Posted originally on the Archive_of_Our_Own at https://archiveofourown.org/
works/8230325.
  Rating:
      Explicit
  Archive Warning:
      Graphic_Depictions_Of_Violence, Underage
  Category:
      M/M
  Fandom:
      Original_Work
  Relationship:
      Micah_Swaeler/Danny_Callahan
  Character:
      Micah_Swaeler, Danny_Callahan
  Additional Tags:
      Implied/Referenced_Domestic_Violence, teenage_sex, Family_Issues
  Series:
      Part 6 of Fence_Sitter
  Stats:
      Published: 2016-10-07 Chapters: 3/3 Words: 11114
****** The Jasmine Umbrella ******
by Alex_deMorra_(Ergo_Sum)
Summary
     Chapter 6: Fence Sitter
     High school Micah's home life is awful and he's seeking avenues to
     escape it.
     In the meantime, Micah meets Danny, who likes him but wants nothing
     to do with romance.
***** Chapter 1 *****
“Let me guess…” The cute guy leaned forward on his elbows, hands clasped
together, forearms laid flat on the carved up wooden counter. This posture
meant that he also jutted out his barely jeaned ass so the back pocket that had
torn clean through and exposed his tight, kelly green underwear, was perfectly
visible to me in the tilted mirror hanging from the ceiling behind him. “Are
you going to get a medium mocha with a double shot and extra chocolate with a
fresh strip of orange or are you going to cave to the evening with a pot of
rooibos tea?”
“How do you know I don’t want something else?” It was a feint to cover up my
interest and (I hoped) a sign to him that I might be both effortless and
worldly. Which was such a joke because I was totally preening under his
attention. And I was so flirting back and utterly failing to be cool about any
of it.
It was now half-past one on Sunday morning. The last customer besides me just
walked out the door. I’d been here since just past dinnertime on Saturday night
and the guy behind the counter and I have spent the last few hours getting
caught out when we stared at each other. 
“Maybe,” I hedged, and jerked my chin to the place over his shoulder where the
coffee machine burped out something steamy and tangy and vaguely like tobacco,
“I’ll want a cup of that since it’s almost done.”
“Okay,” he allowed. And then clarified, “I know you don’t. But okay.”
“How do you know?”
“Because that, my lovely customer, is an exceptional and acquired taste, not
meant for people with a sweet tooth.”
Oh, man. He knew I had a sweet-tooth.
That meant he’d paid attention. We might have been looking at each other all
night (though I’d been looking at him for …I dunno…a lot of weeks or maybe
months), but there was a difference between getting checked out and someone who
was educated on my preferences. Still, I couldn’t let him think I was easy or
anything. I equivocated, “I could surprise you.”
“Doubtful but I’ll bite. To be honest, I didn’t take you for a guy who would
take the risk.”
“Don’t I?”
“No.”
“Like I said, I could surprise you.”
I tore my glance away from his ass and caught my own appearance. My hair was
disheveled and long overdue for a cut. My striped t-shirt was misshapen and
worn thin. I could feel how my vintage (okay, they were my dad’s) checkered
Vans had holes at the tips of both big toes. But there was something else
there, too: a spark of nerve. One that I hadn’t felt in a long time and I think
it looked good on me.
“Tell you what,” he said. I think he winked but maybe he just squinted then he
stood straight up again, ready to talk business. “Just for that, I’m going to
serve you up a cup and we can see whether or not I’m right. Which, you know I
am.”
“Is that so?”
“Yes.” He became light and adorable and kind of twinkly, though that last part
may have something to do with the jittery feeling on my end that went beyond
the effects of the copious amounts of caffeine pumped into my body throughout
the course of the day.
“Here’s how it’s gonna happen,” he prodded, never taking his deep, dark gaze
(Was it blue? It might be blue. It might be dark brown. Stupid lights.) from
mine. He said, “I will give you a sample and if you like it, I will buy you a
cup.”
That didn’t sound so bad. Then he went on, “But if you don’t, you are going to
whisk me away into that room right over there [and he pointed to the open door
with shelves of chocolate syrup and stacks of brown trifold paper towels] and
blow me.”
He just said that out loud.
I looked around and, nope, there wasn’t anyone there to hear him. But still,
holy shit, he just said that out loud. I stood there with my jaw hanging down
for I don’t know how long before he reached over with his index finger to
gently push it shut. Which was also…ngh.
“That’s …pretty brazen,” I charged.
“No. Just practical.” He dared me by throwing up a single eyebrow in a perfect
arch and nonchalantly resumed his explanation, “See, if I’m right, this coffee
is going to throw you into a state of dyspepsia that you are wholly unprepared
for. I’m just making sure you understand how to get to the antidote.”
“So, you’re saying…”
“…Nectar of the Gods.”
Jesus, he was cute. And a bit way out there. Still, Nectar of the Gods? He
couldn’t be serious. I should back down. I should say no. I should, I should, I
shouldn’t say, “Okay.”
His nostrils flared briefly when I agreed and he tucked his lips between his
teeth. Was he laughing at me or was he hot for me? I really couldn’t tell.
Oh, but then he had to get all dramatic and deliberate when he steamed the
ceramic mug. He held it like it was some fine bone china that would be used to
serve a president or something. Then, he poured a small amount of the menacing
concoction which, now that it was out of the pot, was more foul-smelling than I
had anticipated.
The smell alone churned my stomach.
He held the cup in both hands, extended his arms, and delivered his offering to
me while not at all hiding that he was about to bust a gut laughing at what he
thought would be my inevitable demise.
I asked, “You really like this stuff?”
“Stop procrastinating,” he teased, and he reached back to grab a small paper
espresso cup, poured himself a sample from what I thought was the same pot but
couldn’t be sure since me moved the carafe in question over to where three
other ones were. He tossed the drink back easily and donned an evil grin, “Your
turn.”
I took a sip.
It was vile and acerbic. I cleared out the air channel between the back of my
nose and my gullet. Yet, I smiled prettily. Enthusiastically even. “Mmmm.
Delicious.”
I tried to take another sip without my face going into a spasm of discontent.
This coffee blend, whatever the hell it was, sucked.
He flat out laughed at me and skipped the part where he was supposed to say, I
told you so, and instead, meandered to the front door of the coffee shop. And
locked it.
He was, apparently, not at all worried about the possibility that someone might
stumble by in desperate need for a fix only to discover the last place to get
good coffee at this hour had shut early. 
“You lost. You can’t even fake your way out of it so stop pretending.”
Then he grabbed my hand and led me to the storage room. I’m not exactly sure
how he did it since my feet had turned to lead in the time it took between him
handing me the coffee and him locking the door.
When we got inside, shielded from the outside world, he leaned back on one of
the shelves, wantonly and ready for me to do my thing.
“Really?”
“Mm-hmm. Bring it.”
I hadn’t done this too many times in the past and I suspected that the blow
jobs I received were better than the ones I had given. But in all cases, it had
been with someone I knew and there had been kissing involved.
It didn’t look as if he had any intention of making out. He wanted a blowjob.
Pure and simple. It was a thing he won so I had to do it. And I wanted to do it
anyway, but now I had to, and oh my god.
I was so nervous.
Crap, I really was.
I noticed that he wasn’t wearing a belt, which is why his pants hung low enough
for me to see those two dimples on his lower back earlier. I found the nerve to
approach him. I popped the button of his jeans and undid his fly and pulled
down his pants to expose his underwear.
Confession.
I had a thing for underwear.
These were no exception.
They were a second skin in bright green and they made the skin around them look
ridiculously and beautifully tactile.
I felt him up. I cupped him and hoped he didn’t notice my shaking. He was not
even half-hard. This was okay since I liked the feeling of how he grew to take
up more and more of my hand.
“So this is for real, right? I mean, you really want me to and I’m really doing
this?”
He placed his hands on my shoulders and pressed me down. “I really want you to
and you’re really doing this.”
I got down on one knee and perched on the heel of my boot. I leaned forward and
after looking up one more time, I moved in and mouthed at the fabric. His
erection grew sideways and his balls grew plump. I peeled down the black
waistband carefully so as not to stretch the cotton out of shape (because that
would be such a waste of hot underwear) and pushed them down until they rested
at the crook of his knees.
Some guys I know — oh, and some girls, too — talked about the size and shape
and, to a lesser degree, the taste and scent of guys they had been with. All
those things are great but the thing that no one talks about much, and it’s a
thing that got me going, was how their coloring work together. For example, I
saw these pictures of guys who are all one smooth color and then their dick and
balls are darker or pinker like what they had was some forbidden fruit.
That’s…okay…yeah…it’s just a thing I like.
And it doesn’t have to be all one different color or all a different-different
color all around a guy’s bits. This guy, for example, has a pink tip, a lighter
pink shaft and light brown balls — like stripes in a new box of Neapolitan ice
cream that had been opened on the long side of the box. It called out my
dilemma about whether to taste each part separately or whether to run my tongue
across the entire lot of him. So I did what any normal person would do in my
situation: First one and then the other. In other words: both. Just not at the
same time. More like…sequentially.
Very quickly, my brain fried. I couldn’t think of what to do. I couldn’t even
think of what I liked. I was on the verge of panicking when a memory arose
about a recent and surreptitious trip across the border with a few friends. We
learned how to drink tequila and the instructions were simple: lick, suck, and
swallow.
Crude? Yes.
But it was also effective.
Especially when no brain.
I wanted to confess to him that I didn’t really know what I was doing. That
with two notable exceptions, my knowledge derived from oft repeated readings of
my mom’s Cosmo collection. In the end, I didn’t confess because he seemed to
like what I was doing and some part of me thought, hot, wet mouth on dick…how
bad could it be?
I knew he had said something and, in retrospect, it was most likely a warning.
But I only half-listened. Not because he wasn’t important. It’s just that I
have never mastered the art of concentrating on a thing while also being a
participant of communication. Even if I was just on the listening end.
Needless to say, I was surprised when my mouth went from being full to bursting
with full. And this left me with such profound thoughts as oh shit and swallow
and can’t breathe and don’t choke and don’t snortand keep swallowing.
Fortunately, that small emergency — and the panic that almost accompanied it —
passed.
I slid off him and, in trying to be both courteous and neat, I brought with me
as much wetness as possible and eventually released him from my mouth.
He pulled up his pants. I looked down before he finished zipping back up.
“Hey,” he said. “I can’t believe…”
I can’t believe that just happened.
I stood up and was a little awkward doing it. But, quite frankly, the entire
scene had moved straight into being a little awkward.
“I’ve never done that before,” I blurted.
I’d interrupted him, self-conscious of having moved past being shocked by my
actions, and into a haze of intoxication that was at least two parts sex and
one part achievement. That thing I just did may have been a tenuous
accomplishment but it was a landmark one. It was probably as important as
taking a first step or starting school or riding a bike or any one of a number
of things that isn’t exactly out of reach for the general population.
I didn’t even know his name. I’d seen him here for weeks but we hadn’t exactly
been having any life changing conversations. What did I say now? That was great
coffee guy, I like your dick?
He deadpanned, “You’ve never given head before?”
I wasn’t sure he was surprised or not and what that meant about my performance.
Maybe it wasn’t good? “No…I mean…yes. I have. Just not with anyone I didn’t
know.”
“Ah.”
“And never somewhere so almost public.”
“Almost public?”
“Yeah, like all this chocolate syrup is going to go in drinks made here
and…um…I’m going to be all two degrees of separation from anyone who orders one
of them.”
Coffee guy was amused, “Is that so?” 
Was that stupid for me to say? That was totally stupid to say. And now I don’t
have anything else to say so I’m just standing here looking back and forth
between him and the door feeling uncomfortable.
“Well, Mr. I’ve Never Done That Before…do you have a name?”
“Yeah, of course. It’s Micah.”
“Danny.”
He was smiling at me again. This time, it was in some all-knowing cool way that
was simultaneously hotly amused with undercurrents of carnal knowledge and, oh
man I need to stop.
The thing is, though, that I’ve never quite been able to pull that look off.
What does he mean when he smiles at me like that?
And wait. There was something else that I needed to ask. “So…like are you going
to tell me what that coffee was so I know to never order it again?”
An awkward snort-guffaw-sneeze thing blasted out of face and he covered his
mouth as he mumbled out something that may have been an apology. “I’m sorry, it
isn’t funny, I swear,” he squeaked before erupting into a fit of giggles.
“What?” I queried, certain all of a sudden that I’d been had. Fuck. I couldn’t
look at him anymore.
“Don’t hate me, okay? I just…I didn’t think you’d fall for it,” he paused, wet-
eyed, but with his breath a little calmer. He cleared his throat and told me,
“That wasn’t actually coffee.”
I glared at him blankly and I didn’t say a word.
“I was just cleaning the machine with a lemon juice mix and had it dripping
into a brew I made a few hours ago.”
I did more glaring and more not saying of words.
“I thought it was so obvious. I mean, it smelled horrid and since you were here
all the time and I thought that for sure you wouldn’t …” and then he changed
tactics and got a little more agro about it all, “You know what? I’m sorry [he
was totally not sorry] but you should have trusted me. I knew what you liked
and I’ve never steered you wrong before and it’s not like it was going to hurt
you.”
“It was shitty.”
“It was a little bit shitty,” he conceded and waited a tick before he threw up
his arms and rolled his eyes at me. “Come on, Micah. It was at least a little
bit funny.”
“What was?” I complained, “Tricking me into giving you a blowjob and then
pointing out how stupid I was?”
“No. You’re not stupid and as for the other part, it wasn’t that bad, was it? I
mean, there are worse things.”
I had nothing to say to that.
God, how could this turn around so quickly? It was like I had just found this
little space away from everything and everyone. I could get a new start and
already it’s gone all sour. I stormed out of that stupid little room and
shouted, “Fuck you,” into the air and hoped that the sound landed with vitriol
into his fucked up consciousness where it would sit and stew and hopefully
render him into a more decent human being.
Maybe.
Eventually.
“Wait…wait…C’mon don’t be like that,” he half laughed and half chastised while
he chased after me to the table where I had been sitting for hours earlier that
evening. I gathered up my papers and books with as much dignity as I could
muster and zipped up my bag only to find that he blocked my exit.
I’d go left, he’d go left. I’d go right, he’d go right. And there was only a
three foot aisle way leading between here and the door so it wasn’t like I had
much getting around him unless I wanted to be violent or something (and I
didn’t).
“Please, Micah, stop,” he held his hands up, finally contrite, though still
annoyingly amused. “I didn’t mean to trick you. I thought you wanted that to
happen, you know?”
Danny stepped closer, slid his hand along the side of mine and stuck his bottom
lip out, “I could return the favor. You know. To make it up to you. If you
wanted me to, that is.” Then he tugged at me and I didn’t move.
He pulled a little bit harder and made sad little doe eyes to show me that he
was really sorry. I huffed and pursed my lips and made sure to look at anywhere
that wasn’t him. He pulled harder still until one of my feet stepped in front
of the other until we made it back into the little room I had just stormed out
of. There, he eased my bag off my shoulder and placed it gently on the floor,
and then he pressed himself against me.
It was sweet, the way he tilted his head up to kiss me, in a way that was nice
and gentle and apologetic. He was so close to me. He cupped his hands around my
jaw and looked so deeply into my eyes that my stomach hurt. He said, “You are a
beautiful and gullible man, Micah. I am sorry I made you feel bad,” he kissed
me again and unbuckled my belt. The metal bits of it clanked against the metal
buttons of my jeans as he eased all of it - my belt, my pants, my underwear -
to my ankles as he kneeled gracefully, to both knees. “So to make it up to you,
I’m going to make you feel good.”
He took me confidently in his hand and kept his eyes glued to mine me while he
grazed, with very edges of his lips, around the tip and slit and swell of my
dick. Then he proceeded to blow me as if it were not only the most important
thing he would do today but possibly the most important thing he would do in,
like, ever.
Danny did this thing where he got me sopping wet with his spit and pretended
like my dick was a tube of lipstick made to run all over his lips. The whole
time he did it, he gave me this devilish look, like he knew he was turning my
world inside out. That may have been hotter than what he was actually doing.
And wasn’t that enlightening?
It was thing after thing after thing with him. Everything mind boggling.
Everything confident. Everything so, so, so, so good. I decided right there an
then to never again be satisfied with my insufficient trio of  tequila-drinking
moves. Not when I knew this was possible.
He moved his hand down and pinned my balls to the tops of my thighs, and
slipped me through the soft pucker of his lips.
One. Slow. Inch. At. A. Time.
When he got to where he wanted to be, he sucked hard, which made his cheeks
cave in, and he swallowed and not because he needed to and — holy shit — the
feeling of it was a freaking gift. It was this unbelievable sensation that kind
of shouldn’t have been possible but now that I knew that it was, I was a little
afraid for my future because I didn’t think I would ever want to spend my time
doing anything other than getting sucked off by this guy on his knees right in
front of me, who happens to go by the name of Danny.
My hips keened forward. My hands slipped along the concrete wall behind me
seeking purchase even as the concrete floor below me turned to quicksand. Was
it the floor?  Maybe it was just my knees. I didn’t know. I couldn’t even tell
anymore.
And the sounds coming out of me were, quite frankly wretched. There was none of
this porn star “oooh” or “aaah” or even some profoundly advanced phrasing of
curse words.
Nope.
The sounds coming out of me consisted of a high pitched squeal that emanated
from a vibration from the top of my hard pallet as harmonized with heavy,
erratic, helpless breathing and the occasional syllable like “ngh” or “wh…”
Because, who knows?  While he was busy sucking my brains out through the hole
of my dick, I might have had an urgent need to tell him how much my mother
liked ngh-avel oranges or wh-alnut whips when she was little.
I thought about how he tried to give me a warning and how I ought to return the
favor so I did. I was just on the edge of letting loose when an unbidden
thought settled into my consciousness.
I imagined myself in a certain flying house in the middle of a certain twister,
watching things that flew by —  grannies in rocking chairs, cows, mean ladies
on bicycles… gallon-sized jugs of Hershey’s syrup. Then came the long, spinning
descent down, down, down, down, dizzy and weightless, only to land with a jolt
and in this new location where there was only the complete silence of the world
having stopped for a moment before a door opened to a new world. This one in
glorious Technicolor with an accompanying soundtrack of sickly sweet
symphonies.
I slid down the wall, landing bare-assed on black non-slip kitchen mats and
looked at Danny, who was, as far as I could tell through my heavily glazed
eyes, now crouched and balanced on the balls of his feet.
“That should be illegal,” I declared, slack-jawed, with every one of my cells
depleted and catatonic. “That was…,” and finally I got up the nerve to ask him
what I was really going to ask him when I approached the counter  after the
last customer (the one that wasn’t me) left at half-past one, “Danny…will you
go out with me?”
At first, I thought that he thought that I was obtuse. Then his lips twitched
and his head dipped coyly to one side. It occurred to me that he thought the
only reason I had asked this at this time was because my mind wasn’t yet
functioning fully. My cheeks pinked up due to my — what turned out to be
correct — premonition that he wasn’t going to say yes. “Micah,” he purred, “I
don’t do the boyfriend thing.”
There it was.
“What does that even mean to not do the boyfriend thing? Like you don’t date or
you’re not romantic or you don’t believe in love or you don’t cuddle or…”
Danny brushed a hand through his hair, straightened the rest of himself out,
and offered me his other hand to help me up. “Love messes up the good things. I
kinda need to keep my good things good right now. That’s what I mean.”
“Okay?” It came out like Oak-heeey and I didn’t mean to be snide or defensive
or anything but the only time I’ve ever heard that line being used on anyone is
when one person really isn’t interested in the other. And that’s kind of hard
to take when your balls are still hanging out.
But it was okay. I could handle it. I could recover. No problem. It was fine. I
was cool.
“You should probably put your pants on. I still have to clean up for the
night.”
“Need help?” Right here was proof that I was astoundingly cool.
He gave me the disbelieving side eye.
“Platonic,” I huffed, “The no expectations, friends-only-just-keeping-you-
company-so-you-don’t-have-to-stay-all-night sort of help.”
“Oh? Well, why didn’t you say so?”
“Just did.” Plus, I really didn’t want to go home. Plus-plus, I really didn’t
want to say so out loud.
He relaxed and grinned at me and I felt like one of us should say something
like, This is the beginning of a beautiful friendship, as we walked back into
the main part of the coffee shop, hands full of white kitchen towels and spray
bottles of industrial cleaners to start washing down the place. I ended up
hosing down the same black non-slip mats that my bare ass rested on not too
long before.
At three in the morning, we finally saw the back of that place. The door was
locked and the alarm was set and I was still a good block away from my car when
Danny called out to me, “Are you okay to drive home?”
As soon as he said it, the day caught up to me and I realized that I was bone
tired and about as beat as I could be. “Why?”
“I live right up here. C’mon…I mean, if you want to.”
I followed him past an apartment complex and five more houses and then through
a gate to a wooden house hidden from the street. His place was old, with
peeling wood slats and single-paned picture windows. In the moonlight, it could
have been any shade from light blue to beige to dirty white to pink. There was
a trellis in front of it that was covered in white jasmine flowers that I could
smell from four feet away.
We climbed a lopsided, rickety flight of stairs to his front door and when we
went inside, the temperature was cooler and crisper than on the outside. It
smelled like an antique store or, perhaps my Grandma Olga’s washroom, full of
sun-dried clothes and wooden pins and washing powder made with Borax. The
furniture that was there (there wasn’t much of it) was older than either of my
parents.
But it felt like a home.
Danny pointed out the rooms as we walked by them — the kitchen, the main room,
the bathroom. When we got to his bedroom, he leaned his back against the
painted wooden door and swung it open with the weight of his body. His bed was
just big enough for two and it was covered dark sheets made of t-shirt
material.
We both stripped down to our underwear and slipped under the covers to sleep on
our respective sides, away from each other, as if we had drawn a line down the
middle and had sworn not to cross it.
I woke once, several hours later, when the sky had changed from black to deep
orange. Danny was curled up against my back with his nose pressed into my
shoulder. As I wondered about what had happened to make him think that it was
love, and not the absence of it, that messed him up, I drifted off to sleep for
the second time. I didn’t wake up again until he did, which was late the next
morning, twenty minutes from when he needed to get back to work.
He was on his way to take a shower and I was steps away from leaving his front
door when he shouted after me, “Hey. You’ll still come in next Saturday,
right?”
“Only if you promise not to poison me.”
“Ha. Okay. I promise.”
I floated down the street, down the hill and over the pedestrian bridge to
where my car was parked and reminded myself to remind myself that he didn’t ask
me out on a date.
***** Chapter 2 *****
This was the third Saturday that Danny and I had been definitively not seeing
each other. He’s just figured out that I only ordered the double shot mocha
with whipped cream, extra chocolate, and a twist of orange when my frequent
buyer card had already been punched out on every spot except that last one that
read Free. All the other times, I either ordered regular coffee (Hazelnut,
Sumatra, or Italian Blend) with at least a quarter of the cup reserved for
half-n-half plus two packets of raw sugar — or, when it was really late at
night, a pot of tea. Well, all the other times except for that once, which I
didn’t actually pay for so it shouldn’t count.
But it totally did.
Count.
I just ordered my eighth drink on this card, which meant that I should have
received an empty mug to serve myself from one of the carafes at the sugar
station behind me. This time, Danny motioned to the machine behind him which
had a fresh coffee in mid-brew and he told me that he’d bring it to me when it
was done.
It was exactly the sort of thing that people who weren’t seeing each other did.
Right? It was also the sort of thing that made my heart go loopy, which also
made it difficult to sort out the what-he-does bits from the what-he-says bits.
Either way, it is a lot nicer to him than to think about what I really, really
need to think about: emancipation from my parents and the eighteen point
checklist of things needed in order to gain it.
The career counselor at school helped me print out two copies of the paperwork
after she had also given me a bunch of stuff about college and financial aid
and early graduation. The page about finances was already rumpled and grubby
along the side where I held it. No matter how much I looked at it or wished it
to be different, the requirements didn’t change or become any more possible.
There was also the flyer about parental consent which explained how I was
supposed to go before a judge to officially say why my life was better off
without my parents. They could just show up, say no, and all of that would have
been for nothing.
This was a stupid idea anyway.
I flattened the petition pages and placed them at the back of my spiral
notebook. Then I pulled out all the scraggly strips that were stuck between the
wire loops and found the next clean new page to use for my math homework.
On the top of that page, I wrote the numbers that went with this problem set
where they now sat like a nonsensical title: Ch. 5:1-3,7,8,15,16,22,25,33*.
These corresponded to a chapter titled Using Fundamental Identities and it
discussed at length the critical identities that I would need to learn with
urgency if I were to make it through the class: sin u, cos u, tan u, csc u, sec
u, cot u, luv u, mis u,and fuk u. Next to the table that listed out these
definitions was a text box next all about how Pythagoras was about so much more
than that triangle. The thing that stood out most was this quote that read:
Reason is immortal, all else is mortal.
Next to it was a drawing of a kidney bean with big eyes and stick arms and a
crown with a caption that said, He also said beans have a soul. Below that was
another note — this time in purple — that says Dude, you’re a-dork-able.
This was one of the newer books so the person that drew this must have been
someone in the year before me or possibly the year before that. I wondered if I
knew them or if they knew me or if they also took this class in the beginning
of summer or if we were somehow connected for sake of our fingers having
touched the same pages of the same book.
From out of nowhere, a ginormous concoction of whipped cream and chocolate
drizzle appeared near my hand. Seriously, it was the king of all drinks. I
looked up to see Danny turn the seat across from me sideways and he sat with
his back against the wall and looked toward the door with hands wrapped around
a plain black coffee. That was the drink I had ordered.
“This is insane, Danny! You aren’t going to get in trouble, are you?”
He leaned back and crossed one leg over the other and kept his eyes on me as he
took a sip of his steaming brew. “Nah. Officially, you bought me a drink and I
used mine for you. Totally kosher.”
See? There it was again. Heart. Loopy.
First, it was in this bowl so large that when I put my hands around it, my
fingers couldn’t touch each other. Then the swirl of whipped cream was almost
as high as the bowl was deep. Finally, the drizzle went all over the sides of
the rim so that I would have chocolate with every sip. As soon as I could
figure out how to drink it anyway.
I picked up the spoon from the inadequately sized saucer, ran it around the
side of the bowl to scoop up the chocolate-tinged cream that threatened to
overflow, and ladled it into my mouth, closing my eyes to get the full
experience of this sweet, sugary stuff that was only slightly denser than air.
The cream they served here wasn’t the kind from the grocery stores; it was the
kind that came out of a metal dispenser that turned the liquid into fluff by
forcing nitrous oxide through it.  That lesson was brought to us from last
year’s science teacher Miss Cassidy who, if the rumors were to be believed, was
summarily disciplined for inadvertently advising students how to get their next
nitrous fix from their next Amazon shipment.
As if there was anyone left that didn’t already know.
“This is so good, Danny. Thank you.”
He gave me a secret kind of grin that was a little bit coy and a lot sexy. Then
he looked at my book and grimaced. “Shit. You’re one of those smart ones”
“More like summer school has been my long-term guardian”
“Still, man — I could never do that.”
“I bet you could. But why would you want to?”
“Ha. I guess. What are you going to do with it?”
“Get a good grade?”
“Okay,” he teased, “Then what? What are you going to do after you graduate?”
“College, I guess. I don’t know which one but this is supposed to be the big
year.”
“College? You mean you’re not…” His jaw dropped and then he pulled it to the
side, which screwed up his face. Then he squinted and tilted his head. I had
said something that he didn’t comprehend. Or couldn’t. “How old are you?”
“Sixteen. How old did you think I was?”
His shoulders tensed up and got noticeably closer to his ears. “Older.” His
voice was a good octave higher than his normal one. “I…” He stopped. His mouth
dropped open and then it shut and then he leaned over and tried again but this
time, he was covert as he whispered, “When you said you were a junior, I didn’t
know you meant high school.”
The floor threatened to crumble out from under me. “I wasn’t trying to mislead
you or anything. I mean my books are all marked with the name of my school.”
And they were. The top, bottom and side of every single one of my books were
stamped with “Property of” and then five letters of my high school made in big
bold block letters with a red marker. It was pretty obvious.
“I didn’t know. But that’s cool,” he lied.
“How old are you?”
“Nineteen.”
“Oh. That’s not bad, right? I mean, is it a problem?”
“Not really,” he murmured but the look on his face said something else.
“But?” Please don’t let there be a but. Of course, there was going to be a but.
There had to be a but. It was like a law or something. However, just in case it
is only a theory and not a law, please don’t let there be a but.
He pressed the side of his thumb against his frown and considered me for what
seemed like the rest of his break time before he confessed, “I guess it
explains a few things.”
“What do you mean?”
Danny put the half-empty mug on the table, crossed his arms and looked toward
the counter and the door where there was no one in line. “You live at home,
right?”
“Yeah.”
“Look. It’s not really my business…”
“What? Just ask me whatever you want to ask.”
Worst case scenario: I leave and don’t come back. Not a problem. To be honest,
I was pretty much always ready to do that. It would really suck this time if I
had to.
“Is the reason you stay out so late the same reason you have those?” He touched
a long scratch on my forearm that was surrounded by green and purple splotches.
I didn’t know my sleeve had crept up. I yanked it down and held the cotton firm
with my fingers at the base of my palm.
“It’s nothing.” My voice came out thick and muted.
This was not what was supposed to go down tonight. And really, I thought that
since he had only seen me in that way was at his place, in the dark, there
wouldn’t have been anything for him to notice.
Danny pressed, “Yeah, okay. But those didn’t come from that fighting thing you
do either. Am I right?”
I didn’t say anything as I felt that I needed my safe space, the one I could
get to if I burrowed toward that deep and quiet place inside me.
“Micah…I’m not going to do anything you don’t want. Okay?” He leaned in again
and quietly insisted, “I get it. Don’t go disappearing on me. Come back, man.”
The big lump in my throat spread into my chest.
I knew how it went with these things. Once someone knew, they had to report it.
Once it was reported, the law got involved. Once the law got involved, they
were in your business and they stayed there. The problem was, they were already
involved and I was trying to work things out and none of the options as they
currently existed were going to work out for me. I was, strangely, already in
the best situation that I could be in so that I was lined up to do the thing I
wanted to do and desperately didn’t want anything else to come into play that
would upset this delicate balance.
My attention focused a dot of oil that traveled along a swirly path on the top
surface of the mocha. It was barely visible inside the whipped cream cavern I
carved out. I continued to slurp on successive spoonfuls of my drink before I
made my appeal, “You can’t say anything, Danny.”
“I won’t.”
“Promise!” I demanded quietly. Finally, I made eye contact with him again and I
noticed that he looked at me in that way. The feeling sorry for me way. The one
that was nowhere near as good as the flirty that way that he had given me up
until fifteen minutes ago.
“I promise, Micah. I won’t,” Danny said. He meant it, I could tell. He sat
there for a while and rubbed his index finger against my thumb, which was still
clipped tightly to the end of my shirt.
“It’s not that bad, you know. I can handle it.”
“Okay.”
“Do you still want me to stay?” The tonight part was implied.
“Yeah.”
Danny left my table when a pair of tall, skinny girls with matching lanky blond
hair came in and stood at the counter.
This week had been record levels of shitty. The one thing it had going for it
was seeing Danny tonight and I thought — I dunno — maybe I’d just fucked it up?
I tried to get school work done but it was pretty hopeless. In the end, I just
read and took notes and didn’t remember any of it.
The coffee shop was quieter than usual tonight.
Danny kept coming over to see how I was -- like I was his baby duckling that
needed his care. I wasn’t going to turn it down or anything, but it wasn’t
exactly what I had been going for either.
Around ten o’clock, he got bored, which is something that apparently didn’t
come naturally to him. He convinced me to take a study break and keep him
company. I learned how to steam milk and how to pack and pull espresso shots.
Then we started making up drinks and had the few people that had been hanging
around for a while vote on them: hazelnut syrup + chocolate (awesome), mint
(terrible), caramel + banana + almond (so good), peach (barf), blackberry
(needs something). Finally, we tried something I remembered from a movie:
espresso over ice cream (winner-winner-chicken-dinner).
When his shift finally ended, I helped him, just like I had done for the past
few weeks. I was getting the hang of this; he didn’t have to tell me what to do
so much anymore. It was almost like clockwork. Danny locked the door and
pocketed the keys and he took my hand, like he didn’t ever have the question
about not doing it, and walked side by side with me toward his house.
It was starting to feel familiar — how we walked through the umbrella of
jasmine and how our boots caused the wood to echo through his main room and how
it felt like I might have belonged there a little.
When we got to his room, he turned on the lamp. It made the room glow in a deep
amber.  Danny nudged the hem of my shirt upwards and requested, “I want to
see.”
I froze. “What? That’s not…why?”
“Because, Micah. Secrets suck.” I have no idea why those four words made me
trust him with this but they did. I raised my arms and he pulled my shirt over
my head. While he examined my damage, I straightened my hair by the reflection
in the window. Aside from the scratch on my arm, there was one across the swell
of my chest and another that grazed the side of my rib cage. I was dotted with
smaller bruises, mostly on my back. His fingers skated across the small rough
scabs of the scratch on my chest and he asked, “Can I take the make-up off,
too?”
God, I didn’t even know that he could see it.
I swallowed and I nodded and I watched him leave the room. He quickly returned
with a few bottles and a long pack of flat cotton pads. He saturated a few of
them with something viscous and dabbed at all the places I thought I had so
carefully concealed. Then he removed that debris with something stringent and
tingly that stung in the places where my skin had been broken. Finally, he used
his fingers to smooth on generous layers of Vitamin E oil over the places with
the worst damage.
“What made these marks?” He asked at the same time that he used the side of his
palm to wipe across one eye and then the other. “I can’t tell.”
I feel so stupid saying it out loud. It was a thing so innocuous that no one
would believe me. I didn’t think I said what it was out loud but Danny had
already started to reply. “Wait,” he said, “This was done with a tube of
lipstick?”
I puffed out a breath and gave him a half-hearted smile, “Yeah. It had a sharp
end, like on a diagonal. It’s dumb, right?”
“More like horrible.” His eyes glittered, more serious than I’ve ever seen him.
He kissed the green splodges around each scratch in a way that was more than
about making it all better. It was his way of saying that if there was any side
to take, he would take mine.
The next morning, he woke me up when he sat straight up in bed and moved to a
crossed legged position and faced me. He looked determined. He had something he
had to get off his chest and nothing was going to stop him.
“Micah,” he said, “what’s stopping you from running away from home?”
I showed him my packet of emancipation paperwork and pointed out the stuff I
had and the stuff I didn’t and the stuff I wasn’t likely to get, especially
since, with the way things worked, it was all under control of my parents.
Plus, I needed to have already moved out and I needed to make more to pay for
rent and…
“Come on. I’m going to show you something.”
I followed him down the hall to a door that I had assumed was just a coat
closet. But it wasn’t a coat closet. It was a small bedroom with a twin-sized
bed and a four-drawer dresser. “This was my room for a long time. After my
gramps died, I inherited this place and moved into the bigger room.”
He just left that there. Just flat out, oh my god, did he just offer what I
think he did?
“Maybe we could work out an official rent thing?”
I thought of where I lived now. Of the bedroom that lacked a door after I’d
lost the privilege of privacy. Of the scars along the walls that were, for some
reason, bigger than the scars I carried with me. I would be so happy if I never
had to go there again. I could live in a place that I wasn’t scared to come
home to.
I would miss my brother.
But I would see him at school and I knew he would understand.
It could work.
It might work.
The thing that was so impossible yesterday was all of a sudden possible. I was
flooded with ideas of people I needed to speak with. Ones who might vouch for
me. Ones who could help me with documents or wouldn’t mind reviewing this
packet to make sure the judge would approve it.
“Danny, are you sure?”
“Totally.”
“But…why would you do this? I mean, it’s kind of a big thing you’re offering
and we don’t really know each other that well.”
His face crumpled and he couldn’t get the thought out. But he didn’t have to.
Not really. I didn’t need to know exactly who or exactly when or exactly how to
know that he knew someone at a sometime that was in something like my position
and, at that time, he couldn’t have done anything to change what had actually
happened.
The room got brighter after the sun hopped the window frame from the south.
There was a picture of Danny with a girl on the dresser. He tried to look tough
and her eyes didn’t smile, though they were both, of course, deeply beautiful.
“I should tell you about my sister some time,” he mourned, still teary and warm
from the sweat that comes with the hard fight against emotions that are bound
and determined to come out no matter how much you don’t want them to.
At that moment, I knew we would have an even exchange. Not for the rent, mind
you. We’d figure that out. That wasn’t what this was about anyway. It was more
like what could I give him that meant as much to him as my freedom meant to me.
It was so clear and it was so obvious that there was no option but to say yes.
I knew it was impossible to re-write history. I knew that there was something
permanent that had happened that no matter what neither of us would be able to
change. And yet, I knew that he needed to see for himself that if he had the
chance to do things differently, he would.
So that was it then.
I was going to give him a do-over.
***** Chapter 3 *****
The judge was older than dirt and about as friendly. He had jowls like a
bulldog, glasses like Benjamin Franklin, and he had these tufts of hair looked
like they would float away from his head the same way that the white things
from a dandelion would. The folder in front of him was open and he shuffled
through the pages and photos once, and then once again, before flipping through
the petition which I had attached with metal fasteners.
It took me over an hour to finally choose the reddish-brown folder made of
thick, shiny cardboard that resembled oiled leather and had pre-folded seams
along the bottom to allow for getting thickness exactly right according to the
size of the stack of pages meant to go inside of it. The clerk had come over no
less than three times to check on me and finally recommended that one for
making the best possible impression at court.
Mestre Lagarto was sitting in the first row of benches behind and to the right
of me. He was sitting next to my career counselor from school, Miss Ruiz, and
my boss from the community center, Kenny Walker. On the other side was my mom,
my dad, my Grandma Rebecca and my stepmom Laura. They came into the courtroom
together in order to contest my application for emancipation.
I knew what it meant when the showed up. It meant that the judge was supposed
to deny my application.
Just in case they did (and I figured they would), I included a petition for a
Writ of Mandate as an attachment in my packet of paperwork. It sat behind the
letters of reference from my school, my work, my landlord (who had to work
today), and an adult who has known me personally for over two years. I saw the
judge look over the Probate Court Investigation Report again, which I had seen
since I got a copy. They had included (at my request) an earlier report made by
Social Services.
I remained standing at the podium in front of the judge’s bench. My legs were
vibrating and I could feel drops of sweat forming where my mustache would grow
if I didn’t shave every day. I hoped he wasn’t the type to get off on the smell
of fear. The judge had asked me several more questions and then it relaxed once
again into silence as he flipped through the file. He picked up the pen and
signed a page. Then he picked out another page and signed that one, too.
He motioned for the bailiff to come pick up the signed pages — who then handed
them to the clerk — and finally addressed me, “Mr. Swaeler, your Declaration
for Emancipation is approved. And, since this motion was contested by your
parents, I have also approved your Writ of Mandate petition. Collect these from
the clerk and make sure they are filed on the first floor before you leave the
building.”
My mouth went completely dry. It was like I heard what he said but I couldn’t
believe it and I looked around the room at my parents, pale and unhappy, and my
people, who were already getting up to congratulate me. The judge spoke again,
this time, he appeared thousands of times nicer than thirty seconds before,
“Oh, and do let me know how you get on Micah. I want to know that I’ve made the
right decision.”
I stuttered, “Yes, sir.”
I had minimal recollection of what happened after that.  I knew the mestre
shook my hand and then pulled me into a seriously hard hug. I think my boss did
the same. I knew my grandmother was offended and said one or two things that I
really wished no one else had heard just as I knew dad and Laura whisked her
out of the building right after that. I knew I stood in line to complete the
filing and I knew my school counselor stayed with me until that was done.
Finally, I knew that mom stayed and waited and stood in front of me, even while
the career counselor was at my side and listening to her. She told me that she
was sorry for everything and that she hoped, with time, we could be a family
again.
When she left, Miss Ruiz asked me, “Are you still up for finishing our work
today?” She had a paper bag in her hand. Inside the bag were five completed
college applications for spring admission, each waiting only for registered
copies of proof of emancipation in order to be sealed and mailed. My hands were
shaking so bad that I could only manage to seal up one while Miss Ruiz did the
other four. After that, she walked next door with me to the post office where,
for the second time that day, she waited in line next to me. She stayed and
waited and watched and stood right next to me until all five of those envelopes
got postmarked and carried around the corner to get processed.
It was done.
I did it.
I didn’t do it alone but I did it. Fortunately, I jolted out of my daze long
enough to give Miss Ruiz heartfelt thanks and an enormous hug for her enormous
help.
“This right here, Micah, is why I do this job. Watching you win this thing.
Knowing I could help you and make a difference. Now it’s up to you to pick this
up and run with it. I know you won’t let me down, kid.”
I felt like she was still with me even when I saw her walking across the street
and down the block. I carried that feeling for the whole night and all the next
day.
It wasn’t just from her, either. It was all my people.
Not that night but the night after that, Danny took me out for a surprise
celebration. It involved dressing up in vinyl shorts, yellow rubber gloves, and
fishnet stockings, all of which were supplied by him. It also involved a
dramatic presentation of my very own set of inch-long false eyelashes in
silver.
He showed me how to put them on and then I did the rest of our make-up.
He was transformed. It was still Danny but it was a Danny I’d never seen
before. And he was both excited and totally comfortable to be dressed that way.
It was so different from the times at school where the football players
borrowed cheerleader costumes and hot pink lipstick and flipped fake blond
curls over their shoulders.
I realized that for all the times I’d dressed up on my own, I’d ever seen a guy
like me. It was entirely liberating. Almost as much as when the judge signed my
paperwork except this time, I had no idea it was coming. I think he knew I was
on the verge of losing my cool because he chose that moment and smiled at me
knowingly before he asked me if I was ready to go.
“Go?”
“Yeah, sweetie. We’re going.”
“Like outside?”
“Yeah, of course.”
“But like this?”
“Yup.”
And with that, he eased his big trench coat around my shoulders and shoved me
out the door, to the street and to his car that took us to a theater I’d never
been to.
The theater had an old school marquee and a poster in front that would have
been completely black had it not been for the huge set of red lips, of which
the bottom one was captured in two, huge white teeth.
The people that milled about were in feather boas, corsets, platform shoes
coated in glitter, hot pants, purple wigs, striped tights, plaid shorts, tuxedo
jackets, and itsy-bitsy maid outfits. Men and women alike wore bras with no
shirt and underpants with no pants.
I couldn’t believe it.
“Danny.”
“I know. It’s a total freak show.”
“They’re like us.”
“No one is like us but they are kindred spirits of sorts.”
“Of sorts?”
“More like all kinds. Weirdos. In a good way.” He changed topics, “You know,
we’ve never been to the movies together before? I don’t even know if you like
popcorn.”
“I love popcorn. And we’ve never been anywhere together except the coffee shop
and the grocery store.”
He stalled. He stopped walking long enough that the space between us and the
people in front of us got noticeably larger.
I stammered, all of a sudden scared that I messed things up, “I-I-I didn’t mean
anything by it.”
He was thoughtful and scooped up my hand in his, “No, sweetie. I didn’t think
you did. But you’re right.”
We got popcorn (one, large, salt and butter, loads of napkins) and a soda (one,
large, half coke, half cherry-coke), and found two seats on the furthest of the
two aisles (apparently there is dancing later).
Danny’s gaze was far off, his eyebrows were knitted, his legs were crossed so
that his foot from hifar legeg was playing with my calf that was closest to
him. He shifted his weight to his hip closest to mine and he turned and blinked
a few times rapidly. He looked confused and a little bit lost when he asked,
“You remember when I said that I didn’t do the whole romantic thing?”
“Yeah, of course I remember.”
“Are we doing it? Like, does this feel romantic to you?”
“It can be if you want it to.”
“No, no, no,” he said it so casually, it sounded like he was blowing off what I
had just told him even though it was hard for me to say that much since I knew
how he felt about love and romance. “I’m not talking about what I want or don’t
want or what you want or … what I want to know is…well, I mean, beyond either
of our desires or intentions. Is this thing between us feeling romantic to you?
Because I seriously haven’t ever done this before.”
I was floored. First because I didn’t think this was a possibility. Second
because I didn’t think he would bring it up. And, third because I didn’t ever
imagine that if it did happen, it wouldn’t have happened in semi-public with
each of us wearing bright yellow gloves that most people would only wear in
order to wash their dishes. He was still waiting for my answer to his question:
did this thing that was happening between us feel romantic? “Ummmm…yeah?”
The left side of his lips quirked up and his head tilted and his right eyebrow
arched. “Well, what you know what then?” He grabbed a few kernels of popcorn,
popped them in his mouth and chewed and looked at me expectantly.
“No, what?”
He took another handful of popcorn and grinned a big, toothy grin. “You’re my
first.”
“No!”
“Yeah, totally.”
“I’m…what…popping your romance cherry?”
He rolled his eyes, threw his head back, and groaned, “Oh my god, Micah. You’ve
popped my romance cherry.”
“I didn’t know that. What did we use for protection?”
“Shut up or I’ll make you another trick coffee. You loved the last one,” he
said, looking pleased with himself. He stuffed my mouth with popcorn just in
time for the lights to dim.
There were no previews. Just a black screen with a pair of bright red,
disembodied lips that appeared on screen that grew until they were all we saw.
The mouth opened with a song about Michael someone being ill and the earth
standing still. This prompted people around us to sing along, word for word.
And they drowned out the original soundtrack, not at all perturbed by the close
up of the interaction between the big pink tongue with the irregular ridges of
that massive set of teeth.
It was half-past two in the morning, which was close to the time we usually got
home after Danny’s Saturday night shift. Our bodies automatically walked more
quietly through the back garden and up the stairs with the scent of jasmine
providing an implausible but additional cover. I always felt more settled when
the tumblers of this door give way to one of our keys.
Once inside, shoes were removed and placed by the door, gloves were tucked in a
basket under the kitchen sink, trench coats were hung by the door, and we
retired to the back of the house to strip away all of the layers of the day
that we had earlier put on in order to declare to the world who we were in that
moment.
I attempted to peel away my silvery eyelash like I had seen it done in a movie
just when Danny held his arm out to try to stop me. He actually chirped the
word, “No.” Though it was emphatic and the next word came out within his normal
register. “Micah, these are put on with glue. You’re going to pull your damn
lid off. Lemme help.”
Out came the swabs and pads, along with bottles of make-up removers, cream
cleansers, astringent, and moisturizer. He soaked one of the swabs with that
oily liquid he used on me before and cooed, “Close your eyes.” I leaned against
the countertop with my back facing the bathroom mirror and felt soft, warm
puffs of air against my eye and cheek while he delicately ran the cotton along
the rim of my eye and eased the silver lash away from my real one.
“How do you know how to do this stuff?”
“A friend of mine is a drag queen at a place just up the hill. When he wants to
practice a new look, he’ll do it on me so that he doesn’t rub his skin raw.
Stop blinking. I don’t want this to get in your eye.”
I took a deep breath and willed my eye to stay shut but without squinting until
he removed the second lash. Instead of stopping, he continued to remove the
make-up from the rest of my face. The strokes he used on my skin were tender.
Where I would have scrubbed my face clean using force and vigor, he used a soft
caress, the pads and swabs just barely skating over the surface of my face.
Soon, I was thoroughly polished and found myself mesmerized when he performed
the same ritual on himself. It never would have occurred to me to be so
careful, so considered with myself.
“What?” He demanded, his voice skipping lightly over the single syllable. I
didn’t say anything. I just kept watching as he screwed all the tops on the
bottles again, wiped them down, and put them back in the basket to go under the
sink where they lived. I eyed a bottle of almond oil that we hadn’t used. I
picked it up with my thumb and forefinger and declared, “I wanna do something
for you.”
“Um. ‘Kay.”
Of course, it was obvious what I wanted to do. We undressed. I pulled back the
covers and he stretched out on the bed. When I put my hands on him, I wanted
him to feel how many times and how many ways he’s saved me.
Take this shoulder, for example. As the muscles between his shoulder blades and
up toward his neck bubbled with released tension under my gliding hand, I want
him to feel the difference from where I was to where I am just because he went
with his instinct to take me in.
Or these hands. When I grip the length of each finger and stretch and pluck
away the stress that has built up since who knows when, I want him to receive
back something from all the times he’s taken care of me.
And this leg. I want him to remember how I felt the first time I saw it,
upright and in high contrast to what I now know is his favorite color — kelly
green.
When he turned over and I got my hands on his chest, I want him to feel how
differently I breathe. It was such a simple thing but it was so hard to do
before.
Our eyes met and there was a thing that passed between us that made me feel
like I was diving into him. It drew me up so that I hovered over him, so that
our hands were entwined, so that the next time we kissed, it was almost like we
didn’t have skin that separated us.
Like most people, I had heard the difference about how fucking is supposed to
be different from having sex is supposed to be different than humping is
supposed to be different from making love. It was a topic of discussion that
impressed me mostly because it turned something so wondrous into something that
sounded so pedantic.
But now I got why people felt the need to try to pin the feeling down with a
word. Because this was a moment that transcended any sort of closeness that I
had felt with anybody ever. And if I could have found exactly the right word
for what this was, I would tell it to myself over and over so that I would
remember what this felt like.
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