The Houses in Rossford

“Aw, yeah, and this sweet thing is fine. No butch in her,” Tara said. “She looks a little bit like Jessica Alba.”

“You running around with a Mexican now?”

“I don’t know what the fuck she is. But what I do know is she is nice.”

The phone rang, and before Fenn could get up Todd came into the kitchen and picked it up.

“Why don ‘t yawl invest in cell phones?”

“Because then you could reach me anytime.”

Todd said, “All right. I’ll be there. Hold on.”

“What’s wrong?” Fenn looked up as Todd hung up the phone.

“It’s Dena. She’s in jail.”

“I told them I wasn’t pressing charges,” Kenny said, pressing the ice to his face. “But they said she had to stay down here until an adult came.”

“First she called me,” Milo explained. “But I wasn’t enough.”

“Dena,” Todd turned her.

“Don’t Dena me.”

“Apologize at least.”

Dena turned away from all of them.

“Dena,” Todd gripped his niece’s arm. “Apologize. Apologize now.”

She took a deep breath, turned around and said, “I’m sorry they wrestled me off of you before I was finished.”

“I can’t believe you didn’t tell me you were friends with Kenny,” Dena said.

“And I can’t believe you were boffing Brendan.”

“You were what?” Todd turned to her.

“You didn’t know?” Milo said from the backseat.

“It doesn’t matter.”

“Young lady, if you’re having sex it does matter,” Todd said.

“Oh, God, shoot me, Todd!” She wanted to say: You were banging my dad when you were far younger than me,but she knew that wouldn’t do.

“Besides, nothing’s happening now.”

“All I knew was Brendan said he was gay. I didn’t know about… that. Deenie!”

“Todd, please don’t Deenie me. And whatever you do, don’t tell Mom.”

“God, no.”

“Everything’s so messed up right now,” Dena said.

“Kenny is my friend,” Milo insisted. “I guess it happened the same time you and Brendan started up. Neither one of us had anyone. You really hot potato dropped me, Dena.”

“I didn’t.”

“Dena, let me interrupt,” Todd said.

She turned to him, woebegone.

“This is not the time to insist on your innocence.”

Dena was silent and Milo said, “You did. And me and Kenny just sort of became friends. Then a few weeks ago he told me the whole truth.”

“Everything’s so messed up,” Dena repeated. “Brendan was always my friend. I always loved him. Now I hate him.”

“You don’t hate him, Deen,” Todd said.

“Yes, Todd. Yes I do. And Layla hates me. And she’s not talking to Will, and I haven’t been talking to Milo and… ”

“And you punched out Kenny.”

“Yes. But… he and Brendan… He knows what he did to me.” She shook her head, angrily. “I can’t be sorry for that part, Miles. I’m not.”

“Well, looks like we’ve made it," Kirk said, smiling. “To the second date at least.”

“Yeah,” Paul said. He looked around the interior of the car.

“Say, now that the Jeep is mine I better pick you up next time.”

“So there will be a next time?”

“Oh, yeah,” Paul said with a small smile. “There’s gonna be a next time.”

“Well, you know what they say about the third date.”

“An angel gets his wings?”

Kirk snorted.

“No, and never mind. I was being crude. I like things the way they are.”

“Oh,” Paul said. Then, “You know what? I hardly date. Yes, that is what’s supposed to happen on the third date.”

“Well, that’s what straight people say. I don’t mind it happening on the first date, only then there usually isn’t a second date. I… ah… I’d like to have lots of dates with you.”

“I like you, Kirk.”

You say it like you just found that out.”

“I dunno,” Paul shrugged. “Maybe I did.”

“I think we could be good,” Kirk agreed. “Maybe… get a house together one day, raise two Korean kids.”

“Just stop!”

“Mee-Ling and Shoo-shing! They’ll both have glasses and be really really smart. And grateful. But Shoo-shing—he’s the boy—will have a glandular problem and be a little tubby. It won’t matter to us, we’ll be so gay and grateful.”

“Kirk, you’re really too much.”

“I think I’m not enough. Give me a kiss, Paul.”

A shudder went down Paul. It was short and powerful in his stomach, rocking his groin, leaving his whole body shaking a little. He hadn’t expected to be weak kneed at that.

He leaned in.

“Sure,” he whispered.

And in the driver’s seat, Kirk took his face, and pressed his lips to Paul’s.

“That’s nice,” he murmured, kissing Paul’s lips lightly again. “Now what else can I do for you?”

“Oh shit! Oh, God! Yeah. Yeah. That’s it. Fuck me. Fuck me harder now! Don’t stop!

Paul, on his hands and knees, gasped and moaned as he put his ass up to be fucked harder and harder, and sweat dripped from his face. He let his knees buckle and squeezed his buttocks together, reaching behind him, to the strong back, to the small of the back, to the firm ass, smelling the mixture of sweat and expensive cologne.

“Fuck me. Keep fucking me harder!” he cried.

“I’ll fuck you,” he murmured. “I’ll fuck you all night long. I’ll—”

But he couldn’t make good on that. At the same time Paul’s body seized, and he came, they both came and Paul heard the long shout from behind. Then their bodies separated.

Laying on his stomach, shivering and hot, feeling sweat dry on him, Paul felt a large firm hand on his hair, tender, on his shoulder now, going down the small of his back, caressing his ass.

Brian Babcock pressed his body to Paul’s and murmured, satisfied, “That was good.”

Paul lay on his side so Brian could spoon him and nodded in agreement, groaning with a primal pleasure.

“It was damn good,” he said. “You’re too good, Brian.”

They lay like that for a long time, Brian’s hand on Paul’s stomach, moving up and down.

“Would you like to stay the night? See if we can go into a second round?”

“Maybe a third?” Paul whispered.

Brian chuckled, sleepily.

“Maybe a third,” he agreed.

“I’d like that,” Paul told him. “I’d like that a lot.”

“So Paul,” Tara said, swinging, her legs wide apart, “I hear you took a page out of my notebook last night.”

“What?” he said, as they crossed the stage.

“This new Kirk. I heard you went out with him and didn’t come home till the sun came up! Um?”

“Oh, it wasn’t like that.”

“Really?”

“Yeah, really, Tara,” Paul said, suddenly figgity. “Look, I’d love to talk, but… Can we talk later?”

“Sure thing,” she murmured as he walked down the narrow corridor toward the offices and the old lounge.

“White dudes always play prim and proper,” she muttered. “But yawl the nastiest motherfuckers around. Yes sir!”

“Paul!” Brian said, running into him down the hall.

Paul blinked.

“Yeah. Yes?”

“Uh… I wanted to know,” he frowned. “Would you be free for… say, lunch? Or something like that?”

“Not really. I… have something with someone.”

“Oh.”

And then Paul said, “I’m sort of seeing someone.”

“Oh,” Brian said. He nodded, and then turned around. He’d gone five stylish steps down the hall when he turned around, came back and said, “Well then could you tell me what the hell last night was? If you’re… sort of seeing someone?”

“Last night… Was like the night after the play. And the other nights. It was… what it was.”

“What it was?” Brian repeated. “All right, then.”

“Do you have a problem with that?” said Paul. “I thought you liked what it was?”

“No problems,” Brian said, tonelessly. “What it is… is just fine.”

Paul thought about offering his hand to shake, but then decided that would probably be too much. And it didn’t really matter because by then, with a considerably straighter walk, Brian had already gone down the hall.

When Todd opened the front door he saw the Kirk he had heard about for days for the first time.

“Is Paul in?”

“No. Fenn—Fenn’s my partner—”

“Yeah,” Kirk smiled wistfully, “I’ve heard about him.”

“He’s got Paul managing some big project at the theatre. You know, once Fenn dreams about something he dreams big. He’s got all these plans. I… uh… I’d offer you Paul’s cell but you probably have it,” Todd shrugged. “And I don’t know it anyway.”

“Thanks, anyway,” Kirk said.

“Would you like to come in?”

“No—yes,” Kirk said. “Yes, I would love to see the place where Paul hangs his hat. Or would hang his hat if he wore hats.”

Todd grinned and ushered Kirk in.

“You want something to drink?”

“No, that’s alright.”

Kirk looked around.

“This is a really nice place,” he said. “This is like… what I would like to have one day.”

“Whatcha got now?”

“Just an apartment. You know, in that complex off of Birmingham.”

“Meadowlark?”

“Yeah. Near the mall and all those office-plexes.”

“Looks sort of posh. For Rossford, you know.”

“It’s sort of really expensive,” is what Kirk said.

“So… You guys just all live here together? That is so neat.”

“Yeah,” Todd said, feeling a duty to build Paul up in front of his new boyfriend.

“Paul could live wherever he wanted, but we both wanted him to stay around, so he agreed. I guess… if things get more serious between you and him—”

Kirk waved that off with a grin and jammed his hands in his pocket. He reminded Todd vague of Tom Mesda.

“We’re not quite there yet.”

Todd raised an eyebrow.

“Don’t get me wrong. I’d like to be there. I’d love to be there. And I think I’d like to be there with Paul. He’s just… not ready. I’m probably not either. We just met, right? And, he doesn’t date. I mean, the guy is innocence pure and simple.”

No, Todd decided, there was no way this guy knew that Paul had been a pornstar.

“I keep on trying to take it to the next level,” Kirk admitted, approaching Todd. “But… he’s nervous. I can tell. Every time I start to suggest something past a kiss, he backs away.”

“Frustrated?”

“No,” Kirk said after a time. “It’s sweet, really. For now, at least.”

On the rooftop overlooking Dempsey Street, Tara put down her cigarette and said, “So you really ain’t gon’ tell me about this new, what’s his name?”

“You’re a beautiful girl, Tara Veems,” said Paul

“I know I’m beautiful, quit trying to distract me.”

“I mean, if you weren’t so crude, no one would know your were a dyke.”

“How about I eat your pussy, and then you’ll know. Now tell me about this—” she stopped, following Paul’s expression and where his head turned.

“What?”

Paul was watching Julian Lawden who had just come around the alley and was talking to Leroy Houghton.

“Is that…?” Tara started. “That’s Fenn’s daddy. That old bastard. What’s he… What’s he talking to Julian for?”

Paul didn’t answer and Tara said, again, “What’s he talking to Julian for?”

But this time it wasn’t idle wondering, she had turned to him.

“You know something, you skinny homosexual.”

“Uh…” Paul began. “I… I might.”

“Com’on,” said Tara. “spill it to baby girl.”

“That’s Julian’s grandfather.”

“No, it’s not. It’s Layla’s grandfather.”

“It’s—he’s,” Paul corrected himself, “both of their grandfathers.”

Tara cocked her head toward him.

“Paul, you gotta do better than that.”

“I don’t know better than that.”

“We gotta tell Fenn.”

“Fenn’s got enough to deal with. And Adele, and Layla—”

Tara Veems gripped Paul’s wrist.

“We—have—to—tell—Fenn.”

“Do you still hate me?”

“I can’t hate you,” Layla didn’t look at Will, though. She looked at the floor of the back porch where the shadows of the trees played in the wash of sunlight.

“I’m too tired to hate anyone.”

“What about Dena?”

“I don’t want to deal with her.”

“Layla,” Will sat down in the chair across from her. “I didn’t want to keep the secret. But it wasn’t mine to give away, all right?”

“Brendan told you not to tell me?”

“Yes. He thought you’d tell Dena.”

“But Dena already knew. The secret was she and Brendan were fucking each other.”

“But… she…”

“That bitch wanted to keep it from me,” Layla said. “And Brendan wanted to help her keep it from me, and he told you to keep it from me—”

“Dena didn’t even know I knew—”

“It doesn’t goddamn matter, Will. He’s gay and she’s stupid, and you let what they wanted come between our relationship. You chased after me, chased after me, chased after me. And then when you finally had me, you lied to me.”

“I didn’t lie to you.”

“You didn’t tell me the truth. Which is the same.”

“No, it’s—” Will stopped. “Yes, it is.”

The phone rang; Layla put up her hand and rose to enter the kitchen and answer.

“Hello?”

“Layla, is your mother home?”

“Yeah, Fenn. Hold on.”

Layla actually walked up the stairs instead of shouting.

Adele was folding clothes in her bedroom, and Layla said, “Mama, it’s Fenn on the phone.”

“All right,” said Adele, and Layla turned around.

“Layla?” said Adele as she picked up the phone and took off her earring.

“Yes?”

“Don’t hold on to so much… Will’s sorry. Let him be sorry and end it.”

Layla started to think of something smart to say, put it aside, and turned around going downstairs.

She came back to the porch and Will said, “You’re right. I kept something from you specifically because people asked me to. I was wrong, and I’m sorry. Really.”

Then he said, “I do want us to be together. I want us. So, I hope we can… get past this and start up again, and no more secrets I swear.”

“My father hid from my mother that he was married, that he had a secret family, another child.”

“I know.”

“When you start keeping stuff from your… partner, they’re not your partner, Will.”

“I know.”

“You know now.”

Will didn’t know what else to say.

Suddenly Adele was coming down the steps in a fury. She threw the screen door open and said, “I gotta go for a while. Mind the house.”

“Mama?”

Adele was fiercely brushing her hair. She walked around the kitchen looking for her keys, and her hands landed on them. She pulled her purse over her shoulder and headed down the hall, heels clacking.

“I gotta go!” she shouted. And she was gone.