Category Archives: Flash Fiction

Bored Angels

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Peters photo 02-2013

 

The Arch Angels, Jeff and Matt, were bored. It was a Wednesday, mid-week, hump day. There were no Lenten services, it was the wrong season. Choir practice was done for the year. No one was getting married, no one had died–although Jeff told Matt he smelled like someone had crawled up his ass and expired. “It’s the stale communion wafers! They always give me gas, you know that!”

“Well why do you eat them then?”

“You know very well why–Blood of Christ, Body of Christ–we’re angels, what else can we eat? So I binge on the leftovers once in a while, forgive me!”

“Whatever…”

Bored angels were generally not a good thing. Of course there were all the rules. No interfering with an individuals right to choose good versus evil. No showing yourself to those still alive. No playing cupid, except of course on St. Valentine’s day. Being an angel wasn’t all fun and games. In fact, that was Jeff’s major complaint. He figured it should be all fun and games. “I mean really, I got the golden ticket, right? Why not flowing chocolate fountains?”

“Let’s go check out that big Leadership conference of the Order of the Holy and Pious. I think it started yesterday in Geneva.”

“Sure, it could be interesting. There’s plenty to talk about what with global health crisis’s, child pornography, drug abuse, trashy ecosystems, opportunity inequity, hunger…”

“Well, lot’s has been getting better, too. You shouldn’t always keep harping on the negative! Accentuate the positive!”

“Whatever, let’s see what some of the break-out groups are studying.”

“…we’ll need to increase security to assure safety post-transition, of course…”

“… abstinence, that’s God’s way. We’ll crack down on those having relations for reasons other than procreation! I mean, really, if I had only known what I know now when I was a teenager…”

“…welcome you all to Protecting Yourself from Lawsuits – 1001. This class is vital to the fiscal preparedness of the…”

“…attendance numbers are down in the United States and Europe, let’s hope that the conversion focus on Latin American and Africa can bring back…”

“Oh my God, this just makes me want to break into the communion wine!”

“Come on, Matt. This is worse than being bored. Let’s go see if we can save some poor slob from slitting his wrists over the futility of trying to house, clothe and feed his family of four on his two, no benefits, part-time jobs at McBurgers and Walsmart.”

The inspiration for this story came from my nephew’s drawing.

Poison Ivy

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Sometimes its easy to see the flowers:

But not so easy to see the weeds and poison ivy:

Poison Ivy

Have you ever sat among the spring flowers to dream and relax, only to realize the next day that you were also sitting in poison ivy? Well, that’s what being with Jason was like…

Jason was my best friend through grade school and high school. Well, not really my best friend, more like my only friend. We shared a back yard that over looked the park, a car (when I finally got one), our class notes (well, mostly mine), a girlfriend (well, she started out as mine, then transferred to Jason, sigh), clothes (ah, he didn’t like me wearing his stuff, but…), beer (my dad’s), ciggys (all mine)…well, I think you get the picture. Unfortunately for me, I didn’t get the picture until my senior year.

Jason was the baseball team captain at our high school. In our senior year he led the Muskies to the state finals. Although we only got as far as  consolation–4th place–, he was heralded as a small town hero. It didn’t hurt that he was also handsome and assumed to be wealthy, as he was the son of our small town’s banker. What he possessed in knowledge of sports and magnetic attraction was only somewhat moderated by what he lacked in mental capacity and agility. Even though I was valedictorian, Jason and I were neighbors, so maybe it was only natural that we ended up being friends in school. What seemed odd was that our friendship lasted on into college.

I decided to go to State University because Dad worked for a living and thought his son should as well. While we weren’t poor, neither were we wealthy. Dad was conservative when it came to school loans as well as his views on his children working for their education.

Jason decided to go to State University because they gave him a full four year scholarship to play baseball. They didn’t realize, as both Jason and I did, that it would probably take him eight years to get his bachelor’s degree in PE.

One Saturday night in June, Jason asked me if he and I could be roommates at State.  We were working on a six pack of Bud Light from Dad’s garage refrigerator stash and had been laying on the hillside between our houses that overlooked the city park. . I was a little taken aback because I figured our friendship would end when we both went our separate ways in the fall. “Why would you want to room with me, Jason? Won’t you have a plethora of baseball jocks whose minds work hand in glove with your own?”

“Well, jeeze Nickers–he had called me Nickers ever since Mom dressed me in what she so lovingly called “young man nickers”–that’s ‘zactly why I wanna room with you. None of those jocks is gonna know how to teach me nothing. You been tutoring me since kiddygarten.” Of course that little speech made me proud of my years of work.

I thought about the many weeknights the two of us spent holed up in Jason’s room, him listening to music in his left ear, drinking diet Mountain Dew and texting with his left hand, while I read the highlighted notes from our chemistry, algebra, world history, English literature, or whatever class for which we were studying, to his right ear. I would alternately beg him to listen or ask him questions that he alternately ignored or answered wrong. When the day of the test came, I would pass with flying colors and he would pass with a D+ or C- or maybe he would just flunk. Then he would be assigned extra work or maybe some cretin of a teacher would give him a take home make-up exam. A take home make-up exam, just what I needed.

“Well, I guess there’s no harm in us being roommates, Jason.” Acting like that was the answer he had expected all along, Jason said the beer was making him cold and asked to borrow my sweater. I took it off and threw it at his head while he laughed and punched me in the arm. Ow, crap, that was right on top of the bruise from the last friendly punch he shot me two days ago. Well, at least we knew where we stood with each other.

As Jason buttoned my sweater over his worn baseball tee shirt, he undid his shorts and slid them down his hips. I rolled over to relieve both of us, as I did most Saturday nights we hung out together. As I did, I pondered the next four years of rooming, and tutoring, this small town baseball star. And I smiled to myself, even as I began to break out in hives and itch.

Floating Boat House, Philippines

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The two of them paid their pesos for the floating relaxation and pushed off from the shore.  It seemed that the tall young man was in charge, even though he looked with smiles and deep brown eyes at his mate with every question they were asked. They had waited nearly five years for this. Alone on the raft, the lake was quiet and free of people.

The day was clear and still. It was early, because of schedules neither one of them could control, but seeing this spot of beauty, which stuck in both their minds for so long, had been their agreed upon first stop. The white hot sun was at 11 o’clock in a flaming blue sky and heat waves were starting to shimmer off the slightly green colored water.

The first thing the older man did was drop the curtain that directly faced back to the shore. He knew it would make his lover more comfortable, plus he was so very warm in this unknown climate and he needed to take off his traveling shirtf. He knew the smooth brown prince would laugh at his pale skin, but this too would make him happy.

“My dear, should we eat the picnic I packed?” The prince beamed at his beloved and gestured to the bags he had been carrying during their trip to the recreation area.

“No darling, I plan to devour you with my eyes for some time first and have you squirm under my adoring stare.” The snarky smirk crept back onto his face, just like it had a dozen times since his prince picked him up.

This brought the smile he had intended and they both settled in to visit in a position they had never tried before, touching bodies, so that they could feel each other’s heat, smell the slightly musky odor of man and feel the perspiration sliding down the other’s neck and back.

“You know I’m exhausted, puss puss…I will lay and listen to your banter with my eyes closed.” With this, the older, silver haired king turned to lay his head in the lap of his long time virtual lover.

The smooth brown prince, who had a generous and very comfortable–for the most part–lap, leaned back and started to tell his king the story of the last five years…in person.

The Egyptian Correspondent

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My flat in Cairo was inside the city and in the worst traffic, crime, and lowest price area that would consider renting to foreign service employees; therefore, I could afford quite a respectable place on the per-deim that USGCC gave me. I had always been of the mind that I would rather buy my own housing and cars than have the company pay terrible prices for renting them in the fenced in American getto communities.

The flat I had chosen was two stories, both stories were above the ground so they were –a little– less dusty and a bit safer. Of course the upper floors were also less likely to be over-run with bugs, snakes and weird colored lizards. I actually lived in what we might call a Townhouse in the U.S. with my storage and garage being on the ground level. As I changed countries I would sell everything that I had and usually make a nice profit at the same time as having USGCC per-diem pay well more than any payments I had been making. In Cairo I had a two year old small Mercedes and a ten year old Jeep, which was actually much more useful.

Friday morning started out as it often did, with Bogey at my door at seven o’clock pounding and creating a riot in my hall and head. Being a correspondent usually didn’t entail early hours, but somehow Boge had never held with the lazy morning routine. I pulled on some shorts and dragged over to the door to let in my best friend. We had been at the Club Alex until one in the morning discussing the details of our trip and, already, Bogey had her arms full of guides, newspapers from Alexandria and Cairo, travel brochures from the Company and –Thank God!– my bagel and a pot of fresh brewed coffee.

“Bogey, can’t you see its only seven a.m. and I’m still practically dead?” I said, through stale mouth and crusty eyes. “I don’t understand why your damn clock goes off so early in the morning, why don’t you have it fixed?”

“Well if you weren’t always out until the crack of dawn trying to hustle stories or dark haired boys you’d be better off anyway.” She always said this even though I always spent the entire evening with her. With Boge it just didn’t make any difference, your time was her time and you should just know it. “So I suppose you need an entirely new wardrobe for a week on the Nile?” she said. “I have tons of equipment to round up and need your help all afternoon, so I’m here to help you get your shopping done this morning!”

With a grunt of acceptance, I burned my tongue on my coffee and started scanning the papers for anything interesting. “Hey look at this” Bogey said, “they have Peaches at the market this week for only $1.59 a pound.” God, how I longed for more literate company! Actually, Bogey was the truest friend I’d had since Tim stayed behind at my last post in the states.

He was fabulous in bed, was inked and full of kink, but not the kind of person that could stand dust in his underwear or someone you could count on to have your back in a knife fight. With the damn Egyptian heat and our need to seek out stories, someone who could pull me through a tight spot was probably much more useful to me than someone who had, well you probably get it. So here I was with Bogey, listening to the price of peaches and thinking about my past men.

 

Nathaniel’s Eating Habits

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Nathaniel pulled on the round, white buttons that closed the designer silk and lace dress against the feminine curves of her back. He watched with minor interest as the soft expanse of woman appeared from behind the material he wasn’t good enough to touch and Cynthia no longer needed.

After the knife was wiped clean of his frenzied wrath, Nathaniel slid it carefully back into the polished wooden case and replaced the case on the top shelf of her closet. He knew Cynthia would never bother to laugh at his lack of culture, his clothes or his eating habits again. She thought she owned the world, and even more so, him. All she really had was money.

Money to buy her the well-practiced British accent—that Nathaniel thought was so gratingly nasal—to buy her designer dresses that she spray painted on her body, pay for her drooling trainer to tone that same body and, of course, to buy him to keep her entertained.

Just yesterday she had complained that she was not getting her money’s worth out of their little set-up and at least she should have someone sophisticated enough to eat at L’Auberge du Pelican. It had been all he could do to refrain from reaching gently across the table and driving his butter knife into the soft indentation in her—very—exposed neck.

Birthday Suit

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“Birthday Suit” by R Scott Tyler

“But Mom,” Tony knew it was starting to sound really whiny. “They aren’t ‘deviant’, lots of stars have them.”

“And that’s supposed to help your argument how?” He knew he had blown it with that train of thought. His mom thought that actors like Clint Eastwood and Ben Stein were a little too middle-leaning and the band, Alabama, had too many racy lyrics in their music.
Laying on his bed, fists clenched, head pushed back into the pillow and heels pumping up and down, Tony’s only retort was “I’m not fourteen anymore!”

“Well then why am I folding your underwear mister…” He felt the pile of laundry, warm still from the dryer, land on his stomach and heard his mom’s steps as she left his bedroom.

“Crap!” he yelled after her as she gently closed the door. He could almost see her smiling as she went down the hall to the living room.

“Okay, here’s what the picture you described looks like to me.” Trenton showed Tony the small drawing of himself, catching an errant drum stick that got away from Paramore’s drummer, Zac Farro, at the first rock concert he had attended. It was finally the afternoon of his 18th birthday, closing in on 4:00 p.m., and he was picking out his first tattoo.

“Yes, that’s completely it. I love it!” Seeing the tattoo Trenton designed from his memory almost made his finger ache again where the drumstick had broken it when hewent wild to catch it.

“Then let’s do this thing. I can have you out of here by 8:00.”

It was a bit after 4:00 when Tony followed Trenton back to the ink stations. The tattoo was going in the classic tramp stamp location because, even though he would be 18, Tony figured that was the place his mom was least likely to see it. He did still have college tuition to worry about.

“Lay face down on the table with your pants off.” Trenton was preparing the colors and the needles, facing the table.

“Really, my pants off?”

“Yeah, I’ve got to be able to move you around at will to get the right angles. You don’t want a fucked up tat, do you?” With a grin he added, “If you’re too much of a priss you can lower them to about mid-thigh.”

Well, he certainly wanted the perfect tattoo. And he had never been a priss before, he thought, taking off his jeans. He sort of wished he’d worn clean underwear, but hell, he had taken the bus over here. No chance of an accident.

He lay down on the table, feeling quite exposed, especially when he looked at Trenton and noticed where his eyes were glued. Flipping his head the other direction, he glanced at the flat screen on the wall playing, what sort of looked like, Japanese anime porno. Great, there was a mirror, too. It was just at the right angle for him to watch as Trenton rested his arm comfortably on his, um, cheeks, and got ready to start. A glance at the clock situated between TV and mirror told him it was 4:30 p.m. It reminded him of the many times his mom told him that his delivery had been difficult –she said this basically every birthday— her labor lasting almost twenty hours, with Tony finally being born at precisely 4:30 in the afternoon.

On the day of his 19th birthday, Tony was working. This was perfect because, he was a lifeguard at South Sandy Point, one of the huge beaches in the Padre Islands of Texas. Here summertime meant girls. Lots of girls with very little clothing. He wore Aussie style swimsuits to guard duty and he rolled them down to make sure his tattoo showed.

“What time are your parents leaving, Tony?” Archer was especially excited about the little party Tony planned on throwing tonight.

“They’ll be gone by the time we get off work, not to worry!” Glancing at the clock he realized he’d been counting down the hours, then minutes, till 4:30. Quitting time. He was hoping that the party wouldn’t turn into a free for all, but if it did, well, who really cared. He had plenty of time to clean up before his parents were back from their Galveston weekend. Not much time left now. It was 4:17 p.m.

When he looked back up from Archer’s distraction and the clock, he noticed some odd activity a hundred yards out and just to the right of center on the horizon. Grabbing his binoculars, he focused on the area and saw two girls in the water, flailing their hands and splashing all over. Like they were being attacked. Shit. He grabbed the megaphone and yelled “Shark! Shark! Everyone out of the water, now!” He hit the siren button and jumped from the top of the tower, grabbing the safety board and running as soon as he hit sand.

The last thing he remembered before his lifeguard training totally took over was glancing around to see the other guards in hot pursuit to help, but all of them, except Archer, were spread up and down the beach and would be a ways behind them.

“Oh man, I was going to be so pissed off if those chicks screwed up your party, dude!”

Sitting on his parents couch, drinking his third beer, Tony just looked at Archer through post-adrenaline tired eyes. He had to admit, he was disappointed also. That little bull shark attack had totally made him loose interest in getting laid. The two girls were going to be fine, they probably wouldn’t even have much scarring, but his mojo was drained from seeing the blood…and of course the fear.

Twenty four hours after the attack he was again –still?—laying in bed. He was sleeping off yesterday’s beers and the excitement that came before them. The feeling started as a tickle in the center of his lower back. He ignored it until it became more of a scratch and then a yelp inducing pinch. The constant pinching made him get out of bed and trot to the bathroom with a scowl. “Must have swam over a jellyfish on the way to those girls…” he thought.

He pulled off his tee shirt, slid his shorts partway down his butt and craned his head around to look at the area where he felt the needles. It only took him a minute to come to terms with the fact that the pain was coming from his tattoo area. And the tattoo seemed to be growing. The pain of the needles kept going as he slumped to the floor in a dead faint.

An hour and a half later he came to. He opened his eyes and he was looking at the tile where it came to meet the bottom of the bathroom sink cabinet. There were loads of curly hairs down here on the floor. Didn’t his mom every clean his bathroom floor? Oh yeah, he forgot. She had stopped cleaning his bathroom the same day she stopped folding his laundry.

As he became more aware, he realized the needles had stopped. Crap though, his lower back felt really sore. Like someone had been poking needles in him for a couple of hours. Getting up, he reached into the second drawer down in his cabinet and grabbed his hand mirror. Closing his eyes, he turned his back to the mirror again. His shorts were still down below his butt. Positioning the mirror about where he thought it should go, he slowly sneaked his eyes back open.

There it was, slightly to the right of his drumstick tattoo, totally integrated into its edges, and about twice its size. One of the most detailed and beautiful tattoos he had ever seen. It was an artistic stylization of a shark attack. He was clearly featured between the shark and two beautiful girls, their eyes wide and mouths open in fear.

His jaw dropped as he immediately began to think about how he should spend the late afternoon of his 20th birthday.

Hump Day Flash Fiction, “Cuffed and Stuffed” Wednesday, March 14, 2012

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Alex thought about handcuffs in a very literal way. Hand cuffs─locking bracelets that kept two hands close together and kept at least one of the hands from doing something that it might really like to do. For instance, fleeing the other hand, and the arm to which it was attached. This was probably why he got so bored when Luke talked about them.

Luke, from Magic Rings Piercings, was prone to wax poetic about handcuffs. He equated any type of mind binding to a set of cuffs. To Luke, piercings, especially those outside the generic earlobe piercings, were a distinct type of mind binding. He had clients that were cuffed, or bound, at many different levels by piercings. Most of his clients were run of the mill. The guys and gals that wanted one or two earlobes pierced. Residing on the next rung up the piercing ladder were the ones that wanted several piercings in their ears, possibly even including the cartilage of their ears as sites. A couple more rungs up from there he placed the rest of the facial protrusion piercers. The ones with bars and rings in their noses, lips, tongues, and eyebrows. Next there were the hidden places piercers and the not so hidden, but painful places piercers. These folks pierced places like the back of the neck, top of the chin, cheeks, nipples, belly button, and skin on and around the genitalia. The top rung piercers Luke called the “cuffed and stuffed” crowd. These were the men and women, because he sure as hell didn’t pierce any minors in these areas, that pierced special sexual places─penial gland or clitoris─or any chunk of loose skin on their body simply for the pleasure of being pierced.

Alex rolled his eyes. He knew Luke pretty well and had heard the cuffed, bound and stuffed analogy, and examples of each rung, many times before. Luke first pierced his ears and gave him heavy gold, plated, rings. Next, both of his nipples. These had nicer looking silver bars that looked kind of like weight training bars. Recently, after the memories of his nipple pain receded, his lower lip was pierced with a bar that went in one side, exposed the bar on the inside of his mouth, and back out the other side. It made him look a bit mad when he smiled big, but he liked it anyway.

Sometime after the first piercing, which Alex paid for in more or less the same manner he paid Trenton, Alex started calling Luke “daddy, my daddy” at his request, which seemed a little weird, but the sound of it was cool. Alex realized that, mostly, Luke just really wanted Alex to have as much fun as he was having. There were times when Alex went to Luke’s place just to flirt and have sex, but Luke was always most interested after piercing Alex and that’s when he would plow Alex the hardest.

The lip piercing had been particularly painful for Alex and Luke could barely contain himself afterwards.

At the end of that session, Luke had already stripped off his shirt when he said “Okay, you’re good, get over to the couch.”

“Ow, fuch, I cann eben talk yeh.”

“You don’t need to talk, you need to get on the couch.” Luke growled through a snarky smile.

“Ofay, thaddy, I’m gonn. Wan Awex to thake hith thorts off, daddy?”

That had been a bit of a rough one. Alex had to keep swallowing blood from his bleeding inside lip while his head was two and a half feet lower than his butt and he kept getting pushed to the edge and then pulled back. It had been a load of fun, but he remembered that his lip hurt for two weeks after. Not to mention his butt.

 

Surf’s Up

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For Tommy, there was nothing more calming and centering than being on his board, a few hundred feet out from the shore, watching a monster wave making its way to him. But, he knew that what happened this time was all wrong as the tendons of his right shoulder were ripped suddenly away from their connections and his arm separated from the rest of his body like a Thanksgiving Day turkey drumstick.

The repeating dream faded as his scream woke him and he came to spasmodic consciousness. Rorey was flung unceremoniously from his chest…and the bed.

“God damn dude, you have cuddlepsy!”

He was awake and still a little drunk, but the pain was clearing the buzz fast. His arm was still connected to his body, but the spikey pain was shooting through his shoulder again.  “Shit, I’m really sorry Rorey, but you must have hit that trigger spot in my shoulder when you moved in for the snug. I had that dream again and I could feel my arm being ripped out of the socket.” He moved his arm back down to his side and rubbed the shoulder. Rorey just stood there with his arms crossed. He looked sorry, a little pissy, and his morning wood was starting to sag.

“Come snuggle a bit on the other side?”

Walking and bobbing around to the other side of the bed, Rorey crawled back under the covers and put his arm over Tommy’s little Buda belly.

Tommy thought the accident had ambushed his (imagined?) pro surfing career. Since he was a kid, the ocean was always the only place he wanted to be and, as far as he was concerned, surfing was the best thing about being at the ocean. He was far from being a pro, but it was everything he’d dreamt of since he was a kid. In the last couple of years he’d become a promising amateur, winning a half dozen contests in various locations every year. Until the accident.

A little more than two weeks ago he met Rorey, at the liquor store, when they were both shopping. Tommy, to replace the liquor bottles he emptied the prior weekend, feeling sorry for himself in his bedroom rental, and Rorey, to buy the ingredients for a martini party he was throwing the coming Saturday. Tommy’s mood had been too low to put off Rorey when he started flirting with him and asked him to come to his party Saturday night. In the end, Tommy said yes.

The following Saturday he knocked lightly on the door, hearing the music and laughter inside the apartment, and vaguely thought. “God, with any luck no one will hear and I can just go home again.” His arm had been aching so he had swallowed just a little premedication prior to the party, telling himself that he would go light on the alcohol. When the door opened, Rorey stood in front of him. His hair was all spikey, standing up on his head in a way that was really cute on someone that was, well, his age. He gave him a lop-sided grin and grabbed both of his shoulders to drag him into a welcoming kiss. “Ow, fuck!” It came out louder than needed and he gritted his teeth.

“Oh man, sorry dude.”

“It’s okay…have a little shoulder thing going on and sometimes it hurts like a bitch. It’s not your fault.”

“Sure, um, well, come on in. I’m really glad you came.”

Rorey’s apartment was sparse, and a studio at that, but the twenty or so guests that were there were all the same age as them and filled it up with color and movement. There were big windows at the far end of the room and lots of people floated around between Rorey and them.

Near the windows lived a long, wooden plank table. It was clearly old and pock-marked, but polished smooth with time and use. Flowers in a half dozen vases dominated the length, “I picked them this morning on a run,” Rorey confessed. One end of the table held the martini makings, along with a few non-alcoholic beverages. The other end held simple savory snacks along with a large bowl of fresh strawberries for dipping in a chocolate fondue. The portion of the room closest to him was a cozy sitting space with a worn futon couch, bean bags and director’s chairs. For a one room apartment, it was functioning well with the little crowd. The colors were odd for a male oriented room, but the blues, greens, yellows, pinks, and oranges tended to bring the outside in and made a happy splash on the back of Tommy’s eye balls.

“You want something to drink?”

He desperately wanted a glass of vodka on the rocks. Isn’t that, basically, a martini? However, it looked like the choice was either something deeply brown or something with a strong pinkish tint. “I think I’ll try the pink one.” He must have twisted his face in an off-kilter way, because Rorey’s eyebrows went up and he said, “I can make something different for you if you like?”

“It’s cool…what is it?”

“Watermelon martini.” He returned, a little apologetically.

Tommy smiled and took a sip of the sweet vodka drink. “It’s lovely, I hope you made a pitcher of them.” And he shuddered and smiled inside, at the same time.

Tommy met, well, maybe twenty new people. He literally knew no one at the party besides Rorey.

“Adios Lucky, see ya Monday at the hotel.” Rorey said to the last guest as he closed the door behind him.

“Jeeze, I probably should leave, too.” Tommy said, as he made for the door. “I don’t want to overstay my welcome.” Rorey slipped it shut, turned the deadbolt and positioned himself between Tommy and the doorknob.

“I didn’t get enough time with you tonight dude. I was hoping you could hang out and keep me company while I clean up.”

“Oh…I ‘spose, no harm that. Where do you want to start?”

Rorey rolled his eyes, took Tommy’s hand and steered him to the sitting area. “I’m done cleaning. Now I want to hang out with you.” He pulled Tommy on top of him and into a deep kiss, falling into one of the bean bag chairs. He was investigating the inside of his mouth with a very forthright tongue and seemed to be looking for any sweetness left from the watermelon juice.

Tommy didn’t get home until late the next morning. He ended up telling Rorey all about his accident as they sat, intertwined in each other’s arms, in the bean bag chair. They talked into the night, Tommy feeling his confidence and spirit returning with each revelation to this supportive and upbeat listener. For his part, Rorey listened patiently to the entire story, asked questions where appropriate and cooed when it was called for.
At the end of the story, he announced, “Tommy, you’re coming to Dana Point with me tomorrow, and after that, you need to listen to my story. If we’re going to live together, that’s the way it has to be.”

“Should I be scared?” was all Tommy could think of saying.

The smell of the ocean caused Tommy to jog the last couple of blocks down to Dana Point, pulling Rorey behind, with his eyes on the surf. The water looked mild today, but maybe that was best for his reentry anyway. Because for Tommy, there was nothing more calming and centering than being on his board, a few hundred feet out from the shore, watching a monster wave making its way to him, but now, the story included Rorey, too.