Walking Away

by Xavier Neal

  “No.”

  “You’re an agent of fucking chaos,” Aunt Whitney mumbles.

  “Agent or angel?” I tease.

  “Sheppard,” she snips. “You have this uncontrollable need to bring chaos and destruction to others’ lives and then thrive off of the mess you’ve made.”

  “Not…true….”

  “Hudson, it’s what you do for a living,” Aunt Whitney reiterates.

  Maybe a bit.

  “What’s wrong with introducing a little anarchy to the mundane way people run their lives?”

  “The unsalvageable pieces you leave in your wake without a second thought.”

  “I think about them when I pay my rent.”

  “Not your career choices,” Aunt Lindsay snaps. “Your relationships! You go from woman to woman, bed to bed, saying whatever you think needs to be said to get the job done until you’re tired of doing the job, which is when you move on, sometimes without even telling the other person until you’re threatening to call the cops at 3 a.m. because she’s banging on your door!”

  Stacey. Probably could’ve handled that better. She was ready for me to meet her parents after a month, and I quickly was ready to stop answering her calls. She had a habit of making unannounced visits to my office to blow me under my desk. Once in a while was hot, but she frequently told everyone who would listen in my place of business she was my girlfriend when I couldn’t even recall her last name. Way too fucking much. Way too fucking fast.

  “This isn’t some random twenty-five-year-old stumbling around looking to have someone put a ring on her finger so she can keep up with her sorority sisters. This is a married couple. This is a pair of individuals already committed to one another meaning the ‘anarchy’ you’re excited about bringing is going to have lasting results long after you’ve stopped giving a shit. Have you considered that?” Aunt Lindsay questions sharply. “Have you considered the trauma this might do in the longevity of things?”

  Defensively, I bite, “This was their idea!”

  “And you said yes,” she quickly replies. “Making you responsible in this situation as well.”

  “The R word is a very scary thing for you,” Aunt Whitney mocks.

  “Whit,” Aunt Lindsay reprimands. “Now’s not the time to make our nephew rebel harder. It’s to get him to walk away before he ruins two innocent people’s lives.”

  “Why do you assume I’m going to ruin them?” I almost growl.

  “Because unless you’re planning to give them a level of devotion you’ve never given anyone else before, you’re just going to end up being their little sexual plaything and inevitably put an unnecessary weight on their already, unsteady marriage.” Aunt Lindsay doesn’t give me time to ask my follow up question, though she answers it. “And yes, I am assuming it’s unstable or at least unhappy if you’re the first person, or this is the first time, they’ve ever done anything like this before. And I would just like to add the number of relationships let alone marriages who end up successful in this type of situation are alarmingly slim.”

  Rather than retort, I shove another bite of pancake in my mouth.

  I don’t know why, but I feel compelled to shout at her I’m already giving more than I have in the past and it’s only been a fucking week. For whatever reason I’ve made a habit of texting them both in the morning on my way to the office, and if I’m not seeing either for the day we still talk before I call it a night. And it’s wild because the conversations are so fucking different. Gwen’s is obviously flirty, hints of sexual intention more than apparent. Jason’s is relaxed, like we’ve been joking about shit since we were in elementary school or something. It’s strange to crave the attention from both. It’s new and not just because I’ve been rubbing one out to the thoughts of him sucking me off. This isn’t anything I’m used to. Exchanging texts or messages with a chick for a couple days, bone her for a couple of weeks, deal with her to have steady pussy for a couple of months then rinse and repeat. Shit’s not like that with them. And to my own surprise I enjoy it.

  “He’s been quiet for way too long,” Aunt Lindsay assesses. “Did we hurt your feelings? Would you like to discuss the emotions you’re holding onto right now?”

  Aunt Whitney can’t stop from rolling her eyes. “Relax, Linds, he’s our nephew. Not one of your patients.”

  “Clients,” she corrects, picking up her coffee mug again. “My job is not to fix them. It’s to help them.”

  “Semantics.” Aunt Whitney mouths at me receiving a playful pop on the hand.

  They exchange a couple of laughs and mirth filled glares.

  For the first time I can remember the entire thing makes me long to have what they have. To have someone to joke around with all the time. To talk shit with over breakfast. To call…I don’t know…mine?

  Can you really have that with two people? Is that even possible? Will I eventually have to pick one? And why isn’t my mind immediately deciding on the piece of pussy?

  My vibrating cell phone calls for my attention.

  I slide it out of my pocket and key in the code to view the message.

  Gwenny: You should be having ME for breakfast.

  Pressing my lips tightly together, I text back.

  Me: How about lunch AND dinner instead?

  “Is that work?” Aunt Whitney questions.

  My hesitation to reply drops her wife’s jaw. “It’s one of them, isn’t it? You’re actually texting them at breakfast?”

  “See. I am dedicated to them.”

  The vibrating device demands my attention again.

  Gwenny: Working. Most likely late. Tomorrow?

  Her schedule comment gets the wheels turning and eventually I look at my Aunt Lindsay. “I’ve got a question.”

  “Shoot.”

  “The guy I’m dating-”

  “Not a sentence I was expecting,” Aunt Whitney interjects.

  “He’s disabled.”

  She gives me a slow understanding nod as if our situation now makes more sense.

  Half of me hates her for judging a relationship she doesn’t know shit about while the other isn’t even sure if you can call whatever it is we’ve been doing for only a week, a relationship.

  “He hates talking about it or anything related to it. According to his wife, he’s shut her out completely. Think seeing a therapist or some shit could help…I don’t know…get him talking to her again? I mean I got him to talk to me, but it took a shit ton of booze.”

  Aunt Lindsay frowns. “Do not use alcohol as a callous.”

  Knew I shouldn’t have let that part out.

  “And if he’s having trouble communicating or opening up, my guess is it’s because he’s spent too much time around people who sympathize as opposed to empathize. Perhaps visiting a support group might do him some good. Being around other people who also struggle with their conditions, whatever they may be, might actually compel him to talk to those he trusts.”

  “His wife is working late. Maybe I’ll take him to one this afternoon. Get him out of the house.” The idea causes me to hum. “Do I just Google, ‘Support Groups in Highland for Angry Assholes in Wheelchairs’ or what?”

  Aunt Whitney hides her snicker, but gives me an approving nod.

  I’m more like her than I ever was my mom.

  Wonder if that’s why she spent even less time around me as I grew up.

  “How are you this fucking insensitive?”

  “How did you use fucking and insensitive together?” Aunt Whitney challenges. “That doesn’t sound very healing rainbows and sunshine daises.”

  Aunt Lindsay dips her fingers into her coffee and flicks them her wife’s direction.

  “Hey!”

  She gives Aunt Whitney a glower before her eyes meet mine. “I’ll help you find one, but you’re gonna have to tell me a bit more about….?”

  The grin on my face is instant. “Jason.”

  “Do you see that smile?” Aunt Whitney’s teasing aims towards me.


  Aunt Lindsay nods rapidly to answer the question. Afterward she says, “You’re gonna have to tell me more about Jason and his situation to find one he might relate better to.”

  “And then you have to tell us about this wife,” Aunt Whitney insists, which reminds me to text Gwenny back. “You can’t tell us about the sausage and not the pancake.”

  I lift my eyebrows in curiosity.

  “Pussy is like a pancake. It’s best when it’s soft, fluffy, and covered in syrup.”

  The squeak out of my aunt Lindsay is barely heard over our laughter.

  Yeah. Definitely her kid….

  I hide my building frustration and knock on the door for the fifth time.

  He’s fucking here. He didn’t just roll out of the house and go for a random afternoon ride. My guess is he’s hiding in shame after being a dick to Gwenny. I called her after breakfast before our internet adventure began, primarily to ask why she was working late on a fucking Sunday. It didn’t take applying much pressure to have her confess how Jason’s been back to his harsh, distant ways since Friday morning. I left out the part about him being cool as ever with me and just let her vent. By the end of the discussion, I realized how I’m getting a little part of Jason she’s not the same way I’m getting a little part of her that’s he’s not. We gotta fucking figure this shit out. Tag teaming it may be alright for now, but it won’t last forever.

  None of this shit can last forever….Can it?

  Fuck, I shouldn’t even be thinking like that.

  Finally, the door swings open and Jason’s stoic face is revealed. The sight of his cut jaw and light stubble in the sunlight threatens to give me a hard on.

  When the fuck did I become attracted to men? How did I miss taking the fucking on ramp to Fuck Someone in the Ass Ville?

  My smile becomes brighter. “Hey!”

  “Gwen’s not here.”

  His clipped tone and cold shoulder are neither surprising nor accepted. “Hey!”

  He doesn’t respond.

  With a hint of levity in my tone I state, “Now you say hey. That’s how normal human beings greet each other.”

  Jason’s expression doesn’t change. He doesn’t blink or even appear to be interested in my presence.

  This is the shit Gwenny deals with every day? For the past year? I’ve only been around a week and being potentially shut out already hurts. No wonder she’s always right on the edge of tears and looking for validation. How could anyone survive through months of dealing with The Terminator of happy emotions?

  “Gwen’s not here.”

  “Yeah, you said that already,” I mutter and move past him into the house, despite his efforts to try to stop me.

  “Then go,” Jason commands from behind me.

  “Oh we are.”

  “We?”

  Turning around with a crooked grin, I give him a nod. “Yeah. We. As in the two of us. We’re going somewhere.”

  He wheels himself a bit closer. “No, we’re not.”

  “We are.”

  “No. We. Are. Not.”

  I ignore his expected resistance and ask, “Where are the keys to the van?”

  “How do you-”

  “Assuming,” my casual interruption gets a grunt. “Gwenny’s Infiniti isn’t exactly wheelchair friendly, and I know you go to physical therapy once a week, so that means you have something more…,” the phrase ‘handicapable’ feels too shitty for me to say, “logical for transportation.”

  He narrows his eyes as if he heard the unsaid word and loathes it. “I’m not going anywhere.”

  “We, Blondie, are going to a support group meeting and to get gelato if you can stop your tantrum before it starts.”

  Jason grips the arms of his chair so harshly his biceps bulge. The tribal designs stand firm, calling to my tongue to trace them, to learn their meaning through some fucked up version of brail where you lick instead of touch. I dart my eyes away from the temptation knowing now is not the time to even discuss what they mean or my desire to taste them. Unfortunately, his ticking jaw ignites a similar reaction inside my dark slacks.

  Well, this shit is all….new.

  Fuck. Fine. It’s still relatively new.

  His chosen words are covered in disgust. “I wouldn’t go fifty feet near one of those meetings for my wife. There’s not a fucking chance in hell I will go anywhere near one for you.”

  A wave of indignation rushes up my spine and pushes me to close the gap. I lower my face to his daring him to take action at my proximity. “Let me make something fucking clear for you, Blondie. Gwenny asks you to do shit. I’m telling you. Gwenny is your hot as fuck wife, and I’m the asshole whose cock you’ll be sucking between highlight reels on ESPN. She treats your ass with kid gloves because she cares about your feelings, and I’m the one here to tell you to man the fuck up.”

  The glare deepens yet he doesn’t say a word.

  “Now, you can make this easy for me and tell me where the keys to the van are and your shoes, or you can make this fucking difficult and be a bigger fucking pain in the ass. But let me remind you, one more time, I am not Gwenny. I’ve got the strength to force your ass wherever it is I feel like taking you, so if you wanna fucking box this shit out, just know I’m not holding back a damn thing.”

  Jason’s fists noticeably ball.

  In a strange way, I want him to hit me. Maybe getting out the rage he keeps leashed up will make it easier for him to talk, if not to me then at least Gwenny. I don’t mind skipping the dark details of the demons he’s hiding from, but she agreed to stick by his side through everything. Since he’s not fucking her, he should at least be giving her that.

  Standing back up, I ask, “Are you gonna be helpful or not?”

  He turns his head away.

  “Why am I not surprised?” I mumble under my breath. A small lull passes between us before I add, “Just so you know, for this bullshit, you get no say in what we listen to in the van.”

  Jason’s lack of response to the joke pulls at strings in my heart I didn’t even know existed.

  How the hell can I care this much about not only some person I basically just met, but another guy? And why do I wanna protect him as much as Gwenny from any further pain? What happens when my aunt is right? What happens if I’m not the one who ends up sheltering them from it? What happens when I’m the reason they have more?

  Fuck, I should really cut this shit off before I get in too deep.

  During my search for the requested items, I give myself a tour of their one-story mansion. From the outside it looks a bit smaller than it actually is. The living room, which is a short distance past the open foyer by the front door, branches off in three directions. Directly behind it is their master bedroom where it takes no effort to find his tennis shoes in the closet, but I linger anyway in hopes of discovering a long-forgotten chest of sex toys. The ensuite bathroom is almost as big as the bedroom and leads to a walk-in closet filled with Gwenny’s belongings. Though tempted to sit on the chaise lounge she has inside and gawk at the rows of high heels I can’t wait to see flailing over my shoulder, I resist, and return to my hunt for the keys. The hallway nearest the front door leads to an office, an entertainment room, a library, three guest bedrooms and wraps around to an entrance of the kitchen. Knowing the entrance on the other side of the kitchen will lead me past the formal dining area, which has a set of glass doors that leads to the back yard, and straight into the living room, I take the corner exit to discover the laundry room as well as the garage entrance. Instantly spotting the keys hanging on the hook, I snatch them up and prepare for the much more difficult task.

  After Jason fights with everything he has to stop me from putting his shoes on and is secured to the best of my knowledge in the white van, I back us out of the garage, silently cursing at how I look like a soccer mom in the damn thing.

  At the first stop light, I manage to connect my phone to the controls and begin to enjoy one of my favorite playlists.

&nbs
p; We only make three songs in before he’s complaining. “What the fuck are we listening to?”

  “Fall Out Boy,” I proudly state, switching lanes.

  “You really are a thirteen-year-old trapped in a grown man’s body….It’s just happens to be a thirteen year old girl.”

  The jab receives a short laugh.

  He’s obviously still pissed, but at least his humor is ready to show.

  “You don’t like my music?”

  “They probably don’t even like this shit anymore.”