The family and Jim begin to deal with the implications of Bill's announcement.
Thanks to LarryInSeattle for his help with editing.
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Without further ado, I stepped to the lounge chair, smoothed out the ridiculously soft towel Muriel had provided, and stretched out.
"You don't believe in doing things by half do you, Bill?" she drawled in that sardonic way only a true woman of the South is capable of.
I waited for the doorbell. It wasn't a long wait. Muriel got up. I wondered who had drawn the short straw. The murmured voices were too soft, too indistinct, for me to tell. I couldn't even tell if it was a male or a female. When Muriel returned alone and laid back down without saying a word I, knew it wasn't mom. Even Muriel lacked the strength to keep my mother from one of her kids.
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"No, Meg. Just let him be for a bit. He needs some time to let the dust in his mind settle so he can see things more clearly. I'll keep an eye on him. You got my word on that."
My distraught neighbor had thrown one of Ben's old tee shirts on. Despite the tears in her eyes and the screwed up face, her boobs underneath the tee shirt were hard to resist. I tried to convince myself that what my longtime friend and occasional lover needed was for me to introduce her to my newest toy and re-introduce her to my tongue. I'd never convince her so I let the idea die.
"Oh, Muriel. I don't know if I can do that? This is all my fault, all our fault. Ben and I, not you. I don't mean you, not at all. For God's sake, what were we thinking? Sending Mark over here like that. I can't imagine a more thoughtful or gentle lover than you but what kind of parents send their son over to the neighbor's house to be seduced? I'm worse than Mrs. Robinson. Not that you're a Mrs. Robinson," she added quickly, then rushed on. "And then," she choked on a sob, "and then, watching the two of you, letting Mark, Mark and the others, watch Ben and me in the pool. What did I expect? Huh? What the fuck did I expect?"
I kissed her on both cheeks and hugged her hard. She was trembling, much as she had been all those years ago, except that time we were both naked.
"Meg, listen to me. We'll have time to talk and talk and talk but later. At the moment, all you need to get though that pretty little head of yours is that none of this is your fault. It's not your fault the boy is gay. It's not your fault everything blew up all of a sudden. Hell, if you can tell me how you could keep the fact that your daughter and son were in love with the same guy from turning into a goddamn spectacle, I'd love to hear it. Think on this a spell - there's been no punches thrown, no screaming, nothing but an ear splitting whistle and a shout." I chuckled. "It was a doozy of a shout, for sure, but no blood's been drawn.
"You go on home, have yourself an old fashion. Sorry, sweetheart, but you can't make a decent martini; make it an old fashion and relax. I'm going to head back out to the deck and see exactly how gay that son of yours truly is." I couldn't help laughing at the look on her face. "Oh for God's sake, Meg, close your flapper. I'm joking. You know I'd never put him on the spot like that."
"Muriel Dyer, I'm starting to believe all those rumors I hear."
She kissed me on the cheek, tried to smile, but succeeded only in looking lost.
"Meg, you fret too much. It's not good for you. Go home. Lay out by the pool. That'll help Bill to appreciate this don't change a damn thing."
Meg wasn't dumb. She knew as well as I did that her son's shouted declaration changed a lot of things but the truth wasn't what she needed to hear, not at the moment anyway. She turned and walked down the walk toward the shared driveway, head down. Hell, even her usually perky ass looked down in the dumps. Damn it all.
I went out on the deck, intending to give Bill a refresher on manners and how not to treat loved ones but the face below the arm over his eyes looked as sad as his momma's butt. Shit fire and damnation as my daddy use to say.
I stretched out and focused on the sound of the waves. I focused on my heartbeat, slowing it to match the rhythm of the waves. I pictured the sun steaming all my worries and fears and anger right out of my body. I imagined all those hurtful feelings being condensed by the warmth of the sun into drops of sweat, salty as tears, and then dropping away from my body, to evaporate into the nothingness they actually were.
I pictured Bill and me, floating above the waves in a giant soap bubble, rainbows flashing all over its sides as it undulated in the breeze. We were floating on our backs, looking like the cover of a book about out-of-body experiences or being abducted by space aliens or some such. The important part was that Bill was inside the bubble with me. He was protected. All the conflict and hurt feelings were outside. Them nasty feelings poked their face against the sides of the bubble, looking horrible, but they couldn't reach us and gradually we float away from them. They were of the earth and we had become part of the sky.
Silly? I suppose it was but it seemed to work. Beside me, Bill's breathing deepened, then slowed. The lines of tension left his mouth and he slept. He'd lotioned up good but after a half-an-hour, I moved the umbrella to shade his body. As I looked at him sleeping there in the shade, his cock began to grow. It was one of life's mysteries I would never understand. Why was it a man couldn't sleep without getting a damn boner? Mysterious or not, gay or not, Bill's erection looked mighty fine. I regretted that it seemed unlikely I'd ever have a chance to sample that fine looking piece of himself hanging between his legs. Though, I reminded myself, stranger things had happened in my life.
I moved and sat under the other umbrella. I glanced over at the Casey's place, which was really my place but for the two weeks they'd paid for it was as good as theirs. I'd tried to sell it to them. I'd asked for a good price, not the price I would have fetched on the open market but a fair price, a family price. Ben was too stiff-necked to consider it. If he couldn't over-pay he'd be worried I was giving him charity. He was a good man but that didn't alter the fact he was a man.
It was quiet over there. No one was in the pool. Mark was still out on the upper deck. Meg had taken my advice. She was out by the pool with Jill. I noticed she ditched her bikini bottoms. They moved their chairs back into the shade. They appeared to be talking but I couldn't be sure. The sun had nearly reached its high point for the day. The air was so hot even the sound of the waves seemed subdued. Another hour or so and it'd be martini time, at least as far as I was concerned.
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"Honest to God, Ben. I had no idea. Not a fucking clue, man."
I nodded. I believed him. It was stupid to have even asked. I opened two beers. "I know that, Jim. It was a dumb question. Sorry." I handed him a beer and took a sip of my own.
Jim held his beer, looking at it as if he'd never seen one before and wasn't quite sure what to do with it.
"I've been around gay dudes before," he said still staring at the beer. "You aren't supposed to say so but usually you got a pretty good idea if a guy is gay. You know? I mean sometimes a dude'll seem gay and you find out he's not but I've never met a gay dude before who didn't seem, you know, gay. Fuck."
I shook my head. "I wondered about it. You were usually too busy trying to impress Jill, or trying to sneak an extra beer, to notice how uncomfortable Bill looked around the girls he was supposed to be dating. He was polite enough. But I could tell. He'd smile if they said something funny, a genuine smile, but when he smiled and told them something sweet the smile never made it to his eyes. He didn't get all tongue-tied, not like some I might mention, but it was clear enough his heart wasn't in it." I shook my head again and took a drink. "I should have seen it. He felt bad about dating girls, felt he was playing them along. That's why he never dated any of them more than a few weeks. Goddamn it."
He still hadn't taken a drink of his beer.
"What about you?"
