CHAPTER fifteen

 

Mac

Tonight was the night. Sex with Gideon.

I am having sex with Gideon.

They started off with kissing on Mac’s bed, as per usual. Mac melted under Gideon’s lips. He loved that they could joke and talk with each other, and then segue into making out and getting handsy without any awkward transition. It was so natural.

Like we’re a couple?

He pushed the thought out of his head. He didn’t want to think about anything tonight. That’s how Gideon rolled. Mac saw him live in the moment when they were together. He didn’t want to use his brain tonight except to remember to roll on the condom. Tomorrow, he was getting on a bus back to Pittsburgh to be by his aunt’s side when she went into surgery. He was probably going to see his parents for the first time in years. Unless they didn’t show up. With them, Mac never knew. They didn’t even come to his high school graduation.

There was another thought he didn’t need to think right now.

Mac massaged Gideon’s leg, then his inner thigh. Gideon didn’t push his hand away. He leaned back and got comfortable. Mac went for the crown jewels. Gideon let out a low moan, a green light if Mac ever saw one.

He stroked Gideon through his pants. Mac loved seeing Gideon lose it, his cool demeanor slipping away the more turned on he got.

Gideon took off his pants, and Mac took him in his mouth. His own cock got hard when Gideon grabbed the back of his head. Mac touched himself with his free hand as Gideon moaned louder. Mac went down to his base, fitting all of Gideon inside his mouth. He kept thinking about the epic rimjob Gideon had given him. Thinking about that day motivated him to suck harder, knowing how good they could be together.

“Just like that, baby,” Gideon said, which sent Mac into hyperdrive.

He stroked and sucked as if his life depended on it, all so he could hear whatever came out of Gideon’s mouth next. He slipped a finger inside Gideon’s tight ass, which was warm and welcoming.

“Stop,” Gideon said. “Don’t do that.”

“Are you sure? You don’t sound sure.”

“Stop, please,” Gideon gasped out. “I don’t want to do that.”

“Not even to play? I’m not asking you to bottom.”

Gideon gave him the headshake equivalent to hell no.

“Okay.” Mac removed his finger. He didn’t get it. Gideon seemed very intrigued by pegging during their initial conversation. Now, he was primed and had the chance. Stupid straight guy logic. Or “straight” guy in Gideon’s case.

Mac got on his knees, giving him better leverage with Gideon’s dick. He held Mac’s hair and fucked his face. Mac found it a little uncomfortable, but hearing Gideon groan his enjoyment, he soon found the pleasure.

Gideon removed his dick from Mac’s mouth. “Let’s have sex, baby.”

“You ready?” Mac asked. He knew that wasn’t the brightest question to ask. What man would second-guess having sex?

“Yeah. Why don’t you climb on top of me?”

Mac stood up, but then he paused. Gideon’s hell no headshake stuck in his craw. “You seemed really into pegging when you found Big—my toy. We can do some foreplay. Gay sex doesn’t have to be so monotonous and boring as straight sex. We can shake things up.” Mac reached for the nightstand drawer, but Gideon pushed it shut.

“No. I’m not letting Big Bird or anything else in there.”

“Okay.” Mac rolled his eyes. Gideon’s stubbornness was getting on his nerves. It seemed that experimentation was only one-sided. “Maybe I can rim you.”

“No.” Gideon sighed with annoyance. “Fine. How about I rim you, and you blow me.”

The night had turned into a flea market transaction. Mac wasn’t going to haggle for sex. He put his clothes back on, and Gideon quickly followed.

“Why are you so afraid of having anything down there?” Mac asked. “Scared that you’ll like it?”

“This isn’t easy for me like it is for you.”

“This isn’t easy for me, either. I’m nervous, but I feel better knowing this is all happening with a friend, with someone I trust and care about.”

Mac averted his eyes. He did not mean for those last two words to come out. They were on their own mission. This is what happens when I turn my brain off. The filter shuts off, too. Mac waited for Gideon to respond, for him to say that he trusted his friend, that he cared about Mac.

“I’m still hungry.” Gideon went to the kitchen and fished around for food in the cabinets. Mac stormed after him.

“This is horseshit,” Mac said. “Typical straight guy horseshit.”

“Did you eat all the saltines?” Gideon didn’t look at him. He focused on foraging. Classic Gideon avoidance that made Mac want to scream.

“Fuck the saltines, Gideon. You can’t be the only one calling the shots in this…whatever it is. You think that if you don’t bottom, then you’re not doing anything gay? Well, guess what: kissing a guy and jerking him off and letting him blow you are pretty standard homosexual acts. You can categorize and compartmentalize in your head all you want, but those are the cold, hard facts.”

Gideon found a sleeve of Ritz crackers hiding in the back of a shelf. “Perfect.”

Mac ripped them out of his hand, crunched them into a million little pieces, and shook them out all over the hardwood floor.

“What the hell has gotten into you?”

“You don’t get to just walk away from me.”

“I don’t have a say in what we get to do anymore?”

“You don’t get to have the only say,” Mac said.

Gideon acted like Mac’s words didn’t dig under his skin, which hurt more than anything he could say back. Mac was proud of standing up for himself, and so instead of having Gideon say good night, he walked away first.

Φ

Mac left for the bus station early in the morning. He tiptoed out of the apartment, when the sky still had the midnight blue of pre-dawn. A part of him hoped that Gideon would rush out, charge down the steps, and stop him on the street. But this wasn’t a movie.

The bus ride to Pittsburgh was a little over three hours. He gripped the four-leaf clover keychain the entire trip. Mac prepared for the emotional onslaught. He remembered what Gideon said. Aunt Rita would be fine. They call it benign for a reason. But a tumor was no match for the cold detachment of Mr. and Mrs. Daly. He wondered if they would even acknowledge them. Would he do the same? He stared out the window to distract him, but it was just trees and road signs. Not much help.

At the bus stop in Pittsburgh, Aunt Rita’s friend Helen waited in her Corvette. The woman was far from rich—her stuffy, old-lady-smelling two-bedroom apartment down the street from his aunt was proof of that. But when her mother passed away, she used her inheritance to buy the one thing she’d always wanted. The car she never got to have in high school. It wasn’t just a car to her, it was a new lease on life.

“Mackie!”

He blushed at the name. It was home to him.

He threw his stuff in the back seat. They gave each other a tight hug, expressing the worry and hope for Aunt Rita that words couldn’t.

“She’s doing good, Mackie. She’s going into surgery in a little bit.”

They headed to the hospital. Mac passed familiar buildings, and they gave him comfort.

At the hospital, Helen went up to the nurses station to find out if they were still allowing visitors. She worked her chatty magic. She seemed to make friends with everybody. Helen turned around and gave Mac a “follow me” nod.

Mac held her hand as they made their way down the hall. Aunt Rita was not a person who was supposed to be in a hospital. She was vibrant and had a laugh that took over a room. Thanksgiving was coming up, her favorite holiday.

“Look who I found,” Helen said.

This was not the Aunt Rita Mac wanted to remember. Part of her head was shaved. Her pale skin didn’t match the vivaciousness struggling to be known in her eyes. She smiled at Mac.

“Don’t tell me. I look awful,” she said. “Hospital gowns are not like evening gowns, I’m finding out.”

She got Mac to laugh. Well, laugh with a tear falling down his face, but her humor was like a signal that this was going to be okay.

“You look great, Aunt Rita.”

“Oh, shut up.”

He went over and kissed her on the cheek. He pulled out the keychain. “Just in case you didn’t have yours.”

She held it in her frail fingers. “Mine’s at home. I keep it in my underwear drawer. I like to think that’ll help me with my dating life.”

Helen let out a loud chortle, and Mac smiled in much-needed relief.

“Rita, what about the postman? I keep telling you he’s got a crush.”

Aunt Rita leaned close to Mac’s ear. “He has B.O.”

She kissed his keychain and handed it back. “You hold onto yours. Pull up some good luck for me.”

“I will.” He kissed it and put it back in his pocket.

“You didn’t have to miss school for this. I’ll be fine.”

“That’s what my roommate Gideon said. He said you’re a trooper, and this is nothing.”

“He sounds great. I already like him better than Davis.”

“Oh, no. He’s not my boyfriend.” Mac blushed at the mix up, though for that second, it was a nice thought.

“Rita?”

Mac froze when he heard that voice. Helen’s mouth dropped at who was behind him. His insides ran for cover. He wanted to do the same, but he balled his fists and summoned his courage. For Aunt Rita, for himself.

His parents didn’t look much different from when he last saw them. Perhaps if he took a closer look, he would see more wrinkles from age and from the hard work of the hardware store. But the rush of feelings and anger and hurt flooded his system, as if time hadn’t moved an inch.

“Hello, Cormac,” his mother said. She came over and gave him a hug, which Mac accepted and not much else.

His father nodded hello at him. They went to Aunt Rita’s side, the opposite side as their son. Aunt Rita hated talking about her condition. Mac wanted her to go into surgery in a good mood. He wanted to give her some news that he knew would make her smile.

“There’s actually this guy,” Mac told her. He glanced up at his parents, who did a silent recoil. “The new roommate. We’re friends, but I think…Well, I hope it can go somewhere. You’d like him. He’s a loud, opinionated New Yorker.”

He felt emboldened by the defiance of talking about BOYS in front of his parents. Aunt Rita supported him, and she was the star of the show today.

“So he can sneak me a good bagel.”

“And something called matzo ball soup.” Mac smiled. The spirit of Gideon was here. “He’s smart and has those black hipstery glasses.”

His parents looked away, probably wishing they could unhear this conversation.

“I’ll be wishing you luck while under anesthesia,” Aunt Rita said.

They rolled her into surgery a few minutes later. The four of them watched her go in from the hall. As soon as she was gone, and Helen went to grab a snack at the vending machine, the happy family façade crumbled. Mac’s defenses went back up to maximum strength.

“You’ve gotten so tall, Mac,” his mom said.

“Well, that’s puberty for you. You weren’t around for most of it.”

“I’ve seen pictures.”

“Pictures,” Mac said, as if that could make up for the distance, the distance they wanted. In pictures, they could tell themselves their son wasn’t gay.

“Mac, we’ve tried to invite you back for holidays,” his dad said firmly. “We even made the trip up to Pittsburgh, but you refused to see us.”

“That’s what you wanted. You wanted me gone, so I left.” Four years had passed, but the pain was as fresh as the day Aunt Rita told him he was staying with her permanently. “How’s church?” Mac asked with a snarl.

“It’s fine,” his dad said.

That was an arrow straight through the chest. “You still attend? Even though that asshole pastor and his dickface son are still there?”

“Watch your language,” his mom said. “The pastor, he’s…he’s not the man you think.”

He’s a guy on the ultimate power trip who cares more about lying for his son than doing the right thing.

“He’s a liar. We weren’t ‘roughhousing.’ You know that, I know you do.” Mac searched their eyes for an answer.

“We know,” his dad said. “The pastor was trying to protect you.”

“What?”

“We know the truth.”

Mac crossed his arms. Nerves crackled in his chest. “What did he say?”

His dad looked him square in the eye, no blinking. “You were…coming on to his son, pretty aggressively from the sounds of it.”

“He said that?”

“Justin shouldn’t have gotten violent, but you scared him and made him very uncomfortable.”

Mac almost doubled over. What kind of Twilight Zone did he leave behind in West Virginia? “You believe that?”

His parents traded looks with each other, as if to say “Yeah, of course.”

“You really believe that?”

“That’s what the pastor told us. His son was defending himself.”

“His story’s bullshit. I told you what happened four years ago! I told you the truth. He attacked me.” Mac couldn’t stop himself. Being near his parents sent his anger to scorching hot fire in record time. “You really think I would do that? I hated Justin Weeks. You just…you believe what you want to believe. Anything to stay in the good graces of Pastor Weeks.”

“Son, life is about choices. If you choose to be so open with your…lifestyle, then you need to accept the consequences.”

Mac didn’t know how to answer that without screaming at the top of his lungs, which he would not do in public. “Well, at least you didn’t have to deal with my lifestyle. You were happy I ran away. You wanted to get rid of me.”

“Mac.” His mom clasped her hands in front of her stomach, trying to stay calm. “You said horrible things to us.”

“And you were horrible parents. Some things never change.” Mac stared at the swinging OR doors. He prayed that Aunt Rita made it through okay. He thought time healed all wounds, but as he left the hospital that day, he realized that the real wounds, the real things that cut us, never healed. They just got a Band-Aid that could easily be ripped off.