Gilead could not remember what he had told Russell. It wasn’t like him to tell much, to talk about being in his bedroom alone with Mark, the two of them naked together, running their hands over each other, shuddering at the touch of fingertips on nipples, on stomach, up and down sex, taking each other in their mouths, caressing asses and the private place between thighs, the hard strong kisses, the shock of mutual hardness, cock to cock, the leap of ejaculation, and the quietness of sleep in each others arms, holding one another closer than a child held a teddy, waking up in the heat of comforters and eighteen year old boy skin. But no, God no, he could not imagine giving Mark up. When Mark said, stay with me tonight, not just his penis, but everything in him went erect with joy, stood completely at attention for this dark haired green eyed boy whose kisses were sweet, sweet, sweet, whose hands held enchantment. Russell Lewis, the sanest person he’d known, had been making his way through two boys and one man for the last few months, and the one he loved was his own brother. He was desperate for Cody, and Gilead, in his own desperation for Mark, understood.
“She can stay with me!” Chris Knapp declared.
“Of course she can’t stay with you,” Patti blew smoke out of her nose like a dragon. “Look at you.”
“I’m her boyfriend,” Chris said.
“Exactly, and you’re a football player with sideburns and facial hair, no mother would let her daughter stay with you. Not even Dena.”
“Actually, Mrs. Lewis,” Cameron said, “she probably would, and if we want to find out, all we have to do is go next door.
“But I’m not staying with you and your parents,” Cameron said. “I will stay with the Lewises tonight. If they’ll have me.”
“Of course we will.”
“Well,” Chris insisted, “you may not be staying with me, but I am taking you out to dinner.”
“We’ll have to go to my house first,” Gilead was saying as he and Mark prepared to leave.
“And then my place?”
“We can go to your place to pick up things,” Gilead said. “I don’t want to go to either one of our places.”
“Huh?”
“I want to go to the beach.”
“It’s winter.”
“Lake Michigan didn’t go anywhere. And I’ve never seen it in winter. I want to go there, get a room at a hotel, wake up near the frozen water. Both of us be some place we haven’t been before. Let’s go.”
He only had to say let’s go for Mark to be ready. He went and told Russell, “It’ll be alright. Everything will work itself out. I’m not sure how it will, but it will.”
He had to get away. There was too much happening in Geschichte Falls, Michigan, and really there was too much happening in him. As his mind whorled with what Russell had told him, he thought, water, water, I want to see water, water so very cold and broad it would force everything to make sense. In his house, Gilead Story gathered a few things, and Sharonda came into his room. Mark was downstairs in the kitchen eating. That boy could eat, she marveled, and he kept staying skinny.
“I had to make myself go,” Gilead said. “Because there’s this part of me that feels like I shouldn’t leave you alone in this house. Like I shouldn’t leave you. Or like if anything happened and I was here, then I could stop it. Just by being here. Mama, I realized I don’t know how not to live without you.”
Sharonda smiled and touched her son’s chin.
“You are not my husband. Your job was never to keep me company or watch out for me.”
“I know… in my head.”
“Then what’s in your heart is your father’s fault and fuck him, I’ll be fine. It’s not your job to look after me. In fact, you don’t have a job. You’re just supposed to be young, and speaking of young, Mark is waiting for you.”
Gilead nodded and continued to pack his bag.
Tom opened the door to Russell’s room and announced, “Two more for Cameron.”
As Linh Pham entered with Freestar Rockwell, Thom murmured while turning to leave, “My house is turning into a teen drama.”
“We promise it won’t be a teen drama much longer,” Linh said to Russell, and then threw herself on Cameron, hugged her tight and made way for Freestar to do the same. “We just wanted to come and tell you we’d heard about everything. You can stay with us if you want.”
“I was staying here,” Cameron said, looking at Russell.
“It’s really not required,” Russell said. “You can if you want, but even I might not be staying here tonight.”
“Well, then,” Linh said, “you might as well stay with me.”
Cameron felt foolish for asking Russell if he minded, but she did and Russell, gesturing to Chris, said, “I know I’m not exactly your boyfriend or a sexual threat, but staying with Linh actually makes more sense than staying here. Just check with your family. And probably check with my mom.”
“Yeah,” Chris said. “Mrs. Lewis is not to be fucked with. I’m still taking you out to dinner, though.”
“I actually thought we were taking you out,” Freestar said. Then she said, “But it’s cool, the two of you having your romantic night out.”
“We’re not….” Chris started, then said, “It’s not even like that.”
“Yeah,” Cameron said. “I’m not feeling very romantic. I’m feeling like I don’t want to be alone.”
“Uh….” Chris began uncertainly, “what if we all, the five of us, went out?”
“Me?” Russell said.
They looked at him.
“Why not you?” Freestar asked in a way that made Russell wonder if she might be one of Chayne’s cousins.
“I’m not really popular or—”
“Shut the fuck up and get your coat,” Cameron said, getting off the bed. “We’re going to dinner.”
She pulled out her wallet and showed off a credit card.
“My mother’s treat.”
When he was a very little boy, Gilead was told the story of King Midas. Midas was cursed by the gods and given the ears of a donkey, and he had to wear a strange hat so no one saw his ears but his barber, who was forbidden to speak of them. It had been too much for the poor barber and so the barber had, at last, run into the fields and whispered into the riverbank, “The King has ass’s ears.” Unburdened of the secret, and having told the dirt, the barber went home.
But in th past the earth was alive, and reeds grew up from it, and when the wind moved through them, the reeds would sing in their reedy voice, “The King has ass’s ears.”
Gilead Story, born with an inherent sense of right and loyalty, had always thought this was a horrible story about a weak and gossipy man until he had turned around fifteen and actually had some stories worth telling, secrets he could barely keep. It wasn’t until then that he realized carrying some things was almost as bad as not being able to stop on the road for the restroom.
“No,” Mark said, astounded.
“Yes,” Gilead said.
“You’re fuckin’ lying, Gil!”
Mark looked at his boyfriend.
“You’re not lying, are you?”
Gilead shook his head.
Mark shook his head and, looking inward, grinned sideways, a little like a fool, and shook his head, which always attracted Gilead to him.
“And of course I can’t tell anyone.”
“It would be best if you didn’t.”
Gilead felt that curious sense of relief that the barber must have in telling the earth, but then the earth had eventually grown reeds and whispered it about. That was the point of that story. But the earth was without malice. It just did what it did. Same with the reeds. There was something of the trap about Mark. You could give him a secret and it would never cross his mind to tell it. He was strangely gossip proof, and Gilead, alas, was not. He had to tell someone.
“Wow,” Mark shook his head as they continued down the country road in the approaching dusk.
“Wow.”
They had been on the road for about forty five minutes when Gilead finally told Mark. To either side of them, white frosted farm fields stretched to the black trees, and the grey blue sky grew greyer before dimming to dark blue. The road was not straight and many times Mark made right turns, left turns, turned into a corner that rose to the top of a high hill where they looked over a darkening valley before sinking into it. Gilead was impressed that Mark knew where he was going.
“That’s just cause I drive all the time. To keep my mind off stuff. Don’t worry, once I keep putting you behind the wheel, you’ll be able to get around like this too.”
Gilead was not sure what made him more uneasy, Mark making him learn to drive, or Mark driving around with demons on his mind.
“Does Gilead know?” Chayne asked.
“Oh, he must,” Rob said. Then, “Mustn’t he?”
Chayne shook his head, but said, “If Cody told you, Russell must have told Gilead. But...” he stood up. “We need coffee.”
“I’ll make it,” Rob said.
“No,” Chayne shook his head. “I need to get up. I need to do something. I can’t believe this.”
As Chayne went through the cupboards, he said. “But I thought he was with that Jason boy, and then Jason did what he did and…”
“And it’s more complicated that that,” Rob said, quietly, watching Chayne empty the coffee basket and begin rinsing it and the coffee pot.
“Not that this is the most important part of everything,” Chayne said, “but I feel like I knew Russell so well, and now he’s a proper teenager with improper secrets. But this secret…”
“I know.”
“Cody is a grown man.”
“Yeah.”
“I mean, even if he wasn’t… who he is.”
“They are brothers.”
“Yes,” Chayne said. “Yes. It’s all…I actually don’t know how to feel. Whenever I think I do, I don’t.”
“Chayne,” Rob said, and got up now. He pulled out the creamer while Chayne turned on the coffeemaker, “if it makes you feel better, then you know far more than Mr. and Mrs. Lewis do.”
“No,” Chayne said. “I don’t think that makes me feel better at all.”
