The People in Rossford

[CharmedFan28]

I am glad Brendan's sister took his coming out well. Its sad reading about the funeral but that is to be expected. Great portion and I look forward to whatever comes next.

 

[ChrisGibson]

More adventure, more fun tomorrow night. Thanks for reading and glad you enjoyed.

 

[ChrisGibson]

CHAPTER
NINE

NO ONE NOTICES THE ORGANIST CONTINUED


“I don’t really like funerals,” Naomi said, fiddling with the sleeves of her navy dress, and pulling at the hem.
“I don’t think anyone does, Mom,” Noah noted. “We’re about to leave. I just gotta run to the little boy’s room. Can you hold tight?”
Naomi nodded and Noah threaded through the living room, looking for Danasia while he looked for the bathroom.
Instead he found Paul.
“Have you seen her?”
“No,” Paul told him. “But the bathroom is upstairs.”
Noah nodded and headed up the stairs. He nearly bumped into Father Keith who was coming down them.
“Excuse me,” Noah said.
He had always imagined that he would be bold and daring, and call Keith out if he ran into him. Instead he was terrified that Keith would recognize him, that they would see each other in this public world. It was all too like those old days when he would do boys favors in the darkness of basements and coat rooms, under the bridge, but if he betrayed recognition or tried to gain their attention in the light of day risked a bloody nose.
Keith McDonald frowned at him instead. Not a cruel frown, just something perplexed. He said:
“I know you.” And then he said, “You know me. You keep looking at me.”
Noah looked behind him and above Keith. No one was there. He said, “We did movies together. You and me, and I think you know it. And that guy downstairs, the red headed one. We did movies.”
Keith’s eyes narrowed, considering. He said nothing for a moment and then he said: “I would appreciate it if you didn’t bring it up again.”
“Then I’m not crazy,” Noah said with some relief.
Keith did not look relieved, but he didn’t look shocked and terrified. He looked perfectly in control, and he said: “I would appreciate you not mentioning that again. Like I just said.” He nodded, moved past Noah and said, “Thank you.”
Noah was so floored he forgot he had to go to the bathroom. But now he remembered. He went very quickly, came back down and found Danasia with Paul.
“Here she is,” Paul pecked her on the shoulder.
“Here I am,” Danasia repeated.
He pulled them both closer.
“He just admitted it,” Noah said.
“Admitted…?”
“Father Keith just admitted he did those movies with us.”
“Pornos!”
“Shush!” Paul and Noah said together. Then Noah said, “Yes, Danny. Pornos.”
“Well,” Paul said, “I just admitted it to myself. It is him.”
Danasia whistled, “Get the hell out.”
“What are we getting the hell out of?”
They turned around to see Claire had showed up with Naomi.
“Danny,” Noah said to Danasia, “it’s time you met Claire.”
They shook hands, Claire looking at her curiously, with a sideways smile.
“Claire is my little sister,” Paul said. “And Julian’s girlfriend for that matter.”
“Julian,” Danasia said. “That’s the nephew Fenn never knew he had.”
“Right.” Claire nodded.
“Well, then hell, girl,” Danasia said, “We’re practically family.”
“I would like to think,” Claire said, “that we’re all practically family, and just haven’t figured it out yet.”

“Barb, I’m so sorry,” Brian said, offering his hand to her.
“Thank you,” she said.
“If there is anything I can do…” Brian said.
“Thank you,” Barb said again.
Barb Affren had three sons and one daughter. After Kurt came Jeff who was in his late thirties and a little gone to fat and Brian murmured the same: “My condolences.”
“What do people mean when they say that?” Tricia hissed to Barb. Tricia was Jeff’s wife and the one who had been Barb’s daughter-in-law the longest. “I think people just show up to say trite things, and they have no idea you’ve been having to listen to it all day. We should just shut down the house and get drunk.”
Barb snorted.
“What we should have done was have a good old fashioned Irish wake,” Jeff said.
“Any excuse to drink,” Barb said to him. “You’re a closet lush, Jeffy.”
“Can’t be in the closet if everyone knows, Mom.”
“You’re really horrible, you know that?”
“Tina’s the one that’s horrible,” Tricia said. “I can’t believe that bitch.”
“She just wants to look out for Milo,” Jeff said.
Tricia shook her head and scowled at her mother in law. “No she doesn’t. She’s never cared for anyone but herself.”

“Hello,” Keith said to Brian.
“Hi,” said Brian. “You’re the new priest.”
“Yes. Keith McDonald. Just visiting. But the way things seemed to be going, I think the diocese is going to leave me here for a while. You were the organist, right?”
“Why, yes,” Brian said. “No one notices that the organist.”
“I notice all the members of my congregation,” Keith said with a smile.
“See,” said Brian, “you’ve already made the church your own.”
Keith shrugged.
“I guess. Or maybe it was just seminary talk.”
“Hum?”
“That’s pretty much how everyone talks coming out of the seminary,” Keith parodied himself: “I know everyone in my congregation.” He shook his head. “I don’t know anyone . I want to though.”
“Well,” Brian said, “you already know Barb. I heard you were here for the Affrens the whole time.”
“Barb’s a good woman.”
“And now,” Brian said, thrusting forward his hand, “you know me. Brian Babcock. AKA, the church organist.”
“Pleased to meet you church-organist-with-the-lost-look-on-his-face.”
“I have a lost look?”
“A little. I noticed when you came in. Are you alright? I am a priest. You know it’s my job to ask.”
Brian smiled sort of apologetically and said, “I think I’m alright enough. Just… strange things. Romantic things if I’m not saying too much.”
Keith nodded. “I think you said just enough.”

Lee sidled up next to his daughter who was at the broad picture window overlooking the Affrens’ yard.
“Would you like to tell me why you’re here?”
Danasia looked at him.
“You’re my father,” she said. Then, “Aren’t you?”
“Yes. But I was your father last year and the year before that and I didn’t see you. I’m not faulting you,” he said when she opened her mouth. “I was all over the place and as hard for you to find as you were for me. But you did find me, and that begs the question how and why?”
“That sounds suspicious,” Danasia said, crossing her arms over her chest.
“It is not suspicion. It is concern. If I can help I want to. If you need to be protected that’s what I’m here for. That’s why I’m your father.”
Danasia nodded and played with the buckle of her belt.
“Daddy, right now what I need, and all I need, is to be your daughter. Lemonade is undependable and my mother is twice as worse and things have been… bad. I needed to feel like I have someone.”
“Well, of course you do,” Lee said. “And someones. I noticed you’re very good at making friends. And there is Fenn. There’s our whole family. And Tom.”
“Tom?” Danasia said. “He seems a little…”
“Watch yourself.”
Danasia nodded, took a sip from her drink, and nodded again.

 

[CharmedFan28]

So Keith the priest admitted he was a porn star. It looks like he doesn't want most people to know but I think this might get out. Nice to see some characters meeting for the first time. Great new section and I look forward to the next one!

 

[ChrisGibson]

Naturally, Keith's career as a Catholic priest would be over, or very seriously marred if it became public knowledge that he had acted in gay porn. Keith's character was based on several people I had read about. It turns out there are all sorts of deeply Christian people in the gay porn industry who have to negotiate, often painfully, their impulse toward sex and the divine.

 

[CharmedFan28]

Naturally, Keith's career as a Catholic priest would be over, or very seriously marred if it became public knowledge that he had acted in gay porn. Keith's character was based on several people I had read about. It turns out there are all sorts of deeply Christian people in the gay porn industry who have to negotiate, often painfully, their impulse toward sex and the divine.

I hadn't thought of that, great point. I am interested to see what happens with Keith.

 

[ChrisGibson]

All I can say is it's going to be interesting.

 

[ChrisGibson]

CHAPTER
NINE

NO ONE NOTICES THE ORGANIST CONTINUED


Brian was about to leave his classroom when the door opened and Chad North came in.
“Chad?”
“Were you…?” Chad turned around and headed for the door, “about to go? I mean… I’ll go.”
“No, no,” Brian said. “This is the usual time for our private lesson.”
“Right,” Chad nodded.
“I just… see, I thought you wouldn’t come. You weren’t in class.”
“It’s because of the whole… Of what happened the other day” Chad said. “I shouldn’t have… I’m so sorry.”
Brian stacked his papers and came around his desk, sitting on it with his arms folded over his chest.
“I asked what was wrong, and you…”
“I kissed you,” Chad said.
“Yes,” said Brian.
“I didn’t even have any idea,” Brian said. “Or… Did you know…? I mean…”
“I knew you were gay,” Chad said. Then he said, “You’re a church organist with a degree in musicology.”
Brian grinned indulgently. “Yes. That is a tip off.
“Chad, is that what you were trying to tell me? How long have you had these feelings?”
“You mean gay feelings?” Chad said, unbelieving.
“Yes.”
“My whole life,” Chad said. “I mean… I know what I am. It’s not good for me to admit it on campus. I… I keep it quiet here.” Chad turned red and said quickly, “I thought, for a moment, you meant my feelings for you.”
“Chad?”
“I do have feelings for you,” Chad said. “I… I… We’ve already got everything else out on the table. That’s why I did what I did. It’s not any more excusable, but I just had the feeling so strong. You know?”
Brian nodded.
“I do know,” Brian said. “But, you just can’t go around kissing your professors.”
“I know,” Chad said. “I’m sorry.”
Brian nodded.
“Let’s practice,” he said. “You wanna start with what we did last week?”
Chad nodded.
“That’s good.”
“How was your recital?”
“It was great,” Chad said, glad of the normalcy. “I couldn’t have done it without you.”
“Of course you could have,” Brian told him. “Now let’s sing, young man.”
“You do the harmony.”
“Of course,” Brian said, and sat down to the piano.

They sang together, Chad surprised by the smile on Brian’s face, by the boyish happiness in his eyes when he threw back his head and sang.
Brian’s hands fell on the piano with a ringing, and he threw back his head, and laughed.
“But do you know this one?”
Brian began playing and Chad began singing, haltingly at first then:

“Chain chain chain
Chain chain chain
Chain chain chain
Chain of fools!”

“That’s it!” Brian said. They sang:

“For five long years
I thought you were my man
But I found out
I’m just a link in your chain.
You got me where you want me
Ain’t nothing but your fool
You treated me mean
Ooh, you treated me cruel

Chain chain chain
Chain of fools!”

Laughing, Brian stood up and came to Chad.
“That song is older than me. You… have a very old soul.”
Chad shrugged. “My parents have old souls. I was just this skinny gay white kid that grew up on soul music. And you know what, I only know one Black person, and not very well.”
Brian grinned, and Chad said, “What?”
“I liked the explanation that you had an old soul. I liked that better.”
And then Chad stood up straighter, and kissed Brian again.
“You shouldn’t have done that,” Brian told him softly.
Chad kissed him again, and this time Brian’s mouth pushed back. Chad’s small hands were in his hair.
“We better not get caught,” Brian murmured through the kiss.
“No,” Chad told him, his mouth on him. “We better not.”




TODAY IT WAS ABOUT sixty, and the grass was green. Brian noted that he should not have been surprised. It never got permanently cold until well after December. Flurries were always followed by sunlight. Kids trotted across the campus below, their jackets swinging behind them. One boy, foolishly, rode his bicycle bare-chested and a part of Brian hoped he’d get pneumonia.
When the door closed Brian turned around, shocked, and saw Chad.
“Let’s talk,” Chad said, shutting the door behind him.
“We need to talk about the other day.”
“Chad. I got silly.”
“No,” Chad cut him off. “Listen to me… Brian. I’m not stupid. If I wasn’t your student, you’d be all over me. You can’t tell me you wouldn’t be with someone who was twenty-one.”
“You’re twenty-one?”
“Not yet. But almost, and you can’t tell me you wouldn’t be with someone that age.”
“You’re my student.”
“So what?” Chad said.
Brian stood up and Chad came around the desk.
“I’m in your space now,” Chad said. “No… teacher there and student here. I’m in your space.”
“What,” Brian said, “do you think I can be to you? Your boyfriend? Your lover?”
“Lover, maybe,” Chad said.
“All I know is I’m sick of wanting all the time. And yesterday you gave. I wasn’t just wanting. I wasn’t just craving. You can’t do that to someone. Give them what they want, and then just take it away.”
“Chad.” Brian said again.
“Let’s go back, let’s go back, let’s go way on back when...” Chad sang.
“Chad?”
Chad continued singing:

I didn’t even know you,
you came to me and too much
you wouldn’t take
I ain’t no psychiatrist,
I ain’t no doctor with degree
It don’t take too much high IQ’s
to see what you’re doing to me!

Murmuring, Chad go to his knees and, carefully, began to unzip Brian’s khakis, while Brian trembled.
“You better think,” Chad hummed, “think about what you’re trying to do to me.” Suddenly he looked up at Brian, and flashed a smile. He sang low: “Let your mind go, let yourself be free.”
His mouth was on Brian, and Brian’s head arched back, his palms lightly clutching the sides of his desk while Chad brought his mouth up and again, still humming, he came up to kiss Brian on his mouth savagely.
“Chad—”
But his voice stopped, caught in the pleasure, and he closed his eyes and pulled Chad’s head closer, thrusting lightly, and hearing Aretha, singing over and over again in his head:

Oh freedom,
freedom,
freedom, yeah freedom
Freedom,
freedom,
ooh freedom!

 

[CharmedFan28]

Interesting new section! I hope that Brian and Chad are actually heading towards being together. I know there is the whole teacher/student thing but they are both adults. Great writing and I look forward to the next part.

 

[ChrisGibson]

Brian certainly has wanted someone to love him for a long time. Who knows? Chad might be it. There will be more either tomorrow night or Friday, but either way there will be a day skip.

 

[ChrisGibson]

CHAPTER
TEN

MIXING IT UP WITH ME



The time she didn’t spend at Lee and Tom’s apartment, Danasia spent with Noah. She’d never really had a mother, and what she had experienced of her was so much worse than Naomi. She got the feeling, as time went by, that Naomi was hiding from something too.
The weather got better and then it got worse, and a huge snowstorm dumped itself all across the Midwest. For a day the skies were heavy and pewter. Danasia felt melancholy, but she liked it. And then the sun came out on the glistening snow, the sky was fresh icy blue and she remembered why she loved winter.
“This is the first winter I haven’t spent in California,” she told Noah.
“This is my second,” he said. “The first year I came here, I went back to LA at the first hint of snow.”
Naomi was talking to Danasia one night and she said, “I think I need a job.”
“I do too,” Danasia said. “If I was… in school or something it wouldn’t matter so much. But I’m not doing anything. I need to get up off of my ass.”
“You know,” Naomi took a drag on her cigarette—they were sitting at the kitchen table—“I had a feeling you’d say that.”
She passed an application across the table.
“That Diner on Birmingham?”
Naomi nodded. “We’d be working together. If that didn’t kill you.”
Danasia shook her head. “Did you get the job yet?”
“Not yet,” said Naomi. “But it’s a diner so, you know, what are the requirements besides a working knowledge of shorthand? And speed?”
Danasia admitted: “I don’t know if I have either.”
“If I can do it, you can do it. And I can do it,” Naomi insisted. “I’ve got to. I’ve spent most of my life having other folks do things for me. My father, my mother. Noah’s father. Then all the others.”
“Nay?”
“Um hum.”
“What was Noah’s father like?”
She laughed and said, “Like all the others.”
Then she said, “No. No, Jerry was different. Jerry looked a lot like Noah, actually,” Naomi said. “But he was… done in by life. Does that make sense? He was done in at twenty-three. And he didn’t have time to stick around for the baby. One good thing he did do, or he thought he did, was marry me and give the baby his name. I think that marriage lasted all of forty five minutes. Maybe.”

Noah took Danasia up to Port Ridge a week before Christmas.
“I shouldn’t let you go really,” he said.
“Why? I’ve seen the worst of it. And now all you’re doing is directing.”
“Guy says he has a movie for me in January. He says the folks are missing me.”
“I’d be missing you.”
Noah snorted and readjusted the rear view mirror.
“You miss me in quite a different way than guys busting a nut while watching me busting a nut.”
“You put it so eloquently.”
“I put it as eloquently as it deserves,” Noah told her.
“I know how you started with Guy. I know that,” Danasia said. “But you told me how you were once out on the streets.”
“Yeah?”
“I still don’t understand it. I mean, I feel like I get you, like I know you. But there’s part of you I can't possibly know because I don’t understand it.”
“What part of it? The part where I sold my body so other people could get off on it?”
“Isn’t that the only part of it?”
Noah said: “But I already told you. I mean, other people had been doing the same thing to me, and I’d never had a choice. So it was almost easy to sell myself. Shrug, think of England.”
“I couldn’t.” Danasia said. Then she explained herself.
“Before I came to live with Lemonade and Lee, my mama had a boyfriend. Mama was… fucked up all the time anyway. She read books, though. When she was sober. She was reading The Color Purple, and she put it down. So Randy, who was living with us at the time, reads it and says out of the book, while Mama is asleep: You gon do for me what yo mama wouldn’t. Which is what Celie’s stepfather says before raping her.
“And then he goes for me, Noah.”
“No!” Noah caught his breath.
“I mean he had my jeans down, my underwear, my mama passed out…. I got away. I cut the son of a bitch. I just left. I couldn’t pack. I got my mother’s wallet, and then I was on a bus and I found Lee and my father, my other father. But I couldn’t be touched after that. And you could be.”
Noah didn’t say anything for what seemed like a long time.
“Noah, are you alright?”
“I didn’t try hard enough,” he said in a different voice than she’d ever heard. “I didn’t fight, Danny. I just let them do what they wanted.”
“You ran from those boys.”
“I didn’t make it across the parking lot.
“Do you know what I think?”
When Danasia said nothing, Noah said, “I think that those boys, and those men could tell that I wanted it.”
“Noah, don’t say that.’
“I went to boys. I did stuff with folks. I did… I told you about about Bartlett. I wanted that. I wanted what happened to me. I…” he stopped.
“I do pornos,” Noah said. “How simple is that? I mean that explains it all.
“When I got to the streets I knew what everyone back home thought about me. And what those rich fuckers trying to score a little boy thought. They thought I was a little slut. I was a fag. I was fucked up. I wanted it. And you know, part of me tried to resist all that. All my life I tried to resist being weak, being a victim, being… dirty. And then one day I was just like. You know what?” Noah shrugged and took his hand off the wheel. “You want me to be all those things. Well, you’re right. That’s just what I am. And the first time I punked for someone—you know what that is? Whored. The first time I did that I actually felt free. And excited. And that’s how I felt doing those first movies.”
“Is that how you still feel?”
“Sometimes,” Noah said. “And then sometimes I feel like this is the biggest fucking waste and I am a big fucking waste and this is no kind of life at all. I feel both. Sometimes at the same time. Sometimes in the middle of a movie.”
“Noah,” Danasia said. “I didn’t ask for Jerry to try to rape me.”
“I know that, Danny—”
“And you didn’t ask for anyone to do that to you. You didn’t ask for it, and you didn’t deserve it.”
“I ask for it now,” Noah said. “And I can’t see where the boy blowing his mother’s boyfriend when he was five begins, and Noah Riley filming pornos ends.”
“I’m running away from someone I owe a hundred thousand dollars,” Danasia said casually.”
“Wha?” Noah began.
“I’m fleeing a dangerous man who wants money I don’t have, and he wants to kill me,” Danasia elaborated. “So see, we’ve both done bad shit. That’s why I like you, Noah. Because we’ve both done shit.”


When Nick and Niall, the Boffer Twins, had finished, and lay both exhausted and sweaty, on the bed, Nick massaging his penis, Guy said, “That’s a rap,” and Noah shut off the camera.
“What’s it like to do the filming, Noah?” Niall asked, folding his hand behind his head.
“Well, I get to keep my clothes on,” he said.
“Yeah, what’s the fun in that?” Nick got off the bed and toweled himself. “I’m gonna hit the showers. You and me, though, next week, Noah! They say the fans want to see that.”
“The fans are dying to see that,” Guy said.
Noah came out of the large room with the camera hanging from his hand. Danasia was sitting in the larger white carpeted room by the winding stair case, the scene of many parties.
“You know,” she observed, “at first everyone seems so happy go lucky. But if you watch long enough, then it’s easy to see everyone of these guys is a little ruined. Cut up by life.”
“Because they’re pornstars?” Noah raised an eyebrow and shifted the camera.
Danasia shook her head, and said: “Because they’re breathing. There’s something in Lady Life that makes her want to chop you into little pieces.”
Noah considered this, and then he remembered what he’d wanted to say and spoke.
“Danasia, you should have told me about this a long time ago. You should have told any of us.”
“I know,” she said. “But I felt really stupid. And, besides, for me it was like how you couldn’t tell your mother everything until just recently. You know?”
“I guess.”
“I thought Jerry was so good. I don’t know why. He was—pardon my ebonics—just another niggah. But he was the niggah that took me off the streets. At least the streets I knew. So he ran up a bunch of gambling debts. I used to gamble. For big stuff and for small stuff, and we didn’t have shit. So I said, you know, I’ll win your shit back. And I lost. That’s the abridged version. The long version isn’t that great.”
“The long version sounds like a novel,” Noah sat down, planting his feet apart.
“Well, it’s a novel you’ll have to write yourself, cause I don’t like it.”
“Well,” said Noah, “here’s the thing. Your situation is easily remedied.”
“What? ‘Easily remedied’? You sound just like Lee. Or Fenn.”
“Probably Fenn. I did live in his house. But what I am saying is still true.”
Danasia stood up and hissed in Noah’s ear, “How is owing a hundred thousand dollars—no, excuse me, a hundred FIFTY thousand dollars to some shark easily remedied? Unless you expect me to start doing—” she flapped her arms around the room—“this.”
“If by this,” Noah said, “you mean flapping your arms like a chicken, then no. And if by this you mean porn, then hell no. It’s not a hundred fifty thousand dollar a year career. But what I am saying is if you go to Lee or Fenn, I’m pretty sure they can help you out.”
“No they can’t!”
“I think,” Noah said, his voice very firm, “they can.”
Danasia cocked her head and said, “Whaddo you know, Noah?”
“Nothing,” he said. “I mean, nothing I can tell you. Just… you have to talk to them.”
Danasia shook her head.
“You have to understand that I can’t,” she said. “Even if they’re sitting on a million dollars, I can’t just ask them, I can't ask my father after all he’s done to do that.”
Noah was about to say, “But that’s what fathers do,” when a voice in his head said: “But what did your father ever do for you?”

More in two nights.

 

[CharmedFan28]

Great new section! I enjoy the friendship between Noah and Danasia. I am sad for their childhoods but at least they have each other and other friends now. I look forward to more in a few nights.

 

[ChrisGibson]

Not only do they have each other and other friends, they've got the whole future, and all sorts of great things are in store. See you in a few nights!

 

[ChrisGibson]

CHAPTER
TEN

MIXING IT UP WITH ME CONTINUED


“So,” Chad said, sitting down and folding his hands on his lap when Brian had taken his hands from the piano, “are we on, or are we off?”
“On or off?” he said.
Chad repeated “On or off?” in a mocking voice.
Brian frowned.
“You’re the grown up,” Chad said, ducking his eyes. “You’re the one who’s supposed to be asking questions like, where is this going? What are we doing? Like… Don’t you ask that? Don’t you wonder?”
Brian frowned. He said, “You started this, Chad.”
“That,” Chad told him, “is not the grown up answer.”
“Look,” Brian’s voice rose. He held up a hand and went to the door. He closed the classroom door and came back to Chad.
“You’re grown up. Just like me. You were the one who came to me.”
“And you didn’t resist,” Chad said. “I don’t remember you saying: rape, rape.”
“I didn’t,” Brian said. “But whatever we are in the class room, outside of it we’re equals. So…” he shook his head, blew out his cheeks and leaned against the piano, “You tell me what you want.”
“That’s not fair,” Chad said.
“Chad, that’s exactly fair,” Brian said. “In fact it might be one of the first times in my life I really have been fair.”
When Chad didn’t say anything Brian said, “You’ve gone after me so hard, and so aggressively. What do you want?”
“Well, when you say it like that you act like there’s nothing good about me. Like it’s all one sided. Or do you let every student kiss you and blow you in your classroom?”
“Chad, I would be afraid to do that. I was afraid.”
“I just want the truth,” Chad said. “I just want to know what you think about me? I mean, if I’m just a kid who’s giving you a thrill, then…. I don’t even know that I care. But…. What the heck is this?”
“I don’t know what it is,” Brian said. “And I don’t know how I feel about you. And really, Chad, I don’t know how you feel about me. I mean, you can’t really think I’m your destiny or… anything like a boyfriend. And the truth is I’ve never had anything like a boyfriend.”
“Never?” Chad said amazed.
“That’s beside the point,” Brian pushed the subject away.
Chad said, “I’m just really attracted to you. And what we’re doing I really like. And… I want to keep doing it. I mean, I want to do more.”
“You want to fuck?”
Chad’s face went red.
“What?” Brian said.
“The way you said it. The…”
“Well, it’s no point in beating around the bush,” Brian said. “Or using euphemisms. I mean, is that what you want?”
Chad was trembling and had been since the moment the word fuck came out of Brian’s mouth.
“Do you?”
“Chad, you’re playing with the grown ups now, and… I mean, I can’t talk to you like what we’ve done we haven’t done. And so I need you to answer my question.”
“I do,” Chad said. “I do want that.”
Then Chad added, “and I don’t want it just once. I don’t want you to walk away and act like it didn’t happen. I want a steady… ”
“Guy to screw?”
“I want someone who doesn’t mind me staying over.”
“You want a boyfriend,” Brian said.
“I don’t know if that’s exactly it,” Chad said. “I want… What I said.”
He came forward and put his hands around Brian’s neck.
“Are you gonna stop me?”
“No,” Brian whispered.
“Your neck feels so good.”
Brian kissed him.
“That’s the first time you started it,” Chad said.
Brian kissed him again. His lips felt so good. His mouth was strong and gentle. There was mint in his breath.
“Come here,” Brian said.
He placed Chad against the wall, kissing his mouth and his eyes and this throat. Chad moaned, his arms around Brian’s neck.
“You are beautiful,” Brian murmured. “You are goddamned beautiful. I don’t want to hurt you.”
“You’re not hurting me.”
“Not,” Brian murmured, through kisses, “what I meant.”
Chad parted from him long enough to say, “You won’t hurt me that way either.”
“I hurt everyone,” Brian said flatly.
“Not me,” Chad insisted, and turned Brian around, so that Brian’s back was to the wall, and then Brian felt Chad’s hands on his belt, pulling down his trousers and the blood going to his groin, his penis getting thicker.
“Right here,” Brian whispered.
“Are you afraid?”
Brian shook his head, a little smile showing teeth.
“Unh unh. Not anymore. We don’t have any…”
“I do,” Chad reached into his pocket. “I am a trashy kid in love—”
“Don’t ever say that?” Brian whispered,
“Who else,” Chad continued, “comes totally prepared and lubed up?”
Chad pulled at Brian’s waist, and then Brian pulled at his and they struggled out of pants and underwear, Brian breathing hard and shallow. When Chad was ready, Brian kissed him deeply and slipped his hands over his ass murmuring, “You are so soft.” And then he slipped a finger inside of him and Chad cried out and moaned, and then Brian lifted him up, and as he lay against the wall, Chad planted his feet against that wall, and pulled Brian inside him.
They fucked like that, Brian back against the wall, pants down, Chad’s legs around his waist, peering into each other’s eyes, gathering up speed, faces reddening, breath through teeth, shivering.


“You’re right,” Brian said to Jesse in class that day.
“He’s not right or wrong,” Chad said. “It’s really a subjective matter.”
“Not all the time, Brian disagreed. And in this case Jesse’s right.”
Chad scowled but Radha said, “Relax. It’s just one question.”
Chad didn’t look at her, but he looked up at Brian, who looked at him and then said, “Does anyone want to put the Gelineau scale up on the board. It will be an exam question.”
“Gelineau scale?” Radha whispered to her brother. “Why did I take this class anyway?”
“I have no idea,” he said. “Because you are so not a music major.”
Chad had his hand up, but Brian said, “Cynthia, why don’t you.”
Chad made an audible noise of disgust and folded his hands over his chest.
“Is it just me?” Radha whispered to his brother, “or has Chad gotten super weird?”
“Chad was always super-weird.”
“Okay, well then super-sized weird.”
“Secretive,” Jesse shook his head. “But he always was.”
“That’s good,” Brian was saying. “That’s real good, Cynthia.”
“Shouldn’t she have the notes in squares?” Chad said. “They didn’t use round notes in the tenth century.”
“But we’re not in the tenth century, Chad,” Brian said smoothly.
“But…” Chad began, and then clamped his mouth shut.
“Yes, Chad?” Brian said in a voice Radha could tell was falsely pleasant.
“I’m just saying,” Chad said, while Cynthia stood at the chalkboard, disconcerted, “if I put it up on the board like that, then it wouldn’t be all right.”
“Talk to me after class,” Brian said shortly, in the teacher voice that brooked no disobedience and Chad said, darkly, “With pleasure.”

“What’s going on with you?” Jesse said, pulling his bag over his shoulder.
“Nothing,” Chad said, cranky.
Jesse opened his mouth and then closed it.
“You know what?” Radha said. “We’re just trying to be friends. But apparently you don’t need those. I’m going to meet Cameron and Julian downstairs,” Radha told her brother. “Dinner’s at six.” She looked at Chad. “You can come if we’re good enough for you.”
With a turn of her head she headed out the door. Brian Babcock called her.
“Yes, Professor Babcock,” she approached him.
“I just wanted to tell you,” he said in a quiet voice. “I know you’re a Freshmen, and maybe you think you’re in over your head. You’ve done really well in this class. I hope that maybe we’ll see you again next semester?”
“Not,” Radha said, “if there’s anymore Gelineau Chant.”
“Oh, com’on now, a little Gelineau’s good for everyone.”
“It’s good for monks,” Radha said with a grin. “I’m a Hindu. See you, Dr. Babcock.”
“Later, Radha,” he said with a smile that disappeared when Chad stood in front of him.
“You’re disrupting the class,” he said shortly.
“And you’re being totally unfair.”
“How?”
“You know how,” Chad hissed. But then, trying to make his voice more regular, repeated. “You know how.
“Ever since… things started…”
Brian shook his head.
“This is a discussion for my office,” he said. “And we’re headed there. Come on.”
“Thanks, Dr. Babcock.”
“Don’t do that,” Brian said, stuffing his things under his arm and heading out of the old class room in the music building. He loved how the music building was so removed from the rest of campus and so old and almost neglected. His office was downstairs and as he came into it, Chad shut the door behind him.
“You know you totally would have marked me down for putting a Gelineau scale up like that. And you gave me a B on that paper. I would have gotten an A a month ago.”
“You want me to give you light treatment? Don’t you see how bad that would look? How bad, how unethical it would be. It wouldn’t be fair to you. It wouldn’t be fair to the other students.”
“But it’s fair to penalize me? I think… I think you’re mad about what’s going on between us.”
“I am not mad,” Brian said. “I am trying to be fair.”
“Well, you’re not.” Chad reached into his bag and pulled out the exam. “Because this is an A paper.”
“It’s a B plus at best,” Brian said.
“Then give it a B plus.”
“No.”
“I hate you!” Chad said.
“That’s not called for.”
“It is called for. You’re mean. You’re mad because… because when we’re together… can I say that out loud?”
“You can say it out loud here.”
“You’re mad because we tell each other things and to get back at me you mark me down.”
“That is not true, Chad.”
“You’re not fair at all. I know about how you broke up a relationship. I know about how you cried when you were a teenager, how you thought someone wouldn’t love you. So… you wanna get back at me cause I know too much.”
“You don’t anything,” Brian said in that cold, withering voice, “if you think that’s how I act in a classroom.”
Brian looked suddenly cold and unreachable and, oddly enough, very much a hurt lover and nothing like a teacher. Chad walked around the desk to him and, hesitantly, touched him on the shoulder.
Face tight, not speaking, Brian said, “I am not proud of everything I’ve done. Most things. But the one thing I am proud about, the one thing I take seriously is being a teacher. Those kids… like Radha, like Cynthia, who thought they couldn’t do it and are doing… great.”
“Radha is good,” Chad allowed.
“But you’re better,” Brian said. He shook his head.
“Don’t you see how hard this is for me?” Brian still didn’t look at him. “I know you now, Chad. That’s what’s changed. We tell each other things. We… share our bodies. I don’t know if it was wise or not, I’m sure it wasn’t. But I know what you want, what you dream, what you need, what you’re capable of. So you’re right,” he looked at him. “I judge you a hell of a lot harder. I won’t indulge you. I can’t. You’re a brilliant musician. You’re a wonderful singer and you’re going to be a great theorist. But, damnit, someone has to ride your ass.”
“You do a fine job of that already.”
“I’m serious.” Brian said.
“Sorry,” Chad ducked his head.
“It’s just… I know how good you are. I’ve taught you for two years. We’re together all the time. I’m your advisor. And now,” Brian shook his head and colored, “we’re more than that. You’re doing A work for someone else, but you’re doing B work for Chad North, and I’m not going to bend.”
Then Brian took the crumbled essay Chad had written, took out his pen, and marked a plus next to it. He got out his grade book.
“I’ll bend a little,” he said, sighing. “You’re probably right. I think we’re both right. I’m scared, Chad.”
“Of getting caught?”
Brian looked up at him and shook his head.
“Chad. This is a big school in grown up land. A Catholic school, but so what? Do you think I’m the only prof sleeping with a student? And in a gay relationship? Do you know how Catholics handle that?”
“Excommunication?”
Brian laughed scornfully and shook his head.
“No, by looking the other way and pretending it doesn’t exist.
“I’m not scared for me,” Brian said. “Or even for my reputation among the students. Not really. But you’re a really brilliant kid.”
“I’m not a kid.”
“Compared to me you are. And I don’t want someone saying you got where you were screwing your teachers. I go home at night. You go back to the dorm and get called a faggot. That’s the reality of life. I know. I was there.”
“I’m moving off campus next semester.”
“Well, now it’s this semester.”
Brian closed his grade book.
“Professor Babcock, if you go on like this, I’ll start to think you care for me.”
Brian looked up at him, touched his chin and motioned for him to come slower.
Brian kissed him on the mouth.
“When was there ever a time,” Brian said, “when I claimed otherwise?”

 

[CharmedFan28]

Nice new section! Its good to see Brian and Chad together. Their relationship is complicated but I hope they make it work. Great writing and I look forward to more!

 

[ChrisGibson]

What do you like about their relationship?

 

[CharmedFan28]

What do you like about their relationship?

That they seem so well matched. I don't quite know what it is but I think they belong together.

 

[ChrisGibson]

I think they're both a very good match myself. I feel, in a way, like Chad is a younger version of Brian.They are matched in their bad points as well as their good points. I also think Brian has a type (ie Tom) and Chad might even be like a younger Tom.

 

[ChrisGibson]

CHAPTER
TEN

MIXING IT UP WITH ME CONTINUED


When Chad came to dinner he looked in considerably lighter spirits, which Jesse commented on.
Chad shrugged. “I just needed to have a chat with Dr. Babcock.”
“I never thought I’d like that class,” Radha said. “I’m looking at the one on world music next year. I mean in the spring. Claire, you might want to take it.”
Claire looked at Radha said, “That is not going to happen.”
“I forgot,” Radha remembered, “you’ve got this history with him.”
“I wish I knew what that was about,” Jesse said.
“It’s not even personal. It’s just that everyone we know,” she incorporated Julian in the gesture, “knows him, and it would be awkward.”
“What was awkward,” Jesse said, gesturing to Chad with a chicken finger, “was watching the fight between Chad and Dr. Babcock today.”
“We didn’t fight,” Chad said, readjusting his chicken fingers and reaching for the salt.
“You fought a little bit,” Radha disagreed. “A wee bit.”
Chad shrugged.
“They’re doing the student film show tonight in the Little Theatre,” Julian said.
“I’m definitely on for that,” Radha told them.
“Layla is bringing Will.”
“That’s cool. Are they coming here next year?”
“I don’t know yet,” Claire said. “I don’t want to pressure her.”
“Oh, hell, do pressure her. Pressure the hell out of her. Jess, you coming?”
“I have a boatload of work,” Jesse said.
“And you can do a boatload of work after the student films,” Julian said. “They’ll be food and everything. And we can meet new people and… all of that.”
“And I can keep seeing that football player from the first party of the year,” Claire said with a grin. “Remember, the one where I pretended to shag Chad?”
Chad nodded, but looked awkward.
“I think,” Claire said, “that he thinks if he shows up enough places I’ll screw him too.”
“You have to admire his persistence,” Julian said.
“You don’t,” Claire swatted him in the chest. “You should be offended.”
“Well, it’s too late,” Jesse said. “Julian already gave him that line about, ‘The girl’s amorous, what’s a guy to do?’ He probably thinks you all are swingers.”
“All right guys, so we meet up at the Theatre at eight,” said Julian. “That means we should leave now. Or I should leave now. I want to finish this essay.”
“Count me out,” Chad said.
“Why?” Julian said.
“I got stuff,” Chad told him.
“Stuff? What kind of stuff?”
“My stuff,” Chad said.
“Well, how long is it going to take?” Claire asked.
“It’ll take all night,” Chad told her.
“And you can’t come with us?”
“I just said no,” Chad said a little exasperated.
Claire shook her head, and eyed Julian. Julian shrugged and said, “Whatever. I gotta go.”
“You could have given him an answer,” Radha said after Julian left.
“Why do I always have to give an answer?” Chad replied, irritable. “Why am I always having to give answers?”
“You’re not,” Radha said. “You never do.”
Then she said, “You know what? I’m sorry, Jess. I know you and Chad have been friends for years and I guess you don’t mind all the secrets. But… I want to know what your deal is, Chad? Why is your life so special that none of us is important enough to get into it?”
“I never said that,” Chad said, folding up his napkin. “I never fucking said that.”
Radha turned her head away in disgust.
Stiffly Chad folded his napkin and said, “When I think about it, I have to do stuff right now.”
“Chad,” Jesse started.
“I have to go too. Good night. I’ll see you later.”
Chad got up and left. Radha looked to Claire.
“I only feel a little sorry,” Radha said.
“He just…” Jesse said, “He’s private.”
“Well, I’m all about private,” Claire said. “But he’s closed up shut.”


Lying on his stomach, Brian turned his head and looked at him. He reached out and stroked his hair.
“Do you wanna stay tonight?”
“I don’t know if someone’s going to tap on my door,” Chad said. He was sitting up, his hands on his lap.
“Actually, what I mean is I don’t know if Jesse will tap on my door. Well… It doesn’t matter. All he’ll do is ask me where I’ve been. All I’ll do is not tell him,” Chad smiled gently. He sank back in the covers, and Brian’s hand moved to his chest.
“Yes,” Chad said. “I’d like that. Finals are next week, and then I’ve got to get back home.” He examined Brian’s hand, moving his fingers over it. “It’s going to be a long three weeks.”
“Maybe you can find someone else,” Brian said. “Someone to have an affair with or something. If the itch gets too bad.”
“You want me to do that?” Chad said.
At length Brian shook his head. “Not really. But I don’t have the right to ask you to be faithful to me.”
“Ask me,” Chad said, a little eagerly, turning over.
“No,” Brian said. “I won’t. You’re young and eager and you’re free as far as I’m concerned.”
“Or do you want to be free?” Chad said. “To go back to your boy at the Video Watch?”
Brian frowned at Chad, and Chad said, “I was only joking… I shouldn’t have joked about that.”
“It was a confidence,” Brian said. “I don’t want to force you into some type of relationship. We said it wasn’t, right?” Brian said.
“Well if two people care for each other it’s a relationship,” Chad’s voice was small. “And I think we cared for each other even before the whole thing started. I mean, it wouldn’t have started if I wasn’t crazy for you.”
Brian leaned over and kissed Chad on the cheek, and then he folded his arms around him and pressed his body to him.
“I hated today,” Brian said. “You were so upset with me. And these last days, trying to decide what to do, how to be fair. How you would react…”
“You actually care how I react?”
Brian pressed himself sharply into Chad and squeezed him. “Of course I care how you react,” he said in his ear. “And if you could have seen the way you looked to me… In those pants, in that shirt… that brown color, the way it fits you so close, and how I wish…” Brian shook his head and breathed into Chad’s throat. “If you knew…”
And then Chad turned and kissed him and they kissed for a long time, and Brian moved himself under Chad, and hooked his legs around him, his thighs drawing him in, pulling Chad into him. Silently they moved together, Chad shuttling rapidly, Brian holding to his shoulders, his mouth opened, whispering, “Yes… that’s it.”
He pulled his face down, pushing his dark hair back to whisper into the sea shell of his ear, “Let it go, come inside of me, spill in me, Yes. Let go. That’s it… baby… that’s it,” until sharply, and by surprise, Chad struggled and groaned, and spilled, his body rigid. And then, slowly, he collapsed in Brian’s arms.
“I didn’t…” Chad started. “That wasn’t tender at all.”
“It was tender for me,” Brian said. Chad went to his side, his arms over Brian, his head on Brian’s arm.
“I usually don’t do that. You usually do it to me. And… you’re so tender.”
“Not always. I thought you needed it.”
Chad didn’t say that he did. Instead he said:
“I’ve never had friends before, Brian. My whole life I never had real friends, and I was always on guard. Always keeping secrets.”
Brian nodded, squeezing himself, still feeling Chad in him, touching Chad’s hair.
“And now,” Chad said, “for the first time I have a secret I have to keep, and I do have friends. I have people who want to be my friends, and they don’t understand… They think I’m a jerk, and I guess I am. They think I’m keeping secrets just because I want to… be better, or be apart. And maybe that was true. Once. For a long time I acted like I was better because no one wanted me to be a part of them. But they do, and I really want them.”
“I don’t know what to tell you,” Brian said. “I never had friends either. Well, that’s not true. I mean, I do have friends now. But… I know what it is like, at the beginning, when you first have to start trusting them. And how good it feels when you do.”
“You want me to tell them?” Chad said, shocked.
“I didn’t say that,” Brian said. “I said…”
“Besides,” Chad continued. “One of them. I like her a lot. She… we’d be real friends I bet. She has something against you. I don’t know what it is, but… And her boyfriend too.”
“Claire Anderson.”
“Yes!” Chad said. “How did you…?”
“She gave me the business end of her hand once,” Brian said.
“She slapped you.”
“Yes. I… I was with her brother.”
“That Paul guy?”
“Yes.”
“Did you break his heart or something?”
“No, he broke mine,” Brian said, sitting up.
“This is sitting up talk,” Brian said. “I did another stupid thing. He was seeing someone and he was afraid that the relationship was… Well, he was afraid so he did what frightened people do. He slept with someone else. Me. And when he got his act together and left me it hurt. To be fair to me, he wasn’t exactly nice about it. I did something really horrible, and… I think it should stay a mystery for now. If you don’t mind, and since Claire apparently hasn’t told you—”
“Was it really bad?”
“Yes. And Julian… her boyfriend. I’m not his family’s favorite person either.”
“Why?”
Brian debated telling this, and then said, “I jumped into another relationship and broke it up. I was a lot younger. A little older than you, though. I didn’t care. I thought my happiness mattered more than anyone else’s, and I thought I could make the guy love me. I couldn’t. I just helped destroy a relationship. So you see, I’m a pretty bad guy to get mixed up with, and I don’t know why you’re here mixing it up with me.”
“Cause I don’t know that guy,” Chad said. “I don’t even see him in you. I see someone who is smart… And sexy and compassionate. And sweet and who,” Chad stopped, and pushed himself into Brian, linking his body with him.
“Who I can do this with, who I can trust being with I… I feel really… open with you. I mean, like I’m safe, like…”
“I have—my whole life—wanted to have someone that I could put my arms around. That’s how I feel with you,” Brian said, holding him close. “And I shouldn’t.”
“Why?”
“You know why.”
“Can’t we just do this,” Chad turned around, facing him, “and not worry about the rightness or the wrongness? Can’t we just feel this?”
Chad kissed him.
“Even if it doesn’t last forever?” Brian said.
“Brian, the Grand Canyon won’t last forever.”
Brian grinned at him, and then pushed himself on top of Chad.
“Is it my turn?” he said, as Brian moved against him, growling a little, his mouth on his chest.
“If you want it to be,” Brian said, moving to kiss his belly, moving back up.
Chad hooked his legs around him, and as Brian sat up, placing Chad on his lap, kissing his shoulders and his throat, he held up the boy’s face and said, “Tell Claire, and Julian and all of them whatever you want to.”
“But—”
Brian lowered Chad onto him, and Chad gasped.
“Tell them,” Brian said, as their bodies moved together, and a low moan came from between Chad’s lips, “whatever you need to keep yourself from being dishonest.”

 

[CharmedFan28]

Brian and Chad are so cute! I hope Chad does end up telling his friends and that they don't react too badly. Great section and I look forward to more!