
Posted originally on the Archive_of_Our_Own at https://archiveofourown.org/
works/46719.
  Rating:
      Explicit
  Archive Warning:
      Underage
  Category:
      M/M
  Fandom:
      Star_Wars_Prequel_Trilogy
  Relationship:
      Qui-Gon_Jinn/Obi-Wan_Kenobi
  Character:
      Qui-Gon_Jinn, Obi-Wan_Kenobi
  Additional Tags:
      Alternate_Universe_-_High_School, Pre-Slash, Virginity, First_Time, First
      Kiss, Angst, Drugs, Cross-Generation_Relationship
  Collections:
      Crossgenerational_Slash
  Stats:
      Published: 2002-12-10 Completed: 2003-06-27 Chapters: 69/69 Words: 48237
****** Slacker ******
by padawanhilary, Telesilla
Summary
     Slacker is the story of Jon, a middle-aged high school teacher and
     Ben, one of his students. This work contains sex between an adult and
     a seventeen year old and descriptions of drug abuse, so if that sort
     of thing is an issue for you, please use your back button now.
Notes
     This work contains sex between an adult and a seventeen year old and
     descriptions of drug abuse, so if that sort of thing is an issue for
     you, please use your back button now.
     Originally each chapter was posted as a vignette, which is why
     they're all quite short.
See the end of the work for more notes
***** Chapter 1 *****
He is a complete slacker. He's leaning on the outer wall of the boys' bathroom
on the south end of the building, catching the last of fall's sunlight. He's
smoking casually, as though someone weren't about to come around the corner of
the building and snatch the cigarette right out of his hand, yelling at him to
go to detention--again. He's in a ratty denim jacket covered with ink drawings,
his own personal graffiti, tattoo designs, safety pins, zippers. Trent Reznor's
signature graces the pocket just inside. The jacket never gets washed. It
almost never gets taken off.
Under the jacket is an obscene t-shirt depicting two skeletons engaged in a
questionably-positioned sex act. He'd get sent to detention for that, too, and
frequently does. His pants are so dark olive that they're almost ebon, and they
hang on him. The tops of his hipbones could likely be seen if only he would tug
up the hem of the t-shirt. His shoulders are against the wall but they're all
that's touching it; the rest of his body slumps outward, hips thrust
provocatively forward. His legs are crossed. His Visions are covered in the
same inkwork his jacket is; most of the drawing is done on the instep when he
gets bored in physics or Algebra II.
He never, however, gets bored in World Economics. His pale green eyes have
settled on Dr. Jon Quenton, a man far too educated to be teaching a core class
in a bad high school. Dr. Quenton is leaning in his doorway in a pose as
blatantly uncaring as that of his student. He is crisply dressed, his hair
pulled into a low tail at his nape, his beard immaculately trimmed, his white
shirt and khaki slacks pressed sharply. One leg is crossed before the other and
his arms are folded over his chest as he regards his student, who never studies
but manages to pull nineties and hundreds on every test he takes. Quenton
should be the one snatching the cigarette away and sending the boy to
detention, where they will replace the t-shirt yet again with something tame
and unprovocative. He should demand more, explain that such potential in one so
young and so very intelligent should never be wasted. He should admonish the
boy to try harder, do more. He should, by all rights, be spouting the same
nonsense the rest of the administration does. He should, but he does not.
He looks at the cant of slim hips and the huge, green eyes and can't bring
himself to change anything about the illegal tableau in front of him.
***** Chapter 2 *****
Dr. Quenton cups the smooth, young face in his hands, feeling soft lips under
his, lips so warm and sweet that he's been dying to kiss them for months. It's
dangerous and taboo, this kiss, but made all the more scorching for that fact.
Ben is leaning over his desk, hands planted firmly on it, giving as good as he
gets, allowing his mouth to be ravished as he ravishes back, lips and tongue
and teeth all engaged in slick, gorgeous play--
The fantasy breaks like glass as Ben shifts in his seat, causing the rubber on
his sneakers to squeak on the utilitarian tile floor. The professor's assistant
is hunched over the thick, red-and-black lettered teacher's edition of Global
Economics, making red slashes on multiple-choice Scantron sheets because Dr.
Quenton hates the Scantron machine.
Ben's hair is disheveled and his posture is bad. He has his ankles crossed
under the chair, which is positioned at the front of Dr. Quenton's desk. The
latest addition to his right instep is a stick-and-circles drawing of the
molecular structure of Valium. His head is tipped down, his eyes partially
obscured by a flop of red-brown hair. He's not reading the book, though; not by
a long shot. He's leaning forward on his elbows, head tipped down, eyes looking
up, watching.
Sighing, Dr. Quenton focuses his eyes and forces himself to read.
***** Chapter 3 *****
Ben is leaning so far over Dr. Quenton's chair that the professor can feel the
heat from his body, even through all the denim. The boy has pointed out a place
in the textbook--in the textbook, for God's sake--that's wrong. The problem is
that it took him a while to find it. The problem is that he flips through
pages, biting his bottom lip, his red-gold hair flopping into his eyes in a way
that's endearing and irritating and sexy at the same time. It makes Dr. Quenton
want to reach up and push it out of the way, demanding somewhat petulantly,
"Doesn't that bother you?" That, compounded with warm, teenaged body heat, the
illicit smoky smell clinging to him (does he have to smell just like that?) and
the intent look in his eyes... that heated, intelligent look...
After a moment, the bitten lip gets released and Ben has straightened up,
pointing at the found error in smug triumph. "There. DaiCorp wasn't changed
over in 1983, it was in eighty-two. Najato Takaichirou established them from
the merger between Yohachi Industries and Daisun, Incorporated in January and
was a victim of a hostile takeover in November; everything changed at the
executive level but only the Japanese media ran it. Basically they disowned
that first year--but the textbook shouldn't let that slide by. You can't cover
the history of a major international corporation and leave that stuff out." He
sounds faintly disgusted.
"How is it you know so much about DaiCorp," Jon asks, voice surprisingly steady
considering the duress he's under, "when you can't seem to find your upper
level algebra class?"
Ben makes a soft huffing noise and looks at the professor steadily. His voice
is flat and all-knowing. "Because Mr. Everett doesn't have a subsidiary
corporation that produces hentai."
"Fair enough," Jon sighs, pinching the bridge of his nose, conceding because he
has, quite simply, no argument for this. He tugs open a desk drawer and reaches
far into the back, into a file folder labeled "Defunct." The form he produces
is intended to be submitted to the publishers of said incorrect textbook.
"Fill that out. Correct what you think needs correcting, and I'll submit it.
Doesn't guarantee anything--in fact, it's probably a waste of time--but there
you go." He hands the form to Ben, who looks at it, narrow-eyed, before taking
it. Jon's assiduously trying not to think of how Ben's sleeves half-cover his
hands, like he's just too small for his clothes. The sweater's sleeves extend
far below those of the jacket, a strip of olive green between the fading denim
and the pale, soft fingers.
"You want me to do it?" Ben asks, a little incredulously.
By now, Jon is so antsy to have Ben away from him--because he can't very well
have Ben, can he--that he nods quickly and makes a shooing motion with his hand
toward Ben's desk.
"Sure," he says casually, glancing around, feeling as though every student in
the classroom should be staring at him. "I trust you."
In spite of his cold hardness at seventeen, Ben finds himself flushing. "Okay,"
he says quietly, and looks at Dr. Quenton for a long moment. Those green eyes
are full of things Jon couldn't fathom if he had years to parse them out.
They're also full of things that look suspiciously familiar... things Jon turns
away from, straightening papers uselessly and drinking from his VW mug. Herbal
tea--Ben can smell it. He stares at the professor before catching himself and
looking down at the form.
"Yeah. Thanks."
He goes back to his desk. He sits down; he tries not to kick his feet against
the floor as he alternately fills out the form and glances up at Dr. Quenton.
Ben is torn; part of him expects that Jon will end up treating him like the
loser everyone thinks he is. He should quit being so goddamned gaga and just
fill out the stupid form. There's homework; he can be half done by the time
class ends if he hurries.
But he watches Jon take another sip from the mug, deep blue eyes poring over
class notes. The tip of Jon's tongue slips out over his lips. Ben realizes his
near-uncontrollable urge to taste that tea is not helping him get either his
homework or this form done.
He smells chamomile, and doesn't care.
***** Chapter 4 *****
"That boy's nothing but trouble, Jon."
Jon Quenton tries not to think about the way his colleagues talk about Ben. But
it's hard to ignore, particularly now, in the privacy of the staff room when
the troubled young man is once more the subject of conversation. Boy. Be honest
with yourself, Jon; he's just a kid. And when he tries to defend his belief in
the boy, the looks come. It's not as if the administration and his fellow
teachers don't know that Jon Quenton is gay, and to be honest, most of them
don't seem to care.
Or at least they didn't seem to care until now. But now that he is showing an
interest in Ben's progress, Jon can tell that the other teachers are concerned.
He should be touched that they're just as concerned about him getting into
trouble as they are about Ben being abused, but it rankles. It's only one more
way in which almost everyone on the faculty has dismissed Ben, written him off
as another teenaged loser.
"Watch yourself, Jon."
"Jon, I think you might want to consider swapping TAs with me."
"Jon, do you know anything about this new character that's showing up in Ben's
art?"
"Dr. Quenton, all it takes is one single complaint from the boy's mother. Or
worse, from the boy himself. You've made yourself and by extension, this
school, terribly vulnerable."
"Will you all just leave me the hell alone? I'm not fucking the boy, all
right!?"
The door slams behind Dr. Quenton as he storms out of the staff room. Glances
are exchanged and eyebrows are raised. Mrs. Erickson, the art teacher, looks
thoughtfully at the drawing depicting a tall, bearded, long-haired warrior
wielding a glowing sword, a pretty young boy fighting at his side as he battles
a horned monster. Manga isn't a style she enjoys but the care put into the
drawing is obvious. No you're not fucking him, Jon, she thinks. It's worse than
that. He's in love with you.
***** Chapter 5 *****
Trite phrases like "a tornado hit" or "a bomb went off"--the kinds of phrases
his mother uses when she's articulate enough to complain--are generally apt
when one wishes to describe Ben's room. It is all over laundry, which is piled
in carefully-arranged heaps, among which he can find anything he needs within
minutes. There are books everywhere; most of them are stacked in well-
inventoried and often-rearranged piles against the walls. There is one
bookshelf; it is full of anime videos and their corresponding action figures:
Gatchaman, Akira, Ghost in the Shell, Gundam Wing... there's even a very small
Speed Racer, prized above all else and encased in a plastic box.
The bookshelf is an upward extension of the desk, which is littered with
Mountain Dew cans, abandoned sketches and crumpled paper with one or two lines
on them. There is an algebra book on the corner of the desk, extending off the
edge a bit; it hasn't moved in three weeks. Various thicknesses and hardnesses
of art pencil are scattered about; here there is a charcoal stick, there, a gum
eraser.
But the thing that commands center stage in a room far too small for the
imagination of its inhabitant is neither the desk with its action figure
collection, nor the piles everywhere on the floor.
What has taken over the room is the giant alien squid robot.
It is hideous. It has eight eyes and a huge maw at the center of its head. Its
many legs hold various things: a dog, a car, a small tree. In the limb foremost
to the view is a human.
Ben spent a lot of time on that mural. He sketched everything out in pencil,
then detailed it all in with oil paints until it gleamed with glossy color.
There are attack ships scattered about in the starry sky, blasting fruitlessly
at the creature. There is, off to one side, the bare suggestion of the planet
Earth, a blue crescent dotted and swirled with clouds and marked with a faint
hint of Africa.
But for all the mural's impressive detail, Ben's human lacks several things:
one of them being gender. The picture, with its awesome creature, tentacles
wrapped around and suspiciously stuck into the human, depicts little more than
a stick figure being molested in several ways. The human lacks a face. The hair
is shapeless, the clothing is nondescript.
It is because Ben knows that deep down, in spite of the boy who left him cold
and the fact that girls flirt with him mercilessly, he wants that figure in the
mural to be male. He once wanted to paint the face like his own, give the boy
red-brown hair and a thin body. He wanted that tentacle buried deeply into the
boy, and he wanted the face, his face, to be transfixed, staring into space, an
ecstatic, silent moan breaking from delicate lips. Somewhere in the background,
one of those ships was supposed to be carrying his rescuer, a mixed metaphor
for the loss of innocence and the saving of happiness.
But now... now, he wants something else entirely.
Ben sighs, sprawled on the bed where he fell, exhausted. He came home, grabbed
a burrito out of the freezer, microwaved it, and devoured it between the
kitchen and his bedroom. His mother harped at him the entire time until he
locked her out. He doesn't want to think about his mother, though. There's only
one person he wants to think about.
He rolls over almost listlessly, reaching under the bed and dragging a small
locked trunk out. He twirls the combination and flings the lid back, taking out
a black, leather-bound notebook. Opening it reverently, Ben caresses the
parchment--yes, real parchment that he bought with his paternal unit's
Christmas check. With great care, he flips through the sheets. There is an
overwhelming heroic theme to all of the sketches. Some of them are colored in
with pencil, hinting at shades rather than filling in lines. Some of them are
thickly blocked, others sketched with fine detail.
They are all of one man: a man with streaked, silvering hair pulled back into a
tail, a noble, broken nose, sharp eyes. A man whose stance and bearing display
confidence--the confidence of a hero. Ben pulls the last sheet out and gazes at
it: it is a picture of the hero locked in a passionate kiss with a boy who
looks remarkably like himself.
Sighing, he puts the drawings away and curls up on his side, trying not to
listen to the ranting of his mother from the kitchen. She's missing pills
again. Digging into a flannel pocket, Ben eats two of the tiny ones, crunching
them up wholesale and grimacing. She'll be banging on the door in a moment, but
by then, Ben will be far too mellow on her Valium to care.
***** Chapter 6 *****
Ben has cut classes again. Today, Jimmy Carlson and Martin Rogers approached
him after PE. Well--they didn't approach him so much as they advanced on him.
Ben knows--has always known--that any exchange starting with "Hey--McKenna..."
is going to end badly. This one ended with Ben curled up on the floor,
clutching his stomach and then rising shakily to wipe blood from his mouth and
left eye.
He'd refused their request to rig their World Ec tests. It started, as it tends
to, with that "Hey--McKenna..." and ended with Jimmy muttering, "Faggot" as he
walked away.
He sits behind the coffee shop, staring down at his left Vision. On the toe of
it, minutely, is a calculation he invented that numerically adds up his and Jon
Quenton's names. It's stupid, but he was bored at the time.
Faggot.
He has a headache and is faintly nauseated and, really, he doesn't know why he
hasn't taken off. He shouldn't still be sitting here; he should have already
toked up--or, what does he have in his pocket today? Darvocet. Yeah--his mom
likes those. They're actually better to get wasted on than they are for pain,
but when you're wasted, what hurts?
Ben sits there, elbows on his knees and hands drooping, wishing he didn't just
remember he should be in World Ec right about now. He's wishing that in a fit
of forgetfulness, he'd just gone home to get fucked up.
The longer I stay there, the more time I spend with him...
Faggot.
The boy does not allow himself to complete the thought. He pulls the Darvocet
out of the zippered cargo pocket of his pants and pops it, chewing it even
though it's large and oh God, so bitter. His young, pretentious mind spins out
hyperbole and symbolism for that before he drops the thought altogether.
Ben clutches his head. He feels dizzy and strange, as though the Darvocet has
kicked in already. Fuck, he thinks, and now there's no question: he couldn't go
to World Ec even if he wanted to with an eye the size of a golf ball and Dr.
Quenton being the only one on the face of the planet who would ask after him.
He wonders what he'll do to kill time for at least three or four days. He sure
isn't going to tell Dr. Quenton why he has a black eye, and wishes he had time
to let his eye and mouth heal all the way. He feels faintly guilty; Dr.
Quenton's going to have a lot of trouble staying caught up without Ben there to
do the little shit TAs are expected to do.
And stare, and moon, and draw stupid equations...faggot....
Sighing, Ben lights a cigarette, waiting for the bitter white pill to drown out
Jimmy's sneer.
***** Chapter 7 *****
Jon Quenton has two separate routines when he comes home in the evenings: one
for an "up" day and one for a "down" day. Although his medication keeps him on
a fairly even keel these days, his habits for dealing with the roller coaster
ride that is now diagnosed as bipolar were developed back in college; those
habits have never died. He can always tell how intense a day it would have been
if not for what he bitterly refers to as "better living through chemistry."
Up days see him cooking up a storm in his complicated, tidy kitchen, a glass of
merlot or chardonnay at hand. Large amounts of complex soups, batches of
homemade gnocci --- made from his mother's recipe -- wildly complex salads in
the summer, are all made while his expensive stereo blasts The Who, or the
Dead, or even occasionally if he's in a very up mood, one of his queer dance
club collections.
Down days, as today has been, find him holed up in his bedroom. "The grizzly in
his winter den," as he used to say, although season has little to do with it,
SAD not being one of Jon's problems.
Anxiety on the other hand…. He's taken the Ativan already and he still battles
the thought that provoked the attack. He does a few slow stretches and then he
sits down on his yoga mat and does his pattern breathing. Although he first
learned the pattern using the "Om Mane Padme Hum" mantra picked up from some
friend back in the dorms, reading to his niece gave him the phrase he uses now.
Breathe in. "All the way up ten times."
The fading light of a late fall afternoon makes its way though the sheer under
curtains. The antique furniture, not one piece of which matches any other,
glows courtesy of the light and the recent coats of wax applied during a
particularly up Saturday. The light is also very kind to the quilt on the huge
bed -- the only modern piece of furniture, as two tall men required a king
sized bed -- creating interesting light shifts on the brightly colored velvet.
Jon's sister Beth spent a fair amount of money shipping the quilt all the way
from Fairbanks, but, as her cheerful note said, "It just screamed 'Jon' at me
when I saw it at the craft fair."
Hold the breath. "All the way down ten times."
A harsher light would reveal that, although somewhat disorderly, the room is
not truly messy, nor is it at all dirty. There are, of course, books
everywhere. Not just the huge, dry texts of his chosen field, but the bits and
pieces of a collection that can only be described as eclectic. The pulp science
fiction of his childhood lies next to the pretentious Pynchon of his college
years. The latest layman-speak explanation of the Unified Theory rests on top
of the most recent volume of the LBJ biography. Best_Gay_Male_Erotica_1999 is
flung casually on one of his books of wilderness photographs, and both are
covered by a garishly-colored encyclopedia of anime themes and subjects.
Breathe out. "All the way up ten times."
In the quiet light it is almost impossible to make out the subjects of the
black and white photographs on the walls. Although they seem abstract, they are
in fact, all landscapes in the Ansel Adams style. All save one, a discreet
photograph of a tall, lean man, lying nude on a rock. Even now there are still
times Jon's face heats up while looking at the photograph, but he always smiled
at Jon when Jon got flustered by it. "Think of it as just another landscape,
the landscape of desire." A pause and then: "Fuck me, but aren't *I* the
pretentious art queen?"
Hold the lack of breath. "All the way down ten times."
If the lack of strong light renders the "art" photographs abstract, it reduces
the family photographs -- clustered atop the high dresser -- to muzzy blurs.
The teenaged Jon teaching young Beth to ride a bicycle while their father looks
on is no more visible than the snapshot of Jon wearing his cap and gown. Beth's
latest Christmas photo of the kids can't be distinguished from a large group
shot taken at that last Thanksgiving. Jon doesn't need the light to see any of
them and the Thanksgiving photo in particular is etched in his memory. He,
Joseph Francis Xanato -- Xani to his friends -- was already thin and pale by
then. He had finally given up carrying the camera, which had become too heavy
for him, and he had fallen asleep before the pie that afternoon. A year later,
Jon and Beth and Mama Xanato and Xani's queer cousin Rita had finished Xani's
section for the AIDS quilt; the devastating burden of guilt had kept Jon from
ever seeing any of the Xanato family again.
Breathe in. "All the way up ten times."
Of course, like most people, Jon rarely pays much attention to the familiar
comfort of his surroundings. And today, as he tries for a little serenity, he
can't quite rid himself of one thought. It's the thought that brought on the
anxiety earlier and even though he can feel the artificial calm of the
medication kicking in, he still wonders.
Where the hell has that boy been these last few days?
***** Chapter 8 *****
Dr. Quenton's giving the lecture on DaiCorp today. He has made note of when the
merger and takeover happened, and has told the class to mark the change--yes,
actually write--in their textbooks.
He did not, mercifully, note who brought those changes to his attention.
Ben watches Dr. Quenton move from one side of the board to the other, his hair
clubbed back the way it always is, his hands covered in chalk from the morning
classes and his dark green button-down shirt smudged as well. Ben has always
liked the way Dr. Quenton doesn't mind where the chalk gets. There's usually a
flat streak across one hip from where he's leaned sideways on the board, one
hand propped on the chalk tray. Right now, that's how he's standing, a shoulder
almost pressed to the words he just put up there about Yohachi/Daisun.
Just as Dr. Quenton turns around to address the class, Ben drops his eyes to
his paper. He's not taking notes, of course, but sketching out another picture,
this one a simple line drawing on binder paper. It's the cowled man with the
glowing sword. He's standing on a hill, and Ben has drawn the spiky thought
bubble of an enraged manga hero, complete with the thick, slanted words,
"....then you will have to DIE!" The man's name is Djinn, and he is foreboding
on the outside, his cool, impenetrable shell all but nerve-wracking to those he
comes up against. Mostly obscured in his dark cowl, Djinn stares down the hill,
his cloak billowing gently in an invisible breeze. On the hillside are the
sketched suggestions of a boy and two enemies, battling.
The comforting drone of Dr. Quenton's voice suddenly lifts. "...found out the
other day that there is a subsidiary corporation that produces manga."
Looking up, Ben glances around; many of the faces are blank in class, But, he
snorts inwardly, aren't they always?
Dr. Quenton has not looked at him particularly, but Ben feels him as though the
professor were staring. Quietly and slowly, Ben closes his notebook as his
teacher segues into the twenty-minute work-time he sets up toward the end of
class. Ben really wanted to be absent; he wanted to disappear, to not be
reminded of the split on his lip that still hurts when he eats and the swollen
place on his eye that his mother, it seems, has never noticed. He supposes now,
though, it's not so bad to be in Dr. Quenton's class. He looks down at his
notebook and sighs a little, and when he looks up again, Dr. Quenton is moving
toward him.
"I think," Dr. Quenton says quietly, glancing down at the notebook, "that you
and I are going to have to chat after class, Mr. McKenna."
Swallowing, Ben slumps a little.
***** Chapter 9 *****
On the plain, white, school-quality paper is a loving depiction of a tall man
with shadowed, slitted eyes--Djinn, as is scrawled across the bottom of the
picture. His features are nearly obscured inside the hood of a dark cloak but
there is enough visible in the cowl to make out a high forehead, a noble but
broken nose and the trace details of a beard. The only color on this figure is
the glint of blue in the hooded figure's eyes.
In the man's arms lies a boy. He is limp, his body covered by scorched, ragged
wounds. The only color on this figure is the occasional splotch of blood. His
face is obscured, his head tipped so far back that the only thing we can see is
an angle of jawline and the drape of hair that falls from his head. His outward
arm dangles down at an awkward angle; the other is thrown haphazardly around
Djinn's neck, as though the boy were too weak to get a decent grasp before he
fell unconscious.
But the next picture is far more telling: it is of this Djinn, robe no longer
draped around his own body but in his hands as he tugs it over the--sleeping?
unconscious?--body of the boy, now unmistakeably Ben. The hair is longer, more
flowing; the eyes are larger, his body type is more slender. But the obvious
touches are there--most notably the cleft chin and the mole on the forehead and
one cheek.
Uncloaked, Djinn is obviously a stronger, larger-than-life, only slightly
restructured Jon Quenton. His hair is drawn back into a swooping half-tail,
bound back by some kind of woven tie. His demeanor, forbidding and dangerous in
previous drawings, is nevertheless gentle here.
Unimpressed by the style, the art teacher has, regardless, been following this
apparent story arc of Ben's. Djinn and the boy are a fighting team, vanquishing
monsters. Once, there was a Gorgon-like creature with fangs that dripped a
saliva that burned the ground beneath her, and another time, a blank, faceless
creature, white and featureless, that was somehow more disturbing than any of
the others.
These recent pictures, however, depict something yet more bothersome: a rescue.
Mrs. Erickson blinks, shaking her head a little, caught between her compassion
as a teacher and her duty as a staff member of the school. Ben is seeing far
more in Jon Quenton than is there.
I hope, she corrects herself silently, and sighs. Oh, God, I hope he's seeing
more than is there.
Mrs. Erickson has noticed the hero for a while now; she's paid attention as
he's gradually taken shape. Now she stares at the unmistakeable likenesses and
wonders if Benjamin McKenna knows how dangerous these drawings are, or if he's
simply too far under the influence of a dream to care.
Tucking the drawing away, she sits a while, considering.
***** Chapter 10 *****
     I know I told you about Ben McKenna. He's my TA this year and he's in
     my World Ec. Class. I swear I think there's something very wrong with
     his life; he didn't show up at school for three days and I'll bet
     anything that the note from his mother was forged, although I didn't
     see it. And then, when he came in this afternoon … he'd been hit and
     it was pretty bad. Well you know me; I had to do something.
     So I asked to talk to him, but away from school at Coffee Werks. I
     don't know, I guess I thought that he would feel more comfortable
     somewhere else. Or maybe, given all the fucking insinuations I've
     been putting up with, I thought I'd be more comfortable. Whatever.
     So I wormed it out of him; he got beat up by a couple of kids at
     school because he wouldn't rig their tests in my class. Fuck. He
     convinced me not to do anything about it and yeah, I understand that
     my interference would only make it worse, particularly if he wasn't
     prepared to come out and accuse the other boys, but damn. I got so
     pissed that I had to excuse myself and go punch the wall in the
     bathroom. The only good thing is that he had the good sense to see a
     doctor about it. Well, and that it didn't happen at home. I was
     afraid it might have.
     And then we talked about things, his art mainly. And suddenly he was
     a person, not just this kid with potential. It's strange how that
     happens. But anyway….
Beth Quenton-Rand doesn't know whether she should smile or worry. Jon's letter
is so typical of him; she can almost hear his voice as she stares at her
computer screen. He must have been "up" when he wrote this, she thinks. She
knows him well enough to know that "up" doesn't mean happy; she can remember
any number of desperately unhappy "up" moments during the last stages of Xani's
illness as well as happy up moments that always seem to lead to the best food
she's ever had. And no matter what his mood is, an intense rush of words always
accompanies being "up."
And now he's going on about a student. That's not all that unusual; even as a
kid, Jon was a sucker for the underdog. But she can't help but notice the
insinuations he brings up and then immediately glosses over.
Oh Jon, I hope you don't do anything stupid.
***** Chapter 11 *****
"Oh God … oh yeah … oh fuck…." Hands that are much stronger than they look
tangle in Jon's hair as he slowly slides his mouth down over Ben's cock. His
own hands cradle slim hips as the young man moans and squirms on the deck, feet
splashing in the water of the hot tub. Jon looks up and smiles as much as he
can; Ben's head is thrown back, his red-gold hair gleaming like a halo in the
rich autumn sun.
"No wait … I'm gonna…."
Jon briefly raises his head and grins at the look of concern on Ben's flushed
face. "I hope so," he says. This time his move is sudden and Ben's shout echoes
around the back yard as Jon takes his cock all the way in. Several decades of
skill combine with the hair-trigger eagerness of youth and Ben's shouts are a
great deal louder as he…..
"And you're listening to the ARROW; all classic rock, all the time. Next up,
Holly with the traffic and then a block of the best classic rock in town. But
first…."
Jon's large hand slams down on the snooze button and his mouth works a little
as he desperately tries to recapture his dream, but it is gone and he sighs
heavily. Lifting the covers, he looks down at the erection tenting his shorts
and tries to remember why in hell he promised himself he wouldn't jerk off to
thoughts of his favorite student.
"Because that would be wrong," he mumbles inanely, and rolls over.
Maybe if he's lucky, the dream will come back before the annoying sounds of
Lynard Skynard or Boston force him to flee his warm bed for the harsh reality
of another day spent avoiding a pair of large, green eyes.
***** Chapter 12 *****
Dr. Quenton knows manga. He knows McFarlane. He knows Crumb, for God's sake.
Dr. Quenton talked to Ben like he was a person, not a statistic, not some sad,
lonely, misunderstood "Oops, we lost another one." It isn't that he's
misunderstood--Ben hasn't believed that in years--it's that people don't care.
Ben lies with his hands tucked up behind his head and stares at the ceiling,
wondering briefly why he hasn't painted anything on it before reaching down to
adjust himself in his jeans. Closing his eyes, he can hear Dr. Quenton's voice
asking about the eye, and he can hear himself answering almost hurriedly. He's
replayed the conversation over and over in his mind since yesterday; he
remembers every nuance of every move Dr. Quenton made. He remembers the
discourse over school second only to the brief conversation about Dr.Quenton's
career.
Now he scratches idly at his skeletons-fucking t-shirt, thinking. He doesn't
give a damn what any of the other teachers think. He doesn't care anything
about their state evaluations and their college prep and their grading system
based on what a stupid, bigoted, hypocritical footballhead like Jimmy Carlson
would slide through. The professor made a smart remark about working at the
local McDonald's. Ben fumed, but only briefly.
It turns out that Dr. Quenton doesn't care about the prestige of working at a
university based on a ridculous "publish or perish" rule. Ben called him on
that, and Dr. Quenton--Jon, though Ben knew he wouldn't appreciate that--
laughed and looked at him with respect.
Even now, it heats Ben through. Jon's eyes got a look in them that was
surprising and hot, if Ben's honest with himself. It was a soft look, a warm
one, and Ben remembers now the way the blue eyes crinkled when they smiled.
"God," he sighs, closing his eyes, and forces himself to think of something--
anything--and Djinn is who pops into his head. It doesn't help. All he can see
of Djinn is a hot kiss, animated in his mind. Ben's hand slides lower across
his t-shirt and then dips into his loose waistband, stomach concave under the
dark, yellow-stitched denim. Djinn clings and moves, and then he moans, and Ben
moans, too, hand curving over his sudden erection through his boxer briefs. The
sensation is icing on top of the fact that out of Djinn's throat comes Jon's
voice.
"Jon," Ben whimpers, testing the name, his hand sliding faster over his cotton-
covered erection. He wants to unzip his pants, get all of this out of the way,
but the vision of Djinn, sleek and erect, driving into the body of the boy who
fights by his side, overtakes everything. The boy's head is thrown back, his
eyes closed, his face contorted in agonized bliss: the face of the boy in the
mural, if Ben lets himself think of it, and that nearly sends him over. It's
insane. Even in his lust-fogged state, Ben knows it's all senseless visual, but
he doesn't care.
"Ah--" Ben yelps softly, yanking his hand out of his pants and hurriedly
undoing them, urgent with the accidental fantasy of Djinn and the tentacled
monster and Oh, God, that smile, all meshing together. He fairly claws at his
pants, shoving them down past his ass and wrapping his hand around his cock,
putting his wrist into his mouth to keep back the high-pitched shout. He comes,
legs bending up involuntarily as he curls forward, body jerking with the
orgasm.
Sighing raggedly, he slumps backward, suddenly overwhelmed. "Oh, God," he
moans, stripping out of his shirt and using it to scrub at his stomach before
throwing it down and curling up on his side, away from the mural. "Oh, God...."
Ben keeps his eyes closed, focusing on the black at the back of his eyelids to
keep himself from seeing. He has classes with that man, he has to look at him.
How am I going to look at him?
Gradually, it dawns on Ben that his wrist, red with bite marks sharper than
he'd intended, stings.
***** Chapter 13 *****
Dr. Quenton moves with slow precision, hands extended, body taut, muscles
flexing under a light sheen of sweat. The sun dapples through the white elms
over him, highlighting his shoulders, a thigh, an outstretched hand. Ben
watches, hidden behind one of those fat elm trunks. He's leaning on the tree,
breathless. He's been here since long before Dr. Quenton arrived. He intended
to draw, to get some more Djinn down, but now--now, he can't move. The idea of
discovery isn't what bothers him; Jon invited him here for the mornings when he
practices his Tai Chi, the day they had coffee. And it isn't as though it's not
public property.
But Dr. Quenton said that he wanted Ben to come if he ever needed to talk, and
Ben figured they both knew he wasn't ready to do that. It took Ben two weeks to
work up the nerve to come here, and he isn't sure he can explain why he's
hiding behind a tree, rock-hard and staring. Hell, it took him several days
before he could even look Dr. Quenton in the eye. That, of course, was
compounded by the fact that Ben spent a lot of time replaying that fantasy over
and over again--and jerking off to it, over and over again.
"Damn," he whispers under his breath, pressing closer to the tree and hissing
in a breath as the semi-rough surface of the bark reaches his erection through
his jeans. He leans his cheek on the trunk, watching as Dr. Quenton finishes
his exercises, then proceeds to stretch. Ben licks his lips unconsciously, his
breathing shallow and unsteady. Dr. Quenton cranks his arms, rolls his neck,
bends from the waist, and Ben forgets how to breathe as his teacher then drops
to the ground and curves backward in a cobra position, face tipped to the sun.
Eyes wide, Ben turns away, pressing his back to the tree. The images burn
themselves to his eyes: Jon stretching, moving, pressing himself to the ground,
and then the image of Djinn doing similar, more warlike exercises impresses
itself on him. The wind hisses through the trees, then, a little gust, and Ben
catches his breath.
"Fuck," he squeaks lightly, and takes off, darting down the hill and toward the
bus stop.
Jon looks toward the stand of trees, suppressing disappointment.
***** Chapter 14 *****
Jon is stuck in traffic; something that rarely happens because his commute is a
complex system of surface streets designed to avoid major roads and the
freeway. But today the route has failed him and he's been sitting in the same
place for over 10 minutes. He's switched from the Kate Wolfe in the CD player
to the radio in order to get a traffic report, and he's pulled a stack of
papers out of the large messenger bag he uses in lieu of a briefcase.
"And now, Foreigner with 'Cold as Ice.'"
Before the song can even start up, Jon hits the button for the next preset
station.
"What this town needs," he mutters to himself, as some sort of acoustic alt
rock comes over the speakers, "is a classic rock station that prides itself on
playing music that doesn't suck." The song comes to a close and another starts
up and he sighs. He hates the political orientation of the news radio and he
might well be past the accident or whatever is holding up traffic before he
actually gets a traffic report.
But the current song isn't too awful, and he shrugs and looks for the memo from
the VP that he'd put aside to read later. It's a new list of "inappropriate"
articles of clothing. Jon sighs. No doubt half of Ben's wardrobe will be
featured here. Of course, Ben hasn't been wearing the skeleton shirt lately. He
told Jon that the kids call him "fag" when he wears it, and, remembering that
conversation, Jon can feel himself getting angry again.
They've had several interesting conversations -- most of them at school,
working on class prep -- since their meeting in the coffeehouse. Slowly, Jon is
learning about Ben's other interests and the interesting places their tastes
collide; Ben likes Hong Kong action films and has seen even more of them than
Jon has. It didn't even make Jon feel old when Ben was impressed to learn that
Jon saw "Enter the Dragon" when it first ran in the US. It seemed like the most
natural thing in the world to offer to loan Ben 'Kentucky Fried Movie" when Jon
discovered that Ben had never seen it. It was only much later that Jon realized
that lending a student -- particularly this student -- something that raunchy
might not be a good idea.
Jon sighs and digs further through the papers he'd hastily grabbed off his desk
in his hurry to leave school. He's having more and more moments when he simply
forgets that Ben is a student and not a friend. The tension is growing; it's
getting harder and harder for Jon to remember why he shouldn't flirt with Ben,
why those hesitant glances Ben sneaks in his direction should be met with a
blank look or at the most, a kind of avuncular friendliness that says "there's
nothing here for you."
It doesn't help that for three weekends in a row Ben has watched Jon work out
in the park without coming over to talk. It bothers Jon, but what bothers him
more is that he keeps catching himself showing off for the boy. He knows he
shouldn't and when he gets into the heart of his routine, he is still able to
lose himself in the calm stillness of the exercise. But afterwards ... well
it's oddly flattering that, at his age, he's still interesting to someone.
A new song comes on, something with a piano and a female vocalist and Jon
sighs, shoving aside his thoughts of Ben and digging deeper for the memo. He
takes a quick glance to check that no one is going anywhere and then he looks
back down at the pile of paper in his lap, his eyes going wide in shock as he
realizes just what it is that he's looking at.
The tall warrior, the hood of his dark cloak thrown back and his glowing sword
hanging from one hand, is locked in a passionate clinch with the young man,
their mouths pressed together. The boy has his hands buried in the older man's
hair and even in the static medium of a drawing, it is obvious that the young
man is aggressively pursuing the kiss.
It's also obvious that the warrior is Jon Quenton and the young man is Ben
McKenna.
As Jon stares at the picture, feeling an odd sense of inevitability, one line
from the chorus of the song on the radio catches his ear.
"a sorta fairytale with you ."
***** Chapter 15 *****
Not having a car and living in a tight suburban area, Ben knows the bus system
like the back of his hand. His arm hangs from a strap now, his grip tight as
the bus rounds a corner. This is the way the day ends--"Not with a bang, but a
whimper," he always says to himself--as he rides the 23 home. It's never as
crowded as the school bus except at rush hour, which is usually when Ben takes
it. If nothing else, Jimmy Carlson doesn't ride the 23, ever. Jimmy Carlson's
mother always picks him up in a vivid blue Miata, smiling.
Ben wonders how Jimmy rates a mother who actually makes eye contact.
Sighing, he glances around for a place to sit and, after a moment, finds one on
a thick, orange, utilitarian plastic bench. He smiles at the old woman next to
him. He always smiles at her; they always stand or sit near each other, so it's
almost like they've talked. Ben opens his backpack and pulls out a thin
portfolio.
"Oh that's lovely," the old woman croaks as he opens it, and he smiles at her
again, hesitantly, wondering if she's going to want to talk now. She's
commented on a picture of his manga boy, whom he really hasn't named yet, and
Djinn. The boy's standing on a hilltop, hair flying in the wind, fists on his
hips. Behind him is the hero, cowl thrown back away from his face, hair also
streaming back like his billowing cloak--green, this time.
But that isn't the picture Ben wanted. He flips through sketches, some still
rough and raw. There are composites of the glowing sword or the ship Djinn
flies. Some of them are profile portraits of the boy and Djinn, gratuitous
close-ups with narrowed eyes and dangerous expressions, crosshair lines still
visible through the eyes and down the faces. He finds one of them kissing, but
it's rough and Djinn's head is lopsided; it was an early sketch that was never
good enough to make it to parchment.
"Oh," the woman says quietly, and Ben looks at her. "They're queer."
Ben looks down, throat tightening in anticipation of judgment. He doesn't even
know this woman, and yet--
"My daughter's queer," she adds, inexplicably. "Has the sweetest life mate.
They adopted a little Vietnamese baby last year because, well..." She lowers
her voice. "It's very hard to get that sort of thing done around here. What
with all the--'they shouldn't be allowed' kind of talk." She nods knowingly and
looks at the picture, leaning over a bit; she smells like lemons and vanilla.
"Lovely."
For a moment, Ben thinks she's going to pat his hand or kiss his cheek or
something, and then he almost wishes she would. The whole incident is both
rattling and comforting, and he has a strange urge to hug her. Blinking, he
murmurs hoarsely, "Thanks."
Only momentarily distracted, he remembers that he set out for something in
particular--and can't find it. There's the bad kiss, the hilltop pose, the
closeups, the composite blueprints, the--where is the good kiss?
Suddenly hot and sick with realization, he remembers that he was working on it
at Dr. Quenton's desk while the professor was at a brief staff meeting. Ben had
been instructed to wait for him, and he'd been told to work on something
constructive--well, there was very little that was as constructive to Ben as
his art.
But now it's missing.
"Oh, fuck," he whispers, and he's sure his face is bright red, he feels so hot.
"Oh, please, oh shit, please tell me I didn't...."
But he did; he left it right there on the desk after shuffling something over
it on Dr. Quenton's return. Shoving the rest of the artwork back into the
portfolio, he mentally retraces his steps--even considers getting off the bus
and going back to school. What good would that do? he demands of himself. "Hi,
Dr. Quenton, can I go through the papers on your desk so you don't find the
picture of us necking like fiends?"
Choking back a helpless, frustrated noise, Ben puts his head in his hands and
wonders if they can expel a student for that, or worse, if Jon will stop
talking to him altogether--will Ben lose his TA status? Will he lose Dr.
Quenton's friendship?
Jesus, it can't possibly get any worse than this, he moans inwardly.
"There," the woman says quietly, and pats his shoulder, just once. "I think
this is your stop, son."
***** Chapter 16 *****
Ben's wrist and hand move with quick, jerky movements, years of practice
lending themselves to tight precision. Without realizing it, he's drawing to
the rhythm of Godsmack, biting his lip and angrily nodding his head. The pencil
scrapes over the matte DuPont interior paint, sketching out the details Ben
thought not too long ago he'd leave alone. The boy in the mural slowly takes
form: first the long, flowing red hair, then the pained, ecstatic expression,
then the clenched hands, either gripping the tentacle around his waist or
trying to push it away. Ben feels a momentary flash of pride in the ambiguity
of the gesture before he grows angry again.
The day started out just fine; Ben went to school to the tune of his mother
yelling something about how she knew he was stealing money out of her purse,
and that thankfully ended up drowned out by the sound of the garbage truck
barreling up the street. He caught the 18 to a couple of blocks from Reagan
High and walked the rest of the way, the hems of his jeans dragging the ground
at his heels. It was normal.
His stomach clenched tighter the closer he got to World Ec., and he briefly
considered skipping, but then remembered that Dr. Quenton didn't react too
keenly to him cutting last time, so he went. But today, as in half a dozen
other days, the teacher said nothing about the art that Ben was sure he'd left
on that desk. Ben began to wonder if he'd left it elsewhere, and that gave him
a flash of panic.
It gives him one now as he draws the parted legs of the boy in the picture.
Resolutely, he finishes sketching the black tentacle shoving itself into the
boy's body. There--right there, between the rounded cheeks of his ass, the
thick tentacle disappears. Ben considers doing one diving down the boy's
throat, too, and then decides he can do that to a different human; he doesn't
want to munge the details of the boy's face. At any rate, Ben's enraged enough
now that his hands are starting to shake, and that's bad on a mural he's going
to have to look at for the rest of his days here. Instead, he takes up a small
tin of white matte paint and obliterates the tree limb and car that the robotic
squid is holding. If he's going to be Ben's harbinger of destruction, he needs
to be doing more raping and less pillaging, Ben has decided.
Just a few more months, I'll get my trust fund money, and then I'm outta here.
It's interminable, though. Eighteen might as well be millennia away. Still, Ben
thanks his faceless ghost of a father for the fifty thousand dollars that's
supposed to go toward college, but has no legal stipulations on it.
"Thanks, Dad, and fuck you, too," Ben mutters aloud, and it sounds good to him,
muffled against Nine Inch Nails screaming about roughly the same thing. Thanks,
and fuck you. They make it sound more appetizing, though.
So after school, Ben went to the little back-alley bookstore where the dude
with the meatball sandwich fetish sold him most of his manga, special ordered.
And the dude pulled out something Ben never thought he'd see: a Tetsuwan Atom
art cel in all its overly simplistic, chibi glory. God, it was Astro Boy, and
it was mint.
"Holy fuck," Ben whispered reverently, holding the plexiglass frame like it was
Waterford. "How much?"
"Ninety," the guy said casually. "You're a good kid, all that manga, I'll give
it to you for eighty."
"Shit," Ben sighed, staring. "I won't have that kind of money for a while. You
can't--put it on layaway for me?"
He knew the guy was going to say no. "Man, I can sell it for a hundred, hundred
fifty easy. I can't put it up for you if I can get that kind of money now."
Ben understands this; he and a handful of other manga geeks and the half-dozen
Spider-Man followers are all that keep this guy in business. Even now, with
overblown frustration burning in his throat and all that anger adding on, he
understands the guy probably paid near what he's asking, and he has to get that
money back quickly.
But dammit... Astro Boy! The first anime ever to run in the U.S.! It was
incredible, but there was no way Ben could afford it.
But that wasn't even the worst of it. What makes him light up a cigarette now,
in the middle of his bedroom in pure, uncaring fury, is that his mother is
gone.
She left him a note on the kitchen counter on that stupid rose-scented paper.
She'd be gone for the week, the whole week, and she left him nothing--no money
to get to school with, nothing for groceries. She knows the school bus doesn't
even come by here--he's not even signed up for the route.There might be enough
food in the house to get him through the week. On later inspection, Ben
discovered there is actually probably plenty for him to eat, and he has enough
to get to school for about three days, but--that isn't the point. She left.
Too bad she didn't say she was going forever, he snipes to himself, and then
fear hits him again--what if she is gone forever? What if she just... never
comes back?
But he won't let himself think that. Not now. Get to the end of the week, Ben,
he admonishes himself, and then you'll know how pissed off you can get. And
after putting out his cigarette, he begins to draw again.
***** Chapter 17 *****
The clouds are thick and gray. They change the quality of the light altogether
and threaten heavy rain. Against his better judgment, Ben stands under his
cluster of elm trees, wondering. He wonders if he should go down the little
bank and approach Dr. Quenton openly. He wonders if his teacher has, indeed,
seen the sketch and is too much a professional to say. He wonders if he should
have spent the bus money to get here when, with things as they are, Ben will
only have enough to go to school Monday and Tuesday.
Big, fat raindrops start to fall, and after a few moments of them landing in
his hair, Ben shivers. Jon--Dr. Quenton, he forces himself to think--has
abruptly stopped his Tai Chi movements and is gathering up his things. Sighing,
frustrated, Ben ducks behind the tree and leans his back against it, then
slides down, the hem of his denim jacket catching on the bark. Bus money
wasted, gonna be dripping wet, and can't watch Jon work out or get the balls up
to just go talk to him. Great. Just--great.
He is knuckling his eyes, suddenly tired, when--
"Are you going to sit there in the rain all afternoon?"
Ben jumps, painfully startled, the adrenaline shooting straight through to his
skin. "Fuck!" he exclaims, and then calms himself, as though being caught in
the rain in a park two bus transfers away from where he lives is old hat.
Jon looks marginally guilty that he's scared Ben so badly, but he apologizes
quickly and jerks his head in the direction of the parking lot. "C'mon. It's
cold out here. Let's go get some coffee."
Burying a thousand questions about the cool look on Dr. Quenton's face--and
desperately embarrassed that it seems his cover's been blown for a good while
now, if he ever had one--Ben nods his head. "Okay," he says in a quiet voice, a
little more shakily than he'd intended, and follows the professor rather
sheepishly out of the park.
***** Chapter 18 *****
Jon is staring blindly at his iced tea. It's better than staring in shock at
Ben, who is huddled in his chair ignoring his sandwich. The young man is even
more upset than he was when Jon startled him at the park and dragged him off to
Coffee Werks for lunch.
It was hard enough to remain calm and give a nice neutral answer when Ben asked
what he thought of the picture. After all, it would hardly do for Jon to
answer: "It's on my nightstand and I look at it all the time." So he praised it
quietly, telling Ben it was "well done" or some such crap about style.
Things went downhill from there. Very far downhill. Jon still wants to slap
Ben's mother from here into the next time zone; how on earth could the woman
just take off like that leaving only a note and nothing else? Hard on the heels
of that revelation, came Ben's desperate, hesitant confession of desire for
Jon.
And I know everyone thinks I'm just a fuckup, and I don't care about that, but
I just ... you're my friend, and ... and that ... it hurts because now if I say
what I want to say I just *know* you won't want to be anymore. I ... think I
... I didn't just pick you for Djinn because I see you all the time. And ... I
didn't just pick me for the sidekick because I know what I look like, either.
Jon had stared at him, not surprised; after all, he'd have to be blind and deaf
not to notice Ben's interest. But to have it out in the open like this.... Jon
can't help the guilty thrill that comes of knowing he was right; Ben does want
him.
Maybe it was that thrill, or maybe it was the way Ben looked away, as if afraid
Jon would react with anger or disgust, but Jon found he simply couldn't do it.
He couldn't say the things he has no problem saying to the pretty little girls
who think his eyes are gorgeous and who bend over in their low cut dresses to
try and tempt a man for whom the female form has no real attraction. But to
give Ben the whole "while I'm flattered, you must realize that I simply
cannot...." No, that would be too cruel.
And so he returned the conversation to the subject of Ben's mother, only to
discover that Ben seems to treat her medications as a source of his own escape.
Jon is no fool; he's been around enough people to recognize the behavior of an
addict, and Ben simply doesn't fit that description. Once again, the proper
words come and this time Jon says them, trying ignore the small voice in the
back of his head that calls him a hypocrite even as he speaks. There's a
difference, he tells that inner voice, between the occasional bowl of weed, and
taking someone else's Percocet.
"Ben," he now says, still staring at his glass. "I'm going to trust you to be
honest with me here. How much are you using?" He looks up and is a little
surprised when Ben meets his eyes.
"Four, five times a week. If I take any more than that, she notices." As if
he's suddenly realized just what it is he has said, he puts his head on the
table with a huge sigh.
"This...." Jon clears his throat, forcing the words out. "This isn't good. You
must know that. I'm hardly one to lecture but those things are dangerous."
A small noise makes him look closer at the head and shoulders bowed over their
small table. Ben is crying; Jon is sure of it, although the young man is very
still.
Moved by a whole tangle of emotions he can't quite unravel right now, Jon looks
around and then, noting that the place is empty, he kneels next to Ben's chair.
When he speaks, his voice is low and reassuring.
"Ben ... Ben I'm not going to tell anyone about this unless you want me to. Is
there anything ... what can I do?" It's almost too big. Too much information to
take in at once.
Ben's voice is hushed and a little husky.
"Nothing ... nothing, okay? I just ... I'll be eighteen in a few months, I'm
just ... please don't tell, I'll stop if you want me to, I just need to be
where I am and ride it out. I'm fine as long as they don't try to shuffle me
off to a foster home or state care or some shit like that."
"No ... that isn't what you need." Jon pauses and then, without really thinking
of the consequences, says the first thing that comes to mind. "C'mon. This
isn't the place for this. Do you mind coming back to my place?"
***** Chapter 19 *****
It starts with, "Do you want a drink?"
Scotch would be great, Ben sighs internally, but only hugs himself and shakes
his head, murmuring a demurral. He is wandering around, looking at things, at
pictures, at the pasta in great jars on the shelves in the kitchen, at the
track lighting, artistically highlighting stuff, at the hardwood floors. Ben is
struck by the feel, more than anything. In spite of his rapid spilling of
confession after confession until he thought there was nothing left of him but
raw, naked humiliation, Ben feels... at home. He wonders what Dr. Quenton is
thinking, wonders now if it's alright in his head to call him Jon, now that
he's in this house where the professor eats breakfast and reads novels, maybe,
and brushes his teeth. He should feel lost and confused, but the smell of this
place, warm and easy, a bread and butter smell, makes Ben want to relax and
tell more.
Is there anything left to tell?
When Ben tries, when he tries to make a joke about the professor's apparent
speechlessness, he receives a soft, almost wounded plea from Jon not to look at
him like that. So Ben looks away, thinking he should leave... the conversation
is painful as they dance around what's there, and it will hurt to remember it
because everything, everything is so split wide open. Details get lost in the
looks and the soft, desperate feel of what lies between them.
No--it really starts with, "Ben... what did I say?"
And of course Ben can't give a real answer; everything Jon said was perfect and
professional and noncommital and cool in its own way. It was, "I'm supposed to
tell it to you this way...." Because Jon is nothing if not about straight up
honesty with Ben.
But one thing stuck with the boy all along: Jon never did tell it to him that
way.
Maybe it actually starts with the idea that no matter what happens, no matter
what Ben does or tells, Jon will never go away. Jon will never leave.
So when the details get lost and the moment's there, Ben leans forward, somehow
having managed to work his way close enough to Jon. He can see the look there,
he can feel the distinct lack of pulling away. It's now. It's time.
Inevitability has come home. And Ben leans up and will later realize that at
some point, unknown to them both, Jon must have leaned down. He must have.
It's soft, a dry, light brush of lips, and dull, throbbing heat opens up in
Ben's stomach as he does it again and this time is received. A sharp little
intake of breath interrupts nothing. Ben is lost, and he knows, Oh, God, he
knows Jon is, too. It is beyond good when Ben offers his tongue, still with the
hesitancy of a boy anticipating rejection. He is afraid of breaking the spell,
but what heartens him is the small, answering groan of "Oh, God," from Jon as
the kiss opens up and explodes into warm, pressing hunger.
It is a blessedly sweet, long moment later when Ben throws his head back and
gasps, "I've wanted that for so long...."
Even sweeter and more blessed is the reply: "Me too."
***** Chapter 20 *****
Jon can hardly believe that it is his voice -- strained and hoarse -- that
answers Ben. Some part of him, a dim, distant part that is aware that the slim
body pressed up against him belongs to a minor, manages to croak out his next
question.
"Ben ... are you sure...?"
He doesn't know what he'll do if Ben says no; doesn't know what he'll do if he
says yes. In fact, Jon is not sure which reply he fears more.
Ben just stares at him, almost as if Jon's grown another head or something.
"Yes, please ... I'm so sure."
Jon tightens his arms around Ben -- and when did they first wrap around the
young man, so that one of Jon's hands is loosely cupping Ben's neck? Once more
he must have leaned down without conscious thought because Ben's mouth is just
... there, open and lush and a little hesitant.
It is that hesitancy that reminds Jon to let Ben lead. And Ben does, moving in
closer, until Jon can feel the firm heat of him through the layers of clothing
that separate them. Ben's moaning now, small sounds that cause their lips to
vibrate just a little, and it one of the most erotic sounds -- and feelings --
- that Jon's ever encountered.
When the pressure of Ben's body against Jon's turns into squirming, Jon draws a
deep breath. He doesn't really want this to turn into a mutual grind against
his kitchen door and yet he has no idea what Ben wants it to turn into.
"Ben," he breathes, drawing his head back, but leaving his body in close
contact with the young man. He has come to realize that he fears rejecting Ben
almost as Ben fears rejection. "Have you ... what do you want ... from this?"
"Anything. Oh, God, if you just stand here and kiss me, I might come from
that." The desperation in Ben's voice so closely mirrors Jon's own feelings
that he's able to laugh along with Ben.
"Yeah," he replies echoing his earlier statement. "Me too."
"Oh God," Ben whispers, looking at him in what seems almost like wonder, and
Jon finds it a little unnerving. Can he possibly manage to measure up to Ben
expectations?
"Ben?"
"Yeah." And Ben blinks and shakes his head, smiling.
The smile -- half uncertain, half cocky -- gives Jon courage and, leaving his
arm around Ben's waist, he gently steers Ben in the direction of the bedroom.
***** Chapter 21 *****
Ben only stands in the doorway, lost in the idea of Dr. Quenton's bedroom, for
a moment. Suddenly the long, scalding kiss has given way to the reality of
intense nervousness and a more intense desire to please, to not look like he's
never been in this position before.
But he's never, and he has to remember how to do things like stop staring.
"I--don't know what I want," Ben confesses softly, flushing. "I... I probably
don't know what I'm doing."
Jon bends his head, kissing and murmuring at the side of Ben's neck, eliciting
a shiver. "Getting naked is always a good place to start."
So Ben does, stripping with nervous efficiency, startled at the way Jon
whispers, "Christ" and stares at Ben in the middle of his own undressing. Just
stares. And then Ben does have to be reminded to move, because he's just as
trapped as Jon seems to be. That idea alone sends fresh, hot adrenaline
coursing through them both.
Later, in Ben's memory, there will be hot, sweet segments of this day, bits he
pulls off to recall, one at a time, the way you'd pick apart a sticky bun with
your fingers. It is an emotional jumble that began anew in several places: now,
it starts over again as Ben buries his face in Jon's neck, groaning softly,
cradled in those long arms, tight against the body he's drawn and dreamed of
for months. Ben kisses and tastes, slowly, hesitantly lowering his hand and
cupping it over the erection that is all at once hot and hard and silky,
intimidatingly thick and long.
Jon's sharp intake of breath and "Oh, God... oh, yeah...." are enough. Ben's
hand, cool against the hot skin of Jon's cock, strokes lightly at first, in
hesitant, conscious exploration. He is staring down Jon's lean body at his
actions before he wraps his hand around it, drawing a shivery moan out of Jon.
Ben is lost in the sounds and the feel as he pets and strokes, amazed that Jon
is clenching the blanket in his fists, and suddenly the teenager wants to know
what would happen if Jon just... let go. Ben wants to know what he's unleashed.
A vision of Djinn comes to him briefly, of Djinn in battle. His eyes are deep
and smoky with unrestrained wildness, hair flying, lightsword flashing, cloak
swirling about him with wind and energy, and Ben knows then that Jon would look
just like that if given half a chance.
It makes him ache unbearably. He moves closer, letting out a yelped whimper
when his cock brushes Jon's hip, and suddenly he's all burning nerves and
desperation. "Please," he whispers, needing to come but frankly too green to
ask for it. He is panting lightly, his face flushed, his lips bitten and red.
His tongue slides over the lower one briefly before disappearing again.
Jon reaches down and begins to stroke Ben, asking softly, "What, Ben? What is
it you want?"
Ben bucks forward into Jon's hand and cries out, overwhelmed. "Oh--oh, fuck--
that--" And he wraps his hand around Jon's cock firmly, all embarrassment
sliding away in the middle of an intensely romantic desire to bring them off
together. It's all so much, though, Jon's ragged breathing and thrusting, his
obvious pleasure, and Ben--Ben is seventeen.
He comes abruptly, shuddering, another broken exclamation to God sliding out on
a moan. Too soon, and his body is still humming with the electricity of it when
he drops his head to Jon's shoulder, whispering, "Sorry."
***** Chapter 22 *****
It takes Jon, still a little high on the amazing sight that is Ben coming, a
few seconds to realize that Ben is apologizing for doing just that. He pulls
Ben close and kisses the young man's flushed face.
"Don't. Please don't ever apologize for getting off." He bends and captures
Ben's mouth this time, kissing him long and thoroughly. Ben whimpers and Jon
finds himself touched by the sheer vulnerability of the noise. He's still so
amazed that Ben is not only here in his bed, real and warm and full of sweet
urgency, but that this boy who tries so hard to be cool is lowering his
defenses.
Ben's hand is still gripped loosely around Jon's cock and the sensation is
almost excruciating, but Jon isn't about to ask for more when he already has so
much more than he ever expected. Then Ben is kissing Jon back and his grip
tightens deliciously and his hand is moving and he's looking at Jon with no
hint of the shyness Jon has come to expect.
"Is there ... what do *you* want?"
Everything Jon thinks, his own greed surprising him. Ben's hand is moving more
surely now, all earlier hesitancy gone.
Jon's voice has gone husky as he responds. "Oh that's good ... do it like you
do it to yourself...." There's something powerfully erotic about this image -
- the idea that Ben is giving Jon what he normally gives to no one but himself.
Jon's head tilts back against his pillow and he can hear himself moaning. "Oh
God...."
"Yeah ... oh yeah," Ben murmurs, his breath coming almost as quickly as Jon's
does. He moves closer, one leg sliding over Jon's leg. Then he lowers his mouth
over one of Jon's nipples, provoking a surprised shout.
Suddenly it's all too much ... Ben's hand, his tongue, the stunning impact of
Ben's presence -- real and warm and smelling so good -- it all combines and Jon
groans and thrust hard into Ben's hand as he falls over the edge.
When he can pay attention to his surroundings again, Jon realizes he's being
kissed. Ben is making little grateful noises again as their mouths work
together and it startles Jon After all, he is the one who should be -- is -
- grateful here. He kisses Ben back, pulling him close and just enjoying the
warm reality of him.
Finally, Ben pulls back and looks at Jon, clearly overwhelmed by the moment.
Jon imagines that his own face echoes the wonder and slightly sweet happiness
he sees in Ben's eyes.
"God ... thank you," Ben says softly.
Jon finally does what he's been dying to do ever since he truly noticed Ben,
all those months ago; chuckling, he reaches up to brush the long front lock of
red-gold hair out of Ben's eyes. "Yeah well ... thank you too." He can't help
what he suspects is a goofy grin from breaking out over his face.
Ben, clearly touched by the gesture, sighs and leans into Jon's arms, snuggling
close. Jon is amazed yet again, this time at how natural it feels to hold Ben
in his arms --- how perfectly Ben fits there, his skin warm against Jon's.
Ben's voice is soft and thoughtful when he finally speaks. "This was just...
going to happen, wasn't it? Sooner or later."
Jon looks at him, surprised to find that Ben has felt the same sense of
inevitability that he has for the last few weeks.
"Yes," he says, ignoring the nervous little voice in the back of his head that
asks: What happens now?
"Yes," he repeats a little more firmly. "I think it was."
***** Chapter 23 *****
Jon has a couple of tattoos, Ben noticed, though it wasn't something he was
particularly taken by when the man was hard and wanting him. The boy wanted to
ask about it the yin yang on Jon's bicep and the stylized Chinese dragon on the
back of one shoulder, but now as they pad toward the bathroom, Ben is concerned
that Jon will see him for what he is, so he says nothing. The last thing Ben
wants to do is come off like he's new, mostly because Jon is treating him like
an adult. They're going to shower together, something Ben hasn't done ever with
anyone. It's yet one more experience he's is eager to give himself up to.
When they're standing under the spray and the teacher bends his head, Ben
kisses him openly, comfortable by now with the slide of Jon's lips against his.
Well, perhaps comfortable isn't quite right; it makes him go hot and full of
butterflies.
Groaning, Jon raises his head, staring down with something like wonder. Ben is
lost again, so abruptly that it doesn't quite register when Jon kneels in the
slight shelter of the boy's body. Protected from the spray, the teacher takes
Ben's cock into his mouth, drawing a yelp out of a startled throat.
"Oh--!" Ben's voice is small and loud at the same time. "Oh, God, Jon--" And he
realizes what he's said and looks down to see something straight out of his
fantasies staring back at him, mouth full, grinning with his eyes.
"Jon," Ben moans again, testing the name as he did what seems like eons ago,
but now, Jon can hear, and he likes it. He moans around Ben's cock and sends
Ben tilting backward, knees nearly buckling.
"Oh, God," the boy begins to chant, "oh, God, oh--God, oh--fuck, Jon, ohGod--
" And he's nearly hyperventilating as the hot water pounds onto his back and
Jon's tongue drives him screaming to the edge. He clutches at the shoulder with
the dragon on it and his hand slips, even as Jon's own broad hands go to Ben's
hips to support him.
"I'm--" Ben manages before coming, a small shriek belting itself out of a
shocked throat. He shudders and slumps, grabbing the little washcloth bar just
before careening backward against the wall.
"My God," Jon breathes, staring up at him. "That's got to be one of the hottest
things...."
"Fuck," Ben squeaks.
***** Chapter 24 *****
Ben lies in the bed next to Jon, curled onto his side, too keyed-up to sleep.
Dawn hasn't quite broken, but Jon himself only went to sleep an hour or so ago.
Ben would be twitchy if he hadn't sort of gone through Jon's room a little and
managed to find a pencil with an eraser at the tip and a pad of lined paper
embossed with what looked like an old grocery list. The top page had been torn
off, so Ben just moved down three or four sheets and started drawing.
Stretched out on his back, Jon lies with one arm flung up over his head on the
pillow, the other draped over his stomach. His hair is fanned out and tangled
and there's a little crease between Jon's eyebrows. Ben wishes he had the nerve
to reach over and sweep his fingertips over that crease, erasing it, but then
he thinks that that's a ridiculous idea somehow. Jon's body is relaxed, though,
whatever his dreams, all languid contours and warm, steady breathing beneath
the sheet. Ben's trying so hard to capture that repose, but he's so used to
drawing Djinn in a state of tension that it's very hard to catch his teacher in
sleep.
Ben decides he wants to see more body and less linen, so, very carefully, he
plucks up the upper hem of the sheet and peels it back, revealing the lean
lines of stomach and hip and a tense, waiting erection. Whatever Jon's
dreaming, anything decent enough to do that is alright by Ben. He sketches,
smudges a little (difficult, with it being a No. 2 pencil), and then freezes,
seeing the erection twitch.
Mouth dry all of a sudden, he slips, makes an erasure, then rolls over a
little, sweeping the crumbs onto the floor. This is harder than he thought it
would be, but suddenly he needs to have a picture of Jon sleeping--something to
remind himself that last night wasn't another one of his fantasies. He wonders
if he'll get through the sketch without needing to touch and ruin the model.
When he turns back over and curls up around the notepad again, Jon is looking
at him sleepily.
"Sorry," Ben whispers, and apologetically holds up the pad. "I just--I was
seeing."
"Stop... apologizing," Jon mutters, smiling crookedly, and sweeps a long, warm
arm out to catch Ben close to him. After a moment and a long look at the paper,
he asks softly, "You were drawing me?"
Ben holds up the pad, now very clearly graced with Jon. Sleeping, breathing
Jon, there on paper. "It's not very good."
Jon takes the pad, awed. "Someone needs to teach you what 'good' means. Jesus,
how long did this take you?"
"About ten minutes." The idea that Jon likes it, in fact seems to love it,
gives Ben a sharp sense of sweet, embarrassed pride, and he flushes a little.
"It's fantastic." Jon moves to kiss Ben, then catches himself, grinning. "Okay,
I think... here, come on, I'm not going to kiss you with morning breath. I have
an extra toothbrush, if you want." He rolls over, getting up to tug on a robe.
"Oh. Okay," Ben agrees quietly, looking around for his clothes. He isn't sure
what to do now--in the past twenty-four hours he's run the gamut from depressed
and terrified to ecstatic and orgasmic to strangely deflated and nervous. This
is the fabled morning after, yet one more thing he's never experienced, and
that makes Ben wonder what Jon could see in him. Ben knows nothing of these
things; he isn't sophisticated enough to. He finds his shirt near the bed and
takes it up, turning it right-side-out so he can put it on, and then something
soft hits him in the back.
"You can wear that, if you like," Jon suggests, very casually, pointing to the
T-shirt he tossed--a desperately bright rainbow-dyed shirt that looks like it
has teddy bears dancing on it. But Ben doesn't care; the idea of wearing
something of Jon's just about throws him over the moon. That faint nervousness
dissipates under Jon's warm stare as Ben tugs the shirt on over his head,
grinning a little.
For Jon's part... well, he just knows he doesn't want to see Ben getting
dressed right off. It makes him feel like Ben's about to leave... and he'd
like, for a little while, to stave that off.
***** Chapter 25 *****
Jon can't help but laugh at the expression on Ben's face when he starts getting
breakfast.
The night before, they had gnocci with pesto, a salad, and some rolls Jon had
made the night before. He brought out some wine and afterwards they munched on
cookies. The conversation was about neutral topics, the books they read, a
spirited discussion on the newer martial arts movies stars, and Ben's art.
They didn't talk about anything complicated -- no discussion of where the
relationship was going or how to proceed. Jon knows they'll have to but last
night he couldn't bring himself to spoil the evening. His romantic streak -
- which Xani always claimed was as wide as the grand Canyon -- wants this one
weekend to be apart from all the harsh realities of the world they live in.
And then they went back to bed and Jon let himself explore his new lover more
thoroughly than he had earlier. Ben was obviously torn between modesty and
pride as Jon's large hands wandered over his pale skin, discovering sensitive
places even Ben didn't know about. The young man squirmed delightfully as Jon's
lips followed the paths his hands had already marked out.
"The beard," Ben said breathlessly, only his pride keeping him from giggling.
"It tickles."
Jon looked up, letting his beard brush the back of Ben's knee. "So I've been
told."
Ben grinned back at him and reached down to pull Jon up for a hug. Jon was more
than happy to oblige, particularly when Ben rolled until Jon was on top of him.
Several minutes of kissing and more stroking on Jon's part led to more of Ben's
squirming, accompanied by that needy whimper Jon found himself liking more and
more. The end result was a convulsive orgasm on Ben's part, something the young
man was rather embarrassed about until Jon kissed him firmly.
"You have the advantage of youth," he added, grabbing for a couple of the
towels he had put beside the bed earlier.
"Yeah well," Ben said as he cleaned himself up. "You have the advantage of
skill." He paused and then tossed the towel aside. Smiling a little nervously,
he pushed gently at Jon, silently urging him to lie back. "I should ...you know
... catch up."
It was Jon's turn to squirm as Ben's slim, clever hands moved over him. As
others before him had discovered, Ben quickly found that one of the quickest
ways to get his teacher to abandon any sort of dignity was to tickle his knees.
It was with a certain feeling of sadness that Jon realized that Ben didn't seem
to know what to make of sex play that was fun. Remembering his own seriousness
at Ben's age, Jon encouraged Ben to lighten up. They were both laughing over
something when Ben quite suddenly, bent down and kissed the head of Jon's cock.
Jon's laugh quickly changed into a moan, one that was followed by a good many
more just like it as Ben began exploring Jon's cock with his lips and tongue.
Ben's curiosity and enthusiasm far overshadowed his lack of experience, and Jon
made sure that Ben knew just how much he liked what his young lover was doing.
It was a sweet, wet and rather sloppy blowjob and Jon wouldn't have traded the
moment for the best lover in the world. Ben kept darting little looks up, as if
to make sure he was doing it right; it took very little time before Jon
realized that Ben had never done this. He was careful to keep still, to clamp
down hard on his body's instinctive urge to thrust hard into Ben's mouth.
As Ben's confidence grew, it became harder to hold back. Finally, when Ben slid
his mouth down over the head of Jon's cock and started sucking, his other hand
busy stroking the shaft, Jon groaned and managed to choke out a warning. Ben
instinctively pulled away but his hand kept working Jon's cock, and the sight
of his intense look of fascination was enough to finish Jon off.
When he had opened his eyes, Ben was staring him with an odd look on his face.
"What is it?"
"I did that. I ... I did that and you liked it."
"Very much," Jon replied.
Ben shrugged, a little embarrassed, and then looked down at his hand. Looking
up, he caught Jon's eye, and brought his hand to his mouth and licked
tentatively at one finger. "That's not that bad," Ben said thoughtfully. "Next
time I'll swallow."
Now Jon blinks, coming back to the present and looking at Ben, who is standing
in front of the refrigerator. He's wearing one of Jon's old Dead shirts and
nothing else. It just skims the bottom of his ass, and Jon would be happy to
spend the rest of the day inventing reasons for Ben to bend over.
Down boy, he tells himself as he puts the box of cereal on the table.
"Froot loops?" Ben says. "I expected something like granola or something."
Before Jon can help it, it slips out. "I haven't had granola in the house since
Xani went into the hospital."
***** Chapter 26 *****
Ben sits in class, a little hunched down in his chair. His jacket is as mangy-
looking as always, and his shoes have a few more scribblings--but not too many-
-because he went to Algebra II today.
"Someone give me the five major difficulties inherent in a global economy," Dr.
Quenton says, hair pulled properly back, hands covered in chalk, one hip of his
slacks streaked from leaning on the board. His eyes have not met Ben's much
beyond a strict, as-needed glance or two, but Ben knows.
Ben knows.
"I haven't had granola in the house since Xani went into the hospital."
Ben knows lots of things now. He knows Jon had a lover once, a lover who died
of AIDS. He knows Jon has tested negative since then, and Ben knows he himself
is very glad that the cursory, clumsy encounters he had--he can say that now;
they were clumsy--with the track star last year was always, always with a
condom. Ben remembers the way Jon's voice sounded, that studious, resonant
voice, thanking him for sharing a handful of crappy memories about a boy who
didn't want to be with a boy.
That voice, now, is lecturing on the possible fate of a global economy, subject
to tsunamis and tectonic earthquakes because it is inextricably bound with
small island nations on the Pacific Rim.
"Who's Xani?"
Ben stared hard at the tucan on the Froot Loops box as Jon made a huff of air--
an impatient noise. A "why the fuck did I say that?" kind of noise. Ben met
Jon's eyes again, hoping madly, Not the guy in the pictures, not the pretty,
sweet-looking, sophisticated--
He didn't know what else to do but ask. And now he knows.
More than that, too, Ben realizes almost lazily as he replays portions of
yesterday and the day before, plucking off the warm, sticky bits to hide the
hard ones. He rememebers the slow, delicious grind in the hot tub, straddling
Jon's lap and kissing him until they were both desperately hard again. Jon
tasted of coffee and Froot Loops, and Ben grinned and told him so, and Jon...
his eyes went warm and soft as he said, "Do you have any idea what your smile
does to me?"
Ben hadn't, before. But he knows now.
But with the sweet comes the rest of it, too. Jon has a lot of leftover pain of
his own, something Ben never considered. Ben, in his fatherless, overbearing-
mother-filled life, never stopped to think there was pain other than his, and
now--now he can't stop thinking about it, intermingled as it is with the sweet,
sticky parts.
Dr. Quenton glances at him in his roving about the front of the classroom,
speculating on the fate of the NYSE and NASDAQ should a hurricane wipe out
Tokyo, and Ben realizes with a sharp, painful clarity that he is not lusting
after a heroic, darkly shadowed character he draws out of his imagination. He
is in love--completely, vastly in love with a man who suffers from monstrous
pain and huge, gnawing grief.
Jon completely lost his calm when he saw that Ben's mother's car was,
stunningly, in the driveway of the little shingled house they unfortunately
shared. Ben stared, panicked, as Jon began to breathe too hard, white-knuckling
the steering wheel, suddenly realizing with crushing impact the extent to which
he'd jeopardized everything. Everything. And Ben realized he knew nothing about
panic--hadn't known before, anyway. Now he knew. He was staring it in the face
in Jon's little Fiat, eyes wide and voice breaking as he tried to touch Jon,
pull him close, calm him down. He fumbled with the pill bottle in the glove
box, shaking out a little tablet--Xanax, Jon said--that Jon put under his
tongue.
It gives Ben a twinge of guilt now, and he realizes he shouldn't crunch up
codeine like candy--it skews his sense of fairness somehow, to be taking pills
he doesn't need when Jon would so much rather never take pills again.
Ben sat there as Jon shook, holding him, rocking because he didn't know what
else to do.
"It's alright, I swear, she can't see us from there, she doesn't know what your
car looks like, she won't know--Jon, Jon, please... fuck, please, I swear, it's
okay--"
Ben babbled senselessly on, slowly lowering his voice until Jon realized he was
clinging, fists full of Ben's ratty jacket, tears dampening the shoulder.
Finally, finally, Jon let go, relaxing, calming himself. Ben asked uselessly if
Jon was okay, if he could drive, if there was something Ben could do.
Jon shook his head but realized slowly there was a lot Ben had done already.
The boy looks at the professor now, raising his hand for the first time in
weeks because none of these other morons seem to understand the importance of
the Japanese market on the world economic stage.
"Xenocentrism is going to kill us," he says calmly, adding just the right note
of petulance so the class fully understands how stupid they all are. "The
American market isn't as important as it thinks it is."
"Prove it," Jon says, shoving his hands into the pockets of his slacks and
smudging them with more chalk.
And Ben does. And slowly, Jon realizes with sharp, painful clarity that he's
not lusting after a pretty teenaged boy who happens to understand Japanese
economics only because he reads the hentai that comes out of that market. He's
in love. Completely, vastly in love with a complicated young adult, one who
doesn't run away from anything important. Not dead lovers, not panic attacks,
not his mother who disappears and then arrives again, off-cue and five days
early. Jon once thought there was nothing here but physical attraction. He
didn't know there could be anything real.
But he knows now.
***** Chapter 27 *****
The sky is a deep blue in this sketch. The coloring in this drawing is odd,
primarily highlighted as it is with blues and reds. It is stark and full of
foreboding, and the contrast between the cool of the sky and the heat of the
blood on the ground is a little shocking. Mrs. Erickson shakes her head,
wondering at this one. Benjamin McKenna's talent is plain, here, and is
becoming more so with each passing drawing that he produces, whatever Mrs.
Erickson's opinion is of the medium he's chosen to express himself with. He has
an uncanny ability to convey moods--strong moods, mostly anger and fear.
There is no fear in this sketch, however. The boy stands on a hilltop, staring
out over the horizon. He seems to be standing guard over the figure slumped on
the ground near his feet--Djinn, apparently, as he's the only human ever to
appear in the pictures other than monsters, although his face is obscured and
his back turned. He looks beaten, if one can judge by the hunched-over posture
alone. Yes--it's clear enough. Something has defeated Djinn, and he is turned
away from the perspective view as though in shame. In the boy's eyes is an
angry blaze, and the blood that was spilled onto the grass at his feet is
reflected in his stare. He clutches Djinn's glowing sword tightly, tensely, and
is staring at something off in the distance.
Whatever it is, it is far enough away that its features are not yet
distinguished. It is huge, though, hulking over trees and surreal, almost
organic-looking buildings. It has claws. That is the only thing she can make
out: it is a huge, faceless, clawed beast. It is blue like the sky, almost
camoflaged against the horizon.
Looking at the sketch, Mrs. Erickson tries a moment longer to make out its
meaning, then quietly files the paper into a special folder she's labeled
"Quenton-McKenna."
***** Chapter 28 *****
Ben didn't exactly lie to Dr. Quenton. Dr. Quenton never asked any questions
like, "Did your mother suddenly decide to send you to a psychiatrist on advice
of her Valium-vodka-cocktail-sucking friends because you disappeared for a
while?" No, of course he wouldn't ask that, he is much kinder than that. But
Ben isn't. He feels terrible for not telling, though, because he knows it's
important. He just...
I couldn't stand to see that look in his eyes, Ben reminds himself. That fear.
That panic. Jon would hate the idea that Ben ended up here, with a mild-
looking, toupeed shrink preparing a psychological profile on him, and he would
hate even worse the idea that it was somehow related to the weekend. So when he
and Jon talked today, Ben just left out the part about this afternoon's meeting
with the very expensive head doctor.
Ben looks around a little, trying not to look like he's looking around. The
place is so plain and sparse that he wonders if they really meant to put that
swooping, graceful black vase right there; everything else implies crayons and
soft paper. It's the kind of room Hannibal Lecter would be allowed in. Ben
thinks, however, that a lot of damage could be wreaked with the two books on
the desk. The vase is incongruous with everything, although he does think it
would make a cool ion cannon for fighting off the pale blue monster. He takes
up a felt pen off the coffee table and copies the lines of the vase onto his
right palm.
"Do you like that?" the very cool, very neutral male doctor asks him--he
introduced himself about two minutes ago as Dr. Franke--and while he's not
holding a pad and paper now, Ben knows one is forthcoming.
"It's okay."
The doctor nods. "Do you know why your mom wanted us to talk today?"
Ben smiles, his eyes hard and bitter with seventeen-year-old sarcasm. "I'm a
freak?"
Having obviously heard this and more on many occasions, the doctor smiles
placidly and folds his hands. He looks faintly like the freaky dude in The
Usual Suspects, and Ben wonders, giggling in the back of his mind, if this is
the Kaiser Soze.
"No, no, Benjamin, you're not a freak. We each deal with things in ways that
are sometimes unproductive, and what we need to figure out now is how to help
you find a productive way to deal with yours."
Sitting back, Ben folds his arms over his chest, watching Kaiser watch him. "Uh
huh. Isn't my mom supposed to be here? Are you going to put me on something
that makes me all sleepy and weird to keep me from... acting out or something?"
Unsurprisingly, the doctor pulls out a small slip of paper and scribbles on it.
"Your mother has already signed a release. I hope you'll trust my judgment as
she does. This is a prescription for Zoloft. It won't make you sleepy and--"
"I'm not taking it." Ben's words are firm and his eyes are angry now. He's had
enough of the neutral office and the neutral voice and the completely
overwhelming calm of this place.
"Benjamin, you have to understand. This is not a narcotic, if that's what
concerns you. It's not going to make you sleepy, it's just going to even out
some patterns in the chemistry--"
"I'm not taking it. I'm fine. I didn't run away from home, I just went to a
friend's house for the weekend. Put in your notes that my mom left me with a
note saying she'd be gone all week. Put in there too that she didn't call me
Friday night or leave me bus money. I was hooking up rides to class all week."
Ben hates the lie, small as it is, and he hates referring to the weekend as
though he were over at a buddy's house playing GameCube for two days. But he
watches smugly as the good doctor's well-prepared expression falters a little.
Notes go down into the inevitable file folder, and the doctor nods. "Be that as
it may--and rest assured, this will get covered when I speak to your mother
tomorrow afternoon--I would like you to take this and get it filled. Take one
at dinner time every night. Just one. They're small."
Ben sighs, knowing his best option here is to ignore the condescending,
ridiculous blather and go along. He gets up and scoops the paper up, shoving it
carelessly into his jacket pocket. He hovers there a moment as Franke drones on
a bit about how their first real meeting will run about an hour and a half, how
he's sorry there isn't more time now, how he'd really like to get to know Ben
better. Ben makes mental blah-blah-blah noises, likening his new doctor to the
faintly creepy adults in the Peanuts cartoons, the ones who never speak unless
someone's in trouble. Absently, as Franke wraps it up, Ben takes up the pencil
cup--actually a coffee mug, plain and white, cafeteria-style--and, holding the
pencils in place firmly, upends it.
"What are you doing?" Franke asks, blinking.
"Kobayashi," Ben mutters, and grins brilliantly at the doctor's blank look. He
knows he's secured himself a highlighted note in the cracked nut file, and
doesn't care.
***** Chapter 29 *****
Dr. Quenton's mind is not on the handful of extra credit projects he should be
grading or the mortadella and provolone on sourdough that's sitting on his
desk. His tea from earlier has gone cold and his Coke is leaving a ring of
moisture on his desk.
It's Thursday, but Jon is remembering Monday. He was proud of himself in class
that morning, calmly discussing the effect on the NYSE and NASDAQ of the
hypothetical destruction of Tokyo as if he hadn't spent part of the weekend
making love with the young man in the front row. And he was proud of Ben as
well; the boy slouched in his seat with his usual air of nonchalant
disinterest, as if he hadn't guided and held Jon through the worst of a panic
attack Sunday afternoon.
As if they hadn't both come to separate but equal realizations that the weekend
had been about much more than satisfying curiosity and slaking mutual lust.
It was only Monday afternoon, during Jon's free period, while he and Ben worked
grading quizzes, that they talked. Fortunately Ben initiated the conversation;
there is, after all, no proper etiquette for asking your TA if he still wants
to spend time in your bed. But Ben, in a slightly incoherent way that Jon found
terribly endearing, mumbled something about the gnocci being good and the Pink
Floyd he'd seen in Jon's CD collection. The boy brought it around to a hesitant
request to see Jon again and Jon worked to hide his relief.
But Jon knew it was far more complicated than that and he found himself once
more wishing he could inflict great bodily harm on Lorna McKenna. Once more he
found himself biting back angry comments as Ben all too casually dismissed his
mother's odd behavior.
The way Ben tells it the woman would hardly notice, let alone mind, if Ben is
gone all day Saturday, even though she apparently raised holy hell when she
realized Ben had been at a "friend's place" over the weekend. It was only Ben
once more pleading with Jon not to get involved that kept the teacher from
calling the authorities.
Only five months. Jon tells himself now. He'll be 18 in five months and then
things can change. He doesn't know how things will change, but with Ben
graduating as well, things can only get better.
But Jon isn't really thinking about that either. He's remembering hot water
splashing on his face and the way Ben all but squeaked "fuck" after he came in
Jon's mouth. He's remembering those clever artist's hands and the way they
brought him to a shuddering climax. He's remembering the way his t-shirt rode
up, exposing Ben's ass as the young man pored over Jon's CD rack. He's
remembering....
The sound of a locker door banging out in the hall brings him back to himself
and he frowns down at his lap in irritation. You're going to get me in trouble
if you keep reminding us of things like that at work, for Christ's sake.
In an effort to get some work done, he pulls his folder of graded quizzes
toward him, intending to record the grades in his book. He manages to record
two scores when....
Breathe, damnit!
The nameless boy has his back against a tree, one leg wrapped around the hip of
the tall, longhaired warrior who is fucking him hard. Both boy and man have
almost identical expressions of rapture on their faces, and, of course both of
them are instantly recognizable as Ben and Jon.
The erection Jon had managed to think away is back in force and he buries his
head in one hand as he quickly closes the folder. Although he should be
rehearsing the conversation he needs to have with Ben about taking more care
with his artwork, all Jon Quenton can think about is a tie dyed t-shirt that
was just three inches too short.
It's going to be a long time until Saturday.
A very long time.
***** Chapter 30 *****
Ben stares at the creamy yellow tablet, only slightly the worse for wear for
having been held under his tongue and then spit out. Sertraline hydrochloride
is the chemical name, and of course he's already looked in his mother's PDR for
the chemical makeup of it. He'll be drawing it on his shoe in algebra come
Monday, he's sure. He's pretty sure Sertraline needs to be the name of the
planet his manga boy is from.
As soon as his mother heads off to her bingo game or whatever it is she does on
Saturdays that involves white grain alcohol and chirping at her other
prospective Eastern Star "womenfriends," he's out of here. The mallinites that
always convince her to do things like sell Yankee candles or interior
decorating crap are welcome to her, he thinks. He has places to be.
The first order of business, the second his mother's gone, is to head to Oak
Park. He has to tell Jon about this Zoloft development and Kaiser Soze's sudden
appearance in his life. He knows it's crucial, but he keeps replaying the
conversation in his head and it's just not flying right. He keeps seeing Jon
panicking again, and that's not even the worst part, because he knows--beyond
having done it once--he can help Jon over that. The worst part is he keeps
thinking Jon will call the whole thing off.
Ben stopped himself in front of the mirror in the bathroom today. He stopped
and really looked, seeing his floppy red-brown hair and the moles on his face
and the pissed-off look in his eyes. He wondered what Jon saw in all of that.
He didn't see any heat there, or beauty, he just saw himself. Just a high-
schooler who doesn't get along with his mother and can't be bothered to go to
Algebra II because he feels very strongly that he doesn't need it--a high-
schooler like any other. There's no reason Jon shouldn't call the whole thing
off.
He tosses the wet Zoloft in the trash and resolves again to tell Jon about it
tomorrow. This whole antidepressant incident might be the thing that sends Jon
away, but Ben knows somehow he can't hide it.
It hurts. He flops backward onto his bed, staring up at the blanket he's tacked
up over the mural because he doesn't want to hear his mother screeching about
it. He wants to say it will all be alright somehow, that Jon will take care of
him, but he's sadly disillusioned about things like that. Curling away from the
mural, which is strangely the only way he can sleep anymore, Ben hugs his
pillow and wishes.
***** Chapter 31 *****
It's Friday evening and Jon is filled with manic energy. Therefore, he's
cleaning. So far he's swept the entire house, dusted in the living room, tidied
up the kitchen, cleaned the bathroom and done two loads of laundry. Now he's
working on the bedroom, moving the piles of books back into the bookshelves in
the study, and making the bed. In what he thinks of as a fit of self-
indulgence, he's chosen a set of dark green sheets, strictly for the aesthetic
value of seeing Ben naked on them.
The bed made, he sits down and contemplates the nightstand. It's a jumble of
books -- one textbook, Eco's latest --Baudolino -- and four manga Ben has
recommended. Jon is amused to find that he's enjoying Vampire Hunter D more
than the novel, but then Baudolino is a far cry from Foucault's_Pendulum, and
the manga are great fun.
The nightstand is also covered by several wrappers from miniature Snickers, and
as Jon gathers them up and tosses them he wonders why the taste better in the
smaller format. Xani used to complain about the candy wrappers, but then Xani's
sweet tooth demanded Jelly Bellys. Jon still remembers waking up with the
occasional green apple or sizzling cinnamon bean squashed under his back and he
finds himself wondering if Ben eats in bed, and if so, what.
For the first time that sort of thought doesn't make him feel like a traitor to
Xani's memory, and he's not quite sure what to make of that. David, his
therapist, would tell him that he was moving on and that it's all to the good,
but of course David doesn't know about Ben. David can't know about Ben.
Jon has a brief moment of panic. The lover whose arrival he's so eagerly
anticipating is a minor. It doesn't matter that Ben is far more mature than
most of the adults Jon knows; it doesn't matter that in less than six months
Ben will be an adult. What matters is that what Jon is doing with Ben is
illegal. He looks at the ashtray containing the pipe and lighter, at the brass
apothecary jar that serves as a stash jar and shakes his head. Screwing one of
his students is a little different than smoking dope. He breathes carefully,
staving off the panic for now.
It is what it is and it's too late now to do anything about it. If I'd said
"no" before ... before this was something more than just sex, that would be one
thing.
His eyes fall on the picture that ended up in his stack of quizzes and then on
the bottle of Probe he picked up optimistically this afternoon. He's not sure
if they're ready for this next step, but he wants to be prepared if they are.
He remembers his first time with a laugh; to this day the smell of Vaseline
Intensive Care hand lotion takes him back to his dorm room and Anthony.
Anthony, he reminds himself, was older than Ben is. Hell, I was older than Ben
is.
He sighs and tidies up the bedside table, tucking the ashtray and pipe in the
lower drawer and the Probe in the upper drawer with the condoms. Towels, he
thinks. Need some towels in here.
Several minutes later, he looks around. The room is neater than it has been in
months; he can see the surface of the bedside table. There are fresh candles on
the votive holders scattered on bookcases and the dresser, and the blue and
cream colored Persian carpet has been vacuumed.
Now all the room needs is Ben.
***** Chapter 32 *****
Ben grits his teeth, painting furiously. The robotic squid creature has now
grown spikes on a few of its tentacles and is waving them threateningly at the
boy. There is an angry pilot in one of the ships, Ben knows, though he hasn't
got that far yet in his painting. The angry pilot, Ben's decided, is going to
lop the head right off the squid. It will never show up on the painting, and
Ben actually likes the squid, but for right now, it makes him feel better.
"You aren't allowed to go out," Ben mimicks his mother in an ugly, snotty-woman
tone, and twists his hand angrily in a gesture that copies the quick locking of
a door. He gets a smudge of green on a part of the starry night sky and swipes
at it, frustrated, with the pad of his thumb. He's been up several times,
testing the door and its brand-new hardware, knowing she can't keep him in here
forever. If he presses his ear to the door, he can hear her snoring in the
living room. She's loud, and for the first time in his life, he's glad.
"I an so outta here," he says aloud, staring at the bound, writhing boy in the
painting.
But he has already stayed a good deal longer than he meant to. When he looks at
the clock and sees the time, his light eyes go wide with shock and fear--Jon's
due to leave the park any minute now.
"Shit," Ben whispers, frantically getting down from the bed, going to the
window, then rushing back to drop the cover over his still-wet mural and cap
the acrylics. He shoves the tubes of paint into a bin and shoves it under his
bed, then goes to the window again, rushing to clear the sill of figures and
crap he wishes right now he didn't own. It takes him a moment to pop the screen
out of the window--she had it adjusted last time he did this, but the only
difference is before, he could do it by hand, and now, he has to use the butter
knife he keeps under the back corner of his desk just for crap like this.
Getting out the window and down the street is nothing, but he bounces on his
toes impatiently for the bus to arrive. He hates this waiting; when he finally
gets on, he wishes it went faster, didn't have as many stops, didn't have to
slow down for every stupid little thing. "Come on, come on," he chants, nearly
frantic with the idea that Jon has left the park by now and Ben can't remember
how to get to his house--and he has no idea what bus route to take.
Finally, finally, the bus stops at Oak Park, and he is already at the front,
darting out the door the instant it folds open. He dashes up the hill, praying-
-
Jon is there, sitting on the bench near where he normally works out. Nearly
overwhelmed with relief, Ben has to stop, folding himself over and taking a
moment to catch his breath. When he straightens and looks up, Jon is moving
toward him quickly, a pained sort of gladness clear on his face.
"Hey," Ben greets, still breathing too quickly from nerves and sprinting. He
is, all of a sudden, very aware of the paint on his hands and his jeans, and
desperately self-conscious about his hair, his breath, his dew-dampened
sneakers. "I--sorry, I thought I was too late."
"God, Ben," Jon sighs, and Ben is glad and puzzled at the relief in his eyes.
"I thought...." He trails off, smiling a little because there's nothing that
can properly express how afraid he was that it was suddenly, immediately over,
for whatever reasons that would occur. "Never mind. I'm glad you're here."
***** Chapter 33 *****
Ben watches Jon move in the Giants t-shirt and the sweats. He's peeled off his
jacket and draped it onto the back of a chair, and he's even taken off his
shoes, as Jon did when they entered. He feels that sense of settling in again,
that sense of being home. Really, he can't believe he's even here. Jon is
obviously happy to putter with a massive tray of meat and cheese, two kinds of
bread, organic mayonnaise (Ben didn't know till just now there was such a
thing), and olives--three kinds of olives. He is chattering, obviously "up," as
he says, and seems to be so terribly glad that Ben is there that it hangs
between them, making Ben want to go to him and kiss him right there with their
lunch still half-assembled.
The idea shakes him. He's done it again: laid out everything, all of it, his
mother locking him up, his sneaking out, the pills, Kaiser Soze. Suddenly he
looks back on the conversation, which, initially, nearly threw Jon into another
attack, and he feels a hot flash of guilt and embarrassment.
What the fuck were you thinking? he wonders, smiling a little stiffly as Jon
talks about how pleased he was to find these olives, how great they are, just
wait. It's just more proof that you're a fucked-up kid, dumping all that on him
like there's something he's supposed todoabout it.
But he knows why he told. He knows he can't lie to Jon, even if it means losing
him. He knows in the bottom of his heart that he does want Jon to be able to do
something about all this. He wants it, but he doesn't believe in it. Jon
doesn't need some stupid, doped-up high school kid wishing for things bigger
than him.
He wishes more than anything he'd been able to say the words that occurred to
him after the brief emotional storm was over. Ben keeps the smile plastered to
his face until Jon notices it isn't real.
"What's wrong?" Jon asks, wiping his hands on a towel and looking at Ben
carefully.
"Nothing," Ben says immediately, looking away. But he looks back again,
sighing. "Can... would it be okay if I--" And he leans up, cupping one hand
behind Jon's neck and tugging him down, kissing him with soft, warm hesitancy.
He doesn't mean to press close, but there he is, one hand pulling Jon to him
and the other wound in the front of the Giants shirt as the kiss deepens and
grows. Jon tastes like chamomile and something else, and he smells faintly of
some herb or another, but Ben doesn't know what--a soft, green flavor,
something he recognizes as Jon. It's one more thing for Ben to marvel at, and
worry about. Ben tastes like mouthwash, he knows.
Jon moans, startled, into the kiss, before pulling back and smiling a little.
"You taste good," he murmurs, and takes Ben's mouth more urgently.
Having lost track of what he does feel, let alone what he should, Ben gives up
and just kisses.
***** Chapter 34 *****
Ben tastes like mouthwash -- something cinnamon -- with the faintest hint of
cigarettes underneath. It turns Jon on much more than he expected, although his
arousal could have something to do with the way Ben's hand grips Jon's shirt
tightly, pulling the older man towards him as the kiss deepens. Or maybe it's
the sound of those noises Ben makes, the not-quite whimpers that he breathes
into the kiss.
Jon wraps his arms around Ben in silent apology. An apology for the almost
panic attack at the park, an apology for the time wasted getting lunch
together, an apology for not being able to help Ben more. This, right now, is
all he can give Ben. This closeness, this warmth, this ... feeling.
A feeling Jon is afraid to put into words, and so he tries to make the kisses
as intense as he can, while his hands range over Ben's back and down to his
ass. It's too new, this feeling; it would be too much of a burden for a young
man already heavily burdened by life.
He doesn't deserve my neediness piled on to everything else.
And so Jon kisses Ben with all the passion and skill he can muster, great deep
kisses that finally leave both of them gasping for breath.
"Missed you," Jon whispers against Ben's lips when he can finally speak again.
"Thought about this all week...."
Ben's eyes light up, and that faint worry line he's too young to have
disappears as he gins. "Yeah?"
"Yeah."
Jon is grinning, too, as he moves in for another kiss. It's so good to make Ben
smile like this, so good to feel those warm, smooth lips part against his, so
damn good to kiss someone like this. Ben whimpers again and Jon hears himself
answer the sound with a moan from deep in his throat. His hand tightens just a
bit, gripping a firm ass cheek as the other tangles itself gently in Ben's
hair.
Ben pulls back from the kiss to just look at Jon, and Jon smiles at him. The
young man's face is flushed and his lips swollen ever so slightly
"I'm not really all that hungry," Jon says, moving the one hand until it's
brushing that maddening lock of hair out of Ben's eyes.
"Lunch," Ben replies eagerly, "can wait."
***** Chapter 35 *****
Ben pulls Jon to him again, kissing him hard. He presses close; it's too good
not to. Jon is warm and firm and--yes--hard, and his hand is tightening on
Ben's ass unexpectedly. What it means, if anything, Ben doesn't know, but he
likes it. It feels good, way better than he'd have thought something so simple
could.
"Yeah," he gasps, tipping his head back. "Want that." He doesn't even know what
it is he wants yet; he hasn't got that much worked out in his head. But he's
sure. He's sure.
Jon gasps, too. "Bedroom." He tries to kiss and walk at the same time,
clutching Ben to him. Ben nearly trips and falls and is stopped only by Jon's
grip on his arm. The boy laughs a little, trying not to. When they reach the
bedroom door, no longer a shock to Ben but a welcome, comfortable sight, Ben
stops.
"Fuck... Jon," he breathes, and looks at his teacher intently before kissing
him again. The moan Jon gives out resonates through Ben with a delicious sense
of satisfaction. He's here again, and Jon wants him, and that's so good Ben
can't even think about it.
Sliding his hands up inside Jon's shirt over his torso, Ben gives one of those
long, deep looks that unknots Jon every time. "Please..." Ben whispers, running
his hands around to Jon's back and up over his shoulders. He doesn't know what
to do, but Jon knows that by now, and Ben feels safe. He's afraid of how safe
he feels, sometimes, but not now.
Jon shivers at Ben's touch as well as the one wide-open word. He's barely
whispering against Ben's mouth, "What? Tell me what you want."
Looking at Jon, then looking away, Ben is not sure what he should say. He knows
what he wants, but he's as afraid of it as he is hungry for it. "I... I think I
want...." He puts his forehead on Jon's chest and tries to get out of the
question. "I don't know."
"Ben." Jon is concerned that Ben won't look up now, and a flash of fear grips
him as it has before that it could be over, right now, just like this in the
bedroom doorway. "Ben, what's wrong?"
But Ben presses close and hugs Jon hard. "Nothing... nothing, I just... I'm
scared, because I want... I want--" and he pauses a long time, then lowers his
voice to almost nothing. "I want you... inside me."
***** Chapter 36 *****
Jon is realizing that those almost whimpers Ben utters are even more arousing
when the young man is stretched out on top of him, naked. Ben's skin is smooth,
too warm and alive to be compared with silk or satin, and his hair tickles as
he buries his face in Jon's neck. He squirms as Jon's hand roam over ever inch
of him that they can reach, and Jon has to force himself to keep this slow, to
remember that this is Ben's first time.
He asked, of course and Ben admitted it, but even as Jon worried and hesitated,
Ben became more insistent. Yes, he understood what was involved; yes, he would
ask Jon to stop if it get to be too much; yes, yes, yes and would Jon just
please....
Jon is deeply touched by the measure of trust implicit in Ben's almost casual
assumption that the older man would back off if necessary. Part of it, Jon
knows, is youthful confidence, but part of it has to be that he does know that
Jon won't force this if Ben suddenly changes his mind.
Jon's hands return again and again to the smooth, firm curves of Ben's ass.
Each time, Ben makes more of those noises and finally, Jon grabs for the bottle
of lube. He fumbles a bit with it, and is obscurely glad that Ben is too busy
exploring Jon's neck with his mouth to notice the moment of clumsiness.
As he takes his time teasing Ben gently with one slicked-up finger, Jon
realizes that this is nothing so prosaic like remembering how to ride a
bicycle. It's more like being in a dream and remembering how to fly, and,
trusting that memory, stepping off the edge of a cliff.
"Is ... is that all right?"
Ben looks almost surprised as he replies. "Yeah. Oh yeah."
"Oh good," Jon replies, relieved. "It gets better."
Ben bites his lip, eyes closed, breath shaky, as Jon finally slides the finger
inside. His soft "ohhhh" still has that note of surprise, but there's pleasure
there as well.
Jon smiles. It seems he still can fly.
***** Chapter 37 *****
Ben already knew Jon had great hands. He already understood that Jon would take
his time, go slowly, use lube, lots of lube. But Ben isn't really thinking
about how careful and slow and... well, loving Jon was with his hands. He's not
concerning himself with how patient Jon was and how long it seemed Jon was
willing to wait while he worked his fingers inside Ben carefully... so
carefully....
Because Ben's actually a little preoccupied right now. His head is tipped down.
His hair has fallen around his face and is straggling into his eyes a little,
but he doesn't care about that, either. He's biting his lip and breathing hard;
he's got one hand braced on Jon's chest, and the other is reached under him,
holding Jon's cock steady. He's guiding Jon into him.
For a fleeting second, Ben remembers the boy who decided he wasn't going to let
himself be fucked anymore just about the time Ben really made up his mind about
wanting to get fucked himself. Trackboy always blew out a breath when Ben
pushed in. Ben used to love the noises he made, and now, now, he's making them.
Not those noises, exactly, but similar ones, and Jon is staring up at him with
an awed, almost painfully turned-on expression.
Ben didn't really realize how big Jon was. He knew; he's wrapped his hand
around Jon's cock and had it in his mouth, but that's nothing. Now there is a
glorious explosion of understanding as he presses himself down over Jon,
slicked with lube and covered with latex and...
"Oh, God...."
He blows out a breath and shifts a little and sinks down further, and Jon has
placed his hands deliberately lightly on Ben's hips. Ben stares down at those
hands, and all the perverted manga he's read and the porn he's found on the
internet in the corner computer at the library fades into uselessness in the
back of his head. He slides down another inch, maybe more, and a tight,
restrained whimper gets out of his throat, not sounding much like him at all.
It's good, and scary, and oh, fuck, he just keeps coming back to how good it
is. His mouth is open and he closes his eyes, imagining how this looks from
Jon's perspective.
"Careful..." Jon manages to half-grunt. "Slowly, Ben, slowly... relax if you
can...." But then when Ben does manage to relax and finish sliding down over
him, Jon seems to forget about giving advice, and basically just gives himself
over to losing his mind. "Oh, God...."
He drops one hand to the bed and clenches the sheets in a hard fist.
And that's still nothing; Ben thinks over and over and over that it can't get
any better--until he starts to move. It is slow, and delicious, and yes, it
burns, but....
"Oh, God...." Ben moans again, and moves faster. Suddenly it hits him, a
desperate need to say it--that thing that crossed his mind in the park. He
hasn't even thought it loudly enough to register it yet, but it's halfway out
of his mouth, "Jon--I--" when Jon wraps a broad, warm hand around Ben's cock
and starts to stroke.
A strangled, sharp noise escapes Ben as he comes, abruptly and hard. He tenses
and shudders, gripping Jon's waist. He's still breathing too hard, still
staring down, glazed and recovering, when Jon thrusts up into him, coming with
a low, restrained moan.
Ben had many expectations about how this would happen, but one thing he didn't
expect was how completely, utterly beautiful it would feel. Overwhelmed, he
tips his face up to the ceiling, trying not to cry.
"Oh... God."
***** Chapter 38 *****
Jon is a gay man and he loves sex, and pictures of men having sex, and movies
of men having sex, and stories about men having sex. So, of course, he's read a
lot of gay porn. A whole lot of it. And one thing comes to mind as he stares up
at Ben, who is looking rather like a mystic in an ecstatic trance as he sinks
slowly onto Jon's cock. The writers always, always, use the words "tight" and
"hot" (when they're not misspelling "come") to describe what it feels like to
penetrate someone.
And make no mistake, Ben is hot around him, feverishly so. And he's tight,
almost, but not quite, painfully tight.
Yet, as good, as incredible as the physical sensations around Jon's cock are,
they're nothing compared to a very different heat, a very different tightness.
One that seems almost physical, as if it were centered in his chest, but is
something far more complex.
Ben's eyes close and his mouth opens slightly, and Jon needs to remember that
this is Ben's first time. He needs to remember to advise and hold back and be
in control of himself. But how can he be in control of himself when Ben looks
like that, says "Oh god" in just that way?
Maintaining control becomes even more difficult when Ben begins to move. Jon is
fighting so hard not to just grab those slim hips and give Ben the fucking that
the manga boy gets from Djinn. It's only by reminding himself again and again
that right now this is all about trust, and gentleness, and something new and
barely formed between them.
Jon feels it again -- that other heat, that other tight feeling -- as Ben
moves. Those huge green eyes have opened now and Ben is staring right at Jon.
The look is unmistakable and a faint thread of panic hits Jon. His chest aching
from it all, Jon brings up his hand to stroke Ben off before the boy can finish
his sentence.
"Jon--I--"
No, Jon thinks several minutes later when he has Ben wrapped up, tangled in
Jon's arms and legs. No, I can't let him say it, because then I would say it.
He rubs surreptitiously at his chest, even though he knows that won't make that
feeling stop.
Oh God, what happens to us now?
***** Chapter 39 *****
This time, Jon and Ben decided mutually that Jon's car probably didn't need to
be hanging around Ben's part of the suburbs, so Jon just tucked bus money into
Ben's hand and kissed him.
It was a nice, slow, longing kiss. It was almost good enough to make up for the
fact that Ben knew Jon knew what he wanted to say, and Jon wasn't letting him
say it. Ben wasn't sure what to think about that, and he would worry but the
kiss made him feel better. Now, he can't really think about anything for too
long before his mind darts off to something else. Part of it is that kiss. Part
of it is just the whole experience. He's still reeling, still trying to
register it all, and failing--pleasantly, but failing.
The apple-doll woman with the queer daughter smiled at him on the bus, and he
holds onto that smile as he stares at the cellphone his mother almost threw at
him when he'd walked in the door. He remembers that the woman on the bus seemed
happy for him in a quiet, restrained way, a way that either implied they share
a secret.
They share a secret, alright. She knows what bus route he takes, and she knows,
probably, that Ben's as queer as the guys he sketches. This woman on the bus
with the garden-sunny face and the bright blue muumuu and the Birkenstock clogs
knows more about him than his own mother, and that's comforting and frightening
in a different way than falling in love has been. It's disturbing.
He stares at the cellphone, sitting in the kitchen as the ringing of his
mother's screeling dies around him. If she couldn't control him, she was at
least going to be able to reach him--As if, Ben snorted mentally--and God help
him if he didn't answer that phone when it rang. Ben puzzles quietly now,
putting the phone down and staring at the wall instead. She's gone, now, off to
a late bingo party or whateverthehell she does with her strangely-alotted time,
and it crosses his mind that she's more or less given him permission to go--as
long as he leaves the cellphone on, and answers it when she calls. He considers
going back to Jon's, seriously considers it, then decides he shouldn't push his
luck.
Something's up with her, he thinks. She didn't bitch enough. There's a catch.
But his mother's yelling doesn't bother him this time, and it's just that much
better that she left almost as soon as he got home. He'd rather be alone now.
He can draw. He can work on his mural. He can consider this brand-new awareness
in him that comes with sexual awakening, though he doesn't think of it in such
lofty terms. His attention span is shot and his mind is going in ten different
directions, but he brings it back around to the one thing he really wants to
think about.
Ben knows just enough about his teacher in bed to understand Jon was barely
holding it together. I did that, Ben thinks, and grins uncontrollably. Images
flash through his mind--Jon pressing up into him, coming--mouth open, eyes
closed. Jon staring at him afterward, warm and relaxed, just lying there
looking sated. Something hung between them, not as comfortable as the smell of
sex, something nervous. Ben suspects it has something to do with the words that
almost got away from him, but now he's glad they didn't. He thinks maybe Jon
wasn't ready for them, and while it stings a little, Ben would rather keep them
to himself forever than actually bother Jon with them. He doesn't think about
that for too long, though; his attention drifts somewhere else again.
He shifts in his seat, feeling the ache, and smiles.
***** Chapter 40 *****
Jon is whistling slightly as he sips his coffee while sorting through his inbox
in the teacher's lounge. He isn't even aware of the tune until Ms. Summers, the
AP English teacher, looks over at him.
"Well, I'd say that was a completely appropriate musical sentiment, but I don't
think I've ever heard that particularl tune whistled quite so cheerfully."
He's confused for a moment and then realizes he's been whistling "I Don't Like
Mondays." He grins at her unrepentantly. "It's the last thing I heard before I
got out of the car. They play it every Monday."
She smiles. "I think I prefer 'Manic Monday' myself. It's one of those
generation gap things." She sips from her mug of tea and cocks her head. "You
seem excessively pleased with life."
Jon grins again. Cassandra Summers is the only other out teacher in the school,
although given the size of the faculty, Jon seriously doubts she's the only
other queer teacher at Reagan High.
"Had a good weekend," he explains without further elaboration. "How was yours?"
She rolls her eyes. "Exhausting. We took the kids up to the snow on Saturday
and then Becky decided we just had clean out the rain gutters, plant roses, and
wax the cars on Sunday."
Jon shakes his head. "You girls and your independence. Would you like the name
of my lawn service and the two car washes in town who recycle their gray
water?"
She chuckles. "I would love to turn it all over to someone else, but you know
Becky...." She stands and rolls her shoulders before grabbing her satchel.
"Well I'm glad to see you smile. He must have been really good."
As his jaw drops and he's about to demand how she knows and why she hasn't
ripped him a new one, she smirks. "You boys," she says imitating his earlier
tone, "and your promiscuity."
He only breathes after she's left the room. Idiot! he tells himself. If you
keep overreacting like that, someone is going to notice.
As he gathers his own things, he's hit by a sudden flash of memory: Ben's full
lower lip caught between the boy's white teeth as he closes his eyes, tilts his
head back, and keeps moving down on Jon's cock.
He is completely oblivious to the stares he gets as he moves down the hall,
cheerfully whistling "Manic Monday," in between sips of latte.
***** Chapter 41 *****
Ben smiles. The drawing slides across the coffee-table-cum-separator between
the PhD and himself, and Franke-cum-Kaiser takes it up, staring at it.
"Well. This one here, is that you?" He holds up the sketch.
It is of Djinn and the boy, advancing on the huge air-colored monster together.
The determination in the picture is clear, in spite of the fact that Djinn is
hanging back, blood streaking through his leggings from one hip. Franke--
Kaiser, Ben corrects himself, snickering in the back of his mind--points to the
boy and taps his index finger on the paper.
"Yeah, that's me," Ben nods. He is feeling bolstered by sex, by love, by the
sheer, glowing pride that comes of having given himself to someone who really,
truly wanted him. He wants to sink himself into daydreams of Jon's cool
classroom glances--or more correctly, of daydreams of what lies behind those
glances. But there's Franke, studying the picture, looking for all the world
like he's late for a racquetball game or something, the way he keeps checking
his watch.
"And this here, what's this?" Kaiser taps the monster.
"An oni," the teenager spits, in his best "Well, duh" voice.
"And who's this?" Ben watches as, in near slow-motion, the man who looks like
Kaiser Soze points to the other human in the picture.
"One of my teachers," the boy hears himself saying, and immediately a flash of
miserably hot regret strikes him.
Oh fuck, oh fuck, oh fuck--
"Really," Franke remarks, sounding not the least bit interested as he jots
something down. "Why this teacher?"
Ben forces himself calm. He doesn't know how he's going to manage this before
the words come out, but he has to, he has to because everything depends on this
answer. Everything hangs on whether or not he can pull his head out of his ass
long enough to overcome a split second of pride over drawings that should
never, ever see the light of day. He gives a shrug, slumps down against the
back of the sofa a little more, and plucks at a loose string on his jacket. "I
see him almost every day. I do TA work for him. I work with him in class
practically more than I see my mother."
That makes Franke look up. "Does that concern you?"
Ben weighs his answer, immeasurably relieved that Franke's moving on. This is
just the way to get the conversation off the track it was on, the track he
nearly slipped--big time.
"Mom's busy," he says, biting his lip. "She's got the Eastern Stars or
something. We don't get along too great."
It is the kind of answer that Ben hoped would make Franke forget about the
drawing. Sure enough, the doctor passes it back across the table, where Ben,
hoping he looks cool and uncaring, tucks it away again.
"Would it... make you happy if you were comfortable enough to draw your mother
in his place?"
Ben blurts out laughter before he can stop himself. "No way," he snorts. "She's
one of the monsters."
***** Chapter 42 *****
Watching Ben take up his glass, Jon isn't sure if the boy's ever had wine
before. They're in the hot tub, the big oak barrel tub that Xani used to
complain was so "Serial." Jon used to shrug and explain that most of the
fiberglass tubs were too shallow; what was the point of a hot tub if half of
your body stuck out?
Ben likes the hot tub; he likes sitting in it after they've taken the edge off
on Saturday mornings. Between the blowjob and the sex, Jon thinks with a smile.
But now it's Wednesday night, and it's cold outside, cold enough that their
skin steams whenever they reach for anther spring roll, or small piroshki, or
chunk of melon wrapped in proscuitto.
Ben called earlier; his mom, he explained, was out all night. Jon wonders what
the hell she's doing at night, but when her absence has benefits like this,
he's glad of it. After all, her relationship with Ben is already so fucked up
that a few more nights aren't going to make a difference.
Jon feels cynical at times. He has enough self-awareness to know that he uses
that cynicism the same way he uses aimless chatter, to hide all the things that
can't be said. Not until June, after Ben's birthday and graduation, he reminds
himself for the thousandth time. He doesn't really know what's going to happen
once Ben is eighteen and out of school. Ben will have his trust fund and Jon
really wants to try to steer him into art school of some kind. But a good art
school means the City and living there will eat up Ben's fifty grand in no
time.
Not if you help him. Is it wrong, he wonders, to consider paying for his
current lover's education with the money his dead lover left to him? Wrong or
not, he has a feeling Xani would have loved the irony of Jon sending this boy
to school --and probably the same art institute Xani attended -- on Xani's
money. What was his phrase? Yeah the irony's so rich it makes my liver hurt.
He blinks to return to the present, and leans back looking at Ben. "God you
look good," he breathes. Ben bites his lip and puts his wineglass on the deck,
looking at Jon with that faintly hesitant expression he gets. Jon is getting
used to that look, and he hopes that someday Ben will learn that he doesn't
always have to ask for what he wants. But that's all in the future, and Jon
would rather think about now. He holds his arms out and Ben moves into them,
straddling Jon's lap and leaning up to kiss him.
Now, Jon thinks s his hands move up and down Ben's smooth slick back, Is a very
nice place.
***** Chapter 43 *****
Ben's hesitancy is a little misplaced tonight; certainly he's felt more
comfortable at other times. He nearly wanted to reach across Jon's desk
yesterday and grab him and kiss him. But tonight, he realizes--for the dozenth
time in the three weeks since he showed Kaiser Soze the drawing--that he hasn't
told Jon about said drawing, or about said counseling session. He doesn't want
to, either, and that bothers him, but there's nothing Jon can do, and it isn't
as though telling would do anything but make Ben's guilt feel briefly better
until Jon has an attack.
So when Jon asks him if he can tolerate the cool air outside the hot tub, Ben
nods and gets on the deck. He pushes thoughts of the cellphone that he's bound
to and stray drawings and the fact that Djinn has never resurfaced since that
day in Kaiser's office, and focuses on the fact that Jon's licking his cock,
teasing.
It doesn't take much.
Part of it is that Jon's words before he started focusing his tongue in other
directions were, "See, I had this dream..."
Ben can only lean back onto his hands and stare, and then after a while he
brings one hand up and puts it into Jon's hair, stroking without really knowing
what to do with it yet. It takes him a couple of hitched-in breaths to actually
ask, "You--you dreamed about me?"
Jon can, of course, only nod and moan affirmatively around Ben's cock by now,
and it makes Ben drop back to his elbows and tip his face up. He's breathing
hard already, and he has no way of knowing what Jon has in store.
"Turn over," Jon murmurs, and then, when Ben does, Jon tugs his hips back over
the edge of the water-slick deck. It crosses Ben's mind that Jon might be
getting ready to fuck him, right here, right out in the open. But before he can
really draw any kind of rational conclusion, Jon is dropping soft kisses over
his skin. Kisses and compliments.
"God, you have... the most amazing... ass... I'm so glad... at school... that
you wear loose pants... never get anything... done in class otherwise...."
Later, he will remember that Jon was moving very slowly, waiting, giving him
time to back out. For the time being, it seems to Ben that Jon is kissing him
and whispering one minute and then suddenly, very suddenly, he is licking.
There.
"Oh, God, Jon," Ben groans, startled and red. He clutches at the surface of the
deck uselessly, and even though he's made an art form of trying to look cool
and failing tonight, this is the end-all-be-all. It isn't long before Jon's all
but fucking him with his tongue, and Ben's groaning and shoving himself
backwards, trying to get purchase on the wet wood. Finally, he just shoves a
hand under himself.
"Oh fuck, fuck, Jon, I'm--it's--I'm gonna--oh God--" And he gets his hand
wrapped around his cock and pumps his hips once or maybe twice before he comes,
thrashing and nearly hyperventilating.
And when Jon turns him over and licks him clean--including his hand--Ben can
only laugh for the sheer, unadulterated rush of it. The words bubble to his
throat again, and he stops them. Only just.
***** Chapter 44 *****
Jon's heart is pounding in his chest as he stars at the young man --- the boy -
- in his bed. He can't help but notice the slender shoulders and narrow hips
that don't yet match the promise of Ben's height or the size of his hands. He
remembers how, less than 20 minutes ago, he looked at those shoulders from
behind, clutched those hips with his own large hands as he buried his cock over
and over again in the boy's body.
The boy. Ben is 17. What Jon is doing with him is illegal. Ben is Jon's
student. What Jon is doing with him is unethical. Ben is a boy and Jon is a man
and there are those who would -- will -- say that what Jon is doing with him is
immoral.
It's going to cost Jon his job. Ben is going to cost Jon his job.
Jon can't get enough air; he can't breathe. Adrenaline is surging through his
body, keying the ancient need to flee or fight, but Jon is not facing a mammoth
or saber toothed tiger, and so neither flight not fight are an option. And so
his world has narrowed to the harsh sound of his own breath, the trip-hammer of
his heart, the knots in his stomach, the shaky, hushed sound of his own voice
as he questions Ben and the faint, almost whisper of Ben's voice as the boy
answers those questions.
Yes, it really was only one of the fighting pictures of Djinn and the boy that
Ben showed his shrink. Yes, the man wondered why Ben was using of his teachers
as the model for his hero. No, of course Ben didn't tell him why, just that he
sees more of that teacher at school than he sees of his mother at home.
"I'm sorry," Ben's quiet, desperate voice says. "Please, don't ... don't.... He
didn't say anything, and it's been like three weeks, and he forgot all about
it. He just kept asking me about my mother. That's what they're supposed to ask
about, right?" Ben tries to laugh but Jon's panic doesn't allow him to notice
either the attempt or the failure.
"Has he ... he asked you about me ... since then?" Jon's panic also doesn't
allow him to notice how incredibly selfish his own questions are.
Ben's answer is swift. "No ... no, there's ... he never has. He never has, Jon,
he just fucking ... looks at his watch and...."
Ben turns away and it seems like forever before Jon notices that the boy's thin
shoulders are shaking. The realization that Ben is sitting there -- in Jon's
bed -- naked, defenseless, and afraid, is enough to shock Jon out of his panic.
Or at least it's a start.
Struggling for control of his voice --and his breath and his heart and his
stomach -- Jon tries to reassure Ben. "'No ... it's ... it's OK Ben. Oh please
... please, don't cry ... I'm sorry ... I got scared. Oh Ben, please...." He
reaches out hesitantly, afraid that Ben will pull away, afraid that he has
panicked too many times and that Ben no longer wants to have anything to do
with him.
In less than a second, Ben is in his arms, clinging to him with a strength that
speaks more of wiry muscle than boyish slenderness. "I was scared too ... I
knew, I knew as soon as I said it it was wrong, and I ... I didn't want to tell
you. I wasn't going to, but I can't ... I can't hide from you."
More than a little touched by Ben's desire to be honest, Jon holds Ben in his
arms, kissing his hair. "I'm so sorry. I'm so fucking sorry. This should be fun
all the time. It should be about sleeping in on Saturdays and going out to a
late breakfast at the Fox and Goose, or the Tower Café, or going into the City
because we feel like it." He ducks his head down and kisses the tears away from
Ben's face as he realizes he's speaking as much to himself as to his lover. "It
shouldn't be about hiding and being afraid."
Ben's face twists with a degree of anger as he cries. "I just ... I just want
... fuck... I can't do this, I can't...." He shakes his head and pulls back to
look at Jon, who suddenly understands that Ben's anger is not directed at him
but at Ben himself. Ben's voice is earnest as he qualifies his statement. "I
don't mean I can't; I will ... I want to be here. I just... it's not fair.."
And strangely enough, for all the apparent immaturity of those last words, Jon
sees the young man again. Ben ... Ben loves him. He knows this now as much as
he knows that he loves Ben. Ben has to struggle with his own guilt and fear,
and yet he's willing to continue that struggle to be with Jon. He's willing to
be honest when it would have been easier to never tell Jon about the slip up
with Kaiser Soze.
While a small, nervous part of Jon reminds him that Ben is hardly risking what
Jon is risking, a greater, more emotional part doesn't care. All that part sees
is that the boy -- the person -- Jon loves is hurting and is afraid, and yet,
is willing to fight all of that to be with Jon.
"No it's not, Ben. It's ... I wish you didn't ... hadn't ... learned that so
early."
Ben blinks and looks up at him nervously. "Are you ... mad at me?"
Jon shakes his head and leans in to brush a kiss across Ben's lips. "No, not at
all." He looks away for a moment. "I'm ... well I'm sorry about the panic thing
there."
"You ... you did better than I did," Ben replies, blinking away the last of his
tears and even laughing a little.
Jon sighs and reaches out to take Ben's hand. He places it against his own
throat, letting Ben feel the still rapid thunder of his pulse. "Actually ...
not so much." He takes the hand and kisses the palm gently and looks into Ben's
eyes. "No, it's not fair and it's not easy, but ... I knew the risk and I still
know the risk and ... I want you to be here too."
Obviously at a loss for words, Ben leans in and kisses Jon. Not on the mouth or
the cheek, but right where Jon had placed Ben's hand. And under the soft caress
of those warm lips, Jon's pulse slows and his panic retreats even further.
***** Chapter 45 *****
The risk. Jon said, "I knew the risk," and Ben has to think about it now; it's
staring him in the face: he creates the risk. He is the thing that could cost
Jon everything, and he's not being careful enough. He's not being careful at
all.
He presses his lips to that place on Jon's throat, feeling the pulse racing
under his mouth, and the guilt is nearly overpowering. Just so he doesn't have
to meet Jon's eyes or answer questions or make any more confessions, he keeps
his mouth firmly on that pulse point, kissing softly.
He knows suddenly with a miserable, aching clarity that he should walk away.
Jon doesn't need this, Jon needs someone stable and adult, someone who can help
him through these things without causing more of them. Jon needs someone who
isn't jealous of the ghost of Xani. Mostly, Jon needs a lover who doesn't have
a bedtime, for Christ's sake.
Ben presses himself close, stroking Jon's hair and murmuring platitudes, trying
to calm Jon without looking at him. He knows if he makes eye contact, he'll
cave and confess again. If Ben admits that he thinks the man would be better
off without the boy, then there are only two possible responses: "Oh my God,
why?" and "You're right."
"Oh my God, why?" would end up in, "Because I love you and I can't stand doing
this to you." And that would be bad.
"You're right" would be worse, in more ways than Ben wants to count.
So he stays where he is, quiet for a while. He never thought being in love
would hurt so much, and permeating that fog of pain, shockingly, is the dim
awareness that Ben is aroused again. He shifts his hips away, trying not to
seem like that's what he's doing, because he's sure wanting sex right now is
entirely wrong.
"So," he finally sighs. "Did you make those egg roll things, or...?" It's
stupid, he knows. A stupid, stupid topic, and it's shit for camoflage, but it's
the best he can do.
Jon starts idly playing with Ben's hair. "Yeah," he says quietly, and his voice
is a low rumble against Ben's ear. "But I cheat and use pre-made skins. I like
to do all of it myself but some things are just not worth the bother. It's like
phyllo dough. I've made my own, but it's a huge pain in the ass--and the stuff
you can buy is actually very good. Or pasta. For the most part, I don't make my
own. Gnocci, yes, because I have yet to find any that's anywhere close to
homemade..."
As Jon chatters, Ben realizes with a harder ache than before that even if he
wants to, he can't walk away. He loves Jon, and now as Jon starts talking about
flour all over the kitchen and the somehow comforting fact that yes, even he
keeps boxed macaroni and cheese around, Ben knows he's lost. He's so lost, and
as good as this feels, it's terrifying. He decides he's not going to subject
Jon to any more of his fear. What they have is too good, and Ben can't bring
himself to think about ending it--even knowing it's the right thing to do.
***** Chapter 46 *****
Jon realizes he's been babbling about food for the last several minutes. He
finds himself wondering why Ben asked, what had his lover so nervous that he
felt a need to invite Jon's chatter.
What, like that little panic attack wasn't enough?
Jon would pursue it, but he's tired and a little wrung out. The act of talking
about something as commonplace as food and cooking has helped calm him,
although not as much as Ben's closeness and quiet support. He's good for me,
Jon thinks, tightening his hold on Ben. I only wish I were better for him. But
that thought too is tiring, and Jon has something on his mind that they do need
to talk about.
"So," he says, a little hesitantly. "I wanted to talk to you about the holiday
break."
Ben's reply is equally hesitant. "Yeah?"
"Well Beth and Eric and the kids will be here from the 21st through the 27th,"
Jon says plunging right in. "And of course I have no idea what your plans are.
But ... well I was hoping that I'd see you at least a couple of times. I'd like
to spend New Year's Eve with you. "
Ben goes up on one elbow and looks down at Jon, a shy smile on his face.
"Really?"
"Of course. If ... well, if it's possible." Jon isn't about to be so blunt or
tactless as to say, "provided your Mom is out getting blasted again," although
both he and Ben know that's exactly what he means.
Ben's eyes light up, although he tries to maintain his all-important layer of
cool. "OK ... I'll ... I'll have to see. I mean, she usually goes to parties
and stuff, so..."
"Oh good. I was hoping she would. I'd really like you to be here. It's ... well
it's important to me." He's walking on that knife's edge again. He wants to
tell Ben that he hasn't been with anyone on New Year's Eve since Xani died, and
that to be able to face another year with someone he loves is more than just
"important."
But he can't. Not while he has nothing to offer Ben but these snatched moments
of time, an evening here, a Saturday afternoon there. And always there's that
worry in the back of his mind. What if what Jon is reading as love in Ben is
really just a teen-aged crush and a flight of experimentation? Jon is terrified
to think that there might come a time when Ben looks at his graying lover and
asks himself, "What was I thinking?"
So, as Ben slides back down next to him and runs a hand up Jon's neck, Jon
takes comfort in the touch and holds back on the words that could complicate
things even more than they already are.
"I'm--I'm important to you?"
"Yes," Jon replies truthfully. "Very."
Ben snuggles closer, his semi-hard cock brushing Jon's thigh, and Jon once more
loses himself in his lover's need. Ben is here now, and that is good. Ben will
be here for New Year, and that will be good.
For now, that will just have to suffice.
***** Chapter 47 *****
Ben sits in Spanish, drawing on the bottom of his jeans, one ratty hem turned
down so that he can sketch in a reasonable interpretation of Pink Floyd's The
Wall CD cover. They're conjugating the trickier verbs today in class, but he's
only halfway paying attention. He's thinking about Jon, of course, and about
how Jon wants to spend New Year's Eve with him.
He can't get over the idea, for some reason. It's too big, too much to
consider, and yet... it's exactly what Ben wants.
Jon has risked his career for Ben for weeks now. He's let Ben hold him when the
attacks come. Jon's excitement over Saturdays and his thrill at the unexpected
Wednesday have been apparent. Ben thinks they may have seen each other at their
worst, at least so far, but still Jon is comfortable enough to have stopped
asking questions like, "Is this okay? You'll tell me to stop if you don't want
it?"
"If you look at the patterns," Mrs. Castillo is telling the class softly,
pointing at the whiteboard and providing a nice vocal backdrop for Ben's
thoughts, "here and here in the tenses, you'll notice there's not as much
memorization as you might think."
Ben's looking at patterns alright, but they don't have anything to do with
Spanish. He remembers the way Jon looked at him after the New Year's Eve talk,
a warm, deep look, and the way Jon keeps brushing the hair away from Ben's
forehead, and things like the fact that Jon could walk away, in fact probably
should have by now, and hasn't. The Spanish teacher is covering past perfect
when it strikes Ben that Jon has been cooking for him once a week for something
like two and a half months now. That's a long time, he realizes.
"I want you to work on these over the break," Mrs. Castillo is saying over the
bell, standing on her toes to be noticed in the throng passing out the door.
"Verb charts are due back sixth of January when we start up again."
Ben shoves his papers, untouched, into his notebook. Thinking about Jon, and
about the thirty-first of December and the first of January rather than the
sixth, he heads to algebra.
It dawns slowly. It takes him all day, but then when he gets on his at the end
of the afternoon and stands next to the lemon-vanilla lady he's come to like so
well, Ben realizes that Jon must love him.
He smiles so suddenly and so brightly that the lady looks up from her orange
plastic seat and smiles, too.
***** Chapter 48 *****
Ben's been a Matchbox 20 fan ever since Rob Thomas kissed Carlos Santana on
national television.
Matchbox 20 aren't exactly Godsmack, but they aren't the smarmy pop crap
everyone tags as "alternative," either. Ben turns it up, then goes back to his
sketch. From a plate at the edge of his desk, he plucks up a green apple wedge.
He sticks it into his mouth, then promptly forgets about it, hanging onto it
absently with his teeth as the boy takes shape in charcoal.
Ben knows his subjects so well by now that he almost doesn't think about them
anymore, unless he really has nothing else to think about. But he's got this
new CD in, so he thinks about that instead. He has to wonder about that kiss
Rob and Carlos exchanged. He can't help it, even if it does stem from a kind of
nameless, fannish wishful thinking rather than than intellectual curiosity. He
has never understood why he wants Rob Thomas to be gay; it's not like it would
change the music or really impact Ben in any way. But he wanted that kiss to be
real even at fifteen, so he made a point of buying all their CDs so he could
listen for clues. He notices Thomas sings a lot about beautiful girls, but then
again, Melissa Etheridge was sexually ambiguous before she came completely out.
Djinn is crouched behind the boy, positioned in such a way that the
forcefulness of his thrusts comes across even in stillness. Ben animates those
thrusts in his head briefly, watching the boy be driven forward. He's just
working on the expression on the boy's face--that same one that can be read
either as pained or unnaturally pleasured--when the song changes.
Ben's still deciding what to think of this one. He bites into his apple slice,
finally, and sets the other half on the plate again, accidentally smudging it
with charcoal.
The song has this bluesy church choir thing happening in the background, which
is okay, but not as rich and deep as when U2 put it in Rattle and Hum's version
of "Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For." Even then, it didn't quite work
for Ben--and he loved Rattle and Hum, although Jon thinks it's pointless old
rehashing. They bickered about that once, good-naturedly. There's very little
music they agree on, anyway; that sort of comes with the territory.
When Ben first heard this song, and he's not quite sure of the title yet, he
figured there was enough outside influence on the CD to chalk this up as a bit
of posing. He can hear Santana's cultural twang in it, and a leaning toward a
style that sounds like Elton John's in one song, and something that might even
be country. This CD is all over the map, musically speaking, and Ben just
dismissed the choral thing as a gimmick, like steel guitar in a rock song.
But now, he's kind of curious about what message Thomas and Serletic are
conveying with the evangelical choir, so he turns it up again. The liner notes
are useless anyway. He listens, then skips the track backward and listens
again, somewhere between stunned and hurt that Thomas would cut so quickly to
where Ben's discomfort lies. Two lines stick, and they are, of course, in the
chorus:
Be my savior
And I'll be your downfall....
Ben goes back again, and listens, and then he scribbles the notes down on the
edge of his parchment with the charcoal:
Now I'm back on my own
Hear my feet, they're made of stone
Man, I make you go where I go
Well hell, you, can I take you home....
"I'll be your downfall," Ben whispers. Ben doesn't sing, but this...this....
His chest aches because of it. He hurts. The song is so profound he wants to
share it with Jon, but then he's afraid, once more, that Jon would think it was
right. He looks at the window; his mother has long since stopped trying to lock
him in; the cellphone seems to have replaced the lock, although she never calls
it. He speculates she's trying to fit some bare legal minimum of what
guardianship means, but at this point, he can't figure out why she cares enough
to do that. She's at a party right now, getting drunk or hopped up on someone
else's uppers so she can come home and take a sleeping pill.
Ben looks longingly at the windowframe, yearning for Jon, and then he puts his
forehead on the charcoal sketch and sighs. He breathes the air of his drawing
for a moment, wondering if Beth has arrived yet, and, in spite of everything,
wishing New Year's Eve would get here.
***** Chapter 49 *****
Beth Quenton-Reed lets the bathrobe fall to the deck, and then shivers in the
short time it takes to step into the hot tub. Jon has the heat cranked up and
she laughs as he settles in next to her.
"Quenton soup," she says, accepting the pipe he holds out and sucking in a long
drag with practiced ease.
He smiles and the skin around his eyes crinkles and she finally has to ask the
question that's been nagging at her ever since she first saw him at the airport
yesterday. "Who is he?"
The smile vanishes and her big brother reaches silently for the pipe. "Long
story," he says laconically.
Beth frowns at him as he takes a hit and hands the pipe back. "Don't even try
claming up on me."
He says nothing for a long time as the pipe goes back and forth, but Beth is
fine with it. There are brownies, and chips and onion dip close at hand, Paul
Simon is going to Graceland on the stereo, and Eric is out doing some last
minute shopping with Miranda and Helen. She knows that, for all of his aimless
chatter, getting Jon to talk about something serious takes time.
And, she thinks as the pipe comes back to her, the weed will help.
"Shit," Jon finally says, his voice a little strained. "I've been trying to
think of a way to sugarcoat it, because I keep looking at Randy and
thinking...." His voice trails off.
In spite of the weed and the two glasses of wine earlier, Beth is no fool.
"Christ, Jon. It's that kid. Your TA. You talk about him all the time in your
letters and ... fuck ... are you out of your goddamned mind? How old is he
anyway?"
Jon laughs, an almost painfully bitter sound. "Older than Randy."
"Well I should fucking hope so! Christ Jon, even legal age would be a little
young, don't you think?"
"Think? I think about it all the damn time. And then ... Beth it's like ... he
just fits."
In spite of the almost mournful look Jon is giving her, Beth snorts. "Yeah and
is he gonna 'fit' so well when you're locked up for molestation?" She takes an
angry drag off the pipe, welcoming the hot, harsh smoke.
"He'll be eighteen in April, and he'll graduate in June."
"Oh well, then it's all right."
"Look, spare me your fucking sarcasm, OK? He's probably more mature than I am,
for God's sake. He's had a shitty life and he needs someone to...."
"Oh," Beth says softly into the silence as Jon's voice trails off once more.
"Oh shit. You're in love with this kid, aren't you?"
"Ben," Jon says and yes, Beth can hear it clearly now, that same tone of voice
she only ever heard when Jon talked about Xani. "His name is Ben. He's an
artist, and a really bright kid, and no one takes him at all seriously. Jesus,
Beth, his mom ... fuck, I did a better job with you, and I wasn't your actual
parent."
"Uh, Jon, that's not the point. Lousy parent or not, this woman is going to
pitch a bitch if she finds out that her kid is getting it up the ass from his
Econ. teacher."
"Beth!"
"Oh please, we're sitting naked in your hot tub smoking dope. Don't get all
prudish on me now, Thick."
In spite of the tension of the situation, the old nickname makes Jon smile. And
again, it's a real smile, something Beth hasn't seen in a very long time. Ever
since Xani died, there's been a hint of sadness in the way Jon's smiles don't
quite reach his eyes, even when he's cooking or watching his nieces hang
ornaments on the Christmas tree.
"Is he ... Jon, is he just in it for the fun? Are you going to get hurt here?
Or worse? Is he going to change hi mind and call the cops on you?"
"Ben won't hurt me," Jon replies, his voice sure and steady. "He ... Beth, I
wish you could meet him. He's not at all like Xani, but ... there's this
intensity ... this depth ... and oh, God, is he gorgeous."
Beth leans back, letting her head rest against the edge of the tub. In spite of
the light pollution, she can see Orion's belt. As always the sight takes her
back to a time when their father took them camping and Jon told them the myths
that went with the constellations in the night sky. Several years later, her
father told her that Jon had studied for weeks before the trip to be able to
tell those stories, just because Beth was on a mythology kick at the time.
Other things like that come to mind. Jon going to a restaurant to get a recipe
for the macaroni and cheese his little sister loved, or giving up his Saturday
afternoons with friends in order to help Beth sell candy with her Camp Fire
Girl group. Now that she has kids of her own, Beth has come to realize that
your average teenager doesn't do that sort of thing.
She absently reaches for a brownie and it hits her again. Jon hates brownies.
He's gone on about it at length to her. If you want cake, make cake. If you
want fudge, make fudge. Brownies are for people who can't make up their minds.
And yet, every time she visits there are brownies, homemade brownies. She
wonders briefly what it would be like to have that sort of attention shown to
you by a lover, and then thinks about the Chick-o-Stix she saw in the cupboard.
He used to keep Skittles and microwave popcorn for Xani's bad moods, she
thinks. He really is in love here.
She knows they'll talk more about this kid -- Ben -- and that she'll continue
to worry about this situation. It's dangerous is so many ways, and she's
terrified that it will end badly. It doesn't matter that Jon's thought this all
through, and is willing to take the risk, it's still so huge and so frightening
on so many levels that Beth's not sure what to make of it.
"I don't want no part of this crazy love/I don't want no part of your love,"
Paul Simon sings, and Beth silently agrees.
But want it or not, Beth is going to be supportive and sympathetic while Jon
talks to her about this keg of dynamite he's sitting on.
Because he's her big brother-- her Jonathick -- and his smile reaches his eyes
again.
***** Chapter 50 *****
The lady isn't on the bus today, of course. Not too many people are on this one
at all. They will be, later, when the partying starts, but for now, it's too
early.
Ben doesn't really know if he's expected this early; it's just around three.
Mentally, he amends: Most people don't start partying till later--my mom,
though...
Christmas was the same. Christmas Eve, it was apparently her turn to host the
festivities. Mostly he stayed in his room, trying not to hear them squawk and
listen to The Beatles, whom he's pretty sure he'll hate forever after this.
There were half a dozen women, all of them cooing and frothing at him
appropriately in turn until they got distracted by the gin and tonics or the
Tom and Jerrys or the Captain Morgan's and Cokes. His mother mentioned she'd
bring his dinner into his room, if he wanted, and he wondered why she was being
so solicitous. He almost wished he had a Valium to chew up, or even a Darvocet.
Almost. He promised Jon he would stop that, and he has. He's also stopped
filching vodka and whiskey from the liquor cabinet. He's also, for reasons he
can't discern, stopped scraping together the remnants of bus and lunch money to
buy quarter ounces and Zig Zag paper. He hasn't done that in a while, anyway,
and it wasn't like it helped. For the time he was high, it did, but beyond that
it was all like the rest of his life: more shit to worry about.
He arrives at Jon's place after the small walk from the bus stop to the door.
Directly in spite of his Christmas, he's grinning the bright, brilliant grin
that only Jon sees.
It's all spectactular, even the little routine they've established between
themselves. It gives Ben a measure of comfort to know what he's going to expect
when he comes: the sweet, slow greeting kisses, the harder, more insistent ones
that come after they talk about food, and maybe consider laying some out. Then
there's the gorgeous oral sex that files the edge down. Sometimes Jon lets Ben
reciprocate, but sometimes he doesn't. It depends on how Jon's feeling, and
Ben's learned to understand that if Jon doesn't come, it's not a slight, and
it's not Ben's fault. It just is. Tonight, Jon came, hard, and Ben smiled a lot
about it.
Now they're sitting on the couch. There's a fire lit, small, but more for light
than anything else, like the candles scattered around. Ben's discovered Jon's
quite a romantic, and while it's bothered him before in the girls he's dated
briefly, Ben finds he doesn't mind it a bit anymore.
Ben is in one of Jon's blue chambray work shirts, pressed crisply at the
sleeves but a little rumpled in front; it hangs to mid-thigh on him. He likes
the way it smells. It smells light blue, though he couldn't possibly explain
where he gets that except the color of the shirt. Jon's in a multi-plaid robe,
old and a little worn but so soft that Ben likes touching it.
They're sharing the couch, as always, with too much food: Jon bought fresh
croissants and something like four different kinds of cheese, and he's arranged
all of this in ultra-thin slices on a tray with olives, romaine lettuce,
gourmet mustard, and some kind of pastrami Ben has never tried. Even after
Jon's long done eating, Ben is still picking at the sliced meat, grinning as
Jon catches him eating still.
Ben even felt comfortable enough to show Jon the Polaroids he took of his
mural--the boy is finished, now, and he's the best thing Ben has ever done--and
he did quite a bit more smiling as Jon praised it and some of the shots of
Ben's Djinn/boy charcoals that never, ever leave Ben's room. Ben was afraid to
show those, but Jon is thrilled for him, proud of his art, and impressed. That
means more than Ben will ever be able to get across, and all he can do is
fidget a little, pushing the hair back off his forehead the way Jon always
does, smiling.
After a while, Jon leans over and murmurs, smiling, "Speaking of art... look
under the tree."
Grinning, Ben goes. "What? Is that for me?"
"Read the tag," Jon grins back, and Ben looks at him, caught up once again in
that smile that he sees more and more lately. He knows what's happening between
them; he feels it with everything in him, and he knows he'll find a time soon
to talk about it. He's damn near bursting with it, and he doesn't know how he's
held it in so long, but New Year's Eve seems perfect for it.
So Ben reads the tag, which says To Ben --from Jon.
"What is it?" he asks softly, and tears into it. When he sees... well, when he
sees, his face lights up so completely that he glows with it.
"Ohh... Jon..."
Because it's the Tetsuwan Atom art cel. The one Ben thought he'd lost the
chance to buy completely; the money would be in in April, but he was sure Dad
was going to flake out on the Christmas money because the trust matures in four
months, so he gave up on it. He went back by one day, but it was gone, and Ben
more or less let his disappointment go.
He remembers mentioning it once, just once. And Jon hadn't really said anything
because, as Ben has slowly come to discover, Jon doesn't know as much about
manga and anime as the teenager once thought. Ben had talked about it for a
little while, explaining the history of Astro Boy until he was pretty sure Jon
was bored of it, and then they'd kissed again, and Ben no longer cared about a
missing art cel.
Now he's staring at it. Holding one of the original cels from the anime itself,
and he can see the matte paint under the glossy celluloid, backed carefully
with tissue. He'll have to get it under glass soon, but that's perfect. It's
all so perfect he doesn't even know what to say.
"Thank you," he manages.
Jon's smile is almost shy. "It's the one you wanted, right?"
Ben nods almost hurriedly, an understatement, and goes to Jon, kissing him with
pleased eagerness. Jon returns it happily, thrilled. When the kiss breaks, he
pulls back a little to brush that hair off Ben's forehead tenderly.
"I like seeing you happy."
Unable to stop grinning, Ben sets the art cel aside and throws his arms around
Jon's neck, hugging him hard. "I'm happy," he whispers. It crosses his mind
again to say that he loves Jon, but he holds it. Jon's arms tighten around him,
and that's enough. He kisses Jon again, one hand playing in Jon's hair, just
for something to touch. He's kneeling up on the couch now, trying to get
closer, feel more.
Jon slides his hands down Ben's back, skims them over his ass, and then pushes
them up again, this time under the shirt and against Ben's skin. Ben moans
softly, breaking the kiss to tuck his face into Jon's neck, warm and soft.
"Yeah," he sighs, shifting closer.
And into Ben's ear, Jon murmurs gently, "I ... want to give you something
else."
Ben's a kid, and his eagerness is plain. "Yeah?"
Jon pulls back, cupping Ben's cheek in one big, warm hand. "Well--it's for me,
too." He leans forward until his forehead is against Ben's, and speaks very
softly.
"I want you to fuck me."
***** Chapter 51 *****
Ben crouches over Jon, staring in something that might be wonder. Jon seems so
unconcerned that Ben's never done it this way, looking into someone's eyes. He
works his hand carefully and is surprised it's so much easier, so much better,
watching reactions rather than trying to hurry because the guy in front of him
is impatient, trying to like it without seeming like he does. Now, Ben is
pleased to give the kind of tenderness he never could before. He's thrilled
that Jon wants it from him, just like this.
He could barely contain the thrill when Jon lowered the lights and encouraged
Ben to the floor with him, right in front of the fireplace. There was that
sense of romance again, especially when Jon pulled towels, lube, and condoms
out from under the couch, displaying how much he'd planned ahead.
That early awed feeling strikes Ben again. He wants me, he thinks, a little
amazed, as he stares down at Jon's face, full of breathless pleasure. Ben tells
him he's beautiful, but Jon isn't the kind to believe that sort of thing. It's
alright; Ben believes enough for both of them.
Moaning softly, twisting a little, Jon whispers, "Ben...please. I'm ready now."
Ben shivers as he enters Jon carefully, gritting his teeth against the profound
pleasure, and then he's moving, and Jon is cursing softly at how good it is,
how long it's been. A strange sense of privilege comes to Ben; he knows there's
a lot that Jon hasn't done since Xani, and this is one of those things. The
realization wrenches a groan from him. All the trite phrases that get used to
describe this moment are useless now. He stares, bracing himself on his elbows
and bending his head to kiss Jon's chest. Everything in the world narrows down
to Jon under him, arching, clutching at Ben's back and then his ass, pulling,
and warm skin, and the sounds of their movement and soft moans. It's all
firelight and candles, and in this moment, when nothing else exists, Ben wishes
he could stay here forever. It's another trite idea, but so true. There's so
much he wants, and if he could just hang onto this, this right here, he has it
all.
Ben lets out a small cry as the pleasure builds hugely. It's always so sudden
for him, not a downhill slide but a sudden drop. But even if it crossed his
mind to stave it off, this is too big for him to try. Jon reaches between them
for his cock and strokes, and they come at once, both of them. Ben's heart is
racing as Jon pulls him down, holding him tightly. He nuzzles the hollow of
Jon's shoulder.
"I didn't get you anything." It's all he can think of to say; everything feels
so huge.
"You just gave me something I haven't had in...six years," Jon points out,
smiling.
The moment fades, and Ben finds himself in the middle of a shot of disbelief
that this beautiful, smart, amazing man wants this with him. "I'm glad," he
remembers to whisper, after a long moment.
"Me too." Jon sounds sleepy and sated with Ben still inside him. "So glad it
was you."
Ben falls in love again, hard.
***** Chapter 52 *****
Jon doesn't want their time to be over. He knows that Ben has to be home before
his mother thinks to wonder where the boy is, but Jon doesn't want him to
leave. He looks at Ben, who is slinging his jacket on. Jon is still in his
bathrobe and a pair of sweats and he'd been busying himself with loading the
dishwasher while Ben dressed. Now he catches Ben looking at him oddly -- as he
has all morning -- and he can't help remembering the way Ben looked last night.
Ben was so serious as he hovered above Jon, and Jon found himself wishing for
some form of artistic talent, even in the midst of Ben's gentle preparations.
The combination of candlelight, and firelight, and the soft wash of color from
the tree lights made Ben look almost otherworldly, and Jon kept his eyes wide,
wishing to capture this moment in memory if not in any concrete form.
Then Ben was moving slowing inside him, and the soft light that surrounded them
both fractured as Jon's eyes watered. He couldn't even tell if the tears came
from the faint burn or from his own gratitude for the moment. Moments later the
burn had faded and the tears remained, accompanied by Ben's gasps, and his own
soft cursing, and the faint slap of bodies in motion. Release, when it came,
was strangely more all-encompassing than usual, and he'd been forced to blink
back more tears as Ben collapsed gently on top of him.
Jon knows that all of this -- all of last night -- is reflected in his eyes as
he smiles at Ben. "So," he says, "you're taking off?"
"Yeah. I mean, I never know when she'll come back and...." Ben ducks his head,
obviously embarrassed, and Jon finds himself wishing it were June and not only
January. "I just don't want to ... you know. Hear about it."
"Yeah," Jon replies, grabbing a towel to dry his hands off. "I guess I'll see
you in class then." He moves in to brush that maddening lock of hair off Ben's
forehead, and then bends down for a brief kiss. "Take care of yourself, OK?"
Ben presses in close, and grabs Jon around the neck, pulling him into a much
fiercer kiss. In spite of the fact that they'd had slow, sleepy sex just a few
hours earlier, Jon can feel himself responding to Ben's sudden aggressiveness.
He moans into Ben's mouth, and lets his hands travel down the young man's back
to cup his ass.
Finally Ben tapers the kiss off gradually, although he remains in the circle of
Jon's arms. Jon smiles down at him, blown away once more at how right it feels
to have Ben close like this. Someday, he won't have to leave.... he's telling
himself when Ben speaks.
"I love you."
***** Chapter 53 *****
"I love you. I do. I've been trying not to say it for a long time now because I
didn't--know--"
Ben breaks off talking when he sees the look on Jon's face. He can't really
read what's there because it is overwhelmingly not good. There's no expectation
there, no pleasure that Ben can see, but there is worry, and a little fear, and
confusion, and then Jon is reaching for him, stammering quietly.
"I...uh...Ben...oh dear...." And he's pinching the bridge of his nose, and
looking distressed.
Ben is stricken. He stares, and then realizes Jon's main difficulty is so
easily solved by leaving. The boy takes a step backward from his teacher, away.
"Okay," he whispers, nodding his head. He is suddenly sickly-colored, the
white-hot ache in his stomach overwhelming. His world has curled up around
itself and imploded as he reads that look on Jon's face, monumentally unhappy.
Jon stares, shaking his head and whispering, "No, Ben. Please, it's just--this
isn't the time...."
Words fall out without permission; Ben should already be on the bus by now.
"What's--when's a good time?" He can see the look in Jon's eyes, the wild, not-
all-here look he gets right before he needs to take a tablet. There's something
icy and dark in that, but poetic in a way that will make Ben draw savagely
later. Ben knows now why he's waited so long to say it. Some part of him must
have known Jon wouldn't want it, must have known it would provoke a
heartpounding need to take a pill so he can not panic.
You're seventeen for fuck's sake. He doesn't want you hanging on him, clinging,
with your fucking textbook mother-issues and your shrink and your little Zoloft
dependency, he's got bigger shit than you to deal with every day, you're just a
kid, a stupid kid who can't even hack school, let alone the real world....
The raging goes on, sounding suspiciously like Ben's mother, and that's what
gives Ben the grateful resolve to just stay hard.
"Never mind," he manages through a tight throat. "I just...you know. I'll see
you in class." He turns to go.
But Jon, still talking, makes him hesitate, and then he wishes he hadn't,
because the words sound so canned now, so trite, so I-should-have-known.
"Ben...it's too complicated. I...."
Raising a hand to stave off the bullshit, Ben nods, face still turned away.
"Yeah. Yeah, I know." And he goes, finally, leaving Jon behind, leaving the cel
behind, too, and walking away from everything. He will not be in class on
Monday, nor on Tuesday, and really he isn't sure how he'll ever set foot on
school grounds again, let alone in Econ. He doesn't even think to hope his
mother isn't home so he won't have to explain where he's been, or why he's
upset; she seems to pretend to care around this time of year, and Ben's had
enough of that. He does, however, hope she'll stay out of his way enough that
he can borrow a couple of Valium.
Very quietly, after Ben is out the door and probably halfway to the bus stop,
Jon whispers, "I love you, Ben." Then he goes and takes as much Xanax as he
possibly, safely can. Then he goes to bed, and after a long time, synthetically
aided, he stops shaking and goes to sleep.
***** Chapter 54 *****
Ben lies in bed, too tired to get up, even though hasn't really gotten up since
New Year's day. He has no intention of going to school; really, he isn't
thinking much beyond never going back. He hasn't bothered to think about how
he's going to make that happen.
He's in the same flannel shirt, t-shirt and floppy jeans he was in yesterday
and the day before. He hasn't moved much except to adjust the blanket over his
mural so that there isn't a tentacle sticking out anymore; at this point he
doesn't much care if his mother finds it, but he doesn't want to look at it. He
hasn't eaten, really, either. He could eat peanut butter out of a jar and it
would remind him of Jon somehow, so he doesn't bother.
There are several CDs on shuffle right now. He just changed the music out--
before this set of discs, he had a handful of them that had been on for about
thirty hours. His mother has been dicking around in the main part of the house
and she hasn't noticed yet that it's a school day and that school's actually
been back in for a couple days now, or she's been ignoring it. There's always
that lapse between the first of the year and the first day of school; usually
there's a weekend in between or something, and she's been gone most of it. He
figures when she decides it's time for him to go back, he'll act like he's
getting on the bus and just go somewhere else.
I wonder how you sleep
I wonder what you think of me
If I could go back
Would you have ever been with me?
Ben rolls over as quickly as he can. "Fuck," he whispers. "Fuck." He ejects the
tray, spins it, pulls out Matchbox 20 before they can start in for real; he
doesn't want to hear about saviors and downfalls right now.
It's just enough to get him started thinking, though. Just enough.
Does he love me? Was he stalling for time because he doesn't, or just because
he didn't want to say it, or--was he just fucking me?
The idea hurts so much that Ben just sets the disc, naked, on the top of the
stereo and goes back to bed. The other CDs are still standing out, tray still
extended, but he can't be bothered with that now. He flumps down on top of the
covers and a couple pieces of laundry, curled in a ball on his side away from
the mural. The only reason he's even bothered getting out of bed at all is
because the Valium he dug out of his mother's purse is fogging things just
enough that sometimes he can convince himself it doesn't matter if Jon loves
him or not.
It's too complicated...
"That doesn't mean he doesn't," Ben says aloud, his voice dull and tired, but
he doesn't believe it. "Yeah it does," he whispers after a few moments. "It
means he doesn't." He doesn't really see how it's possible; he's seen how Jon
looks at him and felt how Jon touches him, and they've been there for each
other during some serious shit. It's been the longest Ben has ever been with
anyone, and he can't imagine...can't believe Jon doesn't, just can't.
But he doesn't, or he wouldn't have given me the speech he wanted to give me
the day in the coffee shop. It should have gone, "You're too young for me, Ben,
you're my student, I could get in trouble, but don't worry, you'll find someone
your own age..."
He remembers sitting in Jon's class when he began to realize he was attracted;
he remembers slouching down in his seat so that Jon maybe wouldn't call on him,
and he remembers being both irritated and impressed that it never worked. At
first, he got pretty tired of the whole idea that Jon could draw him out of
that fucking shell people are always talking about, but then before he realized
what he was doing, he was volunteering for the TA roster.
He realizes how completely that worked, how utterly easy it was for Jon, and
Ben decides he doesn't like being out of his shell. It's raw and cold, and it
was easier when he didn't have anyone fucking around with his head.
Ben's never been in love before Jon, and he feels sick with it. He feels
absolutely sick, and the idea that he'll never, ever do it again never crosses
his mind in so many words. It will later, but now, no. For him, right now, it's
as simple as not leaving his room.
***** Chapter 55 *****
Jon hates taking Klonopin sublingually. It's not the taste, but the faintly
gritty yet mushy texture as the pill -- in this case two of them -- melts. As
always, he's tempted to swallow halfway through the process, but not only would
that defeat the purpose of sticking the damn things under his tongue in the
first place, it would also look a little funny if he swallowed and grimaced for
no readily apparent reason. So he lets the pills melt and absorb, and tries to
pay attention to the stack of assignments in front of him while the class does
their reading.
Ben isn't in class.
Ben wasn't in class yesterday.
Jon is going to have to discreetly ask Mrs. Erickson if Ben was in her class,
because, aside from Jon's class, art is the one class Ben never misses. Of
course Jon's not sure what would be worse: learning that Ben only skipped this
class, or that he is skipping school altogether.
Jon rather wishes he could skip school as well.
He also wishes that he'd said something else when Ben said that a few days ago.
But he didn't know what to say, didn't know how to explain why he couldn't say
what Ben expected him to say.
Part of it is that saying, "I love you" has meaning for Jon. It's connected
with commitment, with something beyond what he can give Ben now. He knows it's
old fashioned, not to mention oddly romantic, for a gay man, but there it is.
He'd had it all planned out. After Ben turned 18 and graduated -- after there
were no more legal impediments -- they could talk about a future beyond making
plans to see each other on a weekend. Ben would have financial independence and
Jon had expected to talk long and seriously with the young man about what he -
- Ben -- wanted to do. Jon had even promised himself not to try to push Ben
into doing what Jon thought he should do.
But there's more than that. More than just the idea that admitting to a feeling
means commitment and a future. Jon knows that if he were to talk with David,
his therapist, about it, the talk would ramble to Jon's mother, and Xani, and
loss, and guilt.
And fear.
The bell rings, and the class shuffles out, as Jon admits to himself that his
fear of love has grievously hurt the one person he loves the most.
The last of the Klonopin melts away under his tongue.
***** Chapter 56 *****
Ben's been dicking around all afternoon. His mother finally copped to the fact
last night that he was supposed to be in school, and so today he got up, made
for the bus stop and then tooled around town all day.
Now he's making for home again. It's probably close to five, and he's about two
houses down from his when he sees the smoke rising from the chimney of his
house. It's funny-looking smoke to begin with (as if, in this part of the
state, it wasn't funny enough to have a fire in the middle of a 60-degree day),
and the closer he gets, the more he realizes it smells faintly of plastic.
He breaks into a run. He does not like this at all.
The instant he bursts in the door he's striding forward, staring, disbelieving.
His mother has the end of an armload of his things and is feeding the last of
them into the fire--what remains are two sketches, five manga and the Speed
Racer figure.
"Jesus!" he shrieks. "Mom, what the fuck are you--"
She whirls on him. Her eyes are wild, so crazy he recoils. Her brown, curly
hair bobs with the force of her movement as she holds up a sketch.
"Don't you what the fuck me. Who is that."
It's Djinn, of course. He is behind the nameless boy, cradling him in his lap,
one arm wrapped around the boy's waist, the other hand up, stroking his throat.
They are, quite obviously, fucking, even though on that particular day, Ben was
playing more with the movement of cloth than bodies. They are fully dressed;
there is a triangle of naked hip on the boy between the top of his pants and
where the tunic ends.
"It's just--a drawing," he says, but his voice is too soft to be convincing.
It's all he can manage; he feels like the air's been kicked out of his chest.
He fidgets with the strap on his pack.
"Who is it!" she screams, shaking, and when he doesn't answer, she tosses it
and the remaining manga into the fire. "I want to know who the fuck you're
drawing these disgusting pictures of." He still doesn't answer, so she plows
on. "I'll tell you, then. The school called me today. A very concerned teacher
has noticed that you've been mooning around the guy you TA for."
Ben laughs weakly. "That's so stupid. Why would they--"
"You know good and fucking well why. Because someone must have seen you
together. This teacher, this woman, was very fucking worried that I'd sue the
school. She wanted to reassure me it was being handled. She wanted me to
understand it was all okay now."
Ben shakes his head. She doesn't know shit, he tells himself, but there's a
good deal of bravado there. He's never really been scared of his mother, but he
is right now.
"Well, I don't know what they're talking about. I used him as a model 'cause I
see him every day. All the time. They're just drawings."
"You're letting him fuck you." Lorna's voice has taken on a chilling quality, a
tone Ben has never heard her use before. "How disgusting can you--God, you are
so sick. I wish I had known my son was a faggot, I'd never have agreed to
custody. Now you tell me this fucker's name. I want his phone number."
Ben is reeling inside, hot and sick. He is suddenly glad, very glad he and his
mother never talk, glad she doesn't know anything important about him. She
knows you're a faggot, he corrects himself nastily, and his eyes are locked
onto hers.
"I wish you'd never agreed to custody, too," he grinds out. "I really do." And
he heads for his room.
His intention is to throw a change of clothes and the last of his Christmas
money into the pack, but he stops at the doorway, staring, struck dumb.
The mural has been spraypainted over. In its place is a dripping blob of glossy
black, glaring, maniacal proof that his mother has turned the corner
completely. His trunk of parchment sketches is empty, the lock broken into--the
hammer's still sitting there on the floor. His manga are all gone. His figures,
his videos... everything is gone. He realizes with scary clarity that she's
been through everything, taken everything of personal value and ransacked the
rest.
Eyes furious and slightly insane, Lorna throws Speed Racer into the fire and
follows Ben. "You tell me his name," she says, her voice dark and ugly. She
watches him flounder for a minute, and then as he bends to pick up a shirt off
the end of the bed, she grabs his arm and whirls him around.
"Tell me his name."
"I didn't do anything wrong," Ben tells her resolutely, and tips his chin up.
"Neither did he. No one's fucking me."
An enraged shriek belts itself out of Lorna's throat, and Ben barely realizes
what's about to happen before it's over. She backhands him with a loose,
unpracticed fist to the face. It's hard enough to make him see white flashes,
to make his teeth clamp together solidly, not hard enough to knock him down,
not quite, but he's rocking back a little, shuffling a step to the side so that
he doesn't fall. Dimly, he realizes she has split his lip. She looks as
startled as he does, but no less angry.
It's enough to give him his anger back. Licking at the blood on his lip, he
glares at her and shifts his backpack off his shoulder to shove the shirt
inside. He keeps his eyes down, afraid of her now, even through the anger--
really truly afraid--as he grabs a pair of sweats and shoves them in, too. His
money he digs out of a corner of a desk drawer and pockets.
"I'm out of here," he whispers.
"Where the hell are you going to go?" she demands shrilly as he shoves past her
aggressively.
"I don't care. Neither do you."
"Well, you're right. I don't. Just go, just get out. Perverted little fuck."
Ben can hear her voice shaking, and he doesn't know if she's coming down off
the high of fury, or if she's really sorry he's going, or if she's just faking.
He decides there's been so much lack of caring in the house since his dad left
that he doesn't mind adding a little more.
"Fuck this," he sighs, and suddenly he does care. It hurts like all hell, and
he never expected that. He slams out the door, noting how she doesn't come
after him. He realizes that in spite of everything, he always hoped it would
get better. He always held something back, just in case she might actually love
him. He gives it up now, lets it die. He fumbles in a cargo pocket for the
cellphone and dials shakily, stopping and backspacing a couple of times because
he can't see through the tears. It rings, and rings, and then there is the
light click of the phone being answered. Before that voice can speak, before
Ben can be run off by the sound of it, he begins to speak.
"Jon--"
***** Chapter 57 *****
Ben's been dicking around all afternoon. His mother finally copped to the fact
last night that he was supposed to be in school, and so today he got up, made
for the bus stop and then tooled around town all day.
Now he's making for home again. It's probably close to five, and he's about two
houses down from his when he sees the smoke rising from the chimney of his
house. It's funny-looking smoke to begin with (as if, in this part of the
state, it wasn't funny enough to have a fire in the middle of a 60-degree day),
and the closer he gets, the more he realizes it smells faintly of plastic.
He breaks into a run. He does not like this at all.
The instant he bursts in the door he's striding forward, staring, disbelieving.
His mother has the end of an armload of his things and is feeding the last of
them into the fire--what remains are two sketches, five manga and the Speed
Racer figure.
"Jesus!" he shrieks. "Mom, what the fuck are you--"
She whirls on him. Her eyes are wild, so crazy he recoils. Her brown, curly
hair bobs with the force of her movement as she holds up a sketch.
"Don't you what the fuck me. Who is that."
It's Djinn, of course. He is behind the nameless boy, cradling him in his lap,
one arm wrapped around the boy's waist, the other hand up, stroking his throat.
They are, quite obviously, fucking, even though on that particular day, Ben was
playing more with the movement of cloth than bodies. They are fully dressed;
there is a triangle of naked hip on the boy between the top of his pants and
where the tunic ends.
"It's just--a drawing," he says, but his voice is too soft to be convincing.
It's all he can manage; he feels like the air's been kicked out of his chest.
He fidgets with the strap on his pack.
"Who is it!" she screams, shaking, and when he doesn't answer, she tosses it
and the remaining manga into the fire. "I want to know who the fuck you're
drawing these disgusting pictures of." He still doesn't answer, so she plows
on. "I'll tell you, then. The school called me today. A very concerned teacher
has noticed that you've been mooning around the guy you TA for."
Ben laughs weakly. "That's so stupid. Why would they--"
"You know good and fucking well why. Because someone must have seen you
together. This teacher, this woman, was very fucking worried that I'd sue the
school. She wanted to reassure me it was being handled. She wanted me to
understand it was all okay now."
Ben shakes his head. She doesn't know shit, he tells himself, but there's a
good deal of bravado there. He's never really been scared of his mother, but he
is right now.
"Well, I don't know what they're talking about. I used him as a model 'cause I
see him every day. All the time. They're just drawings."
"You're letting him fuck you." Lorna's voice has taken on a chilling quality, a
tone Ben has never heard her use before. "How disgusting can you--God, you are
so sick. I wish I had known my son was a faggot, I'd never have agreed to
custody. Now you tell me this fucker's name. I want his phone number."
Ben is reeling inside, hot and sick. He is suddenly glad, very glad he and his
mother never talk, glad she doesn't know anything important about him. She
knows you're a faggot, he corrects himself nastily, and his eyes are locked
onto hers.
"I wish you'd never agreed to custody, too," he grinds out. "I really do." And
he heads for his room.
His intention is to throw a change of clothes and the last of his Christmas
money into the pack, but he stops at the doorway, staring, struck dumb.
The mural has been spraypainted over. In its place is a dripping blob of glossy
black, glaring, maniacal proof that his mother has turned the corner
completely. His trunk of parchment sketches is empty, the lock broken into--the
hammer's still sitting there on the floor. His manga are all gone. His figures,
his videos... everything is gone. He realizes with scary clarity that she's
been through everything, taken everything of personal value and ransacked the
rest.
Eyes furious and slightly insane, Lorna throws Speed Racer into the fire and
follows Ben. "You tell me his name," she says, her voice dark and ugly. She
watches him flounder for a minute, and then as he bends to pick up a shirt off
the end of the bed, she grabs his arm and whirls him around.
"Tell me his name."
"I didn't do anything wrong," Ben tells her resolutely, and tips his chin up.
"Neither did he. No one's fucking me."
An enraged shriek belts itself out of Lorna's throat, and Ben barely realizes
what's about to happen before it's over. She backhands him with a loose,
unpracticed fist to the face. It's hard enough to make him see white flashes,
to make his teeth clamp together solidly, not hard enough to knock him down,
not quite, but he's rocking back a little, shuffling a step to the side so that
he doesn't fall. Dimly, he realizes she has split his lip. She looks as
startled as he does, but no less angry.
It's enough to give him his anger back. Licking at the blood on his lip, he
glares at her and shifts his backpack off his shoulder to shove the shirt
inside. He keeps his eyes down, afraid of her now, even through the anger--
really truly afraid--as he grabs a pair of sweats and shoves them in, too. His
money he digs out of a corner of a desk drawer and pockets.
"I'm out of here," he whispers.
"Where the hell are you going to go?" she demands shrilly as he shoves past her
aggressively.
"I don't care. Neither do you."
"Well, you're right. I don't. Just go, just get out. Perverted little fuck."
Ben can hear her voice shaking, and he doesn't know if she's coming down off
the high of fury, or if she's really sorry he's going, or if she's just faking.
He decides there's been so much lack of caring in the house since his dad left
that he doesn't mind adding a little more.
"Fuck this," he sighs, and suddenly he does care. It hurts like all hell, and
he never expected that. He slams out the door, noting how she doesn't come
after him. He realizes that in spite of everything, he always hoped it would
get better. He always held something back, just in case she might actually love
him. He gives it up now, lets it die. He fumbles in a cargo pocket for the
cellphone and dials shakily, stopping and backspacing a couple of times because
he can't see through the tears. It rings, and rings, and then there is the
light click of the phone being answered. Before that voice can speak, before
Ben can be run off by the sound of it, he begins to speak.
"Jon--"
***** Chapter 58 *****
The knife slips, and the garlic clove somehow goes flying off the cutting board
to hit Jon in the throat. It hurts, not because it comes at any high velocity,
but because it hits right where the lump is. The lump that's been there all
day.
Jon suddenly drops the knife, ignoring the dull clatter as it lands on the
counter. He backs away and sinks into a chair, staring in dull surprise at his
kitchen.
It's a mess. All of the counters, including the island in the middle of the
kitchen, are covered with food. Later, Jon will realize that he's pulled almost
everything out of his refrigerator and chopped anything that could be chopped,
but now he just looks at it all without really seeing it.
What he's seeing instead is the note that was in his inbox this morning. The
one asking him to step into the Mr Richards' -- the principal -- office and to
not worry about his first period class because a sub had been arranged.
The day went rapidly downhill from there.
Jon certainly understands why Mrs. Erickson was concerned, and or even why she
needed to alert the administration. It's right that a teacher should be
concerned when she sees something that points to abuse. They're all right and
he's wrong.
So very wrong.
Not that he said anything like that in the meeting. No, he lied, thanking
whatever powers that exist for the fact that, worried about Ben, he had taken a
fair amount of medication even before he saw the note in his inbox. And that,
as a gay man in a straight world, he has a lot of experience with lies.
The meeting with the principal is a blur now. He denied having any interest in
Ben beyond that of a concerned teacher for a bright, but troubled student. He
knew perfectly well that whatever he said would be accepted because the
administration doesn't wish to deal with a scandal. Accepted. Well not exactly.
As long as no proof is offered by anyone, and Ben's mother doesn't bring the
police into it, he won't go to jail.
"This will be discussed at higher levels," Dan Richards said, leaning across
his desk. "But Jon, while that discussion is taking place, we'd prefer it if
you took a bit of a vacation."
Jon looks around the kitchen at the food -- enough food to feed 20 people -
- that's everywhere, but he doesn't see it. He's seeing a classroom. One he's
taught in ever since his disastrous two years at the state university before he
decided that academia was not for him. It's been a very long time, and he's
been happy at the high school.
And now, he'll never see that classroom again, except maybe on a weekend,
escorted, while he picks up his personal items.
It hurts. Not like Xani dying, but still, a small part of Jon has been torn
loose. As he reaches for the phone to call the one person who always helps when
he's hurting, it rings. Confused, he looks at the phone for a long time, dimly
wondering how Beth knew to call him.
When he finally picks it up, it's not Beth's voice on the other end of the
line.
"Jon..."
Ben's voice is ... broken.
***** Chapter 59 *****
Ben has no idea where he's going as he walks; he decides even as he begins to
speak, hurriedly and brokenly, that he's headed for the park nearest his house.
Then his brain stops functioning and words are spilling out of his mouth before
he can stop them.
"Jon--Jon, Jesus--" He starts to cry in the middle of his sentence. "She's--she
knows, she--she trashed my room--"
Jon's voice is slurred and almost sullen. Ben can't quite register it at first,
the soft quality of it.
"I ... I know. Nel ... Mrs. Erickson saw soemthing. But Ben ... they're not
certain. They don't have any proof."
Scarcely hearing, Ben plows on. "She trashed my--she burned my stuff, she--she
found the mural, she spraypainted it!"
Slowly, dully, Ben realizes Jon is very heavily medicated. "Oh, fuck," the
teacher is saying, "oh, Ben, I'm so sorry, fuck ... did she hurt you ...
physically?"
Hitching in an uneven breath and trying to calm down, Ben notices that he's
reached the park. He sinks into a swing and grips the chain, leaning his
forehead on his wrist. "She--she..." He doesn't want to say. He knows, though,
with the faint hopefulness that comes of immaturity, that by Ben's reticence,
Jon will know. Jon will know, and help.
"Where are you?"
Swallowing, clearing his throat, and sniffing, Ben suddenly realizes who it is
he's called, and what's happened between them. "I'm--at the park on Southeast
Pine." He rubs at his jaw, startled somehow to feel the ache there, the
growing, swelling bruise. He hasn't stopped licking at the split on his lip
since she gave it to him.
"OK ... How badly ... are you OK to walk up to the hospital?"
Ben snorts impatiently. "Fuck, I don't need a hospital. I just--look--never
mind, okay, I just--she was on something, she had to be. I'm gonna wait till
she passes out. That's all." Ben doesn't know what to do after that, but it's
all he's ever done; that's how you cope with Lorna--you wait till she passes
out. He thinks about the change of clothes and the money and discards whatever
half-formed plan he'd thought he'd employ. The fact is, he has nowhere else to
go.
The thought hurts; he should, really, be able to go to Jon's house, but Ben
discards the idea immediately. The school knows. Breathing too hard, scared in
ways he can't even sort out yet, Ben just holds the phone to his ear as Jon
keeps talking.
"Listen to me, Ben. I want you to go to the hospital anyway. I want you to tell
them what happened. We have to get you out of that house and this is where we
start."
Sharply, bitterly, Ben spits, "What'm I gonna tell them? Why she did this? How
I knew she was a fucking bomb ticking and I pissed her off by letting my Econ
teacher fuck me until the school caught us?"
There's the sound of water running, a pill bottle being shaken. There's a
pause, and only then does Jon speak again. "Ben, please ... do not mention
anything about what we've been doing. No one has any proof and it's not as
important as getting you away from her." There's another pause. "You don't
really want to go home, do you? After this?"
The defeat is all-encompassing. "Where the fuck else am I going to go." Ben
feels small and lost, and suddenly he's aware of how he sounds, calling Jon
like this in the middle of a crisis, as though Jon can help. As though he
would, or even as though Ben has the right to ask.
"Look," he says hurriedly. "Forget it. I--I already knew this wasn't...you
know--I'm sorry."
He hangs up. Some kids come into the park and it seems so wrong, this
situation, the cheerfulness of the day, the strange mid-January warmth in the
primary-colored, cultivated play area. They're on the slides, and then one of
them comes over and sits in the swing next to Ben and starts pushing off with
short little legs. Ben is abruptly, vehemently jealous. It crosses his mind to
say something nasty to make the kid go away when his phone rings again.
He looks at the caller ID number, as though he really needs to be told it's
Jon.
"Yeah."
"Ben ... please listen to me and don't hang up. OK?"
Flatly, Ben says "yeah" again, not wanting to admit to himself how much he
needs the sound of Jon's voice right now.
"First off, where are you?"
"At the park still."
"All right. Just please let me get through this even though it's going to piss
you off. I called the cops and reported a domestic disturbance in progress at
your place. They'll go, and find your mom, and then decide what to do about it.
You need to go to the hospital and tell them that your mom hit you. And then
... fuck ..." And there's a long pause and a hard, undecipherable sound. Ben
knows he won't like what Jon is about to say.
Jon's voice still has that strange, flat quality to it as he goes on, "CPS will
have to look into it. I'm ... I'm sorry, but I couldn't let you go back there."
And now, he's talking very fast, as though to let Ben interrupt would be to
destroy everything. "It's going to get very hard from here on out, but at your
age, they won't stick you in a formal foster care situation and you might be
able to start the emancipation process. You'll probably have to leave school,
but you can test out. By the time this is even halfway to being resolved,
you'll be a legal adult with your trust fund. You got all that?"
Ben's chest hurts with the force of his anger by the time Jon finally stops
talking. He can't even think, can't even imagine what to say when the words
start ripping themselves out of him without his permission. He finds he is
glaring at the jungle gym across from him, as though it represents his problem.
"Fucking--I didn't need this--I'm that close to being eighteen, don't you think
I knew all that? Why the fuck should I--?" A sob gets out between the words,
and Ben slumps over, staring at the sand between his sneakers. "I'm going to
the hospital just because it'll piss her off, and then I'm not doing another
fucking thing. You don't think I can ride this out till April... Fuck. I
shouldn't have called you, Jon." Ben has never felt betrayed before, and now,
it's just one more thing to hate: he should have known better. He uses that to
sum up everything he's done since he turned fifteen. He should have known
better.
Jon's voice sounds beaten and defeated. "Ben, you're angry and you have every
right to be, but ... damn it, I love you and every time you go home or you're
not in school I'm afraid for you."
Ben's shock and anger overwhelm everything. He has heard the words without
registering them, and then when he thinks about them, he hears them as a ploy.
Barely able to speak above a whisper, he breathes, "Fuck you. Fuck you and
that--that--I don't need you feeding me that bullshit now." He switches the
call off, then switches the phone off, too, knowing with a sick kind of
prescience that it's more completely over than even he realized. There is no
fixing it now. There's no fixing any of it.
***** Chapter 60 *****
Randy Reed turns the TV down another level. Stargate is one of those annoying
movies where the sound varies wildly, and she doesn't want to bother Uncle Jon.
She bites nervously at an already ripped cuticle as she glances at the door to
the extra bedroom, and then forces herself to stop abusing her cuticle,
choosing instead to comb her still-damp hair.
She's exhausted -- between swim practice in the mornings, school, and swim
practice in the afternoons, she has very little time to herself. One of the
rules in the Quenton-Reed household is that Randy has two hours after dinner to
do whatever she likes, within reason. The big TV is hers to watch movies or
play X-box, as long as her grades or times don't suffer for it. It's pretty
cool really; a lot of the kids who swim at her level have insanely strict
parents.
She glances at the door again, and then stares at the screen resolutely. Daniel
is being presented with the thing that looks sort of like an armadillo, and
he's about to say....
"Tastes like chicken," a soft husky voice says from behind her. "He's going to
say that it tastes like chicken, isn't he?" her uncle says, although it's
obvious he doesn't care.
Randy hits pause, and the movie freezes on Daniel's expression of surprise.
"You've seen it before?"
Uncle Jon shakes his head. "Predictable," he says.
"It wasn't too loud was it?" She looks at his bathrobe and sweatpants. "I
didn't want to wake you up." She's being polite; she knows full well that her
uncle isn't sleeping.
He's been here for over two months now, and he hardly ever comes out of his
room. A couple of weeks after he arrived, Randy heard her mom crying as she
told Randy's dad that Jon wasn't sleeping or reading or even listening to
music. "He just ... lies there. Staring at the ceiling. Eric it's ... it's just
like when Xani died."
Randy snaps back to the present as Jon speaks. "No, I was ... awake."
"You ... you wanna watch it with me?" Randy offers, not knowing what else to
do. "I can go back to the beginning." She's trying not to cry, because thinking
of Uncle Xani always makes her want to cry, and Mom is right. Uncle Jon does
look like he did when Uncle Xani died. His beard is untidy and there are snarls
in his hair and his eyes are sunken and tinged with red. And he's skinny. What
her sister Helen calls "scary skinny."
"No," he says again. Then he blinks and tries to smile, and that's even harder
to see than the blank expression. "I thought I might make something. You
hungry?"
The cooking thing is even scarier than the skinny thing. Meals tend to appear
in the fridge at odd hours, and Helen told Randy that just the other day Uncle
Jon was making cupcakes at 3 in the morning when Helen got up to go to the
bathroom.
"Uh ... not really," Beth says. She wishes she knew why Uncle Jon is so
unhappy. Shortly after he got here, back at the end of January -- when no one
in their right mind vacations in Alaska -- she heard him talking to her mom. A
lot of really low mumbling, and it was only when she put a glass to the wall
that she heard the name Ben, and something about Uncle Jon's job. And then
Helen had come in --without knocking, which is a constant source of stress
between the two sisters -- and in yelling at her, Randy had managed to hide he
fact that she'd been snooping.
Jon looks at his niece. In the low light of the family room, her short hair
reminds him of Ben's, although in reality, Randy's hair is much lighter. But
for a minute she looks like Ben. Not the shape of her face or the color of her
eyes or hair, more her expression. The same expression he saw on Ben's face
when Jon failed to say "I love you too," on New Year's Day.
Fuck. She's scared.
"Miranda," he says quietly, sitting down on the sofa. "Can we talk for a
minute?"
"Uh ... sure."
"I'm sorry I've been so ... weird. It's ... I had to quit my job, and someone I
care about very much ... someone I love, got hurt."
"Ben," she says and then looks as if she wants to stuff the word back into her
mouth.
"Ben," he says, fighting that lump that's been in his throat ever since Ben
failed to show up in school after the winter break.
"Is he ... is he sick?" He doesn't have to ask what she means, and he hates the
fact that this bright, active young girl knows that men who love each other can
get sick.
"No. He's ... we're both very unhappy. Sometimes when people love each other
... well I know your mom's talked to you about this. How not everyone thinks
two guys should...." she nods and he moves on. "Ben's family was very upset and
I thought it was best if I went away for a while."
"Oh," she says. "Are you gonna go back? When ... when you're better."
"I ... damn ... Miranda, I don't know."
She moves then, leaving the big easy chair to come and sit next to him. He
looks down at her, and smiles, and she snuggles up, smelling of chlorine and
hot chocolate.
"I love you, Uncle Jon," she says as if those words can fix everything.
And Jon suddenly he realizes the vast difference between the 14 year old girl,
whose family cares about her and the 17 year old boy, whose mother doesn't give
a shit.
Randy is a child. Ben is not.
It's that simple.
"I love you too, kiddo. Very much."
Oh, he knows himself well enough to know that he's still got a long way to go,
and he knows that Ben may well never want to have anything to do with him. But
he's going to try. Because maybe Randy is right this time. Maybe a kid can see
what two adults can't
"So," he says. "Does the future Olympic gold medal swimmer still like peanut
butter cookies?"
Randy smiles happily. "Only if there are chocolate chips in them."
He leans in, as if confiding a deep, dark secret to her. "I know exactly where
your Mom's hidden the chips. I'll make cookies and then you can tell me what's
up with James Spader there."
As the two head to the kitchen, Beth Quenton hears her daughter say. "I think
Michael Shanks ... ya know, he plays Daniel in the TV show? I think he's
cuter."
"I may have to watch some of both, so I can make an informed opinion," Jon
replies.
Beth fades back into the hall, smiling.
***** Chapter 61 *****
Ben lies in bed, staring at his GED, pinned somewhat less than proudly to the
wall with a thumbtack and a piece of tape holding one curling corner straight.
It was the corner he fiddled with until his counselor finally took the paper
away, awkwardly.
Tomorrow, he'll be eighteen. He'll step away from the boys' home into his own
life; there are a couple other boys who have already come of age, and he's
being placed in an apartment with them in kind of a halfway situation, and
positioned in a low-level but possibly hopeful job.
The Sutter Boys' Home, for all it's opportunities and glossy, sunlit brochures
of troubled boys happily joining vocations and starting careers and graduating
college, has become a running gag among Ben and Alex and Gabriel. "We are the
future: tomorrow's hopefully-not-punk-ass-criminals."
Ben doesn't think that's very funny right now.
He finally got a good counselor. Once his dad came out of nowhere to make the
arrangements for the private home as opposed to the state, Ben has to admit
that he got good *everything.* He had people to make sure he ate. They made
sure he completed his high school equivalency exams. They made sure he knew how
to do things like balance a checkbook, manage an income and pay it out again
properly. There were even people who made sure he took his Zoloft on time.
God knew his parents weren't there to do it. Mom...
Ben sighs. He doesn't let himself think of his mother often. Lorna is in a
state-run care facility. She is maintained on steady doses of something that is
supposed to calm her down and ease her substance cravings, but she hasn't
rehabilitated to functionality. They would let Ben visit her as often as he
likes, but he doesn't like to, and that is one area in which the counselors
don't push him--he suspects it's because they've seen the way she lunges out of
her chair unreasonably when he comes. They've heard the way she shrieks at him.
It isn't him, they've told him over and over again. And he knows... he knows.
When he went back to the house to get his clothes, he saw how bad it was, more
so than he'd ever known. He found the stash of lined-up, empty pill bottles,
exposed by the police: hundreds of them, all carefully saved in a closet, like
a shrine. He found the way she'd continued to rip up his room until the desk
was in splinters and the last of his things--the stereo, the bookshelves, even
the books--were broken and torn and piled up in some kind of order he realized
somehow made sense to her. He found a little blood on the floor; he suspected
she'd hurt herself at some point. When the police had come that day, she had
resisted violently, but they'd only pinned her to the floor and cuffed her and
let her rail. They said they'd had to stop her from banging her head against
the screen inside the police car.
OCD, they said, exacerbated by her erratic prescription drug abuse and
alcoholism. They're looking into schizophrenia--that's what they suspect--but
they aren't really finding anything. She isn't talking to her psychiatrist.
Unmedicated, they say, untreated, schizophrenia is very bad. Very bad. Ben
thinks he gets it.
The Zoloft is helping him, Ben notes, little though he wants to admit to it. In
that first month, it kept him from those weird episodes where he freaked out
and wanted to break things. It kept him from wanting to down a whole bottle of
Xanax, the last thing he'd taken from the house when he'd grabbed his clothes
and what music he could find that she hadn't taken a hammer to. For a while, he
thought he'd do it: just go into the common kitchen and make a shake--vanilla
ice cream, chocolate syrup and 15 milligrams of Xanax--and drink it all. Thirty
tablets.
In the end, he turned the bottle in. They searched his room, mostly out of
protocol, but that was all there had been. They watched him very carefully
after that. But after that, he was fine.
No... not fine. He has never really been fine, not since January. Even tomorrow
when they release him, drive him around to open his bank account with his first
paycheck--from, ironically, Coffee Werks--and get him situated in the apartment
with Alex and Gabe, he won't be fine. He'll pretend. He'll take his Zoloft and
grin and smoke, and they'll go take in The_Two_Towers again because Gabe is
such a fucking gaming freak. But there are some things Zoloft won't help with.
There are some things that you just have to get through.
Jon is one of those things.
The Zoloft doesn't take away how Ben misses him. Ben has learned to wake
himself up in the night from dreams of Jon's hands, touching, stroking, sliding
inside. He still sees Jon's blue, blue eyes, and the way Jon's dark work slacks
were always smudged with chalk. He still hears the tone of Jon's voice when Jon
had listened to him and was replying with thoughtfulness. Ben forces himself
awake then because it hurts so much to be asleep during those dreams. Lucid
dreaming, the counselor calls it, when Ben has given him vague references. Ben
hears the voice in his sleeping head, knows it's not real, and the firm voice
that he's cultivated tells him to wake up.
Wake the fuck up.
There have been kids coming in from Reagan High sometimes. Ben tends to find
out who they are pretty quickly. He has a decent source of information right
now. That source says Jon Quenton hasn't been at Reagan since early January.
There's something about that. Something Ben finds frightening on so many levels
he can't even consider them all.
"Fuck, I miss you," Ben chokes out, very softly, to the ceiling. He turns over,
knowing he should be packing. He could, at least, be drawing. He hasn't drawn
Djinn since last month sometime, and that was a shaky, hesitant, grief-stricken
piece done on a paper napkin. He kept wanting to apologize for truncating
Djinn's life so abruptly. He wanted to ask where the boy was, why Djinn
suddenly came to him alone. He did neither, because Djinn offers nothing in
return. But he took the drawing and pressed it reverently inside a book; in the
end, he was glad Djinn came back at all, and sorry that it all ended this way.
He hasn't felt guilty since sometime in mid-February. His life has been marked
out in progress charts and slowly decreasing self-destructive behavior patterns
since then. In the early days, Ben had plenty of reason to feel guilty: for not
considering, for not thinking ahead, for being selfish. For needing Jon so much
that he eventually convinced himself that he caused their discovery and what he
assumed to be Jon's firing.
And I wasted his New Year's Eve, Ben used to think, although he doesn't allow
himself to think that anymore. Not that the thought went away on its own, no.
But some things just take months and maybe years to heal from. Ben's own wasted
time has figured in, too. His anger, his hurt, and now his simple, clean
melancholy have to come out on their own.
No. Some things can't be fixed with Zoloft. Some things just have to go away,
and Ben doesn't know how to make them. But he's trying. Damn, but he's trying.
***** Chapter 62 *****
Jon looks around the kitchen, smiling with satisfaction as he puts the mop and
bucket back into the laundry room. Not only is the public part of Beth's house
clean, it's going to stay that way until Sunday night.
He pours himself a glass of wine and heads into the living room, picking up the
remote and turning the stereo down to non-housecleaning levels. Robert Smith is
still happily singing about it being Friday and being in love, which is rather
unfortunate from Jon's point of view. Still, if he's learned one thing in his
life, it's that if you're trying to avoid reminders of a messed up
relationship, you need to avoid music all together.
And yet .... it is Friday and Jon knows that he's in love. He doesn't
particularly want to be, has been desperately trying to move on, and yet Ben
remains in his memory. And lately the situation has become more complicated.
Jon knew from the start that he couldn't stay with Beth indefinitely, and
lately he's become aware of a tension in the Quenton-Reed household, which,
while it has nothing to do with him, is something he's in a position to do
something about.
Randy needs two things; a better coach and, almost more importantly as far as
everyone (including her current coach) is concerned, she needs better
competition. Jon has been calling her a future gold medalist ever since she
first started serious lessons, and years later, he seems to have been
prophetic. But she can't do it here and Eric's job as an arctic wildlife
biologist working for the state of Alaska won't lead to transfers to warmer -
- and more populated -- climes.
The answer is staring them all in the face. One of the US's better swim coaches
-- one who's trained medalists in the past -- works at a complex less than ten
miles away from Jon's house. While Jon would rather Randy didn't go to Reagan
High, he could very easily get her into one of the other public schools, or
even pay for a private school; there's a Waldorf school in town that would take
her happily, as Randy's grades are excellent. He's going to have nothing but
time on his hands when he returns home, getting his niece to practice, meets
and so on, would be easy and would give his life a little structure.
The irony that Beth would trust him with her daughter, where his employers of
over 20 years didn't entirely trust him with their students, isn't lost on
them. Early retirement, while it could be seen as an admission of guilt, saved
everyone's face and conscience. And although Jon hasn't thought much beyond
making it through each day and keeping out of bed for more than six hours at a
time, he knows he's got to think ahead.
And hell, why not become a soccer mom at his age?
Well to begin with, he had seriously considered moving. Juneau holds no appeal
whatsoever, even if it means that he'd be close to his sister. But Portland, or
San Francisco, or Seattle all sound good, and while his retirement benefits
aren't great, he still has the money both his dad and Xani left him.
If he goes home, there's Ben. And there's his love for Ben, which he's so sure
Ben doesn't want. He wonders if, on that horrible complicated afternoon, Ben
even heard him say "I love you," or if was just one more thing that Ben didn't
get because all he wanted was for Jon to say, "I'll take care of it."
Jon recognizes that he's brooding again. and heads into the kitchen. With
everyone away for the weekend, he intends to make candy: truffles for Beth and
Helen, and peanut brittle for Eric and Randy. As he enters the kitchen the
bright colors of the Lonely Planet calendar catch his eye, and he stares at
today's date, circled because of Randy's meet, in shock.
It's Ben's birthday.
Impulsively, Jon reaches for the phone. As sometimes happens, he almost seems
to see his actions from the outside, watching in dull surprise his fingers dial
a number long memorized. He has no idea what he's going to say to Ben, or even
why he's calling, only that it's what he wants to do.
"Thank you for calling Verizon Wireless. That number is no longer in service.
Please check the number and dial again. Thank you for calling...."
Jon stares at the phone, knowing he dialed the right number; his memory for
numbers of any kind is almost photographic, but he dials again, carefully
punching the numbers to Ben's cell. "Thank you for calling Verizon Wireless.
That number is no longer in service. Please check the number and dial again.
Thank you for calling Verizon wireless. That number is no longer in service.
Please....." Jon finally hangs up.
He then calmly reaches for the phone book and looks up the number for Alaska
Airlines.
***** Chapter 63 *****
Ben sets the alarm for six a.m., even for days when he works the three-to-ten
shift at Coffee Werks. When he has to be there at seven in the morning, it
sucks if he's been up late and oversleeping all the other days. His roommates
groan about it when he hauls his ass off to bed at eleven at night. They call
him an old man and make denture-smacking noises about it. Ben doesn't care.
He rolls over and hits snooze twice before finally getting up. Rubbing his
eyes, he scratches at his chest and then runs a hand over his hair. His scalp
feels funny, and he can tell his hair is sticking up weird where he slept on it
wrong. He'll bother about that later.
The apartment, while quiet, is not empty. Alex and Gabe are crashed, still;
Gabe won't roll over till ten or eleven, and Alex doesn't get up till eight.
Gabe works the same screwy kinds of hours Ben does, at the Golden Skillet, and
Alex goes in at nine, to do menial phone tech support and filing. He's got the
most reputable job of the three; he's an intern at a small accounting software
company. He doesn't make any more money than they do, but he gets his weekends
free.
Ben pulls on a pair of flannel pajama bottoms, just for courtesy's sake. They
teased him about running around in his briefs half the time at the home; they
know he's gay, and it's a regular running joke to make cracks about the two
staunch hetero boys, converted by the sight of Ben's white-cotton-clad ass,
suddenly deciding they have to have dick. Ben usually sighs and flips them off;
that garners more jokes. It's all good.
He pads out to the kitchen and washes the carafe so he can make the coffee. He
stands there while it brews, all twelve cups, of which he will have two and
Alex will have four, and Gabe will let the rest burn in the pot all afternoon,
and then Ben will get up tomorrow morning and dump it and start over. Gabe gets
pissed off if there's no coffee for him. Ben's never seen him drink more than
half a cup. Gabe pays for the coffee, though, so no one complains.
Alex gets himself out of bed early today. He comes into the kitchen, scratching
at the inside of one thigh. "Morning."
"Yeah," Ben replies, and gets down two coffee cups. "You're up early."
"Wanted to get the TV before you take it over," Alex grins, his bright blue
eyes flashing. He's so All-American that Ben would probably be carrying a
serious hard-on for him if Alex weren't as straight as a plank. He's tanned,
his hair is perfect, he wears his class ring still. He seems like he should be
the antithesis of the tech support nerd, and yet that's exactly what he is.
"Man," Ben complains lightly, "I just like a little Bloodrayne when I get up."
"Yeah, whatever. You like it till it's time for me to go to work, and I have a
training video I have to watch."
"Fine." Ben flicks his hand dismissively and pours the coffee.
While Alex watches his training video, Ben takes his coffee and heads into the
bathroom. He figures he might as well get his shower out of the way. The
water's nice and hot, and he stands under it a moment, tilting his head from
side to side, and then washes his hair. He runs a hand over it and then the
image comes to him, unbidden.
It's Jon, on his knees, in front of him. He's got Ben in his mouth and is
sucking lazily, and one hand is resting lightly on Ben's hip. Ben smooths his
hand over the long, wet hair--
Shuddering, Ben tilts his face into the spray.
Fuck, he moans internally, just one day. Just one fucking day, Jon, leave me
alone... But Jon never leaves him alone; Ben is too much in love for that. So
Ben succumbs to it. He soaps his sudden erection and sighs, swallowing around
the lump in his throat.
"Fuck you," wasn't it? Wasn't that what you said to him when he said "I love
you"?
Ben goes through game levels in his head to drown out his own internal
monologue. His hand works quickly; Alex is going to need the shower and he'll
be livid if Ben uses up all the hot water jacking off. He tries to think of the
girls he screwed in high school. He tries to think of Track Boy. He even tries
to think about Alex, suddenly converted from plank-straight to bent as hell,
and he can't. It always comes back around to Jon.
So he turns his thoughts back to his tentacled monster: violently taking,
binding up, filling, wrapped around with crushing strength. Ben never knows if
he's fantasizing about himself inside that tight hold or if it's someone else
he wants to see there, but that does it. He comes silently, turning into the
spray and bracing himself on the washcloth bar. His mouth is open with his
quiet gasping. He forces himself to come down quickly, washing off right away
and getting out.
"Quit yanking yourself and let me have the bathroom, McKenna," Alex mutters
through the door.
"Fuck you," Ben spits, forcing good nature into his voice. "You dream about me
yanking myself, big boy."
"You wish. There'd better be some goddamned hot water left."
"Yeah, yeah." Ben makes mocking fish faces in the mirror as he towels himself
off. He wraps it around his waist when he's done and heads out, brushing past
Alex, who is grinning, on the way.
Ben considers himself pretty lucky; the self-proclaimed Unholy Trinity of
Sutter Home is intact, and he has a decent life, for an eighteen-year-old, when
he lets himself quit thinking about the past.
He decides he's going to play Bloodrayne all fucking day, till it's time to go
to work.
* * * *
"Mocha, double chocolate."
Ben is blowing his hair out of his eyes, puffing air up with his bottom lip
sticking out as he foams the milk for the order. He's waiting for the manager
to get on him about his long bangs, but nothing has been said yet. He tosses
his head back and adds the milk to two shots of espresso, then passes the cup
to Maggie, the little brunette running the register.
"Double latte," she says over her shoulder, and Ben moves to get it. He foams
more milk, tops the espresso, does his little trick with the cinnamon, and
passes it to Maggie. They have a pretty decent system going.
"Ben?"
Ben's universe narrows to a queasy feeling in his stomach and a darkening of
his vision as his face heats with an unavoidable flush. Adrenalin floods him.
Everything slows to a crawl as that voice, that unmistakable voice, thick with
surprise and sudden emotion and tiredness, filters through to him. He turns his
head.
It is, of course, Jon Quenton.
***** Chapter 64 *****
Jon can hardly believe it. As he stares at the young man behind the counter -
- the incredibly gorgeous young man he's missed every day since New Year's Day
-- he can't help but remember the first time they talked. He made some
facetious remark about Ben ending up working here, and now, here he is behind
the counter, steaming milk with all the competence of a long time barrista.
"Ben?"
"Jon ... uh. Hi."
As Ben goes a bit red in the face and flubs the next order, Jon takes his latte
and backs off. It feels like he's been away from Ben forever and he finds
himself searching for some sort of difference in Ben's face, while at the same
time reminding himself that it's only been a few months.
But there is a difference. Jon can't put his finger on it, but as Ben recovers
and quickly makes up an ice-blended chai tea, Jon realizes that he looks older.
Not hardened, but there is something more mature in his manner. It's actually
quite appealing and Jon swallows.
The girl at the register is giving him a curious look, and Jon doesn't want to
get Ben in trouble, so he moves over to he counter and speaks quietly. "I'd
like to talk to you. Should I wait until you're off work? Or do you have a
break coming up?"
Ben finishes the drink and wipes his hands on the towel hanging off his short
apron. "I...." He looks at he floor and then at the girl behind the register.
"Maggie, I'm gonna take my break now, OK?" She smiles at him and nods, and Ben
strips off his apron as he comes out from behind the counter. "Thanks."
"You wanna go out there?" Jon nods toward the patio. "You can smoke."
Ben nods still looking at the floor, and Jon wonders if he should have let it
go and not even tried to see him. He has no other way finding out what Ben's
situation is; it's not as if he can ask anyone he used to work with. He's
obscurely glad that flying makes him nervous, because it would hardly do to pop
a Xanax right in front of Ben.
They reach the patio and Ben sits down, reaching for his cigarettes. Jon has no
idea where to start and so he blurts out what first comes to mind. "I ... uh
... I've been in Juneau. With Beth and the family."
Ben finally glances up, his expression unreadable. He's shaken a cigarette out
and now he lights it and takes a drag before answering. "Yeah? I've been in the
Sutter Home for Boys." His voice is flat.
Jon closes his eyes briefly. While it could have been a lot worse -- Sutter is
private and expensive and far, far better than anything the county or state can
offer -- it's still awful. A wave of guilt washes over him and all he can
manage is, "Oh fuck." He struggles to carry on the conversation in something
approaching a normal tone of voice.
"What ... what happened .... that afternoon?" He takes a quick sip of his
coffee more for something to do than because he wants it. This is excruciating
and the urge to take Ben in his arms and just hold him is strong.
Ben takes a long drag, which is followed almost instantly with another. "I went
to the ER. They called the police." Another almost angry drag and he's also
fidgeting, playing with his light and bouncing his foot under the table. "I
filed a report. The police also showed up at my house. *They* filed a report."
He stares at the table and Jon gets the feeling Ben is seeing something other
than the simple wooden table.
"I'm sorry," Jon says quietly. It's not enough, but then nothing he could say
would be enough right now. All that's left is to try and explain. "I know it's
not what you wanted me to do. I'm sorry that I couldn't say what you needed me
to say."
Ben's head snaps up at that and he glares at Jon, his voice angry when he
speaks. "What the fuck did you think I wanted you to say that day? I don't even
know why I called you. I just ... wanted...." He shakes his head and looks
away.
Jon keeps his voice quiet, accepting the anger, knowing he deserves whatever
vitriol Ben wants to aim at him. "You wanted me to fix things for you. You
wanted me to tell you to come over to my house and that I would take care of
everything." He looks down at his hands, curled around the paper coffee cup.
"And I couldn't."
It takes Ben a long time to answer. "Maybe I did. Maybe I wasn't thinking. He
sighs and runs a hand through his hair, a gesture that brings back the old urge
to brush the hair off his forehead. "So... yeah. Sutter Boys' Home. Dad fronted
the cash, Mom got put away. I cleaned up." He shrugs and crushes his cigarette
out. "Welcome to the world, Benjamin."
It hurts, all of it -- the weary voice, Ben's attempt at cynicism, just all of
it. All Jon can do is offer up his own pain in the hopes that it helps in some
way. He can't look at Ben as he speaks; he doesn't want Ben to think Jon blames
him for any of this. "I ... had to retire. After 21 years. They ... didn't want
problems. I could have fought it but ... they were afraid of things ... well
they were afraid your mom would take them to court. I couldn't do that to
either of us. So I ... accepted an early retirement."
Silence and Jon glances up to see Ben finally looking at him, his green eyes
pained. "I'm ... I'm really sorry," Ben whispers.
"Don't be." Jon shakes his head. It's important for Ben not to blame himself
for any of this; he's suffered enough. "I knew the risk when we ... started. I
only wish ... I wish your mom hadn't ... well."
"Yeah," Ben sighs, looking away again. After a awkward moment, he adds
absently, "Turned 18 the other day."
Jon can't help smiling as he looks up. "Yeah, I know. I tried to call you but
the only number I felt was safe was the cell. When I heard it was
disconnected...." He hesitates, not sure if he wants Ben to know how much he
needed to come down and see what had happened to Ben. "I called the airline."
"Why?"
"Because I had to know. I can't ask anyone about you; I've had no idea what
happened to you. If I had any courage ... if I'd been able to haul my ass out
of bed for more than a few hours at a time, I'd have done it a lot earlier." He
can hear the self-disgust in his voice.
Ben says nothing, lighting up a new cigarette and smoking it for a while. "I...
really missed you," he finally says very softly.
Jon tramples firmly on the flash of hope those words give him. "Yeah I ... I
missed you too. " He puts on hand over his eyes. "I'm ... fuck, I'm so sorry
Ben."
"There's... nothing to be sorry for, Jo," Ben replies, shaking his head. "I
wish... I don't know what I wish for." He looks at Jon pleadingly. "I should
probably wish we had never happened but I can't--I still love you."
All Jon can do is stare at Ben, stunned. How on earth can Ben still love him?
Not that it matters of course; Jon knows what he has to say, even if it is
surprisingly difficult to say it.
"Ben ... I'm ... all wrong. I'm not good for you. Look what happened. You ...
need to get over me."
***** Chapter 65 *****
Ben pulls back from the table, staring. He absolutely refuses to acknowledge
that Jon would even suggest Ben "get over" him, and moves onto the next point,
his anger filtering through his hurt.
"Look at what happened?" he demands. "It happened because--I wasn't old enough,
because of my mother--because we weren't careful enough. How could that
possibly happen again?" He shakes his head, staring, incredulous. He wants to
have a third cigarette but he's already unpleasantly lightheaded with seeing
Jon because of the way the conversation is going, and he's sure the nicotine
would only make him shake more.
Jon's voice is quiet. He glances at his hands and shakes his head. "I ran away
from you and stayed in bed for over two months, Ben." He takes a breath.
There's something in his eyes that's deep and undefinable, as though he's been
through something haunting. Ben can't believe, if Jon really missed him that
way, if Jon really loved him, that he's hearing these words: "I can't be who
you want me to be."
All Ben can do is shake his head again, never taking his eyes from Jon. Jon's
hair is longer, and he's thin, and he looks tired. Ben never saw that haunted
look before, but then again, until January, Jon still had a job. But God help
him, Ben aches for Jon in a way he's never ached for anything before, and he
wants to make that tired, heartbroken look go away.
In spite of the voice that tells Ben he needs to stop--it's becoming obvious
Jon isn't interested in this any longer, and Ben's love is just going to have
to die on the side of the road--he finally finds his voice again, "Then what--
" He drops his voice. "What do you think I want? Why do you think I fell in
love--" But it's just him talking, he realizes, and he knows he should have
seen this coming. Understanding comes home--he's fucked up too badly for this--
and he looks away. "No, never mind. I get it."
Jon does this absent dance with his hands, dully patting his pockets down for
his Klonopin before he catches himself and leans onto the table a little.
"Get what?" he asks, as though he isn't quite processing what Ben's saying.
Draping his apron over his forearm, Ben gets up, speaking very softly. "If you
didn't want anything...all you had to do was say so."
"It's not what I want--it's what's right for you," Jon counters, waving his
hand in dismissal of Ben's words.
Ben doesn't really know why he hasn't gone inside yet. The ache in his throat
is threatening the sound of his voice, but he's too much in shock to have Jon
right in front of him, denying him this way.
"What if what's right for me is you?" he asks, almost in a whisper.
He really can't believe what's coming out of Jon's mouth next. "Are you so sure
of that?" Jon looks away. This is far harder than he thought it would be.
"I'm...I'm no prize, Ben. Maybe when I had a job and could be fun and teach you
things but...you don't really want me." Jon no longer knows, now, if he's
trying to convince Ben, or himself.
Ben's anger peaks. "Why are you telling me what I want, Jon? Jesus--would that
work for me? Can I dictate your feelings?" He leans down over the table, right
into Jon's face, and dictates: "You want me. You know you do." He sees Jon's
eyes flash guiltily, and that's when it hits Ben how close to the truth he is.
"You didn't fly from fucking Alaska so you could check on my wellbeing and
disappear again. I spent months believing you didn't give a shit, talking
myself out of everything. And you did the same thing, didn't you?"
"I had to." Jon's voice has almost disappeared in on itself.
The anger drains away, and Ben is suddenly tired of convincing himself of
things that aren't true. "Will you stop now? Will you please--please just
believe that I love you and--I want to be with you? And I'm not blind, and I'm
not stupid, and I'm not a fucking kid. I've made up my mind. If you...if you
can't accept that--then don't try to pass it off as 'better for me.' I got
enough of that at Sutter."
When Jon finally looks up, his eyes are shining with unshed tears. "Why? Why
someone who's probably older than your dad?"
That makes Ben laugh. It is a thoroughly unpleasant sound right now. "You're
asking me why I love you. Fuck..." He sits in the chair again and folds his
arms on the table, and then drops his head to them. "Because it doesn't matter.
Because I do, that's all. Give me a better reason." He can't stand it; Jon's
self deprecation makes Ben want to grab Jon and shake him and yell, but if he
did that, he'd throw himself into Jon's arms and kiss him, and God only knows
what would happen then. Ben couldn't stand the humiliation.
Jon's voice shakes as he speaks again. "I...I meant it that night. I...should
have said something on New Year's but...I was afraid. I'm so sorry."
Ben goes very still, as though if he moves now, he would frighten away Jon's
words. "Don't be sorry," he says, into the table, his head still down. "Just
love me now."
"I never stopped. I never will."
Ben's head comes up and he stares. He's terrified. If Jon walks away now, Ben
won't have any reason to hope for him any more, and it would have been better
if he'd never come. He doesn't want to ask, really--he's too afraid of the
answer. He's too afraid of having to start all over again with this process of
desperately turning his thoughts away from Jon. But he asks anyway, unable to
keep himself from it.
"Then--will you--" He swallows hard. "Can I--see you?"
Jon bites his lip. "It's...it's complicated. But in the end, it's up to you."
 
"Jon, goddammit, it's up to you, too. Tell me what you want." Ben looks away,
then back again, and he knows even though he never takes a stand for himself,
he has to do it now. He can't stand watching Jon beat himself over the head
with them, alternating between I can't be what you want and Whatever you want,
Ben. "I'm not chasing after you if it's not going to get us anywhere."
"I want you to be happy. I want you to have a life. If I'm part of that life,
If I make you happy...that's what I want."
Ben gets up again. His chest aches with the end of everything he's mourned for
for the past three months. All he's ever wanted in anyone is about to walk
away, and Ben's going to let him.
"You--you can't just want what I want, Jon. It doesn't work like that, and you
know it." He wants to expound on that, talk about how he knows that better than
anyone. His world revolved around Jon, Jon was everything to him--his art, his
sex drive, his laughter, his fear--and since then, he's had to learn he can't
allow that kind of power to anyone. He can't have Jon as everything anymore--
but that Jon might choose not to be anything to Ben is just too sharp a pain to
consider right now.
He puts his apron over his head and ties it. There's one more shot here, and
Jon probably won't take it, but Ben has to give it anyway. He pulls a small
order notebook out of a pocket of the apron and scribbles his number on the
sheet on top. "I've got to go back to work now. If you decide you want me in
your life because you do..." He puts the paper on the table in front of Jon,
turns away, and heads inside. He doesn't know how he's going to finish his
shift; he wishes they had a Zoloft you could stick under your tongue and suck
on, something that would work right now and dull him past caring that Jon has
made up his mind in the wrong direction.
But softly, quickly, Jon's voice cuts through the fog. "I want you in my life,
Ben."
Ben stops almost at the door, waiting. His heart is slamming against his
ribcage.
"When do you get off work? I'd like to take you out to dinner."
Ben turns around. He stares a moment. The relief, an almost alien feeling these
days, is huge. It bursts onto his face in a great, huge grin. "Ten. I get off
at ten."
Jon nods. "I'll see you then." Ben's smile...Jon is nearly overwhelmed by it
after having spent such a long time being sure he'd never see it again.
They look at one another for what seems like a very long time before Ben's
elation is almost too much to bear; he can't stop thinking of the things he
wants to do right here, right now, and damn ten o'clock. But he finally turns
away, still unable to stop grinning irrepressibly, and goes back to work.
For the first time in months, Jon smiles a smile that reaches his eyes.
***** Chapter 66 *****
Jon experiences a flutter of nervousness as he pulls into the fifteen-minute
zone in front of Coffee Works. He didn't want their first meal out together to
be like this; when he'd thought about it in the past, his mind had always
suggested a fantastic brunch somewhere nice. Preferably after comfortable
morning sex.
But it can't be helped, and already his mind is running through restaurant
possibilities. Ten at night is late and most of the places he wants to take Ben
to are already closed or closing. Streets of London serves until eleven, he
thinks and then realizes that it's a pub. Oh, not that they'd card Ben unless
he tried to order something alcoholic, but still...
And then Ben is there, moving forward, opening the door, and sliding into the
small car with the neat economy of movement Jon has missed so much. He's
dressed in those ridiculously baggy jeans and an anarchy t-shirt, his hair is
too long, and he smells of cigarettes and coffee.
"Hi."
Jon has to remind himself to breathe as he stares.
"God, you look good," Jon blurts. He can't help it; his hands reaches out
tentatively to brush aside Ben's long sweep of bangs.
"So do you," Ben says, not moving away. In fact he's leaning in closer, his
face a little hesitant as he does.
Jon responds, still feeling oddly tentative, and Ben smiles, closing the
distance between them to place a soft kiss -- a mere brush of lips -- on Jon's
mouth.
"Missed you," Jon murmurs against Ben's lips. "So much."
Ben whimpers a little and cups the side of Jon's neck, kissing him for real
this time, mouth open and hungry. Jon leans in as well, responding with his own
hunger, and now Ben is making those little noises in the back of his throat,
the ones that have always driven Jon wild.
And then the noises Ben is making change, and Jon pulls back when he realizes
Ben is crying. "Hey," he says softly, stroking Ben's face. "It's OK, Ben. It's
OK." He tries to pull Ben close, but the little Fiat was not made for this sort
of thing.
Ben blinks, the tears already fading. "Don't...." He pauses to clear his
throat, his hand sliding up Jon's arm as if he's afraid to lose contact. "Don't
leave me again ... please...."
Jon almost says, "Not unless you ask me to," but realizes that Ben won't want
to hear that now. To be fair, it isn't really what Jon wants to say anyway,
just what he thinks he should say. "I won't."
"I missed you, Ben says, pulling back a little but still not letting go of
Jon's arm. "I couldn't stand it ... couldn't stop thinking about you."
"Yeah me too, Jon replies, nodding. "I thought about you all the time. I tried
not to, but...." He shrugs a little helplessly, and Ben nods, relaxing a
little.
"So," Jon says, his mind turning to the practicalities of the moment. "Are you
hungry? I think my housesitter's a vegan, so there's food there, but it's not
much. There are a couple of good places still open this late on a weeknight, we
could go to Tower, or maybe Hamburger Mary's, or...." He pauses because Ben is
grinning at him, and there's something terribly irresistible about that grin.
"Or we could go to the house and eat at Carrow's later."
Ben catches his breath as he nods eagerly. "The house. Let's go to the house."
"We could do that, sure," Jon replies, knowing Ben won't catch the reference
and not caring. He glances at Ben. "Uh Ben? I can't drive stick with only one
hand."
"Sorry," Ben says, still grinning. He's not at all sorry and Jon can see that
as he settles for a quick caress of Ben's hand before he lets out the parking
brake.
"We're gonna have to talk, you know," he says a moment later. "Seriously, I
mean." He remembers that Ben used the past tense when talking about being at
Sutter, and realizes he has no idea of Ben's situation now. "Um ... is anyone
expecting you to be somewhere after work?"
"No." Ben shakes his head. "I mean, my roommates aren't gonna worry." He
suddenly looks a little more serious and maybe even nervous, although it's hard
to tell in the faint glow of the dash lights.
"Oh good," Jon replies, grateful that at least they don't have to worry about
any schedule other than Ben's work schedule. He doesn't know how to respond to
the nervousness, and so he reaches out quickly and brushes Ben's faces with his
fingers before he has to shift.
"I'm not going to try to talk you out of this," he explains, as he makes the
turn onto his street. "I'm sorry I did that earlier, it's just ... I want you
to be happy. You deserve it."
Ben's reply is soft. "So do you." He looks away, his smile almost gentle. "I
want to us make each other happy."
It's unexpectedly touching and Jon has to swallow before he replies. "I'd like
that. A lot." He pulls up into his driveway and climbs out of the car, leading
Ben to the front door and talking all the while.
"The housesitter -- Crystal -- kept it clean and I did laundry, but like I said
there's not a lot of food I'd feel like eating, and she doesn't drink alcohol
or sodas. I think there's some sort of weird ginger-flavored lemonade with
echinacea in it and a few gluten-free cookies...."
Ben is grinning again as he follows Jon onto the porch. Once the door is closed
behind them, he proves that he still remembers how to shut Jon up, all but
slamming the larger man against the closed door and kissing him hard.
***** Chapter 67 *****
"God."
Ben stares around Jon's bedroom, stunned to be looking at it again, and he has
a surreal, momentary flash of fear that he will wake up now, hand down his
pajamas and crying into his pillow. He looks at Jon, who is grinning,
misunderstanding the reason for Ben's shock.
"Yeah, I know," he shrugs a little, "I just hope it was all-natural, organic,
fair-trade, small-farmer dope, because she sure smoked a lot of it." Before Ben
can even process that, Jon is tugging the anarchy shirt off and dropping it on
the floor.
Ben laughs suddenly for about six reasons; in spite of everything, it's like
they were never separated. Ben still sees flashes of that haunted look. It's
coming fewer and farther between, though, as though sometimes Jon thinks he
must be dreaming, too, but that feeling is fading. No dream of Ben's has ever
smelled so thick with organic fair-trade pot.
"That's not what I meant," Ben grins, "but... yeah." He laughs again and pulls
Jon close, too in love with the feel of his mouth, too excited about tasting
him again to bother worrying about waking up any more.
Jon's hands slide up and roam over Ben's back. "God, you feel good," he
breathes, when he can stand to pull back from the hungry kisses.
"So do you," is all Ben can think to reply. He keeps wanting to say, over and
over, how much he missed Jon, but he knows that's well and truly obvious by
now. Those long, warm hands slide down the back of Ben's pants, into the
waistband to cup Ben's ass, and it's just so good. So good to stand here and
get kissed into complete senselessness, held close against Jon's body like
this, clinging. Somehow, clothing starts to come off. Ben is desperate to
manage this without breaking the groaning kisses, and Jon's working at it, too.
It's a tangle of arms and legs and falling laundry until they're naked, and Jon
is staring.
"You've been working out?" he asks, and he passes a hand over Ben's chest, no
longer as slender as it used to be.
"Some," Ben murmurs, a little flushed, a little proud. "At Sutter." He thinks
to tell Jon about all the extracurricular stuff they were made to do, things he
hated, things like pitching hay for farmers and harvesting the early
strawberries and riding horses, but now, those things aren't nearly so hateful
with Jon looking at him like that.
"Looks good on you," Jon smiles a little, and then his eyes get a starved,
startled look to them, and before Ben can even think about things like irony
and the poetry of fate, Jon is dropping to his knees and tugging Ben close by
the hips.
"Have to...now..." Jon gasps just before his mouth closes over Ben's cock
completely.
Eyes wide and shocked, Ben sucks in a harsh breath and yelps Jon's name; his
hands find Jon's hair. He is immediately groaning and shaking, immediately on
the edge. Jon is sucking strongly, his tongue quick and firm. His hands tighten
on Ben's ass, almost kneading. He manages three, maybe four passes over Ben's
erection before Ben is crying out raggedly on nearly every breath. Ben shudders
and lets out another hard yelp as climax slams through him, a real orgasm that
begins both in the base of his spine and the bottom of his feet, not the weak,
desperate one he gave himself a million years ago, this morning, whispering
Jon's name. He doesn't even realize his hands have fisted themselves in Jon's
hair, and Jon doesn't seem to care.
Jon stays with him, swallowing, and then when he pulls back, his mouth is still
slick with Ben's come. "Want you..." He pulls a condom and lube out of a
partially unpacked bag and moves with Ben to the bed. "Wanna see your face."
Ben lies down on his back, spreading his legs, opening his arms, impatient for
the requisite condom application to be done, and then Jon is pushing fingers
inside him steadily, one after another. Jon takes such great care, and Ben is
nearly sobbing with the pleasure of it.
"Love you...love you," Jon is chanting breathlessly, staring down as he works
his hand. The frenetic need is almost palpable on the air between them, but Jon
is forcing himself to stay calm and careful.
"Love you--Jon, please, please, now--" Ben's hips angle up of their own
volition and he shudders as he tries to pull Jon down, closer, into him.
Jon's last reserve is breaking. "You sure--?" he barely manages. "Don't want to
hurt you...ever again...." But he's pulling his hand away, trusting Ben, and
oh, God, he wants it so badly...
Curling upward to kiss Jon hard, Ben arches again and moans, "You can't. Just--
please--now."
"Oh, God." Jon moves into position and seems faintly amazed that he can hold it
together long enough to get just inside Ben, let alone sheath himself
completely. Ben's quick breathing and lost, desperate moans are nearly enough
to push Jon right over. "Oh, yeah," Jon groans. "Oh, fuck yeah."
All Ben can think is more, harder, faster while he tugs at Jon's hips, shoving
his own up harder.
Managing one last token, moaning protest about making it last, Jon gives up and
starts fucking Ben the way they both need him to. The room is soon filled with
the slap of skin on skin and the rasping, hungry noises that come of having
been alone too long, and then they're both coming, Jon driving into Ben with
starved finality, and Ben managing two strokes on his own cock before he
follows along, crying out Jon's name.
Gasping, Jon stills, then rolls to one side, pulling Ben with him. He kisses
Ben's face, over and over, cheeks, nose, eyelids, forehead, murmuring, "Love
you...love you..."
Ben finally catches Jon's face and kisses him hard, as though they haven't just
come hard enough to break the bed, and Ben twice.
"Love you," Ben whispers. "Always, Jon. Always."
And Jon looks at him happily, brushing that lock of hair off Ben's forehead.
"Always," he sighs thoughtfully. "I like the sound of that."
"Good." Ben smiles and closes his eyes, hugging Jon tightly.
Jon, for his part, would be content to lie there with Ben in his arms all
night, sticky, hot, and sated, but then his stomach growls. He laughs quietly
and shakes his head. "Uh. Sorry about that. Too nervous to eat earlier."
Suddenly it strikes Ben that they have all the time in the world, now, to lie
together and sleep, and he, like any young man, can always eat.
"Carrow's?" he smiles.
Jon grins widely. "Yeah." And then his eyes go semi-distant in that way that
always heralds a rambling monologue. "Too bad their corned beef hash and eggs
are so greasy," he begins, but then catches himself, a little embarrassed. "Uh,
I try not to do that too much, but Xani always said it was like eating with a
restaurant critic."
Ben swallows. "I don't care," he says softly.
Not noticing the sudden intensity in Ben's eyes, Jon shakes his head, laughing
with that signature self-deprecation. "Stick around, and you probably will."
But even knowing Ben may grow irritated with the same things Xani always did,
Jon can't be shaken down from the sheer joy of thinking Ben just might stick
around after all.
***** Chapter 68 *****
Jon's been awake for about twenty minutes or so. Quietly awake, propped up on
one elbow watching Ben sleep. It's a sight he never thought to see again, and
unlike the wild glee of last night, it fills him with a quiet contentment.
His stomach rumbles and he thinks of waking Ben up, but he can't just yet. They
didn't go out to eat last night. Instead, Jon rummaged in his cupboards and
came up some ramen to which he added some frozen broccoli. Ben laughed when Jon
apologized for something so banal, but he was laughing with Jon, and so it was
all good.
And now Ben is murmuring softly and blinking against the quiet morning light of
the bedroom, and it's all more than good. Jon says nothing, choosing to bend
and kiss Ben instead. Ben kisses him back eagerly, and Jon slides one hand down
Ben's body and over his hip. Stroking Ben's cock as he comes up for air, he
murmurs, "Mmmmm ... nice."
Ben's only answer is to gasp sharply as he angles his hips, moving his cock
into Jon's hand. Jon smiles, and then bends to nip lightly at Ben's neck.
Ben arches again, moaning. "God ... missed you...."
"Missed you in the mornings," Jon mumbles against Ben's neck. "OK," he admits,
still stroking Ben's cock, "all the damn time."
"All the time," Ben echoes. He's moving with Jon's rhythm now, and it's Jon's
turn to moan when Ben's hand moves to tease at his nipples. He rolls then,
moving them until Ben is lying on top of him, their erections hot against each
other.
Ben starts to rock his hips, and Jon runs his hands over Ben's ass. It's real
now, so very real, and he knows he's not going to wake up in Beth's guest
bedroom with his own hand on his cock and an aching sense of loss.
"Want you," Ben moans, and Jon's not sure if he just wants this, or wants Jon
to fuck him, or even if Ben wants to fuck Jon. Not that it matters; Jon's
inclined to give Ben whatever he wants.
"I'm right here," he says, the words trailing off in a gasp as Ben thrusts
against him yet again..
Ben moves off to get a condom from the drawer in the nightstand, and Jon
shivers as Ben gently rolls the thin latex over his cock. Ben looks at the lube
and then hands it to Jon, obviously feeling a little awkward at the idea of
prepping himself.
That image -- Ben readying himself for sex like that -- stays with Jon as he
slicks his fingers up and carefully works one into Ben. It's a terribly hot
idea, but it'll happen when Ben is ready. Jon is content to wait.
"Not too sore from last night?" he asks.
Ben's low "No," as he rocks back onto Jon's hand is more a moan than an actual
word, and Jon rushes it a bit, guiding Ben into place over him as quickly as he
can.
"Oh yeah," he groans, watching that intense look on Ben's face as Ben takes him
in. "Oh God that's good."
His face still serious, Ben nods shakily and reaches down with one hand to
brush Jon's cheek. Unable to help himself, Jon turns his head and sucks two of
Ben's fingers into his mouth, causing Ben to gasp loudly and move harder on
Jon's cock.
Jon smiles wickedly around Ben's fingers and lavishes attention on them,
working them as he would work Ben's cock. Ben is staring at him avidly and
biting his lower lip in a way Jon never tires of seeing. When Ben's other hand
moves unsteadily to stroke his cock, Jon realizes that this is yet another
thing he'll never get tired of seeing, and he stares at Ben almost as if he's
starving.
"Fuck ... Jon ... close," Ben manages to get out, his voice hoarse. He's moving
hard on Jon's cock, and Jon is pretty close to the edge himself.
"Yeah," he mumbles around Ben's fingers, unwilling to let them slide from his
mouth for even an instant. "Oh fuck yeah ... show me...."
Ben throws his head back when he comes, his body arched beautifully, his breath
one long, ragged moan. Jon holds himself back to watch it all, and then, when
Ben slumps over him, he thrusts into him hard several times before he finally
comes.
It's so perfect and so good to slowly come back from an orgasm to Ben's mouth
on his. "God," Ben whispers in between kisses. "Oh God...."
"I love you," Jon says, wrapping long arms around Ben and holding him close.
Saying it is better than the sex, or watching Ben sleep, and Ben's happy sigh
makes Jon vow to say it often.
"I love you too, Jon."
Jon stretches a little, aware of the way they're sticking together just a bit.
He glances at the window, where the morning light is shining even stronger
through the curtains.
Ben doesn't have to go home, Jon thinks as he strokes Ben's back. I don't have
to make sure he has bus fare before he walks out the door. I don't have to
spend the rest of the day worrying about what his mother might say when he gets
home.
He grins widely. "You want a shower and then breakfast? It's a gorgeous morning
and I thought we could walk up to the 33rd Street Bistro.
"Yeah, that sounds great," Ben replies, tilting his head to look up at Jon.
I could get used to this, Jon thinks as they finally leave the bed and head to
the shower. So easily....
***** Chapter 69 *****
Ben lies comfortably on his side, watching Jon sleep. It's warm up here in the
attic--it's more like a loft, really--but Ben is too excited to sleep. He
watches the sun shine through the skylights, casting yellow beams through the
dust motes.
They're dating now. They're officially dating. Breakfast was...God, it was so
much more than just breakfast. Ben learned a lot there. He learned that challah
is a good thing. He learned that there really is something to seven-dollar
French toast. And salmon for breakfast. And the luxury of having a whole day
stretching out in front of him with no one to account himself to. And walking
in the sun with someone who was, not too long ago, forbidden to him--that is
the best of all.
Jon told him he'd fantasized about something as simple as a meal shared in
public for a long time. Just... time together that wasn't furtive or rushed.
And now, lying here warm and sated, Ben thinks about the things Jon's told him.
About how Randy's going to be here, Jon's niece Randy. About how she's spending
the summer until Jon can get her situated at El Dorado with a swim coach who
can challenge her.
About how Jon said it would be different, but Randy's parents know that Jon
isn't going to put his life on hold anymore.
So Ben and Jon are dating.
Jon bought Ben's breakfast. They traded bites at a table by a window in public.
It's still making Ben smile.
But not as much as what Jon gave him for his birthday.
"Xani had this thing about wanting space to work in. Lighting, you know, and
quiet. He was very adamant about it. Did you know this door was here? Look."
And he opened a door Ben really hadn't known was there at all and led Ben
through it, up stairs--and here.
"He used to work up here. He'd set his tripod up right here and get his models
to lie down there--" He pointed to this bed, right here. This little pallet
they're on right now. Jon went on for a little while, explaining how Xani had
everything set up, where the best lighting is at various times of the day, how
Xani loved this place because he never had to filter for light, he'd just wait
a little while until the sun moved.
Ben listened, nodding, just liking the sound of Jon rambling happily on, until
Jon turned to him, right in the middle of the floor, and said, "Happy birthday,
Ben."
Stunned, Ben looked around. "What--you're--this?" For a split second, he
thought it sounded ungrateful or doubtful, but the look in Jon's eyes when he
stepped closer reassured Ben immediately.
"I want you to have a place to come to," Jon murmured, cupping the side of
Ben's face in one large hand while the other brushed his hair back off of his
forehead. "To draw. Or paint. Whatever." And he pointed to a trunk. In the
trunk were art supplies.
Now Ben looks at Jon, large and warm, sprawled out comfortably in a sunbeam
like a great big cat. There's a sheet barely covering Jon's hips and a bite
mark on his shoulder; Ben has a dark bruise on the side of his neck, too. He
shifts a little, smiling faintly at the ache he missed so much.
Lying here in the sun with Jon is rich and simple, both. To celebrate, he moves
carefully off the bed to the trunk and pulls out a soft lead pencil and a
drawing pad. He starts off sketching Jon, but it ends up being Djinn and the
boy, whose name no longer matters so much. They're standing on their hill,
looking into the sunset. In the distance is another city, like nothing Ben has
ever drawn them in before. And just overhead is the faintest sketch of a face.
A ghost. Smiling.
-end-
End Notes
     Originally, this was written as a The Phantom Menace AU, but you can
     also read it as a Liam Neeson/Ewan McGregor RPF AU or even as
     original fiction if you prefer.
Please drop_by_the_archive_and_comment to let the author know if you enjoyed
their work!
