Love Is Proud

by JMS Books Authors

  When I’m done, we both zip up again and then stare at each other. I swat his head, and the bewildered look Luiz sports would be hilarious if I wasn’t so pissed.

  “Never let a guy fuck you without a condom!” I swat his head again. Again. The fourth time he lifts his arm and stops me midair.

  “Do you have a condom on you?”

  “Yes.”

  “Why didn’t you use one then?”

  “Because I didn’t want to.”

  Luiz looks worried. I lower my hand and stick my arms in my jacket against the chill in the air. “Don’t worry. I always use a condom when I let somebody fuck me.”

  “Why didn’t you use one with me?”

  “Because I want you to carry me inside you.”

  Luiz nods, then looks up at me. “Silly bastard. I always carry you with me.”

  And then it hit me. That moment when you realize you’re not half empty. You are legendary. There is music in the descending night. We dance the stars out of the sky. These are the nights where everything feels possible.

  I want to tell him to be extraordinary. But he already is. I want to tell him to take this moment and make it count. But he already knows this. I want us to get it right.

  Luiz leans in and kisses me. He’s getting it right, he’s taking the moment, and so am I.

  He turns around and legs it down the mountain, leaving me in his dust. I run to catch up to Luiz, who is perhaps my lover now, but probably something better. Still my best friend.

  * * * *

  ABOUT LOUIS STEVENS

  Louis dreams up stories in his head and then works hard to bring them alive. There are always characters vying for his limited attention span, and the waiting list is growing. For stories with an unconventional HEA, his stories will make you work for that happy ever after. For more information, facebook.com/LouisStevensAuthor.

  Honey, I’m Home by Michael P. Thomas

  “Do you love him?”

  “What?”

  “‘What?’ Like all the background noise is so distracting?” We’re the only people in the park, and under a tree a quarter-mile from even the sparse passing traffic. We can practically hear the footsteps of the ladybug we’re watching make her way across my knee. “Do you love him?”

  Among Andrea’s more annoying qualities are her can-do approach to shoveling her way through any pile of bullshit I may try to hide behind, and her subsequent insistence on hearing the truth and nothing but the truth. I’m always telling her she missed her calling as a therapist. She says if a therapist has to listen to the kinds of things I consider problems all day long then she’s just fine where she is behind the deli counter, thank you very much. Some best friend.

  I’m far too absorbed in the ladybug on my leg to be answering her pesky questions about Ruben, even if I did bring him up. Again. Andrea puts her finger against my knee. When the ladybug crawls aboard to investigate, Andrea turns and sets her hand—and my convenient excuse—in the grass.

  “Do you love him?” Curse her limited vocabulary.

  “You know I do,” I eventually allow.

  “So what’s the problem?”

  “There isn’t a problem. There’s nothing but problems. We’re living in his parents’ guest room. We share a bathroom with his grandma. Never mind that his parents hate me—I’m living with wall-to-wall mauve carpet. That’s the problem!”

  “They don’t hate you,” she says. Rather stubbornly missing the point. Andrea’s apartment has hardwood floors; she doesn’t know my pain.

  “They do. His mom hates me for turning him gay.”

  “I thought he came out when he was like fourteen.”

  “Apparently it was a phase. For nine years. And like nine boyfriends. Until I came along.”

  “I see.”

  “His grandma hates me because I don’t speak Spanish.”

  “Does she really?”

  “Well, I don’t speak Spanish. For all I know that’s what she’s saying.”

  “Uh huh.”

  “And his dad says I’m fat.”

  Andrea raises a tactful eyebrow at the spillover of my spare tire. Okay, so maybe it’s not three hundred pounds of washboard abs. It’s still kind of rude.

  “He says I’m fat and lazy.”

  Her mouth is less tactful than her eyebrow. “I mean, is there anything really stopping you from getting a job?”

  “Writing is my job.”

  “But I mean maybe one of those jobs that actually pays you money?”

  “God, you sound just like him. Writing is my art. My craft. My calling. Ruben understands that.”

  “I know he does. Of course he does. But until you start selling stuff—”

  “I just sold a story today.”

  “You did? That’s fantastic! For how much?”

  “Well, you know, sold. To an online ‘zine. It’s more about the exposure.”

  “So for nothing?”

  “It’s not about the money.”

  “And that’s fine, baby. I think that’s great. You’re a great writer, you deserve the exposure. I’m just saying, from Ruben’s point of view: you’re not bringing any money in, you know you’re pretty hard on groceries, his parents’ house is basically a mansion—of course he’d rather live there for nothing than scrape by to live in some dump downtown.”

  “I’m not saying I don’t get that. I’m just saying I’m not sure I can take much more of it. I need to pee in the middle of the night, his grandma’s already in the bathroom; I want a sandwich in the middle of the afternoon, his dad’s randomly home from work, asking me—“Just curious”—how many times a day can one man need to eat. So then I do buy my own Oreos and his mom eats ‘em all during The Bachelorette. I can’t ever be naked, we’re afraid to have sex since his grandma walked in on us, and if I so much as lay a hand on Ruben’s shoulder and call him honey, his mom starts crying and carrying on about the grandchildren she’ll never know.”

  “I thought Ruben’s sister had kids?”

  “So do both of his brothers. She has seven grandchildren. She doesn’t need any more grandchildren. She just hates me. They all hate me.”

  “They all hate you? Or does Ruben love you?”

  “I guess.” I shrug, too deep in self-pity to be hoisted out of it quite that easily. “But I’m starting to wonder if it’s worth all this.”

  Here Andrea shrugs. “You gotta figure: there’s always gonna be somebody out there who hates you for some reason, whether it has anything to do with them or not. You’re gonna let that come between you and a sweetheart like Ruben Pacheco, I guess that’s up to you.”

  She thinks she’s so smart.

  * * * *

  And she’s right: Ruben is as sweet as a guy can get. Especially to me. He encourages me as a writer, supports me as a roommate, and exults in me as a lover. He tells me I’m beautiful, defends me to his parents, and he smiles every time I walk in the room. Which makes it hard to be aggravated with him, but where there’s a will, there’s a way, and lately I feel like I can’t hardly wait for even the most veiled invitation to histrionics. I’m always underfoot, always in somebody’s way. I’m too loud when I laugh. I take up too much of the couch. I can’t put one foot right in my own home, so I’m always on the defensive. Especially because nobody but Ruben—certainly not I—would ever classify the castle-in-a-cul-de-sac that Pacheco’s Used Cars built as “my home.” After three of them in as many years, I’m through with entry-level service-industry jobs, so my bank account has nothing in it but cobwebs, but my mom and her boyfriend have a poorly carpeted split-level in the ‘burbs, too. Not everybody’s idea of “options,” maybe, but I’m getting to the point where The Hell Away From His Parents is the only place I can think about going, whether Ruben’s there or not.

  In which mood I very nearly reject Ruben’s suggestion that we get cleaned up and go out. I’ve already opened a beer, a big bag of chips, and Netflix on my phone—I’m wallowing here! “I’m not really up to it tonigh
t.”

  “Cuz you have what better to do?”

  I don’t say lay around and watch TV, but I crunch a handful of chips by way of making sure it’s implied.

  “Come on. You’re always looking for reasons to get out of this house,” he reminds me.

  You have no idea, I think. “Meh, not tonight,” I say. Crunch, crunch.

  “I don’t really want to chill here tonight,” he tells me.

  “How come?”

  His mom barges in. So focused on Ruben she barely remembers to toss me my disdainful glance. “Those pants don’t leave very much to the imagination, mijo,” she tells him. “Can’t you put on something a little less…hip-hugging? I’d hate for Carmen’s niece to get the wrong idea.”

  “Like she might think I’m a big queer? That’s not the wrong idea, Ma.”

  She loads plenty of disdain into this glance. She pointedly looks me up, down, then up again and says, “Well, it wasn’t the best idea you ever had.”

  Maybe not, but his idea to beat feet out of the house before Carmen rolls in with some spinster niece is right up there.

  “Just let me put on my shoes,” I tell him.

  “Put ‘em on in the car.”

  “But what will I tell Carmen’s niece?” frets Mrs. Pacheco.

  Ruben shrugs. “Tell her if she can’t find a husband and wants to try looking for a girlfriend she can come meet us at the Ramrod.”

  “It’s like you want to be gay!”

  “See, you say that like it’s sinking in…” Ruben takes my hand, I grab my shoes, and we go.

  It’s quiet in the car. We’re both irritated, but there’s only so much a guy will hear against his own mother. After eleven months under the same roof—not to mention each other’s skin—I can’t be more than one or two excessively dramatic whines away from crossing that line, and I’m trying to save them. ‘Cuz I know I’m going to need them, and there’s no point in alienating Ruben before I do.

  But I am glad to be out of the house. And glad he’d rather be with me than Carmen’s niece, even if I have been sulkier than usual lately. He’s wearing a shiny, shoulder-showcasing shirt, and my favorite pair of jeans—someone who didn’t know better might even think he’s actually got a butt. I reach across the gear shift and give his thigh a little squeeze, then leave my hand. Eyes on the road, he smiles.

  It’s too early—and possibly a little too Wednesday—for the Ramrod to be crowded. The twinkling young bartenders still have their shirts on, and there’s very little elbowing involved in getting our first couple drinks. My favorite bench, out of the flow of traffic with a view of the dancefloor, is also easily had; I clamber onto it and spread my legs. My thighs are pretty big, but Ruben’s torso is narrow and snug; he wedges himself between them, resting his drink on my knee. I know he feels my cock swell hello when he presses his back against my front by the way he playfully slaps my knee. The wiggle in his ears tells me he’s smiling and I let out a breath I hadn’t realized I was holding. I may even start to relax here in another couple sips.

  We watch the bar. The few early birds on the dance floor; the scarecrow-lookin’ pool shark who’s here so often we think he probably lives in the basement; the hard-core drinkers at the back bar with their stools turned away from the rest of the room. I met Ruben at the Ramrod, it’s been almost three years ago now, but we hardly ever go out these days. I’ve gotten pretty attached to my pajama pants, and drinks aren’t free, after all. I’d all but forgotten the simple joy of touching him without having to listen for patrolling footsteps. Determined to rid myself of Ruben’s overbearing parents, I’ve jammed all my shit into my suitcase twice in the last couple months. Once I even got it as far as the trunk of Andrea’s car. I’ve been trying, but I just can’t bring any vision of a future without Ruben in it into any kind of focus. All I can imagine myself doing is moping around, wishing I hadn’t been fool enough to leave him, and right now they’d have to shoot me in the ass with a tranquilizer dart even to get me to let him go as far as the bathroom. The couple broke-down old barflys that stumble by are a little too interested in the feel of Ruben’s shimmery shirt against his board-flat belly, and the music’s not that great, but if anyone cared to ask, I’d be hard-pressed to name a place I’d rather be.

  And the music might pick up. It’s a little after eleven, a little before cocktail number three, when a tiny drag queen pops up in the DJ booth like a puppet at a summertime street fair, dying to know, How the fuck are you, Ramrod?! She scowls at the anemic cheer the scant crowd lobs back in response, but mutters into the microphone, “We’ll see about that.”

  The first song she plays rattles the mirror behind my head almost out of the wall. Midway through her second song people are popping up on the dance floor as if transported into an especially gay episode of Star Trek. Her third number is a hypnotically danceable Britney Spears-era Mexican pop song that launches Ruben from between my legs like maybe they were spring-loaded.

  If I weighed half what I do, the yank Ruben gives my arm would fling me over the heads of the few people still resisting the call to dance. “OhmygodIlovethissong!” Ruben can barely spit it out around his excitement. “Pleasepleasecomedancewithme!” Sing-laughing along, with eyes the size of pancakes, he tugs on my arm like if I don’t get up he’ll just rip it off and bang me about the head and shoulders with it until I do, so I hoist myself onto my feet and follow him to the floor. It’s not like I have to think about how to dance to a song like this; my blood pumps to the rhythm. When Ruben presses his swinging hips against mine, my body disconnects from my brain, plugs into the music, and bounces where it will. The next song’s in Spanish, too, kicking open the door to a throbbing Caribbean remix of Billie Holiday’s greatest hits. Where five seconds prior to actually doing so it would have been impossible to imagine barreling through a merengue version of “Fine and Mellow,” by the time the DJ moves on to a B-side Swedish disco medley, I pity the world full of suckers who will have to slog through their lives without ever being offered the chance.

  I’m dripping in sweat. I’m gasping for breath. My feet are killing me. Probably. That’s how I usually feel three songs in, but tonight my body is impervious to everything but the beat. Ruben undoes the buttons on his shirt until it falls away from his taut golden torso. Then he undoes the buttons on mine. If the voice that’s lived inside my head my whole life scolding me into shame for the size and shape of my stomach is here tonight, it’s too caught up in the music to remember to pipe up. I don’t even remember to swat Ruben’s hands away. Instead, he slides them inside my sweaty shirt and pulls me to him and we swing and sway as one. Through more disco, more pop, and a remixed call-and-answer folk dance from some far-flung country I guarantee no one in the bar has ever heard of that packs the floor with the people who have apparently been pouring in.

  Or maybe they’ve been here all along. Ruben runs his fingers through my soggy hair and stands on his toes and for all I can remember, the whole world consists of him, me, and the music. There are no bathroom-hogging grandmothers or desperate nieces, no crappy jobs or cobwebby wallets. The bar and even our bodies disintegrate in the heat of this kiss until all that remains is the trust I’ve been afraid to ask for and the tenderness I’ve been too self-absorbed to share.

  Well, maybe not all that remains. As I re-enter my body, I’m reminded of other things I haven’t shared with Ruben in a while. Things with which, now that he’s hefting great handfuls of me and pressing his delight in doing so against my leg, I sharply regret being stingy. It’s not like our room doesn’t have a door. Have I really chosen feeling sorry for myself over feeling Ruben’s deft and eager hands for these last weeks? He flicks my pierced nipple and my knees almost give out. Now I’m definitely panting and sweating. How I’ve managed to go this long I don’t expect to understand—the fact that I need Ruben inside me sooner than now may well be the only thing I’ve ever known.

  It’s certainly the only thing I have room for in my brain. Without buttoning our
shirts; without closing our tab; without regard for the startled, slow-footed twinks we topple as we plow for the door, we dash for the car. The unspoken plan is to race for the bed—Ruben’s muttering unprintably dirty things into my ear and I can’t seem to get my hands out of his pants—but Ruben’s parents’ house is twenty-five minutes away for even the most reckless driver. The tires actually screech when he slams on the brakes in the church parking lot three blocks from the bar, and we slake our need on our knees underneath a tree with the car still running. If the neighborhood bro who happens by with his scrappy little dog is offended or otherwise repulsed, he doesn’t say so. It’s not like we ask him to watch.

  * * * *

  The guest room window faces east, and the light seeping through it is watery and weak. Birds chirp half-heartedly, as if it’s the best they can muster before the first worm of the day. Ruben’s flopped across the bed like a starfish, drained by the demands my body made of his once we were unclothed and entwined. I lie awake, following my mind as it wanders. Maybe a part-time job, even if it is a shitty one, would relieve some of the pressure on Ruben. And on me, if I could be less defensive and occasionally out of the house. It’s not like I write for the whole ten hours he’s pounding the car lot every day. And what’s stopping me from writing a little bit more? People all over the world make their living as writers every day. Taco Bell isn’t the only place in town signing paychecks. And if they are, have I really been thinking about leaving Ruben just so I don’t have to put on an apron or a nametag? And if there are three better-looking men than Ruben on any given street corner on any random weekday? Could they possibly be as generous? As hard-working, warm, and sweet? As ready to love my cranky spirit and my clumsy body as if they’re the reason love was introduced to the Universe in the first place? Leave him? As he nuzzles against me and sighs, I never want to be a foot away from him ever again.

  He raises his head off my chest with a sleep-sloppy smile. Was I thinking out loud? He looks into my eyes the best he can with his still mostly closed and says, “You know it’s not forever, right?”