The Prayers in Rossford

Rules of Love and Sex

Dan Malloy came into the house, collapsed at the kitchen table, and elbows splayed out on it, looked up, waiting for Fenn to come out of the living room.

“Welcome,” said Fenn.

Dan’s hair was uncut and shaggy, but he was in the usual black and his Roman collar. The last time Fenn had seen Dan out of these, they had been lovers.

“Coffee?”

“Get it yourself.”

“Fenn!”

“You come into my house, collapse across my table and… why do you look horrible?”

“End of the year.”

“The year’s over. The kids are graduated.”

“Yeah, but that just happened, and then there’s all the baptisms and there’s Pentecost coming up. And there’s Keith.”

“What about him, now?”

“Nothing about him now.”Then Dan said, “How much do you know about Keith?”

“He and Paul and Noah fucked each other in a porno.”

Paul blinked at him, startled.

“Or did you not know that?”

“I…”Dan began. “I knew that Keith had done that. But… To put it that way.”

“There isn’t any other way to put it,” Fenn said. “He’s not doing it again, is he?”

“No,” Dan said. “But he is thinking about leaving the Church.”

“You mean…”And then Fenn, who had poured the coffee stopped, because he didn’t know what Dan meant.

“He’s been going to the Episcopal church down the street.”

“Oh? I like Saint James.”

Dan looked at him, wounded.

“What? And you can get the cream and sugar yourself—”There was crying in the next room. “I have a child to attend to.”

Dan frowned and poured his sugar and cream into the cup, and when Fenn came back with Dylan, Dan said, “He’s a Catholic priest, thinking about leaving the Church.”

“He’s a man looking for a place where he can be himself. It makes sense.”

“But…”

“Don’t be a fool,” Fenn said, frowning.

“He didn’t say he wants to be an Episcopal priest. He just says he wants to be in the ministry for the rest of his life. He wants to be himself. And he keeps talking about the Lutheran retreat he read about.”

“Well,” Fenn said, paying more attention to the baby, “I don’t see what the problem is. Looks like he’s taking care of it. He wants to be himself. Wants to be with other men, maybe even have another man. The Episcopal Church has its problems, sure enough. Especially around here. But it makes sense. Isn’t that right?” he said to Dylan. “Isn’t that right?”

Dan said nothing for a while, and then Fenn looked up at him and said:

“Just because you decided that to serve God you had to be a celibate priest and never have love again, doesn’t mean everyone else does too.”

Neither one of them said anything for a stretch, and when Dan realized that Fenn was not going to make any move toward an apology, he tried to sooth him by saying: “You look real natural with that baby.”

“No,” Fenn said, rocking Dylan, “I doubt that.”

A few days ago Noah had said, “Some visitors are coming.”And then he added, “Is it all right?”

James had said that, of course, it was. Wasn’t this apartment really Noah’s anyway?

Then had come the whole, “No it’s ours, and you pay rent” and such and such, and Noah had been so strange about the visitor that James told Danasia: “I think it’s a pornstar.”

“I didn’t know they paid visits to each other,” Danny said.

James shrugged.

“It must be an interesting world,” Danasia commented. “Have you asked him anything about this person?”

“No, I doubt he’d want to talk about him.”

“I would ask,” said Danny. “You should ask.”

James looked at her. “Why don’t you?”

That shut her up.

So two Saturdays after graduation at Saint Barbara’s, the same Saturday that Dan Malloy had gone, frazzled, to Fenn Houghton’s house and received very little comfort, there was a knock at the door, and Noah said, “Casey’s here! I’ll get it.”

He was overly bright and overly happy and James simply nodded.

The door opened on a sort of all American guy, a little taller than Noah; blond, pale eyed, okay looking more than beautiful, who was wearing track pants and tee shirt with a bag over his shoulder. They embraced and crowed over each other, and then, ushering Casey into the house, Noah said:

“And this is my boyfriend—”

And Casey cried: “James!”

“Casey!”

Noah looked at James. James did not look embarrassed, or perplexed, but he looked surprised.

Noah looked from one to the other.

“You…. Know each other?”

“Aw, yeah,” Casey said, stepping forward to give James the closest thing his wiry arms could approximate to a bear hug. “Everyone knows Jamie!”

“Man! I’m bushed. Fucking bushed. I’ve been driving all night. Where can a guy get a shower?”

“In the bathroom,” James said archly. “You can even shit in it.”

“I just might have to do that,” Casey said. He shook his head. “Jamie, Good ole, Jamie! Can I go, Noah?”

Noah shook himself and said, “Eh… Yeah. Let me… I’ll get you towels, and you can go right in.”

“You can have Paul’s old room,” James said. “Noah was talking about us getting a smaller apartment when the lease runs out. But I say where would all the guests stay?”

The shower water was running, and over it Noah could hear Casey singing a little off key:

With the birds I’ll share the lonely view!
With the birds I’ll share this lonely viewwwww!

James, who was pacifically cooking breakfast, looked over to Noah who leaned against the entryway with his arms folded over his chest.

“You and Casey with your backward baseball caps,” James commented. “Looking like Americana. I wonder, is it only gay guys who do that? Do straight white folks do that anymore?”

“I don’t know,” Noah said, sounding a little surly.

“You,” James said, flipping an egg, “would like to know how I know Casey.”

“Well, yeah!”

James scooped the first egg onto a plate, cracked the second one asking: “Well, how do you?”

Eyes flashing, Noah said, “You know exactly how!”

Unaffected, salting the egg and then turning it over, James said, “Oh.”

Noah thought of stamping his foot, chose against it, walked out into the living room, and then came back again.

“You know, I tell you everything. I don’t have any secrets from you!”

“Yes,” James said. “Well, you have a natural need for confession that I don’t.”He smiled. “That’s what I like about you. Now set up plates for breakfast.”

“Guys, this is gonna be the wave of the future,”Casey said. “Jamie, you want help with the kitchen?”

“As a matter of fact, yes.”

Casey grinned at Noah and said, “I didn’t think he’d take me up on the offer.”

“I know,” James shouted back.

Casey shrugged and said, “Get me a dish towel. You, Noah, turn on the laptop. I’m gonna show you something great.”

It took all of five minutes to clean the kitchen and when they were done Casey sat down on the sofa and told them, “Now, check this out.”

“Okay, Noah, type www—No… let me type this.”

Casey bent over the laptop and then Noah said, “What the…”

On the computer screen was Casey Williams.Com.

“Noah, you gotta go into business for yourself. It’s not enough to work for folks like Guy McClintock anymore. We gotta work for ourselves.”

“Is that a movie?”

“It’s the clip of a movie. Hit this.”

“Hi, I’m Casey Williams, and this is Casey Williams Live.”

Music started up in the background, and there was a montage of Casey with his shirt off, Casey flexing his modest muscles, Casey making out with one guy, Casey making out with another guy. Casey and another guy jacking each other off. Casey on his back, legs up in the air being slammed in the ass by—”

“Is that Jack Scranlin?”

“Yeah,” Casey said.

Casey and another guy buck naked masturbating. Casey ejaculating in a wicker chair, Casey ejaculating on the floor, Casey ejaculating on a bed, Casey being ejaculated on by two guys. Casey growling as he came:

“Awwwww Fuck!”

“Casey Williams Live,” Casey stood there with his hip cocked, bare chested in khaki shorts. “It’s Live.”

“It’s live?” James raised an eyebrow.

“I know,” said Casey. “But no one seems to be complaining. Guys who pay thirty dollars a month to watch me fuck aren’t concerned with poetics the way you are, Jamie.”

Noah, frowning, scrolled down, “You’ve got a blog?”

“Yeah. Blog and a Myspace. This is a business, baby. Check it out.”

“I,” James interrupted, “want to check out the ‘Interview with Casey.’ ”

“Aw, yeah, that’s golden. Click here. I’ve got this posted on X-Tube, Porn-X, X-Ploit.”

“You didn’t leave an X out, did you?” said Noah.

James clicked on.

“Hey, so, some of you guys wanna know what it’s like to be a pornstar? That’s the most popular question I get. Along with, what does Casey do for fun? Well, second question first.

“Basically, I don’t do much. I… work. You know. I do this. I hang out with old friends. I don’t travel the way I used to. But I like to do it when I can. A real movie junkie! Yeah. Movies are pretty great. And hanging with my boyfriend.”

“You have a boyfriend, now?” James said.

“More or less,” Casey said.

“Which means?”

“Which means not really. Now shut up and listen.”

“Basically, I just really love to fuck! That’s the best thing about this. You get to do what you love.”

Throughout the interview were flashes of Casey flexing, being filmed, grinning, stroking guys dicks, sucking guys dicks, having his dick sucked, getting fucked in his ass. Flexing while he fucked someone in the ass.

“People ask me what the difference is between sex with my boyfriend and porn sex. The truth is: sometimes, when it’s really hot, there is no difference. That’s the great thing about it…”

“Why are you showing me this?” Noah asked him.

“Well, for one thing, on the older stuff there’s a few videos with you. By the way, Guy will never take you off his site. But I will. The second thing is that you had some stuff up for awhile, and I know you were directing that amateur stuff, AND some of Guy’s shit, so I wanted to know what happened to you?”

“You mean where my porn site is?”

FUCK ME! FUCK ME! OWWWWW!

“Casey Williams Live. You’re gonna love it.”

“Something like that,” Casey said. Then looking at James’ expressionless face he added, “But only something like it.”

“No! no! I’m not saying go make some more shit. But you’ve got a lot of shit out there, man. You could put that together. And you had a following! I mean, you have a fucking following,” Casey said. “We could get into business. James could manage us.”

“What?” they both said.

“Well, what are the two of you doing, anyway!”Casey said. “We could get something started.”

“We’ll…”Noah began.

“We’ll think about it,” said James.

Noah looked at him.

“We’ll think about it,” James repeated.

“Oh,” Casey said. “You know… I love my boyfriend. But he knows business is business. And… maybe your boyfriend would understand if you got back in the—”

“No!”Noah shouted, a little too loudly, before James even had to say anything.

When they got back from the club, Casey said: “I’m still awake.”

Noah made himself yawn, and found that the yawn was very real.

“I’m a married man, now,” he said. “I really need to hit the hay.”

“I always wondered why people said hit the hay and not the mattress,” Casey said.

“People used to sleep on hay,” said James. “Before there were beds.”

“Is that true?” Casey looked to Noah, as if Noah could confirm this, and Noah said, “James went to college. We didn’t. So it is true.”

It was James who gave a wide, body stretching yawn this time.

It wasn’t that James hadn’t appeared to be having a good time at the club. Just, Noah didn’t want him there. Clubs were his turf. Clubs had been his turf. Clubs were where he picked up guys, when he did, which had always been rare. They were not where you brought James. Not where you brought yourJames.

Yawning, James said, “In the Middle Ages one whole family might just sleep on one bedpile, one pile of hay. And if you were visiting and out of town, so to speak, you’d be invited to the pile too. You might be invited to sleep with the master of house’s wife.”

“Now that’s courtesy,” Noah murmured.

“Only if she was hot,” said Casey.

“No one really washed back then, though.”

James stretched, and clapping Noah on the back, stomped sleepily to the bedroom to change into pajamas.

“Things were cozier back then,” Casey said, raising his voice so James could hear him too. “Are we too stuck up now? Is that why so many people watch porns? Cause they can’t do stuff for real?

From the bedroom James said: “Intavesting. Vewy Intevesting!”

“I was wondering if you guys wanted a threeway?”

Noah blinked at Casey. There was silence from the bedroom.

“Just joking guys. I just wanted to see the reaction.”

Noah made like he knew that, but he could see from Casey’s change of expression that it wasn’t a joke. He felt like explaining.

Instead he said: “If you’re still wound up, you better go out to the club for another half hour.”

James came out of the bedroom in plaid pajama pants and a tee shirt, his glasses slipping down his face.

“That is the good part about living a block from downtown, Casey. But don’t do anything stupid.”

“Don’t get yourself killed,” Noah said. “I’ll walk you down.”

“My car’s right in front of the apartment.”

“I’ll walk you down,” Noah repeated.

On the other side of the door Noah said, “I just gotta explain something. Cause I feel like a real treacherous bastard.”

“Whaddo you mean?”

“I’m not trying to be all holy. All, I’m better than that. It’s just, I’m with James is all.”

“What are you talking about?”

Noah mouthed, in case anyone was coming down the hall.

“Threeway.”

“Oh,” Casey laughed. “I know. I get it. I mean, as soon as it was out of my mouth I got it. James is… James is definitely a one on one thing. And you guys have some real shit. You can’t step up between that. I know.”

Noah opened his mouth.

“I know,” Casey repeated. “Who knows? Maybe I’ll get a little three way action going with someone else.”

“Be safe,” Noah said.

Casey nodded, then turned to go. But before he had turned totally he said, “You miss it? The wild shit?”

Noah thought about it.

“Not really. Not now at least. Back then I… needed it. If I hadn’t had it I think I’d still want it. But now this is what I want. My guy in that room.”

Casey nodded.

“Good ole James.”

“How do you know him?” Noah said, at last.

Casey looked at him.

“He hasn’t told you?”

Noah shook his head.

Casey frowned, actually looking serious. And then he said, “Well, then if he hasn’t told you, I don’t really guess I should either.”

Noah started to talk, but Casey said, “See you when the sun comes up.”

And he was gone.