A few months into his relationship with Keith, a good relationship, but one that missed something, they had gone to meet Keith’s family in Maryland, and Sean had come with them. Sean always ached, always longed for love, and in the night he’d come to their bedroom, stripped and lain between them. To Jonah’s surprise, Keith—seemingly in his own surprise, eyes on Jonah the whole time, mouth slack with surprise, amazement and desire, had fucked Sean hungrily, and then Sean, in the darkness and to the dim sight of Keith had come into Jonah. What a relief, how wonderful to give into the man he loved in the presence of the other man he loved. He finished it off by having both of them as the sun came up. Just like that, two were now three.
The alchemy could not last past three years, which is why Jonah was so fascinated by Elias and Dylan and Lance. It was easy to see that Keith had succumbed to a lapse in judgment, a moment of weakness. Keith wasn’t in love with Sean even though his lust had started the whole thing. He had been in lust for his friend, which is why he had fucked him in Jonah’s presence. Now he was stuck with him.
“Before one of us leaves the other,” Jonah said one morning, “I am leaving you both.”
And when he was gone they were gone. It was just that simple. It made him uneasy thinking of it, but Keith and Sean didn’t love each other. They both loved him. Jonah had settled back into living in his father’s house, having something like a celibate existence. Keith came back to teach at the local college, but they did not see each other. Jonah heard tale that Sean had gone off to Indiana.
He thought about Sean. It was as simple as that. He thought of him all the time. When he was off of his guard, sitting in the living room reading a book, his first thoughts went to Sean. When he was cooking the evening meal, his thoughts went to Sean. When he saw couples walking together: Sean. Within a year Keith Redmond was gone anyway. But it was when Jonah began to dream of his old lover that he knew it was time to go off and find Sean.
One cold winter night, three years ago, Jonah had tracked Sean down. He knocked on the door
“Good evening,” he said. “I was told I could find Sean Babcock here?”
“Yes,” Kenny opened the door, “Come in. Are you friends?”
“We are.”
In less than twenty four hours they were in bed together, and in less than a week they were living together.
One morning Sean was cooking breakfast, and Jonah was sitting at the kitchen table, only half awake.
“You don’t mind that I’ve grown old.”
“No, not really.”
“You were supposed to say that I hadn’t grown old.”
“But you have,” Jonah said simply.
By now Sean’s temples were going grey.
“And,” Jonah continued, “I don’t mind it. I love you more. We’re meant to be together.”
“Like two magnets,” Sean rejoined.
“Yes,” Jonah said. “I imagine that’s why we can’t stop fucking each other.”
And then, not long afterward, tall and blond, the very opposite of Sean, Keith Redmond had arrived at their door.
“I miss us so much,” Keith said, earnestly. “I miss what we were.”
Sean looked doubtful. He had Jonah now, and he had to admit he enjoyed that.
“Everything was so forced,” Keith said. “I forced us,” he turned to Sean, “to be something we weren’t.”
Jonah’s face was, as usual, expressionless.
“I just want to live here,” Keith said. “I just want to stay here. I’m glad you’re a couple. You can be a couple and I can be here. How is that?”
“Yes,” Jonah said before Sean could say anything. Then he looked at Sean. He wondered if he had gone too far.
“I miss you too,” Jonah said. “That first time when we were together, I loved you so much. You were right before me like a pillar of light. But Sean was everywhere. Sean was in all the dark spaces.”
“Thanks.”
“You know what I mean,” he touched Sean’s hand. “And now Sean is here. Sean is finally the man in my life. I don’t feel empty. If I ever felt empty that was more me than either one of you. But I feel like you should be here, Keith. And now you are.”
Keith was there for a month, and they were eating one evening when Sean said to him, “I don’t know if I’m at that place with my brother where we can work at the same school, but you could probably teach at Loretto. I hear they’re hiring in the philosophy department.”
“I can see about it,” said Keith.
“So you’re staying?” Jonah said.
“Does it make you happy?”
“You know it does.”
At this time they were living an odd life in the house that Brendan Miller and Kenny McGrath had shared. Kenny still lived downstairs with Meredith, and Ruthven was coming and going a lot. By summer Meredith had moved in with Charlie Palmer and marriage was around the corner. Brendan and Sheridan were definitely in Chicago and Ruthven was, if not Kenny’s out right boyfriend, then his roommate. Keith had been employed as an adjunct to teach summer classes, and Loretto had handed him enough work to teach in the autumn semester. Fenn decided to employ Sean at the theatre doing what Bryant had once done—but how did he have time now that he was Chair of the Music department?—and if Bryant had anything to say about it, he kept it to himself.
Fall was approaching, and Keith looked so handsome in his going to work clothes. That was the way Jonah loved both of his men, in a shirt and dress slacks and a tie, and he theorized that this was probably because he himself never wore any of these things. Layla had just arrived and they were working on a new enterprise together. Keith was buttering his toast and he said, “I’ll see you tonight. Sean doesn’t get back till ten, so it’ll just be us.”
“You’re looking at him,” Layla accused, wagging a finger.
“Of course I’m looking at him, but we’re not going to get into that again.”
“I felt the same way about Will once,” Layla said. “I was ready to walk down the aisle. I had the dress. Hell, I was in the dress, at the wedding. But when he said don’t do it, I didn’t do it and well,” she shrugged, “ten years later you see what’s happened.”
“And you don’t even have to leave Sean. You can have your Keith and eat Sean too.”
“Did you just make that up?”
“I did,” Layla said, pleased. “It’s something I never would have thought about. I couldn’t share Will, but it seems like it’s working for Dylan.”
“Is that public news yet?”
“No,” Layla answered, “and I don’t think it ever will be. He didn’t tell me. Elias told me. But he also said that it was you who inspired it.”
“Well, the three of them love each other, and I’m not quite sure if love is three way and mutual in this circle. I don’t know how Sean would take me having feelings for Keith. So that’s off the table for now.”
After Layla, who was more right than wrong, had left, Jonah sat down to finish his term project. A Masters that had the potential of blossoming into a PhD was a respectable masquerade for a disreputable artist, and he spent half the afternoon in the house, lost in his work. When Keith returned he was surprised and half betrayed by his feelings for him.
“Why are you looking at me that way?” Keith said.
“Because I love you,” Jonah said, honestly.
“Well, I love you too.”
“I don’t mean that way.”
“I know what way you mean,” Keith said, taking an apple from the table and sitting down beside Jonah.
“I loved you dutifully but not passionately,” Jonah said.
“And now you love me passionately?”
“Don’t make fun of me.”
“I’m not.”
But Keith was smirking while he bit into the apple.
After a bite or two, after digesting the apple, Keith said, frankly, “I have always loved you passionately. I wouldn’t be here, sex depraved for the last half year if I didn’t.
“Ah, Jonah,” Keith put the apple down, “when we first came to each other, we didn’t come correctly. I wanted my relationship to you to be so pure. You were off of your life with Jason and, hell, I was fucking Jason. I was confused about religion, about myself, about sex, about love, and you were in love with Sean who was… just plain confused. No wonder it didn’t work in the end. It was botched from the beginning.”
“And now you want me to leave Sean?”
“No,” Keith said. “But I do want you to be with me.
“Look,” Keith continued, “I love Sean. I’m not in love with him. But I do love him. I’m still attracted to him. We make—we made—excellent friends with benefits. Not enough for a relationship with just the two of us. But with the three of us…” Keith shrugged.
“I can’t believe you want me to enter into this again.”
“Why are you pretending you don’t want to?” Keith said.
“It’s not a big deal. Well,” Keith reformulated, “it is a big deal. Mormons do it. They know it’s a big deal. When we were together, Sean always hovered over things. Without him our relationship was empty and without me I think you feel the same way. So what is so wrong if you have him and you have me? If we both belong to you?”
“I will never go to Sean with that.”
“I know,” Keith said seriously. “But I will.”
Jonah furrowed his brow.
“Look,” said Keith, “if we are giving ourselves to you, then it is for us to hammer out, right?”
On hearing that, Jonah did the only thing he could.
He left for Michigan to go see his father.
He did not share his dilemma, or rather his opportunity, with his father. He had never gone on about the details of the relationship. He was glad to be back in Michigan but sensed that he was merely putting off the inevitable.
When he arrived back home, Keith and Sean received him quietly. They made dinner, ate peaceably and then put the dishes away.
“You just rest,” Sean said.
Not that he wasn’t usually taken care of, but this whole evening had been surreal.
When the kitchen was clean both of the older men sat across from him. He felt strangely like someone about to be chided by his parents.
“We have some serious things to discuss,” Sean said.
And then Sean said, “Actually, we only have one thing to discuss.”
He took Jonah’s hand, and then he took Keith’s hand, and he put them together. He stood up and kissed Jonah on the cheek, and then he went to embrace Keith.
“This is the way I want it,” Sean said. “All of my life I’ve been greedy and selfish and needy. This is the way I actually need it. Please,” he said.
Sean got up and walked away, and Keith looked at Jonah earnestly.
“You all may want it this way,” Jonah said, “but last time you gave me no time to think of what I wanted.”
“I know,” Keith said. “Sean is right. We were both stupid and selfish and greedy.”
His hand was still in Jonah’s.
“I’ve been here for almost a year, and I’m not going anywhere. You come to me when you want. Or I’ll come to you. But just… let’s come. Alright?”
Jonah nodded his head and went up to bed alone. He should have felt light hearted, but he didn’t feel that way at all.
The days darkened quickly, and winter was approaching. Play practice was going on till late and after dinner and after sitting up, reading, Jonah said, “It’s time to go to bed. For me at least.”
“Jonah—” Keith began.
In that moment Jonah knew what Keith wanted to say. He didn’t say it, but Jonah knew he wanted to.
Instead Keith leaned across and kissed him. They stood up. Jonah couldn’t believe how wonderful it felt. How good it was to hold Keith’s face, to have Keith pressed to him. It wasn’t like lust. It was like opening. It was like his heart opening and himself melting out of it.
Suddenly, in a rush, Keith stood up, bringing Jonah up with him.
“Sean isn’t at the theatre. I can’t lie. He just said he’d stay away for the night. He thought that would make it easier.”
It did make it easier. That was how it felt to Jonah right now. Easy. His eyes stung a little.
Keith kissed him again.
Keith led him down the hall, whispering, “Come.”
They made hardly any noise as they undressed and clung to each other. There was no hurry in the darkness. There were the sounds of the furnace, of Ruthven and Kenny downstairs, and in this room the increased movement of the bed, startled cries of pleasure and, at last, the pierced and shuddering shock of orgasm.
Later they lay side by side, hearing each others breathing. Jonah’s hand was closed tightly in Keith’s and Keith said nothing. Keith turned over on his side so that Jonah did as well, and he pressed his face into Jonah’s back, wrapping his arms tightly around him. Jonah felt so loved, so safe, so much as if things were finally in their proper place.
They slept.
