“Mathan,” Meredith said.
“Meredith.”
He turned around as if seeing his ex on campus, in this abandoned hallway, was the most natural thing in the world.
“I thought you were running off with that Carol girl.”
“Brendan Miller’s sister.”
“I know who she is.”
“I couldn’t run off. I have classes. I might go up later to see her, though.”
“Do you like her?”
“What does that matter to you?”
“I guess it shouldn’t,” Meredith said.
He shrugged and turned to walk away.
“Mathan?”
He turned around, giving her a tired look. and for all of his height, suddenly he looked like Fenn or like Lee.
“Are you and her…? Did you all?”
“Again, Meredith, not your business.”
“No,” she said. “I just wanted to know.”
“Did you fuck Kip?”
“Yes,” Meredith said.
“Was it good?”
“Oh, my God, Mathan.”
Mathan stood there looking exasperated, and then she came to him and put her hand to the side of his head.
“We ruined so much.”
“You ruined so much,” Mathan said. “I didn’t do anything.”
“That’s right,” Meredith said, parting from him
“Four years together and year after year, you didn’t do anything.”
“Then why are you here, Mere?”
Meredith became suddenly frustrated and said, “Well, why are you?”
Mathan took a deep breath, his nostrils flaring.
He looked to the utility closet twice, frowning a bit.
“Can we…?” he began, in a low voice, “Can we just go in that room right over there, get this out of our systems and fuck?”
“Yes,” Meredith said, primly, moving forward and opening the door. She could see Mathan’s cock stretching through his jeans, “Under the circumstances, I think it’s best.”
In the small cloak room, Mathan grunted hard while he thrust and thrust, face pointed up, and Meredith’s thighs went tight around him, her hands settled on the smooth, firmness of his ass, and as she slipped in a finger he groaned.
“Shush,” she tried to quiet him but, his sweating face contorting, he moaned, and his body buckled as he shot, spasmed into a sea lion pose, and was rigid like that between her legs.
They were like that a long while, and then he pulled out of her. As she closed up again, Meredith whimpered a little, her flesh remembering how good he felt inside of her, how he could always touch her in that right place.
“We’re more fucked than ever,” she told him.
“Being screwed is like freezing water,” Mathan said, pulling his underwear up, “after a while frozen is just frozen. And screwed is just screwed.”
She sat up, pulling up her panties, readjusting her skirt. “Well, where are we, Mathan? Where are we now?”
He readjusted his shirt and declared: “Screwed.”
Sheridan came into the apartment, and even though this should have been a moment of triumph, he wondered why he knew it would not be. The place seemed so silent, and that was an odd thing to say. Of course it was. He entered the living room and went straight for the bedroom.
“Babe. It’s me. Babe?”
Logan lay on the bed, corpse like, and he opened his eyes.
“Tired?”
“It was a hell of a shoot.”
“Yeah,” Sheridan sat down on the edge of the bed. “But you got to go to LA.”
“I’ve been to LA.”
“You didn’t let me finish. You got to go to LA, and you’re on your way to your dream. You’re going places.”
“Yes,” Logan allowed. “I guess.”
“Logan, what’s wrong?”
“Nothing’s wrong, Sheridan,” Logan said, harshly.
He turned on his side away from Sheridan.
“I’m just tired of smiling. I’m tired of smiling and bending over backward and being everyone’s something. I’m just so fucking tired.”
Sheridan frowned and turned away from Logan, who was already turned away from him.
“Would you like me to leave?” he asked. “For a while?”
“I want everyone to leave,” Logan said. “Everyone. Everything. Just… Go away.”
Slowly Sheridan began to stand up.
“But not you,” Logan said. “I feel so ugly. I feel radioactive. I feel like I shouldn’t be around anyone or anything. But… I need to be around you.”
“Good,” Sheridan said, reaching for his hand, “I need you to say that.”
In the dark Kenny held onto him, Chad’s shuttling between his thighs, and the weight of their bodies making the bed creak and groan. In and out, quicker and quicker, sweat dripping from their bodies, desperate now, Kenny feeling the sweat on his lips joined by the drops of sweat from Chad’s face. He looked up in the semi darkness where Chad’s lips were parted, and his face went into that strange ugliness of lust, and then went blacker and blanker and came to orgasm. Both of them stopped on the edge of it, Chad arching in the air.
They had to catch their breaths, they had to come back into themselves slowly, and they were still joined together, facing each other.
“You were so far away,” Kenny said. “Part of you.”
Chad still couldn’t speak. He looked down.
“Thinking. I guess.”
“About?”
Chad shook his head.
The sheets were soaked. The bed smelled of them. Chad said, “Just talked to Bryant. I just went to check on him. I don’t know how that went.”
“Do you think about him?” Kenny said. He added, “You can tell me. We’re friends.”
“Do you think about Brendan?”
“I try not to,” Kenny said. He was running his hand up and down Chad’s arm. He placed it on his hip. Chad was so warm and so here, and so open, and Kenny was so open to him.
“It hurts. What we have is so… Good. And what I had a long time ago with Bren was good, but it’s hurt for so long. So I try not to think.”
Chad nodded and, softly, he kissed Kenny. “That’s how I feel about Bryant.”
“Where’s the boy?” Todd wondered, when he came into the house.
Fenn was smoking a cigarette, and he said, “Dylan came home early and went up to his room, and he’s been there ever since. When he came into the house he announced, ‘I’m home.’ I think he wanted me to know he wasn’t running around or something…”
Fenn took another drag on his cigarette. “Like I would have let him.”
Todd sat at the table across from Fenn.
“You know about Ruthven, right?”
Fenn nodded.
“I know they haven’t seen each other,” Fenn continued.
“Unless he followed him to the school.”
“And what if he does?” Fenn shrugged.
“He’s in love. And it didn’t just happen yesterday. I don’t want to keep him from that. I do wonder how the Lance thing went.”
Todd asked him: “What are we having for dinner?”
“That’s a switch?”
“Well, we have to eat.”
“I don’t feel like cooking.”
“Dylan!” Todd called up the steps.
A few moments later they heard his footsteps and Dylan came down into the kitchen.
“You feel like cooking for us?”
Dylan shrugged.
“I can help.”
Fenn called his son over, “Are you alright?”
Dylan just looked at him.
“Todd,” Fenn said. “Me and Dylan are going to put something together. Alright?”
Todd nodded and said, “I’m going to go up to the office.”
They began taking pots and pans from the cupboard. Dylan went to take eggs from the fridge.
“I have to ask you questions about your life,” Fenn said.
“Yeah?”
“Ruthven? Lance? Or neither?”
“You know it’s Ruthven.”
Dylan was rarely snarky, so Fenn let it slide.
“Then what about Lance?”
“Does this really interest you?” Dylan said, cracking an egg into a bowl.
“Yes,” Fenn said. “All of it interests me.”
“Some things you don’t want to know.”
“No,” Fenn argued. “I want to know everything. I want to know… what you need me to know.”
“Lance is done,” Dylan said. “We broke up this morning. We are totally broken up. That’s a fact.”
Dylan sprinkled the red paprika into the yellow eggs and began stirring them calmly.
“I don’t want to go on and on about it, Dad,” he said.
He put down the fork and his shoulders fell. Fenn thought of touching him, but was sure that would take the boy’s strength away, and a boy needed his strength.
“We…” Dylan broke off.
“Dad… I don’t know what I’m doing. I am so crazy. There are so many things I’ve done. I… We didn’t just split up, Dad. We just didn’t break up gently. It was… I can’t talk about it.”
Fenn nodded before he realized he should say something.
“I feel like I’m going to be lost,” Dylan said. “I feel like I am going to just slip away into something nuts. Me and Lance… it was… I don’t know what it was. It was sex, but it was abuse. But it was both of us doing it and I know you don’t want to hear that, and I’m scared and embarrassed and I don’t like myself and I don’t know who to tell.”
So Fenn did hug him. He held him lightly and said, “I raised you so that you could tell me anything, and now you have.”
Dylan placed his head in his father’s chest, and he began, quietly, to cry as he nodded his head.
“And you don’t have to worry,” Fenn told him. “As long as I am around, I will never, ever let you be lost. You are my boy.”
Dylan sniffed.
“I’ve been so… I’ve really fucked up. You haven’t called me your boy in a long time.”
Fenn tapped him on his head and separated from Dylan, taking the eggs and whipping them.
“Put butter in the skillet,” Fenn said.
“Huh?”
“I said, put butter in the skillet. We don’t want it to burn.”
As Dylan obeyed, Fenn told him: “You will always be my boy.”
“Heya, it’s me,” Noah began his message.
“Apparently you’re not around right now, and I just wanted to say that, when you are, we should talk. I mean, I was just calling to chat. It’s nothing important. Just calling. To clear some things up. Not that there’s anything to clear. Alright… Talk to you soon.”
Noah hung up and stuck his phone in his side pocket.
“What was that craziness all about?” his mother asked him.
“Naomi, by now you ought to know there’s always craziness around here,” Danasia said.
“Just Paul,” Noah said. “I haven’t seen him in a few days. I wanted to say a few things. Just talk about life.”
“Well now did you want to say a few things, or did you want to go on about life,” Naomi asked. “Because those aren’t the same.”
“A little bit of both.”
“He’s being strange,” Danasia said. “That means just let it go.”
The phone rang and Noah reached into his pocket.
“I’m going to take this over there,” Noah said, getting up and crossing the diner to stand in the little hall before the restrooms.
Danasia and Naomi swapped looks, but they said nothing.
“Paul,” Noah said.
“Yeah. I got your message. And it was weird by the way.”
“I just… I was just thinking…”
“Noah, I love you, but I’m packing for a trip tomorrow to shoot a commercial and I can’t know what you’re thinking until you tell me.”
Noah moved into the bathroom.
“We should just do it. We should just stop thinking about it and do it. I haven’t been with anyone since I got with James and I’m nervous, and I’m afraid, but I keep thinking about being with you. I want that, Paul. Then we can just go back to being normal. Like it was. But I want to be with you.”
There was silence on the phone and Noah heard Paul continue breathing on the other side, and then Paul said: “I feel the same way.”
“Then we should?”
“I think we have to,” Paul said, apologetically.
“I… I can’t believe I’m doing this,” Noah’s voice went high suddenly.
“Noah, calm down. We don’t have to.”
“Yes we do. I want to. I need to. I’m in love with you, and I want to go back to being normal and being in love with James. We need to just… do this. When you get back from your trip, call me.”
“No,” Paul said. “Before my trip.”
“What?”
“Not later. Tonight.”
While Todd was rinsing the dishes then putting them in the washer, and Fenn was wiping down the table, there came a knock from the living room.
“I’ve got it,” Fenn said.
He left he kitchen, went through the dining room to the living room, and opened the door to a tall man with a high forehead and graying temples.
“Mr. Houghton,” he said.
“Are you Lance Bishop’s father?”
“You should come in,” Fenn said, opening the door further.
“Would you like something to drink?”
“No. No, I’m good now. Thank you.”
“Please sit.”
“Thank you, Mr. Houghton.”
“Call me Fenn. That’s not necessary.”
“Then please call me Peter.
“Fenn,” Peter said, sitting down with the same long legs Lance had, spaced apart the way Lance sat, “I… your boy and my boy are good friends, and my Lance is torn up about what happened between the two of them.”
Fenn raised an eyebrow. He didn’t know what version of this story Peter Bishop could have heard.
“He’s hurt real bad and he feels like he hurt your Dylan really badly. Now, I’m sorry I’ve never been here before. Dylan’s a good boy. He’s a strong boy. And I know the way he is… and I think that’s because of you.”
“Yes?” Fenn said.
“I’m simple,” Peter said. “What I meant by the way he is… is gay. I meant, he’s a real good boy. He’s a real man’s man. He’s not… You all didn’t raise a sissy, and I can see this isn’t a sissy kind of house.”
Against his will, Fenn burst out laughing.
“Oh, I’m sorry! Mr. Hought—Fenn. That was supposed to be a compliment. That was...” Peter Bishop caught his breath.
“Fenn, all I really know about you is that you and your… partner… are gay and you raised a good boy who knows who he is. And my son cares about him so much and… What I’m saying is, we know how Lance is. He never says it, but we know and I think we know that Lance and Dylan were…”
“I’ll save you the effort and just say that they were,” Fenn said.
“Right,” Peter said, grimacing over this, trying to understand it.
“And I think my boy hit your boy or did something terrible. And he’s so sorry and… I don’t know what to do. I came to you man to man, because I’ve seen you and you seem like someone I can be man to man with. My boy is so miserable, and I don’t know what to do for him, or what to say.
“I don’t care what he is. If he loves Dylan, that’s great! That’s great! Should I tell him Dylan’s coming back?”
“No,” Fenn said, sadly. “Because I don’t think he is. I hope they’ll be friends soon, but… I don’t think they’ll be anything more. Not anymore.”
Peter Bishop seemed to be waiting for Fenn to say more, so Fenn said, “I don’t want you to think I knew all about this, or that I have more answers on how to raise a gay son. I just try to do what I wish my parents had done for me. Not as a gay child, but just as a child. Children really are the same. I found out about Lance very recently, and really, my heart breaks all the time.”
He leaned across the coffee table.
“Dylan feels as bad as Lance and something horrible happened between them, and something horrible is happening to them. They don’t know who they are. Dylan is terrified of himself. He thinks he’s a disappointment to me. I can’t stand to see him this way.”
“Then what does a parent do, Fenn?” Peter Bishop said. Fenn spread out his hands. “I imagine you do what you’ve always done. You love them.”
