“So are you staying or leaving?”
“Well, you know I’m leaving.”
On the sofa, Tom chuckled and curled up closer to Lee.
“You know exactly what I mean.”
“But,” Lee, uncharacteristically, backed away, “I am going to go. No matter what? You know that?”
“Are you going to find someone else?” Then Tom said, “No, scratch that. It doesn’t matter what you find later. What you have now is me. ”
“But...”
“I thought that Lee Phillips would jump at the chance to jump into bed. I mean, I don’t mean to boast, but I think I’m sort of a prize.”
“You are. But you know… I’m just afraid I can’t be everything you’re looking for. That you’ll have to compromise. I mean one night together, or a couple of nights together, is a compromise.”
“Lee, I’ve been compromising for years. I take what I can get.”
“Well, maybe you shouldn’t.”
“Maybe not, but I will.
“If,” Tom shook his head, “the choice is between you going away and me wishing we’d slept together, and you going away and me knowing we slept together I want the second choice. All right?” he said gently.
And then Lee, who was smiling painfully from the side of his mouth, relaxed, nodded and kissed Tom. Tom hand’s hooked back to pull Lee’s head closer. They kissed for a long time on the sofa, and then parted.
“All right,” Lee said.
Tom stood up and held out his hand.
“Shall we?”
Lee stood up and kissed him, his hands holding Tom’s hips, Tom’s hands around his neck.
When they parted, Lee murmured, “Well, I guess we shall.”
Todd was in his office, back to the door, when he heard the kitchen door downstairs open and stopped working. Whenever Fenn had come back to the house, Todd never got up and went to him if he was in the middle of something. He stopped working, and just sat still with childish anticipation, eager for Fenn to find him.
He listened to the rustling of Paul and Fenn downstairs, little bits of conversation, the refrigerator opening and closing. He agreed with Fenn. It was really good to have Paul here. There was something about him that Todd really enjoyed, a realness, for lack of a better word? He couldn’t say. Then the feet running up the stairs he judged to be Paul’s and then he was sure they were because they ran on by the door. The next feet, slower in coming, were Fenn’s and then, without a knock, Fenn turned the doorknob, and Todd stilled himself, waiting for Fenn to come from behind and place his hands over his eyes, whispering into his ear, “Guess Who?”
Sometimes it was “Boo.” Or, “I’m back.”
Always he whispered it gently and kissed him on the cheek.
“What was East Carmel like?”
“East Carmel was just like Jurrison. East Carmel was pretty much what I expected, but much nicer. If that makes any sense. And, Paul’s sister is… something else.”
“Something else like... ‘Oh my God!’ Or something else like, if you were straight you would jump on her?”
Fenn chuckled. “A little bit of both. What’s going on around here?”
“Well, nothing happened her,” Todd said turning around as Fenn took a seat. “I’m working on this Guy McClintock movie. I think we have enough if Paul will let me interview him.”
“I don’t know that he will.”
“I know,” Todd said.
“He’s still kind of wondering how to share this with his family. And he wants a career. Coming out as a gay pornstar might… hamper that.”
Todd shrugged. “I wouldn’t try to force him. I was just thinking. Oh, here’s something to interest you… It might interest you, I don’t know.”
“All right?”
“Well, I was over at Nell’s for dinner.”
“Yes?”
“And Layla came over and said that Tom and Lee had gone out. She also implied that Lee wasn’t coming back home that night.”
“So now I’m dependent upon the high school gossip to learn about the sex lives of my cousin and my ex?”
“You could always just call.”
“I love you cause your joking.”
“Fenn?” Todd observed, innocently.
“Yes?”
“We don’t have to sit around wondering about what Tom and Lee are up to.” He crawled his fingers up Fenn’s arm like a spider. We could get… up to something ourselves.” Todd raised an eyebrow: “If you feel like it.”
“Save that shit to your computer, Todd Meradan.” Fenn murmured into his ear. “You know I always feel like it.”
Todd had already saved everything and was setting the computer to hibernate as he rose with a sly smile on his face and murmured, taking Fenn’s hand, “Oh, indeed.”
WHEN PAUL WALKED into the Video Watch, the kid was there again, gazing at him as if Paul were a giant lollipop.
“Hey,” he said, indifferently.
“Hey,” the kid said.
“Nothing going on here tonight.”
“No, not really. But it’s an all night rental shop,” The kid shrugged.
“What can you do?”
So he was trying to make conversation now. Paul copied the shrug.
“What can you do?” he echoed.
Again he went to the movie bin with the cheap movies and looked over them. Overboard in VHS, Private Benjamin. What was it with the Goldie Hawn movies? She was good enough, but com’on. Goonies. Everyone said it was a classic, and quoted from it. Paul didn’t agree. There was nothing decent here. There had been that one Rose McGowan movie. He’d thought about it, just for shits and giggles, to watch while he stayed up at night. It was gone too.
Paul thought he would just rent some new releases. What was it with him? He was the seedy half awake guy at the video store in the middle of the night. Why couldn’t he sleep, no matter how much he did during the day? He took short naps during the day. But at night, when it was time to go to bed, all he could do was listen to the snoring, or perhaps the fucking of Fenn and Todd, or the creaking of the walls and floorboards as the house settled, tree branches knocking against the windows. He felt the hardness or sometimes the too softness of the bed underneath him. What had happened to him? Did he miss Noah? If he thought about it, the answer was—only a little. But when he’d been sleeping with Noah, he’d slept like a baby.
“You seen this?” Paul showed the boy at the counter National Treasure.
“Yeah. But it’s not new or anything. It’s kind of old.”
“It’s new to me. You wanna suck my dick?”
The boy blinked and looked at Paul. A small part of Paul blinked too, when the words just came out.
When Johnny Mellow had come out.
“Well, do you?” Paul forced himself to repeat.
“Do I...?”
“Want to suck my cock?”
The boy looked around.
“I could… I could lock the store. Like I do when I go on break.”
“Cool.”
“We could… do it behind the curtain? Where…”
“Where they keep the porn? Yeah. Only appropriate.”
The boy tried to grin at Paul’s grin which was insolent. Once he realized Paul was serious, he went to lock the door and put up the sign: CLOSED. BE RIGHT BACK.
Paul went to the curtain and beckoned to the boy who looked a little nervous, and then who followed him.
“Oh, shit… Oh, shit… Yeah. Suck that dick. Suck it. Suck it… slow. Yeah. That’s nice.”
His jeans down to his ankles, his underwear around his knees, he guided the boy’s hands to his ass, urged them to cup him there, caress him, hold onto his hips. Slowly now, he began to deep throat him, closing his eyes and licking his lips. The more he fucked the boy’s mouth, the more all the things that kept him awake, all that insomnia, played in his head. But this, this should have done it.
The boy gagged a little, backed away and kept on sucking as Paul seized his hair a little roughly and pulled his head onto his dick.
Forget… forget…
Eventually he did. He was back in the moment. Back where he heard himself moaning, and then the boy pulled away and said, “I need to see if anyone’s waiting to come in.”
“See if anyone is there yet, and if no one is, come back.”
Commanded so by a pornstar with a large hard on, the boy stood up, nodded, and then went out through the curtain. A few seconds later he came back and, with no ceremony, kept sucking.
“I don’t wanna come in your mouth,” Paul said.
He pulled his dick out, the boy didn’t want to let go.
“I don’t want to come in your mouth,” Paul said again. His dick was slick and wet, cool now that it was out of the boy’s mouth.
“It’s okay,” the boy said breathlessly, eyes full of something like starstruck-ness. Pornstar-struck-ness. A story you’d tell your friends?
“I think I want to fuck you,” Paul told him.
“All right,” the boy said.
“You got a condom… Or something?”
“I got lube… and a condom in the car. I’ll go get it,” the boy said eagerly, and was gone.
What the fuck was wrong with kids these days?Ten years ago he hadn’t known he was gay until he’d fooled around with someone and felt bad, but exhilarated about it. This kid ran around with condoms and lube just in case a pornstar showed up to fuck him!
“I’m back,” the boy said breathlessly.
Without another word he worked at his pants and his underwear, and then turned around.
“Let me… get my hands right here,” said the boy. “Just... I’ll... hold onto this cart right now. Will you fuck me hard?”
“I promise I’ll fuck you hard,” Paul told him.
He tore the condom edge with his teeth. and rolled it on while squirting the boy’s ass till it looked like a Thanksgiving turkey. And then he opened him, and planted himself against the boy’s asshole, feeling his cheeks close tight and warm over his dick.
“Ooooh,” the boy moaned with delight, and then he groaned with a start as Paul, grasping his hips, pushed into him.
The old familiar tightness he hadn’t experienced since Wade, that Marine Noah had brought for both of them...
Because the Video Watch on Birmingham was not a hot and sexy place to be, and the boy was not hot and sexy to be in, Paul remembered that Marine. Wade. Fucking his tight hole, fucking that firm ass, forgetting himself, that troublesome person with all those high aspirations who felt guilt and fear and was so fragile anything could break him. This self just fucked and fucked and fucked while whoever he was inside of gasped and groaned and shouted, trembling, shaking, eyes dilated and mouth open with amazement, balling an ineffectual hand into a limp fist, banged it down, cussing, coming, like Paul was coming, orgasm lifting him onto the balls of his feet as he shook and shook, and shot.
That night Pail returned to the house, winded. He took a good long shower, feeling exhilarated and sexual and rested: himself again. He toweled himself off slowly, and enjoyed his body for the first time in a while. Then he burrowed into his covers daydreaming about the trip to East Carmel. That night he slept like a baby. And sometime in the night he realized that there was no way he could go back to the Video Watch again or, for that matter, sustain a life where the only way to sleep was to feel whole and sexual, and the only way to feel that was through an act of random sex.
But he’d worry about that tomorrow.
“This morning, I did not want to get out of bed,” Tom declared from the small balcony that looked over the hills onto what was about to be developed as more of the northeast suburbs of Rossford.
“And you hardly did,” Lee said from behind him.
“What’s this? Wrapping your arms around me and, oh… kissing my ear… My…” Tom chuckled and, turning around, kissed Lee.
“People might think we’re lovers.”
“There are no people out here. Just a lot of undeveloped land. Interesting view.”
“Well, then I might think we’re lovers.”
“Well,” Lee, his arms still around Tom, shrugged and pulled him back into the living room.
“Who says we can’t be? Who says we aren’t?”
“You said, you’re going away.”
“And what goes away can always come back. And I’ll always come back,” Lee tugged Tom by the hand.
“I made you breakfast.”
“You made me breakfast?”
“Well, McDonald’s made you breakfast,” Lee said. “But it was bought and walked back with love.”
“Should we eat in the kitchen or eat on the balcony?”
“Decisions, decisions.”
“Balcony,” Tom said.
“Will that rickety balcony hold both of us.”
“It will,” Tom said. “And it’s not rickety. Don’t call it that. You’ll hurt it’s feelings.”
Midway through the breakfast burrito, mouth full, Lee said, “I have to tell you, before we get out of here that last night… is not a common occurrence.”
Tom, mouth full, looked at him waiting for an explanation.
“I mean, you got the full monty. I mean. Everything.” Lee frowned. “I’m not going to claim innocence, but I don’t do everything for almost… hell, anyone.”
“Yeah,” Tom said, sounding distracting and looking away. “I know.” He swallowed and took a swig of the weak orange juice. “I don’t either, Lee. But, I wanted us to be that way. I don’t ever feel that way about anyone.”
They were both quiet, and then Lee said, “Okay, that was awkward. Let’s have another sip of juice so we can look each other in the face.”
Tom took another sip of juice and said, “I just realized something.”
“Aside from the fact that you should be at the playhouse now?”
“To hell with that,” Tom waved that away. “It’s my playhouse. I can be as late as I want to be.”
“No, I realized I don’t have to… worry about you coming back. You know, I’m such a miser. I never find happiness, and I thought I had to keep on worrying about it going away, or you going away. And… if you were someone weaker, I’d probably be clinging to you. Or else I’d be pushing you away, you know? Afraid of getting too close. But I don’t have to worry, Lee. I don’t have to struggle. And I don’t know if it’s you that taught me that, or just that I’m too old—”
“Probably a bit of both.”
“Probably, but…” Tom took a bite of his breakfast burrito and chewed out the phrase, “I’m all right right now.”
“I saw her in The Crucible,” Tara whispered, pointing on stage to Leona. “She’s much better here.”
Fenn said, “You just want to eat her pussy.”
Tara shrugged. She didn’t deny it.
“Anyone who’s been in The Crucible would be better here,” Todd whispered, while working on his lap top, “would be better here. I hate that play.”
Without warning, all three of them bellowed:
LEAVE ME MY NAME!
Paul and Leona looked down from the stage and Fenn waved it off.
“Sorry, we were being assholes.”
“You sure were,” Leona said, and went back to her lines.
A shaft of light streamed down the seats, and all three of them turned to see Thom, and then Lee come in. Todd waited for them to come close enough before declaring:
“My Lawd, the dead has arisen!”
“You never get tired of that line,” Tara observed.
Todd shook his head. “It’s always good.”
“Look at the two of yawl,” Tara declared, smacking her gum. “All glowin’ n shit.”
Tom hid his face and Lee shrugged while Fenn, rising up and cuffing his cousin on the cheek said, “You do look a little radioactive. Details later?”
“Oh, Fenn!” Tom sounded nauseate.
“Look at him!” Tara said.
Leona stopped and said, “Is anyone paying attention to us.”
“I’m paying attention,” Todd said putting down the laptop. “Please go on.”
Paul shrugged and Leona said, “You’re not even the director, Todd.”
“But I’m fucking the director, and that’s gotta count for something.”
“If that counted for anything,” Tara declared, “Half of this county could watch Leona recite lines.”
“Who’s a bitch?” said Fenn.
Tara said, “I’m a bitch, and don’t you forget it.”
“So,” Fenn turned to his cousin, “Details?”
“Oh, Fenn,” Lee said tenderly, “I don’t think so.”
Thank you,” said Tom, but when he headed up stage, bellowing orders, Lee leaned in and whispered, “Over lunch. I promise.” He hissed, “We did EVERYTHING!”
“Everything?”
“And then some,” Lee said behind his hand, and sat down.
Tom came back down the aisle and said, “Okay, I know we wanted to do the casting call for something high and Shakespearian, but I really like the play I just finished, and I want to see if we can do that. I’ve pretty much got the rights clear.”
“It sounds like a very interesting play,” Lee said sagely.
“Oh it is,” Fenn noticed how Tom grabbed Lee’s hand, and grinned.
“Lee,” Fenn said. “When are you gon quit playing with Tom and just tell him you wrote the damn play?”
“He did tell me,” Tom said. “Last night. But how did you know? Oh,” Tom looked to Lee. “You told him.”
But Lee shrugged.
“That was Lee’s stage name in childhood,” Fenn explained.
“How the hell did you remember that?”
“Cause I have a long ass memory,” said Fenn. “So, let’s do the damn thing. Why’d you have to be so secret about it?”
“I wanted it to stand on it’s own merits.”
“You’re a damn fool,” Fenn said. “Oh, by the way, that Chris…. Remember the one who had Paul’s role originally, but who walked out cause I told him he was no good? Well, he’s back.”
“What?”
“He called me talking about, ‘Can I get in the show? Please. I wanna come back.’”
“But there’s no part for him.”
“There’s always a part,” Fenn said. “I wanted to say yes, but I thought it would make you look better if I told him he had to call you. So, he’ll do that this afternoon.”
“He might even offer to suck you dick like last—” and then Tara shut up when she looked at Lee.
“I talk too much,” she said while Tom glowered at her.
Fenn shook his head and said, “That’s for damn sure.”
