The City of Rossford

“And then what happened?” Casey demanded.

His face was white and his hands were still clutching his stomach.

Sheridan automatically told the lie he had been given.

“And then when I went back for him he was gone.”

“There was only a trail of blood,” Logan threw in, and Sheridan wanted to look at him, ask him why he had to say that. But he didn’t.

“Oh, my God,” Casey murmured, putting his hands to his mouth.

“I never planned that, Loge. You know that.”

“And that really would have mattered if he’d died,” Sheridan muttered.

“Sheridan,” Logan muttered.

“No,” Casey said. “Sheridan’s right.”

“But you saved him,” Chay said to Sheridan.

“I came in at the right time and the right place.”

Casey got up and, still noticeably hurt, walked around the room, his hands massaging his head.

“Okay,” he began. “This is what we’ll do. We… How about you take off for a while and not come back until you’re ready,” he told Logan. “You don’t even have to worry about money.”

“I’m not worried about money,” Logan said in a small voice. He hated the idea that anyone would think of him as poor. And he had just taken home seven hundred dollars.

“Right,” Casey said, sounding distracted. “And then we’ll-”

“What we will do,” Ron interrupted, and they all looked at him, “is what I say.”

Casey looked at him.

“Clearly, you’re out of control over your business,” Ron said. “And, I want to see what Chay does. What you call work. Get up,” he said to his nephew, “and show me this website.”

Ron had pulled a folding chair up to the desk where, in the wheeled office chair, Chay usually wrote the articles for the site. There was a graphic picture of Logan hardfucking Burt Newcastle, whose mouth was open in a mixture of pain and pleasure, his hand reaching behind him to pull Logan in. Ron raised an eyebrow while Chay went red.

His uncle read:

“Burt Newcastle is back, and he’s been in the business for a while. This week we have one of my favorite pairings, a hard body with a bubble butt, and Logan with his sinewy arms and huge cock. I really got hard just anticipating this scene, and I know you will too.”

Ron stopped, looking at Chay.

Ron resumed:

“I love younger-older pairings. I love the way that Logan just really gives it to Burt with all the gusto of a young kid and, of course, Burt’s a long time powerbottom who really knows how to discipline this boy’s young cock.”

Ron finished reading, turned to his nephew and said, “You wrote this?”

“Yessir,” Chay said, quickly.

Ron looked at Casey.

“This is the work you had for my nephew that kept him from harm? This is the watching after you did for my nephew?”

“Well, you have to understand—” Casey began.

“Understand this,” Ron said, turning to Chay. “You’re done. This is finished.”

“You can’t do—” Chay started.

Whatever Chay was realizing, Casey was realizing something too, and he said, “Your uncle’s right. You can’t do this anymore.”

“What will I…? I need to work.”

“Nonsense, you’re fifteen.”

“But what will I do?”

Ron looked at his nephew and said, “You might try reading a book.”

Ron turned around and said to Casey, “I won’t always be here, and I can’t keep you from doing what you and my nephew are doing. And, it’s already done. I can’t undo it though I would if I could. But I’m serious when I say he is no longer under your employ. He can’t be living here. Noah doesn’t know how to say that, and James stays out of the way. But I know how to say everything on my mind, and I don’t care about being in the way. You understand?”

“Yes,” Casey said.

“Well, good.”

“Uh…” Logan began, “About what you said. About me not going back to work until I felt like it?”

Casey turned to him.

“I wanna go back right away.” He turned to Sheridan. “If you don’t mind.”

Sheridan didn’t say anything.

“I’m just going to be afraid if I don’t,” Logan explained. “And that’s the whole reason I went into this. I didn’t want to be afraid.”

“Are you sure?” Casey began, but he knew Logan was. Years ago, when he had been attacked by an overzealous fan, the first thing he had done was blog about it, and the second was to make another film. So he simply accepted it when Logan nodded.

“But about the escorting—” Casey began.

“About the escorting,” Ron echoed, and they all looked at him.

“I almost forgot,” he said.

“I’m going to be supervising that now.”

The phone rang and Fenn picked up quickly, thinking it was Caroline or Brendan, though Brendan shouldn’t have called. It would have just made more sense to come upstairs.

“Hello?”

“Hello, Fenn.”

“Daniel,” Fenn said. “Well, what’s up?”

“I don’t know,” Dan Malloy said. “I thought about coming over.”

Fenn looked up at the clock.

“But I thought I’d just call. And… I don’t know.”

“You sound strange,” Fenn said.

The truth was Fenn wasn’t so much solicitous as he was eager to get off the phone. He was tired now. It had been a long day and yet there were still things to be done.

“Yes,” Dan said, still sounding dreamy and slightly confused. “Well… I don’t know.”

“Dan,” Fenn said, tiredly, “you’re the priest, and I’m the parishioner. You’re supposed to be the one helping me, and I don’t seem like very much help to you. I don’t know why you’re calling or what’s going on. And, quite frankly, it’s been a very frazzling day.”

Dan did not ask about his frazzling day. He just said, “You’ve got a point.”

He just said, “I’m going to get off the phone now.”

Part of Fenn thought he should pursue it, find out how he could help. The other part thought he’d been stretched far enough already, and anyway, Dan had been in a strange mood a while now.

“Alright,” he said, feeling like he had to let Dan go right now. “I’m going to get off the phone. And you have a good night. Don’t do anything foolish or life threatening, alright?”

Dan gave a funny, slightly lazy laugh, and then he said, “Alright. I won’t.”

When Fenn hung the phone up, he thought, After we’re finished with what we’ve got to do, then we might have to drive past the rectory.

After talking to Dan, Fenn called Caroline.

“Hello, Uncle Fenn,” she said merrily.

“I’ve never been called that before. It’s not Layla’s style.”

“I’m on my way,” Caroline told. “Brendan is with me. Are you ready?”

“Very.”

“And is Todd coming?”

“Todd is out of town working on a film. Tom and Lee are on Dylan watch.”

“Well,” Caroline said, “Hopefully, before this night is over, we won’t need a Dylan watch anymore.”

Keith built a fire that night,which he hardly ever did. In seminary they believed that busy hands and busy bodies kept the mind for God. They ran all the time, played sports all the time, chopped wood. Now he was sure it had all been to keep people front wanting sex. It never worked. At least it hadn’t worked for him.

It worked today because Keith didn’t want to think about last night or this morning. It worked because he didn’t want to think of how Dan had looked at him, or parted from him. He had thought, before, that he didn’t want to think about sex. But this is what it was like to really not want to think of it, to really want to stay away from a subject. He didn’t want to think about how he had felt last night, or what he had ruined. He wanted to chop wood and chop wood and keep on chopping.

He had finally put up a roaring fire. He’d gone through the mail. A new priest would be arriving. That was good. Actually everything was good. The truth was Keith had been good and faithful for nearly eight years, until he’d come back here. He had been dodging what he felt right now, which was shame. Attached to the shame was an anger and a disappointment that he couldn’t change, that he fell into the same holes over and over. Well, maybe this was the last straw. Maybe this was what would turn him around so that finally, his heart could belong wholly to God.

When the knock at the door came, he answered it almost dumbly, expecting nothing.

It was snowing out there. A little snow clung to the cold in his friend’s hair. Dan’s mild wide eyes were a washed out blue.

“Can I come in?” Dan asked him.

Keith nodded, and shut the door behind him.

“I knew what I was when I was nineteen,” Dan said.

Before the fire Dan sat all in black, his hands clutching his knees. There was something about the black of a priest that looked poor and sexless Keith observed. It looked weak and frail too. But on Dan it looked sweet. Dan was in his late forties now but his hair, so often ashen, looked golden in this light. He didn’t look like an old or aging man at all.

“I knew, for sure, that I was gay. And that was when I met Fenn. And what we had was so tender. It was so beautiful. I was never afraid or ashamed of it. And then, years later, for a short time, we had it again. And that was that. And since then I haven’t broken my vows. I never felt conflicted about breaking them with Fenn. Never. I remember, to this day, I remember Tom and him had ended and I came to the house and it was summer and he was, I thought, in need of love, and I wanted to love him. And I did. I had been ordained but it didn’t matter, not to me. And it was so good. That’s my memory of lovemaking.

“But us,” Dan looked at Keith.

“I don’t even know what that was.

“But I do,” he said, after a moment. “It was… lust. It was me, after a long time just really, really wanting to be with another man.”

“Is that such a bad thing?” Keith asked him.

“Yes,” Dan said, his hands shaking. “Yes it is. Because it’s what you do. You were supposed to be my friend, Keith. I’ve always tried to understand what you do, why you do it, but I never approved.”

“And now you’re just as bad as me,” Keith said, smiling sharply. “Is that it, Danny? You’re a weak man just like me?”

Dan looked at him for a long time, as if considering this, then he said: “No. no, that’s not it. It’s that somewhere I always thought…” he stopped, unable to go on at first.

“Somewhere I always thought you loved me,” Dan admitted at last. “That one day I would make love again, maybe to you. And we spent last night together, and I don’t know what it was. I don’t know what I am to you. And here I am, and I’m here to do it again. And that scares me. You… used those guys in the movies you were with. You used that seven hundred dollars guy. And then me—”

“That’s not true.”

“It is,” Dan said.

“I know how I always felt about you. I know I wanted what we did. But I also know… I don’t know,” Dan shook his head.

“And like I said,” he continued, “I still want us to keep doing what we did.”

“You’re here to go to bed with me,” Keith said.

“Yes.”

“I told you I came back for you,” Keith told him. “I came to you after all of the stupidness. I didn’t go to… Casey. Or anyone else. I didn’t go to Bryant and God knows the way he is he would have slept with me.”

“How is he?” Dan said.

“Nevermind. The point is… I came to you. I thought you understood that, Dan.”

Dan was quiet for a while, and then he reached out to Keith. Looking at him from the corner of his eye, he said, “Well then, come to me again.”

Keith cleared his throat, and reaching out to catch Dan’s hand, he said: “Alright.”

“Are you sure you want to make another movie right away?”Sheridan was saying.

They were in the large farmhouse kitchen at Casey’s house. Casey was still in the lobby talking to, or rather being talked to, by Ron Lewis.

“Well, I thought I wouldn’t want to make one again at all for a bit, and maybe I won’t,” Logan said. “But after today, I think yes. I think I have to.

“Can I ask you a question?”

Sheridan nodded.

“That hot guy today, that Brendan—”

“You think Brendan is hot?” Chay interrupted. Then, “Well, I guess he is, but I don’t think about it.”

“What is it about him?” Logan asked Sheridan. “He said you didn’t talk to him. You didn’t come to him? He’s gay and he cares about you. Why couldn’t you talk to him about yourself?”

When Sheridan didn’t say anything, Chay said, “I think I know why.”

Sheridan turned and looked at him.

Chay said, “A long time ago Sheridan walked in on Brendan and his boyfriend doing it.”

“It was the first time I saw two guys together,” Sheridan continued for Chay. “It was the first time I understood what it was. It used to turn me on. I used to go after them and watch. When I knew it was going to happen.

“You can’t ever tell,” he added, unnecessarily.

There was a polite knock on her apartment door, and this surprised her because only the landlord would knock. She had no friends. Getting up, she caught her hair in a ponytail, and debated not answering. Then she crossed the carpet and looked out of the narrow window by the side of the door. This told her nothing. There was no eyehole. She sighed as they knocked on the door again.

When she opened it there stood a blond young man in a car coat, a Black woman about thirty with springy hair, and between them a Black man in glasses who was in his late forties. She knew this because she knew him. She remembered him, and it jarred her.

Fenn Houghton walked into her apartment followed by Brendan and Caroline.

“Eileen Wehlan,” he said, “we need to talk.”

Well, we've had one hell of a sunday, and when we return to rossford, we'll be wrapping this story up with one big walloping final chapter that will probably take as a week or so to get through....