Eden

Kenneth and Layla’s friend Logan came to visit. Later, at dinner, Kenny said, “I had someone. I had a relationship with my high school boyfriend for seventeen years. It got to that point where I guess other gay couples start all sorts of gymnastics to stay together, but we broke up. I mean, I broke us up. I told myself I wasn’t afraid to be alone, but I think I was or else we would have ended it earlier. But you shouldn’t be afraid. He found someone else. I thought I would too, and find him soon. I didn’t. Not immediately. Not right away Then there were other relationships,” Kenny said. “But not that boyfriend. Not that soulmate.”

Kenny paused while Logan and Layla were looking at him, then he said, “I think that’s important to say, because people need to stop thinking the happy ending is when you find one person who loves you. Value your friends. Lots of people love you, and you can love so many people. You just have to open your eyes.”

Rob nodded, but Frey, looking from Kenny to the very handsome Logan, broad shouldered, blond, still well muscled though clearly in his forties with touches of silver in his hair, thought, “With friends like that, it should be easy to value them.”

Logan was fun and affable, and sexy, very sexy. He owned his body in a way few did and was clearly not at Saint Clew’s for the religious life. He was here to visit his friends.

“That’s the most beautiful thing in the world,” Anigel said.

“I feel like I know him,” Rob noted. “Like I’ve seen him.”

“Well,” Anigel shrugged, “you are gay, and he is a gay porn star. Is, was,” she looked uncertain. “I’m not sure these days.”

Because Anigel made nothing of it, neither did they.

Whatever Logan was, he came to Vigils like a pro. They sang hymns and read from the Gnostic Gospel of Thomas. Logan yawned, who could blame him? Kenny deftly led him out of the chapel. At Vigils, Frey joined Layla and Anigel. They sang:

“OGod, my God, unto Thee I rise early at dawn.

My soul hath thirsted for Thee;

how often hath my flesh longed after

Thee in a land barren and untrodden

and unwatered. So in the sanctuary

have I appeared before Thee to see

Thy power and Thy glory.

For Thy mercy is better than lives;

my lips shall praise Thee.

So shall I bless Thee in my life,

and in Thy name will I lift up my hands.

As with marrow and fatness let my soul be filled,

and with lips of rejoicing shall my mouth praise

Thee.”

After Vigils, Rob says, follow me. And Frey says, “Just like Jesus said?” and Rob shrugs and says, “Perhaps.”

He goes back to their room and comes back with a heavy blanket, one he gives to Frey, the other he keeps. They go walking out through the foyer into the garden and then to the front gate. They go to the little bridge on the path that is like a shoulder or a long wall looking down on the low green land that stretches to the river. It is a little, almost secret armpit of land between this high ground and the bridge. Rob stops to look, and Frey follows his gaze. Down below, two naked bodies one whiter than the other, are twining like snakes. Men, making love on the grass. Kenny and Logan.

Without a word, Rob moves on, toward the stone bridge, perhaps with greater urgency now. As they cross the bridge and are on the other side, with one more gaze, they both behold Kenny, leg’s wide open, receiving Logan, and though they are aroused they do not feel dirty or offended.

They walk on and on up to the green hills, until they can look down on the monastery, and the moon is low, and the trees are around them, and everything is safe and safe and perfectly safe, and there Rob lays down his blanket and then Frey’s, and Rob undresses. So Frey undresses. And they stand clasping each other and Frey whispers into the warmth of Rob’s shoulder, “I love you too, you know.”

And Rob says. “Let’s stay together.”

Frey nods.

They lay together like an asterisk, arms and legs Xed out, and Frey’s head is between Rob’s legs and Rob’s are between his, they clasp each other’s bodies and feed on one another. Just before the morning light, they both come, shaking as they shoot salt and heat and life and a jet of liquid into each other’s mouth. Sleepy they come together holding each other under the blanket. Over the top of Saint Clew, the sky is pink, and in his mildly country voice, Rob quotes,

“If I remembered Thee on my bed,
at the dawn I meditated on Thee.
For Thou art become my helper;
in the shelter of Thy wings will I rejoice.
My soul hath cleaved after Thee,
Thy right hand hath been quick to help me.

Frey says, “We may be late for breakfast.”

“I could rent the house,” Frey said. “I could just keep renting it.”

“We could rent it,” Rob said. “Like I could actually pay money. Share your life. Or we could go back to Calverton.”

“I don’t know if you’d like Calverton.’

“I’d like it if you were there, and it’s only forty-five minutes away.”

“True enough.’

“And it’s got job opportunities,” Rob said. “But we have to stay together or else it’s no use. If we try to be something to each other and try to live an hour a part, I don’t think that’ll work.’

“No,” Frey shook his head. “It won’t.”

“Or we could stay here,” Rob said. ‘We could stay right here. I mean, why not?”

“We could,” Frey agreed, touching Rob’s hand. “But I want to go back to that little house. That’s our house. That’s where everything started.”

Rob nodded, folding up his shirt to take to the wash.

“Agreed.”

Kenny, looking half asleep with his red hair tousled, peeped into the room, smiling.

“Guys,” he said, and Frey noted that Logan was with him, looking quiet, subdued, hands in pockets, smiley, “There’s someone here to see you.”

“Someone?” Frey said.

“Someones,” Kenny corrected, moving aside.

“What the fuck?” Rob said.

DJ, Javon, a redhead whom Frey briefly remembered as Rob’s brother and a tall, shy, gorgeous almond eyed boy who might have been Arab or Sicilian entered the room.

“I’m Pat,” he tried, offering his hand.

Frey took it and then looked to Rob.

“Pat,” he said.

“Yes..”

Frey looked to Rob.

“Well, then, you all need to talk.”

Rob opened his mouth and Frey said to his nephew, his son, to Josh in his glasses whom he didn’t know at all. “Come on. I’ll show you around.”

Frey did not ask them many questions. The abbey was beautiful enough that there was no need for him to talk and, besides, they had their own questions. And then Anigel arrived with Layla and she could tell them so much more. Josh said, “She’s a poet, you know that? I read your first volume of poetry.”

“But did you read my second?” Layla said with a smirk.

Josh mumbled and went red.

Frey’s experience from being a gay young man was that the questions you were asked had answers that were either trite and unnecessary or potentially embarrassing. That DJ and Javon were staying in the house and Pat and Josh came to look for them, that they all became friends was just fine. It was fine the same way it was fine that Pat had obviously been touching Javon’s hand, and Javon kept looking back distracted the whole time they were talking. This was fine the same way it was fine the first time Frey had passed DJ’s room after Javon had gone to sleep in it, and heard the bed creaking, the stifled sounds of sex between teenaged boys who were supposed to be cousins. Maybe he should have asked so many questions, but it was too late now, and anyway, he didn’t know what the point of those questions was. To stop hurt, to avoid pain, to stop tears. But life was made of hurt and pain and tears. There was no adventure, no juice, no zest without them. Certainly there was no love.

“I do have a question,” DJ said brightly, and Josh was grinning at him and Frey thought, They’ve had sex.

“Why is it called Saint Clew? I mean, I keep seeing statues of Saint Scholastica, but I’ve never even heard of Saint Clew.”

DJ looked around at the others and they shook their heads.

Anigel looked to Kenny, and when she spoke her voice was happy, but it was serious.

“When I first came here, one of the nuns told me about a sister who had left before I came. She was a brilliant artist. Sister Solesme. While she was here she did much of the convent artwork. There was another sister, Sister Saint Agatha, who was an artist as well, but she was a carpenter, a joiner. Together, these two made the place look beautiful. Then, one day, Sister Saint Agatha fell off the roof while she was doing repairs, and she died.”

DJ gasped, and even Rob noticed when Josh caught his hand.

“Sister Solesme left the order that day. She moved to Chicago and came out as a lesbian. She told us later that she and Sister Agatha had been lovers for years. Later, Sister Solesme ended up being Gertrude Joyce, and she was one of Kenny’s art teachers at college. She came here a lot, especially in the days when the last of the nuns were dying. Still does. She stopped calling this place Saint Scholastica and called it what she always called it in her mind, Saint Clew. Because Sister Saint Agatha’s name in life was Jean Clew. And so we call it that now as well.”

ONLY TWO MORE SECTIONS TILL THE END AND, YES, THE NEXT PART OF ROSSFORD IS COMING SOON.