by B. G. Thomas
“He’s a young gay man named Joe Donovan,” Kevin replied. “He’s about your age. I saw him in concert once and fell in love with his music.”
My dad tells me I’m not worth anything
And I’ve almost admitted it….
Those lyrics. Gods, they hurt. But… “But in my dreams I can fly,” Wyatt sang, closing his eyes. “And I soar…”
…and my feet touch the sky
And it seems I can go
Anywhere if I try
And the world’s not so dark
When the clouds make it white
If there’s no hope, tell me why
In my dreams I can fly.
Then Kevin joined him again and they sang the repeating chorus until the very last, “In my dreams I can fly.”
The music faded away, and Wyatt let out a long sigh. “Kevin,” he whispered. “It’s like that boy is singing about me. My room. The cracks in my ceiling.” The buffalo head. The river. “My life. My parents. My secret…. Dad saying that I wasn’t worth anything.” That I was an abomination.
“Enough. Get out, sinner! Get out, thou evil one! Never cast your shadow on me again. I turn my back on you! I dust off the dirt from my feet. I disown you!”
Wyatt turned back to Kevin, looked into his handsome face, his beautiful hazel-and-amber eyes. He reached out and touched the man’s furry cheek—a man’s cheek. The beard was thick, but so soft. Wyatt felt a breathtaking tingle shiver through him.
Oh Dad, he thought. I wish you could see that what I’m feeling isn’t Satan inside of me. It’s God. I’m just what I was made to be. How could a devil make me feel like… “I can fly.”
“Have I ever told you what a pretty voice you have, Wyatt?”
Wyatt quietly gasped. “Me?”
Kevin reached out and cupped his cheek.
“Howard always said that when I sing I sound like a cat in he—”
Kevin kissed him.
If he hadn’t been sitting on the bed, his legs would have gone out from under him.
Another great shiver passed through him—zinged through him!
It was such a gentle and soft kiss—no pressure, no urgency, but whoa! There had never been one like it before.
Never.
Not even his first kiss. Even that had been nothing like this.
Just a long, lingering, gentle, sweet kiss. But gods….
Another round of goose bumps rippled down Wyatt’s back and arms.
Whenever, ever, had a kiss been so precious?
Then Kevin was lying back down on the bed, ending the kiss, pulling Wyatt down with him, and just holding him, making gentle, comforting noises.
The kiss had simply been a kiss. Beautiful and wonderful. But not leading to anything else.
It left Wyatt dazed and confused. Nothing like this had ever happened to him. He couldn’t help but feel a little bit of disappointment.
But then he thought of something he hadn’t before.
Maybe….
Maybe this was better?
And as he puzzled over that, he realized something else.
He had once had feelings just like that. Feelings that… maybe you were supposed to wait? That what came after a kiss was supposed to be special.
Wyatt snuggled in closer, loving the feel of this man—his chest, his body, his comforting presence. It made Wyatt feel different. Two men so close, yet with no seeming ulterior motive. At least not an immediate one. No one had ever held him like this, or cuddled with him like this before, unless it was leading to something else.
He remembered, then, Kevin turning him down for sex that one drunken night.
Because I was still with Howard.
But I’m not with Howard anymore.
Was Kevin just being nice to him that starry night?
“I’m going to regret this Little Bear… but I can’t.”
But that was followed by…
“The only reason you get laid is because of me. I tell them they have to have sex with you if they want me.”
It was two very different voices. And the second one could take him to all kinds of very dark places.
Then… in that moment…
Wyatt decided to let go of the second memory. The voice that said no one really liked him. That people only hung out with him or had sex with him because of Howard.
He remembered instead six friends who had helped make a Yule one of the most amazing nights of his life.
Wyatt closed his eyes and sighed. His lids felt heavy. He was tired. “Don’t know why…,” he muttered.
“Don’t know why what?” Kevin said softly.
“Why I’m so tired.” A comforting blanket seemed to settle over him as he snuggled even closer, moved a leg over one of Kevin’s, and… drifted.
So nice.
“Don’t worry about it” came Kevin’s voice from far away. “Go to sleep, Little Bear.”
Wyatt shivered, but not from the cold. After all, the room was more than toasty—the wood-burning stove was small but very efficient. Hey, the cabin was small.
No. This shiver was something completely different.
So nice….
He let himself fall deeper and deeper and thought how nice it would be if he dreamed he could fly.
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
WYATT WOKE, eyes wide, jolted by the fact that there was someone pressed up against him. A man.
Howard?
No!
Hodor….
He smiled. Kevin.
Sighed happily. Gosh, he thought. Wow.
How amazing that he was relieved it wasn’t Howard after he had woken up so many mornings hurting because his lover was gone.
Wyatt’s smile broadened. He almost laughed.
Then he became conscious that he was hard.
And not just him.
Kevin was too.
Wyatt had lifted a knee and settled it over Kevin when he’d curled into him and fallen asleep, and during his nap that knee had found its way directly over Kevin’s crotch.
There was no denying it. Kevin was hard. And even moving his knee against the solid column of flesh Wyatt could tell it was big. Really big.
Wyatt considered doing just that, flexing his leg against Kevin’s erection. But then he remembered this was Kevin, not some one-night stand he’d brought home from a bar. Some nameless pickup might enjoy something like that—the few he and Howard would have actually let spend the night would have, and had.
But somehow he knew that Kevin wouldn’t appreciate it. Not in the end. Doing something like that would be like violating him. Especially since they hadn’t had sex. And the way things were going, he couldn’t figure out if that was even in the cards.
It was frustrating because he was like a fish out of water. This was so different. He was out of his element. He didn’t know how to act. What to do.
Maybe he should do a tarot reading?
He caught the aroma of the steak and potatoes and very suddenly realized how hungry he was.
So as much as he might have loved taking things further with Kevin, he decided to go with instinct. The one that told him seducing Kevin might be a mistake.
Would be.
He carefully disentangled himself from the wonderfully sweet and sexy man and slipped out of bed. He went to the little table, took his plate, picked up the steak with a forefinger and thumb, and took a bite. And, no. It wasn’t hot anymore. Was barely warm.
But gods, it was still good.
“Wyatt?”
Wyatt jumped and looked over his shoulder. Kevin was sitting there on the edge of the bed.
“You know, I can heat that up for you.”
Wyatt shrugged. Grinned. “It’s good, Kevin. Delicious. I like it just like this.”
Kevin gave a shrug of his own and got up and joined Wyatt at the table. He speared one of the last two of the small breakfast steaks with a fork and took a big bite of his own. He grinned. “It is, isn’t it?”
They sat and a
te and nodded at each other and agreed that their simple little meal couldn’t be better. In fact, it really was finger-licking good.
Still, Wyatt would have liked to lick Kevin’s fingers.
Strangely, he felt a pang of guilt. But why? He’d licked men’s fingers for years. And a lot of other things. Those men had loved it. Howard had loved it. He had loved it.
Hadn’t he?
But maybe today wasn’t the day.
Still…
It would be nice. It had been so long since he’d been with a man. The closest he’d come was that guy in the bar who had flirted with him. Then disappeared.
And that had made him feel like shit.
He didn’t want to feel like shit.
He certainly didn’t want to make a man as sweet as Kevin feel like shit.
So they would have to find something else to do.
After they ate, they played Sorry!.
THEY WERE listening to someone named Christine Kane—she was the one who had sung the song about cats and dogs and four legs and two legs, only this time she was singing about watching for roses in the snow—when Kevin asked the question.
Or asked if he could ask one.
“I was wondering if maybe… I could ask you something?”
Wyatt looked over at Kevin. Saw an expression that seemed guarded.
He nodded, abruptly nervous.
Kevin cleared his throat. “Is it possible you threw the baby out with the bathwater?”
Huh? Baby? Bathwater?
“Or in this case… the baby Jesus?”
Wyatt stiffened. “What?” baby Jesus? He looked at Kevin more carefully, feeling guarded himself now. What was this about?
He saw Kevin swallow. Heard him. “I was just wondering,” Kevin said. “Maybe you’re not reacting to Jesus when you see those billboards. Maybe it’s something Pavlovian. Maybe instead of Jesus, it’s what your father put you through that upsets you so much?”
Wyatt pushed back from the table. He couldn’t help it. “What?” His heart was skipping a beat (or five), but not in a good way. Was Kevin going to give him the “Jesus-talk”? Had he “found Jesus”? Wyatt had to bite the insides of his cheeks to keep his mouth from falling open. Was that what was about to happen? This man had never struck him as a Christian.
Kevin was looking at him intently.
Christine sang on—
Seasons changing on me now
Wait for the flowers to grow, yeah
Watch for the roses in the snow
—and then Kevin let out a long sigh.
“Okay. Let me start again.” He cleared his throat. “You know that every time the media covers something gay—like a Gay Pride parade for instance—all they show is leathermen wearing assless chaps, or a NAMBLA float, or men in jockstraps? Or the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence—who I love by the way, although anyone who doesn’t understand what they stand for will only see them as sacrilegious degenerates….” His voice almost turned into a mutter at the last.
Wyatt shook his head. He didn’t know where all this was coming from. All of this was completely out of left field. One minute they were listening to Christine Kane sing about new chances and starting over and believing in yourself no matter what, and the next something about throwing the baby Jesus out with the bathwater?
“I don’t know about you, Wyatt,” Kevin went on, “but it pisses me off. It makes gay people look like nothing but sexual perverts. Me and Bobcat and Donald and Cedar talk about this at Festival all the time. The media never show the PFLAG groups or the gay churches—like the Metropolitan Community Church. They don’t show the Front Runners. The Gay-Straight Student Alliances. The bands. The Gay Men’s Choruses. The flaggers. The anti-violence GLBT groups….”
Wyatt blinked at him. Kevin talked about this stuff at Festival? Quite suddenly he remembered a conversation a lot like this, with the men Kevin mentioned, that had taken place this past summer. It had made him a bit uncomfortable, and he’d gotten gloriously cocktailed. How could he get away from such talk now?
Change the subject.
“It’s getting dark,” he blurted. And it was. It was rapidly growing darker in the cabin and getting harder to see.
“The media doesn’t show any of that, so what do the typical Mr. and Mrs. America think of us?”
Stop, Wyatt wanted to say. Stop.
“That we all like to show off our bare asses or dress up as nuns or that we all want to have sex with boys. And it’s not true.”
Wyatt started to open his mouth to ask what was wrong with being a leatherman and showing off your ass or dressing up in a fun outfit when Kevin continued.
“Not that there is anything wrong with leathermen—”
No. There certainly wasn’t….
“—and the Sisters have done so much for our community, especially in raising money to help in the AIDS crisis.”
Wyatt relaxed, a very small amount.
“Of course, I can’t say the same of NAMBLA.”
No. Certainly not. An organization founded on advocating pederasty and pedophilia wasn’t the kind of group he wanted anyone associating with gay men. He had to agree with Kevin there, but…. But what did all this have to do with the baby Jesus?
Kevin sighed, reached out, and touched Wyatt’s hand. He almost flinched. But then Kevin was gently stroking the web between Wyatt’s thumb and forefinger and, gosh…. Wyatt trembled, looked up into those lovely eyes. “The media shows the bad and rarely the good. It covers Gay Pride parades, but only shows the pederasts. And—” He paused, but didn’t stop caressing Wyatt’s hand. “—it covers Christians and shows the Kim Davises. People shooting doctors coming out of Planned Parenthood clinics. Wyatt. Those kind of people are only a fraction of the Christians out there.”
Oh no. Don’t even go there. “Like my father?” Wyatt snapped and yanked his hand away.
Kevin’s right eye twitched, and then those eyes of his turned sad. He nodded once. “Yes,” he said very quietly. “I’m sorry.”
“He—kicked—me—out.” Wyatt touched his cheek. “He hit me. Hard.” He stood up and walked over to the door, parted the sheer curtain, and looked out the window. Remembering. “He found my tarot cards and my Scott Cunningham books. He called me a Satan worshipper. Said I shouldn’t be suffered to live. To live! And that being a witch had turned me gay. Some ‘loving’ Christian, huh?”
Wyatt’s heart was slamming in his chest now.
It’s why he did his best not to ever think about his father.
Of course, recent circumstances had fucked that up good. How could he not think about the man? It was a big part of the reason why he’d come to Camp. To be alone to try to sort it out. But then that wasn’t what happened, was it?
And here he had thought Camp Sanctuary was magick.
Yet what had it done?
It had not only refused to give him the solitude—the seclusion—he’d wanted, but it had dumped a mountain of snow on him besides.
“But not all Christians are like that,” Kevin said, hands spread out before him.
“Okay, then,” Wyatt said, turning from the view of the snow outside. “What about the Mormons who made sure that Prop 8 was passed?”
Kevin shrugged. “Well… yeah….” He went silent. Of course he did. How could he argue? Kevin let out a long sigh. “Oh, Wyatt. Don’t you see? Their whole way of life was threatened. People were scared—”
“Threatened!” Wyatt almost growled. “Them threatened? Fuck their ‘way of life’!”
“—of all the changes that were happening in the world. A lot has happened for gays, and it has happened fast. A lot of people just weren’t prepared for how fast it happened.”
Fast! Fast? How could he say that!
But then Kevin stood up, practically wringing his hands, and quite suddenly the winds were totally out of Wyatt’s sails. He hated seeing the gentle giant this way.
“Wyatt, I know lots of wonderful, amazing Christians. People who are
nothing like Kim Davis or Anita Bryant or Jerry Falwell or Pat Robertson. People who totally disagree with people like that. Christians who don’t see anything wrong with anyone being gay. My best friend Theresa is Christian. She volunteers at the LGBT Youth Center.”
Again Wyatt opened his mouth to argue and again, slowly shut it. He knew some Christians who were fine with him being gay as well, didn’t he? Even thought it was interesting that he was pagan. At least that’s what they said.
Kevin came to Wyatt then. “Lumping all gays as pederasts is the same as lumping all Christians as haters. It’s just not true.”
Wyatt looked up into Kevin’s face, his eyes now all but lost in the darkening room. His heart hurt. He hadn’t meant to upset Kevin. It wasn’t so long ago they’d been cuddled in bed. Now the man was so distressed. But damn. Couldn’t Kevin see how Christianity had harmed Wyatt? What did Kevin want? For him to just forgive all of that?
Dear gods…! Was Kevin a Christian? He wouldn’t have been the only one that came to Men’s Festival, after all.
“Are you trying to convert me or something?” Wyatt asked, the words bursting from his lips.
Kevin’s eyes went wide. “Hell no!”
Now he was putting his hands on Wyatt again, taking hold of his upper arms firmly in those big hands of his.
“I would never want to change you, Little Bear. You’re perfect just the way you are.”
Wyatt tried to look into Kevin’s darkened eyes. “Even the anti-vagina-talk part of me? The part that is upset with Christians?”
Kevin nodded. “Yes. Just the way you are. You must walk your path and not someone else’s. And there are so many paths for us to walk. Or so many paths to God.”
“What if I believe in ‘gods’ plural?” Wyatt shot back in quick response. “What do you think of that?”
Kevin shrugged and then said, “I think it’s getting dark in here.” He stepped back, patted his pockets, reached in one, and pulled out a matchbook.
They still make those? Wyatt wondered.
Kevin went to the table and lit the white candle and then went to his bed and pulled a couple of Walmart bags out from under it. Reaching into one, he removed two dark pillar candles and put them on the table beside the other one. Wyatt joined Kevin, and as they were lit, Wyatt noticed what color they were.