by David Connor
“The CIA!”
“I was going to say chemical reactions.”
“No.” He was at my side, and my face was in his floury hands. “I’m gonna apply to the CIA!”
“You’re going to be a spy?”
“For a smart guy, you can be really dense sometimes. A chef, Kip. A real one. Baking and other stuff.”
“Ohhh. In my defense,” I said, “when these things come out of nowhere while I’m thinking about sex—which is most of the time—you can’t blame me for being a little slow to catch on.”
Aidan kissed my neck. “Gotcha. Anyway, the Culinary Institute—the one in Hyde Park—it’s practically right in my back yard back home in New York.”
I liked that he called New York home.
“That’s where I should have gone from the start.”
“Aidan, that’s awesome.” I was near tears, because he was so excited.
“Fuckin‘ A!” Aidan looked to the ceiling. “Grampy, I’m going back to school.”
I looked at the Shelf Elf. “He’s going back to school.” I mouthed it silently. Then I picked up my tablet.
“Is that about me?”
“Yes. But not what you think.” Although, I did click on my journal first. “The site says you’ll have to do six months of food service work before you start… restaurant… bakery…”
“Was gonna do that, anyway.” Aidan backed me into the kitchen door. Despite the difference in our height, he moved me halfway across the room. I didn’t resist. That helped, of course. “Cory at A&P was really cool, willing to give me a second chance. I’m pretty sure he’ll write me a reference, even though I fucked up.”
“Second chances mean everything.”
We kissed again. In the heat we created, the dough would have no problem rising. A couple of other things not related to yeast dough had already doubled in size as we pressed against each other. I had Aidan’s handprints on my navy blue T-shirt and flour all over the front of my shorts where one of them still continued to expand. I moved my hand to Aidan’s. I rubbed it some, and then I unzipped him. “We have work to do,” he said.
I groaned in response. I’d honestly thought getting him in bed would be easier.
“It’s funny how things have completely flipped,” Aidan said.
“It’s hilarious.” My sarcasm was rich as I put both hands inside Aidan’s shorts and boxers.
“A year ago, you were trying to keep me on track.” He didn’t push me away.
“Uh-huh.”
“I guess there’s some time to kill while the dough rises,” Aidan said. His eyes were closed. He was grinding against me. His obstinacy was waning.
“How long?” I asked, stroking him gently.
“One to two hours.”
“Nice.” I squeezed Aidan’s butt cheeks, and then found the crack with my fingertips. It was hard to choose between good stuff and better. I definitely understood why he’d had such a hard choice that night. “I could make you come three or four times in two hours,” I brazenly promised.
“We have to make the rest of the dough first,” he retorted. “I only have two mixed. We’re doing six.”
“Do it fast.” I pressed myself against Aidan to better feel biology at work.
“That’s not helping.” He lifted my shirt and kissed me on the chest. I took his off of him, then put both hands back down his pants, one on good stuff, one on better. Yeah, that was the smart way of doing it.
Aidan spoke against my flesh. “We gotta get this done, Matthew.” His voice was gravelly and sexy, all breathy and dreamy. He was obviously aroused by what I was doing. “Tomorrow is Christmas Eve.” When I fingered him he released a scratchy sort of three beat musical rumble.
“I can’t let go of you,” I said.
“I’ll count you down,” Aidan answered. “Three.”
“Ah. Come on.” Was he freaking serious? We were really going to stop?
“Two.”
I stroked his hard-on in my fruit-sticky fist. Not if I had anything to say about it.
“One.”
“Fuck.”
Aidan laughed.
“Do anything for you?” I asked.
He forced himself free from my fondling. “You have no idea. But I want to do this right. I want it to be good.”
The next rumble came from my throat, one of frustration, not pleasure. “Fair enough,” I said.
“Though I truly do admire your newfound boldness.” Aidan smacked my butt. “And now you know how I felt all last fall.”
“I hate myself for putting you through it.”
Aidan laughed again as he moved to the sink. “Go wash your hands.”
Aidan’s father called while we were finishing the rest of the dough. There was an AA meeting close-by that fit into the baking schedule. So much for sex, but I didn’t let on I was disappointed. This was important. Ejaculation could be ever postponed. Though my balls were as blue as the ones on the tree, I felt. While Aidan was gone, I chatted with Nick, who had left half-a-dozen voicemails on my phone since I’d departed New York for Florida. I did it on speaker, while washing a ton of dishes.
“We’re doing really well,” I said. “Aidan’s applying to The Culinary Institute. I think Dr. Wise would be proud as heck. He’s not totally convinced.”
“He’d be proud if Aidan sticks to it, Matty.”
“He will. It’s something he’s always loved doing. Why wouldn’t he see it all the way through?”
“If history is any lesson, Aidan never sees anything through.”
“People change, Nick.”
“Who? Who do you know that’s ever really changed?” Nick countered.
“Me.”
“Well, I’ll be happy for you if he does. I just don’t really see it happening.”
I nearly strangled a wire whisk. “Is that all you wanted? Is that why you called six times—to rip Aidan apart?”
“I don’t mean to.” There was contrition in his tone. “I’m just concerned… for both of you.”
“There’s no need to be.” I throttled that poor whisk until I bent it out of shape. “You may be smart, Nick, and Dr. Wise may have been a genius, but neither one of you knows everything. Aidan is working his butt off. He is good enough for me, and it pisses me off that you insist on putting him down.”
“Settle down, Matty.”
“You’re not perfect, either.” I three the whisk onto the drain board. “You had issues about our age difference all the time. How often did we ever go out in public?”
“Guilty.”
“I know Aidan screwed up a lot—”
“And everything that moved too,” Nick threw in.
“Shut up! You’re just jealous.” I hadn’t meant to say it, but I did.
“I care about you.”
“Really? Then stop knocking Aidan. I don’t need him to be perfect. I just need him.”
“Hey.” Aidan walked in then, and a feeling gripped my chest as hard as I’d strangled the mixing tool. I immediately wondered how much he had heard.
“I have to go, Nick.”
“Merry Christmas, Matty.”
“You too.” I hung up.
“Barbaro?”
“Yeah. How was the meeting?” I asked.
“Kinda of… weird. But good.” Aidan grabbed an orange juice. “I felt like I wasn’t…” He pursed his delectable lips. “Alcoholic enough at the beginning.”
I looked at him funny.
“Yeah, Kipster, I hear myself saying it too. But some of the stories were pretty tragic. The bottom line, though, drinking is something that keeps me from doing stuff, something I do instead of doing stuff, and something I need to do to do certain stuff—like sleep. So, the counselor said it is definitely an issue.” Aidan brushed my bare elbow. “Maybe my dad helped me get a handle on it before the tragic part could happen. I hope that’s the case.”
“Yeah. Me, too.” I offered a quick, supportive peck. I was prepared to offer more, when my phone
rang. I hoped it wasn’t Nick. I checked. “My dad,” I said.
“Take it in the living room. I’ll stay busy out here.” Aidan moved to the sink to wash his hands.
“No.” I shook my head and put the call on speaker. “Hi, dad.”
“Matthew.” There was a pause. “How are you?”
“Good. How are you?”
“Fine.”
I had a feeling it was going to be a rather long conversation with very few words spoken.
“I wanted to discuss this boy you’re spending the holiday with.”
“You’re on speaker. He’s right here, and also not a boy.”
My dad blew out a short breath. “Point taken.”
“Good.” I stood up straighter.
“You know how it takes me almost all week to work on a sermon. I write, and rewrite, and then after I give it, I still don’t think it was as good as it could have been?”
I looked to Aidan. “Yeah,” I said dubiously to my dad.
“I’ve been working on precisely what I wanted to say when we spoke since the door closed behind you in New York.”
“You’re gonna give me a sermon?”
My father actually laughed. “I’m actually gonna apologize.”
My chin hit the floor.
“Close your mouth, Matthew.”
I did.
“I was hurt that you were leaving the family over Christmas to spend time with a young man you had never even mentioned to us before.”
“I told Emma.”
“You tell your sister everything. Something as important as a…” It took him a while to come up with the words, so he started all over. “Something as important as a significant relationship, well, I always hoped you would tell us about that almost immediately.”
“It’s… complicated, dad.” I leaned against the cupboards. I needed support. “The whole gay issue isn’t something I thought you would even want to hear about.” Aidan reached over to hold my hand. “How do you even feel about homosexuality?”
“That may not be a telephone conversation, Matthew. That may take a little more time.”
“Oh.”
“It’s not an ‘Oh’ situation, either.” My father’s tone poked fun. “You say ‘Oh’ whenever you think something is too large a topic to delve into. We’ve noticed it. Has your beau?”
Aidan nodded. I smiled.
“I love you, Matthew. I want you to be happy. Nothing has changed in that regard just because I now know you’re gay.”
“It hasn’t?” My voice might have caught.
“Of course not. I’m truly heartbroken that I gave you that impression. Not if I did, that I did. I should have called sooner. I should have… I should have known about your sexuality before you told me. We’d like to meet him, Matthew. I know you’re not the type of man to flit from bed to bed.”
“Da-a-d.”
Aidan smirked.
“If you’re sleeping with this man—”
“Da-a-ad!”
“Then he must be important to you?” My father always sounded so much older than he actually was.
“He is.” I looked to Aidan. “I love him.”
“And he’s a good person? A good man?”
Aidan let go of my hand.
“Yes,” I said.
“No, Mr. Kipling. I’m not. I’m not a good man.”
“Aidan!”
“I’m not, Kip. Not yet. Maybe never. I’m an alcoholic. I dropped out of college. I quit cigarettes, but I still smoke weed sometimes. I’ve been to jail. I lost my driver’s license twice in ten years. I’ve fucked, like… a hundred guys, maybe more.”
“Aidan! Stop it!”
“There’s this other man who loves your son… a real upright kind of fellow. If you’re cool with Matthew banging dudes—”
“Aidan!”
“He’s a college professor. Kip—Matthew—slept with him already.”
My jaw was open again. “What the hell?” I mouthed.
“That’s the guy he belongs with. That’s what a good guy is.”
“Is all of that true, Matthew?” I was surprised my father found his voice after all of that. I sure couldn’t.
“It is, Mr. Kipling.” Aidan, apparently, couldn’t shut up. “I’m really glad you and Matthew made up and everything, but you and me won’t be meeting, ’cause Matthew and I aren’t gonna make it.” Aidan walked out the back door. He didn’t slam it. I wished he would have, because anger would have made more sense for what he’d just done.
“I have to go.” I couldn’t move.
“I can imagine you do,” my father said.
“Bye, Dad.”
“Maybe you should come home.”
“No. I’ll call you later.”
I left a hole in the drywall when I flung open the door. I stomped through the grass and weeds the whole way down to the water. “What the fuck!” Aidan at the pond, sitting on a huge rock. He’d taken his shirt off, but still had on his shorts and shoes. It just didn’t look right for some reason.
“Just telling the truth.” He offered a shrug.
“The hell you were. You were trying on purpose to fuck everything up.”
“The curse words are really flying now, Kipster.”
“You’re not cute, Aidan. You’re not funny. You’re a jerk.”
Aidan stood. “Exactly what I’ve been trying to tell you all along.” He started off, but I grabbed him by the arm.
“I’m not leaving you.”
“Then I’ll leave.”
“Where is this coming from? I thought everything was on the right… path, or whatever.”
“You thought wrong. If you have to fucking defend me to everyone in your life—”
“Who?”
“Barbaro, your father…”
“I don’t care what Nick thinks.”
“Then why do you still talk to him? And why were you working so fucking hard to build me up to him?”
I didn’t know what to say. I had never been so frustrated, so at a loss. I had no clue what Aidan wanted. “You’re doing it again,” I finally managed. “You’re trying to make me go, because you’re afraid I’m going to leave you anyway.”
“No. This time, I want you to go. I’m fucking done.”
I waited for the sign. If it was going to come, it would have been the perfect time. “Damn it!” I shrieked. “Come on!” Why wouldn’t Dr. Wise speak to me?
“There you go.” Aidan knew. “So much for Grampy and his fucking approval, huh? Where’s your big message?” Aidan shouted at the sky. “Where the fuck is the big show? Where the fuck are you when I need you?” He looked back to me. “Gone.” He said it softly. “He’s gone, just like everyone else.”
I reached for him.
“Don’t.”
“Talk to me.”
“Go.”
“Where?”
“Anywhere.”
I went. What choice did I have? It was his house, and I was tired of fighting.
8
While I drove around the block, I called my dad on Bluetooth. He’d called me eleven times in twenty minutes. It was the least I could do. “Don’t judge Aidan by what he just said.”
“What exactly should I judge him by?” Dad asked.
“Through my eyes.”
“Your eyes may not be wide open when it comes to him.”
“Don’t judge him at all.”
“There’s a lot of baggage there, Matthew.”
“He’s lost everyone, Dad. His mom died when he was a kid, his grandmother too, in the same car accident, two days before Thanksgiving. His dad abandoned him two weeks later, and his grampy, who raised him, died just about a year ago, only a few days before Christmas. The holidays aren’t the best time of year for Aidan, Dad. He’s no doubt feeling all of that right now.”
“I didn’t know.”
“Plus, he left out all the positives. He just started going to AA. He’s going to cooking school, has his license back, and he
loves me.”
“It’s still a lot. If I were counseling one of my parishioners, I might say, with all that going on, it might not be the best time to enter into a new relationship. They can be tough on their own, Matthew. Why not give Aidan some time to iron out his life before you become a part of it?”
“No.”
“If it’s really meant to be, it will be a year from now.”
“A year!”
“I’m suggesting you step back and revisit the thought later on.”
“What about the church, Dad?” It was probably not the time and place to go there, but as I circled the block and passed Aidan’s house, I did, to deflect, maybe.
“The church is changing,” my father said. “Too slowly in some regards. People are changing faster. There may be fallout, but I won’t deny you. How public you are is up to you.”
“I plan on being as public as anyone else in love.”
“Then there is my answer. I’ll stand beside you, Matthew. Beside you and Aidan or anyone else.”
“Wow.”
“Thought you had me all figured out, didn’t you?”
“Guess I was wrong,” I said.
“No way on God’s Earth will I ever turn my back on you. You’re my son and I love you unconditionally. When you left here yesterday morning, however, you headed out the door with a chip on your shoulder.”
I started to object.
“And I let you. The fault is on both of us.”
“Yeah.” I couldn’t debate that. “I’m sorry.”
“Me too. So, were you wrong about Aidan?”
“I drove away from him. I left.” I was back on Aidan’s street. “I’m wrong now. I shouldn’t have.”
“Then turn the car around and go back,” my father advised.
I didn’t—not right away. I went back, but I parked across the street and stayed in my car until it got dark outside. Then I waited some more, until all the lights inside went off. When the kitchen light came back on, I knew Aidan couldn’t sleep. It was pouring buckets outside by then. The wind was howling, but still I stood on the back porch a few minutes more, wondering if I should go inside, getting drenched while I wondered. When I finally walked in, Aidan was at the stove in the outfit I had become most accustomed to seeing him in, boxer shorts and naked from the waist up. “It’s nasty out there,” I said. That was my opening line, something inane about the weather.