The Skin of Things: A Sort of Love Story

[ChrisGibson]

What do you like about Brian, if anyhting? What would you like to see happen with Cade and Donovan? What are the obstacles?

 

[CharmedFan28]

I like that Brian is honest with Donovan. I would like to see Cade and Donovan together but the obstacles I was writing about were that they seem determined to stay apart. Maybe I am wrong about that who knows.

 

[ChrisGibson]

I like that Brian is honest with Donovan. I would like to see Cade and Donovan together but the obstacles I was writing about were that they seem determined to stay apart. Maybe I am wrong about that who knows.

I didn't get to come back here and respond your response, Matt, because I was heavily involved in something that is going to be a great surprise pretty soon and it kept me the whole day. Well, I think it's observant of you to say Cade and Donovan seem determined to stay apart. Donovan almost pushed him out the door. We'll see what happens on that front soon.


TONIGHT, DONOVAN AND BRIAN CONTINUE TO REMEMBER THEIR PAST



“I am always getting into trouble,” Brian said, stretching out on his stomach. “And now, to make matters worse, you’re getting me into trouble.”
“I don’t now what you mean,” Donovan told him, He was squatting on his hams, but then he stretched his body out beside Brian, and ran his hand over his shoulder blade, down the small of his back, over the softness of his buttocks.
Lazily, Brian turned and looked at him.
“Do you know that I was in high school when you were born?”
“Does that bother you?” Donovan said lightly.
“Well, yes. A little. Sometimes.”
“Um…” was all Donovan said.
Brian sat up. “Everything about this is just confounding.”
“But you’re smiling when you say that,” Donovan reminded him.
“And what are you?” Brian went on. “You’re not a boyfriend.”
“No. no, I’m not.”
“You’re not, strictly speaking, just a friend. What are you to me?”
“You are awfully concerned about these things.
“I’m me. I’m not your anything.”
“I don’t even know you’re name.”
“You’re Brian Vaughn.”
“Well, I know that.”
“And it just proves,” Donovan went on, “that I’ve listened more to you than you have to me.”
“No, it just proves that you never told me your name.”
“It actually slipped my mind. I thought you knew. I mean, it’s in my screenname.”
“Shorter really is your name?”
Brian’s arms went around him, and he smelled of salt and earth, and his breath was milky. He whispered into Donovan’s ear, “Don’t take this the wrong way—”
“That already sounds bad.”
“Please shut up,” he sighed. “Don’t take this the wrong way, but, even though I know I have to go in a few days, even though I can’t stay, even though I would never dream of holding onto you—”
“You wouldn’t? You wouldn’t even dream about it?”
“I’m going to ignore that, and finish saying what I’m trying to say, which is I hope we’ll always be good friends. I hope we’ll always be close like this.”
Donovan reached back so that his hand was in Brian’s thick hair, and he moved around Brian’s head, and then bent back to kiss him on the scalp.
“The two of us, you and me, properly speaking, we are not a relationship. So, maybe improperly speaking we are a relationship.”
“Yes, and you’re the first real man I’ve been with, and you’re hardly out of childhood—”
“As you keep reminding me, and that’s hardly true.”
“But you’re the first one where I haven’t felt insane. A little crazy. but not insane. What’s his name?”
“Huh?”
“Well, there is someone else. I mean, there is some guy. You don’t have him yet, but he’s there. Or maybe you’re just beginning to know him. It’s not that Andy. You’re over him. Who’s the new guy?”
Donovan pushed himself back against Brian so that both of them lay on the bed and Brian was holding him. He turned to look at the other man and, touching his cheek, said, “On so many levels, talking about another man while I’m bed with another man is so unsexy.”
A small, predatory smile crossed Brian’s lips as his penis stiffened. He kissed Donovan lightly, and squeezed his hips.
“You wanna be sexy right now?”
“Yes,” said Donovan, turning to kiss him. “I want to be sexy.”


But after Brian left, he felt so good. He felt like he was melting. He wanted to be with him again. Donovan lay on the bed, and reaching for his journal, opened it. He scribbled and crossed out until he had produced a poem.




t h a t d a y

I remember one leg in the east
another in the infinite west
and you
thrusting through my mississippi
or my nile or my euphrates
threatening to break me with the force of
your sex
with the youth of your sex
and the power of that thing called love

it was an autumn
and this is winter
late december cold

heated when i remember the shine of your face
and the gloss of your face
and the sweat all on your face,

down your eternal body
paused in the illusion of its
middle at the small of your back

relaxed

sighing

that day i was like the goddess enthroned
enthroning
and you were, shaking
quaking
coming,
coming home



The IM on his computer whistled and he jumped up.

HI!

Hey. You. I miss you. Or is that too much to say?

No. I was just thinking about you.

Donovan was about to type, I’m getting hard just thinking about you.

I promise I won’t leave without coming to say goodbye.

You better not.

I promise. I’ll talk to you soon, Don.

Yes you will, Brian.

The night before he left, Brian Vaughn came over. He crawled in the semi open window and made quite a racket squeezing through.
“I’m going. I’m going tomorrow,” he said. “And then I won’t see you.”
“You can always come back.”
“And I will.”
Brian hugged him quickly and then they kissed.
Kneeling on the bed in the dark of night, Donovan Shorter held the lapels of Brian Vaughn’s collar in his hands and Brian looked at him uncertainly.
Then they kissed hard, running their hands through each others hair over each other’s bodies, gently removing clothes. Donovan had been thinking of how he would regret Brian’s absence with the regret of his body, which was deeper and more aching that any other regret he knew. Not taking off these clothes, not running his hands up and down the soft warmth of his skin, not delighting in the light hairs that went up and down Brian, not taking pleasure in pressing his face to the throat and sternum and breast and stomach, and inhaling him with deep breaths was no option. He would have ached with grief if he didn’t have this lovemaking and tasting and taking.
“Do you want me to sleep here?” Brian whispered when their bodies were pressed together, and Brian’s long legs were wrapped around Donovan’s.
“Yes,” Donovan said, feeling safe and happy.
“Do you want to be in me tonight?” Brian whispered. “You’ve never been in me. I want you to if you want to.”
Donovan nodded. “I do.”
“Good,” Brian said. “I think I’d be sad if that never happened. I think I want that very much tonight.”
Brian took a deep breath and squeezed his thighs tighter around Don. He hugged him tightly and said, “I love you. And if you love me even a little bit like I do you, then that’s good.”
They lay in the dark, quiet except for breathing, and now Donovan said, “Ezekiel.”
“What?” Brian turned on his side.
“You asked me if there was another man, someone else who was on my mind, who I loved.”
“And you said you didn’t want to—”
“Ezekiel. Ezekiel Anders.”
“And why are you talking about him now?”
“Because at this moment I realize how much I love him, by how much I loved you, and I thought that two men who I love so much, should not be secrets from each other.”
“You…”
“Love you.” Don said.

TOMORROW NIGHT WE CATCH UP WITH CADE

 

[CharmedFan28]

I like reading about Donovan and Brian's past. I also look forward to reading what Cade has been up to. Excellent writing and I look forward to more of this story and whatever your big surprise is! I hope you are having a good weekend!

 

[ChrisGibson]

I am having a very interesting weekend. And it is for the most part good.. The surprise, I think, is something you will love. And tomorrow night we will certainly be getting back to Cade.

 

[ChrisGibson]

F I V E





“I hope one day the way you are always there for me, you feel that I am always here for you.”

- Cade Richards


Cademon Richards met his sister in Coloma, and they planned to go on toward New York. He was relieved to not have to talk while he drove. Her husband was leaving her, and she couldn’t carry a child to term. She wondered if she would ever find love. How was Simon? Well, that was too bad with gay marriage being legal and everything. You would have thought that would have taken care of everything. Cade didn’t know what to say to that.
Past eleven o clock they came into Greenfield, and though they had both agreed to stay at the Motel 6 there was, up the street, an old one story hotel with curtains all along its glass wall and a half abandoned parking lot. There was a hooded driveway and the light was on.
“It looks so…” Lyssa began.
“Seedy.”
“Let’s stay.”
And so they did. It wasn’t seedy. The lobby was quiet. The bellhop said there was a pool.
“Will you need two beds or one?” he asked, and Lyssa turned to Cade, not for confirmation, but because the boy with the dark hair and scruff was frankly eyeing him.
“She’s my sister,” Cade said.
“A room with two twin beds then. There’s a pool by the way.”
“We’ll only be staying the night,” Cade said as Lyssa picked up her bag.
“That’s too bad. Here,” the boy in the white shirt and jacket came around the desk. “Let me lead you to your room.”
“There’s nobody else here?” Lyssa heard Cade say.
“Not at this time of night. It’s not like anyone’s coming. This is Greenfield, not Chicago.”
“And I bet even in Chicago the night manager isn’t busy at this time.”
“And here you go,” the young man said. “Hopefully you noticed the pool. We passed it. It would be a shame not to enjoy it.”
“I’m going to enjoy a long shower,” Lyssa said, walking into the room. “And a good night’s sleep. You can enjoy the pool. I’m going to bed.”
“You hit the shower first,” Cade said, tapping the manager on the arm as he slowly turned to leave. “I’ll go in next and then maybe I will visit that pool.”
“Good for you,” Lyssa said, opening her suitcase and taking her toiletries into the bathroom.
“What time is it now?” Cade asked the manager.
He looked at his watch, raised an eyebrow and said, “It is exactly 11:38.”
“Well,” Cade cleared his throat. “I guess that means I’ll come to that pool at exactly 12:20. It’ll be open then, right?”
“Oh, yes,” the manager said. “It’s open all night.”
“And no one ever comes?”
“Nope,” the manager sighed. “You might say it’s the most private place in the hotel.”

Cade was surprised that Lyssa was asleep by the time he got out of the shower. Towel wrapped about him he went to check his phone and saw that it was ten past twelve already. He dressed casually in shorts and a tee shirt, and looked at himelf for just a moment. He had avoided looking at himself naked in the mirror. He was twenty-six and though he felt thrown away, he also knew he looked good. He also knew the trick to everything was not to think too much about it. In unassuming red trunks and a v neck t shirt he made his way to the pool and entered the chlorine scented space where fluorescent light shone on the blue water. He sat down on the edge of the pool and dipped his legs in the water, kicking about slowly. Only a moment later, the door opened to the pool room and the night manager entered.
There was a ripple of water as Cade pulled out his legs and looked up at the night manager, a guy who was good looking, not tall, wavy haired. Pleasant. Suddenly he laughed and the night manager did too.
“I’m Joseph,” he said.
“And you’re free right now?” Cade said.
“I’m as free as I need to be.”
Cade chuckled at that and then said, “I’m Cade.”
He stood up and he was not quite a foot taller than Joseph.
“You have very nice eyes,” Cade said. And then he said, “In fact, you’re nice all around.”
“Thank you, Cade. Thank you,” Joseph said.
“I wish I could offer you….” Cade gestured to the natatorium, “hospitality. But… as you can see… As you know… I don’t really have a room for such things.”
Joseph gave a small laugh and nodded, touching Cade’s elbow.
“Cade…”
“Richards. I’m not one of those who’s afraid to have a last name. Of Wallington, Indiana.”
“Well, Cade Richards of Wallington,” Joseph said. “You are in luck because I happen to be the night manager and that means I have several rooms in which to offer you hospitality. If you’d let me?”
Cade nodded.
“I would be honored to let you.”



Cade’s alarm went off and grey light was coming through the curtains into the hotel room. He stretched out in it, turned over on his back and then pushed up and went to the bathroom to piss loudly before collapsing on his back. A half hour more. He wasn’t quite ready to leave a king sized bed and return to his room with Lyssa.
Last night, or really five hours ago, Joseph had made polite conversation, and then, when they’d gotten to the room, Joseph had reached for his shorts, tugging at them, and Cade had stopped Joseph to undress the dark, wavy haired night manager, to pull his trousers and his underwear down and put him on the bed and take his erection into his mouth. He’d needed to suck a cock, and Joseph’s was perfect. He pulled the boy’s clothes off and admired his perfect body. There were so many boys who were perfect and didn’t know it, who didn’t know how soft their skin with a little bit of hair was, how round and firm their asses were, how good the shape and girth of their cocks. Joseph moaned in pleasure until Cade turned him over, and buried his face in his round ass, surprised by the sweetness of it. Joseph had prepared for this it.
He was also surprised when Joseph ended up fucking him. His legs were over his shoulders, and the boy was fucking him rhythmically, desperately. All sex was desperate. That was what made it worthwhile.
“I need to go. I need to go. I should get back,” the boy kept saying while he fucked him, but Cade’s hands were on his thighs and on his firm ass while Joseph’s hands rested on his shoulders, went down his chest, needed to knead him, to feel another man.

They had lain in the dark, and Joseph said, “You don’t have to leave, Cade. You can stay in here tonight as long as you’re gone by seven.”
“Thanks for that,” Cade said. “I didn’t really want to leave.”
There was no snuggling with Joseph, no real pressing body to body. Cade was old enough, had been with enough men to know that the sex having been done, Joseph didn’t know what else to do with himself.
“I better get back to the desk,” Joseph said, climbing out of bed.
Joseph had not bent to kiss him during sex, and so Cade had not kissed him. Or touched his perfect hair.
“I had a… thank you, Cade,” Joseph said, politely.
Cade used to assume that the weirdness that often occurred in sex was because there were so many closeted fags who couldn’t handle what had just happened. But he had talked to enough women, enough straight people by now, to realize no one could really handle intimacy. Sex was the cigarette even after the cigarette was banned, the bad thing you needed to have, wanted to have, would have, but would feel bad for later, would want twenty miles away from you, buried in the dark. He had thought it was gay men afraid of their lusts because society was afraid of gay men. Now he realized that all of society was afraid of all of desire.
“Goodnight, Cade,” Joseph said.
He opened the door, closed it and left.
It was the dirty ones who were the best lovers. It was the ones who hit you up with a picture of their cock and said they wanted to fuck who stayed around. The polite ones could not last. Sex was not a polite business, and when Cade had pulled on his shorts and tee shirt and left the room, he was not surprised that the person at the front desk was someone new and Joseph had already left.


****************


You ought to be able to let people go. You can ache and pine and think of the times you had, and the love you made, but after a time you have to do what you don’t want to do, which is let them go. You can make the resolve to do it eventually, or right away, in times when they or you are in danger, or again and again every day. But you have to let them go. These are the things that Donovan Shorter told himself, and even after what happened that day, while Brian was still with him, while he still smelled of Brian’s cologne, and the unique salt smell of Brian’s skin, he never changed his mind from this resolve. It’s always good. Always true. But that afternoon he got the letter and he read the letter. Brian was out on a run then, and when he came back, later on, before they ate dinner, he showed the letter to Brian.

I haven’t written or called, and I’m sorry for that. There isn’t much to say and then it’s been so long since I’ve called I don’t really trust my words. I have lied so much. Not to you, but to myself mostly. The voice lies so much. It’s almost as if you can’t stand to hear yourself say certain things.
You probably want to know what I’ve been doing? Maybe you wondered if it was interesting, or if I should have taken you. I don’t really wish to talk about everything because the truth is most of those places would have been better with you at my side.
And do I understand you? I hope I do. Or if I don’t, I hope I do one day. I hope one day the way you are always there for me, you feel that I am always here for you. I hope one day you don’t mind me singing corny songs to you.
Do you know the worst part of a letter? You’re always trying to justify them, make them long enough, wondering if you’ve said everything you need to say. The longer the letter gets, the more you think, I need to write more. More must be written. I am leaving a hotel that I stayed the night at on my way to New York State, not the city. I was on my way to the city when it seemed sort of unfair, shitty really, to go there without you. I was thinking about you so very much that I just sat down and wrote this letter, and then I left these lines right here because I heard the song, and it made me think of you, and in the end, these words sum up everything on my mind. If I had to send this in a ******** I would send you these words. And I would hope you’d understand.

Forever, no matter what
You've got my love to lean on darling
That's what's up
You've got my love to lean on darling
No matter what!

-Cade.

P.S. Even as you read this, I am on my way home.





As Donovan, fully forty, stood in the shower with Brian, washing his back, turning around to let an old friend and very old lover administer to him before he left town, Brian said, “And was that your Cade who called last night?”
“He’s not my Cade, and just because he finally writes a letter doesn’t mean I belong to him.”
“Well, no one said you should. But if he isn’t your Cade, he certainly doesn’t seem to be anyone else’s. Listen.”
“Huh?”
Brian smacked Donovan’s ass, and Don turned around in the shower while the taller man, his salt and pepper hair plastered to his head, looked down at him.
“When he asks you to do something, do it. I know how you look on him.”
“And how is that?”
“The way you look on me. Only I’m going to be gone in a half hour.”

MORE TOMORROW NIGHT

 

[CharmedFan28]

It was good to hear about Cade again and some of his past. I hope Donovan and Cade do end up together somehow but ill just have to wait and see when and if that happens. Great writing and I look forward to more soon!

 

[ChrisGibson]

COMING HOME, CADE MAKES A RESOLUTION, BUT IS IT TOO LATE? DONOVAN TAKES A LOOK AT THE PAST


You are my home, Cade will say. You are my home.

He will say...

I am not at that age anymore where I can be fucked by a nice boy and walk away unscathed, walk away not feeling wounded when he disappears and connection that could have been is cut. I am tired of roaming. There is the road sign that says Wallington, ten miles out, and here is the key you left me in my pocket, and I will come home tonight. And maybe you will be asleep. I will not wake you. I will not even presume to come to the bed. I will stretch out on the couch and sleep. I am coming home.



*******************



(Kokobeam): I think it would be a wonderful idea if you and I got together.

(Calypso): Haha glad you think so.

(Kokobeam): I really do. Crudely put, I'd love to get on my knees for you.

(Calypso): I definitely wouldn't mind that. A little fun every now and then is definitely cool by me.

Only every now and then?

Haha I don't get out much.

A shame I believe in fun whenever possible

We'll have to arrange something What all are you into?

I'm into putting my head between your legs and making long circles with my tongue while I lick your balls and run my tongue up and down your gooch for starters.


Donovan is online with Calypso, the young and slightly hesitant artist he has been talking to for quite some time. Tonight, after a long time of talking shit and missing connections, he is finally coming over.
When Calypso arrives, he is in snug brown pants, and his well muscled arms come from a shirt that is also brown in the high moonlight. He is thin, red bearded, and handsome, blue tattoos like ivy leaves go up and down his arms. He comes into the apartment, and quietly they move about looking at Don’s art, murmuring about life until, at last, Don, also known as Kokobeam, puts his hand on the red head’s thigh. The man looks to him, and Donovan unzips his pants, and then moves to his knees and quickly begins to suck him, taking in the fleshy shaft of his cock, pressing his tongue to the tender V under the head of Calypso’s cock while the white boy moans, Don’s own head moving up and down, then around in circles while Calypso closes his eyes, grips the side of the bed, and arches his neck, staring blindly at the ceiling.

In the midst of such pleasure, neither man hears the door opening below, or quiet feet coming up, or the door to the very living room opening. Neither sees the tall traveler, home from roaming, from finding himself.
Cademon Richards will later remind himself that Don is not Penelope and he is no Odysseus. Before he sees anything, Cade hears whimpering in the dark. By the moonlight, through the open windows, he sees the white back of a man about Don’s size, sees him curled up, his buttocks flexing as he pushes and pushes, sees Don’s dark legs curled around him, sees Don’s arms reaching about the man’s waist as, mouths full, they struggle and moan and, occasionally swear. Cade’s hands slip into his shorts. He doesn’t leave. He leans against the door. As one of them groans and one of them mutters, mouth full, “Oh… fuck…”
Watching their sixty nine Cade can’t stop touching himself. At the same time as Don grapples to pull this man deeper into his mouth, Cade feels like he is the one shamed, exposed, a little jilted, still full of lust. As they both moan and stagger, and Don and Calypso’s bodies shake, Cade stops himself from making noise the surprised noise, shudders, shakes, feels his cock jumping from him like a fish, spurting into hands now slick with hot come.
Dazed and amazed by his reaction, he steps back to slowly close the door behind him, heading down the stairs to sit in his SUV, stuck to himself. He pulls off his shorts, then his underwear and wipes himself down with a bottle of water and an old tee shirt, then waits until the man leaves. Cade needs to make a better entrance. He knows this is his punishment for being gone so long, for fucking Joseph, for getting fucked by Simon before he left. For blowing a trucker in Michigan, for being totally without resolve though he is always deeply in love.


************


Donovan remembers being seventeen, one evening dressing three different times. There were things he knew would just be silly to wear. He wasn’t going to wear a tie, for instance. But it was winter, and he was walking. Well, he couldn’t wear that big, ugly, puffed coat. He wished he could drive. He wished he’d called Antonia and asked her to drive him. But then he’d have to explain. Well… He’d just take the moped and wear the pea coat with the face mask. That would look hot, and keep him warm. He thought about cologne, and then thought against it. Then he thought that spraying it lightly on his clothes, on the thin checked shirt over his under shirt was a good idea.
“You got a hot date or something?” Dad popped his head in the bedroom.
“Something,” Don said with laugh. Dad didn’t push it. Don didn’t know what he would have done if he had.
Then he was off with a lightness of heart, whizzing through the old professorial houses of Colby Street, and out onto Twychenham, remembering the directions to the apartments.
There were no street names, just letters. D5 and D6, and you had to find D8-5, some nonsense like that. He’d been given very detailed directions. He whizzed around a little frustrated, and a little cold before he arrived at the newly built D9-5, and a few minutes later, on the second level, a door came open and there he was. Taller, better looking than in his pictures. Even with his glasses. His blond hair was spiked, and he had a very straight, upright bearing, like a professor in training. He was wearing a green canvas coat like English men in the moors did in those BBC movies.
“Shorterwriter?” he said.
“Zeketastic?”
Ezekiel Anders grinned.
“You wanna take my car? It’s the Land Rover over there.”
“It beats my moped.”
“All right then,” Ezekiel said, offering a nervous smile. He led Don over to the Land Rover, taking his keys out, and there was a little siren sound as he unlocked Don’s door first, and then climbed in. They sat together.
“I’ve got roommates,” Ezekiel explained.
“I know what you mean,” said Don.
Ezekiel turned around as he pulled the stick shift, and they reversed from the parking lot, swiveling out through the graduate student apartments to Mason Road.
“Okay, now, you’ll have to direct me,” Ezekiel said, “because you know this town better.”
“Just go straight down Mason,” said Don, “until you get to Arabella. It’s the second light. Then you go north. Everything is up north.”
Jerkily, the Land Rover turned around and then leapt down the road. Neither of them said anything, but Ezekiel slipped his hand into Don’s, holding it firmly.
“So,” Don said after they stopped at the light on Arabella. “We could go to a coffee shop, or dinner. Or… what would you like?”
“I think I’d like…” Ezekiel began, paying even closer attention to the road as his sweating palm gripped Don’s more firmly.
“You said something about we could get a motel room?”
Ezekiel didn’t betray any expression. His light turned green and, jerkily, they turned left, heading north.
Don placed his hand on Ezekiel’s thigh. He stole a look at him and then, looking away, let his hand go higher. Ezekiel seemed shaky and nervous. If he wasn’t lying, and he seemed not to be, then Ezekiel was ten years old than him.
“I was thinking—” Ezekiel began, and then gasped as Don’s hand went higher.
“I’d like that,” said Don. “A room.”

“You get the room from tonight until noon tomorrow,” the woman was saying.
So much of his younger sex would take place in these motel rooms with slightly older, and then increasingly younger white men.
Looking around, Don thought this had to be the most sterile Motel Six in the world.
“Yes,” said Ezekiel, handing her his credit card. “This is my brother-in-law, Giles. We’ve been out on the road all night. From Georgia.”
The woman nodded as she handed him a receipt to sign.
“Ice is over there, and there’s a continental breakfast served in the morning, but I-HOP is right down the street. With a Dennys and Burger King.”
“Oh, thanks, we don’t know this town at all…” Ezekiel lied.
From the corner of his eyes Don observed him. They were the same height, though Ezekiel might have been a little thinner, and he was very pale. His hair was reddish gold, Don saw that now, and he had very long hands. His eyes were a nice blue through his brass rimmed spectacles. Under his coat he was wearing a fawn blazer over a white shirt along with some dark pants. He didn’t have a tie on though. This Ezekiel was one of those hot dorks you saw in the movies who, once they took off their glasses, would be beautiful. But he talked too much. The secret to a good lie was to say as little as possible, and the secret to a good liar was to be one only when necessary.

On their way to the room, going up the jangling metal steps, they caught hands tentatively. Then Ezekiel unlocked the door, and opened it with a grunt. Don came in and shut it behind him.
Ezekiel stood there face to face with Don. He cupped the boy’s face in his hands worshipfully.
“You’re so beautiful,” he said.
Don’s face turned hot.
Ezekiel sat on one of the twin beds like someone studying something rare. He looked very much like a PhD candidate right now. He stroked his chin.
“We should take this slow,” Ezekiel was murmuring, as if to himself. “I want to be so gentle with you.”
“I don’t want you to,” Don heard himself saying. “I don’t want you to be gentle at all.”


“Oh—YES!”
Sweat dripping into his eyes, hands planted on the surface of the wooden dresser that banged against the wall, Ezekiel slammed into Don over and over again.
“Oh!” Don gasped. “Oh, God!”
His face flushed, and damp with sweat, he reached behind him, running his hand over Ezekiel’s damp head, running it down his back, pulling him in.
“Fuck me,” he whispered. “Fuck me!”
Ezekiel shook his face and growled something, fucking Don harder.
Ezekiel chanted between a gasp and a growl: “Jeees… Jesus! Jesus fuck Jesus Fuck Jesus—”
Until Ezekiel rose up on the balls of his feet and, with a shout, came.




“That’s not like me at all,” Ezekiel said when they lay side by side in bed later.
After they had fucked, after they had made love, and gotten off, and spent themselves and were exhausted, Don lay beside him and said:
“It’s not me either.”
“No, I’m not just saying that.” Ezekiel seemed to be mildly irritated, or at least confused. “I’m so cautious. I’m so… I take things slowly. God… I go to church. Only, I don’t know since we’ve started talking, it started with talking, and then when you said you wouldn’t mind going to bed with me. I… I’ve been so fucking horny for so long. It’s been a long time since I was with someone. It’s just like… I didn’t have any control.”
Don just lay there listening to him.
“And then,” Ezekiel continued, “You’re just so fucking hot. You really are, you’re so beautiful. Guys must fawn all over you all the time, and you didn’t hold anything back. It was too much.”
Don was red.
“You’re making me feel sexy again.”
With the first hint of a sly grin Ezekiel lay back in bed and said, “Well, you are sexy. All the time.”
“Is any gay guy sexy all the time?” Don said, leaning up over him. “Because half the time I just feel like an awkward loser none of the right people are looking at.”
Ezekiel laughed lightly, and his gaze turned inward.
“I know what you mean. I… I just really was lonely. You know? Not just horny. And I was looking forward to getting to know you and everything. And now maybe we’ve fucked it up.”
“Why?”
“Because of this.”
“God,” Don said, lying on his back, “we’re not straight, you know? It’s not the same. It can’t be the same. We’re…. It’s not that many of us. It’s no one to show us how to do it, or what’s right. Or what’s wrong. I mean, I planned to do a little something. I wanted to have a little sex. I didn’t plan on like… Everything we did, but…” Don put his hands up in the air like he was groping for the right word.
Ezekiel said, “Everyday of my life I am so fucking responsible. I am. I’m the good son. I was the chief altar boy at Mass. I’m always the person I’m supposed to be. But I have needs. Apparently more than I thought I did.”
Don grinned, nodding his head.
Don turned to him. “Why can’t we be friends? Why can’t we be whatever we wanted to be? Why… If you’re good, and I’m good and you’re lonely and upstanding and I’m lonely and upstanding, maybe we needed this. I think you did. You felt like you did. I needed it to. And we didn’t hurt anybody.”
“When did you know?” Ezekiel said.
“Hum?”
“That you were different?”
“Gay?”
“Yeah. But, that’s what it is really. You’re different. You don’t fit in.”
“Don’t you always know? Don’t you know at five, or six? Not the sex thing? But the different thing. Certainly. And then I have a cousin, and he has a boyfriend.”
“Really?”
“Yeah,” Don said. “It’s not that uncommon. They’re in their thirties, but they’re into each other like teenagers, and it made me kinda curious and…”
“Horny?”
“Yeah,” said Don. “So I knew. Other guys would talk about girls. But I knew.”
“The first time I was with a guy,” Ezekiel began, “I guess he was gay. He said he was straight but, I guess he must have been gay too, and he asked me if… I’d do stuff with him. I just did it. I don’t want to go into it right now. But… I mean whenever he asked I’d just do stuff to him, or he would do stuff to me. And it wasn’t really abuse. I don’t guess. He didn’t force me. But, I always felt like shit when it was over. And I’m tired of feeling like shit every time I get finished messing with a guy. I want it to be… My choice.”
“And this time?” Don said.
Ezekiel said, “This time it feels just right.”

***********


Cade had sat in the car, waiting for Calypso to leave. As he left, Cade thought how attractive he was, how he would have fucked him and was a little surprised that the two of them had stopped at mutual blowjobs. After Calypso’s car had pulled off, Cade debated going in, but there was no place else to go. Except Simon’s, and that was the opposite of everything he wanted to do.
He drove to Taco Bell and back, and ended up in Don’s apartment, the two of them sitting on the porch before each other with nachos between them.
Donovan asks himself if he believes Cade has been sleeping alone all this summer. He doesn’t know, and he doesn’t really care. Those first few weeks when he was in love with Cade, his love for this man ruined his chances of getting laid anywhere else. And then there came the time when he and Cade were having furious sex, and after Cade left to find himself, Don decided he was too old to be a pining virgin. Things happened. That was the best way to put it. But when Brian came, that old love that was such a good love, he was primed. The truth was, far from good love sating you, it only made you want more. Even a letter from Cade saying he was coming home could not keep Don from contacting Calypso.
“Right now,” Cade states, “I want us to sort of just rediscover what it was to be friends. See if we can live that way.”
Part of Donovan Shorter wonders if Cade can smell the sex in this house, if Cade knows he was naked with Calypso only an hour ago.
What Donovan says, though, is, “That’s a good idea.”

 

[CharmedFan28]

I liked this portion. It was good to read some of the past and some of the present. Cade and Donovan have a complicated relationship and I look forward to reading what happens with them next! Great writing!

 

[ChrisGibson]

It is definitely complicated. What do you think makes it so?

 

[CharmedFan28]

It seems to me to be complicated because they can't decide whether to be friends or lovers.

 

[ChrisGibson]

That is an idea. I'm not sure it's the right idea, but it is an idea.

 

[ChrisGibson]

TONIGHT WE LEARN MORE ABOUT DONOVAN'S PAST WITH EZEKIEL


SECOND
ATTEMPT




S I X





“Sex isn’t shitting.”
- Cademon Richards



Those last few minutes, when Donovan was winding up the road to the coffee shop, and when he was parking in the lot outside of it, his hands cold with the winter air, the wind stinging his cheeks red, his heart beat faster. He thought, he won’t really come. We won’t really meet. Something’ll come up. He won’t really be there.
But Ezekiel was already there when Donovan came in. His coat was behind his chair, and he rose from the table in that fawn colored blazer with the smile on his face. He was wearing a light blue shirt tonight, open at the collar, and he crossed the barely crowded room to Donovan.
“I didn’t mean to be late,” Donovan said, coming forward.
“You weren’t. I was early. I got finished with work, and then there just wasn’t much else to do. I didn’t want to hang around the apartment, you know? So I came here. Oh, my gosh, you’re so cold!”
“Not really,” Donovan shrugged, though now he realized just how cold he was.
Not entirely convinced, Ezekiel also shrugged, and then said, “Let’s order.”
At the counter Donovan asked the girl, “What’s best?”
“Well, we’ve got this coconut mocha special I think is really good. It comes in tall and large and extra large because we’re trying to be like Starbucks and don’t sell a small anymore.”
She sighed with her fist under her chin to indicate how she felt about it.
“It does look good,” Donovan said. “It’s a little steep though. I’m not used to paying for coffee.”
“Don’t worry about price. I’ve got it,” Ezekiel said.
“I’m not worried about it,” Donovan said. “I just think it’s sort of ridiculous to pay the same amount for a cup of coffee you would pay for a whole canister at the grocery store.”
The girl sniggered but Ezekiel said, “Forgive my friend. He thinks he’s forty-five. I…” Ezekiel looked over the list, “do not think it’s ridiculous, and I’ll take one for me, one for my stingy friend here, and a couple of cannoli.”
“You’re going to break your graduate student bank,” said Donovan.
“It’s meant to be broken,” Ezekiel said. Putting his hand on Donovan’s hair, wondering what that looked like, what it felt like, looking to Donovan to see if he’d noticed or cared. He didn’t, and so Ezekiel decided not to care as well.
“Whaddid you do today?” Donovan asked him.
“Well, I had this three hour long course on the Peloponnesian War which is stimulating, but confusing. Basically all you need to know is that in ancient Greece everyone has the same name, and everyone betrays everyone and nobody trusts anybody else. I can’t remember the names of half the places, and that’s funny because I could when I was an undergraduate. Tomorrow I attend a lecture on the early Roman Empire.”
“You mean during the late Republic or with the Julio-Claudians?”
Ezekiel blinked at Donovan.
“What? You thought I was just some ignoramus who was fun to fuck?”
Even though he’d laughed when he said it, Ezekiel turned red and said softly, “No, Donovan, I didn’t think that at all.”
Donovan wondered if he should have said that. Some of his experiences had given him a rough tongue. He wasn’t always gentle. Ezekiel was probably one of those who coped by being gentle. He might say the word ‘fuck’ in bed, like while they were fucking, but not out of it. Not here.
Donovan said, “I’m not smart. I just saw I Claudius three times.”
Ezekiel grinned again. “It’s the first in a three part lecture on the Julio-Claudians actually. And we’ll be reading The Annals.”
“Of Tacitus?”
“Yes. You’re an undergrad. What school do you go to where they teach that?”
“No school. I mean, City—on the south end of town. But, I’ve just always been into history and art. I love early Roman history. Most kids wanted video games. I asked my Dad to get me the unabridged Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire? How dorky is that?”
Ezekiel grinned at him. He wanted to touch his hand. He did it quickly.
“Pretty dorky. You’re pretty dorky, Don.”
“You’re pretty dorky yourself,” Donovan said admiringly.
“I do try.”
“Coffees,” the girl called. “Two coconut mochas, two cannoli.”
Ezekiel got up and came back a few moments later to the table.
“Wow! They’re so big,” Donovan said when he saw Ezekiel coming with the tray bearing the large red and blue mugs, and the tray of cannoli.
Ezekiel took the first sip.
“How is it?”
“This,” Ezekiel pointed to the mug, “makes me glad to be alive.”
“Wow. So you’re saying it’s worth four-fifty.”
Ezekiel gestured to the mug, “You be the judge.”
Donovan lifted the large red mug and sipped, then nodded his head.
“Um… It is good. I would agree… It’s worth your four-fifty.”
Ezekiel laughed. “Your own coffee must be really good.”
“I can make this,” Donovan pointed to the coffee. “I can make all sorts of coffees. I’m like a master.”
“A regular barista.”
“If barista wasn’t the lamest name in the world, then yes,” Donovan said. “One day I will make you coffee, and you will agree with me.”
They sipped coffee and listened to the music with their elbows on the table. Donovan looked around at the dimly lit coffee house. Finally he said, “What is this music?”
“It’s Indian.”
“I thought so. I was getting it confused with North African music. I wonder who it is. Listen to those drums, like rain. And the zither. It just takes its time. It’s in no fucking hurry. Ah…”
Donovan stopped as the zither playing increased. “Now it is.”
“No. Now it’s dancing,” Ezekiel said. “Zithers never sound like they’re racing, not like guitars. They’re just sort of…” Ezekiel hummed a little and moved in his seat: “Dancing.”
The girl came around near their table and Donovan said, “Excuse me, but do you know what this CD is?”
“I can check,” she was going back to the kitchen.
“Not if you’re busy.”
“I make it a point to never be busy,” she said as she disappeared.
A second later she returned with the CD case and read: “Wajahat Khan. Indian Raags.”
“Thank you,” Ezekiel said.
“It reminds me of the end of Gandhi. The last piece of music the movie goes out on,” Ezekiel was saying as the girl left.
“I think Ravi Shankar does that,” Donovan said.
Ezekiel made a vow to not be surprised, but Donovan saw it.
“It’s not you,” Ezekiel said. “It’s… everyone. No one knows anything, no one… cares about anything. And you know all this stuff.”
Donovan said, “Toward the end of the movie there is this one part that’s really sad, but at the same time… beautiful I guess. Ghandhi has walked away for a bit, and it’s Meribehn and Candace Berghen’s character. Meribehn says, ‘He feels like he’s failed because for one moment he offered the world a way out of madness, and the world refused.’”
Ezekiel was quiet.
“That is sad and beautiful. Maybe cause it’s true. The world is mad, isn’t it? In both senses of the word. Driven crazy and driven angry. But the idea that there is a way out of it, that you can escape it if it’s offered you…”
“People always talk about Eighties movies being bad, but I love the English ones,” Donovan said. “Jewel in the Crown, Maurice. It’s like English people got obsessed with how they’d screwed up in the past and started looking for how we could do it in the present.”
Ezekiel was nodding with his mouth half open, thoughtfully.
“You saw Maurice ?”
“God, yes! It’s like Brokeback Mountain wishes it was Maurice. When that guy just climbs through the window, ‘I heard you calling for me!’ Donovan imitated a cockney accent, “and then just gets naked and he and Maurice make love all night…”
Ezekiel said, “Did you ever read the book?”
“No. Not yet.
“There’s this part,” Ezekiel raised a finger.

“France or Italy, for instance. There homosexuality is no longer criminal.”
“You mean that a Frenchman could share with a friend and yet not go to prison?”
“Share?” Donovan interrupted.
“Yes. That’s what they call it… Sharing.”
“Um,” Donovan smiled, “do you think that maybe…” he leaned in and whispered, “we could find some place to share?”
Ezekiel was dry mouthed with desire, and then he said, “Well… “I’ll see what I can do.”
“Share…” Donovan said thoughtfully. “Please continue.”
Ezekiel shook sex out of his head, and remembered.
“Ah, yeah… Then he says:

“Do you mean unite? If both are of age and avoid public indecency, certainly.”
“Will the law ever be that in England?”
“I doubt it. England has always been disinclined to accept human nature.”
Maurice understood. He was an Englishman himself, and only his troubles had kept him awake.”

Donovan grinned and Ezekiel said, “Sometimes I feel like I’ve spent half of my life in England too. You know?

MORE ON THURSDAY

 

[CharmedFan28]

I like Ezekiel so it was nice to read about his and Donovan's past. I love your Rossford stories but this is a delightful change of pace! Great writing and I look forward to more in a few days!

 

[ChrisGibson]

Oh, yes. I'm glad you said that. Because I didnt always want to be doing the same thing. And as much as I love Rossford, that is a particular type of story and a particular type of storytelling for a particular time, and I always want to be doing something different. The whole time with Cade and Donovan I really felt like something different was happening, so thank you for that.

 

[ChrisGibson]

DONOVAN


At this moment, things are old. The summer is ended. Everything feels old when the new school year begins, and though we are all glad to see each other, though we embrace, things are still old, not entirely right. Everything is changed. The pre-school was a great addition to school. Now the pre-schoolers are gone, and we have twice as many students, students from nowhere, students from worse schools. In addition to this, the day has been lengthened. I can’t see doing this much longer. But this is not a story about work. Work never really interested me much. It’s the thing that pays your rent so you can go on living, and this is a story about love, and about desire. All you have to do to imagine these new and strange late August days, is picture a student dragged down the hall by cops, screaming.
“It sounds REALLY shitty,” Cade says.
Because I am a friend, I don’t ask him about going back to Head Start. He’s said nothing about work. He’s been living in that apartment across the river with his ex. You know I can’t stop wondering if they still occasionally sleep together. After all, when they were together they weren’t really together, so what’s happening now?
“Can you picture me in an office job?” Cade said.
“Not really.”
“I’m going to try it. Shirt and tie. Stuart and Bachman and Sanders on Monday.”
I realize I will always do this crazy education shit because the idea of a cubicle makes me shudder far more than fifth graders.
“But this weekend I’d like us to go to the beach.”
“Where?”
“Do you remember how me and Simon split up in New Union?”
I will give this to Cade. He’s always insistent about not being a victim. He never says, when Simon left me, or when Simon dumped me.
“Yes.”
“Well, he’d gotten us a room for this weekend. Presumably to fuck some more people. He told me I should take you, and we should enjoy it, and I know you love the beach, so—”
“How soon do we leave?” I say, springing to life.
“How soon can you be ready?”




**********



“This day is the perfect combination of hot and gloomy,” Donovan said.
“Should we wait till next week?”
“No, and I notice you’re getting into the driver’s seat anyway. It will be just as cloudy and gloomy and just as overheated if we stay here. We can’t wait for the perfect moment. We just have to go.”
“I need to go,” Cade says in a voice that almost sounds like defeat.
A half hour later, after too many errands and what seemed like too much driving, Donovan looked at the sparsely spaced houses and asked, “Are we still in town?”
“I don’t know, but I don’t think so,” Cade said. “It’s hard to tell exactly where things end.”
It was hard to tell where the city blended into the surrounding towns, but it was not hard to tell when they were finally gone. Suddenly farm fields stretched themselves out on either side, and the trees went back further. What had been stands of ten or so pines became deep copses, opening up into little valleys hiding ponds and streams that went down to secret places, and the sky, so cramped in town, opened itself up so that even in the grayness of this warm day, occasional drops spitting on the ground, smacking the windows, Donovan was amazed by the length and height of so great a sky, and the variations in its enormous mottled white, grey and black and silver.
Cade fiddled around with the radio and eighties music, oldies, or the newest new songs whined through making half efforts against bad reception, and then flew away on the radio waves.
“This is annoying,” Cade said, and in the air conditioned darkness of the SUV, he clicked the radio off and they drove on in silence.
Suddenly Cade threw back his head and sang:

“‘Oh, slack your horse,’ cries George,
“Come slack it for a while,”

And, then Donovan, looked to him, surprised, but unlike Simon who would have just kept looking surprised, Donovan replied:

“‘For I think I see my father
Coming over yonder style.’”

And they both sang, Cade’s voice falling lower than Donovan’s

“‘Did you bring gold?
Did you bring silver to set me free?
For to keep my body from the cold jail wall
And me neck from the high gallows tree.’”

“Ah, so see,” Cade said, “We don’t need the radio. “We are self entertaining.”


They drove into town through a heavy rain, but the rain was quickly over, and after it, though the sun did not come out, the sky was less grey and the water cooler.
“I wanted to go to the beach,” Cade said. “I guess the sand is soaked now.”
“It’s a beach so sand will always be wet,” Donovan noted. “I feel like the water’s the first thing we should visit.”
“And the second?”
“Bed,” Donovan said. “I was up all night, and I know you did the driving, and I could have slept, but a shower and a hotel bed seem just right.”
“Yes,” Cade said. “I’ve been on vacation all summer, and yet for some reason, I feel like I could sleep like the dead.”

The lake was grey when they came to it, the waves sharp, oily triangles, and above the sky was going dark all over again.
“How long should we stay?” Cade said.
“I don’t imagine we’ll melt,” Donovan said.
They stayed until the sky was black, and there was lightning overhead and then, as they were walking quickly to the SUV, they heard others say, “Fine weekend to come to the beach!” But as the lightning skipped over the surface of the rippling waters, Donovan thought, “It is the perfect time to come to the beach.”
In the hotel room the lights went out, but only for a while. Donovan had brought pillar candles with him, and began to light them about the room so that the darkness was filled with rose colored lights and blue lights and budding pink lights, and then he sat before the glass doors that opened to the balcony, and opened them, looking out into the grey green afternoon darkness of the storm. Cade was playing his guitar and singing.

“The trees they so grow high,
the leaves they do grow green
Many is the time my true love I've seen
Many an hour I have watched him all alone
He's young,
but he's daily growing.”



When the lights came back on, first with a shuddering flicker before returning fully, and across from them they could see the other lights in the hotel, Cade got up and shut them off and kept singing, while Donovan burned incense, and sat watching the storm.
They drove to Villa Novas, brought back pizza, and sat typing, Donovan in a chair before the window where the storm was lifting and the evening was settling, Cade on the bed, legs crossed under him.

-I’m going to say something horrible, and you should listen.”

Cade typed back:

-Alright
-I love talking to you all night.
-I love talking to you too.
-But the reason I’m on here all night is because my relationship is dying and I don’t talk to my boyfriend anymore. So why are you on here?”

Cade was surprised by this. He thought a while and then he said:

-I like us talking.

He waited for the black space to be filled with words, and then he typed:

-I want you to talk to someone in your town and meet people.
-I don’t know if I want to meet anyone.
-You can’t live that way.


Then a few moments later Cade wrote:

-Try to be happy. And then tell me how you do. I’ll talk to you tomorrow. Have fun in Chicago.

A moment later his friend typed back:

-We’re not in Chicago.
-Where?
-New Union.
-Get out.
-Why?
-It’s where I am too.

A few more moments later, Andrew typed:

-We should meet.

Cade looked around. He looked at Donovan, typing. He typed.

-I feel like we already did. I’m sure we did. I think you and your boyfriend—I think we had a three way. I don’t know if you remember it.

-It’s something we sort of do all the time.

Then Andrew typed:

-Would you like to meet?
-And have a three way again?

Cade was surprised that his dick was getting hard, but he typed:

-No.

And then.

-If you want I guess.

Then:

-I meant we could meet someplace and talk. If you want.

Cade said: “I’m going to go on a walk. Do you mind?”
“Does it involve getting laid?”
“It might,” Cade said, honestly. “But I doubt it.”
“Well,” Donovan shrugged, looking back. “Wear a raincoat. Or… wear a raincoat.”



It took a while for me to notice,” Andrew said. “But it is you.”
He shook Cade’s hand and embraced him, and they sat outside of the little ice cream shop.
“You look so different…”
“In clothes,” Cade said.
Andrew laughed and said, “Yeah. So, why are you here? With your boyfriend?”
“No. We broke up,” Cade said. “We broke up the same weekend as… you know. All of that.”
“Yeah,” Andrew said, steepling his fingers. He had thick black glasses, and Cade said, “It’s sort of fucked up. How you meet all these people to fuck, and then they could have made great friends. Like, we’re two normal people right here, and, I dunno.”
“I guess it all turned out alright,” Andrew said. “Yeah. We’re here.”
“So,” Cade said, stretching, “Do you and… what’s his name?”
“Cory.”
“Do you all come for the sights?”
Andrew looked around. Now that it was night there was no difference between a stormy day and a sunny one.
“We come to fuck. Cory thinks it’s neat if we do it away from home.”
“Or maybe he thinks it’s like shitting in your own bed to do it where you live. Which is a shame, cause sex isn’t shitting.”
“Good point.”
“Do you like it?” Cade said.
“Huh?”
“Now that I’ve broke up with Simon, I’m thinking about all the things I did that I’m not sure if I actually wanted to do. I was just curious.”
“I like it sometimes. I like you,” Andrew said.
He said, “We’re getting with a couple. Cory let me pick them. You can come. It would be cool.”
When Andrew said it, Cade was so stiff he realized that he had walked into everything Simon had introduced willingly, especially that night, when he had gotten with Andrew and his boyfriend. But he could remember everything after and so he said, “That’s very cool of you, but no. Besides, I have a friend waiting for me.”
“A he friend or a she friend.”
“A he friend.”
“Like a boyfriend?” Andrew raised his eyebrow.
Cade thought of saying that he had slept with Donovan, but instead he said, “A friend who is very important to me.”
“Well, then,” Andrew said. “Yeah. So… No crazy sex parties.”
“I’m afraid not.”
Andrew lifted his coffee and took another sip.
“We’re going to keep being friends, right? Talking?”
“Yeah!” Cade said. “Definitely.”
“I gotta ask you this. I will regret not asking.”
“Okay.”
“I get you don’t want a sex party and all that. But…. What about something else?

****************


“Ahhhhh! Ahh! Oh, God!”
Ezekiel’s hands went over Donovan’s mouth, and as he leaned into him harder he whispered, “Quiet. Quiet… Ooooh!” The quickly rising pleasure caught him. He didn’t want to finish right away, but they couldn’t stay forever, and so he whispered into Donovan’s ears and into his tight damp curls: “Are you ready?”
Face drawn, looking at himself in the mirror, and then staring into the basin he panted, “Yes.”
Ezekiel pulled out of him. They came at the same time with two, prolonged, body rocking groans, and then Ezekiel was collapsed against Donovan in the large locked bathroom of the coffee shop.
At last Donovan said, “We’ve simply got to stop meeting like this,” and reached for the paper towels, wetting them to wipe semen from his back and buttocks, from Ezekiel’s half stiff penis, and from his stomach. On impulse he kissed Ezekiel there, and then took him in his mouth. Then he let him go, wiping him down again.
“You’re not good for me, Don,” Ezekiel said, pulling up his trousers and buckling them. “You make me feel like an undergrad all over again. I’m supposed to be so responsible.”
Donovan had turned and was washing his hands and taking the brush to his hair.
“No, Ezekiel, I think you were probably pretty by-the-book as an undergrad, too.”
“You’re right,” Ezekiel said, leaning in to wash his hands. “I was pretty… Un-fun. Ey, what are you doing?”
Donovan had grabbed Ezekiel’s face, and now he was wetting his hair.
“I’m gonna spike your hair. Now come on, let’s get the hell out of here before someone wonders what’s going on. You first. Me second.”
“And then we’ll load your moped into the back of my van.”
“I already told you—”
“And I already told you,” Ezekiel lifted a finger, “that it’s cold. I’m taking you home. I won’t come in. I understand, but I will take you home.”
Donovan shrugged and then, turning the handle of the bathroom door, left.

It had been Donovan who suggested sex as they were finishing the coffee. He whispered it, leaning across the table. Ezekiel turned red and pushed his glasses up over his beautiful eyes.
“I could go in first, and you could make like you were going out. And then there’s this back way. You could come in through the back way, meet me in the bathroom. Or you could just come in a few minutes later if you don’t give a fuck.”
“I wish I didn’t give a fuck, as you say. The way you don’t.”
“I’m getting up and going now.”
“Donovan, we can’t,” Ezekiel made a small grab for him. It was only about four people in the coffee house.
“I’ll see you in about three minutes,” Donovan said, walking toward the bathroom.
Ezekiel didn’t take three minutes. He came eager, curious and half afraid. Donovan reached behind him and closed the door. Then he grabbed him by the face and pulled him in, kissing him. The two of them quickly, gently, unbuckled their belts and pulled down jeans and trousers, lifted up shirts…
“Sharing,” Donovan chuckled. “Uniting!”

 

[CharmedFan28]

I am enjoying this story quite a bit! I have no idea what is going to happen with Cade and Donovan but I am liking the journey to wherever this story ends up. Great writing and I look forward to more in a few days. Sorry for the late response I was out visiting relatives all day. Have a wonderful weekend!

 

[ChrisGibson]

Well, in part one they had their first attempt, and now they are in part two having a second attempt at whatever the two of them are supposed to be. The first try was full of flaws and now we will see what this second one produces. I hope this story made your day nice. It is one of my favorites.

 

[ChrisGibson]

Donovan had Ezekiel stop the car on the corner of Colby.
“The truth is, and you better know it: I live with my family.”
“Oh,” said Ezekiel. Then, “Let me help you pull the moped down.”
“I mean,” Donovan resumed when they’d opened the back and were pulling down the moped, “I don’t want you to think I’m ashamed of being gay, and hiding you from my frat buddies, or anything like that. Not that you’d put up with that crap anyway. But… I didn’t want you to think that was me. So you have to know the embarrassing truth.”
Ezekiel smiled and said, “I get it.”
“Say that again.”
“Say what?”
“Say… ‘I get it’. The way you did.”
Ezekiel frowned at him.
“The way your voice sounded… when you said that. That was just, really… nice.”
“Well, then… I get it.”
“It’s not the same,” Donovan said, mounting the moped and starting it. “But… It’s still nice.”
He pulled Ezekiel’s face down to his, and kissed him on the mouth.
And then he was zooming around the corner, up Colby.
He could still feel Ezekiel’s mouth on his, and on his neck. He could still feel Ezekiel’s chest and stomach against his back, Ezekiel in him, and through him, his penis, swelling and pumping in his mouth, the warm touch of the palm of his hand. He pushed out of his head the thorny reminder that Ezekiel Anders was a decade older than him, and had no idea that Donovan was in high school.
It doesn’t matter. That’s small stuff. Small, small, small stuff. I’ll get past it. I love him. I really do love him.
I love him. I have never really loved anyone before, not like this.
He could love like this because for the first time he had been loved, and so he knew that it would be alright.



While Don is in his hotel room and Cade is out, he types on the computer to Ezekiel, and Zeke tells him about those feelings he had, the night after they made love in a coffee shop, when he couldn’t get enough of him.
Ezekiel tells him how he wished he lived alone because if he did, he wouldn’t have these feelings stuck inside of him. He would be able to shout them out. He and Donovan could fuck them out. Never had he felt so cramped as now, when he had to come back to his place and be Ezekiel Anders who had no life and no love and listen to his roommate go on about his love life, its trials and pitfalls. Not when he had just left Donovan.
And how would Kirk, his semi-friend, feel about the fact that Donovan was so much more fantastic than that pale girl with the glasses and long face he was fooling around with? Would he even have the sense to know a beautiful man was better than a homely woman everyday? He wanted someone who understood his world. He wished he had more gay friends just so they would know enough to be jealous of his good fortune.
“Did you get work done at the coffee house?” Kirk said.
“A little. Met someone.”
“A nice girl or a nice guy?”
Ezekiel had made the announcement, maybe with a little too much aplomb, that he was gay, but it had never taken. Kirk insisted on maintaining the fiction that Ezekiel was bisexual. He’d run into this before. He wasn’t going to press it. His whole early life he’d spent trying to convince people he wasn’t gay. Now that he’d declared it, there was nothing short of being sodomized while standing on his head to convince someone.
“Well, a nice guy.”
“Cool! I’ve thought about trying that out. Don’t tell my girlfriend and all. But, I mean, I like pussy. I really like pussy. But apparently there’s something to the other side. I mean, it seems to work for you.”
Ezekiel shrugged. He wondered if he was Kirk’s gay friend? Kirk was the kind of person who would get kicks out of going home for the holidays and telling his family, “I’ve got this gay friend,” or “My gay friend Ezekiel says…”
“The way Sara’s getting on me about stuff, she wants so much shit. Buy me this, buy me that, and we can’t afford it. I mean I can’t. She isn’t doing shit, well, sometimes I think it would be easier to have a guy.”
Ezekiel didn’t disavow Kirk of the assumption that a boyfriend would be just like having a buddy or a bro or whatever term he was using. A lot of fresh out of the closet or half out of the closet or jumping out to sneak a little action for a bit guys thought that. And that always screwed you up in the end, the revelation that men were about twice as needy and emotional as women, that you, who thought you were so cool and straight acting could so easily be unhinged and rattled by another man when he knew your secrets, when he’d made you moan in the dark and you’d done things to him and for him that you’d laughed at and said you’d never do.
“I gotta be up early,” Ezekiel said by way of farewell. “You mind if I hit the shower?”
“Not at all my man. Give my regards to Dr. Barclay tomorrow.”
“I didn’t even know you knew who Evan Barclay was,” Ezekiel said, heading down the hallway.
“Well, I’ve heard of him. And he gave a lecture I went to. I don’t mean a school one, but one of those public ones, last year. Sara had us go. It was pretty cool.”
“Well,” Ezekiel said, feeling sort of at a loss, “he’s a pretty cool professor.”
He could not think of class right now. What he was thinking of was Donovan. He was trying to decide what type of body he had. Was it a football player’s? He could have played football. Ezekiel wasn’t familiar with the game. He was tall enough, broad shouldered. The way his ass had looked in those old jeans, when Ezekiel watched him walk away, so assured that Ezekiel would follow him. the tee shirt that his shoulder blades shot out of, the back of his dark head. And then, in the bathroom, when he’d greeted him like a lover, kissed his mouth, his strong arms pulling him down. And then the reveal, those jeans coming down to reveal the tender ass, soft and smooth like cream, tight but yielding. Donovan throwing the back of his head against him, arching back his neck to kiss him, Donovan turning around, his thighs tight around his waist, skin to skin, nothing separating them. And later, Donovan’s mouth pulling on him, kissing him tenderly. The two of them in the darkness of the car, driving toward his house, lacing their fingers together quietly, having found something. Was it possible? Ezekiel wasn’t old. Only twenty-eight. But twenty-eight felt old sometimes. He felt like he was too old, like love might have passed him by, crippled and lame in the form of sorry lovers who hadn’t worked out. Was this it? Was this the thing? Ezekiel wanted to ask Donovan about his old lovers, his old wrecks, take care of them, push them away, make something out of the two of them.
He started the shower water, amazed and a little sad:
“I really didn’t think there was anything, any sort of future. Not really. A getting by, a nice career to talk about, but…”

Suddenly, foolishly, Ezekiel Anders began to let himself hope.



Outside, Cademon Richards could look all up and down the street, passing all the brightly lit hotels and apartments by the marina, fairy lights strung over them at midnight, watching the stragglers go through the stores still open this late. Beyond was the rich blue darkness, and the beach with the lights of a few boats. He passed over the train tracks, passed another row of beach apartments until his sandaled feet, in the increasingly cool night, crossed the last empty street and came to the beach.
Cade’s eyes had to adjust to the darkness to see the stretch of sand going to the water, to see, of all things, geese floating on the water, and one small motorboat setting out toward the pier. Across the water, lights twinkled from Michigan City. Cade took off his sandals, laid them on the wet sand and walked further into the water, sinking his feet in the silty sand that passed between his toes. He walked further, until the water was around his calves and then, not quite knowing what he was doing, he stepped back a little, took off his shirt and then undid his shorts and next his underwear, and balling them up, he threw them on the sand near his sandals before sinking into the water, swimming out a pace, burying himself in the cool water, imagining never coming up.
He did, breathing in quick gasps when he remembered he had done this before, done this before, the first time he’d met Andrew, the night when Simon had broken up with him. How could he have forgotten?
Cade came up out of the water, racing to the shore and pulling his clothes back on. How peaceful it was. Different from today when so many had been out here lamenting the coming storm, different from just a few paces off where the tourist town was still alive. He didn’t really want to walk back, but he also didn’t want to sleep on the beach all night. As he passed the long line of apartments he wondered if, inside them, there were other cocaine fueled parties, other men meeting up to fuck in different positions, but the white walls told none of their secrets and, at last, Cade returned to where he was staying with Donovan, who was not at a cocaine fueled party and who, if he ended up at one, would somehow manage to keep his head above water and never have the rough come down. On a Saturday night, utterly untouched by the party life around him, more happy to be by himself than anyone else Cade knew, sitting in front of his open laptop with a cigarette hanging in one hand, was Donovan.
“You back?” he said unnecessarily.
“Yeah,” Cade said. “You need the shower?”
“No,” Donovan said.
“Great,” Cade said.
“You’ll be up for a while?”
Donovan nodded.
“I think.”
Cade went into the bathroom with shorts and a tee shirt. After stripping again, he stood under the water forever and stayed in the bathroom longer, grooming himself until he came out and collapsed on the other bed across from Don.
“You smell like Irish Spring and rebirth,” Donovan remarked, reaching up to take another cigarette.
“Can I get one of those?” Cade reached out.
“If you pick your ass up and get it.”
“Be a friend! I’m exhausted.”
“I’m not going to ask what all happened to make you so exhausted,” Donovan said, pushing his case of hand rolled cigarettes over, and then tossing the lighter.
Donovan never would ask, and having been told he would never judge. That was the first thing Cade had learned about him.
“You know, they’re back in town, the people me and Simon were supposed to have that party with. It turns out I know the guy. Like, I’ve been talking to him online but didn’t know my online friend was…. Someone I’ve met in person. We went out for coffee. He invited me to another party. I declined.”
“Oh.”
“You were invited too.”
“That,” Donovan finished typing, “would have been a mistake. I’m twelve years too old and forty pounds too fat for that invitation.”
Before Cade could protest it, Donovan handed over his laptop and said, “I’ve been fucking around talking to people online.”
“I thought you’d be writing a masterpiece.”
Don shrugged. “Can’t do it all the time. Check that one profile out. How do you like her?”
“Uh…” Cade began. “Nice enough.”
“I mean,” Donovan said as he took back the computer, “you can tell she’s a man in a dress, but she’s doing the best with what she’s got and really, in the end, that’s all any of us can do.”
“Is this all you did?” Cade said, turning over on one side.
“I went to the beach,” Don said. “I went to that overpriced gift shop and spent far too much money, but I don’t feel bad because I’ve been so frugal for the last few months. After that, I sat there and watched the sunset, or something like the sunset. I mean, really the sun didn’t go down till almost ten, and did you know there are geese on the water?”
Cade laughed.
“I did see that.”
“Oh,” Cade said, pretending that he did not hurt because he knew he had no right to, “Who is Ezekiel?”
“Oh,” Donovan looked mildly startled,, and then he said, “I loved him once. We were together. It was a long time ago.”
“How long ago?”
Donovan raised an eyebrow.
“Really?”
Cade chuckled a little too hard. His eyes were a little too bright.
He shrugged. “I’m just asking?”
“Twenty years ago. I was a teenager. You were… in third grade. That’s how long ago. Now give me my laptop.”
Cade did so, and then he said, “Twenty years ago, but you still talk.”
“That’s what love’s like,” Donovan said, trying to not be sharp. “You don’t just drop folks. Sort of like… You and Andrew. Or Simon.”
“I haven’t known them for twenty years.”
“You’re twenty-six, you haven’t known anyone for twenty years.”
“We should switch the subject,” Cade said.
“That would be wise,” Don said.
Cade nodded. “What happened when you went to the beach?”
“Uh,” Don was trying to return to a less tense moment, “I saw geese hanging out on Lake Michigan like it’s their private pond. I mean, only in Indiana—though I guess we’re in Michigan right now. But all the same. Yeah.
“So I just sat up there, and thank God there were no sandflies, and I thought, shit, I’m having all these really big thoughts. I wish my notebook was with me. Then I thought, well fuck the notebook, why can’t you just have some big thoughts and let them be big thoughts.”
“Thoughts like what?”
And they had shifted out of that rough moment, just like that, the moment when Donovan began to understand how Cade felt, and he realized in some ways he had never really known, not until now.
“Uh,” Donovan thought as Cade finished up his cigarette, and taking up Don’s roller, made another one for himself. “why do people go to church when they could go to the beach? And I don’t mean that in some bullshit way like someone who has never set foot in a church a day in their lives and doesn’t really believe in God. But I was just like, is there anything more holy than this? And I just began thinking about why we make it so hard to be happy, so difficult to know God, and I thought about how beautiful everything is and all that.”
Smoke trailed out of Cade’s nose, but he said nothing.
“And then I went into the water, and just sank my feet into the sand until they were rooted.”
“Me too.”
“When?”
“Before I got back here.”
“And everything was perfect,” Donovan said. “And none of the foolishness mattered because we were here and this water and this sand was here and would keep on being here.”
“You sound like you had a really awesome night. Deep night.”
“Well, I also came back here, ate the rest of the pizza, got on Grindr and wrote rude comments, then made a fake profile where I’m a transvestite named Ted who plays church organ and has a wife and three kids… So… don’t think it was that deep.”
“Don, do you wanna go to the beach?”
“Not really?” Donovan yawned, stretching. “But I will.”

MORE TOMORROW

 

[CharmedFan28]

That was an excellent portion! I am glad that Donovan and Cade are being honest with each other. I don't know where this story is going but I am enjoying it! Great writing and I look forward to more soon!