Chapter Thirty-Eight #2
He randomly selected one of the soft drinks
from the fridge and then sat in the armchair opposite the sofa.
“Half an hour,” he said. “The food will be here in half an
hour.”
Lucas nodded and sat back on the sofa. There
was an awkward pause as Mark wracked his brain for topics of
conversation that weren’t potential minefields. They weren’t going
to talk about families, that was for sure. Life histories seemed
similarly fraught. Movies? Sports? Mark wanted a deeper connection,
and he really wasn’t sure whether Lucas followed any of that stuff.
As far as he knew Lucas spent almost all of his waking hours at the
farm, and Mark was there with him most of the time, so there wasn’t
much left to talk about.
“How’s your dad?” Lucas asked suddenly.
Apparently families weren’t completely off limits.
“About the same. Everyone’s frustrated,
because he should be getting better by now. Getting better or…”
Mark didn’t want to finish the sentence, and Lucas’s nod made it
clear that he didn’t have to.
“That must be hard. Watching him like that.
And work is still bad?”
“I’ve been taking a bit of a vacation from
thinking about it, to be honest. I mean, with all the…the attack,
and then last night, dealing with that…I’ve gotten a bit
distracted.” Mark tried to find the right words, and Lucas waited
patiently, obviously realizing that there was more coming. “I think
the distraction might be a good thing. I think maybe…” Mark
shrugged. He’d never talked like this to anyone. “The church was my
life. I threw myself into it, maybe a bit too hard. The church’s
stance on gay priests is fuzzy, so I just…I let myself forget that
side of my life. Well, not quite…” He was thinking it through as he
went and it was probably making him sound scattered, but somehow he
knew Lucas wouldn’t judge him for it. “I was always hyper-aware of
my sexuality in terms of a social identity, you know? I was The Gay
Priest. But the actual being gay? Like, letting myself be
attracted to men, pursuing relationships with them? I didn’t do any
of that. I was theoretically gay, but in practice, I was just
celibate.”
Lucas frowned at him. “For how long? Not
forever?”
Mark shook his head quickly. “No. I dated in
university, and in theological school. But when I came back home to
work, I just…at first, I made a conscious decision to focus on the
job. And I was just getting over a breakup, so I wasn’t ready for
something new anyhow. It made sense at first, but somehow I just
never broke the pattern.”
“That’s a long time.”
Mark drew in a shaky breath, half-laugh,
half-something else. “Yeah. It is.”
“So maybe you’re not really thinking clearly
now.” Lucas sounded like he was forcing himself to say the words.
“You put a part of yourself to sleep, and then it woke up and
it’s…it’s a bear coming out of hibernation. It’s hungry, and it’s
ready to eat anything, even if the food isn’t really a good
idea…”
“I didn’t just wake up. That’s the thing,
Lucas. You woke me up. I know what you’re saying about this
not being a logical relationship. I get that. But I don’t feel like
I really have a choice in the matter.” He wasn’t sure how much more
he could say without scaring Lucas right out of the apartment, but
they’d started down this path and it seemed like they should follow
it a little farther. “The way you make me feel? I’ve never felt
that way before, not with anybody. Nothing even close. I can’t walk
away from that just because it’s not socially appropriate for us to
be together. I mean, if it’s too much for you, I understand, and
I’ll have to respect your decision. But for me?” Mark shook his
head. “For me, it’s something I need to pursue. I can’t walk away
from this just because it’s the smart thing to do.”
Lucas was staring at him. Then he took a deep
swallow from his bottle. “Okay,” he said quietly.
Mark wanted more, but he wasn’t sure exactly
what. “So…you’ll stop trying to talk me out of it?”
Lucas nodded. “Yeah, I guess. I mean, you’re
a smart guy. You’re educated and everything, and you know your own
life. I guess you can take the chances you want to take.” He paused
before adding, “I’m not saying I think it’s a good idea. But I can
see that it’s not my call.”
So somehow Mark had made Lucas feel even more
disempowered than he already did. He sighed. Maybe it was a
conversation best left for another time. “How about you?” he asked
in a deliberately lighter voice. “What’s your dating history
like?”
Lucas looked at him in disbelief. “I’ve been
in jail, Mark. Maximum security federal penitentiary. There wasn’t
a lot of dating going on.”
Mark felt stupid but tried to recover. “But
since then? Or before?”
Lucas shook his head slowly. “Since I got out
I’ve just been…I don’t know, just trying to get my head on
straight, trying to adjust to things. And before? I was still
pretending. You know. Messing around with girls.”
Mark nodded. That made sense, he supposed.
But Lucas was obviously not completely inexperienced. “And in jail?
I mean, I’ve heard stories, read statistics…”
“In jail was where I really realized I was
gay,” Lucas said slowly. “The stuff other guys were doing because
they had to, because there were no women around and they wanted to
be touching someone when they got off?” His gaze was firm and
uncompromising as if he’d faced this truth head on and wasn’t
afraid to share his findings with Mark. “I liked it. It felt
natural. It was what I wanted, and it was easy not to think about
what it meant because lots of guys were doing it.” His gaze fell
away and he turned to look musingly out the window. “But it wasn’t
like this. It was always rushed. There wasn’t much privacy.
Technically it was against the rules, but, you know—they looked the
other way. They supplied condoms and everything.” Lucas looked back
at Mark quickly. “I always used them. And I had a medical before I
got out. I’m clean.”
“But it was just sex. Not relationships. Not
dating,” Mark said. He wasn’t sure he wanted to hear many more
details about Lucas’s prison sex.
Lucas turned his head and looked at Mark
suspiciously. “This ‘dating’ thing you do—is that a gay thing? I
don’t really remember anyone going on dates. Hooking up, yeah, and
I guess if you hooked up with the same person enough times in a row
you were ‘going out’. But…dates?”
“It might be an age-related term,” Mark said
carefully. He didn’t want to criticize the social patterns of
Lucas’s friends. “When I was in high school, I remember we all just
sort of hung around in a group. But that faded out a bit. I guess
when you’re young and you’re all going out and partying all the
time, a group makes sense. But as you get older, it’s rarer for a
whole bunch of people to have time to go out at the same time, so
you start going out in smaller groups? Like, couple-sized.”
“Dates,” Lucas said. “Yeah, okay. Weird, but
I get it.”
“You probably need more advanced social
skills to date,” Mark said. Now that he had his theory, he was kind
of enjoying the exploration of the idea. “I mean, in a big group,
if something is awkward or there’s a gap in the conversation,
someone else is there to jump in and help out. But if there’s only
two people, and something goes wrong…”
“Like burning dinner or answering the door
half-naked?”
Mark grinned. “Yeah, like that. The other
person has to be really smooth, really generous to take a situation
like that and make everything feel okay.”
“I don’t think anyone’s ever called me
‘smooth’.”
“Well then, you heard it here first.” Mark
liked that idea, the thought of being the first to point out some
of Lucas’s good qualities. And then he hated it because it meant
that Lucas had gone through too many years of his life without
anyone giving him compliments. He shook his head to clear his
thoughts. “You want salad before pizza?”
“Sure. Or not. Whatever.”
“Probably no one’s ever called you ‘decisive’
before either, right?”
“I save up the decision-making for stuff that
matters. I honestly, truly do not care if we eat salad now, later,
or never.”
“You’ve never had one of my salads, my
friend. One bite and you’re going to care. A lot.”
“All right, then, bring it on.” Lucas stood
to show that he was ready for the challenge and Mark led the way
into the kitchen. He handed plates to Lucas and pulled the
vinaigrette and salad out of the fridge. “Forks there.” He
gestured, and Lucas rummaged through his cutlery drawer. Again, the
casual intimacy was almost overwhelming. He and Lucas were setting
the table together, and then they were going to share a meal.
Nothing special, but somehow all the more magical because it was so
mundane.
They ate the salad and Lucas was suitably
impressed by the variety of vegetables Mark had included, and then
the pizza came and Lucas offered to pay, since Mark had already
bought dinner once, even if he had ruined it shortly after. Mark
laughed him off, Lucas appreciated the toppings Mark had selected,
and they ate without much conversation. Dessert was French vanilla
ice cream with fresh berries, and they didn’t talk much while
eating that, either. Mark checked the clock as Lucas helped him
load the dishwasher. Not even seven o’clock, yet. Still lots of
time before Lucas had to leave, and Mark knew how he’d like to
spend it. But he didn’t know how he should spend it.
“TV?” he suggested casually.
Lucas looked a little surprised, but shrugged
agreeably. “Okay.”
But Mark was already regretting the
suggestion. He didn’t want to waste his precious time with Lucas
staring at a screen. “Or something else?”
Lucas was watching him more closely now.
“Okay,” he said again. There was an awkward pause before Lucas
snorted. “Look, the whole ‘no sex’ thing is your rule. I have no
idea what we’re allowed to do here, but if you’re looking for a
suggestion…I think something in the ‘physical contact’ area might
be kinda fun.”