It’s for rent you know?” Donovan says.
“What?”
“The house,” Don says. “You know, the one we saw the other day.”
“You’re really obsessed with that place.”
“A little,” Don allows. “I pass it every day. I mean, I walk past it on purpose.”
“And how much is the house a month?”
“I think seven forty… with utilities.”
“You think very precisely.”
“I might have asked.”
Cade was quiet for a moment, and then he scratched his beard.
“What is the attraction of the house?”
“Do you hate it that much?”
“I don’t hate it,” Cade said, “I just don’t get why you love it.”
“Fine,” Donovan said, crashing on the sofa. “I have always had this fantasy… about a house. And that house fits it.”
Cade jammed his hands in his pockets and looked at Donovan.
“It’s got lots of rooms. Lots of people could live there.”
Cade narrowed his eyes.
“You always liked to be alone.”
“I did,” Donovan said. “You’re right. You’re not wrong. But ever since you moved in, we haven’t been alone. And then Simon is here, and then Suzie is here, and then your friend Andrew stayed over last weekend.”
“We need to talk about that?”
“Which part of it?”
“Mainly the Simon part,” Cade said, “because we need our life. You and me, Don.”
“Well, yes,” Donovan said. “I suppose you’re right.”
“You suppose?” Cade said. “Remember when we first met? The first time I introduced you to Simon? What you said. What I said? And you suppose? After the nonsense we’ve been through?”
The very first morning, after Simon came into the bed, he slept on one side of Don and Cade on the other, and gently, Simon and Cade began to make love to him. Cade was not going into work, and in this moment after everything had happened, he shrugged off caring. In the early morning, Simon went from one to the other, riding Don and then Cade. They exchanged kisses and lovemaking and passed in and out of orgasm.
After showering they didn’t speak of it, and when Simon decided to go into work they didn’t talk about the night with each other. Simon stayed in his apartment the following night. All of Andrew’s visit nothing had happened, but after he left, Simon happened again, and there was a strange pleasure Don took in lying on his back being ridden by Simon, and then watching Simon do the same to Cade, open mouthed. Don took a surprised joy in being part of the sex life Cade and Simon had, the one Cade always hid from him. He enjoyed watching Cade fuck his ex lover and then, overcome by the shivering fire of lust, fucking Simon himself.
“I didn’t know you minded.”
“You don’t?” Cade said.
“I don’t really know,” Donovan said. “The first time… But the first times I had sex at all, I didn’t know how I felt. I was unsure. And when you would tell me things about what you and Simon did, I was unsure too, so, I don’t know how to feel, or how I actually feel, and it’s like it’s too much energy pretending to be incensed or angry or trying to stop something that… it seems like we both enjoy.”
“Don,” Cade said, “what I would enjoy is us making a life for ourselves.”
“Me too,” Donovan said. “I just don’t think that means making a life at the exclusion of other people.”
“So you’re saying you want to keep fucking Simon.”
“That,” Donovan said, “is not what I said.”
“Then we need to think about our actions a little,” Cade said, crossing his arms over his chest.
Don said nothing. Whatever he said would have sounded sarcastic.
“Do you need a ride to Harrison in the morning?” Cade asked.
“I’d like that,” Don said.
“You look hot like that,” Don says, coming behind Cade, straightening his tie.
“I need a hair cut.”
“I like it when that one bob of hair kind of falls right between your eyes.
“I hate this job.”
“Come with me to Harrison. Work with kids again. You can still wear khakis and a nice shirt.”
Cade frowned into the mirror and Donovan said, “You’re handsome when you frown, but I still prefer you happy.”
“Don.”
“Yes.”
“I want you to stop fucking Simon. I want Simon out of our bed. I don’t want him to be part of you and me.”
“Alright.”
“You’re the one I want straightening my tie and holding me when I go to sleep. Alright? I don’t want to share my boyfriend anymore.”
“That’s all you needed to say.”
Cade’s face did not change, but he squeezed Don’s hand, and then he said, “Let’s go to work.”
“You’re too much,”Ezekiel crooned. “You’re too much.”
Don laughed lightly, but said, “You were the one who brought me back here.”
“Because you’re too much,” Ezekiel turned over in bed, and kissed him.
“I’m moving across town,” Don said, “to live with my father.”
“How is he? What’s that like?”
“It’s like more space,” Don said, as he sat up and bed and ran a finger over Ezekiel Ander’s chest, as Ezekiel reached up to kiss him. “It’ just him as that house, and I was only supposed to stay with my stepfather a while. It’s closer to the college I want to go to, and… I can come and go as I please.”
Ezekiel pulled Donovan’s face to him and kissed him.
“You can come to me.”
“Yes.”
“You can come to me,” Ezekiel repeated, pulling Don down for another kiss.
“You can come to me.”
Ezekiel leapt up so that now he knelt over Don, and as he leaned down to hiss him, Don’s hands ran down his sides, caressed his ass.
“You’ve made a criminal out of me.”
“You’re not a criminal,” Donovan said, “Unless sodomy’s still illegal in Indiana. In which case, we’re criminals no matter what.”
“I’m an outlaw,” Ezekiel said theatrically, trusting his arms out.
“If bad acting is a crime,” Don said, turning around under him, then yes.”
Ezekiel smacked his ass and Don yelped. But then Ezekiel kissed him up and down and they ran their hands across each other until Ezekiel took him in his mouth. They took each other together, thighs wrapped about shoulders, swallowing as much of each other as they could, both shuddering and sighing, stroking, stopping to kiss until they were exhausted.
“That’s it,” Ezekiel vowed. “Things are better when Kirk’s not here. I’m definitely getting my own apartment.”
-“Do you want children?” Donovan asked, and Cade said, “Well, that’s an odd question.”
“Not really,” Donovan said. “It’s considerate. I mean, you make children’s songs. You love daycares. It seems like you’d want kids.”
“I could say the same thing about you.”
“It’s not an accusation.”
“I know,” Cade said while they sat smoking in the bedroom.
“It’s just that I’m not getting any younger.”
“Stop that.”
“No. I’m forty and getting older by the day, so if you want a kid this is the time to discuss it.”
“I almost had a kid,” Cade said.
“Huh?”
“I almost had a kid.”
On the bed, Donovan folded his legs under him and ashed his cigarette, looking at Cade.
And then Cade began to talk about the pastor for the first time in a long time, and about his mother finding Jesus, and about being molested, and he went through the story quickly, eyes unfocused.
“After I burned my Bible, I started to do every rebellious thing I could. Except that I couldn’t be with guys. He had fucked me up. So I started sleeping with girls. That’s how I got Ashley pregnant.”
“Only she didn’t have it,” Donovan said. “Or she miscarried.”
“If by miscarried you mean I asked my dad to fork over the money so I could pay for an abortion, then yes, she miscarried.”
Donovan thought of saying many things, most of them about himself and why hadn’t he ever been told and what else was Cade keeping from him, and one by one they sounded selfish and stupid.
Instead, Donovan said, “But does that mean you don’t want kids now?”
“Do you?” Cade almost snapped.
“Not really,” Donovan said. “But in this life, there’s so much we think we don’t want, and then we get it and know it’s a blessing. It’s hard to measure life by what you want at the moment. If you wanted it, then I suppose I would too.”
“That’s very Catholic. Sort of.”
“Well….” Donovan didn’t know what to say.
“If you had gotten a girl pregnant…?” Cade began.
“I wouldn’t have. When I was that age I didn’t feel very gay, but I didn’t feel very straight, either,” Donovan said. “And besides, sex outside of marriage would have been a sin in the eyes of the Church, and I was all about the Church back then.”
“But if you had?”
“It’s so far from me. Ifs don’t matter.”
“Humor me,” Cade said.
“Fine,” Don said.
“If you had gotten a girl pregnant, would you have done what I did?”
“I have no idea.”
“Of course you do.”
“I really don’t know. I never had to face that.”
“But you just said that things you don’t want can be a blessing, so humor me again and take a guess.”
“That’s a lot of ifs.”
“Please stop fucking with me and please stop stalling.”
“Then no,” Donovan said. “For someone who has never been close to impregnating a woman, on just a lucky guess, no I would not have done what you did.”
They were quiet and then Donovan said, “I don’t know what the point of that was.”
“Just to know how you felt. You’re my… you’re Don.”
“Can’t I not feel any way? Can’t I just say your decision was your decision? That the past is in the past? Can’t I just not have a… judgment?”
“No,” Cade said.
“Why not?”
“Because you’re my boyfriend.”
We're in the homestretch of our story, but before we get there, the weekend. Have a wonderful relax and I'll see you all two days from now.
