“So you like it when I fuck you?
“I like it when you fuck me hard.”
“Like I just did.”
‘Like you just did.”
“You think your Kirk can fuck you like this?”
“Don’t bring him up!”
“Um… why not?”
“I’ll turn this shit off,” Sheila said, standing up.
“No,” Kirk’s voice was flat. “Not yet.”
“Because Kirk’s who I date. You’re who I fuck.”
“No, no.” It was that man who had come into the car lot today. It was Brian Babcock, in the semi darkness he had filmed, his teeth flashed white. “It’s me who fucks you.”
“Now,” Kirk said in a dead voice. “Now, turn it off.”
The phone rang, and Julian Lawden picked it up.
“Hello?”
“Julian?”
“Uh… Layla?”
“Yeah.”
“I think we should talk.”
Julian thought of saying: “That’s what I said months ago.” But instead he said, “You’re right. Apparently we’re closer than we already knew.”
“I thought I was all alone,” Layla said. “I always looked at Fenn and my mom and wondered what it would be like to not be an only child. And now…”
“And now you’re not.”
“I just got finished telling my friends how I didn’t want to be angry anymore, and how we needed to forgive. With us, I need to be forgiven.”
“Now, Layla, I think that may be a mutual thing,” Julian said. “And you know what? I think it doesn’t matter. I think we can just… start fresh.”
“I’d like that, Julian. Julian, do you think our mothers will start fresh?”
“Maybe in their next incarnations. Hold on, I gotta another phone call.”
“I’ll just go,” said Layla. “We’ll… we can meet later?”
“I’d like that. Good night, Layla.”
He clicked onto the next line and said, “Hello?”
“Julian?”
“Claire.”
And then he said, “Claire?What’s wrong? What’s going on?”
“I don’t know,” she said, her voice trembling. “I can’t… I can’t even explain it. I can’t really believe it. Or talk about it. But I had to. And you’re the only one I knew to talk to. So…”
“I’m here,” Julian said, lying back on the bed. “I’m here.”
“Didn’t you have a date last night?” Todd said that morning.
“Uh… yeah.”
In the kitchen, Paul was tossing an orange hand to hand. Fenn caught it and while Paul stared at him, began peeling.
“He… Kirk cancelled. He was really strange. He said he wasn’t sure if he wanted to keep seeing me.”
Todd poured his cup of coffee.
“I don’t know what I did wrong,” Paul said.
When Todd raised an eyebrow, Paul amended. “I don’t know what I did wrong that he would know about.”
“Paul,” Fenn said, looking for Lee’s old cigarette roller and papers. “I don’t know how to break this to you, but if someone wants to find something about you they can. Or if they found something by mistake.”
“This is the Midwest,” Todd added. “Kirk’s a car dealer with his head on his shoulders. There’re lots of dumbass queens out there who would think your past was cool.”
“Kirk’s not one of them,” Fenn said.
“No,” Paul said. “He isn’t.”
Fenn licked the cigarette paper and put it in the roller.
“Paul, you might want to go have a little talk with him.”
Paul nodded.
“When you’re finished, I need a ride to the Theatre,” Fenn told Todd.
Putting the coffee down, Todd said, “I’m finished now, baby.”
“You still want to shoot the auditions for your new movie?” Fenn asked him.
“I’ll go get my camera,” Todd rose.
“You coming along?” Fenn said to Paul.
“I’ll take the Jeep.”
IN THE THEATRE Fenn noted, “Brian looks terrible.”
“Huh?” Tom said.
“Well, I don’t mean terrible. I should say terrible for him. The whole backward baseball cap unshaven thing.”
“I think it’s sort of sexy,” Tara pointed out. Then she added, “And that bothers me.”
“He’s been a little odd,” Tom admitted.
“Do you think—?” Lemonade began.
“What the hell are you doing here?” Tara demanded.
Lemonade ignored her.
“Do you think he could be the white man for me.”
At the same time Fenn said, flatly, “No.” Lee said, “Go on ahead.”
And then Fenn just stared at him.
“You know what?” said Todd. “Mind the camera. I’m going to go check on him.”
“Nurse Todd to the rescue,” Tara murmured.
“Fuck-you-bitch,” Todd said and went down the hall in the direction of Brian’s office.
Brian turned around and crashed into him, the contents of the box he was carrying spilling out.
“Are you following me, lately?”
“Lately,” Todd admitted.
“And what,” Brian said, “can be so interesting about me?”
“You look bad. Where are you going?”
“I’m not… going anywhere.”
“Brian!”
“What is it with you?” Brian snapped. “Why are you so… Who made you Todd the Conscience?”
“I’m just worried about you.”
“Why?”
“Brian!”
On the floor, picking up things, Brian gave an exasperated shout.
“I am going,” he said. “And I don’t really know where. Or how long. But I’ve got to go.”
“Why? Because of Paul?”
“Because,” Brian stood up, “I am poison.”
Todd stared at him.
“I don’t know how not to be. I don’t know how not to be a monster. That’s what I am, Todd. I do evil, and I can’t help myself. I can’t… stop myself. And then the moment it’s done I say, ‘Jesus, what did I just do?’ Only it’s too late. And it’s too much, and I feel like it’s going to drown me.”
“Brian,” Todd reached out to him. “What have you done?”
“Todd, let me go,” Brian moved away from him.
“You always try to save everyone. After what I did with Tom you wanted to kill me, then you… wanted to save me. And I thought since you got with Fenn you’d forgotten all about me.”
“I never forgot you, Bry. I thought… I hoped you were all right now.”
“You can’t run around saving people,” Brian said. “I’m going to go. And out the back way.”
Brian turned his back to Todd, and headed down the hall.
“Kirk!”
Kirk had been finishing up a deal, and Paul had waited until he was waving off the couple. Paul approached him.
“Kirk.”
“Don’t,” Kirk said.
“K—”
“I said don’t.” Kirk hissed. “I’m at work. How…?” Kirk began again. “You have the nerve to come here when I’m at work.”
“I don’t understand. I came to—”
“Follow me,” Kirk said.
Paul took a deep breath and followed Kirk to his office.
“All right,” Kirk said, digging through his desk.
“Take this,” he slammed down Pizza Slut. “And take… really, it’s this you can take because… hell, we’ve all done something in the past, right? Take this!” he said slamming a silver disk down that read: “For You”.
“You take this, you get watch it, and you tell me I shouldn’t hate you,” Kirk said. “You take ‘em both. And…” he shook his head, enraged, blinking. His hands trembled. Paul reached for one, but Kirk hit him in the chest.
“And you get the fuck out. You get out now, Paul. Or… Johnny, or… whatever the fuck your name is.
“Just get out.”
Paul opened his mouth. His throat was constricted. He could hardly breath. Air was scarcely coming. He thought he might faint. He nodded, and without turning around, padded out of the office leaving Kirk mad and trembling.
There was a rare knock at the front door that evening.
“I’ll get it,” Fenn motioned for Paul and Todd to remain sitting.
“It’ll be all right,” Fenn heard Todd tell Paul as he went to the door.
Under the porch light were standing his niece and yes, his new nephew. They entered the house somberly, followed by:
“Claire?”
Paul sat up at Fenn’s exclamation, and then he stood up when he saw his sister. He approached her and she showed him the movie, pushed it into his chest.
“Christ.”
“Paul,” Claire said. “We have to talk. I’m your sister.”
“You’re my baby sister.”
“I’m your sister. You have to tell me what’s going on.”
Paul said nothing for a moment, and then he turned around and said, “Come on in the house, Claire. I need to get my keys.”
She nodded and entered the living room.
“Fenn, this is the first time I’ve been inside of your house,” she noted.
Paul had trotted upstairs.
“Did you know?” she said to him.
Fenn nodded.
“But… how? I mean, why? He’s my brother.”
Fenn shrugged. “He probably doesn’t even know why. Not totally. But the part that he understands you better let him tell you.”
Claire nodded.
Julian looked at her.
“I’ll be fine,” she said.
“You can’t drive home tonight.”
“Yes I can,” Claire argued.
“No,” Layla and Julian said together, and then looked at each other.
“No,” Layla said again. “You can’t.”
“Well, she’ll stay here,” said Fenn with a shrug.
“I’ll stay here,” said Claire, copying the shrug.
“I’m ready,” Paul came down with his keys.
“Claire.”
She looked at him.
“Don’t look at me like that, Claire.”
“Let’s go,” she said, holding out a hand to him.
“Some guys… It’s what they always want to do. They love it.”
“Some guys are dumbasses,” Claire said. “You’re not. Or, I thought you weren’t. I don’t really know you at all.”
“Of course you do,” Paul said.
The taillights of a car sailed by as they sat on the bench at Darewood Park, across the street from the grassy campus of Loretto College.
“No, Paul. I mean… Who is Johnny Mellow? And… who is the guy in that last movie? The one who said, Kirk is who I date, you’re who I fuck. Who was that? Is that the person I’m sitting next to?”
“Yes.”
“Then I don’t know you.”
“Yes and no.”
“What’s that mean?”
“It means…” Paul said in frustration, “the person you’re talking to, or who you thought you knew… he’s the person I want to be so bad, and who I think I’m becoming. I really think I am. He’s the guy who’s gonna go back to school and who wants a life with Kirk. Or someone. Who gets afraid to be with Kirk because… what you saw in that movie is the only thing he ever knew. So… he… so I… find myself going back to what I know. Which is what you saw on that tape. DVD.”
“Mom got a copy too.”
“God!”
“Don’t worry. I intercepted it.”
“Good. Thank you, Claire.”
Then he said, “But you should have never got that.” He shook his head and blinked. “That was not what my baby sister should ever have seen.”
“But what happened?”
“Brian must have… I must have hurt him. I knew he was hurt already. I knew he was vulnerable…”
“That son of a bitch.”
“Don’t,” Paul said gently. “I’m sick about it all. I… I must have really hurt him. I’m such an asshole. I’ve turned into such an asshole. I…
“I think Brian might have run off. I feel like I should too. I hurt so many people. It’s funny. When I was in the business I don’t know that I hurt anyone. But coming out of it, trying to be normal…” he shook his head and turned away.
“Claire, if you could have seen Kirk’s face! If you could have seen… He watched that. He must think… He thought I loved him. He thought he loved me. And… I mean, it was early. We’d just met, but he wanted to make a start and I did too and…”
“But you didn’t love him?”
“I do love him,” Paul said. “If I wasn’t sure before I know now. I do. But I fucked it all up because I was so… scared.”
Claire didn’t even touch him. Paul put his face in his hands. She knew that if she turned and looked, she would see he was crying. So she didn’t look. She listened to him suck up snot and didn’t say anything. She wanted to say so much.
“God,” he cried, heaving up sobs.
When he had stopped, after a while, Claire said: “How did you… Get into that?”
“Little by little,” he said. “Till it was all I knew.”
“But… the other… boyfriends… before Kirk?”
Paul turned to her, his face sticky, his eyes bright.
“Claire!” he wept. “Don’t you get it! I was on the streets. I was turning tricks. I sucked guys’ cocks. I jacked off on camera. Fat men, old men, stupid men, paid me to go out with them and do whatever with them. By the time I was doing Pizza Slut and Kentucky Fucked Chickenor… whatever the fuck else… I was changed. All right? I was something I didn’t know anymore. The shit I was doing when Fenn and Todd met me… that was the highest I ever got. Pizza Slut was my… zenith!” Paul choked out a laugh.
“There were no other boyfriends. There was no other… love. That was it. Kirk was it!”
A truck heading to the highways screamed by, lights yellow white, making a wind that blew back their hair.
In the aftermath of its wail, Claire said:
“Kirk was it? Kirk was your first love?”
Paul put his face in his hands and sighed.
And then he nodded.
“Oh, God,” Claire said, bending over him and hugging his back. She kissed his head.
“No, wonder you did what you did! No wonder you were afraid.”
