Reluctant Homecoming

"You've kept it open," he murmured in my ear. "Remember how long it took you to be able to accommodate me?"

I took that just as bragging that didn't require an answer. But, yes, I indeed did remember. It seemed to have taken that whole summer to totally erase my innocence. A summer of glorious exploration for me after that first erasing of my virginity to men.

Later, he was still lying on his back in the center of the bed, smiling a satisfied smile and smoking a cigarette. I was sitting on the side of the bed, facing away from him, only knowing he was smiling because I remembered the little self-congratulatory smile he always smiled after fucking me and because I heard it in his voice.

"You home for good?" he asked. "I can get you a job."

"I have a job—in Philadelphia. I don't think there are any theaters around here that could afford me." I spoke to the wall across the room, the wall with the door leading into the master bath, not wanting to look at him directly. I trembled at the thought of that bathroom—the times Milo had fucked me against the shower wall, the water running down our steaming bodies, my knees hooked on his hips, my back sliding up and down the slick tiled wall to the rhythm of his upward thrusts. I was getting hard again—in spite of myself.

Could I do it? Could I break with this man? I'd have to. My eyes went to the floor by the door into the bathroom. A small pair of navy-blue bikini briefs.

"Yours?" I asked to the wall.

"My what?"

"Your briefs on the floor by the bathroom door." The room otherwise was as neat as a pin.

He snorted. "Do I look like I wear skimpy blue briefs like that?"

"So, you have no trouble getting young men?" I was working at giving him up—helping him to realize that, at twenty-nine, I no longer was one of the young men he liked to spike.

"I don't have any trouble, no. But none have been you. Remember that first time? Popped your cherry, I did. And you didn't even know you wanted it. But I knew you did, yes I did. And you discovered it fast. Did you quickly. Came down off the porch after watching you mow shirtless. Just pulled you into the bushes, slapped your legs apart, and did you hard right there. Fucked you like a dog with your arm pulled up high on your back and you whimpering until what was done was done and then you were pushing back on me and asking for more of it. Learned fast enough, though. You asked for it again. Surprised me, you did. I figured when you went away to Ole Miss for that first year before that summer, you would have found your natural calling—what with all those big, randy bruisers they had roaming around that campus. But, no, you had saved yourself for me. Won't ever forget you giving your cherry to me."

Yes, I remembered. Quite a revelation, although "take" was more the way to describe that first time than "give." It had explained a lot; I had, indeed, been in agony that first year of college, increasingly knowing what I wanted but too timid to seek it out—or to accept the offers I did get. And knowing that Milo had already offered it to me, even telling me that he knew I wanted it and would come to him one day for it. The wild fuck in the bushes by a big-cocked older man simplified a lot. But it made other things more complicated.

"God, the thought of popping your cherry makes me horny again," he growled in a low, hoarse voice.

It did me too. But this would be the last time.

He sat up on the bed, his legs encasing mine, his hard cock pressing at the small of my back. I didn't fight him. He threw a beefy arm around my waist and lifted my body, tilting my buttocks toward his crotch. I bent my torso over and grabbed my ankles with my hands.

He settled my channel on his cock, using his free hand to position the staff at my hole. I groaned and moaned as he pushed his cock up into me and pulled my channel down on him with the arm wrapped around my waist. His free hand went to my cock, and he began to stroke me off.

I didn't fight him. I helped with the pumping action by leveraging off my feet while he thrust his cock upward.

It was over too soon—but in the greater context not soon enough.

"It was good for you," he said in that self-satisfied voice of his, after I'd pulled off his cock, stood, and turned.

"Yes, it was good for me," I said, as I bunched a fist, drew it way back, and popped him one hard right to the mouth. He fell back onto the bed, both hands, one slathered with my cum. going to his face in surprise. His eyes were wide—questioning and hurt.

"It was good for me, but it's the last time you are even to lay a hand on me."

* * * *

I sneaked back into the family home—it certainly wasn't the first time I'd done that from the mansion next door—and went directly to take a shower and to spray disinfectant on my knuckles and scrounge around for bandages. I had split the skin on three knuckles. I felt good about that. And I thought it just that it should hurt. I'd left Milo right where I'd put him, flat on his back on the bed and looking up at his bedroom ceiling with a confused look on his face.

After dressing again, I came back downstairs and went into my father's study, looking for that liquor my mother had mentioned earlier. I wasn't a heavy drinker, but if this wasn't the time for a good slug of bourbon, I didn't know what time would be.

After pouring myself four fingers, I wandered over to my dad's desk. All was neatness, just like my dad would have left it. He had been the neatnik in the family. The very "everything in its place" order on the desk led my eyes to an envelope laying in the center of the desktop.

I recognized it as a letter, and I picked it up, my heart doing a flip as I also recognized it as a double-canceled letter from Hot Springs addressed to me—in my father's handwriting. The envelope was still sealed, and I recognized it as one that had come to me when I was in New York and that I had sent back unopened. Just one of a few. From the date, just four years ago, this would have been the last.

My mind went to what my mother had rounded on me about earlier in the day, in as angry a response as I had ever heard from her. It was when she had said that my father hadn't been the one to give up on me. I'd acknowledged at the time that I hadn't taken a phone call from him. I had failed to acknowledge—and this envelope reminded me—that I also had sent letters back unopened.

I didn't like receiving these revelations about the way I had acted in the confrontations with my father—or, rather, lack of them—over my having come out.

It was only right and just that I listen to him now—if only to confirm what I had thought all along about his rejection of me for my choice of lifestyle and partners.

I slit open the envelope and extracted the one large stationery sheet. I involuntarily teared up at the recognition of my father's tight, very correct and legible longhand script in flowing ink. I don't think the man had ever used a ballpoint pen in his life. It was part, I realized, of my belief that he was a man of a previous century—and of Holly Springs—a man who couldn't possibly understand and accept my choice.

I am giving you warning, son, as I think that it's only fitting, that I'm coming to you in the next two weeks. Your sister has told me how to get to your place in New York. She's also told me about the young man you are with and that she likes him very much. I will tell you straight out that I am pleased that you have found someone to love as I found your mother. And beyond that, there need be nothing said . . . there need be nothing beyond that at all. Your mother and I love you, son—equally—and we only want you to be happy. We also want to feel that our family is whole, though.

I was putting together a sermon the other day. One on the prodigal son. Have you ever looked "prodigal" up? One definition is "one who gives lavishly or foolishly," and another is "one who has returned after an absence." I thought about that in forming my sermon, and it occurred to me that the lesson to be harried in a sermon—and you know how I love to harry lessons in a sermon—was giving lavishly or foolishly. I thought upon that from the standpoint of my own sins, and I surprised myself to have the revelation that what I've lavishly and foolishly given was far too much of my time to silence between the two of us. The sermon I ended up with, which set the congregation to buzzing, I can tell you that, was that the son in the parable had come back after a long absence and all was fine in that situation—at least between those two—but what if time had been lavished for too long and the son had died—or the father had—before they came together again? That is the sin, I think, that the parable is getting to down deep. And it is a message to me as much as it is to you, I think.

I believe we should stop lavishing time to silence and any hint of discord between us. Time is short. I am coming to see you, and I hope you will be there to receive me. Not the prodigal son, but the prodigal father. Nothing matters but that you are my son and I am your father. All else matters little. Perhaps your young man will be there too and we can meet. Or you can bring him to Holly Springs someday. Maybe this Christmas.

I found I could not read further, other than glances down to the salutation and finding what I ached to see: "Love, Dad."

I folded the letter and gently inserted it back into the envelope. Then I put the untouched glass of bourbon down on the coaster on the desk, left the room, and went and rummaged around in the mud room off the back porch.

My mother rose from the sofa in the living room and met me in the foyer. I stuffed my skinned-knuckles hand in my pocket, needing more time to form an explanation for it.

"You're going out?" she asked. "Are those your father's boots you have on?"

"Yes, they are. The letter on the desk in dad's study. You put it there, didn't you? For me to find and to read—at last."

"I thought it was time. Beyond time."

"Did you know what was in the letter?"

"I can guess. He told me what he was going to write."

"And yet he didn't come."

"He wrote that the week he died, Clay. He had his heart attack upstairs as he was packing his bag."

"I never knew."

"If you had come to the funeral, I would have told you. You and your father haven't been the only ones harboring hurts. Now, about those boots. They are a bit big for you, I think."

"I think maybe dad's shoes will always be a bit big for me to fill. But I can use these. And I can try."

"But why are you wearing them?"

"I thought I'd go up to Hill Crest and clean the weeds off the grave. I trust I can find the tools I need in the shed out back. But, you look tired, and you shouldn't be straining yourself. Go back and rest."

"There's nothing wrong with me, Clay. Oh, maybe a bit of a cold. But I feel tons better now than before you came home."

"But your illness. The cancer."

"Would you have come home if I'd said anything less than cancer was involved? And in a way, what has been belaboring this family has been a form of cancer. I decided it was time for a bit of surgery."

Before I could say anything, she changed the subject. "There's a potted poinsettia plant in the dining room window you could take with you to lay against the headstone. I'm sure your father would like that."

When I went out on the front porch, I could smell it in the air. And then I could see it. It had started to snow. Maybe miracle of miracles we'd have a white Christmas in Mississippi this year after all. It's something I would have liked Thad to see.

My thoughts went back to the sentences in my father's letter: "Or you can bring him to Holly Springs someday. Maybe this Christmas."

Why not this Christmas? Thad had said he would come if I wanted him to. It was only the 23rd. He had plenty of time to get here for Christmas.