by Rowan Massey
He only shrugged.
“I’m not going to judge you. Keep going. What do you mean by ‘aggressive’?”
“Uh, well, he was telling me what to do. I mean, he was asking at first, then started telling, you know? I was into it though. We took our pants down, and as soon as I touched his dick, he came. And he was just so fucking embarrassed.”
He tilted his head back and laughed sharply. I couldn’t help smiling in response, even though it sounded about as fucked up as the few other hookup stories he’d told me—the stories that didn’t seem like the tender and emotional Zander I knew. The encounters sounded cold, often a little perverted, and always involved men that were older, sometimes it sounded like they were almost abusive. I was glad to be a departure from his norm.
“How old were you then?” I asked.
He blinked at me. I thought he hadn’t understood what I’d asked so I repeated myself.
“How old am I now?” he asked, a hint of fear in his voice.
His hand slipped out of mine and he clinched and unclinched it on the tabletop. It was always very clear when his mental illness reared its ugly head. Watching him go from laughter to confusion in a split second was familiar, but it still saddened me.
“I’m tired,” he said, turning his head away.
He slowly slid his hands away from me until his forearms rested on his legs. He rubbed his palms together between his thighs. That was just something he sometimes said to change the subject. I stood, glad to let some blood flow to my numb ass cheeks, and he mirrored me. I didn’t let him walk away though. I took him into my arms and rubbed his back and kissed his face, planting one on his nose, one on his cheek. He kissed my chin, and then our lips met and lingered.
“Thank you,” I said in a soothing voice. “I’ve been waiting to hear your story for a long time. Is that why I got so many stories at once, to make up for making me wait?”
He gave me a snorting laugh that I’d grown to love, and patted my chest. His hands were a little shaky, and his face was pale. He was always trying to hide his anxiety with laughter, change of subject, distraction, or sex. Well, he’d earned it, and I let him change the subject while I rubbed up and down along his waist.
“Are we still reading the asteroid thing, or did you finish it while I was sleeping?” he asked.
“I finished it. Were you into it?”
“Not really.”
“Let’s read yours then.” I suggested.
“Mine?”
Walking to the next room, I let my hand travel down his arm until I’d gone out of reach.
“The one you brought. What is it about?” I asked.
“Oh, I have no idea,” he said quickly, rubbing the back of his head. “We don’t have to read that. Let’s read yours. Don’t you need to read something for work?”
I picked up the old paperback, which had brittle, yellowed pages. The cover showed a picture of a mansion by the ocean. From experience, I knew before turning it over and reading the description that it was a mystery; one of those Agatha Christie inspired things. The author’s name was vaguely familiar.
“No, now I’m curious. Let’s do it,” I said, and plopped down on the sofa. I stretched my arm out so he could sit beside me and rest his head on my shoulder like he always did. He hesitated for a moment, glancing at the book in my hands, but sat and let me squeeze his shoulders and kiss the top of his head. I struggled for a second, trying to open the old book with one hand, so he helped and I started to read. My voice had sounded dull and halting when he’d first started asking me to read to him, but I’d gotten comfortable with it, and learned to pace myself, speaking naturally, and keeping a rhythm of emphasis going.
The story was indeed written a long time ago, maybe in the fifties, and had phrases like, oh my!, and be a dear. Every time I read a line of mildly bad writing, it made me smile or laugh. Zander was new to reading and didn’t seem to get the humor in it. I started to feel bad because he was still showing anxiety—bouncing his foot, pinching his lip between his fingers, lifting his head to glance at me—and my amusement wasn’t helping. Maybe he’d picked the book with more consideration than he’d let on.
He took his little metal mint box from his pocket and took a pill from it. Closing it with extreme caution, as if something might explode if one fell out, he slipped it back into his pocket, pushing it down deep.
Whenever I tried to ask him about his health, his diagnosis, his prognosis, or anything related, he would shake his head and wave a hand dismissively, sometimes he would even find an excuse to leave the room. I was grateful that he’d given me a little more insight into all of that through his stories. It made me want to do something nice for him, almost as a reward. Maybe I could take him up to my grandparents’ old house. It had just been vacated, and I needed to make a trip to check on things before renting it out for another year.
I was weary of taking care of the place and wanted to sell, but Liam had a share of it and he grew irritated every time I tried to discuss it. The place was a source of stress, not because I didn’t still have fond memories of my grandparents, who had done the best they knew how and had given me a loving place to be during many summers, but because being there made me lonely and old. Could I turn such a trip into something romantic for Zander, or would he be bored?
I was still reading distractedly, and he sensed that I’d lost interest.
“I’ll get you some water,” he said, and stood.
I was used to reading aloud to him and didn’t think about my mouth getting a little dry, but he was thoughtful and always got me some water before I knew I needed it. His ass drew my attention as he walked out of the room. Even just the way he walked was attractive to me. He didn’t walk any differently from everyone else, but his scuffed sneakers, his slightly nervous gait, and the fact I could tell the sound of his footsteps just as easily as I could recognize his voice, all melded into a warm bundle of fondness in my chest.
Sometimes I wondered why I was so confident about my future with Zander. It felt like a given, not because I took him for granted, but because there was something deeply correct about it. Reminding myself that I’d only known him for four months, that he was still secretive and mysterious, that yes, he was sweet but also unpredictable, had become routine for me. But no matter how often I reminded myself of the unknowns, I still felt that I knew something greater than those things, something on an instinctive level that meant I’d always been with Zander in some sense. No, as if I’d always been waiting to be with him, and that despite his mysteries, I knew him as much as anyone can know another.
When I was thinking in a more practical manner, I often caught myself looking over at the door to Lottie’s room. It was as if that space were a ghost lingering and watching while I conducted my relationship with someone not so much older than my daughter. Sometimes my glances towards that door were prompted by little things that Zander did or said that reminded me of Lottie or her friends. One day, he mentioned the skate park in passing—just that he’d met up with a friend there recently. It made my stomach flip. There had been so much drama over Lottie’s daredevilry at that park. I was sure she still went there, although she claimed she no longer cared for it. Being unable to keep the connections in my mind from tying those two to each other made me uncomfortable. But many people entered age gap relationships. Their families got over it, didn’t they?
Then there was Lysander. What would he think of me and Zander? I told myself not to make myself crazy. My son wasn’t part of my life yet. I always thought of it in phrases like, “Not yet, but eventually. Hopefully soon”.
Zander returned with the water and handed it to me, then plopped down beside me and gave my cheek a quick peck. I gulped it down and put the glass on the table.
“What would you think about doing a weekend away?” I asked, taking his hand in mine. Our fingers curled loosely around one another. We held hands a lot. If was a nice habit.
“Away where?” he asked.
; “I need to go out to my country house. New tenants, remember? I think I mentioned it.”
“Hmm,” he said, scratching his scalp. “Maybe.”
“All we do is sit around the house. Aren’t you bored?” I was teasing. I knew he wasn’t bored. He was a homebody, like me.
“You’re bored?” He asked, a little apprehensively.
I smiled. “No, but you’re the young one.”
“Out in the country? What will we do?” he asked.
“We’ll have romantic picnics, drink wine by the fireplace…” He was giving me his slow smile. “…paint walls, clean…”
He made a face and stuck out his tongue. “You just want me for free labor and blow jobs.”
“Yeah? Then what do you want me for?”
“Free vacation and blow jobs,” he said, grinning.
He leaned in, I met him in the middle, and we kissed. Playfully, he turned his head away, and I cupped my hand over his jaw, making him turn back to me and kiss me again. Zander had two ways of kissing: the silly game of making me beg for it by sticking out his tongue, or making a face with a big toothy grin, or hiding his head under my armpit; and the passionate, desperate kissing during or leading up to sex. I loved all of it.
“Let’s watch a movie,” he suggested, his fingers walking up my chest, neck, and chin until they played with my lips.
He was changing the subject. I was disappointed that he might not want to go. While he fiddled with the remote, finding something to watch, a deep sadness made me sit back and lose my focus on the things around me. A sudden sadness often came over me, and I’d learned to stay in the moment and follow each thread of negative thought to its source. Everything trailed back to Lysander. Ever since the email exchange, I’d been grieving my chance at meeting him. I’d cried over it several times, but never in front of Zander. Not because I wanted to hide it—I always got my urges to cry while in the shower, or alone with a book that reminded me of something.
It was possible I wanted to show Zander the house because it was one of the scenes I’d imagined with Lysander in it. Trying to deny I was treating Zander like some kind of substitute for my son was getting harder and harder to do. I’d even had a day when I was distracted from working because I kept overanalyzing the fact that their names were similar. My emotions, my mind, had grasped onto the idea that he could be for me what my son didn’t want to be, and I couldn’t let it go.
I’d always thought I’d one day pass the house down to my daughter, but she had no interest in it. I was starting to think it would be worth more to her if I sold it before it needed too many repairs, and put the money in a fund for her and Lysander. Since she was going off to college soon, it was a good plan. I just had a need to show Zander the house first; to share its memories with someone.
He picked a horror flick I’d never heard of. Taking my hand and pulling my arm around his shoulders, he cuddled into me. Still lost in thought, I tried to remember what life had been like before Zander. I’d been lonely, almost desperate to bring someone into my life. But my life was books and I didn’t know how to desert their pages and enter a frightening social world. For a little while, I was sure the person I’d end up getting close to would be my son. Having Zander fall into my life—a person who didn’t get in the way of my lifelong obsession…I was living on a small island of domestic bliss in the middle of an ocean of grief and regret.
Chapter Twenty-Six
Zander Age 18
I’D ALWAYS IMAGINED cancer as a hard, mottled knot of tissues, but my brain tumor was like like a system of slick, black strands; ivy weaving around one neuron at a time as it grew, squeezing until memory was imagination was dream. I’d quickly gotten a much better feel for the things going on inside my skull. There was nothing else to call it, so I was still calling it a tumor.
When I took the benzos, I could feel the tiny tentacles easing up, but I was always on my toes because I knew it was temporary. It was impossible to tell how long it might take to kick in or how long it would last once it did. After a couple of months, I needed to take a higher dosage to get the same effect, and it started doing this thing where it wouldn’t kick in at all, but then I would wake up thinking more clearly in the morning and realize it had been kicked in all evening. I would wonder if maybe the tumor had been temporarily extra strong or the pill itself extra weak because of something I ate or something I did.
Trying to Google it was useless because I could barely read anymore. Letters were too swimmy. Trying to pin them down with focus gave me a headache. I made it through my classes by writing down what I heard, letting my sloppy handwriting unfurl on the page. When it was time to study, I had to get more inventive. I gave Lottie my notes and begged her to help me because I couldn’t pass my tests unless I heard things out loud. I told her it was a rare learning disability and my tutor was on strike. She thought it was weird, but she helpfully recorded herself trying to read my messy notes out loud. There weren’t many weeks left until high school was over forever, and I was going to pass all my classes thanks to her. I wasn’t too worried about keeping the disability lie going after graduation. It wouldn’t come up.
I rarely ended up alone anymore with my schedule the way it was, but when I did, I liked to park my car for a few minutes to listen to Lottie’s familiar voice saying things like, “Oh my god, Zan, your handwriting is bullshit!”
I felt protective of those recordings, as if losing them would signal the loss of my sister. Who knew how long I would be able to go on keeping my secrets. Who knew how it would all go down. My memories were chaos as usual when it came to Lottie, but I knew we had a great connection. I needed to keep her as a friend—or eventually, openly as a sister—for a long time. It was too much to expect, but I wanted to become roomies in our twenties, have Christmas together in our forties, and share a porch swing when we retired. Having lame family goals for my life made me both embarrassed and giddy.
Of course, Clay was the real problem. We’d gotten nice and comfortable around each other, and sometimes the pressure to keep it together—to never disrupt the peace we’d created in his cozy, bookish living room—overwhelmed me until I felt as if my skull was being crushed. I tried and failed to picture what it would be like when he discovered my secret. There was nothing there in my imagination, which was concerning because I had a healthy imagination otherwise. I only took my pills when I was going to be around him. That way, I wouldn’t run out. I liked to have extras on hand, just to be safe.
Spending an entire weekend with him would mean getting as many pills as possible to take with me. I’d have to eat those suckers all day. I would need at least twelve to feel comfortable for two and a half days.
Handyman chores aside, I wanted to go. I needed to give him a lot of positive memories, make sure he was confident he knew me inside and out. My job wasn’t done until I was sure he trusted me completely. A trip out to the country would be perfect. Things like that would ease the blow—I hoped—when the big day came. It was the same logic behind wanting to tell him about my life. I wanted him to sense that he was close to me, and to be sure of himself in our relationship. Maybe after finding out, he would be willing to listen, work it out with me, move past it, and become whatever he wanted us to be. I needed us to still have a relationship of some kind in the end. I could only hope he would be able to see I was still me, I was still the guy taking away his loneliness. Point being, I was afraid it would be like I’d transformed into some putrid monster. I was sorry I’d ever wanted to do him harm. I had to make sure he understood that, past that first night, I hadn’t wanted to hurt him. I wanted to take care of him.
Before I left that morning, I gave him a big hug. By asking him what I needed to bring for our trip, I told him I would go.
“Just bring you,” he said with a happy grin. “And clothes, and a toothbrush, etc. I’ve got it covered otherwise.”
I could tell by the excited look in his eyes that he had plans in mind. I wouldn’t ask. I couldn’t imagine t
hat his brand of surprises would trip me up, even with my tumor to deal with.
We kissed goodbye and I headed out to check on my mom. I was skipping some classes to do it. It wasn’t so much that I was worried, I just needed to know if I had health insurance. There was a fifty-fifty chance she’d been fired or was about to be. I’d never had reason to ask about health insurance and had no idea if either of us had ever had it. If I went see a doctor about getting benzos, they might want to figure out what was up with my brain tumor, but I mostly wanted a more reliable source for my pills. It was trying to overwhelm me as I drove, a criss-cross of slick abnormality snaking over my sight, my voice, my stomach. My nausea and sharp, but brief, headaches had been a problem for less than a week, but I knew it was related.
Two days back, I’d been at work, having showed up even though I was feeling rough, and ended up running to puke in bucket of wilted lilies. I was sent home with dizziness and a strange anger. I wasn’t sure what I was angry at, but it went away after I took a pill.
After that, I weighed my options and reluctantly concluded that I should try getting my pills from a legitimate doctor. I needed to be able to take them all day every day. Hopefully, they wouldn’t have me committed or anything. Telling them about the tumor seemed tricky. I didn’t want to make a big deal. If Clay found out and tried to visit me at the hospital, people would be calling me Lysander. It would be right there on my wrist band. I couldn't let it happen that way.