by A. E. Wasp
He needed a shower. He was standing here, almost naked, still covered in sweat and come from sex with Chris, and getting his heart ripped out. Something he would never have predicted. Well, Chris was right. He hadn’t seen that coming. He had been so concerned about Chris that he hadn’t thought about the danger to himself.
“What do you want from me, Christopher?” He’d lost count of how many times he’d asked Chris that. Exhaustion settled on his skin like a suit of lead armor.
“I wanted you to make it stop hurting. To stop the bleeding. Not to bleed for me. Not to, not to—” Chris stared at the carpet, hands gripping each other behind his head. “Not to love me. You can’t love me?” Chris’s voice was small, and Jay-Cee couldn’t tell if he were asking Jay-Cee or telling him.
And that was the heart of it. Chris wanted only a part of Jay-Cee. Chris didn’t want all of him, the flawed, broken, scared parts. No one ever did. “Well, I needed to feel safe with you.” Jay-Cee said. “Looks like neither of us got what we needed, did we?”
Jay-Cee pulled on his stupid fucking overalls, not bothering with the shirt. He sat down heavily on the couch, his back to Chris. Stretching his arms across the top of the sofa, he sighed and let his head fall back.
Behind him, Chris stared at the ugly beige carpet and breathed deeply, trying to get himself back into some semblance of control. His legs trembled, and he wanted to collapse like a puppet with its strings cut. He had fucked everything up. It was over even though he could still feel Jay-Cee inside him and on his skin. “I’m sorry.”
“About what?” Jay-Cee asked quietly.
Chris couldn’t stand not seeing Jay-Cee’s face, even though he knew it would hurt. Wildly, he wondered if this would be the last time. He couldn’t believe Jay-Cee would fire him. Cut him off from everything else? Absolutely. But not work. He hoped.
Taking a deep breath, Chris walked around to the front of the couch and stood between Jay-Cee’s spread legs.
Jay-Cee lifted his head up and stared at Chris. “What exactly are you sorry about?”
Everything. Failing, again, at human interaction. “I don’t know. That I can’t -”
Jay-Cee sat up, resting his hands on his thighs. “It’s okay.”
“It’s not. But I still need you to go,” Chris hoped the trembling he felt was all internal. He was going to fall apart any second, and he desperately needed to be alone.
“Chris, I don’t feel good at all leaving you here when you’re obviously upset. I can’t.” Jay-Cee looked honestly pained at the choice Chris was forcing on him.
Chris stared at the small rose tattooed in the hollow of Jay-Cee’s throat and wondered how much it had hurt. Less than this. “You said we could stop anytime I wanted.” He took a deep breath and held it, keeping his eyes away from Jay-Cee’s face. He exhaled loudly. “Well, I want to stop this now. Rutabagas. Just lots and lots of rutabagas.”
The silence stretched between them.
Part of Chris wanted to drop to his knees and beg for another chance. He wanted Jay-Cee to drag him back to the bedroom and fuck him until he screamed again. Tie him up and spank him, flog him, anything he wanted until the physical sensations drove out all the pain in his heart and the agony of past demons from his mind.
But a small voice inside of him said no, don’t. He needed to be alone.
“Okay then,” Jay-Cee said, voice rough. He leaned forward as if to stand up, and Chris stepped back.
They were only inches apart when Jay-Cee stood. “I’ll say goodbye.” He sounded so formal, so distant already.
As he turned to go, Chris grabbed the strap of his overalls.
Jay-Cee looked down at Chris’s hand, then wrapped his work worn fingers around Chris’s wrist. The touch of his hand sent sparks down Chris’s arm. Wrapping his arms around Jay-Cee’s neck, he pushed up onto his toes and pressed their mouths together.
For one glorious moment, Jay-Cee kissed back. His arms went around Chris’s back, and he yanked Chris tightly against him. He bit Chris’s bottom lip, then plunged his tongue between Chris’s teeth, claiming Chris’s mouth for his own.
Lust buzzed in Chris’s veins, and the edges of his vision started to go gray. When Jay-Cee pulled away, Chris stumbled forward, not able to comprehend the abrupt loss of sensation.
Jay-Cee looked directly at him. “Promise me you’ll call me if you need me?”
Chris nodded, not trusting his voice.
And, just like that, he turned and left.
Chris slid down to the cheap carpet and wondered what happened next.
From the front seat of his SUV, Jay-Cee watched the exterior door to Chris’s apartment while he made a phone call.
Benny sounded half-asleep when he picked up. “Hey, boss? What’s up?”
Jay-Cee already felt like shit. He’d add bothering Benny to the list. “Just checking in on you. How are you feeling?”
“Like I got hit by a bus. Other than that, awesome.”
“Have you gotten any answers yet?”
“Yeah. Post-Traumatic Epilepsy. Sounds worse than it is,” he rushed. “Really. Doc said lots of people have spontaneous remission from it. Hey, I got engaged,” he said, changing the subject.
Jay-Cee shook his head, smiling despite his mood. Fucking Benny. “Of course you did. Congratulations.”
“Yeah. I figured if I asked him while I was all pathetic in a hospital bed, he wouldn’t be able to say no.” Love spilled over into Benny’s voice, and it was almost more than Jay-Cee could bear. Damn it. He’d thought he’d left the hope for a real relationship far behind him a long time ago.
“Don’t lie. I asked you first.” From the sound of Mikey’s voice he must be sitting right next to Benny.
“Semantics,” Benny said. “Anyway. They’re keeping me overnight for observation.”
“You’re hiding from your mother,” Mikey corrected.
“I love my mamacita. But it’s doctor’s orders. I’m supposed to avoid stress.” Benny said, faux-regret in his voice.
Jay-Cee could imagine the smile on Benny’s face. He was happy for Benny. Everybody deserved love, and Benny’s heart was so big it needed to be shared.
How was he going to ask Benny for what he needed without sounding like a controlling asshole? If there had been anybody else Jay-Cee could think of to call, he would have. But Benny was the only one of Chris’s friends Jay-Cee knew.
“You still there, Jay-Cee? Is everything okay? Is it Chris?”
Benny hid quite a perceptive mind under that happy-go-lucky exterior. He could read people like a book. Jay-Cee had turned almost all human contact for his business over to Benny.
“Yes. Nothing serious. I think he could use a friend right now. And you’re the only friend of his I have a phone number for.” He hoped Benny would ask why Jay-Cee couldn’t be there for Chris.
“No problem. Let me think.”
Jay-Cee heard Benny and Mikey talking low, tossing different names around. “Yeah, I think so, too,” Benny said clearly. “Okay,” he said into the phone. “I think Angel would be the best one for Chris tonight. They’ve met a few times, and I know she likes him. Plus she’s a girl, so Chris will be more relaxed around her. Sometimes it’s hard for him to be, well, normal around guys he doesn’t know that well. Want me to give her a call and ask her to call you?”
Jay-Cee scrubbed his face with his hand. “Yes. Thank you. That would be wonderful.”
“Okay. I’ll call you back if she’s not around.”
The seconds ticked by slowly until Jay-Cee’s phone lit up with an unfamiliar local number. He answered it on the first ring. “Hello?”
“Hey, this is Angel. Is this Jay-Cee? Benny said you could use a hand. I’m all yours.”
Thank God.
25 – Tonight I’m gonna bury that horse in the ground
A knock on his apartment door dragged Chris off the couch. He winced as the skin on his ass throbbed dully with residual pain. There’d be bruises for sure by tomorrow.
He’d made the mistake of letting the water from the shower hit him directly on the back. They’d probably heard him yelp in Wyoming.
He really hoped it wasn’t his downstairs neighbor Chuey looking for some fashion advice. Not that this entire town couldn’t use some fashion advice, but Chris didn’t have the energy to put on the gay BFF persona tonight.
“Hey, Chris, open up,” a woman called from the hallway. “I know you’re in there, and I come bearing egg rolls.”
Surprised, Chris opened the door. “Angel? What the hell are you doing here? How do you even know where I live?”
“Thanks, I’d love to come in.” Angel pushed past him in a flurry of pink hair and black clothing. The scent from the large greasy paper bag she carried reminded Chris that he hadn’t eaten anything all day.
She made a beeline for the kitchen as if she had been in Chris’s apartment a million times before. Chris trailed behind her.
Depositing the bag on the table, she ripped open the top and starting pulling out way too much Chinese food for two people.
“Why are you here? And why did you bring me Chinese food?” Chris stared at her, trying to wrap his head around the fact that she was there.
She turned and faced him, running a hand through the long plume of pink hair cascading from the top of her head down her right shoulder. The color was so bright, she must have dyed it recently. The buzz cut on the left side was her natural dark brown. It went great with the pink, Chris noticed.
“Your boyfriend called me. Well, technically he called Benny, and Benny called me. But then I called Jay-Cee back, and here I am.”
“Why did Jay-Cee call Benny?”
Angel opened up a greasy white bag and pulled out an egg roll. “Egg roll?”
Chris took it from her. Huge, deep fried, and oily, it looked like manna from heaven now that Chris had acknowledged his hunger.
“He said you could use some company, but he couldn’t hang. So he called Benny for suggestions.”
“For babysitters for me?” Chris’s mouth twisted up.
“For a friend. Which I hope we are. Or will be.” She looked at a plastic fork. “Do you have any real silverware?”
“Yeah. Sure.” He got them both plates and silverware and water in actual glasses, and they sat at the table and ate like civilized human beings.
Angel turned out to be easy to talk to. She updated him on Benny’s condition. It sounded serious, and Chris really wanted to talk to Benny about it, but he’d wait until he was home. God, he hadn’t texted Benny all day. He was a shitty friend.
By the time he’d worked his way through almost all the sesame chicken, she had him in stitches with her stories of her teenage escapades with Dmitri, and her impressions of everyone who worked at the bar. For a tiny Hispanic woman, she did a great impression of Vincent, who was sixty-five and a big beefy Italian guy from New York.
“He’s really the best guy,” Angel said. “Have you met his husband Kevin yet?”
Chris shook his head.
“You will one day. Another great guy. He’s Mikey’s boss, you know.” She stood up and picked up the dirty dishes.
Chris jumped up and took them from her. “No, please. Just sit.” He scraped the plates while Angel boxed up the leftovers and stuck them in the fridge.
“There’s enough food for three more meals here. Why did Jay-Cee order so much? How much do you normally eat?”
Chris rinsed the soap off a plate. “A normal amount, thank you very much.”
“Yeah, Jay-Cee said he didn’t know what your favorite was. I almost made him to help me carry all these up the stairs.” She leaned against the counter near the sink.
“He was here when you got here?” Chris glanced towards the parking lot as if he could see through the walls.
“Yeah. He just left. I think he was waiting to give me the food.”
Something inside Chris stopped whirling at the thought that Jay-Cee hadn’t abandoned him, even though he had been the one to insist Jay-Cee leave. Yeah. He was a basket case all right.
“So, wanna go for a drive?” Angel asked.
“Now?”
She checked the clock on the microwave. “It’s a little early. We can wait a few hours if you want.”
“A few hours? Where are you taking me? A midnight showing of Rocky Horror?”
Her eyes sparkled with excitement. “Ever seen a meteor shower?”
“No.”
She clapped him on the shoulder. “Well, tonight is your lucky night. We’re going to go up the mountain and watch the Perseid meteor shower from the back of my truck.”
The night air coming in through the kitchen window caressed Chris’s skin, carrying the scent of pine forests and the faint chill of the distant snow-capped mountains. Suddenly, driving out to meet the night, bumping over dirt roads in an old pickup sounded like the most perfect thing Chris had ever heard.
He threw his arms around Angel and hugged her tight. “Thank you. Thank you for being my friend and coming over.” She was so tiny. Her head barely came up to his chest.
She hugged him back, patting him gently on the arm. “No problem. You’re a cool kid. Not like it’s a hardship to hang out with you.” She pulled away and turned him the direction of the living room. “Go put some clothes on, grab your favorite blanket, and let’s hit the road.”
The headlights of Angel’s Toyota Tacoma picked out the edges of the road as they drove north around the reservoir. Reflections from the full moon rippled across the dark water to their left. The foothills dropped off precipitously to their right, and the lights of the city spread out below them; bright clusters of civilization fading into blackness off to the east.
Coming from the East Coast, where endless suburbs blended into each other indistinguishably, and a few hours’ drive could have you in a completely different state, Chris hadn’t been able to comprehend the endless amount of open space in the West.
The route Angel was driving would take them into the barest edge of the Roosevelt National Forest. Twelve hundred square miles and it was only a tiny portion of the mostly uninhabited mountains and forests of Western Colorado. Chris had never been much of a camper, but the pull of the roads into the mountains was strong. Maybe he could talk the gang into a camping trip one day.
Angel didn’t say much as they drove. She drove with one hand on the wheel, the other hanging out the window, and tapping against the door to the beat of the music playing softly from the speakers.
After a half an hour or so of bumping down crumbling asphalt roads, and smaller rutted dirt tracks, Angel turned the truck towards what looked to Chris to be a dangerously steep and narrow road. She pulled her left arm in the window and downshifted even as she picked up speed. “Hold on,” she said as if Chris hadn’t latched onto the grab bar as soon as he set eyes on the road.
The engine of the little blue truck growled, and dirt and small rocks shot out from under the tires as Angel wrestled it up the steep incline.
“Holy shit,” Chris cursed, hanging onto the grab bar with two hands as the truck listed sharply to the right. Angel hollered and threw what little weight she had to the left.
She gunned the truck up the last few feet of road. Chris would forever swear they had gotten air under them as they flew over the hump at the top of the dirt track.
She yanked the wheel to the left and with a literal cloud of dust, the first Chris had ever seen, they braked to a hard stop.
Chris stared at Angel, mouth hanging open. “That was awesome!”
She smirked at him. “Thanks. I do love my truck.”
“I can tell. You have to teach me how to do that.”
Angel eased the truck into the middle of the clearing and shut the engine. The creak of the parking brake echoed in the sudden silence. “Come on.” She opened the door and hopped out. Chris grabbed his blanket and followed her to the back of the truck.
Thin clouds slipped across the face of the full moon, crawling across the ground like a time-laps
e video of a sundial. “It’s kind of cloudy,” he said. “Will we be able to see the sky?”
“Don’t worry. It will clear eventually.”
In a few minutes, they made a cozy nest of blankets and pillows. Angel had laid rubber padding over the cold metal truck bed and piled it high with sleeping bags and pillows. She had a small cooler and a bag of snacks.
The night held a chill, the promise of fall already apparent at 7,000 feet. “This is really cozy,” Chris said, settling in. “But somehow I have the feeling I’m not the one you were planning on meteor gazing with.”
Angel snorted. “Yeah. Well, you are pretty, but you weren’t my first choice.”
“Did you get dumped?” Chris turned on his side to look at her. He really did need to draw her one day. Maybe she would sit for him. Her large brown eyes seemed to take up a third of her face. Somehow the shaved head and various piercings only made her face appear even more delicate.
She grimaced. “Not really. It’s more like I made assumptions that we were in the same place, and apparently, we…are not. Know what I mean?”
Chris surprised them both by bursting out in laughter. He was even more surprised when his laughter turned abruptly to tears. Angel reached out and pulled him against her.
Chris buried his face against her thin shoulder. She rubbed a hand down his back and whispered to him as if he were a child. “It’s okay, m’ijo. It’s all going to be okay. I’m here.”
She held him, this near stranger, held him the way he’d imagined a mother might on the days he’d shivered cold and strung out in some dealer’s fifth-floor walk-up while the wails of a neglected baby echoed down the hallway.
Not his mother, of course, but somebody else’s mother.
26 – What would you give for your kid fears?
The tears had started over how he’d fucked things up with Jay-Cee tonight, but it was as if a dam had broken and a flood of grief swept him backward through time.
He cried for himself, lost and alone in a new city, a new state; everything too bright and immediate without the curtain of drugs or alcohol shrouding him. Even hopelessness and despair had offered a certain comfort in their deadness. Now the little glimmering of hope for the future held as much of a promise of pain as happiness. It would only hurt that much more when he fucked up again.