Bird Came Down

Friends, I'm so glad you came with me and Scott and Felix on this adventure, and how here we all are at the end of this particular story. Thank you so much for being here.

They went to pick the kids up from school, and take them to their grandparents' for the evening.

Scott said, “I hate to go back to the real world.”

“I know you don’t mean your children.”

“No,” Scott said, “I don’t. I mean me more than anything, and the stupid things I do.”

Felix did not ask for him to elaborate, but Scott said, “Please stay with me.”

“I told you I would.”

“I get dumb when you’re not around. I’ve been doing really dumb stuff.”

Yes you said that. And no, I’m not going to ask.

While he drove, he reached down and touched Felix’s hand, warmly.

“We haven’t been together in so long. I just want to hold you tonight.”

“Just?” Felix jested. “All you want to do is hold me?”

Scott shrugged, “Sex isn’t everything.”

“It may not be everything, but it’s a good thing.”

“Like you and me. We’re linked no matter what. Some other people, you can spend all night having sex with them. It doesn’t matter. It’s just empty.”

“What the hell are you talking about?”

Scott looked troubled now, and he shook his head, “Nothing. I’m just talking out loud.”

“Well, we’ll have to go by my place and get some nightclothes and stuff, but yes, I’ll stay with you tonight. Are you sleeping naked or wearing those little Jockeys?”

“I don’t know yet. Maybe halfway through the night I’ll strip.”

“Do you have a single pair of draws that aren’t Jockeys?”

“Nope,” Scott shook his head. “I have brand loyalty.”

As Scott chopped lettuce and Felix tomatoes, the latter said, “Is there anything troubling you? Anything you need to tell me because you’ve been so odd today. Did anything happen to you last night?”

“No,” Scott said, looking levelly at Felix.

Then he said, “I don’t believe in saying everything that’s on my mind. I think some things are for me to live with.”

“Alright,” Felix said.

“You just have to know that even when I make mistakes I love you more than anything, and—oh, shit.”

Scott brought his finger to his mouth, and Felix said, “I’ll get you a bandage.”

He went through Scott’s bedroom and to the little bathroom. There was a glint of gold in the trash can, and years of gathering scraps for art projects made Felix want to fish it out, but he would return for that in a moment. In the kitchen, with peroxide, Neosporin and a bandage, Felix wrapped up Scott’s finger, and Scott smiled down at him and kissed him quickly.

“My golden boy,” Felix said, and went back to the bedroom to change the sheets and make the bed.

He frowned and tossed out the underwear Scott had left in the sheets, and after he had finished making the bed, he picked up the underwear and went looking for the laundry basket. He would have to stay here more. He didn’t even know where Scott kept the hampers. He would have to find the washing machine. He held out the underwear thinking they were drab for Scott, thinking how he had never seen Scott in boxer briefs, but it would be a nice look, and then shrugging as, folding the underwear with the wide band that read: CHAMPION, he went to pick up socks and a tee shirt before stopping in mid bend.

“Scott only wears Jockeys.”

Felix went to the bathroom to reach into the waste basket for the bit of gold which now he knew was a condom rapper. So… Matt… It couldn’t have been anyone else. He nodded and went back to the bedroom to finish making the bed. When he found red hairs on the pillowcases, he decided to change those too. He wasn’t angry. He wasn’t angry. In some ways, remembering his own night, Felix Owens was relieved.

Even before he came out, Felix could smell Scott sizzling the steak, and he called to him.

“I see you standing there,” Scott said, shaking Worcestershire sauce on the steaks.

Felix continued standing there.

“What the fuck?” Scott laughed.

“I love you.”

Scott stopped to lift Felix’s hand and kiss him.

“That’s all I’ve been trying to tell you all day, Owens,” he said.

And the truth was he wasn’t angry, but he was thinking, and unfortunately, Felix could not hide that.

“Your mind has been somewhere else the whole night,” Scott said when they had finished the dishes.

“It has not,” Felix differed. “It’s been right here.”

Towel in hand, Scott looked at Felix.

Felix said, “Tell Matt he left his underwear here last night.”

Scott stiffened.

“Neither one of us is innocent,” Felix said, “but you need to know that I know. And, really, if you want to know anything, where I’ve been, I’ll tell you too. Because I don’t want lies between us.”

Felix went into the newly cleaned bedroom with the clean sheets that Matt had not slept in.

Scott came into the room and stood before him looking nervous, looking like he had the first time he’d kissed him, his hands spread out before him, his shoulders angular under his tee shirt.

“Felix, I will tell you this once and never again.”

Scott frowned.

“That’s a lie. I’m sure I’ll you over and over again. But… there isn’t anyone else but you. Not for me.”

“Matt,” Felix said.

“That was… No,” Scott said. “I love Matt. Like you love Joey. But there isn’t anyone else for me beside you. And if there is someone you love as much as you love me—”

“You mean Ben.”

“I mean anyone.”

“You mean Ben.”

“I mean that I want you to be free,” Scott said.

“To choose between you and him?”

“To choose what you want,” Scott said, “and come back to me with no questions asked.”

“What if it isn’t Ben?” Felix said. “What if Ben is not the issue? What if you don’t make a promise about Matt? What if it is us tonight because we love each other and—?”

Felix had been about to say something about Kevin, little Kevin downstairs whom he was sure would be upstairs and in his bed again, but he only said, “What if it is about us. Tonight? Figuring out tomorrow what comes next?”

“Felix,” Scott said, “I was married to someone else. To a woman. I… you fucking know I’ve been with other guys even since I came back into your life. I don’t have the right to ask you to cut off every other guy but me and pretend you’re my husband.”

“This is some fucking reverse psychology,” Felix said, still fully dressed while Scott stood there in his red Jockeys, “because that is exactly what I want to do.”

“I won’t ask it.”

“I’ll give it.”

“Please don’t promise,” Scott said.

“I will prom—”

“Please,” Scott put a finger over Felix’s lips, “do not promise. Do not swear the rest of your life to me. Just swear tonight, and then let me earn the days and nights that come after.”

Felix wanted to say more. Instead he nodded.

Scott said, “I’ve had wedding cake before. It wasn’t that great. I don’t need you to promise me a fucking marriage or your endless fidelity. Let me earn it. I haven’t earned that yet, Felix. But I will”

“I never really liked cake anyway,” Felix said.

“Great,” Scott said. “Now please take off your clothes. So we can go to bed and look at each other.”

And they did sleep like that, naked before each other, contemplating each others bodies. Felix’s hand ran down Scott’s body and he told him, “I love your hair. Down there. Don’t ever trim that away.”

“I meant to.”

“No, don’t.”

Felix thrust his hands into the thickness of it and he said, “It’s the color of your eyes and I love it. And I love right here,” Felix ran his hands along the seam of Scott’s balls, between his legs, and his finger rested a little in his ass, “This little place, right here.”

He kissed his stomach, and he praised the V under his abs, and he adored the small roundness of Scott’s ass, and the rosy nipples, and Scott said nothing, but ran his fingers over the little roundness of Felix’s belly and the bridge of his nose, delighted in his shaven head and noted, “I think I want you to shave mine again, too.”

His lips played with Felix’s lips and he rolled him over massaging his back, kissing him down and marveling over his ass until, gently, he put his tongue in. And then they tasted and touched each other all through the night, shyly marveling over one another’s bodies. In the dark, while Scott’s body bunched to his, it became Rob’s. While Scott slept by him he was Kevin. Felix tried to banish it, then welcomed it, thought of the boy’s thick hair, running his hands through it. Thought how much love and desire was still in him, how, turning forty, the desire and love was more, not less.

At one time, when Scott got up to get glasses of water, Felix noted that it was three a.m. and was thankful he didn’t have class until late afternoon. It wasn’t until nearly daybreak, holding each other, Scott’s penis shuttling over his that Felix gave a strangled cry and came. In the middle of it Scott cried out and, shaking, he came as well.

They were too tired to move. For the longest time Felix thought one of them might, but they fell asleep. Felix passed into one of those dreams that come in the sleep land after orgasm, and he woke up with Scott drooling a little bit, holding onto him with a football player’s grip.

“Whaaa?” Scott murmured.

He felt that same strange sensation of safety he had known when Scott had caught his hand, and kept him from falling on the beach yesterday. He said, “I dreamed about you.”

“Huh?” Scott replied, still not truly awake.

“A bird came down and caught me, and it was pulling me away, but you caught me and pulled me back. The bird almost got you too. It was almost strong enough to pull us both away. But you wouldn’t let go. And then I woke up, and I was in your arms.”

“That’s a big ass bird.”

“Are you even paying attention?”

Felix rolled around, but Scott did not, his arms only lowering to circle Felix’s waist.

“Yes,” Scott said, opening his eyes this time, “and that’s a really fucked up dream, and I want a half hour more of sleep before I go to Mom and Dad’s to get the kids.”

Felix looked down affectionately at his grouchy lover’s hands linked about his waist and he said, “If a giant bird came down, you’d hold onto me, right?”

“Please shut the fuck up,” Scott said, feigning sleep as he pulled Felix closer to him and pushed his head into the other man’s back.

As Felix resituated himself in Scott’s arms, Scott cleared his throat and said, “It would have to be at least… three birds against me before my grip loosened. And then I would just call in Joey for reinforcement. Together you know we’ve got you.”

Felix Owens, who had trusted once, and had such a hard time trusting again, surrendered with a sigh so deep Scott felt his lover’s body slackening. In the end you had to let go. You had to trust someone. You had to know.

“Yes,” Felix knew, “you’ve always got me.”

“And you’ve got me,” Scott said. “So can we stop talking about birds and go back to sleep?”

But Felix was already snoring.

T H E   E N D