Sunday
Conclusion
Outside, Brendan heard one of the late night El trains rattle by. The other day there had been a power out, and one had been stuck in the sky. Brendan said a Hail Mary for the people in there and when that didn’t work a few Our Fathers, and then he crossed himself when it started up again. Poor people. He’d heard of folks getting stuck in the subway, and last year one of the tunnels had caught fire. The CTA was a pretty safe way to travel, but there could be flukes every now and then, and as an El rider and a believer, Brendan Miller felt it was his duty to help out, in a heavenly way, anyone he could who was in a position he hoped he would never be in himself.
From where he sat under the desk light, Brendan could hear the shower water running, and he put down the files for the case that would take the majority of this coming week and looked across the darkness of the room to where light from the other side limned the bathroom door. He gazed on it, thinking of the one on the other side and how much he loved him, how Kenny had followed him this far. He thought of this week where he would spend more time with this case than with his lover.
The water had stopped running and Brendan’s eyes returned to his work.
He remembered the first time he and Layla had gone to see her sister, when Caroline was reading his cards and she said, “I see a handsome man beside you, and he has always loved you. He is part of you.” He remembered the day they’d come to this apartment, the two of them, struggling to bring the refrigerator up the steps, beads of sweat forming on Kenny’s brow, the smell of his sweat through his tee shirt. For some reason the smell of Kenny reminded him of Kenny’s love.
The door opened and Kenny came out, his body highlighted by the light of bathroom. He was only in the white briefs that shaped the bulge of his sex and the round firmness of his ass; Brendan sat up and gestured to him.
“Come here,” he said tenderly.
“Goddamn,” he murmured, tenderly. “Goddamn.” Brendan leaned forward and took him in his mouth. His tongue touched the tip of his penis and circled the head. It went down and up the shaft and all around. It tapped at his balls before Brendan’s mouth formed a vacuum. If he could have he would have taken all of Kenny in, and his mouth moved under the instruction of Kenny’s moans his hands went to Kenny’s back, down to the underwear band, pulling it down, holding the firm softness of Kenny’s ass, kneading as his mouth lapped.
Brendan held Kenny by his hips, looked up and said, “Com’on.”
The pulsing light of the rattling train was the only way Brendan could see as he knelt on the side of the bed, the bases of his hand touching the pillows while he fucked his lover who was on hands and knees. Brendan wanted to be as deep inside of him as he’d wanted Kenny to be inside of him, and Kenny was so tight. He was such a deep country to enter. If only he could go deeper and deeper, if he only he could never stop.
In the frantic darkness, his hands guided Kenny to turn around, to kneel. He plunged his face into the soft cheeks, his tongue entered Kenneth, lapping him, touching new nerves. Here was a new way to enter the old lover. To gasps and shouts he thrust his tongue deep in Kenny’s ass. Kenny’s hands grasped the bedposts, his head arched up and he cried out. When Brendan had exhausted himself with his tongue, he used his finger, and then another, and gently he turned him over, and with the help of oil he entered at last Brendan used his penis, wet and dripping with desire now. He pushed deeper and deeper, going into tighter and tighter country. He fucked him.
Bren came silently, his body seizing over and over again. It had been a while since they’d done this.
“You’ve still got work to do,” Kenny said in the darkness. “I thought you were asleep.”
“I knew you weren’t.” “How’d you know?”
“I know you, Brendan Miller. I’ve known you for years.” Brendan blinked at the ceiling. His left arm was twined with Kenny’s right, the side of Kenny’s body was pressed to his. He’d always been the thin one, and Kenny had always had that athlete’s body, the sturdy flesh on beautiful thighs and rounded, dimpled buttocks, even his curly hair, well rounded, athletic hair, rugby playing hair.
“Well, then do you know what I’m about to say, now?”
“Do I want to hear this?”
“You’re going back to Rossford,” Brendan turned to him.
“What?”
“We haven’t had sex in two weeks. I thought about it. I’ve been working on this case, and I have to go right back to it. I thought, when you were in that shower and I was looking at my case, I’m going to be on it longer than I’m going to be with you. It’s just ridiculous. You’re going back home. You can come to me, or I can come to you on the weekends. We can do that. This isn’t fair.”
“What does fair have to do with anything?” Kenny said. “The only time we had a fair relationship was when we weren’t with each other. No…”
“Kenny.”
Kenny lay back in bed pulling the covers over him.
“No,” Kenny said.
“There have been times,” he told Brendan, “when I let you have the illusion of running things And you may be a great attorney and everything. But this time I put my foot down. We stay together. Some people are okay single, but we’re no good apart. We’ll work out something, but whatever we work out involves us being together.”
And then Kenny pulled the covers over his head. “And now I’m going to bed.”
When Brendan sat upright, his fingers linked, he heard Kenny say, “And you can go back to work.”
Brendan raised an eyebrow, looked at the form of Kenny covered in a blanket, and then climbed out of bed, reaching for his underwear and trousers.
And that was that.
