Gio was sitting in the wheelchair, and Alex was about to push him out to the parking lot when Rosalind came in with a plastic bag.
“Don’t want to forget your personal belongings,” she said, handing it to Gio.
“His clothes from the fire?”
She nodded. “And his wallet and keys, and a stuffed animal.”
“A what?” Alex didn’t dare to hope.
But Gio was already searching through the bag. He pulled something out and held it up triumphantly.
It was Devin.
The Wildcat was a little dirty, covered with smudges of soot, but otherwise he was none the worse for wear.
Alex knelt next to Gio, and they looked at the little guy in wonder. “I had him clutched in my arms in the kitchen,” Gio said. “I thought he was gone.”
Alex shook his head. “He’s too tough for that. He is a Wildcat, after all.”
More than one thing had survived the flames.
J. SCOTT COATSWORTH has been writing since elementary school, when he won a University of Arizona writing contest in fourth grade for his first sci-fi story (with illustrations!). He finished his first novel in his midtwenties, but after seeing it rejected by ten publishers, he gave up on writing for a while.
Over the ensuing years, he came back to it periodically, but it never stuck. Then one day, he was complaining to Mark, his husband, about how he had been derailed yet again by the death of a family member, and Mark said to him, “the only one stopping you from writing is you.”
Since then, Scott has gone back to writing in a big way, finishing more than a dozen short stories—some new, some that he had started years before–and seeing his first sale. He’s embarking on a new trilogy, and also runs a support group for writers of gay sci-fi, fantasy, and supernatural fiction.
He lives in Sacramento, California, with his handsome, supportive husband Mark. Together for twenty-three years, they were married twice, the first time in 2004 in San Francisco. The California Supreme Court invalidated those weddings, but then legalized same-sex marriage in 2008, and Mark and Scott were married in San Francisco for the second time in November. That time it stuck.
Facebook: www.facebook.com/jscottcoatsworth
Author page: www.jscottcoatsworth.com
By J. Scott Coatsworth
Between the Lines
A Taste of Honey (Dreamspinner Press Anthology)
A More Perfect Union (Multiple Author Anthology)
Published by DREAMSPINNER PRESS
www.dreamspinnerpress.com
Jeordi and Tom
By Michael Murphy
Living as an open, loving gay couple in the rural South isn’t easy—even today.
When Jeordi and Tom move in together and come out to their families, Jeordi’s family does not take the news especially well. When yelling doesn’t work, they send in one sibling after another to try to separate the couple. When that fails, they call out their pastor to help Jeordi see the error of his ways. But Jeordi’s love for Tom is greater than anything they throw at them.
When an accident sends Jeordi to the hospital, his family goes too far when they try to keep Tom from visiting his partner. Jeordi and Tom are determined to do everything in their power to gain legal protection so this can never happen again. But when a bigoted county clerk refuses to issue them a marriage license, Jeordi decides a big, bold effort is called for, which is precisely what he sets in motion so no one can ever separate him from Tom again.
To Danny, for a wonderful thirty-two years together. Here’s to thirty-two more!
Chapter One
WHEN THE front door of the trailer slammed shut with a loud bang, followed immediately by an animalistic howl of rage and frustration, Tom knew Jeordi was home. He snickered and shook his head.
“Hey, babe,” Tom called out. “I forgot this was the day you were going to visit your parents. It went that well, huh?”
One glance at his boyfriend told Tom all he needed to know. Despite the scowl and look of anger and frustration on Jeordi’s face, it only took one glance at the man to ignite the most sensitive parts of his nervous system (and everything connected to it).
He couldn’t help but smile at the sight of Jeordi. He wasn’t handsome in the New York runway model sense, but was handsome in the real man sense. Jeordi turned heads every time he walked down the street, although he consistently missed the many glances people cast his way.
All Jeordi saw when he looked at himself was that he wasn’t tall, and he felt his ears were too big. Tom daily told Jeordi that he was the most studly man he’d ever known—and he quietly gave thanks that the man was all his.
Tom felt two strong hands wrap around his waist as he stood at the sink in their kitchen. Carefully setting down the dish he’d been washing, he leaned his head back against his boyfriend’s solid shoulder, brushing his smooth cheek against Jeordi’s fuzzy cheek—fuzzy not from a beard but from a strong five o’clock shadow the man dependably had every day by late afternoon. Jeordi hated it, but Tom loved it and loved rubbing one part or another of his body over the stubble.
“Love you, babe,” Tom whispered. “I’m glad you’re home.”
“Why?” Jeordi whispered into Tom’s ear. “Why? Why? Why do I keep subjecting myself to the same crap?”
“So, they didn’t throw their arms open and tell you they’ve joined PFLAG and ask for your advice on what to wear in the next Pride Day parade?”
Jeordi snorted. “Um, that would be a great big no.”
“What did they do this time?” Tom asked.
“Prayed—and then some. They tried to have some kind of healing service to rid me of the evil that had ‘grabbed ahold’ of me, to quote my mother. They said they needed to cast the devil out of my body.”
“Oh, isn’t that special,” Tom joked.
“Not so much,” Jeordi disagreed.
“Was it just your parents?”
“Oh, no. That’s what made this one more frustrating. They had their minister there. He brought a backup minister—poor kid looked freaked out just being in the same room with a known homosexual. Don’t know what he thought was going to happen.”
“They upped the ante, I see,” Tom said.
“Oh, there’s more,” Jeordi said.
“More?”
“Hell, yes. They had some of my more uptight brothers there with them this time.”
“They succeeded in getting any of your brothers to be in the same room at the same time? How the hell did they swing that one?”
“Don’t know. Must have been one hell of a bribe. They, of course, brought their wives, I guess to show me how a good strong Christian heterosexual marriage works. They pissed me off so much I slipped and asked Beau how he could take part in something like that when he’d been off screwing half the women in the county. He didn’t appreciate it. I guess his wife didn’t know he was a hound dog she needed to keep on a tighter leash.”
Tom stopped what he was doing and dropped his head back, deep in thought. “Hmm, your brother Beau would look damned good in a collar—and naked,” he said. “Now, if you maybe added a blindfold, put him on his knees with his hands cuffed behind his back—now that’s just freaking hot. Maybe I should call his wife and give her a few suggestions. How do you think she’d take that? I’d be doing it strictly to help her out since I doubt she’d ever come up with an idea like that on her own. And of course I’d need to be there to help her, you know, to consult.”
“Don’t go there,” Jeordi warned with a chuckle. Beau was beautiful, but unfortunately he knew it and wasn’t at all opposed to spreading his beauty around to any and all women who’d have him. “At least that got the two of them out of the whole ritualistic crap my mother had planned for the weekly visit.”
“Two down, ten to go,” Tom said.
Tom turned around and wrapped his arms around Jeordi, kissing his neck. “I love you, babe,” he whispered into Jeordi’s ear as he held tightly to his man.
“I’m so glad you do. My
family certainly doesn’t.”
“Oh, they love you. They just don’t understand it because the playing field has changed since you came out,” Tom said.
Jeordi had come out to his family a few months earlier when he and Tom decided to move in together. He hadn’t planned to do so, but he’d been so frustrated with his parents making snide comments about why he was moving in with a man and why he hadn’t found a woman yet to date and marry and knock up. In a moment of weakness, Jeordi had let slip that there was no woman and there would never be a woman—that he was in love with Tom, and he’d appreciate it if they’d all behave a little more politely with him.
Tom could still remember watching the look of pure horror pass over the face of Jeordi’s mom. One minute she’d been standing in the living room of their newly shared trailer, talking about what they needed to make the place habitable, and the next minute, she was looking madder than a cat someone had just doused with a bucket of ice cold water.
And her words: “No one in our family has ever been something as evil as a homosexual, and you are not one of those people. No, you’re not.”
Jeordi and Tom still laughed, because his mother’s brother was serving a prison sentence for murdering a woman during a bank robbery. To someone in her world, murder and armed robbery were less bad than being gay.
“So after you got the first two out of the way, what happened next?” Tom asked.
“Oh, it keeps getting better. Then the minister’s backup decided to get into the act and try to play big man. The guy was clearly quaking in his boots when he stood up. I don’t know if he was freaked about Beau being a cheating skank or if he was scared of me for being gay.”
They released one another but stood close enough to touch.
“Was he at least cute?” Tom asked.
“Unfortunately, yes. I wasn’t paying all that much attention to what he was saying, so I had lots of time to study his face and check out his body.”
“How did you get rid of him?” Tom asked.
“He was the easiest one. All I had to do was to stand up and take a couple of steps toward him. He freaked and took off. I never laid a finger on him. All I did was step toward him.”
“Did you have that intent expression on your face?” Tom asked.
“How the hell should I know?” Jeordi asked.
“You get that look every time you get super focused on something. You get it when we’re having sex and you get close.”
They snickered together for a moment.
“So you had one more down.”
“I did. A couple of the sisters-in-law were starting to back away by that time. One dragged her husband with her. I guess she was afraid I’d reveal something about her dearly beloved that she didn’t want to hear. Anyway, before long it was just me, my mom and dad, and that scum-sucking pig of a pastor of theirs.”
“I do dislike that man,” Tom said with a grimace at the thought of the pastor.
“Me too.”
Before they could continue their conversation, though, there was a sharp knock at the door.
“What fresh hell awaits us now?” Jeordi muttered. Opening the door, he found another one of his brothers, one who had not been present earlier at the afternoon inquisition—the joys of coming from a very large family.
“What the hell are you doing this for?” the man asked as he pushed his way into the living room.
“Do come in, Jessie,” Jeordi said.
“Answer the question,” Jessie ordered.
“Excuse me?” Jeordi said.
“Cut the crap and answer the goddamned question, Jeordi. Why are you so determined to embarrass Mom and Dad in front of the whole community?”
Jeordi glanced to Tom, who shrugged, not understanding the question any more than Jeordi.
“Didn’t know that I was, so I’m afraid you’ve got to be more specific than that,” Jeordi said.
“Why is everything a fight with you?” Jessie demanded.
“It isn’t, as far as I know,” Jeordi said. “Now what the hell are you talking about?”
“This whole gay business,” he said, clearly unhappy at even having to say the G word aloud.
Jeordi stood as tall as he could. “I don’t see where you’re going with any of this, Jessie, so I’m afraid you’ve got to explain yourself a bit better.”
“Cut the crap. You know how embarrassing it is for Mom and Dad for you to be prancing around like some girl with another guy for the entire world to see. So just what is it that they did to piss you off so much? Huh?”
Jeordi shook his head. “Do you really not get it? Do you really think me being gay is some way to get back at them for something?”
“Well, of course it is. You’re not gay. I’ve known you your whole life, and you never gave any hints of being… one of those people.”
“I was just really good at keeping who I actually was hidden from all of you because I knew how poorly you’d all deal with the truth.”
“Bull. You couldn’t hide something like that. You don’t prance around like some ballerina.”
“Excuse me?” Jeordi said, his voice rising a little in strength.
“You look and act like a guy.”
“Thank you,” Jeordi said. “I think.”
“So what’s really going on?” he pushed.
“What’s really going on is I love Tom and he loves me. We are happy. He’s the first person I’ve ever been able to be myself with. He’s the first person who has ever loved me for me, not for some superficial cardboard representation of the person everyone wants me to be.”
“Huh?” his brother said, obviously confused.
“Oh hell,” Tom said, grabbing Jeordi and planting a big, lingering kiss on his boyfriend’s lips. “Now I ask you,” Tom said, “does that look like something your average straight guy does?” Tom dropped one of his hands to Jeordi’s crotch, grabbing hold of the man’s clear sign of interest. “See? Does your dick get hard if a man kisses you?”
Jeordi’s brother looked absolutely horrified. “I don’t know what you’ve done to my brother, but somehow we’ll get this sorted out and fix him,” Jessie angrily announced before he turned and fled, the door to their trailer slamming for the second time in as many hours. And even though they knew it was coming, both Tom and Jeordi jumped at the sound.
“It’s official,” Jeordi said. “I want to be an orphan.”
Tom stepped behind Jeordi and wrapped his arms around his boyfriend. “I’m sorry, babe. I don’t know why they all can’t just trust us to live our own lives.”
Jeordi hung his head and focused on the arms wrapped around him, drawing comfort from the man he loved and trusted more than anyone else in the world. “Love you, babe,” Jeordi said. “I’m happy coming home to you at the end of each day more than you could possibly know.”
“I know because I feel the same way,” Tom said. He gave Jeordi a quick squeeze before he released him. “Dinner should be ready by now. You hungry?”
“You’d think after all the crap I’ve been getting today that I wouldn’t be, but for some reason I am.”
“Well, then, come on and let’s eat. Got to keep my man happy and healthy and as studly as ever.”
“I really think you need glasses. Every time you call me that, I think you must be nuts. I just don’t see it.”
“You don’t have to. I got ya covered, babe. Trust me. In my eyes you are the hottest of the hot. When you walk into a room, heads turn to try to take in your beauty. Both men and women,” he added.
“I still don’t get it,” Jeordi said.
“Don’t worry about it. On this one, my opinion is all that counts,” Tom joked.
Tom pulled the oven door open, taking care to hold on to it for fear it would fall off. Their new rental home had a few issues that needed to be addressed, but their landlord had yet to respond to any of their concerns. As he pulled a covered dish from the oven, the kitchen was filled with a delicious aroma of pumpkin, chicken, a
pples, and something else Jeordi couldn’t identify. Cinnamon? Yes, he decided. Cinnamon. He closed his eyes and savored the scents.
As they sat at the table and ate, talk was deliberately on anything other than Jeordi’s family. Talk of their days allowed both of them to release some of the burdens the outside world tried to heap upon them.
Chapter Two
ON TUESDAYS Tom typically got home an hour before Jeordi. He’d barely been in the house long enough to change his clothes when he heard someone knocking on the door. He almost hoped it was some Bible-thumper so he could take out some of his built-up aggression on the person. Instead it was worse.
“Sandra,” he said, surprised, when he found Jeordi’s mother standing outside the door to their trailer. “Jeordi isn’t home yet,” Tom said as he greeted her.
“I know that,” she said as she pushed past him into the living room.
“Okay,” Tom said hesitantly. “Do come on in. This is a first. What brings you over here today if not to see your son?”
“You and me—we need to talk.”
“We do?” Tom asked, playing it calm. “What is it we need to talk about?”
“Whatever you’ve done to my son, you need to back off and let him go. You’ve had your fun. I don’t understand any of it, but he needs to get back to the life he’s supposed to be living.”
Tom arched an eyebrow at the last statement, even though nothing she’d said so far had surprised him. He crossed his arms over his chest and stood staring at her, deliberately putting the pressure on her.
Most people hated silence, so it only took a moment of silent staring at her to get her talking again.
“My boy is a good boy,” she said.
“He’s a good man,” Tom agreed with clarification. “He hasn’t been a boy in many years.”
“And he needs to get back to life as he is supposed to live it.”
“Oh, I thought he was. I know he thinks he is. And I happen to agree with him.”
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