Jav clicked off the desk lamp and stood up. “So, I was thinking…”
Stef raised his eyebrows. “What?”
“I could sublet my apartment to Roger.”
Stef took a pull of his beer and swallowed slowly. “And where would you live?”
Jav crossed his arms and shrugged. “Here?”
A long staring moment.
“I think that’s a great idea,” Stef said.
Jav groaned.
“What?” Stef said. “Was that the wrong answer?”
“Yes,” Jav said. “You’re supposed to say it’s too soon.”
“I am?”
“This is too goddamn easy.”
“It is?”
Jav’s eyes flashed almost angrily. “Jesus Christ, why are you like this?”
“Whoa, whoa, wait,” Stef said, putting up his hands. “If you want to freak out, then freak out and own it. But don’t make me the freak.”
“I’m not.”
“You are. Fucking talk to me and tell me what’s wrong.”
“Nothing’s wrong.”
Stef felt a ripple of annoyance. “Please do not bullshit the shrink.”
Jav gave a ragged exhale. “Here’s what was supposed to happen. This is the way I wrote the story. Prologue, I finally come out and open my mind to meeting a guy. Just a cool, decent guy I could have sex with. Pop my homosexual cherry and figure out if it was something I liked. Not a big love affair, not an unhealthy obsession. A fuck buddy. Training wheels. My transitional person.”
Stef’s body temperature dropped. Veins and arteries stiffening, making the tips of his fingers prickle.
Is he breaking up with me? Wait, no, he just offered to move in. The hell is going on?
“Either I wouldn’t like having sex with a guy,” Jav was saying, “and I’d think, Cool, good to know, check that off, I’ll go pursue a woman. Or I would like it.”
“Okay,” Stef said, thinking about where Jav’s mouth had been last night. You didn’t do that if you hated it. “And?”
“Next chapter, I’d try to find a…starter relationship. I’d put myself out there. Go on Grindr or Manhunt or whatever. I’d date. Some guys wouldn’t work out. I figured a lot of guys wouldn’t work out. The point is I was prepared to be out there a long time. I was prepared to be dumped, to dump someone, deal with some bullshit, get my heart broken and my feelings hurt. I was prepared for it to take a while to get used to, physically and mentally. I thought it was going to suck for a while before it got better. Before the last chapter when I finally, hopefully met someone.” Jav exhaled, his hands falling limply to his sides. “That’s the story I wrote. Instead I got this.”
“This,” Stef said.
“The last chapter.”
Stef blinked. “You lost me.”
“You’re the last chapter,” Jav said. “I went from the prologue to you. I skipped everything in the middle and now I’m in love with you and I don’t know what the hell I’m doing.”
A rush as everything in Stef’s body dilated, returned to normal levels, and then rose up. “Jesus Christ, Jav,” he said, rubbing his face. “I swear, I’m going to kill you or fuck you. Pick one.”
Jav’s voice rose. “I said I’m in love with you.”
Stef looked up. “I heard what you said. I’ve been in love with you since December.”
Jav crossed his arms and looked away a beat. “How come you never told me?”
“You think you’re the only one who’s scared?”
As they stared at each other through anxious silence, Roman came over and sat precisely halfway between their trembling gazes. His own sober eyes looking back and forth.
“I didn’t think I was going to fall in love,” Jav said. “I didn’t hope for that. I didn’t prepare for that. And I’ve never been in love. Ever. I have zero skills here. I’m a complete virgin. I’m still getting my head wrapped around the sex, meanwhile my heart is… Jesus.” He looked away.
Stef put the beer down and walked toward him. “Come on, it’s all right.”
“I thought I was going to be caviar.”
“Caviar? The fuck are you talking about, caviar?”
“You said once that you liked having sex with men the way you liked caviar.”
“Oh,” Stef said slowly. “That. Right.”
“I know I’m being an idiot. I’m just trying to…”
“Hey, come here.” Stef tried to get his hands on him, but Jav was like a slippery baby after the bath. “Come here or I will kill you.” He got arms around Jav. It wasn’t a hug so much as a wrestle hold.
“You are not caviar,” he said. “You’re eggs. All right? You’re…my Mallomar stash. You’re coffee. You’re fucking beer. The only reason my relationships with men were what they were was because I didn’t know you yet. I didn’t know someone like you was out there. I didn’t know meeting you would change me.”
“I’m sorry,” Jav said, sighing. “A whole bunch of weird shit happened today and then Roger’s phone call. I don’t know what the fuck end is up.”
“Shut up. You’re the best—”
“Look, I—”
Stef squeezed his arms like a python. “Be quiet. You’re the best thing that ever happened to me. Hold still and look at me. You are, I shit you not, the best lover I’ve ever had in my life.”
Jav’s chin dropped. “Stop.”
“And you make me a better man. A better son, a better friend, a better therapist. I work better because of you. I move through the world differently during the day because at night I’m with you. You’re not fucking up here, Jav. You’re fucking making miracles.”
“Let me go, dammit,” Jav said through a small smile. Stef released his arms and Jav sat down on the window sill. “Feels like my chest is gonna explode.”
“Because you got a big heart, man.” Stef stepped between Jav’s feet and put his hands on the bowed shoulders. “I don’t know anyone with a bigger heart. You never fucked love up. Jav. The few times it came to you, you didn’t… You didn’t fuck up with Nesto. You got fucked up afterward. You didn’t fuck up with Flip. That plane going down was nothing you could’ve prevented. I love you but I don’t fool myself for a minute. If Flip came back from California, I wouldn’t be standing here right now. Alex? You didn’t fuck up with Alex. Yeah, fine, you were a bit of an obsessed jackass. We’ve all been there. You got your jackass stripe, welcome to the club.”
Jav looked up, but only met Stef’s eyes a second before glancing away again.
“Look at you and Ari,” Stef said. “That’s your greatest love story. Jesus, Jav, if anyone deserves to skip straight to the happy ending, it’s you.”
Jav’s shaking head bent and the crown pressed against Stef’s chest.
“Jav, I want you and me. Hell, I didn’t know sleeping with you would finish me. I’m done. I started falling in love when you came to the Queensboro Bridge with me. The night after the thing at Barnes & Noble, when we made love for the first time? It was a done deal, not a metaphor. I don’t want anybody else now. I want you. In my bed and under my bathroom sink and in my kitchen cabinets. Do you believe it?”
A soft exhalation. “Yeah.”
Stef wrapped his arms around Jav’s head, kissing his hair. “You deserve this. We both do, but you especially deserve to skip the bullshit and find love on the first try. Why the fuck not? Come on, you’re in the business. You telling me you never heard of an author knocking it out of the park with their debut novel?”
Now Jav laughed. “I guess it happens.”
“Look at me.”
Jav lifted his chin, looked up through the circle of Stef’s arms.
“Three things I need you to remember,” Stef said. “You’re the best thing that ever happened to me. You’re the best lover I ever had in my life. And you make me
a better man.”
Jav’s arms crept around Stef’s waist, his hands joining in the small of Stef’s back. “All right.”
“Be as idiotic as you want, okay? Just don’t leave. Don’t leave before you can screw it up. Stay here, screw it up and we’ll have a conversation to fix it. Then comes the make up sex.”
Jav raised his eyebrows. “Is this conversation over?”
“Is everything fixed?”
“For the moment.”
“Are you moving in with me?”
“Do you want me?”
“Oh for God’s sake.”
Laughter that bordered on hysteria spilled out of Stef’s throat as he wrapped his arms around Jav’s head. Honestly, he didn’t know whether to punch the guy or do him right there on the window ledge.
“Yes, you moron. Come live with me. It’s not enough you make me insane four days out of a week. I want your insanity twenty-four-seven.”
“What was the weird shit that happened today?” Stef asked.
“Hm?” Jav grunted from under closed eyes.
Stef lifted his head from the pillow. “You said a bunch of weird shit happened even before Roger called you. Then you distracted me with make up sex.”
Jav’s hand rose and dropped down, forearm heavy on Stef’s chest, his index finger brushing Stef’s mouth. Stef bit it, then turned his head free. “Stop distracting me. What happened?”
“I was talking with one of the residents. Young kid. Geno.” His finger stroked Stef’s jaw and then he took his arm away.
“Ah,” Stef said. They were still a moment, standing on the boundary. Stef’s professional confidentiality on one side, Jav’s self-imposed comrade confidentiality on the other.
Geno in the middle.
“Not surprised you met him,” Stef said. “Or were talking with him, rather. Probably in Spanish, right?”
“Yeah. Did you know Lithuanian Jews immigrated to Mexico City?”
“Was that the weird conversation?”
“No. He wasn’t testing a knife edge on his wrist, either. He just dropped a couple of things that I fitted together. I mean, I figured out who he was.” Now Jav’s eyes opened and stared hard into Stef’s. “I know you can’t tell me. But if a teenager from New Jersey lost a twin brother last summer and he’s now in a facility for survivors of sexual assault, my mind thinks Mengele Ring. Am I wrong?”
Stef drew in a long breath through his nose. He closed his teeth around the tip of his tongue and kept his lips pressed tight together as he moved his head left, then right.
Jav’s eyes closed. “Don’t say anymore.”
Stef was already regretting he had.
After six weeks on Prozac, Geno had enough of what he called “the brain zaps.” Mild nausea seemed to be a constant sidekick and he felt like he’d been fighting off a cold for a month.
“Get me off this shit,” he said to Dr. Stein. “I know I need to be on something but this isn’t it.”
Stein warned him switching meds could mean toughing out another six weeks. His body would be confused coming off the Prozac while accumulating citalopram, the next choice.
“You need to check in with me,” Stein said. “If your thoughts start turning violent or suicidal, I need to know. Any blacking out or severe dizziness. If Mos starts speaking up or you have any disassociation episodes.”
“I will.”
“No Ambien. Not when you got two antidepressants in your system. I’m sorry, it’ll be another thing to tough out, but…”
“It’s fine. I’ll catch up on my reading.”
Stein smiled. “You’ll probably feel worse before you feel better.”
“I can handle it.”
Stein’s expression turned stern. “And you’ll call me every morning while you’re handling it.”
Something fatherly was in his tone. A hint, just a hint of your ass will be grass and I will be the lawn mower. Instead of resenting it, Geno leaned on it, with a strange urge to tack a sir onto his, “I will.”
He started transitioning the meds the next day and felt fine for a week. Almost smugly fine.
“Brain chemistry is one of the most delicate things in the world,” Stef said. “Sometimes it’s more art than science. Finding the right combination and dosage that levels out your brain without making you numb and decimating your sex drive.”
“The latter isn’t exactly an issue for me lately,” Geno said.
“Have you had sex with anyone since the ordeal?”
Geno’s smug peace flickered like a light bulb on the fritz. “Kind of.”
Stef didn’t say anything and in the silence, Geno heard Mos’ dry impartial voice say, This isn’t allowed.
Geno flicked his head away from the warning. “Few times at college,” he said. “But I’d… It made me feel sick.”
We don’t talk about this, Mos said.
Shut up, Geno thought, feeling the disturbing pull of divided loyalty.
“Sick, like physically sick?” Stef asked. “Or anxious sick?”
“Well, I sure felt like being sick but I guess it was nerves. I mean, I’d be doing all right, getting worked up and everything. But sometimes not being able to catch my breath would trigger bad memories.”
We don’t talk about them.
This time, Mos got a hand around Geno’s neck and squeezed, making his voice waver. He cleared his throat hard. “I know I haven’t shared a lot of the details of the whole…thing. But I… My face was pressed into a pillow for a lot of it. Not being able to breathe puts me right back there.”
Stef nodded, his eyes heavy and serious. “Are you seeing the link between those two things in hindsight? Or were you aware of that trigger in the moment?”
“No, I could see it,” Geno said.
“What did you tell your partner?”
We don’t speak of it, Mos said.
Geno’s face grew warm and he shifted in his chair. “I lied and said I’d been in a boating accident. Almost drowned. So not being able to catch my breath made me anxious. Blah blah.”
Stef smiled. “That works.”
“I got really good at lying.” His mouth was dry around the words.
“You were protecting yourself. Thing about lies, though, they’re tiring.”
Geno nodded. “Remembering who you told what and when. Weaving the tangled web.”
“Did you ever have sex and not feel anxious?”
“Sure,” Geno said. “It would be all right, but I couldn’t…”
Say it, baby boy.
Geno pegged the paintbrush away. “It’s hard to come.” His heart beat thick in his chest and he swallowed against the pounding. “Really hard. I can’t…let go.”
“How about when you masturbate?”
“Jesus, could you be any more clinical?” He made a show of rolling his eyes. Beneath the table, his knees were knocking.
“Sorry. Professional habit.”
“I get we can’t do this over beers but, Christ, you can talk like a normal guy while you’re shrinking my head.”
Stef chuckled, holding up his palms and their ringed fingers. “Fair point.”
“Anyway.” Geno exhaled heavily. “Yes, even then. I can get hard, no problem, but my body just doesn’t know what to do.” He was shaking all over now. Panic began to rumble in the distance like an approaching storm. “Oh God, here we go,” he said.
“You just lost all your color.”
“Holy fuck,” Geno said through his chattering jaws. “This is a bad one.”
“Do you feel dizzy?”
“No.”
“It’s okay,” Stef said, pushing back his chair and standing up. “Come on. Let’s walk it out.”
Geno got to his feet, trembling within his pant legs. He could feel the fabric swishing against his skin. Stef
came around the corner of the table and, for a bizarre instant, Geno thought about taking his hand. He stuffed his fists into his pockets. “Where are we going?”
“My office. I have something I want you to try.”
All was surreal and shouting inside Geno’s head. Putting one foot in front of the other gave him something to focus on. When they reached his office, Stef picked up a Chock Full o’ Nuts coffee can. He gave it a clanking shake before handing it to Geno. The weight of it surprised him.
“What’s in here?”
“Dump it out,” Stef said, sitting on the floor. Geno put a shaky knee down, peeled off the plastic cover and dumped out a mess of nuts, bolts, screws and washers.
“Now sort it all out,” Stef said. “Organize it.”
“For real?”
“I read about it in a journal. It gives your left brain something to do and helps you get out of the right brain free-fall.”
Geno reached with sweaty, trembling fingers and started moving things around, making piles.
“Keep breathing,” Stef said, elbows on his knees, chin on his folded hands. “I’m going to ask questions while you’re sorting.”
“All right,” Geno said, thinking, Please don’t. Don’t ask me anything about sex anymore. No more. Don’t ask me. We don’t speak of it, it isn’t allowed, it didn’t happen to us. Don’t ask. You’re not allowed to ask.
“What’s your father’s name?”
Geno looked up. “Nathan?”
Stef’s eyes crinkled. “Are you sure?”
“Nathan. Nathan Benjamin Caan.”
“What’s his father’s name?”
“Jerome.”
“Who’s Jerome’s father?”
“Um, I don’t know. I think Benjamin?”
“Keep sorting.”
As pieces of hardware were moved into neat groups, Stef kept up a running demand for factual information. Birthdays. Middle names. Hair color. Eye color. Teachers from elementary school. Front men for bands. The nine times table. The capital of South Dakota. The more Geno had to think about the answers, the more the knot in his chest and stomach loosened.
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