Big Love

by Rick R. Reed

  “I can’t say it’s been dull,” Seth answered, dipping a piece of bread in the seasoned oil. “It might be small-town, but so far, it’s pretty big on excitement. And, sadly, that’s not all a good thing.” He took a sip of wine.

  “Yeah, Truman seems to be the school’s punching bag. I think, though, he’s beginning to develop some inner strength to deal with those bigots and idiots.”

  “And that’s just what he needs.”

  “I bet kids were a lot more tolerant in Chicago of people being a little different. I mean, living in such an urban environment must make the kids more sophisticated or something, right?”

  Seth snorted. “You’d think! But not really. I mean, yeah, there was more tolerance for gay kids. There was even a gay social and activism club at the school, and it had a pretty good-sized membership, so there were definitely kids who were out. But they still faced the same things Truman does—the bullying and the teasing, the name-calling. Sometimes worse. We had a kid who got bashed right in the school parking lot a couple years ago—poor kid ended up in the hospital with a concussion and a few broken ribs. Not pretty.” Seth frowned. “But I guess it is a little easier in a big city, where the kids see gay people all the time.”

  Dane drank some more of his wine and took his time eating a piece of bread. “What about you?”

  “What about me? Was I out? Yeah, sure. The kids all knew. Some of the jock types snickered about it, but really, it was no big deal. And certainly meant nothing to the administration. Hell, our principal was gay.”

  “I can’t imagine.” Dane looked away, staring at but not really seeing the specials board mounted above the bar. “I can’t believe I came out to the whole school last week.” He said it with a feeling akin to shock, as if it were registering just now, as if, really, it was someone else who had taken this step.

  Seth smiled, and even in the dim flicker of the candle on their table, Dane could discern the warmth in his eyes. There was something, Dane realized, about the combination of candlelight and a man’s eyes that could be mesmerizing. He found it hard to look away.

  Seth said, “But don’t you feel better now? Now that it’s not a secret anymore?”

  “I guess.” Dane wasn’t sure what he felt. He knew if he’d made such an admission at the Catholic school a couple of towns over, he’d probably be seeking new employment.

  “Can I tell you something?” Seth asked.

  Before Dane could answer, Mary returned. “What did you guys decide on?”

  Dane said, “Gosh, Mary, we haven’t even looked at the menu.”

  Most waitresses would have toddled off, saying something to the effect of “take your time,” but not Mary. “Hey, don’t bother with the menu. Let me tell you what’s good tonight. We got a nice big pot of pasta fagioli.” Mary pronounced it “pasta fazoo.” She nodded to Seth, “It’s beans and elbow macaroni simmered in a tomato sauce that’s to die for. You eat a bowl of that and have some of that bread there, it’ll fill you right up.” She winked. “And warm you right up too. How does that grab you boys?”

  “Sounds delicious,” Seth said, and Dane nodded.

  “Two bowls, then? I’ll bring you a nice escarole salad to start.” She walked away.

  “I like her,” Seth said.

  “I do too. She’s sweet and salty. Like the mother you always wished you had,” Dane said. “But you said you wanted to tell me something.”

  “I did?” Seth asked.

  Dane had the feeling Seth’s innocent act was just that—an act.

  “Yeah.”

  “Slipped my mind.” He looked around. “Hope she brings those salads right out. I’m starving.”

  Dane wondered if Seth realized his foot rested on Dane’s instep. He was pretty sure he did. Seth didn’t strike him as the unobservant type. Dane shifted in the booth, wishing he could readjust the erection growing downward in his pants.

  It was both painful and pleasurable.

  Chapter 13

  DANE FELL asleep later that night thinking about Seth, who had never followed up on the answer to the question, “Can I tell you something?”

  What had he been going to say? Dane wondered. Here, in the privacy of his own bed, he wanted to believe Seth was about to utter flattering words, or something along the lines of wanting to see Dane again. But such thoughts were quickly quashed by the realization Dane was lying there in the bed he’d once shared with his wife. On sheets she’d picked out at the local Walmart, under a quilt she had made one winter when she was inspired by the idea of taking up the craft. Dane tossed in the bed, made uncomfortable by the polar opposite ends of his thoughts.

  And the guilt. He was a widower, for Christ’s sake. And Seth was a peer, a coworker. What was the crude way his dad, a welder, had once put it? “You don’t shit where you eat.” Yeah. Lovely. But it was true. He’d seen enough teacher-teacher romances go south to know the common-sense thing to do was to avoid them. The result was never pretty when they didn’t work out.

  Whatever awaited Dane out there in terms of meeting—and connecting with—a man, it probably shouldn’t be with someone with whom he worked. The fact that Seth was so in his radar, and so cute and so gay, was convenient, but it probably wasn’t a good idea.

  He turned over again and punched his pillow into submission. Was it just proximity that attracted him to Seth? Or was there something else? Maybe something about how their gazes connected and held in delicious suspension until one or the other forced himself to look away. Or maybe it was that Seth seemed genuinely interested in him. That fact, and Dane didn’t think he was exaggerating, was as terrifying as it was exhilarating. He could imagine the two of them together in all sorts of settings, and not just the naughty ones—although there were plenty of those when he allowed his mind, and his id, to wander—but also simple domestic scenes. He could see cooking his mother’s pot roast for Seth, or snuggling up in a darkened room with a shared bowl of popcorn between them as they watched a movie together, covered by his grandma’s windowpane-patterned afghan. There was this incredible mix of sweet and sexy both within Seth and within Dane’s own fantasies.

  No. I can’t entertain thoughts of seeing another teacher. That’s just wrong. For Christ’s sake, think of Clarissa. She goes to the school. Can you imagine how hard it would be for her to deal? I mean, she hasn’t come anywhere near to terms with accepting my gayness, let alone the idea that I might be hooking up with another faculty member. The thought made Dane laugh, but it was a giddy sort of laugh, born of a kind of excited hysteria.

  The words “hooking up with another teacher” put a match to the flame of Dane’s desire, entirely unexpectedly. And completely unbidden, an image rose up in his head of Seth spread out, not on a bed, but on his desk at school. In this almost involuntary fantasy, Seth was naked and prone on his back on the desk, his legs in the air.

  Dane felt his breath coming a little quicker as he mentally eyed up Seth’s taut body, the fine dusting of hair he imagined on his chest and then narrowing down in a thin line across his navel—an innie—and then to another burst of hair that provided a frame for a gorgeous uncut cock rising up, its purple head oozing precome and just peeking out of its sheath.

  Dane couldn’t help it. He touched himself and, with very little effort, squirted into his boxer briefs.

  The image of Seth on the desk vanished, as though it were a wisp of smoke and a strong wind had come along. Dane shook his head, troubled that he had let his mind go there, but suddenly so tired. It was as though his orgasm, powerful as it was, had drained the life from him.

  He knew he should get up and go in the bathroom and clean himself off. He knew he should put on clean underwear, but all the energy he could muster was only enough to struggle out of the boxers, wipe himself with them, and fling them on the floor beside the bed.

  Sleep came to him quickly, like deliverance.

  THIS TIME they’re in a room that seems vaguely familiar to Dane. Maybe it’s someplace they’d once
stayed on a vacation, perhaps in the Appalachians. The room has the look of a cabin, with its knotty pine walls and early American furniture. Again, there’s silence as Dane moves through the room.

  Katy is seated in front of a fieldstone fireplace. Flames dance and flicker before her, and she wears an emerald green sweater, one Dane remembers because it looks so good with her auburn hair.

  She doesn’t seem aware that he’s there.

  He creeps softly up to her, wondering if this time he’ll see her face. It’s weird he has this consciousness, he thinks, even within the confines of the dream.

  He stands directly behind her. There is no sound. The only light is from the flickering golden and orange illumination of the blaze in the fireplace.

  He’s afraid to look at her, afraid that when he tries to see her face, he will only get the back of her head again—which is an image ripped straight out of a nightmare.

  And he doesn’t want this to be a nightmare.

  So he leans forward slowly, gently, as though he doesn’t want her to realize he’s there, so close. He whispers, “Katy?”

  She turns to him. His heart gives a little leap because he can see her face, her smile.

  She stares at him, and even in the dull, flickering light, her green eyes are alive. She’s alive. His Katy.

  She reaches up with her hand to touch him, and he reaches out with his own, but it seems their fingertips just can’t connect.

  Not for a real touch.

  They are this far apart, an inch, maybe less.

  Her voice breaks the silence. “I’m okay, Dane.”

  Dane finds his own voice isn’t accessible. He moves his lips, yet nothing emerges.

  Katy says, “And so are you.”

  DANE SAT up suddenly in bed. His room was filled with the slate gray light peculiar to dawn. He looked to his side, expecting Katy to be there, perhaps snoring softly.

  It took a moment for his conscious mind to catch up. He let out a small laugh and felt grateful for having had this moment with Katy. He lay back down and wondered, Did she know? Had she always known?

  ACROSS TOWN, in his little one-bedroom apartment, Seth lay in his own bed. Like Dane, he too had fallen asleep wondering what he would have said if Dane had answered his question, “Can I tell you something?”

  Seth had drifted off thinking the something revolved around his attraction to Dane, from the very first moment he had laid eyes on him in the school parking lot. He would have said that the mere sight of Dane had taken his breath away. And it wasn’t just physical—although there was plenty of that. It was also kind of spiritual, if that was the right word. Seth had seen thousands of handsome men, and they always registered with a silent little “woof” in his brain, but there was something more when he saw Dane, something soulful, an innate knowledge that this was a good man.

  He would have gone on to tell Dane that he didn’t know where these feelings—so strong he couldn’t deny them—had come from. He didn’t want to find someone new. Lord no! Not after having his heart stomped on and his faith shaken in relationships so resoundingly back in Chicago.

  He had come to Summitville to get away, to be single for a long time, to just teach and appreciate the treasures solitude could bring.

  His last thought before slumber took over was, Damn you, Dane! Toppling all my carefully laid plans.

  And now, lying awake as dawn crept in around his blinds, he recalled snatches of dream, images that might have been what brought him to sudden and jarring consciousness.

  He had been following Dane on a beach. Maybe it was a Lake Michigan beach in Chicago. There was the requisite tall grass and aquamarine waters, looking tropical the way even the lake could on hot summer days. Dane wore only a pair of board shorts, imprinted with a pattern of sea turtles on an orange background as he strode away from Seth. Or maybe he was leading Seth somewhere? Whatever the case, Seth remembered that he liked the view from back there: Dane’s broad shoulders, kissed with freckles from the sun; his smooth back, tapering down into his shorts; his calves, crowned with golden hair, so shapely and muscular.

  Suddenly Dane vanished from sight, and even in the dream, Seth believed he knew he was dreaming and this was just a trick of that odd state.

  But it wasn’t.

  As Seth moved forward, he saw there was a huge chasm in the sand, as though the earth itself had ripped open, cracked.

  Down in the abyss, Dane crouched, looking up at him, terror in his eyes.

  Seth couldn’t remember if Dane had said anything.

  The last image he had was of getting down on his belly so he could reach down to Dane. He stretched his arm, his hand out to Dane.

  Had their fingers met?

  Seth turned over. He wished he knew.

  The wind rattled his windows. The room brightened, and his furniture, all of it rental, all of it vaguely Scandinavian, became more defined.

  It was time to face another day.

  Chapter 14

  TRUMAN LEANED against the sink in the bathroom, examining his face closely. Both Mr. Wolcott and Mr. Bernard told him essentially the same thing: be true to yourself.

  Don’t hide it.

  Don’t be ashamed of it.

  Who was he, anyway?

  He was exactly what all the bullies tormented him about. He was a big sissy. There was no denying it. He had realized, through the long, sleepless night before his return to school today, that he had two choices when it came to being that sissy.

  One: He could butch it up and pretend to be someone else. Just like he found glorious retro finds at the Goodwill, he knew he could also find a Carhartt jacket, work boots, jeans, and flannel shirts in a multitude of hues. Or he could go for the jock look—sneaks, sweatpants, and a sports logo’d T-shirt or sweatshirt. He could give himself a buzz cut and leave his curly blond locks on the bathroom floor. He could work to change his walk to a John Wayne swagger. He could pitch his voice lower. He could withdraw so deep down inside himself that no one would recognize him.

  And that damn sissy, the one who had caused him so much trouble, would be banished, never to be seen again. Not even in the mirror.

  Or….

  Two: He could embrace who he was. Celebrate his inner and outer sissy. As Patsy had told him, time and time again, he was just as the Lord had made him. “The Lord,” Patsy always said, “doesn’t make mistakes, honey. It’s that simple. If there were anything wrong with who or what you are, you wouldn’t have been born that way. And believe me, you were born that way. I saw it with my own eyes.”

  Being a sissy didn’t have to mean he was weak. It didn’t have to mean he was like a girl—and even if he was like a girl, so what? Why was that something bad? Why was that something to be ridiculed? Girls could be strong and smart—so what if he emulated them? His own mother was one, and look at her. She didn’t have much, but she took care of him and loved him fiercely… with an adoration and protectiveness that verged on ferocious.

  He was a sissy. The choice—which was never a choice at all—was clear. He had to be who he was, to play the cards he’d been dealt. If he didn’t, well, he’d just be cheating.

  And even if there was a way he could change, the one person he’d never be able to hide his true self from was himself. And what a horror that would be, to go through life masquerading as someone else.

  No. Whether he was good or whether he was bad was immaterial.

  He was Truman.

  He stepped back away from the sink to admire himself in the mirror, and he gasped and then laughed—just a little. The person looking back at him was still him, but a stronger, more concentrated version.

  A more beautiful version. His soul shone through.

  Today might be a horrible day. But it was going to be on his own terms.

  He turned for himself in the mirror once more. It was a good thing Patsy had worked herself to exhaustion the night before, because Truman had used the bathroom for two hours to get himself ready for school.

&nb
sp; He paused before opening the bathroom door and heading out. He paused to blow himself a kiss in the mirror.

  PATSY AWAKENED to the smell of coffee and bacon. Was there anything better to wake up to? Well, maybe next to that professional wrestler, John Cena. But barring that, coffee and bacon were pretty close to heaven.

  She rolled over in bed and looked at the alarm clock. It was just past seven, so Truman was not only fixing breakfast, bless his heart, he was up, which meant he wasn’t going to try to avoid going back to school, something she’d worried about and dreaded. She had imagined having to physically tug him by his hands into the car and then forcibly propel him into the school, her hands firmly on his back.

  She didn’t want to be cast in that role.

  She sat up, rubbing the small of her back. It ached from being on her feet all last evening. Her quilted housecoat hung on a hook behind the bedroom door, and she shrugged into it, the aromas wafting in from the kitchen making her mouth water and her fatigue begin to clear.

  She pulled back the curtains and looked outside. It was one of those winter days, Patsy knew, that was deceptive. It was bright outside, the sun rising brilliantly, gloriously, and the sky a crystalline blue, seamless and forever. The snow on the ground reflected it all back, nearly blinding. And when the wind kicked up some of the white stuff, it looked like diamonds in the air.

  Pretty, Patsy thought, and probably close to lethal. As though timed, her alarm clock sprung to life, and the announcer’s voice out of nearby Pittsburgh told her that it was currently twelve below in most parts of the tri-state area that morning and temperatures were not expected to rise above zero.

  If Herman would start, and that was always a big if with that piece of shit, she would have to drive Truman to school this morning. She didn’t want her baby out for longer than necessary in this cold, even if it was only to wait for the bus.