Mercy Is The House of God

Dalton stood naked in the bathroomwith his phone in his hand and checked for the restaurant.

“They’re still serving cheese curds. That should definitely happen. Do you wanna come?”

“I’m exhausted,” Jay said, sitting on the toilet in his dressing gown. Negligently he caressed Dalton’s ass. Sergeant Dalton McBrayer who looked good in a uniform and, Jay confessed, good out of it. But how different he looked in the dark, how different faces and bodies were in the semi light and when they came back into the light there were the imperfections and the shallowness in cheeks, there were the differences in color that made one look wholly different. Dalton had very large slate colored eyes.

“Are you going straight back to Fort Wayne?” Jay asked.

“Tonight!” Dalton whistled. He was always whistling, always moving, as he was pulling his clothes back on.

“And then do you come back here?”

“I don’t know. Not very often. My life is…” Dalton did not look imperturbably happy right now, or tough and whistling and military strong, For a moment he was as he had been in bed, and he said, “My life is very… there’s a lot going on.”

Then he had said. “I wish there wasn’t.”

Jay had gone to school with Sean who was his first gay friend—except Michael, Jay reflected ruefully, really would have been his first gay friend. Sean told him that one night he’d gotten with a guy who had burst into tears in the middle of a blowjob.

“I’m still in love with my ex boyfriend!” he had said while his dick was in Sean’s mouth.

Jay had tried to stop laughing until Sean had burst out laughing himself.

“That shit was not funny at the time,” Sean said. “I tried to be really nice about it. Hell, I was really nice about it. But… Can you believe it?’

Jay could not believe it. When Michael was gone, he was sad and he knew he loved him, but they hadn’t been much of a couple in that last year, and it was in that last year that Jay thought about other men, not other boyfriends, but all the things he’d never known. His whole experience was Michael Cleveland, and this wasn’t entirely fair. After all. Michael had not been a virgin when he’d come to him. It was only a few days before Jay put himself online and he was surprised by what Sean called, “The phenomen of fresh meat”

“Everyone will want you because they’ve never seen you.”

Sean sat beside him at the computer.

“So, what are you looking for Black like you. Black but not like you. A Michael doppelganger. Damn, there’s one…. An Executive. A cokehead, That’s definitely a cokehead.”

Jay nudged him over so he could see his own computer screen.

“If I shop like I’m looking for prime rib I’ll never find someone.”

“What do you want someone for?”

“I’m not entirely sure,” Jay said.

“I don’t want to be in love again. But I also don’t want to not be having sex. I’m not sure if I want dates or not. I’m really not sure.”

“No man on here is sure,” Sean said. “Everyone is a boner with a question mark. Do yourself a favor. Be sure.”

Dalton was the result of many be sures later. He’d shown up on a dark screen and then there was a picture of his plaintive face. Wide eyes, high cheekbones. Before he saw the uniform. Jay had wanted to hold him and tell him everything would be alright. He had a strange desire to shelter him.

“I’m only in town for the night,” Dalton had told him.

That was as well. He could indulge his strange need to protect tall but fragile white boys and move onto something else. Dalton had shown up with a smile, in a peacoat with a bag over his shoulder. He’d said he hadn’t showered and wanted to be clean. Jay sat in his bedroom and listened to shower water before he began to undress slowly and walk down the hall, press the door open. Datlton did what Jay had trained Michael out of years ago, which was shower with the curtain half open, Dalton of the long body that looked like it had been poured from smooth milk saw him and smiled, and Jay stepped in, pulling the curtain shut as Dalton’s arms fell around him, the pressure of his lips pushed on Jay’s, Jay’s mouth opening for his tongue, He closed his eyes and something like weeping went through him. He ran his hands down Dalton’s body, tall and strong, toned as Michael had never been and slick with the shower water that was falling on both of him. He had never been loved by another man before. He was loveable to one man, who was loveable ot him. Jay had never been desirable. This was new. He had wanted the sex and affection of Michael. He’d never understood he wanted sex and affection.

He remembered his mother saying, negligently, that sex was sex, not a big deal at all, and he’d heard, before he’d left them because they irritated him, at the gay student union, boys going on in nasally tones about how guys only wanted sex and sex was so shallow. But they were wrong. This wasn’t shallow at all. Wanting to be held, wanting this wrapping of limbs, this tender kissing, these fingers running up and down turning to hands stroking, massaging, tongues tasting, licking the shell of the ear, sucking the earlobe, tongue licking down the back to the cheeks, to kiss the cheeks to enter the ass, to kiss between thighs, to stroke the cock and make round and firm the sack, the shuddering moans and embraces, no, this was not shallow at all.

“I’m really attracted to you,” Dalton whispered into Jay’s chest. He kissed him and pressed the inside of his hand to Jay’s. “I really want you to fuck me.”

That night in the dark they rocked together and Jay felt like he was riding Dalton into the clouds. They both cried out for the joy of it, and when he came it was like fire, he felt like he was flying out of his body. Back in his flesh, Jay was bunched tight and was squeezing on him, ringing the last of his seed out. They lay in the dark half out of their minds, opening and shutting their eyes until they saw red and orange splotches in the dark, until Dalton rolled over on top of Jay and sheltered Jay’s body with his own hot limbs and hotter kisses.

A message came across his phone one day.

Do you rtemember me. This is Dalton.

He remembered everyone, and he said, “Of course I remember you.” As soon As Jay said he he realized that his life was had been long enough to start forgetting people.

“I’m coming to town tonight. I wondered if you’d like to go to dinner.

That was charming. He had known others since Dalton. There was a man who owned a business in Columbus and drove four hours, breaking road rules to arrive at Jay’s place in the dark. He showered in the bathroom a while and then they made love at two in the morning, and when he came back through town he always said he was on his way. The first picture of him Jay had seen was a his penis measured against a cola can. Jay had been amazed at the girth, and hadn’t had the bullshit in him to pretend he didn’t want to meet him, and so he had, several times. But Dalton was one of the few who said, “Let me take you t dinner.” Charles had said, “Let me take you to dinner,” and he had, but Jay had felt like he was putting up with Charles more than anything. He wanted to see Dalton whose eyes were wide and grey green and whose kisses were full of need and affection, the broad shouldered defender of America who himself looked like he needed protection.

Dalton arrived in his glasses and his uniform, not the ugly fatigues but a proper coat and jacket.

“Is that what you’re wearing?”

“Yes,” Dalton said, emphatically.

“I had better step up my game then.”

He went to change. He hadn’t known Dalton very well, didn’t know how out Dalton was, if Dalton wanted to be seen on a date with a man in his military uniform.

“I had to leave so quickly last time,” Dalton said. He was chewing gum. “I thought it would be nice to show some appreciation. Take you someplace nice.”

Dalton had not asked where Jay wanted to go, and Jay was glad enough of not having to make a decision. They ended up Van Buren House in the middle of downtown and Dalton said, “You order anything you want.”

“You msut be making a great money.”

“I’m in a good place,” Dalton said, cheerily. “I’m in a better place than I’ve ever been.”

In the middle of dinner Jay said, “Dalton, where are you staying tonight?”

“I did get that hotel across the street. Actually, the Army got it for me, so… that’s great.”

Jay nodded. And continued on his lobster.

“I don’t want to presume,” Dalton began.

“Presume what?”

“It’s just,” Dalton said, “If you want to… you could stay with me.”

It was a nice room once Jay had said, “We have to adjust the temperature. It’s entirely too cold in here.”

He preferred his place to any hotel room, and thought it was foolish to stay here when they could be there, but this was new to him and new to Dalton McBrayer. Dalton stood straight backed, looking out of the window, and Jay joined him. Dalton wrapped his arms around him as they looked at the cars of downtown Lassador driving below them.

“I’ve never spent the night with another guy before,” Dalton said. “This is my first time.”

He said, “I’ve never spent the night with anyone.”

He leant down and kissed Jay on the lips.

Jay heard the phone ringing. It had been doing so for some time. This was the first time he’d had a flip phone and not a rotary. Everyone was using them now. Half asleep he thought it was Dalton’s and then, awake, he realized it was his. Dalton, always a heavy sleeper, had not even stirred. He lay naked and splayed on his stomach like a baby, legs apart, arms gripping the pillow, the candlelight in Jay’s room made a soft glow on the hollows of his cheeks, the noble beak of his nose, the slope of his strong back to the hills of his innocent ass. Amidst the hot and rumpled covers, Jay Strickland ran the back of his hand over Dalton’s warm body.

This was many times after the first time they’d spent the night together, and Jay opened the phone and touched the button to retrieve his voice mail.

“High, Jay, this is Kate Cleveland. If you could call me in the morning that would be great. Anytime will work. Have a good night. Sorry to disturb you.’

Kathleen, Michael’s mother. But she seemed alright enough, and Michael’s problems had not been his for some years. As he stroked Dalton, Dalton clutched his hand in his sleep, and his jaws clenched and unclenched. The warmth of Dalton’s hand, and of the covers, the soft roundness of his buttocks, the strength of his body, made Jay’s penis stiffen, and his scrotum tighten. He put the phone down and covered himself in the warmth of the blankets, spooning his body to Dalton’s. They’d make love in the middle of the night and fall asleep again in each other’s arms.