The vigil was over and the bells were ringing toward midnight. This was a time when everything seemed possible. He loved everyone right now. He felt like a virgin again. Like he belonged to himself. Drifting to sleep he remembered the music and the lights full on, the new baptismal candidates in white robes, the priests in white and gold, the candles white and gold, the subtle fruit and dust smell of the incense with the triumph of life over lifelessness, the tiny point of eternal light spreading over pointlessness. At least tonight, at least for now.
He had not been with anyone since Flipper. He longed for him right now. It had been a while since he longed for anything. As he drifted into sleep Flipper changed to Cody and Cody was Flipper and then Flipper and Cody lay naked together, brown compact body against long white one, black hair against brown, eyes closed, Flippers black lashes heavy on his cheek, he and Cody licking each other like kittens. Russell woke with semen plastering his pajamas to the inside of his leg, and gently went to his dresser to find a new pair, and then went to the rest room with them to wash off.
“Gil,” Mark said one afternoon toward the end of Lent, “Have you done your college applications yet?”
Gilead tried to look superior, for it was Mark who sounded nervous, but Mark realized Gilead hadn’t and he said, “I’ve already been accepted to two schools, both with a track scholarship.”
“Well, I aven’t done any of that.”
“It’s almost the end of the year. I mean this is the time when people are getting acceptance leters.”
“Well, I’m not cause I haven’t started. And besides, what does it matter?”
“College matters.”
“I know it matters,” Gilead said. “I’m not stupid. It’s just I don’t see that it matters which one. Maybe… I’ll go to Soubirous.”
“It’s a junior college.”
“I know what the hell it is.”
“Well,” Mark said, stretching so that his tee shirt lifted and Gielad could see the v line to his groin and the line of black hair going to his well made chest, “I wanted to go to Ann Arbor, but Barrelon offered me a track scholarship. Peyton did too.”
“Peyton.”
“It’s Catholic. It’s out past Port Ridge. But I’m kind of tired of Catholic school, and it cost more money.”
Gilead nodded.
“Gil,” Mark said at last. “Gil.”
“Yes.”
He took Gilead’s hand.
“I want us to go to school together.”
Gilead frowned and said, “Isn’t that… I mean, aren’t we supposed to go to two separate palces and see if our love is strong enough to survive.”
“No,” Mark dismissed that. “I think that’s stupid. We should stay together. So that we stay together.”
“I think so too,” Gilead said, now. “It’s just I wasn’t sure how you felt about it. I didn’t know where you were going, and I was afraid to ask. I didn’t want you to think I was was chasing after you.”
“Chase after me. I would have chased after you. If you were going anywhere.”
“Okay,” Gilead said. “Well… I don’t like big schools, but we can go to Barrelon, I guess. I just have to get an application in. I hope they take me.”
“You’re really smart.”
“My math scores are very okay. And I was in remedial.”
“But remedial at OLM is regular everywhere else. I’m a very, very mediocre student, and I got in with a scholarship. They’ll take anyone, They’ll definitely take you.”
“That is…. Not as encouraging as you think it is.”
“See you there, cuz,” Nehru said.
“What?” Gilead said.
They were in the Noble Red, and Nehru said, “I am going to Barrelon in the fall.”
“What about…. Brad?”
“What about him?” Nehru said. “Barrelon is an hour away. It’s not on the other side of the world, or even of the state. And I gotta go somewhere.”
Gilead looked at Anigel.
“They will take anybody,” she confirmed. “And they hand out scholarships like candy. I got a year at Soubirous left.”
“But you could transfer now.”
“I could,” Anigel said. “But I like Soubirous, and I like being with my family. The old one and the new one,” she touched Russell’s hand.
“Besides, Ralph got some girl pregnant, so the Balusiks are going to need all the help they can get.”
“Where are you going?” Russell asked Cameron and Chris.
“I think,” Cameron said, “me and Chris had the same talk Gil and Mark did.”
“Only I’d already done all the college stuff before me and Cam got together. I’m going to Ann Arbor for psychology.”
“Psychology?” Russell said.
“You thought football?”
“I did, actually.”
“And I sat on my ass and didn’t think about school till now. So it’s Soubirous for at least the first year,” Cameron said.
“I’ll be home every weekend,” Chris promised.
“Say every two,” Anigel told him, “so that you don’t make yourself a liar.”
“It’s like we’re all being split up, but not really,” Cameron remarked.
“Reconfigured,” said Mark.
“Reconfigured,” Russell remarked. “I like that.”
“It really doesn’t matter what happens, Cody,” Patti Lewis had said, standing up at the table during Easter dinner and making a toast. “You will always be part of this family.”
That was what he wanted. The only thing worse than having Russell as a brother, was not having the Lewis family at all. Thom squeezed Cody’s shoulder and it felt good. It felt so good he almost said, “I’m in love with Russell.”
“It doesn’t matter,” Thom said. “Whatever goes down, I will be more than honored to be… your Dad sounds presumptuous… Let’s say I’ll be whatever you need.”
How would they bear it when they learned that he wanted to take Russell into his bed, that the way he would be a part of the family was to be a son-in-law. But that was in the future. They had to get through the present, and for some reason Russell, who had been upset about so many things, was not upset by this at all.
When Cody came to the Noble Red and looked up into the windows of the apartment, at first he was filled with sadness because the lights were out, but parking in the lot behind and approaching the back porch, he saw the lights were only down low. Perhaps music would be playing on the stereo, Some Rusted Root, Jamiroquai, something older. Nehru loved jazz. Perhaps there would be coffee and a little bit of grass. Maybe leftovers from Nehru’s or Brad’s families.
Cody took the little bronze key, pressed it in the lock, opened it, and there was the lowlight of the lamp in the little foyer, the half mudroom, and there was the twinkle of amber lights, the smell of coffee, the hoped for low and quiet pulse of jazz. But as Cody quietly and reverently hung up his coat, there were the other holy sounds that made his blood rise, and the emotion in him swirl down to his stomach, down to his loins, stretching out his penis.
On bare feet he padded into the living room and reverently beheld, moving under the shadows and the umber light like a human stream, Brad’s body, his spiky black hair dampened ,touched by auburn firelight while he bent over to kiss Nehru’s neck, the length of back, the hills of round buttocks, the length of thighs and calves striving up and down as, gently, on the thick rug beside the bed, he fucked him, his hands grasping Nehru’s hands, his mouth on Nehru’s head, on his ears, on his throat like a devouring lion, Nehru’s voice, making the noises of prey as much as prayer. On the little table before the couch, just out of the reach of Brad’s striving feet, a bottle of lubricant glinted and Cody undressed fluidly, and fluidly squirted the liquid on his hard dick, rejoicing in his hardness and the feel of his swollen head, springing back under his hand, the length and the hickening of his veined cock.
Cody picked up the little brown bottle on the floor by them, shook it, unscrewed it and took in a deep, mind humming inhale, going unsteady as the warm buzz took his whole body. Gently, but expertly, like one who had done this before, he guided himself into Brad’s, and Brad cried out, only for a moment surprised, only for a moment half conscious that Cody had come home, only for a moment wondering who it was before he reached back and pulled Cody into him and the three of them began to move like an engine, Cody’s energy giving them energy so that, moments later when he slammed into Brad, Brad slammed into Nehru and when Nehru pushed back Brad pushed back. They were one being, passing on one striving. Only ten minutes after Cody had come home, above the music they were all wailing, their voices tenor moans, rising and falling like the singing of Christians in backwood churches.
Brad came first, his body tensing as he buried himself deep in Nehru, flooding him. Cody lay on his side, still hard, stroking Brad’s back as, in exhaustion Brad’s large, long warm body rolled away, weakly, Nehru’s hand reaching back, as if calling for someone and now Cody entered him. While Brad looked on with sleepy joy, they fucked on the floor and Nehru rejoiced, urging Cody on until he came too.
They breathed in bruised silence, though Nehru should have been most bruised. When Cody was younger he used to dictate sex, tell people what he wanted, how he wanted it, what should happen next. Now he trusted his lovers and let sex take its shape.
Brad lay between them, dozing and waking, and Cody wished that before the night was over the two men he had fucked would fuck him. Nehru lay on his back now, and almost off handedly, Cody began to stroke his cock with the lube, rejoicing in the rising of the bud, the gentle lengthening of the shaft. He’d made Nehru cry out in one way and now he made him moan in another. Neither of them expected him to rise like a tower, but when he did, Cody straddled him, closing his eyes tight against the always first pain of entry, and then, while Brad stroked Nehru’s shoulders and lay on his side, gently running his hand over Cody’s thigh. Cody rode Nehru back and forth, first like a boy on a rocking horse, then like a jockey in a race until Nehru turned him over and finished the job, taking them both home with a mutual shout that broke the quiet of that Easter night.
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