Two Hearts

by David Connor

  Change was one of those things, Frank always thought, that was both exciting and terrifying in its uncertainty. Many gave into to the latter, thus avoiding it.

  "My gift… You have also called it the curse. I have too. What else could the inability to touch another living thing be called? Suddenly, I'm to consider it a gift again? Like the Trojan Horse, maybe. I don't even want to think about the future, really. Even if I can be happy with Liam, he can't be with me. That is as simple a fact as any. Things are moving quickly now, as you noted. His thoughts… I have no idea what they are, only because his words are slow to form. I give it another couple of days at the most, until he is able to recall every detail of his actual life, the one before you convinced him he was Liam Hellier and in love with Freaky Frank.

  "He will leave me then, Vaughn. I will not even have to drive him away. If, in the meantime, you make me believe what you are saying, then it only gets worse when the inevitable occurs. There is every chance I will end up hating you for turning my thoughts to goo, only to have them decimated. A fake love will soon be over and dead. Sadly, an actual one—our bond as father and son—will also have been destroyed."

  Chapter Eight

  Back in the woods, Frank decided to help Liam learn to ties his shoes, a lesson Marion had continually failed at. Why the sudden urgency? It was a bit of a metaphor, Frank admitted. He wanted to give Liam every opportunity to make his choice. If he could tie his own shoes again, he could walk away if he wanted to, without tripping over the laces, as he likely had when running to the mortuary.

  "Not… now, Fank."

  "Yes. Now. Your mother couldn't do it. I can, though." Frank thought the problem might have been Marion's positioning. She always knelt in front, tying as Liam watched. Frank figured it might be easier if he did it from behind. That way, Liam would be able to see it from the same perspective as when he did it himself. "We have to be very careful not to touch," Frank said. How many times would he repeat the obvious, he wondered. "Try for me. Watch."

  Frank reached around, his face in close proximity to Liam's rear end, as Liam stood there in nothing but gym shoes and cotton boxers. If Frank angled himself just right, he could see up into them. The little hairs on Liam's legs shimmered in the sunlight. The ones on his scrotum too, even with the light filtered by fabric. The whole of the organ flexed, possibly involuntarily, possibly not if Liam felt the tug of their closeness as well. When Liam shifted, Frank was offered a close-up view of part of him he had dreamt of—literally—but would never get to explore.

  He took a breath. "Ready?" He slowly tied Liam's sneaker, untied it, and then tied it again. "You want to try?"

  "No."

  "No? Why not?"

  "When… I… c-can… d-do stuff my… self, y-you will g-o a-way… f-for-ever."

  "Oh, Liam." Frank sat back on his heels. He put his hand to his heart, so moved, so proud, so crushed.

  So God damned fickle.

  "Look at me, Liam." Liam turned, his face. It was so spectacular. His heart was so big It was difficult not to love him. "You have been holding out me, haven't you?"

  Liam averted his gaze.

  "Liam."

  He looked at Frank then. "Yes."

  "So many words at once with hardly a stutter." Frank sighed. "It's so complicated, dear Liam. But I will keep the promise I made to you a few minutes ago. I will not leave you so abruptly again. I swear. Never give up on getting better. Look how fast you're talking! How well." Frank thought a moment. "Look at the words you just said. Listen, I guess. Listen, I mean." He scrunched up his face. "You can't actually look at words when they're spoken, can you?"

  Liam shook his head. "No."

  "I have the same fears, you know."

  "Wh-at ones?" Liam struggled some to say.

  "That you will leave me the moment you can. You must have had a life before we met, even if it is not the one I've ascribed to—" Frank stopped himself. "My life began with you. Truly it could if I allowed it. But I can't imagine why you would want to settle for me. As hard as I try, I just can't. I must be so damaged."

  "Laugh. Y-you m-made me l-laugh."

  "The first day we met. The second, actually. The first day, that night when we first became acquainted, no one ended up laughing then for certain."

  "Poop D-aff-do-ills. Daff-odills."

  Frank laughed. "I remember."

  "Funny. And handsome Fank."

  "I cannot agree to that, not ever."

  "To me."

  "Sit with me. Across from me," Frank quickly amended. "I am certainly more relaxed with you. At least I was at the start, before I started looking for conspiracies and reasons to flee. I hadn't said the word poop in years." Frank rolled his eyes at the absurdity. There was sure no lack of that lately. "Immaturity is a great relief at times, Liam. I appreciate you giving me reason to remember what it's like to be carefree enough to be silly."

  "And..."

  "And what?" Frank looked at Liam, but Liam looked away.

  "And t-to be se-sest…"

  "Sexual, Liam? Please. You don't have to be uncomfortable."

  Liam's eyes met Frank's. Liam's eyes, not Renny's.

  "Is that what you were thinking, by any chance?"

  "Yes," Liam said.

  "Yes, then. I'm sillier and more sexual. Definitely yes. In a wonderful way that I still fear will end up more frustrating than satisfying."

  "No."

  "How can it not?" Frank crumbled a brittle leaf he'd picked up from the floor of the woods. "I can't deny we seem to be attuned to one another in a special way. Maybe a happy ending is possible. Do we take a chance? That's the question."

  "Yes." Liam answered it quickly, and that made Frank laugh.

  "You are so certain."

  "Yes."

  "How?"

  The answer came without hesitation. "Love." Liam made an offering with it, a shriveled and brown Queen Anne's Lace blossom. Something most would find ugly, Frank—and possibly Liam—saw as beautiful.

  "Daucus carota." Frank accepted the tiny nest on a stem still green. "In order for that, I must push aside my fears and apprehensions."

  "Yes." Liam was smart and resolute.

  "I'm not certain I can ever see myself the way you claim to. Though haven't I already when I've let down my inhibitions? That first night, those first moments we shared together, not before I felt the doubts, but before I let them consume me? The day we played tag and… and had some version of sex here, I was open then, and I enjoyed the beginnings of our romance so much." Frank had delivered the flowery speech in character. He glanced at Liam's expression and sighed. "Poop."

  Liam smiled.

  "I talk as much as I think, and you must grow so bored with me."

  "Love."

  "Is that your answer for everything?"

  "Yes."

  Frank melted. "I suppose it is the only one we need, then." Frank picked up a wooly bear caterpillar from the ground. He let it crawl across one hand, then onto the other. Nothing happened to it. It did not spontaneously combust, nor did its hair frizz out fuller as if electrocuted.

  Sometimes the mosquitoes sizzled and sometimes they didn't.

  "Hold your hand up, Liam. Close—but do not touch me." The caterpillar made the crossover from Frank to Liam. Liam giggled. "It tickles," Frank said. "Huh?"

  "Yes."

  "Do you want to go home, or stay here in the woods a while longer? It's going to storm, but not for a couple of hours or more."

  "Break-fast."

  "You didn't eat?" Frank stood and swept his hands up and down his pant legs. "Of course you didn't. I'm sorry I ruined your hard work. We'll go eat, then. Come."

  Liam gently encouraged the wooly bear onto the large root of a huge old tree. He stood and crossed his arms over his bare chest. Frank thought it was anger at first, but Liam was apparently cold.

  "Yes." Frank shivered. "I have a feeling the warm, summer days are going to be over now finally. Fall is going to come. Pumpkin pie, H
alloween, apple cider, and all that fun we'll—"

  Both men suddenly whipped around at the sound. A loud twig snap had taken their attention, one much different than the one Liam had been wary of his first day. The rustling that followed, the speed of the retreat on dry, crunchy leaves, it did not sound like four paws, but rather two feet. "It's not really private property," Frank said, a bit uneasy. "We'll have to be careful next time we, uh, make love to a tree." He raised his eyebrows. Liam did the same. "Come on." Frank picked up a short stick. "Let's go home holding hands the whole way."

  *~*~*

  After breakfast, Frank decided he would head back to the mortuary. He owed Vaughn an apology. Plus, it was a work day. If Vaughn was working, Frank should be, especially if Vaughn was unwell.

  Frank stood from the table. "I loved our meal. It was wonderful. Two hearts… yours and mine."

  "Yes."

  "I really should go now, though. You can come if you wish, Liam, or you can stay home and…"

  "Yardwork." Liam stood from the table. There was a splotch of red jam in the corner of his mouth. Frank was dying to lick off what the toast with the romantic artwork had left behind. Though it was totally stale by the time they got to it, Frank still enjoyed every romanticized bite.

  "Yardwork?" he asked, licking his own lips.

  "Yes."

  Frank thought a moment. "It wouldn't hurt to have a yard again, I suppose. That would be nice."

  And so was the view as Frank stood a short distance away and watched Liam labor away a couple of hours later, once the work at the funeral home had been quickly tended to. Liam had accomplished much as well. He had already cleared a path to the front door and a patch of lawn off to one side where he had set up a rusty metal outdoor table and chairs Frank wouldn't dare sit on. Perhaps Liam had thought of that. There were three chairs and a stump—wood—and that made Frank smile. Watching Liam bend and turn, ogling him as he pivoted and reached still wearing nothing but undershorts, it made Frank's manhood begin to fill and grow.

  Frank put his hand down his jeans to touch it. He closed his eyes, imagining Liam's was in his palm instead. Squatting in much the same way Liam currently did as he tended to the stubborn roots of a scrub cedar sapling, Frank reached beyond his scrotum, back toward his entrance. He played in the moisture there, and wondered what it would feel like if Liam made it wetter with his sensual secretions or his mouth.

  Liam was against the trailer when Frank looked back. He swiped his arm across his forehead, then wiped down his torso with a rag from the kitchen drawer. Lowering the elastic around his middle, he flashed the corn silk hair just below it and the base of his thickening penis. Frank wanted him badly. He stripped off, giving only a moment's thought to the person they had heard in the thickets earlier in the morning. Frank was, secure in the fact that though he was standing there with his pants and Fruit of the Looms at his ankles, showing his scars and his most private parts, at least he was doing it on Stone property. Onlookers be damned, except of course for the one whose attention he wanted to grab.

  Liam did look over, and he swiped his tongue across his lip and just above it, no doubt tasting his sweat. Frank in turn brought his hand to his face, the one that had his scent on it. The aroma sent a jolt to his already rock-hard appendage. Frank took it in his hand.

  Liam dropped his boxer shorts, fully revealing himself. For once, the distance between them was a turn on that heightened the erotic thrill. Liam pumped his massive erection. He turned his back, offering Frank a view and possibly a hint as to what might happen were they able to touch. It was slightly painful—more than slightly—the constantly recurring realization that they would never be able to enjoy those particular sensations. Frank would revel so in the intensity of being entered by Liam's girth and also in flooding Liam's warm insides with hot semen. If only it were possible. Three long, slender calloused fingers would have to approximate the discomfort and indulgence of Liam stretching Frank's tight, pulsating pucker. And they did. Frank worked them in and out, closing his eyes to heighten the sensation with mental imagery. He remembered quickly he didn't need to conjure a nude, handsome effigy for once, because the real visual of Liam before him was more perfect than any he ever could.

  The closer they came, the closer they got to release, each stepping toward the other as breath and wrist speed increased. Frank could hear Liam's exhales now, and he thought he felt his heat and definitely smelled his musk. Was the distance between them now slight enough to reach the other during ejaculation? Thinking about that brought Frank right to it. A shiver ran the entire length of his spine as he readied to be striped in white heat from the swollen pink tip of Liam's thick, pale member.

  When the thunder echoed off the hills behind them, Frank immediately ceased. "Liam. Get inside."

  But Liam carried on.

  "Liam!"

  "A-lmost f-fini—" He took a step closer.

  "No!"

  Liam jumped, startled, not by the rumble of thunder, but by the snap of Frank's voice, like the blast from a rifle.

  "Stay back! Especially now." Frank pulled up his pants and held them in place. No way would they fasten in his current state. "Go inside. You first," he said, as Liam still seemed torn between obeying and climaxing onto the ground. "The storm!"

  Liam obeyed. Instead of pulling up his boxers, however, he stepped out of them, and carried them across the yard. He stopped on the front step and turned back.

  "I might be better out here," Frank said.

  "No!"

  "The lightning will not get me again. It never does, lore says."

  "Come in."

  "I'm not afraid for me."

  "Come in, or I… w-won't."

  Frank gave in when the sky flashed above. "Okay. Hurry."

  He hid in the bathroom as the onslaught of loud, tempestuous weather seemed never ending. It was the only room with a real door, an inch and a half of wood—fair protection, he believed. He hoped. He didn't want to be anywhere near Liam, except that he was as he sat on one side of the door, his bare back against it, and Liam sat on the other. Frank put his hand to the wood, sensing Liam's on the other side. "I love you," he said.

  "I love y-you," Liam repeated.

  *~*~*

  The first round of storms lasted a couple of hours. Frank read to Liam from The Picture of Dorian Gray. He loved reading passages from it over and over again, which was why he kept his copy in the bathroom.

  When the rain subsided, Frank knew it was only a short break. "We have a couple of hours," he said, coming out. "They'll be hitting off and on all day. If you feel like making lunch, I'll do some laundry."

  Frank had an old wringer washer outside. The trailer wasn't big enough to bring it in. There surely wasn't room for an automatic. He collected an armful of clothes, figuring the impending rain would help to rinse them once he hung them on the line. With the hose running into the machine, once Frank had added some soap, he watched from outside as Liam prepared their meal. He'd put on eggs, and was chopping celery. They were likely having egg salad. Liam had slipped on his boxer shorts, but hadn't dressed.

  "Do you have anything else?" Frank asked eventually. "For the wash?"

  Liam turned. He took down his undershorts and held them out.

  Frank swallowed hard. "Toss them."

  Liam flung his boxers toward the door, where Frank caught them in both hands.

  It was no time at all until Liam was hard again. Frank stripped down as well. Yes, it was what he'd been hoping for all along. He very much wanted to finish what they had started before the next batch of storms rolled in, at just about two o'clock, he figured.

  Frank brought Liam's shorts to his face as he tugged at himself on his front stoop and took in the show inside. Liam came quickly onto the kitchen floor. He cleaned it and himself off with a small towel from the bathroom, and then tossed that to Frank, who used it the same as the boxers to heighten his own orgasm.

  The wash was wrung out and hung on the clotheslin
e by the time the dark clouds bringing more thunder began to roll in. Both Frank and Liam had washed up, dressed, and dined on the best egg salad Frank had ever had. Liam had added relish, the yellow, mustardy kind. It was a simple addition, but one Frank had never made. He wondered who had first put it in Liam's.

  "I suppose we should take our positions." The first thunderclap was in the distance, but the next would be closer. "These storms are going to last until nightfall, at least. Prepare yourself. And use the bathroom… if you have to," Frank advised with a grin.

  The thunder and lightning seemed relentless. The heavy, heavy rain that was rinsing Liam's underwear and the towel left with his essence went on and on. Frank finished reading the rest of the book. He and Liam conversed. Maybe more than once it became an interrogation again.

  "My favorite teacher ever was one named Mrs. Cornell. She was the music teacher. I so loved singing."

  That led to another duet of James Brown, the entire song. Liam still needed the prompt. He didn't know it. Marion Hellier must not have played the radio for him much over the few months he had been alive again, at least not the stations that featured modern tunes. By the third or fourth go round, though, Liam sang his part on beat and in tune.

  "Do you remember any of your teachers' names, from when you were in school?" Frank asked, when singing became tiresome.

  "Miss-es… Smith, I think."

  Frank and Renny had a Mrs. Smith. Then again, so did half the population of the world, no doubt.

  "Who taught you to make egg salad with yellow relish?"

  "I'm n-not sure."

  The hours passed. Hard work in the yard and the early morning breakfast surprise must have left poor Liam exhausted. It was dark out, but not terribly late, when the final storm moved away. When Frank finally emerged from the bathroom after waiting another hour for even the rain to end, though he knew it was safe before then, Liam was curled up on the floor asleep.

  Frank nudged him with the wooden broom handle. "Go off to bed, sweet Liam. Good night." Still there, with the covers pulled up to his chin, that was how Frank left him, sound asleep, when he snuck out for work before sunrise the next morning.