by Eli Easton
“Because he’s worldly. Liberal. I doubt he’s even a Christian.” Joe’s tone was bitter.
“He was nothing but nice to you, Joe.”
“Lord help me, Dad, you’re so naive!” Joe was getting increasingly frustrated. He wrenched the damp dishcloth in his hands. “Fine! I’ll just say it. It’s as clear as day that Christie Landon is a homosexual, and that he’s got the hots for you!”
“What?” David’s pulse was thudding, and it wasn’t because of the hot dishwater his hands were in. “That’s not true. Why would you say something like that?”
Joe shook his head in disgust. “You haven’t been out in the world much, so you don’t know these things. But believe me, that guy is gay! Absolutely. Why do you think he’s spending so much time over here? He wants to… to…. Geez, Dad. Wake up!”
“You don’t know that he’s… gay. But even if he is, that doesn’t mean…. Two men can be friends without it having to be… that.”
“Sure! But my male friends don’t come over to my house and act like they know what’s in every cupboard. They don’t cook for me and set the table all fancy for me like a wife. What do you think Pastor Mitchell would say about you associating with a homosexual in your own home like that? What, every week? How often is he over here?”
David wasn’t about to admit Christie was there pretty much every day. “We share the cost of meals! And he’s an artist. He likes doing things up fancy like that. It’s not—”
“Then why doesn’t he just drop the meal off if you’re ‘sharing costs’? Why does he spend time working on the farm when he has his own job? Why does he look at you like that, Dad?” Joe practically spat with disgust.
David shook his head. He scrubbed hard at a crusted fork. His stomach physically hurt, and he felt light-headed. He worried he might lose his Thanksgiving dinner. “That’s enough! This discussion is over, Joe.”
Joe kept talking, but he softened his tone, sounded sympathetic. “I understand you desire company. Of course you do! So why not go to the men’s fellowship at church? Or why not ask Mrs. Robeson over for dinner? Jessie told me she thinks the Lord wants you two to be married. We both think it’s a good idea too. Mrs. Robeson would be a good wife for you.”
David gawked at his son in disbelief. “You and Jessie Robeson discussed us? What is this, a Disney movie? How many times do I have to say it? I’m not interested in Evelyn Robeson!” David slammed his palm on the edge of the sink, hard.
Joe’s eyes widened but a mean glint shone in them. “But you are interested in a good-looking gay man? Is that what you’re saying?”
“Why do you keep saying he’s gay? You don’t know anything about Christie!”
“Geez, have you ever even met a gay man before? Holy cow! No wonder people can take advantage of you. Seriously, Dad, he’s gay. Ask him yourself if you don’t believe me. He’s a sinner, not someone you should be breaking bread with. Paul warned the Corinthians about associating with those who commit sexual sin. ‘Do not be yoked together with unbelievers. For what do righteousness and wickedness have in common? Or what fellowship can light have with darkness?’”
David felt his blood pressure rise to dangerous levels. His stomach lurched and he tasted acid. He knew Joe wouldn’t easily take to Christie. They were as different as night and day. But never in his wildest dreams did he anticipate this level of venom or Joe’s assessment of the situation.
“Joseph Fisher, you had better stop talking,” David said, his voice low and warning.
“I’m just trying to help you see what’s going on.”
“You don’t know what’s going on. You don’t—” His voice cracked.
He wanted to say, “Christie Landon is my friend.” He wanted to say, “You don’t have any right to come home once in a blue moon and tell me what to do.” He wanted to say, “You sure stuffed your face at lunch for someone who has so much against my sharing meals with Christie.” He wanted to say a lot of things. But he was too choked up to summon words. His throat swelled shut with rage and with something else, something like shame that burned and bit and made him clammy and light-headed.
If he stayed in this room, he was going to do something he’d regret. He’d never wanted to hit Joe as much as he wanted to hit him right then. The way my father beat me. David promised himself he would never hit his kids. So he left the dishes halfway done, grabbed his coat, and stormed out of the house.
Chapter 11
“Oh my God, Kyle, it was a disaster!” Unshed tears thickened Christie’s voice, but he ruthlessly swallowed them down. He promised himself years ago he never shed one more tear over a homophobic asshole or bully. He wasn’t about to break that vow over Joe Fisher.
“Oh no! Baby, what happened?”
Christie flopped back on his bed, the phone pressed to his ear. “Well, the meal was amazing.” It was important to acknowledge that. “But his son hated me on sight.”
“Oh, honey!”
“His name’s Joe, and he’s going to be a minister. You should have heard his prayer at the table. It was all about how their mother was watching and how David should be friends with other Christians instead of with me.”
“You’re kidding!”
“His daughter Amy was nice, but I don’t even think she shaves her legs! I didn’t understand how conservative his church was. They’re worse than the one I grew up in. I felt like I was in Utah or something.”
Kyle listened to Christie rant on until he finally ran down.
“Aw, babe. I’m so sorry you had an awful Thanksgiving.”
The words didn’t sit quite right with Christie. “It wasn’t awful.”
He wanted to be with David today, and he wanted to make a nice dinner for his family, and he did. He couldn’t completely regret it. But even besides Joe’s rudeness, religious mania, and clear distaste for Christie, other things bothered him too. David was nice, but not as warm and funny as he’d been lately. It was clear he felt awkward, unsure how to treat Christie in front of his kids. And Amy was… not flirtatious exactly. She wasn’t that kind of girl. But she was… hopeful? Interested? Appreciative? She wouldn’t have viewed him like that if Christie was introduced as David’s partner instead of a casual friend and neighbor.
There was the rub. He wasn’t David’s partner, and he never would be. The thing that was so painful about today was the divide between the way Christie had come to view himself in David’s life and the truth when the harsh, glaring light of outsider perspective was cast on it. Ugh.
“I’ve been such an idiot,” he whispered into the phone.
“Oh, Christie.” Kyle sighed. “I hate to say it, but I told you so. You went and fell for this guy, and now you’re paying for it.”
“I hate this.” Pressure clogged his chest and head again, and again Christie pushed it away. He wasn’t going to cry over a man either. “I liked him so much, Kyle. So much.”
He couldn’t begin to understand the incredibly strong instinctual pull he’d felt for David from the start. How it could have been so wrong, yet felt so right?
“I know, babe.” Kyle’s voice was all sympathy. Christie wished Kyle were here so he could hold him and pat his back and tell him it would be okay.
“I don’t know what to do,” Christie admitted, staring up at the ceiling. “I don’t know how to go on after this.”
“Yes, you do,” Kyle said firmly. “This is hurting you, and I hate that. You need to cut David loose. Go out to a bar or go on Grindr and meet someone else, someone to help you forget. Tell David you can’t cook for him anymore. Make up some excuse if you have to. Or… I know! Come stay with me and Billy for Christmas and New Year’s. We’d love to see you. And that way you can get away for a few weeks and make that your clean break. We’ll go out dancing. You need to remember how badass fierce Christie Landon is, and why you’re the heartbreaker. Amiright? This David should be so lucky you’d even give him the time of day.”
“Yes,” Christie said. He did need to reme
mber himself again. Be hot. Be shining. Living well is the best revenge.
Kyle was right; he had to stop hanging out with David. He was just getting more and more attached. He had to stop hurting himself like this.
But if he were going to check out, he would go out a winner, not with that meal with Joe as David’s last memory of him. One more time, then, something special. He would make sure David Fisher knew exactly what he’d be missing.
* * *
Joe wouldn’t come out to the barn. David knew this. Joe would finish the dishes, and when he was done, he’d flop in front of the TV. When Amy returned from her walk, she’d probably join him.
David wasn’t worried about getting caught. Nevertheless, when he went into his workroom in the barn, he padlocked the door from the inside just in case.
His secret was hidden so well no one would ever find it. It wouldn’t be found until after he’d died and gone, maybe generations from now. Someday they’d tear down this barn and maybe put up condos. His secret would be dug up then. But there was nothing to identify him on or in the box, and by then, no one would have a clue who had lived here or when. No one would care.
It had been a while since he’d gotten the box out. The last time was probably six months before Susan died. But he found it right where it was supposed to be. Firewood was stored against the wall in neat piles. There was a loose board behind one such stack. He had to move logs to uncover it. And then once he thumbed aside a few nails and pushed the board open, he still had to hunt around with his hand in the dark space beyond. The box was stuck way to the left, where he could barely feel it. He found the small metal ring on the lid and pulled.
The box—an old metal correspondence box, probably from the Civil War—just fit between the boards. He wiggled it out. He sat on the concrete floor, legs wide, and put the box between his knees. Opened it.
There was pornography on the Internet; he knew that. He’d even dared Xtube once or twice. You could select “men” who liked “men” and everything. But he was always too paranoid to be able to relax while on the computer. For one thing their computer was in the family room, with no good door to bar the way. Untenable risk at any time of the day or night. Even once Susan was gone and the kids moved out, he hadn’t felt comfortable there. He wasn’t sure how to erase his history or electronic trail or whatever it was. He didn’t trust what the porn sites might install on the computer, or if they might be able to get his name and address from his files somehow. Then, too, the family room had big windows that didn’t have shades or curtains. Besides, he wanted to keep this out of his home. That way it wasn’t real.
It wasn’t real if no one knew.
He wasn’t a homosexual. He’d never actually touched another man, never went down on his knees or put his penis into another man’s mouth or ass, never admitted it to anyone, never said the words out loud. Therefore it was just an “idea,” like daydreaming about being a sailor or something. It was still a sin to… to think about another man, to touch himself thinking about it. But he figured God might be sort of tolerant about it as long as he never acted on it with another person. What turned a man on was his own private business. Whatever else circumstance could deny you, it couldn’t take away your thoughts. Not those.
He carefully removed the items from the box. Each one was so old and so generic it could never be tied to him, even if someone did find the box, even if Joe found it. He could deny he ever knew it existed.
His first magazine, gotten when he was just seventeen.
Hey, guess what? Someone dropped off a whole big box of porno. I was lucky to find it before my dad did.
Richard Klutz. His dad owned the town dump, and Richard was popular because of the weird shit he found and brought to school—toasters, radios, roller skates, all kinds of things that were still useful. But this was the best thing Richard ever found.
He told only the guys he thought were cool. David still remembered that day, gathered around the back of Richard’s old Buick in the school parking lot, looking in the trunk. Guys grabbed magazines and stuffed them down their shirts, rolled them up and stuck them in pockets, exclaiming over the pictures but too nervous to linger long on school property. Getting seen by a teacher didn’t bear thinking about. They’d probably get expelled.
This magazine was in the trunk that day too.
“What the hell?” someone had said, opening it up. “This is weird homo stuff.”
“Hey, I didn’t pack the box,” Richard said defensively. “Not my fault what the perv was into. Take what you want, and I’ll dump the rest. Don’t want to be caught with it in my car.”
“Bet you already took the best magazines,” another guy complained.
“You know it,” Richard smirked.
David took a girlie magazine and stuck it in a pocket. He said nothing, but he watched. He watched Richard gather up what was left—including that “homo” magazine—and stick it back in a torn cardboard box. He watched Richard drive around to the back of the school and heard the bang of the lid of one the bins back there. Richard drove away waving at them and grinning, like he’d pulled a fast one.
That night Christie slipped out of his room after his parents were in bed. He walked the five miles to school in the dark and searched the school trash bins with a flashlight until he found the magazine. He brought it home and hid it.
It frightened him, how much the magazine turned him on. Hard, jutting cocks, furry balls, nipples in hard, muscular chests. The feature spread starred a big man with a buzz cut and a young, slight-bodied brunet guy. David looked like neither of them. He was always solid and sturdy thanks to the farmwork, so he wasn’t slight like the guy in the magazine—like Christie—but neither was he a big brutish muscle guy. That didn’t stop him from being fascinated by the pictures of the two—of them kissing, or the young one on his knees with his mouth stuffed full, balls against his chin. There was a picture of the big guy spreading the younger guy’s cheeks, showing a tight pink furl. Penetration. Ejaculation. Mouths contorted in simulated ecstasy.
He’d touched himself to these pictures so many times over the years he didn’t even see the details anymore. The close-ups of penetration, or erect flesh, were just triggers for him now, like a real hard copper penny dropped in a wishing well, an extra visual stimulation to ground his own fantasies.
He’d had fantasies of nameless, faceless men all these years. All these years. Vague masturbatory play reels of some stranger coming to the farm and fucking David in the barn or sucking David hard or bending over, pants down, to present a hairy ass for the taking. Why would some guy just come into the barn like that? Well, why not? Fantasies, daydreams, didn’t have to make any sense.
There were other things in the box too. There was a small vibrator, equally untraceable, an old jar of Vaseline, a book of naked men he bought in a sex shop off the freeway near Pittsburgh years ago, an old one that had probably been in the shop forever, undated. He paid cash, his pulse pounding stupidly. The clerk didn’t even look him in the eye.
Over the years he looked at the box when he needed to, when it all became too much to bear—the responsibilities, the kids, the farm, money. Sometimes he used it to get himself aroused before going to Susan in their bed. Once he pushed inside her—always missionary position—he closed his eyes and thought of the images in the box. Susan liked sex when she was young, and she got offended if he didn’t want to do it often. But after Joe was born, she only wanted it sporadically. And in the later years, not at all. It was a relief.
His deepest secret. Always his secret. For so many years.
He could have, he knew, looked for an actual man. It wasn’t easy where he lived, but it wasn’t impossible either. There were times when a guy looked at him a certain way—at the hardware store, gas station, even in church once or twice. If he’d wanted to, if he’d been brave or maybe stupid, he could have gone after it. He could have had sex with a stranger in a car or a rest stop bathroom. But that would make it real, wouldn�
�t it? Real and sinful and tawdry too. He wasn’t a pervert. He wasn’t desperate, roaming around looking for someone to return his knowing glance, seeking anonymous sex. He wasn’t—
Christie Landon is gay.
David packed the items back in the box and clutched it to his chest, breathing hard. Stupid. He’d known, he must have known. He just hadn’t admitted it out loud in his own brain. Christie wasn’t just “city.” He wasn’t merely “different,” “softer,” “attractive,” “sophisticated,” or “artistic.”
He is a homosexual.
Oh God. Suddenly his view of their relationship shifted. It was like he’d been looking through a kaleidoscope and seeing this pretty abstract picture full of brilliant color and light, but undefined. And then with one rotation of the dial, the picture snapped into place, and it wasn’t abstract at all; it was crystal clear.
He and Christie Landon weren’t just friends. They were dating.
It was so obvious, in retrospect. All he had to do was imagine Christie was female. If Christie were a woman, even a woman as young and attractive as Christie was, it would have been obvious from that first Sunday when he came over to the farm and they ate Indian food together that there was an attraction there, the potential of more, unspoken expectations. David would have backed off right then, worried it was inappropriate with a woman that young.
But Christie wasn’t a woman, and David hadn’t backed off. He’d been in denial. He closed his eyes and shuddered at the self-revelation. He liked Christie so much, felt so drawn to his company. He could talk to Christie more easily than he’d ever talked to anyone in his life. He wanted Christie around as much as possible, had come up with excuses to spend even more time with him. He even dreamed about him in a sexual context, for God’s sake. How had he not seen it? But he’d been in denial for so long his brain was stuck in its same old groove. It was like that old saying about the left hand not knowing what the right hand was doing. And maybe he’d not acknowledged it consciously because then… then he would have had to stop.
