Four

by Tia Fielding

  Padraig put the bag of treats on the table and lifted Hestia in his arms for comfort. He scratched her absently. “He told me about them, about six months before he died. The men he’d cheated with.” He sighed. “Did you two ever talk about it?”

  “No, but I had an idea he was doing something behind your back. I saw him once at a conference with this young twinky thing, very femme and pretty. Nothing like you or me. He didn’t know I was even there—I was picking up Kenneth—and… yeah.”

  Kenneth had been dating Francis’s sister. He’d been a pediatrician, if Padraig remembered right.

  “He told me they were all nothing like me. Hell, he even showed me a picture of one of them. Waifish little things, each and every one of them. Sometimes more than one over one weekend’s conference. I….” Padraig could still feel the anger that he’d felt the first time. The mixture of outrage and betrayal and shame and fucking heartache.

  “You know, that day, when I saw him with the twink…. They weren’t doing anything, but something about their body language at that hotel bar…. Anyway. That was the day when I managed to get my heart to understand there would never be a chance with him.” Francis let out a bitter laugh and put the knife down before looking at Padraig. “Not because I’d actually thought I’d come between you two—I would’ve never done that. I hope you know that.”

  Padraig nodded. If there was one thing he knew for absolute certainty, it was that Francis would’ve never risked Marcus and Padraig’s happiness, not even for himself.

  “But it hit me that if I was right, if he was cheating on you, there had to be a reason why he chose someone like… like that. Not someone like us. That if he chose a twink, he would never, ever choose me.” Francis picked up the knife again. “I would love to say I would have never given in if he’d come on to me. If he’d chosen me instead of one of his twink parade. I think I would’ve told him off, but….”

  “But you were in love with him. It’s hard to say no when your heart and brain want different things.”

  “Add your cock to the mix, and it’s a mess!” Francis stated in a tone that attempted campy but didn’t quite hit it.

  Padraig snorted, the sound more bitter than anything. “At first, he said he chose them because they were nothing like me. I think he meant it in a good way, somehow,” he said quietly. “But when I was just angry, he admitted he’d also chosen them because they were so different, and he’d missed those experiences. He felt jealous of the younger gay guys who could do anyone and anything and that was it. No repercussions. Hell, he’d even gone on PrEP, and I didn’t know about it. That’s how I found out. He forgot the pills on the table in his office.”

  “That bastard! Did he not use condoms with them?” Francis, ever the nurse, was outraged enough for Hestia to perk up and bark at him.

  “He said he did, that it was a precaution.” Padraig huffed bitterly. “No, actually, at first he said it was a precaution for work. In case someone with HIV came in and there was an accident. But even as he said it, we both knew he was lying.”

  “Have you been tested?”

  “Oh yeah, I was, that same day. I made him do it, and I insisted on condoms after that. Not that we… much. After.”

  “Jesus, Padraig.” Francis had somehow managed to put together the peppers and placed them in the oven, then came to sit opposite of Padraig and Hestia. “Your freak-out about finding Kaos attractive makes so much sense now.”

  “How do you reckon?”

  “He could be thought of as a twink, couldn’t he?”

  Padraig shrugged. He wasn’t sure if he’d thought of Kaos on those terms. Maybe he had on some level? They sat in silence for a moment, both lost in their heads a little.

  “Hey, how’s the meal prep going? Need help?” Kaos asked from the edge of what consisted of the kitchen side of the wide-open space.

  “No, it’s fine. Just need to wait for the peppers to be done and add them to the store-bought sauce you had in the pantry. The pot with water is simmering for the pasta. We just got to talking so….” Francis’s tone was friendly, and Padraig could tell they got along well already. It felt nice.

  “Could you open a bottle of wine for us?” Padraig pointed at the wine rack in the corner of the countertop. “I think there’s a good red and a little worse red, so pick at random. We only live once and all.”

  Chuckling, Kaos, now fresh-faced and wearing jeans and a knitted sweater, went to pick a bottle and find the corkscrew. “So you went to college together, right?” Kaos asked, and obviously he’d been talking to Francis before Padraig got home to know that.

  “Yeah, us and Marcus. But Marcus and I grew up together in New Jersey,” Francis offered. “We met this one in college. We sort of stuck together.”

  Kaos pulled the cork of the wine bottle with a pop. “How was it to be gay back then?”

  “For me, it was a bit different than to Marcus and Padraig. I grew up in a relatively openminded household. My mom was a makeup artist on Broadway. But that didn’t mean she accepted me being gay any more than Padraig or Marcus’s parents did.”

  “Oh?” Kaos wandered over and sat next to Francis, having left the wine to breathe.

  Padraig nodded. “Yeah, like I told you, my family is Irish Catholic, right? Marcus’s were just regular bible thumpers, but with some casual racism thrown in. It was a different time, then.”

  “It really was. My mom had most of her male friends die of AIDS. I remember going to two funerals. There were easily a dozen more we didn’t go to. Those were just her close friends. Not casual acquaintances,” Francis explained.

  “She was scared for you,” Kaos said, understanding immediately.

  “We were scared for ourselves too.” Padraig sighed.

  Kaos’s gaze snapped to him. “What do you mean?”

  “I was born in 1971. I knew I was gay when I was ten. It was couple of years after the AIDS epidemic started. Each year after that, the numbers rose and rose. We were around twenty-five when the numbers started to decline, Kaos. We spent our youth in fear of the unknown, and then clutching each other close in the hopes of not losing anyone else. Because we lost people.” Padraig swallowed hard, and Francis reached over the table to take his hand and squeeze.

  “Nobody knew anything in the beginning. It was a gay disease. Gay cancer. Plague. Killing us left and right, and we deserved it. So many died…. Have you ever heard about the No Obits story in the Bay Area Reporter?” Francis asked Kaos.

  “No, what is it?”

  “August of 1998 was the first time since 1981 that the paper had no AIDS-related obituaries to run,” Francis explained gently.

  Kaos’s eyes filled with tears. “Oh my God….”

  Padraig wanted to hug him but stayed in his seat with Hestia, who was now asleep on his lap. “Nobody thinks that it was recent, right? That it’s only a bit over twenty years ago since the death toll started to decline.”

  “The cocktails started to work, and there’s still a huge stigma in certain communities, but things are looking better.”

  Kaos wiped his eyes—for a moment Padraig felt really glad that he’d taken off his makeup—and gave them a wobbly smile.

  Francis got up and went to take the peppers out of the oven, and the mouthwatering scent of them soon filled the air.

  “We were scared into chastity,” Padraig said, continuing the story. “Marcus and I, we got together young, in college, and we didn’t have sex with anyone else.”

  Francis nodded. “It’s the epidemic that made me want to go into medicine, but I wanted to be the person who talked to the patients, tried to calm them down, and so on. Not the doctor.” He turned briefly from skinning the peppers and grinned. “Also, I wasn’t quite as into the celibacy thing as these two. I was always safe, though. So that’s something.”

  “Wait, so you and Marcus got together young and didn’t have sex with anyone else?” Kaos frowned. “Ever?”

  Padraig must’ve shown something on his face,
because Kaos looked taken aback for a few seconds, but then Francis spoke. “Let’s say Padraig didn’t, and you two can talk about it later?”

  Padraig nodded, unable to make words happen right then.

  “Okay.” Kaos looked at Padraig, then reached for his hand and stroked the back of it with his fingers. “I’m sorry. I didn’t know.”

  “It’s okay. It’s… I would like to say in the past, but….”

  “Yeah.”

  Hestia woke up then, and Kaos took her in the yard to do her business. Padraig felt drained. The conversations that had been happening in his house since Kaos moved in were life-altering for him.

  FRANCIS SEEMED to get his mood or maybe feel similarly, so Padraig waited until after dinner and few glasses of wine before asking him anything too serious.

  Kaos obviously read the room and went upstairs, leaving Hestia with them for the time being.

  Francis sat on the couch, curled up on one end as much as a full-grown man could, and accepted Hestia’s show of love greedily. He kept her close until she started to fall asleep on his lap.

  Padraig had taken the other end of the couch, and sat there with his half-empty third glass of wine. Francis had bowed out of a third for now, although the second bottle—the better wine—was on the coffee table by his empty glass.

  “So….” Padraig gently nudged him, hoping he’d start talking on his own.

  It took a while of silence and stroking Hestia’s ears for Francis to talk.

  “You know when you called me the first time? My friend Josh was there. He’s around Kaos’s age and works at the clinic as an orderly. He’s a great guy, he’s just…. He’s not taking no for an answer.” Hearing Francis’s voice fill with anguish like that made Padraig’s stomach swoop uncomfortably.

  “Like how exactly?” He wanted to have all the information to know how pissed off at this stranger he had to be.

  “We started off as friends. He’s bisexual but has no experience with men. And I guess he has an infatuation going on and I just didn’t realize. He’s tried to ask me on dates, and when that didn’t work, he agreed to being just friends, or so I thought.” Francis sighed and leaned down awkwardly to bury his face into Hestia’s fur for a moment. “Last week he asked me if I wanted to be friends with benefits. He outright asked it, even though I’d rebuffed his badly veiled questions about that before. So I said no, and he said okay. Then the next day we went to see this movie we’d been talking about for a while, and he was nice and friendly, not at all pushy. He got us popcorn and so on. When we went to this diner for a dinner like we often do after movies, he said he wanted to pay for the food too because we were on a date, and wasn’t it nice to date him—we were having fun, right?”

  “Jesus….”

  “I left right then, just ran out like a lunatic. I had thought he’d taken the no the previous day and was being nice. But instead, he….” Francis pulled his lower lip between his teeth and just sat there, looking sad.

  “So you escaped?”

  “Yeah, but that’s not all. The day after the date—that’s four days ago now—he asked me what my Thanksgiving plans were and if we’d have one together. This was at the clinic, while we were both working. When I took him aside to explain to him for once and for all that I didn’t want to date him, he looked at me with this weird glint in his eyes, said he understood, and left the break room. Half an hour later, my boss called me into her office and said there were claims of harassment, and that she knew I wouldn’t do that, but could I still explain.”

  Padraig felt his jaw clench so tightly that it hurt. He wanted to find this Josh kid and just…. “Holy fuck, Francis,” he breathed out when he finally could talk again without wanting to yell and rage.

  “I couldn’t stay home. My boss is looking into it, but they take these things seriously nowadays.”

  “What did he say you did?”

  “He hinted at me doing something.” Francis ran his fingers through his hair and tugged at the strands in agitation. “Nothing specific, my boss said, so I guess this is Josh’s version of an intimidation tactic. But when I told my boss I’d take my vacation time and come back after Thanksgiving, she agreed and said she could put off whatever he was planning, because she’s having a family thing and won’t be around anyway.”

  “So until she’s back, he can’t do anything unless he goes over her head?” Padraig wanted to make sure.

  “Yeah, exactly. And he won’t do that because he needs proof for it. Boss’s boss is really strict and by the book, so Josh wouldn’t risk it.”

  Padraig pondered for a moment, then smiled at Francis a bit wryly. “Well, seems like you have three options here.”

  “Oh?”

  “Either you stay here alone on Thanksgiving, go with Kaos to the sheriff’s, or you can, of course, go to Mary’s.”

  The horror on Francis’s face at the last option was so comical, Padraig burst out laughing, waking Hestia up.

  “Oh no, not Mary’s. I’ll starve in a corner while everyone else is stuffing their face before I go to your sister’s!” A delicate full-body shiver traveled through Francis’s form, making Padraig laugh harder.

  Mary and Francis had never been friendly. It was like Mary brought the campiest queen version of Francis out of him, and it was never pretty. Usually that level of camp was reserved for homophobes and bigots.

  Francis, like Padraig and Marcus, could pass for a straight guy. The difference was, Francis never acted straight on purpose. Not that Padraig or Marcus had lied if asked, but sometimes it was easier to just… hide.

  The thought made something inside Padraig clench uncomfortably. He was ashamed of doing that now. The only thing that had really changed was Kaos stepping into his life. If he wanted to be with Kaos one day, there would be no room for shame in that equation.

  “What are you thinking about?” Francis asked.

  This time the emergency phone saved him instead of stopping something good. He held up a finger and went to answer. “Dr. Donovan speaking.”

  For a moment the line was quiet, but then he heard a little sigh. “Uh… i-it’s not an emergency, really. Or….” The voice was young, male, and hesitant. Maybe even scared.

  “Take your time,” Padraig said evenly, wondering what this was about.

  “I-if I w-was thinking there might be an a-animal abuse situation going on, w-what would I do?”

  “Well, you would call someone like me for starters.”

  “O-okay…. W-would I have to give my name? Would it go on record?”

  “No, absolutely not. If you tell me where, I can have it checked out, and nobody needs to know who made the call.” He tried to stay calm but realized his free hand was starting to tremble.

  A hand touched his lower back, and when he looked, Francis stood next to him, obviously worried by his tone.

  “I-it’s bad, it’s really, really bad, and I can’t—” A noise in the background cut the boy off, and then an adult called out something, and the boy whispered into the phone, “I gotta go!”

  Padraig called out, “No, wait!”

  The call disconnected.

  “What is it?” Francis squeezed his shoulder.

  “A kid, trying to report an animal abuse case. Fuck.” Padraig put the phone away and paced a few steps, almost stepping on Hestia, who started badly. “I’m sorry, girl. Come here.” He crouched on the floor and, when she came to him, buried his face into her fur. He was trembling, and when Francis touched his back, he shrugged the hand off.

  “Do you want me to get Kaos?”

  For a few seconds, Padraig really, really wanted that. He ended up shaking his head and making himself stop cuddling the dog. “No. I need to make a call. Can you take Hestia out to pee? Grab your shoes, though. We use the utility room door.”

  “Yeah, okay.” Francis looked thoughtful, like he wanted to say something more but didn’t.

  Padraig grabbed his cell phone off the coffee table and went to his home office in
the back of the house. He sat heavily into his chair, then called the sheriff’s cell phone.

  “Evening, Doc. What can I help you with?” Kalle Newman answered his phone, and despite the situation, his friendly tone made Padraig smile a little.

  “Good evening, Sheriff. I’m sorry to bother you this late, but something’s come up.”

  “No, not at all. I know you’d never call without a good reason,” Sheriff Newman assured him quickly.

  “Okay, so, I got a peculiar call tonight,” Padraig started, and Newman made an encouraging noise. “Young boy, maybe mid-teens if that. Didn’t identify himself, but was very, very nervous and even scared. He asked about how to report an animal abuse case and whether he’d be identified.”

  “Well, that’s certainly not good. He didn’t sound familiar?” The steel in Newman’s voice made Padraig smile. Cop mode: ON.

  “No, not at all. And, well, if it’s someone’s house this is happening in, then they wouldn’t have come by the clinic, would they?”

  “Yeah, right. I assume he called the house line and/or the number was unknown?”

  “House phone, yes—my emergency line that’s listed. I have caller ID on the phone, but no number showed up.”

  “We have to accept the fact that it might not even be a kid from around here. Maybe he was looking up emergency vet numbers and saw yours and called.”

  That hadn’t occurred to Padraig, but he saw the point in the reasoning. “Yeah. And even if he’s local, the area where I work is massive.”

  Sheriff Newman sighed. “Unless he calls again, there’s really nothing we can do. I don’t have enough cause to try to find out the number through official channels.” Then he cursed under his breath. “I hate this kind of thing. Makes me feel helpless. You know, we couldn’t have pets when Emil was little, but those cats of his and Makai’s have become family now, and to think someone is out there, hurting an animal….”