PART
THREE
TRIANGLES
SEVEN
BRYANT
The sun had set. In the distance the noise of the town could be heard, and overhead the sky was a deep gold blue, with stars rising. The other young man’s strides were strong and long, and Tom had to catch up with him. The moment Tom knew… well the moment he KNEW, he instantly realized, and felt guilty for realizing that this was the first man, aside from Fenn, he’d actually somewhat fallen for. This was the most gorgeous man he’d ever seen.
He turned around, holding a hand out for Tom, “If I’m going to buy you a coffee I should probably know your name.”
“Uh,” Tom began, and then chuckled, feeling foolish.
“Yeah. It’s Tom Mesda.”
“Tom Mesda,” the other man said, cocking his fedora so only one gleaming dark eye shown while he shook Tom’s hand.
“It’s good to meet you, Tom.
“I’m Bryant Babcock.”
“I’m Tom Mesda,” Tom said, and then at the look on Bryant’s face, he realized he’d just said that.
“I’m tired,” Tom laughed.
This was a lie. He wasn’t tired. He was enraptured. There was no way to describe it because he’d only felt this way once before.
“Well, if you’re tired maybe we’ll meet again some day.”
Someday was right next door to Nowhere.
“No,” Tom said, and it was warm and summery and the sky of Izmir, Indiana still held some sun in it. “I’ve got some energything in me yet.”
“Then you want to grab a coffee?”
Everyone wasn’t grabbing coffees back then, so it didn’t sound cliché and Tom said, “Yes.”
“Great.” Bryant turned and started walking down the street in the direction of, Tom presumed, a coffee shop, “I know just the place.”
They turned their backs on the bulk of Sainte Terre monastery that was becoming a massive hump of dark buildings as the night set in, and made their way for the downtown with its lamps and shops, its college life. It reminded Tom a little bit of Rossford, and he felt like—for the first time in a long time—after being Fenn Houghton’s accompaniment, he was off on his own adventure.
“So how did you get to Izmir?”
Across the table from Tom, Bryant laughed, and sipping from the large mug of coffee he said, “Well, how did you?”
“I got a job teaching at the college in Rossford, and that’s where I met Fenn. Fenn is a friend of the priest who got ordained today, but you know that. So,” Tom shrugged. “That’s my story.”
“Com’on!” Bryant clapped the tabletop. “That is not all of your story. I refuse to let that be your story.”
“Well, I do a lot of music for churches, and I’ve had some concerts.”
“You’ve had concerts?”
“Yeah. I went to Europe a couple of times.”
“See,” Bryant held out his hands. They were strong hands, long fingered. “And you say you don’t have a story.
“Did you do organ concerts?”
“Yes.”
“Fantastic. I can’t find anyone who likes listening to the organ.”
Tom grinned. “It’s a select crowd. Even Fenn doesn’t really like it.”
“Well, that’s crazy.”
“No,” Tom said. “I mean, he goes to all the concerts. He’s always there. But… he doesn’t see what I see in the organ.”
“I know,” Bryant said. “He doesn’t get how beautiful it is. How you can feel your whole soul going through a church. It’s like… it’s the moment I’m sure of stuff. It’s when I touch God.”
“If Fenn heard you say that he would laugh. It’s the way I feel, but he would laugh at me too.”
“Does he laugh at you a lot?”
“Not… He doesn’t ridicule me. It’s just. Well, he does laugh at me a lot, but I don’t get offended. It just means we’re different people.”
Tom pondered this and looked out of the window.
“Still it is nice not to feel like different people. Not to feel like I’m a little silly.”
Bryant didn’t say anything to this for a while, and then Tom said, “But you haven’t told me anything about you.”
Bryant put out a hand and listed off on each of its long fingers, and its thumb:
I come from Pennsylvania. I don’t like my family. They don’t like me. They hate music. I went to Julliard as a dancer and… this is for my other hand, No one I know cares.”
“That’s awesome,” Tom said. “I mean, not the whole nobody caring, but… You’ve done so much and people don’t…”
Neither one of them said anything for a while, and then Bryant said, “Let’s blow this pop stand. You wanna listen to some music?”
“Where?”
“I have a room on the other side of the monastery. In the guesthouse.”
“Are we allowed to play music?”
“I am, because I’m not really a guest. I’m an employee and that’s where they put me.”
This was the only person who understood him Tom felt. He couldn’t lose him. This night could not end.
“Let’s go,” he said.
“So I danced for about a year, and then I applied to Sainte Terre for the Masters program and got a job here playing organ. The rest is history. I’m working on my doctorate in musicology and then living here.”
“This is a nice place,” Tom said, looking around at the room. It was wide, and the walls were cream colored. Warm summer air came in from the quad below and the old mullioned windows were opened. The music was sixteenth century madrigals and Tom said, “I don’t even know anyone that knows who Canon Tallis is.”
He was instantly aware that this was a lie. Fenn knew everything Tom knew about music. His knowledge was encyclopedic, and those things he hadn’t known when meeting Tom, he remembered after Tom told him. But it was nice to sit here with Bryant, so swarthy and dark, cheeks sort of hollowed, face artfully stubbled, drinking wine and discussing music, side by side, thighs pressed together as they sat on the sofa.
Bryant’s hand was on his thigh. It was such a frank transgression and Tom looked at Bryant who smiled a little at him, his white teeth showing. Tom looked away, but put his hand on Bryant’s thigh as well. They sat like that a while.
Bryant opened his mouth to talk, but decided against it and moved his hand further up. Tom, in response, did the same. Quietly, they began to stroke each other, heads back, mouths open, music playing.
Forgive me, Lord, for thy dear son
The ill that I this day have done
That with the world, myself and thee
I e’er I sleep at peace may be
Drunkenly—though neither was drunk—they both looked at each other at the same time. Tom’s erection ached against his pants, under Bryant’s hand, and he could feel the size of this other man. They leaned forward to kiss and Tom topped him savagely, lying across him on the sofa until the taller man pulled himself from under Tom. In a swift movement, he pulled shut the curtains, and then pulled Tom to him again. They were fused, and then, suddenly, Bryant parted from him, came back with a small bottle and began undressing, swiftly. Tom took off his clothes just as quickly.
When they were both naked, Bryant pulled Tom to the bed and, linking arms and legs, they began to turn over and over again, making love up and down each other’s bodies. Bryant was over him, between his legs. Tom placed his hands on Bryant’s shoulders, and then ran them up and down his arms, down his torso.
“Do you want me?” Bryant’s voice was hoarse. “Do you want me inside of you?”
Tom nodded. This would never happen again, so it should be just as he wished right now.
“Over there,” he said, pointed to the window seat.
They put a pillow on the window ledge. They turned out the lights. Tom wanted to be on his back with Bryant kneeling between his legs. He wanted to see the stars, hear the far off traffic of the city, the church bells from the campus, the life of the world beyond them. He wanted to stifle his cries and hear Bryant’s groans and grunts of pleasures. So he lay on his back head out of the window.
That’s how Bryant fucked him.
In the end Bryant couldn’t be quiet. He cried out loud, scaring Tom, and Tom thrilled to the fear as this beautiful, polished man, so thick, so deep inside of him that it hurt, lost his balance and Tom had to hold him while he came like syrup, like honey.
After that they both went to the bed and lay side by side. Neither spoke. Tom put his hand to Bryant’s stomach and turned to look at the clock.
“It’s almost midnight,” he said. “I have to go home.”
“Let me walk you home,” Bryant said.
Tom wanted to say yes, but he knew the answer should be no.
“Alright,” Bryant said. Neither one of them had moved.
“Then, do you never want to talk to me again?”
“No,” Tom said. “I’m not like that.”
Tom stood up.
“You’re so beautiful,” Bryant said, looking at him. Tom was small and perfect to him. His hair thick, his face young and lovely.
“And you are too. Get dressed,” Tom told him. “I need to get back.”
They walked across the campus. Tom sure that he shouldn’t hold Bryant’s hand or touch him too much. He had never been afraid of being openly gay, but there was the whole business of him going back to his partner. Initially, he had wanted to walk back to Fenn’s room alone, making a sort of space between the Tom that had just had sex with another man, and the Tom who was committed to Fenn Houghton. Their walking together across the grassy quad, past the church, and around to the sleeping seminary was a violation of this. When they reached the darkened porch that led to where he and Fenn were staying, Bryant gripped him, and they held hands just a moment. Who was looking? In this darkness anyone could be watching. Tom turned around and looked at Bryant. The tall man had a sloppy, lovelorn smile.
“I wish I could kiss you.”
Tom wanted to say, “Next time.”
But there wasn’t going to be a next time.
“You’ll call me, right?” Tom said, instead. “You’ll talk to me?”
Bryant nodded.
“Of course.”
Tom stood on the little porch watching Bryant walk away until he was very small. Tom’s body shuddered with the memory of him. There went the only other man besides Fenn he’d ever been with. And unlike with Fenn, where the courtship had been months, this had happened instantly, right away.
Tom turned around and went back into the building. He retraced his steps around the dark dormitory. There was a light in the little corridor where he and Fenn were staying. A crucifix hung from the wall at the end of the hall over a large window that looked onto the night. When Tom reached the door, he turned the handle, surprised that it was not locked. Fenn was in bed and from the bed came his voice.
“Dan left an hour ago. We had so much to talk about. I guess you did too.”
Fenn sat up.
“Did you have a good night?”
“Yes,” Tom said, analyzing Fenn’s face for any sign of insincerity and trying to look as if he weren’t analyzing Fenn’s face.
“We talked a lot. It was good.”
“That makes me happy,” Fenn said, lying back in bed. “I always thought you were too on your own. I like you to have friends. Come to bed, Tom. We have to get back early.”
“I will,” Tom said. “I want to shower, first, though.”
“Alright,” Fenn said, a sleepy shrug in his voice.
So Tom took his clothes off for the second time that night. He went down the guesthouse corridor naked and found the shower room. He stayed under the water a long time. Why he had risked walking down this hall naked he could not say. He thought of Bryant and the sex they’d had and how Bryant was across the campus. How he wanted him all over again. He touched himself all over and then turned off the shower and came back to bed. He climbed in naked, warm and smelling of fresh soap.
“You feel good,” Fenn wrapped his arms around Tom.
Initially Tom was embarrassed to realize he resented Fenn. He was mad at having to come home to him, mad at him not being Bryant, mad about him being so easily deceived. But he loved Fenn. Certainly he’d been madly in love with him ten hours ago.
“Fenn,” Tom whispered.
“Yes.”
“How awake are you?”
“Pretty awake now that you’ve woken me.”
Tom took Fenn’s hand and brought it all the way down his chest. Fenn loved him naked, loved his body, and so it made Tom feel sexy to act sexy with him. He knew that Fenn loved how the hair under his belly and around his balls, his bush, was so soft, and he ran his hands in it and then brought Fenn’s hand to his cock.
“Tom.”
“Have you ever felt it this hard?”
Fenn hadn’t.
“Can I fuck you?” Tom whispered, his back to Fenn. “Can I fuck you hard?”
Fenn pulled Tom on top of him.
“Not here, either,” Tom said. “Outside. That little alcove porch thing. With the moon and the stars. There’s vines all up there.”
“You’ve thought of this.”
“I’m thinking of it now.”
Under Fenn’s hand, Tom’s penis was getting large, pulsing more and more, becoming heavier.
“Yes.” Fenn told him.
They got dressed. This was so unlike Tom. This was such a different side to him. He had to be led into so much, usually. Tonight they dressed quickly, and in today’s trousers, shirt hanging out of his pants, Tom led him outside to the little porch. The steps led down to a small yard over the priests’ house where there was no light and no one coming. He and Tom looked out on a night blackened courtyard with nothing more in it than a statue of the Blessed Virgin.
“Right here,” Tom whispered. He ran his hands up and down Fenn’s sides. Fenn planted his hands on the stone base and looked out onto the courtyard. He felt Tom behind him as Tom ran his hands along his sides.
“I need to be in you,” Tom whispered into his throat, placing his cheek along his neck. He fucked him like that, the two of them fitting together.
“I need to be in you. I need to be in you,” he whispered again and again while he fucked him. “I need to make a big sticky mess inside of you.”
That turned the both of them on so much that it was just what Tom did. With more force than he’d ever experienced, he collapsed against Fenn, staggering, jutting into him, shooting deep, deep, his hands losing power, his mind almost losing consciousness.
Fenn turned around and, like a sleepy, half naked child, his pants still down, Tom cradled himself against him, between his legs.
“You wanna fuck me too?”
“Yes. But in a bed.”
“Yeah,” Tom said. “We can do that.”
They redressed and headed down the hall.
“I love you, you know that?” Tom said.
“I know that. I love you too.”
“I love you more than anything.”
“Why are you telling me—?” And then Fenn said, “Yes. I know. Let’s go back to bed.”
They did go back. And all that night they exhausted themselves connecting in every way possible. Tom rejoiced in the pleasure of being with Fenn, and in time they fell asleep in each other’s arms.
Sunday morning they went to Mass, had breakfast with Dan, and then returned home.
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