by David Connor
“We’ve forgiven that, Mother. Forgive yourself.”
“Okay then. I think we’ve finished.” The mushy stuff—there was still some traditional Japanese in Kyoko, and public displays of affection were not always easy. “We should get home,” she said. Jesse looked at her. It was as if he needed approval and support not just from Milo, Tom Alan, and Erika, but also the matriarch. “You, too, precious onna no ko.” Kyoko sighed. “I apologize for that. Otoko no ko,” Kyoko revised.
“I don’t understand.” Jesse looked to Erika.
“She called you precious girl, but then changed it to boy.”
“Oh.”
“It may take me more than a moment to alter the way I’ve been seeing you…been treating you.”
“You don’t have to change the last part.”
“Oh, but I do. I would never train Tom Alan the same as Erika. The flower and the stem, they are different.” Kyoko smiled. “Many think the stem is stronger,” she said conspiratorially, “because it holds up the bloom, but the flower, though it might look more delicate to the eye, must be sturdier, exposed to nature’s harshness.”
“Yeah…” Jesse agreed. “I like that.”
* * * *
The barbecue was in full swing before the sun went down. Billy came. He was in the pool with Tom Alan, Milo, and Kensuke. Ben Thornton was there, fresh from the Rio Games, with his husband and the husband’s twin, plus another gymnast buddy, Vijra Daha, and some guys Erika had never met. For anyone into wet, muscled, shirtless jocks, it was a feast of eye candy. Billy had on a T-shirt, navy blue. Erika knew it was his belly he was trying to hide, not to protect his fair skin. Milo had to know as well. They were playing Frisbee, some sort of game where one threw it, then everyone tackled whoever made the catch. From what Erika could tell, there wasn’t much more point to it than that. “Bill, catch.” Tom Alan flung the neon green disk. It hit Billy square in the forehead. “Sorry.” He sure didn’t look sorry, as the testosterone overflow in the pool had everyone braying like mules.
“You think it’s funny, Tom?”
Tom Alan laughed. Then Billy did. It was a wonderful, unabashed, deep, loud bark that came from his gut. Erika had loved it from the very first day she’d literally fallen at his feet at Irina Mischen’s rink and uttered the foulest word she could think of when he jerked the jumping cable.
“You did that on purpose, you…hockey thug.” She had accused.
“We’re not allowed to curse in here,” he’d told her. “Try to act like a lady, will ya?”
She looked at her two men in the water, side by side, blocking out the others with her hand. They both had facial scruff. Billy had just recently started growing his. It was scratchy against her fingertips, not soft like Tom Alan’s, yet she still couldn’t wait to feel it on her cheek. “Do I have to take your toys away?” she asked the group.
When Billy got out of the pool for a drink, she followed him into the kitchen with Etsuko on her hip, and took him aside. “Maybe you can tell them tonight.”
“I don’t know.”
“You’re not nervous, are you…not about Milo, surely not Tom Alan?”
“Milo, no. Tom…maybe…not in a prejudiced way. Look, he was never my biggest fan back in the beginning.”
The two had nearly come to blows the night Tom Alan caught Erika sneaking out of Billy and Milo’s apartment after their first time back in 2014.
“Sometimes I think he only tolerates me now because of Etsuko.” Billy kissed her on the head. “The fact I swing both ways and never told you,” he whispered, “that’s not gonna help. He’s pretty possessive when it comes to you.”
“Protective, maybe. Not possessive.”
“Well, I’m not sure it even matters, except when it comes to seeing my kid.” Billy kissed her again, and offered a smile that looked more like a grimace. “Which I’ll do one way or another, so…”
Erika wanted to grab him as he turned to storm out, but she tripped on the frigging cat carrier Tom Alan had brought up from the basement for his move. She nearly kicked the damned thing, not because it was in her way, but more for what it represented. Men! The whole bunch of them were annoying as hell.
“Bring the little one in.” Milo attached himself to Billy the moment Billy jumped back into the water, clinging to his back like a wet, hairy superhero’s cape.
“You want to come in with Dada? Dada?” Etsuko jumped up and down in her own little kiddie pool, splashing Erika’s legs. Even if she couldn’t say the word, she knew what it meant.
“Come here, baby girl.” Tom Alan reached out.
The moment Erika handed Etsuko off to him, half the guys climbed out of the water, including Kensuke, off to grab his fifth or sixth hot dog. Almost as if rehearsed, Tom Alan, Milo, and Billy started passing Etsuko around, like a game of Hot Potato. “Who’s got Etsuko? Who’s got Etsuko?” Billy and Milo joined Tom Alan in song. After the fifth time asking the melodic question, she landed with Tom Alan. “I do!” he yelled, and that made Etsuko giggle. They repeated the chant over and over, each one taking a turn with “I do!” It certainly didn’t seem like there was any bad blood. Still, if Erika had to play intermediary between the men she loved most in the world in order to find her happiness, she would.
When the round started over, Jesse approached, and took Erika aside. “I’m going to tell Kensuke now. I wish you could be there…to listen. It’d be easier if I knew I wasn’t all by myself.”
“If you really want me to…” Erika said. “I know a way.”
A short while later, she was at the foot of her bed, at the filigree duct. “Come on, boo,” she heard Kensuke say. “Everyone’s busy outside. No one’s gonna know.” He and Jesse were in Tom Alan and Milo’s room—the room that would soon sit empty. Let’s do it. And then steal some of their underwear.
“Knock it off, jerk.” Jesse took the words right out of Erika’s mouth.
“I at least wanna jack off in their bed.” Erika heard Kensuke fall hard onto it.
“Kensuke…”
“Not by myself,” he said. “With you.”
Erika was going to step in. Stop being such an asshole. But Jesse took care of it. “God! Where’s the Kensuke who came over to me my first day at school?”
“He’s right here, Jess. Smile for me now.”
“You act so different when you get around all these guys.”
“Hormones. I can’t help it. I’m not around them now, though. We’re alone. And I love you.” Erika hoped he was up off the bed, holding Jesse in his arms, showing a hint of that guy from the high school cafeteria. “I just thought you might like a souvenir from One Direction. Your big crush.”
“Stop. He is not. You like Tom Alan…and that Vijra guy.”
“You couldn’t stop looking at Stoker twin ass. All four cheeks.” It sounded more like teasing than fighting. That was good.
“You couldn’t either. Don’t guys know white trunks do that?”
“Oh, they know. We’re all horn dogs.” Kensuke must have offered a kiss. Erika heard a loud one. But now it’s just us. More kissing followed. Erika covered her face.
“Stop. I want to talk.” Jesse sounded forceful, maybe fending him off.
“You’re such a girl.”
The words made Erika wince.
“I hate when you say that,” Jesse said.
“Why? All of a sudden?”
“It’s not all of a sudden. It was always. Fuck you.” Things were taking a turn.
“Later baby, with a strap-on.”
Erika got up.
“You wish.”
She was going in.
“Not even. I’m a top, yo, remember?”
“Get back on track, you two.”
“Don’t you even care about what I have to say to you?” Jesse asked.
“We don’t get a lot of time alone. I want to be with you.”
“You don’t even know me.”
“My dick does.”
Jesse made a sound
Erika matched subconsciously.
Everything comes back to dicks with you.
“You wish you had one,” Kensuke said.
“What if I do?” Jesse asked, and Erika’s breath caught.
“I wish you had one too, boo,” Kensuke answered.
“Really?”
“Sure.”
“What if…” There was a tremor in Jesse’s voice. Let me show you something, then.
The silence that followed seemed interminable, not a single sound, except for Erika’s heart beating in her ears.
“One of the first things you wanted to know, a long time ago,” Jesse said, “was why there’s no I in my name, remember?”
“After I made you smile like I wanted to by asking what you wanted for Christmas.”
“Hmm. ‘Christmas just passed,’” I told you.
“I mean Christmas 2020,’ I said, ‘after we get out of college and track each other down because we never forgot this moment and no other has ever come close.”
“Wow,” Erika whispered. She might have fallen for that dialogue at seventeen, too.
“Right. Then I smiled,” Jesse said, “And you asked about my name, written on the front of my Geometry book cover, why it just had an E at the end.”
“‘Cause I don’t want an I in it.’ That’s what you said.”
“Yup. And you just accepted that. I almost told you then.”
“Told me what?”
“There used to be one, but now there’s not. Here’s why. Look.”
“At what? Is it dirty?” Kensuke went to his default. “A big, hard—oh. It’s…little.”
“That’s what mine would look like. If…when…I…when I transition.”
“Transition? Like…? Whoa. You’re gonna…You wanna be one of them? A dude?”
“I am a dude. I know it. Now I want to be one all the way. I want to look like one, Kensuke, so everyone will know.”
Erika sat back down on the edge of her bed, waiting to hear what happened next.
“Say something, Kensuke. I still want to be with you after. Tell me you’d still want to be with me, too. Tell me you’ll want me more. Say something dirty. Say…anything!”
He didn’t—not a word for the longest time, then Erika heard him bolting down the stairs.
Chapter 7
Jesse insisted on going home. Erika wouldn’t let him take the train, like he wanted. She drove him, though she didn’t have much luck getting him to open up during the entire hour it took to get him back to his grandmother’s. Tom Alan, Milo, and Billy intercepted Kensuke, who’d only run as far as the front yard, as if maybe he didn’t have a safer place to be upset. Before Erika left, she’d explained to Tom Alan what had happened and how she knew.
The “dudes” were going to play midnight hockey. It was one of those things they did once in a while. Since Erika suggested someone keep an eye on Kensuke, they decided to bring him along. By the time Erika felt comfortable leaving Jesse by himself and then trekked back, the game was breaking up. Midnight hockey never lasted until midnight, so Erika wasn’t really sure why they called it that. She got there in time for the losers’ lap, where the defeated team had to circle the rink in correspondence with the winning team’s score with their pants pulled down According to the scoreboard, the game had ended up 11-2.
Billy’s pants were still up. His team must have won. “Congratulations.” She finally got a chance to feel the scruff against her face when she kissed him on the cheek. She also tasted his sweat, which made her want to kiss him again, but he turned his back.
“Thanks. How’s Jesse?” Billy took off for the boards to pack up his stuff.
“Not too good. He said his grandmother would be home soon. She worked an evening shift—hospital staff—cleaning supervisor, Jesse said. He promised, so I left him. I sat in the parking lot, actually, until someone who looked grandmotherly went up to their apartment.”
“Ah.”
“Kensuke say anything?”
“Not really. He took off with that guy…I don’t know his name.”
“What? You let him leave with a guy?”
“Well, Rika, if he was sixteen, like he was a couple weeks ago in my head, I might-a gone all bossy on his ass. Since I now know he’s twenty—”
“Nineteen—not even.”
“Close enough.”
Milo skated by in just his underwear, looking rather chilly. He poked Billy in the butt with his hockey stick. “Manhole.”
“Back off, Fisher. We done, Rika?”
“Why are you in such a mood? Hey!” She turned to Tom Alan. “Did you know Kensuke left with a guy?”
“Did he?” Tom Alan looked to Billy.
“Yup.”
“Shoot.”
“Shoot? You were supposed to be watching him,” Erika said.
“I was, Kiki.”
“Do you at least know what guy he left with?”
“Vij, maybe?”
“How old is he?” she asked.
“Twenty…whatever. Our age,” Tom Alan said. “Kensuke’s age…Somewhere in between, I guess.”
“You guess.” Erika shook her head.
“He was doing okay, though…laughing and goofing off.”
“Putting up a man front.”
“A what now?”
“A man front, Tom Alan. Pretending everything’s fine by batting, kicking, or…pucking something.”
Tom Alan had the nerve to almost smile. “We don’t puck. If anything, we stick.”
“Whatever, and then he’s probably going to have sex. ‘Best way to get over someone is to get under someone else.’ Right? Meanwhile Jesse’s home crying, because he’s more in touch with his feelings, because he’s…” Erika realized she’d lost her own argument. If she hadn’t stopped herself, she’d have said something bordering on sexist. “I can’t believe how irresponsible you were. You get around your friends and—” She cut herself off again. Tom Alan’s look matched that of Billy’s dog, Tuxedo, the time Erika had seen him scolded for stealing a pork chop off the Wahl’s picnic table. She sounded like the parent of a teenager. “You’re both right. Kensuke might act like a child, but he isn’t one. You weren’t babysitting. There, Billy. Happy? Billy…?”
He was gone.
“Damn it.”
By the time Erika got outside, he was crossing the parking lot in skates. Since he walked like a bow-legged cowboy in women’s high heel pumps, she easily caught up. “You’re going to ruin your blades.”
“So.”
“Have you ever driven the truck with ice skates on?”
“Maybe.”
“You’re in such a hurry to get away from me you couldn’t take two seconds to put your guards on or change into sneakers?”
“Guess so.”
“You weren’t mad at the barbecue. Why now?”
He ignored the question.
“Billy.” She grabbed him. He dropped his keys. “Were you uncomfortable with…the gay stuff?”
“You know me better than that,” he said.
“I thought I did.” When a flustered Billy bent over for his New York Rangers keyring, Erika recalled the word manhole, and had to swish her forehead with the back of her hand. “Then it’s still that night…when I didn’t come over and didn’t call?”
“Never mind.”
“Fine. Be that way. I thought you could come back to the house.”
“Etsuko’s at Mom and Dad’s. Why would I?”
“Fine. I’ll just go hang out alone until Tom Alan and Milo get tired of showering with the 2012 and 2016 U.S. Olympic gymnastics team. They’ll probably get home around Thanksgiving.”
“Tom Alan and Milo. Tom Alan and Milo. Tom Alan and Milo!” Billy’s tone indicated he may have hit the terrible twos ahead of Etsuko. “Everything’s about Tom Alan and Milo with you.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“You know why you’re alone? Why you don’t have a boyfriend? Why all of your dates turn to crap?”
“I have a feeling you’re going to tell me.”
“Because you’re hung up on someone else.”
“You’re right. It’s y—”
“A totally gay dude…maybe two.”
“Oh.”
“You’re not going to deny it?”
How could she?
“Look,” Billy said. “You’ve made a family—”
“One that includes you.”
“Does it? When?”
“Tonight! Any night. Every night. Anytime you want.”
“Except when Tom Alan or Milo want you more.”
“It was Jesse, not—”
“I’m not talking about that night. How about…Let’s talk about tonight. Who fed Etsuko her very first bite of hot dog ever at the barbecue? Milo. Who put on her PJs to go to my mother’s house? Tom.”
“They thought they were helping so you could relax.”
“Defend them. Always. When I told you to bring my daughter to the pool, who did you hand her off to?”
Erika tried to recall. “You.”
“Nope. Think harder.”
“Oh.”
“The only thing you don’t turn to them for is when you’re horny. Oops. Wrong again. Sometimes you do.”
“Billy.”
“You watch them have sex. You told me that.” He never considered lowering his voice until he got to the second part. Fortunately, they seemed to have the parking lot to themselves. “How long until you join them in their bed? Then you won’t need me at all.”
“Billy.” Erika tried to remember the speech she had prepared. What was the word she was going to use—fixation…crush…? Infatuation, that was it.
“Does it turn you on?”
“Yes.” She couldn’t lie. “I don’t know if it’s, you know, in general, or if it’s more about Tom Alan, to be honest.”
Billy fell back against the side of his blue Ranger. “Jesus, Rika. Have you never watched Will and Grace? Tom is your best friend, and somewhere, from what you’re saying, I guess, you’re still hung up on him as more.”
“Yes.”
“So, let’s see. If I’m lucky, after him and Etsuko, your mom, and figure skating, I come in, like, fifth. And that would be okay, except I have a feeling once you add Fisher, I come in sixth. Etsuko is going to say Booger before she says dada.”