The Return
Norman took close inventory of his kitchen; he couldn’t remember seeing it so bare.
It hardly seemed like he lived here! There were eggs, eight left of the original dozen, balanced in the center of the carton the way his husband insisted (Jesse always took eggs from the outside working in), and some bread with the first signs of mold.
He salvaged the heels for breakfast, artfully trimming the crust before dropping them in a toaster that seemed new; the buttons felt complicated and unfamiliar, but he might just be weak from hunger or, despite his earlier workout at the gym, not yet be fully awake.
They were out of the olive oil spray he liked, so he had to use some EVOO from the bottle and when it began to smoke in the pan he cracked open an egg with one hand, immediately adding a second.
As the eggs crackled and fried, he held his face over the toaster and felt a familiar warmth he couldn’t quite place.
He held it there until it was time to flip the eggs; Jesse liked them over easy.
As he grabbed the spatula, he heard the shuffling of feet.
Finally, Jesse was up, and perfect timing, too—breakfast was just about ready.
Norman hoped his husband had slept better than he had.
“There you are, sleepyhead.” He spun around to greet his husband.
Jesse screamed and dropped a water glass, which caused Norman to pierce a yolk in the pan. Jesse stood there in just his underwear, looking both ripped and tanned. When did that happen? Everything was both familiar and unfamiliar, like he was in a dream.
“There I am?” Jesse asked with recognizable disdain. Norman wasn’t sure what he’d already done wrong so early in their day, but he felt a fight coming on. Sadly, that was not unusual.
“Yes, it’s almost noon.”
“There I am,” Jesse repeated, somehow even more incredulous. Norman winced at Jesse’s bare feet surrounded by glass.
“Don’t move. I’ll get the dustpan.” Norman grabbed a nearby dish towel first, to soak up the water and scoop up the larger pieces.
Jesse stood perfectly still as a crouched Norman cleaned around him, still in his gym shoes.
“Oh, hey,” Norman began. “Is it my turn to do the grocery shopping? We’re out of a lot of stuff. And there’s a jar of frosting in the pantry next to a spoon.”
“Yeah, that’s my frosting spoon.”
Norman playfully bit Jesse’s dick through his underwear, surprising them both.
But he couldn’t help himself! It looked even bigger now that Jesse’s waist was smaller.
Or maybe it had just been a while since they had been intimate.
Either way, that must have been some workout.
His testosterone was coursing. “Frosting spoon? Are you smoking pot again?” Norman felt Jesse respond, so he teased his husband further with his stubble.
“Okay, that’s enough of that,” Jesse said, pushing Norman away, then trying and failing to cover himself. The more Jesse protested, the more Norman persisted, crouched as he was right in front of him. Behind them a door slammed, this time startling Norman.
Is someone here? he mouthed, tucking the swelling in his own shorts under his waistband.
Lally, harried, hustled from the guest room cinching an old robe of Norman’s around her middle, before cupping her breasts, which looked oddly big.
“Oh god, Jesse!” she said when she saw a man kneeling before him.
She made a display of shielding her eyes.
“I heard someone scream, and the sound of glass breaking.”
“Lally?” Norman popped out from behind Jesse, and now it was Lally’s turn to shriek.
“What is it with everyone this morning?” Norman crossed to the entryway mirror to see if he looked a fright.
Quite the opposite; for not having showered yet, he looked pretty good.
He turned back around to find his husband and his sister having a silent conversation with their eyes.
“Sorry,” Lally apologized. “You were not who I was…expecting.”
Norman held out his arms to hug his sister, but she remained glued in her spot.
Perhaps she was afraid he hadn’t gotten all of the broken glass.
He glanced at Jesse, busy dressing himself in a T-shirt and sweats from a basket of laundry by the door.
Who else had she been expecting in his house, kneeling in front of his husband?
As Jesse pulled the T-shirt over his head, he stopped and sniffed the air. “Do I smell toast? Oh my god, I’m having a stroke. LALLY, I’M HAVING A STROKE!”
Right then the toaster ejected two perfectly browned pieces of bread. Norman gestured as if to say ta-da. “I’m making us breakfast.”
Unimpressed, Jesse replied, “Your eggs are burning.” He nodded toward the stove, where indeed Norman’s eggs were now over hard. Norman yanked the pan from the stove and set it in the sink. He flipped on the fan in the hood, feeling Jesse’s and Lally’s eyes on him the whole time.
“Wh-when did you get back?” Lally stammered.
“From the gym?”
“From Cincinnati.”
“Minneapolis,” Jesse corrected.
Norman’s eyes darted between them, confused. “I was not in Minneapolis. I was at the gym.”
“This whole time?” Lally turned to Jesse for confirmation. “I really overpaid Harlan.”
What were they talking about? Who was Harlan? “Long enough to work back and biceps.”
“Where were you before the gym, Norman?” Jesse asked slowly, so as to be understood.
Norman was now thoroughly confused. They were behaving as if he’d had a stroke. “I was in bed.”
“Our bed,” Jesse said with great skepticism.
“Who else’s bed would I be in?”
Jesse ran back to their bedroom as if to check.
Lally unglued herself and lunged forward, throwing her arms around her brother in the tightest hug. “We were afraid we were never going to see you again!”
Jesse cried, “OH MY GOD!” from the bedroom, and it was followed by barking, and then pounding footsteps approached from the hall.
“Is that a dog?” Norman asked, but Lally only gripped her brother tighter.
“It’s true,” Jesse said when he returned. “Someone slept on his side of the bed.”
As he gingerly hugged Lally back, Norman stared at Jesse over her shoulder. “Not well, mind you. You were taking up most of the middle. You’re both being awfully dramatic. Does someone want to tell me what’s going on?”
“You look incredible,” Lally said when she broke their hug. She stepped back to look at this face. “So refreshed. I don’t understand.”
“I look incredible?” Norman studied the two of them.
Then why does everyone keep screaming? “Jesse here is the one who’s been hiding that body, which, I don’t know how you did that.
I feel like all I do is work out, and I don’t get any results.
And you…” He pinched Lally’s chin. “You’re positively glowing! ”
Lally blushed and looked embarrassed and turned to Jesse, biting her lip.
“Are we going to talk about this?” Jesse asked. He took a step forward and then back, and then forward again, appearing uncertain if he should approach.
“Talk about what?” Norman leaned in to give his husband an awkward kiss before Jesse took one final step back. It was quite the pas de deux.
“Talk about what?” Jesse knocked a book off the counter in frustration, and it landed with a hard slap on the floor.
“Why do you keep repeating everything I say?”
“Why do you keep acting like everything is normal?”
“It is, isn’t it?” And then Norman recognized a look of fear on both of their faces.
“Wait a minute. What’s wrong?” He turned to Lally.
“Is it Mom?” Lally’s presence suddenly made sense if something had happened to one of their parents.
He’d worried about his mother in Italy, that contraption she used to get up the stairs.
The wiring there was so old, he imagined her being hurled out a second-story window like that old bat in the movie Gremlins.
“It’s not Mom,” Lally assured him. “Or Dad. They’re fine.” She put her hands on her hips defiantly. “It’s you.”
Norman tucked his chin into his neck and narrowed his eyes. “Me? What’s wrong with me?”
“YOU’VE BEEN MISSING.”
Norman laughed. “Missing?”
“Where. Have. You. Been.” Norman didn’t appreciate Jesse’s condescending tone. Of the three of them, he was the only one acting sane.
“I told you. I went to the gym.”
“The gym.”
“Well, I’m sorry. We can’t all eat frosting from a tub and sleep until noon and look as good as you.” Norman studied Jesse again and scratched his head. Even with his T-shirt on, his transformation didn’t make sense. “Are you on Wegovy?”
Jesse pulled at his hair with both fists.
“Don’t do that,” he chided Jesse. “Lally will have to give you miles for one of those flights to Turkey for a hair transplant.” Norman had read in the Atlantic that the country had become so synonymous with hair transplants that they referred to the national airline as Turkish Hair.
He looked to Lally to shed some light on Jesse’s behavior.
She, too, was acting odd, but at least she seemed happier to see him.
“Lally, honestly. Something is different about you.” He dropped his voice to a whisper.
“Did you have something done?” He pulled his face back to demonstrate.
“Oh my god.” She crossed and stood behind Jesse as if she were in need of his protection.
“What is going on with you two?”
Jesse slowly stepped forward and grabbed Norman’s face with one of his enormous hands.
He squished open his mouth like a fish and looked inside.
He then ran his free hand through Norman’s hair and felt along the back of his skull.
“It really is you?” Only after this thorough examination did he pull him into a hug.
It had been a long time since Jesse had held on to him so forcefully, and as confused as he was, and even with his sister present, for the second time that morning Norman was aroused. “Who else would I be?” It was difficult to form words in Jesse’s forceful grip, and he melted in his radiant heat.