Primitive Secrets

by Deborah Turrell Atkinson

  DeLario brushed Martin’s hand with his fingertips. “Martin, we have to tell her.” He spoke to Storm. “A couple of days after Hamasaki called Martin, I returned to Honolulu. Right after I got back, he phoned me and told me to stay away from his son.” DeLario’s eyes flattened with anger. “He called me…names.”

  “Oh, no.” Storm whispered.

  Hamlin spoke up. “Chris, he was reacting out of shock, trying to protect his son. He might have understood if he’d ever had the chance to meet you.”

  “Come on, Ian. You know better than that,” DeLario said. Martin kept his eyes down and twirled his wineglass with trembling fingers.

  At that moment, a waiter appeared and waved a white napkin at them. “Hello folks, would you like to hear about our specials?” Without a pause, he launched into a long list of complicated dishes. Then he announced that he would give them a few more minutes to decide and sashayed away.

  “What’d that guy say?” Martin gaped after the departing waiter.

  Storm’s front teeth clanked on the edge of her wineglass and she sputtered. She and Hamlin snorted at the same time. Martin sat stunned for another moment, then began to laugh.

  “What the hell is so funny?” DeLario asked.

  Martin patted his arm. “We’re laughing at that bozo. And the unpredictability, the randomness,” he waved his hands around in the air, “of life. God, Chris, we’ve got to laugh. What else can we do?”

  DeLario looked around the table, took a swallow of wine, then nodded. Slowly, the angry gleam faded from his eyes and he chuckled, his voice uncertain.

  “Okay,” he said. He raised a glass. “To spontaneity, everyone.”

  The four of them clinked glasses. Storm let a smile of relief cross her face. Indeed, spontaneity was harmless. No sharp edges, right?

  The waiter returned and Martin looked up at him. “What are the specials again?”

  They all burst out laughing. The waiter raised a haughty eyebrow, then recounted the long list once more. “I’ll give you a few more minutes.” He turned on his heel.

  They choked back their laughter and buried their faces in the menu. When he came back, each person ordered the same fresh catch, though they got a few different side dishes. The waiter just shook his head. He kept his chin tilted so high that they could have counted nose hairs, if they’d wanted. They didn’t.

  The evening became more lighthearted, filled with the sharing of past experiences. Hamlin and DeLario talked about how, as freshmen, they’d had rooms across the hall in a dormitory at the University of Michigan. One of DeLario’s best friends was a soprano that Hamlin had briefly lusted after. DeLario had an art scholarship and Hamlin a track one, though DeLario was on the wrestling team until his studio time demanded too much of him. “Come on, Hamlin. Those guys were afraid I’d grope ‘em.” He laughed while Hamlin shook his head and rolled his eyes.

  “That’s not why you won, Chris.”

  DeLario announced that on that note, he’d better visit the men’s room. When he returned, he jumped back in the conversation to tell a funny story about how the elastic in Hamlin’s shorts had been through the dryer too many times and fell lower and lower during a track meet. DeLario had finally sent Neil back to the room for another pair.

  “Who’s Neil? Another roommate?” Storm asked.

  “No, my brother,” Hamlin answered. “That wasn’t my best meet, Chris.”

  “Not that day, but the next day, you set a new NCAA record for the two hundred meter,” DeLario said. He watched his friend’s eyes. “You should have seen him fly.”

  “This guy is known for artistic hyperbole, you know.” Though his tone was jocular, the skin around Hamlin’s eyes was tight. Storm watched Hamlin and wondered why she’d never heard him speak of his brother. Hamlin forged ahead with his anecdote. “He was dashing over to my races between his wrestling events. He was the only guy I ever knew who wrestled on a full art scholarship.”

  Hamlin grinned and Storm saw relief pass through DeLario. The sculptor beamed and twirled his side of linguine with pesto around his fork. “What we both had to learn was how to interact with people who didn’t put their faces down in their pasta and inhale.”

  Hamlin laughed and flagged down the waiter for another bottle of wine. He directed his comments to Martin. “See, we both came from inner city Detroit and had simple, immigrant parents. They spoke a little broken English outside the home, but even the neighborhoods were ethnic so they could get away with not speaking English for a week or two.”

  DeLario chuckled. “All of a sudden, we were in classes with these guys who took off their army surplus jackets and put on monogrammed shirts when their parents drove the Mercedes in from Grosse Point. Hamlin and I took the bus back to the old neighborhood together.” DeLario’s eyes became wistful. “And dug through the barrels of olives at the open market,” he said.

  Hamlin laughed. “Remember the time you got thrown out of that stall for dipping too many? We couldn’t speak a word of Greek, but we knew the meaning of every gesture that guy made.” All four of them laughed.

  Martin and Storm shared how, while in college on the mainland, both of them had been asked by other students if Hawaiians had electricity in their grass shacks. “They thought we surfed to school,” Martin laughed. “I never did admit that I couldn’t swim until Mom put me in a class at the YMCA when I was twelve.” He poured more wine into his glass.

  “That’s about the time I got my first pair of closed shoes,” Storm added.

  “For a Big Island girl, that’s early.” Martin tossed a piece of bread at her from across the table.

  Storm stuck out her tongue, then popped the bread into her mouth. “Yeah, still is, I bet.” Her voice was thoughtful.

  When the four finished the last bottle of wine and stood to leave the restaurant, Hamlin draped his arm over Storm’s shoulders. Martin and DeLario bumped hips, the turbulence of their earlier troubles dissipated. DeLario steadied Martin’s passage through the maze of tables.

  On the street, the four paused to say goodbye. “Are you on the motorcycle?” Hamlin asked.

  “We walked,” DeLario grinned. “My apartment’s only a half-mile from here.”

  “Good.” Hamlin looked at Storm. “We should take a cab. I’ll get my car later.”

  The cab driver was a Vietnamese immigrant who held the door and showed bigger holes in his grin than a six-year-old. Storm and Hamlin tumbled into the back seat, holding hands. Storm leaned back in the seat and closed her eyes. “You know, I had a great time.” She peeked at him, then her watch. “Four hours and gallons of wine ago, I thought I’d be crawling home in tears.”

  Hamlin pulled her closer. “I was pretty worried, too.”

  “I’ve been thinking, though…”

  “Uh oh.”

  Storm punched his arm hard enough that he winced. “Come on. Remember that phone conversation you told me about? When Hamasaki was talking to Martin about stocks?”

  “Yeah.”

  “When was that?” she asked.

  Hamlin looked out the window and frowned. “It was a couple of weeks before Hamasaki died. I’d had to rush from court to make the appointment with him and I was kind of glad to see him on the phone. You know, not waiting for me.”

  “Hamasaki had plenty of time to get back to Martin,” Storm said.

  “Yeah.” The car pulled to the curb in front of Storm’s cottage.

  “Hamasaki was known for his promptness.”

  “Maybe he was checking on the stock.”

  The cab driver stepped out and opened the back door. Hamlin helped Storm out. “Wait a minute,” he said to the cab driver. “I’ll be right back.”

  Storm leaned into the cab and handed the driver his fare and a tip. “It’s okay, you can go.”

  The cab driver showed that he didn’t have many molars, either. Hamlin looked from Storm to the driver and ba
ck, then shrugged. The little man waved at their departing backs, then hopped back into his car and squealed away.

  Storm looked up into Hamlin’s face. “Don’t you need a cup of coffee before you go?”

  “Uh, sure,” he said. “That would hit the spot.”

  Chapter 28

  “So why did you wait so long to get your first pair of shoes?” Hamlin asked Storm. He breathed in the aroma from her coffeepot.

  She got a couple of mugs out of the cupboard. “Like Martin said, twelve was early.” She poured coffee and handed him one of the mugs.

  “Really? Kids in Honoka’a don’t wear shoes until they graduate from high school?”

  Storm shrugged. “It depends on what you mean by shoes. I got patent leather shoes to go to my mother’s funeral.”

  “She died when you were twelve?”

  “Yeah.” Storm turned off the kitchen light and Hamlin followed her into the living room. “DeLario mentioned your brother, Neil. How come you never told me about him?”

  Storm plopped onto the couch, but Hamlin remained on his feet and concentrated on his coffee mug.

  “He died of AIDS when I was in college.” He sat down next to her, his eyes shadowed with sadness. “What happened to your mom?”

  “She took about thirty Seconal.”

  Hamlin’s eyebrows popped up and he looked at her, but it was Storm’s turn to inspect the surface of her coffee. “That must have been tough,” he said. “Neil used to have what I called his black furies.”

  “He got depressed, too?”

  “Yeah,” Hamlin said with a sigh.

  “Because he was sick?”

  “No, AIDS actually mellowed him. I guess it made him more philosophical. It definitely took the course of his life out of his hands. And DeLario helped him, too.” Hamlin took a sip of coffee. “My father had the furies, too, but his were directed outward.” The softness of Hamlin’s voice did not hide the underlying resentment.

  “Oh no.”

  “Dad was harder on Neil than me. He must have suspected Neil’s inclination.” Hamlin shook his head. “I was too frightened to intervene.” Storm saw the shine of tears in his eyes before he looked down at his mug.

  “How much younger was Neil?”

  “Not quite two years.”

  “So Neil followed you to college?”

  “Not exactly. Neil left for New York when I graduated from high school.”

  “You told me your dad left, too. Do you know where he went?”

  “No, but that was a relief.” Hamlin shrugged. “Neil got his GED in the city and started writing plays. One of them actually was performed off-Broadway. I was really proud of him, told him he could do even better if he went back to school, maybe got a degree under his belt.”

  “And he came to Ann Arbor.”

  Hamlin nodded. “He’d been taking some courses at a community college and doing well, so he decided to give the big U a go. By the time Neil came to Michigan, he had the virus. It was kind of a last shot at self-respect, I think.”

  “What about treatment?”

  “AZT and some of the better drugs weren’t around yet.”

  “He sounds like a brave guy.”

  “I wish I’d told him that.” Hamlin kept his eyes down.

  “I’ll bet he knew how you felt.”

  “Maybe, toward the end. But I wish I’d spent more time with him when he was healthy.”

  “Yeah, I know what you mean.” Storm’s voice was sad.

  Hamlin looked at her out of the corner of his eyes. “You were very young when your mom died.”

  “And a combative little piss-ant.”

  Hamlin half-smiled. “Listen to us, full of self-recriminations. Let’s think of some of the good times, okay?” He took a deep breath. “You know that track meet DeLario was talking about? By then, the three of us were sharing an apartment. I had some of the best times of my life with those guys. I brought dates back that couldn’t believe that I lived with two gay men. We’d laugh and party until the wee hours. There was so much talent packed into those rooms. Neil sang and acted, too. He and DeLario were an amazing duo.”

  “My mom was a singer!” Storm grinned at him. “She tried to teach me, but my voice always cracked when I got nervous. The only tunes I could sing with confidence were limericks.”

  Hamlin started to chuckle.

  “You got it.” Storm laughed. “When we were alone, Mom and I used to do them in duets. If I got down in the dumps, she’d start the first line and I was supposed to make up the second. We’d fall down, we laughed so hard.”

  “You were twelve?” Hamlin asked.

  “Hey, I lived on a ranch. The facts of life were pretty obvious to anyone who had eyes. Come to think of it, there was a blind boy in fifth grade who told dirty jokes…”

  “Did you ever tell your mother the jokes?”

  “As a matter of fact, I did. She said it was okay if they were funnier than they were dirty and if I left out certain words.”

  “Which of course you did.”

  “Of course.” They both laughed.

  “My brother told great jokes,” Hamlin said. Storm ran her finger down the side of his face, around the bushy mustache.

  “Tell me one of them.”

  Hamlin pulled the corners of his mouth up. “I can’t remember any right now. What perfume are you wearing? Just the slightest hint of spice…”

  “Volupte…I put it on hours ago…”

  Their lips touched, warm, mustache prickly, coffee-rich. “I like it,” he murmured. “Oh, God. I’ve wanted to do this.”

  “Me, too,” Storm whispered. She put her arm around one hard shoulder and pulled him closer.

  He folded her in his arms. Storm ran the fingers of one hand through the fine hair over his ear and slid the other hand down the length of his back. He sighed and let his mouth melt into hers. They slipped lower into the couch cushions.

  His shirt was untucked in back and Storm let her fingertips dance over the fine hairs at the base of his spine, just above his belt. Hamlin moaned and pressed closer.

  Storm’s skirt was riding up her thighs and she wanted to remove it, peel away the layers between his skin and hers. He kissed her lightly, then rubbed his nose against hers. His hand was at her back, just above the zipper. Caution and desire merged in his eyes.

  “It’s okay,” she whispered.

  The warm aroma of his skin, the heat of his yearning, melted away her inhibitions. She stretched so that her entire body length pressed against him. A sob of desire caught in her throat and she pulled away from his lips so that she could look at him, the fervor in his green eyes, the tawny mustache hairs mixed with gray, the five-o’clock shadow. She wanted to inhale all of it, keep it, and slow this moment into eternity.

  And a crash from the kitchen froze them both. Hamlin raised his head, his eyes icy and focused on the darkness beyond the cone of warm light that shone near them. The muscles in his right arm quivered against Storm’s side. He slipped off her with the slightest hiss, friction between their clothing, and crouched, ready to spring. The void left by him chilled her. She shuddered, sat up slowly.

  “It sounded like a dish,” she said.

  “Did you lock the door?” Hamlin whispered.

  “I don’t think so.”

  Hamlin crept toward the dark kitchen doorway. Storm picked up the only object she could use as a weapon, a flower vase from the coffee table, and followed him. So close that her legs moved in time with his, she tiptoed through the doorframe, ran her hand along the wall molding, and flicked on the wall switch to the overhead light. Both of them stared at the countertop next to the coffeepot.

  There sat Fang, calmly licking her paws. She glanced at them, blinked her wide yellow eyes, and looked down at the shattered cream pitcher on the floor. She looked back up at the two pale-faced people, stood up and stretched
. “Mrww,” she burped, and walked away with a cat-sigh of disappointment. All that waste, just because the cream pitcher wouldn’t sit still.

  Storm sagged against the countertop. “Jeez.” She set the vase down with a clunk.

  Hamlin ran a hand over his face. His dress shirt, flawlessly pressed a few hours ago, hung partly out of his trousers. Buttons were askew, and his stocking feet were still splayed in a fight-or-flight stance.

  She took two steps toward him and wrapped one arm around him. She used the other hand to turn off the bright ceiling light.

  “That’s my guard cat.”

  “He’s guarding your chastity?”

  “He’s a she. Just making sure I don’t rush into anything. We gals have to watch out for each other.”

  “Yeah?”

  “Let’s go back to where we were.” Storm kissed him. He enclosed her with his arms, let his lips brush hers lightly, then put one hand on the back of her neck and pressed his lips against hers as if he’d never let her go.

  When he finally did, she gasped. “Hamlin…”

  “Yeah?”

  “Will you stay?”

  Hamlin looked into her eyes. “If you call me Ian.”

  With a grin, Storm turned and locked the front door. Then she led him to the bedroom, picked a pile of clothes off the bed, and threw them onto a rocking chair in the corner. Silvery moonlight flowed through the window, illuminating the two of them. Storm was suddenly shy. She turned toward her closet and undid a button of her blouse.

  “Wait,” Hamlin said. He scooped her into his arms and deposited her onto the bed. He lay next to her, then kissed her neck gently, moving from under one ear, under her chin, to the soft skin under the other ear. His mustache tickled, enticed, made her yearn for his kisses on her lips, harder, faster. He slipped the blouse off her shoulders before she knew he’d unbuttoned it.

  His body lay lean and hard next to hers, the warm sweet aroma from his skin blended with her own. They moved concurrently, gentle, warm, tingling, together.