Eden

LIFE WAS IN that place where things are thriving. Looking back, Frey realizes that often when things are thriving, when you are most free it is because you have taken the big chance and absolutely nothing is certain any longer. So you are afraid, half terrified, and nothing is fully formed. How they would continue to pay for this apartment, what would become of their children or of their love lives, and certainly of their hole-ridden education, Frey could not say. He was writing love poems. He was sending them to Adam. They weren’t poems about how in love with Adam he was, not exactly. But they were poems about the love he was experiencing with him. Since that visit where the two of them had slept together for three nights, they found a language to discuss desire. It wasn’t embarassing anymore or inappropriate to write in the midst of talking of other things, “I want to taste you again.” Or even, “I still remember eating your ass.”

He wrote:

I am still remembering the white geography,
the porcelain country of your skin.

I never saw such milk before,
poured out all across my bed,
poured out in the form of long limbs
lain across me, stretched over comforter and pillow,
hot with life and desire and the place,
black as the pit,
where you stored your sex,
red sex,
pink sex,
rising out of vulcan blackness,
out of hair darker,
curlier than mine and
your mouth on mine, and your rough hands, unlotioned,
forgotten, untendered
calloused with music running
over me, a ragged softness, the softness of mouths,
demanded the softness
of the surprise entry into me.

Surely that was the strangest country,
surely your coming into me, my coming
into you, the gasp, the pour, the heat,
the liquid heat, the honey of a man was the miracle.

You know I journeyed through monasteries
and all the way to lourdes for a miracle,
good lord, I found it here with you,
in you, pulsing.

And he wrote:

red beard
I feared never
to touch something as soft as that roughness,
as cool as the heat of your breath,
as eagle eyes through glasses looking
down on me when I begged you to ride me
and you did it like the Mississippi you
did it just like jesus walking on water,
sailing on waters of come and leave and
stay and good-god and goddamnment in our bed,
the bed that will always be ours after
you stained it with the knowledge of you
after you cracked yourself like a paradise
fruit all over it, and I cannot get the stain out.
In every fiber, every little thread,
you are still there,
erasing old lovers and making
way for newer loves

In the midst of all this life, not exactly knowing what he would do next year—because he knew he wasn’t going to continue in the graduate program—he received this letter.

“Dear Mr. Frey, My name is Robert Dwyer. I am a freshman in college this year. I just read your book, and it gives me hope. I mean, I know that sounds pretentious, but my life has been not so good, and I didn’t think anyone understood me. And then I read about you, and your friends and the writing club, the Immortal Livers, and about how you all stayed friends and about what college was like for you. And I realized I wasn’t alone, and that there are good people in the world. See, I am gay too. My life isn’t as exciting as yours and I didn’t really know what I wanted to do with it. But now I do know. I want to form friendships and be involved in all sorts of things, like art maybe, and make a difference. Thank you. I’m not saying everything I mean to say. I’m really not a very good letter writer. But this is

Yours, respectfully,

Robert A. Dwyer 

P.S. If you could please tell me, sir, do you have any more books and where can I get them?

In the “book hang”, or whatever Melanie wanted to call it, someone, no, this specific someone, this Robert Dwyer, had gotten his book, and it had done something to him. It was a part of him. Frey had pulled out something inside of him and placed it into someone else. This was what he’d always wanted to do. This was writing. This was the real magic! He had a public now. Even if it was only a public of one.

He wrote back. Frey did not hear from Rob though, and this was a great disappointment because he was hoping that something new had begun, that this was the beginning of the life to which he was called. He was twenty-eight by now which was knocking at the door of thirty, and he was sure that though he was a writer for many reasons, the chief of them was that he couldn’t possibly be anything else.

“I want McDonalds,” Frey said.

“Sometimes you do,” said Rob.

“There’s one right across the street from back home.”

“Speaking of back home. Do you plan to go back?”

“Eventually,” Frey said. “But what I was going to say was that I used to talk shit about the food and now I don’t want to. I just want the food. I would like a salty burger right now with just the rigt amount of grease. The fries… Yeah,” Frey said putting his shoes on. “Let’s do that.”

“So,” Rob’s eyebrow was raised as he started to get off the couch. “No cooking, and all McDonalds.”

“And shakes.”

“But are you ever going to tell me about back home? About everything?”

“What? I live in Calverton. It isn’t glamorous. Not even a little bit, and beside. You tell so little. You ask a lot. I tell a lot, but getting a story out of you is one hell of a challenge.”

“Well, just ask,” Rob said, reaching for Frey’s keys and handing them over.

“Whaddo you want to know?”

Damn,” Frey said.

“What?”

“Now that you’ve said just ask, I don’t know what to ask.

Rob grinned and then Frey said, “I do!

“The Black guy. You said I wasn’t the first.’

Rob grinned. “Really, that’s what you care about?”

“No,” Frey shook his head. “Not really. Not at all. But it’s a beginning place.”

Rob smiled and said, “There could have been lots of Black guys,”

“No,” Frey shook his head, “there couldn’t have been. Who was he?”

“He was….” Rob looked thoughtful, he touched the little red beard budding at his chin. “I wouldn’t know you if I didn’t know him. And he was a lot like you, to tell you the truth.”

Then Rob said said, “Was your redhead like me?”

“No one’s like you. Tell me about him.”

Rob shrugged.

“I’ll tell you about Alex in the car.”

ONE DAY, AFTER HE had been hired at the Mermaid, the grand old apartment building off the lake, Rob was laying out a white tarp and spray painting the walls of a corridor when Alex came walking down the hall and he apologized, “You can come around. Just let me move this right out your way.”

“It isn’t necessary,” Alex said, “I’ll just walk downstairs and come back the other way.”

“Are you sure?”

Rob did not know that Alex had stopped, because he knew the boy. He had to think a while and get up close to him and then he realized he had seen him naked, on Adam4Adam with the screenname: Red Thread and the tagline: When you see me, say you know what the Red Thread is for.

“Absolutely,” Alex said, and when he came back around, Rob said, “I’m Rob,” and Alex said, “Alex. Pleased to meet you,” and doffed his fedora.

He wasn’t going to bring up orange hats today.

When Max was fixing the drain, Alex came into the kitchen with its black and white check pattern and saw Max’s legs hanging out of the sink.

“Rob not here?”

“Rob’s downstairs,” Max said, his voice echoing from under the sink.

It had been a month since Alex met Rob, and he had hoped to see him again.

“Um,” Alex said. “Well, that’s too bad. Tell him I saw him the other night.”

“Where?”

“Just tell him, Alex said, “I know what Red Thread means.”

By the end of the day there was a knock at the door and Alex wasn’t surprised when Rob was standing there looking jumpy and amazingly hot.

“Whaddid you mean by…. Red Thread?”

“I mean I saw you on the net. I saw your—”

Rob put a finger to his lips and pressed inside the apartment, closing the door behind him.

“You can’t say shit like that.”

Alex raised his eyebrow.

“Were you trying to make me feel weird? Or embarrassed?”

“No,” Alex said. “I was trying to tell you I want you.”

The first time Alex and Rob had sex, they were sitting on the couch and Rob said, “So whaddo you wanna do?” and Alex put his hand on Rob’s thigh, and then Rob put his hand on Alex’s and Alex moved closer. He began to massage Rob’s thigh, and then he opened up the boy’s shorts, and started to stroke his dick through his underwear. Rob made a moan like a cat purr and leaned his beautiful head against Alex’s shoulder, opening his mouth a little, his green eyes closing into slits. His mouth reached up for Alex’s the same time Alex squeezed his dick, and when Rob turned and thrust his tongue in Alex’s mouth, the flat of Alex’s hand held Rob’s balls, hot and hanging.

Alex went to his knees because he knew Rob couldn’t ask, ahd he pulled down his shorts and his briefs, and pulled Rob into his mouth. He was firm and heavy, large and growing larger.

“Alex,” he moaned, stroking Alex’s hair. “Alex.”

They were both naked and pulling out the bed, then on the bed, twisting together. Rob pulled Alex’s face up. It wasn’t just head he wanted. He wanted eyes and arms and lips and tongues and kindness. He wanted to look up at Alex in love and pull his face down and kiss him, press his body up into a man who wasn’t Thomas Frushour, and wasn’t the others, quickly forgotten, who slaked the need.

In the end he asked Alex to fuck him, but this was easier said than done. They’d never done it before and so it was just fumbling around, but happy fumbling. Rob was so hard and Alex had already come all over his stomach. They had stopped to relax and hold each other after this. Now Alex, in a pinch, took Vaseline and oil and rubbed it over Rob’s swollen cock. Rob knew just what to do, He fitted himself tightly between Alex’s thighs and they glided together, each time Rob moaning in the shock of his pleasure.

“Caress my ass?” Rob begged.

He didn’t have to beg. Thin as Rob looked, he was well built with healthy thighs and buttocks that longed to be stroked, caressed massaged. Alex had already eaten him out. He thrust his finger in the boy’s ass and massaged his asshole.

“Ohhh, fuck!” Rob cried, his dick jumping when Alex did that.

So Alex kept doing it, rubbing his hands up and down Rob’s back, caressing his shoulders, running his hands through his hair, pulling his face down to kiss him, running his hands back down.

“I’m about to…” he began, his voice shallow.

“It’s okay,” Alex said, putting his hand on Rob’s cheek.

“But I’m about to…”

“Do it.”

With a relieved groan, Rob came, and Alex felt the load, hot and thick between his thighs. He kept pressing his dick between Alex’s thighs until everything was spilled out, and Rob came out, the length of his cock red and wet.

They lay side by side, chests heaving, bodies slick, and Rob grinned and looked up at Alex in friendship. The two of them laughed, and suddenly Rob lay on his side and pressed his mouth to Alex’s.

“Do you think we can do this again?” he asked.

“We can do this whenever you want,” Alex told him.

He caught Rob’s hair in his hands and pulled the boy’s face into his chest, wrapping his thighs around him while, on the side of the bed, he fucked Alex harder and harder.

“Almost,” Rob panted, thrusting again, “there.”

Alex ran his hands down the boy’s sweating back, and pulled Rob in. He closed his eyes and clenched his teeth feeling Rob fuck him, feeling Rob deep inside of him.

“I’m gonna come…” Rob warned him.

Alex had already come against his belly a few minutes earlier and now, with the last few thrusts, Rob made a staggering noise and moaned, “Oh—fuck—” as, pulling back from Alex, he came, and then finished coming ,his damp head in Alex’s arms.

Rob rolled over and the two of them lay side by side on the bed, gasping.

When Rob had finally caught his breath, he turned on his side and took the wet cloth from the little table at the end of the bed, wiping his chest, wiping the semen from his stomach while Alex got up and went into the bathroom. Rob waited for the water to finish running and said, “Do you think I should go to college?”

Alex came out and lay on the bed beside him.

“It’s not for everyone. But you could give it a try.”

Alex turned on his side and Rob ran a hand over his chest.

“I love looking at you,” he said.

“I don’t know why,” Alex said.

“You’re amazing.”

“I’m thirty-five.”

“That’s not that old.”

“I know it’s not,” Alex said, brow furrowed. “But it is…. I was your age almost when you were born.”

“Wow,” Rob sat up. “I hadn’t thought about that.”

“Try not to think about it again.”

Rob made a vacant face and made a rewinding gesture with one finger.

“Already forgotten.”

“You should go to college,” Alex said. “For at least a semester.”

Rob squatted on his hams, and because he was beautiful and well built, cream colored with a broad back that went to a firm bottom, Alex got up and wrapped his arms around him as Rob looked over Alex’s books.

“This man looks like you.”

Rob passed the book to Alex.

“That is…” Alex said. “Kind. I met him once.”

Between them they held a large black and white volume called The Immortals.

“He was free. He was the most free man I’d ever known.”

Alex opened the book and they both observed, in sober appreciation, Isaiah Frey, nude in black and white, kneeling before an open refrigerator.

Alex pressed the book to Rob.

“You take it.”

“What?”

“Take it. Go to school. Don’t go to school. I think you should, however. But be free?”

“Will this make me free?” Rob held up the book, offering a half smile.

“Only you can make yourself free,” Alex said. “I think. But… that might help. It’s good to read, sometimes, just so you know that you aren’t the first person feeling all these things. Living this life.”

“This life,” Rob repeated, sounding a little tired.

“Yes,” Alex said, taking the book and placing it beside Rob’s jeans, on the floor.

“Take it with you.

“And now,” Alex said, placing a hand on Rob’s thigh, “there are other ways to be cured of the stresses in this life.”

Alex kissed him and Rob closed his eyes to the warmth of his lips, the firmness of his touch. Slowly, Rob lowered himself over Alex, straddled him.

“And now…” Alex began, “What are you going to do?”

Rob reached under him and took Alex in his hands, stroking him.

“Maybe ride the hell out of you?” Rob said, and looking up at the twenty something year old who looked twenty three with the scruffy partial beard on his jaw and the greenish blue eyes, the red brown curling hair, he immediately went hard.

And then his mouth opened into a small o and his eyes went round as he pulled Alex in. Alex was quiet, his mouth open too.

“That’s,” Rob began as he began to move with Alex in him, “It!”

Rob fucked him like that, pressing his hands against Alex’s chest, and he made them both come together.