For Love and Forever (A Collection of Short Stories)

by Sloan Parker

  I met his stare. “You were saying good-bye.”

  He stood and slipped on his pants. Then he came to me. He grabbed the waistband of my jeans and drew them up. “I can’t be with you and continue to serve as your advisor. It’s unethical.”

  I shook my head. They were the words I’d feared since I had accepted I was in love with him. He was too good, too upstanding, too entrenched in his job to fuck a student. Even if I was done taking his classes, I was still a student in his department.

  But we had fucked. No. Scratch that. We’d made love. And that’s why his words were killing me even more than when I’d first stepped into his office.

  He took my face in his hands. “You’re so smart, sometimes I forget how young you are.” He ran the pad of his thumb over my lower lip. The way he had when he’d been buried inside me. “Babe, I’m in love with you. And I’m not about to give you up. So I’m going to have to give up being your advisor. I’ve scheduled a meeting with the dean for Monday morning. I was hoping since you’re done with your coursework and we hadn’t slept together yet, this wasn’t going to get me fired.” He smiled. “I guess that plan’s out the window.”

  The flip-flop thing in my stomach was back. And I hadn’t found the damn trash can yet.

  He loved me.

  He wanted to keep seeing me.

  He was going to get fired because of me.

  “Oh God.” I made for the chair. My feet got tangled in something—my underwear on the floor—and I pitched forward.

  He reached out and caught me. His sure hands helped me to the seat. “Are you okay?”

  Was I?

  My briefs were wrapped around my right foot. He kneeled in front of me and unwound the white fabric from my ankle. Thank God my mother taught me about wearing clean underwear. Of course, she had mentioned auto accidents and hospitals. Not college professors and naked office sex.

  Michael and I had sex.

  And he loves me.

  “Oh God.”

  Michael laughed. He reached for my face again, drawing me in for a long, slow kiss—like the first one we’d shared. When he released me, he pressed his forehead to mine. “I love you.”

  “Are you sure?”

  He stared at me, his eyes searching mine. “I tried to tell myself for a long time I didn’t have feelings for you. I think you and I have both known for a while now that what we have is special. I love my job, but I’m not going to deny what I feel for you. I’m not going to deny us any longer.”

  “They’ll fire you?”

  “I think I can convince the dean this isn’t a scandalous thing, that I’m serious about you. I didn’t realize I was going to have to convince you too. Good thing I already had this planned.”

  “Had what planned?” I slipped my toe through the pant leg of my briefs and twirled them in the air. “Sex on your desk?” I asked in the huskiest tone I could manage.

  He laughed again.

  So the trying-to-be-sexy thing wasn’t for me.

  His laugh ended, and he lunged at me, the kiss as passionate and full of strength and tongue and promise as any he’d given me when we had been on his desk.

  Okay. So maybe my sex appeal was based in humor and not my ability to flirt with men’s underwear.

  “The sex was supposed to come later,” he said. “After.”

  “After what?”

  He went to his desk and used a key to unlock the top drawer. He pulled out a small box and brought it to me. A jewelry box. But not new. The top was worn; the black exterior faded. He kneeled beside me again and opened the lid. “After I gave you this.”

  A gold band.

  “It was my father’s. I’d love for you to wear it.” He took my hand in his. “I’d love it if you’d marry me.”

  Damn. Where was that trash can? He either had to stop making me flustered as hell, or I had to quit the Cap’n Crunch. Could a grown man go cold turkey off the Cap’n?

  The jewelry box and the wedding band inside trembled. He looked like he’d need the trash can before I did.

  “Are you sure?” I asked again.

  A smile spread over his lips, and the crinkles at the corners of his eyes returned. “You’re the only person I’ve wanted since I met you. I’m not going to let our age difference or the fact that you’re a student keep me out of your arms for one more day. I want to support you, comfort you, live with you, make love to you in a bed we share every night.”

  Okay. The Cap’n Crunch would have to go. I’d need protein mixed in.

  He removed the ring from the box and held it out between us. “I want to spend my life with you.”

  It was my turn to grab for him. We ended up with him on my lap, his legs straddling my thighs, his groin pressed against my lower abdomen. Our tongues and bodies found a rhythm I didn’t want to end.

  But it had to end—I had something to say.

  “Yes.” I took his hand in mine, the ring pressed between our palms. “I’ll marry you.”

  Something to Believe In

  For all who are lost. May you find your way and know what it feels like to be loved.

  A gust of snow pelted my face as I rounded the corner of the former Madison Street Elementary School. Raising the collar of my thin fleece coat, I hurried for the front door. The new sign hanging overhead read Free Christmas Dinner. That had me stopped in my tracks, and the tips of my sneakers dug into the snow that had been piling up on the sidewalk for the past several hours.

  Christmas.

  I’d seen the holiday decorations lining the streets and storefronts for weeks now, but I hadn’t realized it was so close.

  Christmas was the one time of year when I couldn’t stop the memories.

  “Sean Timothy Weber, if you walk out of here now and keep on being a disgusting little faggot, don’t you ever bother coming back.”

  I shook off thoughts of her last words and moved for the shelter’s front entrance again.

  The man standing at the door smiled at me and held out a clear plastic bag containing a bar of soap, shaving cream, disposable razor, and condoms.

  The essentials for most folks. Luxury items for guys like me.

  “Merry Christmas,” he said.

  Reluctantly, because it meant taking my already freezing hand out of my pocket again, I accepted the bag and gave a nod of thanks. Another blast of icy snowfall smacked into me, practically knocking me off balance. Apparently I’d lost enough weight in the past few weeks, I couldn’t hold my own against a little wind.

  The guy with the plastic baggies of goodwill grabbed my arm and offered some support. When I was standing on steady feet again, he let go. “We’re full up tonight, but come on inside and have something to eat. We’ve got a big spread, a real Christmas dinner.”

  I shivered as I forced the words out. “Today is C-C-Christmas?”

  The out-of-place, ridiculously cheery grin faded from the man’s face. He looked at me with the kind of pity I didn’t get from too many people these days. You reach a certain point in both appearance and smell, and most folks pretend they don’t notice you at all.

  “It’s Christmas Eve,” he said.

  That meant…two years.

  Two years since I’d left home. The last four months of which I’d spent homeless and wandering the streets after I’d lost the job waiting tables, and my roommates had kicked me out when I couldn’t make the rent.

  I’d taken on any work I could find until I looked—and smelled—like a guy no one wanted to hire, not even for an under-the-table job hand-packaging DVDs of pirated porn. When the last of my money had run out and my stomach had felt like it was eating itself, I’d made the decision that had me retching my guts out as I’d bent over a stained toilet bowl.

  It hadn’t been a planned event. I’d been taking a leak in the bathroom near the historical fiction shelves at the main branch of the city public library when some guy in his forties wearing a sports jacket with frayed cuffs and carrying a briefcase that looked like he’d had
it since day one out of college had stood at the urinal beside me. He’d pulled his dick out and whispered, “Twenty for a blow.”

  It had taken me a minute to get his meaning.

  Twenty bucks.

  I could have something real to eat.

  After I’d answered with a nod, he’d tugged me to the stall at the end of the row behind us. When it was over and he’d left, I had stayed there bent over that toilet, clutching the twenty-dollar bill in my fist and dry-heaving for ten minutes.

  No matter how bad that moment had been, the food and drink filling my belly a half hour later had convinced me I could do it again. And again. And again. Even with the knowledge that no one could survive forever the way I’d been living.

  But I wanted to survive. I wanted to feel alive again.

  The man with the clear bags of homeless holiday cheer held the door open for me. “Go on in, get warm, and have something to eat.”

  All I could manage was another nod. I went inside. The warmth of the still, dry air overwhelmed me with as much force as the icy, cold air had done outside.

  Then the smells hit me. Turkey and ham and cookies fresh out of the oven. My mouth began watering, and I staggered through the entryway into the gym. If the faded murals on the walls were anything to go by, the building hadn’t housed students since the 1990s. Thank God for people who demand their kids get a school without severely leaking roofs and archaic heating systems too costly to repair. Their castoffs gave me a place to sleep.

  Well, some nights.

  One side of the gym was filled with cots, the other with tables for chow time. At night, the tables came down and more cots went up. The guards also came out. Anyone caught fighting or stealing or shooting up or turning tricks was banned. No questions asked. You got one chance here.

  Behind the men seated at the tables was a row of volunteers filling trays for more men shuffling by. I got in the line that wrapped around the perimeter of the gym and slipped the plastic bag with my lone Christmas gifts into my backpack.

  Someone had gotten into the spirit and hung twinkling lights and strings of popcorn and cranberries over the backboard of each basketball hoop that was still suspended at the ends of the court. I hated to tell them, my fellow diners and I would’ve rather eaten the cranberries and popcorn than turn them into pointless garlands.

  When it was my turn in line, I nodded my thanks at each person filling the sections of the plastic tray. I’d had meals at the Madison Street Men’s Shelter before, but the size of this one smelled of a big donation from some corporation trying to buy free PR on the local news.

  Well, actually, all I smelled was the food. Ham and green beans and mashed potatoes and gingerbread cookies. Although these cookies had no faces, not like my grandma had made when I was a kid. She’d always painted on their eyes and smiles, and hearts for buttons.

  I carried my tray to a nearby table and squeezed in at an open space between two men. One was talking to each bite of food before he ate it, and the other smelled like he’d spent the past month sleeping in a dumpster overflowing with pickles.

  I didn’t care. I was long past the point of judging anyone. Hunched over the tray of steaming food, I wasn’t sure where to start. So I shoveled in a bite of everything, working my way around the tray, not even waiting to swallow before adding in another forkful. I stuffed a big-ass bite of mashed potatoes slathered in gravy into my mouth and finally stopped to chew and swallow. I really needed to slow down or I’d get sick. I hadn’t had this much food in my stomach in a long time.

  Apparently, I didn’t care about the post-meal vomiting. I crammed in another, bigger bite. Gravy squeezed out the corners of my mouth.

  I suddenly felt self-conscious, which made no sense. At this point, I didn’t care what the hell anyone thought of me.

  With the mound of mashed potatoes still filling my mouth, I glanced up. Across the room was a guy around my age with deep brown hair. He was watching me from where he sat on the floor, leaning back against the wall riddled with holes from the bleachers that had been torn out of the gym. He had his tray of food on his lap, his long legs out straight in front of him, one black biker boot crossed over the other.

  Biker Boots was still staring at me and smirking like he’d caught me jerking off.

  I swallowed and swallowed again, and when the potatoes had finally finished making their way down my throat, I licked the gravy from the corners of my mouth.

  He raised his eyebrows like I’d somehow impressed him. It was just mashed potatoes. What the hell was the big deal?

  Biker Boots picked up his fork with an even bigger mound than I’d inhaled and held it up so I could be sure to see, then scooped the potatoes into his mouth and swallowed it all down in one try. He gestured like he’d just demonstrated the proper way to force down a giant gob of food at once.

  Jerk. I flipped him off.

  That time he laughed with a bigger smirk. Something told me he didn’t do either all that often.

  I went for the turkey next. He watched as I stacked several pieces on my fork, then opened wide. When I finished chewing and swallowing, Biker Boots followed my lead, balancing even more turkey on his fork.

  With my next bite, we were both shoveling food into our mouths, racing to beat the other clearing his tray. I didn’t let up until all I had left were the two dinner rolls. I picked up both and shoved them into my mouth. I had to look like a chipmunk hoarding nuts with the way my cheeks were puffed out.

  Biker Boots shook his head, a full-on smile on his face now. He set his fork down, and when he finished chewing and swallowing, he gave a nod, then stood, picked up his coat, and headed to the gym’s exit.

  Disappointment hit my gut. An odd reaction. If there was one thing I’d learned living on the streets for the past couple of months, it was that guys like us didn’t stick together, we didn’t become friends or watch each other’s backs.

  I was on my own.

  Slowly, I chewed the rolls and followed them down with a long guzzle of milk. That tiny carton of milk, the lunch tray, the gym…it all made me feel like a child. Small. Inconsequential.

  As I chugged back the last of the milk, I couldn’t help but catch sight of the twinkling lights on the backboard above me—one of the few signs in the room that it was Christmas. I stared at one blinking green bulb and let myself remember. The fake tree that had been put up year after year with its missing branches and gaping holes where you could see right through to the wall behind it. The presents with my name that were always under that tree the week leading up to Christmas. The mistletoe Grandpa would carry in his pocket and hold over Grandma’s head every chance he got.

  Those memories didn’t last long. They never did.

  Another replaced them.

  “If you walk out of here now and keep on being a disgusting little faggot, don’t you ever bother coming back.”

  Those were the last words I’d heard my mom shout as I ran out the door, a backpack slung over my shoulder, crammed full with my favorite pair of jeans, the demolition derby sweatshirt I’d won at the county fair that year, and my laptop—because I’d had no idea how hard life for a high school dropout was going to be and I’d foolishly thought I’d have time and money for gaming, movies, and music. Instead, I’d ended up selling the laptop for rent money. When I’d left home, I hadn’t really given my actions a lot of thought. I couldn’t get out of that house—that town—fast enough. My skin was still crawling from the perverted counselor’s hand sliding inside the front of my jeans.

  He was supposed to “fix me,” she’d said.

  Someone needed to fix him. Permanently.

  Funny how I’d run away from that and ended up with old men touching me anyway. At least these men paid me for the privilege.

  I didn’t even try to turn that counselor in or tell anyone other than my mom what he’d done. That was my biggest regret. Instead of stopping him, I’d run from him, from the high school diploma I would’ve received six months later, and
from those last words my mom had shrieked at my back.

  She’d laugh her ass off if she saw where I’d ended up.

  The man beside me smacked my arm. “Do you see that?” He pointed to the ham on his tray. “They are feeding us baked children.”

  As I got up from the table, I said, “No, man, there’s no kids allowed in here.”

  He looked disappointed. I left him to it and crossed the room to clear my tray. No stopping the inevitable. They didn’t have a bed for me. Time to stake my claim somewhere.

  I exited the shelter and raised the collar on my coat again. There was no sign the snow planned on stopping its assault on the city. I rounded the corner to the alley. I really should’ve been heading to the highway overpass north of the shelter. Someone usually had a fire going. I’d been sleeping there more than anywhere else in the past several weeks, but I couldn’t force myself to walk that far, not with the full stomach and how hard the snow was barreling down. I’d just have to find a doorway to hunch in for a few hours. One of those shops farther down on Madison usually worked. The cops didn’t tour that area much and the shops were too small to bother with much security.

  I stopped halfway down the alley where the buildings on each side blocked much of the falling snow and wind.

  Someone moved in the shadows beside a dumpster. A man stepped into the dim glow from the streetlights just as my eyes adjusted to the darkness behind him where a door was open. A kid not much more than sixteen lay on a couch inside the apartment. His head was propped on the arm of the couch, his eyes rolled back. Another, even younger kid was on the other end, sitting up, a needle in his hand.

  For once, I didn’t turn away and take off. I leaned against the brick wall and watched that young man’s face soften as the pain and misery faded away.