kachelofen | I CAN SEE CLEARLY NOW, PART 4 / 12

I CAN SEE CLEARLY NOW

PART FOUR

Emmett is just about the sweetest guy I know. For someone who's been out on Liberty Avenue since he was sixteen, he can be incredibly naïve sometimes and he’s strangely un-jaded for all his experiences. And yet underneath all that showy exterior and open vulnerability, there’s a resilience that’s all the stronger for being hidden.

But he’s a mess at the moment. I’m accompanying him to the hospice to collect Godiva’s belongings. She didn’t have any relations, at least none who would ever admit to it and Emmett is her next of kin by default and by choice. We’ll have a collection on Liberty Avenue tonight to pay for her funeral. I have no doubt that we’ll get a substantial amount. She was quite a fixture in the community.

Emmett’s eyes are red-rimmed and he tells me anecdotes from his life with Godiva in such a sad voice that I just want to hug him all day. He may be only a year younger than Brian and Michael, but in our group he will always be the baby. At least I will always feel a little responsible for him, like I would for a younger relative. I end up buying him dinner at the diner before spending an hour or so helping him with the collection. He soon finds someone to console him and that leaves me free to go home.

Brian’s not at the loft. I have no idea where he might be. He never tells me where he goes because that wouldn’t fit in with his ‘there’re no locks on our door’ philosophy. It wouldn’t bother me if I at least knew whether he’s planning on staying at the loft overnight or not. I never know if I’m going to be alone for the night.

But tonight I’m in luck. He comes in not twenty minutes later and whatever he’s been doing has given him such a nervous energy that he fucks me over the back of the couch before he’s even in the loft for five minutes. It’s one of those happy occasions when our moods are perfectly in sync. I’m more than ready for hard fucking all night.

It’s amazing that Brian and I still have as much sex after four years as we did in the beginning. I can’t imagine that ever changing either, it's such an integral part of our relationship. Brian does a lot of his communicating this way. I can always gauge his mood from the way he’s fucking me, although most of the time it just tells me that he’s plain horny.

But today there’s an element of desperation in it and that means that he’s either upset or angry. Or both. Being upset always makes him angry because he doesn’t know what to do with feeling that way. He can’t talk about it like other people do and he can’t just let himself be comforted because that would make him look weak in his eyes. So anger is his only outlet. But as long as he’s not angry with me personally, it just translates itself into prolonged hard fucking. Nothing wrong with that.

Three hours later I've almost forgotten how sad my day has been. I’m curled naked against Brian, who’s blowing smoke rings into the air. It’s getting late and we might as well go to sleep now. I have class tomorrow and I’m hoping to get some painting done afterwards.

“Michael's been bawling all day,” he volunteers suddenly.

“Why?”

“Why do you think? Vic, of course.” It comes out sneering as if Michael is being a silly faggot or my question is the height of stupidity. Well, there’s confirmation then that Vic really is positive. He doesn’t even need to spell it out and it doesn’t come as a great shock.

He’s upset. I knew it. Why can he never just say that? Would it kill him to admit that he’s upset because Michael is upset and that he’s worried about Vic? The guy is the only decent father figure he’s ever had – even though Vic's only three years older than me and I would baulk at being considered a father figure by or for Brian – it’s only natural that Brian would be upset that Vic is sick. Only he can’t admit that.

“It’s not a death sentence anymore, you know.”

I expect a flippant remark to that, but what I get instead is a quiet, “The meds aren’t working.”

“Does he have insurance?”

“Yeah, but they can’t find anything that works for him.”

“How did he get it?”

Brian snorts. “How do you think? The usual way.”

I’m simply too tired for this kind of conversation. As much as I would like to be there for him, I’ve had a long day myself and I don’t want to be sneered at tonight. I want to talk about Vic, want to know what’s going on with him because I like the guy, but I don’t want to have to drag every little detail out of Brian while he’s using me as his verbal punching bag.

I’m contemplating taking a shower and getting the loft ready for the night before going to bed, but I’m too tired to move just now. I'd like to talk about Emmett as well, but I couldn’t bear Brian calling him pathetic. I know Brian likes Emmett, but it’s one of those things that he'd never admit to. Why can’t he show a little sympathy? It’s not a sign of weakness, not in my eyes. But I know that if I talk about Emmett, Brian will only mock me for being upset about him.

“He had some romantic notion about monogamy,” he carries on unexpectedly. “I always said it’s myth. No two guys will ever only fuck each other and if you assume that, you get a rude awakening, like Vic.”

Okay, he obviously wants to talk. Only, I’m not up for the monogamy discussion at the moment. We’ve talked about this before – hypothetically – and we always come to an impasse pretty quickly. I believe that it’s possible for two guys to be monogamous, although obviously not when the other guy is Brian. He thinks that no guy, gay or straight, can keep it in his pants, nor can he think of a reason why they should. Depending on my mood, I agree with him on that last point or not.

“Ben and Michael are monogamous.”

He laughs without humor. “They’re using condoms by default. Nothing’s stopping either one of them from fucking around. They can pretend all they like, I don’t believe a word of it.”

“I do.”

“Yeah, you would. They’re about as monogamous as Mel and Linz.”

“Ah well, if we’re talking about people resisting when you come along, that’s a different matter altogether. Of course, no one can resist you.” Where did that come from? I didn’t intend to be that snappy.

“See, I knew you were still pissed about that.”

I sigh, wondering if there would be any point in telling him that I’m not jealous of Lindsay and that what happened between them only worries me for its potential to cause upheaval among our friends. Would there be any point in telling him that I feel terrible talking to Melanie, knowing what I know while she’s in the dark?

This is the difference between us. Brian can make a decision and then take a course of action and never think twice about it again. No apologies, no regrets. I can’t do that. I’ve made the decision not to tell Melanie because I think it can do more harm than good, but that doesn’t mean that the situation doesn’t bother me any longer.

“Lindsay bothers me no more than any guy you’ve fucked since I met you.” Well, at least that isn’t a lie. I get up and walk around the loft naked, tidying up, switching off lights and setting the alarm. Then I decide against a shower and go back to bed.

“What’s with you today?” There’s some annoyance in his voice and he’s frowning at me, as if he really can’t tell.

“I had a long day and I’m tired. I don’t wanna fight.”

“I’m not fighting. All I said was…”

“…that everybody fucks around and it’s stupid to assume otherwise or be upset about it. I heard you.”

He hates it when I finish his sentences. And I hate that nothing ever changes. I love him, more than anything, but sometimes I can feel my inner resources dwindling, have felt that way for a while.

He turns onto his side, facing me, with his arm stretched along the pillows. “Hey,” he says softly. “Com’ ere.”

I scoot closer and rest my head in the crook of his shoulder. My forehead finds a home against his chest and I put my arm around his waist. His other arm comes to rest on my body, his hand splayed against my back, stroking gently. I take a deep breath in relief and just before I drop off to sleep, I feel him kiss my hair.

When I get to my studio at PIFA after class on Monday, I find a guy there whom I’ve never seen before. For the last year I’ve been renting a studio here because they’re cheap and I was fed up with painting in my loft and with lugging my work backwards and forwards. The downside is that I have to share because there aren’t enough studio spaces for every student. I’m lucky that I’m even allowed to rent one because I’m only part-time.

“Who are you?” I ask, not too friendly because I’m always worried about my paintings. Trixie, the girl I’m sharing the studio with, has this unfortunate habit of having lots of friends round while she works. Usually, I just put on my MP3 player and ignore everyone. But today she’s not even here.

“Name’s Jon,” the guy says, without looking up from constructing what looks like a work bench.

“Where’s Trixie?”

“She quit. I’m your new roomie.”

“Oh.”

I take a good look at him. He’s maybe about my age and I’m sure I haven’t seen him around. I would have noticed because anybody who’s not a teenager sticks out a mile and he’s hot, too. Tall, dark and handsome, as they say. I can see the muscles rolling under his thin t-shirt as he’s tightening the screws with a screwdriver.

“I’m Justin.”

“Yeah, I know.”

Ah, well, not the talkative type then. That will make a pleasant change from Trixie, who never seemed to shut up. I have no idea why she might have quit, but she was only in her first year, so maybe she decided that Art isn’t her thing after all. Her paintings were for shit anyway.

I start on my painting, which is half-finished already and coming along nicely. But I keep getting distracted by Jon, who, after finishing with the bench, is in and out of the room, bringing in all sorts of materials, mainly different metals, but also wood and plastics. His body is nicely toned, probably from lugging all this stuff around.

“What is it you do?” I ask finally.

“Sculptures.”

Three hours later that’s still the only exchange of words we’ve had. Jon isn’t actually working yet, just sorting through his materials and cleaning and setting out a huge array of tools. Then Brian turns up. He has the jeep today, so he’s here to pick me up. I realize that I got lost in my work in the end and I’m late.

Brian’s looking at Jon with unconcealed interest and Jon, who's ignored me all this time, keeps looking at Brian, too.

“New roomie?” Brian asks with a smirk.

“New roomie,” I confirm.

I start washing my paint brushes and ignore Brian’s open cruising. Jon seems a little distracted by it but otherwise doesn’t pay any attention, although I’m pretty convinced that would change very quickly if Brian were really trying his luck. This is just habit. Brian can’t look at a hot guy without checking him out. In the end, I practically push him out the door.

“Could you please not fuck my new roomie?” I say, as we’re walking down the corridor.

“Why? Are you keeping him for yourself?”

“No. I just think it could get awkward if you do. I don’t even know if he’s gay.”

“He’s gay all right.”

“I bow to your experience.”

“You should. Why are you so tetchy?”

“He’s got hammers, and drills, and welding equipment.” I can see a lot of noise in my future.

Brian puts his arm around me and pulls me closer, while we’re still walking. “I could hammer and drill you, and I’m sure it would weld us together for quite a while.”

I laugh and push him off. “When we get home.”

“I was picturing you naked on that work bench.”

I laugh again and shake my head. There’s never a dull moment with Brian. He pulls me close again and stops walking, bending his head down slowly to kiss me. Ignoring all the people weaving their way around us, I kiss him back. Kissing in public outside Liberty Avenue still makes me a little uncomfortable, but PIFA is a safe place to do that. I suspect that half the male students are gay anyway.

Brian's been a little clingy recently, which is both wonderful and scary. When he goes through phases like this, as he does periodically, I’m always worried that I'll get used to it and then it'll hurt all the more when he inevitably feels stifled and starts acting out again. I’m tired of being careful and reserved all the time.

He draws away with a put-upon sigh when his cellphone goes off.

“Your timing’s for shit, Mikey,” he says by way of a greeting and then the grin is wiped off his face in a second by whatever Michael has to say. “Mikey….Mikey…. Michael! Stay put. I’ll be there as soon as I can.”

He’s already striding down the corridor before he's even shut his phone and I rush to keep up with him.

“Can you drop me off at Allegheny Hospital?” he asks, passing me the car keys. “Vic’s been admitted.”

“I’ll come with you.”

“Okay.” He sounds neither pleased nor annoyed about my suggestion.

By the time we get there, Vic's already been moved to his own room. Michael is standing outside, pressed against the corridor wall as if that is all that’s keeping him up right now. His face shows obvious signs of relief when he sees us, or rather Brian – I don’t think he really cares whether I’m there or not.

I stop by the window into the room and watch Debbie as she sits uncharacteristically still, holding her brother’s hand. Vic looks asleep. There’s a drip into one of his arms, but other than that there are no machines, beeping or otherwise. Is that a good or a bad sign?

I look down the corridor to where Brian’s crowding Michael against the wall with his body. He’s stroking his hair saying, “He’s not gonna die,” a few times. Michael is crying freely now, all snotty nose and sobbing hiccups. I envy him this. When the situation demands it, Brian is always there for him, caring and consoling, and being the adult in the relationship. With us, it’s always me who has to be strong and mature. If I broke down like Michael, Brian would lose all respect for me.

“I’m not strong enough for this,” Michael is saying, noisily snorting in air through his nose.

“Yes, you are. Remember when you stayed with me at the hospital for almost all of those three days? I couldn’t have gotten through that without you. You were strong then and you’re strong now. And Vic’s not gonna die.”

He can only mean the time when we had that accident and I’m taken aback by the way his voice almost cracks on those words. I know he still feels guilty about that. He won’t take the wheel when we're both in the car, while I’m fit to drive and he always checks that I put my seatbelt on. I feel a wave of love come over me because he always takes everything in so deeply, even when he appears to shake it all off without much care. Sometimes I wish people could see what I see.

“You’re always saying that,” Michael pipes up.

“And wasn’t I right about Ben when he was sick? We’ll get through this, you’ll see.”

He’s so very different with Michael. Whenever we have a conversation, he’s always brutally honest, no embellishments, no white lies, just the unadulterated truth as he sees it, however much it may hurt. He rarely tries to console me when I’m upset and his idea of cheering me up is a good fuck. Not that I would even dare to show any weakness in front of him anyway. It’s one of the pitfalls of having a relationship with a much younger guy.

After a while, Michael calms down enough to go into the room. Brian and I sit around in the corridor for a couple of hours, drinking terrible coffee and not saying much. I now he’s worried but I also know that he won’t talk about it. Then Ben turns up. He’s been in a faculty meeting and had his phone switched off. I wonder whom Michael called first, him or Brian.

It turns out that Vic collapsed at home and Debbie panicked and called an ambulance. He’s severely dehydrated from not eating and drinking enough and the doctors want to keep him in overnight. Otherwise he’s fine, or as fine as you can be with HIV when the medication has no discernible effect. Ben tells us a lot of medical stuff about T-cells and viral loads that I vaguely remember from when he himself was hospitalized last year.

Eventually Brian and I go home. There’s nothing we can do to help and Ben will look after Michael. But the next day we all meet up at Debbie’s. Our ranks have swelled to include Ted and Emmett and even Lindsay and Melanie, although Lindsay says she’s not feeling too well and they soon go home. Maybe she doesn’t like sick people. Quite frankly, I can't imagine her giving hands-on care to anybody anyway.

I’m astonished how involved Brian is. It’s unsurprising that he’s there for Michael but he also sits with Vic in his bedroom for two hours. For a few days, Debbie divides her time between looking after Vic, trying to feed her guests, going to work and sleeping very little. Then Ted devises a schedule for all of us and it’s very intricate, taking everybody’s other commitments into account, while never leaving either Debbie or Vic on their own for a single minute.

Even though nobody says it, we all believe that this is a temporary situation that will come to a natural end with Vic’s eventual death, but it needs to be sustainable for a few weeks. Michael has moved into his old room, refusing to leave the house for any other reason than to go to work. Ben turns up every day after he’s finished at the university, but he needs to go home at night to look after Hunter, who refuses to come to Deb’s. I realize that this must be really frightening for him. He’s practically seeing his own future playing out and it’s not pretty.

One silver lining of the situation is that Debbie seems to have made her peace with Ben. Up until now, she's always made it clear how much she resents him for putting Michael's life at risk by being positive. The implication was always that he contracted the disease through his own recklessness and has no right to be anywhere near her son because of that. Suddenly, she has a much loved brother in exactly the same situation, getting infected by a trusted long-term partner through no fault of his own and she no longer has the luxury to close her eyes to the truth. On top of that, Ben is now the source of endless, detailed information and experience. Seeing them together makes it difficult to remember that they were barely talking not so long ago.

She’s also starting to treat Brian better. She often smiles softly at him or sometimes strokes his hair as she walks past, which she hasn’t really done in two years. She blamed Brian for introducing Michael to Ben in the first place and even if she could have forgiven him for that, she hated that he refused to take sides when she asked him to persuade Michael to break it off with Ben. She knew as well as anybody in our group that Brian was the one person Michael would have listened to. Only, Brian always kept out of it. She never forgave him for that, said she always knew he was a bad influence.

It pains me to see how much Brian soaks up her attention. He seems to ignore it, like he always ignored her animosity, but I can see how much it means to him. This is one of the reasons I’ve tried to keep my distance from the family for so long. I couldn’t forgive either. To me, it was incomprehensible how she could treat Brian that way, when she knew how important she was to him and how badly he was treated by his own mother. I would have expected more of her.

Over the next three weeks, Brian practically lives at Debbie’s house, mainly because Michael is there and needs his support. I’m there almost every day after work, too, because Emmett and I have been assigned kitchen duty. It soon turns out that Emmett is a much better cook than I could ever hope to be and I resign myself to chopping vegetables for him.

The idea is that Debbie should be free to do other things, so things like cooking, cleaning and shopping are done by the rest of us. She goes to work still but no longer does extra shifts. The rest of the time she either sits with Vic or sleeps. Of the rest of us, the only people who get to see the patient are Michael, Ben and Brian. We're more there to give moral support to Debbie and Michael than for Vic.

After three weeks Vic comes downstairs one day, in his robe still, but at least he’s well enough to sit in front of the TV for a little while. I can’t help thinking that this might be a last energy spurt before the end, he certainly looks only one step removed from it. And then he surprises us all by saying that he would like to see Italy. Debbie's enthusiastic about it because there’s nothing she would deny him at the moment, but the rest of us are more cautious. Except for Brian, who’s all for it.

When we go home two hours later, Ted has already helped them book tickets online. There’s no stopping Debbie from doing something once she’s put her mind to it anyway, so our protests have been half-hearted and ceased very quickly.

“Do you really think going to Italy is good idea?” I ask Brian when we’re in bed. We’ve had a shower together and he’s lying on top of me smoothing my wet hair back.

“What’s the alternative? Sitting at home, waiting to die? Italy sounds like a much better idea to me.”

“What if he gets worse over there? Or even dies?” Quite frankly I’m not even sure if he'll make it to Italy.

“Then she can bury him in the homeland. Since when have you turned into a Jewish mother? Or Michael?”

“I’m just being practical. She doesn’t know anyone over there. She doesn’t even speak the language.” However much Debbie always talks about her heritage, she’s about as Italian as Brian is Irish, meaning she’s first and foremost American and just likes to cultivate her ancestry because it’s a family tradition. Being able to cook Italian food doesn’t make you Italian.

He shrugs and leans down to kiss me as a start to round two, no doubt, when there’s a knock on the door. It’s more than a knock, it’s a pounding.

“What now?” I get up to find my sweatpants and a shirt to answer the door, while Brian just rolls onto his back and makes a grab for his cigarettes.

“I’m coming,” I shout on my way to the door, but they either don’t hear me or don’t care. Predictably, Brian snickers at that. It’s not particularly late, so it could be anybody, except my mother, who would never make such a racket at any time of the day or night. But when I pull the door back, I’m surprised nonetheless.

Melanie has been to my loft only a handful of times. We usually meet when a group of us meet at Woody’s or the diner. There’s no real reason for that, it’s just a habit. I’ve only been to her house twice, as far as I can remember, and one of those occasions was for her housewarming party.

She strides past me into the loft, then whirls around to face me.

“Hello. Come right in, why don’t you?” I mutter to myself, before close the door. For a moment, I’m worried that she has bad news about Vic, but her first sentence tells me clearly that this is more personal. I knew this would happen eventually. It was inevitable.

“Did you know?”

“Pardon?”

“Did. You. Know?”

“You have to be more specific. Did I know what?” I’m not giving her any information as long as I can’t be sure what she’s talking about.

“Did you know about Lindsay and Brian? Fucking?”

I take a deep breath and don’t answer, but I don’t have to because she can see it in my face.

“Great! Just great! Am I the last to know?”

“I don’t think anybody knows, except you and me. I didn’t tell you because it’s not my place. Relationships are tricky. I didn’t know what was best.”

“Some friend you are.”

“I am your friend, Mel, but Lindsay’s your girlfriend. It was her job to tell you. And there’s Brian… I’m just an innocent bystander. For what it’s worth, I’m sorry.”

“Is he here?”

I move forward and place myself between her and the bedroom. I won’t have a confrontation in there. This is my space. They can have their fight someplace else.

“What are you gonna do? Shouting at him won’t change anything.” And Brian has no loyalty to her anyway. He would just sneer at her and I don’t want her any more hurt than she already is. But I can already hear Brian in the bedroom, rustling with his clothes. Then I see him coming down the steps through the other doorway. He’s put on his jeans, only half done up and he’s smirking.

I wish he wouldn’t do that. Sometimes a little contrition can go a long way. Okay, no amount of groveling is likely to appease Melanie right now, but there’s no reason to make it worse by being snarky.

“I want to know what you’re planning to do about the mess you created,” she hisses at him. At least she’s not trying to attack him, although she looks like she might any second now.

“Hey,” he says almost conversationally, “it’s not my fault that your girlfriend likes cock every once in a while. Believe me, I can relate.”

I involuntarily take a step forward, so that I can stop her if she throws herself at him. Her face contorts into pure hatred for a moment before she pauses and then smiles. It’s quite cold and satisfied and I’m already dreading what she’s going to say next.

“You don’t know, do you?” she grins at him.

Brian pretends to be unconcerned, but I can read him well enough to know that he’s bringing up his defenses in a hurry. It’s subtle, but it’s there. Outwardly, all he does is shrug.

“Know what? That you’re obviously not enough for her?”

She looks at me as if to see if I know what she’s talking about and then she smiles a false, sickly sweet smile at Brian and drops the bombshell. “Lindsay’s pregnant, you asshole.”

I can see that Brian didn’t know. However much he has his facial expressions under control, I can see the tensing of his body and the nerve fluttering ever so slightly just above the jawline. But he’s Brian and he would never allow himself to lose face, especially not in front of Melanie. So he shrugs again and says, “Congratulations. That’s what you wanted, isn’t it? Problem solved. You can pay me whatever you were going to pay the sperm bank, but I don’t take checks. Cash only.”

We both stare at him and I’m flooded with so many thoughts at the same time that it’s impossible to hold on to a single one. Melanie is quiet for a long time, while he just stares her down, seemingly unperturbed.

Then she turns to me. “I’m sorry,” she says and smiles sadly. “You deserve better.”

She's said that to me before, a few times actually, but it’s usually said in anger or exasperation, never with so much pity.

“’S all right,” I say on autopilot. “It’s not your fault.”

She nods and stalks out of the loft without another word.

*******

So, this is what it feels like when someone comes along and blows your life apart all around you while you’re still standing in the middle of it. I can hear Jack’s voice telling me to watch out for the ladies because they’re all out to catch you. How smug I felt then, thinking that it could never happen to me. Like father, like son. You really can’t escape your destiny.

And I’m sure I feel exactly the same way Jack felt when Mom told him she was pregnant. Only there’s no way I’m marrying Lindsay. She doesn’t expect that, right? She knows I’m gay. And she’s with Melanie and they want a kid anyway. I don’t. I never wanted to bring a kid into this world. I was quite happy for the Kinney name to die out with me. What the fuck would I do with a kid?

Neither Justin nor I have moved since Melanie’s announcement. Oh fuck! Justin! He’s going to go ballistic any second now. He’s always so exasperated when I fuck up, so disappointed and so fucking superior.

I walk back into the bedroom and sit on the bed, getting a cigarette out of the pack and lighting it automatically. Then I stare at the hardwood floor and listen to the white noise in my head until it settles down enough to allow me to think. Two possibilities: Lindsay will have the kid or she won’t. Best case scenario for me would be that she’ll decide that she doesn’t want it yet, or doesn’t want it to have me as a father. It might make me a bastard, but there it is. A baby really doesn’t fit into my life plan. It shouldn’t be too difficult to make her realize what a terrible father I'd make.

Surely, Lindsay won’t want to keep it anyway. They may want a child, but they said they wanted to wait until Lindsay graduates. This is too early. And then there’s Melanie. There’s no way in hell that she'll ever agree to this. She hates my guts. But if Lindsay decides to keep it anyway and they split up over this, that would really put me on the spot. I may have to drop out of college. Yeah, right. No way am I dropping out of college to work for some menial wages somewhere. How would that help the situation? Better to finish college and get a decent job after I graduate.

I could promise to stay away from them and just send a check every month. Melanie might go for that. Do I have any rights or do I just have responsibilities now? I have no idea. What I do know is that I have no money. I barely get by every month and if I didn’t have Justin…

Oh fuck! I crane my neck and see him still standing there, rooted to the same spot. I should go and talk to him. And say what exactly? What could I possibly say? This is it. This is the point where he'll finally tell me that it’s gone too far. I’ve been waiting for this moment for four long years. I knew that one day he would either simply recognize me for what I am or I'd fuck up so badly that he wouldn’t be able to ignore it any longer. Not in a million years would I have foreseen this scenario though.

I watch him as he comes out of his trance. He looks around as if he’s not quite sure where he is and then comes into the bedroom. Without looking at me, he puts some clothes on. I can’t tell if he’s angry or just upset and I can’t think of anything to say to him.

“I’m going out.”

No shit, I worked that one out all by myself, with him picking up his keys and wallet and all. I wait for the inevitable, for him to tell me not to be here when he gets back, but he just walks out the loft and locks the door behind him.

So I wait. He hasn’t told me to leave, so I don’t. This doesn’t concern him and if he wants to make it his concern, he’ll have to say so. How does this have anything to do with him anyway? No one expects him to take responsibility or is upset with him over this. He can just carry on with his life as before. It’s my life that’s fucked up. And I still believe that this will all sort itself out anyway. Lindsay won’t keep it and everything will go back to normal.

But I know that things don’t work that way for Justin. Even if Lindsay already had an abortion, he would still be upset. For Justin the end doesn’t justify the means. We had this discussion numerous times. He’s upset that it happened, regardless of the consequences. If Lindsay has the kid, that'll just make it worse, but not having it won’t make this situation any better. Not for him. He has these morals that he lives by. And he judges everyone around him by them. I’ve fallen short – again – and that’s what counts for him. The consequences he'll deal with – admirably, no doubt – but the actual fuck-up, he might not be able to forgive.

I go back to bed because I’m not waiting up for him. That’s not me. I’m here because I see no reason to leave and I’m too tired to go back to the dorm now. It has nothing to do with waiting to see what Justin will say. Or being worried about it. Nothing’s changed. He’s not my dad or my wife. He has no right to admonish me for my behavior. But he can tell me to leave. It’s his place and if he doesn’t want anything to do with me anymore, that’s his choice, too. I’ll deal with it when we get there. That doesn’t mean that it worries me.

Justin doesn’t come back for more than three hours. When he gets in, he takes a shower. He went out tricking? I didn’t expect that. Justin doesn’t really act out. When he has a problem, he broods over it or he goes to Daphne. Fucking it away is my style, not his. Maybe he just wants to think for a bit longer. He often does that in the shower. He wouldn’t really go and fuck someone else, would he?

I know he tricks occasionally, but that’s because he’s a guy and that’s what we do. He only tricks when I haven’t come here for a while. On the other hand, how would I know? He’s asked me not to talk about my tricking and he certainly doesn’t talk about his. How would I know how much he tricks? Or if he has a fuck buddy? I’m just assuming that his tricking's not on the same scale as mine, but you never know.

He comes to bed and then he just lies there, looking at the ceiling. Occasionally, he shuts his eyes for a while but they always open again soon after. Looks like he can’t sleep either. I just want to fuck the shit out of him, to make him forget about whatever he’s been doing for the last few hours and about how fucked up everything is. But I don’t know if he'd let me.

After a while, he turns away from me but in doing so he moves his body closer to me and when I turn on my side and spoon up behind him, he doesn’t move away. I drape my arm over his body and pull him close.

Justin is up before me the next day, which is no great surprise as he’s working at the gallery today, whereas I don’t have to be in class until ten. However, he usually wakes me up for a morning fuck, unless he’s running late, which he isn’t today. I hear him pottering about in the kitchen and then leave.

For a while, I try to go back to sleep but I’m out of sorts. I should just bite the bullet and go to see Lindsay. I’ll have to eventually, might as well get it out of the way. It’s unlikely that she won’t see eye to eye with me on the subject, but we do have to talk about it, much as I’d rather not.

When I see her in the corridor outside her classroom, she’s surrounded by her friends, but she seems a little detached, not gossiping like she usually does. She looks at me, but there’s no smile and no greeting.

“Hi, Brian,” one of her friends greets me. I think her name is Paula and she usually flirts with me like there’s no tomorrow. Either she’s oblivious that I’m gay or she's one of those girls who thinks I just haven’t met the right girl yet. Well, here’s a newsflash, I have and it made no difference.

“We need to talk,” I say, ignoring Paula and everyone else around us.

“I have class in five minutes.” That’s a new one. Lindsay’s never shot me down before.

I raise my eyebrows and she lowers her head and sighs. Grabbing her bag from the floor, she says, “See you later,” to the other girls, who've fallen silent, watching us in rapt attention, and follows me along the corridor.

I lead us to the cafeteria, which is practically deserted at this time of the morning. Lindsay ambles along to one of the tables in the far corner, next to the big window, while I go up to the counter and get both of us a coffee. I already had breakfast. There’s no way I will not avail myself of Justin’s food when I’m staying at the loft. Nobody in their right mind would choose cafeteria food over his and he always stocks my favorites.

On the way to the table I wonder if drinking coffee is okay when you’re pregnant. How would I know? Claire smoked and drank through both of hers. And if things go the way I anticipate them to, it won’t make any difference anyway.

I push Lindsay’s coffee over to her and sit in the seat opposite. She’s watching me in silence, stirring her coffee absently. And now I don’t know what to say. This is one conversation I never envisioned having.

“Melanie told you then?” she says finally.

“You could say that. Why didn’t you?”

“Because you’ve been avoiding me for the last few weeks.” She sounds indignant. I suppose she has a right to be. I just wanted her to calm down a bit after what happened.

“What are you gonna do?”

“What am I gonna do? Don’t you mean we?”

Okay, this isn't going the way I expected at all. Time to change tack. I don’t want this to deteriorate into a screaming match and I can see that she’s on edge. Only, I don’t know the protocol here. She’s obviously annoyed with me and I really don’t want to make the situation worse, for her or me.

“Okay. Let’s talk basics. Are you keeping it?”

“Of course.” Her answer is out so quick, I don’t even have time to turn pleading eyes on her. I’m not sure that my disappointment and shock don’t show in my face either.

“What? You thought I’ll get rid of the problem for you with a quick trip to the clinic? Sorry to disappoint you.”

Now is the time to tell her not to be stupid, to think about her future, about Melanie, about the kid, about me. If I play my cards right, I’m sure I can make her see reason. I could offer to go with her to the clinic, to hold her hand throughout the procedure if I must. I open my mouth to say so, but what comes out is completely different.

“I’ll support whatever decision you make.”

She looks surprised, as well she may be, and smiles for the first time. “Really?” The happiness in her voice almost kills me, because everything inside me screams, No! Don’t do this. This is a huge fucking mistake. Make it go away. Please. But there’s no way that my kid will grow up to be told one day that its dad wanted it aborted. No way in hell.

“Sure. It’s just… how do you see this working?”

It’s ironic. I’m almost sure I can persuade her to have an abortion and it’s what I want her to do. The whole situation is fucked up. What chance would a kid have with parents like us, still in college, with no money, no job, and no intention of bringing it up together? Then there’s Melanie, who hates me and might well remove herself from the picture. Not to mention how high and drunk Lindsay and I both were that night. That can’t be healthy. But I can’t say anything because if she doesn’t have an abortion, I don’t want my kid knowing that that’s what I wanted. And because I can’t say anything, the chances of this going my way are virtually nil. Catch 22.

“What are you offering?” she asks, looking at me from under her eyelashes.

Uh-uh, I know that look. “Well, I’m not gonna marry you.”

She lowers her head but not before I can see the disappointment and hurt there.

“You cannot be serious. I’m gay, Lindsay. You’re a lesbian, for fuck’s sake. Even in your most demented dreams you couldn’t have thought that we'd be playing happy families.”

“We could try. We get on so well together. We could make a go of it… for the baby.”

“Lindsay.” I squeeze the bridge of my nose with my forefinger and thumb to keep my temper. “Living together for the sake of the kid isn’t gonna work. My parents did that and, believe me, it didn’t work.”

“Your parents were together until your father died. It couldn’t have been that bad.”

“My father was a violent drunk and my mother’s a frigid bitch. They had a hateful marriage. The only reason they didn’t get divorced was because my mother’s more concerned with where she’ll end up after death than before. And, believe me, Clare and I often wished they would have.”

She looks shocked. Of course, she doesn’t know what went on in our house. She only saw each of my parents once – separately. After a few moments, she smiles softly and puts her hand on mine.

“But we wouldn’t be like that. We’re friends. That’s a better basis for marriage than love sometimes.”

“I’m gay, for fuck’s sake. I don’t like women. Not in that sense. What happened was a one-off.” I pull my hand away because her touch makes my skin crawl all of a sudden. That never happened before. Normally, even hugging and kissing her is pleasant.

Her smile turns seductive, or what she considers seductive. “Don’t tell me you didn’t enjoy it.”

Jeez, why is she not getting a clue? “No, I can’t tell you that.” I wait for her smile to turn triumphant before I carry on, in my coldest voice, “Because I can’t fucking remember any of it. Not a single thing.”

“What?” She’s staring at me now and I can see that I finally got through to her. Only, she looks so hurt that I’m almost tempted to soften the blow, but not quite. If she doesn’t get the message now, she never will and this will turn into even more of a disaster.

“I was high. I remember going to your room and drinking and taking some pills and the next thing I remember is waking up in your bed. There’s nothing in between. Zilch.”

“But you… you must have enjoyed it because… because you…”

I snort a laugh. “Got hard? Shot my load? Lindsay, I get hard rubbing up against a tree. It’s nothing personal.”

“Oh God.” She puts her hand to her face and I know it’s theatrics. Tears cried in front of an audience always are. They’re a tool to manipulate. But that doesn’t mean that they don’t work. I don’t mind being manipulated as long as I’m aware of it and can work out what the other person is after. Then I can use their manipulation against them.

I change to the seat next to her and put my arm around her shoulders. “It doesn’t mean I don’t love you.”

Predictably, she throws her arms around me and hugs me tight, burying her head in my shoulder. I pat her back a little uncomfortably, and wonder why the only person in my life who doesn’t try to manipulate me is Justin. He hates playing games, even when I do. Or maybe he’s so smart that I don’t notice when he’s doing it.

“We’ll get through this.”

She sniffles and moves back a little so she can look at me. “Will you come with me when I tell my parents?”

“What? No. That would create entirely the wrong impression, don’t you think? Take Melanie. You can come clean about being a carpet muncher at the same time. Get it all over with in one fell swoop.”

She sniffles again. “Melanie threw me out.”

“Why? She wanted a kid, didn’t she?”

“Yeah, but not the way it happened. And not with you in the mix.”

“I’m sure she’ll come round if you play your cards right.” I know she will because she’s besotted with Lindsay. And if she doesn’t, I will have a whole different set of problems.

“I’m willing to give her up.” She moves back a bit more and looks at me hopefully.

She’s really tenacious when she wants something. “You shouldn’t. You don’t want to do this alone.” I’m well aware of the hypocrisy of my suggestion because I’m basically telling her that she should stay with Melanie for the sake of the kid. But she has to get this idea that she and I will somehow end up together with the kid out of her head and fast. “I’m not giving up Justin.”

“What do you mean?”

Oh fuck. Where did that come from? I didn’t mean to say that out loud, but now that I did, I’m not taking it back. Maybe it will make it clear to her that I don’t feel about her that way. The people in our ‘family’ have this annoying habit of dismissing Justin from my life as if four years of spending time with him and fucking him at every opportunity means nothing. There’s a reason I’m doing that. I like doing it. If I didn’t, I wouldn’t be doing it. Just because I’m not stupid enough to think that it’s something that it isn’t, doesn’t mean that I'd give it up without a backward glance.

She looks at me and her eyes water again. “Oh my God. You love him. You always pretend that you don’t, but you do.”

“I don’t believe in love, I believe in fucking. And that’s not the issue here. You need to forget about us living together and playing mom and dad and decide what you want to do.”

She’s still staring at me and I’m giving her my most steely look back. Finally I can see understanding dawn on her and she pulls herself up straight in the chair. Her voice is icy. “Melanie doesn’t want anything to do with your child. She’s worried that she’ll have to put up with you all the time.”

“Fine. Tell her I promise to never see the kid.”

“Yeah, you would.”

I lift my hands in a ‘what the fuck?’ gesture and drop them again. I’m trying to make this easy for her and she’s still not happy? What's that about?

“You would never see me either,” she says coldly.

“I’m aware of that. It wouldn’t work otherwise.”

Her chair scrapes across the floor as she gets up abruptly. “You really are an asshole, Brian.” And with that she sweeps out of the room with her head held high, like the good little diva that she is.

Yeah, I’m aware of that as well.

The three other people in the cafeteria shoot me some curious glances, but ignore me otherwise. I stay a bit longer, drinking first my own coffee and then Lindsay’s, which really doesn’t have enough sugar in it. Then I decide to go for a run, as it slowly sinks in that I’m going to be a father.

PART FIVE here: http://kachelofen.livejournal.com/22817.html

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

From:

duffy-60.livejournal.com

Please excuse the following remark: FUCK, FUCK, FUCK!!!

I knew that was going to happen. Lindsay is manipulative enough to have planned this all. I just wish you could have gotten more into Justin's head on this update, but I'm willing to wait a few days. ;-)

See ya on Wednesday, sweetie!

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I CAN SEE CLEARLY NOW, PART 4 / 12

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