The Families in Rossford

COMPANIONS

CONCLUSION

“YOU WEREN’T INTERRUPTING ANYTHING at all,” Kenny told Milo, as his old friend entered the house.

“Well, I didn’t know you had Sean over here.”

“Oh,” Kenny shook his head. “We like each other. He’s going to be a nice friend.”

“That’s it.”

“Really, Miles,” Kenny closed the door behind him. “Isn’t that everything?”

“What a philosophical answer,” his friend said, handing his coat over while Kenny stuck it in the closet.

“Well, I had eighteen years of something more and right now I’m okay with just friends.”

“Did you all at least try to make something happen?”

“Wow, Miles, you’re all up in my shit.”

“But did you?”

“No.” Then Kenny said, “Well, we tried to try. But it wasn’t natural, so I said let’s just be cool.”

“Very mature, Kenneth McGrath.”

“I’d like to think I always am. And now how’s Meredith?”

“Honestly? I think how she is: is tired of us.”

“That’s a lot to happen to you.”

“I think she wants to go back to Chicago, but Uncle Bill is afraid to let her.”

“She sounds like a desperate situation. A husband who left, a baby who died. Two children dependent on her.”

“She does sound like a desperate situation, yes,” Milo agreed. “But she isn’t a desperate situation. Meredith has never been desperate a day in her life.”

“Agreed. And do we know why Max left?”

“I don’t know why Max left,” Milo said, as Sean came out of the kitchen with popcorn and waved at him. “But I think Sheridan and Chay do.”

“Ah, Sheridan,” Kenneth said, coming to the coffee table. He sat on one side of Sean while Milo sat on the other.

“Are you mad at him?” Sean asked.

“For what?”

“For waiting in the wings and then hopping into bed with your ex as soon as you were out of the picture,” Milo said, succinctly.

“Well, when you put it that way…”

“There isn’t another way to put it,” Milo said.

“Look,” Kenneth said. “Me and Bren have been emotionally separated for some time, and we have some shit that needs to be cleared up—”

“Like what you’re going to do with this house.”

“Right,” Kenny allowed.

“But I don’t have a claim on him.”

“Alright,” Milo shrugged.

“And it was me who dated first and had sex first after we broke up. And it was me who started sleeping with—” Kenny coughed on his words.

“Chad,” Sean said, simply.

“Yes,” Kenny said.

“Nothing to be embarrassed about,” the dark haired, dark complexioned man who looked more and more like Brian everyday said. “I was with him at a very different time than you were, and love and intimacy are… very complicated. This whole Sheridan thing just proves it.”

“I guess, but I’m still a little upset.”

“For my sake, Milo?” Kenny said.

“Of course.”

“Brendan’s your friend,” Kenny began.

“Of course he is.”

“Let me finish. He’s your friend, but you used to resent him for what he did to Dena.”

“What did he do?” Sean said.

“That’s a long story,” Kenny spoke before Milo could. “But Brendan was Dena’s boyfriend a very long time ago.”

“It must have been,” Sean commented.

“Go ahead, tell all of it,” Milo allowed.

“Good. I should. Because you’ve never really forgiven him for something that I am to blame for too.”

“You’re not,” Milo disagreed.

“While Brendan was dating Dena we became friends—back in high school,” Kenny told Sean. “We both dated girls, but more and more I was realizing that I wasn’t straight. I used to invite him over to my house and believe I knew what I was going. We’d have normal fun, but we’d also watch dirty movies, get hot and bothered and start fooling with each other. I loved it, but knew he was guilty about it. Then one night he stayed over at my house. We began sleeping together for a while and I thought he was going to break up with Dena. But he decided the decent Christian thing to do was break up with me and go back to her.”

“And then he slept with her,” Milo said. “While I was trying to date her, he slept with her to prove he was straight. He did it for a while too.”

“And then he stopped and eventually we got back together.”

“But he did a lot of fucked up shit.”

“But it was almost twenty years ago, and he was a kid, and I was as wrong to Dena as he was.”

“Yeah,” Milo said, stubbornly. “But you’re my best friend.”

There was a knock at the door, and as Kenny rose to answer it, he said, “See, why can’t you be gay? You’re the most loyal man I know!”

“Like you said, man,” Milo told him, “Love is complicated.”

Kenny answered the door, and before him stood an earnest looking young Black man. He wore a dark parka, and as he removed the hood he turned out to be rather fiercesome looking, like a Malcolm X poster Kenny had once seen in Layla’s house.

“Good evening,” he said. “I was told I could find Sean Babcock here?”

“Yes,” Kenny opened the door, “Come in. Are you friends?”

“We are,” the man said as they came toward the living room, “I’ve come all the way from Michigan for him. My name is—”

“Jonah!” Sean stood up, spilling the popcorn.

Kenny looked from Jonah to Milo. Sean’s face was like someone seeing something terrifying, but… longed for.

“Sean,” Jonah replied with a satisfied smile.

“This isn’t Michigan.”

“No,” Jonah allowed. “And despite what a U.S. map would say, we’re not anywhere close to home.”

Sean began scrabbling to pick up the popcorn, but kept looking up at Jonah eagerly as if, should he lose sight of the young man, he would disappear.

“But how…?” Sean demanded breathlessly. “Why… are you here?”

“Stop being stupid,” Jonah said with a merciful smile.

“I’m here for you.”

“AND NOW IT IS TIME TO SAY GOODBYE,” Pam said, embracing her friend.

“Damn, Lay! I wish you were staying.”

“Well, I kind of wish we were too,” Layla told her. “But now that Will has this new policy about taking me on trips, I’ll be coming back.”

“I hope so. Or don’t even wait for Will. Just get on a plane and come. My place is your place, I swear it.”

“I didn’t even get to see your place.”

“I know! We’ll really rock it out next time. More than we did this time.”

“Is that possible?

“But, really, when I think of Meredith and everyone back home, I’m in a hurry to get back,” Layla admitted.

“But,” she added, “when I think about what we’ve been doing. And… this city…”

“It’s the place, ain’t it?”

“It is so much the place,” Layla agreed.

“Well give me hugs,” Pam stood up. “You’ve got packing to finish.”

Layla stood up and blinked rapidly while Pam said, “Don’t you start. Or I’ll start too!”

“I’m already starting,” Layla told her, wiping an eye with the back of her hand.

She took the elevator up by herself, though, and when she reached the hotel room, she was surprised to see that Will had finished packing and was sitting on the bed watching TV with Liam.

“Hi, Layla,” the little boy said.

She came forward and gave Liam a kiss on the head.

Will looked at Layla. He had cut his hair so that it was a bob and she said, “You look ten years younger and so much more handsome that way.

He smiled at her, looking like the boy who had tried to win her affections back at Saint Barbara’s so long ago, and then said, “We have a problem.”

“Which is?”

“It’s about me,” Liam said, and still kicking his legs beside Will, he continued to watch TV.

“Liam’s parents are dead,” Will whispered out in the hall.

Layla looked down on the streets of London and then up at Will.

“He seems to be taking it awfully well.”

“No,” Will shook his head.

“They’ve been dead. Liam was just around the conference that day. He’s been going to school and basically living on the streets, and then he was at the hall where the conference was, mainly in the library, and we started talking and—”

“You said his father was in the conference.”

“Because I said, ‘So Liam, your dad must be a scientist.’ He just went along with it.”

“Oh, Will! What are we supposed to do?”

“I don’t know. The plane leaves tonight.”

“If we had known this yesterday…”

“I just found out.”

“Uh…” Layla thought. “Let me go talk to Pam.”

“What would she know?”

“She’s on the seedier side of life. She probably knows someone who knows someone or….” Layla waved it away with her hand. “I don’t know. We’ll figure it out.”

“IT’S YOU!”

Logan Banford nodded.

“It’s… what are you doing here?”

“I told you I would come back,” Logan said to Billy. “Can I come in?”

“Why… yes.”

Billy opened the door for the tall, beautiful man, and Logan said, “Don’t even think about getting your wallet. This is for the other day.”

Logan bent forward, and taking Billy by his round face, he kissed him on his mouth. He kissed him a long time while the man trembled.

“Are you alright?” Logan asked him, sensitively.

Billy trembled until he could remember to say, “Yes.”

“Billy, has anyone ever danced for you?”

“No. I mean, yes. I mean... There was this club I went to once. And there was this beautiful boy. He reminds me of you. I gave him some money. His eyes… they promised everything.”

“What was the song?”

“I don’t really remember.”

Logan had found the stereo, and a few moments later music was coming from it, and he said, “Is this music good enough? Is this gonna be alright?”

“Yes,” Billy said. Then remembering himself he said, “Yes, Logan.”

Slowly Logan began to move for him. He began to move around him. He unbuttoned his shirt, and under it was a tee shirt. He took it off, and Billy was mesmerized by the beauty of Logan’s torso. Logan looked like he was dancing for himself, lost in a secret place. Holding the buckle of his belt, dancing in those fitted jeans, it was almost like he pleasured himself. And then he came forward with a smile, straddled Billy, rose up again, undid his belt. He stripped to the snuggest, whitest briefs. Oh that beautiful boy! Oh how could someone this lovely be here for him!

And then Logan drew him up, and began to undress him. He danced and undressed him and, naked together, Logan led Billy to the fur rug on the floor.

“You don’t have to say what you want,” Logan whispered, his voice under the music. “I know how you want it. I can feel it by how your body responds. You don’t have to ask for a thing. Alright?”

Billy couldn’t even talk right now. Logan’s hands and his mouth went all over Billy, causing the man’s body to tremble, causing a tear to rise in his eye, his mouth to tremble. Slowly, the timid man became erect. His penis was like a magnet drawn to Logan. With incredible deftness, Logan slipped the condom on over it, and there was a flash of liquid from a bottle. Gently, expertly, Logan, on his back, thighs raised up, guided Billy inside of him. They both cried out.

“Oh, Jesus!” Logan said. “Oh, Jesus you feel so good. That’s it.”

He wrapped his arms around the little man, and pulled him inside, his strong thighs pulled Billy deep inside and moved him, Billy shuddering, Logan’s mouth parted, eyes open, giving himself over to this feeling, to the depth of Billy inside of him. This was the mystery of what he did. He was a god to so many men, but when he was in his place, when he was giving himself the way he should with the music in his ears, the softness of the rug under his back, and this gentle man between his legs who was gaining the confidence to push into him harder, that man became a god too. As they fucked on the floor, and Billy’s body arched up, beads of sweat forming on his upper lips, appearing on his balding forehead, he struck over and over again at the center of Logan. Billy came and Logan’s body twisted, as he surprised himself by screaming. This was what it was all about, the alchemy that turned men into gods.