F I V E
“I want us, whatever we are right now. Us. Like we were, always coming back to each other.”
-Sheridan Klasko
“Do you ever wish we lived here?” Sheridan said as they came up State Parkway. Only a few cars passed tonight, and on either side of them, out of the dark, Christmas lights lined the brick townhouses and the lower levels of stylish apartment buildings.
“No,” Brendan said, honestly.
“Look at that stone porch,” Sheridan nodded casually.
“All I see,” Brendan said, “is something we can’t afford, and other things we don’t need.”
A moment later, as they were approaching the townhouse where Casey and Chay lived, Brendan said, “I think I used to want this. I think I used to be jealous of it. But I love what we have. If I could live anywhere else it would be near Lance and Elias and Dylan.”
They came up the steps and Brendan rang the doorbell. It bonged inside the house, and Sheridan squeezed Brendan’s hand and said, “I love what we have too.”
“Oh, you guys are here!” Casey opened the door, and Brendan was surprised when Casey hugged him warmly and brought him into the foyer, and then he embraced Sheridan and let him in as well.
But Brendan, looking around, could already sense something and when Chay came and said, “Let me get your coat, Bren,” Brendan said, “Where’s everybody else?”
“Everybody else?”
“Are we early?” Sheridan said, while Casey took his coat.
“What are you guys talking about?”
But Brendan had assessed the situation. This was an intimate party among friends and Brendan shook his head saying, “Nothing, Casey, absolutely nothing.”
They came into the large living room, and Casey said, “Where in the world is that Logan?”
But it was Ruthven Meradan sitting on the couch with Jonathan Turner, and Brendan couldn’t help but think they had both been with Kenny. Hell, he had come to his house five years ago, walking into his bedroom only see Ruthven fucking Kenny. Then there was some beautiful Arab looking guy Brendan didn’t know, and this one said, “He’s making drinks.”
“He certainly is,” Logan agreed, coming down the hall, and through the living room. He handed first Sheridan and then Brendan a Brandy Alexander, warm and chocolatey in a tall glass, frothy, and surprised Brendan by kissing him on the cheek the same way he kissed Sheridan.
“Now we’re all here,” Logan said. “All the important people.”
The name of the beautiful brown skinned man was Samir Jodorowsky and Brendan simply waited to find out what in the world was his story. He did not have to wait long, for he had that quality many, but certainly not all gay men had, of openness and charm nearly to the point of flirtation.
“My mother’s family is from Syria,” he said, “but my father’s family is French, but—as you can guess by the name—originally from Poland. So, international. I’m not international. They’re international. I’m just a mutt. Like any other American.”
Then Samir added, “Only I’m an American who has been put on a no fly list a couple of times and called a towel head which is ridiculous because why you would you put a towel on a head of hair like this?”
“Samir is the hottest thing in porn,” Logan said while pouring more butter onto the popcorn that Jonathan said already had enough.
“There’s always room for more butter,” Logan said, pushing it aside while Samir said, “I hate to sound like that asshole….”
“Then don’t sound like that asshole.”
“But I will because speaking of asshole I’m about to shoot something on Monday, and all that butter is going to make my ass bigger than it is.”
“I think your ass is just big enough,” Logan said, resting a hand on it.
“Just big enough,” Samir agreed, not removing the hand, “And we don’t need it to get any bigger.”
Brendan was enjoying himself, feeling pleasantly buzzed after two Brandy Alexanders, (Brandies Alexander? he wondered) and now, on his way to straight brandy. He had discovered that he didn’t have to say anything, only smile sometimes, and this is all he wanted to do.
“What is this playing in the background?” Sheridan wondered.
“Some bullshit,” said Chay, whose head was rested comfortably on his old friend’s shoulder.
“I feel like I’m in a church I don’t want to be in,” Sheridan said.
“There’s no church you want to be in,” Logan returned, and Ruthven was the first to laugh.
“I think church is greatly overrated,” Samir stated. He frowned and added, “And so is this music.”
“Alright, already,” Casey said, and only now did Brendan realize Casey’s arm was draped over him, had been the entire night.
“Irma,” he shouted to the speaker, “give us Nirvana!”
“You named it Irma?” Jonathan said.
“That is so futuristic,” Ruthven said as the drums kicked off the beginning of “Smells Like Teen Spirit”.
“Not anymore,” Casey said. “Now it’s distinctly unfuturistic. In fact. It’s 1992.”
It was well into the night, and they were all close and comfortable when Casey said, “I hadn’t planned to be this drunk. I don’t want to be quite this drunk.”
“I’ll make us some coffee,” Brendan suggested.
“Do you know where it is?” Casey asked, hopeful.
Brendan admitted that he did not.
Casey smiled at him affectionately, and Jonathan said, “I will go get the coffee.”
“I’ll be of assistance,” Chay said.
“No,” Samir said rising, and frankly watching Jonathan’s ass, “I will.”
While the coffee was being made, and Samir was coming out with cups, Brendan said, “I realized tonight that I’d always been jealous of you, and that’s why I’d been so standoffish.”
“You’re not standoffish, Bren,” Logan said. “You’re the best.”
“And you have a really nice ass,” Ruthven added.
When Logan frowned at Ruthven, Ruthven said, “But what? It is nice. Bren’s always been a looker.”
Brendan laughed, more flattered than he wanted to admit. He was close to telling Ruthven how good he looked to when Casey spoke.
“I thought you hated me sometimes,” Casey admitted. “But that’s cause you have done good stuff.”
“No I haven’t.”
“No,” Logan agreed. You really have. And…. I feel like we need to stop talking because there is so much that has happened between us. We might say stuff we shouldn’t because we’re so wasted.”
Briefly Brendan’s mind passed the memory of Sheridan, seventeen, killing that man for Logan. Him and Lee and Fenn showing up to clean the whole mess up. Brendan nodded as Samir and Jonathan came out with the coffee service and, methodically, Ruthven began to take out rolling papers and a bag of a marijuana.
“We can’t do that!” Sheridan protested. “Not with Brendan.”
“Wha?” Brendan said, giggling as Samir poured him coffee and he said, “Thank you, Samir.”
“Brendan doesn’t smoke,” Sheridan began, “anything.”
“How could you say that?” Brendan demanded, sounded both amused and offended. While Ruthven and Chay set to rolling joints, Casey and Chay looked on.
“Because I’ve never seen you smoke anything.”
“I’ve smoked Marlboros for ten years,” Brendan said suddenly. “I keep them under my writing desk.”
Sheridan blinked at him in shock.
“It’s you who don’t smoke.”
“I smoke Camels,” Sheridan said. “I keep them in my squad car.”
“Why the fuck don’t we know this about each other?” Brendan wondered.
“You smoke weed too?” Sheridan said.
“Once,” Brendan said. “Once or twice. But now I want to. Now I want to start doing everything I’ve been so afraid of.”
Samir took a deep hit and then another and passed it to Brendan.
“Do you smoke it like a cigarette?” Brendan asked while Samir was holding it in his lungs and the pungent smoke was leaking from his nose.
Samir had not answered, Brendan only imitated him.
“That’s how you do it,” Samir said, smiling. The smoke was leaking from Brendan’s nose.
“My fucking lips are numb,” Brendan laughed.
He didn’t feel especially high, just mellow. He had wondered what Casey meant by saying he didn’t want to feel this drunk and then pulling out weed, but this was different, cleaner than being drunk, and all of his senses felt turned on at the same time he felt mellow. Samir was blowing smoke into Ruthven’s mouth, and the smoke was coming back out of Ruthven’s nostrils, Sheridan’s hand was comfortably on his thigh and his arm around him, and everything felt right. Ruthven was frankly making out with Samir and then Jonathan, and then Samir was making out with Jonathan while, appreciating, Ruthven watched. How did Logan feel about that? Hadn’t they been… but no, these folks were more open minded about that kind of thing. And where was Logan, anyway? And Sheridan was looking half asleep between Chay and Casey and Casey looked like he was going to cry, like he was so moved while he stroked Sheridan’s head against his breast.
But… Brendan wondered, blowing smoke into Sheridan’s mouth while Sheridan stroked his thigh, if Sheridan was with Casey, then how could Sheridan be with him, and then he felt so stupid, because it was Logan he was shotgunning, and Logan who kissed him.
He looked across the room where Samir was being kissed by Ruthven, then Jonathan, and now Jonathan was pulling up Samir’s shirt. Casey’s eyes were shining with unshed tears.
“I never knew we loved each other this much,” Sheridan said, and though his head was still on Casey’s chest, his eyes were open and he was looking at Brendan kissing Logan as if it were nothing at all, or as if the something it was did not diminish him. Across the room, his bobbing brown cock thick as a baby’s arm, Samir now stood naked while Ruthven, shirtless, wrapped his arms about him, kissing him and Jonathan, on hands and knees, buried his face in the bronze man’s ass.
“I’ve always thought the world of you,” Logan said. “Since that day you showed up in your shirt and tie, so dignified and helped Sheridan. Helped us both. When he went to you, I knew you were what he deserved.”
“He deserved you too,” Brendan said. “He still does.”
And then Brendan stood up. And he was so stiff and so hard, that he loosened his trousers and then pulled down his briefs and he pushed his cock into Logan’s open mouth, and Logan pulled on him so sweetly, and he heard, behind him, Sheridan say, “Yes, Bren,” and he was aware that he’d wanted something like this all night, and then he sank to the couch, closing his eyes while Logan went to his knees, sucking him. For some time he wasn’t aware of what everyone else was doing, only that they were not watching him, that he was not the star of this show anymore than he was watching them. When he finally did open his eyes, when he was half dressed with Logan, he looked around and the room was empty.
Logan said nothing, but led him upstairs. In that room, Logan undressed him and they were on the bed, Logan sucking him, licking him, massaging him. Logan saying, “Fuck my face now.” And so Brendan did fuck his face on the edge of the bed, a thing he’d never done, and it felt so good to plunge his dick into someone’s mouth while they sucked on it, to rub his own body the same time he rubbed Logan’s, to tease his own nipples and then, when he slid across that same face, and Logan licked his balls, and the place between his balls and his ass and finally darted his tongue deep into his asshole. As Brendan slid across him on hands and knees calling out, he was dimly aware that the door was open, that Sheridan had seen him, and that, as Logan, under him, said, “Fuck me now.” he would.
When Brendan woke up and pushed himself from the bed it was not because he wanted to leave, but because the whimpering sound was familiar. He knew the voice. It came out of his childhood. Right now he felt so good, perhaps better than he’d ever felt before, lying close to Logan, the other man’s legs twisted with his. He pulled himself away from him, trying not to wake the man he realized had always been his doppelganger, the other lover, the one who was exciting and wicked.
But now I am exciting and wicked… I… Brendan could not make himself think about what he had done just a few hours ago. It was like the first time he’d been with Kenny, suddenly taking his pants down, suddenly reacting to his lust before he could reject it. Though he could not phrase it, he saw himself, unloosening his trousers, taking down his snug black underwear, pushing his bopping cock into Logan’s mouth, felt the pleasure of being that person again, the person he never was, felt the pleasure of Logan’s tongue on him, the sucking of his mouth, the intimate attention of someone he had always scorned because, on some level he scorned the version of himself doing this, living in this night.
Now Brendan moved out of the dark room where Logan still slept crossing the half lit hallway, coming out of his drunkenness and his high to understand, as he stood in this bedroom, lit by the red and yellow and green pinpricks of Christmas tree lights that the whimpering was familiar because he’d first heard it when Sheridan was just a little boy and Will was away, and now here was Sheridan, but it was a whimper of pleasure, perhaps. He accepted without question that there was a Christmas tree in this room. It’s warm light shone on Sheridan splayed eagle, crucified, the side of his face pressed against the mattress while Casey fucked him, and Bren watched, his own penis rising again while Casey’s muscles bunched and unbunched and the cords of his neck strained. Sweat covered both of them, and they both seemed to be crying. Brendan wanted to cry. He felt afraid for both of them, sick and sad, but not exactly sure why. Something had died. Something was dying here. Casey’s eyes opened, shining on Brendan, and Sheridan was looking at Brendan who was standing there, hard and naked and covered in Logan. Brendan sat on the edge of the bed and he clasped Sheridan’s hand and Sheridan’s hand tightened in his while Casey fucked him. It was if the three of them were moving together and Brendan bent to kiss Sheridan on the cheek, and even though Casey was deep in this fucking, there was a pleading look on Casey’s face, so that Brendan kissed him too.
Only now did he realize Chay was on the other side of the bed, his face solemn, and Brendan rose, releasing Sheridan’s hand and going back to the room where he slept with Logan. Feet padded behind him, Chay’s feet.
“Tonight everything will happen,” Chay said as they came back into the room where Logan was sprawled out in the middle of the bed, asleep. Brendan was terrified. He felt, suddenly, very alone. Not the married man, but this man, whatever type of man this was. He had always been the good guy. This was not the good guy.
“Brendan,” Chay said in a pleading tone. Brendan hadn’t even noticed until now that Chay was naked too. Chay climbed onto the bed beside Logan. For a moment, Brendan thought he would climb on the other, but he climbed on the same side as Chay, aware of how hard they both were. His terror gave way to deep sorrow, and in Chay’s arms, Chay’s mouth pressed to him, Chay’s firm erection pressing to his own, the sorrow turned into yearning, into comfort, into…. This, their bodies moving together to find sleep, but in the end finding, at the same time Casey and Sheridan did across the hall, a climax that pulled itself from his body, bunching his muscles, clenching his jaws to sacred silence as, helplessly, he spilled, and spilled, desire, lust, tenderness, need and love all over Chay’s body.
