by Kris Ripper
“Thanks for trusting me.”
“Oh, I do, but mostly I trust Josh. And Josh trusts you, which is like . . . you know, pretty much the best endorsement ever.”
“I agree. I really should head home. Good night, Keith.”
“Good night.”
I stood, straightened my clothes, rolled my shirtsleeves back down. Keith watched from under drooping eyes. I almost didn’t kiss him again, but it seemed like I should. “Good night,” I whispered, repeating myself as I brushed my lips against his.
“I really like you,” he replied, eyes falling shut.
I let myself out and locked the door behind me.
The Rhein stays open for Thanksgiving. Our normal menu includes turkey sandwiches; for Thanksgiving we also offer a side of cranberry sauce and a side of stuffing (though technically it’s dressing, since it’s not actually stuffed in anything—an argument correctly belonging to my parents, which my brain nonetheless brings up every year when I’m rewriting the specials board).
Since all of my Thanksgivings have been spent at the theater, I don’t miss big family dinners, or whatever other people consider “normal” holiday fare. I’ve always liked how when I say “Happy Thanksgiving,” most guests smile and return the sentiment, and I usually remember to pick up a few rolls of turkey stickers to give out to kids. Handing out stickers was one of my early favorite jobs; I stood next to my dad, who took tickets at the door, and ripped off one sticker for each child who walked in. I liked it because it was giving, not taking.
We ran normal hours, but I closed concessions the second the last film began (we usually stayed open through at least half of it), and let almost everyone go home. My two ushers insisted on staying until the end so I wouldn’t have to sweep out the theater alone, but the three of us had the lobby pristine by the time the movie let out.
Most people seemed to understand that it was time for them to leave, though one young man lingered, asking me questions about the film festival while his fellow guests slowly emptied out of my lobby (and the ushers glanced longingly at their watches).
Since “Why don’t you come by on Saturday and we can talk more” didn’t do the trick, I was beginning to rehearse saying something more direct, like “You don’t have to go home, but you can’t stay here.” Thankfully, before I needed to resort to that, Ed and Alisha barged into the lobby loaded down with bags, and the young man dodged out.
“Who was that?” Alisha asked, surveying him from behind.
“No idea.” I waved to the ushers and started hitting lights. “If you two are staying, we’re going upstairs.”
“Seriously, who was that? He totally looked familiar.” Ed frowned at Alisha. “Didn’t he look familiar?”
“He looked like every other white boy, how could I tell? Anyway, Happy Thanksgiving, Cam!” Alisha gave me a one-armed hug.
“Happy Thanksgiving to you, too.”
I shooed the two of them to the alarm alcove and said good night to my loyal ushers, who were happy to escape. I did the locking, alarming, unlocking, relocking routine and was a little relieved to see my pesky guest hadn’t decided he had one more question.
They followed me up to the apartment and spread out quite a feast on my coffee table. Alisha sat on the floor while Ed and I took the couch.
I hadn’t realized I was hungry until I smelled food. “Where did all this come from?”
“Alisha’s folks. This is only a fraction of the leftovers. They actually wanted us to take more.”
“Thanks for thinking of me.” I piled my plate high. “I think I may have forgotten to eat earlier. I usually catch a sandwich between movies, but I was doing something on the computer and lost track of time.”
“Sure.”
I glanced at Ed and raised my eyebrows, figuring I didn’t have to come out and ask about his family.
He shook his head. “I didn’t see them. I called earlier, so at least I got to talk to Abuela, but that’s it. Dad’s still sticking to his guns.”
“He’s a damn fool,” Alisha muttered. “Anyway, my family really likes you.” Dramatic pause. “Because you’re a boy.”
“I know! And like, I want to be so offended by that, except it makes me happy. Sorry I’m totally ruining your lesbian cred, Alish.”
“Right? You so are. Brute!”
They grinned at each other.
Ed had Alisha, which was good, and Keith (for whom this had been, as far as I could tell from sporadic text messages, a horrible day) had Josh. I, in some sense, had all of them. And in another, none.
I did, however, have delicious food. “Ed, were you able to eat anything? Nothing here looks vegan.”
“I’m not vegan on national holidays,” Ed said breezily. “Like Christmas and Thanksgiving. And the Fourth of July.”
Alisha laughed. “What’s not vegan about the Fourth of July?”
“You can’t have a veggie burger on the Fourth. It’s unpatriotic. Though summer holidays are easier because there’s usually a few different salads.” He picked at the roasted carrots lumped in with the turkey. “I really shouldn’t. Every time I eat this stuff I feel more sick than I did the last time.”
Alisha mock-swooned, falling backward. “You’re going to force me to be a vegan. Vegan for love! It’s like a religious conversion!”
They stayed another hour, and despite the fact that I generally dislike drop-ins, even from friends, I was glad they’d stopped by. No pressure to mourn my family, no drama. A lot of laughter. I heard updates about the usual things. Alisha had started assistant-teaching at my elementary school and had some fun stories. (“I’m Catholic enough,” she explained when I asked. “I mean, I remember some of that stuff, and I make the rest up, just like the Church.”) Ed skirted the issue of the Club Fred’s killer, only saying that his last conversation with the detective in charge of Philpott’s case hadn’t gone particularly well. He also said that Fredi’s business was down.
“Do you think it’ll come back?” I asked.
“Maybe if they catch the guy.”
Alisha shook her head. “I don’t know. At some point they’ll catch the guy, but I’m not sure Club Fred’s will ever be the way it was before. It used to feel like the safest place in La Vista, you know? Kind of grungy, completely dated, but you didn’t care because it was home. It doesn’t feel like that anymore.”
“I can’t imagine this town without Club Fred’s,” Ed murmured.
I had to agree. Once a week, I went there and read my book at the bar. Maybe it wasn’t much, but it was a hundred percent of my social life outside the theater (and Josh and Keith). Alisha’s point was sound, though. It didn’t feel the same. And finding out who the killer was wouldn’t fix that.
Especially considering the killer was almost certainly one of us.
We managed to bring the conversation back to less dire topics before they went home. They were huge fans of Project Runway, and spent at least ten minutes talking about their favorite contestants and their least favorite dresses. Then we packed up the food, exchanged final “Happy Thanksgivings,” and said good night.
QYP had been closed on Thanksgiving Day (somewhat over Keith’s objections, as far as I understood it, though he admitted he was mostly only trying to keep the center open so he would have a good excuse not to go to his parents’ house). But they reopened with their usual hours Friday and Saturday. I’d meant to go down and bring lunch Friday, but I had one genuinely sick employee and one who I thought was “sick” in the sense that he’d had too much to eat, possibly drink, the night before, and now he couldn’t face work.
I texted, but our exchanges went something like this:
Cameron: How are you?
Keith: Fine. You?
I’d tried little text faces, but either I hadn’t been using them right or Keith hadn’t felt like playing. He sent me a smile and said he had to go.
It was some relief to see them approach the ticket booth on Saturday night. It was even better, twenty minutes
later, to get a text from Josh, asking me back to their place after Only Angels Have Wings. I said yes, quickly, and spent the next two and a half hours somewhat desperate for the lobby to clear out so I could see them for real.
I headed over after closing. They’d left with a covert “See you soon” that made me feel oddly elated, and now that I stood in the entryway of their building, waiting to be buzzed up, the buoyant excitement started to turn on me. What if they wanted to see me to tell me it was over? Or what if something awful had happened on Thursday, something they didn’t want to discuss at my apartment?
But no, that didn’t make sense.
And if they were calling it off, they wouldn’t have picked a Saturday night to do it. Daytime, over lunch. Unthreatening, public place, well lit, casual atmosphere. No mistaking that kind of meeting for anything else.
In the time it took me to climb three flights of stairs, I’d managed to gray-out all intense colors. I hadn’t completely lost color, only the bright ones.
Keith answered the door, pulled me inside, and buried his face against my neck. I belatedly put my arms around him and looked at Josh.
“Rough couple of days,” he said.
I nodded.
Keith’s breaths were hot and damp against my skin, but he didn’t speak. I didn’t move. Josh, though, walked over and kissed me hello, making my heart stutter for a moment.
“That okay?”
Except for the part where my body forgets how to work. “Yes.” Because what else could I possibly say? You kissing me brings color back to the world.
“Good.” He wound his hand into Keith’s hair, right at the back of the neck, and tugged lightly. “Keith wants to blow you. Is that okay?”
I couldn’t believe I’d heard what I thought I’d heard. When I just stared at him, Josh smiled.
“Don’t you want to feel his mouth?”
The boldness of it: his mouth. Conjuring images of Keith’s pink lips wrapped around Josh’s fingers, heightening the heat of his breath on my neck. Lips, tongue, oh god.
Josh’s other hand tapped my cheek. “I’m pretty sure you’re into it, but you have to tell us, Cam. I’m not gonna risk being wrong.”
Keith’s face against my neck, Josh’s hand on my cheek; they must have been able to feel the sudden flush of my body responding to the idea.
“Yes,” I whispered, fearing that if I tried to say more my voice would break.
“Sweet. This is going to be so fucking hot. But not yet.” He stepped back. “Babe, tell Cam about Thanksgiving.”
Keith thumped his head onto my shoulder before straightening. A blush painted his skin. He was excited too.
“First, I hate all holidays and I think they should be totally abolished. Right?” He grabbed my hand, as usual, and pulled me to the sofa. “Fuck the holidays!”
“I do good business at the holidays,” I said mildly, as Keith and I sat, blushing, beside one another, pointedly not discussing the subject Josh had already covered and closed.
“Fine. You can have the holidays, but I’m boycotting. Josh? I’m boycotting the holidays!”
“You can’t boycott Christmas. Mom would come over here and drag you out kicking and screaming.”
Keith’s expression softened. “Okay, fine. I’m boycotting all the holidays that I can’t spend with your mom and dad.”
“And don’t forget Gran and Papa and Aunt Rose Marie. And the kids.”
“Okay, the whole family. Just not my family.”
I shifted my leg against him, not quite daring to reach out. “Do you know Ed Masiello? His dad basically decreed that he wasn’t allowed to go back to the house. He’d probably be up for doing Thanksgiving as a group next year. You guys could come down to the Rhein. We have turkey sandwiches with cranberry sauce on the side.”
“Aw, see, now I feel shitty, because that’s awful, but I’m kind of jealous. My dad enforces that I come to Thanksgiving exclusively so he can disapprove of me in person.” He leaned his head back over the top of the sofa to look at Josh, who was pouring something from the stove into mugs. “You gonna tell me that’s not what he’s doing?”
“Nope. For one, because it wouldn’t make a difference, and for two, because I don’t think that’s right, exactly, but I also don’t think your dad is trying to promote happiness and family harmony with his Thanksgiving thing.”
“See? When even Josh says he’s being a dick, he’s clearly being a dick.” Josh turned to give Keith a look, and Keith stuck his tongue out, still upside down.
“I’m about to give you something to do with that tongue, boy.”
“Yeah, hot.” Keith sort of slithered back into the actual seat of the sofa. “It was fine. I have to stop moping about it. Obviously there are way worse things in life than parental disapproval. I guess I just wish we could give up on this whole bullshit thing where we all eat dinner and pretend to like each other once a year when in fact my parents got divorced because there are like three topics on earth they can discuss without fighting, and Ronnie’s got half a brain, and Marianne is way too nice for Dad, like I don’t even know what she’s doing with him, it’s ridiculous.”
“Maybe he’s different when we aren’t there,” Josh suggested, bringing each of us a mug. “Hot cocoa, with almond milk.”
“Really? Almond milk?” I sipped. “Thank you. I mean, assuming you don’t always make hot cocoa with almond milk.”
“Bought it all for you.” He returned to the kitchen for his own mug and sat down on Keith’s other side, propping his feet on the table. “This is pretty good.”
“So good.” Keith slid down even farther, so Josh could put an arm around him. “Mmm.”
“You gonna tell Cam what we’re doing tonight?”
“You really think I need to?”
“Uh-huh.”
“So yeah, okay.” Keith sipped his cocoa, looking at me over the rim.
I looked back.
“I like a certain kind of thing when I’m all whiny and annoying.”
Josh’s arm tightened. “You’re not whiny and annoying, Keith.”
“I’m whiny and annoying to myself, anyway. But, like, the best way to stop doing this is for Josh to really kind of go at me, which he hasn’t done so much when you’re here. But you know, it’s all good. We’re not doing anything we haven’t done before.”
“With obvious exceptions,” Josh said. “I’ll talk differently, and I won’t explain things as much. But you can still ask questions, and if we’re at an okay spot to pause, I’ll answer them.”
I nodded to both of them. “All right. I think I understand a little. Or maybe not, but I think I can go along with it.”
“And same rules apply as always.” Keith gestured, long fingers counting off. “You’re a part of the scene, so if you want it to stop, say ‘red.’ If something makes you uncomfortable, say ‘yellow.’ If you’re totally turned on, feel free to jack off—” He giggled. “Okay, I made that last one up.”
“So not whiny or annoying.” Josh kissed the top of Keith’s head. “He’s right, you can stop the scene at any time, but it might make you uncomfortable even if you don’t want to stop it. If it does, that’s okay, Cam. Got it?”
“I think so.”
“Good. Now we relax and enjoy ourselves for a little bit.”
“Fucking sadist,” Keith muttered.
“Oh yeah. You know that’s right.”
Ah. We were making Keith wait. I now understood the purpose of the hot cocoa, and made certain I didn’t finish mine too quickly.
I had needed the warning. Even if I hadn’t realized it.
It wasn’t the physical. I’d seen Josh use the whip, the flogger, and the paddle. This was more, and harder, and deeper on some level, but I could have handled it.
It was the verbal. I had never imagined Josh could talk like he was talking now, and if I hadn’t seen everything that led up to it, if I didn’t know how much they both invested in each other, in their relationship, I would hav
e been desperately uncomfortable.
As it was—I certainly didn’t feel comfortable.
“You’re so fucking weak.” Josh brought down the paddle again. “All day long, so weak, like a little fucking baby, like you can’t even keep your shit together for long enough to eat dinner. It’s pathetic.”
Keith reached back, writhing, trying to cover his skin, but Josh pinned his hands and kept going, spitting all sorts of vile words down on him.
I’d retreated until I was standing against the wall with my hands clasped in front of my horrible erection. No matter how disturbing I found it, I couldn’t help but be turned on by the sight of Josh’s body covering Keith’s, forcibly restraining him, hurting him despite his pleas to stop.
It was so terrible, and so arousing, and so damn confusing. And Keith was crying, but I didn’t miss the way his fingers gripped Josh’s, or the way Josh almost caressed him with the paddle, even as he called him a cocksucker and told him he was filthy and worthless.
How this could be healthy was beyond me, but I knew them to be responsible. And more than that, I knew them to be decent, good men.
It seemed to go on forever. Josh told Keith to hold still and berated him when he failed to, when the whip nipped at his arms, at the tender flesh of his sides. I’d lost all track of safe zones, but I could see that no matter how hard it seemed to me that it hit, on the softest parts of Keith’s skin it barely marked him. Those were harder in his head than they were on his body, and I was grateful for the moment of comprehension.
Josh was relentless, coming up with new ways to dig in with his words, covering the same ground with his flogger as he had the paddle and the whip. I was utterly relieved when he released Keith’s hands and draped the flogger over their big trunk. He rubbed Keith’s entire body, and Keith cried harder, wracking sobs, as if he were falling apart. This time Josh didn’t speak.
I wished I wasn’t hard, so I could cross my arms, hug myself, do something to feel more stable. As it was, I felt open and exposed.
Josh’s motions ended at Keith’s neck, where he lingered, fingers digging into skin, a silent massage that seemed to soothe away the last of Keith’s tears. He sat back and stood, and when he beckoned me over, I almost couldn’t go. I almost couldn’t order my legs to move.