can trust. People, not very easily.”
“Trust and Rome aren’t built in a day,” Ben said. He watched Butter sniff around the bushes at the back fence.
“No, and it generally takes more than a day to destroy them.” Dickon looked at Butter as she watched a butterfly pass outside the fence. When the dog turned and came up to them, he held out a hand to her. She licked it, and lay down on a lower step by Ben’s feet. The both caught the odor of damp dog, pungent, yet light enough not to offend. Ben let Dickon sit silent. Ben ached to put his arm around Dickon and comfort him, and maybe himself. He suddenly discovered a great yawning void in himself. The discovery shook him.
“Vanna was my first, and only, wife,” Dickon said. “She was a schoolgirl when I met her. I thought she had a kind of innocence then. Maybe I smashed it. She claimed once I had.” Dickon’s voice was hoarse. He cleared his throat and went on. “When we drifted apart, I didn’t understand what was going on. Nobody in my family had ever gotten divorced. You see, I learned to love her. A lot. Looking back, I know I should never have gotten married. That was the church’s idea. That was how to save myself. Well, it didn’t work. I damaged me, and I damaged her.” The regret in Dickon’s tone was something Ben could almost touch.
“I used to say that I wasted my youth on celibacy and religion,” Dickon went on. Bitterness entered his tone. “The church betrayed me, too. Vanna found Clarence Sales, and man after man after that. She dumped me, of course, for Clarence, and then dumped him very soon after for some city councilman. I lost track, after that, for quite a while.” Dickon stretched. He grunted when a stomach muscle protested. He swallowed more of his tea. Ben waited for him to continue.
Dickon reached out and scratched Butter’s rump just above her tail. Ecstasy filmed her eyes. “The church was upset, of course, that I was divorced. They got even more upset when the congregation asked them to replace me with a married man, since even six months after the divorce I wasn’t actively seeking a wife.” Dickon attempted a wry smile. “A friend of mine, Rev. Bobbo Link, warned me I might have trouble. The Ministerial Relations Committee called me in to examine me about the causes of my divorce.”
“But wasn’t the divorce Vanna’s idea?”
“That didn’t matter, not to the Ministerial Relations Committee. Especially the three clergy that sat on it that year. Reverends Phil E. Buster, Shea Mauna Hughes, and Andy Maime were determined to keep all divorced and unmarried clergy away from parishes. That included me. I might have starved, if Bobbo hadn’t found me a position with La Señora that Presbytery would accept as valid. She ran a mission in the City then.” Dickon stood, using the porch railing to lever himself up. He had a damp stain on the seat of his jeans. “Can I have some more tea?”
“Yes,” Ben said. “Come on in, Butter.”
The kitchen was dim, almost restful, after being outdoors. Even though the fog covered the sky, the sun made it glisten with a brightness the eye didn’t register until it had found a dimmer place. Ben filled the kettle and plugged it in. Dickon went to the bathroom. Ben stood at the window and looked out at the sky and the cove. Dickon came in behind him and startled him by putting a hand on his shoulder. The weight of it was warm, wonderful, and heavy on Ben’s shoulder. He held his breath.
“As I said, I’m scarred, Ben. I’m afraid to take a chance on loving somebody, and I haven’t been able to talk myself out of it.” Dickon went to the table and lowered himself into a chair.
Ben turned and looked at him. He felt tears gathering behind his eyes, and wasn’t sure why. “How vicious people can be,” Ben said. He put new teabags in their cups.
“I’m telling you this because I don’t know if or when I’ll be able to be a full partner in any kind of relationship, Ben.” Dickon’s voice was small. “The other thing I’m afraid of is that I somehow caused Vanna to become what she is. She seemed so sweet and innocent when I first knew her.”
“You aren’t the only one with baggage,” Ben said. The kettle whistled. He poured the water over their teabags, and brought the cups to the table. He sat down opposite Dickon. “How old was Vanna when you met her?” Butter looked at each of the men, decided there weren’t any bits of toast or other provender about to fall from the table. She went to the door into the living room to lie on the rug, well within earshot of the table.
“Seventeen. We got married within the year.”
Ben took a deep breath. “Look at me, Dickon.” When Dickon didn’t respond, he repeated his statement with more force. “Look at me Dickon.” Dickon raised his eyes to Ben’s face. Ben’s gray eyes bored into his green ones. “No one could make Vanna what she is except Vanna. She did it to herself. Got that?” Dickon nodded, not quite convinced. “Keep saying that to yourself, Dickon, until you get that it’s what’s so.” Ben broke eye contact. Too much pain swirled in the green pools of Dickon’s eyes. “Don’t put Vanna’s black shade between us, Dickon.” Ben took a long swallow of his tea.
“That’s what I’ve been trying to say,” Dickon said through the choke in his throat. “I don’t know if I can banish Vanna.”
“Maybe you need an exorcist? Does your church do that?” Ben smiled at him.
“No. Different branch specializes in that stuff.” Dickon tried to smile back. His chin still hurt.
“As I said,” Ben went on, looking at the floor, “you’re not the only one with baggage.” He cleared his throat. “I have my own ghosts, too.”
“Of lovers past?” Dickon asked.
“Of lovers past.” Ben smiled. “Len and I were good together. Where he was strong, I was weak. Where I was strong, he was weak. We were like two halves of a grapefruit rejoined. Most of the time, anyway.” Ben felt the tears swelling again behind his eyes.
“He was with me through half my life, the important half.” Ben bent his head down and away from Dickon. Ben did not cry easily or publicly. Dickon felt like public to him, just then.
“I had a professor in college,” Ben went on, “Professor John Dilbert Doe. We called him Dill.” He smiled. “Dill helped me come out. He substituted for the father I’d lost, only better, because he was gay, too, and knew how to help me accept myself. Len built on that. I know I can’t love anyone else the way I loved him. I’d have to love anybody new in my life in a new way.”
“Second marriages are more convenience than romance,” Dickon observed. “Read that somewhere, probably in a woman’s magazine.” He stared at the refrigerator across the room. “Sounds sad, doesn’t it?”
“When you’ve been with someone for years, like I was with Len, and you lose him, there’s a hollow place that never fills up. I guess I’ve lost the capacity of being complete by myself. I thought I wanted to be alone, on my own, but it’s not enough.” Some plaintive note in Ben’s tone brought Butter to him. She stared up at him with soulful eyes. “Some times not even a dog is enough.” Ben reached out and scratched Butter behind the ears. She thumped her tail gently on the floor.
“I’m saying, Ben, I’m not sure I can be part of a couple again. I’ve been mostly on my own for a long time now. Except for Vanna, and later, Vin, I’ve never tried anything long term.” Dickon looked at Ben’s bent head. “Not even with a dog.” He stood up. “You’ve been great, Ben, taking me in the way you have. I think I should be alone for a while. I know we’d talked about going to the Thai restaurant tonight, but that was before all this. For one thing, I’m too bruised to leave the village until my chin clears up.”
Ben stood up too. “What am I hearing, Dickon? Are you saying ‘no’, or ‘not yet’?”
Dickon looked at Ben. He could see Ben was near tears. “I think, Ben, I’m saying ‘not yet’.” Dickon sighed. “I never expected to get this close to some one again, not in such a whirlwind way.”
“Whirlwind?”
“Seems like it to me.” Dickon frowned at the table. “You offer so
mething too overwhelming for me to decide in a hurry. It’d be easier, if you were a one-night stand, or a one-week fling. You aren’t. Be patient with me, Ben.”
“You sure you’ll be all right, by yourself?”
“Yes. I’m sore, but I can manage. I’ll see you in a couple of days. Thanks again, Ben.” Ben reached out to hug Dickon. Dickon hesitated. Then he accepted Ben’s hug. Ben could feel the distance between them. He mentally cursed Vanna for the scars she had left in her wake.
Down River Drive
Dickon had needed a ride to Las Tumbas when Ben was going that way. Dickon suggested stopping at the State Park for a rest. The road into the park soon brought them into a pocket of fog. Ben crept forward until he found the parking lot. There were no other cars there. They got out into the muffled world of fog among the redwoods.
“We’ve never shared much about ourselves, Ben,” Dickon said.
“No, we haven’t. Where should we start?”
“How about where all queens start, with ‘How I Came Out’?”
“You are so right, Dickon. Poor straight people, they miss out on so much, never having a closet to burst out of.”
“Do you want to go first, Ben?”
“Okay. My story’s nothing unusual,” Ben began. “I grew up in Colorado, on a farm, went to church and school like all
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