I watched for a minute. I could see she was aloof, and yet still not immune to his charms. If he’d asked me here to get that ball rolling and smooth the way for him, things were pretty smooth already. I had my back to the front doors so I was surprised when a gentle hand wrapped itself around the back of my neck. Expecting to see Jordan when I turned, I was shocked to feel Shawn’s mouth come down on mine.
In my sister’s coffeehouse. In River Falls, Wisconsin.
Silence fell around us for about ten seconds and then the noise became deafening as people tried to cover their embarrassment with conversation. Shawn, who heard none of this, smiled at me and sat down in the seat Bill had vacated. Bill came back, a question clear on his face. His eyebrows were raised and he looked at his coffee cup.
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Shawn stood to his full height and stared down at Bill, who was no longer in uniform. I stood as well, to perform introductions, but Shawn beat me to it.
“You must be Jordan.” He held out his hand.
Bill shook his head, starting to say who he was way too fast for Shawn to read his lips. I tapped Shawn’s arm and he looked at me. I shook my head.
“Bill,” I said, signing the name in letters.
“Hello, Bill,” Shawn said, clearly confused.
I made the sign for “sister” and said it aloud, and pointed to Julie, and Bill’s blush did the rest. Shawn smiled.
We stared at each other for a short time until Julie took pity on us. “Coop? I’ll get you some coffees to go and you can show Shawn around town.”
“Uh… Well, Bill invited me here to talk,” I said, but behind my sister he was rolling his eyes and shaking his head. When had I gone back in time? This was so sixth grade. “You’ve met Shawn?” I asked her.
She smiled warmly. “Yes. I helped him find a job,” she told me.
“Yeah?” I turned to Shawn. “Job? Good,” I signed. “Where?” He smiled back. “At an Italian place called Mama Lina’s,” he signed and said.
I stared at my sister. Train wreck. I took my coffee to go and followed Shawn out into Wisconsin’s twilight. Briefly, I wondered if Jordie was still with Stan, or where he might be if he wasn’t, but I went with Shawn, taking the lead eventually and guiding him to Veterans Park and the free concert there.
“Do they always do this?” Shawn asked me. He was enjoying the vibrations from a very loud band covering country western-inspired rock songs and watching a group of kids whose parents were blowing bubbles for them to chase.
I thumbed, In the summer, yes. In the winter, their skin would freeze to the guitar strings.
After a moment, he received the text and laughed. “Small town,” he said in my ear.
“Like St. Nacho’s. Fun.”
I was enjoying the music but I looked over and saw a couple of members of Stan’s little flock watching me, and I decided I’d like whatever I was doing with Shawn to be more private. Even if we were just talking, by Sunday morning it was sure to be gossip on someone’s lips.
I nudged him with my shoulder and indicated that I wanted him to follow me, and even though he was enjoying himself, he came without comment. I led the way down Main Street, and then onto Vine because I had an idea he might like River Falls’s own swinging bridge. Built in 1925 over the south fork of the Kinnickinnic River, it just kind of hung there.
It wouldn’t be too crowded on a Friday night when the band was playing, and it was near 94 Z. A. Maxfield
enough to the other of River Falls’s green spaces, Glen Park, that we could walk a ways on the nature trails. I stood in the middle of the bridge and looked out over the rocks and the water below. Shawn came up behind me, hemming me in between the railing and his big body. He nuzzled into my neck and I could smell mosquito repellant on his skin. Smart boy.
I didn’t wear it, but the mosquitoes didn’t bother me much. He gathered me close and just held me there.
“Are you finding what you were looking for here?” he asked against my skin.
My heart was beating so hard in my chest it felt like it was swelling. I could feel my cheeks burn. I felt his arousal at my back. I shook my head.
“Did you miss me?” he asked. “Even a little?”
I closed my eyes. I’m not really a delayed gratification kind of guy, and holding myself back from taking what I wanted? Not something I ordinarily do. So when I felt Shawn’s lips on the side of my throat and his hands -- those big, elegant hands of his -- slipping down over my abs and into my jeans, reaching for my cock, my first instinct was to drop my head back and say, “Go, baby.”
My breathing was already shallow, and I could feel myself leaking onto his ringed hands as they stroked me and reached down to cup my balls. He leaned over and I twisted back so our mouths could meet in a hungry kiss.
“Wait!” I couldn’t step away because I was pressed into the rail, so I pushed him a little.
“Wait.” I was still panting.
Shawn had withdrawn his hands and when I turned he caught me by the shoulders so he could watch me talk. “What?”
“I don’t know,” I said. I didn’t even know what I was thinking; I just knew that if I didn’t make things right with Jordan --
“Is it because of him?” Shawn asked. To be fair, it wasn’t angry or an accusation.
“Jordan?”
I nodded. I got out my phone and held it up, and he took it from me and put it back into my pocket. “It’s all right,” he said, then caught me by the hand and led me across the rest of the bridge.
We walked a long way, around the park, and for a while we sat in the little fortlike structure on the children’s playground. Few people were still around, so we had it to ourselves. I got out a cigarette and struck a match. By the glow of that small flame I looked at Shawn more closely. The planes of his face were lit in such an extraordinary way that I just had to stare. He was beautiful and I loved him. I almost burned myself, but he leaned in and blew the flame out just in time. He took the matches from me and lit another one for my cigarette with a kind of resigned smile. I don’t know why we didn’t have to talk, but I knew we didn’t.
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When he reached for me I went to him. He shifted me onto the fort floor in front of him and just let me rest there, against him, smoking my cigarette. At some point, he was running his hands over mine, lacing our fingers together. I crushed out my smoke and turned in his arms. Right then I felt that I had to get close to him. I rubbed my cheek against his stubbly jaw and straddled his legs until our bodies were locked together like a puzzle.
When we started to kiss it was the most natural thing in the world, unhurried and gentle. I put my lips on his neck and I could feel his pulse beat there; his whole body must have been on fire like mine, except neither of us was acting on it. I could feel that rush of pressure in my face as I became more aroused, and I could almost taste the flush blooming under Shawn’s skin. But when I put my hands on his belt buckle to remove it -- I guess my plan was to suck him off, to give him pleasure -- he stopped me.
“Wait,” he said.
I rubbed his cock through his jeans. “Let me,” I said, knowing he probably couldn’t see me too well. At least he must have felt that I spoke because he cupped my face with his hands and thumbed my lips.
I moved down, and he got the idea because he undid his belt and opened his jeans for me. I reached back and pulled out my wallet, feeling for the condom I always kept there. I tore it open with my teeth and rolled it onto Shawn’s cock with as much fanfare as I could. I got a hiss for my efforts.
I helped to shift him so that I could get a better strategic position, because this? Was destined to be the best blowjob I had ever given. I slid my hands around to the small of his back and took him as deep as I could, almost pressing my nose into the thatch of hair that formed a V above his beautiful cock. I reached around and teased his ass crack, and he shivered under me, delighting me with a groan, a noise so completely uncalculated and frightening that I thought I heard birds fly out of the trees. I hummed around his skin, bringing one of my hands back, slipping it between his legs to his tightly puckered hole. It only took a few more bobs and a teasing finger and he filled the latex with a moan, clutching my head, stroking my hair, and framing my face with exquisitely gentle hands.
I helped him right his clothes and we climbed down from the fort together. I tossed the condom into the trash as we left the park, walking back by way of the swinging bridge. We stood there, watching the water rush below us by the light of the moon. He put his arms around me from behind.
I heard footsteps running along the wooden boards that made up the noisy floor of the bridge, and then a shriek, a giggle, and two adolescent voices whispering, “Oh, shit,” and then louder, “Sorry,” as the footsteps ran away. Lots of smothered laughter and a couple of groans.
Shawn was oblivious, except for the feel of feet on the bridge. I could tell he felt that because he turned his head toward the vibrations. Sound definitely played a different role in his life than it did in mine.
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He pulled me tighter against his chest, leaning over to whisper in my ear, “I missed you like nothing I could ever have imagined.”
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Chapter Fifteen
When I got back that night, Stan and Jordan were there, waiting for me. I could tell Jordan was agitated, and Stan seemed to be doing his best to help him. They had their scriptures open on the coffee table. The remains of a pot of coffee added a burned smell to the air in the apartment.
“Where the hell have you been?” Jordan demanded as I set my keys down. I admit hearing Jordan’s voice crack over me like that made me freeze in my tracks.
“I was at Grounds with Bill, and then Shawn showed up so I showed him around,” I said.
“I’m glad you were so concerned that I was all right.”
“I knew you were with Pastor Stan,” I said cautiously. “I thought --”
“Jordan.” Stan’s voice held a small amount of censure.
“That’s right,” Jordan said. “We must practice Christian forgiveness.” Jordan was more bitter than I’d ever seen him; he fairly shimmered with anger, and even Stan wasn’t getting through.
“Jordan, can I make you something to eat?” I asked.
“Yes, because that’s going to make everything all better,” he said, going into the bedroom and slamming the door.
I looked at Stan. “Do you need anything?”
“Do you think it was wise going out with another man at this point, Cooper?” I shrugged. Stan might have Jordan’s owner’s manual but he was still working on figuring out what it took to manipulate me. “That’s not exactly what happened, Stan.” 98 Z. A. Maxfield
“Well, the timing couldn’t have been worse, whatever it was,” he said, gathering up his things. “And I think abandoning him at this juncture is probably going to have profoundly difficult repercussions.”
“I’m not abandoning him,” I said.
“He thinks you are,” Stan said. He turned and looked at me. “I know you don’t have much use for me or for religion for that matter. But Jordan is different. He could become the greatest triumph the Lord has made through me, a man who is wholly given to the Word. He has such a special nature. He’s like a child waiting for the Lord to bless him and lead him.
And right now he needs me and he needs you to support him.”
“I do support him.”
“He needs you to join him. To believe in him. And I should think you’d want to show the people of River Falls that two men can change from antisocial teenage monsters into respectable members of the community. If not for Jordan, do it for the people in this town who think all gay men are sexually deviant and indiscriminate. Do it for the people who don’t believe two men can share real and lasting love.” He made a good point, and how I wished I could tell him, Yes, I’m on board, where do I sign. “I do love Jordan. I have always loved him. But I can’t be this for him. My love isn’t that kind of love. I don’t know if it ever was. I don’t know what it was beyond the alcohol and the drugs and the stupidity. It wasn’t mature or unselfish or based on anything more than history and proximity. It wasn’t based on knowing him and understanding the way he saw the world. I don’t have that kind of love for him. What I have will last forever. Forever, Stan. Through anything. But it’s not that kind of love.”
“I see.” He leaned against the wall, holding that little bag with his Bible in his hand. I could see he hadn’t really considered this possibility. That I understood. That I realized how important it was to Jordan, but I just couldn’t do it.
“This is going to send him backward to square one,” he said finally.
“No, it won’t,” I said. “I won’t let it.”
He turned and left.
* * * * *
“Jordie,” I said, knocking.
“Yeah.”
“Can I come in?” I asked. There was no lock on the door; we both knew that.
“Yeah.”
I walked into the room and Jordie was sitting in the dark fully clothed with his back against the headboard, smoking. I turned on the small bedside light, and he flinched at the brightness of it.
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“Talk to me,” I said.
“It’s not how it was supposed to be,” he told me, blowing out a thin stream of blue smoke.
“No, it’s not,” I agreed.
He looked over at me, and I could see a glimpse of the old Jordie, my fuck-’em-if-they-can’t-take-a-joke playmate from the Birch Street Irregulars. “Remember when we figured out how to get beer past the narcs at football games?”
“Yeah,” I said. I wouldn’t allow him to wallow in the good old days for too long, but I wanted to know where he was going with this.
“Sometimes I think we got away with way too fucking much.” Yeah, okay. Understatement. “Ya think?”
He was shaking his head, and just like that, I knew the anger had left his body. We laughed stupidly for a while. He gave me a cigarette and I joined him on the bed, shoving him over.
“We’re going to have to quit this,” I said, holding the cigarette. “No one smokes anymore. In Southern California they treat you like you have leprosy.” Jordie contemplated that for a while. “We aren’t going to happen, are we?”