by Damon Suede
“Griffin.” Mr. A. was right behind him holding a stack of bowls. Behind him, the massive table was laid with gleaming stainless and mismatched plates.
“I thought I could help.”
“Thanks.” The older man handed him half the dishes and nodded, smiling. Together they worked quickly, setting a bowl in front of each chair. Mr. Anastagio hated silence, but he wasn’t teling jokes or gossiping or even complaining about his neighbors. Nothing.
He wants to murder me.
Griff chewed his lip and tried to come up with a safe topic. He knew that they needed to get this out in the open. For al intents and purpose, this man had raised him, and he didn’t want to disappoint him.
Then the table was done and they stood to one side looking at it. A moment passed with neither man knowing what to say to each other. That’s a first.
Finaly Dante’s father held out a hand, looking him square in the eye, as if Griff had come to ask for Dante’s hand in marriage, or vice versa.
I promise.
With a smile, Griff shook it firmly and was puled into a hard hug. Relief sliced through him, flayed him open.
Mr. A. waved a hand in the direction of the kitchen. “Does my son wanna serve the cioppino in here or at the stove?”
“Let me find out.” Griff squeezed his shoulder and trotted back to the hal, folowing the delicious smels.
“Dante! Your father wants to know—” As he stepped into the kitchen, Griff saw Mrs. Anastagio starting to uncover the food and— holy crap—Loretta washing the counter. The smile withered on his face. What was she doing here?
“I,” she crowed triumphantly, “knew it! I-knew-it-I-knew-it.” She snapped the towel at him and dropped her hands to her hips, gloating shamelessly.
“Hush.” Mrs. Anastagio glowered at her hyperbolic daughter as she unloaded the fridge.
Griff’s first instinct was to bluff. “What are…?”
We’re just friends. I’m gonna be his roommate. A coupla single guys. Skirt-chasers. Bachelor pad.
He bit his lip to stop himself lying: only truth in this house.
“I got it out of my brother. Don’t spaz. I’m not gonna say anything.” Loretta roled her eyes, one breath away from a self-righteous aria of gossipy glory.
“Goofy bastard. I knew you were mooning over someone. And I for one think it’s fuckin’ fantastic.” She reached out a hand and smoothed imaginary dust off his shoulders.
Griff’s mouth opened but nothing came out. Then it did. “You do?”
She shook her head and smiled and hugged him. “Wel if I can’t have you, at least one of us does.”
“Honestly!” Mrs. Anastagio opened the oven to pul out a foil-covered tray. “My own daughter and she didn’t bring anything.” Mrs. Anastagio pursed her lips in annoyance. She huffed, “Not even bread!”
“Ma! There’s too much already. They don’t care. Do you, Griff?” Loretta pushed back dishes to make a space on the counter.
Then— thump-thump-thump— little legs chugged toward them in the hal.
“Monster!” With the lunatic loyalty of children, Nicole had decided she was excited to see Griff. She barreled into his knees.
He scooped her up and kissed her. “Hey, bug!”
“Can we eat?” Nicole patted his red hair with a chubby hand. Patpat. “Soft.” Loretta groaned and smoothed curls out of her daughter’s face. “In Dante’s house, she eats! Ugh. And a hot boyfriend. I hate him.”
“Loretta….” Mrs. Anastagio raised her eyes to the ceiling and prayed under her breath, shaking her head.
Footsteps approached from the yard, then up the steps. The back door creaked open, and Dante’s eyes were ful of apology, looking between his sister and Griff.
Griff shook his head and smiled. It’s fine, D.
Loretta snorted. “Pfft! Please! Like I’m not the world’s biggest fruit fly.”
Dante smiled too, relieved, and stepped close to murmur. “You sure? She just started—” Loretta waved a hand at him. “I feel stupid for not noticing before and encouraging—” Griff surprised everyone by laughing out loud, deep bely laughs that broke the tension. “I wish you had.” Al the tension drained out of Dante. Mrs. Anastagio half-smiled. Griff passed Nicole over to her gloating mother.
“It would have saved us a lot of stupidity.” Dante mock shoved his sister.
“Or not.” Mrs. A. washed her hands in the sink, pushing her sleeves up. “Sometimes the stupidity has to come first.” She looked at them both while drying with a dishtowel.
From the front of the house the television came on with a blare. A crowd was roaring under an announcer’s voice caling out stats. Footbal and a ful stomach sounded like heaven right about now.
Dante stood beside him at the counter and asked in a low voice, “Everything cool?” Dante glanced at his mom.
Griff nodded.
Mrs. A. announced, “Starving to death, he is. You want him to pass out? He gets hypoglycemic, and that isn’t healthy.” She turned her head and caled,
“Agosto, is the table done? You’d better not be in front of that television!”
From in front of the television, Mr. A. gave an affirmative grunt.
His wife shook her head, but she was smiling.
At the stove, Dante checked the cioppino, breathing in the steam. “Hey, why don’t we just eat in front of the game…? Joke!” Loretta threw up her hands. “What is it about men on Thanksgiving. If you’re gonna be gay, couldn’t you at least like musicals or opera? Jesus.” She said the word. Nothing blew up. The ceiling didn’t cave in. The world kept turning.
Griff chuckled then shook his head at her. “Uh. No. Sorry. I only like it when you sing and hop around.” Loretta smacked him, and smacked him again. They were both laughing. The doorbel rang.
Mrs. Anastagio turned at the sound. “Is someone else coming?”
“A friend. He didn’t… uh… he doesn’t know it’s open.” Dante trotted to the front hal.
Griff finished the thought and started toward the front door himself. “He needed a place to come for the holiday. He knows about, uh, y’know, us. And he’s… having some family trouble.”
“Wel, good. I set an extra place anyways. It’s good luck to have a stranger to dinner,” announced Mr. Anastagio, emerging from the living room, as if this were a known fact. Maybe it was. He kissed his wife as she came from the kitchen to greet the newcomer.
Dante puled open the door, beaming. Griff smiled at him from the sidelines— a full house is a happy Italian.
Tommy came in, unzipping his down parka. Almost a month later, the fading marks and bruises on him were stark from the cold. The stitches over his eye looked itchy and black against his gray skin.
Griff prayed that this would go okay, for al their sakes. “Hey, buddy.”
“Hey.” When the paramedic saw the unfamiliar faces, the smile on his face dimmed a little.
Dante started to introduce the family, but Nicole walked right up and introduced herself. “Hi.”
“Wel, helo.” He nodded at her and looked at the rest of the family, standing apart. “I didn’t realize this was—”
“It isn’t.” Mrs. Anastagio stepped over and took his hand and squeezed it. “We’re Dante’s parents. And this is my granddaughter, Nicole. We wanted to be here for the boys’ first Thanksgiving together.”
Toonk. Like a stone dropping into place, Mrs. Anastagio’s words gave Tommy permission to relax and her son’s boyfriend a place in her world.
Dante lit up and stepped over to take Griff’s hand. He gave it a squeeze. “Yeah. And then Loretta crashed ’cause she’s too annoying to get invited anywhere civilized.”
The relief on Tommy’s face was priceless. Griff could see gears turned in his head as he processed the scene: the two men holding hands, the smiling family, the smels from the kitchen, the big, warm ramshackle house keeping them safe and together.
Tommy peeled out of his coat and unwound his scarf, hanging them on the hook lik
e he had a hundred times for footbal nights. He was with friends.
Mr. A. spread his arms and herded his whole family toward the dining room. “Let’s get inside. I’m freezing my bony ass off out here, and the food’s not gonna eat itself.”
Mrs. Anastagio took Tommy’s arm and they led the the way back to the dining room. The table groaned under the weight of the food. The cioppino was on the sideboard waiting for them to dive in. Griff fought the impulse. They made their plates and, one by one, found places around the table. Dante sat at the head, and Griff very consciously chose the seat at the other end. Our house, our family.
Somewhere in the street a horn honked, and someone drove by listening to Dean Martin in a car with open windows.
“‘… some-body looooves you….’”
Outside, kids laughed—probably Mrs. Alonzo’s nephews, playing in someone’s garden while the grownups watched the game that Mr. A. was trying not to think about.
“‘So find yourself somebody….’”
Dante winked at Griff sitting at the other end of the table. Once the whole family was served and seated, he looked at his sister.
Loretta knitted her fingers and bowed her head. “For what we are about to receive, may the Lord make antacids available.” She ducked before her brother could swat her.
Mrs. A. giggled but had the grace to try and hide it with a cough behind a napkin.
“What’s atasid?” Nicole asked Griff. “Monster?”
Griff whispered, “It’s medicine, bug.”
From the other end, Dante whispered too. “Because your mother is a headache.” Loretta snapped at him with her napkin, and then her parents let the chuckles out.
Griff just smiled across the length of the table at Dante.
Dante smiled back and winked across the meal and their family. I love you too.
Tommy leaned over to ask Loretta, “Why does she cal him Monster?”
Griff shook his head. “Long story.”
Loretta nodded. “Long, scary story. At least he’s part of the family now.”
“Loretta! He already was.” Her father looked indignant over a spoonful of broth.
Griff smiled back at her. “I know what she means.”
“So do I.” Dante nodded and mouthed a kind word at his sister: Thanks.
Tommy stood and spooned cioppino into Nicole’s bowl with the patient humor of an experienced parent.
Loretta was not so silent. “On one condition.”
Mrs. Anastagio turned to argue and Griff raised his eyebrows to protest.
“I get to be there when you guys tel Flip you’re an actual, honest-to-Christ gay couple.” She squeezed the paramedic’s arm. “Tommy can do CPR.”
“Okay…?” Tommy blushed and nodded as he sat again.
She saluted her brother with a fork. “That wil just make my”—she glanced at her daughter—“eff-ing decade! Flip out!” She put the bite of pasta in her mouth triumphantly. Her chewing face was such a smug caricature that they al laughed.
Mr. A. scooped up a pile of crisp, buttery green beans. They wobbled on his fork as he observed, “You children are terrible.”
“But”—eyes on Dante’s pirate smile, Griff spoke what they were both thinking—“very, very grateful.” Over Brooklyn, over Manhattan, even over Ground Zero, the sky was darkening and the sun smoldered golden. Smoke and fire. Like ten years after the world had ended, the whole crazy city was sitting down to dinner with thankful survivors. Like New York was grateful too.
LATER, when the dinner was done and the game was won, their little family had headed to their own homes to sleep off their food comas.
Their family had already cleaned the kitchen and stashed leftovers in the fridge. Dante and Griff sat together for a while on the couch, half-dozing, with Dante leaning back into the circle of Griff’s arms. They both drifted off, too happy to move.
When it was fuly dark outside the windows, Griff woke and shook his boyfriend—
Boyfriend!
—gently. “Babe?”
Dante’s face was pilowed against the swel of his chest, the blue-black stubble starting to show. He looked like a suave storybook bandit. The gentle, happy bend of his mouth made it look like he was faking, but his breath was deep and regular. He nuzzled a milimeter closer but kept on dreaming.
“Baby.” Griff touched his jaw.
Dante roled his head into the caress, but he didn’t open his eyes. His smile deepened and he groaned. “Mmm. I had the best dream.”
“You did, huh?”
“Yeah.” Dante licked his lips, and his forehead creased a bit like he was trying to remember something behind his eyelids.
“Let’s go to bed.”
“M’kay. Good.” Dante put his face back down between Griff’s pecs and dozed off again.
Griff chuckled and slid a hand down Dante’s torso, folowing that crisp treasure trail into his pants. He squeezed the spongy shaft nestled there.
Dante arched and humped up into his hand. His cock started to wake up, but his eyes stayed closed. “That was part of the dream too.”
“It was?” Griff milked him to an erection and kissed the top of his tousled head.
“Ughhmm.” Dante puled his hips in to get away from the big hand. He roled over completely to lie between Griff’s thick legs and shifted up so they were face to face. His lids were stil shut like he was trying to see something inside them.
“What else happened?” Griff tipped his head up and bit his lower lip gently until Dante shivered and kissed him. Griff smoothed the hair out of his lover’s handsome face. “In the dream. You were saying….”
Dante shook his head lightly, like he was trying to jostle something loose. “Dunno… I can’t… remember exactly. ’S’funny.” Griff kissed one eye.
Dante let him, his lashes soft against Griff’s lips. Then he raised his eyebrows. “Oh, yeah. I’d nearly wrecked my life. I was in love with my best friend.
Bonkers, horny, impossible.”
Griff kissed the other. Lashes, lips.
“Come to find out he was too. Right back. And he saved me, every inch of me. Like puling me out of a burning building.”
“Are you sure you’re remembering this right?” Griff rubbed their stubble together, slow and scratchy. He licked Dante’s throat, bit it lightly.
“Oh! And he agreed to move in with me. And gave me a sexy picture, just for me. And we’d built this weird house that was ours.”
“And a family?” Griff’s voice was gravely as he breathed the scent of Dante in, filing his lungs and sighing contentedly. “I like this dream.” Dante was grinning and fuly awake now. He pretended to remember, squinting. “Thaaat’s right. Then our family was here and we had dinner.” He opened his black-green eyes, smiling across the two inches that separated their noses.
Griff cupped those round buttocks and ground their hips together; he nipped Dante’s earlobe and rumbled right into it. “Mm-hmm. I don’t think that was a dream, mister.”
“Thank God! Then we don’t have to get up.” He plunked his face back onto Griff’s chest and squeezed his ribs hard, snuggling closer.
They were both laughing quietly together on the couch where they’d first….
Without warning, Griff growled and reared up, gray eyes flashing.
“Hey!” Dante slid off him, protesting. “Where’s the fire?”
“Right here.” Griff bent his knees and slid his arms under Dante.
Dante squirmed, ticklish. “Geez! Uh… Mr. Muir? Are you gonna haul me upstairs and attack me?”
“I’m afraid so, Mr. Anastagio.” He hefted Dante and dropped him over his shoulder in a dead lift, heading for the stairs.
“C’mon! Put me down. C’mon, G! I’m up. I’l walk!”
“Don’t want you waking up in the middle of your dream.” Griff laughed and smacked the hard buttocks next to his face, taking the steps quickly and carefuly.
“Real fucking romantic! Help!” He bit Griff’s buttocks and
shouted with laughter. The stairs creaked under their combined weight.
Then they were up in their bronze room. The city outside was quiet; a sugar cookie moon hung over the Brooklyn streets.
“Sir, I am a trained rescue professional.” Griff bent to rol Dante off his shoulder onto their enormous bed.
Dante flopped back and blew hair out of his grinning face. He started to sit up against the pilows.
“You seemed unresponsive and were having difficulty standing.” Griff wrestled him back down.
“I want to test your vitals….” He shucked Dante’s pants off roughly and raised his shirt, licking his hip to his bely to his nipple to his throat to his mouth. He held Dante pinned under him, smile to smile. “Because I might need to provide CPR.” Keeping their mouths close, Griff toed off his own shoes and peeled out of his holiday clothes in record time so that their skin was pressed close the way it was supposed to be.
Oh!
The moment they slid together, they both moaned at the heat between them, the desire that licked up their bones, the perfect puzzle fit of each other as they grappled playfuly. “Now, you mustn’t struggle, Mr. Anastagio.”
But Dante kept squirming and laughing and bucking under him, to no avail. It felt like heaven.
Griff kissed him once, licking his teeth, and tried to look serious. “You might be in a state of shock.” And just like that, Dante went stil, his eyes wide and warm and scarab dark.
“I should be….” He raised a hand to trace Griff’s broad chest, his soft lips, his fiery hair, then took a handful to pul him down so that their mouths were an inch apart again. “I should be. Huh, G? But I’m not.”
Griff roled over slowly onto his back, taking Dante with him to lie on top. The black curls tumbled around their faces, almost shutting out the bronze wals so it was only them together, breathing the same air, lips just brushing… brushing… brushing.
“Wel,” Griff whispered. “Maybe I can shock you….”
About the Author
DAMON SUEDE grew up out-n-proud deep in the anus of right-wing America and escaped as soon as it was legal. Having lived al over (Houston, New York, London, Prague), he’s earned his crust as a model, a messenger, a promoter, a programmer, a sculptor, a singer, a stripper, a bookkeeper, a bartender, a techie, a teacher, a director… but writing has ever been his bread and butter. He has been happily partnered for a decade with the most loving, handsome, shrewd, hilarious, noble man to walk this planet.