Through the Mirrorball

by Browatzke, Rob

Steven smiled at me as Dinah went to get the drinks. “You don’t mind that I’m having a drink drink? Sorry, that was really insensitive of me. It’s just, after seeing Nathan . . .”

  “You don’t have to apologize. I understand. This is my problem, not yours.”

  “I know, but—”

  “You’re just concerned. I get that, and love you for it. It’s good though. I’m good.”

  Steven was looking at me, and then I realized what I had said. The L word. It had been a while since either of us had dropped that. Too long, but still so true.

  Dinah came back in with the drinks and handed them out. “Not drinking, Alex?”

  “No. It’s time to stop.”

  “I’m glad to hear that,” she said with a smile. “I’m stopping too.”

  “Oh why?” I asked, and then it dawned on me. That inevitably heterosexual ending. “You’re pregnant?”

  “Yes!” She practically squealed. “We just found out today! Oh Alex, I’m so happy.”

  I went over and hugged her, my best friend of so many years. “I’m so happy for you,” I said, and I was. It filled me up with light and warmth inside. She was glowing. She was bringing a new life into the world. She would raise that baby to love everyone, just the way she did. And baby by baby, the world would become a better place.

  “Okay, Alex, you can let go now,” she said, squirming under the hug that had gotten far too intense. I smiled, she smiled, and then all three of us laughed.

  “And of course, Alex, I want you to be godfather.”

  “Absolutely,” I said, without hesitation. I was an only child. I would have no nephews or nieces. Steven, too, was an only child, so even if we worked things out, I wouldn’t be an uncle ever that way either. Dinah’s kid was my only chance to scratch that paternal itch (unless Steven and I adopted some distant day . . . ). Either way, her kid, or our future kid, was simply one more reason that the booze-and-blow Alex had to go away.

  “So, what’s up with you?” She was beaming, and the way she asked, I knew she expected the news to be that we had worked things out and were getting back together. Could I disappoint her? Again? And what’s more, could I bring something so dark into her world, when she was so filled with hope and light?

  “You have to, Alex,” Steven said, and I looked at him looking at me, and knew he knew exactly what I was thinking. He always did.

  “Something happened,” I said. “I got a picture of Taylor in the mail.” She slumped back into her chair, and just as I feared, the light drained from her as I told her about the graffiti (faggot faggot faggot), the picture (You killed me), and about confronting Allan and Nathan. By the end, she was crying.

  “Who would do that?” she said. “I don’t understand . . .”

  “Me either,” I said. “But you’re the only person I know who I knew when Taylor died. I can’t come up with anyone other than Nathan. Can you?”

  She sat there, her eyes closed, the odd tear trickling down her face. Steven, next to me on the couch, put his arm around my shoulders and I squeezed his thigh as a thank you.

  “There’s no one else I know of. You were his only friend, really.”

  “He liked you, too,” I said.

  “I know, but you were his friend. He was just so new still. Just there a year. No one really had the chance to get to know him. You know how it was in high school. It took forever for new kids to find a clique that would accept them. And Taylor didn’t want a clique. He just wanted you.”

  Hearing her say it set my nose to tickling with tears. I pushed tears away with the heels of my hands. I could not cry. I would not cry.

  “It’s okay to cry,” Steven said, and I looked at him, and his eyes were watery, too, and I cried.

  “I had always known there was something different about you, Alex,” Dinah said. “But it wasn’t until Taylor came along that I figured out what it was. Seeing you together was . . . right. It was the part of you that was missing. I knew you were gay long before you told me, you know that. I think I even knew before you did. I saw it when you two looked at each other. Everyone saw it.

  “That was part of the problem. Everyone saw it. I felt so terrible every time I would hear what they would say about you. But what could I do? And then something amazing happened. You didn’t need my help. The stronger you made each other, the more you ignored what they said, and the more you ignored what they said, the less they said it. By the time he . . . by the end, I think it was only Nathan I ever heard say anything, and it was sad when he said it. Like a man who lost an argument, and everyone knew he had lost except him.”

  Hearing her talk took me back there, back to high school, back to him. The first time I saw him. The first time we kissed. The first time we fucked. The last time I saw him. The last time I said I loved him. How badly had his death fucked me up, that it still hurt so bad so many years later? I was thirty. I was all grown up. High school was a lifetime ago. Two lifetimes ago.

  “It still hurts,” I said aloud, barely realizing I was talking.

  Steven held me tighter and Dinah started crying anew. She moved to the couch next to me, and hugged me. I shook. Now in my head, when I thought his name, instead of seeing the way his bangs flopped over his forehead, I just saw the picture (You killed me). Who sent it? Who?

  And what would they do next?

  Chapter 35

  We stayed at Dinah’s for an hour or so, shooting the shit about happier things, mostly her pregnancy and plans for when the baby came. Dreams of the future. The kind of talks Taylor and I used to have, lying on the roof, staring at the stars, ready for a time when there wouldn’t be bullies, when we wouldn’t have to hide who we were and how we felt about each other.

  If only he had been strong enough to wait. If only he had been strong enough to survive.

  When we left Dinah’s, Steven stopped off at a grocery store and grabbed some supper. We didn’t discuss him coming over. It was just understood. I didn’t want to be alone. He didn’t want to be alone. The pain and anger I had felt about what happened between him and Aaron, between us and Aaron, it seemed so stupid now. This was real, not some stupid threesome or some jealous delusion I had concocted in my head.

  We didn’t talk much. The day had left us both pretty drained emotionally, and while we made dinner, we fell into our old pattern, working around each other, in perfect sync. As we ate, we’d occasionally smile at each other. It was nice and simple, and a change from what had been the norm for too long. Right then, right there, there was no Nathan or Aaron or Allan or Taylor, no cocaine, no alcohol, no jealousy.

  It was Alex and Steven.

  It was as it should be.

  “Let me clean up,” Steven said, “you go lie down.”

  “No. I’ll clean. You can go if you want.”

  “I don’t want to.”

  “You can stay,” I said, “of course, and I’ll love the company. But I’m still going to clean.”

  “I won’t argue,” he said, and he brushed his hand across my back as he went into the living room.

  What was happening? Was this the beginning of the beginning again? Could he really forgive me for what I had done and said during the crazy darkness of the past months? He was here, and that said a lot. I washed up the dishes, with hope bubbling up inside me. The thought that we could truly put the past in the past and get back to where we had been, before the Caterpillar, before Nathan . . .

  When the dishes were done, Steven was half-dozing on the couch. He looked so peaceful. I stood there, again, looking down on him and smiling. I knelt beside the couch and shook him. “Hey, do you want to go to bed?”

  He stirred. “No, just come lie down here on the couch with me. Let’s watch a movie.”

  He was big spoon to my little spoon again, and oh! How good his arms felt around me. It wasn’t long before our breathing synchronized, too, and my eyes were just getting too heavy to stay open when he pulled me in closer and nuzzled my neck, his breath warm and sweet. “God, I’ve
missed this. I love you, Crazy.”

  “I love you, too,” I said, my face flushed in bliss as I yawned and let myself sink into the safety of him, my Steven.

  I was half-in, half-out of sleep, so at first, I wasn’t sure if I was dreaming or not, but no, it was real. I could feel him getting hard behind me, and my body reacted in kind. His hips pumped into me, and his mouth, still at my neck, started to tongue my earlobe. As his hand slid down my chest to my suddenly throbbing erection, I let out a groan.

  “Is this okay?” he asked, his fingers undoing my jeans.

  To answer, I reached behind me, slid my hand down the back of his pants, and pulled him in closer. His ass still felt amazing, and yes, I wanted to fuck him again, but my need to feel him in me was far more urgent. Many men had touched me since we broke up. I had wanted none of them the way I wanted Steven. My want was sober and pure and literally leaking from me as I twisted around in his arms and found his mouth with mine.

  The second our lips met, everything else was gone. We were feeding on each other, two starving men desperate to consume everything in front of them. Clothes peeled off and went flying across the room, and our bodies were soon naked together, like they were meant to be. I pushed him down on the couch and started sucking him. He was thrusting his hips and I could tell by the way he was moaning that this could be a quick cum. That was one of the things I loved about him. He could shoot in minutes or he could last for what seemed like hours.

  Right now though, I wanted it hard and fast, and I wanted him in me. I climbed up, straddled him, and reached over him to where I kept lube and condoms in the end table. My phone rang, somewhere. I barely heard it. I rolled a condom down his shaft, smeared it in lube, and guided it to my waiting, hungry hole.

  I slid down on it. It stabbed me and my moan was loud and long. Steven was thrusting below me, eager to start pumping, but I was in control. I leaned down and kissed him, and he was all the way in. My phone rang again, but I was flexing my ass, squeezing, teasing, pleasing his cock, and I started to ride him.

  “I won’t last long,” he said. “Fuck, how I’ve missed you, missed being inside you, missed you kissing me.”

  “Shhh,” I said. “Don’t talk, and don’t worry. Just enjoy.”

  He started stroking my dick as I rode him, his hand slick with lube. I almost shot right then, and both our bodies quivered together. His hand milked me as my ass milked him, and then suddenly, he tensed underneath me, and I could feel him fill the condom inside me. His hand froze on my dick as he shot, and I looked down to see me spray all over his face and chest.

  Panting, laughing, I lay down on him, my load sticky between us. His dick plopped out of my ass, and I wanted him back in.

  My phone rang again.

  “Jesus Christ!” I said.

  “You better get that. I’ll go shower.”

  I looked for my phone as I watched him walk down the hall to the bathroom, cum-covered and gorgeous. I found it where it had fallen and answered it. “Hello?” I said, still out of breath.

  “Hello.”

  “Who is this?”

  “Who is this?”

  “Look, you called me. Who’s this?”

  “It’s Taylor.”

  Chapter 36

  The fuck?

  “That’s not funny,” I said.

  “It’s not a joke. It’s Taylor.”

  “Taylor’s dead.”

  “Taylor’s dead,” he repeated.

  “Stop it!”

  Steven came running back down the hall. “What is it?”

  Shaking, I handed him the phone. “Who is this?” he yelled. I couldn’t hear his answer. “Look, stop this now. Do not call here again.”

  He threw the phone down and threw his arms around me. “Who was it? What did they say?”

  “They said . . . he said . . . he said he was Taylor.”

  “That’s ridiculous, Alex. It’s just a prank. It’s just a horrible, cruel prank. Taylor’s dead.”

  I was sobbing, rocking back and forth in his arms. Oh, I wanted a drink! Or drugs! Or anything that could make it so I didn’t have to think or feel. Why this? Why me? Why Taylor? Who was doing it?

  My phone rang again. We didn’t answer. It rang and it rang, stopped ringing, and then rang and rang again.

  “Leave it,” Steven said. “Don’t engage him. That’s what he wants. Whoever it is, whatever game he is playing, that’s what he wants.”

  “But . . .”

  “Alex, look at me, listen to me. You know it wasn’t Taylor. It’s a fucked up thing to do, but it wasn’t him.”

  And it wasn’t. I knew that. Taylor was dead. I had been to his funeral. No, we hadn’t seen the body. It had been a closed casket, of course. He’d shot himself in the head.

  But what if... ? It came to me, a vision of what might have been, and even though I knew it was the result of growing up on soap operas and melodrama, what if he hadn’t killed himself? What if it had all been a ploy? And the funeral was faked? And he was still alive, after all these years?

  It was fantastical, and ridiculous, and completely impossible. Things like that didn’t happen. I knew that. Logically, I knew that. But part of me wanted it to be true.

  My phone chimed, the voice mail indicator.

  “Leave it,” Steven said.

  “No, I need to hear it.” I put it on speakerphone and gripped Steven’s hand as I pressed play.

  “AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAALEX. It’s Taaaaaaaaaaaaaaylor. Did you miss me? I missed you. I haven’t seen you since you kiiiiiiiiiiiiiii-iiiilled me. Remember that, Alex? When you made me gay and I had to go away? You might as well have shot me yourself.”

  Steven got up and turned the phone off. “This is it,” he said. “Tomorrow, we are changing your number. You can come stay with me for a while. We will figure out who is doing this, Alex. We will get through this. Together.” He looked me in the face. “And we will get through this sober. You don’t need anything else.”

  “I don’t. You’re right.” I was vibrating, and realized that my cry had been a pretty messy, snotty one. Hardly the kind of face I wanted to show my ex-but-maybe-not-for-long boyfriend. I covered my face. “Oh God, don’t look at me.” It was half nervous laugh, half panicked cry.

  “Don’t be silly. I don’t care that you’re a mess. I would be too. Hell, I was too. You saw what I was like when I was gone. When you found me.” He cradled my face in his hands. “And you did find me,” he said. “Nothing else matters, but that you saved me. And now, I am going to save you.”

  He took me by the hand and led me down the hall. We showered, showered off the sex, showered off the tears. I never let go of him. Constantly, I touched him. His shoulder. His arm. His hand. I was always holding on to him.

  After the shower, he tucked me into bed, and without me asking, he crawled in next to me. “I won’t sleep,” I said.

  “I know. Just try.”

  He lay there next to me as I curled up fetally, clinging on to him, and not even caring if it made me seem pathetic. He was right. He was all I needed. His hand tracing patterns of nothing on my back drove away more demons than the Caterpillar’s finest ever had. I could hear his heart beat and lost myself in that sound. His chest rose, his chest fell. His chest rose, his chest fell. His chest rose . . .

  I woke up in a stereotype. The mist curled around the tombstones and the trees were bare. The sky above me was blue.

  “Alex.”

  I turned around and there he was. I knew he would be here, knew he was why I was here. His bang was flopping across his face, and I reached out to brush it away. “Hi, Taylor.”

  “Two hearts, one heart.”

  I froze. It was what we always said, and I hadn’t expected to hear it. I had forgotten it. It was one of the last things I said to him. The last night I saw him. The night he took his father’s gun and shot himself. I had always wondered. Was he thinking of those words when he pulled the trigger?

  “I still miss you,” I said. “Eve
ry day, part of me still misses you.”

  “I had to go,” he said. “I had to.”

  “Why, Taylor? Why?”

  “They always win, Alex. The bullies always win. Hate always wins. We can’t fight it. It won’t change.”

  “It has though, Taylor. It’s gotten better.”

  “Has it? Have things gotten better for you? Were things better when Nathan took your boyfriend hostage? Were things better when you were getting high and getting fucked by anyone that came along? That wasn’t the future we planned for us. That wasn’t two hearts, one heart. Has it gotten better?”

  “Yes, it has.”

  He smiled sadly and shook his head. “I don’t believe you. If it’s better, then what’s this?”

  He handed me a piece of paper and I knew what it was before I even unfolded it. You killed me.

  “I didn’t kill you.”

  “You made me know I was different. If I hadn’t figured that out, I wouldn’t have had to go.”

  “I didn’t do it.”

  “You did. You gave me hope. You gave me love. But they wouldn’t let me have it. Not that kind of hope. Not our kind of love.” He looked at me. “Faggot faggot faggot!” he yelled out suddenly, stepping toward me. His hands were on my shoulders. “That’s what he said as he beat me. That night my mom found us. ‘Faggot faggot faggot.’ As he hit me over and over and over and over and over. . . .”

  “Stop it!”

  “‘Faggot faggot faggot! No son of mine! No son of mine! I’d rather you be dead than a fucking fruity faggot queer! No son of mine! Faggot faggot faggot.’”

  “Stop, please, Taylor, stop.”

  “That’s what I said. ‘Stop, Daddy, stop.’ He didn’t stop. They wouldn’t stop. They wouldn’t ever stop, Alex. I had to go. And that’s how you killed me. You gave me something better, but they would keep taking it away.”

  The cemetery was gone, and we were at his house now. The last place I saw him alive. The place where he died. The tree outside his bedroom window was bare. The streets were dark, the house was dark. And the light was on in the garage. Taylor walked toward it. I didn’t want to follow him. I knew what would happen.