Thirteen Crucifixions, 69

“You know you didn’t have to embarrass me like that.”

            “Oh will you stop!”

            “Look, you can always go by yourself.  It might be a good idea.”

            “Fine.  Stay home and masturbate.”

            “I’ve got better things to do than that.”

            “Yeah, but not with me you don’t.”

            “Go ahead.  Sleep on the couch.”

            “We don’t have a couch.”

            “Then sleep on the fucking floor.

            “I’m taking the blankets with me.”

            “Then I can sleep in the tubs.”

            “I’m sure they’ll be happier for it.  You’re very good at spreading your joy.”

            “Oh, you’re such a flatterer.”

            “Why did you have to say that to him?”

            “He wanted it.”

            “No he didn’t.  You completely embarrassed both of us.  I only invited him for a joint and you had to go and offer him a blow job.”

            “He wasn’t exactly a blushing flower about it.”

            “And neither were you.  Did you have to do it right in front of me?”

            “You could have participated.  Or left.  He actually liked you better than me.”

            “Have you no shame?”

            “I’m happy to say that I don’t”, Stephen said to Pierre, who sank into an unpleasant silence.  He pulled the bell-cord, and together they disembarked from the bus.

            “How much further do we have to go?” Pierre said.

            “A few blocks.”

            “We’re walking?”

            “It isn’t far.”

            “But—”

            “Hey Pierre, I want to walk, okay.  If you want to take the bus then take the fucking bus.  You know your way to Glen’s, you can catch up with me there.  What—are you changing your mind?  Well, suit yourself.  You always do.”

            “You know that isn’t true.”

            “Whatever.”  This was always particularly annoying for Stephen, this inability on Pierre’s part to acknowledge that they were not really a couple.  Not really, yet they seemed permanently conjoined together.  And the sex was good.  It was always good. They knew each other’s bodies like they each knew their own.  It always worked between them.  And threesomes were usually awesome, the rare time Pierre could be groped into one.  But this time, with Duane or whatever-the-fuck-his-name-was Pierre suddenly turned into a shy little girl and hid himself in the bathroom till he knew they were finished.  And he said HE was embarrassed.  This Duane guy was a disappointment even though he got off okay.  More of a courtesy blow.  But he was much nicer to watch than do.  He smelled weird. Smell in sex was very important with Stephen.  Pierre had the right smell.  And so did Glen, who still wouldn’t let him have him.  He faced now an evening of torment and ecstasy with the two men he loved.  He loved Pierre?  Yes.  But they weren’t lovers.  They merely were? They had never done the romantic crap, no flowers, no candlelit dinners, no nights out together.  They were like two mutually incestuous siblings.  They looked like siblings. Stephen didn’t know his parents and maybe, but from the sounds of things he would have had to have been conceived in Peru if they did share the same parents in common.  Unlikely.

            “Why are we turning this way?” Pierre said.

            “You’ll see.”  Stephen knew exactly where they were going. Just off the fitness room at the Britannia Community Centre were two fully enclosed toilets, a ladies’ and a men’s.

            “What, you want to watch guys working out?”

            “Not quite.”  The men’s was locked.  Stephen opened the ladies’, held the door and gave Pierre the “look.”  He obediently followed him inside.

            “Unzip you pants”, he said as soon as he locked the door. “That’s it, do as your told.”  He got down on his knees in front of Pierre, who was trembling with anticipation….

            “I’ve never heard you make so much noise”, Stephen said, after he’d rinsed his mouth.

            “It’s the acoustics.”  They opened the door only to behold the glowering indignation of a trailer trash vixen with a bleach-blond mullet and way too much eye-liner.

            She said, as the door closed, “I heard both of you, you disgusting pig-fags.  You ought to be ashamed of yourselves.”  The door locked and she screamed.  “Fuckin’ faggots!”

            “Oh, sheeth only jealouth”, Pierre lisped, and they walked away laughing.

            Like the three points of an equilateral triangle they sat in Glen’s living-room.  Stephen and Pierre each sat at either end of the chesterfield, and Glen occupied the green armchair.  They were finishing the remains of dinner.  Glen always preferred the armchair while entertaining.  He felt safe there, protected.  He instinctively feared getting jumped on.  They smelled of sex, Stephen and Pierre.  It was a subtle, discreet pong, nevertheless they both exuded it.  They hadn’t spoken much. It seemed that much needed to be said, but Glen couldn’t summon words equal to the task.  They were both, just now, so beautiful to look at.  He couldn’t think of an animal or divinity to match them to.  They seemed perfect on his chesterfield.  If only he could think of some way of preserving them there.  He glanced again at the pages next to him.

            “What are you reading?” Pierre asked.

            “Richard’s journal.”

            “That guy who got blown to bits?”

            “Yeah.”

            “How’s it going?”

            “Slow.  Heavy.”

            “Like Pierre during sex”, Stephen said.

            “Puh-leez!”

            “Oh, look at the blushing virgin.  Hey Glen, guess what?”

            “What?”

            “When we were on our way over here—“

            “—Don’t tell him!—”

            “—We stopped at Britannia Centre—”

            “—He doesn’t need to know—”

            “—And there in the women’s can--”

            “—Shut up--”

            “—I gave Pierre the blow-job of his life.”

            “So you guys are boyfriends”, Glen said.

            “I don’t know what the fuck we are”, Pierre said.

            “We’re a fact of life”, Stephen said.  “Get used to it.”

            “Where did you learn to cook like this?” Pierre said, relieved to be changing the subject.

            “Greg gave me the recipe.”

            “Greg?”

            “That bald guy”, Stephen said.

            “I still have his letter”, Pierre said.  “I sometimes read it over.”

            “She has a crush on old baldie”, Stephen said.

            “No I don’t!”

            “Yes you do.  He turns you on.  I can tell.”

            “I bet he turns you on.”

            “Eww!  I just ate.”

            “So, you hang out together?” Pierre said to Glen.

            “Every week or so.”

            “What do you do?”

            “Talk.”

            “What about?”

            “Everything.  I knew him in Toronto.”

            “How well did you know him?” Stephen said.

            “Not well enough.”

            “You’re not attracted to him?”

            “I am, actually.”

            “Eww!  How could you.”

            “He’s very handsome.”

            “He’s bald!”

            “Looks good on him.”

            “There’s no accounting for taste.”

            Timothy, as Jesus, hung dead and naked over them, his body a slash of light in the midst of the darkness.  Glen was feeling tired, especially from this talk of sex, but also from its presence which Stephen and Pierre had brought with them.  He almost wanted them both to leave, though he still felt good in their presence, if weakened by their beauty.  He hoped that this talk of sex was finished, it tired and embarrassed him.  He felt like a wrinkled, faded old prude.  He couldn’t really say that he wanted either of them in that manner, though he found both Stephen and Pierre, just now, more than ever, intolerably lovely to his eyes.  He didn’t like sex.  It was icky, messy, clumsy, and it took him places he didn’t want to go.  He didn’t envy them.  It didn’t take a genius to guess that they were both profoundly unhappy.  They had touched each other’s lives, but in a way he couldn’t describe, especially now that they were all working together at the Pitstop.  Fortunately they were usually not on the same shift together.  This loving without desiring was not altogether new for Glen, for so had been marked the beginning of his celibacy.  Timothy was beautiful, more beautiful to him than ever, yet he didn’t want him.  Neither one of them could understand this.  On Glen’s mother’s suggestion he returned with her to Vancouver.  He no longer missed Timothy.  He didn’t know if he was still alive.

            When Stephen stayed those three difficult weeks with Glen he saw how much they were alike.  Stephen, unlike Timothy, carried a personal force such as Glen had never encountered before in anybody.  Had he not pursued him, he would never have suspected that he liked him. He actually, like Bryan, gave the impression that he hated everything that lived.  He hadn’t been thinking much about Bryan, who’d been dead for more than three months.  Rochelle, his assailant, had evaded through suicide a manslaughter charge. 

            He wanted them both to leave.  Supper was over, they seemed to have nothing really to talk about. He would be seeing Stephen and Pierre at work tomorrow, albeit during shift-change, so why should he also have to entertain them?  He didn’t want them.  Though he loved them.  But he was tired, and the talk about sex, the very sexuality of their presence, had exhausted him.  It was an invasive force that while finding in Glen the usual primal response was also spontaneously rejected by him from an even deeper place.  Apart from his consent he had very little power over this dynamic.  But still the clash, the warfare, the act of repelling took too much out of him.  He wanted to rest, to return into the silence.  Stephen and Pierre’s presence was all noise.  Especially Stephen.  And Pierre?  Even now he looked at Glen as though to suggest—what was he suggesting?  Sex?  Not sex.  Love?  Yes, but love of a different order.  A higher order.   Pierre seemed entirely oblivious to this.  He was thoroughly unaware of the treasure that he carried, so untutored was he in those higher realities.  He carried them all the same, he also was a part of this blessed fellowship, this invisible society of such persons as Richard in his writings had alluded to.  But Stephen?  How could he tell?  They were equally pretty—Stephen a little more so.  He was ravishingly beautiful in an ugly sort of way.  Pierre was more classically good-looking, without the carnivorous, reptilian undertone. In Pierre was a light where in Stephen dwelled simply a dark hunger.  This Glen was seeing at the moment.

            “Don’t think so loud”, Pierre said.

            “Sorry.  I was just reflecting a bit.”

            “About me?” Stephen said.

            “Both of you.”

            “Kind thoughts, I hope.”

            “Not unkind.”

            “So what were you thinking?” Pierre said.

            “It’s really hard to put it into words.”

            “He loves us, he really loves us”, Stephen said.

            “I do, actually.

            “Aw!” Pierre said.

            “Is it our beauty?” said Stephen.

            “Yes.”

            “C’mon!” Pierre said.

            “I mean it.  You are both indescribably beautiful.”

            “What kind of drugs are you on?” said Stephen.

            “But Glen”, Pierre said, “You also are beautiful.  And at times I only wish I could say how much I love you.”  His eyes widened.  “Did I actually say that?”

            “What did you put in the soup?” Stephen said.

            “Not you too”, Glen said.

            “What did you put in the soup?”

            “How do you feel?”

            “All weird and like—“

            “Like you’re melting?” Pierre said.

            “I’m MELTING!” Stephen shrieked, mimicking Margaret Hamilton as the Wicked Witch of the West.

            And now Glen was feeling it, a presence of beauty pouring and spilling over them like thick, viscous wild honey.  They each sat, a point in the triangle, dissolving along with their walls and barricades into an ocean of endless bliss.  Stephen’s face was luminous and wet with tears, shining like the naked crucified Jesus that stared at him from the far wall.  Glen wanted this moment, which was not a moment, but a visitation of eternity, to not end, though end it surely must, and he sighed in resignation to this inevitability.