The Skin of Things

“This day is the perfect combination of hot and gloomy,” Donovan said.

“Should we wait till next week?”

“No, and I notice you’re getting into the driver’s seat anyway. It will be just as cloudy and gloomy and just as overheated if we stay here. We can’t wait for the perfect moment. We just have to go.”

“I need to go,” Cade says in a voice that almost sounds like defeat.

A half hour later, after too many errands and what seemed like too much driving, Donovan looked at the sparsely spaced houses and asked, “Are we still in town?”

“I don’t know, but I don’t think so,” Cade said. “It’s hard to tell exactly where things end.”

It was hard to tell where the city blended into the surrounding towns, but it was not hard to tell when they were finally gone. Suddenly farm fields stretched themselves out on either side, and the trees went back further. What had been stands of ten or so pines became deep copses, opening up into little valleys hiding ponds and streams that went down to secret places, and the sky, so cramped in town, opened itself up so that even in the grayness of this warm day, occasional drops spitting on the ground, smacking the windows, Donovan was amazed by the length and height of so great a sky, and the variations in its enormous mottled white, grey and black and silver.

Cade fiddled around with the radio and eighties music, oldies, or the newest new songs whined through making half efforts against bad reception, and then flew away on the radio waves.

“This is annoying,” Cade said, and in the air conditioned darkness of the SUV, he clicked the radio off and they drove on in silence.

Suddenly Cade threw back his head and sang:

“‘Oh, slack your horse,’ cries George, “Come slack it for a while,”  

And, then Donovan, looked to him, surprised, but unlike Simon who would have just kept looking surprised, Donovan replied:

“‘For I think I see my father Coming over yonder style.’” 

And they both sang, Cade’s voice falling lower than Donovan’s

“‘Did you bring gold? Did you bring silver to set me free? For to keep my body from the cold jail wall And me neck from the high gallows tree.’” 

“Ah, so see,” Cade said, “We don’t need the radio. “We are self entertaining.”

They drove into town through a heavy rain, but the rain was quickly over, and after it, though the sun did not come out, the sky was less grey and the water cooler.

“I wanted to go to the beach,” Cade said. “I guess the sand is soaked now.”

“It’s a beach so sand will always be wet,” Donovan noted. “I feel like the water’s the first thing we should visit.”

“And the second?”

“Bed,” Donovan said. “I was up all night, and I know you did the driving, and I could have slept, but a shower and a hotel bed seem just right.”

“Yes,” Cade said. “I’ve been on vacation all summer, and yet for some reason, I feel like I could sleep like the dead.”

The lake was grey when they came to it, the waves sharp, oily triangles, and above the sky was going dark all over again.

“How long should we stay?” Cade said.

“I don’t imagine we’ll melt,” Donovan said.

They stayed until the sky was black, and there was lightning overhead and then, as they were walking quickly to the SUV, they heard others say, “Fine weekend to come to the beach!” But as the lightning skipped over the surface of the rippling waters, Donovan thought, “It is the perfect time to come to the beach.”

In the hotel room the lights went out, but only for a while. Donovan had brought pillar candles with him, and began to light them about the room so that the darkness was filled with rose colored lights and blue lights and budding pink lights, and then he sat before the glass doors that opened to the balcony, and opened them, looking out into the grey green afternoon darkness of the storm. Cade was playing his guitar and singing.

“The trees they so grow high, the leaves they do grow green Many is the time my true love I've seen Many an hour I have watched him all alone He's young, but he's daily growing.”

When the lights came back on, first with a shuddering flicker before returning fully, and across from them they could see the other lights in the hotel, Cade got up and shut them off and kept singing, while Donovan burned incense, and sat watching the storm.

They drove to Villa Novas, brought back pizza, and sat typing, Donovan in a chair before the window where the storm was lifting and the evening was settling, Cade on the bed, legs crossed under him.

-I’m going to say something horrible, and you should listen.”

Cade typed back:

-Alright

-I love talking to you all night.

-I love talking to you too.

-But the reason I’m on here all night is because my relationship is dying and I don’t talk to my boyfriend anymore. So why are you on here?”

Cade was surprised by this. He thought a while and then he said:

]

-I like us talking.

He waited for the black space to be filled with words, and then he typed:

-I want you to talk to someone in your town and meet people.

-I don’t know if I want to meet anyone.

-You can’t live that way.

Then a few moments later Cade wrote:

-Try to be happy. And then tell me how you do. I’ll talk to you tomorrow. Have fun in Chicago.

A moment later his friend typed back:

-We’re not in Chicago.

-Where?

-New Union.

-Get out.

-Why?

-It’s where I am too.

A few more moments later, Andrew typ

-We should meet.

] Cade looked around. He looked at Donovan, typing. He typed.

-I feel like we already did. I’m sure we did. I think you and your boyfriend—I think we had a three way. I don’t know if you remember it.

-It’s something we sort of do all the time.

Then Andrew typed:

-Would you like to meet?

-And have a three way again?

Cade was surprised that his dick was getting hard, but he typed:

-No.

And then.

-If you want I guess.

Then:

-I meant we could meet someplace and talk. If you want.

Cade said: “I’m going to go on a walk. Do you mind?”

“Does it involve getting laid?”

“It might,” Cade said, honestly. “But I doubt it.”

“Well,” Donovan shrugged, looking back. “Wear a raincoat. Or… wear a raincoat.”

It took a while for me to notice,” Andrew said. “But it is you.”

He shook Cade’s hand and embraced him, and they sat outside of the little ice cream shop.

“You look so different…”

“In clothes,” Cade said.

Andrew laughed and said, “Yeah. So, why are you here? With your boyfriend?”

“No. We broke up,” Cade said. “We broke up the same weekend as… you know. All of that.”

“Yeah,” Andrew said, steepling his fingers. He had thick black glasses, and Cade said, “It’s sort of fucked up. How you meet all these people to fuck, and then they could have made great friends. Like, we’re two normal people right here, and, I dunno.”

“I guess it all turned out alright,” Andrew said. “Yeah. We’re here.”

“So,” Cade said, stretching, “Do you and… what’s his name?”

“Cory.”

“Do you all come for the sights?”

Andrew looked around. Now that it was night there was no difference between a stormy day and a sunny one.

“We come to fuck. Cory thinks it’s neat if we do it away from home.”

“Or maybe he thinks it’s like shitting in your own bed to do it where you live. Which is a shame, cause sex isn’t shitting.”

“Good point.”

“Do you like it?” Cade said.

“Huh?”

“Now that I’ve broke up with Simon, I’m thinking about all the things I did that I’m not sure if I actually wanted to do. I was just curious.”

“I like it sometimes. I like you,” Andrew said.

He said, “We’re getting with a couple. Cory let me pick them. You can come. It would be cool.”

When Andrew said it, Cade was so stiff he realized that he had walked into everything Simon had introduced willingly, especially that night, when he had gotten with Andrew and his boyfriend. But he could remember everything after and so he said, “That’s very cool of you, but no. Besides, I have a friend waiting for me.”

“A he friend or a she friend.”

“A he friend.”

“Like a boyfriend?” Andrew raised his eyebrow.

Cade thought of saying that he had slept with Donovan, but instead he said, “A friend who is very important to me.”

“Well, then,” Andrew said. “Yeah. So… No crazy sex parties.”

“I’m afraid not.”

Andrew lifted his coffee and took another sip.

“We’re going to keep being friends, right? Talking?”

“Yeah!” Cade said. “Definitely.”

“I gotta ask you this. I will regret not asking.”

“Okay.”

“I get you don’t want a sex party and all that. But…. What about something else?

“Ahhhhh! Ahh! Oh, God!”

Ezekiel’s hands went over Donovan’s mouth, and as he leaned into him harder he whispered, “Quiet. Quiet… Ooooh!” The quickly rising pleasure caught him. He didn’t want to finish right away, but they couldn’t stay forever, and so he whispered into Donovan’s ears and into his tight damp curls: “Are you ready?”

Face drawn, looking at himself in the mirror, and then staring into the basin he panted, “Yes.”

Ezekiel pulled out of him. They came at the same time with two, prolonged, body rocking groans, and then Ezekiel was collapsed against Donovan in the large locked bathroom of the coffee shop.

At last Donovan said, “We’ve simply got to stop meeting like this,” and reached for the paper towels, wetting them to wipe semen from his back and buttocks, from Ezekiel’s half stiff penis, and from his stomach. On impulse he kissed Ezekiel there, and then took him in his mouth. Then he let him go, wiping him down again.

“You’re not good for me, Don,” Ezekiel said, pulling up his trousers and buckling them. “You make me feel like an undergrad all over again. I’m supposed to be so responsible.”

Donovan had turned and was washing his hands and taking the brush to his hair.

“No, Ezekiel, I think you were probably pretty by-the-book as an undergrad, too.”

“You’re right,” Ezekiel said, leaning in to wash his hands. “I was pretty… Un-fun. Ey, what are you doing?”

Donovan had grabbed Ezekiel’s face, and now he was wetting his hair.

“I’m gonna spike your hair. Now come on, let’s get the hell out of here before someone wonders what’s going on. You first. Me second.”

“And then we’ll load your moped into the back of my van.”

“I already told you—”

“And I already told you,” Ezekiel lifted a finger, “that it’s cold. I’m taking you home. I won’t come in. I understand, but I will take you home.”

Donovan shrugged and then, turning the handle of the bathroom door, left.

It had been Donovan who suggested sex as they were finishing the coffee. He whispered it, leaning across the table. Ezekiel turned red and pushed his glasses up over his beautiful eyes.

“I could go in first, and you could make like you were going out. And then there’s this back way. You could come in through the back way, meet me in the bathroom. Or you could just come in a few minutes later if you don’t give a fuck.”

“I wish I didn’t give a fuck, as you say. The way you don’t.”

“I’m getting up and going now.”

“Donovan, we can’t,” Ezekiel made a small grab for him. It was only about four people in the coffee house.

“I’ll see you in about three minutes,” Donovan said, walking toward the bathroom.

Ezekiel didn’t take three minutes. He came eager, curious and half afraid. Donovan reached behind him and closed the door. Then he grabbed him by the face and pulled him in, kissing him. The two of them quickly, gently, unbuckled their belts and pulled down jeans and trousers, lifted up shirts…

“Sharing,” Donovan chuckled. “Uniting!”