ChrisGibson
JUB Addict
Of course, we will soon see how open they really can be, and how happy Keith will be or not. We are reaching the home stretch of the trilogy.
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The Prayers in Rossford
- Thread starter ChrisGibson
- Start date
ChrisGibson
JUB Addict
RULES OF LOVE AND SEX CONTINUED
“Guys, this is gonna be the wave of the future,” Casey said. “Jamie, you want help with the kitchen?”
“As a matter of fact, yes.”
Casey grinned at Noah and said, “I didn’t think he’d take me up on the offer.”
“I know,” James shouted back.
Casey shrugged and said, “Get me a dish towel. You, Noah, turn on the laptop. I’m gonna show you something great.”
It took all of five minutes to clean the kitchen and when they were done Casey sat down on the sofa and told them, “Now, check this out.”
“Okay, Noah, type www—No… let me type this.”
Casey bent over the laptop and then Noah said, “What the…”
On the computer screen was Casey Williams.Com.
“Noah, you gotta go into business for yourself. It’s not enough to work for folks like Guy McClintock anymore. We gotta work for ourselves.”
“Is that a movie?”
“It’s the clip of a movie. Hit this.”
“Hi, I’m Casey Williams, and this is Casey Williams Live.”
Music started up in the background, and there was a montage of Casey with his shirt off, Casey flexing his modest muscles, Casey making out with one guy, Casey making out with another guy. Casey and another guy jacking each other off. Casey on his back, legs up in the air being slammed in the ass by—”
“Is that Jack Scranlin?”
“Yeah,” Casey said.
Casey and another guy buck naked masturbating. Casey ejaculating in a wicker chair, Casey ejaculating on the floor, Casey ejaculating on a bed, Casey being ejaculated on by two guys. Casey growling as he came:
“Awwwww Fuck!”
“Casey Williams Live,” Casey stood there with his hip cocked, bare chested in khaki shorts. “It’s Live.”
“It’s live?” James raised an eyebrow.
“I know,” said Casey. “But no one seems to be complaining. Guys who pay thirty dollars a month to watch me fuck aren’t concerned with poetics the way you are, Jamie.”
Noah, frowning, scrolled down, “You’ve got a blog?”
“Yeah. Blog and a Myspace. This is a business, baby. Check it out.”
“I,” James interrupted, “want to check out the ‘Interview with Casey.’ ”
“Aw, yeah, that’s golden. Click here. I’ve got this posted on X-Tube, Porn-X, X-Ploit.”
“You didn’t leave an X out, did you?” said Noah.
James clicked on.
“Hey, so, some of you guys wanna know what it’s like to be a pornstar? That’s the most popular question I get. Along with, what does Casey do for fun? Well, second question first.
“Basically, I don’t do much. I… work. You know. I do this. I hang out with old friends. I don’t travel the way I used to. But I like to do it when I can. A real movie junkie! Yeah. Movies are pretty great. And hanging with my boyfriend.”
“You have a boyfriend, now?” James said.
“More or less,” Casey said.
“Which means?”
“Which means not really. Now shut up and listen.”
“Basically, I just really love to fuck! That’s the best thing about this. You get to do what you love.”
Throughout the interview were flashes of Casey flexing, being filmed, grinning, stroking guys dicks, sucking guys dicks, having his dick sucked, getting fucked in his ass. Flexing while he fucked someone in the ass.
“People ask me what the difference is between sex with my boyfriend and porn sex. The truth is: sometimes, when it’s really hot, there is no difference. That’s the great thing about it…”
“Why are you showing me this?” Noah asked him.
“Well, for one thing, on the older stuff there’s a few videos with you. By the way, Guy will never take you off his site. But I will. The second thing is that you had some stuff up for awhile, and I know you were directing that amateur stuff, AND some of Guy’s shit, so I wanted to know what happened to you?”
“You mean where my porn site is?”
FUCK ME! FUCK ME! OWWWWW!
“Casey Williams Live. You’re gonna love it.”
“Something like that,” Casey said. Then looking at James’ expressionless face he added, “But only something like it.”
“No! no! I’m not saying go make some more shit. But you’ve got a lot of shit out there, man. You could put that together. And you had a following! I mean, you have a fucking following,” Casey said. “We could get into business. James could manage us.”
“What?” they both said.
“Well, what are the two of you doing, anyway!” Casey said. “We could get something started.”
“We’ll…” Noah began.
“We’ll think about it,” said James.
Noah looked at him.
“We’ll think about it,” James repeated.
“Oh,” Casey said. “You know… I love my boyfriend. But he knows business is business. And… maybe your boyfriend would understand if you got back in the—”
“No!” Noah shouted, a little too loudly, before James even had to say anything.
When they got back from the club, Casey said: “I’m still awake.”
Noah made himself yawn, and found that the yawn was very real.
“I’m a married man, now,” he said. “I really need to hit the hay.”
“I always wondered why people said hit the hay and not the mattress,” Casey said.
“People used to sleep on hay,” said James. “Before there were beds.”
“Is that true?” Casey looked to Noah, as if Noah could confirm this, and Noah said, “James went to college. We didn’t. So it is true.”
It was James who gave a wide, body stretching yawn this time.
It wasn’t that James hadn’t appeared to be having a good time at the club. Just, Noah didn’t want him there. Clubs were his turf. Clubs had been his turf. Clubs were where he picked up guys, when he did, which had always been rare. They were not where you brought James. Not where you brought your James.
Yawning, James said, “In the Middle Ages one whole family might just sleep on one bedpile, one pile of hay. And if you were visiting and out of town, so to speak, you’d be invited to the pile too. You might be invited to sleep with the master of house’s wife.”
“Now that’s courtesy,” Noah murmured.
“Only if she was hot,” said Casey.
“No one really washed back then, though.”
James stretched, and clapping Noah on the back, stomped sleepily to the bedroom to change into pajamas.
“Things were cozier back then,” Casey said, raising his voice so James could hear him too. “Are we too stuck up now? Is that why so many people watch porns? Cause they can’t do stuff for real?
From the bedroom James said: “Intavesting. Vewy Intevesting!”
“I was wondering if you guys wanted a threeway?”
Noah blinked at Casey. There was silence from the bedroom.
“Just joking guys. I just wanted to see the reaction.”
Noah made like he knew that, but he could see from Casey’s change of expression that it wasn’t a joke. He felt like explaining.
Instead he said: “If you’re still wound up, you better go out to the club for another half hour.”
James came out of the bedroom in plaid pajama pants and a tee shirt, his glasses slipping down his face.
“That is the good part about living a block from downtown, Casey. But don’t do anything stupid.”
“Don’t get yourself killed,” Noah said. “I’ll walk you down.”
“My car’s right in front of the apartment.”
“I’ll walk you down,” Noah repeated.
On the other side of the door Noah said, “I just gotta explain something. Cause I feel like a real treacherous bastard.”
“Whaddo you mean?”
“I’m not trying to be all holy. All, I’m better than that. It’s just, I’m with James is all.”
“What are you talking about?”
Noah mouthed, in case anyone was coming down the hall.
“Threeway.”
“Oh,” Casey laughed. “I know. I get it. I mean, as soon as it was out of my mouth I got it. James is… James is definitely a one on one thing. And you guys have some real shit. You can’t step up between that. I know.”
Noah opened his mouth.
“I know,” Casey repeated. “Who knows? Maybe I’ll get a little three way action going with someone else.”
“Be safe,” Noah said.
Casey nodded, then turned to go. But before he had turned totally he said, “You miss it? The wild shit?”
Noah thought about it.
“Not really. Not now at least. Back then I… needed it. If I hadn’t had it I think I’d still want it. But now this is what I want. My guy in that room.”
Casey nodded.
“Good ole James.”
“How do you know him?” Noah said, at last.
Casey looked at him.
“He hasn’t told you?”
Noah shook his head.
Casey frowned, actually looking serious. And then he said, “Well, then if he hasn’t told you, I don’t really guess I should either.”
Noah started to talk, but Casey said, “See you when the sun comes up.”
And he was gone.
Noah came to bed late that night and he settled in beside James, pressing his back to him.
“So, Jamie?”
“Yeah?”
“Are you serious about us building a website?”
“Look, I told you when we first got together, that I would never try to stop you from doing something you had to do.”
“Like build a website?”
“Or other stuff.”
“You mean, like fuck other guys in pornos?”
“Or whatever.”
“Whatever! So you’d still be my boyfriend while I was screwing other folks?”
“I didn’t say that.”
“James!”
“I’d always be around. I’ll always be around. And I’ll never try to make you anything you don’t want to be.”
Noah sat up.
“Hum?” James said.
Noah flipped on a light.
“Look, I remember whenever I did films and shit, it would always be some guy talking about his boyfriend or his girlfriend. I always thought, I’m never going to call anyone my boyfriend until he’s the only person I want to sleep with. I don’t want that crazy shit. All right?”
“All right.”
“Is that settled?”
“Yes, Noah.”
Noah turned out the light, and settled down into the bed.
“Now… Are you gonna tell me how you know Casey?”
James was quiet for a moment, and then he said, “Are you going to tell me if watching Casey get fucked by all those guys made you horny for doing porn again?”
Noah coughed, delicately and said, “Good night.”
CharmedFan28
JUB Addict
Great writing and a great portion! It was nice to have a Noah and James centric section! I hope Noah getting back into porn doesn't screw things up with James. I guess ill have to wait and see about that. I eagerly await the next portion to see what happens next!
ChrisGibson
JUB Addict
I am trusting in Noah and James to make a right choice for them, mostly because there are only two chapters left and we need to rub all of this pesky problems as much out of the way as we can before saying goodbye to folks.
- - - Updated - - -
And, of course, thank you so much for reading, and so glad you enjoyed!
- - - Updated - - -
And, of course, thank you so much for reading, and so glad you enjoyed!
ChrisGibson
JUB Addict
CONTINUED
There was no point in being here if he couldn’t take his shirt off. He loved being with Noah, and he loved being with James. He was thrilled as fuck that they were together now, but Noah now wasn’t like Noah in the old days. Noah in the old days was full of good times on the surface and shit beneath that neither one of them dared touch. Casey had it too. Living was skating on thin ice with a pill or two to help. There was some hell in it, but it was amazing.
Back at this club, which wasn’t Chicago, exactly, or Indianapolis, but damn good for where it was, he threw off his shirt and danced till he was worked up, until he poured a bottle of water over his chest and knew that feeling sexy made him sexy and being sexy made him looked at and being looked at made him sexy and it was part of a wonderful, glorious cycle.
In the middle of this cycle, someone caught his eye. He was in black slacks and a white, white shirt and he was beautiful. And he was familiar. So Casey danced up to him.
“I bet—No. I know this sounds like a line,” Casey said, thinking to himself how gay he sounded right now. “But I could sweat I know you from somewhere.”
In return he received a beautiful smile, and the guy said, “I’ve been here a couple of times. So maybe.”
“Well, then maybe not,” said Casey. “Cause I’m from out of town.”
“But I’m from out of town too,” he said.
“I don’t wanna get you all wet. I don’t wanna dance too close.”
“I think we’re all here to get a little wet.”
The guy pulled him close and they danced, groin to ass.
“I’m glad this isn’t house music,” Casey leaned back and said into his ear. “I hate that shit. I don’t know whose house it’s supposed to be at for one thing. I hate strobe lights. I hate shit that sounds like a giant’s heartbeat. It’s crazy making.”
Suddenly the guy leaned down and kissed Casey’s throat.
Casey turned around.
“I hate guys who beat around the bush too. Glad you’re not one of them.”
“What’s your night look like?”
Casey grinned. “My night looks like you. And my morning too.”
“We can make a morning happen. I have to pop off for a bit—”
“Pop off for a bit? Like the British?”
“I watch a lot of BBC.” He shrugged. “But I need to pop off, go away, whatever, for a few hours in the morning. But I can be back in bed by eight-thirty.”
“Sounds hot to me. Whaddo you have to do?”
“What if I told you I worked in a church?”
“You’d be…” Casey’s eyes danced around, “half the guys in here.”
“Cool,” he laughed, relieved.
“So, you wanna grab a hotel room, or you gotta place?”
“I bet,” Casey said, “We better grab a hotel room. Is there a reason we can’t go to your place?”
“Yes.”
“A man of mystery. I love men of mystery. Let’s not waste any time then?”
“All right. Let me grab my jacket.”
“I’ll grab my shirt. I’m Casey, by the way.”
“Casey...” The guy nodded and gripped his hand. That was strangely butch. But everything was strange, right? “I’m Keith.”
The hotel room flew open, and Keith came in saying, “See? I told you I’d come back.” He put one coffee on the table beside him, and handed another to Casey.
“I hope you like coffee.”
“I’m a coffee junkie, sir. Thank you. I hope you like Sausage Biscuit with Egg.” He handed him a wrapped breakfast sandwich.
“I am a fan of all things McDonalds.” Keith received the package gratefully, and unwrapped it.
“When I woke up, I figured I might as well go down to the Mickey D’s and grab myself, grab ourselves, something.”
“That is much appreciated,” Keith sat down beside him. “Are you headed out soon, or whaddo you wanna get up to?”
“Um,” Casey smiled and swallowed. “If my mouth weren’t full of McDonald’s I’d kiss you right now.”
He took a swig of the coffee.
“Basically, if you’ve got the morning, I’d love to finish off what we started last night.”
“I do have the morning,” Keith put down his sandwich. “And I will kiss you.”
And he did, and then he said, “And I would love to finish what we started last night.”
“It’s just been a long time,” Casey said. “You know? “
“Since sex?”
Casey shook his head and laughed, “No. That’s a… I don’t live without sex. I mean it’s been a long time since good sex. You know. Since good lovemaking where you stay the night and get McDonalds for the guy the next day.”
Keith laughed. “My last name is McDonald.”
“Um. Keith McDonald. Mine is Williams.”
“I’m glad we stayed together last night,” Keith said after a thoughtful chew on his sandwich. “Sometimes when I get up in the morning I wonder what makes me so afraid, and if I think long enough, it’s the night. Night is so long. And then winter just let up. It seems like night never ends then. It just keeps going.”
“Keeps fucking going,” Casey laughed gently, his hand making a shooting motion. “I was born in Minnesota. I know.”
“Where do you live now?”
At this, Casey really laughed: “Florida!”
They both chuckled and Casey said, “I would move to Alaska if I could and stay there all through that time, you know, when the sun doesn’t go down. And then when it did, I would pack up and head for the South Pole. I hate the night.”
“But the clubs. And… the sex.”
“You can have sex anytime. And the clubs are just full of people who are afraid of night too.”
Keith tipped Casey’s chin up and said, “You wanna make love in the day, then?”
The window was open to the cool June air, and outside cars whistled as they sped by.
“Yes,” Casey kissed him lightly. “I would love to.”
Since James said nothing, Noah said, “You know what? I think I need to leave. I think I just need to go right now. I’m going to take a walk.”
“Don’t walk too far. Your ass looks really nice in those jeans.”
Noah turned around, truly upset.
“I mean in those old faded jeans you really look nice. It’s like two round little hills with denim stretched over them. And when you bend over—”
“James!” Noah said, suddenly very upset. “I am trying to tell you that I am angry, and you won’t take it seriously. You won’t…” Noah balled his fist up, embarrassed.
“I’m tired of you being like the Sphinx. Yeah, I know what the Sphinx is. I’m not as dumb as you may have believed.”
“That is not fair,” James said.
“You know what isn’t fair?” Noah said. “What isn’t fair is I tell you everything. I lay down my life for you, and I say, here you go James. Here you go, babe, this is me. And you just sit there and smile. And you give nothing! And then Casey shows up, and he’s like, oh hey, Jamie. And you’re like, oh hey, Casey. And you won’t even tell me—just to be an asshole, probably—how the fuck you know him.
“I mean, were you lovers? Did you fuck him? But that doesn’t seem right because it doesn’t seem like something you would do. Only… I don’t know what you would do. BECAUSE YOU NEVER FUCKING TELL ME ANYTHING!”
James was toying with telling Noah how hot he looked when he was angry, but, true as it was, as much as in fact, he did want him right now, he suspected this was the wrong thing to say that.
“Once I saw you,” James said. “In a video. I… wasn’t sure if that was really you or not. I couldn’t believe it. It was one clip. I had saved it. I thought, I can’t believe it’s Noah. But then… I wouldn’t have believed that I’d be flipping through gay porn. So… I thought that one day I would find out if it was you or not. I had it in the back of my mind that I would go to California, and I would find you. I would go to old Eagle Studios.
“Sit down, Noah,” he said.
Noah sat down, on the sofa.
“I kept thinking about you. I couldn’t stop. So I finally did go. I said I would go just for the heck of it, to see California and maybe I would find you there. I hunted you down. If you’re not someone who wants to do movies it’s sort of risky and scary to hunt for a gay porn studio.”
“It’s not much different if you are someone who does them,” Noah said ruefully.
“Well, anyway, I walked away with a job.”
Noah looked at James.
“Don’t be silly. I wasn’t doing porn. But… You know, now they have things where pornstars have blogs and write letters and such and such. Porn actors tend to not have the best grammar.”
Noah snorted.
“I was the proofreader at Hawk Eye Entertainment. I checked all the grammar. I used to check Casey’s page. That’s how I got to know him. I didn’t know how to ask for you. How to ask if you were ever coming back. Besides, the money wasn’t bad, and the life was interesting. Because Casey and I eventually got to be friends, it was him I trusted with asking one, if he knew you and two, where you were. It’s because of him that I found you.”
“You did that?” Noah said, getting off the couch. “You chased after me? You crossed the country?”
“Yes.”
“Baby, why didn’t you tell me that? What was so secret about that?”
“I guess I am just what you said. Someone who likes to be irritating. I love you, Noah.”
“Even when you knew what I was doing you came looking for me.”
“The only way I found you was because I knew what you were doing.”
“But…. What were you going to do when you’d found me?”
“I didn’t know,” James admitted. “But what does it matter? We’re together now.”
They were silent a while.
“Now...?” James murmured.
“Hum?”
“Now can I tell you how hot you look in those jeans so I can get you out of them?”
“In a minute,” Noah said. “I just want to stand here, feel girly, and hug you some more.”
There was no point in being here if he couldn’t take his shirt off. He loved being with Noah, and he loved being with James. He was thrilled as fuck that they were together now, but Noah now wasn’t like Noah in the old days. Noah in the old days was full of good times on the surface and shit beneath that neither one of them dared touch. Casey had it too. Living was skating on thin ice with a pill or two to help. There was some hell in it, but it was amazing.
Back at this club, which wasn’t Chicago, exactly, or Indianapolis, but damn good for where it was, he threw off his shirt and danced till he was worked up, until he poured a bottle of water over his chest and knew that feeling sexy made him sexy and being sexy made him looked at and being looked at made him sexy and it was part of a wonderful, glorious cycle.
In the middle of this cycle, someone caught his eye. He was in black slacks and a white, white shirt and he was beautiful. And he was familiar. So Casey danced up to him.
“I bet—No. I know this sounds like a line,” Casey said, thinking to himself how gay he sounded right now. “But I could sweat I know you from somewhere.”
In return he received a beautiful smile, and the guy said, “I’ve been here a couple of times. So maybe.”
“Well, then maybe not,” said Casey. “Cause I’m from out of town.”
“But I’m from out of town too,” he said.
“I don’t wanna get you all wet. I don’t wanna dance too close.”
“I think we’re all here to get a little wet.”
The guy pulled him close and they danced, groin to ass.
“I’m glad this isn’t house music,” Casey leaned back and said into his ear. “I hate that shit. I don’t know whose house it’s supposed to be at for one thing. I hate strobe lights. I hate shit that sounds like a giant’s heartbeat. It’s crazy making.”
Suddenly the guy leaned down and kissed Casey’s throat.
Casey turned around.
“I hate guys who beat around the bush too. Glad you’re not one of them.”
“What’s your night look like?”
Casey grinned. “My night looks like you. And my morning too.”
“We can make a morning happen. I have to pop off for a bit—”
“Pop off for a bit? Like the British?”
“I watch a lot of BBC.” He shrugged. “But I need to pop off, go away, whatever, for a few hours in the morning. But I can be back in bed by eight-thirty.”
“Sounds hot to me. Whaddo you have to do?”
“What if I told you I worked in a church?”
“You’d be…” Casey’s eyes danced around, “half the guys in here.”
“Cool,” he laughed, relieved.
“So, you wanna grab a hotel room, or you gotta place?”
“I bet,” Casey said, “We better grab a hotel room. Is there a reason we can’t go to your place?”
“Yes.”
“A man of mystery. I love men of mystery. Let’s not waste any time then?”
“All right. Let me grab my jacket.”
“I’ll grab my shirt. I’m Casey, by the way.”
“Casey...” The guy nodded and gripped his hand. That was strangely butch. But everything was strange, right? “I’m Keith.”
The hotel room flew open, and Keith came in saying, “See? I told you I’d come back.” He put one coffee on the table beside him, and handed another to Casey.
“I hope you like coffee.”
“I’m a coffee junkie, sir. Thank you. I hope you like Sausage Biscuit with Egg.” He handed him a wrapped breakfast sandwich.
“I am a fan of all things McDonalds.” Keith received the package gratefully, and unwrapped it.
“When I woke up, I figured I might as well go down to the Mickey D’s and grab myself, grab ourselves, something.”
“That is much appreciated,” Keith sat down beside him. “Are you headed out soon, or whaddo you wanna get up to?”
“Um,” Casey smiled and swallowed. “If my mouth weren’t full of McDonald’s I’d kiss you right now.”
He took a swig of the coffee.
“Basically, if you’ve got the morning, I’d love to finish off what we started last night.”
“I do have the morning,” Keith put down his sandwich. “And I will kiss you.”
And he did, and then he said, “And I would love to finish what we started last night.”
“It’s just been a long time,” Casey said. “You know? “
“Since sex?”
Casey shook his head and laughed, “No. That’s a… I don’t live without sex. I mean it’s been a long time since good sex. You know. Since good lovemaking where you stay the night and get McDonalds for the guy the next day.”
Keith laughed. “My last name is McDonald.”
“Um. Keith McDonald. Mine is Williams.”
“I’m glad we stayed together last night,” Keith said after a thoughtful chew on his sandwich. “Sometimes when I get up in the morning I wonder what makes me so afraid, and if I think long enough, it’s the night. Night is so long. And then winter just let up. It seems like night never ends then. It just keeps going.”
“Keeps fucking going,” Casey laughed gently, his hand making a shooting motion. “I was born in Minnesota. I know.”
“Where do you live now?”
At this, Casey really laughed: “Florida!”
They both chuckled and Casey said, “I would move to Alaska if I could and stay there all through that time, you know, when the sun doesn’t go down. And then when it did, I would pack up and head for the South Pole. I hate the night.”
“But the clubs. And… the sex.”
“You can have sex anytime. And the clubs are just full of people who are afraid of night too.”
Keith tipped Casey’s chin up and said, “You wanna make love in the day, then?”
The window was open to the cool June air, and outside cars whistled as they sped by.
“Yes,” Casey kissed him lightly. “I would love to.”
Since James said nothing, Noah said, “You know what? I think I need to leave. I think I just need to go right now. I’m going to take a walk.”
“Don’t walk too far. Your ass looks really nice in those jeans.”
Noah turned around, truly upset.
“I mean in those old faded jeans you really look nice. It’s like two round little hills with denim stretched over them. And when you bend over—”
“James!” Noah said, suddenly very upset. “I am trying to tell you that I am angry, and you won’t take it seriously. You won’t…” Noah balled his fist up, embarrassed.
“I’m tired of you being like the Sphinx. Yeah, I know what the Sphinx is. I’m not as dumb as you may have believed.”
“That is not fair,” James said.
“You know what isn’t fair?” Noah said. “What isn’t fair is I tell you everything. I lay down my life for you, and I say, here you go James. Here you go, babe, this is me. And you just sit there and smile. And you give nothing! And then Casey shows up, and he’s like, oh hey, Jamie. And you’re like, oh hey, Casey. And you won’t even tell me—just to be an asshole, probably—how the fuck you know him.
“I mean, were you lovers? Did you fuck him? But that doesn’t seem right because it doesn’t seem like something you would do. Only… I don’t know what you would do. BECAUSE YOU NEVER FUCKING TELL ME ANYTHING!”
James was toying with telling Noah how hot he looked when he was angry, but, true as it was, as much as in fact, he did want him right now, he suspected this was the wrong thing to say that.
“Once I saw you,” James said. “In a video. I… wasn’t sure if that was really you or not. I couldn’t believe it. It was one clip. I had saved it. I thought, I can’t believe it’s Noah. But then… I wouldn’t have believed that I’d be flipping through gay porn. So… I thought that one day I would find out if it was you or not. I had it in the back of my mind that I would go to California, and I would find you. I would go to old Eagle Studios.
“Sit down, Noah,” he said.
Noah sat down, on the sofa.
“I kept thinking about you. I couldn’t stop. So I finally did go. I said I would go just for the heck of it, to see California and maybe I would find you there. I hunted you down. If you’re not someone who wants to do movies it’s sort of risky and scary to hunt for a gay porn studio.”
“It’s not much different if you are someone who does them,” Noah said ruefully.
“Well, anyway, I walked away with a job.”
Noah looked at James.
“Don’t be silly. I wasn’t doing porn. But… You know, now they have things where pornstars have blogs and write letters and such and such. Porn actors tend to not have the best grammar.”
Noah snorted.
“I was the proofreader at Hawk Eye Entertainment. I checked all the grammar. I used to check Casey’s page. That’s how I got to know him. I didn’t know how to ask for you. How to ask if you were ever coming back. Besides, the money wasn’t bad, and the life was interesting. Because Casey and I eventually got to be friends, it was him I trusted with asking one, if he knew you and two, where you were. It’s because of him that I found you.”
“You did that?” Noah said, getting off the couch. “You chased after me? You crossed the country?”
“Yes.”
“Baby, why didn’t you tell me that? What was so secret about that?”
“I guess I am just what you said. Someone who likes to be irritating. I love you, Noah.”
“Even when you knew what I was doing you came looking for me.”
“The only way I found you was because I knew what you were doing.”
“But…. What were you going to do when you’d found me?”
“I didn’t know,” James admitted. “But what does it matter? We’re together now.”
They were silent a while.
“Now...?” James murmured.
“Hum?”
“Now can I tell you how hot you look in those jeans so I can get you out of them?”
“In a minute,” Noah said. “I just want to stand here, feel girly, and hug you some more.”
CharmedFan28
JUB Addict
Great portion and great writing! So Keith met Casey? Interesting. I wonder what will happen next with Keith. Noah and James are cute, I am glad they are so devoted to each other. I look forward to reading more soon!
ChrisGibson
JUB Addict
There will be more tomorrow night. James and Noah are fun to see together, but this whole business with Casey and Keith is interesting too. I remember back in the day when you wanted Noah to get with Paul. It seems so long ago!
ChrisGibson
JUB Addict
RULES OF LOVE AND SEX CONTINUED
“You feel so good. This feels so good,” Casey said. Keith’s body was pressed into his, and he was stretched out, feeling protected in the crook of Keith’s arm.
“He brought me into the banqueting house,
my love’s right hand supported me
his banner over me was love.”
“That poetry?” Casey murmured, turning over.
“It’s from the Bible,” Keith said stretching out and yawning. “Song of Solomon.”
“That’s nice… I like it.”
“I don’t want to leave,” said Keith.
“I have to leave. I’ve been gone since last night. I haven’t called back.”
Casey pressed his body against Keith’s. “This was nice. I don’t want to leave this.”
Keith smiled at him.
“Are you one of the Unreachables?”
“What?”
“It’s from Tales of the City,” Keith said. “These two guys hook up in a bath house—”
“I always wondered what that would be like?”
Keith frowned, shrugged, continued: “I have no idea. Probably very wet.”
“But, anyway?” Casey said with a smile on his face.
“Anyway,” Keith continued, “after these two guys get together, when the other one ask if he can see him again he says—”
“Are you one of the Unreachables?”
“Yes.”
“I,” Casey said, “am not unreachable at all. I want to be reached.”
Keith climbed out of his side of the bed and Casey rolled slowly out of his.
“It’s funny,” Keith said, as he began getting dressed. “I didn’t expect anything to come from this.”
“It’s not supposed to,” Casey said, pulling on his tee shirt. “Or that’s what you tell yourself. But I think you always hope it does. I think we hope the magic moment comes.”
“Sometimes it does.”
“A magical enough moment. A sort of magical moment,” said Casey. “But you’re waiting for the magic moment.”
“And is this it?” Keith asked him, now that they were both dressed.
“Yes,” Casey said, turning around to face him, and smiling. “I think it is.”
When Casey opened the door, he heard laughing and chuckling from the back of the apartment, and then the laughing grew louder and he heard James say, “The prodigal son returns.”
A moment later, James came out of the bedroom in a housecoat, grinning, and Casey said, “What are you guys up to?”
Noah came out in his tee shirt and some boxers.
“The same thing you’ve been up to, probably. My God ,what a slut!”
“Don’t laugh guys,” Casey said, going into the kitchenette and opening the fridge. “I think I met someone.”
“You’re good,” James declared.
“I feel like I know this guy,” Casey tipped the orange juice container to his mouth. “I feel like… we’ve been together. Does that make any sense?”
Noah took the orange juice from him and said, “Are you gonna tell us about this great guy?”
“Well, his name is Keith.”
“Keith?” Noah’s voice dropped the name like lead.
“Yeah…” Casey said, looking at Noah, who was putting the juice back in the fridge.
Casey continued, “Keith McDonald.”
Noah choked on the remainder of the juice, and then coughed with laughter.
“Why’s that so funny?”
“You do know him,” Noah said.
“What?”
“He uh… his part time job was the same as ours.”
“What the hell do you mean?” Casey said, offended.
“Keith McDonald,” James said, simply, “is Bick Throbbing.”
“James?”
“Yeah?”
“Do you think we should tell him that Keith is a priest?”
“Absolutely not.”
“You’re always one for secrecy.”
“You can reveal a secret any time you want,” he said. “But once the cat’s out the bag, you can’t really put him back.”
After James had gone to bed, Noah came out to sit with Casey.
“James finally told me how he knew you,” Noah said.
Casey looked at Noah, surprised.
“He told me about working at Hawk Eye. It surprised me, but then nothing really surprises me about him. I dunno…” Noah shrugged.
After a time, Casey said, “Is that all he told you?”
“Whaddo you mean?” said Noah. “Is there more?”
At last, Casey said, “Yes. A little. Yes.”
Noah waited for Casey to continue. Casey Williams was an extremely confident person and this quiet Casey, Casey folding his legs under himself and preparing to speak, was a strange Casey.
“You need to hear this, because it will explain a lot about James to you,” Casey said.
“See, almost as soon as he came to work at Hawk Eye I noticed him. He was nicer than other folks. Well, there are lots of nice folks. You know. He was… he was more. I guess I’m saying I was actually afraid of him. I thought he was nice, but I didn’t even think about going up and talking to him.
“Well, I had been going through some stuff and, one night, as I was leaving, James asked if I was alright. I told him the standard yadda yadda, yeah I’m fine, and left with some guy who told me what a fan he was and such and such.
“Well, we went back to my place, where I was staying. That old place on Meadow, and this guy starts beating me. He just really decides he’s gonna have his way with me. And he’s got a knife.”
Noah went cold. His face felt heavy, and then it tingled and he nodded for Casey to continue.
“And, I dunno, Noah. Maybe you’ve been through shit like this too. But I was just water. I was just like, maybe he’ll beat me, rape me, take what he wants and I just get to live. Just do what he says and live. I mean… and this is the truth, I’ve been raped before, but I lived through it. Got through it eventually. So I was ready again. You know?
“And that’s when James came. He rescued me. He took a chair leg and just got this guy in the spine. And I was so shocked, I just looked up at him and I remember he looked down and said, ‘What the fuck are looking at, boy. Get up and help me whoop his ass.’”
Noah laughed delightedly.
“See, that’s how we became friends. And how I know him. After that he always watched out for me. He was my guardian angel. And maybe sometimes, in other stuff, I was his. Cause he can be a little too trusting. But… I guess that’s why James didn’t tell you anything. That first night he stayed with me. He slept in the bed with me, and I am really sort of bad with trusting people. He let me trust him. He was just there for me. That’s why he didn’t tell you anything. He thought it was my story to tell you.”
After some thought, Noah said, “He rescued me too. A long time ago. When we were kids. And I needed to be saved.”
“He came looking for you,” Casey said. “Maybe he thought about you when he was there for me.”
“I love him,” Noah said.
Casey nodded. “You should.”
While Charlie was getting dressed, the phone rang and Nell lifted a finger, saying, “Let me get that.”
“Hello?”
“Mom,” Dena said. “It’s me.”
“Well, when you called me Mom, that tipped me off.”
“You’re cute sometimes. Anyway, Bill Affren is here, and he brought you up. He wants to see you.”
“Is his wife with him?”
Charlie looked at her, and Nell added, “It doesn’t matter.”
“Mom,” Dena said. “You ought to come. You ought to… confront him. I think he needs to be confronted.”
Dena sighed.
“Ey, Nell,” Charlie said, “ I’m gonna grab something to eat. You wanna come with me?”
Nell opened her mouth.
“Mom,” Dena said, “Come over.”
“I need to get Dena,” Nell said.
Charlie looked at her strangely, but said, “All right, then. I’ll give you a call,” tying his shoe with finality,
“Good,” Nell said, and kissed him quickly.
“You feel so good. This feels so good,” Casey said. Keith’s body was pressed into his, and he was stretched out, feeling protected in the crook of Keith’s arm.
“He brought me into the banqueting house,
my love’s right hand supported me
his banner over me was love.”
“That poetry?” Casey murmured, turning over.
“It’s from the Bible,” Keith said stretching out and yawning. “Song of Solomon.”
“That’s nice… I like it.”
“I don’t want to leave,” said Keith.
“I have to leave. I’ve been gone since last night. I haven’t called back.”
Casey pressed his body against Keith’s. “This was nice. I don’t want to leave this.”
Keith smiled at him.
“Are you one of the Unreachables?”
“What?”
“It’s from Tales of the City,” Keith said. “These two guys hook up in a bath house—”
“I always wondered what that would be like?”
Keith frowned, shrugged, continued: “I have no idea. Probably very wet.”
“But, anyway?” Casey said with a smile on his face.
“Anyway,” Keith continued, “after these two guys get together, when the other one ask if he can see him again he says—”
“Are you one of the Unreachables?”
“Yes.”
“I,” Casey said, “am not unreachable at all. I want to be reached.”
Keith climbed out of his side of the bed and Casey rolled slowly out of his.
“It’s funny,” Keith said, as he began getting dressed. “I didn’t expect anything to come from this.”
“It’s not supposed to,” Casey said, pulling on his tee shirt. “Or that’s what you tell yourself. But I think you always hope it does. I think we hope the magic moment comes.”
“Sometimes it does.”
“A magical enough moment. A sort of magical moment,” said Casey. “But you’re waiting for the magic moment.”
“And is this it?” Keith asked him, now that they were both dressed.
“Yes,” Casey said, turning around to face him, and smiling. “I think it is.”
When Casey opened the door, he heard laughing and chuckling from the back of the apartment, and then the laughing grew louder and he heard James say, “The prodigal son returns.”
A moment later, James came out of the bedroom in a housecoat, grinning, and Casey said, “What are you guys up to?”
Noah came out in his tee shirt and some boxers.
“The same thing you’ve been up to, probably. My God ,what a slut!”
“Don’t laugh guys,” Casey said, going into the kitchenette and opening the fridge. “I think I met someone.”
“You’re good,” James declared.
“I feel like I know this guy,” Casey tipped the orange juice container to his mouth. “I feel like… we’ve been together. Does that make any sense?”
Noah took the orange juice from him and said, “Are you gonna tell us about this great guy?”
“Well, his name is Keith.”
“Keith?” Noah’s voice dropped the name like lead.
“Yeah…” Casey said, looking at Noah, who was putting the juice back in the fridge.
Casey continued, “Keith McDonald.”
Noah choked on the remainder of the juice, and then coughed with laughter.
“Why’s that so funny?”
“You do know him,” Noah said.
“What?”
“He uh… his part time job was the same as ours.”
“What the hell do you mean?” Casey said, offended.
“Keith McDonald,” James said, simply, “is Bick Throbbing.”
“James?”
“Yeah?”
“Do you think we should tell him that Keith is a priest?”
“Absolutely not.”
“You’re always one for secrecy.”
“You can reveal a secret any time you want,” he said. “But once the cat’s out the bag, you can’t really put him back.”
After James had gone to bed, Noah came out to sit with Casey.
“James finally told me how he knew you,” Noah said.
Casey looked at Noah, surprised.
“He told me about working at Hawk Eye. It surprised me, but then nothing really surprises me about him. I dunno…” Noah shrugged.
After a time, Casey said, “Is that all he told you?”
“Whaddo you mean?” said Noah. “Is there more?”
At last, Casey said, “Yes. A little. Yes.”
Noah waited for Casey to continue. Casey Williams was an extremely confident person and this quiet Casey, Casey folding his legs under himself and preparing to speak, was a strange Casey.
“You need to hear this, because it will explain a lot about James to you,” Casey said.
“See, almost as soon as he came to work at Hawk Eye I noticed him. He was nicer than other folks. Well, there are lots of nice folks. You know. He was… he was more. I guess I’m saying I was actually afraid of him. I thought he was nice, but I didn’t even think about going up and talking to him.
“Well, I had been going through some stuff and, one night, as I was leaving, James asked if I was alright. I told him the standard yadda yadda, yeah I’m fine, and left with some guy who told me what a fan he was and such and such.
“Well, we went back to my place, where I was staying. That old place on Meadow, and this guy starts beating me. He just really decides he’s gonna have his way with me. And he’s got a knife.”
Noah went cold. His face felt heavy, and then it tingled and he nodded for Casey to continue.
“And, I dunno, Noah. Maybe you’ve been through shit like this too. But I was just water. I was just like, maybe he’ll beat me, rape me, take what he wants and I just get to live. Just do what he says and live. I mean… and this is the truth, I’ve been raped before, but I lived through it. Got through it eventually. So I was ready again. You know?
“And that’s when James came. He rescued me. He took a chair leg and just got this guy in the spine. And I was so shocked, I just looked up at him and I remember he looked down and said, ‘What the fuck are looking at, boy. Get up and help me whoop his ass.’”
Noah laughed delightedly.
“See, that’s how we became friends. And how I know him. After that he always watched out for me. He was my guardian angel. And maybe sometimes, in other stuff, I was his. Cause he can be a little too trusting. But… I guess that’s why James didn’t tell you anything. That first night he stayed with me. He slept in the bed with me, and I am really sort of bad with trusting people. He let me trust him. He was just there for me. That’s why he didn’t tell you anything. He thought it was my story to tell you.”
After some thought, Noah said, “He rescued me too. A long time ago. When we were kids. And I needed to be saved.”
“He came looking for you,” Casey said. “Maybe he thought about you when he was there for me.”
“I love him,” Noah said.
Casey nodded. “You should.”
While Charlie was getting dressed, the phone rang and Nell lifted a finger, saying, “Let me get that.”
“Hello?”
“Mom,” Dena said. “It’s me.”
“Well, when you called me Mom, that tipped me off.”
“You’re cute sometimes. Anyway, Bill Affren is here, and he brought you up. He wants to see you.”
“Is his wife with him?”
Charlie looked at her, and Nell added, “It doesn’t matter.”
“Mom,” Dena said. “You ought to come. You ought to… confront him. I think he needs to be confronted.”
Dena sighed.
“Ey, Nell,” Charlie said, “ I’m gonna grab something to eat. You wanna come with me?”
Nell opened her mouth.
“Mom,” Dena said, “Come over.”
“I need to get Dena,” Nell said.
Charlie looked at her strangely, but said, “All right, then. I’ll give you a call,” tying his shoe with finality,
“Good,” Nell said, and kissed him quickly.
CharmedFan28
JUB Addict
Great writing and a great section. It was nice to read what James did for Casey. I hope Nell gives Bill what's coming to him. I look forward to reading what comes next!
ChrisGibson
JUB Addict
Oh, Dena must get it from somewhere. I'm sure Nell will give Bill exactly what he deserves.
ChrisGibson
JUB Addict
RULES OF LOVE AND SEX CONTINUED
Charlie drove downtown, for once something troubling his mind. The truth is Charlie wasn’t one for reflection. For a brief time he had been, and it didn’t do very much for him. It took a while for him to realize that he was troubled. In fact, it took until he got to the Pub to know it. He ordered a cheeseburger and a Coke and sat at the bar and then someone said, “Is it okay if I sit next to you?”
He blinked. She was pretty, with heavy hanging dark hair, soft eyes. Like Nell’s.
“Oh, sure. I mean, yes, Of course.” He patted the stool beside him and she sat down. The man at the bar came up and asked what she wanted and she said, “Scotch on the rocks.”
“It’s Sunday,” he told her.
“So?”
Charlie said, “There’s no liquor on Sunday.”
“Oh, that’s stupid!” she said.
Charlie shrugged, “I don’t really drink.”
The bartender was still waiting, and she said, “Give me… a club soda, please.”
“Anything else?”
“Get the cheeseburger,” Charlie told her.
“Well, then the cheeseburger,” she said, closing the menu.
The bartender nodded, and Charlie said, “So you’re not from around here.”
“I’m sort of from around here. I mean, Chicago is sort of around here. Except with liquor.”
Charlie chuckled.
“I’m from Minnesota.”
“You look like Minnesota.”
“Really?” Charlie raised an eyebrow. “What’s Minnesota look like?”
She shook her head. “A lot like northern Indiana.”
“I guess so.”
“What are you doing here, then?”
“I’m a weatherman. At one of the stations in town. About two years now. You?”
“I… I’m looking for my Dad. He disappeared a while back. I ah…” she shook her head. “It’s not like we got along. Not really. But… the last time he was seen was here. That’s what a friend said. So now I’m looking for him.”
“Wow,” Charlie thought about this. “So it’s like… an investigation. You got any leads?”
“No, I’m just… kinda hoping something’ll turn up.”
The waiter came with her club soda and cheeseburger, and the woman, pushing her hair back, said, “Thanks a lot.”
Charlie remembered himself and said, “Hey, I’m Charlie by the way. Charlie Palmer.”
“Charlie, Charlie Palmer.” She smiled at him and offered her hand. “I’m Meg. Meg Callan.”
His cell phone buzzed and Casey quickly, picked it up.
“Hi,” he tried to sound light.
“Casey?”
“Keith.”
“Yes. I just called. You know? To say hello.”
“Hi.”
“I’m not interrupting anything?”
“No, silly,” Casey laughed, and then he frowned. Why do I sound so gay when I’m in love? Then he repeated the thought to himself. In love?
“I just… I didn’t know if it was too early to call or—”
“I told you, I’m one of the Reachables.”
Keith laughed and said, “I didn’t know how long you were staying—”
“Until tomorrow night.”
“Oh. I just… I wanted to know if you, I mean if we—or if you would like to see me. I mean, we could go someplace. It doesn’t have to be just a meet up in a hotel. I’d like to go someplace. But only if you want to, and—”
“I do want to,” Casey began. “But I’m having dinner with some friends tonight and—”
James snatched the phone from his hand and said, “Casey would love to go out with you.”
Casey blinked at James and then said to the phone, “I guess that means I’m free.”
“Good.”
“Where should we go? Most people like the beach. I mean, its cliché, but...”
“The beach will be fine,” said Keith. “I’ll pick you up.”
“Great,” Casey said.
Keith said, “Great.”
“Do you regret climbing this hill?”
“No,” Casey began. Then sinking to his knees with his water bottle in one hand, he confessed, “Yes!”
Keith shook his head. “It didn’t seem as high from the bottom.”
The beach came out of a woods, and this hill of sand and dirt was a border between both. From its top they could see Lake Michigan, blue grey. Gulls screamed just for the hell of it, and launched themselves into the pale blue sky of early evening.
“It seems like whenever we’re together we end up sweaty and breathing too hard,” Keith said with a bright smile.”
Casey laughed and said, “You wanna make love?”
“On this hill?”
“Yeah.”
“Are you serious?”
“Half serious. Yeah. But only half,”
Casey turned from him. “There is a motel we passed down there. It’s funny. Whenever I’m with you I just want to be with you. It’s so different from anything else. Most people it’s either I love you or I’m fucking you, but…with you.”
“I know,” Keith said, stroking his hand. “I know just what you mean.”
“I do pornos,” Casey said suddenly. “I do gay pornos and have my own website.”
Keith stopped caressing his hand. He stopped breathing. The wind started up and flapped his jacket.
“I… I think I can tell you what you’re thinking,” Casey said. “You’re thinking if you should tell me the truth or not. I told you the truth about me so you could be free to tell me about you. I know who you are.”
“Oh,” Keith sounded almost relieved. Almost.
“I didn’t know at first,” Casey said. “But I… put it together after awhile.”
“Casey Williams,” Keith said, and then he said, “Well, yeah. But I never thought that Casey Williams would be…. Casey Williams. I mean, lots of people have that name, and… I don’t know what I was thinking.”
“I’m sure when we were both under the influence we were in some anonymous gangbang,” Casey said. “It’s not the same as making love. So… it kind of makes sense that we didn’t totally know each other.”
“But I did know you. A little.”
“I know,” Casey said.
“And I like you. A lot.”
“I know.”
“We could stay together,” Keith said tenderly. “I think I’d like that. I’ll call back to the… I’ll call back to work and let them know I won’t be back tonight.”
They sat there a long time, until the blue sky began to turn purple and it got cold. Keith saw Casey shiver, and took off his jacket, to drape over him. Casey smiled at him.
“Case?”
“Yeah?”
“There’s one more thing?”
“Hum?”
“I’m a priest.”
There was a sharp pounding on Barb Affren’s door, and when she got up to answer it, she muttered, “Who the hell is that?”
“I’ll get it,” said Bill
“No,” Barb waved him away. “I got it.”
She opened the door, and was about to bless the woman out, but saw that it was: “Nell.”
Nell looked at Barbara who was smiling broadly at her.
“Come in, NELL,” she said loudly. “It’s NELL, everyone.”
Nell came in and said, “Is Bill here?”
But Bill was right there. Next to Milo and Dena.
“Mom,” Dena said.
“I need to talk to Bill,” Nell said. “I need to talk to him, alone.”
Bill opened his mouth, and Barb said, “Why don’t you all go to the parlor.”
As they were leaving, Barbara touched her sleeve and said, “I’m so glad you’re here.”
“I’m glad you’re here too,” Bill said quietly, as he walked Nell back.
And then, in Bob’s old office, she closed the door.
“Nell,” Bill began. “It’s so good to see—”
But she cut him off and hissed: “Bill Affren, you are one son of a bitch!”
Back in the living room, Barb said, “This should be good.”
“You walk out on me—”
“I was married, Nell.”
“You were always married,” she said. “You just don’t… run away.”
“I didn’t run—”
“You ran,” Nell said, flatly. “You kissed me, and then you ran. You closed off, you dropped me off and then you left. And then you had… the nerve to show up with your wife.”
“She was my wife. It was Milo’s—”
“No, Bill,” she cut him off. “You don’t do that. You just don’t do that. It’s not even right.”
“Look,” said Bill. “I wanted to see you.”
“You brought your wife to my house. You threw your wife in my face, at my house because… you wanted to see me?”
“I wanted to see you. But I wanted to remind myself that I was married.”
“And you wanted to remind me too.”
Bill was silent a moment, and then he said, “Yes.”
Nell didn’t say anything for a while, and then she threw up her hands and said, “Well, I don’t know what the hell you want me to say.”
“I guess I don’t know. All I can say is… I was trying to remember I was married.”
“You should have remembered before we even started anything.”
Then Nell said, “I’m sleeping with someone.”
“Oh,” Bill said, because he didn’t know what else to say.
“You keep talking about your wife in the past tense,” Nell said. “I know you didn’t like her. Did you finally kill her?”
“No,” Bill said. “But I am divorcing her.”
“Well,” Nell paused. “Welcome to the club.”
“I missed you, Nell.”
“Bill!”
“I want you.”
She looked at him.
“What, Nell?”
She said: “Shit.”
“Wow, so a priest,” Casey said, snuggling up to Keith.
“Yeah,” Keith said, at a loss for anything else. “And a priest who is really ticking off his friend, the other priest he’s living with.”
“He knows about you?”
“He knows more than any other priest. He knows I’m struggling with stuff.”
“Like?”
Keith looked at Casey, incredulously.
“Aside from the fact that I’m in bed with you?”
“Yeah,” Casey said. “I’m not religious, but… If a serious priest is falling in love with another man then it’s not just you wanting to get off. I’ve been with guys like that before. There’s more to it.”
“I am a serious priest. I mean, I think I am. I… I don’t know that you really want to hear all this.”
“Look, I used to think… when I would see a religious person, when I would hear someone talk about heaven, about… say, if your kid died. Someone would say, Well, Jesus just had to have one more flower in his garden. He wanted that baby so bad he just couldn’t wait. Or if something really shitty happened, someone would say, Well, God has a purpose for everything. Or… my grandma used to say this: God never closes a door without opening a window. And then I’d think, ‘Great, who the fuck wants to crawl out a window?’“
Keith laughed.
“Seriously,” Casey said. “And I decided I hated religion. I hated how my body was telling me all these things about myself and religion was saying it was wrong. I was wrong. I didn’t even exist. Religion was like six thousand times smaller than my world. And so I just felt like, religious people are real idiots.
“But then I was around people who were not. Not religious I mean. They were always going on about how they didn’t believe in anything. How religion was a crutch and… all of that, and I started to think that maybe what they said, how they acted, was just as much bullshit as anything else so… Now I just respect people who stand by… whatever is real to them. And try to be good. Plus,” Casey shrugged. “In the end the only people who ever did me good were people who believed in God. They never forced anything on me, they… never judged. So, I’ve stopped judging.”
“It’s deep down,” Keith said. “Deep down, past everything I want to keep being a priest.”
“I heard about this one gay priest. I mean, he wasn’t Catholic. He was something else.”
“Episcopal?”
“That’s it. Could you do that?”
“I… I don’t know. I think I should look. I’ve been afraid to look. But it doesn’t seem like there’s anything else. I love being a priest. And I love you.”
Keith blinked, and shut his mouth hard.
But Casey said, “What?”
“I meant to say I love being gay. Which I do.”
Now Casey looked troubled.
“Then you don’t love me?”
“No. I mean, yes. I mean, I want to. I… I’m confused. You can’t just love some guy you meet in a club and sleep with. I haven’t even known you forty-eight hours. How can I say I love you?”
Casey didn’t agree. And then he wasn’t offended either. He said, “You’ve been hurt? You’ve been real hurt by horrible people.”
Keith kept looking at him.
“You thought you were in love. You would have given your love to so many people, but all they wanted was your ass or your cock. They were afraid. They were useless. So they turned it down. They didn’t deserve you.
“I’m not afraid,” Casey said. “I’ve got a lot to be afraid of, but I’m not. Not right now. And I’m not useless. I do deserve something good. I think I deserve you.”
Under the dim yellow light of the old lamp, in the bed they sat up side by side. Casey slipped his hand under the thin motel sheet and placed it on Keith’s thigh.
“I won’t turn you down.”
Charlie drove downtown, for once something troubling his mind. The truth is Charlie wasn’t one for reflection. For a brief time he had been, and it didn’t do very much for him. It took a while for him to realize that he was troubled. In fact, it took until he got to the Pub to know it. He ordered a cheeseburger and a Coke and sat at the bar and then someone said, “Is it okay if I sit next to you?”
He blinked. She was pretty, with heavy hanging dark hair, soft eyes. Like Nell’s.
“Oh, sure. I mean, yes, Of course.” He patted the stool beside him and she sat down. The man at the bar came up and asked what she wanted and she said, “Scotch on the rocks.”
“It’s Sunday,” he told her.
“So?”
Charlie said, “There’s no liquor on Sunday.”
“Oh, that’s stupid!” she said.
Charlie shrugged, “I don’t really drink.”
The bartender was still waiting, and she said, “Give me… a club soda, please.”
“Anything else?”
“Get the cheeseburger,” Charlie told her.
“Well, then the cheeseburger,” she said, closing the menu.
The bartender nodded, and Charlie said, “So you’re not from around here.”
“I’m sort of from around here. I mean, Chicago is sort of around here. Except with liquor.”
Charlie chuckled.
“I’m from Minnesota.”
“You look like Minnesota.”
“Really?” Charlie raised an eyebrow. “What’s Minnesota look like?”
She shook her head. “A lot like northern Indiana.”
“I guess so.”
“What are you doing here, then?”
“I’m a weatherman. At one of the stations in town. About two years now. You?”
“I… I’m looking for my Dad. He disappeared a while back. I ah…” she shook her head. “It’s not like we got along. Not really. But… the last time he was seen was here. That’s what a friend said. So now I’m looking for him.”
“Wow,” Charlie thought about this. “So it’s like… an investigation. You got any leads?”
“No, I’m just… kinda hoping something’ll turn up.”
The waiter came with her club soda and cheeseburger, and the woman, pushing her hair back, said, “Thanks a lot.”
Charlie remembered himself and said, “Hey, I’m Charlie by the way. Charlie Palmer.”
“Charlie, Charlie Palmer.” She smiled at him and offered her hand. “I’m Meg. Meg Callan.”
His cell phone buzzed and Casey quickly, picked it up.
“Hi,” he tried to sound light.
“Casey?”
“Keith.”
“Yes. I just called. You know? To say hello.”
“Hi.”
“I’m not interrupting anything?”
“No, silly,” Casey laughed, and then he frowned. Why do I sound so gay when I’m in love? Then he repeated the thought to himself. In love?
“I just… I didn’t know if it was too early to call or—”
“I told you, I’m one of the Reachables.”
Keith laughed and said, “I didn’t know how long you were staying—”
“Until tomorrow night.”
“Oh. I just… I wanted to know if you, I mean if we—or if you would like to see me. I mean, we could go someplace. It doesn’t have to be just a meet up in a hotel. I’d like to go someplace. But only if you want to, and—”
“I do want to,” Casey began. “But I’m having dinner with some friends tonight and—”
James snatched the phone from his hand and said, “Casey would love to go out with you.”
Casey blinked at James and then said to the phone, “I guess that means I’m free.”
“Good.”
“Where should we go? Most people like the beach. I mean, its cliché, but...”
“The beach will be fine,” said Keith. “I’ll pick you up.”
“Great,” Casey said.
Keith said, “Great.”
“Do you regret climbing this hill?”
“No,” Casey began. Then sinking to his knees with his water bottle in one hand, he confessed, “Yes!”
Keith shook his head. “It didn’t seem as high from the bottom.”
The beach came out of a woods, and this hill of sand and dirt was a border between both. From its top they could see Lake Michigan, blue grey. Gulls screamed just for the hell of it, and launched themselves into the pale blue sky of early evening.
“It seems like whenever we’re together we end up sweaty and breathing too hard,” Keith said with a bright smile.”
Casey laughed and said, “You wanna make love?”
“On this hill?”
“Yeah.”
“Are you serious?”
“Half serious. Yeah. But only half,”
Casey turned from him. “There is a motel we passed down there. It’s funny. Whenever I’m with you I just want to be with you. It’s so different from anything else. Most people it’s either I love you or I’m fucking you, but…with you.”
“I know,” Keith said, stroking his hand. “I know just what you mean.”
“I do pornos,” Casey said suddenly. “I do gay pornos and have my own website.”
Keith stopped caressing his hand. He stopped breathing. The wind started up and flapped his jacket.
“I… I think I can tell you what you’re thinking,” Casey said. “You’re thinking if you should tell me the truth or not. I told you the truth about me so you could be free to tell me about you. I know who you are.”
“Oh,” Keith sounded almost relieved. Almost.
“I didn’t know at first,” Casey said. “But I… put it together after awhile.”
“Casey Williams,” Keith said, and then he said, “Well, yeah. But I never thought that Casey Williams would be…. Casey Williams. I mean, lots of people have that name, and… I don’t know what I was thinking.”
“I’m sure when we were both under the influence we were in some anonymous gangbang,” Casey said. “It’s not the same as making love. So… it kind of makes sense that we didn’t totally know each other.”
“But I did know you. A little.”
“I know,” Casey said.
“And I like you. A lot.”
“I know.”
“We could stay together,” Keith said tenderly. “I think I’d like that. I’ll call back to the… I’ll call back to work and let them know I won’t be back tonight.”
They sat there a long time, until the blue sky began to turn purple and it got cold. Keith saw Casey shiver, and took off his jacket, to drape over him. Casey smiled at him.
“Case?”
“Yeah?”
“There’s one more thing?”
“Hum?”
“I’m a priest.”
There was a sharp pounding on Barb Affren’s door, and when she got up to answer it, she muttered, “Who the hell is that?”
“I’ll get it,” said Bill
“No,” Barb waved him away. “I got it.”
She opened the door, and was about to bless the woman out, but saw that it was: “Nell.”
Nell looked at Barbara who was smiling broadly at her.
“Come in, NELL,” she said loudly. “It’s NELL, everyone.”
Nell came in and said, “Is Bill here?”
But Bill was right there. Next to Milo and Dena.
“Mom,” Dena said.
“I need to talk to Bill,” Nell said. “I need to talk to him, alone.”
Bill opened his mouth, and Barb said, “Why don’t you all go to the parlor.”
As they were leaving, Barbara touched her sleeve and said, “I’m so glad you’re here.”
“I’m glad you’re here too,” Bill said quietly, as he walked Nell back.
And then, in Bob’s old office, she closed the door.
“Nell,” Bill began. “It’s so good to see—”
But she cut him off and hissed: “Bill Affren, you are one son of a bitch!”
Back in the living room, Barb said, “This should be good.”
“You walk out on me—”
“I was married, Nell.”
“You were always married,” she said. “You just don’t… run away.”
“I didn’t run—”
“You ran,” Nell said, flatly. “You kissed me, and then you ran. You closed off, you dropped me off and then you left. And then you had… the nerve to show up with your wife.”
“She was my wife. It was Milo’s—”
“No, Bill,” she cut him off. “You don’t do that. You just don’t do that. It’s not even right.”
“Look,” said Bill. “I wanted to see you.”
“You brought your wife to my house. You threw your wife in my face, at my house because… you wanted to see me?”
“I wanted to see you. But I wanted to remind myself that I was married.”
“And you wanted to remind me too.”
Bill was silent a moment, and then he said, “Yes.”
Nell didn’t say anything for a while, and then she threw up her hands and said, “Well, I don’t know what the hell you want me to say.”
“I guess I don’t know. All I can say is… I was trying to remember I was married.”
“You should have remembered before we even started anything.”
Then Nell said, “I’m sleeping with someone.”
“Oh,” Bill said, because he didn’t know what else to say.
“You keep talking about your wife in the past tense,” Nell said. “I know you didn’t like her. Did you finally kill her?”
“No,” Bill said. “But I am divorcing her.”
“Well,” Nell paused. “Welcome to the club.”
“I missed you, Nell.”
“Bill!”
“I want you.”
She looked at him.
“What, Nell?”
She said: “Shit.”
“Wow, so a priest,” Casey said, snuggling up to Keith.
“Yeah,” Keith said, at a loss for anything else. “And a priest who is really ticking off his friend, the other priest he’s living with.”
“He knows about you?”
“He knows more than any other priest. He knows I’m struggling with stuff.”
“Like?”
Keith looked at Casey, incredulously.
“Aside from the fact that I’m in bed with you?”
“Yeah,” Casey said. “I’m not religious, but… If a serious priest is falling in love with another man then it’s not just you wanting to get off. I’ve been with guys like that before. There’s more to it.”
“I am a serious priest. I mean, I think I am. I… I don’t know that you really want to hear all this.”
“Look, I used to think… when I would see a religious person, when I would hear someone talk about heaven, about… say, if your kid died. Someone would say, Well, Jesus just had to have one more flower in his garden. He wanted that baby so bad he just couldn’t wait. Or if something really shitty happened, someone would say, Well, God has a purpose for everything. Or… my grandma used to say this: God never closes a door without opening a window. And then I’d think, ‘Great, who the fuck wants to crawl out a window?’“
Keith laughed.
“Seriously,” Casey said. “And I decided I hated religion. I hated how my body was telling me all these things about myself and religion was saying it was wrong. I was wrong. I didn’t even exist. Religion was like six thousand times smaller than my world. And so I just felt like, religious people are real idiots.
“But then I was around people who were not. Not religious I mean. They were always going on about how they didn’t believe in anything. How religion was a crutch and… all of that, and I started to think that maybe what they said, how they acted, was just as much bullshit as anything else so… Now I just respect people who stand by… whatever is real to them. And try to be good. Plus,” Casey shrugged. “In the end the only people who ever did me good were people who believed in God. They never forced anything on me, they… never judged. So, I’ve stopped judging.”
“It’s deep down,” Keith said. “Deep down, past everything I want to keep being a priest.”
“I heard about this one gay priest. I mean, he wasn’t Catholic. He was something else.”
“Episcopal?”
“That’s it. Could you do that?”
“I… I don’t know. I think I should look. I’ve been afraid to look. But it doesn’t seem like there’s anything else. I love being a priest. And I love you.”
Keith blinked, and shut his mouth hard.
But Casey said, “What?”
“I meant to say I love being gay. Which I do.”
Now Casey looked troubled.
“Then you don’t love me?”
“No. I mean, yes. I mean, I want to. I… I’m confused. You can’t just love some guy you meet in a club and sleep with. I haven’t even known you forty-eight hours. How can I say I love you?”
Casey didn’t agree. And then he wasn’t offended either. He said, “You’ve been hurt? You’ve been real hurt by horrible people.”
Keith kept looking at him.
“You thought you were in love. You would have given your love to so many people, but all they wanted was your ass or your cock. They were afraid. They were useless. So they turned it down. They didn’t deserve you.
“I’m not afraid,” Casey said. “I’ve got a lot to be afraid of, but I’m not. Not right now. And I’m not useless. I do deserve something good. I think I deserve you.”
Under the dim yellow light of the old lamp, in the bed they sat up side by side. Casey slipped his hand under the thin motel sheet and placed it on Keith’s thigh.
“I won’t turn you down.”
CharmedFan28
JUB Addict
Casey and Keith are cute! I hope they become a long term couple. I am glad Nell gave Bill what was coming to him. I wonder if she will end up with him now that he is getting divorced or Charlie? I guess I will have to wait and see. Meg Callan seems like an interesting new character. I hope she finds her father. Great writing and I look forward to more!
ChrisGibson
JUB Addict
It's all coming to a head, and I'd love to say more, but I guess I really shouldn't say anything at all. Two chapters left. How do you feel about a new and entirely different novel coming up?
CharmedFan28
JUB Addict
I feel good about it. One of the few reasons I still go on JUB is your stories so I am sure I will like it! Just so you know I am going on a holiday the day after tomorrow so I may not be able to read and respond so quickly but I will definitely still read and comment when I can!
ChrisGibson
JUB Addict
I'm glad to hear that. I always enjoy your comments. Have a great time.
ChrisGibson
JUB Addict
CHAPTER
TEN
POETRY
Now this was twenty years in the past, though he did not like to think of that. This was before there was a Layla or even much of a Todd. How little of our lives we know. Even in their dullest aspects, who could foresee what would happen? And always there is some horrible suspicion, some horrible dreadnought about the bad that can happen, but life is a surprise. Turning forty you know that now.
They drove for fourteen hours across the state of Indiana, and Fenn was totally swept up in the earnestness, the sweetness, and the quiet funniness of Dan Malloy. Dan was a little taller and a little slighter than he, but they seemed about what and what. They were both religious, and they were on their way to the National Shrine. The day after they would gather on the Mall and protest abortion. Fenn wondered if he believed in that even then. The school had paid for him to go to DC, and he went because he had never been anywhere. He had told this to a very Catholic, very Southern friend of his when they were in her car. She touched the rosary wrapped around her rear view mirror and said, “Go. It doesn’t do a damn thing. But you’ll get a free trip to DC. Go.”
So he had gone, and he and the other kids from Monserrat who were going with the kids, like Dan, from Citeaux University had slept on the bus and awakened, twisting through the concrete ruts of highway, then skyway.
They were tossed out of the bus to spend the whole day enjoying Washington. The truth was they couldn’t sleep in the church during the day, and there was no place else for them to go. So after the sleeping on a bus was the trudging through the capital. He trudged through it with Dan Malloy. Back then Fenn had an almost sacramental belief that everything happened for a reason, and no one came into his life by accident. And so he determined to keep Dan.
There was a high Mass in the Shrine that night. It must have been somewhere around eight o’clock. Everyone went. Fenn did not. He wrote a poem.
And now
after the scourging
after the pillar and the slap on the face
and how everyone tried to capitalize on
my devotion
and I tried to make it fit in
there is the procession of palms
we’re all holding fronds
and none of us is dancing.
Catholics want to sing
they want to jubilate
but who knows how?
here in the Midwest
where the daffodils push up through the ice
what counts, what’s best is to be nice
in our khakis and Oxford blue shirts
But I want to be intoxicated
God when you rode an ass into the church
when you drove out the changers and the ushers
and the priests
and everyone carrying on
trying to be someone
carrying on their backs carcasses
and corpses
and corpses
of names
and titles
and dignities
lord,
what I did was take off my shoes
and take of my tie
all dignity flies
in the face of something more
that after searching
scourging
reading
fasting
resisting
i just want to be crazy
i just want to be mad
i just want to wander and sit on the floor of your house
drunk with jesus
and everyone who sees us
will think we’re mad
and that could be the end
“There is a tree” they sing
“There is a tree”
faraway
on a green hill…
on a hill
and if this ecstasy kills
then is there room on your cross for me?
Fenn was sure that he was totally different, like he wanted something completely different from the rest of them. Or maybe he was second guessing them. Maybe he was trying to make himself special. But he didn’t think so. He felt, in his corner of the chapel, in a room full of sleeping bags, very much alone, and in need of that loneliness.
After ten o’clock they came stomping down, and when Dan returned, Fenn was glad of it. They were not the same. Dan needed acceptance, Dan found himself in that group. They mattered. All of this really mattered to him. Fenn supposed it mattered to him, too. But not in the same way. Not quite the same way. Dan’s eyes were so wide and blue, his face so rounded, his lips red. It wasn’t that he looked like Chuck, but Chuck was the only person he’d ever been with, and he hadn’t thought about that much since high school.
When they were all changing into their pjs, something Fenn had done long ago, Dan cried, “Hide me.”
And Fenn, lazily, put a blanket around him while Dan changed. He had snug little underwear on and Fenn saw them for just a second. He was completely in love with the boy who had pulled on his pajama bottoms, whom he was talking to, hitting it off so well with.
“We saw the Prime Minister of Israel today,” Fenn reported.
“Oh, you did not,” Dan swiveled his head around in a way that made Fenn blink with amazement and grin at the same time. He might as well have snapped his fingers.
Dan is gay. And then, though one would have thought his experience with Chuck would have taught him this thoroughly, he realized:
And so am I.
By the time they made it to the old house on Burrough Street, Christmas of their sophomore year, with the house darkened and waiting for the morning, they were catching hands over and over again, Fenn pulling his hand away long enough to unlock the door and then locking it after them. Then through the dark, hands catching again, half dizzy and stumbling with the excitement of what was about to come, they went half steadily up the stairs, covering each others’ mouths, pressing toward the bedroom where Fenn locked the door and put his mouth on Dan’s. For a long time, they stood holding each other’s faces, smelling the cold and smelling the mustiness and the cafeteria smell-ness and everything else collected in their winter coats and hats, before they took those off with a slow tenderness and went to the bed. Dan, in his checked plaid shirt said in a slightly high voice, “I always knew I was this way. I always knew I wanted this. From you.”
In the grey dark they unbuttoned shirts, pulled down pants, caressed skin. Fenn stroked the cotton of those snug briefs before pulling them off. He and Dan both gasped and shuddered with the touch of his warm hands on Dan’s hot skin, the soft skin of his ass, of his belly of his scrotum. They kissed deeply before climbing into the bed to make love in every possible way, to do what they didn’t know was possible. Dan remembered it was two hours later before they rested. How could it have been so long? How could there have been that much love to get out? He remembered the feel of the tight soft curls, of Fenn’s hair, of the springiness of it. How could it be so soft? He hadn’t really expected that, the smell of Fenn’s pits, of the place between his thighs. Two hours later Fenn lay on his back and brought him inside, to both of their surprise and Dan felt himself, penetrating, fucking, fucking, fucking, gasping, coming in a hot shower. They lay together, gasping and aching, quiet for a long time. Dan looked across the room and saw in the darkness, even darker the slim shape of a crucifix on the wall. He wasn’t ashamed. It didn’t seem to not fit the moment.
In Fenn’s arms, Dan heard a laughter coming out of Fenn’s chest.
“Merry Christmas,” Fenn said, kissing him.
Dan was still firm. He felt so good down there, so good with the memory of being inside of Fenn, with wanting the same thing to happen to him, with knowing it would, aching for it a little in a place he’d never ached.
He smiled a Fenn, kissed him and buried his head in his shoulder.
“Merry Christmas,” he said.
Peace I leave
My peace I give
Peace for you
Peace for all
They sang it over and over again, one side of the church singing back to the other. It was late August now. It was the end of the summer, but it didn’t feel like it. The doors of Saint Barbara’s were open. The bottom part of the stain glass windows were turned open to let in air. The heated wind, the echoing song of peace was the Holy Spirit. As Keith McDonald lifted the brass and glinting chalice, every heart was bright. And broken.
Lamb of God
You take away the sins of the world
Have mercy on us!
Lamb of God
You take away the sins of the world
Have mercy on us!
Lamb of God, you take away the sins of the world.
Grant us peace.
Oh, grant us peace!
Peace, Dan reflected, beside Keith, was a word that sounded just like what it was.
The children’s choir was singing, everyone was joining in. They were moving away to the next part of the Mass, which was the communion, which was the taking of bread.
Dona nobis Pacem, pacem! The children sang
Dona nobis, pacem, pacem.
Silence.
“Behold, this is the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world. Happy is everyone who is called to partake of him.”
This communion. The last communion, the lines of parishioners. Everyone at Saint Barbara’s rejoicing. And yet there was this lovely sadness. When Dan went to take the dish of wafers, to take the Body of Christ to the bottom of the altar steps, he saw, in the corner, the boy who was the reason this was the end. Casey. Did he know? Did he have any idea? How could he? Dan looked around. Fenn was not here.
Fenn should have been my reason.
Take and eat
Take and eat
This is my body given up for you
Take and eat
Take and eat
This is my blood,
Given up for you!
At the end of Keith McDonald’s last Mass, Dan hung back, letting everyone hug and hold onto Keith. Keith was the better priest. Despite everything.
“I don’t care what you do,” Barb told him. “You cannot stay a stranger.”
“I won’t.”
“No, I’m serious,” Barb went on. “You’ve been too much to me. I have to be there for you.”
“Barb,” Keith said, “you have. You don’t know how much you have.”
When it came Dena’s turn she just stood there beside Milo, her hands folded across her chest. She blinked and put a hand to her surprised face.
“Tears,” she said, at last. “Who would have expected it?”
Dan was surprised by Brendan, who tapped him on the shoulder.
“Hey, Father.”
“I was hanging back,” Dan explained. “Letting everyone say goodbye.”
“Well,” Brendan shrugged. “I never really knew Father Keith. I knew you. I’ve known you most of my life.”
“Yes,” Dan said.
“I’m going to college next week. You know that, right?”
Dan sighed.
“I knew it,” he admitted. “I just thought it was later. I mean, I really hoped it was later.”
Brendan realized they had crossed over into real territory here, not manufactured emotions.
“I’ve known you since you were a little kid, Bren.”
“I know. I’ll be back. I’ll just… I’m gonna miss you, Father.”
Dan frowned and said, “You know I’ll be here, right? You know you can always ask me anything. Anything.”
Brendan smiled and turned red.
“I know, Father.”
“Bren?”
“Yeah?”
“I wouldn’t ask you this if the word ‘father’ didn’t sound funny coming out of your mouth. But… you’re grown now, and you could start calling me Dan if you wanted to.”
Brendan made a comic face, and then he said, “They’re both awkward. Father doesn’t seem right, and Dan seems too… We’ll have to work something out, won’t we?”
“Yes, Brendan,” Dan said. “We will.”
“YOU LIKE THAT? You like that? How do you like that?” Charlie shouted as he fucked her against the wall.
“Is that good?” he whispered into her ear.
Nell said nothing.
“Is that? You like it,” he thrust into her. “When, I…”
But she wasn’t responding.
He stopped.
Nell looked at him, and she was heavy to him now. He lowered her and he said, “You’re not into this, are you?”
Nell said nothing.
Charlie was sweaty against Nell, and she was a mess.
“This is over?” Charlie said. “Isn’t it?”
Nell suddenly felt so bad. She looked at him. Not that he wasn’t real to her, but right now he was especially real to her, and so young. And so pretty.
She nodded.
“I think it is,” she said.
TEN
POETRY
Now this was twenty years in the past, though he did not like to think of that. This was before there was a Layla or even much of a Todd. How little of our lives we know. Even in their dullest aspects, who could foresee what would happen? And always there is some horrible suspicion, some horrible dreadnought about the bad that can happen, but life is a surprise. Turning forty you know that now.
They drove for fourteen hours across the state of Indiana, and Fenn was totally swept up in the earnestness, the sweetness, and the quiet funniness of Dan Malloy. Dan was a little taller and a little slighter than he, but they seemed about what and what. They were both religious, and they were on their way to the National Shrine. The day after they would gather on the Mall and protest abortion. Fenn wondered if he believed in that even then. The school had paid for him to go to DC, and he went because he had never been anywhere. He had told this to a very Catholic, very Southern friend of his when they were in her car. She touched the rosary wrapped around her rear view mirror and said, “Go. It doesn’t do a damn thing. But you’ll get a free trip to DC. Go.”
So he had gone, and he and the other kids from Monserrat who were going with the kids, like Dan, from Citeaux University had slept on the bus and awakened, twisting through the concrete ruts of highway, then skyway.
They were tossed out of the bus to spend the whole day enjoying Washington. The truth was they couldn’t sleep in the church during the day, and there was no place else for them to go. So after the sleeping on a bus was the trudging through the capital. He trudged through it with Dan Malloy. Back then Fenn had an almost sacramental belief that everything happened for a reason, and no one came into his life by accident. And so he determined to keep Dan.
There was a high Mass in the Shrine that night. It must have been somewhere around eight o’clock. Everyone went. Fenn did not. He wrote a poem.
And now
after the scourging
after the pillar and the slap on the face
and how everyone tried to capitalize on
my devotion
and I tried to make it fit in
there is the procession of palms
we’re all holding fronds
and none of us is dancing.
Catholics want to sing
they want to jubilate
but who knows how?
here in the Midwest
where the daffodils push up through the ice
what counts, what’s best is to be nice
in our khakis and Oxford blue shirts
But I want to be intoxicated
God when you rode an ass into the church
when you drove out the changers and the ushers
and the priests
and everyone carrying on
trying to be someone
carrying on their backs carcasses
and corpses
and corpses
of names
and titles
and dignities
lord,
what I did was take off my shoes
and take of my tie
all dignity flies
in the face of something more
that after searching
scourging
reading
fasting
resisting
i just want to be crazy
i just want to be mad
i just want to wander and sit on the floor of your house
drunk with jesus
and everyone who sees us
will think we’re mad
and that could be the end
“There is a tree” they sing
“There is a tree”
faraway
on a green hill…
on a hill
and if this ecstasy kills
then is there room on your cross for me?
Fenn was sure that he was totally different, like he wanted something completely different from the rest of them. Or maybe he was second guessing them. Maybe he was trying to make himself special. But he didn’t think so. He felt, in his corner of the chapel, in a room full of sleeping bags, very much alone, and in need of that loneliness.
After ten o’clock they came stomping down, and when Dan returned, Fenn was glad of it. They were not the same. Dan needed acceptance, Dan found himself in that group. They mattered. All of this really mattered to him. Fenn supposed it mattered to him, too. But not in the same way. Not quite the same way. Dan’s eyes were so wide and blue, his face so rounded, his lips red. It wasn’t that he looked like Chuck, but Chuck was the only person he’d ever been with, and he hadn’t thought about that much since high school.
When they were all changing into their pjs, something Fenn had done long ago, Dan cried, “Hide me.”
And Fenn, lazily, put a blanket around him while Dan changed. He had snug little underwear on and Fenn saw them for just a second. He was completely in love with the boy who had pulled on his pajama bottoms, whom he was talking to, hitting it off so well with.
“We saw the Prime Minister of Israel today,” Fenn reported.
“Oh, you did not,” Dan swiveled his head around in a way that made Fenn blink with amazement and grin at the same time. He might as well have snapped his fingers.
Dan is gay. And then, though one would have thought his experience with Chuck would have taught him this thoroughly, he realized:
And so am I.
By the time they made it to the old house on Burrough Street, Christmas of their sophomore year, with the house darkened and waiting for the morning, they were catching hands over and over again, Fenn pulling his hand away long enough to unlock the door and then locking it after them. Then through the dark, hands catching again, half dizzy and stumbling with the excitement of what was about to come, they went half steadily up the stairs, covering each others’ mouths, pressing toward the bedroom where Fenn locked the door and put his mouth on Dan’s. For a long time, they stood holding each other’s faces, smelling the cold and smelling the mustiness and the cafeteria smell-ness and everything else collected in their winter coats and hats, before they took those off with a slow tenderness and went to the bed. Dan, in his checked plaid shirt said in a slightly high voice, “I always knew I was this way. I always knew I wanted this. From you.”
In the grey dark they unbuttoned shirts, pulled down pants, caressed skin. Fenn stroked the cotton of those snug briefs before pulling them off. He and Dan both gasped and shuddered with the touch of his warm hands on Dan’s hot skin, the soft skin of his ass, of his belly of his scrotum. They kissed deeply before climbing into the bed to make love in every possible way, to do what they didn’t know was possible. Dan remembered it was two hours later before they rested. How could it have been so long? How could there have been that much love to get out? He remembered the feel of the tight soft curls, of Fenn’s hair, of the springiness of it. How could it be so soft? He hadn’t really expected that, the smell of Fenn’s pits, of the place between his thighs. Two hours later Fenn lay on his back and brought him inside, to both of their surprise and Dan felt himself, penetrating, fucking, fucking, fucking, gasping, coming in a hot shower. They lay together, gasping and aching, quiet for a long time. Dan looked across the room and saw in the darkness, even darker the slim shape of a crucifix on the wall. He wasn’t ashamed. It didn’t seem to not fit the moment.
In Fenn’s arms, Dan heard a laughter coming out of Fenn’s chest.
“Merry Christmas,” Fenn said, kissing him.
Dan was still firm. He felt so good down there, so good with the memory of being inside of Fenn, with wanting the same thing to happen to him, with knowing it would, aching for it a little in a place he’d never ached.
He smiled a Fenn, kissed him and buried his head in his shoulder.
“Merry Christmas,” he said.
Peace I leave
My peace I give
Peace for you
Peace for all
They sang it over and over again, one side of the church singing back to the other. It was late August now. It was the end of the summer, but it didn’t feel like it. The doors of Saint Barbara’s were open. The bottom part of the stain glass windows were turned open to let in air. The heated wind, the echoing song of peace was the Holy Spirit. As Keith McDonald lifted the brass and glinting chalice, every heart was bright. And broken.
Lamb of God
You take away the sins of the world
Have mercy on us!
Lamb of God
You take away the sins of the world
Have mercy on us!
Lamb of God, you take away the sins of the world.
Grant us peace.
Oh, grant us peace!
Peace, Dan reflected, beside Keith, was a word that sounded just like what it was.
The children’s choir was singing, everyone was joining in. They were moving away to the next part of the Mass, which was the communion, which was the taking of bread.
Dona nobis Pacem, pacem! The children sang
Dona nobis, pacem, pacem.
Silence.
“Behold, this is the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world. Happy is everyone who is called to partake of him.”
This communion. The last communion, the lines of parishioners. Everyone at Saint Barbara’s rejoicing. And yet there was this lovely sadness. When Dan went to take the dish of wafers, to take the Body of Christ to the bottom of the altar steps, he saw, in the corner, the boy who was the reason this was the end. Casey. Did he know? Did he have any idea? How could he? Dan looked around. Fenn was not here.
Fenn should have been my reason.
Take and eat
Take and eat
This is my body given up for you
Take and eat
Take and eat
This is my blood,
Given up for you!
At the end of Keith McDonald’s last Mass, Dan hung back, letting everyone hug and hold onto Keith. Keith was the better priest. Despite everything.
“I don’t care what you do,” Barb told him. “You cannot stay a stranger.”
“I won’t.”
“No, I’m serious,” Barb went on. “You’ve been too much to me. I have to be there for you.”
“Barb,” Keith said, “you have. You don’t know how much you have.”
When it came Dena’s turn she just stood there beside Milo, her hands folded across her chest. She blinked and put a hand to her surprised face.
“Tears,” she said, at last. “Who would have expected it?”
Dan was surprised by Brendan, who tapped him on the shoulder.
“Hey, Father.”
“I was hanging back,” Dan explained. “Letting everyone say goodbye.”
“Well,” Brendan shrugged. “I never really knew Father Keith. I knew you. I’ve known you most of my life.”
“Yes,” Dan said.
“I’m going to college next week. You know that, right?”
Dan sighed.
“I knew it,” he admitted. “I just thought it was later. I mean, I really hoped it was later.”
Brendan realized they had crossed over into real territory here, not manufactured emotions.
“I’ve known you since you were a little kid, Bren.”
“I know. I’ll be back. I’ll just… I’m gonna miss you, Father.”
Dan frowned and said, “You know I’ll be here, right? You know you can always ask me anything. Anything.”
Brendan smiled and turned red.
“I know, Father.”
“Bren?”
“Yeah?”
“I wouldn’t ask you this if the word ‘father’ didn’t sound funny coming out of your mouth. But… you’re grown now, and you could start calling me Dan if you wanted to.”
Brendan made a comic face, and then he said, “They’re both awkward. Father doesn’t seem right, and Dan seems too… We’ll have to work something out, won’t we?”
“Yes, Brendan,” Dan said. “We will.”
“YOU LIKE THAT? You like that? How do you like that?” Charlie shouted as he fucked her against the wall.
“Is that good?” he whispered into her ear.
Nell said nothing.
“Is that? You like it,” he thrust into her. “When, I…”
But she wasn’t responding.
He stopped.
Nell looked at him, and she was heavy to him now. He lowered her and he said, “You’re not into this, are you?”
Nell said nothing.
Charlie was sweaty against Nell, and she was a mess.
“This is over?” Charlie said. “Isn’t it?”
Nell suddenly felt so bad. She looked at him. Not that he wasn’t real to her, but right now he was especially real to her, and so young. And so pretty.
She nodded.
“I think it is,” she said.
CharmedFan28
JUB Addict
A great start to the chapter! It was nice to read some of Dan's past. I thought Nell and Charlie were going to stay together but I guess I was wrong and she is going back to Bill. Great writing and I look forward to more!
ChrisGibson
JUB Addict
I know, it would have been nice if Nell and Charlie had stayed together, but Nell couldn't resist what her heart really wanted. Dan is one of my favorite characters, so it was gret to see into him a little bit more. As for Charlier, he's going to be more than alright. I'm so glad you read, and so glad you enjoyed. There'll be more before the day is out. Peece.
ChrisGibson
JUB Addict
CHAPTER
TEN
POETRY CONTINUED
“IT WAS… I DON’T know. Sad,” Dena said when she came into the house.
“I thought about going,” Nell said. “But… I haven’t been to church in a while. And I didn’t really know him that well.”
“He was good,” Dena said. “And I didn’t know it until he was gone. I mean, I guess he’s still around, but—” Then she stopped.
“What?”
“Mom? Are you all right?”
“Yes,” Nell’s voice was falsely bright. And then she said, “No. I guess not.”
Nell tilted her head, waiting for her mother to speak.
“I think me and Charlie are broken up.”
Dena waited for her mother to continue.
“Okay,” Nell said. “I know we are over.”
“Aw, Mom,” Dena came to put a hand around her mother. “Well, you know he was too young for you.”
“Dena!”
“Oh, God, Mom, he totally was. But you’ve got a great guy waiting for you at the Affrens.”
“Dena—”
“You’ve really gotta stop saying my name every three seconds. Bill is there. Bill is waiting for you. Bill loves you. And… what’s more—he’s your age.”
Having said what she had to say, Dena headed off to the kitchen.
“By the way,” she said. “Me and Layla are leaving next week for California. You remember that, right?”
“Of course I remember it.
“Dena,” Nell came into the kitchen as Dena was cracking ice cubes out of the tray.
“I sort of had something earlier with Bill.”
“Yeah, I remember. I was there.”
“It’s just… I think I had to think about going back to him. You know?”
“Sure,” Dena said. “Think about it.”
Nell nodded.
Dena concluded: “And then go to the Affrens and get him.”
“I thought we were gon have to close,” the Black girl said when Charlie came into the roadside restaurant on the south end of town. “You’re the first business we’ve had all day.”
“Look at you,” a woman who reminded him of Nell came out from the kitchen, “You look just like my son.”
This made Charlie wince.
“He’s a real good looker. He could be a model. He’s gay, though,” she said. “Are you gay?”
The Black girl said, “Stay out of that man’s business.”
“Uh, no,” Charlie said. Then, “I’m not gay.”
“Well, what can we get you?”
“I uh… a menu?”
“Oh, yeah,” Naomi said. “That was foolish. Danny?”
“I can tell you what we have now,” Danny said. “Hot dogs, burgers, a hot dog burger dog. Onion rings, fries. A variation of what I just mentioned.”
Charlie nodded, and then a voice from the kitchen said, “Now, that’s not true at all.”
A new girl stepped out.
“There’s someone else?” Charlie began.
“I know,” Danny said. “If the economy’s going to hell—and it is—”
“You don’t know that,” Naomi said.
“Trust me, I know it. And the question is, if the economy is going to hell, then why we got three bitches working here on one customer?”
Charlie blinked at the new girl.
“I know you,” he said.
She looked at him. She was dark haired and dark eyed.
“You…. At the bar?”
“That’s right. You wanted that drink.”
“And it’s Sunday again. And we’re here in Indiana, not able to drink.”
Charlie nodded, blinking, and wondering why he felt this way.
“Look,” Meg Callan continued, leaning over the counter. “I can make falafel. We got a new chicken dish. I got—”
“See, falafel!” Danny said. “What the fuck do we need falafel for?”
“I’m going to try the falafel.”
“And hummus with lamb,” Liz continued.
Charlie nodded and smiled. “I’ll take all of that.
“Well, she’ll make it,” Naomi said. “Cause I don’t know what the hell that is.”
“And I,” Danny offered, “will get you some water.”
By the time Liz was finished cooking, there were two truckers waiting for them.
“You’re gonna love it. I’ve been making this since I was fourteen. And here’s cucumber sauce,” Liz sat down across from Charlie.
“I’m going eat some of this,” she said, dipping it.
“Are you sitting down on the job?” Danny said at the counter.
“Uh,” Liz said, “Yeah.” She turned back to Charlie. “So what have you been up to?”
“I’ve just been up to… Well, let’s see, I just got off work. I guess you didn’t see the news?”
“No. How’ll the weather be?”
Charlie pointed out of the window at the dried grass and the August sun, and said, smiling, “Hot.”
Liz laughed.
“How’s the search for your dad?”
“I haven’t even asked anyone about him, yet. You know, I don’t even know if I want to find him? The truth is we never really got on. I just… I thought it was time to do something different. So here I am—” Liz put her hands to her chest, “a short order cook making Mediterranean food at an Indiana truck stop.”
“Sounds like a movie.”
“Really?” Liz took another bit of falafel. “Well, that’s a movie I don’t much want to see.”
“These are good. They’re like hush puppies.”
“Yes,” Liz acknowledged. “Only they’re called falafel, and they’re foreign so you had better not call them hush puppies.”
“I stand corrected,” Charlie put up a hand. Then he said, “I broke up with someone I was seeing.”
“Oh,” Liz said, sounding as if she didn’t know what to make of it.
“It wasn’t going anywhere anyway. It couldn’t have gone anywhere.”
Liz nodded.
“Ever been in anything like that?” he asked her.
“Uh… no.”
Charlie grinned. Liz put a hand on his and said, “But maybe the reason it ended was to make way for something better?”
“Yeah,” Charlie said, tearing a bit of the lamb and placing it on flatbread. “Maybe so.”
Will was driving Milo over to the large house where Dena’s family had lived for fifty years. He looked at his friend and said:
“What are you so fucking zany about?”
“What?” Milo said, coming back to himself, and looking at Will like he was crazy.
“I said, what are you so—”
“Where the hell did you get that from?”
Will blushed and then said, “Annelise likes when I use movie phrases.”
“So this is from a movie?”
“Yeah.”
Milo shook his head, “Must have not been a very good movie.”
“No, but Annie says it’s worth it just to see Christian Bayle naked. I don’t know how I feel about that,” Will frowned. “I wish she hadn’t told me that.”
“Well, maybe she’ll just have to see you naked,” Milo suggested. “Ah,” he cried. “Here we are!”
“So,” Will said, as he stopped the car and looked up at the walkway to Dena’s house, “why are you so fucking zany?”
Coming out of the car, and leaning into the window once he’d closed the door, Milo gave him a very long look, and then he said, “I’ll see you later, Will,” skipped around the car and danced up the steps.
Will looked after him for a moment, and then murmured, “Fucking zany,” and drove slowly away.
He didn’t knock. He just walked in. She knew it was him and shouted, “Hey, Miles,” from the old library.
When he found her there she was reading a book, and the TV was on with the volume off.
“I think my Mom went to see your uncle.”
“Really?”
“Um hum.”
Dena was eating oatmeal because, even though it was summer she liked oatmeal. “She broke up with Charlie today.”
Milo sat down on the other side of the couch.
“You think they were sleeping together?” he asked Dena.
Dena rolled her eyes, stabbed her oatmeal and said, “I sure in the fuck hope so.”
They were silent a little longer, and Milo pressed his knees together. He smoothed his dark hair back and then said, surprised and embarrassed by how his voice rose an octave on her name: “Dena.”
“Um hum?” She was still paying more attention to the oatmeal—which is insane, quit fucking eating oatmeal in the middle of August.
“Dena,” he said again. “Let’s have intercourse.”
“What?”
“I said sex, Dena. Fucking,” Milo said, as if he wanted to make sure she could not possibly mistake him. “We should fuck.”
“We should fuck! Is that how you talk to me? We should fuck?”
“We’ve been together for... well over a year.”
“I’m a lady. I’m a fucking lady. And you just walk into my house while I’m eating oatmeal, and you say we should fuck.”
“And I brought condoms and… Everything. It’ll be totally safe and responsible.”
“I’m your fucking girlfriend, and you just talk to me like I’m some slut, saying, we should fuck, we should fuck—”
“And I love you. I always have and—”
“And you walk in my fucking house, uninvited, smelling all like the sun, and… and wearing those tight faded jeans even though it’s too hot to wear jeans, wearing those jeans that make your ass look so nice, where I can see your bulge—”
“I shouldn’t have asked. Not like that, I realize—”
“And with no one in the house,” Dena continued, “no one coming back for a long time, you just walk up here and say, let’s fuck. Like that’s not going to do something to me!”
“I’m really fucking sorry, Deen.”
“Like that’s not going to send a fucking jolt through me.”
“I’m totally sorry.”
Dena stood up, put the oatmeal down and held out her hand imperiously.
“Let’s go,” she said.
“I’m going now,” Milo said, shaking his head and clasping his knees. Then he looked up at her strangely.
“What?” he said.
“I said let’s go,” she told him.
“Let’s go upstairs, Milo,” Dena said. “And fuck.”
“Nell,” Barb Affren greeted her happily at the door, and then as she let her in added, “You’re not going to hit my son again, are you?”
“No, Barb,” Nell said.
“Bill,” Barb bawled up the stairs. “Get down here. You’ve got company.”
“It’s just like forty years ago,” she added to Dena. “Except for forty years ago Billy was my pride and joy who only had good things ahead, and right now he’s still my pride and joy, but he’s got a lot of shit behind him. Would you like something to drink, Nell?”
“I’m good, Barb.”
Barb Affren shook her head.
“It’s a shame. Today was Father Keith’s last Mass.”
“Dena told me,”
“Yes,” Barb remembered. “He’s not just going to another church. I think he’s leaving the priesthood.”
Barb stopped talking as Bill came down the stairs.
“Nell,” he said, tucking in his Oxford shirt.
“Bill,” Nell said. “We need to talk.”
Because it had been well over a year, and the only person she’d been with was Brendan, though the ache between her legs was real enough, the memory of sex was almost academic. She didn’t know if she’d like it very much, if she would like Milo’s penis, but she did like the heavy wonder of it coming out of his briefs, and the thickness of it in her hands rising, the wonder of his gasping, of them working their bodies together. She loved the wonder of being undressed again. She hadn’t felt like this in so long. She almost trembled. She almost did something like cry when he caught his breath, beholding her body.
I thought I was ugly she realized. She had believed she wasn’t sexy.
Why wouldn’t she? The last man who had been with her had told her he was gay.
All bodies were not the same. She knew this. Clothed they didn’t look the same. Milo was darker and heavier, his belly lower, his sex thicker than Brendan’s. He wasn’t ashamed, he was delighted with her hands on him. His ass was dense and heavy to her. All of him was heavy. Not fat, but solid, solid like Saturn or Jupiter or the densest stuff on earth. And she was so wet, and at the last she put away the condom. She knew it might have been foolish, but she knew she wasn’t ovulating and she knew he was a virgin and she wanted that in her. She opened for it.
Dena knew it was Milo’s first time. If she wanted it to be different from her first time she would take some responsibility. She held him down inside of her. His ass felt so good, so solid, so covered in downy dark hair. The small of his back was so good. His body so real. She slowed him down. She whispered, “Don’t come,” and moved her thighs to hold him, to make sure he didn’t leave her. He jarred her. She cried out. He cried out. They were moving together, clashing, that old smell was filling the room. She wanted to cry. She was practically a virgin all over again. If she’d remembered it was like this she never would have given it up. Or maybe it hadn’t been like this with Bren.
In those last moments, the bedstead kept hitting the wall, and they both kept crying out, and Milo’s back was arched in the air. She was holding his ass down. She was holding the mystery of dick deep inside of her. Dena had a long, long staggered shout, and Milo gasped again and again until that moment. Until that moment when the bed kept hitting the wall, and his body arched up and flailed, and he shouted, “OOHHHHHHH FUUUUUUUUUCK!”
And the end of his cry died with the shooting of his semen, followed by moans muffled in her shoulder as he kept flailing and coming hard.
They lay still a long time, the sundown on the walls going from bright gold to orange. Dena looked up and down his body. Milo was amazed at the smell, at the mess of his sticky up hair. He was amazed at what his penis looked like, longer than usual and thick, glossy, wet, like he’d never seen it before.
“So that was it,” he said, sitting up on an elbow.
“Yes,” Dena squeezed her thighs together in delight, and reached up to touch Milo’s chin.
“That was it.”
TEN
POETRY CONTINUED
“IT WAS… I DON’T know. Sad,” Dena said when she came into the house.
“I thought about going,” Nell said. “But… I haven’t been to church in a while. And I didn’t really know him that well.”
“He was good,” Dena said. “And I didn’t know it until he was gone. I mean, I guess he’s still around, but—” Then she stopped.
“What?”
“Mom? Are you all right?”
“Yes,” Nell’s voice was falsely bright. And then she said, “No. I guess not.”
Nell tilted her head, waiting for her mother to speak.
“I think me and Charlie are broken up.”
Dena waited for her mother to continue.
“Okay,” Nell said. “I know we are over.”
“Aw, Mom,” Dena came to put a hand around her mother. “Well, you know he was too young for you.”
“Dena!”
“Oh, God, Mom, he totally was. But you’ve got a great guy waiting for you at the Affrens.”
“Dena—”
“You’ve really gotta stop saying my name every three seconds. Bill is there. Bill is waiting for you. Bill loves you. And… what’s more—he’s your age.”
Having said what she had to say, Dena headed off to the kitchen.
“By the way,” she said. “Me and Layla are leaving next week for California. You remember that, right?”
“Of course I remember it.
“Dena,” Nell came into the kitchen as Dena was cracking ice cubes out of the tray.
“I sort of had something earlier with Bill.”
“Yeah, I remember. I was there.”
“It’s just… I think I had to think about going back to him. You know?”
“Sure,” Dena said. “Think about it.”
Nell nodded.
Dena concluded: “And then go to the Affrens and get him.”
“I thought we were gon have to close,” the Black girl said when Charlie came into the roadside restaurant on the south end of town. “You’re the first business we’ve had all day.”
“Look at you,” a woman who reminded him of Nell came out from the kitchen, “You look just like my son.”
This made Charlie wince.
“He’s a real good looker. He could be a model. He’s gay, though,” she said. “Are you gay?”
The Black girl said, “Stay out of that man’s business.”
“Uh, no,” Charlie said. Then, “I’m not gay.”
“Well, what can we get you?”
“I uh… a menu?”
“Oh, yeah,” Naomi said. “That was foolish. Danny?”
“I can tell you what we have now,” Danny said. “Hot dogs, burgers, a hot dog burger dog. Onion rings, fries. A variation of what I just mentioned.”
Charlie nodded, and then a voice from the kitchen said, “Now, that’s not true at all.”
A new girl stepped out.
“There’s someone else?” Charlie began.
“I know,” Danny said. “If the economy’s going to hell—and it is—”
“You don’t know that,” Naomi said.
“Trust me, I know it. And the question is, if the economy is going to hell, then why we got three bitches working here on one customer?”
Charlie blinked at the new girl.
“I know you,” he said.
She looked at him. She was dark haired and dark eyed.
“You…. At the bar?”
“That’s right. You wanted that drink.”
“And it’s Sunday again. And we’re here in Indiana, not able to drink.”
Charlie nodded, blinking, and wondering why he felt this way.
“Look,” Meg Callan continued, leaning over the counter. “I can make falafel. We got a new chicken dish. I got—”
“See, falafel!” Danny said. “What the fuck do we need falafel for?”
“I’m going to try the falafel.”
“And hummus with lamb,” Liz continued.
Charlie nodded and smiled. “I’ll take all of that.
“Well, she’ll make it,” Naomi said. “Cause I don’t know what the hell that is.”
“And I,” Danny offered, “will get you some water.”
By the time Liz was finished cooking, there were two truckers waiting for them.
“You’re gonna love it. I’ve been making this since I was fourteen. And here’s cucumber sauce,” Liz sat down across from Charlie.
“I’m going eat some of this,” she said, dipping it.
“Are you sitting down on the job?” Danny said at the counter.
“Uh,” Liz said, “Yeah.” She turned back to Charlie. “So what have you been up to?”
“I’ve just been up to… Well, let’s see, I just got off work. I guess you didn’t see the news?”
“No. How’ll the weather be?”
Charlie pointed out of the window at the dried grass and the August sun, and said, smiling, “Hot.”
Liz laughed.
“How’s the search for your dad?”
“I haven’t even asked anyone about him, yet. You know, I don’t even know if I want to find him? The truth is we never really got on. I just… I thought it was time to do something different. So here I am—” Liz put her hands to her chest, “a short order cook making Mediterranean food at an Indiana truck stop.”
“Sounds like a movie.”
“Really?” Liz took another bit of falafel. “Well, that’s a movie I don’t much want to see.”
“These are good. They’re like hush puppies.”
“Yes,” Liz acknowledged. “Only they’re called falafel, and they’re foreign so you had better not call them hush puppies.”
“I stand corrected,” Charlie put up a hand. Then he said, “I broke up with someone I was seeing.”
“Oh,” Liz said, sounding as if she didn’t know what to make of it.
“It wasn’t going anywhere anyway. It couldn’t have gone anywhere.”
Liz nodded.
“Ever been in anything like that?” he asked her.
“Uh… no.”
Charlie grinned. Liz put a hand on his and said, “But maybe the reason it ended was to make way for something better?”
“Yeah,” Charlie said, tearing a bit of the lamb and placing it on flatbread. “Maybe so.”
Will was driving Milo over to the large house where Dena’s family had lived for fifty years. He looked at his friend and said:
“What are you so fucking zany about?”
“What?” Milo said, coming back to himself, and looking at Will like he was crazy.
“I said, what are you so—”
“Where the hell did you get that from?”
Will blushed and then said, “Annelise likes when I use movie phrases.”
“So this is from a movie?”
“Yeah.”
Milo shook his head, “Must have not been a very good movie.”
“No, but Annie says it’s worth it just to see Christian Bayle naked. I don’t know how I feel about that,” Will frowned. “I wish she hadn’t told me that.”
“Well, maybe she’ll just have to see you naked,” Milo suggested. “Ah,” he cried. “Here we are!”
“So,” Will said, as he stopped the car and looked up at the walkway to Dena’s house, “why are you so fucking zany?”
Coming out of the car, and leaning into the window once he’d closed the door, Milo gave him a very long look, and then he said, “I’ll see you later, Will,” skipped around the car and danced up the steps.
Will looked after him for a moment, and then murmured, “Fucking zany,” and drove slowly away.
He didn’t knock. He just walked in. She knew it was him and shouted, “Hey, Miles,” from the old library.
When he found her there she was reading a book, and the TV was on with the volume off.
“I think my Mom went to see your uncle.”
“Really?”
“Um hum.”
Dena was eating oatmeal because, even though it was summer she liked oatmeal. “She broke up with Charlie today.”
Milo sat down on the other side of the couch.
“You think they were sleeping together?” he asked Dena.
Dena rolled her eyes, stabbed her oatmeal and said, “I sure in the fuck hope so.”
They were silent a little longer, and Milo pressed his knees together. He smoothed his dark hair back and then said, surprised and embarrassed by how his voice rose an octave on her name: “Dena.”
“Um hum?” She was still paying more attention to the oatmeal—which is insane, quit fucking eating oatmeal in the middle of August.
“Dena,” he said again. “Let’s have intercourse.”
“What?”
“I said sex, Dena. Fucking,” Milo said, as if he wanted to make sure she could not possibly mistake him. “We should fuck.”
“We should fuck! Is that how you talk to me? We should fuck?”
“We’ve been together for... well over a year.”
“I’m a lady. I’m a fucking lady. And you just walk into my house while I’m eating oatmeal, and you say we should fuck.”
“And I brought condoms and… Everything. It’ll be totally safe and responsible.”
“I’m your fucking girlfriend, and you just talk to me like I’m some slut, saying, we should fuck, we should fuck—”
“And I love you. I always have and—”
“And you walk in my fucking house, uninvited, smelling all like the sun, and… and wearing those tight faded jeans even though it’s too hot to wear jeans, wearing those jeans that make your ass look so nice, where I can see your bulge—”
“I shouldn’t have asked. Not like that, I realize—”
“And with no one in the house,” Dena continued, “no one coming back for a long time, you just walk up here and say, let’s fuck. Like that’s not going to do something to me!”
“I’m really fucking sorry, Deen.”
“Like that’s not going to send a fucking jolt through me.”
“I’m totally sorry.”
Dena stood up, put the oatmeal down and held out her hand imperiously.
“Let’s go,” she said.
“I’m going now,” Milo said, shaking his head and clasping his knees. Then he looked up at her strangely.
“What?” he said.
“I said let’s go,” she told him.
“Let’s go upstairs, Milo,” Dena said. “And fuck.”
“Nell,” Barb Affren greeted her happily at the door, and then as she let her in added, “You’re not going to hit my son again, are you?”
“No, Barb,” Nell said.
“Bill,” Barb bawled up the stairs. “Get down here. You’ve got company.”
“It’s just like forty years ago,” she added to Dena. “Except for forty years ago Billy was my pride and joy who only had good things ahead, and right now he’s still my pride and joy, but he’s got a lot of shit behind him. Would you like something to drink, Nell?”
“I’m good, Barb.”
Barb Affren shook her head.
“It’s a shame. Today was Father Keith’s last Mass.”
“Dena told me,”
“Yes,” Barb remembered. “He’s not just going to another church. I think he’s leaving the priesthood.”
Barb stopped talking as Bill came down the stairs.
“Nell,” he said, tucking in his Oxford shirt.
“Bill,” Nell said. “We need to talk.”
Because it had been well over a year, and the only person she’d been with was Brendan, though the ache between her legs was real enough, the memory of sex was almost academic. She didn’t know if she’d like it very much, if she would like Milo’s penis, but she did like the heavy wonder of it coming out of his briefs, and the thickness of it in her hands rising, the wonder of his gasping, of them working their bodies together. She loved the wonder of being undressed again. She hadn’t felt like this in so long. She almost trembled. She almost did something like cry when he caught his breath, beholding her body.
I thought I was ugly she realized. She had believed she wasn’t sexy.
Why wouldn’t she? The last man who had been with her had told her he was gay.
All bodies were not the same. She knew this. Clothed they didn’t look the same. Milo was darker and heavier, his belly lower, his sex thicker than Brendan’s. He wasn’t ashamed, he was delighted with her hands on him. His ass was dense and heavy to her. All of him was heavy. Not fat, but solid, solid like Saturn or Jupiter or the densest stuff on earth. And she was so wet, and at the last she put away the condom. She knew it might have been foolish, but she knew she wasn’t ovulating and she knew he was a virgin and she wanted that in her. She opened for it.
Dena knew it was Milo’s first time. If she wanted it to be different from her first time she would take some responsibility. She held him down inside of her. His ass felt so good, so solid, so covered in downy dark hair. The small of his back was so good. His body so real. She slowed him down. She whispered, “Don’t come,” and moved her thighs to hold him, to make sure he didn’t leave her. He jarred her. She cried out. He cried out. They were moving together, clashing, that old smell was filling the room. She wanted to cry. She was practically a virgin all over again. If she’d remembered it was like this she never would have given it up. Or maybe it hadn’t been like this with Bren.
In those last moments, the bedstead kept hitting the wall, and they both kept crying out, and Milo’s back was arched in the air. She was holding his ass down. She was holding the mystery of dick deep inside of her. Dena had a long, long staggered shout, and Milo gasped again and again until that moment. Until that moment when the bed kept hitting the wall, and his body arched up and flailed, and he shouted, “OOHHHHHHH FUUUUUUUUUCK!”
And the end of his cry died with the shooting of his semen, followed by moans muffled in her shoulder as he kept flailing and coming hard.
They lay still a long time, the sundown on the walls going from bright gold to orange. Dena looked up and down his body. Milo was amazed at the smell, at the mess of his sticky up hair. He was amazed at what his penis looked like, longer than usual and thick, glossy, wet, like he’d never seen it before.
“So that was it,” he said, sitting up on an elbow.
“Yes,” Dena squeezed her thighs together in delight, and reached up to touch Milo’s chin.
“That was it.”
CharmedFan28
JUB Addict
Great new part of the chapter! It’s sad that Keith is leaving the priesthood but if that’s what he wants that is good. I am glad Nell is talking to Bill. I am also glad Dena and Milo had sex and that they enjoyed it! Great writing and I look forward to more soon!
