AFTER THE DEVASTATION OF HIS first serious relationship, Mark Powers thought he would never love again, and for a very long time he didn’t. When Vanessa Londgren broke up with him he was twenty-one and getting ready to graduate. He became more serious than usual, shaved off his hair, quit wearing tie-dye and slipped into sensible shoes. He’d never been very loud or boisterous around anyone but his close friends, and there weren’t many of those. Now he was quieter still. Life went on as normal, Mark living like a monk, or like a graduate student.
And then his sister introduced him to Margot.
Mark was twenty-three and self effacing with a small car, a little job, spectacles and a nervous tick that most people didn’t know about. Margot Bello was one of Julia’s sorority sisters, Irish-Italian, mildly devout, and ready to graduate.
“You all will love each other,” Julia had told him. “And she just broke up with the love of her life too.”
“She’s on the rebound?”
“It’s been a year,” Julia told him. “She already had her rebound man.”
“People really have those?”
“We do. Girls do. I suppose gay men do, I don’t know. Didn’t you have a rebound girl? No,” Julia looked at her serious brother. “No, you wouldn’t. Well, You must be over Vanessa by now. I never liked her anyway.”
“Jules—”
“I don’t see why you bother defending her. She was a total bitch anyway.”
“And if things don’t work out with your friend, Margot?”
“Well, then she’ll be a total bitch too.”
But things did work out. He came to pick her up. He brought flowers.
“You brought flowers!” she said.
“But you’re supposed to,” Mark said.
“No man has ever brought me flowers,” she told him.
Over dinner she quizzed him. It was important that he be Catholic, but only Catholic enough. He’d already lost his virginity, but to a girl he loved for years. He didn’t believe in abortion, but he did believe in birth control and contraceptive. He was a Republican. He believed in sin, but not in confession. He wanted his children baptized and raised in the faith as well as sent to Catholic school, but they didn’t have to believe because he wasn’t sure if he did either. It was all perfect. They began making out in the car. It went on so long and so heavily that Margot told him she was on the pill. They went back to her apartment. He dropped his trousers and fucked her against the door. When they finished she brought him to bed with her. They made love all night.
“I didn’t think I’d love anyone again,” Mark told her, dazed, early the next morning.
Apropos to nothing she said as she ran a finger over the hair of his arm, “You have a nervous tick.”
“Huh?”
“Oh, not right now,” Margot said. “I noticed it in the restaurant. It’s not exactly a tick. It’s a twitch.”
“Oh,” his voice was different.
She kissed him.
“It’s cute. It’s so cute. Everything about you is cute, Mark. I’m in love with you.”
“We had the best time last night,” Sidney was telling Mark. “Me and Joel and Keisha went out toward Lake....”
“The Quarry Lake?”
“Yes, we almost got arrested! We tried to call.”
“I wasn’t home.”
“When did you get home?” Joel said, stuffing his mouth with Doritos.
Mark looked at them for a second, and then returned to balancing his checkbook.
Sidney gave a predatory smile and said, “Oh, you didn’t get home. Did you?”
“Pass me the calculator, please, Sidney,” Mark said to him.
Sidney took the checkbook out of Mark’s hand.
“Did you—? My God, you just met her, Mark!” Sidney cackled to himself and murmured, “You dirty slut.”
Joel blinked a couple of times and then said, “Are you serious? Mark, did you really?”
Mark snatched the checkbook from Sidney, pushed up his glasses.
“Um,” Sidney said, appreciatively. “That is so unlike you. It’s so... Actually, it’s not like me, either. God, Mark, she must be something else.”
Mark was completely scarlet.
“She is,” he said at last. “And if it’s okay with the both of you I’d rather not discuss this right now.”
“Um,” Sidney shrugged. “Whatever you want.”
“Thank you.”
“It’s just you’ve been out of love so long I forget that when you’re in love you’re a tiger.”
Mark looked up from his checkbook at Sidney.
“Margot Bello,” Joel mused. “That name... I bet the girl doesn’t have an Irish bone in her body.”
Sidney raised an eyebrow and said, moving a safe distance from Mark’s fist.
“She did last night.”
Mark Powers lay in bed for a long time, unable to sleep.
“You’re just going to go? And my crime is being straight.”
“Your crime is being straight and good and one of the best things that ever happened to me.
“I’m going to go now… Good night, Mark. Goodbye Mark.
“Goodbye.”
He just left. He just walked out without them being able to work something out. Didn’t Rick understand? Even if it wasn’t exactly what he wanted it was something. Mark didn’t just feel nothing. Rick brought him to life, and now Rick was going away. For good. His friend... His… friend.
“Shit, Rick,” he murmured again and punched his pillow.
Well, then he needed to put Rick out of his head.
But all these last few months he had been thinking about Rick. Really since they’d started hanging out together all he did was think and talk about Rick, and it was really too bad that Rick had to bring up this whole business in the last few weeks because it was causing a lot of problems.
Why doesn’t he understand? I really don’t care.
Again Mark turned over. The house felt so big and empty. This bed felt huge and empty. Chris was with Sully tonight and Mark was more alone than usual.
The truth was that Rick’s love didn’t scare Mark. It made him feel good. Only two people had loved him like that and one was dead. He had completely put out of his mind the possibility that he might be lovable. It was all news to him. And then Rick told him, and he wanted Rick to keep loving him.
“But that’s not fair is it?” Mark said, turning on his back. Really, that made Mark the bad guy then. Didn’t Rick deserve a chance at happiness? Shouldn’t Rick have someone who was willing to give it to him?
“What if?” Mark began.
It was so crazy, but... what if Mark helped Rick find a boyfriend? He didn’t know how that could be done, but what if he found someone for Rick, and then he and Rick could be friends all over again, problem solved.
“That’s a—” Mark yawned, the hall light from the bathroom streamed into his bedroom. “That’s a great idea,” Mark murmured.
Now how the hell to pull it off?
Sullivan Reardon and Chris Powers were in their boxers on Sullivan’s bed. Chris kept his hands on Sullivan’s sides and they never moved from there. Sullivan kept his hands in Chris’s hair when they made out.
Chris pulled away.
“I want more,” Chris said. “That’s the problem. I want more and...”
Sullivan parted from him and sat on the other side of the bed.
“Me too,” he said.
Chris didn’t say anything for a moment. He pulled his tee shirt back on and then he told Sullivan, “I’m afraid of what’ll happen if we cross that line.”
“I think we’ve already crossed a line,” Sullivan, on his side, gave Chris a slight smile.
“Yeah,” Chris agreed. “But not that line.”
“I think,” Sullivan said, “That it’s going to happen sooner or later. I think I want it to happen sooner or later. We should like plan ahead or something.”
“For when it happens?”
“Yeah,” Sullivan said. “I don’t just want it to happen... all haphazard, you know?”
“What about the ski trip?” Chris said.
“With your dad in the next room?”
“But it’ll be at a ski lodge and everything and.... Right before Christmas so...”
Chris was standing at the edge of Sullivan’s bed, and Sully was sitting with his knees to his chest, considering.
On his knees he knelt-crawled across the bed and said, “Before you go downstairs to the couch, I wanna kiss you, all right?”
“All right,” Chris said.
Sullivan pulled him down by his hair and kissed him on the mouth and then Chris sunk on his knees to the edge of the bed. Sullivan’s hands went over his short hair, down his sideburns onto his unshaven face. His hands went under Chris’s shirt and they pulled off each other’s tee shirts. Sullivan was getting hard again. It was always like this, tugging him, pulling him toward Chris’s body.
Chris Powers spread himself over Sullivan and the only thing that separated them from each other was their boxers.
“No,” Chris said in a voice that sounded a little desperate. Sullivan tilted Chris’s face so he could kiss his ears and then said, “What about tonight?” and began to work off his shorts.
The phone rang and Joel McKenna cursed before he rolled over and reached across Shelley. He put his fingers to his lips and she laughed while he said, “Hello?”
“Mr. McKenna?”
Joel thought for a moment. “Addison?”
“Yes, is Seth there?”
“No,” Joel fought to keep the stiffness out of his voice. “I thought Seth went to see you.”
“Oh,” Addison said. And then. “Oh, he did,” in a tone that made Joel certain Seth hadn’t been anywhere near Addison Cromptley’s house that night.
Well, considering the fact that he was sleeping with Shelley behind his son’s back, he couldn’t get too upset. Or so he told himself.
“I ah...” Addison was saying, “was just calling to see that he’d gotten home safe.”
“Well, thank you, Addison,” Joel said. “Would you like him to call when he gets here?”
“If it’s not too much trouble,” Addison said. “I’ll be up.”
Addison hung up and Joel turned to Shelley.
“I think we need to get dressed.”
When Sullivan Reardon woke up in the middle of the night, for the first time ever his naked body was tangled with someone else’s. It was so strange. It wasn’t anything like he thought it would be. When it had finally happened the tenderness in both of them danced with a deep need. Sullivan was afraid because Chris was so strong and so in need, and he was scared because, at least tonight, he was just as strong and the need in him just as powerful. He’d never thought of himself that way, but in the night, in his bed he and Chris Powers and striven together pushing each other towards climax.
Even after the first time Chris had kissed him his thoughts were chaste. They weren’t prepared for this. He’d had a crush for years on Chris but the actuality of Chris’s body linked with his was offsetting. He wanted it. He wanted the warmth. He wanted to melt into it again but at the same time he wanted to be free. When they’d been having sex they had melted into something new and now Sully wanted to be Sully again.
Carefully he climbed out of bed and pulled on his boxers and then went down the hall to his bathroom.
What the hell was wrong with him? Hadn’t he liked it, hadn’t he needed it, hadn’t he wanted it? Then why did he ache like this? Why did he feel fucked up like this?
Balliol would know. I would tell him and he would have the answer.
No, Balliol would laugh at him, just like Balliol always did. Balliol... He wanted to think of him as a good friend, but how good was he? Wasn’t Balliol always criticizing him? Well it didn’t matter, Balliol was gone.
He went off to some Christian rally with Tommy Dwyer...
Because he was good friends with Tommy? No, but they were apparently good friends now. He went because he was asked. He put up with it because he was asked.
He’s off right now, as I sit in this bathroom, at some crazy retreat with Mason Darrow...
Because he was asked.
Maybe he didn’t know Balliol as well as he thought he did. Maybe he didn’t give Balliol a chance. Maybe he wasn’t the right type of friend. But who would he tell this too? Maybe Balliol would have understood, maybe he could have shared this with him, but he had no one to share it with at all, no one to check back with about this whole experience and suddenly he was snuffling up snot and crying in the bathroom, the porcelain of the bathtub cold against his back, the carpet shielding his ass from the tiles. He kept snuffling and crying softly to himself. He felt so empty. That wasn’t right. No. The thing he’d wanted to happen for weeks now had happened, and he felt so at a loss. He wanted Balliol so badly.
And he was gone.
Sully thought he heard a tapping at the door, but wasn’t sure. The second time he knew there was a knocking. Was it Mom?
“Mom?”
“No.”
Chris, Sully turned on the water and said, “Hold on, Chris.”
He rinsed his face, dried it and opened the door. Chris stood there looking horrified.
“Is it my fault?” he said.
“What?”
“I did this,” Chris said. “I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have—”
Sully put up a hand: “That’s not it. That’s really not it. I was just... thinking of someone who’s gone?”
“Your dad?”
“Yeah,” Sully lied.
They went back to his room. Sully needed it to work. He wanted it all over again, right way, with the door locked. He needed Chris, he pulled down his boxers and took him in his mouth. Chris’s voice came out in a sharp gasp and his fingertips reached back and scratched the door. Sully kissed him there and up on his belly. He placed him on his back on the bed and then he pushed against him. He pushed until Chris pushed back, until they were writhing together, harder and harder. Faster.
JOEL WAS FLAT OUT CRANKY when Seth got home. He was honest enough to realize that it wasn’t Seth’s safety that concerned him so much as the fact that he’d had to cut his romance short because he didn’t know when the hell Seth would walk through the door.
“Addison called,” Joel said. “He wanted to make sure you were back safe.”
“From visiting him?” Seth said.
“Yes, Seth.”
Seth shrugged. “He’s a great guy.”
“Yeah,” said Joel. “I told him you’d call when you got back. Funny how it took you two hours to get from here to Addison’s house.”
“I got lost.” That was such a transparent lie Joel realized he wasn’t even supposed to pretend to believe it. “I’ll call in the morning.”
“I told him you’d call now,” Joel said. There had been something urgent in Addison’s voice. Seth shrugged and picked up the phone that was in the cut out window between the kitchen and the dining room.
“Hello, Add? Yeah, what? Are you serious...?”
Against his will, Joel turned and paid attention to the conversation. He watched Seth’s face turn suddenly sad and concerned and remembered why he liked his son, even when he was lying, which was half the time.
“Yeah,” Seth said softly. “Yeah, man... I can do that. Yes.”
He put down the phone and said: “Do you have gas money? Addison needs me.”
“Uh, yeah,” Joel waved nonchalantly. “On my dresser.”
“Thanks, I’ll be back tomorrow.”
“Tomorrow?”
“I gotta go to Pennsylvania.”
Why open his mouth and echo, “Pennsylvania!” like an idiot? He just shrugged and shook his head and Seth went to his bedroom to get his wallet.
“What the?” Seth muttered when he pulled out the money. For one wild, brief second he thought his mother must have come to visit, but that didn’t make any sense. In a crumpled heap, diaphanous, by the side of Joel’s hurriedly made up bed—that’s right, it had just been made and not very well, Seth realized—was a woman’s slip.
“Fuck!” Seth whispered, putting the money in his pocket and the wallet back on the dresser while he stared, open mouthed, at the piece of lingerie.
Mark could not sleep. He was irritable now. Mark Powers believed that the body was meant to be conquered, and its desires and weaknesses should never be accepted. There should be no provision for the flesh. When it was time to sleep, sleep and when it was time to be awake, wake up. So, Mark had punished himself for hours, tossing and turning, beating the pillow, willing himself to sleep.
No luck.
He got up and walked around the house, and then he went all the way downstairs, found the flashlight in a drawer in the kitchen and stomped upstairs to the attic. The attic was freezing tonight and it would have daunted someone who didn’t have Mark’s organizational skills. After the death of Margot, and after the affair, Mark busied himself with organizing his entire life in the attic and so he found freshman year of high school and opened up that yearbook. This was so strange. He would never do this any other time. He should be asleep. Church was tomorrow, but he looked for Rick. He looked and when he saw him in black and white, in his uniform, his thick hair untidy, a look of concentration on his face he thought, “That’s Rick.” And that’s the Rick everyone wanted to be. And this Rick loved him.
Rick Howard was standing in his white football pants and the red jersey with his number, 13, go fig, his helmet held in one hand the other on his hip while he was catching his breath. He was so rugged. He was what they all had wanted to be.
“Even then?” Mark wondered. Even back then when Mark had long hair and wore macramé bracelets and a shabby uniform, Rick Howard already knew he’d never find a nice girl, and he was already living with his feelings...