Bird Came Down

“Where’ve you been?” Scott said tiredly. He never yelled. The kids were sitting at the kitchen table while he scooped peas onto their plates.

“I was out,” Kim said.

“With him?”

“With him,” Kim answered. “With him. Yes with him.”

“With who, Mommy?” Taylor asked.

“Don’t worry about it,” Scott put his hand on his son’s head.

“Don’t worry about it, baby,” Kim agreed and Scott followed her into the living room.

“Can I talk to you?”

“Sure Scott,” she said, brusquely.

“Are you fucking him?” he demanded.

“Well, I’m certainly not fucking you.”

Scott threw his hands up in the air and screamed.

“What?” Kim demanded, after she had recovered from shock.

He shook his head. “This is impossible.”

“You look so disgusted,” Kim said. “You look so snide.”

“I am disgusted, Kim.”

“You’re disgusted every night. I knew it. I should have known it. I always pretended I didn’t see it.”

“What the fuck are you talking about?”

“If I had a dick you’d fuck me.”

“Shut up!” Scott hissed. “The kids!”

Kim stomped up the stairs, and he followed her.

“You don’t even touch me. You haven’t wanted to touch me in years. If I hadn’t gotten pregnant we wouldn’t even be together.”

“Of course we wouldn’t be together!” Scott exclaimed. “Marrying you was the worst day of my life!”

He closed the door and threw her against the wall.

“Let me go!”

“No!”

“How many people have you fucked since we got married?”

“How many men have you fucked?”

Scott shook his head, frowning at her.

“I’ve never cheated on you.”

“Well, maybe you should start. I’ve been fucking around since before I went down the aisle.”

Scott stepped back from her like he was drunk. He looked to the door, his eyebrows raised.

“Don’t worry. Those kids are yours.”

“We always used condoms. You were on the pill, so…”

Kim shook her head, looking a little triumphant.

“What?” Scott said.

“I wanted you,” she said, shaking her head and looking confused. “I wanted you so bad, Scott. You didn’t want me. I should have walked way. But instead I stopped taking the pill. And then,” she shrugged, “I poked holes in the condoms.”

While the train pulled into the station, Scott typed into his phone.

So glad to wake up with you

He waited for what sarcastic thing Felix would write back. He was surprised when what came back was:

Are you safe? Are you there yet?”

Just driving in.

Don’t kill anyone.

LOL

Then suddenly, Felix typed:

I can’t wait till you get back.

Me neither. Get ready for our date. I gotta get off this phone now.

Be safe

You too.

Then Scott typed:

Love u, Buddy.

He waited a few moments, looking at the blank screen. It was true, but it was noncommittal. Sort of. It was...

Then Felix wrote back.

I love you too, Scott.

The train squealed to a halt and Scott bit his lip, pulling the phone to his chest. He couldn’t stop himself from smiling.

The first man he ever fucked was Heath. He’d been fooling around with guys before, but he finally fucked Heath against his sofa, and when he came, Scott’s eyes flew open with the release, the hot feeling of shooting deep into the abyss of another man.

“I don’t usually do things like this,” he said.

“I don’t either,” Heath began, then he said, “But I have done them.”

“My wife thinks I’m gay so I decided I might as well be,” Scott explained. Then, “Actually, she’s fucking someone else right now. Not that you really want to hear all of this.”

“No, I’ll listen,” Heath told him, sitting up.

“Do you think you’d like to do this again? I mean,” Scott said, hunting for his jeans and picking them up, stretching out his legs to pull them on. “If you liked it? Would you like to do it again?”

“It’s been a long time since I’ve had a boyfriend, and i’m not likely to get one again anytime soon, so yeah,” Heath said. “This is definitely something I could get used to.

Scott was pulling on his tee shirt now and reaching for his jacket.

“That was simple,” he said. You know, around here, church on every corner. Lots of Catholic guilt. You can never tell.”

When Scott was sure Kim was fucking around, it made it easier for him to sneak away and get motel rooms. One night, even though he had been expecting it, the knock on the door still came as a surprise.

Scott’s legs seemed to unfold and stand up of their own accord, and then he came to the door, trembling.

“Hello?” he said on the other side, and then answered it, not wanting to seem crazy.

“Come in,” he said. He stretched out his hand manfully as he opened the door and hoped he didn’t look too eager. “I’m Scott.”

The other young looked around the apartment. It was on loan for the day. Ryan never asked questions. Scott watched this guy lick his lips nervously and Scott was instantly hard. His heart was thumping. He couldn’t really feel the ground beneath him.

“I’m the guy,” he said.

“Cool,” Scott sounded breathless. “That’s what you said.”

“Yeah,” the guy said dumbly.

Scott’s hotel suite consisted of the cozy living room, a breakfast nook with a window threw it and then a short hallway to what should have been a bedroom. He slept on the large futon, that looked like a sofa, and The Guy was looking around, his hands shoved in his pocket.

“So,” he said, “where do we do this?”

Suddenly Scott didn’t want to do this. The breathless excitement was merely on his end, he realized. There was that wonderful surprise sex, often when you’d been talking to a guy for a long time, missing appointments, meaning to get together but not doing so, or maybe just the heat right away that kept relationships going and friendships going long after the sex. In that kind of thing a guy came to the door eager as a puppy and before you had locked his hands were all over you, his tongue in your mouth. You could order sex, but you could not really order passion.

“Over here,” Scott said, sounding smaller. “That couch is a bed. It lets out.”

If this was going to be business, then Scott added, “Did you bring anything?”

“I got a condom. If that’s what you mean.”

“That’s what I meant.”

The Guy asked him, “Do you want me to fuck you?”

Well, just out there, like that.

“Do you want to fuck me?” Scott asked him.

“Yeah,” The Guy said, his voice dull.

Scott sort of hated him right now. Scott said: “All right.”

He undressed slowly, and climbed onto the bed, on hands and knees and arched his back like a cat as The Guy entered him. He realized that here was a good looking young man inside of him, on his birthday, and he hadn’t ordered up a wonderful companion or a friend, or a lover, he had ordered a fuck. and there was no point in being all hurt because that was all this fool was. He felt good in him and Scott was, after all, the master of the house, so he pulled him out and sat on the bed looking over The Guy’s body. His penis was thick in the midst of dark hair going all up the side of his thighs ,spreading to his stomach and chest.

“Sit down,” he told him. and The Guy obeyed.

“Get on your back,” Scott said.

Scott, erect now, was powerful for the first time all day, and he felt sexy for the first time in he didn’t know how long. He was long and slender and blond and somewhat good looking. He knelt down and took The Guy in, deep inside of him, and then he began to ride him, his hands pressed to The Guy’s chest, running over his breast, over his nipples making him moan, feeling the piston throb inside of him shake him, The Guy reached up now and again as their bodies bucked.

And then The Guy’s mouth opened. The Guy kept leaning up, leaning up. He wanted to kiss him. suddenly Scott let him. His tongue was like a whip. It lurched in his mouth and pulled him down. His hand pulled Scott, his body came pressing against Scott’s. Their bodies pressed together and The Guy’s hands were in his hair, demanding. Scott turned over so that the dark haired stranger was on top of him.

Scott put a hand up. For a while went down on The Guy, while moans escaped from the other young man’s mouth. And then he bent down and kissed Scott quickly and went down his belly and took him in his mouth. He shocked Scott, Scott bucked up and down and The Guy lifted his head, looking up at him.

“Are we going to to this?” Scott said. “Are we going to do this properly like two people who don’t have issues?”

“Yeah,” the other guy said, eagerly.

“Alright, then,” Scott lay on his back, he pulled The Guy between his legs. “Alright.”

Scott never knew quite how he felt coming back home from these encounters. The fucking, and then later the being fucked, was exhilarating. But by the time he was home he felt blank—not ashamed—just blank. And then, sleeping alone, he felt more alone, more hopeless than ever before. But the moments of sex were moments of intense freedom and when things had been going on like this for some time Kim simply said:

“I’m pregnant. And it’s not yours.”

Later that night while Scott was talking to Matt, his best friend said: “You need a good divorce attorney.”

Scott was silent, confused. He said: “What about you?”

“Yeah, Scott,” Matt told him, wearily, “That’s what I meant.”