The Skin of Things

CADE

When I was very little, the water meant everything to me, and so when Simon tells me he’s scheduled this weekend where we will meet a couple, and it will be in the beach town of New Union, with the Craftsman style houses, with all its resort hotels, and the Amtrak station stopping through, I don’t even think of saying no. I think of sand and the smell of grey blue water, weeds in the sand. Oddly, the invitation to sex had sex being the last thing on my mind.

I forgot to add that by now, me and Simon were living together. We were on the other side of the river from the school, in a beige building like Don’s but newer, a little more modern, and Simon was planning all this in our very large kitchen. He made a good living. I’ve also forgotten to say that, like many people, like me I guess, Simon lead a double life. Respectable Democrat working in the mayor’s office, giving speeches about progressive gay rights, a member of the Freemasons with the dorky pictures to prove it, very devoted to his pressed suits and the older men whose favor he cultivated. He was two years older than me, a graduate of Notre Dame, and I thought, maybe he’s too posh for me. Maybe I’m beneath him. But one night, before we moved in together, I got a phone call from the police station, and I had to bail him out of jail for drunk driving.

“This is your second DUI, kid,” the officer told Simon as we were leaving. “Third is the charm.”

He looked so miserable in his mug shot. His famous hair seemed a little greenish, and it was in his face. Under his eyes was green too. In my truck he put his hands in his face and wept.

“This is who I am. This is me.”

Instead of holding him I just said, “Does that mean you don’t mind if I get high?”

So we got high that night and then even drunker, and even more fucked up. We got in the shower and fucked, then went to bed. We were at my old place, and the lease was almost up.

“Move in with me,” Simon said.

When I moved in, I learned that Simon was a functional drunk, but I wasn’t bothered. It made him, so I thought, more like me. The morning we were planning our trip, like chalk dust and almost as carelessly placed, was a quantity of coke on the kitchen table, and we were both snorting it. So this was my world. Or, this is my world. And in the morning, we would rise, shine, shower, and he would go to the mayor’s office, and I would go to pre school to sing for kids, and open up their little drinks and fruit snacks.

And now that I think of it, that doesn’t mean we were leading double lives. Simon was always talking about freedom, and he was being free, and we were leading an unconventional life. But leading a life that has no limits, when other people are very, very limited, means you just can’t tell everybody everything. It’s not about shame. There just actually isn’t a place and time to reveal your whole self.

“Oh fuck! Oh fuck! Fuck! Fuck me!”

“You like it? You fucking like it?”

“God!” he growled. “I love it.”

The hard clapping, Andrew slamming into his asshole over and over again, his balls and hips clapping against him, as he pushed his ass out. He loved it, and he loved how they called him by his name.

“Take it, Cade! Take it, Cade! Take it, Cade. Take it.”

Andrew, deep in him, leaned over him, kissing his back, pushing his cock deeper, and biting his shoulder, kissing the round bone at the base of his neck, running hands up and down him while Cade reached out, high and hungry for Cory’s dick, taking it in his mouth while he cupped the other boy’s ass, and pulled his cock further down his throat. One fucked his ass, the other fucked his face. After a while, who pulled his hair and made his eyes water, he couldn’t say. He didn’t want to say. He’d met them on the beach. Andrew and his boyfriend had talked to him and Simon on Grindr, but, once they’d reached New Union, Simon had ended up with some other guy. For a moment, Cade had been afraid that everything that was supposed to happen wouldn’t happen, and then Andrew, with the musical, slightly nasal voice, with the small waist and Mediterranean features, touched his hand and said, “Cademon? That’s a beautiful name.”

So, Cade had shown up alone. He had wanted to be with these boys, and after all the shadowy and often half hearted hookups, this was the first one he’d actually wanted.

As he had touched his hand, he wondered who the cute boy with the dark features, the big ears, the nasal voice and the slightly big nose was in all of his other lives, here suave and twinkish on the beach, but what about Monday through Friday, and right now, tonight, he was fucking the shit out of him.

“Oh MY FUCKING GOD!” Cade cried, each syllable fucked out of him by Andrew. Cory fucked his mouth, and in a few moments he would take Andrew and fuck him again.

The fucking had started well into the night, after they had snorted up all the cocaine and smoked the majority of the pot, they began to make out in the hot tub. Cade sat there watching Cory and Andrew make out, and it was just when he was starting to feel sad and jealous that Andrew said, “We haven’t forgotten about you,” and swam a little to press his mouth to Cade while on the other side of him, up and down his back and neck, Cory kissed him, his mouth going down, down and further down. He reached behind him to kiss Andrew’s mouth and while they were all loving each other in the warm water of the hot tub, Andrew said, “Cade, why are you crying?”

“Am I?” Cade said.

Then he said, “We all ought to love each other. All the time.”

That last time, they had moved to the bed, and none of them talked, though occasionally something like a sob escaped Andrew’s mouth. Cade closed his eyes and gentle mouthed Andrew’s ear while he fucked him slowly, massaging his back, kissing him up and down while he moaned. Cory pounded him tenderly. That last time, when the climax came, gentle, but insistent and body rocking, Cade’s hands opened, closed, opened, and his body shook. He stayed for them all to finish up, all to lie in the bed naked. He stayed until that moment right before he was there a moment too long, and then Andrew said, as Cade stood up, “You should shower before you go.”

“No,” Cade said. “It’s a good night. I can shower when I get home.”