by Marie Sexton
“No,” I said again, but it was barely a whisper now. Barely a thought. Only a token effort, because this was what I wanted. It was what I’d always wanted.
“Yes,” he urged again. “Say yes.”
I nodded, panting, unable to deny him any longer. “Yes,” I choked. “God, yes!”
And that simple surrender changed everything. The world fell away. Forget the guilt. Forget my conflicting priorities. Fifteen years lost, but now here we were, finally at the natural culmination of everything that had come before. No more denial. No more settling for a faint shadow of him in my heart. He was real and perfect and alive in my arms, so bright and gorgeous and willing, I couldn’t have pulled away if I’d tried. He smiled at me, his eyes glazed with pleasure, his lips moist from our kisses, and suddenly, I was tired of only taking. I wanted to give something in return. I pushed his hand aside. I took our adjacent cocks in my hand, trembling at the feel of him in my palm. He slid one hand under my shirt again, and with the other, he pulled me back into our kiss.
I wanted to go on like this forever, stroking him, kissing him, swallowing his moans as his passion grew, as the pleasure became so intense, he stopped kissing me and simply lay there with his eyes closed, panting to the beat of my strokes.
I hoped he’d come first, but watching him succumb to our shared ecstasy was too much. I cried out, shaking as my orgasm hit. I couldn’t keep my rhythm, and he put his hand over mine and guided me. We stroked together, our motions made slick and hot by my spilled semen. Only a second or two, and then it was him tensing, him gasping, him crying out as he came.
I rested my head on his shoulder, breathing hard, still shuddering from the force of my release. It’d felt amazing. Even better than the last time. But the sense of guilt that immediately welled up in me made me want to run and hide.
“This wasn’t what I had in mind when I said ‘clothes stay on.’”
He chuckled, as if I’d meant it as a joke. I wasn’t sure if I found it amusing or infuriating. “We made a hell of a mess,” he said, wiping his hand on my T-shirt because his was sticky with our semen. “It’s like the back seat all over again.”
This time, I couldn’t help but laugh. I remembered trying to clean ourselves off with a handful of napkins. “Can you believe we walked into a 7-Eleven after that?”
“What were they going to do? Charge us with being horny teenagers?”
He had no fear. It was one of things about him I admired. I kissed him again, gentler this time. “That was one of the greatest nights of my life.”
“Mine too.” He looked into my eyes. I wasn’t sure if he was reassuring me or pleading with me. “It can be like that again. It’s like Robert Frost said. ‘Freedom lies in being bold.’”
No wonder I’d felt so liberated back then.
And no wonder I felt so stuck now.
I COULDN’T wrap my head around what had happened with Lamar. I kept replaying the last eight days, trying to figure out where it all went wrong. I’d start with the football game, and the corn maze, and the hours spent with him and Naomi. I’d get to the goddamn pumpkin seed in his hair….
And then it all just went to hell.
I was angry, although I couldn’t decide which one of us I was angrier with. He was the one who kept pushing and never listened when I said no, urging me instead to drop all my inhibitions despite my better judgment. But I was the one who let him. I was the one who followed him inside, knowing what would happen.
Naomi was in her bedroom doing homework by the time I got home. I was glad I didn’t have to face her. Glad I didn’t have to worry about the dried semen on my shirt and around my fly. Why had I ever thought this would work? I’d convinced myself Lamar and I could be friends, but we couldn’t, because no matter what, we always ended up with our hands down each other’s pants again. I wanted more. I wanted to go back to all those shared pleasures we’d had fifteen years before. I wanted to taste him. I wanted to take him to bed and undress him and make love like adults instead of like horny teenagers. But it wasn’t an option.
I needed to end things completely. No more Legos. No more pretending to be only friends. But, as much as I knew it needed to stop, the thought of giving him up broke my heart. I went to bed with a lead weight in my chest and dreamed over and over of Lamar climbing out of my car and disappearing into the night. It felt like a lifetime of good-byes, and I woke feeling spent and empty.
I drove to the garage in a funk. I didn’t want to have to talk to anybody. I wanted only to work and go home, so why did it feel like everybody was watching me when I entered? The line of customers already waiting at the front counter told me I was in for a bitch of a day. I grumbled a greeting and headed for the office in back. Dimitri came in behind me and slammed the door shut hard enough to startle me.
“We need to talk,” he said, his voice low and threatening.
Great. Exactly what I needed. “Can it wait, D? I really don’t have time—”
“Make time.”
His words were short and sharp, clipped with anger. I tried to squash my thoughts of Lamar and my growing frustration in order to study my brother. I noted his lowered brows and the tension in his arms and shoulders. I noticed the way he kept clenching and unclenching his hands.
Not good.
“Fine.” I threw the work folder I’d been skimming on the desk and faced him, arms crossed over my chest. Dimitri was rarely confrontational with me, but this was obviously going to be one of those times. “What’s on your mind?”
“Everybody’s talking, Dom.”
I waited for more, but he simply glared at me, waiting for an answer. “Talking about what?”
“About you!”
My heart sank. The sense of doom hanging over me the last twelve hours expanded like a storm cloud, blotting out the sun and the clear blue sky. “What about me?” I asked, even though I thought I knew. I fought to keep my voice level.
“What do you think? This is a small town, Dom. People see things. They pay attention. And you should know by now, they always talk.”
“Why don’t you cut to the chase and—”
“Everybody knows you’ve been hanging out with that teacher—the one all the kids say is queer—and Junior says you were back at that house last weekend, hanging out with the whole crew of them! He was here this morning, telling Dad how he thinks you’re queer too.”
“We were just watching the football game.”
“Why there?”
“Why not?”
“Jesus, Dom! You know why not! Because if you start hanging with a bunch of gays, everybody will assume you’re one too.”
“You’re blowing this out of proportion.”
“Am I? And what about Naomi? Have you ever once stopped to think about her?”
I took a step toward him but came up short against the desk. It was a good thing it was between us, because I wasn’t sure I could have stopped myself from punching him. He had no idea what I was giving up for her. “Don’t!” I growled, pointing a finger at him, “Don’t you ever suggest I don’t have Naomi’s best interests at heart. Don’t you dare question my devotion to her!”
“I never would have in the past, but now, I don’t know what you’re doing, running all over town with your boyfriend like you’re proud of being one of them—”
My flare of anger quickly gave way to panic. “I’m not. I’m not gay. I was picking up a client—”
“Cut the shit, Dominic! I know exactly what you are!”
The room seemed to echo his final words. I fell back a step, feeling as if I’d been gut-punched. “You know—”
“I heard you your senior year, talking to Elena. With your room below mine, I could hear you through the vents. I heard you talking about some boy you’d met. How you’d never felt like that with a girl.”
“But….” I floundered, stunned into disbelief. He’d known all this time and never said anything? His silence may have hinted at understanding, but the disgust in his e
yes was obvious. “Dimitri, it’s not what you think. Yes, I’ve been spending time with him, but we’re only friends.”
“It doesn’t matter!” he yelled, throwing up his hands in exasperation. “I thought you knew that! I thought you understood. All these years, you did the right thing. You married Elena and had Naomi. And then when you guys split up, I worried for a bit. But you kept it to yourself. No dating girls and no fooling around with guys, doing your best to convince the world you’re some kind of… I don’t know, asexual person who doesn’t feel anything. And I understood why you were doing it, Dom. I got it. Christ, I almost bought the act myself. But now you’re going to screw it all up. You’re not even bothering to hide it.”
I resisted the urge to wring my hands or pace the office. I didn’t want him to see how upset this conversation was making me. I didn’t want him to know how much his words hurt. “So what are you saying?”
“I’m saying you’re fucking it all up. Dad’s pissed, and he’s talking about cutting you from the will. He’s talking about passing the garage on to me and Lenny instead, for fuck sake. All because you”—he pointed his finger accusingly at me—“can’t keep your dick in your goddamn pants!”
I held up my hands to slow him down, heart racing, mind scrambling to keep up. “Dad’s cutting me out of the will?”
“If he thinks you’re joining Coda’s Village People, yes!”
“But we’re friends. That’s all.”
“That’s what I’m trying to tell you. It doesn’t matter. It doesn’t matter if you’re fucking him or not, because as far as Junior and Dad and Coda and half the family are concerned, you are.”
I sank down into the desk chair, hands shaking. I clenched them together on the desktop to hide my nerves. All this time, I’d thought I could walk the line. I’d thought I could be Lamar’s friend and everything would be fine. But now, whether I managed to keep my hands off him or not didn’t matter. I squeezed my eyes shut against the sting of tears and the wretched pain of having to choose between my heart and my family. “Dimitri,” I said at last, “I don’t know if I can do what you’re asking.”
“What?” he practically yelled, taking a step toward me, staring down at me with more disdain than I’d ever seen in his eyes before. I felt myself shrinking before him, becoming small as a child, as loathsome as vermin, as unsure as I’d ever been. “Listen to yourself,” he sneered. “Telling me you’re just friends, then telling me you can’t do what needs to be done. Christ, Dom. Be a man. Go down to Denver and find a hustler. Trade blow jobs in an alley. Fuck whoever the hell you want. Do whatever you have to do to get it out of your system. I don’t care. But don’t do it here. Not in Coda.”
I winced at his implications, hating the thought of touching any man but Lamar. “You don’t understand,” I tried one last time. “It’s not about sex—”
“Bullshit.” He leveled his finger at me again. “You will not tear our family apart over a piece of ass, Dominic. I won’t let it happen.”
“What will you do?” I asked, my voice low. “Out me?”
“If I wanted to do that, I could have done it already. But this garage is our future, and I’m not about to let you throw it away.”
“What exactly do you want me to do?”
“It’s easy,” he said, and for the first time, he let his anger go. For the first time, I heard compassion in his voice. I felt the culmination of a lifetime together, brothers in a family that knew no tolerance for anyone who strayed outside the box. “Just do the right thing, Dominic,” he said. “Whoever this guy is, let him go.”
I worked the afternoon on autopilot, not daring to speak lest the lump in my throat culminate in tears. I drove home at the end of the day with my heart heavy, feeling detached from the sunshine and the light. My grief was like a tangible weight in my chest.
Could I end it? That was the question that bounced endlessly around in my head.
Naomi emerged from the bathroom as I came in the door, hair styled neatly above her blue eyebrows. She grabbed her backpack off the couch and headed for the door. “I’m going to Mom’s.”
“You are?” I asked, feeling as if she’d slapped me in the face. “Why?”
She swung her enormous backpack onto her shoulders. “Mr. Franklin’s coming over, right?”
My heart did a stutter step. “Does it matter?”
“I don’t know. He’s been here a lot lately.”
The heaviness in my chest pulsed and expanded, almost choking me with its mass. “Is that why you’ve been spending so much time at your mom’s? Because Mr. Franklin’s been here?”
She rolled her eyes at me on her way out the door. “Duh.”
The screen slammed shut behind her. I watched out the window as she climbed onto her bicycle and pedaled down the street.
That settled it. I could fight with myself, I could fight with my brother, but I would not let my time with Lamar drive my daughter away. Whatever dream I’d had of making up for fifteen lost years, it was time to wake up and live my real life.
It was time to end things with Lamar once and for all, whether I wanted to or not.
LAMAR
THE WEEK may have started with a bang—or at least, with an accidental hand job on my entryway bureau—but it soon became clear my tryst with happiness wasn’t going to last. Life quickly moved to squelch any feelings of security I’d stockpiled over the last eight days.
As before, my ups and downs began and ended with Dominic.
After feeling so close to him while we’d carved pumpkins, and then having him finally surrender to what he wanted and come undone in my hands, I’d felt victorious. But even as we were cleaning ourselves up, buttoning our pants, throwing blushing looks at each other like we’d done fifteen years before, I felt him pulling away.
“I had fun tonight,” I said as he turned toward my door. He froze, one hand on the doorknob, as if unsure how to respond. “Carving pumpkins with Naomi, I mean.”
“Oh.” He nodded, staring at the floor, as if by speaking his daughter’s name, I’d summoned his executioner. He sighed. “This can’t keep happening.”
“What do you mean?” A stupid question, but the only thing I could muster.
“You said you’d follow my lead.”
“And I did.” After all, he was the one who’d kissed me. He’d agreed to come inside, and any claim he hadn’t known what would happen were utter lies. We both knew that. He was the one who’d slammed me against the wall in his hurry to get his hands on me. I wasn’t about to take all the blame for his sudden wash of guilt. “I gave you what you wanted.”
He leaned his forehead against the door. “What you don’t seem to understand is that what I want and what I can actually have aren’t the same thing.”
I stood there, stunned into silence as he left, his words echoing in my ears.
What you don’t seem to understand….
He was right, I didn’t understand why he was so determined to deny us what we both wanted. I also didn’t understand how whatever wagon he’d fallen off was my fault. He was the one who’d invited me over night after night. I saw the way he watched me when we were together. I felt the way he trembled every time I touched him. I saw what was in his eyes. He’d driven me home and kissed me and followed me inside, and now it was my fault?
I went to bed feeling dejected. Miss Priss hopped onto the bed and lay down on my chest, her nose bare inches from my chin, purring contentedly as I scratched her ears.
“You’re so much easier to please than him,” I told her.
She bit my hand and bolted away.
Dominic haunted my dreams all night. My visions of him were never substantial or solid, but the idea of him drifted in and out of my subconscious, sometimes angry, sometimes needy, but always leaving me with a sense of having wronged us both. I woke with a dark sense of foreboding hanging over me like a cloud. I was surprised to find the sun shining when I walked outside. I felt sure the skies should have been dark and o
minous.
“Hey,” Leila said when I entered the lunchroom at the beginning of third period. “I need to tell you something.”
I sank into my chair, knowing from her tone it was something bad.
“Jean’s accepted a job in South Carolina.”
I waited, but when she didn’t go on, I pushed for more. “So, she’s leaving, and you’re….”
“I’m leaving with her. I’ve already given my notice. Next Friday will be my last day.”
The news hit me harder than I might have expected. Although I’d never spent a moment with Leila outside of the school, I thought of her as a friend. My future at Coda Middle School looked particularly bleak as the sole remaining member of the Affirmative Action Club.
I went home and waited to hear from Dom, wondering what I’d face when he called. It was possible he’d invite me over and pretend nothing had happened. It was possible he’d invite me over with the stipulation that clothes had to stay on, and I needed to keep my hands to myself. It was possible he had other plans for the evening, or he’d make an excuse not to see me. It was even possible, I admitted to myself as I steeped a cup of Darjeeling, he’d go back to avoiding me. I scowled at the thought, but resigned myself to waiting for him to make a move. I’d do my best, once again, to follow his lead, even if it took us right back to him being pissed at me because he couldn’t keep his hands off me.
