Message of Love

by Jim Provenzano

  And then, all too soon, as it happened whenever I truly let go and forgot all the difficult mechanics, and let Everett dig and probe and have his way, I spurted atop him, or at him. I wasn’t sure where he was aiming my cock, until I felt his lips surround it, savoring it, humming with pleasure.

  Settling atop him, I felt his hands rub my buttocks, caressing me with a sort of satisfaction, even though I knew he hadn’t, and probably wouldn’t, get anywhere near an orgasm.

  After a few moments, I got up and wiped down with a towel. A sliver of guilt, that it has just been about me, about his desire to please me, brought me to curl up by his side and offer him a thankful kiss.

  “You taste like butt.”

  “I refuse to hear a word of complaint,” Everett shook a finger at me.

  “I wasn’t complaining.”

  “Good.”

  “I just wonder… Why do you like …doing that?”

  “It’s your body. You’re just so vulnerable, spread like that, trusting me. You’ve got this little swirl of hairs. Also, you know, since I can’t feel anything down there, it’s fun to let you feel it.”

  “Okay.”

  “Satisfied?”

  I nodded, because I was. But I didn’t think he was, and I didn’t know if he was content, or if he ever really would be.

  Chapter 24

  December 1981

  “Are we supposed to give the cleaning lady a tip?”

  Everett looked up from his book, a confused look on his face as we sat across from each other at our bedroom desk.

  “We don’t pay her,” Everett said.

  “So…”

  “Have you even seen her?”

  “No. That’s why I’m asking.”

  Once a week, usually on Wednesdays, the kitchen and living room were cleaned, which I didn’t exactly notice, except to find a few items moved around. Mrs. Kukka had mentioned the mysterious maid, and we opted out of having our room cleaned. But every now and then, a few stray cereal boxes would be neatly arranged or put away on a counter, and each of us, for a while, had thought the other had done the cleaning.

  “I’ll stick a twenty in a Christmas card,” he said, dismissing it, and me.

  “But what’s her name again?”

  “Rosita,” he blurted without looking up.

  I had thought about asking Mrs. Kukka about her maid when a few newspapers I’d wanted to save went missing. The Daily Pennsylvanian had published an article about Everett’s debate team having won another tournament, but I couldn’t find the paper.

  I’d even gone to Penn’s journalism department to get another copy. Proud to have retrieved it, Everett shrugged it off with a smile, and dropped the article into a box in the closet. We had finals for the end of the semester coming up, and he was more intent on studying than I was.

  My copy of his little bit of print fame was above the wall near my side of the desk. It helped when we studied, because too often I would simply gaze at him as he did pushups atop his chair’s seat. He pored over a textbook, reciting Latin in a soft voice.

  “What?” he barked, forcing me to blush and turn away.

  So I gazed at the picture of him instead, as a gift to myself between pages of note-taking on “Comparing the Values of Urban Forests in New Community Development.” We had to do studies of trees in heavily populated areas, compared to parks and forests. For a few field trips, we went to the Ambler campus, forty-five minutes north by bus. Even after the blooms withered in the gardens, the mini-forests and a beautiful greenhouse were almost enchanting under an early winter snow.

  I’d asked Everett if he’d like to go with me, but he kept postponing it. He was busy, and we liked studying. But that became difficult while knowing that I could just lean over at any moment, merely lick him once, and he’d shiver, and then we would kiss, and our academic routine would be tossed off with one touch.

  The newest article included a photo of the entire debate team, all six of them, among them Everett, our friend Jacob, two Asian guys and two young women who, Everett had said, were “really smart, but they could do with a little makeover.”

  What struck me about the photo was that while the photographer had arranged Everett in the front row, no mention was made of his being in a wheelchair. I took that as a good sign, one of simple acceptance.

  And yet, it reminded of the first time I had seen Everett’s smiling face in newsprint. Back when I was in high school, the Greensburg local daily’s usually innocuous news features had splayed the story about his lacrosse accident across the front page. Seeing the new version of him in the pages of his school newspaper brought out my pride, yet a bit of remembered fear.

  Everett had simply glanced at it, and tossed it on his desk. “I was in the Pinecrest newsletter all the time,” he shrugged. “It’s no big deal.”

  My high school cross country efforts had also been documented, usually as just with an also-ran mention, twice in group photos, and saved in a scrapbook my mother kept back in Greensburg. True, in a way, it wasn’t a big deal.

  Apparently, it was a big deal enough for word to get around. Shortly after the article was published, we got a few odd phone calls.

  The first few were hang-up calls. The second, a girl’s voice, giggly, asked for Everett. When I said he wasn’t in, but offered to take a message, the voice replied, “He’s cute. Does he have a girlfriend?”

  Apparently this member of his fan club hadn’t also noticed his quote as a member of Lesbians and Gays at Penn about the group’s plans to sue the university for discriminatory practices by letting the Army recruit on campus. Everett was quoted critiquing no less than Penn’s President Hackney, and while a bit proud of it, he had also tossed that clipping into the same box.

  I resisted the urge to bluntly state, “No, he has a boyfriend, and I’m it.” But after a few giggles in the background, she had hung up.

  Everett’s indifferent response to my mention of these calls was simply, “I’ll buy an answering machine.” He didn’t.

  But the oddest of calls happened a few weeks later. Already defensive every time the phone rang, I offered a cautious, “Hello?”

  “Yo, Mutt!”

  “Excuse me?”

  “This Forrester?”

  “No. Who is this?”

  “Who’re you?”

  “His roommate.”

  “Oh. Forrester in?”

  “You mean Everett?”

  “Yeah.”

  “No.”

  “When’s he due back?”

  Across town at basketball practice with his Magee teammates, I expected Everett to return within the hour. But I wasn’t about to offer that information to someone who called my boyfriend ‘Mutt.’

  “He’ll be back later,” I said.

  “Cool. I’ll call back. Happy holidays.”

  “Okay. Happy–”

  The line went dead. I stared at the phone, and considered unplugging it.

  About an hour later, Everett did return, elated if not a bit exhausted.

  “You didn’t take the van?”

  “One of the guys picked me up and drove me home.” He casually tossed off his sweatshirt, took his backpack from his chair, and offered in a naughty tone, “Shower time?”

  Although I didn’t need one, I rarely missed an opportunity to bathe with Everett, particularly with such an obvious invite for a little wet affection. He didn’t need my assistance, but I was happy to offer it, in exchange for some steamy shenanigans.

  Not wanting to spoil the fun, I resisted the urge to ask about that mysterious caller until we’d enjoyed some soapy yet inconclusive fondling.

  Dried off, our hair damp, we settled in, me at my desk, Everett sprawled on the bed, after having tuned in a classical radio station playing some Bach piano solos. Prepared for a contemplative evening, I was surprised when a while later, like some coy harem sheik, Everett coaxed me with, “Meester Kawn-neef?”

  “Yes?”

  His curled finger was all
it took. It had been weeks since he’d deliberately invited me so bluntly. We held each other, kissed and began toyfully displacing clothing, when he leaned over and produced a tube of rubber.

  “What is that?”

  “Page 72; Cock Rings.”

  “Will it work?”

  “I auditioned it while you were out on Thursday.”

  “Really?”

  “Yes. You should get some lube, though. It ripped my ball hairs; not that I felt it.”

  Although not as spontaneous as we’d liked, I brought a few other items, a towel as well, and damned if the thing didn’t work. Happy to see his cock stiffen, Everett eased me from our clamped sixty-nine to admire himself. I stroked him slowly.

  “Pretty neat!” I knelt down to slide my tongue up and down his dick.

  “I can’t keep this up, though.”

  “Oh?” I leaned in, kissed him again, arched a leg over his waist and began humping his bobbing erection. I tried to keep my sexy kisses going along his neck as I shoved a few dabs of lubricant up my butt, then repositioned myself until I felt him slide up inside me. Tingles of pleasure shot up through me as I plunged onto his hips.

  “What are we doing?” Everett asked.

  “I think you’re fucking me.”

  Everett tucked his chin up to enjoy the view, then sprawled back, gasping in relief, then back up on his elbows, grinned at me. “Page 34. So you’ve realized you’re a bottom.”

  “That’s not in the book!”

  He reached up, pulling me closer to him, as I tried to maintain my awkward crouched position.

  “Stop laughing,” I smirked. “You’re spoiling the mood.”

  “Just tryin’ to get my rocks off before our holiday parting.”

  His hand behind my neck, he pulled my face back down toward his, and in between more kissing and giggles, we did, in our way.

  A sweater.

  It was a nice sweater. Although I already had a green one, at least it didn’t have snowmen or reindeer on it.

  The sweater wasn’t the problem, nor was my gaggle of cousins, the eldest male demanding to show off his newly received arsenal of plastic weapons. I had years before been elevated to the adult table, so no cranberries would be flung my way at dinner.

  My docile grandparents’ compliments about the food, amply prepared by my equally ample aunt, were not a problem, although holding my tongue as she extolled the virtues of the First Lady, and her inspired new red dress and its accompanying shoulder pads, along with her interesting hairdo, might have been a problem, especially when she compared my mother to herself as “still skinny after all these years.” That was Mom’s battle.

  No, the problem began with a seemingly innocuous question. Like the acoustics in the many rooms of their garishly large home that managed to be cluttered and empty at the same time, my uncle’s question echoed for a moment before I replied.

  “So, Reid. How’s your, uh, roommate?”

  It wasn’t the leering grin my uncle added to his question. It was his inference of other knowledge that I knew neither of my parents would dare to divulge, not due to any embarrassment. No, it was the predicament of responding to, as Everett had said, “people who don’t matter.”

  And yet, there it hung, the implication, the loaded question, the silent glance from each parent as a sort of warning.

  “He’s fine,” I answered as deadpan as possible. “He’s in Pittsburgh. I’m going there for New Year’s.”

  “That’s great. They do fireworks over the river, don’t they?”

  “Yes. His dad’s apartment has a great view.”

  “He got a big place?”

  “Not too big. But he bought the building with his real estate company, and he got one of the upper apartments for himself.” I held back a bragging tone, even though bragging was an integral part of nearly all my uncle’s talk; his bigger house, his bigger job, his bigger family.

  “How many bedrooms it got?”

  “Pete, how about we–” Dad attempted interference.

  “Two,” I blurted.

  “So you–”

  “Yeah, Uncle Pete, I sleep with him. And I sleep with him in Philly, too. You happy?”

  The kids giggled. Mom tossed her napkin onto the table. “And you wonder why we only visit once a year.”

  “I was just asking about–”

  “What’s this?” Grandma chimed in.

  Aunt Nancy practically shouted, “I’ll put on the coffee!”

  The cacophony of chairs scooting on hardwood floors, three arguments at once fell behind me as I left for the foyer closet, and my coat. Dad rushed up beside me.

  “I’m going for a walk.”

  “Don’t be long,” he scolded.

  “No, it shouldn’t be long–”

  “Good.”

  “–for me to walk back to the hotel.”

  “Reid.”

  “Dad.” I saluted him, and then I walked off dinner, all the way back, after getting lost and having to find a gas station with a phone book to call the motel for directions.

  The nearly silent drive home back with my parents the next morning halted around Stroudsburg with a heart to heart in the car, where Mom offered pointers on “understanding and tact.”

  Considering the small size of our home, it was surprising how quickly we each found separate spaces to relax after the trip. Dad busied himself with some project in the garage, Mom had lots of leftovers to sort through, and I parked myself on the couch, put on one of Dad’s old jazz albums, and contemplated our new tree.

  The metallic silver branches reflected more light than the prior real cut trees from prior years. The colors almost glared in the room, and several of the ornaments seemed to be lost in the metallic fringe.

  “I don’t know what to make of that,” Dad said, standing with his head cocked to one side. “So, when are you off to Pittsburgh?” he asked.

  “Day after tomorrow. Ev’s got split parent visits, then they’re going to some other relatives in Bradford Woods. I’m waiting for the all-clear.”

  Dad nodded, as if understanding, when I sensed that he didn’t. So I blurted out, “If we were a straight couple, like engaged or something, not even that, I’d be invited to all that.”

  “Do you want to be invited to all that?”

  “That’s not the point, Dad.”

  “I know. I’m sorry. You know Everett’s welcome here anytime.”

  “I know. You guys are so different. I am so lucky.”

  “We love having you home. We miss you.”

  “Thanks. I just…”

  He looked at me, waiting for more. I wanted to beg him for an answer; how can I make a life with Everett if we’re so disconnected, if half of the people in our lives are just waiting for him to outgrow me, to move on to whatever they think he should be, and the other half, my half, either refused to acknowledge us, or considered it worth innuendo-laden prying?

  Instead, I declared, “That tree is hideous. It’s like a robot tree.”

  “You bought it!” Mom chimed in from the kitchen.

  Was it my duty to remain, to return, to fulfill their lives? And if so, for how much longer? I loved them for their casual wit, their amused nature toward this whole family concept, which was occasionally foiled by bursts of sincerity and honesty that could make me blush.

  My anticipation to be away from all that, and on to Pittsburgh, was all that mattered. The now annual visits for a few days before and after New Year’s had become a new tradition, as did disassembling our new wobbly silver tree.

  New Year’s Eve almost turned sour. I almost left him, all because he was honest with me.

  We had settled in to the guest bedroom in his father’s apartment, then, the night before the holiday, had dinner in the living room while watching a basketball game on the huge television. I maintained a moderate interest as Everett and his father cheered for the 76ers with enthusiasm.

  After their predictable trouncing victory, his father bid us
goodnight, and Everett handed over the remote.

  “I vote that we just go to bed,” I suggested.

  “Seconded.”

  “Or the shower.”

  “Amended, but we better keep it down.”

  The next night, Holly showed up an hour early with a limo and two of her friends, ready for the party at the opera house. Holly had “borrowed” a pair of vintage tuxedos from the opera company’s costume shop.

  While we dressed, they got an early start at her father’s bar. Then we poured ourselves into the limo, enjoying ourselves at the party for less than two hours, until Everett impulsively turned Cinderella, insisting that we make a mad dash back to the apartment, courtesy of the limo driver. Once back at his dad’s, some nighttime antics took place timed with the fireworks.

  Celebrating with a crowd of people had been fun, but we had managed to celebrate in private; well, semi-private. It felt like an audience, with his room lights off, the night skyline behind us, the curtains pulled wide. I strode across the room naked, and retrieved a bottle.

  Everett had pilfered one of his father’s ‘spare’ champagnes. Mr. Forrester and his girlfriend were, according to Ev, “having a ball in the ballroom, and again several flights up at the William Penn.”

  With their comparatively romantic setting paired with our own –the champagne, the view, and the connected, almost choreographed situation of it all– I appreciated how his family knew we were together, and gave us our space.

  As he finished up in the bathroom, I stood at the large window, surveying the fascinating lights of the night skyline and the bridge lights beyond it. Had it really been two years since that first drive to Pittsburgh, where we had approached the city for the first time together, singing and smiling with anticipation?

  “Hey. You’re naked.”

  “Hey. You noticed.”

  I settled into the bed as he shifted from his chair, tugged his legs up and then under the covers. Despite its blandness, its sparse décor, the room had taken on a familiarity. I felt safe, comfortable with him.

  “Where’s the bubbly?”

  “Oh.” I got up, walked to the shelf by the door.