Merry Random Christmas (10 page)

“Yeah,” Joe said. “Can you imagine?”

“Right. Living on the streets.”

“No. I mean, having a chicken for your best friend. You have to be super fucked in the head to think that.”

I snickered as Trevor tensed. Couldn’t help myself.

“
Fuck you, Joe,” Trevor said as we walked out of the alley and toward Mass Ave, where we would pick up the subway to our apartment.
 

“I wanna go home,” I blurted out as we headed toward the familiar Red Line signs for the subway entrance. All the restaurants were closed, the streets littered only with cops and homeless folks. Christmas lights were wound through the branches of scraggly, bare trees, the LED glow a bit haunting and cool at the same time.

A
nd then—

DING! DONG! DING! DONG!

Merry Christmas.

We paused, Joe and Trevor reaching for me, the three of us in a giant hug, the church bells ringing on and on until they had done their job. It was Christmas.

Baby Jesus was born.

And, I hoped, glowing in his rightful place in front of the
Methodist
church back home in Peters,
Ohio
.

Mama and my stepdaddy were tucked quietly in bed right about now. Uncle Mike was stuck in Chicago on a run, but he’d
c
ome home to Peters tomorrow and go over to Mama and Calvin’s with
his woman, and with Jane and Davey and their little boys
. Aunt Marlene would go on over, too, and everyone would open presents, eat all the Christmas dinner favorites, groan and undo their belts, and then we’d have a long game of penny poker going late into the night.

We?

No. There was no “we”.

I wasn’t there.

A pang of sorrow hit me like I’d been belted over the head with a slab of cast iron, the air knocked out of me like it was being beaten from my lungs with fists from ghosts.

“Darla?” Trevor asked me, worried. “What’s wrong?”

“I ain’t got
a
home,” I cried. “My mama’s back home and it’s Christmas and you two don’t play penny poker and who
is
gonna make the green bean casserole just right like Mama?
The one with the crispy onions from a can and the mushroom soup and what if the Baby Jesus don’t glow like it’s supposed to?
”
I wailed.
 

“You can come to my parents’ in the morning,”
T
revor soothed. “With me. And Alex and Josie invited us all over at two tomorrow, and—”

“Not the same,” I sniffled, as Joe wrapped his arms around the two of us.

“No,” Trevor admitted. “It’s not your home. It’s not your traditions. We pulled you away from all that.”

“We can go with you. Right now. Get in my car and start driving and we can be in Ohio before dinner,” Joe said. I looked at him in shock. He was serious. Completely serious.

My heart tugged like someone was unraveling it. “No. That’s okay. I appreciate the gesture. I do. Really. I love you for it.”

“
I love you, too,” Joe said. The words warmed me. We all said it to each other—well, the guys said it to me—more and more, but it was still rare enough to give me the sweet tingles whenever it came out of their mouths. This was a promise we needed to build, like a strong structure with the best foundation, and each
I love you
added more and more.
 

“And I mean it,” he said as he smoothed the hair off my face. “We can go. Now. You can see Cathy whenever you want. If you don’t
w
ant to go tonight, we can go tomorrow. Or December 27. Or July 11. Your happiness means everything to me.”

“To us,” Trevor added.

“You two,” I rasped, overcome with Christmas spirit. Maybe I didn’t need that
green
bean casserole, or the candy cane Oreo-crust pie mama made with two containers of Cool-Whip. Maybe the ornaments Mama carefully wrapped in tissue every year and pulled out for the holiday to hang on the plastic tree were just physical manifestations of love and tradition, of home and comfort.

I
could find that elsewhere.

Right here, in Joe and Trevors’ arms.

But I wanted my mama. Bad. When you hit a low, and fuckall if my night wasn’t one of the worst ever, you crave the familiar. You seek out what you know. You wiggle your way into the line-up where you have a place, a marked spot, where your presence is expected, even if not fully accepted.

When we’re uprooted and upended and life shakes us violently like a toddler with a snow globe, we need to find balance. Fast.

Or we’ll puke.

So life is like an inner ear.

It’s all gunked up and full of wax and if you don’t maintain it, you’ll get dizzy and—

My metaphors are getting stupid
er
.

I think what I’m trying to say is that love ain’t something that you only find in old traditions.

It’s something you practice every day.

Happy birthday, Baby Jesus. Welcome to this clustercluck of a world.

* * *

I’m not the kind of person who turns to sex out of a sense of sadness. I’ve never done that. For me, sex is something you do when you’re horny, either by yourself or with someone (preferably, two someones, for me). The idea of finding connection and comfort in sexual intimacy is a new one, and as Joe g
ave
me a slow, soulful kiss i
t
dawn
ed
on me that maybe everything I always thought about sex
wa
s wrong.

Or, if it’s not all wrong, maybe there’s just more to it than I ever expected.

We
were
home, back at the two-bedroom apartment that fe
lt
gloriously luxurious
once
Sam and Amy ha
d
moved out. We ha
d
two whole bedrooms to
occupy
, and the place fe
lt
empty and full, alien and like home.

There
was
a moment, as Trevor strip
ped
me naked and gently guide
d
me to the steaming shower, when I f
elt
a sense of joyful
unknowing. This was new territory for me. Not being back home on this holiday, by choice, was a mixed blessing. Independence that was so hard won turned out to be a heavy burden that was deceptively light.
 

You don’t realize you’re carrying it around with you, twenty-four seven, in charge of cultivating it and nurturing it and making sure it doesn’t get away from you.

All the time.

You don’t just get to have the freedom to choose your own path without finding out the consequences can suck, and suck hard. Every decision you make from a place of wanting to stand on your own two feet has multiple paths,
g
rowing like tendrils, like vines seeking light and space, a place to nudge and take over.

And if you aren’t careful, those vines can sneak up on you, squeezing you until everything you got is emptied out, leaving you a hollow shell, begging for the world to fill you up again so you don’t have to be so barren and burdened.

Trevor’s fingers slid against the outsides of my thighs, his hands practiced in pulling my panties down, his fingers cold but palms warm as they splay
ed
across my shoulders, possessive and understanding.

It ha
d
been one hell of a day. Playfulness d
id
n’t enter the picture. We
we
re all grounded now, rooted in a somber sense that our relationship changed in a single day, deepening without intent.

I turn
ed
in Trevor’s arms, his hands skimming my waist, settling on my ass, as I g
a
ve him a tentative kiss borne of
the craving pulse of
connection.
Be with me
, my mouth sa
id
.
Just be here. Touch me. Know me. Make me feel like I’m here. Really here.
 

And really be here with me, too.

Time is what we all crave. Not attention. We think we want someone to fawn all over us, to make us the center of their world, to set themselves aside for as long as it takes for our cup of need to fill to overflowing so we can be done and settle down into an equanimity of love.

That’s fiction.
I
t doesn’t exist. What is real, though, is actually better.

Trevor stripped down and as I reached for him, the connection between my fingers and his skin was slick. Too slick. He felt like a
well-oiled piece of leather, like climbing into a new car at a showroom and slip-sliding across the backseat.
 

Technically, Trevor’s body
was
well-oiled leather, come to think of it.
Man leather, covered in the deliciously tickling hair that marked his strong, golden thighs, the curve of his ass carrying a weight to it that felt to steady and stable as I stroked him. I wasn’t making a pass. I was making a statement.
 

I might be yours, but you’re mine right back.

The assault of hot water and steam felt so good I shuddered, my blood needing more than
just the motion of
pumping through my veins to express some of the overflowing emotion within. A good cry would be a good start, but a good shaking tremor, complete with teeth-chattering, had a primal effect that no cry could replace.
My muscle fibers needed to vibrate out all the weirdness, the horror, the terror and the fuckery of the day. Making room for a completely different kind of body tension, the kind that absorbs love via osmosis and orgasm, was my final act as we wound down the night.
 

Joe was nude and climbing into the tiny shower with us, this ritual one of our own that no one outside the three of us had—or would—ever share in quite the same way. Over the years, I imagined, we would move into a different apartment. Maybe get an actual house. Who knew? Our future together was still a haze, a soup of what-ifs, but I knew one thing:

Muscle memory meant that Joe would always stand a certain way, hip cocked to the left, so he could fit into his tiny corner of the shower. I would always dip my neck just so. Trevor would, forever, hold his left arm a certain way.

And all because that was how it had to be at this one point in time, space, geography, and in love.

I cried.
T
he sobs weren’t loud, but they shook my chest, breasts mashed up against Trevor’s shoulder blades, Joe’s hands making soothing circles on my back, one of them
reaching around to cup my breast. The movement made my perspective realign by a fraction of a heartbeat, as if I measured space by increments of love.
 

B
eing enveloped by them both gave me a sanctuary of the flesh, a space with more meaning than just words.
Being told you’re loved is a delightful gift that gives day in and day out, for the memory of the words being addressed to you—and only you—can never be taken away. Unlike an object,
I love you
is like a tattoo that lives in your heart instead of on your skin, engraved into your heart and soul, removed only by the deliberate and excruciating process of your own volition.
 

Being loved on the outside, fro
m
the sweet gestures of respect
and thoughtfulness like a hot cup of coffee brought to you in bed to the sensual lovemaking that stretches across a forbidden weekend that shuts out the world, solidifies the words. Trevor and Joe could have said all the right things on this insane night and I’d have felt better.
 

That they said all the right things and offered up all the right skin, the right touch and look and feel and
ah
—that made the love complete. Whole.

Integrated.

Soapy fingers lathered up my hair as I turned my face to the shower, letting the water wash over me like a ritual bath. Coconut and lime filled the steamy space and two hands caressed my scalp while two more lingered across my torso, my upper thighs, my breasts and back and ass and all the parts of me that needed attention.

That needed tending.

By the time we ran out of hot water we were clean and drained, so tired our eyelids drooped as we toweled off, too exhausted to dress, too depleted to care. And yet, we knew what came next.

Us.

I climbed into bed and the guys flanked me, one on each side.
T
he
ceremonial feel to this moment made me smile. We knew each other so well. Two and a half years of being together, through thick and thin, and this was my life now.
 

This.

Not Ohio. Not Mama. Not Peters and not anything else. I lived in Boston with my guys and managed their band, worked for my aunt Josie, and I loved these men with a timeless ache that just grew stronger every day.

I would never, ever have enough of them.
You would think that being so young, we’d stray. My eyes certainly had at times, but there just wasn’t anyone who held the promise of something better. Even curiosity wasn’t enough. I have friends who think the grass is always greener on the other side of the Brazilian landing strip. They’re wrong.
 

T
revor’s taste
wa
s on my tongue as he kisse
d
me, a slow, languid kiss that assume
d
we ha
d
all night.
A clean, naked body and warm flannel sheets combined with the nude bodies of Trevor and Joe was the only hallelujah I needed on Christmas.
 

“I love you. I’m so sorry. What a night.” Joe’s words were a healing balm, an assurance that confirmed my own sense that the world had turned into a whirling dervish. Sometimes I fe
lt
like an entire ecosystem inside my skin, like a self-contained biosphere. From the outside, it
wa
s neat and orderly, systems functioning as expected and carrying on with a mind of its own.

S
cratch the surface, and chaos reign
ed
.

The warm wall of Trevor sank into my side, his knees nudging against my calves, his hip hard against my yielding curves, the
swoosh
of sheets and skin and heat as I rotated to seek out his mouth like a soundtrack for this sacred moment.