“I saw the people when you played.” Shawn came up behind me and jumped up to sit.
As he’d done before, he faced the opposite direction so he could study my face as we talked.
His hand idly slid across my belly and onto my farthest hip, his thumb in the watch pocket of my jeans. “They looked really impressed. Are you that good?” he asked. He tapped my pocket where I kept the cell phone he’d loaned me, and I dutifully took it out.
Probably, I texted him. False humility wasn’t one of my failings, and it didn’t pay to lie about something he could easily check with any number of people.
“Do you ever go see plays?” he asked.
“I have,” I said, carefully nodding.
“I have tickets for a play next Friday night in Santa Barbara. Will you come with me?” He grinned.
Are you asking me out on a date? I used the phone for that; it gave me something to do and kept me from looking into his eyes.
“Yep.”
Thumb, thumb, thumb. Can I think about it? I felt myself turn red. Friday was a lifetime away.
“Yeah,” he said. “Not too long, though.” He took my cigarette away from me and brought it to his own lips. He took a drag and exhaled. I expected him to cough, but he didn’t. He kissed my neck, where my ink was, and licked it lightly. “Got the night off?” he asked.
“Yep.” I nodded. Inside I was smiling already, but I thought I ought to make him work for it a little.
“You going to make me ask?”
“Ask what?” I found myself miming my words. I hoped that would go away soon.
“If your ass belongs to me or not,” he said roughly in my ear.
“It does.” I nodded.
“Bring it.” He jumped down off the wall. “We’re going to Jim and Alfred’s.” I had little choice but to follow along. I took off after him, but he didn’t look back. Jim and Alfred lived about a block away from the bar in a Victorian-style home that had been remodeled a number of times, and had frankly seen better days.
At one point, I suspected, the house hadn’t had a bathroom indoors, because it had one off the kitchen that looked like someone cut a hole in the wall and just stuck it there. The wooden floor sagged just a little in the middle of the living room, but the big bay window looked out on the picturesque main street of St. Nacho’s and its quaint mixture of woods and 28 Z. A. Maxfield
beach. It looked more like Oregon here than California, and I still had a hard time believing the luck that drew me here. It was a fact that I waited with my heart in my throat for my good fortune here to blow up in my face.
“Hey!” said Jim, coming down the stairs to the kitchen where Alfred was showing us around. Jim mixed me up a fiery Virgin Mary and then made a pitcher with booze for the three of them. He watched me carefully, I suspect, still thinking I wanted one. I’m sure he’d seen a thousand alcoholics come through his bar, both drinking and sober. I knew there was nothing in the world that could make me drink. But unless I told him how I knew that, he would always look at me the way he was looking right now, with a kind of considering and frank appraisal, as if he were readying himself for disappointment.
“Did you bring your violin?” asked Alfred.
“No,” I said. “Was I supposed to? It’s not a long walk; I can go get it.” Jim said, “Let the poor man have a night off, Al.” He turned to me. “We’re going to watch The Grudge.” He nudged Alfred. “Scary movies and snuggling; hot chocolate and popcorn. This is a date,” he warned.
Shawn came up behind me and put his arms around me. They brushed down my torso, and I leaned into him.
We gathered supplies, which included the ubiquitous chips and salsa, some homemade guacamole, and a big bowl of popcorn, which for a twist was topped with sugar and cinnamon like buñuelos. The cocoa had a cinnamon kick to it too, along with what I suspected was a hint of cayenne. Everything was good, spicy, and tasted even better on Shawn’s lips than it did fresh. I wanted to remember the spicy scent on his breath, the way the movie made me move closer to him, and how the subtitles crawled across the screen and none of us paid it any mind after the first few seconds. Jim, Alfred, and I responded to the musical cues and noises that Shawn missed, so he often laughed when I jumped for what he imagined was no good reason. Visual cues made him startle, but by then, we’d already reacted.
It had probably been ten years since I’d had a night like that, watching movies with friends. Something scared me then, something that had nothing to do with the movie and everything to do with nice people, kindness, and getting too comfortable.
It made me want to leave. I got up, maybe a little quickly, but I knew they couldn’t read the panic that was building in my heart. Shawn got up and followed me to the door.
When we were once again in the briny night air I faced him.
Look, I typed into the phone with my face down, If you’re having a nice time, you don’t have to leave. I can get home. Just because I’m calling it an early night doesn’t mean --
He put his hands over mine and stopped me from texting.
“You talk too much,” he said, grinning. He began to walk back to my place rather briskly, and I had to catch up.
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29
“Long-legged bastard,” I said out loud, knowing he couldn’t hear me.
He put his arm around me, and said quite clearly, “When I’m touching you, I can feel that you’re talking. I can also see you reflected in the windows of the cars parked on the street.” He indicated the car we’d just passed.
Well. He was a clever one. I caught his arm so he faced me. “And do you have a crystal ball?” Could he read lips that well?
“Nope,” he said, continuing to walk. “I don’t need a crystal ball, I got these.” He cupped himself, which made me laugh. He looked at me to see how I was taking it and laughed. I’d heard his laugh before, but it still surprised me. He laughed like a baby. Like air being moved through an accordion with no one playing it.
Jim said not to let your looks fool me, I texted. He read his phone with a V-shaped dip between his fine brows.
“My looks?”
Yeah, you look like an angel, I thumbed, still walking. I turned to find he’d stopped.
“You think I look like an angel?”
“I do, yes.” I nodded. I walked back to where he stood. I was concerned I’d touched a sore spot with him, or hurt him in some way. He looked at me with something in his eyes I couldn’t read. He smiled then, and it transformed him. He threw an arm back over my shoulder and started walking again, moving the both of us quickly until we were unlocking the door and rushing up the stairs. He threw me back against the wall outside the door to the little studio, on the narrow landing at the top of the stairs.
“Oh, fuck,” he said, and it was kind of funny, hearing him swear like that, he just couldn’t do it justice. “Come here, baby.” He ground his hips into mine, pushing my hands above my head and holding them in one of his own while he got my belt buckle undone and my zipper down with his other hand. My cock bounced out into his hand, and he held it, his eyes on mine, asking. He began to move in for a kiss and I turned my head. My knees buckled a little from his hand on my balls.
“Key?” he asked, and I shook my head. He let me go and we tumbled together through the unlocked door. After that, everything that happened was a blur of sensation and a battle of wills. I wanted him inside me; he wanted to tease. He found my cock with his lips and used them to roll down a flavored condom. He sucked me off like I’d never been sucked --
mouth everywhere, fingers questing, stroking me from the inside and the outside at the same time. I blew like a geyser, jerking and pulsing in his beautiful hands.
I wanted him to bury himself in me, but he pushed me to my knees, rolled a condom on his own dick, and fucked my mouth. I sucked him in until I was nose deep in his thatch of curly brown hair and he shot hard into the latex. He brought me to my feet after and rubbed his thumb across my lower lip. He leaned in again and I turned my head, but he found my lips anyway, chasing and finally trapping me against the side of the bed and the 30 Z. A. Maxfield
wall so that I couldn’t turn any further. He teased my lips gently, mouth closed. As delicately as he would have kissed a baby’s face, as tentative and shy as a kid in middle school. Heaven help me, a burning ball of pain closed my throat and I felt the sting of it gather in my eyes. I closed them.
Shawn pushed me to the mattress and held me. I didn’t cry, but it was a near thing and we both knew it. I woke several times in the night, and every one of them surprised me.
Finding Shawn beside me, the comfort of his chest against my back, his fingers interlaced with my own, was new. Everything seemed new. And I knew that if I couldn’t find my balance here in St. Nacho’s, I’d lose myself to the comfort and the tenderness of this. Then when I had to leave, as I had no doubt I would, the pain would kill me.
When I ran a curious finger down the side of Shawn’s face, he woke and smiled sleepily. He no sooner saw me than he was on me and hard, reaching for a condom and seeking entrance. He faced me this time, and we made love looking at each other. Our silence blanketed us like fog. If nothing else, in that moment I wanted him to have everything I had to give, and inside myself I found things even I didn’t know I had.
* * * * *
I woke up when I realized someone was pounding on my door. Shawn was oblivious.
Catching the sheet and pulling it around myself toga-style, I got up and answered it, sure it couldn’t be anything good.
It wasn’t.
Kevin stomped to the bed angrily, his feet popping on the hardwood floor. He slapped Shawn’s arm hard. Shawn jumped, shattered into wakefulness from a sound sleep.
“Hey!” I said, but of course they didn’t hear me. They gestured at each other wildly, and while I couldn’t say exactly what they were saying to each other because Shawn wasn’t talking, I could see it was a litany of accusations and denials, guilt and remorse and recrimination. I wanted no part of that. I locked myself in the bathroom and turned on the shower. I told myself I would let them have the clash of the titans without me.
I was in the shower when a sound echoed off the tiles. I pulled the curtain aside to find Shawn standing in front of me, triumphantly holding a screwdriver and the doorknob. He tossed it onto the sink next to my towel and got in with me.
“Shawn,” I said, holding a hand up.
“I handled it,” he said, his eyes on my face.
“But…”
“I said I handled it. He wants me. I want you. End of story.” He squeezed a blob of shampoo into his hand and started working it into my hair.
“Oh, damn, baby.” I melted under those big, clever hands of his.
He kissed my forehead.
St. Nacho’s
31
“But,” I said, holding him so he could see I was serious. “Why?” I asked. “Why me?
Why not Kevin?”
Shawn shrugged. “I don’t know why not Kevin. I saw you, and right away I wanted you. I watched your eyes, watching me.” He began to use his hands unconsciously, and I was reminded of how he looked when he spoke like that. “You have places in you that I’ve never seen, things I don’t know.” He cupped my face in his hands and kissed me, and in light of what he was saying, I let him. I opened my mouth and my heart and I kissed him back, cursing myself for a damned fool even as I did it.
“Shawn.” I sighed.
“I don’t know why it was you, but it was… It is. And it’s more than just this,” he said, grinding me a little. “Not that this is bad…”
“No,” I gasped, shaking my head. “Not bad.”
He went to kiss me again, and automatically, I turned away.
“I thought we were kissing now,” he said, giving my shoulders a squeeze.
I turned back to him and gave him a kiss. Even to me, it seemed strained. Water rushed over us, between us. He rubbed circles on my ass.
“Are you going to talk to me about that?” he asked. Brown eyes blinked as water hit them. I wanted to put my forehead in the hollow if his throat and leave it there. Forever.
“Now?” I asked, and shook my head again.
“When?” He was still circling my back with his large hands, and I was melting under his touch. It’s amazing how simple and clear everything feels when someone is touching you, and for me it had been so long.
“Later. With clothes on.” I succumbed to the desire to lean in and be held, and he complied, enfolding me in what seemed like impossibly strong arms.
“Later,” he said, before we melted into each other.
After lunch, Shawn caught my hand in his. I didn’t know what his school schedule was, but it was Monday and he wasn’t in class. I didn’t know how old he was, or where he lived, or anything about is parents. I didn’t know anything at all about the man who held my hands and sat before me on the beach, but I found myself telling him things I’d never told a living soul. Later I would realize that Santo Ignacio is just like that, a place to bring your shit and put it down.
I was sitting cross-legged on the beach, in the sand with Shawn, feeling the warmth of the sun as it tried to break through the marine layer. It was still a little cold, and I had gooseflesh under my T-shirt. Shawn caught my hands in his and rubbed briskly to warm them.
“So,” I said, entirely uncomfortable with this.
32 Z. A. Maxfield
“So,” he repeated. He lifted my hand to his lips. “Why no kissing?” He prodded until I got out my phone, and then he made a show of opening his up.
I looked down a little. Because I feel like a fucking idiot, I typed carefully.
Shawn’s brows rose and he snickered. “I see.”
I pushed dry sand around with my foot, burying it. My fingers didn’t really text all that easily, and I made a hundred small typos, going back to clear them up. I used to drink a lot, I sent. Then started again. I mean A LOT. I was really young. I stopped suddenly. I did rehab. I learned things. I didn’t like what I’d learned, but I had learned. Patient brown eyes watched me. My thumbs were getting faster or I’d have had a nervous breakdown on the spot. I’ve never done it sober.
“You’ve never had sex sober,” he said, still watching me with those amber-colored eyes.
“Yes.” I nodded. “No. Well. I’ve had sex,” I told him.