It's All Relative

by J. M. Snyder

  “What are you teaching him?” I want to know.

  “He’s getting a well rounded education,” Caitlin points out.

  At the counter, Aunt Bobbie has been wiping out the sink while we go back and forth, studiously neutral and out of our conversation. It’s safer that way. But at my sister’s remark, she looks over her shoulder with reproach. “One his mother won’t appreciate, I’m sure,” she says now.

  Caitlin shrugs, it’s no concern of hers. “I can’t help it if he’s a fast learner. It’s those two giving him the edumacation,” she announces, aiming the blade of the knife at us, at me, like I’m the one teaching the kid words like shit and fuck and ass.

  Dan starts to laugh. His hands grapple at my waist, tickling, making me laugh, too, and I squirm in his arms. “You know you’re just encouraging them, right?” I point out, but he nips at the hollow of my throat, growls when I pull back, holds me tighter even as I try to get away and how can I hope to fight him when he’s playful like this?

  “Cover your eyes, Trevor,” Caitlin says, and the boy does as he’s told, cupping both hands over his glasses, fingers splayed so he can still see. “I thought you guys were taking it somewhere else? If you’re not going to talk about all the good stuff in front of us, move along.” To our cousin, she says, “I’m holding out for what soldier boy is going to say when he hears what Ray—”

  “Caitlin,” I warn. Can’t she drop it?

  “Caitlin,” she mocks in a high voice. She stabs at the pumpkin like she has a grudge against it and whines again. “Caitlin. Caitlin. That’s my name, don’t wear it out.” To Trevor, she says, “You’re peeking.”

  Our cousin shifts on the chair and closes his fingers tight over his face. “Am not,” he breathes. “Can I look now?”

  “They’re not gone yet.” With a closed look I can’t read, my sister wants to know, “Well? Are you leaving, or what?”

  Don’t tell me she’s mad at me again, I pray. I can’t tell, there’s something in her eyes that defies definition, is she pissed? Playing around? Mad as shit, what? She has more mood swings than a playground, as Stephen used to say when we were younger, talking about his own sister. Maybe she’s ovulating, I think, it would explain her mercurial moods, but right on the heels of that thought comes another so swift, there’s no doubt that it’s the truth. Ask her and you’re dead. I can just see it now. “Cat, you’re not on the rag, are you?” A flash of fury in her eyes and then bam! Mike is out for the count.

  So I concede, “We’re leaving,” and I push Dan back into the room we share, shutting the door behind us. I’m careful not to slam it because I don’t want them talking about us or laughing the way I wanted to laugh after Ray about ripped the door upstairs off its hinges. Leaning against the door, I roll my eyes and sigh. “Damn, that girl.”

  Dan runs his fingers down my chest, the touch feathery through my sweater. “We’re alone now,” he says.

  I laugh and catch his hand in mine. “So we are,” I murmur, pulling him to me.

  He grins—I love his smile, and the way he brushes back the hair from my face, the way his lips close over mine in a sweet kiss. “All alone,” he whispers against my mouth. My arms find their way around his neck, holding him tight, and this close his eyes are the world, so dark, so beautiful, like the sea at night. He kisses me again, a second time, and just as I’m about to fall into him again, to give into his lips and his tongue and his hands, he asks, “So are you going to tell me?”

  “Tell you what?” I ask, jarred from the edge of submission.

  Dan gives me a look that says he knows that I know what he’s talking about and he’s not going to let me play dumb about it. “Ray?” he asks. “Your father?”

  With a wink, I tell him, “He likes you. We’re cool.”

  “And Ray?” Dan wants to know. He has me up against the door, pinned between his hard body and the hard wood, and I feel safe here with him, I like the thickness swollen into my crotch, the last thing I want to talk about at this exact moment is my damn brother. But Dan is persistent. “What did he call you?”

  I turn away from his next kiss and his lips glance over my cheek. “It was just the heat of the moment,” I say. His hands distract me, his arms, his chest, everything about him begs to be held and touched and loved, can’t he let this go? “He didn’t mean it, Dan. Caitlin’s just trying to start something and you know it.”

  “So what did he say?” he asks again. When I shrug, he adds, “If it’s not that big a deal—”

  “It’s not.”

  “Then why won’t you tell me?” Damn his logic. He strokes my cheek and I lean into his palm, this time I let him kiss me, his hips press his arousal into mine. “Mike—”

  Taking a deep breath, I say, “He called me a faggot, okay?” Dan’s eyes harden instantly, just as I knew they would, and his lips flatten together into a stern, white line, the only external show of his anger. Even though he hasn’t moved a muscle, I imagine that I feel him pulling away from me, pulling into himself, deep down wherever it is that he hides his soul when he lets the military part of his mind take over. The change is like a sheet draped over him, that sudden, that complete, and I can barely see the ghostly shape of the man I love beneath the anger. “Dan,” I sigh. He just stares at me and I cradle his neck in both hands, rub my thumbs over his cheeks, anything to loosen this emotion that’s managed to turn him into stone. “Dan, no, it’s not like that. Listen to me, he didn’t mean it that way.”

  “How did he mean it?” he asks. His voice is clipped, each word as precise and final as a surgeon’s cut. “In a nice way?”

  “Dan, please.” I smooth down his t-shirt, erasing the wrinkles in the fabric with my hands. His muscles are clenched tight beneath my fingers and I can’t seem to work them free. “Hon, listen to me. Don’t be like this, he said he didn’t mean it.”

  Incredulous, he asks, “And that makes it all right?” I shrug, I don’t know, and something in my helpless gesture makes Dan snap. “He’s a fucking moron,” he spits, pulling back from me now. I hold onto his shirt, try to keep him close, but he’s pissed and he pushes me away. “I don’t care if he’s your brother, Michael, I really don’t. Not if he’s going to be saying shit like that to you. I won’t have it.”

  “Daniel,” I sigh. My hands find his shoulders and rub at the anger coiled there, I dig into the tension, work my way over his shoulder blades and down his back, massaging. At his waist, I try to tickle him but it doesn’t work—when he’s mad or upset, he’s not ticklish, as if it’s a sensation he can turn on and off like a light switch. “Dan, listen to me. Let me handle this, okay? Don’t get all bent out of shape, please. I’ll take care of it.”

  I ease my arms around his waist and hug him against me. “Please,” I murmur in his ear, kissing the soft place just behind the lobe. “He didn’t mean it.” Dan crosses his arms in front of his chest, defiant, and I rub his stomach, down an inch or two into the waistband of his pants, up again to his arms and over the tight muscles. He’s like a statue, I can’t seem to get my fingers into the crooks of his elbows, the folds where his wrists bend. “Baby, open up to me,” I sigh, working to get into him. He stands steadfast against my efforts. “He just said it because he was mad—”

  “That’s no excuse,” Dan says, and no, it’s not, but the words are said, they can’t be taken back now, there’s no use getting this worked up over a bad turn of phrase or wrong slip of the tongue. “He’s almost over the line, Michael, and you know it.”

  The line, an imaginary boundary of Dan’s that, once crossed, marks a point of no return. Over the line and you get pulled aside, you get “talked to,” like our neighbor back home or the drunken kid outside of Wal-Mart one night who thought me an easy target. He couldn’t have been more than eighteen on a good day, and so shit-faced that when he called out to me, his voice was slurred and I couldn’t make out what he said. My arms were full of those thin plastic shopping bags that the cashiers tend to fill to overflowing, and D
an was far enough behind me, shoving his wallet back into his pocket as he juggled his own bags, that we didn’t appear to be together. This was sometime over the summer, when we were getting ready for the trip to Ocean City, and the shopping spree was one final stop to fill up on everything we needed before we left.

  When I didn’t respond to the kid’s first shout, he called again. “Hey, you. Hey!” I could see him from the edge of my vision, overweight and dressed in a black t-shirt that threatened to split where it stretched across his belly. He leaned against the trunk of an old car and as I walked by, he detached himself from the vehicle to follow. “I’m talking to you,” he said, weaving after me. When a hand touched my shoulder, I jerked it off, didn’t look around, kept walking. “I said I’m talking to you.”

  “No, you’re not.” My lover’s voice, quiet and sure like salvation. Now I turned, and Dan had a hand on the stranger’s arm, stopping him. With a nod at me, he said, “Get to the car, Michael. I’ll be right there.”

  I don’t know what was said—he never tells me. But I have a feeling that if Dan talks to Ray, the rift it will open between my brother and me will make the one my aunts have with Jessie pale in comparison.

  Chapter 42: Good Clean Fun

  Somehow I manage to keep Dan from tearing through the house in search of my brother like one of the four horsemen of the Apocalypse. Instead I guide him to the bed, lay him down on his stomach and straddle his hips, continuing my massage. He lets me work the muscles loose in his back and arms, though I don’t for a moment believe he’s forgotten what has him so angry in the first place. Goddamn faggot indeed. But he closes his eyes and gives into me, and when I slide off his back to lay beside him, he curls an arm around me, holds me close. He doesn’t mention going after Ray—I know he will, the same irrefutable way I know the sun will rise in the morning and the stars come out at night. Even when clouds cover them, they’re there. I know it, I feel it, he’ll talk to Ray. If my brother’s lucky, he won’t say or do anything more to piss Dan off before their little chat. Otherwise I’m afraid that any future trip home will be strained, no matter what my dad thinks.

  Between my mom and Ray, both of them hating us, I don’t think I can handle coming home again. Family dinners will have to be eaten out in public, where the presence of others will keep us somewhat civil, and if we have to stay the night, it will be in a room at a local hotel. Regardless, I know that it won’t be fun—Ray gets his stubborn streak from my mother, we all do, but he has the added misfortune of not realizing when he’s wrong. He’ll think Dan’s picking on him, he won’t understand that anything my lover says later will be a direct result of the homophobic comments he’s made this weekend. He just doesn’t seem to comprehend that he might not be right, that something he says might offend someone. He forgets so easily that he thinks everyone else should, too.

  Not Dan.

  I know he’s thinking about my brother—I can almost see the thoughts whirling behind his eyes and none of them are good. If I ask what’s on his mind, he’ll tell me, he doesn’t like secrets between us. He’ll say he’s still going to talk to Ray, just to set things straight, and there’s no stopping that. I could try to dissuade him and he’d hear me out, he’s great at listening to me, but I can’t hold him back for long. Just let us get through the funeral tomorrow, I think as I study my lover’s face, his eyelashes, his skin. This close he’s amazing and I want to breathe him in, fill my lungs and my soul with his presence, love him completely. No more talk of Ray, I want to tell him. No more thoughts of him, only me. I’m here, Dan, not him. Only think of me.

  But I keep quiet, because there’s a part of me that doesn’t want to even mention Ray out loud. Then we’ll have to talk about him, and I don’t want him here between us. So I stare into Dan’s eyes and he stares back into mine, the silence broken only by our breath, the rasp of his thumb along my cheek, the sigh of my hand strumming through his hair. Beyond the closed door muffled voices carry into us, Aunt Bobbie and Caitlin talking low enough that I can’t make out what they say. Every now and then Trevor laughs, a boyish squeal like a splash of red paint across a white fence. Above us the house settles around footsteps, creaks and groans beneath the shuffling of boxes—doors open and close, heavy furniture is moved across the floors, windows that have been shut since the first frost now screech open to air out dusty rooms. When we’re finished here, the house won’t be recognizable anymore. It will simply be an empty shell, the memories inside scattered to all corners of the family, or sitting priced on a shelf in a thrift shop, or left at the curb for the trash pickup. All the summers we lived here, all the times we shared, all the laughter and the tears, my memories, tossed away like so much garbage. I’m glad we’re leaving soon, hopefully before they finish cleaning. I don’t want to see the place hollowed out.

  We lie so close together that our foreheads touch, one pillow shared between us. When Dan speaks, his lips kiss mine. “Can we talk a bit?” he whispers.

  Not about Ray, I think, studying him. And not about my father, either. Snuggling into him, I tease, “We’ve been talking all morning. There’s other stuff we need to take care of now.”

  He misreads my meaning and suddenly his hand is between my thighs, rubbing at the spot where the seams of my jeans meet just behind my balls. With a gentle squeeze, his palm closes over my dick, hard in the instant he touched me there. “What other stuff do you have in mind?” he murmurs. His fingers knead in a slow, maddening rhythm and I shift against him, spreading my legs to drape one knee over his hip, anything to get him closer to me.

  I wait for the first low moan I know is coming—when he gets turned on, he does it, a sort of lustful purr, desire mingled with need deep in his throat, a primal, possessive sound that tells me he’s ready to rumble. When I hear it this time, I arch into his hand, my knee slipping off his hip to press into his own swelling erection. He starts to lay me back, his fingers working at me through my jeans, his lips insistent on mine. Then, somehow, between kisses I manage to tell him, “I meant we need to get this room cleaned out.”

  He stops with the finality of a vibrator that’s been switched off and looks at me, looks through me, trying to see if I’m joking or not. I struggle to keep my face neutral. “You want to clean?” he asks with an incredulous laugh. “Right this second?”

  “It needs to get done,” I say, giggling at the expression on his face. I caught him completely off-guard and I love that—I love the silly look of disbelief in his eyes, the way his mouth opens and closes without anything to say, and when he opens it again, I put a finger under his chin. His mouth snaps shut. “Let me up, Danny-boy,” I laugh.

  He rolls away from me, still silent, in shock almost. I can practically hear his thoughts, they’re broadcasting loud and clear like a strong radio signal. But we were—no, wait…weren’t we just—? “Michael?” he asks, lost. I crawl over top of him to get out of the bed, but just as I’m about to stand, he grabs my waist and holds me down to him. “Okay, hold up a minute. What’s going on here?”

  “We need to get this room cleared out,” I tell him. I try to sound earnest, but his confused look sets me giggling again. I hide my face beneath his arm, where he’s warm and still smells of spicy deodorant. “Oh baby,” I sigh, wrapping my arms around his chest. “I’m just playing around.”

  “I thought that’s what we were doing,” Dan says. I laugh and slide off him—my feet find the floor but he doesn’t let go, just holds me so that I’m bent across his body on the bed. I hear the playful tone in his voice when he tells me, “You’re going to have to finish what you started here.”

  “What I started?” I cry. I didn’t start it, he did, pulling me to him in the bed and kissing on me, hand on my dick like that’s my fault. When I try to stand, he holds me tight, but he’s ticklish now and my fingers dance across his stomach, the muscles fluttering beneath my touch. “Lest you forget, you’re the one all over me.”

  He lets me up but keeps a tight grip on my wrists so that
as I stand, I pull him into a sitting position. “Can you blame me?” he asks. He nips at my fingers, which I curl into fists, but his teeth close over my knuckles in tiny, mock bites. “All I wanted to do was talk a bit but no, you had to get all freaky on me, can’t get enough of your boy, can you?”

  I laugh and try to twist out of his hands. “Dan,” I giggle. His teeth leave little indentations where he bites at me and he licks them away, his tongue wet and deliciously warm on my skin. “This isn’t talking.”

  “At least it’s not cleaning, either,” he jokes. He’s impossibly strong, and when I try to wriggle away, I just end up all turned around, my back to him and my arms crossed in front of my stomach, his hands still clamped to my wrists. Both of us are laughing breathlessly now and he pulls me into his lap, hugs me tight. “You’re not going anywhere,” he growls, planting a sloppy kiss on my cheek.

  “Dan!” I laugh, squirming away. Once I’m on my feet again, I wipe at the damp imprint of his lips on my face, still giggling. “Rubbing it in,” I say before he can ask. He reaches for me but I skip back. “Later,” I tell him.

  “You don’t want to?” he asks. This time he pushes up from the bed and swipes at me, almost catching the front of my sweater before I move out of reach. “You want to make me beg, is that it? You like to bring a soldier to his knees?”

  “I’d like to get this room straight,” I say, though every part of my body cries out for him. When he sits back down on the edge of the bed, I lean on his knees, my face right in front of his, and I kiss the tip of his nose. “Let’s just get this out of the way first,” I murmur. In an effort to quiet me, he covers my mouth with his, but I pull away. Doesn’t he know how hard it is to resist him when he’s like this? “Get this place straight and then I’m all yours, what do you say?”