The Houses in Rossford

“So,” Dena said, “we’re just supposed to dig around in here until we find a piece of evidence?

“Yes,” Layla said simply. “Look, this is the only time we can do this. Mom would never let me go into Daddy’s office.”

“If she’d ever bothered to go into your father’s office…” Dena began.

“Then things might be very different. Over there. Check that stack.”

“So are you excited about your date with Will?”

“No,” Layla said, methodically sorting through a box full of manila envelopes. “I just hope that this one little date gets him to leave me the hell alone.”

“I think that’s mean of you… Oh, wow, Daddy has a big ole Visa bill.”

Layla turned around. “Does it say anything? Does strange shit go to strange people?”

“Well, there’s a lot Victoria’s Secret and shit like that on it. And…”

“And what?”

Dena cleared her throat, and Layla shoved away the box of bills, crossing her father’s junky office. She took the credit card notice from her friend’s hand and read, “It’s a lot of Old Navy. Sporting goods store too. When the fuck did I ever need a football?”

Layla was quiet for a while, and then she said, “We’ve got to find that woman’s fucking address.”

“Layla…”

“We have to. We have to find where she is.”

“I would have thought your father went to her.”

“My father went to a hotel. He went to the Budget Inn down near the highway.”

Dena was quiet for a while, and Layla, brows drawn together, noted this and said: “What?”

“Layla,” said Dena, at last. “I’m thinking that the best way to find your father’s… mistress is to go to the Budget Inn and then track him from there.”

“That’s a good idea,” Layla said after a moment. And then she said, “ Think I knew that. I know I knew it. I don’t want to go alone.”

“Of course you won’t go alone,” Dena told her. “I’ll go with you. I just gotta give Brendan a call and tell him I won’t see him tonight.”

“You don’t have to do that,” Layla said. But she didn’t mean it.

Brendan Miller sat in his large bedroom, in front of his computer, waiting for whoever it was on the other end to respond.

So what are you into?

Whaddo you mean into?

Into with other guys? 

How old are you again?

NineteenBrendan lied. This seemed about a right age.

Are you into scat?

You mean like in jazz?

LOL!

Brendan didn’t understand what was so funny about his question.

Scat is shit.

Whaddo you mean am I into…?

Brendan didn’t really swear. He didn’t even want to write the word, “Shit”.

Quickly, as if the guy on the other end were frustrated, came the response:

ARE YOU INTO SHIT OR PISS? BEING SHITTED ON, PISSED ON? WOULD YOU LIKE TO PISS ON ME?

Brendan moved away from the computer like it might bite him. It served him right for even going online to something like this. He had turned away from the computer and was afraid to turn back.

When he finally did whoever this guy was had written more things. They had a lot of questions marks and: ARE YOU STILL THERE? The last thing he’d done was leave his number. Brendan turned off the IM.

He sat on the bed, trembling.

When the phone rang, Brendan shot up off the mattress. He picked it up and said, “Miller residence.”

“Bren, it’s me.”

“Hey, Dena.”

Would she know what he’d been doing? Could she somehow sense it in the nervousness of his voice?

“Me and Layla have to do something, so I won’t be able to come by until real late.”

“Well, what is it? Maybe I can help.”

“I don’t think so, Bren. I mean, I doubt it.”

“It’s not… a woman thing. Is it?”

“We’re staking out her father at his motel room in the hopes that he’ll lead us to his mistress.”

“Well, that’s not exactly girly and personal,” Brendan decided. “Or even something you should do alone. Whose car are you taking?”

“Well, Layla was going by her uncle’s house and asking Fenn if she could use—”

“Don’t worry. I’ll be over there in a few minutes. Alright?”

Brendan didn’t wait for her to say anything. He just hung up. The truth was he needed to get out of this room very badly, very quickly.

“So which car is his anyway?” Brendan said.

“The silver one, right by the stairwell.”

“The Hyundai?”

“I don’t know my cars like you do, Brendan. But if the Hyundai is the silver one next to the stairs, then yeah, it’s the Hyundai.”

“I still think we should have stopped for shakes on the way here.”

“I told you it was urgent,” Dena said.

“Yeah,” he assented. “Only it wasn’t, and here we are.”

“I could really go for a shake.”

“Layla!”

“Well, I could.”

“Look,” said Dena from the backseat. “We’re here because we’re staking our your father.”

“McDonald’s is right across the street. I could just walk right over.”

“But if you walk right over and Layla’s father comes out and drives away, we can’t drive after him.”

“Well,” said Brendan archly. “If you walked right over we could follow him. You’d just have to stand here and wait for us to get back.”

“How about we just drive over and get some damn shakes,” Layla said. “I don’t think Daddy is going anywhere for a while.”

“Now, that’s the spirit—” Brendan began, twisting the keys in the ignition. But just then a red car swung into the parking lot. It stopped near the Hyundai and, for a while, it stalled and then out came Layla’s father.

“What the…?” Layla began, and Dena said, “Fuck.”

He closed the red car door, and then the car began to trawl out of the parking lot and Dena, leaning forward said to Brendan, “Start the car. As quietly as possible.”

“Yes, Deen, I’ll just whisper to the engine to be quiet because we’re following that red car.”

There was nothing they could do but deliberately trail the car. They didn’t want to lose it. They came out right behind it on Meridien, and then Brendan said, “Now, I’m going to let a car go between the two of us.”

“Don’t do that!” Dena said.

“Yes, do that,” Brendan said. “So we don’t look like we’re tailing her. It’s a good tactic. Especially if you don’t want to go to jail.”

They followed the car up Main for three blocks until it turned east on Daraway and Brendan murmured, “This might be hard.”

They followed at about a block away, through the little residential streets north of town. “I hope she doesn’t realize it’s one person.

“I hope,” said Dena, “that it really is the she we’re looking for. And… I hope we’re not following a different car.”

“Have just a bit of faith in me.”

“Brendan, I have tons of faith in you,” Layla said. “I’m so glad you came. We couldn’t have done this without you.”

“Thanks. I—Oooh… she’s turning on Birmingham!”

Brendan gunned the car down Daraway and then turned south on Birmingham. They were halfway speeding, and then she disappeared two blocks ahead.

“What the hell street is that?”

“If I know my streets it’s Troyer,” Brendan told them, slowing down.

A second later they were going down Troyer, and Layla hooted when she saw the taillights of the same red car. They stopped. The car parked a block ahead of them.

“We stop right here,” Brendan said, decisively.

“I’m going to get out and run up the block,” Layla said. “I’ve got to see her.”

Before either of her friends could say anything, Layla hopped out of the car, swiftly shutting the door. Then she was up the street and lost in the night.

“What time it is?” Brendan said.

“Good God,” Dena murmured. “It’s almost midnight.”

Brendan grinned and laughed a little.

“Bren, I want to thank you for tonight. I’m sorry for giving you such a hard time.

“That’s all right, but how about those milkshakes?”

“My treat, darling. Totally.”

Layla was trotting back to the car, looking winded. She stared at them for a moment before climbing back in.

“I have a half brother,” she said simply.

Dena frowned. “Crap, are you sure?”

“Yes,” Layla said. “Because my father plus the sporting goods store bill plus that very tall boy who looks like me and that very black woman who turns out to have been driving that car equals a half brother.”

Brendan agreed with Dena.

“That is crap.”

“CRAP INDEED,” Fenn said.

“But how do I tell mom?”

“What?” Fenn looked up from the drink in his hand.

“Mom. How do I tell her?”

“How many days does this month have?” Fenn asked his niece.

“I think thirty.”

“Then tell her on the thirty-first.”

Layla looked at her uncle in disbelief.

“I can’t believe you’d want me to keep this a secret.”

“I can’t believe you thought it would be a good idea to tell her. It’s an awful idea to tell her. And just how do you know anyway?”   

“Well, we sort of trailed her,” Brendan said.

Fenn looked at him, and then looked at Dena.

“We trailed Mr. Lawden’s mistress,” Dena elaborated. “We went to the hotel to wait for him to leave his room.  But then she came and dropped him off.”

“So, in the middle of the night,” Fenn followed the story with his cigarette, “you all followed this woman to her house.”

Brendan said, “It was more like eleven-forty-five.”

“And you say Hoot’s got a baby?”

“Actually,” Layla said, “the baby is no baby.”

“So this shit has been going on for some time.”

“He’s about my age.”

“Shit,” Fenn said.

“Shit, indeed,” agreed his niece.

“I’m Johnny,” he told Todd. “I’m here to pretty much take you through the day. You’ve got your camera on?”

“Yes,” Todd said.

“Oh, good. Guy wants you to get everything pretty much from when you come through the door. So you’re getting me, right?”

“Right.”

“At this very moment? Right now?”

Todd nodded.

“This,” Johnny decided, “is super. They call me Johnny Mellow by the way. Follow me.”

With lightly buzzed, marmalade colored hair, Johnny Mellow, in fashionably baggy jeans and a tee shirt, was a little taller than Fenn. His pointy nose reminded Todd of a cartoon rodent, one of the lovable, talking ones from say, The Wind and the Willows, a muskrat or something. His eyes twinkled and he had red tipped, slightly large ears. So he wasn’t exactly hot, but there was something sweet and sexy to him.

“Today is Friday and we’ve been doing just some basic films, not like the big one at the ski lodge last year. Did you see that?”

“Uhhh. No,” Todd said.

Johnny smiled and turned a little red. “Well, you know, it’s not for everyone. I was a Boy Scout,” he threw in as they entered the central room, ceiling high surrounded by the second floor balcony and bright from the great sky light. Cameras were up and from behind one Guy McClintock was coming forward to wave at Todd.

“I would shake your hand, Todd, if you weren’t holding a camera. You’ve already met my boy Johnny.”

Todd nodded and Johnny smiled bright and toothily at the camera. Todd thought he’d make a good friend.

“Where’s Noah? Noah! My Noah.”

“I’m up here.”

Todd looked up to see a fresh faced boy with dark, curly hair, short and slim, come running down the steps in cargo shorts and tee shirt and then he was sitting on the couch next to Johnny Mellow and Johnny gave him a smile and Guy said to the cameraman, “Start rolling,” and Todd was still shooting.

“Where is he?”

“Shooting a porno.”

“What?”

“Well,” Fenn elaborated. “Have you ever heard of Eagle Studios?”

“That man up in Port Ridge who makes all the porn,” Tara said. “Yeah. I wish he made some shit for the ladies, though. I mean, don’t get me wrong, men are nice. But sometimes a girl wants some…”

“Girls,” Adele said.

“That’s what I mean. I’m serious, Addie. After the way Hoot did you—”

“I don’t think it works that way,” Adele told her.

Tara shrugged, then said, “What’s Todd got to do with shooting porn?”

“Yeah, that is a little out of his league.”

Fenn explained. “Guy McClintock saw something Todd did. I believe he saw the documentary on gay Catholics. And he said—I want this man to shoot a video about me and my pornstars.”

“And so Todd is up there with a bunch of naked twenty year olds?”

“Even as we speak,” Fenn said.

“You are a man of great confidence,” Tara said.

“Actually, Fenn is just vain,” his sister said. “The thing about baby brother, is he just doesn’t believe anyone could ever steal a man from him.”

Fenn eyed his sister and pushed up his black rimmed spectacles.

“I’ve never been proven wrong either.”

The phone rang.

Adele lifted a finger. “I’ll get it.”

She stayed at the phone, muttering, um hum, for a few tired looking moments, and then she turned to Fenn and said, “It’s Tom. He says, and I kind of agree, that you should get a cell phone and move into the twenty-first century. He’s been looking all over the place for you.”

Fenn was already at the phone, murmuring and nodding his head, and Tara said, “I always thought they would get back together.”

“I think that’s a thing that should never happen,” Adele said. “And I think they both have the sense to know it.”

When Fenn was off the phone he returned to the kitchen table.

“Two things,” he said. “Never think the way to make enough money to pay off your mortgage is by buying another property and turning it into a theatre.”

“And what’s the second thing?”

“Never open up a theatre with you ex.”

They waited for him to continue.

“Tom just wanted me to know that no one loves Shakespeare anymore, the Midwest is a barbaric place and somehow I’m to blame for it. And, what’s more, if we don’t make… an embarrassingly large amount of money soon, the playhouse will shut down and the bank could… possibly… foreclose on us.”

“Don’t look like that,” Fenn said to them. “I don’t believe that it’ll happen. I believe life is good. I know the universe has more than enough to go around. If you just have a little faith. Or in my case, this time, a lot of it.”

“SO DO YOU LIKE TO have your cock sucked?”

Through the camera lens, Todd watched Johnny bite his lower lip. Shrug.

“I guess. I mean. Yes.”

“Do you like sucking it?” Guy went on with the questions while his own cameras ran. “Like sucking on Noah’s?”

Noah was right beside him, and Johnny shrugged, looking a little simple.

“Yeah… I like that.”

 “So, have either one of you done something like this before?”

The two of them mumbled a bit, looking a little shy, a little silly while Guy chatted them up, and then Guy said, “Well, I know that you’ve done a lot before, Johnny. Noah, did you see the Pizza Boy movie?”

Noah was the innocent, curly haired boy. And he only blushed.

“Well, I guess I’ll just let the two of you get on with this.”

They knew what their job was, and Todd could see that it was easier for them to start making out, to tune out and begin deep kissing each other in front of the cameras than it was making up lame answers to Guy’s questions. Todd thought how when he first began sleeping with Fenn, Fenn had said, “I hate to talk during sex. I hate people who want you to say clever things in bed.” Maybe it was like that for them.

Todd filmed, wondering how many people fantasized about Johnny Mellow, who was kind and eager and sweet and currently, slowly, lifting up Noah’s top, kissing him gently, undressing the boy, being undressed, being serviced by him now, taking a gentle command of the situation. Everyone had stopped talking. Maybe everyone was worshipping.

Now Noah was gently sucking on Johnny Mellow’s balls, gently blowing, and Johnny’s mouth was open in pleasure, his eyes rolled back. Still he came back to himself and gently began slipping his fingers into Noah’s ass. With the same rhythm Noah sucked, Johnny fucked him with his fingers and then, gently he took him and began kissing him again. Gently, he guided Noah to his lap, and then brought him down onto his thick penis, and began fucking him.

Todd had seen the occasional porn, but that was always him, in private, watching a little screen. Now he was right in the midst of it, and he was unaware of time. All he knew was heat. All he knew was Noah’s high exclamations of terrified pleasure, Johnny’s face changed, reddened, his teeth clenched as he bounced Noah up and down on his lap. All he knew was their two bodies, strawberry white and ivory white, perspired, moving like sex engines, their faces in masks of pleasure. When it was over they were both lying on the floor, semen sprayed across their stomachs, and a cameraman moved in over their faces, one cameraman going up and down Johnny’s chest, filming his stomach, filming the semen.

“Fade out,” Guy whispered. “That’s it.”

“That’s a wrap,” Guy said in a louder voice.

Johnny got up and held a hand out to Noah. They were wiping themselves up and, suddenly, Todd heard, “And we do that a few times a day.”

Guy was right beside him and, naked, Noah was heading up the stairs while Johnny, already in his jeans and pulling his tee shirt on, was coming forward looking only a little bit winded.

“Noah’s going to do two more today, I think, before he goes home. He loves to get fucked,” Guy said.

“There’s a party tonight,” Johnny said. “We’re going to use that for a video. You might want to shoot some of that too.”

Guy nodded.

“Are you…?” Todd had never watched someone he’d met and was meeting again have graphic sex in front of him. “Are you going to be in that one, too?”

“I think so, but I’m off for the rest of the day. So I can take you to meet some of the others.”

“That’s a great idea,” Guy said. “Really get him immersed in the life.”

“All right,” Todd said. He turned off the camera. “I need to call someone.”

Todd gave them  a smile and stepped in the foyer. Even though the atrium where they had shot the movie was large, he suddenly felt like he’d been suffocated. He dialed the number quickly.

“Yes?” Fenn said.

“It’s me, dear.”

Fenn grinned and said, “Yes, dear.”

Todd chuckled and said, “You all right, dear? You don’t sound hot as I feel.”

“Do I sound hotter now?”

“Yes. Whatever it is I’ll make it all right when I get back. You wanna tell me what it is.”

“No. I want you to tell me what’s going on.”

“I just saw the most incredible thing.”

“At the porn place?”

“Um hum,” Todd told him. “I just video taped them videotaping a porn.”

“Really… God, I don’t believe it…. Todd, do I need to be jealous?”

“Hell, no. It just got me so hot I had to call you.”

“So now you need to take a shower?”

“Nope,” Todd said. “Now, I need to fuck you.”