Their Troublesome Crush

by Xan West

  By the time Ernest had put away his mouth guard and brushed his teeth thoroughly the next morning, he was very aware of the fact that he was going to have a bad dysphoria day. Which really sucked, because he hated being around people when he was dealing with that. Especially Gideon, with his thin privilege that made top surgery easy to get and had made his chest pretty much exactly the way he’d wanted it to be, so much that he was often shirtless when it was warm enough. Ernest didn’t want to be thin, and sometimes he didn’t mind his chest that much. But when he minded, he really minded, and he got so angry that he couldn’t bind, and he couldn’t get top surgery. Ernest hated feeling this way, and especially hated resenting Gideon for something Gideon had no control over and was actually happy about. He was a good boy. He should want his Daddy to be happy. But on days like this, he was a tangled ball of resentment and self-loathing, and it just fucking sucked.

  Ernest stomped over to the closet and was glad to see that his red plaid flannel with the arms cut off was clean. Two A-line shirts…no, three, plus a black T-shirt, plus the flannel would be OK, as long as nobody touched him. He’d start off with his hoodie too. He could always take it off if it was too hot. His black jeans, his favorite belt, his pocket knife, and his Corcoran jump boots would help. He could see that his hair was a mess, but had no fucking patience for it, styled it as best he could with water and called it done. He couldn’t stand to look at himself in the mirror for long enough to do more.

  He tried not to stomp into the living room; Nora and Gideon might be sleeping still. But no…they weren’t. They were laughing in the kitchen together, as Gideon fried up some potatoes while Nora fried some eggs. Ernest didn’t know whether to resent them for spoiling his breakfast plan, or to be grateful that he didn’t have to do much in this foul mood. He kinda felt both at the same time, plus a dollop of, whoa aren’t they beautiful together, I’m so glad they are happy.

  Their laughs mixing together would be the best duet ever, so he just quietly snagged his notebook and started noting it down for himself, grabbing the pop of the oil in the pan for the rhythm, and the bass was the thumping coming down the hall towards him, Shiloh and Judith were both thumpy walkers. They arrived, and there was bubbling chatter and chuckles and the room filled with the music of family. He noted words, and the sounds of their voices for the melody, feeling more like a witness than a part of it. Which suited him just fine, in his grumpy mood.

  And then, Nora brought him a cup of Earl Grey. She had noticed how he took it, or perhaps his family had told her, because it was the exact right amount of light and sweet, and so was the smile she gave him. She sat next to him, resting her cane against the bookcase, and Gideon brought them each a plate. She wasn’t close to him like yesterday, gave him room, and he didn’t know if she could just read his body language or if Gideon had mentioned something after seeing how Ernest was dressed. The room was welcome, regardless. Gideon sat on Ernest’s other side, and that felt better than he could have predicted.

  Shiloh seemed to have promised to tell a story over breakfast, so ze launched into describing a caning scene where ze had bottomed to Jax and Violet. Ernest had been caned by Jax and VJ, so he had a sense of what that might have been like. Except actually, Ernest had been caned as a reward for doing a good job, and Shiloh had a cathartic scene where ze got to cry as much as ze needed to. So really the scenes sounded pretty different. It was nice to hear Shiloh talk, and know that he didn’t need to say anything, that he could just listen, and eat, and be surrounded by family, with no pressure to mask or to act like he was okay. Because he wasn’t okay this morning.

  Judith jumped in with a story about her upcoming date with her new top, Blaze, and the scene they were planning, which now seemed to include rope. Perhaps she’d asked about bondage last week for a reason. At least Blaze had a good rep as a rigger. Xie was well known, even to Ernest who only had a toe in the rope scene; there just really were not many Black Jewish genderqueer rope tops, even in NYC. Ernest hoped Judith would like rope; he’d thought she might. Gideon was grilling her a bit about Blaze, and saying she should bring xer around soon, and why hadn’t xie been at the seder last night? After all, didn’t she want to introduce xer to her family? Judith rolled her eyes and said Blaze had been hosting xer own seder. She promised she would bring xer to the birthday party if they wouldn’t give Blaze too much shit, and Gideon rubbed his hands together, swearing to make the third degree short. Nora’s eyes were dancing, and she had this smile on her face, like pieces were somehow falling into place for her.

  Then alarms started going off, and Ernest promised to do the cleaning so they could all rush off to work. Even Nora was going to work for some kind of training, although it was spring break. He got a chorus of thanks, and stayed seated through the commotion as everyone scrambled to get out the door. He was incredibly glad he wasn’t going to work today. He decided to clear surfaces, clean, fix the futon, and generally set everything to rights. It was the best thing he could do. Cleaning was a lovely zone of hyperfocus to escape to, and he needed that so much this morning.

  Except he couldn’t get to hyperfocus, damnit. Even singing along with his cleaning playlist, he was too dysphoric, grumpy and out of sorts to get to the zone, and that just made him more irritable. Especially after he broke one of his favorite mugs. At least he’d managed not to cut himself in the process. Julie Andrews was shout-singing about how she was sick of words and needed the dude to show her how he felt. He felt like shout-singing back about how you couldn’t show someone how you felt until you figured it out, which was really fucking hard and confusing, damnit, and made him feel all churny and scared, and really Julie Andrews should try it without finding the words to understand it first, if she thought it was that fucking simple.

  Oh. Huh. Yeah, maybe it was time to journal. So he sat at his desk, turned on his computer, opened a blank file, and started typing. His hands often knew what to say before he’d figured it out in his head. Plus it was really satisfying to thump the keys though he knew it wasn’t especially good for the keyboard, which was why he’d bought an external one to use when he was journaling because thumping was important to the process damnit and he needed to type in a way where he could feel and hear the thumps. The words poured through him for a good long while and he felt cleaned out and floppy by the end, but also a bit less stompy. He still didn’t know how he felt, but he did think he’d maybe cleared out some of the blockades in his head by writing out the things that scared him about having feelings he didn’t understand and about that moment on the couch in Nora’s apartment.

  Ernest thought for a while about whether he wanted to post this on LiveJournal. He’d kept his going, as more and more people were leaving. He just checked it less, and mirrored it to DreamWidth so people who migrated there could still follow his posts. This wasn’t anything he wanted to post publicly, but he thought it would be ok if his closest chosen family saw it. They might even post helpful comments. So he read it through one more time, double-checking the filters, then posted it. And now it seemed like time for a nap.

  Saturday April 23, 2011

  Ernest felt better after shul. That’s what usually happened. Partly it was the routine of going every Saturday morning, a piece of the comforting structure in his life. But Shabbos services also had their own very familiar routine, which was another comfort. The rhythm felt right, the singing always filled him up, made him feel closer to G-d, and connected to community. It was the kind of fullness that might be too much in unfamiliar contexts, but was stimmy in all the right ways because he expected it, knew it well, could ride it in his own way without having to worry about how he did that, because at this shul he could be himself. It was a free place, where he was known, and wanted, and welcomed as who he was. And it settled him, just going there, being in the space, knowing he got to have this every Shabbos.

  He came home glowing with it, humming as he gathered food, and grabbed his Shabbos book. He wasn’t strict about no tech, but he did
take a social media break for Shabbos most of the time and tried to focus on reading, and writing music. He was reading a book of Daddy/boy stories, but it was harder to focus on it than he had predicted. It was like when his brain was trying to figure something out (usually a song). The figuring took up most of what he had, even though it was kinda on the back burner. He couldn’t process other things. Really, the best thing then was to stim, or take a nap. He wasn’t really sure what problem his brain was trying to solve; it wasn’t a conscious thing, really. He guessed he’d find out after he gave his brain space to deal with it.

  So after he finished lunch, he took out his Pattern Play, a Chanukah present Gideon had given him last year. It was this puzzle game, with a bunch of different colorful blocks that felt good and solid in his hands, with no sharp edges. The card would tell you what the blocks should look like once they were arranged in the box, and then you make them match the pattern. It was his favorite stim when he was trying to solve a problem in a song. This wasn’t about a song, but it would probably still help. Ernest had the apartment to himself. Judith would be back tonight, and Gideon was gone for the weekend. So he took over the couch, set an alarm for an hour from now, and got out of his brain’s way by making patterns. He liked doing the cards in order, so he started with number one, and just kept going. He was halfway done with 16 when the alarm went off, and now that he tuned back in, his hands were tired from gripping the blocks, so he finished that pattern. Since it was so pretty, decided to leave it out on the table. The problem wasn’t solved enough for him to get a clear sense of it, but he felt pretty sure it was about Nora. Which made sense, because deciding not to think about something didn’t actually work for more than a few days. It came back. At least he was doing something about it. Though right now it was time to stretch, get water, and take a dance break.

  It was going to be a movie-filled weekend, and Ernest loved movies. Gideon was at a kink event with Octavia, his co-teacher, and Alex, his beloved ex; Ernest could feel free to movie binge in preparation for choosing the perfect film to watch for his Daddy’s birthday. Judith and Shiloh were joining him for dinner, and Nora was coming tomorrow. He had gotten a bunch of snacks that were kosher for Passover: Kliks, Bisli in three different flavors, potato chips, smoked almonds, macaroons, and of course fruit jelly slices, which had been his favorite since he was a kid. He was going to make a lox omelet for dinner because breakfast for dinner was the best, and he had a brisket in the crockpot with potatoes for tomorrow.

  He took a look at the movie list. It was too long…was there anything he should just cut? Hmm, Rebel Without a Cause was probably a bad plan because of the bury your gays/suicide aspect. It was a real challenge to find a movie that was made before the 1970s and had queer subtext that wasn’t a bad idea to watch if you were depressed. Gideon really preferred old movies, though. That’s why they made up 80% of Ernest’s list. He eliminated a few more, until there were only four left. That was reasonable. Two today, two tomorrow.

  With all that sitting to come, a dance break was just the ticket. Ernest had a complicated relationship with dancing, which boiled down to the fact that he loved it, but precision wasn’t his strong suit, and was mostly impossible unless he drilled himself forever. He got through his dance numbers in musicals as a kid by practicing three times as much as everyone else. What that left him with, at the age of thirty-eight, was a dance vocabulary mostly comprised of the roles he’d drilled himself in over twenty years ago. This particular dance break called for The Music Man, he decided, and put on “76 Trombones.” This was one of his favorite shows, the music was so energizing. It was march-dancing, really, and that was a lot of fun. He sang along as he danced his way down the hall and back, glad the apartment was empty so he could be loud. When it was over, he hadn’t quite had enough, so he queued up “Marian the Librarian,” pulled out a chair and grabbed a book to use as a prop. By the time he finished the soft-shoe, he was danced out, and flopped on the couch with a big glass of ice water and his notebook.

  Before he could watch the first movie of the day, he’d promised Judith he would try to draft the song for their Yentl the Yeshiva Boy musical that they were going to work on next week. It was a love song, and those were the fucking worst. This was Avigdor’s song about realizing that he was falling in love with Peshe, and he’d hit a wall when he’d tried to work on it last week. It was the romance, of course, because he always felt like he had to describe the way romance worked for allos, and he had no fucking clue. When he’d complained to Gideon about it, Gideon had asked him why he thought Avigdor had to be alloromantic, and Ernest had just blinked for at least a minute, because he couldn’t fucking believe that it hadn’t occurred to him that he even could make Avigdor aro-spec. Isn’t he the submissive guy in the story? Gideon had asked, like of course Ernest would identify with Avigdor. And it was like a kaleidoscope, when everything rearranges because the pieces fall into place differently. He’d assumed that he should identify with Anshel, because Anshel was trans. But really, he’d always been more into the idea of being with Anshel than being him.

  He thought, just maybe, the wall might not be there, if he wrote Avigdor as demiromantic like himself. So he opened to a fresh page, and remembered what it had been like for him to realize he was romantically attracted to Gideon: the confusion, the fear, the frustration of it, the way he wanted to outrun it, how itchy and full of anger he’d been. How to get that across musically?

  The violin should be the emotional throughline, like it was in so many klezmer songs. The violin would be the thing that showed vulnerability, fear, confusion, yearning too, while the rest of the song was angry, almost running away from the violin, fighting against it. A driving beat, and the piano needed to help get the anger across, play against the other strings. Yes, the piano and the saxophone battling the violin, with the verse riding just on the edge of a chaotic storm of emotion, and the chorus slower and staccato. He worked until he had a possible melody, or enough of one, anyway. After he sat at the piano and played it through, he took a ragged breath, was trembling, because he’d never heard a love song like this in his life. It scared him, to write it this way; it was such a risk, but damn it felt right.

  Now, the words. He moved away from the piano and lay on the couch, closing his eyes, holding the melody in his body, letting his mind drift until images and sensations played through him. His brain kept circling around the word trouble, so much that he was sure it was part of the title. Trouble. Trouble. Trouble. Like a heartbeat. Maybe it was The Music Man in his head, but it felt right. This sense of danger, and something taking up way more space than you had for it, and pushing at you even though you wanted space from it. Romance was trouble. So, he let his brain evolve words from trouble. Trouble. Double. Rubble. Ruble. Bauble. Babble. Bubble. Yes. Bubbles, being filled with bubbles. Nora tugging him along, the feeling that he would follow her anywhere. Being surrounded by the scent of sugar and butter. Her curls brushing his cheek and bringing the floaty sense of rain. Her hair, he could get lost in her hair, the sensation of it, the sight of it, and her smile, he’d do just about anything to try to make her smile. He could live on her smiles for days. Her voice, the way it wrapped around him, made him feel safe, how much he want to hear her sing his work. Nora’s laugh…

  A shock went through him. Ernest was left blinking and rubbing his head, heart racing, because he suddenly saw it: what Judith had been saying about Nora. Oh fuck. Judith was right. He had a crush on Nora!

  That’s why she made him nervous, that’s why he felt dizzy, why he had gone all still at her apartment, so much of it made sense. Except not, because how could it be? Except it really was true, he did feel dizzy when she was close, he was mesmerized by her hair, her laugh, her grey hanky. He wanted to know everything about her, wanted to do things that made her happy, could hug her forever, and was always aware of where she was in a room. Except…it was different from other crushes he’d had, but he didn’t know how to put his finger on that part, and
he needed to figure that bit out. His head was spinning, and he was getting all tremory. He felt heavy, like he could barely move, or even stay awake. So Ernest pushed himself to get up and go to his room to take a nap. If he took one in the living room, he’d have nightmares.

  Ernest woke to Judith calling his name. He blinked open his eyes, and both Judith and Shiloh were there, Judith’s midsize rectangular body looking small next to Shiloh’s tall supersize frame. He felt like he would fall apart with a strong breeze. What he really wanted was them to cuddle him, one on either side, so he might feel held together. He gave them a wobbly smile, and whispered to Judith, “You were right.”

  “About Nora?”

  “Yes,” Ernest said, and hugged himself close.

  “Ernest, you look like you want to stay in bed at the moment. Do you want us to join you? It will be a tight squeeze, but we know this bed can hold three fat folks. We’ve done it before.”

  “It’s okay if it’s a tight squeeze,” he said. “I think that would be good.”

  So Judith scrambled to get on the bed behind him, because Shiloh just wouldn’t be able to get on the bed from the bottom of it while it was against the wall. Shiloh nudged him a bit towards the center of the bed before ze lay down facing him, and tugged him into zir. Ze was so solid, zir bulk such a comfort. And Judith was pressed into his back exactly right, like she knew he needed pressure. He breathed slowly, letting them hold him tight. They stayed like that for a good long time. Until Shiloh’s belly grumbled, and they all laughed.

  “I did promise you dinner,” Ernest said. “Let me get that going, and I have snacks to munch on as you wait.”