3

by Jacob Z. Flores

  “No one has to know,” Dutch told him.

  Spencer pulled his pants back on and stared into Dutch’s eyes. “I will know,” he responded. “That’s all that matters.”

  Without another word, he put the rest of his clothes back on and watched Dutch as he did the same. When they were both dressed, he walked toward the closed office door. “I feel as if I’ve been awful to you,” he told Dutch, unable to look at him. “I apologize for that. I should never have let it get this far. I should’ve been stronger.” His hand rested on the cold surface of the doorknob. “I only ask that you consider not allowing this to ruin our friendship.”

  Dutch made no reply.

  Spencer then opened the door and exited the office. After closing the door quietly behind him, he walked through the office complex and down the stairs of Treadaway Hall. His father’s laughter echoed within him.

  I told you there would be consequences, his father taunted. Now, you have to live with what you’ve done. And tonight, when you crawl into bed with Justin and you look into those eyes that you claim to love so much, you’ll start to die inside. You’ve just ruined everything you’ve worked to rebuild. And this time, you can’t blame Justin or Cyber or three-ways. This time, it’s all your fault.

  Spencer couldn’t stop the tears when he realized his father was right.

  CHAPTER 35

  2010

  SPENCER sat in his car, observing Dutch’s house and wondering if he was doing the right thing. A few minutes ago, Justin had left for work and waved good-bye to Dutch, who watched him pull out of the driveway. The smiles on both of their faces made Spencer uneasy. They looked like a couple following a morning routine instead of ex-lovers he had forced to live together.

  I told you there would be consequences, his father scolded. But you don’t listen to me anymore. And now you may have just shoved the man you claim to love into the arms of another.

  He didn’t want to accept that. It was far too soon for Justin to have chosen Dutch, to have completely forgotten about him and the love they once shared. Forcing Justin and Dutch together while making himself disappear was supposed to compel Justin to him. He meant for the move to jumpstart the magic that had brought them together at the Bonham. Justin was supposed to be lost without him, unable to carry on until they were reunited.

  Based on the smile Justin wore as he drove away, that wasn’t happening. Justin appeared to be content with the arrangement, perhaps even thriving. Maybe it was over between them. Perhaps their relationship had come to its end, and he had yet to accept it. Their relationship might have ended for Justin long before Spencer’s return. After all, how else could he explain the melancholy Justin floundered in for a good part of the past year?

  Even though he’d had no knowledge of Justin’s affair, he’d seen that Justin seemed lost, unable to find direction or purpose. Had that been because he secretly longed for Dutch? Had Dutch replaced Spencer in Justin’s heart?

  God, I hope so, his father said. Then maybe you can find where you misplaced your balls and move the fuck on.

  Would you please just leave me alone? he asked his father’s irritating voice.

  I wish I could, the voice responded. But you keep fucking up your life, which keeps dragging me up to talk to you. I hope you don’t think I enjoy these little talks, because I don’t. I wish to Christ that you would just be a normal man and know when to shit or get off the pot. But I apparently failed at teaching you that. I thought you finally learned how to survive when you knocked your brother on his ass, but you’ve turned back into that little pussy crying in front of our house because someone has hurt you.

  I’m not a pussy, he told his father.

  If it smells like pussy and looks like pussy, then it’s pussy, his father replied. And we both know that I’m an expert on pussy.

  Could you be any more disgusting? he asked. Spencer’s stomach twisted and jumped. If you’re supposed to be my subconscious, why can’t you be a little more like me?

  His father’s voice gave way to hysterics for several moments. Damn, that was funny! If I were like you, you’d never learn, you’d never grow. You need someone like me to push you, to get you moving in a direction other than neutral. That’s where you’ve been stuck for so long. You don’t even realize that you’ve been spinning your wheels like some dumbass redneck too stupid to realize he’s not making progress.

  Then how do you explain your silence for the last ten years? Spencer asked. I’ve done just fine without you for a long time.

  Not from where I’m sitting, his father said, spitting out the words as if they were poison. You may have believed you were happy, but when you realized your life wasn’t the perfect little picture you always imagined it to be, you ran to London. When you came home and realized Justin was still unhappy, you dug yourself underneath tons of denial. You couldn’t even hear my voice even though I was screaming at you. I was only able to get through once you were faced with just how much of a shit pile your life truly was. And now, now you’re piling even more shit upon the heap.

  This is going to work, he told his father. Justin loves me. I know it. He’ll come back to me. He’ll return to me as the man he once was. I have faith in that.

  But will you be the same man he knew? his father asked. You fail to see the obvious, boy. You’re walking a path with blinders on, and what you don’t see is going to knock you on your ass. I guarantee it.

  Spencer got out of his car and slammed the door, hard. He knew what he was doing. Once the romantic fantasy Justin created around Dutch was removed, Justin would see the world as clearly as he did. The only way for that to happen was to force that fantasy into the real world, reveal it as being nothing more substantial than a dream. Once exposed to the harsh light of reality, the wrinkles and the warts would be visible, sending Justin back into his arms. This time for good, he thought as he walked up to the front door and knocked.

  “Coming,” Dutch announced, responding to Spencer’s knock upon the door. As he waited for Dutch to wheel himself to the door, he looked around the small stucco porch.

  Not much had changed since his last visit several months ago, when he’d stopped by to make sure Dutch was coming in to work after a long weekend. Of course, at that time, he had no idea Dutch had been sleeping with Justin or that their friendship had been built upon a lie.

  As his eyes followed the brown stucco to the forest-green trim, he realized his relationship with Dutch was never real. For the past few weeks, he had been so consumed with Justin’s betrayal that he’d completely ignored Dutch’s. Their friendship had been important to him. He’d counted on it since it was the only part of his life separate from Justin and their friends, a part of his life that gave him the individual identity he had lost to couplehood.

  It had all been a lie. The entire time they built a friendship, Dutch had kept the truth of his affair with Justin a secret. Yet, Dutch pursued the relationship. He invited Spencer to coffee. They ate lunch together at least twice a week. They exchanged e-mails, recipes, and news about their day’s events.

  They even flirted shamelessly with each other. Sometimes, the flirtations got out of hand, but once he’d brought perspective back to their situation, they were fine.

  Until Dutch changed. Until he spiraled so out of control that his job was on the line. As his friend, Spencer had done whatever he could to help Dutch.

  Maybe his father was right. Maybe this was a mistake.

  Dutch wasn’t the person Spencer thought he was. He was a lying adulterer who got his jollies by striking up a friendship with the partner of the man he had an affair with. Those weren’t the actions of a kind, generous soul, the type of man he’d always believed Dutch to be.

  Those were the actions of someone vile, and he had willingly allowed Justin back into this man’s clutches.

  “I was wondering when you’d get here,” Dutch said after opening the front door. On his lap rested his blue backpack containing everything he needed for the physical thera
py Spencer had agreed to take him to. “I thought we were gonna be late.”

  “Fuck you,” Spencer shouted. He punched Dutch square in the nose. Blood poured from Dutch’s nostrils, and his hands went immediately to his face. “You’re a goddamned bastard,” he said, wanting to take another swing and make Dutch bleed even more.

  Now, that’s what I’m talking about, his father cheered.

  Spencer had never before felt so overcome by anger or hatred so intense. His body burned hotter than a star about to go supernova. As he stood there contemplating another assault and looking down at Dutch, who complained loudly about his nose, realization of what he had done slowly dawned upon him.

  No matter how Dutch had betrayed and hurt him, Dutch was in a wheelchair. Not only was this not a fair fight, but Spencer had crossed a line. He was turning into a man he never intended to be, a man too much like his father.

  Come on! his father said, hooting and hollering as if he were ringside at a boxing match. Hit him again! Beat that fucker senseless and make him bleed. Infect that bastard with your blood!

  Infect? he thought while looking down at his hand. It too was bloody, and not just from Dutch. His knuckles had split open from the punch. Blood ran down his fingers and dripped to the cement porch below.

  “Oh my God,” he whispered. He pushed Dutch’s wheelchair backward, causing him to roll a few inches to the right. Frantically, he dashed into the kitchen, opening cabinet after cabinet. He found a spare plastic bag and wrapped it around his bleeding hand. “Where do you keep the hydrogen peroxide or alcohol? I need to wash out your wound.”

  “Bathroom cabinet,” Dutch responded, his voice muffled with blood.

  Spencer remembered the bathroom was down the hall to the right of the living room. He sprinted into the bathroom, flung open the cabinet, and plucked everything he needed from within. In seconds, he was once again at Dutch’s side.

  He tore open some gauze and doused it with hydrogen peroxide and alcohol, which he applied to the wound. Dutch winced in pain, but made no reply or move to retaliate. He simply sat and allowed Spencer to attempt to clean up the horrible thing he had just done.

  “I think I’ll live,” Dutch said after ten minutes of gauze applications generously doused with alcohol and hydrogen peroxide. “You can stop now.”

  “I can’t,” he said, tearing open another gauze bandage. “The wound has to be cleaned. It has to!”

  Dutch reached out and took Spencer’s plastic-bag covered hand in his. “I’ll be fine,” he told Spencer. “The chances of my being infected with HIV because of this are relatively low.”

  He backed away from Dutch. He couldn’t believe Dutch knew about his HIV status. He couldn’t believe Justin would have divulged such personal information to anyone, much less the man he had been cheating with.

  “Your viral count is undetectable and has been for years,” Dutch reminded him.

  “He told you,” Spencer muttered. “I can’t believe he told you.”

  “We had a sexual relationship,” Dutch said. “It was the right thing to do.”

  Logically, he knew it was, but the fact still enraged him, almost back to the point of wanting to resume punching. But he couldn’t. The fight had drained out of him with the blood he already spilled.

  Before he could stop it, he started to cry. He could hear his father yelling at him to stop crying like a sissy, to stand up and be a man. He lacked the willpower. All his defenses fell; his armor tumbled off his body, leaving him naked and vulnerable.

  Spencer felt defeated. And horribly alone.

  “Please, don’t,” pleaded Dutch. He wheeled himself closer. “I’ve been waiting for you to lose your cool for awhile now. I’m glad you finally did.” He placed his right hand on Spencer’s shoulder. “I deserved that. I deserve much worse.”

  “You’re damned right you do,” he yelled at Dutch through his tears. He knocked Dutch’s hand off his shoulder and stood up. His anger once again burned hot, forcing the tears to cease. “You were my friend,” he said. “You made me….”

  He stopped before finishing his thought.

  “I know,” Dutch said. “I know.” He looked away. Deep sorrow and regret filled his eyes. “I’m an awful person,” he admitted. “I deserve everything that’s happened to me. Your hatred. The paralysis. The DWI. The potential loss of my job. HIV.”

  “HIV?” he asked. “I thought….”

  “It won’t be because of you,” Dutch said. “It’s because of me. The way I’ve lived since Justin and I….” He stopped, unable to say the words. “Well, I would be surprised if I wasn’t HIV positive.”

  “But you don’t know for sure?” Spencer asked. Dutch shook his head in response. “Then don’t be wishing for something that might not even be true. You need to get tested. I’ll take you after physical therapy.”

  Dutch stared at him, confused. “You’re still taking me to physical therapy?”

  He nodded. “I’m still angry at you. For a lot of things. Things that we’ll need to discuss. But right now, we need to get cleaned up and get you to your appointment.”

  He was halfway through the living room before Dutch’s voice stopped him. “Why are you really doing this?” Dutch asked. “All of this. Not just the physical therapy. But Justin and me living together. Why?”

  Spencer thought about it for a few moments before answering. “Things have to be set right,” he responded. “Things Justin has done. Things you’ve done.” He paused for a minute, recalling how close he had come to cheating on Justin with Dutch. “Things I’ve done.”

  Dutch nodded in understanding. They both had mistakes to atone for, but so far the only person who truly seemed to be performing penance was Justin. That staggering realization made Spencer recognize that perhaps he was being unfair to the man he professed to love so much.

  If that was true, he not only needed to stop being unfair to Justin, he needed to find out just why he was acting like someone who had done no wrong.

  CHAPTER 36

  2009

  DUTCH tried his best to act as if he wasn’t drunk, but as he staggered up the stairwell to his office and nearly tripped on the third step, several students smiled nervously at him as they made their way past. Evidently, he wasn’t succeeding in portraying the picture of sobriety. He fought the desire to tell them to fuck off and to stop staring at him. Fortunately, they bounded down the last few steps and out the doors before he could muster the energy.

  He didn’t have time to yell at them anyway. He’d already missed his first two classes, Digital Photography and Design I, and if he didn’t concentrate harder on making it up the last flight of steps, he would miss his Black and White class, which started in thirty minutes.

  No doubt his nosy secretary, Janice Mitchell, had already alerted the department chair, perhaps even the dean, about the two missed classes. He was already on Dr. Cutting’s shit list, and this latest stunt wouldn’t ingratiate him to her. Most likely, there was an e-mail or voice message on his office phone from Dr. Cutting requesting to see him the moment he arrived on campus.

  He so wanted to tell Dr. Cutting to take a flying suck to his ass.

  Besides, it wasn’t his fault his alarm didn’t go off. True, he forgot to set it last night when he finally stumbled into bed at 4:00 a.m., but it had been set to go off at the appropriate time. He just forgot to turn it on.

  All he had to do was make up some lie about a power outage or something along those lines. Those things happened all the time, so the excuse would be believable enough. Dr. Cutting didn’t need to know he was up all night drinking and fucking. That was none of her damned business, even though she seemed to think every move he made on campus these days fell under her scrutiny.

  Dutch finally made it to the second-floor landing and walked through the glass doors and into the office complex, where Janice eyed him warily from behind her desk. Her phone was glued to her ear, and if he had to guess, Dr. Cutting was likely on the other end.

 
By the time he reached her desk, she’d hung up the phone.

  “Hey, Janice,” he said, pretending to be cordial, even though he hated her. While Janice was a competent enough secretary, she was far too conservative for his taste. She also had her nose shoved so far up Dr. Cutting’s ass it was amazing she could breathe without smelling what Dr. Cutting had for breakfast.

  “Good morning,” she muttered politely. “You do realize you missed your first two classes?” she asked while staring at the office clock mounted on the wall to the left of her desk.

  “I do,” he said through gritted teeth. “Power outage in the neighborhood,” he told her. “I just woke up a few minutes ago.”

  “I see,” she responded. Her tone indicated she didn’t believe a word of his story. “Dr. Cutting requests that you stop by her office after your last class.”

  “I’ll see if I can make it,” he told her as he walked past her desk.

  “I’ll let her know,” Janice replied, once again picking up her phone.

  “I’m sure you will,” he said. Before she could respond, he turned the corner and proceeded down the small hallway toward his office.

  He fumbled his keys out of his khaki pants and tried three times to unlock his office. The knob kept moving to the left and right, so he constantly missed his mark. “Damn key,” he muttered to himself.

  “Don’t blame the key for operator error,” a voice behind him said.

  Dutch turned to see Spencer standing behind him with a smug look on his face. He let out a long exhale to let Spencer know he had neither the time nor the energy to deal with him. “Don’t have time to socialize,” he told Spencer while turning once again to face his door. “I’ve got class in thirty minutes.” He tried once again, unsuccessfully, to get the key into the keyhole.

  “It’s more like twenty minutes, now,” Spencer announced.