FIVE: BROTHERLY LOVE

Theme Song: Don’t Panic, Coldplay

They sat on the porch together watching one car and then a second and then a third drive up Milford Street.

    “I’m going up to Michigan this week?”

    “To see the kids?”

    “To at least convince Jenny to move down here. I don’t know why she insists on staying up there.”

    “To punish you,” Joey said, simply.

    Scott nodded.

    “But you know what?” Joey said.

    “Huh?”

    “She can’t live in a house you’re not paying for.”

    “We’re going to put it on the market.”

    “Is she putting it on the market?” Joey asked.

    “Not yet, but…”

    “Listen, brother,” Joey said, “this chick is so treacherous she got herself pregnant by poking holes in your condoms.”

    “You gotta point,” Scott said.

    “How about we go up a few days early,” Joey said, “you and me. And Matt, and see about getting rid of the house?”

    “Could we do that?” Scott looked doubtful.

    “You’re just worried about the twins,” Joey said. “And once you got rid of that house they’d be back down here. I bet we could totally do it.”

    “Alright then,” Scott nodded his head. “Okay.”

“I need  you to come with me this Sunday.”

    “I come to church every Sunday.”

    “Beyond that,” Valerie said.

    “What? You know I don’t even want to be there to begin with.”

    “It’s the meeting of female clergy around the area and I wanted you to come because Brigid’s going to be there.”

    “She’s a cunt.”

    “Felix!”

    “I mean, she’s a priest of God, but she’s kind of a cunt.”

    “We need to go shopping. I need something to wear.”

    “You’re a priest. You wear black.”

    “Bob’ll be there.”

    “Oh,” Felix blinked.

    “Well, don’t say it like that.”

    “Ah, sis, but you meant it like that.”

    “Well, speaking of Bob… Scott.”

    “Scott?”

    “He’s like your Bob. What did you tell him?”

    “I told him the truth,” Felix told his sister.

    “What,” Val said “that you were sleeping with his brother?”

    “No,” Felix gave his sister a dim look, “I told Scott that we couldn’t really be together because I still had someone else.”

    “But… is he still staying over?”

    “Yes.”

    “And are you still….?”

    “It’s only happened twice. And yes,” Felix said. “And he doesn’t stay over every night. Sometimes you need to sleep like a starfish.”

    “And then Joey… Is still…”

    “It only happened once.”

    “But you are actually sleeping with both of them at the same time.”

    “Well, you make it sound so bad,” Felix shrugged.

    Valerie blinked at him. “How else is it supposed to sound?”

    “I don’t know,” Felix shrugged.  “Like a timeshare?”

Scott could not come over every night. He worked long hours, and then he went to his family’s house. He always wanted to go to Felix’s, but he realized without being told that you could not go from cherished almost lover to live in husband, especially not with someone like Felix. Those nights when he did come to Felix, always after nine, often past eleven, were treasures to him. He knocked. He heard Felix’s muffled voice say: the door’s open, Scott, and he would come in, leaving his travel bag by the door and bringing his brief case. Felix was always typing at the card table in the kitchen, which left the desk in the common room bare for Scott to work at. Scott would enter the kitchen for something to drink, running his fingers over the back of Felix’s head, and as he walked out, Felix would gently caress or squeeze his ass, maybe touch his hand, then go back to work.

     “Scott, I didn’t tell you. I got a call from the community college. I’m have and interview.”

     “What? When?” Scott turned from his work, putting his pen down.”

     “I can’t remember.”

     “You can’t—?” Scott stopped, caught between disapproval and unbelief.

     “I wrote it down.” Felix said. “And I will know when it is. I think it’s next week, though. I’m glad. I need work. I’m a little nervous. I’ve never taught before.”

     “You’ll do great,” Scott said, unintentionally putting the emphasis on the G so that Felix was reminded of Tony the Tiger. And when Felix seemed unconvinced, Scott touched his knee, and then turned around and went back to work.

     A little while later, Felix said, “I just did the math, and if I get this teaching gig, at even half time it’s actually more money than I’ve ever seen.”

     “Half time cause you still need your writing.”

     Felix liked how Scott wasn’t asking the question, he was stating the fact.

     “Yes.”

     “Then you better be up to it,” Scott said. “Even if you don’t feel up to it, make yourself up to it.”

     He was right. That’s why he hadn’t even turned from his work, Felix realized.

     Felix asked, “Do you want me to come with you? To Michigan?”

     “Joey’s coming,” Scott said. “And besides,” he looked up from his legal pad, “I know you don’t want to.”

     “Anything you wanted me to do I would be glad to do,” he said in a voice so see Scott wondered if he was being mocked.

     “I know,” Scott said, “and that’s very kind, but… I’m kind enough to say don’t worry about it.”

     Sometime in the discussion, or without the discussion, Felix would get up and touch Scott’s head, or Scott would come and touch him, or they would look at each other and stand face to face. Scott would bend to kiss him deeply, and then they would begin to undress and move to the couch, pull it out or pull down the mattress to the floor and taste each other, moving together, pressing together. For Scott, Felix’s body was a playground, and the way Felix cherished him, kissed his eyes, his mouth, even his arms, going down his whole body, taking his cock in his mouth, licking up and down the shaft, paying attention to his balls and the secret places was complete delight. Everything Felix did to him, he wanted to do to him. Every night Scott came to visit, whether it happened as soon as he stepped through the door, or long after when they’d drifted to sleep and were weary, they fucked each other. The first time Felix had brought Scott inside of him, Scott’s eyes opened wide in surprise as Felix, mouth forming an O, looked down at him, sitting on him and he whispered, “are you alright.”

     “Don’t move,” Felix whispered. He tried to laugh, lowering himself. “You’re bigger than I thought.”

     That same night, the very first time, Scott wanted Felix inside of him. and he learned that it always hurt. It never just went in lightly. There was always that moment when it seemed like it wouldn’t work, where the eyes burned, where one thought, this is a mistake, this is pain, this is… And then you settled into it, and having him inside of you, there was nothing better.

The Friday morning before Scott was leaving for the weekend, he and Felix woke up nearly the same time. He touched Felix’s head and said, “Do you want me to shave you before you go?”

     “Is it looking bad?”

     “Not at all, love,” Scott said, laying beside him. “I just wanted to do something for you before I go.”

     Felix laughed and sat up, still chuckling. “You’ve done plenty for me.”

     Scott sat up with him, “I don’t get tired of fucking you.”

     Felix ran his hand over Scott.

     “Or being fucked by you,” Scott added. “Or sucking you or kissing you. Or any of it.”

     “Do you think we will, though?”

     “Will, though, what?” Scott said.

     “Get tired of each other?”

     “No,” Scott said, looking offended. “I don’t. I’d even be interested in being tired of you.”

     “That’s,” Felix began looking at Scott with a half smile. “that’s couple talk.”

     “I’m not offering any ultimatums,” Scott climbed out of bed, and Felix lay on his side looking at Scott’s naked body, his tallness, the straight shoulders, the long back, the surprising full ass and athletic thighs.

     “No,” Felix said, reaching for his cigarette case, then remembering not to smoke around Scott. “It’s only… maybe you should ask for one.”

     Scott was headed to the bathroom. He left the door open when he peed and the sound of his urine shooting into the bowl was always strangely comforting.

     “Maybe you should let me meet this other guy,” Scott said over his piss, “and we can go toe to toe in combat.”

     “You’d maim for me?” Felix cried.

     Scott hit the flusher and came out of the bathroom his heavy dick swinging between his legs. He jumped onto the bed and kissed Felix.

     “Maim and bomb and kill,” he said. “Now take a shower with me. I gotta get ready to go.”

 “Are we staying all night, or heading back here?” Joey asked.

     “I’d thought we were heading back, but, I don’t know.”

     “Uh, you know we’re best buds and everything,” Scott said, looking to Joey like a kid in a suit dressed for Catholic school, “but do I need a special lawyer?”

     Matt frowned across the booth at him.

     “Like a father’s interest attorney,” Scott said.

     “What’s that?” Taylor looked up at Scott.

     “Uh,” Joey looked at Taylor and Nathan then said, “Why don’t we go to the Sundae bar.”

     “Sundaes!” Nathan shouted, climbing over Scott while Taylor climbed across Matt.

     “Manners,” Scott reminded them, but by then it was too late.

     Matt looked after Joey and the kids, and then when they were at the bar, he turned to Scott and said, “That “fathers’ rights attorney” bullshit is bullshit. Alright? There is no special knowledge. The law is the law.”

     Scott opened his mouth.

     “Dads are just like moms,” Matt said. “They get joint or sole custody when they show the court its in the best interest of the kids.”

     “That’s not to say,” Matt continued, “dads don’t have certain issues that are unique to them. But those issues have to be looked at in the context of the children’s best interest, because that is what family law judges are trained to focus on.

     “Like, it’s important that fathers with full-time or heavy work schedules obtain a custody and visitation schedule that gives them lots of time to spend with their kids.

     “I can do that,” Scott said.

     “Does Jenny work at all?”

     “Not… so much.”

     Matt raised an eyebrow.

     “She works part time.”

     “Oh, come the fuck on!” Matt lost patience.

     “What?”

     Matt opened his mouth, then looked around and remembered himself. He leaned in and hissed.

     “After all that bitch did to you.”

     “What?”

     “After all that bitch did to you, you just let her sit on her ass and have babies while you….”

     Matt shook his head.

     “How could you be so dumb?”

     Matt looked at his embarrassed friend.

     “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean it. I just...”

     “I feel so dumb,” Scott said. “Everyday I just...” Scott looked away from his friend.

     “Every day I feel like such a fool.”

     There was a catch in Scott’s voice and Matt looked around the restaurant. He reached across the table and touched Scott’s shoulder.

     “Buddy, you need a minute?”

     Scott didn’t look at him. He was looking hard at the table, unable to talk. He nodded rapidly.

     “Alright, buddy.”

     “Stop calling me that,” Scott said quickly. “That’s the whole reason Jen’s even in the picture. I would have been myself a long time ago if… You had been yourself.”

     “Sundaes!” Joey shouted by way of warning.

     Scott blew his cheeks out and shook his head, laughing as he moved out of his booth and the boys slid in.

     “You better get yourself some,” Joey said merrily, though his eyes went cautiously from Scott to Matt. “Before we eat all the ice cream up.”

     “Uh,” Matt turned to Joey: “Do you mind if me and Scott talk for a bit back at my place?”

     “About c-u-s-t-o… oh, shit, I can’t spell it,” Joey said.

     “Yeah,” Matt said.

     “What’s custo?” Taylor asked.

     Scott looked at Joey.

     “It’s like custard.”

     “Can we have some,” Nathan asked.

     “You’re eating it,” Joey lied, quickly.

Scott sat in Matt’s apartment while he took out the blunt wrapper and Scott said, “Is that like a grape leaf.”

     “Sort of,” Matt said, “Now… this is called White Widow…. Which is not to be confused with Purple Widow or Blue Widow. Blue Widow is actually blue by the way,” Matt explained, breaking up the seeds. “Which is largely a gimmick, and an expensive one at that, so I’ve got not time for it.”

     “You… uh are pretty good at that.”

     “Well, I do it a lot,” Matt said, lighting. He ran the light along it then hit the blunt and the smoke was strong. He passed it to Scott who put a hand up and then shrugged.

     “You were always like that,” Matt said, holding the smoke in and letting it leak from his nose.

     Scott took a hit and his eyes went wide.

     “But you always smoked it in the end.”

     Scott tried to pass it back, but then Matt said, “No, brother, you take a few hits off that.”

     The smoke leaked from Scott’s nose and mouth, and then Scott took another hit and passed it to Matt. His head swam and his mouth was numb. Matt laughed.

     “You look high as fuck,” he said, taking another long hit. “We’re going to smoke all this bitch and I’m going to give you legal advice.”

     Scott felt too dumb to laugh and Matt raised a finger in the air and quoted:

     “Now we were talking about making quality time for your kids. Quality time includes days that the father does not work such as weekends as well as evenings during the week. Vacation and holiday time is a critical part of a working father’s schedule.”

     “I can do that. I do do that.”

     “Can you work half time?”

     “Not if she’s working half time.”

     “You better have something that says you can work just enough, but support those kids. And you need to have something that says that bitch is crazy.”

     “Too bad I can’t turn in the busted condoms as evidence.”

     “I bet she’d fess up to it if you asked her.”

     The room was filled with smoke, and they didn’t talk for a while and then Scott said, “What else?”

     He was a little surprised to see that, even high, Matt was on top of his job.

     “Depending on the age of the children, frequent and regular contact may be a must to continue the bonding process.”

     “I never—“ Scott coughed, “ever—let myself be distant from my boys.”

     “I know, man.”

     “Where are my boys?” Scott looked around, stupid.

     “With Joey.”

     “But where did Joey…”

     “Fuck it,” Matt said.

     “Fuck it,” Scott echoed.

     “In situations where both the father and mother work full-time and the children are equally bonded with both parents… but that’s not your situation, no special preference are supposed to be given to the mother. If two parents have similar work schedules... What was I saying?”

     “Right,” Scott answered, glassy eyed.

     “Exactly,” Matt said, his finger raised, while Scott took the blunt from his fingers.

     “For fathers who travel extensively due to their work schedules, flexibility and make up time is an important part of any custody and visitation schedule…”

     “What if I want full custody?”

     “You don’t want full custody.” Matt shook his head, crossing the sofa to sit next to Scott.

     “But… if I did?”

     “Well, you have to be bonded,” Matt said.

     “Man, I am so fucking bonded,” Scott said, touching Matt’s thigh, He clapped it over and over again, saying, “Bonded, bonded, bonded,” as smoke left his mouth and he passed the blunt to Matt.

     “Well,” Matt said, “It’s all about the judge now. And about what you can prove your marriage was like in the past.”

      “I’m bonded!”

     “I know! No motherfucker is more bonded than you. But it doesn’t mean you should give up on your children and take whatever custody and visitation schedule is offered to you. If Jenny gets crazy we to make the choice.”

     “We!”

     “Fucking right we. Are your children a priority in your life or not? That means you do not pawn off the children to your parents, daycare facilities or babysitters... And… I can’t really fucking remember what I’m trying to…”

     And then Matt shotgunned Scott’s open mouth, and the smoke went down his throat, out his nostrils. They parted and Scott took a long hit, and then did the same to Matt. This time his dick was stiff and he felt Matt’s hand on it, and then he reached between Matt’s legs and felt him hard to. Scott began to turn Matt’s erection like a joy stick and while they were stroking each other through their trousers they just kept smoking and then Matt crushed the blunt, and pushed himself on Scott and began kissing him as Scott unbuckled his belt.

When the black Jeep swung into a parking space beside the house and Joey saw his brother and Matt climb out looking like they’d just woken up and were late for something, he ran down the porch.

     “We’ve been looking for you everywhere!” Scott shouted.

     “Well, did you think we’d just at a Applebees while you… did whatever you— Shit, you all are high!”

     “Shusssssssssh!” Matt put a finger to his lip.

     “So you came back to my house!” Scott demanded. “With my wife!”

     “How was I to know you’d get fucked up when you were supposed to be—”

     “Dad’s home,” Taylor shouted.

     Jenny came out onto the porch with Nathan and Scott glared at his brother and said, “Coffee. Make me coffee.”

     “It’s best if I go,” Matt said. He touched Scott’s elbow awkwardly, and then turned to get in the Jeep. As the car started up, Jenny came down to the street and demanded, “What the hell is going on?”

     “This is supposed to be your weekend with the kids, Scott,” Jenny said, pulling Nathan behind her. “You sit on the phone telling me about how much you love your kids, and then you dump them with your brother so you can hang out with Matt and…” she sniffed him. “Were you getting high?”

     “What’s that mean, Mommy? Nathan said.

     Taylor bounced off of Scott’s arm singing, “Get high! Get high!”

     “Matt is my lawyer,” Scott began.

     “Higher!” Taylor sang, “Higher.”

     And to Scott’s credit, he began lifting his arm so Nathan could swing on it.

     “Your lawyer!” Jenny shouted. “Your lawyer. To take my kids from me?”

     “To bring the kids back home. You can come too.”

     “My life is here!” Jenny said.

     “How can you have a life here? You don’t even have a job. You live off of me, and my life is in North Fall!”

     “You don’t even want those kids!” Jenny shouted. She pulled at Nathan who would have fallen if he hadn’t clung to Scott.

     “Get your hands off him, Jen.”

     “You don’t want those kids!” she cried again. “The only reason they exist is cause I tricked you into getting me pregnant.”

     Scott and Joey looked at the twins terrified, but the boys didn’t know what their mother was talking about.

     “He wanted to have you aborted,” Jenny said to Nathan. “Your dad, who you like so much, didn’t even want you.”

     “Shut up,” Scott said. Then he turned to Nathan and Taylor.

     “You don’t want us?” Nathan said. “Is that why you’re gone.”

     Scott picked up Nathan. He tried to pick both boys up, but rested his hand on Taylor’s head.

     “Look at me, both of you,” he said. “that is not true. I left because I had to. If I could, I’d take you with me tonight.”

     “He doesn’t love you,” Jenny started.

     “You stop that,” Joey snapped. “You stop that shit right now. Your dad loves you. We all love you.”

     “Can we go with you tonight, Daddy?” Taylor demanded.

     “Yeah!” Nathan said.

     Scott looked at his brother, and then as Jenny said, “See, that’s what I mean,” Scott said, “Yeah. Get in the car.”

     The boys cheered and ran to his car and Scott said, “Joey, you get in the car and wait for me, and I’m gonna go get some clothes.”

     “You can’t kidnap my kids.”

     “No ones kidnapping your kids,” Scott shook his head. “They’re my boys, and you’re my wife, and I’m taking my boys for a very long vacation to their grandparents.”

     “We’ll see how this turns out.”

     “Yeah, I guess we will.”

     “I know the judge,” she took out her phone.

     Scott took it out of her hand and slipped it in his pocket. As he headed for the porch he shouted back, “Did you poke holes in his condoms too?

As the sky over them went from deep blue to blue black, and the turning road was nearly engulfed in blackness, Scott declared, “I can’t wait to get home.”

     Joey turned around and saw the sleeping boys in the back seat.

     “What did happen, though?” Joey said. “With you and Matt? I mean, you guys were gone for over an hour. You said you would be right back.”

     “We went back to his place so he could council me about custody and… stuff.”

     “And you came back high.”

     “Yeah.”

     “You got high for an hour and a half,” Joey whispered.

     “That’s not quite true,” Scott said.

     “Then what?”

     Scott took a breath, and then turned around and looked at the kids. They were asleep and so he said, “Joey, I’m gay.”

     “Shit,” Joey said.

     “Yeah.”

     “I’m gay too.”

     Scott looked at Joey for so long there was the honk of a truck horn and then he looked back on the road and the kids stirred as Scott steered the car back onto the road.

     They continued driving, hearts beating, then Scott said, “Well…”

     “Shit,” Joey said.

     “I already gave Mom and Dad grandkids, so they’ll get over it,” Scott said. He smiled sideways. “I did my duty.”

     Joey didn’t say anything for a long time. After a while he turned around to see the kids were asleep again, and then he said, “Does this have anything to do with Matt?”

     Scott looked back quickly at the kids.

     “In high school we almost made out. We had a thing for each other, sort of. A couple of years after Jenny had the kids she started cheating on me, and she called me the biggest faggot she’d ever met. And then… I was tired of being straight. Tired of love I’d turned down. Tired of wanting things and not having them. I started messing with guys after that. And that was when I told Matt, and he told me how he felt. But nothing happened then.”

     “But it happened today,” Joey realized.

     “Yeah,” Scott said. “It happened for about an hour.”

     Joey looked at his brother and then he shook his head.

     “Fuck!” his whispered. “Fuck.”

     “I know.”

     “I can’t picture it.”

     “I really don’t want you to,” Scott said. A truck passed, a white light filling the window for a moment.

     “So… are you guys… an item or something?”

     “No,” Scott shook his head. “He knows… That he’s not the one. That… there is someone else. Someone else I loved a long time ago who I never thought I’d have the chance to be with again. Matt was just… unfinished business.”

     “But you guys are still friends. Right?”

     “Yes. And he’s still my lawyer.”

     Joey nodded. He was quiet for a while and then he said, “This guy you’re in love with?”

     “Yeah.”

     “Is it Felix?”

     Scott coughed, and then he said, “Yeah. Yes, I mean.”

     Joey nodded.

     Scott turned from staring out the window and looking at his brother realized: Joey is the other guy.

     “Great,” Scott heard Joey say, tonelessly. “Felix is great.”

“Well,” Valerie said as they walked up the sidewalk to the entrance of the Maron Arms, “we learned a lot today.”

     “I learned you don’t know how to ask for a date.”

     “I learned I can’t take you anywhere.”

     “I learned I hate the Episcopal Church more than I thought I did.”

     “Really?”

     “I should have stayed a Catholic.”

     “Bite your tongue.”

     “Tongue bitten.”

     .Felix’s phone rang and he pulled it from his pocket:

     “Hello?”

     “Are you home?”

     “Yeah,” Felix said, cautiously, looking at Valerie.

     “It’s me, Joey.”

     Felix was so glad he didn’t call him Scott, they sounded so alike.

     “Is there something wrong?”

     “No,” Joey said. There was noise in the background. “No, nothing’s wrong. Just… Can I come over?”

     Felix looked around. “Yeah… How long do you need?”

     “I actually just got out of the shower.”

     “Okay. Twenty minutes?”

     “About.”

     “Alright.”

     Felix closed his phone and said, “Valerie, I gotta go.”

     “You have a man coming?” Rule said.

     “I do.”

     “Which one?”

     “Don’t you worry about it?”

     But Felix worried about it. He wanted to ask how Scott was, and where he was, but something told him not to.

From the bathroom Felix heard Joey knocking. He turned off the shower and toweled his face. The knocking was more insistent, and if he didn’t know better he’d sweat it was Rule.

     “Goddamn, Joey,” Felix muttered. As he wrapped the towel about his waist and went to answer the door.

     When Felix opened the door, he asked Joey what was wrong.

     “Can I come in?”

     “Of course you can come in.”

     As Joey entered, Felix closed the door behind him and said, “You look so nervous. You look so tense.”

     Joey sat on the sofa amd Felix sat beside him. Joey’s foot was tapping rapidly and his brow was furrowed.

     “You’re being weird,” Felix said.

     “Can we fuck?” Joey asked him.

     “That was… the opposite of subtle.”

     “I don’t want to be subtle,” Joey said. “Can we just… Can we please… fuck. I need it. I need you right now. Can we please fuck?”

     Felix said nothing and Joey said, “You know we came home with my nephews, right? He took them from Jen. They’re here. So it’s great that you love him, and he loves you and I know that. That’s great, Felix. But I don’t think you want to raise his kids. And if the reason you’ve been holding out on me is Scott, well then, he had sex with Matt—his old friend, the lawyer. He fucked him today.”

     Joey leaned across Felix and kissed him.

     “I know you love him,” Joey said, kissing his throat, “but there’s got to be something for me too.”

     Felix was going to say no, but Scott hadn’t made a claim on him, and he wasn’t even angry about what Scott had done. He’d thought about how he would handle the two of them, but tonight he didn’t have to think about it, and tonight Joey was here and apparently Scott was with his kids, to he took up Joey’s shirt and Joey took off his shirt. They kissed fiercely and Felix opened his mouth for Joey’s tongue. There was a desperate violence in the way Joey’s tongue searched his mouth and Felix matched it, feeling Joey’s hands press him down ,the strength of his arms. If he wanted to, Felix thought, Joey could do whatever her wanted to.

     He reached Joey’s belt and tugged down his shorts and Joey stopped to moan, and then buried his face in Felix’s throat. Joey shimmed out of his shorts and Felix tugged down his shorts, grasping his penis. It was so hot and so thick, and it grew and grew while Joey kissed him and moaned with his attention. Felix moved to sit down properly and he moved Joey with him, and then he brought Joey up and pulled his cock in his mouth.

     “God,” Joey moaned. “Goddamn.” His voice was muffled as he buried his face in the ledge the mattress against Felix’s wall made, and he felt Felix’s hands on his hips and then on his ass, guiding him as he fucked his mouth. “You feel so good. You’re so—”

     Felix slipped his wet finger in Joey’s ass and the boy moaned. It seemed to go on a long time before they pushed the fu ton out into a bed and leisurely pleasured each other. But in the end Felix was bent over the sofa, and after a long day of a lot of foolishness, breathing heavily out of his nose, his mouth on Felix’s ears and on his throat, his hands grasping Felix’s hips, Joey was fucking him. 

FOUR: COOKIE

Theme Song: Happy Ending, Avril Lavigne

“You are in a crudsy mood,” Scott stated.

     “It happens.”

     “Not to you,” Scott said. “It happens to ordinary people.”

     “Well, how nice of you to say I’m not ordinary.”

     “I don’t think you could be ordinary if you wanted to be.”

     “I wouldn’t know, “Felix tried to laugh. “I’ve never wanted to be ordinary. But, eh…Maybe one day I’ll have to be.”

     “That’s a…” Scott shook his head and said, “Don’t you dare be ordinary.”

     “I may not have a choice.”

     Scott screwed up his face. “What’s that mean.”

     Felix shook his head and said, “I don’t know that I really want to talk about it right now.”

     “Are you sure?”

     “Soon I will,” Felix nodded. “Just…. Not now.”

The first sustained conversation Joey ever had with Felix began with, “How do you feel about bisexuals?”

     Joey was working on Felix’s radiator, and Felix said, “Huh?”

     “Well, you said you were gay, but how do you feel about bisexuals?”

     “That is a truly odd question.”

     “I mean, like, do you believe some people are bi? Do you believe in bisexuals?”

     “I believe in them the way I believe in unicorns, dragons and griffins. They exist somewhere—usually in a fantasy novel—but not in this city.”

     “Oh,” Joey seemed rather offended.

     “Bisexual is just a nice word for a gay man who knows how inconvenient men are and prefers to be seen with women.”

     “Well, maybe sometimes,” Joey said, turning to finish bleeding the radiator. “But I think there are some real ones.”

     “I never met a woman married to a bisexual who said she was happy about it, and I never met a man who said he was bisexual who was happy with a wife.”

     “But—”

     Having begun his tirade, Felix continued, “Bisexuals are just homos who really want kids and can’t handle other men.”

     Joey, in his jeans and workshirt, his ball came turned around folded his arms over his chest looking grimly at the radiatot and then at his toolbox.

     “Did I say something?” Felix began.

     “You’re very smart,” Joey said. “But you’re sort of harsh.”

     Felix did not wish to pursue this. After all, no matter how good looking the young maintenance man with his broad shoulders and the line of beard around his jaw was, he didn’t really know him, and he had other things to do than learn about his sexuality. But he couldn’t help himself.

     “Are you telling me you’re bi?”

     “I am bi!” Joey said more loudly than he meant. He covered his mouth, looking a mix os savage and adorable.

     Felix wanted to say something sweet, accepting or compassionate, but what he ended up saying was:

     “Your poor girlfriend.”

He also remembered a day six years earlier, when he had been thirteen.

    Thomas Frushour was a defender on the LaCrosse team and that day, after practice, as they were going to hit the showers, he clapped Joey on the ass and said, “Good game, Flowers.”.

    “Thanks.”

    These days, Joey took a long time getting to the showers. One of the boys at school had gotten an erection in the shower, and from then on everyone called him Woody. Joey didn’t want to earn that name, and the way he was feeling now, anything could happen.  Frushour was still talking to Coach even though Joey had taken his time, going back into the school, pretending to look for things, hoping to come to the showers when everyone was done. Scott would be here soon. He didn’t want to keep him waiting.

    “Ey, Flowers wait up!” Frushour said as Joey was walking with the equipment bag.

    Joey did, and Frushour was carrying another sack. They headed into the comparative darkness of the gym, and then the greater, cooler, darkness of the equipment room.

    “Can I ask you a question?” Frushour said while they were stacking equpiment.

    “Sure,” Joey said, trying to sound nonchalant.

    “Alright. How come you don’t shower with everyone else?”

    “I do.”

    “No, you don’t. Not anymore.”

    Well, why lie?

    “Remember Woody? I don’t wanna be Woody Two. My body’s weird.”

    Frushour laughed and said, “Everyone’s body is weird. Woody just got caught, and nobody likes him, poor fucker. Does he have a real name?”

    “Isn’t it Brendan?”

    Frushour nodded. “It might be. You afraid of getting boners and getting caught?”

    “Yeah,” Joey said, feeling a little dizzy. “Something like that.”

    “Hold on,” Tom Frushour said.

    Joey did.

    Frushour reached into his shorts, and pulled out his cup. Joey was instantly jarred, and then Tom Frushour stuck his hands back in and started rubbing himself. Joey wanted to look away. He wanted to be away. He wished he hadn’t come here. This was what he wanted to see. This was one of his web porns. Under his cup his own penis was going heavy.

    “See,” Frushour said, suddenly pulling out a penis that was large and full headed, stiff and thick in his hands.

    “No big deal.”

    Joey was hard. His mouth was dry, and his body was trembling.

    “Yeah...” he remembered saying.

This became a daily sort of thing, something that, just turned thirteen, Joey feared and thrilled. Every day there was some variation of going into the equipment room, and Thomas Frushour exposing himself, and then them hitting the shower. By the time they got there it was no one but Joey and Frushour, and in the shower Frushour would wash himself the way those guys in the college porns did, touching his nipples and stroking himself into erection then laughing it off. Joey laughed it off too, not understanding what was happening, unable to stay away from it.

One day in the equipment room, Frushour just said, “Would you like to suck my cock?”

    It wasn’t mean spirited, just an offer. Joey looked for an angle. Was he joking or was he really offering?

    Frushour said in a tender voice. “I like you, Joey. You’re a good guy. I just wondered what it would be like if you sucked my cock.”

    “Have you...?” Joey’s words fled and then his voice fled too, drying up. “Did you ever... do it?”

    “Wanted to. Saw videos about it. I could do it to you when you get done doing it to me.”

    Joey wasn’t in his cup, and now Frushour laughed and pointed out Joey’s groin.

    “Woody,” he murmured.

    “Don’t say that,” Joey said, embarrassed and jittery, hard and trembling all at once.

    “I’m just playing, Flowers. See,” he said, dropping his shorts, “I’m the same way.”

    And then Joey dropped to his knees, but Tom Frushour said, “No. Not right here. Further back behind the basketball cage.”

    Joey got up quickly and almost tripped to the cages where the basketballs were. The basketballs were on one side, the volleyballs on the other and they made a little dark cul de sac in the empty school.

    And then suddenly Tom’s cock was in his mouth, he was taking it deep in, and pulling it in and out, licking the head, devouring it, and Tom was muttering, “Oh... ah... oh...” his voice was high and pleading, and his hands went for Joey’s hair, and then fell, lifting up and down, helpless. Joey opened his eyes and looked up, Joey thrusting to the darkness. Tom’s face was beautiful, with a dimple in his chin. His hair was shaved low. He came up and put his hands around Tom’s face, then kissed his mouth.

    “No, Joe. Not... that,” he said.

    And then Joey went back to sucking Tom’s cock. It was so huge and so tender and so hard and so slick and.… was this what sucking a pacifier was like? Why did this feel so good? And then Tom’s body rocked, and before he could pull Joey away he was coming. His semen dripped out of Joey’s mouth, down his chin, onto his tee shirt. It dripped in a thick rope on the floor.

    “I’m sorry, Deej,” Tom said, leaning against the wall. “I didn’t mean to do that.”

    Joey wanted to lick Tom’s penis clean. He wanted to kiss him again.

    Tom said, “Okay, now it’s your, turn, Joe.”

    Tom was a couple of years older and, if anything, democratic. With gusto he went to sucking off Joey, and Joey cried out and planted his hands against the wall. He was afraid to touch Tom, to put his hands on Tom’s head the way Tom had done to him, but Tom reached out, and pulled Joey’s hands to his scalp, guided them in rubbing his hair and his shoulders until he was confident in doing it himself. It felt so... fucking... good.... Joey was surprised when he was coming, but he caught himself and tried to pull out of Tom’s mouth. Instead Tom pulled him in deeper, and he moaned as he emptied his load in Tom’s mouth as Tom pulled away licking the shooting semen from the tip of Joey, sucking him even when he was finished.

    When it was over they sat side by side, and Tom frowned then laughed, wiping his hand off.

    “I just put my hand in jizz. I don’t know if it was yours or mine. It doesn’t fucking matter.”

    By now Joey didn’t wait for his brother. He just took the Number 6 to Colby and Howard whenever he was done.

    “Now, Joe, I’m going to kiss you. I don’t know why I said you couldn’t do it to me. I was scared, I guess. But that was dumb. After we just did this.

    “It felt so fucking good,” Tom said as an afterthought. Joey was scared of speaking.

    “I don’t know what was better, sucking you or getting sucked.”

    And then he kissed Joey. They kissed for a long time before heading to the showers. And then Joey headed home.

“Whatever happened to Tom?” Felix asked Joey a few mornings later, when he had invited him over for coffee.

     Joey raised a finger and took a sip of coffee.

     “That is for later.”

     He looked at the clock on his phone.

     “I need to get back to work.

     Felix opened his mouth and Joey said, “Thank you for the note, and I’m really not angry at you. And maybe you’re even right.”

     Heading to the door, Joey suddenly stopped and said, “Can I come by later?”

     “I guess,” Felix said.

     “And hang?”

     “I’m too old for us to hang.”

     “That’s crazy. You’re not old at all,” Joey had said. then he left.

Now as they sat on the couch that Monday afternoon, Joey said, “You’re not telling me something.”

     “Cause you know me so well?”

     “Don’t make fun of me, Felix. You’re… different. Scott was right.”

     “Whaddo you mean Scott was right?”

     “He told me he talked to you, and you weren’t yourself.”

     “Maybe.”

     “Is it Scott?”

     “Yes. Partially.”

     “What about the other part?”

     “I don’t want to talk about the other part,” Felix said. “But I will tell you about Scott.”

      “Is he… is it about the black eye?”

     “He didn’t tell me how he got it. He just had it when he came over here Saturday night. And he wouldn’t say anything about it. I let him stay with me and didn’t ask any questions.”

     “It’s so cool that you know my brother,” Joey said.

     Felix nodded.

     “You know what he needs?”

     “Huh?”

     “A good girlfriend. A nice woman to take his mind off of Jen.”

     Felix looked at him with mild irritation and Joey said, “What?”

     “You all really don’t talk. Do you?”

Felix stopped writing and picked up the phone.

     “Hello?”

     “Its me.”

     “Ey, Scott.”

     “Are you excited?”

     “About what?”

     “About our date, goof!”

     Felix didn’t feel anything like a goof, but he said, “Yes, I am.”

     He had been about to say, “I forgot,” but didn’t think that was a good answer.

     “Are you staying the night?”

     “I could,” Scott said.

     With Scott he had what he could only have had once with Ben in those days when he just wanted someone to love him. Scott would lay in the bed beside him, holding him while they fell asleep.

     “What are you doing right now?”

     “Writing. Trying to finish an article.”

     “I shouldn’t keep you.”

     “No,” Felix said into the phone, his palms resting on the hot keyboard, “You shouldn’t. But I don’t really have the heart to stop you.”

Saint Kasimir’s was a K-12 school divided in two, the high school separate from the grammar one. Because Joey was skilled and smart, he had been allowed to take Latin at the high school even though he was thirteen, and to play Lacrosse there. Tom was a sophomore. His house was about four blocks over, a large red brick Colonial with classy furniture out of a magazine, and he was an only child. His mother was relaxed.

    “I’m just going to give you boys a twenty,” she drawled almost like a Southern belle. “You can order what you want from the pizza place.”

    “How’s that sound, Joe?” Tom asked.

    Joey nodded. “That sounds cool.”

“You know what I was thinking about?” Tom said while they were watching porn on his computer.

    “When the pizza guy was here?”

    “There was this one porn I saw, where this pizza guy comes to the door, and he just gets on his knees and starts just like, sucking the man off, like going at it like a fucking pump, just sucking him. And then the guy jizzes all over the pizza guy’s face. And I thought... fucking hot. That would be fucking hot. To do... You know?”

    They watched a little porn where this body builder, who in a way reminded Joey of Tom, had this little watermelon. He was sitting there just smoothed over in oil, completely naked, completely hot, Joey thought, and there was a little hole in the watermelon, and so he started fucking it. He was doing it slowly, moving the fruit up and down on his dick, and his eyes went all stupid. His jaw got slack. And then he put it on the floor and slowly, he began to fuck the watermelon. Tom kept on rewinding it as the guy was about to come, as his hams went taut, and he shot into the fruit.

    And then his hand was in Joey’s lap, and he started to stroke him.  Joey had been waiting for this to happen, and Tom rewound the video to the beginning, to the naked man masturbating, and then getting down to fuck the watermelon, and then ejaculating inside of it. And then the man on the video was eating out of it, and digged out of the watermelon, licking his own semen, and then he was fucking the fruit again, and by then Tom had Joey’s shorts off, and his underwear around his knees and he was the same and then, just like that, Tom said, “I’m gonna fuck you now. Alright?” more like he was clarifying a fact than asking a favor.

    He put Joey down on his knees, and then Joey heard a squirt of something, and a click from the computer and voices from a new porn.  And then Tom caught him by the hips and he felt Tom’s penis at the crack of his behind. It felt so good. It pressed in and tried to find the hole and still it felt good and it felt good pressing in a bit, and then Joey gasped. Tom squirted some more... lotion he hoped, and slid in, making the walls of Joey’s anus ache. He wanted to catch his breath, he’d never felt such pain. But he moved around it, fitting Tom in, and then, with a rhythm, Tom Frushour began fucking him.

“So,” Scott said when he called that night,” I need you to tell me what the deal is.”

    “The deal is,” Felix said after a moment, “writing does not support me. The rest of life supports my writing, and that was why I wanted to earn my doctorate so very, very badly.”

    “And you will.”

    “I won’t,” Felix said, shaking his head. “I just got the news. My program’s lost its funding. I’m done. Right now. Today.”

    “Fuck!” Scott swore, curling up on the couch beside him “What are—?” he cleared his throat and said, “ugh.”

    “You were going to say, ‘What are you gonna do?’”

    “I was,” Scott said. “But I didn’t.”

    “So, see,” Felix said, “I could very well end up being one of the people you see everyday who started something, but couldn’t finish and ended tending a bar. Which isn’t a bad thing. If I bar is what you want to tend.”

    “You’ll find something,” Scott said, but his voice sounded hollow. Then he said, “You’ll do something. You’ll do whatever you want. You’ll make it work. I believe that.”

    “Good,” Felix said. He smiled suddenly and Scott touched his ear.

    “Look, you don’t believe it, but I do.”

    Felix nodded.

    “Do you want me to stay with you tonight?”

    “If you do I feel like I’ll get all weak and shit and…”

    “So what?” Scott interrupted him. “What’s wrong being weak when someone cares about you?”

    “There’s really no point in being weak.”

    “When no one’s there for you,” Scott agreed. “I get it. But I’m here now.”

    “How can you be?” Felix demanded. “You can’t just be here all of a sudden. Two weeks ago you weren’t in my life. But now… But…”

    Scott kissed him on the cheek.

    “Alright,” Felix nodded his head. “Stay the night.”

ONCE Joseph Flowers had read a blog where a man was describing the first time he’d been fucked in the ass. Whne it finally happened to him, Joey remembered that it had been happening a while before he knew it was going on, and then it had been hurting a while before he knew that it hurt. Tom had gone further than he needed to, not knowing what he was doing, not using enough lube, not trying to hurt him, but not really knowing any better, enjoying the unexpected pleasure too much Joey imagined.

    But then the truth was, even when it was uncomfortable, even when it was too much, in a way he not so much enjoyed it, as needed it. Needed the on-his-hands-and-knee-ness of being bent over and fucked in Tom Frushour’s room. He needed the right-now-ness of it. There was no past, no consequence, no reflection. Just the moment right there where Tom was pressing into him, harder and harder, and then the grunting, and Tom cursing, and Joey knew Tom had ejaculated inside of him.

    When Tom pulled out of him, Joey went to his side on the floor, feeling a burning deep inside of him, squeezing himself together, feeling weirdly opened and strangely exultant about it.

    “You all right, Joe?” Tom said.

    Joey didn’t say anything. He just lay on his side, and Tom said, “I’ll jack you off. Suck you off. Make it worth your while.”

    Apparently Tom felt guilty.

    “I’m gonna suck you off, Joe, all right?”

    And he did. Joey was already erect, and he was burning down there, a little raw. Tom’s mouth was on him, sucking him. He could hear Tom gulping and swallowing on his cock.

    Joey was in the opposite place of Tom. Joey, who could admit that he had been afraid of many things, was afraid of nothing right now.

    Here he was, on his side, jeans and briefs pulled down, Tom sucking his penis like a hungry baby, sucking for some life, Joey giving it to him in a body twist of orgasm, flooding his mouth. And how come it felt so good if it was a sin? How come this openness in his ass despite the ache and the burning, felt good too?

    And then all the questions were gone, and he received the sex blessing. A moment of thoughtlessness, a moment without judgment. A place of pure experience. Sensation without story.

“Guess what I’m on my way to do?”

    “See your kids?”

    “See my kids. And Felix, I’m bringing them down here next week. Do you mind meeting them?”

    “Scott, I think they might mind meeting me.”

    “Nonsense. Kids love you.”

    “How would you know that?”

    Scott suddenly sounded cross and he said, “Do you not want to meet my kids?”

    In fact, Felix did not want to meet Scott’s kids. But the tone in Scott’s voice made him say, “Of course I do. I just… I tell you what, We’ll watch Spartakus and the Sun Beneath the Sea.”

    “The who in the what?”

    “You’ve never heard of it? Spartakus and Arkana? It was on Nickelodeon. They lived under the earth. Arkana had a big crazy ass hat—”

    “I don’t know what the heck you’re talking about.”

    “I don’t know if I can be with a man who doesn’t know who Spartakus is.”

    “You’re kind of fucked up, you know that?” 

    “Well…. Thank you.”

    “I gotta go. And… when I get back—”

    “When are you getting back?”

    “I’ll be back tonight. I want to learn more about this Spartakus.”

    “Um,” Felix murmured, “if you didn’t know about him by the time you’re twelve, its probably too late now.”

THERE WAS A limit to Thomas Frushour’s love. Tom had no interest in being sodomized, and didn’t offer his ass up to Joey. Once Joey asked, and Tom said, in a gentle way, “I don’t know if I want to do that, Joey.”

    “But you do it to me.”

    “But you enjoy it,” Tom said.

    Joey wanted to protest, but realized that he did enjoy it. Even that first time when there had been discomfort and pain. When it was over, Joey kept sitting on the toilet waiting for something to come out. Still, he thought there was some lack of logic in Tom’s argument, only he couldn’t point it out.

    Meanwhile, for the rest of that year, up until Joey was fourteen, he continued to have a relationship with Tom Frushour. It left the equipment room and went into Tom’s house at sleepovers, or sometimes when his parents were away. It never occurred to Joey to have Tom over to his house. The fact that Tom wouldn’t let Joey fuck him sat in Joey’s head, a ghost of the knowledge that things were not equal between them. But Tom was two years older, after all, and in everything else, sexually and otherwise, Tom was equal, or at least as equal as Joey could have expected him to be.

    One night Tom called Joey up and asked him if he could come over.

    Between the old house and Tom’s house was a stretch of pine lined road, a litle country where the northern end of town was yet to be developed. Next came the slightly larger and newer houses of East End where Tom lived.

    “Just come on in,” Tom had told him over the phone. “My folks are gone.”

    Joey parked his bike on the new black asphalt driveway, and he did just come in. He called Tom’s name, but Tom didn’t answer. He went into the kitchen, which was built over the garage on a bridge connecting the lower level to the top level of the house, and he poured himself a glass of orange juice, drank half of it, and then went up to Tom’s room.

    He heard noises, but they didn’t make any sense. Not because he didn’t know what they were, but because he knew exactly what they were. It made no sense for them to be coming from Tom’s room if Joey wasn’t there with him. They were loud and whimpering, Tom’s voice was at least.

    And then he must have gathered up his nerve, and he went in there and there was Tom who wouldn’t be fucked, wild hair tousled and pulled, being fucked, by a slightly older guy, a guy with a little diamond stud earring, and slick sweat, like someone from one of the twink porns. His eyes were spaced out with the joy of fucking, and Tom’s red face looked out and saw Joey, and there was no shame. There was just this desperate motioning with his hand.

    Joey came into the room, half dizzy. The guy fucking Tom stopped. The world seemed to have stopped. Nothing made much sense, even less sense than usual.

    “You Joey?” the guy said.

    He nodded.

    He pulled out of Tom, and Tom whimpered while this guy sat on the edge of the bed with beautiful thighs and chiseled chest. He must have been seventeen or eighteen, and Tom was lying on his side, curled up and not in control. He said, as the guy took out a lighter and lit a marijuana pipe:

    “This is my cousin, Cage.”

    Without any explanation of himself, Cousin Cage, letting smoke leak out of his mouth and nostrils said, “Tom says you like to fuck. I’d been telling him I’d like to try out a three way or somethin’ like that.

    “You cool with that?”

    Joey thought that this boy with the buzzed body, with the light brown hair on his face and brown lashes, with his hazel eyes, was the most beautiful guy he’d ever seen, that he definitely wanted to have sex with him, that this was so cool, like something he’d seen in movies, and the smoke, leaking slowly out of his nose.

    But when he looked at him, Joey realized with complete clarity that this definitely was NOT cool with him. That he did not want to have sex with two people at once, who were related to each other, who were.... there was something wrong with all of this.

    But he did not say no.

    The next day was the first time that Joey ever felt like he was a horrible person. During the whole dizzying affair with Tom Frushour he never felt guilty. He had the sense not to run around telling everyone or anyone for that matter, but he never felt like there was something at the root of him that was bad, that was tainted. But that night they had seen the same porno clips he had seen and, apparently, had imagined him as the boy in the middle, the one who was being fucked in the ass by one, sucking the other, while they talked over him and smacked his ass and said, “You like that, bitch. Don’t you? Bitch likes to suck that dick.”

    That was something he didn’t live down. He didn’t live down the fact that he hadn’t been forced into being disgraced, but he’d consented anyway.

What Joey kept chasing around was the question of identity. What was he to Tom? He felt betrayed. He was angry, but the anger was directed toward himself. Who would have done what he did? Who would have let it happen? Who would let their boyfriend do that to them. But then Tom was not his boyfriend. When had Tom ever said, “I love you, Joey,” or when, in all the times when he was down on his knees, sucking Tom’s dick, had he ever thought of asking, “Do you love me?” Had he ever asked for some type of assurance? Even now, a few years later, Joey didn’t know what to call Tom. He had imagined that things were equal between them, but when he was seventeen Joey looked back and saw it differently. Tom, latently gay and unable to admit it, had seen someone a little younger he could experiment with, and this person, Joey, had offered no resistance, had let Tom do everything he wanted, and had done to him everything he wanted with no messy questions, no, “Are we gay?” or “Are we a couple?” just simple capitulation to all of Tom’s sexual whims.

    There was no reason, Joey realized, that Tom should have told Joey, “I like to have sex with my cousin,” or that, “me and my cousin talk about you and having a three way with you.” In fact, knowing Tom, there was no reason Joey should have been surprised by anything about him. What Joey was surprised about, though, was the level of his own stupidity. 
    After it was over, and Joey was lying there almost bored by the sight of Cage’s thick and magnificent dick which just sat there while Cage knelt on the bed, smoking pot, AJ offered him a toke that Joey refused.

    “I’m not gay,” he said. “I just like to do this now and again.”

    Tom was chuckling behind Joey. Joey could almost see Tom, naked, reaching across him for the pipe. He had a moment upon a moment upon another moment of clarity.

    This Cage was a sad person and so was Tom, and so was he if he kept this up, this skulking. If enjoying having sex with your male cousin on a regular basis and being a seventeen year old having three ways with a fifteen year old and a fourteen year old boy didn’t make you gay, what did?

    And what was Joey to Tom? Certainly any hazy idea of being a boyfriend was dead right here on this bed.

    One of the Frushour cousins lightly farted, and it left the earthy smell appropriate to Joey’s discovery.

That was the end of Thomas and for high school he ended up at Calverton High where Scott had graduated eight years earlier. He joined the football team and when Molly Taghon introduced himself to her, he was so convinced that guys were a bad idea that he never thought he would be with one again. He was sure the experience of Thomas Frushour had burnt him and so, Homecoming weekend, when he was fifteen, he fucked Molly on the football field after the game and entered the world of proper sex, the world where boys went with girls and didn’t end up with the things happened to them that had happened to him. That old memories and desires would assert themselves, that he would eventually seek out the attention of other boys now and again he had not foreseen. Molly wore his jacket, and by junior year she wore his ring. Things did not work out with them, and this left him free to meet boys. Once, when he and some guy in a trailor park were sitting up naked on his sofa, the guy asked him, “So, how does this whole bisexual thing work out.”

    “It’s like the best of both worlds. Why limit yourself?”

    He’d been with this guy a year before, the same time he’d broken up with Molly, and the sex had been so hot, so passionate, so UNSAFE, he had refused the guys calls and not answered his emails ever afterward. He couldn’t go back to the feelings that had opened up. And then, one day, after he had been hired at the Marion Arms, he was laying out a white tarp and spray painting the walls of a corridor when Felix came walking down the hall and he apologized, “You can come around. Just let me move this right out your way.”

    “It isn’t necessary,” Felix said, “I’ll just walk downstairs and come back the other way.”

    “Are you sure?”

    Felix had stopped, because he knew the boy. He had to think a while and get up close to him and then he realized he had seen him naked, on Adam4Adam with the screenname: Orange Hat and the tagline: When you see me, say you know what the Orange Hat is for.

    “Absolutely,” Felix said, and when he came back around, Joey said, “I’m Joey,” and Felix said, “Felix. Pleased to meet you,” and doffed his fedora.

    He wasn’t going to bring up orange hats today.

When Max was fixing the drain, Felix came into the kitchen with its black and white check pattern and saw Max’s legs hanging out of the sink.

    “Joey not here?”

    “Joey’s downstairs,” Max said, his voice echoing from under the sink.

    It had been a month since Feli met Joey, and he had hoped to see him again.

    “Um,” Felix said. “Well, that’s too bad. Tell him I saw him the other night.”

    “Where?”

    “Just tell him, Felix said, “I know what Orange Hat means.”

   

By the end of the day there was a knock at the door and Felix wasn’t surprised when Joey was standing there looking jumpy and amazingly hot.

    “Whaddid you mean by…. Orange Hat.”

    “I mean I saw you on the net. I saw your—”

    Joey put a finger to his lips and pressed inside the apartment, closing the door behind him.

    “You can’t say shit like that?”

    Felix raised his eyebrow.

    “Were you trying to make me feel weird. Or embarrassed?”

    “No,” Felix said. “I was trying to tell you I want you.”

“I feel like this is the second time I’ve opened the door to you and you look like hell,” Felix said, letting Scott in.

    Scott entered the apartment, and Felix went to the kitchen and brought back water. Scott sat down in his business suit, looking much the worse for wear, and Felix sat beside him.

    For  a long time Scott stared at the wall, and Felix said, “I spent all day doing my resumé,  and I applied for an online teaching job. I think I might get it. But even if I do, the pay is not very good.”

    Scott didn’t say anything, and then Felix said, “I don’t have children or a spouse. I just have me, and I’m afraid that I’ll end up being someone who gets rid of all of their dreams and ends up being just what everyone else is.”

    Felix stopped because he saw Scott’s eyes filling up with tears.

    “Scott, it’s just a…”

    “We’re so fucked,” Scott said, suddenly, tears running down his cheeks. “We are so fucked.”

    And then the hard place behind Felix’s eyes melted, and he felt tears stinging his eyes.

    “I’m not going to get my kids, Felix. I’m not. This divorce… it’s gonna cost me more than I have… I’m not going to be able to….

    “Are you a Christian?”

    “What?”

    “I know you go to church,” Scott said. “We took the kids to church. But like… are you really a Christian?”

    “If I am, I’m a very poor one,” Felix said.

    “Me too,” Scott said. “Maybe if I wasn’t then God would help me out a little.”

    “I don’t think it works that way,” Felix said. “I’m not sure God’s like that.”

    “I don’t know,” Scott shook his head. “I don’t know.”

    Felix pulled Scott to him, and as Scott began to sob in his arms, the tears of fear and loss, shame and embarassment ran down Felix’s face too. Felix held Scott’s head to his, and he wasn’t sure if he was crying for Scott or himself. In the year they had known each other before, close, laughing together, feeling affection, they never touched. But now they touched all the time and he could feel Scott, taller, broader than him, longer, crying in his arms. Suddenly Scott looked up at him and kissed him on the mouth. He did it again, and it felt right to have Scott’s mouth on his, to press himself into Scott and Scott to press into him. They held on greedily to each other’s faces, and ran their hands over their shaven heads, Felix feeling the softness of Scott’s shorn hair. They looked at each other, blinking, and Scott bit his lips, looking grim, and then he pushed Felix gently down and lay on top of him kissing him. Without words, he began unbuttoning Felix’s shirt and Felix began to pull up Scott’s. The two of them clung together. Felix scrambled from the sofa, going down on his knees to unwork Scott’s belt and Scott said, “Do we need to take the bed out?”

    “Yes,” Felix said, signaling for Scott to stand up, and when Scott did, Felix unbuckled his trousers and pulled them down.

Scott could smell coffee brewing when he pulled the blanket over his head. He pushed back the covers and thought it was decent to pull on his underwear before going to the kitchen.

    “Well,” Felix said from where he sat on the little loveseat, smoking a cigarette.

    Scott yawned,  stretched, scratched his head and went to the coffee pot. Still yawning he poured himself a cup and Felix said, “No creamer?”

    Scott shook his head and sat down in the chair at the little table across from Felix. For a long time neither one of them said anything and then Scott said, “So what now?”

    “I don’t know,” Felix said.

    “I’m not sorry about it,” Scott said. “Not any part of it.”

    “Neither am I.”

    “I know we weren’t supposed to. Not yet.”

    “You’re still married.”

    “Yeah,” Scott said, but what he meant by that Felix could not tell.

    “I’m not going to pretend I’ve never been with a married man. But I never had an affair with one. I was never sleeping with, in love with, a married man. Yesterday I was a doctoral candidate and now I am a nothing and an adulterer. Adulteress.”

    Scott looked at him with narrowed eyes and said, “I can never fucking tell if you’re serious or not.”

    “I think I start out joking,” Felix admitted, “and them I’m not entirely sure where I go.”

    “I know,” Scott began, “this wasn’t planned. I know we were supposed to wait. A long time.”

    “Preferably, when you weren’t married.”

    “And I know things just happened.”

    “Things did not just happen,” Felix said, putting his coffee cup down. “We’re both grown men. You’re too old to say something just happened, and if you are God knows I am. You kissed me, I kissed you, we took off our clothes and spent the night having sex in every position we could. That’s what happened.”

    “And like I said,” Scott said, “I don’t regret any of it.”

    “Not even—”

    “Well that part was unfortunate.” Scott frowned, “I thought it would work because it always does in porn, but I don’t really regret that either.”

    Felix grinned at him and Scott grinned back at him.

    “I’m going to kiss you now,” Scott said, standing up.

    “Are you going to put on clothes?”

    “I’d rather not.”

    “I’d rather you did not too,” Felix said.

    In his Jockeys, Scott got up out of his chair, and leaned over Felix to kiss him.

    “You stink,” Felix said.

    “I know. I should do something about that.”

    “You know where the shower is.”

    Scott held his hand to Felix and said, “Do you think you could lead me there?”

    Felix nodded, feeling surprisingly shy.

    “I could do that.”

    “Think you could share it with me?”

    “I don’t know how hot you’ll like it? If we can agree on a temperature.”

    “If I promise,” Scott clasped his hands together dramatically, “to not fight you about the water, will you get in with me?”

    Felix stood up, putting his coffee down.

    “I guess that makes it a deal, then,” he said, and followed Scott out of the kitchen.

“Hey, little bro!”

    “What are you doing here?” Joey was leaving the house, looking at his brother.

    “I was about to get some work done. Shouldn’t you be at the building.”

    Joey shrugged.

    “Taking lunch off. Wanna go with me?”

    “Yes,” Scott smacked him in the back of his head with his wallet. “And my treat.”

    Joey appraised his brother. “You look chipper.”

    “Well, you look pretty chipper yourself,” Scott said.

    Joey looked at his brother again. “You look in love.”

    “Well, it takes one to know one.”

    Joey blinked.

    “Are you in love?” Scott restated.

    “Uh…” Joey began. “I don’t know.”

    “That’s odd.” Then Scott said, “No, it isn’t. You don’t always know love. You don’t really know it right away. I was married for years, and I wasn’t in love.”

    “You can’t stop thinking about the person.”

    “You wanna wake up with them.”

    “Even if you do you just keep thinking about it.”

    “Who you been waking up with? You’re twenty?”

    “Old enough,” Joey blushed.

    “You wanna talk about her?”

    Joey looked like he was mulling over something, and then he said, “If you want to talk about your girl?”

    “Uh…”

    “How’d you get a girl so quick?” Joey punched his brother in the shoulder.

    “Cause I just broke up with Jen?”

    “No, cause you’re so damn ugly.”      

    And then Scott fell on his brother and they began wrestling on the floor, which was how their mother found them, and they just looked up at her, grinning.

    “Really?” Mrs. Flowers said.

    “You wanna go to lunch?” Scott said to his brother who was pinned under him.

    “Yup,” Joey said.

    As they left , Mrs. Flowers heard Joey, slamming down his ball cap, insist: “You’re still ugly.”    

They were headed down the street when Joey said, “Is that Felix and Rule?”

    “Uh?” Scott looked over. “That’s definitely Felix.”

    “Let’s invite them to lunch,” Joey said, and without waiting for an answer he swung the car to the curb. Felix was looking at them in horror.

    “You almost killed us!”

    “You want lunch?” Joey said without apology.

    “Who’s paying?”

    “I’m paying,” Scott said. He looked at Rule, “I’m paying for you, Felix. Cause you asked.”

    Felix opened the back door for Rule and then slid in beside him.  He hadn’t seen fit to tell Rule anything about Scott, but wondered how much he knew. He certainly hadn’t told Rule anything about last night.

    “Did Felix tell you his news?” Rule said.

    “No,” Scott looked uncertain. “I don’t think he did.”

    “A PhD is pretty, but a Masters may be more practical,” Felix said, simply.

    “You have a Masters.”

    Felix said. “Pay attention. I walked around feeling very, very sorry for myself because I couldn’t think of a single skill I had, a single practical skill, and I realized that all an English major would be doingis working at Taco Bell.

    And then at the end of it all—”

    “I came to the house,” Rule said, “and that’s when Felix realized—”

    “In a world this ignorant, I could be a teacher! This town is full of ignorant people, and ignorance is the only thing that doesn’t bore me. I’m going to make it happen. I’m going to work at City College.”

    Joey turned around and held his hand out for a high five.

    “That’s fucking awesome. You’ll always land on your feet, Fee. I believe that. Now let’s go eat.”

    “And I’m gonna get my fucking kids,” Scott said. “I’m not gonna give up. I’m doing it. I’ve decided.”

    “Where are we going anyway?” Rule said.

    “Chinese restaurant,” Joey said. “Unless anyone objects.”

    “I just had Chi—” Rule began, but Felix said, “No one objects.”

“I always get a chicken something,” Joey said.

    “I used to just get noodles,” Felix shook his head. “We used to live down the street from a Chinese food restaurant, and one day my dad rode with the owner to get supplies. They loaded the back of it up, and when he look at the meat it was marked Grade A Dog.”

    “No!”

    “It feels like a lie,” Felix agreed. “But whenever he tells that story, he looks pretty serious.”

    “Well, I don’t care,” Joey decided as the woman brought their plates. Joey’s was sesame chicken and Felix had order the sweet and sour chicken. He thanked the hostess politely, and when she left he said,  “It’s delicious dog meat.”

    Joey pounded his plastic wrapped fortune cookie, and then pulling the plastic open, salvaged the fortune.

    “That’s not really a fortune,” Joey decided. “I’m pretty sure its more an evaluation.”

    “What’s it say?”

    “It says I have an open heart and clear eye.”

    “I agree,” Felix said. “At least about the heart. I don’t know what the fuck the eye thing means.”

    “What about you?”

    “Huh?”

    “Aren’t you going to open yours?”

    Felix shook his head.

    “I never open the cookie until after I’m done eating.”

After the waitress had brought their checks, Scott, looking like he was humoring them, opened his cookie and read, “The Mandarin word for pig is tu so…. Not a fortune.”

    He shook his head.

    When they all looked at Rule he said, “Oh!” then he read:

    “What you endeavor to do you will gain success on.”

    “Good one,” Felix said and Scott nodded saying, “That should have gone to me.”

    “And now you?” Joey said to Felix. “You’re done eating.”

    Felix nodded and pulled open the cellophane. He broke the cookie in two and Joey explained, “He always reads it to himself before he reads it out loud.”

    Scott, elbows on the table, cleared his throat and said, “How… oracular.”

    Felix pulled out the strip of paper and read: Danger! You are caught between two lovers who love each other.

    Felix’s eyes bulged. He balled up the fortune, stuck it in his mouth, swallowed it, chewed up the cookie and then chased it with the remains of the water.

    “What the fuck?” Scott demanded.

    “Cookie,” Felix reproached the cellophane wrapper, “you know too much!”