Works and Days

Part two

The works 

And days

Of hands

Chapter nine

The second coming of ann ford

This was a day for rain. Friday morning after Thanksgiving was just the right time for a slow thunderstorm. No one had really expected it. It came toward them late in the night with winds picking up as Chayne said goodbye to Wynns and Princes, kissed his mother goodbye and reminded her to call when she and Graham were home. By one in the morning the sky shuddered with lightning, an at first inperceptiable on and off of electric in the sky.

Now was the grey green morning of muffled thunder and rain against the windows and now, as much as Chayne had loved having Faye and loved Russell, it was good to have his house on his own. Not alone, no, not alone. It had been around twelve, after everyone was gone, that Chayne had watched a truck pull up. He wasn’t sure it was stopping in front of his house, but then it did, and he knew the truck and he was surprised when his body gave an involuntary shudder. Ted Weirbach stepped out of the truck, looked around, took in his breath and looked like he was gathering his courage. The lanky, sandy haired man went up the walk and up the stairs and Chayne opened the door. Ted stood there, his cap in hand, literally.

“Hi,” he said.

“Hi, Ted.”

“I thought about coming by earlier, but I knew your family was here.”

Chayne was about to say, “You could have come anyway,” but instead he said, “Don’t stand out in the cold. The wind is picking up.”

“I thought about coming over all day,” Ted said. “I thought of calling, but calling first seemed sort of… So… I just came over.”

Ted was a man of poems and, perhaps, of classroom lessons for third graders. He was not a great speechmaker.

“I’m glad you came over,” Chayne said.

The whole of the living room seemed to be trembling. Ted looked like he was about to twitch out of control, like this had taken everything in him, and Chayne felt that familiar humming in his body so he pulled Ted’s face down and kissed him and then, as if this was all the permission Ted needed, the taller man put his hands firmly on Chayne’s shoulders and led him to the couch. Sometimes it was like this, where things happened quicker than planned, They didn’t make it to the bed or turn out the light. As the rain began that made love on the sofa, a slow bucking tangle of arms and legs, heads in shoulders, hands caressing. By now they’d been together a few times, and Chayne knew and loved the aggression that overtook Ted once he knew he was accepted and the passion so different from the gentle school teacher that over took him once their clothes were removed.

 

In the morning, in his room, Chayne closed his eyes and almost with the slow rhythm of the thunder, Ted, the blankets down from his beautiful body, fucked him as Chayne lifted his thighs and drew him in. While rain pattered, he pulled Ted down and wrapped his legs around him, and they moved like one small creature in a meditation of joy, Chayne’s hands in his hair, Ted’s mouth on his while he became harder and settled down deeper.

 

“I get so shy,” Ted whispered when they lay together in the comforting dark. A little light shined. It was from the kitchen where the coffee maker was beginning to percolate, and the light bent down the hallway to give the last of its dim self to right outside of the room.

“And then when I come here I feel… safe.”

Ted’s voice was quiet and deep, and they lay under the covers, Ted’s longer, larger body hot and comforting while Chayne spooned him.

“Safe,” Chayne kissed the back of his neck.

Ted groaned a little and stretched, yawning, his whole body going stiff and straight, and then he curled back into Chayne.

“It’s hard to overestimate how important it is to feel safe.”

 

The storm had settled into a steady pitter pattering of rain as they stretched out together.

“Should I go before everyone wakes?”

“I don’t know. Maybe. Maybe. Yes. I don’t want to be confused.”

No, he said, stretching and pushing back the covers. “Or have to say too much too soon.”

“I don’t even know what we’re supposed to say.”

He didn’t either, and so as he pulled his pajama bottoms on and tried to tidy his hair, he said nothing at first.

When he spoke he said, “We don’t want to confuse Russell.”

“It’s not Russell I’m worried about,” Patti said, propping her head up as she reclined on an elbow and pushing her curls from her face.

“And by the way, what the hell was this?”

“I thought,” Thom pulled his tee shirt on, “it was us getting back together.”

“It was us having sex,” Patti said. “That’s not getting together. Talking things out, making a stab at having a life again is getting together. A spur of the moment… romp.”

“Did you actually say romp?”

“Is not getting back together.”

“Which is why we’re not going to tell anyone.”

Patti looked troubled.

She said, “Not tell anyone in this house.”

Thom said, “What about that guy you’re seeing?”

“What?”

“Com’on, I know you’re like… seeing one of Russell’s teachers.”

“He is not Russell’s teacher and yes, I need to talk to him.”

“Are you sleeping with him?”

At the look on Patti’s face, Thom said, “I’m not judging. I don’t have a right to. I’m just asking, cause if you are, you owe him the truth.”

“And you own whoever you’re boning the truth too,” Patti said.

When he looked at her this time, she said, “Oh please! You think you’re such a surprise to me. But whoever she is, don’t hurt her.”

Chuck knew something had changed that Saturday night when he went out with Patti. For her part, Patti felt nothing less than a slut for having slept with this man and made a place in his bed, something she hadn’t even done with Thom until she’d married him, only to stand here telling him that she owed Thom a second chance, that they were going to try to make it work. She prayed to God Chuck wouldn’t see through her, know she’d already cheated on him by sleeping with her husband. Blessedly, he didn’t ask.