Winter Heart

by B. G. Thomas

  And then came the sex. The loving. Slowly undressing. Kisses, gentle kisses and surprising nips of teeth on his collarbone and nipples and… other places. Howard wasn’t afraid to suck Wyatt’s cock either. No fumblings. No teeth. Wyatt arched up off the bed and clutched at the sheets and came all too soon. He wanted to cry. “I’m so sorry. I couldn’t help it.”

  Howard looked down at him and wiped his mouth. “It’s okay. I wanted it. Your cum is as sweet as cream with sugar.”

  Wyatt blushed for what felt like the millionth time.

  Then Howard raised Wyatt’s legs high and back, so his own cock, only half-erect now after his orgasm, was in his face. And then Howard did it. What would become his favorite thing. He lowered his mouth into the cleft of Wyatt’s cheeks and began to lick. Rimmed him. Wyatt shouted and cried out and even sobbed. He couldn’t believe what was happening. He was stunned. He was lost in feelings and pleasure, and when Howard lowered his legs again and reached into a drawer and pulled out a condom, Wyatt knew what was next. But Howard looked so huge!

  He looked at Howard in fear.

  “I’ll be as gentle as I can,” Howard said.

  “Is it going to hurt?” Wyatt asked.

  “Yes,” Howard answered. “At first. But that’s part of it, my little bear.” It was the first time Howard ever said my little bear. “But it gets better. If you can just hold on with me. And I promise, if it doesn’t get better, then I’ll stop.”

  So Wyatt nodded. How could he deny this man who had been so kind to him, and then given him such pleasure, anything?

  And it hurt. It hurt badly, no matter how much Howard had prepared him. He felt like he was being impaled. Torn apart. But Howard did go slow. So slow. And whispered calming “shhhhhs.” Encouraged him. Told him he could do it.

  Finally, just as he was about to shout, “Please stop,” that he just couldn’t… the pleasure finally came. Howard was right. Like nothing he could have imagined. Like nothing his own exploratory fingers had ever prepared him for.

  It was magick.

  Afterward, as they lay together, Howard holding him close, he whispered something that almost made Wyatt cry.

  “You have no reason to worry about being naked. You’re beautiful….”

  Wyatt never left.

  Not for eleven years.

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  THE MEMORIAL was nice. Cauley’s mother was there, of course, and his aunt Anne and his uncle Percy—her family. And (Kevin couldn’t keep all the names straight) a couple more aunts from Cauley’s father’s side. There were also about a half-dozen cousins, and Kevin couldn’t help but wonder if Cauley would have been surprised by how much family had come.

  “They’re not here for me,” Cauley would have said (Kevin could almost hear him). “Most of them were done with me when I led that flash mob singing ‘One of Us’ in St. Patrick’s Cathedral. I loved it, though. You should have seen the faces when we got to the God being a ‘slob like one of us’ part.”

  Kevin hadn’t been there, but it had caused quite a little splash in the news.

  In the end Kevin figured it didn’t make a difference why everyone was really here today. Maybe they’d learn something. Learn something about the man who was now lost to them.

  Thank God, Theresa was there. Plus a dozen or so of Cauley’s friends. It made Kevin mad that there weren’t more. At one time Cauley was a pretty damned popular guy, what with all of his activism. There were a lot of people who considered him a hero in the community. Kevin could only hope that there were people who would show up at the get-together at The Back Door. Maybe they were just too uncomfortable with anything even resembling a funeral or religious ceremony.

  Cauley had chosen a minister from a local MMC—the church dedicated to outreach to the gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender community—to run his memorial. She wasn’t a Catholic priest, and just the fact that she was female upset Cauley’s uncle Percy. But somehow Kevin wouldn’t have been surprised to find out that was part of why Cauley chose her. Percy had written Cauley many times over the years trying to get him to turn away from his sinful ways and embrace Jesus.

  The thing was, Cauley did believe—had believed—in Jesus. He’d just come to think that Jesus didn’t have any trouble with him being queer. He used to joke that Jesus was probably gay himself, “What with him hanging out with all those dudes? And the fact that he wasn’t giving the prostitute who hung out with them the old in-and-out. And wasn’t John supposed to be the ‘Beloved Disciple’? Have you looked at the two of them on that painting The Last Supper? I mean… come on!”

  The service, if it could be called that, wasn’t particularly religious, but the prayers and opening and closing scriptures—the program referred to them as 1 Corinthians 15:50-51, Romans 8:35-39, and John 14:1-3—helped with any feather ruffling his family may have experienced.

  Kevin was just grateful that Cauley had such an iron-clad living will. That Lois hadn’t been able to counter Cauley’s wish to be cremated, and she hadn’t been able to make today’s service some kind of Catholic High Mass. Kevin didn’t think she would have, but Catholic guilt was big, and Kevin wouldn’t have been surprised either.

  “I love that verse about how persecution or nakedness can’t separate us from God,” Theresa whispered out of the corner of her mouth. “Do both those words make you think of Cauley, or not?”

  Kevin was grateful for the little slur. It made him chuckle, and he desperately needed to laugh. He just kept it very quiet. He wouldn’t have been surprised to find that Cauley had picked that particular biblical reading.

  He’d planned everything else. Including the fact that he’d wanted Kevin to do a reading. Cauley hadn’t specified what. Just a note that said, “Anything, Kevin. Please?”

  Why, Cauley? When you know how much I hate getting up in front of people? To prove I love you? You know I did. Do. Always will.

  He chose a short part of Ralph Waldo Emerson’s essay “Nominalist and Realist.” He thought Cauley would like it.

  When it came his time, he walked up to the front of that small room and went to the podium, took a deep breath, and began.

  It is the secret of the world that all things subsist and do not die, but only retire a little from sight and afterwards return again. Nothing is dead; men feign themselves dead, and endure mock funerals and mournful obituaries, and there they stand looking out of the window, sound and well, in some new strange disguise.

  He swallowed hard. Paused, then closed the little piece of paper and finished from memory.

  Jesus is not dead; he is very well alive; nor John, nor Paul, nor Mahomet, nor Aristotle; at times we believe we have seen them all, and could easily tell the names under which they go.

  It was short, but he almost didn’t make it through. When he was done, he didn’t wait or look to see what people thought but quickly went back to his seat. But when he dared glance at Theresa, sitting there beside him, he saw tears on her cheeks, and she laid her hand on his and squeezed ever so gently and gave him a tiny nod.

  Then she, and Kevin, looked back to the platform.

  A handsome young man, perhaps twenty-five at most, was now standing there. He began to speak. “Cauley came to one of my very first readings about three years ago. I saw him in the audience and I noticed that he never stopped looking at me the whole time I read. It was like he was looking into my head. I couldn’t tell if he was cruising me or not.”

  The gay people in the room laughed, sharing the knowledge, perhaps, that it was entirely possible. Some of the cousins did as well. Kevin couldn’t tell about the aunts and uncles, but the one scowl he could see across the aisle indicated at least one uncle didn’t appreciate the comment.

  Fuck you, Kevin thought.

  “After the reading, he bought my little book—if you could call that photocopied and folded in half and stapled thing a book—and asked for me to autograph it. I did. I signed it, ‘For He who looks into me.’ I think he liked that. We talked a b
it, and he didn’t make a single pass at me, and I realized he really did like my poetry. He told me I would be famous one day and then bought a second copy to sell on eBay for a million dollars.”

  He rolled his eyes, and there was more chuckling.

  “Yeah…. After, I’d get e-mails from him every now and then. He came to several of my readings… and then just sort of stopped. I guess he just got too sick.

  “Anyway, he asked me if someone could read one of my poems at his memorial, and I told him I would do that. Promised him in fact. And so here I am today. It’s not one he ever heard or read. I hope he won’t mind.” He closed his eyes and then opened them and looked out over the room, up somewhere toward the ceiling, maybe farther away. “Cauley, I still haven’t become famous. Sorry you didn’t get to sell my book on eBay. But I wrote this just for you.”

  He closed his eyes again. They seemed to be closed forever. But then, just as a few people looked as if they might be getting restless, he opened them again and began,

  I prefer to remember you on Halloween,

  2013. The multicolored ruffles of rayon

  and sequins you hastily hot glued before

  the party. How that dress flowed in the dry

  October air. How it brushed against every

  guest as you shuffled through that crowded

  apartment. If it weren’t for the crown of

  fruit on your head, I’d have guessed a sea

  anemone before guessing Carmen

  Miranda. I remember you used real fruit

  too, you goof. I remember the fruit flies

  orbiting your head that night as we smoked

  on the fire escape. At the end of the night

  you let the drunk guests fight over your

  headpiece. ‘No one should walk home hungry’ is

  what you said. How that dress flowed in

  the dry October air. I remember the walk

  home, you insisted on keeping the gold

  heels on. I remember the walk home, a

  man in no costume tried to pick a fight

  with us. He just pointed at you and

  shrieked: ‘LUCIFER LUCIFER LUCIFER.’

  I remember you click-clacked right up to

  his face and gave him the last overripe

  banana glued to your head. You smiled and

  said, ‘I get cranky when I’m hungry too, sweetie.’

  The stranger was speechless. Then you

  skipped off, barely visible in the sliver of

  moonlight. That’s how I choose to

  remember you.

  The poem left Kevin speechless—although he had smiled once or twice, couldn’t help it. He remembered that costume. He remembered that party. He remembered that dress and how much it had embarrassed Kevin (for some damned reason—they weren’t even a couple anymore) and excited him too—filled him with joy, even turned him on a little bit. That night had been so Cauley—had been exactly what he had loved so much about him. Kevin liked to be quiet. He liked to almost fade away into a crowd. But he loved to be with people who could never hope to disappear. It was almost like he lived vicariously through them—but that wasn’t quite right. Because he liked to be seen with Cauley. He had been so proud of his lover. Not only for all he had done for the community, but for being the little shining beacon that he had been. Dazzling!

  The only costume that Cauley concocted that might have been crazier was when he insisted on using green food coloring on his skin and even his face when he dressed up as Elphaba from Wicked. Oh, had that been crazy getting off.

  The night that Cauley wore that outrageous Carmen Miranda outfit had been the first Halloween that they hadn’t been a couple in eight years. Kevin had sort of suspected Cauley had gone all out to make Kevin… what? Jealous? Sorry that they weren’t together anymore? Who knew exactly why with Cauley? At first he’d wondered if the poet—what was his name? He glanced down at the program—James had been his date, especially the way Cauley had hung on his arm. It seemed so unbelievable because he had total disdain for “twinks,” and while James wasn’t exactly chicken, at the time he couldn’t have been much older than twenty-one or twenty-two. When Kevin saw James in a corner kissing someone else and Cauley sailing past him with not a care in the world, Kevin realized that they weren’t an item at all. Stupidly, he’d felt relief. Why?

  He’d made sure to drive Theresa home that night and therefore hadn’t been at that now famous incident where Cauley had “click-clacked” right up to the Lucifer-shouter and given him the banana. Until this moment he’d assumed it was apocryphal. But now? Maybe not. He liked to think it was true—but again, who knew with Cauley?

  Before he realized it, his eyes were filling with tears, and when he turned to Theresa, he saw her cheeks were wet, and he knew he loved her. Amazing that she had made him rich and also become such a good and dear friend. Thank God for her. He wouldn’t have made it through this day without her.

  It all ended with Handel’s “Hallelujah Chorus.” Cauley’s way of saying that his family should be happy that he was in some better place?

  It was perfect. Because Kevin did believe that. Really did believe that everyone was made of energy—energy that had been around forever and came back again and again. In some form or other….

  (“I think it would make me happy if I came back as a snowflake and I could fall on your face.”)

  The echo came up from somewhere deep and shocked Kevin into silence after that. He couldn’t talk. Didn’t. He didn’t speak a word. He knew he should say something to Lois, but he quite suddenly knew he couldn’t. Not and still maintain his quiet composure—not and still be Kevin Owens. He might have been able to say “Hodor” if he thought anyone would have gotten it. Somehow he didn’t think Cauley’s family watched Game of Thrones or read the books. Besides, that was his Men’s Festival name.

  So instead he took Theresa’s hand and they made fleet feet over to The Back Door. Sure enough, Tam, the owner, had put up a good dozen pictures of Cauley when he was “young and hot and sexy.” The one where he was wearing a jockstrap—the one where his dick looked simply enormous. A photograph of him in the tiniest shorts imaginable. Some in drag—including Elphaba and Carmen Miranda (thank God). Several nudes. And everyone agreed he’d been a very sexy man.

  Cauley would have been happy.

  He got to be the center of attention one more time.

  Kevin got shit-faced.

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  ABOUT TEN miles down from the junction of 60 and 5 was the tiny town of Ava. Sitting at a red light, Wyatt—on some crazy impulse—almost headed to Cactus Canyon. It had always struck him as ironic that a gay men’s nudist camp was only an hour from where he’d grown up. If he’d only known. But they probably wouldn’t have let him in. And he wasn’t even sure it was around before he was exiled from Damview.

  Wyatt often wondered if his father knew about the camp. There had been protests through the years. Someone had even bought a pig farm and put it just upstream so the pig shit—only the vilest farm animal shit on the face of the earth—would come down and foul out the camp, driving the heathens and sodomites out. Except it went to court, and miracle of miracles, the good guys—and for once that meant the gay guys—won. Since then there hadn’t been much trouble.

  Wyatt had never understood why the town had gotten its panties in a bunch anyway. All those gay men spent a lot of money in the town by purchasing everything from gas to tons of stuff from the weird, almost alternate dimension, version of a Walmart. That was revenue. Why would they complain about that? He would have thought they’d be thrilled. The town was tiny! Three thousand people. And it wasn’t like the men were parading around naked, dicks swinging, in town. They were sodomites, not dumb shits.

  He wouldn’t have been surprised if his father had not only known about Cactus Canyon, but had been one of the protestors. Of course, Wyatt had no way of knowing. The one trip he and Howard had taken where they actually saw peop
le with signs, he’d ducked. He didn’t want the first time he saw his old man in years to be on their way to just the kind of place his father probably envisioned him in—some modern-day Sodom and Gomorrah.

  But today was January the third. Cactus Canyon was closed. There was the smell of snow biting the air, although none had fallen yet. Thank the gods. He was making remarkably good time. The last thing he wanted to do was drive in the snow.

  He listened to a Stephen King novella on audio, and that killed lots of time. The Body, the one that the movie Stand By Me was based on, and when it got near the end and Chris, the narrator’s best friend, scared the bad kids off with the gun, he suddenly couldn’t remember if that was the way the movie had ended or not. Hadn’t it been Gordie, played by the kid who went on to be Wesley Crusher on Star Trek: The Next Generation, who threatened the bullies with the gun in the movie? Or had he only said, “Bite my big one”? Not for the life of him could Wyatt remember.

  And right at the end there was a line that froze Wyatt and made him gasp.

  “Love has teeth; they bite; the wounds never close. No word, no combination of words can close those love bites.”

  A shiver of anticipatory dread passed over Wyatt in a wave.

  It was a feeling he had to ignore.

  Or he would turn around right then and head home.

  HIGHWAY 5 took him south to Midway, and then he knew… knew he was close. Very close. Close to Damview, the tiny town—population 706—where he was raised.

  And what a fucking name for a town! Damview! It really, truly was the name of the town. Because it looked out over the dam, the old codgers would say, nodding and smiling in their sunken-cheeked way. Isn’t it a lovely name?

  “Well,” Wyatt had wanted to say. “What’s wrong with Lakeview? Right there across the dam?”

  Of course, it was already taken!