Rewriting Singularity

"Always..." Hec read from behind me, kissing my neck.

I stood sipping coffee at our bedroom window, the stream turned to frost, and I etched lazy letters on the glass with my other hand. The whole process projected my mood: light and dreamy. Another silent Sunday morning. Well, except for Pete singing away on his swing. We were snowed-in but good, but I loved the thought of nowhere to go and no way to get away.

I didn't

want

to get away from Hec.

Ever

.

And

always

. As proof that he felt the same, Hec sealed those letters on the window with a puff of his breath, turned, and he kissed me again. Corny to think this, but couldn't help but believe that as our heads bumped that our minds became one. I loved how Hec's glasses slid down his nose as we strained together, and how his endearments turned to mumbles as hard bumped against hard. We'd taken a break after a full morning of rewrites on the sitcom, but our quick stretch break had soon turned into a full-blown make-out session. We'd agreed that we needed a set writing schedule, and we'd followed it. We'd also agreed that early morning was the time we'd write-- but now, feeling his body pressed into my backside--

I wanted him to fuck me.

But Hec had other ideas.

I smiled and pulled him tighter with my free hand; my other hand tipped the neglected coffee mug. Within moments flannel and t-shirts joined the splashed coffee on the floor. My discarded mug-- tipped on its side-- was left on the table next to the music box. Not a drop left in it anyway. On the other side of the room, Pete sang and flew like a winged maniac around his cage.

I ignored his noise. Easy to do with Hec's hands roving. Mister Happy jumped and jerked in anticipation just before Hec gave him a squeeze.

"To the bed," he suggested, tugging me. "I think we need an extended break."

I couldn't argue.

"

Extended

," I said. "Hmmm...yes, that's a good word for it."

We tripped each other as we raced to the bed. I beat him there. He flung his glasses onto the nightstand, then jumped on top on me. He straddled me, laughing down into my face and grinding into me. I felt something like Hop on Pop or more like Cock. He grabbed the lube next to his glasses and slicked me up. What a view: Sweat popping out on his forehead, him biting his lower lip, his eyes darkening like clouds in a storm. And that body. I loved every inch of him from those firm abs to slim calves with all those freckles in between. I watched, breathless, as Hec squatted down on top of my dick, his ass devouring my cock inch by inch. His hole had me like a hot velvet vise as he bounced up and down. When I stroked his cock, his enthusiasm doubled.

He swore as a stretched him to the limit. His eyelids drooped as he panted my name. I felt that wonderful tingling in my balls. He slowed when noticed I was close, and I took it as my chance to rock up hard into him. He laughed, contracting tighter around me. Fuck. Buried deep inside that perfect ass, it didn't take long after that. As he shot all over my chest, his ass tugged at my cock, and I came calling to the heavens, chanting his name.

We collapsed like compact stars-- our feet tangled in the universe of our sheets.

It was some time before either of us was coherent.

"Sometimes I think Pete's getting off on us," Hec said finally, reaching for his glasses. "It's the way he flaps around his cage in orbit when we're doing it."

"He's sexually frustrated. Maybe we should get him a Mrs. Pete."

"Or Mr. Pete. He could be gay, you know."

"True," I said. "I've seen male sparrows going at it together before-- I suppose Pete could be like us."

The idea of male sparrows had us kissing and flapping all over the bed for round two. We rolled around making out awhile until Hec and I ended up on our backs, staring up at the carvings.

"Sometimes when I look at them I wonder if there's something else that we're missing," I said. "I mean, sure these are sexual positions, but there's more going on in them than that. Each carving has a foreground and a background and--"

"I've thought the same myself--"

"Yeah, like there's something else there-- besides look how limber they are!

Christ

! Think I'm limber enough to do number six yet? I've been doing stretches-- practicing--"

Hec laughed, then pinched my side.

"Yeah, maybe." He rolled over, facing me.

I pointed to the number six and sat up.

"What's this on the wall behind them? Looks like some kind of writing."

"I thought so too. Tried reading it with a magnifying glass more than once, but it's just nonsense."

"So it's letters."

"Not really. I don't know. Kind of."

"That makes a hell of a lot of sense," I said.

"It's like little pictures."

"Hieroglyphics?"

"No," he said. "Maybe it's just decoration."

I lay back down, Hec looking into my eyes. Me looking at his mouth. Lips meeting. Tongues lapping. Teeth nipping. Teasing.

"You know," I said, pulling back, eyes breaking away from his lips, "We need to get back to writing our insanity that's Rewriting Singularity."

"Yeah, I know-- we should get back--" he chuckled, "to writing no matter how hard it is." He grabbed my crotch.

Well, maybe ten more minutes wouldn't hurt...

We got up after the final round, picked our clothes up off the floor, and returned to my laptop. That's the last we thought about the carvings for a few days.

------------------------------

It's funny how aliens, sex and kink had turned into a real-life romance. Hard to differentiate at times what was the sitcom and what was real life. Anyhow, the show was good, but this riddle we were living was better. Hec and I had rounded off all the sharp corners and polished off the rough parts-- of the sitcom, that is. We zipped and e-mailed it off the same morning that the private eye, Linden, and company were supposed to show up.

There were hundreds of times over the last days that I'd contemplated Hec's family history, and the taxing fact that the man wasn't who he said he was. I rationalized it all away. I was in love. I didn't care. I knew who he was on the inside. What difference did it make?

In an hour, Linden would be here with Jorge and some psychic. What else might I learn, I didn't know. Linden said they hadn't located Hec's parents, but they had some information about Johann and Henry to share with us. And the psychic? She was coming along to check out the house. Some ghost hunter or something.

I was more worried about Hec and all those hundreds of voices in my own head.

I'd asked Hec if there was anything else he needed tell me, and he said no. Truth was, he could have said yes, and I'd forgive him. Shit, he could still keep something from me and I'd forgive him most anything-- as long as he wasn't hiding that he was a closet heterosexual or in love with another man, I'd be ok. I even went through the same old break-up quiz in my head, using the same questions.

No comparing the new answers to the old. This time:

Q: Does he always come before you?

A: Hec not only waits for me-- he loves to watch me come first.

Q: Does he whisper your name in his sleep?

A: Every night.

Q: Is he sorry?

A: He said he was. Not just with his lips, but with his eyes, his hands, his heart. I believe him.

Q: Is he clean?

A: Clean? He sparkles.

Q: Does he make you feel good?

A: Always...

I kept coming back to the always. I thought of Johann-- he loved his man too-- but from afar most of his life. That would be painful. I didn't want to be apart.

What if Hec left me like his parents left him? In my heart of hearts I knew I'd never survive that loss. I'd fallen fast and hard for him. How had Henry and Johann survived? I used to think all that I-can't-live-without-you stuff was bullshit. Now? I thought about all the star-crossed lovers from history and compared them to us. Who'd be Romeo and who'd be Juliet?

Maybe I think too much.

Just be happy. That's what I kept telling myself. Having Hec was like having all the saltwater taffy I could eat.

I decided to go up to the attic and have a look at Johann's journals. There was one I couldn't find, and it was driving me a little nuts. I hadn't noticed the gap until a few nights ago when I was snooping through a journal that Hec had left next to the music box. This volume suggested there was a void, a blank spot, a period of time that nothing was written. And there were the dates. Almost two months missing. There were indications on the first few pages where Johann referred to events that were nowhere to be found in any of the preceding journals. Either that particular journal was misplaced or for some reason Johann hadn't written during that time. I thought at first maybe he'd been too ill, but something as important as Henry's birthday wasn't a day Johann would pass over without writing a word.

I stood in the middle of the attic; light streamed down from the windows in the copula above. I was knee-deep in journals when Hec found me covered in dust and deep in thought.

"What ya up to?" he asked.

"Looking for that missing journal." I looked up from reading the volume I was studying.

"What's that?" Hec pointed to the journal open in my hands.

"The one you left by the music box." One look at Hec's face, and I realized Hec wasn't who left it there.

"

H-henry

," Hec stammered. We both sat silent. The house groaned and creaked around us.

"That other volume must be around here somewhere. There's a stretch of time that's gone, Henry's birthday for one, that's not in this journal left by the music box--" I pointed to another volume at may feet. "or the one on the floor."

Hec bent down and picked it up. "It's a clue. Henry must have left this for us."

"What happened during that missing time must be important. But what could it be?" I frantically fingered through the journal. "See here, Johann wrote about how he was leaving and then in the next journal here--" Hec handed me the other book, and I flipped to the first page to read the first entry. "Here, Johann writes about a meeting with one of his doctors. Two months. He wrote in these every day. It's obsessive. Then for almost two months, nothing."

Hec leaned into me, brows coming together in concentration.

"I wouldn't have noticed except something bothered me after I finished reading that last entry," I said. "Johann was filled with so much anxiety at going to visit his parents. What happened at his parents'? I can't believe he wouldn't write about it. Do you think maybe they took it?"

"I wonder--"

"I know there's a journal missing. I feel it in my heart." I had the other journal under my arm. "He wants us to find it and figure out what happened. And there's something else." I hesitated. "When I found the journal on the table, I was compelled to pick it up-- just like that day that I opened the music box for the first time-- it was like I had no control."

"I know the feeling," Hec blurted out. "I can't tell you how many times feelings like that have come over me since we moved into this place. The day I found the secret passages, I felt like I was being led by the hand through every turn and stairway up to this attic. But you know, when I got here though, the discovery was anticlimactic, because I felt like I'd been here before."

A month ago I would have thought Hec was crazy-- I would have thought that I was crazy, but now I believed. I want to believe. I felt like Fox Mulder on the X-Files only my version of Sully was taller with a dick.

"The truth is out there," I laughed. I dropped the journal into my lap.

Hec looked down at the journal. "I can't believe he wouldn't write about Henry's birthday," Hec added, pointing to the passage. "And I can't believe I never noticed this before. All this time I assumed that maybe he didn't feel free to write his feelings at his parents'."

"I thought that too," I said, moving closer to him. "But when I realized Johann had missed Henry's birthday, I knew. Maybe that psychic Linden's bringing will help us."

"If she's for real."

"Linden wouldn't bring her unless she was the real deal." I put down one of the journals. "They should be here anytime."

Hec nodded. "Better get downstairs."

We set aside the other journal as I heard a thump, thump, thump from below-- that would be the girls. We took a shortcut through the passage and came out through the closet in my old room. Hec wiped the dust smudges off my face with his t-shirt as we made our way to the stairs. Nothing like a quick spit bath from my favorite guy.

The moment we opened the door, we heard commotion down below. We looked over the banisters and down at Char and Kate, standing next to the door.

Hec's long legs took two steps at a time, and I followed right behind.

"They're here! They're here!" Char said, jumping up and down like a giddy kid. "This is exciting! A séance!"

Char's face glowed up at me.

"I didn't say séance--" I frowned. "I said that she communicates with the dead."

"What's the difference?" she said, brushing me off.

"Well--"

Then the knock-- Linden's knock-- I knew it. He had a comical waltz of a knock. His hands moved the same when he talked, always waving about in three-four time.

Her name was Isadora Isenseven. She stood five foot tall and almost as wide, and she had a smile that would soften even the hardest of men. She'd stepped through the door first-- a grand entrance of a sort. She took off the red velvet beret and tossed her flowing black hair out of her eyes. Her patchwork coat was a Joseph's coat of many colors, and her big, black army boots stomped off snow. Like fire, her eyes flickered and consumed the room. They held to the staircase. At last, she'd acknowledged us: Kate then Char, finally Hec then me, but for now we were inconsequential compared to the house.

Linden introduced me to Isadora, using his waving-waltz hands. He shook his wet hair, black curls glistening. I was relieved that my regular fantasies of Jorge and Linden didn't rear up. When Jorge and Linden had bounded through the door, I had hugged them both like old war buddies-- not a hint of lust in my heart. I turned to Hec, and introduced him, then introduced them to Char and Kate. Jorge shook Hec's hand and bowed for Kate-- she broke out in a fit of giggles. Jorge does that to women. I've seen some pretty cold ones get all hot the moment he opens his Latino lips to caress every syllable. Hell, I used to get all hot just hearing him speak. I knew Linden did.

The introductions went well; the mood was light. I was worried at first that Kate might be standoffish. Instead it was Linden who held back, studying. I could see him checking out Hec, then me. Most likely looking for what I saw in this guy I'd told him I fallen for. Linden winked at me; I did the same back, then he slapped me on the back; I bent down as he got up on his toes to whisper in my ear, "He's hot." I blushed and nodded.

I turned back to meet Hec's quizzical gaze. I shrugged my shoulders and turned my attention to Isadora.

"When do we get to have the séance?" Char asked eagerly.

Isadora threw her head back and laughed deep and loud, revealing her pearly-white, radiant throat.

"I think you understand wrong," she said. "I do not do séances."

"You don't?" Char said, the disappointment clear in her voice. "Darn. I was looking forward to it."

"No, I do not do hocus-pocus for entertainment. What I do is serious business. Very serious."

Kate intently tipped her head to the side. I could tell she was captivated. Char was under her spell too. They looked like twin dolls with their heads lolling to the side.

Linden chuckled and jabbed me in the ribs. "She does that," he said quietly. "Don't ask me how."

Hec stepped between us. Could be marking his territory or could be just for warmth. It got pretty cold standing next to these old double doors.

"Where are our manners!" Kate said, snapping back to consciousness. "Let me take your coats and hats. Hec and Jake can get the luggage, and I'll show you to your rooms."

"Yes, that would be kind of you," Isadora said, taking off her coat. "This is a beautiful place. I feel a happiness here, but there is loss."

She unlaced her boots, then stepped stocking-foot across the old hardwood floors to the staircase.

"Most amazing," she said, touching the carvings.

As Hec and I slipped out the door to get their bags, I saw her glide up the stairs like some apparition.

"This is going to be an interesting three days," Hec said.