Every Time I Think of You (15 page)

The next day, at my insistence, Holly accompanied me to visit with Everett. I sat close to his bed, touching and holding hands for a while, since I was comfortable in her presence to do so. It was also relaxing to simply listen to their inside jokes and family stories. There were no awkward pauses, fewer longing glances, and I actually felt more comfortable.

The truth was, I had begun to consider whether I had to let him go, and if so, how to do that.

Chapter 23

Despite their suggestions, I wasn’t wicked. I didn’t return Kevin’s phone call a few days later. I waited.

Dad pestered me when I cancelled a planned visit to Temple University. He had the long drive all planned out. I told him I was just going to apply sight unseen, although I was still unsure. I couldn’t pass up a weekend when I wanted to see Everett.

My two subsequent Saturday hospital visits became a regular pattern, until Everett said that he would be brought home. When he called on a Tuesday night, telling me he had finally been moved home the day before, I almost dropped the phone to run and see him. But he warned me.

“You have to be careful,” he said, his voice soft. “My mom’s not leaving the house much, and Helen’s swooping down on the hour, plus I have this, ow, nurse.”

“Why not? Daytime’s better. Can you get out of school tomorrow? Helen’s gonna be out shopping, and Mother’s got some meeting with the club. Weekends they’re all over me. The relatives have just been crawling out of the woodwork.”

“You want me to–”

“Yes, brainiac. I want you to sacrifice an afternoon of abiding among the lower creatures at your inferior learning institution, make up an excuse, and come visit me, alone.”

The plan was simple, or so I was told. First, check for cars. If the kitchen door was locked, Everett told me to try the back garage door. If that failed, he was going to ask that a window in the converted office be opened just a crack. He would complain of his new room being stuffy. Friday afternoons were his nurse’s day off. Provided both Mrs. Forrester and Helen were out, as Everett promised, I would have three options for my little crime of permitted breaking and entering.

Getting out of school was almost too easy. I lied to my fifth period U.S. History teacher about having a headache, and on the way to the nurse’s office, ducked into the boy’s room and patted my forehead with some hot water. While her thermometer revealed no anomalies, I made a valiant effort of acting dizzy, and the indifferent nurse gave me a note to take to the principal’s office, whereupon I was told I could either walk the three blocks home or await my mother’s return call.

A gray rain spattered down over the parking lot. My walk across it left me uneasy. Why hadn’t I pulled a stunt like this before? Perhaps because I had no reason, no one like Everett to inspire me.

I could deal with my mother’s confusion later and either confess my activities or continue to feign some vague illness. Turning past the block that led to the strip of forest, I stepped through the woods and the muddy remnants of the recent downpour, until I once again walked along the street to his stately home.

Trying to appear nonchalant in his neighborhood, with a clear sense of purpose, I warily glanced around for any neighbors. Thankfully, there were none, and the back kitchen door was open. I spied a window slightly opened, but would have had to find some sort of footstool to reach it and make such a dramatic entrance.

The counter top and kitchen table were spotless. Helen must have been out. My boots were coated in mud, so I quickly removed them, leaving them on the porch.

Classical music played softly in a nearby room. I walked toward it, through the living room where delicate vases, objects and family portraits sat on tables and mantles.

In the office, a white-sheeted hospital bed with a metal frame held Everett’s frail body. His eyes were closed. He seemed to be sleeping, despite the music, until I approached.

What had once been his father’s office, with traditional dark green walls and wooden wainscoting, had been converted into a makeshift bedroom. Stripped of its previous furniture except a few chairs, a table was stacked with small boxes of medical supplies. Posters I recognized from Everett’s room had been tacked up on the walls in a hasty effort at familiarity.

“
Cogito, ergo doleo
.”

“It’s only been a week.” I held his gaze. He looked pale in some places, and flushed with a fever or a rash in others. His arms lost their tight grip, but held on.

“Do I get a kiss?”

“Oh,” I mumbled, and leaned in. He didn’t taste quite right, and his mouth was dry. But we kissed, and my desire stirred, cautiously, as if it were unsure how to express itself to him.

In the hospital, I’d touched him so delicately, but here in private, his upper mobility having returned a bit, I felt him reach under my coat for skin, and we continued kissing, me bent over. I resisted, then felt his hand guiding me toward him, under a T-shirt, under the sheet, his warm stomach rising and falling with his breath.

“Don’t start crying. I’ve been faking taking those damn pain pills for days so I could actually feel something, just waiting for you. Nobody’s touched me at all, except to wipe my ass or poke needles in me. I need you.”

His hand insistently grabbed for my crotch. Shocked, and a little turned on by the now familiar furtive nature of the situation, I relented.

There would be plenty of time for simple caresses and longing glances. But right then, like that urgent moment when we’d first met, I simply wanted him, and he seemed determined to defy any impossibility.

My reach downward between Everett’s legs was brushed away. “It doesn’t know what it’s doing. Besides, if I take the tube out, I’ll piss all over.”

With another insistent grab, my belt open, my pants shucked down to my knees, I sidled closer to the bed, leaning in as Everett enveloped his lips around my erection.

“Mmm. I missed this.”

For a moment, I had to close my eyes and pretend it was the old Everett, the whole Everett. I felt guilty, but it wasn’t as if I was mentally cheating on him.

I thrust closer, allowing him easier access. He grabbed my balls with one hand, cupping a butt cheek with his other, pushing me closer. The cold metal bed frame banged against my knees.

“What if we just–”

His mouth full, he grunted disagreement, yanking my dick closer. I pushed my hips forward as he slurped with a determined hunger.

But still, the confusion and impulses of pure lust combined in a strange way. The music continued, too loud for us to hear the car, the door, and the footsteps.

That time, it was Diana Forrester who got an eyeful of my ass thrusting into the face of her son.

Chapter 24

At least I hadn’t brought a BB gun.

I stewed silently as Diana Forrester demanded that I remind her of my home address and when the soonest possible time would be to “have a serious talk” with my parents, to lecture them on “morals.”

The image of her storming the home of Kevin Muir, as in his tale, had clouded my mind as I pulled up my pants. She was enacting the same outrage, the same pattern of “protecting” her son from bad influences; he, the tempter, who had convinced me to skip school, enter their home like a thief, all for a quick blow job. He, the boy who connived my parents into letting me drive into Pittsburgh for drug deals and museum debauchery. He, the victim.

Shouting me out toward her front door, despite Everett’s profanity-laden protests from his room, and my stuttered pleading that I retain my boots at the opposite kitchen door, Mrs. Forrester confusedly re-aimed her vitriol while leading me through the kitchen, assuring me that she would be “paying a visit” to my home within the hour.

I had to be fast.

Running was my strong suit, just not in mud-clotted boots, a wet parka, and a case of blue balls.

When I clomped into the house through the garage, Mom was in the middle of what appeared to be re-arranging the living room furniture as one of her old Tom Jones albums blasted away on the stereo. A vacuum cleaner stood alone in the middle of it all.

Having already done the whole coming out talk, at least via Dad, it rolled out in a burst. I explained how Everett had called, begged me to sneak in and visit him, and one thing led to another, and we had been caught.

We hastily replaced the chairs and sofa to a semblance of their original positions. We sat silently, waiting, until my mother sighed, “This is absurd,” and left for the kitchen to prepare dinner.

Eventually, a Mercedes-Benz rolled up the driveway.

The moment Mom opened the door, Mrs. Forrester stormed in, peeled off her coat, as if she expected my mother to take it, which she did, then parked herself down on the sofa and started off with a fuming speech.

By the time my mom had calmed her down enough to quiet her repeated threats of “pressing charges,” I began to wish I had brought a BB gun.

“It’s a very serious condition for people with spinal cord injuries. Over-stimulation of any kind, particularly that which you …” Mrs. Forrester rolled her eyes in disgust. “The symptoms are high blood pressure, headaches and, the point is, it can be life-threatening. Your son could have given him a stroke!”

Stunned, I didn’t know what to say, but I was determined to do some research as soon as possible and find out if Mrs. Forrester was right.

“I need your assurance that this will never happen again,” she insisted, as if those were the new lowered, non-litigious terms of the treaty.

“You know, my son– I’m sorry, Reid, but I’m going to be blunt here– my son didn’t start acting funny until he met your son. It’s too bad you haven’t noticed, but they’ve been dating for, well, pretty much all year. Everett and he send letters and talk on the phone all the time. They enjoy each other’s company, and I don’t see how Everett’s accident should–”

“Are you supposing that–”

“I’m not supposing,” my mother cut in. “I’m observing. I haven’t seen my son this happy in years. What if they … cooled things off and promised not to be so … active.”

If I thought getting caught mid-sex twice with Everett was embarrassing enough, this topped it by a long shot; our mothers discussing our sexual activity like two angry pet owners in a dog park.

I’d lost track of the argument, my ears clouded over by remembering the sight of Everett’s face flushing, his breath shortening, thinking a mere act of fellatio could be fatal.

“Well, this is exactly what I mean,” Mrs. Forrester said.

“What do you mean?” And then that sigh of my mom’s told me that she had really had enough. This was the reason for those years of sarcastic casseroles. This was the reason she had so few friends. This was the reason, a few years earlier, that she laughed the entire time we all went to see
The Stepford Wives
.