Laugh Cry Repeat

by John Inman

  On Sunday evening, Wyeth excused himself, returning home under the pretense he had work to do, but in reality he needed to get away from Deeze long enough to assess the situation and try to figure out what the hell was going on. He simply could not understand why Deeze was so attentive to him. Yet even Wyeth admitted his confusion said more about his own faults than it did about Deeze’s.

  So after a romantic weekend like none he had ever experienced before—one that left him literally weak at the knees—Wyeth spent that first day back at work humming around the library, forgetting what he was doing, acting scatterbrained, smiling absentmindedly at anyone who looked his way, losing books left and right and having to go off searching for wherever it was he left them, sometimes finding them, sometimes not. It got so bad his fellow librarians began snickering behind his back, but Wyeth didn’t care. He didn’t care because he didn’t know. He was too lost in his own thoughts—in thoughts of Deeze—to pick up on what everyone else was doing.

  Deeze was not unaffected either. He spent his working hours giggling with his students, acting just as childish as they did, and sometimes worse. He fulfilled his teaching duties but did it with a laugh bubbling up out of nowhere every time he turned around. More than once Father Mike had to pop into Deeze’s classroom and ask the whole lot of them to hold down the racket. Deeze was suddenly so outrageously happy—and truthfully Deeze had always been happy, but not like this—that even the other priests and teachers began to notice, smiling to each other, wondering what had gotten into the young kindergarten teacher.

  While the two men’s lives had inexplicably changed, their work weeks had not. They still completed the tasks appointed to them. They did the jobs they were paid to do and then bustled home to care for the pets who relied on them. But afterward, either one or both would step to the window of his apartment and stare out across the street at the window of the other. Often, Wyeth would find a note for him there, propped on Deeze’s windowsill or taped to the glass. Always in crayon, always on colored construction paper, always in blocky childish letters. The notes ranged from Meet me at the cafe on the corner to Walk with me to the bay to Thank you for last night. One merely said Yum. In truth, the messages didn’t matter, for regardless of what was printed on those ridiculous notes, they always made Wyeth smile.

  Once, Deeze stared out his window and found Chaucer with his feet up on the windowsill, gazing back at him with a sappy grin on his face. Wyeth was nowhere around. Deeze laughed for twenty minutes over that.

  A routine developed. On the three nights a week when Deeze attended his college classes, Wyeth reverted to the life he had known before Deeze came along. He read. He listened to music. He spent time walking Chaucer around the city. The only difference was that now those pastimes were no longer enough. Every moment he spent on his own was like a knife piercing his gut. It didn’t take a minor in psychology (which Wyeth held) to know it was Deeze’s absence that made him feel that way.

  On his nights away from college, Deeze pleaded and cajoled until Wyeth relented and joined him for coffee, or dinner, or a movie, or just a quiet walk around town. After those meetings, they tumbled into bed together. For that, at least, Wyeth needed no cajoling. There, Wyeth felt no shyness whatsoever. Not anymore.

  The old Wyeth would have been terrified by that realization. But not this Wyeth. This Wyeth still suspected his happiness was hanging by a thread, that one day Deeze would tire of him and turn away without a backward glance, that fate would snatch his happiness away like fate always did. But he tried not to think about it. That fear was too heart wrenching to contemplate.

  Still, the tiny frightened voice in the back of Wyeth’s head was always there, gnawing away at him, making him wonder when the bubble would burst. Making him wonder when Deeze would wake up and realize he could do better than this shy, introverted librarian with the freckles and red hair who wasn’t very adept at letting himself go—although he was learning; he was definitely learning.

  Wyeth spent his days hungering for the feel of Deeze’s body next to his, aching for the sound of Deeze’s whisper, the brush of Deeze’s hand. And there were other things he hungered for too. More intimate things. The softness of Deeze’s kiss, the taste and heat of Deeze’s come gushing across his lips, the gentle way Deeze caressed him as his long cock slid deep, filling Wyeth in a way no one had ever filled him before. But even more than that, there were those quiet moments when they lay wrapped together, desperately hanging on, bodies wet with sweat, nerve endings tingling, while their hearts thudded down to a more sustainable tempo. It was in those moments, the immediate moments after sex, when the true connections were born. Whispered endearments, cuddled caresses, lazy thoughts gently expressed. When words were less guarded than they were at other times. When gestures came from the heart, unplanned, uncensored. The slide of fingertips on a cheek. The bump of hard knees and the tickle of cool toes. Silences that were as calming as the shimmer of moonlight on still water. Silences that burrowed deep into Wyeth’s heart to a place where he knew they would remain, forever cherished, endlessly remembered, eternally his very own—never to be shared even with Deeze, the man who had planted them there.

  Deeze spent his days wondering what it was about the young librarian that had captured him so completely. Why the line of Wyeth’s strong jaw stirred him so. Why the brush of blond hair on the back of Wyeth’s pale hands was such a turn-on. Why his kiss tasted so sweet. What it was about the man that left him so hungry for more that it was an ache every time they stepped away from each other.

  Deeze spent three or four nights a week with Wyeth, in one apartment or the other, trying to find out, trying to understand. Those nights together were the times that meant the most to both men, although neither was willing to admit it yet, even to themselves. In Deeze’s mind, it was all an astonishing revelation. In Wyeth’s mind, Deeze was a blessing doomed to eventually end, one way or another.

  This wasn’t to say Deeze wasn’t also annoying. Wyeth learned this basic truth less than three weeks into their—whatever the hell it was.

  It started with a simple conversation one evening over tacos at a street-side cafe not thirty feet from Wyeth’s apartment building….

  “YOU DID it,” Wyeth said. “I didn’t think you would.”

  Deeze looked up. “And what might that be?”

  Their knees were touching under the table and for that reason alone, Wyeth had an erection that sent an ache shuddering through him all the way from the soles of his feet to the top of his head. He tried to ignore the ache. It’s not like he wasn’t used to it. After all, it popped up every time Deeze was in sniffing distance. Still, it was distracting in the middle of dinner.

  “You bought old Mrs. Mulroney, my annoying three-thousand-year-old neighbor, a subscription to the San Diego Union-Tribune. Tenants on floors 2, 3, and 4, are planning a party to celebrate. They’ve even considered submitting your name to the Catholic archdiocese for sainthood. Of course, they’ve never seen you with a dick down your throat. At least I hope they haven’t.”

  Deeze leaned across the table. A flake of cheese peppered his chin. “God, I love it when you talk dirty.”

  Wyeth blushed. “Yes, well, be that as it may, sainthood is out, but we are all grateful for your largesse nevertheless. Now that our papers won’t be stolen off our doorsteps anymore, I can go back to my New York Times crossword puzzles, and everybody else can catch up on world events and find out what Dagwood’s been up to.”

  “Good to know.” Deeze reached over and brushed a fingertip down Wyeth’s cheek, dismissing out of hand the kindness he’d shown in buying an old lady a newspaper subscription she either couldn’t afford or was too cheap to spring for. “Let’s talk about more serious matters, Wy. For instance, your spray tan is pretty much gone. Did you know?”

  Wyeth blushed even deeper, darkening his freckles. He nudged his glasses higher on his nose, a nervous habit he always fell into when he was at a loss for words and needed a moment to think. T
his time it didn’t work very well.

  “Don’t worry about it” was all he said. He stared up into the tree hanging above their heads as if admiring the tiny white Christmas lights wrapped around every limb for atmosphere, although it was only August.

  Deeze stopped gnawing at his taco long enough to study Wyeth’s face. “I can read you like a book, you know, which is kind of funny since you’re a librarian.”

  “And your point is?”

  “My point, young Wyeth, is you aren’t sneaky enough to be duplicitous. Admit it. You’ve already made an appointment for another tan.”

  Wyeth dabbed at his mouth with a napkin, took a moment to straighten his shirt collar, stared up at the sky to see if maybe a comet was due to tear across the heavens, and finally admitted, through slitty eyes after nudging his glasses up his nose again, “So what if I did?”

  Deeze splayed his hands in front of his face as if fending off an oncoming bus that was careening straight for him. “Don’t get so defensive. No reason. Just making conversation!” But he had a victorious gleam in his eye that finally made Wyeth grin right back. Deeze leaned in and whispered, “I have to admit though, as much as I love chewing on your artificial tan line, I enjoy the taste of the real you far better. Save your money. Cancel the appointment. I prefer you in the original packaging.”

  Two spots of color rose on Wyeth’s cheeks. He knew they were probably there but decided to act like they weren’t. “If that’s what you want,” he said quietly, secretly relieved. He had never felt like himself with that tan. Then his face perked up and he forgot the tan completely. “By the way, Deeze, your cousin at the Tan Banana said I should dump you while I still have my sanity.”

  “What a bitch.”

  Wyeth laughed. “I like her.”

  A gleam lit Deeze’s eyes. “What’s to like? The woman spends her days painting people. It’s not exactly a cerebral occupation. Besides, you can only dump me if you admit we are actually in a relationship to begin with.” One sly eyebrow climbed upward. “Is that what you’re saying?”

  This had been a subject they had touched on more than once. And one Wyeth always avoided.

  Wyeth blinked. The ingredients of his taco spilled out over his hand and landed on his plate. “I wasn’t implying we had a relationship at all. I was just kidding. We’ve only known each other a couple of weeks. I still barely like you.”

  “Oh, I must be mistaking you for the other guy I’ve been sleeping with.”

  Wyeth’s eyes opened wide. “The other guy?”

  The teasing light in Deeze’s eyes softened. He gave Wyeth that special look that always made Wyeth’s heart stutter. “It was a joke, dumbass. But back to us. It’s been a great two weeks, almost three, actually. Don’t you think it’s been great?”

  Wyeth couldn’t have convincingly denied it, even if he wanted to. “Well. Yeah, Deeze, but—”

  Deeze reached over and brushed his fingertips through the hair on Wyeth’s forearm. “Let’s stop talking now before you have a stroke.”

  “I’m not having a—”

  Still twiddling the hair on Wyeth’s arm with one hand, he stretched his other arm across the table and tapped Wyeth’s lips with an index finger. “Shush. By the way, I learned that from you. Shush. I use it with the kids in my class now. It never works, of course. You can shush yourself into a coma and a five-year-old won’t give a shit. But I use it anyway, just because it reminds me of you.”

  Wyeth eased his arm out from under Deeze’s hand, but he tried to do it calmly. He didn’t want to appear as terrified as he suddenly felt. “Deeze, I know we’ve just met. I know we’re just friends.” He heard himself talking and cringed. But still he couldn’t shut up. “I know there’s nothing between us. I wasn’t trying to imply we have a relationship. I really wasn’t.”

  Wyeth stared down at his plate, concentrating on his food. He didn’t notice when Deeze’s eyes darkened. He didn’t notice when Deeze’s smile suddenly lost its spark. That smile was simply window dressing now. It didn’t come from the heart. It was a facade, a spray-on tan, not an ounce of realness to it. Deeze knew it even if Wyeth couldn’t be bothered to look up and notice.

  “Then I guess it’s true. There really isn’t a relationship here,” Deeze whispered, folding his hands in his lap. He gazed around at the other diners. Deeze decided he would give Wy a few days to muddle over what he had just said. In the meanwhile, it was time to stop horsing around. He had something he wanted to say, and by God he was going to say it. Now. The smile on his face became a little more real.

  “Come jogging with me, Wy. Let’s knock off a few miles together.”

  Wyeth lifted his head and stared. From the look on his face, he had still been lost in the relationship conundrum, and the request to go jogging was like a surprise kick in the nuts. “You mean run? Tonight? Are you fucking crazy? I don’t run. I don’t want to run. I hate running.”

  Deeze flashed a few snowy teeth, hoping it would help. “Only because you haven’t tried it.”

  “We just ate,” Wyeth said sounding a little desperate.

  “By the time we get home, change into our running gear, and gather up the dog, our dinners will have settled. Stop stalling. Let’s go.” He turned to the waiter, who was standing in a corner by a potted plant scratching his ass. “Check, please, Itchy.”

  Wyeth all but blubbered. “But, but, but—it’s night.”

  Deeze shrugged. “I thought you’d be more comfortable in the dark.”

  “Why would you think that?”

  “Well, when I turn all the lights off when we’re in bed together you certainly lose all inhibitions.” He grinned. “That’s the only reason I do it, you know. If I had my way, I’d have every light in the apartment blazing so I won’t miss that perfect O you make with your mouth every time you’re about to come.”

  Wyeth gazed desperately around as if to see if any other diners were listening. “Shush, Deeze! Jesus!”

  Deeze threw his head back and laughed. He took a minute to calm himself. Once he did, he leaned forward and placed his hand on Wyeth’s forearm again.

  “Just looking at you makes me happy,” he said softly. “I want you to know that.”

  Wyeth wasn’t buying it. “Your cousin said you’ve always been happy. She said if you seem happy now, it has nothing to do with me.”

  “Wow, she really is a bitch. But she’s wrong. It has everything to do with you. I might have been happy before, but I was never this fucking delirious. Ask anybody. Just the thought of you naked in my arms and I want to rush out and buy flowers. Or lease a car. Or build a house. It’s extraordinary, really.”

  “You’re nuts.”

  Not bothering to deny it, Deeze got back on track. “So. About running. I assume you do exercise occasionally. You didn’t get that magnificent ass by sitting around eating corn chips all day.”

  And just when the blush was draining from Wyeth’s ears too. “Leave my ass out of this.”

  “Never!” Deeze hissed, as if appalled by the very idea of leaving Wyeth’s ass out of anything. His eyes emitted that sexy heat that Wyeth sometimes dreamed about while he was moping around the library acting like he was working. It was the same heat the memory of which made Wyeth quickly seek out his desk and plop desperately down behind it so no one could see he was growing a hard-on. Librarians with boners are a puzzlement to most library goers.

  Now, sitting under the stupid illuminated tree waiting for the scratchy-ass waiter to bring them their check, Wyeth tried to ignore that sexy gleam in Deeze’s warm brown eyes while he seriously considered the question. He did exercise, of course. He wasn’t a complete slug. He even owned a set of Richard Simmons tapes he kept hidden in a cupboard and danced along to now and then when the mood struck, although he always kept the volume low so none of the neighbors would hear the old queen screaming for him to “Wiggle it, honey! Make it move!”

  On the other hand, Wyeth had never won an argument with Deeze yet, and he was pre
tty sure he wouldn’t win this one either. Wyeth was a college graduate, after all. He wasn’t a complete dunce. He knew when he was in over his head.

  He heaved a great, long, put-upon sigh. “You’ll have to go slow or I won’t be able to keep up.”

  Deeze’s dimples popped into view, cratering out like sinkholes. “No problem.”

  “And bring your Band-Aids in case I get a blister.”

  “Happy to.” Deeze grinned. “On one condition.”

  “What condition is that?”

  “Kiss me,” Deeze said. “Here. Now. Kiss me. In front of all these people.”

  Wyeth gazed around. There must have been fifty diners in the place. No one was looking in their direction. And he really did want to kiss Deeze. He’d been watching that scrumptious mouth for over an hour.

  “Fine,” Wyeth said, surprising even himself. “I’ll kiss you. Right here. Right now.”

  Without hesitating, Deeze scooted his chair out from under him with a horrendous squeak and leaned as far over the table as he could. Clutching Wyeth’s necktie (they were still dressed from work) he dragged him close and covered Wyeth’s mouth with his.

  At the first touch of lips, Deeze smiled. So did Wyeth. Five seconds into the kiss, neither man was smiling anymore. When Deeze’s hand came up to stroke Wyeth’s cheek, tongues came into play. The restaurant around them went silent. No conversation, no clatter of cutlery, nothing. Waiters became statues, forks loaded with food hovered forgotten in midair, jaws stopped chewing. It was like a cold snap had suddenly engulfed the establishment, freezing everybody solid.

  Wyeth waited a good fifteen seconds before breaking the kiss. When he did, he simply sat back down and fished around for his wallet, not caring what the people around him thought, or at least he pretended he didn’t.

  “Wow,” Deeze mumbled, licking his lips.