The Prayers in Rossford

Dan did not look up immediately. He did not stop praying when the weight of someone else settled on the kneeler before the Virgin’s grotto, with her hands spread out over the few flickering candles.

“Fenn,” he said, at last.

“What are you doing here, in prayer and fasting on the day before Lent?” said Fenn. “You should be eating those jelly doughnuts with the funny name.”

“Pazckis.”

“As I recall, the spelling looks nothing like the pronunciation.”

“Well, it is a Polish thing,” Dan said. He pronounced the word: “Punch-kee.”

They were both quiet for a long while, and then Dan said, “There was a time when every candle at this Grotto, and the one to Saint Barbara on the other side of the church was lit.”

Dan looked over the metal poor box for the penny candles—which were now dollar candles, and over the five or six ones burning. He played with a small brochure. A handsome young man with wavy brown hair who, Dan reflected comically, was probably gay, inquired: “Have you considered the priesthood?”

“Do you think people believe less?”

“In God?” Fenn said. “No. In the Church? Probably.”

Dan said, “Then what do we do it for?”

“Hum?”

He shook his head.

“Do you believe in the Devil, Fenn?”

Fenn considered this.

“I always thought too many Christians talked about believing in the Devil. I mean, I thought the point was to believe in Jesus.”

“Yes,” Dan agreed. “I thought the same thing. And I thought how there was enough bad in the world and in me, that we didn’t have to blame the Devil. But now I sense something. It’s not me. It’s my enemy, and it whispers to me all sorts of horrible things. And to me that’s the Devil.”

Fenn waited patiently, for Dan to finish his thought.

“Some people,” Dan said, “they think the Devil is…. In Hollywood making bad movies, or making good little people think about sex or… rock music, or the church they don’t like. Those are people who their whole religion is a string of superstitions, thou shalt nots and ‘preacher said last Sundays’.

“But to me the Devil is that voice you can’t hear right away, that sounds like common sense, but that always keeps you in fear. Only most people are in fear, so you don’t know it. He keeps you… common. Not trying your best, not really alive. And that voice keeps saying that there’s no point. Or that things will turn out wrong.”

“Are you hearing that voice?” Fenn said, placing a hand on Dan’s shoulder. “Hearing it now?”

“I think I’ve heard it all my life. I think we all have, but I’m not willing to bow to it any longer. We’re… Things here are in real trouble. Keith’s in real trouble. Sometimes I feel like this church and… this whole world is in real trouble. And it’s all too much and now I need to believe. I need to not hear the devil saying it is no use. I need to believe. I need to believe quickly.”

“Do you think that your brother had a point?”

“Um?”

“I think he had a point,” Noah said, in the dark.

“Noah,” James turned on his side, “if you don’t tell me what the hell you’re talking about… At least tell me a little bit, I can’t be part of this conversation.

Noah straightened himself out on his back and he said, “Your brother. I heard everything he said. He said I had given myself to everyone but you. He said I was supposed to love you but I’d been with everyone but you.”

“Noah, I…”

“But that was why. You know? I wasn’t sure. I mean, he was right. I think that’s why nothing’s happened between us. I didn’t want to make what we had… common. Like everything else. And I thought you didn’t either.”

“Yes,” James aid. “But... How long can you go on like this? You used to tell me it was a need for you. When you would go off and do that, make the movies.”

“Make the pornos.”

“Yes,” James said. “And… I’ve seen them.”

“What?”

“Some of them. I was curious. I had a hard time. I was afraid to. But I did, finally. The look on your face, the look on a lot of their faces. It looked like a need. It looked like you had to be there.”

“Sometimes I did. There was this one boy—since we’re talking about this now—his name was Ari. And he was really innocent looking. In one of the videos he tells Guy that he hasn’t had sex since the last time he shot one of those movies. And he’s really, really shy. I’ve met him off set. But in the movies, on set, he’s different. Those movies are a release for a lot of people. They were a release for me too. Whole months, a very long time, would go between one and the other and I don’t really have a lot of experiences with men outside of films.”

Noah added, “But you already knew that.”

“Yeah.”

“But, I was thinking,” Noah said, “I mean, it’s not a need like that, a need to make a movie. It’s a need for a lot of things. And the movies met that need. But, if that’s what you’re afraid of… You don’t have to be. I mean, I can stop making the movies. I haven’t done one since…”

“Christmas Eve. When I came.”

“I didn’t even do that one. I directed it. I haven’t been in one in a long time. And… I don’t really feel the need to be in another one. I feel a need…”

“To be with me?”

“Yes. If you feel the same way. I…”

Tentatively, he touched James’ chest.

“One thing Ron said was you had always loved me. Is that really, really true?”

“Yes it’s really true.”

“Then fuck Ron and all of those folks. All of the movies. I… I’m totally clean if that’s what you’re worried about.”

“Of course I’m not.”

“I… hate that you saw those movies. I wish you hadn’t. If you can’t get them out of your mind, if you can’t… forgive that I’ve been with lots of people, guys, then—”

James put a hand over Noah’s mouth.

Slowly Noah removed his hand and said, “Then there’s nothing to stop us. Stop me from giving myself to you. Like I want to. Like I’ve always wanted to.”

Under the covers, Noah took James’ hand and put it on the band of his briefs.

“I’m already hard for you, James.” His breath was trembling.

James’ body was closer to his.

“Noah?”

“Hum?”

“Don’t promise me anything. If you want to go and make movies after this, go and do that.”

“I told you I don’t want to.”

“I’ll never hold you to anything. I don’t know what it’s like to be you, all right? And I can’t be angry if you need to do what you need to do.”

“I don’t,” Noah pulled away, “need to do it. I don’t need to do anything but what we’re doing right now.”

“Calm down.”

“I’m trying to give myself to you, James, and you’re telling me you don’t care if I run around and fuck other people.”

“Of course I care,” James said, sitting up. “But you’ll never have to hide anything from me, or be someone you can’t be. Or who you’re not ready to be.”

They were both kneeling on the bed, looking at each other.

“Look, James, I’m through with all that. I just want to be with you, all right?”

And James didn’t protest anymore, because he knew Noah couldn’t handle that.

Noah pushed himself forward and kissed James. James was surprised how good it felt, how natural. Noah guided his hands back to his briefs and helped James tug them off, helped him pull off his shirt. He wanted to be naked for James. He wanted to be held and hold James. He guided James’s hands to his hips, helped them run up and down his body for the first time. Noah smiled and gasped at James’touch. He wanted to kiss all of him. He pushed James gently to his back, and pulled down his shorts while the other man moaned.

“No one else but us,” Noah’s voice was quiet.

“That’s why Naomi left,” James tried to say, but found his voice floating away, and Noah held his wrists down. He knew what he was doing. He went down on him for the first time, for the longest time, forever, and it was like one of those dirty movies or those sex books James had watched, and then Noah came up panting and said, “I want to fuck you now. I mean, I want to ride you. I call it fucking… I…”

James was shocked. He made a brief noise as Noah stroked him and he felt his penis guided into warm cleft of Noah’s ass. So frim, so soft, sweet as Noah looking down on him. With expertise, Noah sat down on him and took him in, and the two of them began, holding hands, Noah’s face to the ceiling, his hands running up and down James’ chest, taking him in, his mouth, breaking into a smile, their voices, soft and then loud as they moaned with the satisfaction of entry.

In the end they turned over, and Noah knew this was what he had always wanted. Anything else had been half of this, of being alone, in the dark, in this huge, empty apartment, by themselves, not talking or chatting or consoling, but in this deep, deep, absolute fucking. Face in the bed sheets, mouth biting the pillow, bent over, taking him in, the two of them groaning and swearing until the moment passed over both of them in shock, like a fucking airplane overhead, and they were left trembling and shaken and wet, both on their backs, half off the bed, dicks stiff, semen slick, gasping.

They lay like that for a long time, and then James began laughing, and Noah began laughing, and then they were chuckling together, pushing themselves together, kissing and hugging, hungry for each other. They were chuckling and tasting each other, and when they stopped James said, “Now you can show me.”

“Show you?” Noah placed his hands on his own damp curls and looked at James.

“You can do to me what I did to you.”

“You sure? You’re kind of a newbie.”

“I am a newbie.”

“You get an A for a newbie. A Plus. You want me to fuck you?”

James was quiet for a moment.

“Well, when you put it that way, Noah… Yes. I suppose so. You have a problem with it?”

His hand went right over Noah’s still firm penis that began rising again.

“No,” Noah pulled himself up and kissed James, hard, “I don’t have a problem with it at all.”

“You are a very happy,” Paul noted after a grunt as they lifted part of the papier-mâché wall for Macbeth. Noah smiled brightly, shut his lips and said, “Yes. Yes I am.”

“Well,” —they went to the pipes for the border— “are you going to tell me why?”

“As you know,” Noah said. “Or maybe you don’t, me and Jamey had the apartment to ourselves.”

“Oh,” Paul said brightly.

“Oh, indeed.” They began lifting up the wall.

“We fucked. It was excellent!”

“You…” Paul screwed up his face and leaned against the wall to straighten it. “That’s so crude. What about… made love?”

“No, we totally fucked. We fucked all fucking night.”

Paul looked disapproving and said, “I don’t get you.”

“I do,” Fenn said, coming up behind them with a flower vase. “Goes in the center.”

Paul looked at him.

“The vase goes to the center,” Fenn repeated. “And I get it.”

“Well, as someone who, frankly, has spent a long time, as you will, fucking people, when I met Kirk I was glad to be with someone I could make love to.”

“How high and holy we’ve become,” Fenn said with a grin while Noah snorted.

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“It means a year ago you were indiscriminately screwing any ass that showed itself and now you’re all…” Noah said, “I’d rather make love.

“Well, I’ve been in love with James since I was sixteen, and I’ve been screwing since I was eighteen and I was scared that if me and Jimmy got together, then it would be all this making love and I’d be, you know, wanting to fuck. I thought me and James were good at everything, but maybe not this. Maybe I’d still want to make dirty movies and hook up with people. But it turns out we’re good in bed too. There’s nothing we can’t do.”

“That,” Fenn said, thumping Paul on the head, “was what I meant.”

“You and Kirk don’t… go at it?” Noah said.

Paul went red. “Me and Kirk don’t talk about it like that. It’s… different.”

“Leave Paul alone,” Fenn said. “He’s not you.”

Paul looked at Fenn. “Is that an insult or a compliment?”

“It’s what it is.”

“What about you and Todd? Do you make love or…”

“Fuck,” Noah finished.

Fenn touched his lip, smiled and said, “You’d have to ask Todd. I have to go to church for some ritual.”

“Ash Wednesday.”

“Ash Wednesday is not some ritual,” Fenn said. “It’s a… Keith McDonald being released from his vows, temporarily. It’s right before the Ash Wednesday Mass. So he can be free to… find out who he is… or something like that.”

“So he can be free to,” Noah said in Paul’s ear, “Fuck!”

Paul raised an eyebrow at him, and Noah, simply grinned.