by Eve Morton
Eric scratched the back of his neck. It felt hot. He remembered acting techniques, but only one worked to calm him. “Do you remember anything from the orphanage? Even small things, like a bear or a blanket, something like that I can see in photos or find traces of?”
“No,” Cosmin said quickly. “I don’t remember my time there.”
Eric let out a sigh. “Okay, well, what about when you came to Canada? Do you remember that day?”
Again, Cosmin was fast with his nos. When he caught Eric’s no doubt obvious disappointment in the low light of the basement, he eventually added, “My first solid memory is of Suzanne, if I’m being honest.”
“Why do you say solid?”
“It’s the first memory that’s not a sensation. It’s one that’s a story.”
“Oh, okay.” Eric nodded along way too insistently, as if he totally understood the difference. He did, more or less. His own “solid” memories were often ones his sisters told him about himself, like the time his parents forgot to feed him breakfast on a road trip because he was so quiet, and like his first day of school when he wore the exact same outfit as another boy. But his first memory was more sense-oriented, as Cosmin rightly said. He thought of the feel of his mother’s sweater and the acrid scent of his sisters’ hairspray. “Right. Smell!”
Cosmin had turned to survey a box. He apologized for the basement’s mold, said it simply couldn’t be helped in older houses.
“No, smell. That triggers memories, doesn’t it?”
Cosmin nodded. “I doubt Romania has an eau de toilette, however.”
“Well, maybe, but is there any smell that brings you back to childhood? Maybe we could use that, and become bloodhounds or something, searching out the past.” Eric laughed nervously. When Cosmin was quiet, his face impassive, he worried he’d overstepped too far. What, really, did he even know about Romania? Cosmin could have been blocking out his memories, and finding the right scent could leave him shell-shocked.
This was dumb. He should just continue to creep through old photos and nurse his teenage crush. Eric had slunk back down to a squatting position to do just that when Cosmin cleared his throat. “It’s not a bad idea. You’re coming from a good place.”
“I am? I mean, yeah, I am.”
“Have you read Marcel Proust?” This time, when Eric didn’t answer, Cosmin seemed slightly embarrassed. “I apologize. I thought you were deliberately referencing him, and then toying with me because I, well, there’s no reason for you to know any of this.”
“But I might want to?” Eric wished he hadn’t made his statement sound like a question, but his pride felt wounded. No so much because he didn’t know who Proust was, but because Cosmin now knew of his ignorance. “Even if I wasn’t referencing him deliberately, I certainly want to know about him.”
“Proust wrote one of the longest books ever called In Search of Lost Time. The book’s seven volumes are notorious for long and winding passages which are seemingly about nothing, but really are about memory.”
Cosmin went on to describe some of the more complicated passages—like a sentence that, if laid out in a straight line, was over a metre long, and some of the memory interludes inspired by a longing for a kiss before sleep or a cookie called a madeleine. His tone became professorial and confident, which made Eric’s knees go weak. He liked the sound of Cosmin’s voice when he knew what he was talking about, but it was also more than knowledge. Cosmin loved this book. And partly because he did love it, Eric wanted to read it, even if Proust did sound like a few of those nightmare books he’d been hired to read for an author in need of an editor.
“You really like this, huh?” Eric said when Cosmin had gone quiet.
“I do. But I suppose I like to think of my own version of Proust’s sense of time. Since smell triggers memory, Proust’s book goes backwards and forwards, and all at a moment’s notice. The same thing’s been happening to me a lot lately. But I also keep hearing things, too, like old pieces of music. Rhapsody in Blue in particular. Do you know it?”
“No. Wait.” Eric touched his temples. “Isn’t it in the beginning of Manhattan?”
“Yes. But Manhattan is in black and white, and whenever I get nostalgic, I just feel and see and smell blue.”
“We can stop,” Eric said. “We don’t have to do this.”
“I know. But if I don’t, I worry the blue will last a long time. So I should feel happy this time around. Lucky, even to be included in this pain. It means it happened, right?”
“Yes, I guess so.” Eric wanted to reach out and touch Cosmin’s shoulder, but he was far away. And they weren’t that kind of friend. Were they anything? Would this night be part of the blue feeling later on, made of nothing but pain and smelling like green tea and musty papers? Eric didn’t like the silence that followed. “Hey, I know you don’t have to stop, but I think we’ve worked super hard tonight. Why don’t I get us another drink, yeah? As much as I appreciate the tea, I think that will warm us up faster.”
“Alcohol actually thins the blood, making it more difficult to keep warm.”
“Buzz kill.” Eric groaned. He hoped he sounded playful. In the low light of the basement, Cosmin eventually cracked a smile.
“Perhaps you’re right. We are making progress, so this is the perfect time to break to whet the appetite. I can try to make us real food, if you wish, or we can call it a night now. I really appreciate the help, but I know—”
“No, no, I’m good.” Eric realized his voice was sharp. “I mean, yes, I would love food but I also want to keep working. Maybe even hear more about random literature that I have no idea about. Except Shakespeare. That I know.”
“Oh, I have some Shakespeare news.”
“Excellent. Acting and literature worlds collide. Love it.”
Cosmin followed him upstairs and turned to the kitchen, while Eric squatted in the front hallway to put on his shoes again. “Same whiskey as before?”
“Sounds delightful.”
Eric cracked open the front door, and ice fell from the space between the screen and the outside world. He made a face. In the basement, the sound of the freezing rain had ceased, but it was clearer now than ever before that the news reporters were not kidding. Everything was shellacked under a thick layer of ice. The streetlights, along with the Christmas lights, cascaded off its surface in a beautiful array of colours, but the blue stood out most of all. The entire scene created an eerie feeling of the end of the world.
“It’s a skating rink outside.”
“It’ll melt by tomorrow. Some sun, and all the hullabaloo today will feel downright silly.”
“Uh-huh. But right now, I think I may need more than that bag of salt to venture to my doorway.”
Cosmin peered out from the kitchen. His wide eyes betrayed his surprise at the conditions outside. He stood next to Eric at the doorway and touched the ice that had crept along the metal screen door frame with a frown. “Hmm. You don’t have to go. I mean, if you want to wait on the drinks, we can just have a snack.”
“No, no.” Eric made another face. If he got alcohol, the night would most likely go on longer, even if his desperation now felt palpable. “It’s just across the street. I’ll be fine.”
He regretted his words the moment he stepped down from the front steps. He hadn’t salted this one patch, and immediately his sneakers refused to grip its slippery surface. He heard himself let out a small yelp involuntarily as he rocketed forward. Neither his centre of balance nor his pinwheeling arms did anything to stop him as he toppled down. His ass hit the cement and he let out a low cry. Pain ricocheted throughout his body.
“Oh, shit. Ow.” He leaned away from his surely bruised tailbone. The cool feeling of ice against his skin numbed him to the pain for several seconds. “Oh my God.”
“Are you okay?” Cosmin bolted from his position in the doorway to step o
n the porch in his sock-feet. He gripped the side of the house—though it, too, was covered in ice—and tiptoed forward with precision so he could extend a hand to Eric. “If I can help...?”
Eric grasped Cosmin’s warm fingers eagerly. Sparks mixed with shivers; desire curled around embarrassment. He whined and groaned to cover up his own desire until he got to his feet again.
“Take off your sneakers,” Cosmin said. “It’s far better that way.”
Eric did as he was told. Though it was freezing, his socks were far better on the ice. Like Cosmin, he tented his fingers against the side of the house until they both managed to set foot inside once again. Eric pressed his back to the wall, remembered his already bruised skin, and let out a sharp breath. “Fuck.”
“Are you in pain?”
Cosmin placed a hand on Eric’s shoulder. He squeezed him. Tight. Eric wanted to keep this sensation, swap out the pleasure for the pain, but once he nodded and said it was merely his pride bruised along with his tailbone, Cosmin let him go. He gazed out at the slick road and now insurmountable distance between the two houses. “How badly do you want to go home?”
Eric caught a hint of something else in his voice. He didn’t have time to linger there before Cosmin quickly followed up with, “Because I can loan you my shoes if it helps, or we can work on salting right now.”
“Or you could go and get the alcohol.” Eric smiled. “Especially since I’m wounded now. It’s the least you could do.”
Cosmin’s gaze raked over his body again. His smile became playful. Oh, there was definitely something here. Right? In between the nonsense and the nostalgia, there was going to be something stronger which overtook them. Eric wanted to grab Cosmin again and press their lips together, but it would have to wait. Cosmin was already slipping on his shoes.
“Well, wish me luck. If I fall, we’re destined to remain on this house-island.”
“I have faith in you, dear Cosmin. Remove all the can’ts from your lexicon.”
Faint recognition crossed Cosmin’s face. Remove all the can’ts from your lexicon, an old bit of advice once given to a nervous actor before his first ever audition in a school play. A Shakespeare play. Did Cosmin remember? He surely remembered. That was why he was teasing him, that was why they were getting dinner... Oh, Eric had thought he fucked up before, yet again, but maybe this was some strange courtship ritual of the fancy gay, a tête-à-tête of literature references and their personal lives. For a moment, as the lines above Cosmin’s brows wrinkled, Eric believed that time had melted away and they were back there once again. In yet another blink, yet another eyebrow furrow, it was all gone.
And Eric realized he needed to get more aggressive. Especially if he was going to get what he wanted.
Cosmin was outside and walking ever so carefully between the houses. Eric hadn’t bothered to lock the door at his parents’ place, so Cosmin returned victorious. He carried the whiskey in one arm and had stuffed cigars inside his jacket pockets. He made it back without incident, though he now spoke gravely about the weather conditions. It truly was a skating rink out there. Unless the sun came out tomorrow and melted it all away, they were going to be trapped in this house.
“And it really will become an island. I guess you’re my man Friday,” Cosmin said. “Were you around here for the ice storm we had ten years—maybe even more like twenty—ago? I was working as a TA so you may have been in high school? Grade thirteen when that was still a thing?”
“Good guess. I was. I remember when you worked as a TA. It was just after Maurice graduated. Right?”
Cosmin paused at the mention of the name. He eyed Eric as he arranged a cheese plate in the kitchen. “You remember Maurice.” He said it like a statement, though it was also a heavy-handed question.
“I do.” Eric poured them each a drink.
The memory should have been harder to unearth than it was, but this one needed no prompting or scent to dislodge it; it was still as clear as the night Eric had seen from his bedroom window that night. While everyone else over the holidays had been asleep, he was up with his B-movie marathons and heard a car horn honking outside. He glanced out his bedroom window and saw Cosmin with Maurice, a guy from his high school who’d graduated two years ago. Maurice went to Queen’s University, where Cosmin taught. The two of them knew one another—in fact, from the scant placement of their bodies and accidental horn honking, it seemed that they were both making out.
Eric had been shocked by what he’d seen, convinced it wasn’t real until the two of them came out of the car, their fingers intertwined for a beat before they let go. It was late and no one else was up, but this was no dream; the streetlights gave him all the illumination he needed, and their bodies intertwined in one last kiss before departing made the situation quite clear. Cosmin was gay. Maurice was a boyfriend. And though Maurice would drive away that night, come the next afternoon, the same car would be in the driveway, and then Cosmin would never come home again.
Everything else after that moment had been easy to figure out but confusing enough for Eric to stamp it down until Trina and their marriage had brought it all up again.
“I have to ask a question now.” Cosmin stared at his drink as he spoke. “Did you hear about Maurice from my father? Or your parents through my father?”
Eric shook his head.
“Then how did you know?”
“I saw you and him. Filling in the blanks was easy after that.”
“I see.” Cosmin still stared at his drink.
“You want to ask something else. So you should ask it.”
“Excuse my presumption, but I never heard the gender of your former marriage partner. Then again, I never hear much about this place anymore.”
“I married a woman. But I’m bisexual.”
“I see.” Cosmin took a sip of his drink. It was all he did for some time.
Eric’s chest was tight, just like that night. He’d been so scared to breathe in case it shattered what he’d seen. That night, after the car had driven away, he’d been harder than he’d been since first starting puberty; since that first girlfriend and their make-out sessions in a park; and he’d been so utterly intoxicated yet confused that he’d touched himself in the front hallway, halfway between his bedroom and bathroom, as if being in either one of those rooms would only confirm what he’d long since been denying: he liked women as well as men.
And he really liked Cosmin. It didn’t seem fair that Maurice, a kid he’d gone to school with, who he’d met in the drama department, and who only played a half-assed Lear, could have him. Cosmin had been his neighbour; didn’t that allow him first dibs? Cosmin had triggered this whole thing in motion, so didn’t that mean that Eric had some right?
He put those thoughts away when he met Trina. But once again, time melted. And now Eric stared at Cosmin in front of him and wondered if he could go back to the start, and they could get this right. His throat was dry. He envisioned the franticness of Cosmin’s hands over Maurice’s body. He remembered how their heads blurred into one creature, like a strange monster from the B-movie he was watching that night. This beast wasn’t a monster anymore, though; it wasn’t a hydra, it was human, and it was always making him hard.
Eric wanted so much in that moment. He thought of the young photographs of Cosmin and the sadness that seemed to linger all over Cosmin now. He wanted to blot it away and make it all better, blur their bodies together—but he was rooted to the ground. Shellacked, frozen, Hermione at the end of The Winter’s Tale where too much time had been lost. His back still hurt from falling and he still felt burned by his failed love life. He needed Cosmin to lead; he needed Cosmin to guide him with advice and action, like he had once before.
“So I’m going to ask you another question,” Eric finally said, just to break the silence.
“Okay.”
“I need you to put your hands on me.”
“That’s not a question.”
“It’s implied, you idiot.” Eric tried to laugh but it came out as a pant. When Cosmin raised his eyes to Eric’s, all breath left him entirely. Cosmin took a step closer. He shifted from the other side of the kitchen island which separated them. He placed a hand on Eric’s chin gently, a soft touch to steady his gaze, and then rubbed his thumb back and forth against the smooth skin. The height difference of an inch between them seemed like too much, especially since Eric was melting into the floor.
“This suits you so much better,” Cosmin said. “Clean-shaven is always my favourite look.”
Cosmin kissed Eric’s cheek in a peck, followed by his chin in the same manner, and then placed a mouth over his own. Eric closed his eyes and breathed into the kiss. Cosmin kept their mouths stitched together with his palm against Eric’s jaw, then added his other hand to Eric’s waist. His touch was hesitant, as if he didn’t want to grip too hard and further hurt Eric’s bruised bones. Then again, Cosmin may have also been holding himself back. Eric could feel the desire under Cosmin’s hands, the shaking vibrations of the heat between them. Cosmin plied his lips apart with his tongue, exploring with deliberate purpose. Eric explored back, held on to his body just as hard, and rocked their hips together. He made mewling noises in his throat; he felt like a whining animal, keening with desire, while Cosmin remained impassioned, yet cool. Too cool.
“Oh God,” Eric moaned when Cosmin broke the embrace to kiss his neck. He moved a hand to Eric’s collar and tugged hard in an attempt to direct action. “Oh God you need to fuck me.”
Cosmin untucked Eric’s shirt but said nothing. He placed his palms on his back, his warmth radiating through Eric’s tender skin. When Eric hissed at the pain, Cosmin took a step back.
“No, no, no.” Eric placed his hands back there. “Just be gentle. Yeah, yeah.”
Eric sank into the embrace as Cosmin kissed and sucked the skin of his neck. He wanted to rip off Cosmin’s clothing as fast as he could, to see the body that he’d envisioned for years in his perfect fantasies, but his fingers fumbled. His body was wax, pliant, while Cosmin was ice and in perfect control.
