Men of All Seasons Box Set

by R. W. Clinger

  Chapter 19: While Miss Kitty is Away

  August 12, 2014

  The Bottle Martini: 6 Parts Gin, 2 Parts Apricot Brandy, 1 Part Lemon Juice.

  Miss Kitty was away for the day, shopping in Ohio with Harlow. The two women had plans to go antiquing for glass bottles from the Civil War era, spending quite the sum of money on the items. Because Miss Kitty had vacated Mill Street, I was left alone in Tuck’s hands, under his spell.

  There was no gravity, pulling and keeping Tucker Martini grounded, out of my attic room. Frankly, anytime he could climb the ladder and in through the window, he did. Because he also knew that Miss Kitty was away for the day, possibly even spending the night at her friend’s haunted farmhouse in Ashtabula, Tuck had every intention of taking advantage of me, and using my flesh the way he had been anticipating for maybe a week or more.

  What happened to my heart on that heated, summer afternoon when we stripped out of our clothes and started kissing each other? How lost did I become? And how far into liking did fall? I didn’t know…because I could only feel the answers to those questions: prickling numbness within my chest, toes trembling, and sharp scratches at the back of my neck.

  He dressed his dick in latex and he throttled my tight ass on my bed, doggy style, sweat everywhere. My heart thumped chaotically underneath my ribs, and not because I was experiencing lust. Rather, I felt drawn to the man, and more than just in a sexual way. Emotionally I was bridged to him, heatedly, and without question. I felt as if he were a part of me, which I didn’t honestly understand, but hoped that I would, and soon.

  That afternoon—with a pile of our crumpled clothes on the floor, the humid heat of the day suffocating us, neighborhood yells from playful college guys in backyard pools, cicadas chirping in the nearby gardens—we made love, my tight ass impaled by his dick numerous times. And there—summer all around us, the window open and a trespassing bumblebee watching our sexual labor, our knees against the bed’s sheets—I backed into his erection more than fifty times, and he banged me with tornado force, which caused us to forget about the summer heat and the world around us, alone in the attic room and ready to come in unison.

  I knew that we were meant to be together, that I personally had reached that edge of love with the man. Helplessly I had fallen steadily and hard for him, and against him, and was swept into his musical world away from his hometown of Cincinnati, Ohio.

  The sex was everything I imagined it would be with him: powerful and unyielding, tender with some fist-jabs against my shoulders, bites to my neck, and a cadence of growls from both of our mouths. We were not as gentle as we could have been. We were more like animals on my bed, tearing at each other’s skin, pounding our bodies together.

  Following that heated and irresistible session of what we deemed as lovemaking, I watched him rest in the afternoon sunlight. His sticky chest rose and fell as if he were in an independent black-and-white film; a beautiful and melodramatic film that the masses wouldn’t have watched or thought entertaining. He looked tranquil on the bed’s rumpled surface, at peace, and he was silent, perhaps at a loss for words. For the first time I had noticed his pale nose, which was blotted with sunburn, darker than pink, but not on fire. And his shoulders were the same way, motionless on the bed, broad and muscularly handsome. If I could have only kept him that way forever. If I could have only…

  We were wrapped in each other’s arms, dappled by sunlight that bore inside the room, hot and heated by its ferocious and mad rays of August. We kissed numerous times after our sexual play, windblown a bit, exhausted. Our bodies were wet with perspiration, and areas were still covered in the drying ejaculate that dribbled over our skin. Occasionally we swatted at a stray bumblebee, hovering over our nakedness, shooing the insect away, and ending its voyeuristic behavior.

  In the distance, thunder rumbled across the heavens, on a power trip of sorts to ruin the lethargic and perfect day. Within an hour it would be raining, lightening, and the thunder would rake throughout Erie. Soon, sprinkles of rain would turn into a downpour, flooding a few creeks, sewers, and downtown alleyways.

  “Micah,” he said, facing me on the bed and breathing on my lips.

  “What?”

  “Is it too early to feel this crazy about you?”

  “It depends exactly how crazy you are for me.”

  “Words can’t describe the emotions.”

  “That’s why you’re a pianist and not a writer.”

  We kissed; I tasted sweat on his lips and that tiny area of bare skin above his chin.

  Once the kiss ended, I replied to his question with, “It’s not too early. Liking or loving happens when we least expect it. It’s like the bumblebee: pestering, beautiful, enjoyable, and relentless.”

  “It is,” he agreed, pleased with our brief conversation.

  I don’t know exactly when he closed his eyes and fell asleep next to me. Before I realized it, he was lightly snoring, buzzing dreamy trees down with an electric chainsaw, clinging to me. He whispered something in his sleep; conjunctions and grunts that were unclear, but spoken; endearing and innocent sounds that I couldn’t comprehend, but considered expressive and kind.

  We were lovers, I realized. No longer in like for each other. More than boyfriends. More than friends. More than just two people who lived under the same roof. It was an amazing feeling to have. Lightness mixed with sweetness collected within my chest. I wasn’t sure what to call it exactly. And honestly, I never wanted to feel any differently, keeping it close to me forever, until the end of oblivion.

  * * * *

  We listened to the storm build around us; how ironic that is today; how maddening. A storm was coming. Neither Tuck nor I had any idea of the force it would bear.

  Chapter 20: A Boyfriend’s History

  October 15, 2015

  What I learned about Carl Martini was nothing shocking or out of the ordinary. There were no secret relationships with younger men. He didn’t suffer from alcohol abuse or a bad temper. And nor did he sneak into Candy Girls and enjoy the company of gyrating females, lap dances, and other common events that a straight man might have enjoyed outside of a significant relationship. I had acknowledged that he wasn’t a liar, storyteller, or selfish. Carl was the perfect man, unblemished, and without any baggage.

  Frankly, it startled me to think that he was dropped out of heaven and into my lap; an angel of sorts without any flaws. Wanting to learn of a blotch, I had decided to put him through a battery of questions, which he had surprisingly agreed to.

  Not only did I learn more about Carl’s history, but I had gained knowledge of his decency, once again proving that he was a saint, someone of harmless intent, and a friend that I could trust; a round-about nice young man that I could call my own—a future boyfriend and lover.

  * * * *

  “You grew up in Bangor, Maine, correct?”

  “Yes,” he replied. “I did. I liked building things, though. That was my calling at eighteen. It still is my calling today.”

  “You told me your parents are divorced, right?”

  He nodded. “I was seventeen. My father, Davis, moved me here to Erie. He started the construction business I now have.”

  “Is your mother still in Maine?”

  “She is. She’s a professional seamstress. She has a shop in downtown Bangor.”

  “How often do you see her?”

  “Once a year. Sometimes twice.”

  “And your father moved to Florida, right?”

  “He lives in a pink house on the beach in Naples. He met a realtor here in Erie. He’s still with her. Her name is Emily Sunshine. Honestly, it is. She was visiting her family here in Erie for Easter a few years ago, and my father was taken by her. He followed her to Florida. The two are now living together in her pink beach house. My father loves it there, and Emily. I’ve never known him to be as happy.”

  “Does he have a new construction company in Naples?”

  “Believe it or not, Emily takes care of h
im. He’s a stay-at-home man and loves it. He does the cooking, cleaning, and grocery shopping. The man is loving life, and Emily loves him because he’s faithful and honest.”

  Then I asked him about being gay and he told me, “I liked girls when I was ten. Then things started to change for me. I went through puberty at eleven and couldn’t understand what was happening to my body or why I started to become attracted to guys. It was all very strange for me.”

  “When did you kiss a guy for the first time?”

  He replied, “His name was Brett Carson. We were both fifteen. It was summertime and we were in his pool, after dark. We did other things together too, experimenting. I want to call him my very first boyfriend, but we never really called each other that.”

  There were more questions that he answered that told me about the places he had lived in Erie; how he had always wanted to go to the prom as a high school senior, but didn’t; how his father’s construction business had taken off and he was now running it without being in the red. I also determined he was a happy young man who was entering his thirties, wise with his business, hardworking, and not at all fearing the hardest challenges in life.

  And, I learned that Carl Martini was flawless, a respectable man with integrity, and mine.

  Chapter 21: A Moment of Truth

  August 13, 2014

  The St. Petersburg Martini: 6 Parts Vodka, 3 Dashes of Orange Bitters, Orange Peel.

  We took a shower together the next morning. Miss Kitty had spent the night in Ohio, which gave use the house all to ourselves. After the use of shampoo, soap, and a second round of heated sex with him, we dried off, brushed our teeth, and dressed. Then we had breakfast in the kitchen. Jokingly, I claimed I could cook and threw eggs, sausage, and toast on plates—a total disaster. The eggs were tasteless, the sausage was undercooked, and the toast was burnt. Having dignity, boldly confesses my weaknesses as a man, I told him, “I’m not Julia Childs and never will be.”

  And Tuck laughed.

  Following breakfast, sitting across from each other at the small, round table in Miss Kitty’s kitchen, Tuck looked down at his plate and whispered, “There’s something I have to tell you, Micah. You might not like to hear it, which is just a warning.”

  “What kind of something?” I was brave and had seen a lot of shit in my twenty-plus years, more so than the maybe the average man that was my age on the planet.

  He lifted his head, shared his green stare with me that I couldn’t resist, and said, “Promise you won’t judge me?”

  “I promise,” I said. “Now spill it. What do you have to tell me?”

  It was an ugly picture that he painted. The event had taken place three years prior, when he was in college. He said he was a junior at Lincoln College and called himself a good student. He said, “I was bombing physics and needed some help. The college had tutors in specific areas so I arranged one for assistance. His name was Jim Dayle, a blond twin with beautiful eyes. Jim helped me with more than physics, of course, which wasn’t my plan. We ended up sleeping together after every tutoring session.”

  I wanted to interject his tale, but didn’t. What he had shared with me thus far was rational and happened to a lot of college kids. I was pretty sure that sleeping with professors and tutors wasn’t as uncommon as people believed. It was no big deal, right?

  But that wasn’t the end of Tuck’s tale.

  “I didn’t know Jim had a boyfriend. Some gym rat with muscular gym rat friends. Jim never told me that. He never let on to me once that he was involved with another man and…”

  That ugly picture that Tuck had painted—I couldn’t erase it from my mind—Jim’s boyfriend finding out that Jim was fucking Tuck behind his back; the boyfriend devising a horrible and violating scheme; the boyfriend convincing his gym rat friends to break into Tuck’s apartment in the middle night; Tuck’s mouth covered with duct tape; two gym rats holding Tuck down on his bed while the third pushed Tuck’s legs apart and had his way with him; the horrible details of how the rats took turns with his bottom, one after the next; the unsafe sex; the bruises on Tuck’s wrists and inner thighs thereafter; the splotches of gym rat sweat and semen covering his private parts, chest, and face; the way the rats laughed during their hard humps; the unbearable groans and Spartan force; the way the gym rats left Tuck on his bed, semi-unconscious, semen-covered and…

  “Jesus,” I whispered, watching tears slowly fall out of the corners of his eyes. Tuck’s cheeks were pale and his lips looked dry. “I’m sorry.”

  “I didn’t press charges against them. I could have, but didn’t. I feared that they would have killed me.” And then Tuck told me how he had stopped using Jim Dayle as a tutor and immediately ended their sex capers. Tuck added, “Jim didn’t know what his boyfriend had done. I could see it in his eyes. He had no idea that I was raped by his boyfriend’s gym rat friends.”

  “Fuck,” I whispered, shocked because of his confession, shaking my head. “That’s horrible.”

  “They could have killed me if they wanted. The guys were twice my size,” Tuck said. “I honestly thought that was going to happen after they raped me. But they left me alone, which was a surprise.”

  I stood from the table, walked around it, reached down for him to stand, which he did, and collected him in my arms. I rocked him inside my arms from left to right, comforting him, holding him tightly, unable to let him go, and said, “You’re safe now. Really, you are. You know that, right?”

  He said it was a long time ago, but I didn’t believe him. Instead, I thought his incident with the three gym rats was still raw in his mind, and that he had nightmares because of the tragedy. But he sobbed, “Better,” into the crock of my left shoulder, which didn’t convince me in the slightest that he had overcome the damaging event in his life. Pain was still noticeable in his sobbing.

  We rocked together for the next few minutes and I thought, Those stupid things in our lives that we will always regret. Those ridiculous love affairs that always get us into trouble. Their outcomes can be tragic and lifelong. They can suffocate us all. Honestly, they can.

  “I’m better now,” he continued to sob.

  “You are.”

  “You make it better, Micah.”

  And something strange, but real, told me that he was maybe right. I was making it better for him. How exactly, I wasn’t sure. But I was there, rocking him in my arms, letting him sob on my shoulder, and promising him that I would never hurt him, never, in love with the man on so many different levels.

  Chapter 22: Carl’s Family

  October 16, 2015

  I learned more about his family. His mother, Luanne was an amateur watercolorist, drove better than his father, and was currently dating a woman by the name of Chantel Meadows. Luanne was fifty-nine years old, enjoyed biking, baking, and summertime parades. Her lover, Chantel, owned a small island off Maine called Little Bear Hill. The two women had visited the island several times in the summer, enjoying weekends away from their Bangor lives and Luanne’s seamstress shop.

  Curiosity had killed the cat numerous times and I had asked Carl, “Did your mother’s affair with another woman break your parents’ marriage apart?”

  “I don’t know the details behind that. Maybe. Maybe not. I try not to put too much thought into the past.”

  “Was Chantel in the picture when you were seventeen?”

  “She was. The two women were always the best of friends. I’m sure they were interested in each other when I was in high school. I always thought they were lovers, but a part of me didn’t want to because my dad was going through a rough time back then. It’s never easy to watch a relationship fall apart.” He paused, cleared his throat, and added, “Life is better now for all of us. We’re all settled and happy.”

  Enough said.

  Carl had painted a clear picture for me regarding the breakage of his family life. I surmised that Luanne had an affair with Chantel. Davis, Carl’s father, scooped Carl up and headed south, landing in Erie.
Davis started a construction company after his marriage fell apart. And then Davis met a wealthy woman from Naples, Florida, whom he fell in love with, upending his life again, but in a good way. And Davis headed south to be with her, and gave his construction business to his son. All of it made sense to me. Every little scathing detail of hardship, love, and loss.

  Chapter 23: Literature and Music

  August 14, 2014

  The Oceanic Martini: 2 Parts Citron Vodka, 2 Parts Blue Curacao, 1 Part Cranberry Juice, Lime Wedge.

  I had three critiques to complete by four o’clock that afternoon. One was on a lousy book of poems called Estuary Misery by Lou Pender. The second book, a three hundred page slice-of-life piece of nonfiction, was titled High-light, High-life, which I absolutely loved, thought comical, and well worth the read. And the final book was a compilation of twelve connecting stories that comprised a mystery. The author, a Milldon Hennyworth, had created a floating and dazzling read with on-the-edge-of-your-seat scenes and a thick plot. Not only did I love Gray Harmony, the book’s title, but I had planned on reading it a second time out of selfish enjoyment, page by page.

  I worked throughout the morning, tedious with my labor. Tuck texted me during the passing hours as I crafted my critiques. During one of those personalized texts, he reminded me of his evening’s piano solo performance at Jayne Hall, Bach pieces mixed with contemporary artists’ pop hits, and that he had hoped I would attend. I told him during a brief call, “I wouldn’t miss it. Thanks for inviting me.” One text asked him if he would have an afternoon delight with me in my attic room, but he politely declined, claiming he had to practice for that evening’s performance, which I completely understood. Another text said, I love you, Mr. Martini. Play hard tonight.

  One thing I enjoyed while writing was some top-notch and A-grade cannabis. Marijuana was not something that I objected to smoking. My usage was limited and next to none. A hit here and there calmed me and actually caused me to write better, I thought. Getting high was not on my list of top things to do during my days, but occasionally I did light up, drift away, and design a few critiques that booklovers could enjoy or loathe. Smoking pot relaxed me, and it seemed to have relaxed my writing, prompting it to flow without chips, scratches, or dents.