The Night Before the Wedding

I nodded. "Whenever I'm tempted to kill my sister, I remind myself she raised Kris."

Ben made a wry face. "With all due respect, I'm not sorry Mrs. Fontaineau's not going to be my mother-in-law."

"You'll get no argument from me there."

Ben's hand caressed my knee. "She sure doesn't deserve such a nice brother either."

A pang of guilt struck me at his words. I placed a hand over his. "Not so nice. I haven't been honest with you."

"About being Kris's uncle? It doesn't matter now."

I had to come clean. "There's more. Ben--remember I told you I was married? Well-I still am."

His eyes widened. "You have a wife?"

"No, no," I said as I saw the misunderstanding. "To another man. I have a partner. Have had one, for seven years."

"Oh." Ben considered this. He raised his eyebrows. "You haven't told him everything, have you?"

He was throwing the words I had used the previous evening back at me. I hung my head. "No. But I will."

Silence hung in the air. Then I felt the cool touch of his hand on my cheek.

"Tell him I seduced you. Tell him you couldn't resist my charms, no matter how hard you tried."

I raised my head and looked into his eyes, saw his gentle, ambiguous smile. "It's only the truth." I didn't know whether to laugh or cry.

"Agreed." His hand moved lower and began to pull up the hem of my T-shirt. "Let's see if I can do it again."

My hands began to unbutton the fly of his jeans, but my brain felt compelled to make a last feeble protest. "Ben, this is wrong."

"Lloyd, we'll both have the rest of our lives to repent this weekend. Let's make it one worth repenting." His kiss silenced my misgivings.

He fumbled with the pocket of his jeans and drew an object out, a brightly colored foil packet. I groaned and he laughed. "No excuses now."

Was it worth it, that last night with Ben? I don't know. All I know is that I remember.

I remember the cool pale smoothness of his skin, so different from mine. I remember the velvet of his mouth, the deep pools of his eyes, his clutching, caressing hands. The firm smooth crown of his cock bumping the back of my throat as I knelt before him, worshipping his young manhood.

I remember the darts of pleasure that shot through my body as his tongue tickled my nipple. I remember turning him on his back, lifting his legs and working my way into the dark, secret spot between his cheeks with my own tongue. How he groaned as I tasted his asshole.

He cried out when I first entered him with my sheathed cock, making me think I had hurt him. I stopped moving, but he grabbed my butt and pushed me further into him.

We switched positions and did it for a while with him on his hands and knees, me behind him watching my rod disappear between his buttocks, feeling his inner muscles squeezing and working my flesh.

I never took my eyes off his face the whole time I fucked him on his back, watching his eyes dance, a smile play across his lips, hearing him whisper obscenities that drove me to frenzy.

Finally we couldn't wait any longer. I hooked his calves over my shoulders, pressed his knees to his chest and began to drill him. Ben's hand moved rapidly on his cock. He cried out and expelled his cum in long spurts across his heaving stomach, white on white, just before my own orgasm shook me. I closed my eyes then, grunting wordlessly, every muscle in my body tensed as I delivered my load into the rubber inside him.

I fell forward onto his body, his seed gluing us together. After a while we untangled ourselves and got cleaned up. I took him in my arms and we lay together, not saying much. I ran my hands through his hair, and asked him to stay the night again. He shook his head.

"I moved to another hotel. In the morning I've got to go to the airport and see if I can change my travel plans. Kris and I won't be flying out together now, of course..."

Neither would we. "Will I see you again, Ben?" I had to work to keep my voice steady.

"I don't know, Lloyd. Doesn't seem likely somehow, does it? But who knows."

He hugged me. "I won't forget you."

It was time for him to go. He got dressed and I walked out with him, no longer caring who saw us. Outside in the parking lot I faced him. I looked at him in silence, trying to memorize every detail of his face. Then we embraced for the last time, long and hard.

"Goodbye, Lloyd."

I nodded, not trusting myself to speak, and squeezed his hand. He stepped into his car. I waved as it left the parking lot. Ben was gone.

I turned and walked back into the lobby, and stopped short. A hulking figure blocked my path. It was Jerry, my brother-in-law. From his expression it was obvious that he had followed Ben and me, and seen our farewell in the parking lot.

"Well, well, well," he said. A blast of stale alcohol hit my nostrils. "Don't you have some nerve, carrying on with that pansy right in this hotel."

He took a step toward me. I had never realized what a big man he was. I was in good shape but he had at least three inches of height and forty pounds of weight on me. Sweat began to trickle down my brow.

"Jerry, take it easy."

"No, you take it easy." I backpedaled as he continued to advance on me. "Who the hell do you think you are, wrecking my daughter's life? She's been crying in her room all day because of you and your fucking gay lifestyle. Why couldn't you have just kept it zipped up?"

He had a point, but I wasn't about to concede it. "Jerry, Kris is better off without him. She-"

"Shut up!" he roared, shoving me hard. I barely managed to keep my balance. Pure, shocking rage flared in me. My hands clenched into fists.

"Fucking faggot," Jerry said. He shoved me again. For the first and so far only time in my life I hit a man. I drew back and socked him a hard right to the jaw. The blow connected perfectly. His face a comical mask of surprise, my brother-in-law staggered backward into an armchair and fell to the floor with a crash. The chair and a nearby potted plant went with him.

"All hell broke loose, of course. The hotel manager came running up. He somehow talked Jerry out of pressing assault charges," I said to Charlie a few days later. We were sitting in the kitchen of our house back in Dallas. I was deep into my confession. As I told him about my peccadillo that had turned into a catastrophe, Charlie had fallen completely silent, not responding to anything I said. With a sinking heart I kept talking, adding more and more detail to fill the leaden emptiness between us.

"He led Jerry off, then came back and told me to pack up and get out. I found a room at a Howard Johnson's a couple of miles out of town. No refund, of course."

There was no more to tell. Charlie sat, still as a stone. Finally, he looked up. He was trembling. His eyes were bright with tears.

"Get the fuck out of here."

"Charlie--"

"Get out." He stood up abruptly, knocking the chair to the kitchen floor with a loud clatter. I heard the door to the den slam a moment later.

I went to the den and tried the door. He had locked it. I pounded on the wood.

"Charlie, please. I'm sorry. What else can I say?"

No response.

"You can't kick me out. I own this house too, you know."

A muffled voice from within. "Then stay the hell out of my way."

My partner gave me the cold shoulder for weeks after that. I deserved every minute of it. Still, it's not easy when the person you're living with won't look you in the eye, talks to you in monosyllables, and pointedly reads the paper when you're eating together. I was relegated to the sofa bed in the den for a week. Even after that he refused to cuddle with me before we went to sleep, as we had always done.

I took everything he dished out without a murmur. Charlie must have decided after a while that we could go on like this for years, and maybe he was right.

One night we turned out the lights to go to sleep, lying stiffly apart as we had been doing for many nights. I lay awake, staring up into the darkness, waiting to hear my partner's even, quiet breathing that indicated he was asleep. Time passed, though, and I could tell Charlie was still awake too.

"So he was really cute, huh?"

It was the first time since the night I told him what had happened that Charlie had addressed the subject. I waited a long time before I answered, truthfully.

"Yes, he was. And nice."

Another long pause, then he spoke again.

"Must have been fun, a young guy coming on to you like that." He waited, and when I didn't say anything, added, "If something like that happened to me, I'd probably go with the flow too."

I snapped on the bedside lamp. He wasn't smiling, but I thought I could detect a slight thawing in his expression.

"Charlie, if you did, I would understand. You know that, don't you?"

He sighed. "Yeah, I guess I do." He shifted. "I know I've been a shit these past weeks, Lloyd. You've got to understand, I was scared."

"Scared of what?"

For the first time in a long while he smiled at me. "For an old guy you're pretty hot. Shut up," he said, when I tried to demur. "I'm not allowed to tell my other half he's good-looking? You know you are. What if someday you decide to just go with one of these young studs--for good?"

I took his arm. He didn't pull away. "Charles Robbins, I love you. I will never leave you."

His eyes brightened. He bit his lip and nodded.

"And I promise, it will never happen again."

He rolled his eyes. "I'm not going to hold you to that. Just bring him home and introduce him to me the next time, would you?"

I raised my brow. "A three-way with you and a horny young guy, now that would be hot."

"Yeah, it would." Another silence, then a chuckle. "This is bad, but I'm glad you ruined the wedding. Your sister not inviting us together. She deserved it."

"She did."

"What happened to the guy, anyway? The groom?"

I shook my head slowly. "I don't know."

I never heard a word from Ben. That hurt for a while, but I understood. He needed to find his own way. I wish him well.

What did make me feel a little better was a note I got from Kris, of all people, about six months after the almost-wedding. "Uncle Lloyd, I wanted to let you know I don't blame you for what happened. What Ben said is true, our marriage would have been a disaster. It took a while for me to see that but I'm glad now we didn't go through with it. We're still friends, believe it or not, even though my parents won't let him in the house, or have his name mentioned in their presence. I'm afraid the same is true for you too..."

She's a sweet girl, and she's forgiven me. At least I have that. That makes up for some of what I've lost: the good will of most of my family, especially my brother, my reputation in Connecticut society, and hardest of all, Charlie's unquestioning, trusting devotion.

Still, they say that a crisis in a relationship can strengthen it, and I think that's true with me and Charlie. After we started speaking to one another again it took a while, but we're as close now as we ever were. We can talk for hours about everything. We spend every night together, go out to eat, go to the movies, the theater, the bar. He's my companion for life, no doubt about that.

But here's my secret: I lie awake once in a while, after Charlie has gone to sleep. I stare at the ceiling and think.

I think about Ben, his smooth unlined face with its determined chin, his luxuriant dark hair, riveting eyes and flashing grin. I hear his deep, resonant laugh. I think about holding his young body and possessing it ever so briefly. I think about embracing him, trying to comfort him as he cried in my arms, reduced to helpless despair by the conflicts raging within him.

I know I'd do it all again. I also know I'll never get the chance.

What I don't know is whether I'm glad or sorry.

END