by David Connor
"Hmm." Liam hummed, first a monotone note, as if thinking, and then a melody.
"What are the words?"
"It d-doesn't h-ave any."
"Oh. Do you know the name?"
"Uh-uh." Liam hummed some more. It sounded a bit like El Capitan, the one and only march the school band performed for summer parades when Frank—and Renny—had played in junior high school.
"Nice. What else? Do you ever dream?"
"Yeah."
"Good dreams or bad?" Frank snuggled down.
"Both kinds."
"Tell me a good one." Frank caressed Liam's cheek with the corner of the top quilt.
"I don't know any."
"Do you ever dream about your mother and father?"
"I don't w-want to t-talk any… any-m-more."
"Okay. Why?"
"Be-cause." Liam yanked the fabric right out of Frank's grasp. "Be-cause I k-know y-you think… I am n-not r-real."
Frank gasped. "No, Liam. You are real." He wondered if Vaughn had spoken to Liam behind his back, while he was working one day, maybe, and Vaughn was allegedly resting upstairs. "I just worry that…" Frank wrapped his arms around the side of all of the blankets. He squeezed. "Do you think you're real? Are you truly satisfied with your life… as it is now? If this is the best it can ever be, is it enough?"
"Yes." There wasn't a moment's hesitation. "Stop ask… ing me that over and o-over again." When Liam smacked the side of the mattress, it made Frank jump.
Frank knew his repetitive qualms must be wearying. "But what about…?" What about what? Frank didn't know what to say.
"A… lot of st-stuff up here," Liam tapped his forehead, "s-seems buried. Gone. M-maybe because of what… I am."
"Not what you are, Liam, but what you've been through. You're a who, not a what."
"Ex…cept y-you are the one who is h-having t-t-tr-ouble believing th-that."
Frank felt bad. That was true, and Liam was so intuitive there was no hiding it.
"I am h-happy to g-go from Au… gust. To s-start my life from th-then. To s-start it from w-when I m-m-met you. Why c-can't you b-be?"
"Liam…" Frank kissed at the bedclothes. "I can. I will be. I'll… I'll stop all of this, as long as you're satisfied."
"I am. If you love me s-still."
"I do. I always will, Liam." Frank kissed his way up and down the blanket, pausing the longest where Liam's penis was still mostly erect. He felt its hardness at his lips, but all he tasted was laundry soap and lint. "Good night, Liam."
"Sleep t-tight," Liam said.
Liam did. Frank did not. He dozed now and then, often chilly, there atop sweltering Liam and all his blankets. All he could wonder, whenever he awoke, was who had taught Liam that phrase—"Sleep tight." Was it Marion and Vaughn Hellier or Kathryn and Carl Watson? Was it the same person who put relish in his egg salad? Was it DJ?
As dawn broke, ripe with morning arousal as usual, but not alone for once, Frank toyed with Liam's through the covers. Liam made noises of pleasure as Frank hungrily mouthed the coverlet at his crotch. "I'm r-ready!" Liam warned, lamentably fast.
"Hold back a second, can you?" Frank got off the bed and pulled back several blankets. "I'm glad you were overly cautious, but I think a few less will be safe." He removed four, and then put his mouth back where it had been. "Okay, sweetheart, go," he said, before wrapping his mouth around fabric and the dome of Liam's morning wood.
The wet spot came through. Frank reveled in its tang and warmth. He uncovered Liam's crotch from a safe distance when finally it stopped flexing at his lips. He looked at Liam's body, soaked-with-sweat, and his spent, coated penis, wishing his sense of sight and taste could somehow be fulfilled at once. Perhaps they could test Liam's accuracy next time, a little challenge to see if he could hit a target—Frank's tongue—from far enough away. Maybe Frank could lie on the bed and Liam could stand over him. He couldn't wait to try it.
It was an okay life. It was wonderful, in fact, and Vaughn was right. Frank spent too much time looking for the negative, concentrating on what was wrong as opposed to all of the right.
"I am going to love you with all my heart. You said it last night—from this moment forward. I can feel you and taste you. I just did, and it filled me with so much joy. God!" Frank turned for a kiss, nearly tripping on the bed frame, actually stubbing his toe. As the pain reached his cortex, he didn't care. He folded up the corner of the sheet to Liam's mouth—triple folded—and then put his to it. "If all we need between us is a couple of sheets, though it is not quite all that I spent my life dreaming of, I'll be damned if it is not near perfect. You make it so."
"Kiss me," Liam begged. "Please, Frank, k-kiss me."
Frank picked up Liam's undershorts from the floor. He folded them into fours, replaced the covers, and positioned himself back on top. With Liam's undergarment upon his face, he offered more than a peck. It was their first wild kiss, the kind that led to something more. Frank wondered if they could go again.
"Let's t-try w-without," Liam said.
Frank climbed down. He shook his head.
"Fank… Fank… we can try."
Frank almost cried. "No."
"A l-little shock is m-maybe all I-I'll get. Please." Liam was persistent, and that made Frank angry. Had he not heard a word of Frank's soliloquy mere moments ago? Had he not been honest when he swore the same in far fewer words?
"No. We can't, Liam." Frank paced in the room too small for a rodent to do it well. When he turned, Liam was on his knees at the foot of the bed, the covers Frank had just put back now off. "What are you doing?"
Liam reached out to touch him. Or had he already? Frank gasped. The brush of fingertips… It had been so long since he'd been touched, though. Could he even recognize the sensation? Yes. And it lingered. "Did you…?"
Liam sat back now, holding one hand in the other, the look on his face difficult to decipher.
"Something happened, didn't it?"
"No."
"Please do not lie to me, Liam. One thing we have never done is that. I felt your touch. I think I did. And then I felt…"
"Yes. Y-yes then! But I w-would risk it again. I would t-touch you a t-thousand times and not c-care." Liam sat forward, as though he might.
"My God, Liam!" Frank backed away. "Have you not even the sense of a young child burned on a hot stove?" Frank wanted to put his fist through the wall. He wanted to put it through his skin and his ribcage to tear out his heart and stomp on it. Doing that would hurt less.
"It was s-mall. Completely b-bearable," Liam said.
"With a feathery pass. What would happen with more?" Frank turned his back.
"You are angry. Please d-don't be."
Liam reached. Frank sensed it. He whirled around. "I'm disappointed. I'm dismayed at the fact that I can never kiss you for real, but also because you have been lying to me."
"No."
"Yes," Frank countered. "No pain I have ever felt, Liam, would compare to that I would if you were seriously hurt." He couldn't look at him. "My life would not be worth living if I brought back yours only to end it again by selfishly allowing you to fulfill your needs with me." Frank turned to face the bed again. "The last time I kissed you…" Frank could feel his pulse in his forehead. "The last time I kissed you, you died."
Liam simply stared.
"I wish you could remember that. I wish the fear it brought you last Halloween could easily be recounted to stop you from thinking it's worth risking again."
Still Liam said nothing,
With his hands balled into fists, Frank let loose. "You know what I'm talking about. Search your memories. You will."
"No."
"Yes." Frank shouted. "Yes!" It echoed off the close walls and low ceiling. "It was one of the most horrific nights of my life, and I will not relive it." Slipping into yesterday's clothes as he argued, Frank went on. "It's funny… ironic, really. I hoped… if you were Renny… that night would be gone from your memory for good. I've
changed my mind now, though, because one month living with this curse, seven hours and one blow job after saying you could, you're looking to change the rules. You're willing—no, you're begging me—to take a senseless gamble. That is not satisfied, Liam!" He had twisted his undershirt so tightly around his hand the self-inflicted pain subsided into numbness.
"It's o-okay." Liam still begged. Literally on his knees, his hands clasped together, he begged. "It is. I-I'm not exas-p-pe… ex-pra—Damn it!" He obviously was.
Frank picked up a pillow from the floor and hugged it hard. "For Liam." He blew him a kiss.
Liam hugged the other pillow and returned the blown kiss. "Will you co-come back? Y-you promised y-you would n-never leave angry."
Frank didn't answer.
"I love you," Liam said, in tears.
"I don't believe I ever stopped loving you," Frank responded. He punctuated the statement with two slamming doors, the one to the bedroom, and then the one to the outdoors.
Frank turned several times as he walked through the woods toward the cemetery to begin the process of interring another body. He was certain he'd heard Liam—or someone else—behind him. Every time he looked, he felt a different emotion—hope, anger, unease. No one was ever there, at least no one who wanted to be seen.
Without so much as a greeting to Vaughn, Frank began his work. He dug past all objections from his body, until he couldn't anymore, as Vaughn sat and watched on the tailgate of the truck. "Does it ever go away?" Three feet down, three to go, Frank finally rested. Perhaps conversing rather than arguing—honey instead of vinegar—would allow information in place of denials. "This other you knew who was afflicted as I am…" Frank asked from the pit. "Was he ever cured? Was he ever normal again?"
"This is a sad situation." Vaughn focused on the grave rather than the inquiry. The wife of the man who they had recently buried had killed herself overnight. There would be no service, no flowers, no hymns. Her wish was to be buried beside the man she loved so that she may rejoin him on the other side. Her note bore witness to such. "Sad, but something I understand too well," Vaughn said. "Should anything happen to my Marion before my time, I would not want to live, and she agrees."
Frank understood as well, and also envied such devotion. Frank's life, even with Liam in it, seemed hardly worth living at that moment. Had he died that night, when Liam first started living again, it may have been better for Liam as well. "Vaughn…" Frank posed the question again. "Was the curse ever vanquished? Was Ivan able to lead a normal life?"
"Never normal." Vaughn answered the second time. "But I know of one for whom it did go away."
"How?"
"Upon his death."
"I see."
"You don't." Vaughn stood and turned toward the horizon. "He died, and then was brought back. He was not well. He'd been gone too long to function fully, but whatever transpired in the interim took the unwanted energy away."
"You say 'one'. Do you know of more people who have been like me?"
"Yes." No hemming or hawing. No arguing, just a straight answer for once.
"And?"
"And what?"
"How many? Who were they? What became of them?"
"I was only acquainted personally with two. Others claimed to have known several. It's doubtful there are many. The two I knew came from different corners of the world. One lived… somewhat. The other did not survive when we tried to take it out of him. One came out of his unanimated state. One lingered, asleep. God, I do hope asleep. If his brain was still alive but his body was stilled, if he could think but not communicate in any way whatsoever, that would be the worst torture imaginable." Vaughn turned and met Frank's stare head on. "Count your blessings."
Frank could not bear to hold the gaze long. "Ivan…? Which was he?"
"Either way, both eventually perished and I vowed never again to try."
"Oh." Frank turned back to his task. He'd accomplished something. Vaughn had admitted he played with human life—brought people back from the dead. After one more shovelful of dirt, "I think Liam is ready to move on," he said.
"Move on? To go where?" Vaughn asked.
"Anyplace he wishes. He can certainly work. He can make his own money, have his own life. There is no reason for him to stay with me."
"Is love not a reason?"
"A better reason to let him go," Frank said, tossing fill from the spade. "Because I love him, I realize Liam needs more. He spends his days alone. He can take care of himself and a house better than I can. What he doesn't need is me." Frank worked to square one corner of the two and a half by eight by six rectangle.
"We do not need perfection, Franklin. No one is here to see where the coffin will end up."
"It makes me feel better to do it right," Frank said. "Like she mattered."
"As you wish." Frank continued to make the hole straight. "Take him back, Vaughn. Take him back or find him work so he can be on his own. I insist you find him alternate lodgings at once. If you don't, I will run off myself. I will take the truck we drove here in and never look back."
"Franklin, you are being hasty."
"I am being reasonable. I am being honorable. I am being realistic. Already he wants more than I can offer him. Already he was willing to sacrifice himself for a blasted kiss! He will soon become unhappy, as depressed as I was."
"Was. Before Liam."
"And again now, since. I have already made him cry several times, and that breaks my heart. Vaughn, please honor my wish. He will forget me just as quickly as I became his everything. A matter of days was all that took, and a matter of more will undo it. You know a lot of people, everyone in town just about, or some relative of them. You know people in the next town. You know people in Europe. I am sure Liam and I are not the only two men on the planet who yearn for other males. Find him someone else."
"If that is what I wanted," Vaughn huffed, "that is what I would have done."
"I feel things in my heart and my body I have never felt for another soul." Frank climbed up out of the open grave as he argued. "Because of that, I know it would be best for him to meet more people—one special person—who can be everything to him that I cannot. Take back your son," he demanded, as close to Vaughn as the two ever got.
"You are my son, verdammt!" Vaughn shouted at him. "You have always been, even before your father's passing. Since the day I rescued you from the burning house, I came to want you as my own. Your endless questions, your giggles, your intelligence, those times fulfilled me so." Vaughn's eyes flashed happiness, and then something else. "Perhaps I ruined you by trying to protect you. Perhaps I failed you by aiding your isolation just as I feared Marion would. Should I regret our entire relationship because it has sometimes been imperfect?"
"No. I will never see your love and financial generosity as a hindrance." Frank readied to climb down again, having made quick work of neatening the outside corners no one would see either. "Maybe you did your best and I just don't deserve the kind of happiness I seek."
"Why would you not? Why would any of us not?"
"I don't know. My life has been fraught with one horrible thing after another. Perhaps I'm being punished, as some would preach, for loving another man."
"Hogwash. The universe and God have better things to concern themselves with than your sexual exploits. You are as deserving as anyone else, yet refuse to see it that way. The boy with the scars who spent too much time with the funeral director…" Vaughn shook his head sadly. "What did I make of you?"
"A man. You raised me, when my father was too preoccupied, then too sick, then dead. I appreciate your devotion." Frank pulled the ladder off the truck and put it down in the grave, to make it easier to get out when he got deeper down. "Show some for Liam. Make certain your real son is happy."
"Liam is not my son, and you know it!" Vaughn bellowed. He had to fan himself with his handkerchief after, as Frank closed his eyes and then opened them slowly.
"He is Renny, then. You are finally admitting that
?"
"No. He is Liam, Frank."
"And here we go again."
Vaughn wiped his forehead, perspiring from nothing but stress on a very cool day. His next statement floored Frank. "He is an amalgamation of several beings. That Watson boy is one of them. The girl is another."
Frank literally staggered backwards. "Melissa?"
"Yes. I am done with lies. No one tires me as you do."
"I'm sorry." Frank could hardly believe he was the one apologizing.
"Some scientists truly believe emotion comes from the heart. Does not one feel it there? When you are sad, frightened, excited, in love, does it not tighten, beat faster, skip, and sometimes literally ache?"
"It's happening right now."
"You asked for the truth again and again. Does it help?" The rear of the pickup sagged as Vaughn sat down hard on the tailgate again, as if it were suddenly exhausted too.
"Are you okay?" Frank stepped up close.
"Yes. Are you?"
Frank couldn't answer. He wasn't sure.
"I knew they both held you in their hearts, from speaking to one, and from listening to you tell the trees about the other. You spoke of how long he'd been hiding it out of fear. Two hearts loved you. I gave Liam both."
Frank gripped his chest. His own heart seemed to have stopped.
"And cells from other organs—internal—in case feelings are physiological as well as psychological. Medical science will see the importance of small pieces transplanted from one being to another before the 1970s arrive in five more years. There are already tales overseas of memories and likes inherited, even from transfusions, definitely from transplants. Since this decade began, there have been."
"I am hardly interested in science right now." Frank wiped his face with the hem of his undershirt. He half wished the cessation of his beating heart was real and permanent, and not an affectation of his thoughts.
"Except as it pertains to you and Liam. That science matters to you. I wish you did hold more of an interest, Franklin. I wanted you to follow fully in my footsteps, not just in dealing with death, but life." Vaughn tended to his brow again, despite the chill.
