me to get fucked in a truck cab?”
A moment later the response came back.
“That’s kind of the way it has to be. I don’t mean to
offend.”
Bryant typed back:
“Do you have condoms?”
He was going to write other things, but other things didn’t
matter, and he was horny and dizzy and kept growing hard.
There was an iron taste in his mouth. He was so close to what
he’d wanted for such a long time. The email came back.
“Yes.”
Bryant had almost hoped he would write ‘no’, but there it
was; a straightforward, but slightly tacky proposition for the
sex he wanted. For a moment he thought about what it would
look like if people knew. But who would know? Who was he
being honorable for? Part of him was a little bit angry.
I always thought if I was good for long enough good things would
happen.
Well, what was he bitching for? Good things were
happening, just not all the good things he thought should
happen. He was chair of his department with his own home
and the chance for sex. He sat down to write another email.
His heart was pounding hard in his chest, like before some of
his very first sexual experiences. It had been so long he almost
felt like a virgin again.
He wrote back:
“Fine. I’ll be there in about a half hour.”
Chay drove past his grandmother’s diner. He thought about
stopping to see Naomi, or maybe Danasia, but it was late and
he had some place to be.
The drive around the outskirts of town lasted a while
before he went up the gravelly road and pulled up to the
ramshackle house where Casey Williams ran his studio and
lived his life. When Casey had first started, the studio was
actually in the house, and some things were still shot there. But
as he’d become more successful, he added the white building
behind. Chay parked in front of the house, and with a yawn,
climbed out of the car. He headed up the steps and as he
opened the porch door, Logan came out of the front door.
He stood there, his mouth open, much taller and stronger
than Chay would ever be and yet, awkward.
“Chay?” he began.
Chay took a set of keys from his pocket and placed them
firmly enough in Logan’s palm for them to hurt.
“These belong to Sheridan. That’s his car out there. Tell
him he can come and get it. Thanks.”
Chay moved past Logan and went into the house, heading
for Casey’s office and not even willing to look behind him.
Casey wasn’t in the office, and that meant he was upstairs. In
one of the studio bedrooms, he was closing up the camera
while a few assistants were cleaning, and his face lit up when he
saw Chay.
“Are you staying?”
“I better stay,” Chay said to the blond man with his hands
shoved into his hoodie. “I just gave Sheridan’s keys to Logan
on his way out.”
“Ouch,” Casey said, moving closer. He touched Chay’s
hair. “You alright?”
“I’m as alright as I’m going be,” he said. And then he said,
“No… I am alright! You shoot a movie here today?”
“Um hum.”
“With Logan?”
“Yes… it’s like,” Casey’s eyes danced with a touch of scorn,
“his big hurrah before leaving porn.”
“Did you fuck him?”
Casey looked at Chay.
“Not today I didn’t…” he said, a question mark at the end
of his voice.
“I have no idea why I asked that.”
“Jealousy maybe?” Casey grinned.
“No,” Chay said. “I’m really not jealous at all. I think I
asked maybe cause it would drive Sheridan crazy in the end to
know that Logan was fucking you in movies.”
“I hardly take an active part in my stuff anymore,” Casey
said. “It’s a job and, as you get older it becomes more of a
job.”
Casey gestured for Chay to follow him out of the room.
“C’mon. You hungry?”
“Now that you mention it, yes.”
“But back to the whole, it’s your job?”
“Yes?”
“What about boyfriends and stuff?”
They were at the top of the stairs, and as Casey trotted
down a pace he said, facing backward, “I thought you used to
be my boyfriend?”
“I guess,” Chay said. “But… What about now?”
“I don’t have them. Unless you mean you. And Keith. But
that was before you.”
“And fun. Recreation?”
At the bottom of the stairs Casey grinned and cocked his
head.
“What?” Chay said.
Casey pushed up his glasses.
“Are you trying to figure out when the last time I had sex
was before you?”
“No…”
“As a recreational thing, actually about four months ago.
And as a professional thing I did a movie. With Logan if you
must know. And now you know everything.”
“I didn’t have to know everything,” Chay said, primly. He
stood on the step so he was eye to eye on with Casey.
“That,” Casey said, “is a fucking lie. And unlike certain
people I know when you’re lying and when you’re ticked off,
and that’s why we belong together.”
He balanced himself over the steering wheel and closed his
eyes, feeling the glass of the window against his lips as the
trucker fucked him. Now, toward the end, it was quicker and
quicker and Bryant grunted as the pretty, blond trucker pulled
his hair back. Bryant groaned and came, momentarily shaken
out of his body, trembling on the edge of existence as semen
spilled out of him and, admiringly, the trucker said, “Nice.
That’s nice man.”
From Bryant’s orgasm, the trucker gained inspiration and
began fucking him harder and deeper, right here, at the very
edge.
“Don’t come in me. Come out of me,” Bryant whispered.
And then he felt the gentle soreness, the necessary
throbbing deep in him where the trucker had been. The
condom came off and the guy pulled at himself a little, and
then there was that slick hotness, across Bryant’s back, on his
spine, about to dribble to the cleft of his ass.
“You’ve got a really tight ass,” the guy said, admiringly
running his hands over Bryant’s sides.
Bryant didn’t know what to say to the compliment, so he
said what was sensible. His pants and underwear were in the
passenger seat, but his shirt was pulled up around his chest.
“Do you have something I can clean up with?”
“Yeah,” the young man said, still under Bryant.
“What about this?”
He handed Bryant an old flannel shirt.
“Really?”
“I’ll wash it soon,” the man told him.
Bryant ran it over his back and groin, then climbed off of
the man’s naked lap, his damp but still risen penis, and reached
for his underwear and his trousers. Bryant wiped a little longer
on his back before letting his shirt down.
They were silent for a minute and then Bryant said, “Well, I
think I should go.”
“That was just what I needed, man.”
“Me too,” Bryant said, trying to sound as cordial as
possible. He looked around for his coat, for his keys, for the
pair of glasses he kept in a case in his coat.
“Good night, now,” he said.
And then he kissed him because the trucker suddenly
looked like a very winded, very open little boy, and Bryant
could see he was longing for something else.
“I’ll be here for a couple of days,” the boy told him.
“Alright,” Bryant said and, carefully, climbed out of the cab.
He needed to think about this. As he walked across the
Walmart parking lot to his car, he thought this needed to be
processed, absorbed. He knew that as much as he loved his
friends, this was something he would never tell anyone. When
he had come out in his twenties, he assumed that he would
have some wonderful gay life, the same life his other siblings
had only not straight. He would have kids and a home, only
he’d have a husband instead of a wife. Being gay was a minor
wrench in his plans, and a very unimportant one. The world
would be his oyster.
Instead, here he was, closer to fifty than forty, with the grey
hairs to tell and, distinguished chair of the music department at
Loretto College, he had just climbed into a truck and let a
twenty something year old trucker with a GED fuck him
against a steering wheel. That was as much of a love life as he
was going to get.
After putting his key in the ignition, he pulled out of the
space, and turning around for the road he muttered, “If I think
about this too much, I’ll probably start to cry.”
They were both red faced and breathing heavily when they
turned on their sides to face each other. The bed sheets were
damp and Casey gave a laugh, as much to reduce the intensity
of the moment as anything else before speaking.
“Now I know why you like me so well!”
Chay smiled at Casey, whose butter colored hair was
sticking up a bit and he said, “No… That’s not the reason
why.”
He took his index finger and his middle finger like a peace
sign, and going toward Casey’s face, opened them so that one
set down on both of his eyes.
“These are the reason why,” he said.
Casey opened his eyes as Chay withdrew his hand.
“The way you looked at me when I came back… That
shine… No one ever had it for me. That’s why,” Chay said as
Casey smiled at him. “That’s why.”
END OF PART TWO
CharmedFan28
JUB Addict
That was a great end to part 2! I like Kenny and Chad together, I see trouble with Brendan coming a mile away but that is to be expected. I may not really like Casey but he is good to Chay. Bryant seems to be going back to his old ways or maybe he never really changed I don't know. It was good to read some of Fenn and Todd if only for a short while. Excellent writing and I look forward to more soon!
ChrisGibson
JUB Addict
Of course, trouble is always to be expected in Rossford. Both Chad and Kenny are experiencing some happiness I think they need, and that is a true thing about Casey. I am obligated to love all of my characters, but I wouldn't take up with him! However, he really does and always has loved Chay, and Chay knows this now, whatever their future life will look like. I think Bryant is like a lot like most of us, changed, but always in danger of going back to old ways. He wants to love Ferguson, but Ferguson is a fool. He loved Chad, and now Chad is always around. At this point love and men seem like a big frustrating joke. His love for Chad saved him, but that love was broken, and so now he's a little broken too, and spiraling down into his old semi destructive lust and self hatred.
ChrisGibson
JUB Addict
ROSSFORD WEEKEND PORTION ONE
PART
THREE
EXPLOSION
NINE
TRAIN RIDES
“Well, the whole thing excites me,” Caroline Houghton said.
“Layla’s poetry reading?”
“No,” Caroline said. “I mean yes. I mean, that’s not what I
was talking about. I was talking about you going out with
Alex.”
“Well, I’m not going out until I get back from this thing
with Layla,” Laurel said, straightening her top.
“But going out nonetheless. And not with that Jack
Warren.”
“You’re not bringing him up again?”
“I guess I was,” Caroline reflected. “But I guess I’ll stop.”
“Thank you, Mom.”
“You know,” Caroline followed her daughter out of the
bedroom, “that’s how I met your father. In a dream.”
Laurel turned around.
“Mom, that didn’t work out.”
“It worked out for a while. It worked out long enough for
you to come into the world.”
“I’m not even going to look for the flaw in that logic.”
Downstairs there was a knock at the door and Laurel said,
“That must be Layla.”
Laurel and her mother went downstairs together, and
Laurel opened the door for her aunt. Claire and Dena were
with her.
“I can’t believe I’m being snubbed by my own sister,” Layla
said.
“I’m not snubbing you,” Caroline told her. “I’m snubbing
WomanFest.”
“Is it really that bad?” Claire cringed.
“Well, it is called WomanFest.”
“How did you know about it?” Dena asked her.
“I did card readings there one year.”
Beyond that Caroline wouldn’t say.
“Do you have any prediction for how Layla’s going to do?”
Claire said.
“I don’t really need to predict. All I need to know is, it’s
WomanFest and please, if you ever want to be invited back,
learn how to wear a poker face.”
“That,” Laurel noted, reaching for her coat, “seems like the
beginning to a story I need to hear.”
“Later,” Caroline said. “I promise.”
They went down the long steps to Claire’s van below, and as
they were climbing into it, Laurel’s phone rang.
“Who is it?” Layla said.
Laurel checked it.
“It’s Dylan.”
“Give it here,” Layla said from the shotgun seat.
Laurel handed it to Layla as Claire began driving, and Layla
turned the phone off and then stuck it in her purse.
“Layla!”
“You,” her aunt told her, “are off duty today. It’s
WomanFest time!”
“Well, now I understand that you don’t like Ron,” Danasia told
Noah, “But you should have gone to him a long time ago.”
“It’s not that I don’t like Ron,” Noah said. “And he doesn’t
really like me either.”
“Well, now that is true,” Danasia reflected. “But what is
also true is that if you are looking for something less tame,
something where your past won’t matter, Ron is definitely the
man to go to.
“Or even Casey.”
“I’m not going to Casey.”
“See,” Danasia said, leaning across the table, “that’s your
problem. You want to be proud and respectable, and then do
all the things that proud, respectable people just can’t get away
with. You’ve got a past, and this very minute that past has a
hundred videos more shocking than you sitting on a dildo and
riding a bicycle that would get you drummed out of this school
system.
“And that’s a shame, it really is, because Rossford City
Schools isn’t that great, and if they were more concerned with
what teachers were doing now than what they did ten years
ago, the schools would be better places.”
“That’s exactly what Chay said.”
“Well, he’s a wise boy.
“But my point is,” Danasia continued, “you’re being too
proud.
“I wouldn’t dare have you surrender your pride to Ron. I
know the two of you have had bad history, and I’ve told him
about that shit. I told him, Baby, Noah Riley was in my life
years before you, and you keep up this shit and he’ll be in it
years after you. No, don’t laugh. I’m dead serious. You and me,
for life.
“But I will go and see if he’s in touch with anything. You
need to go talk to Casey.”
Noah’s face went stony, and crossing his arms over his
chest, he sank a little into his chair.
“I know you have bad history, but you were friends once.”
“Bad history? He had sex with my son! He did it when
Chay was fifteen for Christ’s sake.”
“All the more reason he owes you,” Danasia said. “And you
can put it like that. And you better.”
Noah nodded.
“That teaching job was bullshit, anyway,” Danasia told him.
“I loved being a teacher, though.”
“You loved tutoring at home,” she corrected him. “And
there’s more than one way to teach.”
“Well, you know,” Noah told her. “Lately, I haven’t even
been concerned about looking for a job or anything. It’s other
stuff that’s been on my mind.”
“Other stuff? Not that shit about Chay and Sheridan?”
“Believe it or not, no.”
“Well, good,” Danasia decided. “It’s not good to always be
hung up on your children.”
“It’s more about Paul.”
“Is something wrong with him?”
“No, nothing’s wrong with him. That’s the problem. We
were watching that old video, the one the dean found. I said I
couldn’t watch it by myself, and we laughed at it a while, but
when it got to the sex part…”
“Did it make you hot?”
“It was us years ago. but… I mean, I know we don’t look
the same—”
“You look the same to me.”
“Well, that’s nice, but when I take off my shirt, I know I’m
not quite the same, and neither is Paul. But we watched the
whole thing and we were looking at each other, and then we
snapped out of it, and I said I had to go home.
“We’ve been friends for so long, but we used to do movies
together. I can still remember it. Pauley broke me in. I used to
get weak in the knees with that man. Doing stuff with him was
just so easy cause I just loved being with him. And then when
we left that, when we first came to Rossford, we were sleeping
together. We were lovers. I left and he found Kirk, and then
James came into my life. But me and Paul were something, and
I was feeling it again. And I’ve been feeling it.”
“Do you want to leave James for Paul?” Danasia said, only
half sarcastically.
“No,” Noah said after a while. “But I do want to sleep with
Paul, and that’s fucking me up real bad.”
“Okay, so we’ve been friends for a long time and I’m just
going to get this off of my chest.”
“All right,” Fenn said, sitting up on the couch.
“You remember this couch?” Paul said.
“Yes, it’s my couch, I’ve remembered it for twenty years,
but I bet that’s not what you wanted to talk about.”
“No,” Paul brushed that away. “I just mean the first time I
came here, when Todd brought me, you put me on this couch
and this is where I woke up talking to you. I met you on this
couch.”
“That is the most maudlin thing you’ve ever said.”
“Well, now I’m officially old enough to be maudlin,” Paul
said. “I’m the same age you were when we met.”
“Get out,” Fenn murmured.
“Yeah, I’m not a boy anymore.”
“Well,” Fenn told him, “Now that we’re both old, what
were you about to get off your chest.”
“I never said you were old—”
“That’s hardly the point,” Fenn shrugged. “So why don’t
you tell me the point.”
“I want to fuck Noah.”
If Fenn had a drink in his hand, he would have dropped it.
“We watched that video the dean found. It just brought
back feelings. He was so hot back then. So sweet. We used to
be lovers! I couldn’t stop thinking about how it was with him.
The whole time we just kept looking at each other and… you
know, in the past it could never have worked out for several
reasons.”
“I can think of several reasons why it wouldn’t work out
now.”
“Yeah, yeah,” Paul waved that away. “I’m not saying run
off and make a life with Noah. I’m just saying I really, really,
want to have sex with him. It’s all I’ve been thinking about.
We’ve been friends for so long, and you know we used to be
lovers.”
“You just said that.”
“In this house. In Dylan’s bedroom—”
“There’s more than enough sex that’s been going on in
Dylan’s bedroom.”
“Oh, yeah,” Paul said, sadly. “I’m glad he finally decided to
tell you about that.”
Paul instantly realized what he had said, but before he could
rephrase it, Fenn said:
“Whaddo you mean, finally?”
Paul looked frozen and stupid, and he was trying to figure
what tact to take before he came down on honesty.
“Well, when I found out, it was last year, so it must have
been going on for two years—” Fenn’s face betrayed nothing.
“I… I told him to be careful, but I thought that if you knew it
would kill you, Fenn…” Paul finished lamely.
Fenn said nothing.
After a space of silence, Fenn said, “He’s been having sex
with Lance Bishop for two years?”
Paul opened his mouth and closed it, but Fenn distinctly
saw the word, “Who?” on Paul’s mouth.
“It wasn’t Lance Bishop?” Fenn said standing up.
“I… don’t… think so.” Paul wished he’d never spoken.
“Well, then who? And how many?”
“I don’t know, Fenn. And I don’t know.”
“You knew that my only son was running around with half
the city, and you didn’t think you should tell me?”
“Tell you what?” Paul threw his hands up. “What were you
going to do but what you’re doing now?”
Fenn ignored Paul.
“I don’t know him,” he said. “I don’t know that boy at
all.”
PART
THREE
EXPLOSION
NINE
TRAIN RIDES
“Well, the whole thing excites me,” Caroline Houghton said.
“Layla’s poetry reading?”
“No,” Caroline said. “I mean yes. I mean, that’s not what I
was talking about. I was talking about you going out with
Alex.”
“Well, I’m not going out until I get back from this thing
with Layla,” Laurel said, straightening her top.
“But going out nonetheless. And not with that Jack
Warren.”
“You’re not bringing him up again?”
“I guess I was,” Caroline reflected. “But I guess I’ll stop.”
“Thank you, Mom.”
“You know,” Caroline followed her daughter out of the
bedroom, “that’s how I met your father. In a dream.”
Laurel turned around.
“Mom, that didn’t work out.”
“It worked out for a while. It worked out long enough for
you to come into the world.”
“I’m not even going to look for the flaw in that logic.”
Downstairs there was a knock at the door and Laurel said,
“That must be Layla.”
Laurel and her mother went downstairs together, and
Laurel opened the door for her aunt. Claire and Dena were
with her.
“I can’t believe I’m being snubbed by my own sister,” Layla
said.
“I’m not snubbing you,” Caroline told her. “I’m snubbing
WomanFest.”
“Is it really that bad?” Claire cringed.
“Well, it is called WomanFest.”
“How did you know about it?” Dena asked her.
“I did card readings there one year.”
Beyond that Caroline wouldn’t say.
“Do you have any prediction for how Layla’s going to do?”
Claire said.
“I don’t really need to predict. All I need to know is, it’s
WomanFest and please, if you ever want to be invited back,
learn how to wear a poker face.”
“That,” Laurel noted, reaching for her coat, “seems like the
beginning to a story I need to hear.”
“Later,” Caroline said. “I promise.”
They went down the long steps to Claire’s van below, and as
they were climbing into it, Laurel’s phone rang.
“Who is it?” Layla said.
Laurel checked it.
“It’s Dylan.”
“Give it here,” Layla said from the shotgun seat.
Laurel handed it to Layla as Claire began driving, and Layla
turned the phone off and then stuck it in her purse.
“Layla!”
“You,” her aunt told her, “are off duty today. It’s
WomanFest time!”
“Well, now I understand that you don’t like Ron,” Danasia told
Noah, “But you should have gone to him a long time ago.”
“It’s not that I don’t like Ron,” Noah said. “And he doesn’t
really like me either.”
“Well, now that is true,” Danasia reflected. “But what is
also true is that if you are looking for something less tame,
something where your past won’t matter, Ron is definitely the
man to go to.
“Or even Casey.”
“I’m not going to Casey.”
“See,” Danasia said, leaning across the table, “that’s your
problem. You want to be proud and respectable, and then do
all the things that proud, respectable people just can’t get away
with. You’ve got a past, and this very minute that past has a
hundred videos more shocking than you sitting on a dildo and
riding a bicycle that would get you drummed out of this school
system.
“And that’s a shame, it really is, because Rossford City
Schools isn’t that great, and if they were more concerned with
what teachers were doing now than what they did ten years
ago, the schools would be better places.”
“That’s exactly what Chay said.”
“Well, he’s a wise boy.
“But my point is,” Danasia continued, “you’re being too
proud.
“I wouldn’t dare have you surrender your pride to Ron. I
know the two of you have had bad history, and I’ve told him
about that shit. I told him, Baby, Noah Riley was in my life
years before you, and you keep up this shit and he’ll be in it
years after you. No, don’t laugh. I’m dead serious. You and me,
for life.
“But I will go and see if he’s in touch with anything. You
need to go talk to Casey.”
Noah’s face went stony, and crossing his arms over his
chest, he sank a little into his chair.
“I know you have bad history, but you were friends once.”
“Bad history? He had sex with my son! He did it when
Chay was fifteen for Christ’s sake.”
“All the more reason he owes you,” Danasia said. “And you
can put it like that. And you better.”
Noah nodded.
“That teaching job was bullshit, anyway,” Danasia told him.
“I loved being a teacher, though.”
“You loved tutoring at home,” she corrected him. “And
there’s more than one way to teach.”
“Well, you know,” Noah told her. “Lately, I haven’t even
been concerned about looking for a job or anything. It’s other
stuff that’s been on my mind.”
“Other stuff? Not that shit about Chay and Sheridan?”
“Believe it or not, no.”
“Well, good,” Danasia decided. “It’s not good to always be
hung up on your children.”
“It’s more about Paul.”
“Is something wrong with him?”
“No, nothing’s wrong with him. That’s the problem. We
were watching that old video, the one the dean found. I said I
couldn’t watch it by myself, and we laughed at it a while, but
when it got to the sex part…”
“Did it make you hot?”
“It was us years ago. but… I mean, I know we don’t look
the same—”
“You look the same to me.”
“Well, that’s nice, but when I take off my shirt, I know I’m
not quite the same, and neither is Paul. But we watched the
whole thing and we were looking at each other, and then we
snapped out of it, and I said I had to go home.
“We’ve been friends for so long, but we used to do movies
together. I can still remember it. Pauley broke me in. I used to
get weak in the knees with that man. Doing stuff with him was
just so easy cause I just loved being with him. And then when
we left that, when we first came to Rossford, we were sleeping
together. We were lovers. I left and he found Kirk, and then
James came into my life. But me and Paul were something, and
I was feeling it again. And I’ve been feeling it.”
“Do you want to leave James for Paul?” Danasia said, only
half sarcastically.
“No,” Noah said after a while. “But I do want to sleep with
Paul, and that’s fucking me up real bad.”
“Okay, so we’ve been friends for a long time and I’m just
going to get this off of my chest.”
“All right,” Fenn said, sitting up on the couch.
“You remember this couch?” Paul said.
“Yes, it’s my couch, I’ve remembered it for twenty years,
but I bet that’s not what you wanted to talk about.”
“No,” Paul brushed that away. “I just mean the first time I
came here, when Todd brought me, you put me on this couch
and this is where I woke up talking to you. I met you on this
couch.”
“That is the most maudlin thing you’ve ever said.”
“Well, now I’m officially old enough to be maudlin,” Paul
said. “I’m the same age you were when we met.”
“Get out,” Fenn murmured.
“Yeah, I’m not a boy anymore.”
“Well,” Fenn told him, “Now that we’re both old, what
were you about to get off your chest.”
“I never said you were old—”
“That’s hardly the point,” Fenn shrugged. “So why don’t
you tell me the point.”
“I want to fuck Noah.”
If Fenn had a drink in his hand, he would have dropped it.
“We watched that video the dean found. It just brought
back feelings. He was so hot back then. So sweet. We used to
be lovers! I couldn’t stop thinking about how it was with him.
The whole time we just kept looking at each other and… you
know, in the past it could never have worked out for several
reasons.”
“I can think of several reasons why it wouldn’t work out
now.”
“Yeah, yeah,” Paul waved that away. “I’m not saying run
off and make a life with Noah. I’m just saying I really, really,
want to have sex with him. It’s all I’ve been thinking about.
We’ve been friends for so long, and you know we used to be
lovers.”
“You just said that.”
“In this house. In Dylan’s bedroom—”
“There’s more than enough sex that’s been going on in
Dylan’s bedroom.”
“Oh, yeah,” Paul said, sadly. “I’m glad he finally decided to
tell you about that.”
Paul instantly realized what he had said, but before he could
rephrase it, Fenn said:
“Whaddo you mean, finally?”
Paul looked frozen and stupid, and he was trying to figure
what tact to take before he came down on honesty.
“Well, when I found out, it was last year, so it must have
been going on for two years—” Fenn’s face betrayed nothing.
“I… I told him to be careful, but I thought that if you knew it
would kill you, Fenn…” Paul finished lamely.
Fenn said nothing.
After a space of silence, Fenn said, “He’s been having sex
with Lance Bishop for two years?”
Paul opened his mouth and closed it, but Fenn distinctly
saw the word, “Who?” on Paul’s mouth.
“It wasn’t Lance Bishop?” Fenn said standing up.
“I… don’t… think so.” Paul wished he’d never spoken.
“Well, then who? And how many?”
“I don’t know, Fenn. And I don’t know.”
“You knew that my only son was running around with half
the city, and you didn’t think you should tell me?”
“Tell you what?” Paul threw his hands up. “What were you
going to do but what you’re doing now?”
Fenn ignored Paul.
“I don’t know him,” he said. “I don’t know that boy at
all.”
CharmedFan28
JUB Addict
That was a great start to the chapter! I hope Layla goes well at WomenFest. So Noah wants to sleep with Paul and Paul wants the same? Interesting. Sounds like Fenn is shocked to hear that Dylan has been having sex longer then he thought. I am interested to read how this plays out. Excellent writing and I look forward to the next portion!
ChrisGibson
JUB Addict
Yes, I also forgot that Fenn only knew about Dylan. Paul essentially telling Fenn that since Dylan was thirteen, he's been sexually active all over Rossford so.... frowny face day. Things are about to get interesting.
ChrisGibson
JUB Addict
WEEKEND PORTION
PART TWO
“I want to talk about peace,” Secily said as she released Layla’s
hand and threaded through the women.
“Yes,” one said. “Yes,” said another.
“I want to talk about the idea of peace warriors,” Secily
continued. “They say that Gandhi was a warrior of peace. They
speak of peace warriors!”
Secily’s voice rose up as she stepped onto the stage.
“How do you feel about peace warriors?”
When the women seemed to be thinking of the answer,
Secily screamed out, “Whaddo you think of peace warriors?”
Some women, cued by this, began clapping.
“Well, you know how I feel about peace warriors?” Secily
demanded.
“I don’t know what the fuck is going on?” Claire whispered
behind her hand to Laurel, and Laurel, about to laugh, saw one
woman with long grey hair frown.
“I’ll tell you what I think about peace warriors,” Secily
continued.
“FUCK,” she spoke in low voice, “Peace warriors.”
At once there was a bursting of applause and Layla looked
at Dena, thinking that mostly the eruption of handclapping was
relief at knowing what they were supposed to applaud.
“Because,” Secily cried out. “You can’t fight a war for
peace! Now can you? Let’s think about that shit. A war for
peace? You can’t fight for peace. You fight for fighting. Peace
is the opposite of war. It’s the opposite of fighting. Fighting
for peace is like… pissing for shit!”
Someone whistled so shrilly behind Dena, that she nearly
jumped up in the air.
“I was right with her until that,” Layla said.
“Until the whistle or until the shit for piss?” Laurel said.
“Yes,” said Layla.
“So what do you do for peace? You can’t fight the war for
peace. I was thinking to myself… I was at my cottage on Lake
Neil... Now, we don’t keep furniture there. It’s very Zen. The
only thing we use for a bed is a pallet, to return to simplicity.
And as I sat meditating I thought, No… not fighting the war
for peace, but fighting the PEACE for peace.”
“Yes,” Laurel said, earnestly, putting her hands together,
and when her aunt looked at her, Laurel smirked and said,
“Don’t fight it. Join it.”
“And then I thought even more… not fighting the peace
for peace. No, well what is the opposite of fighting. Peaceing!”
“You gotta be kidding me,” Claire muttered.
Again, the woman beside her cleared her throat and Claire
said, “Honey, you really gotta knock that shit off.”
“So, I will be peacing the peace for peace!” Secily declared
quietly as her audience applauded her once more, and then
Secily took a strip of paper from her cleavage and declared:
“And here is a paean I’ve composed about that peace:
i
on my bed
flat as a cracker
now know what matters
i will get up and take
a shit
and this shit will expel
all war
all the guns, the bombs
the nails that put together
engines of patriarchy
because i am no longer fighting
here, my only duty is to be
shitting
all of this mess that’s missing
and i
am peaceing the peace for peace
putting the piece together with
denise
and putting my face in her cinnamon
scented box
and at last—
flox?
“Flox?” said Dena.
Claire shrugged. “It rhymes with box.”
Secily concluded: “I will be peaceing the peace for peace!”
For a long while, the women clapped their hands, and then
Secily said, “And now, my good friend, who has become your
good friend… She needs no other name, We simply call her:
Hilary!”
“Hilary we love you!” the woman behind Dena shrieked,
and this time she turned around and said, “Alright, really, you
need to knock that shit off!”
“You called it a wound, you made it a tomb and
you want to shove the government up there
well, stare!
stare at my flower
and call it the bowl of life
it is the bowl of love
it is the dove
i am not ashamed
i will not be reined in
all of this beauty you see
all of this breadbasketry
is my pussy!
and you walked all over my pussy
and you tried to silence my pussy, put
burkahs over my pussy and hoodies over my
pussy and misspelled my pussy and
circumcised it and circumscribed it
but hear this, oh phallocentric genius
sitting in the meanness of your tiny,
tiny tiny cockedness
the witch oil of my besom, the Mary Daly
ding dalla allaying of my Asherah Anat
bulalala rafallala end of all male dominated
word structures is the beginning of me
come on, all you scared men
come on all you women made small
by saint paul beating you down
i want to take you to a place that
smells like salt
that smells like chicken
that smells like tuna
that smells like the sea
that’s right
that’s right
you’re going to my pussy!
don’t dress it up in pretty rags
don’t be afraid to say
say it with me
ah…
pussy
love your pussy
smell your pussy
touch your pussy
wax your car with your pussy!
my pussy is a drum
and i beat on that drum
i beat on it with the cut off dried out cocks of white
male
republicans and old hebroo profits
i beat on it with the dried out dicks of western
philosophy
i beat on it with the stiff pricks of the fathers of
Christianity
and we all sing one song: the song of pussy!
i climb on my electric broom and with all the Lilith
paula cole infested magic of tra-la-la-starhawk
fantastic
i fly
i am flying on my cunt and beneath me is the runt
of right wing foolishness and that, you see,
is the power in my pussy!”
“And now…” Hilary concluded… “Layla Houghton.”
As the clapping went up around her, Dena pinched her
shoulder and said, “You’re no Hilary. But try.”
FENN WAS CHAIN SMOKING, and his sister was watching
him when the phone rang.
“Do you want me to get that?” said Adele.
“Um… No.”
“That’s right,” Adele encouraged. “Let it ring.”
“No,” Fenn said, getting up, “What I meant is I’ll get it.”
“Oh, Fenn, it could only be more bad news.”
As Fenn picked up the phone he said, “You didn’t fuck up
your child, how could I fuck up mine?
“Hello?”
“Fenn, it’s me. And what’s this about Dylan being fucked
up?”
“We’ll talk. But… what, Tom?”
“I’m looking for Bryant. He was supposed to meet me
about a thousand years ago, and he’s not here.”
“Well, he’s not here either, so…”
Adele had gotten up and she picked up the phone in the
living room to listen in.
“Fenn,” Tom was saying, “I’m worried about him. Come
with me so we can check on Bryant.”
“Listen,” Adele began, and Fenn blinked, turning around
and seeing his older sister in the living room. “Fenn has been
wiping everybody’s ass for fifty years, and you just need to
calm the fuck down, Tom. You need to check on this shit
yourself.”
There was silence and then Fenn said, “Get over here.
Adele and I will go with you.”
LOVE IS THE MUCH LESS violent lightning
it is the only way i know to get from here
to there, from me to you
a love as small as a button
can be the size of Oklahoma
and i don’t know,
and agreeing not to know is the key to entering
mystery
i met a young man all in black
lighting candles in a church and he said
he wanted to be a mystic
but unless you open your heart you
will have missed it
that all of life is the handprint of love
and all of love is the fingertip of God
your love is my door
When Layla had finished, there was quiet, and then there was a
different type of clapping, as if no one had been able to figure
out what to do, or where the agenda was.
“It’s like they have to figure out a new place to clap from,”
Laurel whispered.
“I’ve got another,” Layla said, her voice more quiet than
usual. “Since the first one was short, I’ve got one more.”
She grinned.
“And it’s called ‘One More.’”
one more wish
one more night
one more love
one more kiss
if i had one more chance, but—no—this is it
learn to live with enoughness
cherish this is all there is ness
love the is-ness of things
here in this light room, i love you
all of your long white body,
for what it is
and i love us for who we are and not who we
are not drop
all the wishing for pretense and
come to me
as we are.
As they clapped, Layla nodded, and she stepped around the
stage and stepped down. They touched her like Jesus, like they
were waiting for a miracle, and one of the women leaned out
of the crowd and kissed her on the cheek.
Dena touched her elbow as she rejoined them.
“You’ve got it,” Dena said. “I don’t know when you got it,
but you got it.”
Claire chuckled and said, “I think she always had it.”
PART TWO
“I want to talk about peace,” Secily said as she released Layla’s
hand and threaded through the women.
“Yes,” one said. “Yes,” said another.
“I want to talk about the idea of peace warriors,” Secily
continued. “They say that Gandhi was a warrior of peace. They
speak of peace warriors!”
Secily’s voice rose up as she stepped onto the stage.
“How do you feel about peace warriors?”
When the women seemed to be thinking of the answer,
Secily screamed out, “Whaddo you think of peace warriors?”
Some women, cued by this, began clapping.
“Well, you know how I feel about peace warriors?” Secily
demanded.
“I don’t know what the fuck is going on?” Claire whispered
behind her hand to Laurel, and Laurel, about to laugh, saw one
woman with long grey hair frown.
“I’ll tell you what I think about peace warriors,” Secily
continued.
“FUCK,” she spoke in low voice, “Peace warriors.”
At once there was a bursting of applause and Layla looked
at Dena, thinking that mostly the eruption of handclapping was
relief at knowing what they were supposed to applaud.
“Because,” Secily cried out. “You can’t fight a war for
peace! Now can you? Let’s think about that shit. A war for
peace? You can’t fight for peace. You fight for fighting. Peace
is the opposite of war. It’s the opposite of fighting. Fighting
for peace is like… pissing for shit!”
Someone whistled so shrilly behind Dena, that she nearly
jumped up in the air.
“I was right with her until that,” Layla said.
“Until the whistle or until the shit for piss?” Laurel said.
“Yes,” said Layla.
“So what do you do for peace? You can’t fight the war for
peace. I was thinking to myself… I was at my cottage on Lake
Neil... Now, we don’t keep furniture there. It’s very Zen. The
only thing we use for a bed is a pallet, to return to simplicity.
And as I sat meditating I thought, No… not fighting the war
for peace, but fighting the PEACE for peace.”
“Yes,” Laurel said, earnestly, putting her hands together,
and when her aunt looked at her, Laurel smirked and said,
“Don’t fight it. Join it.”
“And then I thought even more… not fighting the peace
for peace. No, well what is the opposite of fighting. Peaceing!”
“You gotta be kidding me,” Claire muttered.
Again, the woman beside her cleared her throat and Claire
said, “Honey, you really gotta knock that shit off.”
“So, I will be peacing the peace for peace!” Secily declared
quietly as her audience applauded her once more, and then
Secily took a strip of paper from her cleavage and declared:
“And here is a paean I’ve composed about that peace:
i
on my bed
flat as a cracker
now know what matters
i will get up and take
a shit
and this shit will expel
all war
all the guns, the bombs
the nails that put together
engines of patriarchy
because i am no longer fighting
here, my only duty is to be
shitting
all of this mess that’s missing
and i
am peaceing the peace for peace
putting the piece together with
denise
and putting my face in her cinnamon
scented box
and at last—
flox?
“Flox?” said Dena.
Claire shrugged. “It rhymes with box.”
Secily concluded: “I will be peaceing the peace for peace!”
For a long while, the women clapped their hands, and then
Secily said, “And now, my good friend, who has become your
good friend… She needs no other name, We simply call her:
Hilary!”
“Hilary we love you!” the woman behind Dena shrieked,
and this time she turned around and said, “Alright, really, you
need to knock that shit off!”
“You called it a wound, you made it a tomb and
you want to shove the government up there
well, stare!
stare at my flower
and call it the bowl of life
it is the bowl of love
it is the dove
i am not ashamed
i will not be reined in
all of this beauty you see
all of this breadbasketry
is my pussy!
and you walked all over my pussy
and you tried to silence my pussy, put
burkahs over my pussy and hoodies over my
pussy and misspelled my pussy and
circumcised it and circumscribed it
but hear this, oh phallocentric genius
sitting in the meanness of your tiny,
tiny tiny cockedness
the witch oil of my besom, the Mary Daly
ding dalla allaying of my Asherah Anat
bulalala rafallala end of all male dominated
word structures is the beginning of me
come on, all you scared men
come on all you women made small
by saint paul beating you down
i want to take you to a place that
smells like salt
that smells like chicken
that smells like tuna
that smells like the sea
that’s right
that’s right
you’re going to my pussy!
don’t dress it up in pretty rags
don’t be afraid to say
say it with me
ah…
pussy
love your pussy
smell your pussy
touch your pussy
wax your car with your pussy!
my pussy is a drum
and i beat on that drum
i beat on it with the cut off dried out cocks of white
male
republicans and old hebroo profits
i beat on it with the dried out dicks of western
philosophy
i beat on it with the stiff pricks of the fathers of
Christianity
and we all sing one song: the song of pussy!
i climb on my electric broom and with all the Lilith
paula cole infested magic of tra-la-la-starhawk
fantastic
i fly
i am flying on my cunt and beneath me is the runt
of right wing foolishness and that, you see,
is the power in my pussy!”
“And now…” Hilary concluded… “Layla Houghton.”
As the clapping went up around her, Dena pinched her
shoulder and said, “You’re no Hilary. But try.”
FENN WAS CHAIN SMOKING, and his sister was watching
him when the phone rang.
“Do you want me to get that?” said Adele.
“Um… No.”
“That’s right,” Adele encouraged. “Let it ring.”
“No,” Fenn said, getting up, “What I meant is I’ll get it.”
“Oh, Fenn, it could only be more bad news.”
As Fenn picked up the phone he said, “You didn’t fuck up
your child, how could I fuck up mine?
“Hello?”
“Fenn, it’s me. And what’s this about Dylan being fucked
up?”
“We’ll talk. But… what, Tom?”
“I’m looking for Bryant. He was supposed to meet me
about a thousand years ago, and he’s not here.”
“Well, he’s not here either, so…”
Adele had gotten up and she picked up the phone in the
living room to listen in.
“Fenn,” Tom was saying, “I’m worried about him. Come
with me so we can check on Bryant.”
“Listen,” Adele began, and Fenn blinked, turning around
and seeing his older sister in the living room. “Fenn has been
wiping everybody’s ass for fifty years, and you just need to
calm the fuck down, Tom. You need to check on this shit
yourself.”
There was silence and then Fenn said, “Get over here.
Adele and I will go with you.”
LOVE IS THE MUCH LESS violent lightning
it is the only way i know to get from here
to there, from me to you
a love as small as a button
can be the size of Oklahoma
and i don’t know,
and agreeing not to know is the key to entering
mystery
i met a young man all in black
lighting candles in a church and he said
he wanted to be a mystic
but unless you open your heart you
will have missed it
that all of life is the handprint of love
and all of love is the fingertip of God
your love is my door
When Layla had finished, there was quiet, and then there was a
different type of clapping, as if no one had been able to figure
out what to do, or where the agenda was.
“It’s like they have to figure out a new place to clap from,”
Laurel whispered.
“I’ve got another,” Layla said, her voice more quiet than
usual. “Since the first one was short, I’ve got one more.”
She grinned.
“And it’s called ‘One More.’”
one more wish
one more night
one more love
one more kiss
if i had one more chance, but—no—this is it
learn to live with enoughness
cherish this is all there is ness
love the is-ness of things
here in this light room, i love you
all of your long white body,
for what it is
and i love us for who we are and not who we
are not drop
all the wishing for pretense and
come to me
as we are.
As they clapped, Layla nodded, and she stepped around the
stage and stepped down. They touched her like Jesus, like they
were waiting for a miracle, and one of the women leaned out
of the crowd and kissed her on the cheek.
Dena touched her elbow as she rejoined them.
“You’ve got it,” Dena said. “I don’t know when you got it,
but you got it.”
Claire chuckled and said, “I think she always had it.”
CharmedFan28
JUB Addict
That was a well done portion two! Poor Fenn! I know he feels responsible for what Dylan has done. I don't think its completely his fault really though as Dylan made his own decisions. I like Layla's poetry as usual and I am glad it went down so well. Sorry for the delayed response I was having dinner. Great writing and I look forward to more in a few days. I hope you have a nice weekend!
ChrisGibson
JUB Addict
Oh, I posted this so late, I didn't even think you would read it tonight, but I'm glad you enjoyed it, Layla is really coming into her own even while other people seem to be unraveling. On the other side of the weekend some real surprises will occur. I may post some oher non Rossford non Beasts stuff tomorrow if I can. Have a good night, Matt.
ChrisGibson
JUB Addict
TONIGHT, THINGS IN ROSSFORD BECOME MORE EXPLOSIVE THAN EVER
TRAIN RIDES CONTINUED
When they pulled up to the house, Adele said, “Do you realize
that in the time you took coming to get us, you could have
gone to Bryant’s house yourself? I mean, the both of you live
in this same bougie neighborhood.”
“You think I’m a fool, don’t you?” Tom said.
Opening up the back door, Adele admitted, “I always
have.”
Like Tom and Lee, Bryant lived in a low modern bungalow
surrounded by evergreen shrubbery with a flagstone path
leading up to the front door. Fenn reflected that even though
Adele had called this end of town bougie, both of them lived in
houses larger than this one. He thumped on the heavy door
and when Bryant did not answer, he thumped again.
“Oh, what the hell!” Adele muttered and just kicked it in.
“Hell hath no furry,” Fenn marveled, as Tom went on
ahead, through the foyer and toward the living room.
“Damn,” Fenn muttered. “This shit really is bougie—”
But just then, Tom screamed and Fenn caught his sister’s
hand and then the two of them ran into the living room.
Before the beautiful sliding glass doors that lead to the
backyard, Bryant Babcock was hanging, his feet twitching and
the chair kicked on its back.
“Shit!” Adele was even quicker than Fenn to reach the
chair, propping it under Bryant, and then Fenn and Tom were
up untying him. Bryant looked dead, and then he began
coughing, his face turning red.
“He’s heavy as fuck,” Adele commented, and she and Fenn
wrestled him into the chair.
Bryant kept coughing, clutching at his throat.
“Fenn,” he said. He blinked at Tom. Tom’s mouth was
open, and he looked young and terrified.
Bryant opened his mouth to say more, but instead he could
only cough.
Suddenly, Fenn swung out and hit him in the back of the
head.
“What the fuck is wrong with you?”
Bryant stared at him.
“What the fuck is wrong with you?” Fenn repeated.
Shaking his head, Bryant, his neck rope burned, only
rasped, “It’s too hard.”
“I spent the last twelve years picking up after you, after
you—for reasons unknown—thought that fucking my
husband was an okay thing to do. Don’t worry, I’m over it, but
it’s too hard for you?” Fenn said.
“I find out—and you should learn this Tom—that my
fifteen year old son is apparently having sex with half the men
in Lawrence County, and even though I can raise everyone
else’s child, I can’t raise my own. I am driven to the edge, fifty
years old and more, but not one bit smarter than I was only…
a little more arthritic. And you say it’s too hard for you? So you
do what? Hang yourself from a fucking curtain and leave us to
find you.”
Tom had turned green, and his mouth was still open.
Bryant’s was as well, and suddenly Fenn leapt on him, and
started beating him while, dumbly, Bryant covered his head.
Adele pulled her brother away. “This has got to stop,
baby,” she told him.
Fenn sighed, “You’re right.”
“Tom, give me your keys.”
Tom looked at Fenn.”
“Give ‘em up,” Adele commanded.
Reluctantly, looking very worried, Tom handed his keys to
Fenn and Fenn walked out of the room, but not before he
shoved Bryant one last time.
A moment later they heard the door slam shut.
“No one was supposed to know,” Bryant said, rubbing his
shoulder. “It seems whatever I do causes trouble.”
“Yes,” Adele agreed, mercilessly. “It does.”
Adele remained silent while, in Bryant Babcock’s kitchen, Paul
Anderson explained everything.
“It was about a year ago. I tried to take Dylan aside and
talked to him, but he was angry. I think he was terrified that I
would tell you, or tell Fenn.”
Paul was being politic, for really he didn’t think Tom was in
Dylan’s head at all at the time. “He kept shouting that he was
old enough and he knew what he was doing and I told him I
didn’t agree. But…” Paul shrugged. “It’s like I said, I didn’t
think telling anyone would do any good. I thought that if I just
looked after him he wouldn’t get into too much trouble.”
“Too much trouble!” Tom stood up and came the closest
to yelling he ever got.
Adele put her hand on Tom’s wrist and then said, “I’m
going to make a phone call, and then we can get the hell off
death watch, cause this is getting old.”
Adele took her phone out of her purse to retreat to the
foyer for privacy, and as she left, heard Paul whisper, “So
Bryant really tried to kill himself?”
“Don’t change the subject,” Tom said. “I can’t believe you
thought it was the right thing to keep this from us, Paul!”
“Hello,” Adele was saying to the phone. “He’s your friend.
You need to get down here. You and your boyfriend. No. No,
I’m not fucking lying. Get down here, now. He’s halfway
sedated in his bedroom now, and I’m going upstairs to make
sure he didn’t take a whole bottle of pills, and then I’ve got to
go. I have a husband. And a runaway brother. Now… just get
here.”
As Adele was hanging up, her phone rang again and she
said, “Dylan?”
“Aunt Adele! I’ve been trying to get a hold of everyone.
I’ve got great news!”
“Dylan, honey,” Adele said, “you need to tone it down a
notch.”
Dylan picked up on something in Adele’s voice and said,
“What’s wrong?”
“A lot is wrong, and you need to get home. No. You need
to get to Bryant Babcock’s house.”
“Why?”
“That’s a long story.”
Adele leaned against the wall of the darkened foyer.
“Look, Nephew, I don’t want to blindside you. You need to
know that Fenn went off, and we don’t know where he is, and
your father is right here, and he’s upset because he knows
about some of your…” Adele searched for the right phrase,
“escapades.”
“What?” Dylan began, and then, “Oh no!”
“Dylan, just come here. I’ll be here. Alright?”
“Alright, Aunt Adele,” Dylan’s voice was heavy, and she
could tell he was frightened.
LESS THAN HALF AN hour later, Adele saw Dylan coming
up the walk. Tom did too, and he leapt out of his chair and
went to the door. Adele joined him. Dylan had taken so much
after Fenn, and he was doing that proud quick walk that was
meant to face danger head on.
Adele opened the door for him, and the handsome boy
with the buzz cut faced his handsome curly haired father.
“Dad,” Dylan said, looking at Tom’s slightly green face.
“Is it true that you and Lance Bishop are sleeping
together?”
Dylan blinked and then he said, “He’s my boyfriend.”
“But are you fucking him?”
Dylan looked disconcerted again, and then he said, “We
sleep together.”
“And who else? Is it true my fifteen year old is… turning
tricks for half the city?”
“I had good news,” Dylan said. “If you’d just let me come
in. I was with Sheridan and Logan. Logan’s going to be a
model and they want me to model too.”
“Are you going to be doing porn like them too?”
“You don’t know what you’re talking about,” Dylan said.
And so Tom smacked him.
Adele pulled him back.
But while Dylan’s hand went to his reddening face, Tom
continued, “You drove your father crazy. Fenn just left. We
don’t know where he is. Apparently he thought he could
handle keeping a secret like Lance Bishop, but now it’s
probably that Ruthven boy too. And who else? Who else are
you busy getting fucked by?”
“Not Bryant Babcock!” Dylan said, quietly.
Tom blinked at him.
“Don’t you tell me about breaking hearts,” Dylan said. “I
know all about what you did. You think twenty years covers
stuff up. You’re not so perfect either, and what would I find
out, Tom Mesda, if I uncovered everything about you?”
“You’re a child,” Tom said.
“And you’re full of shit,” Dylan told him, and turned his
back on Tom, walking quickly down the path.
Adele, wisely, chose to stay out of it.
In the house on Versailles Street, where Tara and Melanie had
brought Maia, they commented on the missing owner.
“I’d get the fuck up and go too,” Tara told Melanie. “Only I
wish he’d called me.”
“I just don’t think it was one of those planned things,”
Melanie reasoned, and then she said, “Damn, Maia, you beat
me again.”
The light skinned girl smiled serenely and Melanie, from the
living room in Todd and Fenn’s house lamented, “It’s not like
it’s tiddly winks or something that grownups don’t care about.
The girl beats me at chess.”
“And poker too,” Maia said. “Which reminds me…”
“I know.”
“And don’t keep telling me the check’s in the mail.”
“Alright guys,” Todd came back out with the hugh bowl of
popcorn, “I got snacks and if one of you ladies would be so
kind as to get the pop and the glasses—“
“I got it, Daddy,”
“That’s a good girl.“
“I beat Melanie,” Maia said, skipping off. “Again.”
“That’s an even better girl,” Todd set down the popcorn.
“Tara, tell your lady to hand over my girl’s winnings from that
poker game.”
As Tara was opening her mouth, the front door opened
too, and Dylan came in, looking like less of himself.
Todd crossed the room so that they stood together in the
mini foyer.
“Whaddo you know?” Dylan said.
“Adele called. You and Tom had a falling out. Fenn’s gone
for now.”
“Dad says I drove him away.”
“He may be a little bit right,” Todd acknowledged. Then he
said, “What else should I know?”
“Uh…” Dylan thought, and said, quietly, “I’ve been
sleeping with guys since I was thirteen. Some of them are
adults, but I was always safe. I am having sex with Lance
Bishop. I was having sex with your nephew. And a few other
guys when I went to California. I’m really messed up. My
genetic father slapped me in my face and I called him a
hypocrite, and the dad who I always thought would be there…
I’ve driven so crazy he isn’t here. I’m in trouble and I don’t feel
like being judged tonight. Can I stay here?”
“Of course you can stay here,” Todd said. “You… You
wanna go around and up the back of the house?”
“Yes,” Dylan said. He wanted to say thank you, but he
couldn’t for some reason. He turned around and went out of
the house.
The sky was turning grey and dark purple, and the wind was
getting cool. He tried to remember the joyous news. He would
be modeling. It really didn’t mean anything to him right now.
There was a light on at his feet. He remembered that Kenny
was downstairs now. Maybe that would be a good talk. He’d
just have to walk around the house. He squatted down on his
hams to tap on the window, almost feeling like it was a bad
idea, like he was too tired and hurt and afraid to talk to his old
friend.
There was one dim light on in the apartment, and by its
light, Dylan could see Chad North and Kenny McGrath. They
were on the side of the bed, Kenny on his hands and knees,
and from behind, also kneeling on the bed, eyes closed and
mouth open in serene pleasure, Chad was fucking him.
Mouth open, dick hard, Dylan sat down in the grass and,
crossing his legs, Indian fashion, began to watch.
IF THERE IS A POSTING FOR THE BEASTS TONIGHT, IT WILL NOT OCCUR UNTIL AFTER MIDNIGHT INDIANA TIME (5 am in England, 3:15 pm in Brisbane)
TRAIN RIDES CONTINUED
When they pulled up to the house, Adele said, “Do you realize
that in the time you took coming to get us, you could have
gone to Bryant’s house yourself? I mean, the both of you live
in this same bougie neighborhood.”
“You think I’m a fool, don’t you?” Tom said.
Opening up the back door, Adele admitted, “I always
have.”
Like Tom and Lee, Bryant lived in a low modern bungalow
surrounded by evergreen shrubbery with a flagstone path
leading up to the front door. Fenn reflected that even though
Adele had called this end of town bougie, both of them lived in
houses larger than this one. He thumped on the heavy door
and when Bryant did not answer, he thumped again.
“Oh, what the hell!” Adele muttered and just kicked it in.
“Hell hath no furry,” Fenn marveled, as Tom went on
ahead, through the foyer and toward the living room.
“Damn,” Fenn muttered. “This shit really is bougie—”
But just then, Tom screamed and Fenn caught his sister’s
hand and then the two of them ran into the living room.
Before the beautiful sliding glass doors that lead to the
backyard, Bryant Babcock was hanging, his feet twitching and
the chair kicked on its back.
“Shit!” Adele was even quicker than Fenn to reach the
chair, propping it under Bryant, and then Fenn and Tom were
up untying him. Bryant looked dead, and then he began
coughing, his face turning red.
“He’s heavy as fuck,” Adele commented, and she and Fenn
wrestled him into the chair.
Bryant kept coughing, clutching at his throat.
“Fenn,” he said. He blinked at Tom. Tom’s mouth was
open, and he looked young and terrified.
Bryant opened his mouth to say more, but instead he could
only cough.
Suddenly, Fenn swung out and hit him in the back of the
head.
“What the fuck is wrong with you?”
Bryant stared at him.
“What the fuck is wrong with you?” Fenn repeated.
Shaking his head, Bryant, his neck rope burned, only
rasped, “It’s too hard.”
“I spent the last twelve years picking up after you, after
you—for reasons unknown—thought that fucking my
husband was an okay thing to do. Don’t worry, I’m over it, but
it’s too hard for you?” Fenn said.
“I find out—and you should learn this Tom—that my
fifteen year old son is apparently having sex with half the men
in Lawrence County, and even though I can raise everyone
else’s child, I can’t raise my own. I am driven to the edge, fifty
years old and more, but not one bit smarter than I was only…
a little more arthritic. And you say it’s too hard for you? So you
do what? Hang yourself from a fucking curtain and leave us to
find you.”
Tom had turned green, and his mouth was still open.
Bryant’s was as well, and suddenly Fenn leapt on him, and
started beating him while, dumbly, Bryant covered his head.
Adele pulled her brother away. “This has got to stop,
baby,” she told him.
Fenn sighed, “You’re right.”
“Tom, give me your keys.”
Tom looked at Fenn.”
“Give ‘em up,” Adele commanded.
Reluctantly, looking very worried, Tom handed his keys to
Fenn and Fenn walked out of the room, but not before he
shoved Bryant one last time.
A moment later they heard the door slam shut.
“No one was supposed to know,” Bryant said, rubbing his
shoulder. “It seems whatever I do causes trouble.”
“Yes,” Adele agreed, mercilessly. “It does.”
Adele remained silent while, in Bryant Babcock’s kitchen, Paul
Anderson explained everything.
“It was about a year ago. I tried to take Dylan aside and
talked to him, but he was angry. I think he was terrified that I
would tell you, or tell Fenn.”
Paul was being politic, for really he didn’t think Tom was in
Dylan’s head at all at the time. “He kept shouting that he was
old enough and he knew what he was doing and I told him I
didn’t agree. But…” Paul shrugged. “It’s like I said, I didn’t
think telling anyone would do any good. I thought that if I just
looked after him he wouldn’t get into too much trouble.”
“Too much trouble!” Tom stood up and came the closest
to yelling he ever got.
Adele put her hand on Tom’s wrist and then said, “I’m
going to make a phone call, and then we can get the hell off
death watch, cause this is getting old.”
Adele took her phone out of her purse to retreat to the
foyer for privacy, and as she left, heard Paul whisper, “So
Bryant really tried to kill himself?”
“Don’t change the subject,” Tom said. “I can’t believe you
thought it was the right thing to keep this from us, Paul!”
“Hello,” Adele was saying to the phone. “He’s your friend.
You need to get down here. You and your boyfriend. No. No,
I’m not fucking lying. Get down here, now. He’s halfway
sedated in his bedroom now, and I’m going upstairs to make
sure he didn’t take a whole bottle of pills, and then I’ve got to
go. I have a husband. And a runaway brother. Now… just get
here.”
As Adele was hanging up, her phone rang again and she
said, “Dylan?”
“Aunt Adele! I’ve been trying to get a hold of everyone.
I’ve got great news!”
“Dylan, honey,” Adele said, “you need to tone it down a
notch.”
Dylan picked up on something in Adele’s voice and said,
“What’s wrong?”
“A lot is wrong, and you need to get home. No. You need
to get to Bryant Babcock’s house.”
“Why?”
“That’s a long story.”
Adele leaned against the wall of the darkened foyer.
“Look, Nephew, I don’t want to blindside you. You need to
know that Fenn went off, and we don’t know where he is, and
your father is right here, and he’s upset because he knows
about some of your…” Adele searched for the right phrase,
“escapades.”
“What?” Dylan began, and then, “Oh no!”
“Dylan, just come here. I’ll be here. Alright?”
“Alright, Aunt Adele,” Dylan’s voice was heavy, and she
could tell he was frightened.
LESS THAN HALF AN hour later, Adele saw Dylan coming
up the walk. Tom did too, and he leapt out of his chair and
went to the door. Adele joined him. Dylan had taken so much
after Fenn, and he was doing that proud quick walk that was
meant to face danger head on.
Adele opened the door for him, and the handsome boy
with the buzz cut faced his handsome curly haired father.
“Dad,” Dylan said, looking at Tom’s slightly green face.
“Is it true that you and Lance Bishop are sleeping
together?”
Dylan blinked and then he said, “He’s my boyfriend.”
“But are you fucking him?”
Dylan looked disconcerted again, and then he said, “We
sleep together.”
“And who else? Is it true my fifteen year old is… turning
tricks for half the city?”
“I had good news,” Dylan said. “If you’d just let me come
in. I was with Sheridan and Logan. Logan’s going to be a
model and they want me to model too.”
“Are you going to be doing porn like them too?”
“You don’t know what you’re talking about,” Dylan said.
And so Tom smacked him.
Adele pulled him back.
But while Dylan’s hand went to his reddening face, Tom
continued, “You drove your father crazy. Fenn just left. We
don’t know where he is. Apparently he thought he could
handle keeping a secret like Lance Bishop, but now it’s
probably that Ruthven boy too. And who else? Who else are
you busy getting fucked by?”
“Not Bryant Babcock!” Dylan said, quietly.
Tom blinked at him.
“Don’t you tell me about breaking hearts,” Dylan said. “I
know all about what you did. You think twenty years covers
stuff up. You’re not so perfect either, and what would I find
out, Tom Mesda, if I uncovered everything about you?”
“You’re a child,” Tom said.
“And you’re full of shit,” Dylan told him, and turned his
back on Tom, walking quickly down the path.
Adele, wisely, chose to stay out of it.
In the house on Versailles Street, where Tara and Melanie had
brought Maia, they commented on the missing owner.
“I’d get the fuck up and go too,” Tara told Melanie. “Only I
wish he’d called me.”
“I just don’t think it was one of those planned things,”
Melanie reasoned, and then she said, “Damn, Maia, you beat
me again.”
The light skinned girl smiled serenely and Melanie, from the
living room in Todd and Fenn’s house lamented, “It’s not like
it’s tiddly winks or something that grownups don’t care about.
The girl beats me at chess.”
“And poker too,” Maia said. “Which reminds me…”
“I know.”
“And don’t keep telling me the check’s in the mail.”
“Alright guys,” Todd came back out with the hugh bowl of
popcorn, “I got snacks and if one of you ladies would be so
kind as to get the pop and the glasses—“
“I got it, Daddy,”
“That’s a good girl.“
“I beat Melanie,” Maia said, skipping off. “Again.”
“That’s an even better girl,” Todd set down the popcorn.
“Tara, tell your lady to hand over my girl’s winnings from that
poker game.”
As Tara was opening her mouth, the front door opened
too, and Dylan came in, looking like less of himself.
Todd crossed the room so that they stood together in the
mini foyer.
“Whaddo you know?” Dylan said.
“Adele called. You and Tom had a falling out. Fenn’s gone
for now.”
“Dad says I drove him away.”
“He may be a little bit right,” Todd acknowledged. Then he
said, “What else should I know?”
“Uh…” Dylan thought, and said, quietly, “I’ve been
sleeping with guys since I was thirteen. Some of them are
adults, but I was always safe. I am having sex with Lance
Bishop. I was having sex with your nephew. And a few other
guys when I went to California. I’m really messed up. My
genetic father slapped me in my face and I called him a
hypocrite, and the dad who I always thought would be there…
I’ve driven so crazy he isn’t here. I’m in trouble and I don’t feel
like being judged tonight. Can I stay here?”
“Of course you can stay here,” Todd said. “You… You
wanna go around and up the back of the house?”
“Yes,” Dylan said. He wanted to say thank you, but he
couldn’t for some reason. He turned around and went out of
the house.
The sky was turning grey and dark purple, and the wind was
getting cool. He tried to remember the joyous news. He would
be modeling. It really didn’t mean anything to him right now.
There was a light on at his feet. He remembered that Kenny
was downstairs now. Maybe that would be a good talk. He’d
just have to walk around the house. He squatted down on his
hams to tap on the window, almost feeling like it was a bad
idea, like he was too tired and hurt and afraid to talk to his old
friend.
There was one dim light on in the apartment, and by its
light, Dylan could see Chad North and Kenny McGrath. They
were on the side of the bed, Kenny on his hands and knees,
and from behind, also kneeling on the bed, eyes closed and
mouth open in serene pleasure, Chad was fucking him.
Mouth open, dick hard, Dylan sat down in the grass and,
crossing his legs, Indian fashion, began to watch.
IF THERE IS A POSTING FOR THE BEASTS TONIGHT, IT WILL NOT OCCUR UNTIL AFTER MIDNIGHT INDIANA TIME (5 am in England, 3:15 pm in Brisbane)
CharmedFan28
JUB Addict
You were right about things becoming more explosive alright! It looks like Dylan's activities have caught up with him. Poor Fenn! I hope he comes back. Everything seems to be a mess at the moment but I am still enjoying this story. Great writing and I look forward to more soon! Sorry I don't have more to say, I am still processing all that has happened in this portion!
ChrisGibson
JUB Addict
It's a lot that happened. It's lot to process and that's the highest compliment you could give.
ChrisGibson
JUB Addict
TRAIN RIDES
CONINUED
From across the street, Paul saw them all arriving at Layla’s
house and went over to tell them everything that had
happened.
“And Fenn’s disappeared?” Layla said.
“It seems so.”
“I think he had the right idea,” his niece said. “Let other
people handle it. Is Mama handling it?”
“No. Not anymore. She left after Dylan ran off. When she
found out that he was at home with Todd, she let the thing
go.”
“Smart woman,” Claire said.
“So what are we going to do?” Paul said.
“Can I have my phone, Layla?” Laurel demanded.
“Uh,” Layla said absently. “Yeah.”
She fiddled around in her purse and Claire said, “We aren’t
going to do a damn thing.”
Before Paul could open his mouth, Dena sat down on the
sofa, stretching out her legs. “This is one crisis that needs to go
on without us. Well, except for Laurel, I guess. But I’m going
to sit here, stretch out my feet, and then call my husband.”
Laurel hung up the phone.
“I can’t get a hold of him.”
“Then count yourself blessed,” Dena told her. “Friends are
great, and being the important friend in time of crisis is
wonderful. But don’t get addicted it to it, Laurel.”
“That’s right,” Claire told her. “Besides, you’ve got a date
tonight.”
Laurel shrieked and Layla said, “I forgot. I’ll drive you.”
“No, I will,” Claire said. “I need to get back to Julian,
anyway.”
“I need to make a bathroom stop,” Laurel realized.
While she ran to the back of the house, Layla shouted after
her, “No calling Dylan!”
“With everything going on,” Paul said, “I forgot what all
started this.”
“Dylan being a slut?” Claire said.
Paul frowned. “No, Claire. It was me.”
Claire raised an eyebrow at her brother.
“I was telling Fenn how I wanted to sleep with Noah.”
“What?” Layla began. “Did you just… Oh, fuck it,” she
decided. “I never heard it. Never heard it. Nevermind.”
“Bryant. Bryyyyannnnt.”
In the midst of his sleep, Bryant Babcock felt himself being
shaken by the shoulder out of his muzziness.
“Bryant Babcock, wake up.”
Bryant blinked, and in the darkness his eyes made out a face
and its vague features. It wasn’t completely dark, there was a
little light on, and his eyes were becoming accustomed to it.
The face was a little older, a little more lined, perhaps thicker,
but the eyes were the same, and the straw colored hair was
greyer than before. This was Dan Malloy, one time Catholic
priest, who had pastored Saint Barbara’s parish for years.
Dan Malloy had not been speaking to someone on the
other side of Bryant.
Bryant turned around, and on the other side of him,
seeming more or less unchanged, as handsome as ever, though
now Bryant noticed grey in the temples, was his friend, Dan
Malloy’s partner, Keith Mc. Donald.
“I just felt at the end of it,” Bryant was saying.
He sat on the edge of the bed. Dan was downstairs making
tea, and Keith sat across from him, nodding.
“I felt like that wonderful time in my life when I could have
all the affairs I wanted, but not the love, was running out.”
“Bryant, I have to remind you that you had love,” Keith
said.
“I wasn’t going to tell you something corny about how
everyone loves you, and you’ve got friends who care about
you, though you do, and you should remember that. But you
had Chad for years.”
“And then he did what he did.”
“Yes.”
“And you know, I did the same thing, too. But… the whole
thing is I could tell Chad didn’t want to be with me anymore.
He would have come back, yes, but it would have been from
duty. I knew we were done. And he is back now.”
“Whaddo you mean he’s back now?” Keith said.
“I mean he’s back. In my department. He was hired before
I came. I see him everyday. What’s more, he talked about being
friends and all that. I wasn’t ready for that. What’s more than
that, I thought, I really thought I was going to have a new and
exciting relationship after waiting nearly five years. But it was
Chad of all people who told me how wrong I was. He told me
that the man I liked, who I thought liked me, is married. With
children.”
“Really?”
Bryant nodded.
“And it’s not Chad’s fault, but I feel like he took pleasure in
telling me that. And then he went off and found someone else
to sleep with.”
“Who?”
Bryant looked disconsolate. “I don’t know. But he’s
banging him. And it turns out this married man—”
“Yes?”
“He does want to have an affair with me. He… he makes
no apologies for the inconsistency. He would have me now,
and that was all too much, so I just got up and found someone
else for the night. And when I got back here I felt so dismal.
That’s really when things began to take a nose dive.”
They were both very quiet for a while, and then Keith said,
“Bryant, you know that when someone does what you did,
they’re supposed to be committed?”
“You’re going to commit me?”
“No. But… I probably should. I’m worried about you.”
“I just want a man,” Bryant said, nakedly. “I want one, I
want one. I want one to wake up with who I know is going to
be there, and I am tired of wanting and praying especially when
I really don’t think one is going to come.”
“And if one doesn’t come, is it worth killing yourself?”
Keith demanded.
Bryant thought about it a moment and then said, “I really
don’t know.”
SO, THINGS WITH BRENDAN must have really been over,
Dylan was reflecting. He didn’t want to think about the fact
that he’d sat in the grass and watched one of his friends having
sex. He’d wanted to start masturbating, and when the urge
overcame him he knew it was time to get up and leave
watching. He didn’t feel unclean. He didn’t really need to feel
unclean to know that if what he had done wasn’t evil, it wasn’t
exactly in the realm of the good.
Up in his room, Dylan sat watching the sky grow darker
and darker, and when he thought of the intense pleasure, of
the way Chad had moved his body so skillfully as he entered
Kenny, and at the look of ecstasy on Chad’s face, Dylan knew
he didn’t love Lance Bishop. He knew it so clearly. He wished
he loved him. But he had been around love all day, and so he
knew this wasn’t it. He liked him a lot, and the sex was nice,
but he had the honesty to admit that it certainly wasn’t even
the best.
The best had been Nick Ferguson, who was a grown man,
who was, admittedly, old enough to be his father, who had
taught him how to play jazz trumpet. Nick was the most
skillful lover he’d ever known, just being touched by him made
Dylan shudder. When he was away from Nick, and he had
been for some time, he tried not to think of him and what they
did together. The impropriety of the whole situation bothered
him. Not that sleeping with Lance was appropriate, but it was
more appropriate than anything that happened with Nick.
Being with Nick was playing with fire. Nick’s body was smooth
and Nick’s hand strong and gentle when it held his hip, when
the other gently caressed his ass. Nick moved so smoothly, so
fully, so deeply inside of him. Dylan wasn’t a little boy with
Nick. But what he was, he couldn’t say, and that scared him.
He was so into his thoughts that he nearly jumped a foot in
the air when there was a knock at the window and then, while
his heart was thumping in his chest, Dylan lifted the curtain to
see Ruthven Meradan, grinning.
“Well, now, everyone knows everything,” Dylan said.
“Oh, no!” Ruthven sympathized, sitting on the bed, his
knees together.
“And I told Todd everything. I told him about you.”
“Oh, shit.”
“I felt like I had to tell him everything. Even about Robb
and Kirk in California. I don’t want to be someone keeping all
of these dirty secrets. And Todd was so good about it.”
“To you, sure. But I’m gonna catch hell.”
“I’m sorry for that,” Dylan said. “I really am. But now
things will be better.”
“Dylan, come on and go with me.”
“Where? To California?” Dylan added a laugh to make sure
Ruthven knew he was joking.
“No, to catch a train. Let’s catch the last one. Maybe we’ll
go to Chicago. I dunno. Wanna go?”
“Right now?”
“Yes.”
Dylan thought about it and then said, “Yes. Only…” he got
up, “let me leave a note in case Todd comes up here.”
On the bed, Ruthven watched Dylan scramble at his desk
for a note, and then write something down.
“I should get a jacket,” Dylan said. He went to the closet
and pulled out a little windbreaker. Ruthven crawled out of the
window and held his hand out to Dylan. Dylan caught it, and
then, after switching his lamplight off, they were both gone.
“We think,” Keith McDonald said, climbing up onto one side
of the bed while Dan sat on the other, “that you should come
up with us to Cat Lake for a few days.”
“Or as long as you need,” Dan added.
Keith nodded.
Between the two gentle men, Bryant Babcock had, for a
brief moment, the fantasy that they would stay with him, that
they would both make love to him and make him the third
party in their loving relationship. This faded almost as soon as
it had emerged, a distinct impossibility. Bryant’s jealousy would
not have made it possible even if their morality had. He knew
himself too well. The lovely thing about them was how long
Dan had lived without love, never expecting it to come, and
how long Keith had lived through lusts and false loves. Hadn’t
he dated that porn guy on the other end of town, the one who
had been with Noah Riley’s son?
“No,” Bryant said, at last. “I know exactly what I need to
do. I need to stay here. I need a good night’s sleep and then I
have church duty in the morning, and on Monday I need to go
into work and run my department. That’s what I need.”
It was not all he needed. What else he needed was taking
shape in his head, but he didn’t dare say it.
Instead he said, “What about checking on Fenn?”
“Fenn doesn’t need me,” Dan said. “And I don’t know
where he is.”
“You need us right now,” Keith said. “And since we know
where you are, here is where we’re going to stay.”
WHEN FENN KNOCKED ON the door he was surprised
because there was actually an answer. He had fully planned to
break into the apartment.
“Fenn Houghton?” the blond woman blinked at him.
“Carol Miller.”
Brendan’s sister opened the door and she said, “You’re a
long way from Rossford. Well, not really, but a long way for an
impromptu visit. Let me get you a drink.”
Fenn shut the door behind him and said, “And you’re
pretty far from Missouri.”
“Firstly,” Carol lifted a finger, “Missouri is dull as a
motherfucker. Secondly,” she said as she opened the
refrigerator, “I’m fired. So…” Carol shrugged.
“You want a kiddie drink, or a grown up drink?”
“A grown up one.”
“Yup,” Carol assessed him. “You look like you could use
it.”
She took the ice out of the freezer and stooped down to
find the liquor, commenting, “Well, this is disappointing. And
then she said, “Can you tell me where my brother is?”
“At work. Always at work.”
“Well, what about Kenneth?”
Fenn blinked.
“What, Fenn?”
“You don’t know? Of course you don’t know,” Fenn said.
“Why would you ask if you did? Well, Kenny is back at my
house. I brought him back to Rossford because Bren isn’t here,
and it’s bad for both of them.”
Carol’s face fell while she stood, holding one bottle of gin
and another of tonic water.
“I think we’re going to have to have a long talk. Is that why
you’re here?”
“No,” Fenn said, “I’m here because you can only run so
far. And then you have to find some place to stop.”
CONINUED
From across the street, Paul saw them all arriving at Layla’s
house and went over to tell them everything that had
happened.
“And Fenn’s disappeared?” Layla said.
“It seems so.”
“I think he had the right idea,” his niece said. “Let other
people handle it. Is Mama handling it?”
“No. Not anymore. She left after Dylan ran off. When she
found out that he was at home with Todd, she let the thing
go.”
“Smart woman,” Claire said.
“So what are we going to do?” Paul said.
“Can I have my phone, Layla?” Laurel demanded.
“Uh,” Layla said absently. “Yeah.”
She fiddled around in her purse and Claire said, “We aren’t
going to do a damn thing.”
Before Paul could open his mouth, Dena sat down on the
sofa, stretching out her legs. “This is one crisis that needs to go
on without us. Well, except for Laurel, I guess. But I’m going
to sit here, stretch out my feet, and then call my husband.”
Laurel hung up the phone.
“I can’t get a hold of him.”
“Then count yourself blessed,” Dena told her. “Friends are
great, and being the important friend in time of crisis is
wonderful. But don’t get addicted it to it, Laurel.”
“That’s right,” Claire told her. “Besides, you’ve got a date
tonight.”
Laurel shrieked and Layla said, “I forgot. I’ll drive you.”
“No, I will,” Claire said. “I need to get back to Julian,
anyway.”
“I need to make a bathroom stop,” Laurel realized.
While she ran to the back of the house, Layla shouted after
her, “No calling Dylan!”
“With everything going on,” Paul said, “I forgot what all
started this.”
“Dylan being a slut?” Claire said.
Paul frowned. “No, Claire. It was me.”
Claire raised an eyebrow at her brother.
“I was telling Fenn how I wanted to sleep with Noah.”
“What?” Layla began. “Did you just… Oh, fuck it,” she
decided. “I never heard it. Never heard it. Nevermind.”
“Bryant. Bryyyyannnnt.”
In the midst of his sleep, Bryant Babcock felt himself being
shaken by the shoulder out of his muzziness.
“Bryant Babcock, wake up.”
Bryant blinked, and in the darkness his eyes made out a face
and its vague features. It wasn’t completely dark, there was a
little light on, and his eyes were becoming accustomed to it.
The face was a little older, a little more lined, perhaps thicker,
but the eyes were the same, and the straw colored hair was
greyer than before. This was Dan Malloy, one time Catholic
priest, who had pastored Saint Barbara’s parish for years.
Dan Malloy had not been speaking to someone on the
other side of Bryant.
Bryant turned around, and on the other side of him,
seeming more or less unchanged, as handsome as ever, though
now Bryant noticed grey in the temples, was his friend, Dan
Malloy’s partner, Keith Mc. Donald.
“I just felt at the end of it,” Bryant was saying.
He sat on the edge of the bed. Dan was downstairs making
tea, and Keith sat across from him, nodding.
“I felt like that wonderful time in my life when I could have
all the affairs I wanted, but not the love, was running out.”
“Bryant, I have to remind you that you had love,” Keith
said.
“I wasn’t going to tell you something corny about how
everyone loves you, and you’ve got friends who care about
you, though you do, and you should remember that. But you
had Chad for years.”
“And then he did what he did.”
“Yes.”
“And you know, I did the same thing, too. But… the whole
thing is I could tell Chad didn’t want to be with me anymore.
He would have come back, yes, but it would have been from
duty. I knew we were done. And he is back now.”
“Whaddo you mean he’s back now?” Keith said.
“I mean he’s back. In my department. He was hired before
I came. I see him everyday. What’s more, he talked about being
friends and all that. I wasn’t ready for that. What’s more than
that, I thought, I really thought I was going to have a new and
exciting relationship after waiting nearly five years. But it was
Chad of all people who told me how wrong I was. He told me
that the man I liked, who I thought liked me, is married. With
children.”
“Really?”
Bryant nodded.
“And it’s not Chad’s fault, but I feel like he took pleasure in
telling me that. And then he went off and found someone else
to sleep with.”
“Who?”
Bryant looked disconsolate. “I don’t know. But he’s
banging him. And it turns out this married man—”
“Yes?”
“He does want to have an affair with me. He… he makes
no apologies for the inconsistency. He would have me now,
and that was all too much, so I just got up and found someone
else for the night. And when I got back here I felt so dismal.
That’s really when things began to take a nose dive.”
They were both very quiet for a while, and then Keith said,
“Bryant, you know that when someone does what you did,
they’re supposed to be committed?”
“You’re going to commit me?”
“No. But… I probably should. I’m worried about you.”
“I just want a man,” Bryant said, nakedly. “I want one, I
want one. I want one to wake up with who I know is going to
be there, and I am tired of wanting and praying especially when
I really don’t think one is going to come.”
“And if one doesn’t come, is it worth killing yourself?”
Keith demanded.
Bryant thought about it a moment and then said, “I really
don’t know.”
SO, THINGS WITH BRENDAN must have really been over,
Dylan was reflecting. He didn’t want to think about the fact
that he’d sat in the grass and watched one of his friends having
sex. He’d wanted to start masturbating, and when the urge
overcame him he knew it was time to get up and leave
watching. He didn’t feel unclean. He didn’t really need to feel
unclean to know that if what he had done wasn’t evil, it wasn’t
exactly in the realm of the good.
Up in his room, Dylan sat watching the sky grow darker
and darker, and when he thought of the intense pleasure, of
the way Chad had moved his body so skillfully as he entered
Kenny, and at the look of ecstasy on Chad’s face, Dylan knew
he didn’t love Lance Bishop. He knew it so clearly. He wished
he loved him. But he had been around love all day, and so he
knew this wasn’t it. He liked him a lot, and the sex was nice,
but he had the honesty to admit that it certainly wasn’t even
the best.
The best had been Nick Ferguson, who was a grown man,
who was, admittedly, old enough to be his father, who had
taught him how to play jazz trumpet. Nick was the most
skillful lover he’d ever known, just being touched by him made
Dylan shudder. When he was away from Nick, and he had
been for some time, he tried not to think of him and what they
did together. The impropriety of the whole situation bothered
him. Not that sleeping with Lance was appropriate, but it was
more appropriate than anything that happened with Nick.
Being with Nick was playing with fire. Nick’s body was smooth
and Nick’s hand strong and gentle when it held his hip, when
the other gently caressed his ass. Nick moved so smoothly, so
fully, so deeply inside of him. Dylan wasn’t a little boy with
Nick. But what he was, he couldn’t say, and that scared him.
He was so into his thoughts that he nearly jumped a foot in
the air when there was a knock at the window and then, while
his heart was thumping in his chest, Dylan lifted the curtain to
see Ruthven Meradan, grinning.
“Well, now, everyone knows everything,” Dylan said.
“Oh, no!” Ruthven sympathized, sitting on the bed, his
knees together.
“And I told Todd everything. I told him about you.”
“Oh, shit.”
“I felt like I had to tell him everything. Even about Robb
and Kirk in California. I don’t want to be someone keeping all
of these dirty secrets. And Todd was so good about it.”
“To you, sure. But I’m gonna catch hell.”
“I’m sorry for that,” Dylan said. “I really am. But now
things will be better.”
“Dylan, come on and go with me.”
“Where? To California?” Dylan added a laugh to make sure
Ruthven knew he was joking.
“No, to catch a train. Let’s catch the last one. Maybe we’ll
go to Chicago. I dunno. Wanna go?”
“Right now?”
“Yes.”
Dylan thought about it and then said, “Yes. Only…” he got
up, “let me leave a note in case Todd comes up here.”
On the bed, Ruthven watched Dylan scramble at his desk
for a note, and then write something down.
“I should get a jacket,” Dylan said. He went to the closet
and pulled out a little windbreaker. Ruthven crawled out of the
window and held his hand out to Dylan. Dylan caught it, and
then, after switching his lamplight off, they were both gone.
“We think,” Keith McDonald said, climbing up onto one side
of the bed while Dan sat on the other, “that you should come
up with us to Cat Lake for a few days.”
“Or as long as you need,” Dan added.
Keith nodded.
Between the two gentle men, Bryant Babcock had, for a
brief moment, the fantasy that they would stay with him, that
they would both make love to him and make him the third
party in their loving relationship. This faded almost as soon as
it had emerged, a distinct impossibility. Bryant’s jealousy would
not have made it possible even if their morality had. He knew
himself too well. The lovely thing about them was how long
Dan had lived without love, never expecting it to come, and
how long Keith had lived through lusts and false loves. Hadn’t
he dated that porn guy on the other end of town, the one who
had been with Noah Riley’s son?
“No,” Bryant said, at last. “I know exactly what I need to
do. I need to stay here. I need a good night’s sleep and then I
have church duty in the morning, and on Monday I need to go
into work and run my department. That’s what I need.”
It was not all he needed. What else he needed was taking
shape in his head, but he didn’t dare say it.
Instead he said, “What about checking on Fenn?”
“Fenn doesn’t need me,” Dan said. “And I don’t know
where he is.”
“You need us right now,” Keith said. “And since we know
where you are, here is where we’re going to stay.”
WHEN FENN KNOCKED ON the door he was surprised
because there was actually an answer. He had fully planned to
break into the apartment.
“Fenn Houghton?” the blond woman blinked at him.
“Carol Miller.”
Brendan’s sister opened the door and she said, “You’re a
long way from Rossford. Well, not really, but a long way for an
impromptu visit. Let me get you a drink.”
Fenn shut the door behind him and said, “And you’re
pretty far from Missouri.”
“Firstly,” Carol lifted a finger, “Missouri is dull as a
motherfucker. Secondly,” she said as she opened the
refrigerator, “I’m fired. So…” Carol shrugged.
“You want a kiddie drink, or a grown up drink?”
“A grown up one.”
“Yup,” Carol assessed him. “You look like you could use
it.”
She took the ice out of the freezer and stooped down to
find the liquor, commenting, “Well, this is disappointing. And
then she said, “Can you tell me where my brother is?”
“At work. Always at work.”
“Well, what about Kenneth?”
Fenn blinked.
“What, Fenn?”
“You don’t know? Of course you don’t know,” Fenn said.
“Why would you ask if you did? Well, Kenny is back at my
house. I brought him back to Rossford because Bren isn’t here,
and it’s bad for both of them.”
Carol’s face fell while she stood, holding one bottle of gin
and another of tonic water.
“I think we’re going to have to have a long talk. Is that why
you’re here?”
“No,” Fenn said, “I’m here because you can only run so
far. And then you have to find some place to stop.”
CharmedFan28
JUB Addict
Poor Bryant! Its so sad that he was so low that he couldn't think of anything to do other then kill himself. I am glad he was unsuccessful. I am also glad Fenn just drove and did not do anything to harm himself. I can't believe after all that has happened Dylan would just up and leave with Ruthven. The next portion is going to be very interesting and I can't wait for it. Great writing and I hope you are having a good night!
