Bobby Green

by Amy Lane

  She looked better. Her hair was pulled back from her face in a ponytail, and she was clean, wearing a pair of jeans and a sweater that fit. He’d asked her doctor—the one who’d been assigned to her as she’d climbed rung after torturous rung of mental health institutions until she got to the one that said she could be released and taken home—and he’d said she’d never stop wearing long-sleeved shirts, even in the worst of the summer.

  Damned bugs crawling out of her skin. She would believe that until she died.

  “I had a boyfriend there,” she said accusingly. “I don’t know where they’ll put Kevin after this. How am I supposed to find him?”

  “You could write him,” Bobby said, and Reg’s heart beat triple-time, he was so relieved. Oh, thank God for Bobby, who had dealt with the acres of paperwork and legions of doctors, taking careful notes the entire time.

  Reg had signed everything—his name was on the conservation—conservatorship—papers, so he was legally in charge. Somehow, being legally in charge felt worse and harder now that V had been inside a hospital she apparently didn’t hate and wanted to go back to.

  “I could write him?” she asked, suddenly curious.

  “Yeah.” Bobby grabbed one suitcase by the handle and stepped forward to take hers. She yanked on hers, keeping it in her possession, and he shrugged and started up the stairs. “We have the address of the care home in about sixty different places here. You write him a letter, we get an envelope and address it, and we send him a letter. Then he has your address, and he can send one back.”

  “That’s a good idea,” Reg said in an undertone, and Bobby winked at him. It wasn’t until he winked that Reg realized how much he’d been dreading this moment, with V home. He’d almost seen Bobby just ditching her at the door and saying “I’ll see you around.” But that wasn’t the case at all, and Reg could suddenly breathe again.

  It wasn’t over. It wasn’t over. V was here, and Bobby was here, and maybe Reg didn’t have to give her up after all.

  “I’ll do that,” she said, following Bobby upstairs. “Thank you.” She smiled briefly at Bobby, who inclined his head in you’re welcome. Oh, that was encouraging, wasn’t it? “Make sure my pill is ready in two hours, Reg. They said I have to keep to a real strict schedule, remember?”

  Reg remembered. The week before, the doctor had briefed him on the different medications she took three times a day. He’d written it down and put it on the refrigerator and then put everything in the little weekly pack they’d gotten at the drugstore. The regimen was longer and more complicated this time, but V swore it helped her keep the voices at bay while letting her function without the cloud around her brain.

  “Yeah, V. I’ve got an alarm and everything. We don’t want any bad shit to happen.”

  She turned to him, brown eyes troubled, biting her lower lip. “I don’t always remember when it does,” she said honestly. “But no. You gotta know that, Reg. I don’t want to hurt you.”

  Reg smiled and bit his lip at the same time. “I knew that, V. Me and Queenie always knew that. You wanted to keep us safe.”

  V looked sad then. “I miss Queenie,” she confessed. “I… I liked having a sister. And the babies were sweet.”

  Reg sighed. He’d gotten a letter from Queenie over Easter, with pictures of the kids—five of them now. He’d shown it to V during their last visit, and she’d wept hard and begged him to have her visit.

  Queenie didn’t respond to his letter. Reg guessed she didn’t know what to say. For a minute he thought about Bobby’s mom and how excited she’d been to hold Frances. He’d been there the night Dex and Kane went over for dinner. She’d bought toys for the little girl to play with, and after dinner, she’d held Frances on her lap so she could do her hair. Reg wondered, for maybe half a minute, if he could do the same thing, have Frances visit, but in that half a heartbeat, he saw the way V was without her medication.

  He didn’t want his friend’s kid to see her like that.

  “I’ll see what I can do,” he lied, his throat dry.

  “Thanks, Reg.” She smiled a little and yawned. “I’m going to go lay down now, okay?”

  Reg nodded and watched as she followed Bobby up the stairs. “I’ll wake you up when it’s time to take your medicine. We’ll have lunch.”

  “What’s for lunch?” she asked, animated for the first time.

  “Spaghetti with salad.” He and Bobby had made the sauce from scratch.

  “That sounds nice. Thank you.”

  They disappeared up on the landing, and Bobby came back down in a few moments, smiling tentatively.

  “So. That was good,” he said hopefully, nodding.

  Reg nodded back. “She remembers Queenie more now that she’s on her meds.”

  “Well, you know. All men here, Reg. Maybe she’d like to meet my mom?”

  Reg gave a half smile. Bobby’s mom—the cure-all for everything the Johnnies guys might have. “No,” he said softly. “No. I don’t trust this to last. I don’t… I mean, she likes me now. What happens if….” He wasn’t making any sense.

  “The guys still like you,” Bobby said, drawing near. He gave an instinctive look over his shoulder, making sure V couldn’t see him as he pulled Reg into his arms. Reg’s heart shrank into his gullet as he realized they would have to do that forever while she lived here. Living to the alarm, making sure she had her medication every time, making sure he and Bobby never touched when she could see, and that Bobby only stayed the night if she went to bed first and that she never realized any of Reg’s friends were gay and that Dex and Kane could never bring the baby and neither could Chase and Tommy, or Kelsey, or—

  He couldn’t breathe.

  Bobby’s arms tightened around him, and Bobby soothed him, breath after breath, as he tried to pull himself together. Oh God. Oh God. This was his life, and he’d promised, he’d promised her, and he’d signed the papers, but he’d never seen, until right now, how much of himself he’d signed away.

  It took Bobby the better part of an hour to calm him down, until he could breathe again and talk in sentences. But he couldn’t put words to what panicked him so bad, because all the words were disloyal and painful and things he’d never voiced before, not when he was sixteen, not at eighteen, not at nineteen when he’d decided to whore himself out…. Oh God… oh God… he’d fucked for a living for most of his adult life, and he was doing it, had been doing it, for someone who would never know what price he paid and would hate him if she did.

  Bobby had to fix lunch and set her pills out, and Bobby kept her company when Reg retreated to his bedroom, distraught, unable to think, unable to do anything but sit and watch television, letting the mindlessness hypnotize him as he’d been mesmerized into trading his adulthood for family, when he’d never had much of either one.

  In late afternoon, Bobby brought him a plate, sat him up, and made him eat.

  “She’s reading,” he said quietly. “Not watching the news. It’s something you’ve read before. Maybe you can come talk to her about it in an hour.”

  Reg nodded and took a bite of spaghetti. “Sorry,” he said, voice broken and wretched. “I don’t know what happened.”

  One corner of Bobby’s wide, wicked mouth turned up. “It hit you, is all,” he said. “What you’ve given up your whole life. What you had for a couple of months. What you’re giving up again.”

  Reg nodded and forced himself to take another bite. His scene had been five days ago—he was still hungry. “How come?” He took another bite and swallowed, then clarified, because Bobby was still looking at him gravely in the long shadows of the April afternoon. “How come I never thought about it before?”

  Bobby reached out and stroked his cheek. “Maybe ’cause I’m here. And you can’t have me when we’re out there in front of her.”

  Reg shoved another bite into his mouth. “God, I’m dumb. I mean, so dumb. How can you love someone this dumb, Bobby? How can you just stand there and watch me fuck up my life and strug
gle to figure shit out, and I’m slow. I’m so goddamned slow. How can you—” His voice was rising again, and Bobby stopped him, scooting closer and wrapping his arm around Reg’s shoulders, kissing him softly on the temple.

  “Not stupid,” he said. “Not stupid. Slow isn’t bad. Slow is just… taking your time. Not doing what everyone says because they’re saying it. Figuring out for yourself what’s right.”

  Reg nodded and tried to center himself again. “Porn is getting to be not right,” he admitted, voice shaking. “How is that? How can I be fucking the whole world one minute and just… just wanting one person the next?”

  Bobby’s laugh was dry. “Four months, Reg. I kissed you almost four months ago. I touched you six months ago. Think about that. We’ve been snuggling like this for half a year. That’s growing time, right there.”

  “Two goddamned inches,” Reg said sourly. Bobby had started out six foot three, and now he was officially six foot five. His chest looked narrow again, although he was working out like a boss. It was in-fucking-sane.

  Bobby chuckled shamelessly. “Yeah. Both of us. Growing.”

  “What am I gonna do?” Reg asked, the pain in his chest congealing.

  “Mm….” Bobby thought for a moment. “How ’bout come out to the couch and sit between my legs while we read, like you do. If she says something nasty, tell her it’s how you and me are. Sometimes I think it’s the label she doesn’t like—not the people. When your head’s confused, it’s the label that’s easy.”

  Reg grunted. Well, yeah. He’d been all caught up on labels too—but then, he was so bad with words, with matching them to concepts, that labels were all he had.

  “We can sit together,” Reg said. Small things. Like he’d done all his life. He could grab for small things. “Okay. It’s not so bad, then.”

  He could breathe. He could breathe. One breath at a time.

  V WENT to bed on time, without putting up a fight with her meds. She didn’t watch the news and, in fact, talked to Reg excitedly about the Regency romance she was reading.

  And Reg had a terrifying realization.

  “They’re so stupid!” she laughed. “All this fuss over whether they sleep together! Making the two of them get married. Why don’t they just tell the world to fuck off?”

  “Well,” Reg said, remembering what Bobby’s mom had told him. “It was a different time back then. Women were… well, their virginity was a big deal. So they had to protect her honor.”

  And V had laughed, long and jarringly, about how virgins were boring and how it was all about a book title and how nobody cared if they were doing it.

  And Reg stopped talking, let Bobby take over, while he dealt with the fact that it wasn’t just when she was off her meds. On the whole, V’s mind, once sharp and quick and on point, with As in high school and junior college, and promotions at work and everything, had deteriorated over the last eleven years.

  She didn’t understand the book. She didn’t understand the time period. All the things Reg and Bobby had needed to look up on the internet, she didn’t remember. In particular, she didn’t remember the simple human trick of putting herself in another person’s situation and thinking about how they might feel.

  He would look back later—much later—and realize that the mourning started then. But his heart was so sad, so shattered, he couldn’t sort the pieces of it yet. Not then. Not a month later when his world fell apart.

  All he could do was try to spread the pieces on the table and bleed.

  HE WAS emotionally exhausted that night—but he needed. It was like he was internally hemorrhaging, and he needed Bobby inside him to keep him alive.

  They got to the dark of their bedroom, and all the quiet talk between them died. They undressed in silence, Reg taking off his underwear and tucking them under his pillow while Bobby opened the window to the side yard, letting a soft breeze and the smell of the neighbor’s cats waft in.

  By the time Bobby turned around, Reg was sitting on the bed naked, waiting.

  Reg looked into his lover’s eyes and opened his mouth suggestively. He was empty. He needed. Bobby would fill him.

  Bobby slid his own boxers off and threw them near the head of the bed—the easier to find them when they were done—and let his cock unfurl.

  It was thickening as Reg watched, but it wasn’t huge. Not yet. Reg mouthed it, taking the whole thing in. His gag reflex had been long ago burned away, too many cocks shoved to the back of his throat. But he was glad now, taking the whole thing into his mouth, his lips tight against Bobby’s pubic hair.

  Bobby swelled, lengthening, fattening, taking all the room in Reg’s mouth, penetrating his throat, and he swallowed, swallowed again, then pulled back with a tightened tongue and palate, lips over teeth, his suction strong and hard as he exposed the great club of a penis, wet, glistening, blood throbbing under the surface, and prime.

  Bobby moaned softly and massaged his scalp under his hair, and Reg thrust his head forward again.

  “Such a sweet mouth,” Bobby said softly. “Let me know if you want my mouth on your cock.”

  Reg just shook his head. His own cock was swelling but not urgent. He wasn’t aching for Bobby’s touch—he was aching for Bobby’s use. He needed to be of service tonight. He needed to be ravished.

  He kept sucking, again and again and again, pulling off to slap his own cheeks with Bobby’s member, harder and faster, until Bobby grunted and smeared precome on his face.

  “Want it hard tonight?” he whispered, making sure. He was always so tender with Reg—making sure Reg wanted to be hard-fucked, that was something he’d do.

  Reg nodded and kept slapping, glad, so glad when Bobby shoved him back and turned him over, putting him on his hands and knees.

  The cold drizzle of lube shocked him, and his cock finally began to ache. Then Bobby’s fingers, two at first, because Reg could take it, thrusting in and out until Reg grunted yes.

  Three next, long, slow strokes, and Reg just squatted on the bed, grunting like an animal, needing this, needing to be a sex puppet, needing Bobby to mold him to use.

  Another finger, almost a fist, stretching him to pain. He shoved his palm in his mouth and howled, screaming, shoving his ass back. He’d take a fist tonight, when he’d never taken one before, anything, anything to fill the sudden void of self-knowledge, the terrible, terrible ache of his wasted youth, the promise he’d never had a chance to understand before he’d pissed it away.

  Bobby pulled his fingers out, and Reg howled louder with the emptiness, until Bobby shoved inside him, battering, hard, unapologetic.

  Reg needed him so bad, he half sobbed into his own cupped hands.

  Bobby fucked him savagely, short, hard thrusts while Reg shuddered, clenching, trying to capture that behemoth inside him.

  Don’t leave me. Don’t take it away.

  He bore down, using all his muscles to tighten up, to burn, to ache, and Bobby’s pop across his ass amped him up higher.

  “Let me in, Reg,” he hissed. “Don’t clench me out.”

  Reg whimpered, releasing, and the savagery diminished, replaced with speed and smoothness.

  Pleasure flowered in Reg’s gut like a betrayal, but he couldn’t stop it. Warmth, joy—all the things he and Bobby had been to each other in the last four months washed over him, rinsing away the desperation. He lay, facedown, ass up, while his entire body shuddered, loosened, relaxed in release, and Bobby pumped, hot and full, inside him.

  Bobby draped over his back until his knees gave way, and he sprawled, legs open, come running down his balls. Bobby stayed on top of him, pressed him into the mattress, limp as a come rag.

  Their breathing evened out. “I’m sorry,” Bobby breathed. “I’m sorry. I wish I could do this for you. I wish I could make these decisions. I wish I could fix this inside you. All I can do is just be here. Be whatever you want. It’s all I can do.”

  “Love me,” Reg begged. “Love me.”

  “I already do.” Con
fused.

  But Reg had no words for the fear, the emptiness of the pieces of his heart. “Love me,” he whispered again. “Just love me.”

  Bobby pulled his hair back from his temples and kissed his ears. These were things he’d never thought of doing in bed, not until Bobby. These were love things. It was the only way he knew the word at all.

  The Blindside

  BOBBY HUDDLED in the back of the hospital room as the rest of the Johnnies gang fawned over the baby boy cradled in Tommy Callahan’s arms.

  Yeah, kid was cute, Bobby wouldn’t argue. Reg stood next to him, happy, involved, taking part in the banter, but for once Bobby was aware, painfully, that they weren’t touching.

  In this room, with these people, it should have been natural.

  But the week after V had gotten home, she actually caught them kissing in the kitchen, and the peals of her raucous laughter still rang in his ears. Men. Kissing. She thought it was hilarious now.

  On the one hand, he was glad she wasn’t launching after him with a piece of crockery, but on the other?

  He and Reg couldn’t touch in Reg’s home unless they were in the bedroom, alone.

  They couldn’t touch in public because neither of them was comfortable with that in public. They could touch in Bobby’s apartment, but Reg couldn’t spend the night there. Their entire lives were boiled down to the moments they were alone in the dark of Reg’s bedroom.

  Bobby saw that happy family and wanted to take Reg’s hand so bad, his stomach ached with it. Reg said, “Oh yeah, my sister has lots of these things. You need to support the head,” and Bobby had a sudden vision of him, heartbreakingly young, holding the absent Queenie’s child. Knowing Reg—hell, seeing the dynamic between him and V—he’d probably been responsible for those kids too.

  All that responsibility for oh, so long.

  Bobby could see him fray at the edges, the life he’d been leading coming into direct conflict with the life he realized he wanted, and Bobby could do nothing.

  When Reg had a meeting with John later that week and came home glowing with the promise of being able to do something else, anything else at Johnnies, Bobby almost cried.