Full Circle

by Kaje Harper

  I wasn't going to tell this part. But he'd put his pain on the line for me. I said, "I'd sworn I would be with him when he died. Promised him. But I wasn't. We were out of juice and applesauce, and there was so little he would eat that tasted good. And we were out of whiskey. And I thought he was better. I thought he would be okay for just half an hour." I dug my fingernails into my palms. One more thing.

  "The night of his funeral, I went out and got smashed and picked up this guy in a bar. Took him to the park and sucked him off against a tree. And we got caught. So now I have an arrest record, and they yanked my medical license for the drugs I had in my pocket. But I found out that alcohol isn't such a bad anesthetic, if you use it right."

  I waited for the verdict. After a minute, he said to the dark window, "Maybe I should try it."

  "Jesus, no, kid! Don't do that to yourself."

  He turned to look at me. "So you're allowed to drink yourself to death, but I'm not."

  "You're eighteen. You have a whole life to live for."

  "You're not that old. You can't be more than what, forty?"

  "I'm thirty-two," I snapped.

  "Fuck, you have lived hard, huh?"

  "Go to hell." But I could feel my face getting red again.

  He came back and dropped into his usual chair. And then he reached out and took both my hands in his. "Jamison, I get that it's been hard. It's been hell. And I've never loved anyone like that, so I can't say I understand it. But if I was Henri, and I saw what you're doing to yourself, I'd be damned angry."

  I yanked my hands back, because for a moment that gentle pressure had felt like Henri's. "You have no idea what you're asking. Have you ever seen anyone with the DTs?"

  "No. But I've read up on it. They say if you can use some Valium, it's easier. Or if you have the money for a rehab, you could do it under medical supervision."

  "No way. No one else gets to hear my pathetic whining. If I do this, I'm doing it here." I stopped, hearing what I'd said.

  "Then you will?" His eyes were bright as a thousand candles. "I'll help, I swear."

  "You'll have to." I paused. But God, there was no way I wanted to see that light go out. He had looked so bleak, so wounded, and now there was nothing but hope there. For me! "Okay, kid," I said slowly. "I'll try it. Not tomorrow. Fuck if I'll spend Christmas puking. I spent good money for that chicken. Anyway you're right. I need to score some Valium. Boxing Day. That'll be how I'll feel too, like I've gone ten rounds." I'd tried it a few times, sworn to just stop. I'd made it almost thirty-six hours once. "I'll start then. And you're going to spend your school vacation doing laundry and cleaning up puke, I guarantee it."

  "Nothing you didn't do for me when I was sick. Worth it." He was looking at me with that shine in his eyes and I slowly took his offered hand and shook on it.

  "Okay, kid. You've got a deal."

  It was even worse than that. But Toller stuck with me. He cleaned me up and distracted me, read to me, played endless games of poker for paperclips. He held my wrists when I itched so bad I wanted to scratch myself out of my skin. He even tackled me once, when I decided enough was enough and tried to head out for a bottle. But by the time he had to head back to school, I was sober, skinny, and exhausted.

  He paused in making his lunch the first morning, eyeing me. I was sitting over a cup of coffee, nursing a piece of dry toast. I wasn't nauseous anymore, but my appetite hadn't come back. "Maybe I should stay home for a while longer," he said. "The first few days are worthless anyhow. Hell, I did okay last semester with just the books." He'd pulled off four As and a B in history. The best day of my detoxing had been when his grades came in the mail. Although, typically, he had ragged on himself for hours for the B. Apparently he'd been a straight-A student until then.

  "Don't you fucking dare stay home for me," I said. "You get your ass to school, study hard, and impress the hell out of your teachers. That SAT test is in February and you need to ace it. You're going to college, kid."

  He shook his head, but resumed spreading his peanut butter. "What are you going to do today?"

  "I'll go to the shelter." Too much time alone would be a bad thing, I was sure. "Breakfast and lunch service."

  "Stay there until I get out of school," Toller said. "I'll swing by and walk you home."

  "I'm impressed by your faith in me."

  "Just being careful." He eyed me. "Unless you're certain I don't need to be?"

  I wasn't, but... "Damn it. You're supposed to be hanging out with friends, doing kid stuff."

  "I'd rather be with you." He smiled, and I had to look away. Because I'd rather be with him too. Rather see the way his eyes lit up with interest over some obscure fact. The way he smiled, just a little crookedly, when he caught one of my puns. I'd rather watch the way he moved, small and compact and lithe as a cat, now that he was getting a little muscle back. It was wrong, and it was pathetic, and I could no more change it than turn off the sun.

  "Thanks," I said. "I'll be there."

  Slowly it got easier. He stopped babysitting me every moment and went back to the grocery-bagging job he'd quit to help me. Evenings were hard, with the apartment empty and silent and the shelter shut down. Henri's ghost walked sometimes, laying cold fingers on my arm and asking why he'd died and I lived. But I held on because the kid would be back in a few hours and I'd promised him. Sometimes Henri reminded me I'd promised him too, promised it would be all right, promised I'd be with him and not off down the street buying a bottle when he died. Those times I would curl up on the couch and bury my face in Toller's pillow and breathe in the scent of his hair. I would lie there and count numbers, by fives and by twelves and by seventeens, until I heard Toller's key in the door.

  One of the school counselors had taken Toller under her wing. She helped him send off college applications and scholarship forms and financial aid forms. The day we got his SAT report, with a near-perfect score, I went to the bank and checked the balance in the account. There was more than I thought. I didn't mention it.

  One day in late March, Toller was at the table doing homework while I read a book on the couch. It wasn't a work night for him, and I was as relaxed and mellow as I got those days. I heard a loud crack and looked up. Toller threw the broken ends of his pencil on the floor and looked over at me.

  "What?" I asked mildly.

  He got up and came and sat on the floor by the couch, hands dangling limply on his knees. "I'm such a freak."

  "What on earth are you talking about?"

  "Me. And all the other teenage boys in the universe."

  "Give me a clue."

  He was staring away from me, but the back of his neck got red. "Some of the guys. They were talking about girls. About necking and sex and shit. And all I could think was how gross it sounded."

  I kept my voice even. "No surprise. You were sexually abused when you were young. Stands to reason that it might not appeal to you."

  "Maybe. But at the same time, I'm thinking about kissing a guy, and that's not so gross. Even though he, the Step, was a guy."

  I could have reached out and touched his hair, but I didn't. "I'm the wrong person to go to if you want to be told it's wrong to be attracted to guys." My voice still didn't betray the way my heart was pounding. I'd always told myself he was straight, among all the thousand other reasons to keep my hands off him. But maybe I'd have to drop that one.

  "I guess," he said slowly. "But it's not like I want to kiss a bunch of different guys. There's only one man I think about kissing."

  "Lucky man. Who is he?"

  He twisted to look up at me. "You. I think about kissing you."

  My mouth suddenly went dry, and I could have set off the heart rate alarm on an EKG. Don't take advantage, you fucking pervert. I nodded slowly. "Maybe that's more about trust than about attraction. We've been living together long enough now for you to know I'm not going to do anything. So thinking about kissing me is safe."

  Toller
shook his head. "What I'm thinking about--safe is not the word for it."

  I stared back into his wide eyes, unable to find a sensible answer. He rose onto one knee and turned toward me.

  "Do you ever think about kissing me?"

  Yes, yes, God, yes. Every other minute. I should have said no. Should have let him down easy and backed away. But I just sat there, eyes locked on his and breathing hard, as he slowly leaned forward and brushed my lips with his.

  It was simple and sweet and tentative. I let him control it completely. I locked my hands on the edge of the couch cushions and kept my mouth closed and let him press his lips to mine.

  After a moment he pulled back and looked at me. "You liked that? I did it right?"

  It was stupid, wrong, sweet, glorious, life-changing. So many things I could have said. What came out of my mouth was, "I'd have to have a bigger sample."

  His smile was like sunrise. "Oh, yeah." He leaned in again, and this time he put a hand behind my head to steady us. He was clumsy and inexperienced, but I stayed passive, letting him explore. When he touched his tongue to the seam of my lips, I opened for him. He licked into my mouth just a little, brushing my tongue with his, and then pulled back. "I have no idea what I'm doing."

  I smiled for him. "It seems to be coming naturally."

  "But you could show me."

  "I don't know. Try that again." This time when he kissed me I kissed him back, a little more possessively but still keeping all the heat I was feeling in rigid check. When I slid my hand behind his head in turn, he suddenly pulled away.

  "Don't." He was breathing harder. "Don't hold my head."

  I dropped my hand to the couch again. "Okay. Not touching." He looked devastated. "It's okay, Toller. You're going to have some hang-ups. That's expected. I was worried you'd never even want to kiss anyone again."

  "Not anyone. Just you." He sighed. "He used to hold my head and fuck my mouth. I just...flashed on it when you touched me. I'm sorry."

  "Shush." I slid one finger gently over the back of his hand. "How about if we just let you drive. I lie here and you do whatever you are comfortable with."

  "Not much fun for you," he said, but the eagerness was coming back in his expression.

  I slid a hand over my cock, where the denim of my jeans strained to contain me. "Toller, just having you touch me is practically enough to get me off. And I'm in no rush. I think the last time I was kissed was in 1985. I've lived without it a long time."

  "But you want me to...go on?"

  Another chance to set things right, but his look was so uncertain, as if he expected to be rejected. "Hell, yes. I've wanted you for months. Anything you want to try."

  He kissed me again, soft and sweet. He trailed his lips over my cheek and neck, and then back to my mouth. I mirrored him, opening when he made the kiss wetter, arching my neck to give him access when he carefully moved his mouth back down. He dipped his tongue tentatively into the hollow of my collarbone and then sat back on his heels, breathing hard and looking a little scared.

  "Enough for tonight?" I asked.

  "You...you wouldn't mind?"

  "Of course not."

  "He used to say I was a tease, that when I walked around he got hard and then he had to..." He was staring at the bulge in my jeans. I took a chance and put a finger on his sweet mouth.

  "Toller, shut up. He's not here. He's never gonna touch you again. And no nine-year-old is a tease in the sexual sense. You know he was wrong. The things he said, anything he tried to palm off on you, that was him lying. He probably felt a little less guilty if he could tell himself you were asking for it. But we all know he was lying."

  "Sometimes it did feel good." His voice was very soft. "Not when I was little, but later. A couple of times I got off when he did it."

  "You know your anatomy," I told him as calmly as I could, even though I wanted to rip his step-father limb from limb. "They do semen collection from bulls by giving them electric shocks to the prostate. The bulls get off too, but no one is suggesting that's consensual sex. Stimulation can make your body react even when your mind doesn't choose to. That has nothing to do with who you are or what you want."

  "Okay." He nodded firmly, as if to convince himself. "Okay." He looked at me with a little spark of interest. "So, if I wanted to do that again sometime, you'd be willing?"

  "Anytime," I said. "But do me a favor first. Think about why you're picking me for this. I'm fifteen years older than you and look even older than that. I'm hardly the stuff a young boy's dreams are made of. If you want to practice with me, because it feels safe, I'm up for that too. But if this is just practice, you should think about how far you want to go. Your first real time should be with someone you really care about."

  "I care about you," he said. "Yeah, it's partly safety and trust. But that's not all of it. And you aren't that old, especially now you're not pickling yourself in whiskey every night."

  I rubbed my crotch. "Cruel boy, talking about pickles."

  He snorted.

  After that, we took it slow. I always let him make the moves, and for a long time it was just necking. Kisses and tongues, and the rasp of stubbled cheeks on skin. I got him on top of me on the couch, and he learned to grind in against me as he kissed me. I kept my hands away from his back, his ass, away from anything that felt like restraint.

  I remember the first time he took himself over. He was above me, kissing me, tongue halfway down my throat, with my face trapped between his hands. I opened my legs a little to let him drop more comfortably between them. He whined into my mouth and started thrusting against me. I shut my eyes and tightened every muscle, to keep from driving back up against him. Then I opened my eyes again, because God, the sounds he was making. He dropped the kiss and arched back, his hands going to my shoulders. His face was flushed, his lips pulled back. He was beautiful. He drove against me, fast and hard and gracelessly, losing his rhythm. And then he came.

  So amazing to watch his eyes go dark and that sensation sweep over him. He moaned without words and shuddered. And just watching him was enough to have me shooting in my pants too.

  After a moment he collapsed, bonelessly limp on my chest. He nuzzled his face in against my neck and breathed warm and moist on my skin.

  "Christ." His voice was so quiet I almost couldn't hear him, except for the way it buzzed against my skin. "Christ, that was, that was amazing. And it wasn't even sex."

  "Was in my book," I whispered back. "If someone gets off, it's sex. And I sure as hell got off."

  "You did?" He raised up on his arms to look at me. "I didn't realize. I wasn't thinking. That was enough for you too?"

  "Oh, yeah." I craned my neck up to kiss his chin, hands still locked on the couch where they wouldn't grab him. I wanted to hold him in my arms but I knew better. "That was great. And now you have to do the laundry."

  He laughed and dropped his forehead back against my shoulder. "Worth it. Fucking well worth it."

  We went faster after that. He had a hard time letting me see him naked, but he liked to strip me down and play with me. He was willing to unzip himself and rub skin to skin, but he kept his ass covered. I let him.

  I made suggestions after a while. The first time he sat spread-legged on the couch and let me suck him down was a milestone. I came without even touching myself, just from the taste of him and the feel of his slender cock in my throat and the noises he made, coming. I guess I hadn't lost my touch, because he couldn't get enough oral after that. He began to let me put him up against the door or the wall and suck him off when I wanted to, as long as I was on my knees and not trapping him there.

  He offered once or twice to do the same for me, but I could tell he didn't want to. I thought about a nine-year-old having his head held while a grown man fucked his mouth, and I didn't want him to either. I could get off with just my own touch when I was doing him, and I let him see how much I enjoyed it. It was good.

  He went to sch
ool and to work. I actually got a job too, packing boxes for shipment at a local hardware outlet. I was overqualified for the job, but I guess the last guy they had made a major disaster out of misreading both descriptions and part numbers so they were going for someone they were sure could read. It was mind-numbingly boring, but it kept me busy. And it brought in a little money. I had a new use for Henri's dollars in mind, and I was pleased not to have to touch them.

  The first time he came into my bed after a nightmare was a surprise. I woke from a deep sleep. I had stopped waking at the sound of his distress. It was a regular thing, and he'd never wanted comfort. But this time I heard his rapid shallow breathing as he climbed in bed behind me. We both wore sweatpants to bed, but the skin on his sweaty chest pressed against my back.

  "Let me hold you," he whispered. "I want to try to sleep this way."

  I stayed awake long after his arms around me loosened and his breathing slowed. I wanted to say, "Let me hold you." I wanted to keep him safe and happy and with me. And I was achingly hard, just from the feel of his body against mine. I stayed awake for the rest of the night and cherished the feeling.

  After that he would sometimes come into my bed, after we had both slept a while. The bed wasn't for sex. It was for cuddling and holding, and the place where he finally let me put my arms around him in the drowsy darkness. It was his safe haven, and my joy.

  He got accepted to two four-year colleges, despite his late applications. SUNY and UCSD both offered him partial scholarships, but the package at SUNY was better. We poured over the letters, figuring out a budget. He finally tossed the letter on the table. "Don't know if I can do it, Jamie. What if I don't find a job that pays enough?"