“You didn’t tell me about this!” Fenn said while they were standing on the steps of Saint Barbara’s after Mass.
“That’s why it’s called a surprise,” Dan answered with a smile.
“So now I guess you’ll be coming to church?” Barb Affren said. She turned to the young priest.
“You and Fenn are old friends?”
“We are very old friends,” Dan said, putting his hand on Fenn’s shoulder.
Tom was approaching them in his Sunday best. He came forward—manfully was the word that Fenn found—to shake Dan’s hand.
“So you’re our new priest!”
“Imagine the bishop sending him here of all places,” said Fenn.
“This bishop—” Dan began, but Fenn lightly kicked him in the ankle.
Later, in the rectory, Father Collum took out a bottle of Kentucky bourbon and poured a half glass for Dan and one for Fenn, a full one for himself.
“Breakfast of Champions?” Dan said.
“Only half the breakfast,” Father Collum said, “You need a cigar to complete it.”
“I never smoke,” Dan said while Fenn gladly took what was proffered.
“You will,” the old priest said.
Dan took a tentative sip and then said, “Father, I told you only a little.”
Father Collum waved his cigar at the glass before lighting it.
“That is only a little,” he declared as he lit the cigar and the living room filled with smoke.
Biddy Carmichael came out hand on hip, looking very much like her sister, Barb Affren.
“I just cleaned this house.”
“Woman, it’s still clean,” the priest said. “Where’s my paper?”
“In the kitchen.”
“I sure would like it.”
“Then you sure should get it,” Biddy told him, and went up the stairs.
Dan took another small sip after Fenn, and then said, “I really can’t do twelve o’clock Mass bombed.”
Walking off in the hunt for his paper, Father Collum told him, “Of course you can, lad. Of course you can.”
Dan shrugged and downed the drink in one burning swallow, then blinked, smacking his lips. With a new found masculinity, he gestured for Fenn to follow him to the couch, and then they sat down.
“So, why’d you kick me?”
“For being stupid. You were about to tell Tom that you requested to live here, weren’t you?”
“Yeah! Is there a problem with that?”
“Tom is constantly and endlessly jealous of our relationship, and he can’t stand you, Dan. So yes, there’s a problem with it.”
“Oh,” Dan said, taken down a bit, He studied the creases on his pants, and then he said, “But you’re happy to see me? Right?”
“Of course I’m happy to see you! I’ve missed you. I will even come to church for you. This is the happiest day of my life.”
“Well, good. Then that’s all that matters.
“If Tom was halfway right he’d be happy at your happiness.”
“That’s not fair, Dan.”
“Isn’t it?”
“You and Todd,” Fenn murmured.
“Me and Todd what?”
“You and Todd are both convinced that… Tom should be better.”
“Who is Todd?”
“The very tall, very lanky boy with a mess of black hair who was behind me at Mass today.”
“Oh,” Dan smiled. “I thought I liked him.”
When, fingers wrapped anxiously about the phone, Tom told Bryant about the new priest in town, Bryant just laughed a little and then said, “Don’t you even worry about that.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?” Tom said.
“Nothing. Only… I was worried about something. But I’m not worried about it anymore.”
“Bryant!” Tom said in frustration, “I don’t know what you’re getting at.”
“I’ll see you soon, Tom,” Bryant told him, and hung up the phone.
Tom had been on the faculty of Loretto College for eight years. In the first years, Fenn always went with him on the Sunday before the first Monday of the year faculty brunch. In the last year he hadn’t gone, and then this year Tom told him to go to Mass instead and then go help Nadine Meradan. So when Tom reached Loretto, Fenn was actually over at the Meradans with Todd and Nell, helping them with their mother who had just returned from a long stay in hospital.
“You’re going to be interested to know,” Julia Amanetti, who had just been hired by the college that year, said, “that we’ve got a new addition to the music department.
“Really?” Tom said.
“Yeah, which means now we actually have something like a music department. I hear they’re going to start taking us seriously and give us all of Raglan Hall.”
For eight years Tom had been part of a sorely neglected staff stuck in something like an attic, and now he was overjoyed at being part of something real, finally as respected as any of the other humanities at Loretto. The English department had to share King Hall with the history department. Music would get its own building. But just then, Tom heard music playing. A piano tinkling the finest music he’d ever heard.
“What is that?”
Julia Amanetti dragged him across the room to the piano.
“Our new faculty member!” she said.
As she pulled Tom to the piano, his jaw dropped.
Looking back at him, smiling darkly, was Bryant Babcock.
He was playing ‘Moon River’, and he was taking his time, and when he finished and there was polite clapping, Bryant said, “There’s more where that came from.”
He played Mozart. He played the motet Forgive me, Lord, for thy dear son, that was playing on that night a year ago when he had first met Bryant and the other young man had undressed him, and taken him to bed. Tom wondered, “Is he toying with me?”
Yes he is. A little. While he and Julia stood, mesmerized, Bryant finished, and this time there was no tepid clapping. Bryant stood up, bowed and walked slowly around the piano taking the hand Julia offered.
“Bryant Babcock, meet Tom Mesda. You and he both do classical and liturgical music. The two of you will be working very closely this year.”
His dark eyes on Tom, Bryant took his hand:
“Mr. Mesda, I can’t wait to work closely with you.”
“How long have you been planning this?” Tom whispered to him when they were left alone in a corner.
“A while,” Bryant said. “Since I knew I was going to be unemployed.”
“And you kept it from me all this time?”
“At first I was worried you wouldn’t be pleased. And then when I heard about that whole Dan Malloy business—” Bryant shrugged.
“Hey, I don’t want to go on about this here. You ready to skip this place?”
Tom was about to say: “Where for?” but he simply straightened his tie and said, “Let’s go.”
They drove in separate cars, Tom following Bryant to an old apartment not far from the school, not that anything was far from anywhere else in Rossford. It was a low, beige, modern building, and they went through the glass doors to the lobby and then up the stairs. Bryant opened the door quickly, closed it behind him, and he and Tom locked their arms about each other. They kissed against the door, smelling of cologne and late summer and desire, and then undressed in the living room and made it to the bedroom where Bryant, long and dark, dusted in Portuguese hair, fell on his back and opened his legs to Tom. It was so quick, and they were so quickly out of themselves. Head to the ceiling, then face looking out of the window to the street, and then down at Bryant’s mouth opened in ecstasy, Tom fucked him. Violently, he came. He’d wanted this for well over a year. It had always been on the edge of his thoughts whenever he talked to Bryant. Now, here he was in Rossford, in this beautiful apartment, in this beautiful soft, strong bed, the whole afternoon left to them, and Tom on his knees and then his hands and knees, just fucking the hell of out of this beautiful man, just engulfed in this heat, in this tightness. Last time it had been Bryant who fucked him. He’d never fucked anyone by Fenn. Now the orgasm was like a sharp magnet that tugged at his balls and turned his cock into something large and cosmic, slick and throbbing. The orgasm pulled itself out of Tom, causing him to go into a violent seizure and then, eyes gazing at the light of nothing, he knelt there still, too taken to even move. It was Bryant’s warm, large hands that moved him, put him on his back. He felt Bryant riding him, cock against his cock, lubricated by the slickness of his semen. They moved together in that incredible heat until cursing and swearing with a staggered, oh—fuck—my—god-god-god-damn, Bryant came too. He came hot, the liquid flowing between their stomachs, to their chests.
They lay like that, Tom under the heat of Bryant. Then, at last, Bryant got up. He returned a few moments later, tall, nude, clean, with a white cloth for Tom. It was hot and moist and Tom cleaned himself. Bryant stood before him. He had the most beautiful penis, still firm, still erect and bobbing, balls hanging in their brown sack, the hair of Bryant’s loins dark and beautiful. Swiftly Tom took Bryant in his mouth. He needed Bryant. He wanted Bryant so much that Bryant came back to the bed and their fooling around turned into second sex. In the aftermath of it, in the late afternoon, the two men lay damp and hot and naked, tangled together, barely breathing.
Bryant rolled over. He was fiddling with the stereo. Tom touched his soft buttocks. Suddenly Tom could hear Bach. The choir soared in the strains of Saint Matthew’s passion:
Wir setzen uns mit Tränen nieder
Und rufen dir im Grabe zu
Ruhe sanfte, sanfte ruh,
Ruhe sanfte, sanfte ruh!
Tom was so overcome by the music and by the bliss of the day that tears sprang to his eyes.
Bryant leaned over and smiled, wiping the tears away. As the choir rose to a heart shattering note, Bryant said, “Yes. That will make you cry.”
Rüht, ihr ausgesognen Glieder
Ruhet sanfte, ruhet wohl!
Bryant continued, “This officially makes us pretentious, doesn’t it?”
Tom tried to laugh and sat up.
“We’re having an affair now,” he said. “Aren’t we?”
Bryant pulled Tom’s warm body to him. It was important they be as close as possible. It felt so good to hold him, to be near him. He kissed him very softly and then squeezed Tom.
Bryant told him: “We are.”
Christmas is almost here, please open your hearts, then open your purse strings. Give what you can: https://www.gofundme.com/f/Fundraisingforhousing
