Birds Do It
3
He had forgotten what Ruthven looked like. No, he had forgotten what it was like to be in his physical presence. As soon as they saw each other that evening, they crashed together, clasping, back clapping like any other two boys. But Ruthven felt so good. He was in faded jeans and a yellow tee shirt, and he felt so real and he was reddened, as usual, by the sun, and now he had a little growth of beard. Dylan wanted to put his arms around his warm friend and hold on and not let go. They drove all around town and Dylan thought that California was hot and full of sprawl. He wanted to see where Ruthven and his father were living now.
“It’s great. We’ve got a hot tub. Let’s go. Oh, you want to shower off first.”
Dylan did, and Ruthven had some trunks laid out for him. He grabbed Dylan’s arm and, laughing, dragged him back through the house to the tub.
“Ouch!”
“It’s not that hot,” Ruthven said.
“No, but it’s hotter than I thought it would be. Do you use this in the day?”
“Just the night. We’re close to the desert so it’s cold enough.
“How was your year?”
“It was alright. I mean, nothing happened. Not really.”
“Yeah, I know. School’s a fucking drag.”
“You got any friends?’
“I always have friends,” Ruthven said. “But not like… folks I’m close to.”
Dylan was about to point out that technically this made them acquaintances. This was the legacy of being the son and stepson of two English majors.
“Yeah,” Dylan said. “Well…”
His foot kept touching Ruthven’s, and suddenly Ruthven grinned and approached him. It was so off putting, seeing Ruthven look flirtatious, cock his head, grin at him, look, for lack of a better word, a little bit gay.
“Why are we talking about all this?” Ruthven said, his hands on Dylan’s hips.
Dylan instantly felt his penis lifting, curving up, becoming hard.
“I dunno,” he said, trying to sound casual. “Can we kiss?”
Not waiting for an answer, Ruthven wrapped his arms around Dylan and pressed his mouth to the younger boy’s. It felt so good.
It felt so good to be in Ruthven’s arms, kissing him, pressing his hands into his hair, kissing up and down each other’s chests, pressing their bodies together. It felt so good to wrap his thighs around Ruthven’s waist, and his legs were gently bringing Ruthven’s trunks down.
Ruthven smiled at him, and then kissed him again. He bent down, and then Dylan let him remove his trunks. He let Ruthven take the thickness of his penis into his mouth and he closed his eyes and gripped the sides of the tub while Ruthven sucked on him, licked up one side of his shaft and then the other, taking him in.
And then when they faced each other, trunks down, bodies pressed together, still kissing, Ruthven’s voice was barely audible over the motor of the hot tub.
“Fuck me?” he said.
Dylan kissed him, and pressing his face into Ruthven’s chest. Feeling the strength and the heat of his arms he murmured, “Yes.”
Ruthven’s father didn’t come home until the middle of the next day, but by the morning things were already odd. Dylan woke up by himself, and when he found Ruthven, he was making breakfast. He went to hug him from behind and Ruthven received it stiffly.
“I hope you like pancakes,” he said, and his voice was strange because, though it was high and happy, there was something lacking in it, like a tinny recording. They ate and Dylan thought against touching Ruthven in any way. And then they washed dishes together and Ruthven said, “You wanna go out to the pool?”
“Of course.”
Dylan thought that maybe what had begun yesterday would continue, but Ruthven only lay on the side of the pool. He looked so beautiful to Dylan, his mouth half open, black sunshades over his eyes, and he lay only in the small briefs Dylan had pulled away yesterday. When Dylan flicked him with water, he didn’t get angry, but he did say, “Hey, knock it off a bit. Just let’s chill out.” Dylan shrugged and dipped into the pool himself, doing some laps. When he came out of the water he leaned over Ruthven. His lips were so red and perfect, he bent down and kissed them.
“Dylan, that’s enough.”
“You’re right,” Dylan said. “That is enough.”
He went across the concrete patio, and pushed open the door. “Where’s the phone?”
Ruthven sat up, pushing his shades off and looking a little drunk.
“Wha? You know where the phone is.”
Which was true.
“Whaddo you need the phone for?”
To say this: “I’m going to call home. If it’s going to be like this, why stay?”
Dylan had already perfected the art of storming out in as masculine a fashion as possible. Ruthven hopped up and caught his wrist as they came into the living room.
“Don’t do that, Dill. please. I’m sorry.”
“You’re being an asshole.”
“I’m just trying to do right.”
“Last night we… And then now… How are you being right?”
Ruthven looked miserable.
“Last night I caved in to my temptations and today I’m trying to remember myself. I shouldn’t have done what I did.”
“It was alright.”
“I think it was statutory rape for one thing. I’m your cousin for another. I don’t care about the whole gay thing. But… We’re supposed to be more than this. And yesterday I just got so horned up.”
“Horned up?” Dylan pulled his wrist away. “That’s what yesterday and last night was about?”
“That’s not all it was about,” Ruthven explained. “But, obviously that’s what some of it was about. I wanted you so bad.”
“And you had me. Or let me have you,” Dylan said. “And apparently that’s what you wanted so…”
“Please!” Ruthven begged, balling his hands into fists and shutting his eyes.
“No! You asked me to come out to California, and we both know what for. And then I come out and do everything we did. We make love last night and sleep in the same bed and then when I wake up you’re gone and you’re making pancakes and—”
Dylan gritted his teeth and blew out his cheeks.
“I don’t know. Look, I know lots of things that happen everyday between lots of people who shouldn’t be doing them. But you said you loved me and I said I loved you, and that should count for everything.”
“But it doesn’t,” Ruthven said. “And I’m scared.”
“Well…” Dylan shrugged. “I don’t know what the fuck to do for you.”
“Stay with me,” Ruthven said. “Stay with me. Last night it was so intense, and then this morning, just like watching a porno or something I could see it all from a distance. I could see me asking you to do what you did. I could see us doing it, and I could see myself out of control. And…” Ruthven shook his head.
“Please Dylan…”
“You’re supposed to be the older one,” Dylan said. “That’s all the fuck you’ve been talking about. Well, if you’re the older one, why don’t you help yourself?”
Dylan turned around and went toward his room. That was supposed to be Ruthven’s room too. They could have had all day together without explaining anything to his father, and here Ruthven was, screwing it up. Shoving a ball cap on his head, Dylan went out the door, and on his way.
Dylan didn’t go far because he didn’t know where he was, and soon Ruthven’s truck was pulling up beside him.
“You had your dramatic scene then, a’right? Now you can get in the car. I played along. I followed you.”
Dylan stopped. “Get in the car.”
Dylan shrugged and climbed in while Ruthven said, “I doubt Lance would do that for you.”
“Lance can’t drive.”
“Are we good?”
“How can you ask that? Of course we’re not.”
“Dill, we’ve got our whole lives. Can we take it slower? Can you…? Is it enough for you to know how I feel, and we can just take it slower?”
“If I was fifteen would you feel different?”
“Maybe. But when you are fifteen I’ll be eighteen. You’re still a kid.”
“And you’re not?”
“That’s not the point,” Ruthven said as he turned the truck around on the wide, abandoned road. “The point is that we’re both kind of still kids and, like I said, the feelings that us having sex bring out in me, they scare me when it’s over. The whole idea of what we’re doing scares me. I realize you don’t get scared of anything—”
“I never said that,” Dylan said. “Then what?”
“I’m scared of a lot,” Dylan said. “But… even when I’m scared of the sex, it’s like a roller coaster. I’d rather be scared than not take the ride, and I’ve only been with Lance until now. I wanted us to be together all this time and… I’m not scared of us. Why should I be?”
As they neared the house, Ruthven said, “Dylan I love you.”
“Well, I love you too.”
“No, I mean, I wish I could be more like you. I want to be more like you.”
Here was an area of scrub and a few large houses, white in the sun. They were so close to being in nowhere. Dylan said, “Just… I want to wake up with you. Don’t promise anything else except you’ll come to me tonight, and sleep in bed with me. So we can be together.”
Sun reddened, the little streak of caramel colored beard on his chin, and the day’s growth of moustache looking sweet to Dylan, Ruthven looked at him so tenderly Dylan was almost afraid they’d drive off the road.
“I can do that,” he said.
Todd’s brother came back that afternoon, and he took them out for pizza without beer.
“You’re not even close to old enough,” he said to Dylan, taking the beer menu away.
Dylan shrugged and frowned, and Ruthven whispered, “Dad lets me do it.”
“Sometimes,” his father lifted a finger.
“Sometimes.”
“So, how’s my brother and sister?” Ryan asked.
“Todd’s working on a new film.”
“Well, I knew that. He didn’t tell me much about it.”
“He didn’t tell me anything about it either,” Dylan said. “I guess I should have asked.”
“I guess there is no reason you would have,” Ruthven’s father noted. “There’s no reason teenagers should care about what grown ups do.”
“Grown ups don’t really care about what we do,” Ruthven pointed out.
“That’s not true,” his father said.
“Well, you. But you’re different. And you still have to be gone half the time.”
While Dylan was coming out of the shower that night, on the other side of the door he heard Ruthven and Ryan talking.
“Are you sorry we moved here?”
“No. We had to.”
“There were other things. It could have been different.”
“I’m fine.”
“I can’t be here all the time. I wish I could, guy. It’s not right.”
“I told you, it’s fine. And… the pool and everything. And… there’s a party tonight. Parties every night.”
“You’re taking Dylan?”
“Yeah.”
This was news to Dylan, and he suspected it was news to Ruthven, that he’d just thought of it.
There was silence for a while on the other side of the door and Dylan, hair sticking up, remembered to continue drying himself.
“A boy should have a mother,” was all Ryan said.
