From the backseat Dylan said, “Do I really have to go to bed at eleven?”
“Oh, and you do have to listen to Todd go through his Torah portion again. Rosh Hoshanah’s only a week away.”
“All right,” Dylan said.
He yawned Tara asked, “Why are you yawning?”
“Went to bed late last night.”
“Aha!” Fenn, in the passenger’s seat, brandished a triumphant finger. “All this blaming me, and it’s your knuckle head father who’s keeping you up at night.”
“I have this huge science project.”
“The one with the atomic model?”
“Yes.”
“It doesn’t explode, does it?” Tara asked.
“Well that’s for extra credit. Say, Dad, you remember that time when you set Tommy Peterson’s volcano on fire?”
“And then threatened to set his father’s truck on fire too? Yes.”
Dylan smiled. “I always chuckle a little thinking about that.”
“Thinking about how crazy your father is?”
“Well, as long as it’s crazy for me, and not crazy against me.”
“Never crazy against you.”
“Dad?”
“Yes?”
“You and Dad, you know, Tom, you all love each other, right? You all are friends, right?”
“Yes. You know that.”
“Well, I love Todd, and I love Lee. But… why aren’t you and Dad together?”
“Your father and I hadn’t been together for years when you came around. You know that.”
“I know, but…. he asked you to be my dad too. Even though you all weren’t together anymore. So he must have really loved you. And… if you all used to be together, then what happened?”
Tara groaned.
“Did you love my dad as much as you love Todd? I know he loves Lee, but he loves you too. And you love him.”
“You don’t wish we were together, do you?” Fenn said.
“If I told you that the love ran its course, what would you say?”
“I’d say that’s bull.”
Fenn nodded.
“Well, you’d be right. Something did happen. But maybe it happened because the love ran its course. I’m not free to talk about it right now, Dylan.”
Fenn turned around. They were at a red light.
“You are old enough to know, but you have to ask your father. He’s not going to want to talk about it, but you can ask him, and let him know it’s okay with me if you know.”
The light turned green again, and as Fenn turned around, Dylan murmured, “Well, now I’m not even sure if I want to know anymore.”
“Blessed art thou, eternal our God, king of the universe, who causes the earth to yield grain,” Todd murmured and Fenn murmured, “Amen”, and then passed the hot bread to Melanie who took some and handed it to Tara, and then Tara handed it to Dylan.
“So,” Dylan said, looking at the cross on the wall, “What should I do?”
“Whaddo you mean, what should you do?” Todd said.
“Religion wise?”
Todd looked at Fenn and Fenn said, “I need you to explain that a little, Dill.”
“Well, Dad is Catholic,” Dylan said. “And you are too. Sometimes. But you go with Todd to temple and… I’m not clear on what I’m supposed to do.”
“You’re supposed to do whatever feels right to you,” Fenn told him while buttering a bit of warm bread.
“What if nothing feels right to me?”
“Nothing?” Maia said between Melanie and her mother.
“I’ve done nothing,” Melanie told Dylan. “It’s not that great.”
“Well, I can’t think of it for you,” Fenn said.
“You really don’t care what I do?” Dylan said in amazement.
“Well, of course I care what you do,” his father said. “But I can’t control it, and I don’t want to. You have to find these things for yourself.”
“I feel stupid,” Dylan said. “I used to care. I used to wonder about things like that. You’re supposed to get smarter as you get older. Not the other way around.”
“Does that make me smarter than you?” Maia said, not blinking.
Dylan grinned at her. “Possibly.”
“It may make her smarter than us all,” Fenn said.
Lance Bishop did not think of himself as particularly attractive. Oh, he knew people said he was, and he almost believed it. But what he saw was a forehead that was too high and a body that was too thin. He was also keenly aware that even though he was on track and played basketball, most of the guys at Saint Barbara’s referred to him as a faggot behind his back, and few of them really liked him.
He always felt different. Lance always felt like he didn’t get it, like he wanted things no one else wanted, liked things no one else liked. It wasn’t just the whole liking boys thing. He wasn’t stupid. It was a lot of guys who had done things with each other. But he was just the odd man out. He was always coming in a little too late. He could do the part of butch. He could be a guy. But it just made him so tired. Sometimes he wanted to just lay down and… No, don’t say that. Don’t even think it.
Riding his bike so hard that his thighs hurt and he was nearly out of breath, he raced up Calverton to turn on Jamaica Street. Jamaica ran straight south of Dorr and was filled with little brick houses and trees.
When he was eleven and big eyed and big foreheaded, he came to Saint Barbara’s with his clothes not fitting. It was two years ago that he’d become attractive, that girls had wanted him, which is what matters. Back then his first friend was Dylan, and Dylan was so different. Dylan was so… Dylan was perfect, really. He had slightly long hair like his father who used to come and pick him up. Lance was too young back then to realize how Tom made him feel. Some men made him feel that way. He wasn’t too young to fiddle around on the Internet, to look through magazines and start to wake up a little. It was a fierce awakening, a violent one that ruined his bedsheets and plastered his sex to the side of his leg. He knew about it from a distance but now, having a friend the same age, going through the same things, he began to understand.
“I’m gay,” Dylan said one night and Lance said, “I think I am too.”
Then he added, “You can’t run around telling everyone that, though.”
“That’s what my dad said.”
“Tom?”
“No,” Dylan said. “Fenn.”
“Oh.”
Lance thought that Fenn, who had set Tommy Peterson’s volcano on fire a few years back, would be the last person to say that.
Being with Dylan was the first time he’d felt free. Dylan was the first person he could be himself with, and Dylan’s desires and curiosities were rising at the same speed as his own. The first time something had happened, and they had been staying at Lance’s house, it had felt so good neither of them had been able to stop and they came at the same time, trembling, almost being ripped out of their bodies, showering everything with more come than was possible. It left Lance rung out and exhausted. They fell asleep like that, and even though their relationship changed then, it was still their relationship. They weren’t ashamed.
Or, at least, they weren’t ashamed around each other. Lance was afraid. He was afraid that somehow people would know, that they would hate him even more. If he hadn’t been so afraid or so stupid he could have worked out something with Dylan, he could have made Dylan his boyfriend. But instead he had told Dylan his plan to date Eileen Jackson.
“She’ll be my girlfriend, and we can just be friends. You know? Who do what friends do.”
Since, today at the age of sixteen, Lance was pretty sure friends didn’t fuck each other, as he turned onto Versailles and headed north he thought how this was the dumbest thing he’d ever said. He compounded this stupidity by fucking Eileen Jackson. He knew everyone would know, and then no one would think he was gay, which he was. But what happened was everyone thought that he was the gay guy who fucked Eileen Jackson, and though girls still liked him, he couldn’t get away from himself, and now there was that, and now there was the knowledge that he had hurt Dylan. He knew he’d hurt Dylan badly.
This next block was the last block, toward Dorr. This next block was Dylan’s dad’s house.
But then that fucking Ruthven had shown up. Ruthven had always been around, but after Eileen Jackson, Lance knew that Ruthven had taken his place. Ruthven Meradan—and that was a stupid name anyway—had come between Dylan and Lance and what Dylan did with him, Lance couldn’t say. Did they fuck? Lance couldn’t imagine Dylan fucking anyone else. But in all honesty he couldn’t believe that they hadn’t.
He threw his bike in the grass and went across the night dewed yard. He began crawling up the side of the house, his long, strong limbs spider like, and then he hefted himself onto the gable and tapped on the dormer window. Now Ruthven was gone. Now stupidity was gone. Now Dylan was his. Now they could finally be what they were supposed to be. His palms were dimpled with the roughness of the roof tiles. So what?
He knocked on the darkened window. The lights did not come on, but the curtains parted and in the dark he saw Dylan’s perfect face.
Dylan opened the window and helped him in. Dylan was tall enough, but Lance was taller and he stood there, breathing heavily and smelling like the nighttime. He bent over enthusiastically, nearly taking the breath out of Dylan’s mouth, filling his mouth with his tongue.
“I love you,” he said, when he parted from Dylan. Grinning, Dylan closed the window, pulled Lance’s face down, kissed him and whispered, “I love you too.”
And then, bringing him to the bed, fiercely, they swiftly began to undress each other.
“Sheridan, are you all right?”
Chay was combing his hair, pulling out the tangles, and half dressed for his presentation.
“Yeah.”
“You’re acting really weird, and I want to be the attentive type, especially now that we’re living together. But I have a presentation in about five minutes, so if something’s going on you need to tell me. Like now.”
“Like nothing,” Sheridan said with a hooked grin.
“Go blow everyone away with your unique knowledge of history, and I’m going to blow myself away with my unique ability to sleep.”
Chay stopped combing, came to the bed and kissed Sheridan on the top of his head.
“I love you. You have a good day.”
“We need to find out what happened to Meredith.”
“Does she want to be looked for?” Chay said. “Or does she just want time by herself? If she wants time by herself, then we’ve got to respect it.”
“I don’t think I want to respect it.”
“Me neither, and I’m sure Mate doesn’t. Oooh, crap,” Chay remembered.
“Go see Mate.”
“I’ll do that. I’ll do that as soon as I’m properly out of bed.”
When Chay was gone, Sheridan still lay in bed blinking at the ceiling, drifting off a little, but not enough for it to matter.
Finally he got up, got dressed, and while brushing his teeth turned on the computer. He did an image search for Logan. He searched for Logan’s videos. Logan and Ricci, Logan and Michael. Logan, Bolt and Tyler Threeway. After he had dressed he sat before the computer linking from site to site, forgetting about all else, moving through varying states of hardness. There was a link that said, “Bret Skye, formerly known as Casey Williams’ Logan.”
And here were more pics, magazine pics. Logan was going to be a model. Logan was going to be asemi-nude model. Logan was going to be a model with his cock out.
He could go see him on his way to comfort Mathan. He could finish this all up right now.
