Rainbow
Part Two
They had been traveling through the university houses, and now past the old stylish flats and, and about three blocks back, he’d thought they should have reached Morse Street, but just now they arrived at the El station, and taking out one dead ticket and pressing it to the reader for show, they all three quickly vaulted the turn stile, and trotted up the long stair to the catch the Howard.
“Good morning, you’re on the inbound Purple Line to Evanston and Wilmette. Our first stop is Main Street!” the conductor announced as the train pulled out of Howard Street station. Beside it, traveling away in an an western arc, was the Yellow Line, and then the Purple pulled off on its own over the train yard, trundling out of the yard over Evanston.
“Folks, a new school year is coming up, and here we are starting a new day, and I just want you all to enjoy it and make the best of it.”
Jacen turned in surprised to Ethan, who shrugged. Conductors called out stops. They didn’t offer advice.
But this one continued, “I hear it’s supposed to be rain today, a little later on. Hard to believe, but don’t forget to take an umbrella with you, and no matter how rainy it is outside, keep a rainbow in your heart. That’s all from your friendly neighborhood conductor. Ba dum dum. South Street. South Street. Our first stop is South Street.”
Jacen and Ethan looked at each other, laughing, but the few others in the car looked as if they had heard nothing except for one girl who got up, sheek and impressive, almost too impressive for this far north, and got off at South Street.
The train trundled through South to Main, and from Main to Dempster, and as it did the sky cleared and the green tree tops which shielded either side of the tracks glowed with a green morning light. At Dempster, Jacen got up and motioned for Ethan, and they got off, watching the Purple Rail roll further north. They came down through the dingy little station to the quiet street.
Sherman was a quiet street. Later it widened out to be a main avenue, but now, on a corner stood a hotel of grey brick, several stories high, and Jacen pulled him to it. Right past the hotel this small street, expanded and a block past he saw a downtown to rival most towns he’d been through rising up. Up a small stair and through glass doors, up another small flight into a lobby they arrived in the hotel.
“I feel like I need the bathroom,” Jacen said confidentially.
“I could use a shower, truthfully,” Ethan said.
“I’ll be quick,” Jacen said.
“I’m in no hurry.”
The elevator took them to the room high above town. Everything seemed high in Chicago, Jacen thought. You were always rising, always craning your neck. From here he could look down and see the El speeding south back to Howard Street.
He went in to the restroom and relieved himself quickly and when he came out, Ethan was removing his clothing, draping the paisley shirt over over a chair and then dropping his trousers and removing the black jockstrap he wore. Jacen stopped, looking on him.
“What?” Ethan laughed. The windows were open and the city stretched out behind him. Ethan wondered if anyone could see them.
“You look like a statue.”
“Well, I smell like a bestiary.”
Ethan cocked his head to the side, “You’re embarrassing me.”
“You don’t seem embarrassed.”
“Come shower with me. Actually, let me get a moment in their alone, and then shower with me.”
“You’ve worn me out,” Jacen said. “Between the apartment and the beach. There’s no more fuck in me.”
“Who said anything about fucking? I said bathing. I always mean what I say.”
Jacen watched Ethan move like a dancer into the bathroom. He didn’t shut the door while he relieved himself, and then a moment later the water was on and above the shower, Ethan’s clear voice called out, “Jacen. Come in.”
In the hot water, Ethan said, “Turn around,” and began to lather Jacen’s back and scrub him down attentively, then he turned and said, “Get my back too.”
“On the beach,” Jacen said. “Why’d you do it?”
“Do what?”
“Do what you did. Suck me.”
“And let you fuck me?” Ethan said casually as he turned and began washing Jacen’s arms and chest.
“I don’t know. I’m afraid of not doing things. The way some people are afraid of doing them. I’m afraid of missing any chance. I felt like I would wonder about what it would have been like to do that if I hadn’t done it. So I did. There’s probably something wrong with me.”
“I don’t think so,” Jacen said, savoring washing Ethan’s back, his buttocks, massaging his calves, glad there was no hurry in any of this. He turned him around and washed his thighs, lathered the black bush over his cock, washed his balls. Kiss them tenderly and Ethan laughed. “I’m sort of the same way.”
Jacen had brought a bottle into the shower, it was the sandy lake water he had gathered and now he uncapped it and poured some over Jacen’s blue hair, once twice, three times, and then over him, He rinsed himself, running his hands all over his white body and Jacen did the same, turning around and completely rinsing so that his brown skin glinted with water.
“I think we may be the same in a lot of ways,” Ethan said, yawning as he stretched and turned off the shower.
“The sun is fully up. It’s still early in the morning. We are both as clean as virgins. Shall we sleep?”
Jacen said, “Yes.”
There was something wonderful about sleeping in the day.
There was just one great glass wall for a window, divided into panes in all the hotel rooms, and two curtains, a thin burlap one and a black out one. After they had showered, Ethan drew the netted curtain across the windows so that brown light filtered into the room There was a sign on the door that said do not disturb. There was a part of Jacen that wanted to go downstairs and eat eggs, toast and orange juice, but the largest part of him wanted sleep in this bed under heavy covers, with Ethan beside him. Ethan had already climbed into it and his breathing quickly turned into an undignified snoring. Jacen did not do the usual before bed oiling and tooth brushing. He had slept only a few hours, and gone out into the world before five. The only pause he allowed himself was to lift the blankets and gaze on the perfect whiteness of Ethan’s body, and then he climbed into the soft bed and lowered the covers over them both.
In the hours before waking, touching led to more touching and this led to lovemaking. As they came down from climax, shuddering and laughing under the covers, Jacen rose from the bed and returned with a cloth to wipe them off. They lay in half sleep in the warm light, and Jacen said, “I didn’t know I had that in me.”
Ethan lay on his back, wiping his stomach and his sex.
“That was wonderful. That was just what I wanted. To make love.”
“You were at it with Jon and Pedro before I even showed up.”
“Yes, but that wasn’t making love. You can’t really make love with an audience. That’s, what we did. That was making love.”
“What was that thing in the shower?”
“Huh?” Ethan said, almost drowsily. He placed the damp white cloth on the nightstand.
“Where you poured the water over me.”
“That’s the purification blessing. You do it at certain times. Like this is the end of the old moon and the beginning of the new one. When you transition, you dip into the sea or the river three times, of if you have no sea or river, you pour that water over you. Then you are purified…. Ready for new things.”
He turned over on his stomach, and Jacen began to rub his shoulders, caress his back.
“They say in the ancient world they had these… priests and priestesses. They would give themselves up to every act of pleasure, presses themselves to the edge of desire and ecstasy, move even beyond their prejudices and fears to offer themselves as a sacrifice to the gods.”
Ethan stretched, frowned, yawned, flexed and unflexed his hands.
Jacen said, “I don’t even know you.”
“You know I’m Ethan. You know that I cannot turn down adventure, and you know the lines and plains of my body. You’ve washed and fucked and sucked every inch of me. What is there left to know?”
“Your home? Your family? Your… what do you do?”
“All of those things are superficialities.”
“Then you won’t tell me?”
“I didn’t say that,” Ethan said. “I didn’t say that at all. I only said they do not matter.”
“I’m running,” Jacen said, frankly. “I’m not sure if I’m running away, but I am running. I’m trying to get away.”
“From?”
“From a responsibility I don’t want.”
“Does this have something to do with family?”
“A little. Yes.”
“Then I know what you mean.”
“Are you running?”
“I’m not running away from…. I’m not running away from responsibility,” Ethan said. “I’m running so I can see the world because I’ve spent my life with people who don’t want to see anything. You know?”
“I know,” Jacen said, and when he said it, Ethan believed him.
“I love your blue hair.”
“I was born with it.”
“I will accept that,” Ethan said, seriously as Jacen scrunched up his nose and laughed.
“Should we get dressed?” Ethan asked. “Go to lunch?”
“Yes,” Jacen said, pressing himself to Ethan and pulling the comforter higher over th
“Yes… But… not just yet.”
