The Book of the Blue House

The next morning as grey light came through the window, Conn stirred and looked over Gabriel’s beautiful body.

He said with reluctance, “I should go back. Derek will…”

Without opening his eyes, Gabriel shook his head.

“Derek and Cal have not been together. They needed their night. They are together, You stay with me.”

Again, Conn was surprised, but not saddened, and happier than he understood to be in Gabriel’s arms. Later they would take breakfast and Gabriel would patiently explain what Conn had, being ordained and living in this house nearly two years, known of but forgotten.

“The Ogdode. Derek as your primary, Matteo as your secondary, me as your tertiary. And, of course, you are Derek’s primary, you are Matteo’s secondary, and I suppose you are my tertiary.”

“I know of Cal, but…. Lorne?” Conn guessed.

“Lorne is not in an ogdode,” Gabriel shook his head. “Lorne does as he pleases.”

“Then…” Conn guessed, “Quinton?”

“Yes.”

“Then the six of us…”

“Are a family, a marriage,” Gabriel said. “And there are others, sometimes, like Lorne or Brian. How could it be otherwise, we being what we are? But we are the Ogdode.”

“Does Derek understand it?” Conn wondered. He was about to say that he barely understood it, but he did. He loved Gabriel, truly he loved him and was looking forward to growing in this relationship. He longed to stay in this bed with him, but also to share secret jokes, to learn each others stories, to learn from the greatest young scholar in the temple and grow in that direction with him. He yearned for his life with Gabriel to begin as he yearned for his life with Matteo and Derek to continue.

“In his mind,” Gabriel said, “and he begins to understand in his heart.”

Conn nodded.

“I love Derek. I would stand beside him at all times.”

“And he wishes you stood at his side at all times, as only his, and I wish, frankly, that you had been at my side long before now. But both of these wishes are futile. The ogdode is the school of love, and the six of us will learn in it.”

“I used to be afraid for you,” Derek said. “There was a time when I was so nervous and afraid. Maybe you remember.”

Derek was in a chair at the kitchen table, and Conn was dipping his razor into water, and then lifting it to scrape cream away from Derek’s face and watching the small black hairs swirl with the soap into the water.

“There’s a great deal I remember,” Conn said.

“I was so afraid that if you entered into this life you would lose a part of yourself, and maybe I would lose that part too.”

Conn turned back Derek’s ear and cleanly shaved him there, scraped what was left under his chin.

“What do you think now?” Conn asked him.

“I think,” Derek said, while Conn came to the other side of his face, “that I was foolish. That I underestimated you. That I underestimated us.”

And then Derek added, “But you are silent. You say nothing. What do you think?”

Conn did not speak until he had finished, until he wet the cloth he kept in the hot box and, gesturing for Derek to lean back, placed it on his face and neck. Derek sighed under the rising steam and it was only when Conn massaged his face that he spoke.

“I think you were right to worry,” he said. “I honestly worry sometimes myself. The truth is, I don’t know who I was before I came here, and I don’t always know who I am now, and sometimes I am afraid I’ll lose myself.”

Conn lifted the cloth from Derek’s face.

“Things would be so much easier if we were normal people. In the south it’s normal for men and men to be together, or more normal than in the north. What if you were just a boy and I was just a boy and we only had each other. As it seemed like it was at the beginning, as we tried to make it seem even though that was never true. I love Matt. And… I love Gabriel.”

“You don’t have to whisper it,” Derek said.

“I love them, but I am afraid that we will lose us.”

Conn was about to walk to the sink when Derek caught his hand and pulled him back.

“That was my fear once too,” Derek said.

Then he said, “Did I ever tell you Gabriel was my first?”

“First?”

“First…. Not just Blue, but first anyone. I was so scared. I knew nothing, and he was so gentle and good. You did well to choose him, and it was well that he chose you. I knew from the beginning. He stood aside and waited for us to have our time, but your heart is big. I believe it can fit us all.”

“Sometimes I’m afraid it’s so big I’ll be lost in it.”

“I won’t let you be lost.”

Derek stood up and slapped the stinging alcohol on his cheeks and then gestured for Conn to sit down in the chair.

“Now it is time for me to serve you.”

When we return we will begin the last chapter of our adventure in the blue house.