20. Graham
20
GRAHAM
K nowing Silas is in the building and I can’t see him has been challenging for me from day one, but tonight? It sucks.
Avery’s being sweet, and I’m doing my best to let her distract me by cooking risotto together and listening to an old grunge playlist. She’s her middle-class Midwest self tonight in a cotton pajama set and a messy bun. Her feet are covered in thick, fuzzy socks, and she’s swaying her hips while she minces clove after clove of garlic. I’m shelling shrimp in the sink, so we’ll both smell amazing later.
We’ve emptied one bottle of chardonnay—that was mostly her—and she suggests a rosé next. I wash my hands and pull another bottle from the wine cooler, standing beside her to uncork it. “How much of that do you think we need?” I ask, staring at the decimated garlic bulb.
“I read a Tweet one time that said to let your heart guide you, so I think a handful. Whatever feels right in my soul.”
I grin, pouring her a fresh glass, which she immediately picks up and sips from .
As I return to the shrimp, she asks in an offhand way, “Have you thought anymore about knocking me up?”
The colander slips from my hands, but I manage to catch the handle before the shrimp go down the drain. “I…have. Yes.”
“And? Want some more trial runs before I take out the implant or do you wanna just go for it?”
Note to self: wine makes Avery blunt.
“Trial runs?”
She must be done with the garlic, because she’s at the sink, squirting a ton of soap into her hands before turning on the tap. “I realize I kind of caught you off guard. You were probably having some gay sex dream when I snuck up on you. But I figure it’s like anything, right? Back when I was working, I imagined a lot of shit when I was with someone I wasn’t particularly into. With practice I got pretty good at enjoying myself no matter what was going on.”
“Right.” She’s mentioned a lot of older men using performance enhancing medication. I can’t even imagine what she’s seen and done.
“Honestly, you know how I can tell my clock is ticking?”
“How?”
“A year ago, I thought I’d had enough sex to last me a lifetime, but I’m so horny lately. My poor vibrator.”
I grimace, wishing I could scrub that unwanted image from my brain.
“Anyway—I’m literally ready whenever you are, and if you need any help…I have tricks.”
It takes another healthy gulp of wine for me to ask. “Tricks like what?”
“I just know things, Graham. Kinky things that most people get turned on by in spite of themselves.”
“I’m not sure I’m ready for that conversation.”
“Okay, then, back to babies. How many should we have? I feel like three. Three seems to be the thing right now. ”
“Are you ready for that? Motherhood and sleepless nights? You know I can’t afford a full-time nanny.”
“I’m sturdier than I look,” she says. “Just save up for the new boob job and tummy tuck I’ll need later, and I’ll do the stay at home mom thing until we have more cash.
“I’ll be out of town a lot…”
“Your family’s here. And I know they’ll love our babies to pieces.”
She has a point there. If there’s anything a good Catholic family loves it’s more family.
“What if—?” I stop myself, shocked at the question I’d been about to ask. What if it doesn’t change anything? Shocked because it makes me realize that in contemplating sex and kids with Avery, I’ve also been contemplating some sort of conversion. Like the kind of conversion evil parents send their gay kids to shady camps for. Praying the gay away has never worked for me, but can I screw the gay away? Do I want to try?
My stomach turns, all the smells in the kitchen souring inside me all at once. My words to Silas this morning come back to me on another nauseating wave. I can try.
“Sure,” I say. “Get it taken out. No sense putting it off.”
She turns to me, a serious but hopeful look on her face. “Really?”
I nod once.
“And what about practicing in the meantime?”
Give her an inch…
I blow out a breath.
She giggles. “Sorry—you’re just hot, Graham. You can forgive me for wanting a piece, right?” She gives my ass playful pinch, and I shirk away.
“Not tonight,” I tell her, hands up to hold her off.
“Why? We can put on some sexy boy porn, get you in the mood…it’ll be fun.”
“Boy porn?” I ask, turning on the stove burner and pouring some oil into a cast iron skillet. Images of Silas flash behind my eyes. Lips wrapped around my dick. Eyes on me. Tongue on my nipple. Fingers in his ass.
The thrumming bass of Soundgarden and Chris Cornell’s aching voice make me ache too…but not for porn and a blow job from Avery. I want to sneak downstairs. I want Silas’s eyes on me. I want to text him and tell him to meet me at the Chelsea apartment in the morning. I want to buy lube and maybe not condoms and stock the drawers with things for him to use on me. Plugs, clamps, handcuffs…
I want to kiss him.
“Guy on guy is hot,” she says, rudely echoing some of my own thoughts. “I love the sounds they make.
I clear my throat. “How much porn do you watch?”
“A lady never tells.”
“You don’t think it’d be weird—what—servicing me while I’m watching gay porn?”
“I’ve done way weirder, babe. Trust me.”
Avery is a lot of things, but shy about her past isn’t one of them. I’m lucky she’s managed to keep it quiet around my parents. Very few conversations with her pass without a reference to her life as an escort. Silas on the other hand…I’m not sure I ever could have guessed had I not already known. I hope he doesn’t think I judge him for that.
“Can we eat first?” I ask.
She laughs and gives me a quick side hug. “Yes. You cook. I’ll go find something good to watch.”
Avery is persistent, and her tricks work. By the time Sunday morning rolls around, she’s taken up residence in my bed and has an appointment to get her birth control implant removed .
I’ve vacillated constantly between knowing it’s the right thing to do and wanting to scream at her to stop. It might feel good in the moment, but it doesn’t feel right . When I think about bringing kids into the mix, it’s like watching a cell door slide closed, sealing me to a fate I signed up for long ago.
A few strands of her blond hair are adhered to my stubbled jaw, and it strikes me as the most intimate thing I’ve ever experienced. It’s the first time in my life I’ve woken up with someone. And not just anyone— my wife . My wife in every sense of the word. I gulp as the weight of that knowledge presses down on me.
So many emotions crowd my thoughts. Terror. Resignation. Sadness. Regret. Hope. Love, even. Or at least a very, very intense fondness for this woman who takes me as I am and accepts me.
She also trusts me. And that’s the thought that cracks my chest open along with the one thing missing when I look at her—desire.
Her tricks may work—her heart is in the right place. Her body is warm and real and willing, but nothing stirs when I look at her—nothing but a hurricane of guilt and doubt.
She deserves better, a man who would grab her by the waist right this second and haul her on top of him. Tangle his hands in her silky hair and appreciate the warmth between her thighs. Someone who can go a full minute without thinking about a rough kiss and another cock to grind against.
I decide to make my parents happy and go with them to mass this morning. Avery readily agrees and hurries to her room to shower and get ready.
I text my mother to let her know I plan to be there. Once I’m sworn in to the senate, it might not be so simple to decide on a whim like this. My father plans to get me a full security detail, and while I told him I don’t plan on being anyone’s target, he’s convinced it’s the wisest course of action. I don’t have a lot of haters, yet, but this is the honeymoon period. One vote in the senate could change that overnight.
Another cell door clanks shut at the thought of that.
I get a warm reception at mass—a lot of hands to shake and pictures to take. My smile feels plastered on. With my cheeks aching, it’s a relief to settle onto the uncomfortable pew between my mother and my wife. Avery slides her hand into mine, and it no longer feels like my chest is cracked. More like someone’s cranking a rib-spreader wider and wider until I’m flayed open.
I came to pray—to commune with the saints, but all my recitations are muscle memory. The words barely register. I pray harder, forcing my focus onto the sentences, the pleas and the praise.
I can’t lie and say any of this has ever particularly resonated for me. I believe in God and the Holy Catholic Church and all that, but it feels more ritual than real. I’ve never felt the light of God in my heart or felt like faith would make or break me. I’m not sure how I feel about heaven, though if I had to imagine hell, it would definitely strongly resemble law school.
I guess what I’m saying is, none of this feels like it applies to me. People like me are deliberately excluded from God’s grace, and so I’ve pretended to belong my whole life without any of the benefits that go along with, you know—actually belonging.
Avery converted before we got married, and so we’ve talked about it some. She enjoys the pomp and circumstance. Communion. The swinging of the incense and the decked out altar boys. She’s also weirdly fascinated with priests. She and I have that in common. I like confession, though. It’s a neat and tidy transaction. Like a shower. Go in dirty, say a few Hail Marys, come out clean.
It’s cheaper than therapy .
I also don’t believe God makes mistakes. Meaning— I’m not a mistake. However, according to the church, my job as a gay man is to fight my unholy urges to live as the bible teaches. This is how I’ll prove to God that I’m grateful for all the other gifts he’s bestowed upon me—a wealthy family, a great education, an election win no one thought was possible.
But to that I say, what about poor Catholic gay kids? The ones who weren’t born into privilege? What do they owe God gratitude for?
If I think about it too hard, I’ll inevitably get a migraine, so I usually don’t.
I understand my assignment: make the Lawther family proud. Be a good example. Humble myself before God. I look up at the crucifix with a frown. How’m I doing, big guy?
No answer as usual.
“Come to lunch,” my mother tells me and Avery after mass. It’s not a question.
I nod, and we take our respective cars to my parent’s home where a huge spread is already prepared, and cousins are showing up left and right. My father wastes no time getting me alone in his study.
Once he’s poured his brandy, and I’ve declined one for myself, he sits back in the club chair and crosses his legs with a heavy sigh. “Avery told your mother the big news.”
I arch my brows at him. Paul Lawther is larger than life with a booming laugh and a glare that withers. He wields his wealth and influence like a benevolent lord until you cross him, which very few people are stupid enough to do. For me, he’s intimidating. I usually find myself guessing about what he really thinks about me. Like when he says he’s proud, I wonder— but could he be prouder? Is he asking me to do more? Be better?
He chuckles fondly, I think, at my expression. “No need to play coy with me, young man. I’ve been looking forward to grandchildren since you kids were out of diapers. ”
Oh. That news. I hadn’t noticed Avery speaking to my mother long enough to spill those beans. “Well, she’s thirty, so…”
“I’m all for it. The sooner you start, the more you can have. Weed out the bad eggs.”
He’s joking, so I laugh, and his eyes crinkle at the corners, showing their inherent warmth. As much as he prioritizes his business, he always says his family comes first, and until he kicked Theresa out, I believed that.
“I don’t want you to worry about a thing,” he goes on. “Any help you or my daughter-in-law need, all you have to do is ask.”
My father is a busy man. He has been my whole life, but ever since I told him I was thinking of running for office, he’s taken a special interest in me. Today he sounds downright giddy. Was this all it took? Grandkids? I know the man must suspect something’s “off” about me. Avery was literally the first person I ever brought home to meet them. While he wanted me to get my degree, he did sit me down a few times when I was in college to discuss family matters—as in—I should be looking to start a family, and what the hell was I doing with all my spare time?
My answers frustrated him. He and I both know I’m not socially awkward, and so my lack of a dating life stood out to the point where I occasionally made up girlfriends things weren’t working out well with. I’ll never forget the day he asked me whether I was attracted to women.
It’s possible I protested too much. “What? Are you being serious right now? What? Jesus, Dad.”
Not exactly a firm confirmation. He’s fine with Avery, but I know he’d have rather I met some well-bred co-ed from another important east coast family and not someone he’s never heard of from Iowa. If he knew I’d hired her…
I smile and nod, thank him, and tell him we’ve got time to think about all that.
“I’m incredibly proud of you,” he says. “And relieved, if I’m being honest. ”
The brandy guarantees the honesty part. He doesn’t make me ask what he’s relieved about.
“Your mother and I thought you might be a homosexual for a while there.”
“Right,” I say evenly. “I remember that conversation.” I try not to move a muscle when I speak, afraid any motion would give away my intense, immediate discomfort, or worse—my raging homosexuality.
“I suppose it wouldn’t have been the end of the world,” he says to my surprise, “But it certainly would have tanked your political prospects.”
“All kinds of people are in government now, Dad.”
“Not the kind with our values.”
“Yeah, I guess.”
“You kids… You’ll see when you have a few of your own. Even when you agree with each other, it feels like you’re arguing.” He waves a hand in the air and takes a sip of his drink. “I wanted to talk to you about taking a trip to DC together and meeting with a few people I feel like will be of help to you when you’re on the hill.”
Relieved to be changing the subject, I nod and let myself shift back in the chair. In this family, it’s always safer to talk about politics or religion.