Brick by Brick

by Maryn Blackburn

  Something made a loud crack, then a whump. Gage and I tipped in the direction of our feet and slid a few inches.

  “Fuck!” James said.

  “Shit! You okay, Natalie? Shit!” Gage pulled out, rolled off, went to Jamie. “You okay, man?”

  “I’m fine, fine. The bed’s not.”

  “Goddamn it, I broke it. I’m sorry. I’ll pay for it.”

  “What happened?” I crawled off the tilted bed. Suddenly aware that I was too naked, my shaved sexual lips too softly exposed, I grabbed the crumpled top sheet and wrapped myself.

  “I have this terrible tendency,” Gage said. “If there’s something there, I brace my feet at the end and push. This isn’t the first bed I broke.” He laughed at himself but didn’t share the memory. “But it’s the first one I’m going to replace.”

  Brilliant light stabbed my eyes. Gage blinked, frowning. His body glistened from his exertion, but he’d gone limp; the condom would slip off of its own accord momentarily.

  “Sorry,” James said at the wall switch. “Let’s see how bad it is.”

  Gage looked at James’s erection, looked away, looked again. James squatted, studying the damaged bed, as Gage studied him, his gaze roving not with a leer but with visible awe. Hadn’t he ever seen a working man’s muscle before?

  Wrapped in my sheet, I felt invisible.

  “No wonder. Pine.” James’s contempt showed. “It’s a soft wood. The color’s a stain. Fuckers cheated us.”

  We’d bought the bed the weekend before I moved in, telling ourselves mahogany was worth it. I was pretty sure the furniture store was gone, a Home Depot in its place.

  “I can borrow some clamps, glue it so you’d never know,” James said.

  “And I’d just break it again eventually.” Gage removed the condom, deftly tied a knot in it without looking, containing its load in one end. “We’ll find something really strong.”

  “We’ll have to undo the headboard,” I said, “and set the box springs and mattress on the floor, tonight anyway.”

  “Yeah, but later,” James said. “Now, I have other priorities.” He smiled at his cock, still bobbing nearly horizontal. “Gage?”

  “What?”

  “Natalie came; you came. It’s my turn.”

  “Right. Is there something we can use for lube?”

  Mentally I scanned the bathroom’s cupboards, rejecting lotions, sunscreens, and hair products. Did I still have baby oil? There was oil in the kitchen. Either one could ruin the sheets. What about aerosol whipped cream? Last night’s guacamole? No, wait, nothing with jalapeños. I stifled a giggle.

  “Don’t need it. Your mouth.”

  Gage nodded, his head down, gaze on the seam between baseboard and carpet. He went to his knees as if it pained him.

  When he tilted his face upward, his expression confused me. Was he scared? Of James? Ridiculous.

  “Yeah. Do it,” James said, his voice soft and husky. A dewy pearl dotted the end of his penis.

  “I don’t,” Gage said.

  “Sure you do,” James said and moved himself closer to Gage’s lips.

  He leaned backward a few inches.

  James’s annoyance brought his brows together, the little puzzled pi symbol between them carved deeper than it used to be. “Come on. Suck it.”

  “No.”

  Chapter Thirteen

  “You never gave head before?” James sounded calm, but the mathematical symbol between his brows didn’t lie.

  “No, never. I don’t think I can, you know?”

  “I don’t know. Natalie didn’t like it, when we were first together, but she didn’t try to convince me she couldn’t do it. You know yourself how good she is when she does it now.”

  “True.” His smile in my direction seemed desperate. What did he expect me to do?

  “I didn’t force her. And I’m not forcing you. But it’s what I want, and just a little bit is fine, for your first time.”

  “No. Really, I can’t.”

  “Wait, is it because I’m not clean, from being in Natalie? Come on, we’ll get in the shower. Wash it as clean as you need me to be, then try it out.”

  “Uh-uh.” His dark hair swung with his refusal.

  The pi symbol had mutated into another language, with three uprights, one long enough to cross the curving top stroke. James neared the end of his long fuse. “You won’t even try?”

  “I can’t.”

  “Bullshit. You don’t want to, so you won’t.” The jagged lightning bolt replaced pi. James stepped back, out of Gage’s reach even if he’d been willing. James’s voice was carefully controlled, masking fury. “You’re a better actor than I thought. I totally bought it when you said it was about us, that you’d do what pleased us this time. Really, I had no idea you were acting.”

  “I wasn’t.”

  “You have to be pretty good to make me believe the lies that let you fuck my wife!”

  The words themselves seemed to force Gage backward. He flushed scarlet as he scrambled awkwardly to his feet. “I should go.”

  “Fucking right you should go.”

  “I’m going, just let me get dressed.” He stuck his foot in the wrong leg of his Levi’s. “Fuck,” he muttered, shoving them back down his legs. “Fuck!”

  “And the story about the sister,” James said, pulling on his own jeans even though it was late enough for bed. “We felt so bad for you. A pity fuck is still a fuck, though, right? Do you even have a sister?”

  Gage’s scowl narrowed his eyes to slits, which accented his Asian ancestry, whatever it was. He turned his back and bent over, putting his pants on again.

  Several faint lines, low on his buttocks, showed in the bright overhead light, their color a match but the texture smooth and shining. Scars.

  I turned to James, who nodded; he’d already seen the proof Stuart was real. Now what?

  The inside of Gage’s faded T-shirt was darker than the outside, a chain-stitched thread dangling from the neck. If he knew, he probably didn’t care he had it on wrong. He struggled with socks now, hopping on one foot, his unkempt hair parting to reveal ears and the back of his neck deep red as he bent to the task. “Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck…” he chanted, so low I could barely hear him.

  “Gage, stop a minute.” I tried to put my hand on his arm, but he moved away like my touch would hurt. “If you go, that makes what he said right.”

  “What?”

  “If you go—”

  “I heard you. I just don’t understand.”

  “If you leave because James says you were acting, just saying whatever it took to have sex with me, it looks like we caught you in the lie. Say something that proves it’s not true.”

  He peered at me without moving the shaggy hair hanging over his eyes, which had gone flinty, small and hard and unknowable as black buttons. “It’s not true.” He turned toward James. “And I do have a sister!”

  “Call her,” I said.

  “I don’t know if she’s home.”

  “How convenient.” James’s brow still bore the jagged bolt of anger.

  “You want me to lie? I don’t know if she’s home, because she’s going to her meeting every day, twice if she’s having a hard time. She likes the people at the evening one the best. Sometimes they go out for coffee after.”

  “She’d have her cell phone off for the meeting, but after?” James said.

  “She sells the phones I buy her.”

  “Try her at home.” James gestured at the phone on the nightstand.

  Gage pulled a worn brown wallet from his Levi’s and retrieved a card. He sat on the edge of the tilting bed and punched the phone’s buttons, referring to the card three times, like he didn’t trust his memory even briefly.

  He glared at James as it apparently rang; then his expression softened suddenly. “Hi, it’s me. How you doing?” He listened for a moment.

  “No, Arizona. With my friends I told you about. Uh-huh. No, not great. My fault, though.” He l
istened, nodding. “I didn’t mean to, but I broke my promise. And a piece of their furniture. They’re pissed.”

  He scowled at the wall. “I know. I know. I fucked up, okay? Jesus, it’s not like I wanted to, any more than you do.”

  He huddled around the phone, his back toward us. “I’m sorry, Ro. I can’t do anything right tonight. You ever have times like that?”

  He listened. “No, that’s not you screwing up; that’s what he did to you screwing you up. I’m just helping you unscrew yourself. Terrible choice of words, as usual. Uh-huh. I know. I’m a selfish prick for thinking my life’s hard. But this mattered, you know?” Gage curled around himself tighter, nodding repeatedly, sighing once, as his sister talked.

  “You’re right. Maybe I’ll learn, huh? Enough about me. Did you do your meeting today?” Uncoiling, he grinned at something she said.

  The camera never saw a real grin. Gage had a snaggletooth overlapping the others in his narrow lower jaw. “Right. That and enough coffee to water ski on. Well, it’ll kill you slower.” He turned toward me and mimed smoking a cigarette.

  “Uh-huh. It was their idea to call you. I think they thought I made you up, to get sympathy and make myself look, like, noble.” He listened, nodding. “She wants to talk to one of you.”

  James gestured for me to take the phone.

  “Hello?”

  “Hi. It’s Rowan Strickland. Who am I talking to?”

  “Natalie Bedwell.”

  “It’s nice to meet you, even if it’s just on the phone. He couldn’t shut up about you and your husband—James?—when he was here.”

  “James, right. He talks about you too. How you protected him from—what was his name?”

  “Stuart. You don’t have to play games. If I was some friend backing up his lie, we’d have that much of the story rehearsed. But it was real. Real bad. Gage doesn’t know the worst of it. He was a kid then, and there’s no reason to saddle him now with everything that sick bastard did to me.”

  I believed her. “It sounded awful. For both of you.”

  “It was, but it was a long time ago, so don’t waste your sympathy. Did he tell you about my, ah, my problem?”

  “Yes. He wants to be as supportive as he can.”

  “How, like, noble.” She laughed at her imitation of her brother. “Then tell him to call a realtor. I need to get away from here. We talked about me moving there. I’ve never been. You like it?”

  “It’s nice. Big enough to have what you want, small enough not to have some of the big-city problems. The politics can get pretty crazy, but day-to-day life is okay. It’s really hot, part of the year, but we air-condition everything.” Except this bedroom.

  “I’m serious, remind him to call a realtor. Listen, Natalie?”

  “Yes?”

  “Don’t hurt him. He’s not messed up like me, but he’s easy to hurt. Most people who act like friends, he doesn’t trust, so when they use him, he’s not surprised, just disappointed. He trusts you two, I think. So when it doesn’t work out, just let him down easy. He’s a good guy.”

  “And if it works?”

  “Then I’ll dance at your wedding. Put him back on, will you?”

  “Sure. Nice to talk to you.” I handed the phone back to Gage.

  He talked to her for a few minutes longer, less privately than earlier, his eyes flitting from James to me and back. The call ended with laughter and a promise to phone more often.

  “She’s real,” I said.

  “I know.” Gage tucked the card back in his wallet. “Good idea, calling her. I’m, like, depressurized. So I fucked up. My life’s still easy in comparison. Listen, let me help get the bed flat before I go, so you can sleep tonight.”

  “We need to take apart the frame. I’ll get my tools.” James left.

  “We should move the mattress,” Gage said.

  We lifted it together and leaned it against the tall dresser. My sheet tried to come untucked. Why hadn’t I gotten dressed when the men had? Now it seemed wrong to bare myself in front of Gage, even to put on clothes.

  “Strong woman.”

  I turned my side toward Gage before rearranging the cloth and tucking it more securely. “No stronger than Rowan.”

  “Yeah. Tomorrow or the next day, whatever works for you, find a new bed. I’ll send you a check to cover it. Just call with the total.”

  “Oh. Rowan says you’re supposed to call a real estate agent,” I said.

  “I don’t think so. Moving here isn’t looking like such a good idea.” He lifted his side of the box springs. We walked it to the mattress. “I’d been thinking of getting a place here, but that’s all.”

  “There are plenty of nice cities to pick from.” As if I knew.

  “I was stupid, telling Rowan. One night with you and James, and I’m all hot to buy real estate, move her here. Idiot.” He smiled, but I knew a fake when I saw it. “I should have done it.”

  “Bought a house?”

  “Blown him.” He told it to the bed leaning on the dresser. “All my life, I’ve gagged too easy. I have to be careful with stuff like Popsicles and lollipops.”

  He crouched to examine the bolts connecting the bed’s sides to the headboard. I supposed that was easier than looking me in the eye.

  “James is really long,” he said.

  “It doesn’t all have to go in,” James said from the doorway.

  “I know. Believe it or not, I’ve been on the receiving end.”

  At least he didn’t add from your wife.

  “The gagging problem is real, but it’s not only that, I guess.” Gage fingered a bolt. “I never explored this part of me until I was already whatever it is I am.”

  “Bisexual?” I said.

  “He means the rich-and-famous part of who he is. Right?” James squatted next to Gage and opened the toolbox that had been his father’s, its red paint chipped, the sides scratched and dented.

  “Yeah. God, I hate labels. There’s a guy in here, you know?”

  “I know.” He grinned. “I’ve been inside.” James selected a socket and fit it over the bolt. Too large. He peered into the sacred toolbox and chose another. Better. The third one fit, and he attached the driver. “Hold the side board steady. No, closer. Yeah, that’s good. So you were rich and famous before you tried a guy?”

  Gage gripped the stained wood. “Rich and famous and selfish. Same as now. I didn’t particularly want to do oral, because of the gagging thing, so I just didn’t. Because of who I am, I could call the shots, and if some guy didn’t like it all I had to do was yell, ‘Next!’”

  James nodded, working the socket wrench. I admired the play of the muscle under his pale skin and wished once again that I knew how to do things, fix things.

  The bolt let go suddenly. The L-shaped metal bracket that held the side rail to the headboard glanced off James’s knuckles. He hissed and put the injured part to his mouth.

  “Jesus, did I do that? I’m sorry. I can’t do a fucking thing right tonight.”

  “Mmm?” James said around his knuckle, then studied its bloodless scrape. “You didn’t do it. I thought the headboard wouldn’t move since half of it’s still bolted.”

  “How bad is it?” I asked.

  “It’s no big deal. I’ll wash it after we finish.”

  Gage said, “This time, you hold the side and I’ll do the bolt.”

  “Okay. Natalie, you want to hold the headboard up? It’ll move for sure.”

  I rearranged my grip on the sheet and used the other hand on the headboard.

  Gage wasn’t any better with tools than I am. I’d always admired James’s ability to figure out how things had to be, to make them work. He’d learned at his father’s side, and later his uncle’s.

  Like James, Uncle Olin was a mason by trade, but he’d taught himself a little bit of everything. During his and Aunt Lottie’s first visit he worked on James’s truck, drained the sediment in our water heater, and installed a programmable thermostat. Aunt Lott
ie didn’t especially want to visit Old Tucson and Saguaro National Monument. We painted the kitchen. I’d had to talk her out of retiling the backsplash.

  Uncle Olin’s hands were as scarred and scraped as James’s, no doubt from fixing and tinkering since childhood. Gage’s hands, awkward with the socket wrench, were as silky as mine, and nearly as well manicured. Boys who grew up without fathers knew nothing about making things work, had no experience with hammers and screwdrivers and wrenches. The perfection of Gage’s hands saddened me.

  “Next turn’s going to do it,” James announced. “Make sure you got a grip, Natalie.” He glanced my way. “Two hands, babe.”

  I held the sheet in place with my upper arms.

  The bed came apart with a wooden groan. I had to shift my grasp suddenly. The sheet dropped enough to bare one breast.

  Gage and James both smirked as they moved the pieces to the corner. By the time they’d stood the damaged side rail broken-end up and leaned the headboard and broken footboard against the wall at an angle that assured they wouldn’t fall if jostled, I had the sheet knotted over my heart. Together they set the box springs where the bed frame had been, then the mattress.

  James stood next to me, his arm draped over my shoulder. His underarm hair was wet on my bare skin. We both watched Gage crouch, retucking the fitted sheet, fresh just today for James’s and my special night, restoring its tight smoothness as if he’d be graded on it. Finally he straightened. “Okay, then. I’ll be going. Call me with the cost of the new bed, Natalie. I mean it. Any kind you want. The whole thing, not just the frame. Mattress, box springs.”

  “We don’t need a new bed,” James said.

  “Right, you can fix this one. Since I’m not going to be stressing the footboard, that should do it. If that’s what you want, fine. But I’m happy to replace the whole thing.” He turned toward the bedroom door.

  “No.”

  “James, that’s silly. Let him pay for the damage. It’s not like David and the plates.”