by A. J. Truman
Gideon was just as curious as him. “How old is that letter?”
“I don’t know.”
“Are you going to read it?”
“Should I? It might be personal.”
Gideon nodded, but he could see the curiosity lighting up his boyfriend’s face. “I mean, there’s only one way to find out if it’s personal…”
“I’ll just read one letter.”
“Great compromise!”
Mac took the letter out of the envelope and unfolded it in his hands. Gideon could only know what was in it by Mac’s face. But Mac wasn’t giving away much. His face turned to stone. His eyes traveled down the page at least three times. He picked his head up and had a dazed expression.
“What did it say?” Gideon asked.
Mac handed it over, stood up, and did a zombie walk to the kitchen area.
Dear Rita,
Enclosed is the monthly check for Mac’s expenses. It’s a little bigger than usual so Mac can buy some back to school clothes. I can’t believe he’s going to be a senior. I still can’t get over some of the colleges he’s thinking of attending. I can’t believe I might have a son who attends Carnegie Mellon, The University of Pennsylvania, or Browerton. Not bad for a guy who barely got through community college. I’m so proud of him, Rita. I know he wants nothing to do with us, but I hope he knows that. Thank you for sending pictures. He’s really getting tall. Maybe we can all spend Thanksgiving together this year. I guess that’ll require one of us to swallow our pride. We think about him everyday. Thank you again for taking him in. We miss him, but we know he’s safe in Pittsburgh.
Love,
Sean
“Holy shit,” Gideon said under his breath. He grabbed the stack of letters. They were probably all of the same variety.
Mac poured himself a glass of water. “Why didn’t they tell me?”
“Maybe they didn’t want you to come back.” Because it wasn’t safe. Gideon’s stomach sank with a nasty feeling for all the things he said to Mac’s parents. “You hadn’t seen them since Aunt Rita got sick?”
“No. I remember that Thanksgiving. She suggested my parents come up, but I refused. I was so angry at them.”
“You missed out on an awkward family holiday.”
Mac wasn’t smiling, though. He looked worse than when Gideon started talking. “I need to call them.”
He took out his phone. His thumb hovered over the screen. Gideon got up and wrapped Mac in a tight hug, practically swaddled him.
“They didn’t believe me,” Mac said. “They took the pastor’s word over mine. They thought I hit on Justin and that I caused this. Even if they let me stay in Pittsburgh to avoid the bigoted assholes back home, they still thought that I brought on what happened to me. They didn’t stand up for me.”
Mac collapsed against Gideon’s chest. Gideon rubbed his back. “Baby, you need to relax.”
“I don’t know what to think. This whole time…”
“Breathe. Just breathe.” Gideon rocked them back and forth for a few minutes. He kissed Mac’s head.
Mac looked up at him with those eyes that plugged right into Gideon’s soul. Their lips met in an instant. They kissed each other with a hungry need.
All of this emotion had given Gideon a wicked hard-on. He pushed Mac backward on the bed. Their lips refused to budge from each other. Gideon ran his hands through Mac’s hair, then swooped them down to his tight stomach and muscular legs. Mac quivered under his touch.
He wanted to remember every second of this. Gideon unbuttoned Mac’s jeans, then his own. He pulled out their cocks and massaged them together, rolling them around in his fist. He spat in his hand and slicked them up real good. Mac moaned into his chest. Gideon pressed his weight into him.
He panted and gulped down air as he continued to stroke them. Mac’s fingers rubbed Gideon’s back, softening his tensed muscles. Their dicks fucked Gideon’s hand, and he was going to shoot at any moment. But not yet. He wanted more. His anger and fear had turned into lust, and he wanted to consume Mac, the way Mac had done to him in their hotel room.
“I wanna…have sex.” Gideon breathed deeply. He inhaled Mac’s soapy, musky scent, and it made his cock harder.
Gideon got off the bed and shoved his pants and boxers to the floor. His cock flopped in the air. He kicked his shoes to the far reaches of the studio and stepped out of his pants. He tossed off his dark green sweater and chucked that into the kitchen area.
“Don’t go making a mess,” Mac said with his sinister smile. Gideon didn’t realize how much he missed it. “I just cleaned.”
“Oh, we’re making a fucking mess tonight, baby.” He yanked Mac’s pants and underwear completely off. They landed by the front door. He motioned with two fingers for Mac to sit up. He slowly lifted his shirt over his head. His fingers grazed the ridges of his abs and firm pecs. He breathed in the scent of Mac’s shirt, then threw it onto the dining table, where it landed on the leftover lasagna.
“Should I get Big Bird?”
Gideon glanced down at his raging boner. “I don’t think we need it.”
Mac took lube and a condom from his nightstand drawer. He placed it on his stomach. Gideon positioned Mac on the edge of the bed and shoved his legs back to his head. He gave his ass a nice little spit shine. But not too much. This wasn’t a night for foreplay. It was one for action. Some cosmic force was pulling Gideon to Mac.
He got Mac and himself prepped for entry. He leaned over his boyfriend and whispered in his ear “I’m falling in love with you.”
He knew it was fast, that they’d only known each other a few months, but the words weren’t going to stay inside him. Gideon worried that maybe it was too much for Mac—
“Me, too.”
Or maybe it was just right.
He entered Mac’s warm opening, and instantly his knees quaked. Mac arched his back. His thick cock lay against his stomach.
Gideon leaned over his boyfriend and smoothed his sweaty hair back. He kissed him along his jaw line and that sweet spot where his neck met his shoulder. Sweat trickled down Gideon’s chest into the creases of Mac’s stomach.
He didn’t want to stop touching Mac. His hips, his ass, his legs, his feet, his elbows. It was all manna from heaven to him. He pushed Mac’s legs closer to his stomach as Gideon slid deeper inside him.
Mac reached around and slapped Gideon’s ass. Gideon admired his flexibility. They looked into each other’s eyes, and Gideon saw enough hope and love to help them weather this storm.
It’s going to be okay, Gideon told Mac telepathically.
“You’re gonna make me come,” Mac said. Not the response he thought, but a great one nonetheless.
“That’s the point.” Gideon sped up, banging his cock into Mac’s ass in short bursts. Mac spread his legs, allowing Gideon to thrust deeper.
Mac grabbed onto a patch of Gideon’s wild hair. He grunted with orgasm and covered his chest and stomach with streaks of himself. Gideon lost all balance and the room went white as he shot hot spurts into his boyfriend.
He cleaned the both of them up with Mac’s T-shirt, then tossed it back on the ground. Gideon promised Mac he would do laundry in the morning. They lay on the bed together, basking in the afterglow. They fell asleep soon after. Gideon was an extra strong big spoon, holding Mac tight. He didn’t want to let him go.
Φ
Gideon woke up a few hours later. Mac wasn’t in bed. He was standing at the window, gazing out into the darkness.
“Can’t sleep?”
Mac turned around. His face told Gideon sleep was the furthest thing from his mind. “I’m going back to West Virginia.”
“When?”
“Tomorrow.”
Gideon sat up, fully awake. Streaks of light spliced through the blinds.
“I’m going to West Virginia to talk with my parents. I need to fix this.”
“How long are you going to be gone?”
“I don’t know. Winter break is st
arting, so everyone’s going home this week.”
“So I won’t see you until January?”
“I don’t know.” The moonlight silhouetted Mac’s strong frame.
“I can go with you, for moral support, and just in case you need to find solace in another hotel room.” Gideon smirked, but Mac didn’t react. He was already in West Virginia.
He rejoined Gideon on the bed. “I am so grateful for what you’ve done, but I need to fight this battle myself.”
“I want to help you.”
“I know you do.” Mac brushed down a clump of Gideon’s bedhead. It didn’t make any difference, but it made Mac smile. “I have to stop letting people fight for me. I am so lucky that I’ve had people in my life who care about me this much to stand up for me. It’s my turn to stand up for myself.”
Gideon noticed how scared Mac was, but he was pushing through. That was the very definition of courage.
“I don’t know if it’s going to work, but I need to try and make things right myself,” Mac said.
Gideon wrapped his arms tight around Mac and kissed him.
“You do what you gotta do, but don’t get too comfortable back on the farm,” Gideon said.
“We don’t have a farm.”
“You know what I mean.” Gideon tapped at Mac’s chin. “I don’t want to lose you.”
“You won’t.”
Sometime around four, Gideon managed to fall back asleep. When he woke up the next morning, Mac was gone.
CHAPTER twenty-seven
Mac
Mac stepped off the bus, groggy from his nap. Rain splashed against the pavement of the bus station parking lot. It looked like it wasn’t going to be a White Christmas in Kingwood, West Virginia. A fog enveloped the trees and mountains, as it usually did. “It’s God’s whipped cream,” Mac’s dad once said to him when he was little. It felt like eons ago.
He had little memories like that pop into his head on the ride down. Instead of preparing for battle, Mac chose to remember the good times with his parents. He thought back on holidays and early mornings cleaning the store with his dad or reading a bedtime story with his mom. It was easy for Gideon to hate his parents. He only saw one side of them. He only saw the after, not the before.
The town of Kingwood wasn’t large, and even though it was spotty with sidewalks, it was still manageable to get around on foot. His family’s store was about a mile and a half from the bus station. One hundred years ago, this town was just an intersection with a gas station and general store. Now there were strip malls and big box stores, but that small town spirit remained.
Mac remembered it well.
He strolled down the main strip. Lights were strung around the lampposts. Rain be damned, it was Christmastime!
He let the memories wash over him. He had lots of great times in this town, until he got gay bashed. Then the small town charm gave him the cold shoulder. If the pastor hadn’t wielded so much power in town, then maybe he would’ve had a shot at fairness. A slim chance, but a chance. Mac spent years trying to move forward. Instead, he had just repressed.
The store looked the same, for the most part. His dad had installed one of those spirally energy-efficient light bulbs above the front door. And they replaced the old Santa-themed holiday welcome mat with a more generic Christmas tree design.
“You can do this,” he said to himself. He grabbed the door, but before turning, something caught his eye. His dad had tried to paint over it, but the traces of graffiti streaked the outside of the store, just above the grass. Mac could only make out hints of an F, then an A. He didn’t need to know the rest.
The door to the store swung open, giving Mac a shock.
“Mac?” His mother held her hand to her heart.
“I took an early morning bus.”
Neither knew what to say next.
“Can I come in?”
His mom nodded and stepped aside. She looked Mac up and down, as if she hadn’t had a chance to really see her son in a while.
The interior of the store hadn’t changed. He always thought this store felt especially homey. It was like a second home to him, from the signs behind the register, to the long scratch on one of the tiles in the paint supplies aisle.
“Where’s Dad?”
“He’s just finishing up in the stockroom.”
“Is he still lugging around heavy boxes?”
She straightened out an end cap display. “He still lifts with his legs.”
His dad came back into the store, rolling a dolly of boxes filled with inventory. Even though his dad was still tall and strong, Mac saw age start to get the better of him. The crows feet, the hair that’s more salt than pepper, the slower gait. He knew his dad would try and tough it out until they carried him out of the store.
He spotted Mac and left the boxes in the middle of the aisle.
“I took an early morning bus,” Mac said, answering the obvious question.
Nobody knew what to say next. Mac pulled his dad’s letter out of his pocket. “I found this.”
He registered a modicum of surprise on his dad’s stoic face. His dad didn’t give up much more.
“I didn’t know,” Mac said.
“And we didn’t want you to know,” his dad said. “You would’ve made Aunt Rita rip up all those checks, and you would’ve taken on two afterschool jobs or even dropped out of school to make up the difference. Anything than accepting charity. You’re stubborn.”
“Takes one to know one.”
His dad cracked a sliver of a smile.
“Why didn’t you want me to come back here? I ran away to Pittsburgh because I was hurt, because you didn’t believe me. I would’ve come back, but you didn’t want me.”
“We were protecting you, Mac. Some people in this town would not have welcomed you back,” his mom said.
Mac thought of the graffiti on the side of the building.
“Things didn’t go back to normal once you left,” his dad said. “We didn’t want to risk you returning and getting in trouble again.”
“You also didn’t want to ruin your relationship with the pastor.”
His parents traded a look that admitted some truth in that statement.
“You know that I didn’t hit on Justin Weeks.”
“It was a very….” His dad searched for the right words. He probably wasn’t used to having a talk like this. “It was a very turbulent time, okay? One day, everything was fine, the next you’re…”
“Gay?”
“Yes. And getting in a scuffle with the pastor’s son. You kept insisting that we do something, but I didn’t know what to do. I just thought it was a fight. I got in my share of fights growing up.”
“You let yourself believe that.”
“I didn’t know what was going on. I’d never met a gay person, and then you tell us this story. The pastor told us what happened, that you hit on Justin, and we believed him…because we were scared.” His dad hung his head, ashamed by the admission. “Our lives are in that church. Our friends, our neighbors.”
“And they were more important than me.”
“The comments and looks and names didn’t stop once you left. It felt like there was a police spotlight on us whenever we went anywhere. Word got out about what happened. I didn’t want to expose you to that anymore than you’d already been.”
Another battle for Mac. Another person who had to fight it.
His dad sat on a step ladder. He was tired on every level. “Your parents aren’t perfect. It was a turbulent time and we tried to make the best decisions we could. Should I make you come back home and face Justin Weeks and this town for another two years, or do I make you stay in Pittsburgh where you can live your life, even if you hated us for it? Here.” His dad opened a box of wrenches, and without thinking, Mac stocked them on hooks. He didn’t have to remember where they went. That information was programmed into his head.
“You blamed me, Dad. Justin looked at my computer. He and his friends follow
ed me when I left school, and they cornered me and beat me up. I didn’t do anything wrong. I didn’t go down the street like a one-man gay pride parade.” Mac had tried denying what was on his computer when Justin and his crew asked him, but they saw through his stammering lies. “Why didn’t you stick up for me at all?”
“It was complicated, Mac,” his mom said, trying to soften the blow. Her face was all pain. “We were scared.”
“I was scared, too. School was hell for that month before I ran away.” Mac stared at them with wide eyes, with such intensity that he felt his voice echo in his throat. “I was born gay. It’s in my blood. Nothing anyone could do could ever change that. I can’t stop this. I can’t change it. It’s who I am.” Tears streamed down his cheeks. He let them fall. He wanted his parents to see this. “Those guys, they found out, and they attacked me for being something I can’t control. And everyone turned their backs to me. But I thought that I still had you. That’s what hurt the most, knowing that you didn’t have my back.”
They didn’t say anything for a few seconds. Mac hung the wrenches. He didn’t know how long the silence would stretch
“I’m sorry,” his dad said, a quiet and humble admission. “There are so many things I’d redo if I could, but time only moves in one direction.”
“We love you, Mac,” his mom said.
His dad wrapped him in a tight hug, and Mac didn’t realize how much he’d missed this.
“I love you, too.” Damn, it felt good to say that and mean that.
“Here for the holidays?” His mom asked, a hopeful note in her voice. Mac hadn’t spent Christmas with his parents in four years, which was a depressing thought. “I’ll make a pecan pie.”
“I’d like that.”
“Is your, uh, friend with you?” His dad asked.
“No. And he was just trying to defend me. He didn’t know the whole story. I didn’t either.”
“I like him! He’s got spunk!” His mom said and helped Mac unload the box of merchandise. They all laughed at her outburst, and wounds in Mac began to truly heal.
CHAPTER twenty-eight