Chiaroscuro (12 page)

"And, hey, maybe you'll sell some of those paintings--there are a lot of galleries in town, or places like Palo Alto or Los Gatos."

"We'll see. I've not sold any paintings for a long time, but--" Another shrug. "Haven't been painting, like I said."

Ben wanted to ask more, but people were starting to pick up stray paper plates and carry sleeping children downstairs. "It's getting late. I'm going to stay and help clean up. "

He hesitated. "If I wanted to help, too, would anyone object?"

Ben grinned again. He couldn't help it. Maybe Jamie was right about how fireworks just make you feel good--he felt fucking fantastic right now. "No one at all."

***

Cleaning up after the party took less than an hour, so many people stayed behind to help. The stronger and younger among them helped carry down folding chairs and picnic tables to various apartments, or to dump the tubs that now held mostly tepid water and a few chunks of ice. The leftover food was divvied up: a few uneaten burgers, a can or two of soda, stray raw vegetables that had gone limp from sitting out in the heat.

Jamie went back to his flat with a plate of biscuits, a Tupperware bowl of potato salad, half a bag of crisps, a plastic baggie of mixed vegetables and a carton of onion dip. No one would hear of him not being included, even though he protested he hadn't brought anything. Next time, they said cheerfully, and he nodded: next time.

He brought back Ben as well, who put his empty beer bottles into the recycling bin as Jamie put away the food. He wondered idly if he could pack Ben away somewhere, to pull out on days like this when love felt too far away to touch.

I'm in love with Micah, he thought. We're in love, we're going to live together--he just couldn't get away today.

Except.

Except.

Ben was here, Ben was available, and Ben wanted him.

Jamie leaned his forehead against the cool metal of the refrigerator a moment. "Thank you. Again. For improving my holiday immeasurably."

"Anytime. I mean that. I know I've said this before but I'm going to keep saying it until you believe me: anytime you need--" He hesitated a moment. "--a friend--come find me."

Jamie said softly, "I could use a friend right now."

"Good thing I'm here, don't you think?" He gave Jamie his cocky smile. "Preemptive comfort?" He held out his arms and Jamie stepped into them, let Ben wrap himself around him.

To Jamie's complete embarrassment, he began to cry. He stood there in Ben's arms, weeping like he hadn't for years, his face pressed to Ben's chest. Ben was warm and he smelled like cookies, and the cotton of his shirt was soft against Jamie's overheated face.

"You're okay," Ben said, rubbing Jamie's back. "You're okay."

"I'm sorry. I'm sorry."

"Don't be." Ben's voice was gentle. "It's understandable, dude. Fuck, I don't think I've ever met anybody as alone as you are."

"I'm not alone."

"Okay. That's true. You're not anymore."

After a while he calmed down but stayed standing there in Ben's arms, just letting himself be held. "I'm sorry," he said again in a muffled voice.

"Don't be. It's okay. I swear it's okay." He stroked a hand through Jamie's hair. "What're friends for? C'mon." He kept his arms around Jamie and led him out of the kitchen. "Let's look at your ceiling."

They lay down in his bed and kicked off their shoes. Jamie laid his head on Ben's shoulder and slowly exhaled.

"Yeah," Ben said after a few silent minutes. "I'm definitely going to have you do something like this for me. It makes me feel happy just to look at it."

Jamie smiled to himself. "Dancing cakes," he murmured. "Laughing blueberries."

"If that's what you think my ceiling needs."

"Something along those lines, at least."

Ben stroked his back, rubbed the base of his neck, touched his cheek. Jamie's breathing got slower and deeper and his eyelids started feeling heavy. "I'm going to doze off," he murmured.

"Poor worn out kid." He kissed the top of Jamie's head and started to slide out from beneath him. "I'll go so you can sleep."

Jamie caught Ben's waist and pulled him back. "Stay with me." He added at Ben's surprised expression, "Please?"

Ben smiled and lay down again, holding Jamie even closer. "Of course I'll stay."

Jamie closed his eyes, relaxing as Ben resumed stroking his back. He said, "I'm almost glad Micah didn't come. I'd still be alone tonight if he had. He wouldn't be able to stay all night."

"You don't know that."

"Oh, I do. He has to beg and make bargains and lie to stay the night with me. I don't want him to lie."

"Telling the truth isn't the easiest thing either, you know."

"I know. I know, I know." He listened to Ben's heartbeat for a while. "Tell me about your wife."

Ben laughed dryly. "Well. Okay. Her name is Tristan and we've known each other all our lives. We were neighbors growing up--we were kids together. I thought it was love. She loved me, I know that. It was so idyllic, our relationship: we lost our virginity to each other and I took her to prom and we basically grew up thinking we'd get married and have a ton of kids and everything would be just like... like normal life."

"Except for the gay thing."

"Yeah, that kind of threw me for a loop."

"So you married her out of denial?"

"Basically. Yeah. I mean, I didn't want to be gay. It didn't make any sense to me. I didn't want to wear women's clothes or mince around lisping or work in the theater--I know they're stereotypes, but I was just a kid when I was trying to figure this out.  And I just couldn't get why I wanted to fuck the football team. I didn't want to get it.

"So I got married, thinking it would settle everything. I couldn't be gay if I had a wife, you know? Except... I didn't stop wanting to fuck other men. I never slept with anyone else while we were married, at least. I'm not that big of a bastard."

Jamie's voice was soft. "When did you first have sex with a man?"

"High school. A few times before Tris and I got married. And then not again until after the annulment--and I've never looked back." Jamie nodded against his chest, fingers entwined between Ben's. Ben stroked his hair.  "How old were you?"

"Fifteen."

"Just a baby," Ben teased.

"Old enough. A little bundle of hormones, that was me at fifteen. Every time somebody I found attractive touched me I thought I'd combust."

"Everybody's like that as a teenager."

"True. Me and my best friend--Rupert, that was his name--"

"Rupert?" He quietly laughed. "English people."

"Rupert. It's a perfectly good name. Anyway, we'd sneak off to snog behind the equipment shed between classes, or go to my flat to fool around because my parents were always gone. He was the first bloke to kiss me," he added, his expression nostalgic. "The first bloke to do a lot of things to me."

"What happened?"

"His mum caught us. We weren't actually fucking but we were in bed together and just in our underpants. She came back early from some school thing for one of his sisters and threw open the door and just started screaming that I was a pervert and to get out of her house and never talk to her son again, and when I got home she'd called my parents to tell them."

Ben stroked his back, his expression somber.

After a few minutes Jamie said, "I haven't seen him since. I tried to call a few times but he never answered the phone and his family never let me talk to him. So I don't know what's happened to him. I’d like to think he's fabulously happy somewhere that's not Manchester."

"Not easy to be gay there, huh?"

"Nope. Not for kids our age, anyway. I mean, it's pretty urban and all but you have to know how to look after yourself, too. And in my school if there was even a whiff of difference about you people would set on you like hounds on a rabbit. And since I was artsy and small--" He sighed.

"You got set on."

"Yeah. And my father would tell me to fight back and I tried, and that just made it worse. If I'd been into sport instead of drawing, or even just taller... I  was so fucking glad to get out of there."

"Nothing fucks you up like childhood." He hugged Jamie closer to him.

Jamie made a soft sound. "Thanks." He kissed Ben briefly and lay his head down again.

Ben played with his hair. Ran his fingers down Jamie's jaw and along his chin, along his throat. He pulled his hand away abruptly and crooked his arm under his head. "Sorry. I keep wanting to--yeah."

Jamie opened his eyes when Ben moved his hand away, and raised his head again at Ben's words. "Keep wanting to touch me."

"Yeah. And as you keep reminding me, you're in a relationship. In love and all that."

"Yeah," Jamie whispered.

"And I like you."

He smiled and tapped his fingers on Ben's chest a moment. "You've mentioned that."

"And I don't fuck my friends."

It took Jamie a moment to realize what he meant, and then he said, "Oh," as he moved away from Ben's side.

"Hey." Ben sat up too. "Hey--Jamie--this is a good thing, right? We can be friends and the sex thing just gets--you know--put away. We don't have to think about it anymore. You know? We're just friends."

"Is that really what you want?"

Ben looked at him like he was an idiot. "No. But I am trying to respect the fact that you love that guy."

"Micah."

"Yeah, him."

"I do love him--but that hasn't stopped me from wanting you."

"Well," Ben said slowly, "then we ought to set some rules, I think. For example, my rule is I don't fuck my friends."

"So you'd rather sleep with some bloke you don't know than somebody you actually like."

"It's just sex, Jamie. It's not supposed to be meaningful."

"Oh," Jamie said again. "But you were married."

"Unhappily," he reminded him. "You can love somebody and have terrible sex with them. Or no sex at all. Who needs all that emotional garbage? I don't. I don't want it."

"I see."

"I mean, you've done it too, right? Cruising, one night stands, fucking a guy in a back room?"

"Of course I have--just not exclusively and not recently. I like being in a relationship."

Ben smoothed a wrinkle in the bedding and said nothing.

"They're not all like this," Jamie said. "Some of them--well, I'm sure there's people who have good relationships. And this will get better. Once Micah moves out of his parents' place and--well. We'll figure it out."

"Right," said Ben and gave an encouraging nod.

"So you've never been in love," Jamie said after a moment.

"Aside from Tris, no."

"That's too bad," Jamie said. Ben raised his eyebrows in curiosity and Jamie went on, "I mean, it seems to me like you've got a lot to give. You know?"

"Eight and a half inches," Ben said and smiled winningly.

"That's not what I mean and you know it."

"Well, define 'a lot,' then, Jamie. I have good sex, I'm not going to be coy about that. I like sex, I enjoy it, I'm good at it. Love is just--" He shook his head and looked away. "Love is a complication I don't want to bother with."

"Why? You don't think gay men can fall in love?"

Ben took a deep breath. "I am not self-loathing."

"Then what is it?"

"Because I don't want--" His hand swept out in an all-encompassing gesture. "This. Waiting for somebody who's not going to show up, wondering where they are, what they're doing, why they're not with you, what's more important to them. I don't believe in putting my happiness in the hands of other people."

Jamie looked at his hands. "I see."

Ben leaned over and picked up his shoes. "I'll go."

"Only if you want to," Jamie said, meeting his eyes, and Ben dropped his shoes and wrapped himself around Jamie again.

"I don't. I don't want to go."

Jamie pushed him back down, not kissing him only by an act of will, and reached over to turn out the light. "Then you're staying. We can set the alarm clock early for you--and don't worry about it waking me, I'm a heavy sleeper until I'm ready to wake up."

"Day off tomorrow." Ben got comfortable against Jamie's pillows. "I worked today and the day after holidays are always dead."

"Cool." They lay in silence for a few minutes. "Can I ask you one more favor?"

"Sure." His voice was already sleepy.

"Sing me to sleep?"

"You're the easiest date I've had in a while, Jamie," Ben said and couldn't keep the affection out of his voice. "Sing you what?"

"Anything. Something happy."

"Hm..." Ben thought a moment, then sang into Jamie's ear, "'Just give me your hand, tabhair dom do lámh. Just give me your hand and I'll walk with you, through the streets of our land, through the mountains so grand. If you give me your hand.'"

Chapter Seven

The sun was already up when Ben awoke to the sound of someone ringing the doorbell. "Jamie?" he whispered, rubbing Jamie's back, but the other man just muttered and snuggled closer to him. "Okay, I'll get rid of them." Ben got up, stretching. "I'm coming, I'm coming, have some patience," he said and opened the door to find Micah on the other side. "Oh, hey."

Micah's hand hung in the air and he blinked at Ben. "Oh. Hi. Um. Is Jamie here?"

"Yeah, he's here. He's back in the bedroom. Should I get him?"

Micah's mouth twisted and he said tightly, "Yes, please."

"Come on in." Ben moved away from the door and went back into the bedroom, sitting on the edge of the bed. Micah followed him, standing in the bedroom doorway with his arms crossed. Ben rubbed Jamie's back again. "Jamie. Wake up. It's morning-time."

Jamie mumbled again and lifted his head to blink at him blearily. "What time is it? Feels like--"

"Hi, Jamie," Micah said in a cold tone.

Jamie squinted at him. "Micah? Baby, what are you doing here?"

"I thought I'd surprise you." His eyes flicked to Ben. "I didn't think I'd surprise you this much."

"We had a sleepover last night," Ben said easily and Jamie nudged him, frowning.

"Hush." He sat up and rubbed his eyes. "You did surprise me, love. I'm happy to see you, of course. What happened last night?"