Chapter Three
Fridays
The TGI Fridays on the Strip was open all night, and the whole time Sheridan drove up Birmingham to the east where Rossford and Willmington met at the Strip, he wondered if he was really doing this, or if Logan would really be there. He wondered how wise it was to go and see him. But what could happen? And if Logan was going to be here from now on, then he’d better meet him as soon as possible and nip it in the bud.
This was the newest part of Rossford. When Sheridan was a baby there hadn’t been anything out here but a sprawl of old houses owned by Potawatomi families, and farm space from here to Willmington. But both cities had spread out over the years and met together in the stretch of Old Navys, shopping malls, Borders and Barnes and Nobles that touched the highway heading for Gary and Chicago. A little off of Birmingham, he knew, was Casey’s house, where his first job had been, where he had met Logan, and now here he was, sitting at the red light, crossing Main, turning into the TGI Friday’s lot. He monitored his footsteps as he went across the parking lot. Was he running? Was he skipping? He entered and waited for the waitress, and then realized Logan would already have a table. He scanned the booths and looked over the partitions for him and started, heart in throat, knees nearly turning into jelly at the sight of him, at his backward baseball cap, at his shoulders under the jacket. Logan was tapping his foot, his thigh moving frantically like it always did. Logan didn’t see him. Sheridan could have gone back. He should have gone back.
How strange, when he was younger he hadn’t felt this way. He headed over before the approaching waitress could ask if he needed a table. As he did when nervous, Sheridan gauged his balance. Was he walking steadily, walking strange? He set his shoulders straight. He wanted to look good to Logan. He was about to call to him, to say the right cool word, and then Logan saw him. His face broke out into a smile.
He called out, “Sheridan!” and then Sheridan was at the table again, in the presence of Logan Banford.
“In the flesh!” Logan marveled. “I’m so glad you came. I was afraid you wouldn’t.”
“Really?”
“Yes, really. I think maybe I was wondering if you were real or not. You know? The mind plays tricks when you haven’t been with someone in a while. It’s hard to believe it was real.”
“Yeah,” Sheridan said. And then, “Yes.” Because he did know.
“Well, what should we order?”
“I don’t know. Actually, I’m not hungry,” Sheridan said. “I ate already.”
“I’m starved,” Logan said.
He ordered the appetizers and said, “You’re going to split them with me, right?”
“Well, yeah,” Sheridan said.
“You’ve got to. I can’t eat all of this by myself.”
Logan ordered fish tacos for appetizers, where Sheridan thought they should be a whole meal, and then, but for the one Sheridan took, Logan ate them all. He downed a large Coke before the meal, and then started in on a big burger and Sheridan thought, wistfully, how nice it must be to exercise so much he could eat like this.
“My dad eats like this too,” Logan said. “And what does he look like?”
“He looks like a whale,” Logan said, swallowing a fry. “Goddamn that fat old fuck.”
“Well, there’s a reason for that. Most people who date porn stars don’t meet their families.”
Then Logan said, “Is that why we didn’t last?”
“Because I didn’t meet your family?”
“No,” Logan said, scratching that idea out in the air with one of his fries. He looked at the fry, considered it, and jammed it in his mouth. “I mean because I was in porn.”
“I knew all that.”
“And escorting.”
“Well, you know I knew that.”
“I know you knew it,” Logan said. “But on some level, did it matter? Was it what ended us?”
“I just thought we drifted apart. I just thought we drifted into being friends.”
“I don’t think it works that way,” Logan said. Then, “Goddamn, I wanna milkshake.”
Sheridan stared at him.
“Look, I had to do this long stint. I mean real modeling, nothing pornographic.” Logan considered that. “That’s a lie. It was semi pornographic. Anyway, I’ve been on protein drinks and rabbit food, and I’m going back to that shit tomorrow. But every once in a while I need this. Just some real trashy fattening food.”
“Logan!”
Logan blinked at him.
“You’re my friend, and I’m glad to see you and… hell, you look better than ever. You really do. I’m jealous of whoever you’re with now. But…. Why’d you call me at almost midnight? Hell, it is midnight.”
“Because I’m not with anyone,” Logan said. Sheridan waited for him to continue.
“And all I think about is the last time I really was, and how much I miss you and how good we were together. And how much we shared. We really were good. And how good you were and how… You’re the most real guy I’ve ever known. And how much you loved me—you did love me, right?”
“Of course!”
“Right,” Logan went on. “And no one ever loved me like that, and I don’t think anyone can. And I loved you. I mean I do love you. I mean it’s like a part of me has been wanting to give myself away and with you I did. And without you there isn’t anyone else to do that for. I mean there’s fucking and tricking and doing films, but you know it’s not the same.”
Sheridan put up a hand to stop Logan. “What?”
“Logan, my eyes hurt,” he said. “And I’m yawning. It’s past one, and I’ve got class at ten. This is all very sweet. I mean, it makes me feel good. But I don’t know what the fuck you’re trying to say.”
“Sheridan!” Logan sounded a bit surprised, or maybe a bit hurt. “I’m trying to say I want you back.”
“Sheridan! Sheridan!” Logan hollered as he chased him to his car.
“You need to go back and pay for that food,” Sheridan shouted, waving his hand as if to defend himself.
“Sheridan, listen!”
“You know what,” Sheridan reached into his pocket. “I’ll pay for it. Here!”
His hands trembled a little as he took out his credit card. “Just take this,” he waved it at Logan. “Take it and pay for everything. But,” he was doing a strange bit of gymnastics, running from Logan, sticking the card in his hand, and then running back. “I have to go.”
“Sheridan!”
There was hardness in Logan’s voice and he caught Sheridan’s wrist.
“Let me go,” Sheridan said, miserably.
“I just need you to listen to me.”
“I have listened to you, Logan. And you’re saying something I don’t want to hear. Just let me go. Please.”
“Can’t we talk?”
“We are talking. And those people are going to come out here and wonder why the meal isn’t paid for.”
“I’m going to go pay for it,” Logan said, letting him go. “But you have to promise to stay here. And then we’ll talk.”
Sheridan stood there.
“And then we’ll talk,” Logan repeated. “Now take back your card,” he said, and headed back into the restaurant.
Logan came out now and he said, “I was afraid you might run off. I thought I might have to chase you down.”
“You’re joking, right?”
“Only a little,” Sheridan noted that Logan had popped in a breath mint.
“Well,” Sheridan said, “now we’re talking.”
“Not here,” Logan said. “Not in a parking lot.”
“In another restaurant?”
“Well that would be stupid,” Logan told him. “Otherwise we could have just stayed here. I’m staying over there,”
Logan pointed to the hotel on Bixby, the one Sheridan had just been examining. It was a modern three story building with friendly lights.
“Come on,” Logan told him. Sheridan nodded.
“I’ll drive,” Logan said.
To keep some measure of control, Sheridan told him, “You can drive yourself. I’ll follow.”
“How is Chay?”
“He’s fine.”
“I always thought the two of you would have something going by now,” Logan said.
“We do.”
“Then you’re a couple?”
“Not exactly.”
“Then what are you?”
“We’re friends,” Sheridan said. “But we’re close.”
“I don’t know what that means.”
Sheridan laughed what he meant to be a derisive laugh.
“What?” said Logan.
“You do porn. You have sex with people on camera for a living, and you tell me you don’t know what I mean.”
“What’s that got to do with anything?”
“Nothing, only… you make it sound like you’re so conventional, like you need this straight up answer and… I don’t know.”
“A straight up answer is good, Sheridan,” Logan said, standing up, “when I’m trying to figure out if I have a chance with you.”
He added, “I don’t think I ever did wrong by you. Did I?”
“No,” Sheridan said. Then he added, “And it’s not about that.”
“Then what’s it about?”
Sheridan didn’t speak for a while, and when he did, he spoke to the floor.
“That guy,” he said. “That guy that Lee hid.”
Sheridan’s face became very serious. He looked a little afraid. Here was something they had together.
“I killed him,” Sheridan said.
“You didn’t mean to,” Logan whispered, touching his wrist, gently. “And you did it for me.”
Sheridan snapped out of it. “That’s my point!
“I did it for you. I did all sorts of things for you. With you there is no… control. And there isn’t any promise, either. There’s no promise of sanity. I don’t know what’s going to happen.”
“It’s about control?”
“It’s about… sanity. It’s about… There’s no future with us. How can there be a future with us?”
“You don’t even want a future. If you did, you and Chay would be definite by now. Not this middle of the line crap. You were free when I left, and you’re still free. But you’re not really free at all. You’re just like me. You’re drifting.”
“I am not—” Sheridan insisted, “just like you.”
“That’s not what I meant.”
“It is. A little. I think it is. Till you’ve actually been what I am, even when you sort of worship it, you’re glad you never were it.”
“This isn’t even about you,” Sheridan tried to make his voice cold.
“No, it’s about you becoming me.”
“Shut up!” Sheridan said, suddenly irked. “Shut the fuck up. With all of this self help guru bullshit. With all of this shit you heard in California. All of this ‘you’re me and I’m you’ and—”
“Kiss me, Sher.”
Sheridan looked at him, his face fierce more with shock than anything else.
“Kiss me,” Logan repeated.
And when Sheridan didn’t, Logan leaned over, bent down and took Sheridan’s face in his hands. He kissed him, his lips tugging at Sheridan’s, his tongue pressing into Sheridan’s mouth, Sheridan’s mouth opening, Logan’s lips tugging on his bottom one.
“Kiss me,” he repeated. “It’s just kissing,” Logan told him, gently, and brought him to the bed.
Beneath him, Logan’s hands reached up and pressed against the back of his head, and hooking into his hair, they kissed. Sheridan was pulled down by the greed of Logan’s desire, heated by the warmth of Logan’s body beneath him. Logan reached under Sheridan’s shirt, his large hands going all over his chest, kneading his nipples. Logan’s mouth met his again and again and then he began to pull up his shirt now, and Sheridan got rid of it. He helped Logan out of his as well and began kissing his throat and his chest, taking his nipples in his mouth. He was over Logan like a tent and he felt Logan’s hands in his jeans, Logan’s hand undoing his belt. He felt Logan’s hands going into his pants, tugging down his underwear, and then the tenderness of Logan’s hands on his ass.
Logan stood up, and like a presentation, he dropped his jeans and his underwear and there he was, his penis thick and up like a flagpole, like a soldier. It bobbed high as he leaned in, and when he did, Sheridan leaned up, caught him, and pulled his nakedness to him. He hugged Logan and kissed him fiercely. Logan situated himself astride him till Sheridan could feel with his penis the roundness of Logan’s ass and the cleft of it, until he was rubbing up against it.
“I don’t have a condom,” Sheridan said.
“Don’t worry about it.”
Sheridan looked at him and Logan laughed. “No, I don’t go bare for other folks. That’s why I’m saying don’t worry about it.”
So Sheridan didn’t worry about it. Logan’s hands took the thickness of Sheridan and pulled it into him. He let Logan lower himself onto him, and he was swallowed into that amazing tightness and that great heat. As Logan lowered himself both of their eyes rounded, both their breaths caught and their bodies stilled. As he was pulled into Logan, Logan’s mouth lowered on his lips, pulling in his breath as well.
And then they began rocking. Logan, knees pressed to the bed, pinning Sheridan in, his hands on his chest, began taking Sheridan in, and Sheridan, jerked and tugged inside of Logan, raised his hands to hold Logan’s hips, his chest, his face. Slowly, then more quickly, both of their eyes opening, only to close, faces lifted to the ceiling, they began to move. Sheridan began to cry out, to wail with the force of Logan fucking him. Part of him wondered if he could be heard on the other side ofthe door and Logan forced the sound from him, as Logan, lips parted, bounced up and down and their bodies clapped together. The sound was pulled from Sheridan, a shaking wail, and he didn’t care. He just wanted this. On the edge of poetry or reason or justification was fucking, and this, that the two of them were doing, was all that mattered.
