If I Should Fall: The Second Book of Geshichte Falls

ANGELUS

2

When he woke half drowsy and heard the whir of the air conditioner, Russell didn’t ask what time it was. It didn’t matter. This bed was huge and expensive and soft and he lay on his side and Jason’s arms were about his waist. They had been covered in sweat and come and it didn’t matter. The room smelled of sandalwood and Jason’s cologne and his musk and something else that Russell wondered might not be himself. He pressed himself closer to Jason, but Jason was only a little asleep, and he descended beneath the sheets, taking Russell in his mouth. Russell didn’t know how long they lay lazy like that, Jason sucking on him, making the penis Russell had never thought much about a long, hard, real thing with a geography, a central vein to lick, a helmeted head a tongue could round; balls, heavy to hold, to massage, to leisurely suck on, this devil’s road between balls and asshole to be licked and traced, and ass to be licked, to be fingered, to still ache after Jason’s entry. Russell lay in the dark and was serviced by his lover.

Jason didn’t know much more about being with boys than did Russell, but he knew enough, and he knew far more about what went on in bed. Was he doing to Russell what he liked done to him? Jason guided him wordlessly, with hand movements and nudges and finally Russell felt Jason’s thumb and finger massaging him, making his penis hard and curved, longer and heavier than he’d ever known it, and then Russell was inside of Jason. In the darkness they repeated what they had begun. There was a thrill in the timeless beauty of their sex. Far from Breckinridge or Curtain Street, in a part of a large house separate from the rest, in a room beyond a room, in the deepest part of the night, the bed moved with a rhythm, and Jason looked up at him, dark eyes vague and shining, mouth open, his thighs bent to his knees while, kneeling, and then descending, Russell fucked him. This time when he came, the trembling inside rose to a rocket explosion that twisted his body and punched him someplace beneath the guy to he could not stop himself from shouting, and as he collapsed between Jason’s thighs, neither could the other boy.

 

The sun had been up a while before Jason asked if he wanted breakfast, and in return Russell asked what time it was.

“Nine o clock, I think.”

Russell didn’t even pretend to not panic. He was past pretending with Jason.

“My parents aren’t cool like yours,” Russell said. “There’re going to wonder where I am.”

“I don’t know if that makes them not cool,” Jason said, “but I’ll get my phone so you can call them.”

Jason wasn’t wearing any clothes. There was no need for that and even while Jason went to the ante room to get the cordless, Russell’s eyes lingered over his swinging limbs, the dusky brown back, the easy movement of his hips and the up and down swing of his ass. Jason came back, and when Russell took the phone he had the sense to call Chayne rather than Thom and Patti.

“Russ?” Rob picked up. “Oh, good. Chayne said you’d call sooner or later.”

“Are people looking for me?”

“A little,” Rob said. “Here’s Chayne.”

“Russell?” Chayne seemed unconcerned, not exactly like he was looking very hard for Russell, and he explained when Russell asked:

“Your mother didn’t feel bad about calling me at 8:30 in the goddamned morning to ask if you were here, so I didn’t feel bad about telling her you were.”

“Oh!” Russell took a deep breath. “Good. Well, I will be over soon. I’ve been out.”

“I assumed,” Chayne said, voice measured, and he didn’t ask where.

“I guess I’ll be there around noon.”

“Alright,” Chayne said. “Depending upon how comfortable you feel about lying to your parents, you might want to call them before then.”

Jason dressed in shorts and a tee shirt and came back with spicy pastries and puffed dough wrapped about potatoes and meat. There were sour sweet sauces and rice bright with herbs and Russell thought that, even though Jason was half Indian he probably ate Cheerios for breakfast when he ate breakfast all and he was surely showing off. They rolled naan around chicken and rice and stuffed their mouths hungrily, and Jason’s grey green eyes rolled when he said, “I had thought we should do all sorts of things today, go driving and everything, but right now all I wanna do is go back to sleep. Come to think of it, we really didn’t sleep that much. And you said you had to go back to Chayne’s?”

“I will,” Russell said. “Around noon.”

“Do we do something special now,” Jason said. “How’s it going to be with us?”

“I don’t know,” Russell said, licking his fingers. He hadn’t planned that.

“How would you like it to be?”

Russell could still feel Jason inside of him. Naked on the bed, he allowed his penis to rise with the memory of being touched by Jason, being in him.

“It was good how it was. I’d like it to be like that. You and me and Ralph friends, except with nothing weird hanging between us. And I don’t want to lie. I don’t want to pretend that what happened didn’t happen.”

“Is it going to keep happening? I mean?” Jason looked doubtful. “Are you going to come back? Are we like boyfriends now?”

Russell had pushed that question from his mind last night. Last night, walking over here, all he had wanted was Jason’s bed, and whatever came after wasn’t the issue.

“What would you like?” Russell asked.

“I’d like to drive you places,” Jason said. “And I’d like to get on a motorcycle and have you get on it with me and you would put your arms around my waist and put your head to my back and we’d ride through the wind.”

He’d thought that out far more than Russell had. But the idea of wrapping his arms around Jason, pressing his head to his back and speeding down Finnalay Parkway sent a warm wave through him.

“I think that’s what I want too.”

Russell wondered if Jason could even ride a motorcycle, wondered about kissing him on his full mouth again,

Russell could not imagine not telling Chayne the truth of last night. There was so much, and usually so much that wasn’t very good that he told Chayne. He would tell Chayne, but not today. He could not help but tell Gilead. It would fall right out of his mouth. He owed the telling, in a minimal way, to Ralph. He told him everything, and yet he could not phrase telling him this. Telling him of all last night had turned into, of how they slept in each other’s arms, but as the summer sun began to leak past the tight slits of the windows they had begun again, kissing, tasting, not being exhausted of each other. They had fucked and fallen asleep three times before breakfast and each time felt like a new discovery, like a pressing forward into new country. That’s what he wanted to tell Jason, If Jason asked him what he wanted he would tell him that. He would say:

“I always wanted to look at you, but you wouldn’t let me. I always wanted to touch you, but you made me feel strange about it. I always wanted to feel you touch me, but you had made me feel off about that. I want to do all of that. I want to come into the back of this house so we can keep on finding out what we found with each other. And I want us to be friends because we never have been till now. I don’t know what else I want. Except I want to be good. I want to feel like this, like someone who is sexy, who isn’t a scared kid, who knows a thing or two, who is powerful, I want to be that, and I want to be good and I want to be good to you.”

And he had said this by the time Jason had driven him up to 1421 Curtain Street.

“You coming in?” Russell asked.

“Nope,” Jason shook his head. “My mom says guests and boyfriends you just slept with for the first time should always have the sense to know when to leave or else you get sick of them.”

“Your mom said that?”

“Well, she said the first part, but I am smart enough and have done enough to know the second part, so… See you tonight?”

 

“He’s in the kitchen,” said Anigel, who was reading on the sofa.

Russell stooped down to hug her and she gave him a kiss, and then pointed him in the direction of Chayne, apparently absorbed by her book.

Chayne was at his laptop, a gift from Rob, and Rob was at his when Chayne looked up and said, “Coffee’s on the stove. If you want it. Did you call your folks?”

“Yeah. I even said sorry for making them worry. Dad said it was probably his fault cause he knew I’d gone out.”

“Who dropped you off?” Chayne asked, eyes not leaving his work.

“You remember Jason Lorry?”

“The pretty boy from last night?”

“Uh… yeah.”

“He was pretty,” Rob asserted. And then he stopped typing and decided, “I’m going to let the two of you talk.”

“You are a very insightful man, Rob,” Chayne said.

Rob stood up, took his coffee and went down the hall.

“So,” Chayne said, “Jason Lorry?”

“Yeah.”

“You slept him?”

Russell wasn’t sure if his eyes bulged or not.

“Your smell changes,” Chayne said, “after it happens.”

“You’re lying?”

“I am,” Chayne said. “But that’s the lie my mother told me. You and Jason.”

“Yes.”

Chayne nodded.

“Well, what?” Russell said. “Don’t you have anything to say?”

“What am I supposed to say?”

“I dunno,” Russell shook his head.

“We’re supposed to go out tonight.”

“Is that what you want?”

“Yes. I mean. I wanted everything. No one made me do anything. I went to him. I can’t complain. It was… I feel embarrassed for saying this, but it was amazing.”

“Well,” Chayne said. “It’s supposed to be.”

“I feel… different, though.”

“Well, you are different. I mean you aren’t, but you are. You’ve opened a whole new can of worms.”

`    “How old were you?”

“Not sixteen.”

“You think I should have waited.”

“I think,” Chayne finally said, “what’s done is done, and no matter how many times you turn things over, there’s no putting the cat back in the bag. Just… be careful with the cat.”

 

When the tow truck came down the street followed by a red ’72 Duster, Rob hopped up from his desk, and Anigel uncurled herself from the sofa. They both went out to see Jill Barnard in the Duster, and Russell was sure Cody was driving the truck. When he got out, broad shouldered, tee shirt stretching across his chest and jeans clinging to his thighs, Russell was not sure how he felt.

They went out to the porch and Rob said, “If you don’t mind, I’m going to drive Jill back in my restored Duster.”

Chayne agreed.

As Jill came out of the car, swinging Rob’s keys on her finger, he told her his plan and she said, “Make life convenient for Cody, then. You coming, Anigel?”

“I need to go see my sister and the baby.”

“We can go to the hospital,” Rob said, turning to Jill who nodded.

“Alright, hold on. Let m get my purse.”

“You mind if I take Russ around in the truck?” Cody asked

“I’m not his mother,” Chayne told him.

“But, you kind of are,” Cody said.

“Feels like it sometimes.”

“Chayne can come along,” Russell said, and Cody nodded.

“No,” Chayne said. “Chayne can have some solitude, and maybe a nap.”

“But I’m cooking tonight,” Anigel said, as she returned, “so everyone, let’s try to be back around six.

“That okay?” she asked Chayne.

“Anything that involves me not cooking,” he said, “is very okay.”