Train Rides
Continued
LESS THAN HALF AN hour later, Adele saw Dylan coming up the walk. Tom did too, and he leapt out of his chair and went to the door. Adele joined him. Dylan had taken so much after Fenn, and he was doing that proud quick walk that was meant to face danger head on.
Adele opened the door for him, and the handsome boy with the buzz cut faced his handsome curly haired father.
“Dad,” Dylan said, looking at Tom’s slightly green face.
“Is it true that you and Lance Bishop are sleeping together?”
Dylan blinked and then he said, “He’s my boyfriend.”
“But are you fucking him?”
Dylan looked disconcerted again, and then he said, “We sleep together.”
“And who else? Is it true my eighteen year old is… turning tricks for half the city?”
“I had good news,” Dylan said. “If you’d just let me come in. I was with Sheridan and Logan. Logan’s going to be a model and they want me to model too.”
“Are you going to be doing porn like them too?”
“You don’t know what you’re talking about,” Dylan said.
Adele pulled him back.
But while Dylan’s hand went to his reddening face, Tom continued, “You drove your father crazy. Fenn just left. We don’t know where he is. Apparently he thought he could handle keeping a secret like Lance Bishop, but now it’s probably that Ruthven boy too. And who else? Who else are you busy getting fucked by?”
“Not Bryant Babcock!” Dylan said, quietly.
Tom blinked at him.
“Don’t you tell me about breaking hearts,” Dylan said. “I know all about what you did. You think twenty years covers stuff up. You’re not so perfect either, and what would I find out, Tom Mesda, if I uncovered everything about you?”
“You’re a child,” Tom said.
“And you’re full of shit,” Dylan told him, and turned his back on Tom, walking quickly down the path.
Adele, wisely, chose to stay out of it.
In the house on Versailles Street, where Tara and Melanie had brought Maia, they commented on the missing owner.
“I’d get the fuck up and go too,” Tara told Melanie. “Only I wish he’d called me.”
“I just don’t think it was one of those planned things,” Melanie reasoned, and then she said, “Damn, Maia, you beat me again.”
The light skinned girl smiled serenely and Melanie, from the living room in Todd and Fenn’s house lamented, “It’s not like it’s tiddly winks or something that grownups don’t care about. The girl beats me at chess.”
“And poker too,” Maia said. “Which reminds me…”
“I know.”
“And don’t keep telling me the check’s in the mail,” Maia said.
“Alright guys,” Todd came back out with the hugh bowl of popcorn, “I got snacks and if one of you ladies would be so kind as to get the pop and the glasses—“
“I got it, Daddy,”
“That’s a good girl.“
“I beat Melanie,” Maia said, skipping off. “Again.”
As Tara was opening her mouth, the front door opened too, and Dylan came in, looking like less of himself.
Todd crossed the room so that they stood together in the mini foyer.
“Whaddo you know?” Dylan said.
“Adele called. You and Tom had a falling out. Fenn’s gone for now.”
“Dad says I drove him away.”
“He may be a little bit right,” Todd acknowledged. Then he said, “What else should I know?”
“Uh…” Dylan thought, and said, quietly, “I’ve been sleeping with guys since I was thirteen. Some of them are adults, but I was always safe. I am having sex with Lance Bishop. I was having sex with your nephew. And a few other guys when I went to California. I’m really messed up. My genetic father slapped me in my face and I called him a hypocrite, and the dad who I always thought would be there… I’ve driven so crazy he isn’t here. I’m in trouble and I don’t feel like being judged tonight. Can I stay here?”
“Of course you can stay here,” Todd said. “You… You wanna go around and up the back of the house?”
“Yes,” Dylan said. He wanted to say thank you, but he couldn’t for some reason. He turned around and went out of the house.
The sky was turning grey and dark purple, and the wind was getting cool. He tried to remember the joyous news. He would be modeling. It really didn’t mean anything to him right now. There was a light on at his feet. He remembered that Kenny was downstairs now. Maybe that would be a good talk. He’d just have to walk around the house. He squatted down on his hams to tap on the window, almost feeling like it was a bad idea, like he was too tired and hurt and afraid to talk to his old friend.
There was one dim light on in the apartment, and by its light, Dylan could see Chad North and Kenny McGrath. They were on the side of the bed, Kenny on his hands and knees, and from behind, also kneeling on the bed, eyes closed and mouth open in serene pleasure, Chad was fucking him.
From across the street, Paul saw them all arriving at Layla’s house and went over to tell them everything that had happened.
“And Fenn’s disappeared?” Layla said.
“It seems so.”
“I think he had the right idea,” his niece said. “Let other people handle it. Is Mama handling it?”
“No. Not anymore. She left after Dylan ran off. When she found out that he was at home with Todd, she let the thing go.”
“Smart woman,” Claire said.
“So what are we going to do?” Paul said.
“Can I have my phone, Layla?” Laurel demanded.
“Uh,” Layla said absently. “Yeah.”
She fiddled around in her purse and Claire said, “We aren’t going to do a damn thing.”
Before Paul could open his mouth, Dena sat down on the sofa, stretching out her legs. “This is one crisis that needs to go on without us. Well, except for Laurel, I guess. But I’m going to sit here, stretch out my feet, and then call my husband.”
Laurel hung up the phone. “I can’t get a hold of him.”
“Then count yourself blessed,” Dena told her. “Friends are great, and being the important friend in time of crisis is wonderful. But don’t get addicted it to it, Laurel.”
“That’s right,” Claire told her. “Besides, you’ve got a date tonight.”
Laurel shrieked and Layla said, “I forgot. I’ll drive you.”
“No, I will,” Claire said. “I need to get back to Julian, anyway.”
“I need to make a bathroom stop,” Laurel realized.
While she ran to the back of the house, Layla shouted after her, “No calling, Dylan!”
“With everything going on,” Paul said, “I forgot what all started this.”
“Dylan being a slut?” Claire said.
Paul frowned. “No, Claire. It was me.”
Claire raised an eyebrow at her brother.
“I was telling Fenn how I wanted to sleep with Noah.”
“What?” Layla began. “Did you just… Oh, fuck it,” she decided. “I never heard it. Never heard it. Nevermind.”
“Bryant. Bryyyyannnnt.”
In the midst of his sleep, Bryant Babcock felt himself being shaken by the shoulder out of his muzziness.
“Bryant Babcock, wake up.”
Bryant blinked, and in the darkness his eyes made out a face and its vague features. It wasn’t completely dark, there was a little light on, and his eyes were becoming accustomed to it. The face was a little older, a little more lined, perhaps thicker, but the eyes were the same, and the straw colored hair was greyer than before. This was Dan Malloy, one time Catholic priest, who had pastored Saint Barbara’s parish for years.
Dan Malloy had not been speaking to someone on the other side of Bryant.
Bryant turned around, and on the other side of him, seeming more or less unchanged, as handsome as ever, though now Bryant noticed grey in the temples, was his friend, Dan Malloy’s partner, Keith Mc. Donald.
“I just felt at the end of it,” Bryant was saying.
He sat on the edge of the bed. Dan was downstairs making tea, and Keith sat across from him, nodding.
“I felt like that wonderful time in my life when I could have all the affairs I wanted, but not the love, was running out.”
“Bryant, I have to remind you that you had love,” Keith said.
“I wasn’t going to tell you something corny about how everyone loves you, and you’ve got friends who care about you, though you do, and you should remember that. But you had Chad for years.”
“And then he did what he did.”
“Yes.”
“And you know, I did the same thing, too. But… the whole thing is I could tell Chad didn’t want to be with me anymore. He would have come back, yes, but it would have been from duty. I knew we were done. And he is back now.”
“Whaddo you mean he’s back now?” Keith said.
“Really?”
Bryant nodded.
“And it’s not Chad’s fault, but I feel like he took pleasure in telling me that. And then he went off and found someone else to sleep with.”
“Who?”
Bryant looked disconsolate.
“I don’t know. But he’s banging him. And it turns out this married man—”
“Yes?”
“He does want to have an affair with me. He… he makes no apologies for the inconsistency. He would have me now, and that was all too much, so I just got up and found someone else for the night. And when I got back here I felt so dismal. That’s really when things began to take a nose dive.”
They were both very quiet for a while, and then Keith said, “Bryant, you know that when someone does what you did, they’re supposed to be committed?”
“You’re going to commit me?”
“No. But… I probably should. I’m worried about you.”
“I just want a man,” Bryant said, nakedly. “I want one, I want one. I want one to wake up with who I know is going to be there, and I am tired of wanting and praying especially when I really don’t think one is going to come.”
“And if one doesn’t come, is it worth killing yourself?” Keith demanded.
Bryant thought about it a moment and then said, “I really don’t know.”
SO, THINGS WITH BRENDAN must have really been over, Dylan was reflecting. He didn’t want to think about the fact that he’d sat in the grass and watched one of his friends having sex. He’d wanted to start masturbating, and when the urge overcame him he knew it was time to get up and leave watching. He didn’t feel unclean. He didn’t really need to feel unclean to know that if what he had done wasn’t evil, it wasn’t exactly in the realm of the good.
Up in his room, Dylan sat watching the sky grow darker and darker, and when he thought of the intense pleasure, of the way Chad had moved his body so skillfully as he entered Kenny, and at the look of ecstasy on Chad’s face, Dylan knew he didn’t love Lance Bishop. He knew it so clearly. He wished he loved him. But he had been around love all day, and so he knew this wasn’t it. He liked him a lot, and the sex was nice, but he had the honesty to admit that it certainly wasn’t even the best.
The best had been Nick Ferguson, who was a grown man, who was, admittedly, old enough to be his father, who had taught him how to play jazz trumpet. Nick was the most skillful lover he’d ever known, just being touched by him made Dylan shudder. When he was away from Nick, and he had been for some time, he tried not to think of him and what they did together. The impropriety of the whole situation bothered him. Not that sleeping with Lance was appropriate, but it was more appropriate than anything that happened with Nick. Being with Nick was playing with fire. Nick’s body was smooth and Nick’s hand strong and gentle when it held his hip, when the other gently caressed his ass. Nick moved so smoothly, so fully, so deeply inside of him. Dylan wasn’t a little boy with Nick. But what he was, he couldn’t say, and that scared him.
He was so into his thoughts that he nearly jumped a foot in the air when there was a knock at the window and then, while his heart was thumping in his chest, Dylan lifted the curtain to see Ruthven Meradan, grinning.
“Well, now, everyone knows everything,” Dylan said.
“Oh, no!” Ruthven sympathized, sitting on the bed, his knees together.
“And I told Todd everything. I told him about you.”
“Oh, shit.”
“I felt like I had to tell him everything. Even about Robb and Kirk in California. I don’t want to be someone keeping all of these dirty secrets. And Todd was so good about it.”
“To you, sure. But I’m gonna catch hell.”
“I’m sorry for that,” Dylan said. “I really am. But now things will be better.”
“Dylan, come on and go with me.”
“Where? To California?” Dylan added a laugh to make sure Ruthven knew he was joking.
“No, to catch a train. Let’s catch the last one. Maybe we’ll go to Chicago. I dunno. Wanna go?”
“Right now?”
“Yes.”
Dylan thought about it and then said, “Yes. Only…” he got up, “let me leave a note in case Todd comes up here.”
On the bed, Ruthven watched Dylan scramble at his desk for a note, and then write something down.
“I should get a jacket,” Dylan said. He went to the closet and pulled out a little windbreaker. Ruthven crawled out of the window and held his hand out to Dylan. Dylan caught it, and then, after switching his lamplight off, they were both gone.
