Sunday Gardening

"No problem." He's almost gushing. I've never met someone so excited to run errands. "Sandover's only a few minutes away on the freeway. It'll be quick."

"Great," I say. I'm not sure how to end the conversation, so I just hand him the stuff I need copied. It's amazing, the things you forget after some time off from society. "So..."

"See you at one!"

He waves at me and flits away like a hummingbird. He's so energetic and active, and I find myself drawn to him. I could watch him run around and talk and make copies all day, I think, and never get bored.

The phone rings again and it's H. R. with another complaint file. I talk to a middle manager and open the email and store the file in the proper place. They're nice people, H. R. workers, considering all these complaints they process. I think about how I might become bitter from reading and processing them all while the middle manager thanks me. When I'm off the phone, my thoughts drift back to Lane.

He's nothing like me, nothing like I've ever been, even before the Fifteenth, and maybe that's why I like him so. There's something else there, too, something beyond just like, but it's silly and impossible. Still, it's a nice something, and I keep it in the front of my mind, letting it bounce around and glow and get bigger. It's a sweet something, even a naughty something, but I like it and I want to carry it around with me like a favorite pen.

Even if I'll never write with it.

*****

"We had lunch," I tell Marianne. "We ate something called a pita wrap. He says he makes them all the time at home. Which is just...strange."

Her headstone is at a bit of a tilt, and it's like she's cocked her head at me.

"I know," I say. "He's hyper, or like, caffeinated." She chuckles. "I think I like him, though."

Ronald asks me why.

"I don't know." His stone is pristine and neatly groomed, just as he was. "He's...alive. He's like a battery, I guess. But that doesn't make any sense, I know..."

Tisha Woods interrupts me and asks me if he's cute.

I blush. "I don't know..."

The o's in her last name give me a doubtful look.

"What does that matter? That has nothing to do with anything." I'm mumbling, and I want to kick myself.

Ronald tells Tisha to leave me alone about it.

"It's okay," I tell him. "I guess he is, yeah."

Tisha asks me if I want to have sex with him.

"No!" I cross my arms. "I would...I don't...I would never do that." Even as I say it I know it's a lie. And so does Tisha, because she laughs, and laughs, and laughs.

Michael's been silent, like always. He never says anything when I come to visit. I think he's still mad at me. I don't blame him, but I miss him and I wish he would talk to me.

"I dreamed about you guys again," I say. "About the Fifteenth."

Ronald and Tisha look at each other, and Marianne just sits in silence with her head cocked. I know Michael's listening too, even if he won't speak.

"Did..." I swallow. "Do you think he planned it, really? I don't think so. He loved us. I think he just...just couldn't hold it in anymore. It was like...almost an accident, but, like, not, you know?"

Marianne remarks that it's impossible to accidentally saw off a shotgun and shoot everyone at work.

"I don't mean it like that!"

I throw her flowers at her. They bounce off the polished rock and settle in the grass beneath the stone.

Ronald tells me to stop feeling sorry for Crandall.

"I don't feel sorry for him, Ronald!"

Tisha says it kind of sounds like I do.

"Fuck you guys!"

Michael says nothing.

"Fine."

I pick up my satchel with my lunch and my water and my work in it and I storm away, headed toward the parking lot. I think this is why I don't have any friends, why I don't bother with people. They give you shit for your feelings, they don't listen, they ignore you. Even after they're dead.

My car is unlocked and I toss the bag onto the passenger seat, climbing in and starting the car. The clouds hang low and dark in the sky, and I don't want to be caught out in the storm when it comes. I drive down the highway, wondering if Michael will ever forgive me, and what Lane's doing, and how it's come to be that I want to have sex with a man from work like some porn star cliché.

*****

He's there when I get home.

There's a little Mazda parked in my driveway, and I can't get around it into the garage, so I park on the street, parallel. He's leaning against his trunk, arms crossed, and his hair is damp and stringy in the drizzle.

I walk up to him, sliding my bag onto my shoulder.

"Hey."

"Hey."

His hair is almost as dark as honey when it's wet. His striped shirt clings to his body like his slacks, and I wish it was raining harder so that he would be wetter and I could see him more clearly. I decide I really do want to have sex with him.

"I had a good time at lunch the other day," he says. He's gazing at me under a wrinkled brow, and he seems tense, and strained. He crosses his arms tighter and stiffens, and then his shoulders move back and forth, like his back is itching.

"Me, too," I say.

Of course, I can't think of anything else.

"I want to hang out with you more," he says suddenly. His arms uncross and he's moving his hands wildly. "I like you, okay? There, I said it. You can hit me or fire me or make me do push-ups, but I like you, Jeremy. God help me, I like you."

He's breathing hard and his arms are swinging by his sides. It's raining harder now and I'm getting my wish; his body is outlined clearly under his clothes and I feel myself stirring like I haven't since before the Fifteenth, when Mairi would wear close-fitting pants without underwear.

I shrug and adjust my bag on my shoulder.

"I like you, too," I say finally.

We just stand in the rain getting rained on, and I watch him get wetter and wetter until his hair is plastered to his head and his clothes are like a diving suit, they're so tightly molded to his frame. I'm thinking things, things I shouldn't be thinking, and I want to run inside and lock the door behind me and watch reruns of something completely non-sexual.

"Do you want to come inside?"

His weathered look fades slowly, and it's replaced by an expression I've never seen on a man's face before. I wonder if this is what Mairi saw when she looked down at me every night.

I hope so.

"Sure," he said. "I'd like that."

I rush past him and to the door. I have to hunt for the right key; I almost never enter through the front door of the house. I can feel him standing behind me, breathing, and I drop the keys twice before I get the door open.

It's warm and dry inside and I take a few deep breaths to get my bearings. I'm quivering, I can feel it, and I know we won't be sitting and watching the fire. Not tonight.

Lane walks around me and down into the small living room.

"This is cozy," he says.

He's polite and making an effort not to talk fast and hard like he does at work, and I appreciate it. I try to remember the last time someone tried to change to make me happy, even for a few minutes, and I can't. Perhaps it's never happened.

The tension is heavy and viscous and it weighs on us like five pounds of frosting on a layer of too-hot cake. He faces away from me and walks around the room, and the muscles of his back and waist twist and slide against one another under his soaking wet clothes. The sway of his hips makes me want to move mine in a circle, an odd and wonderful desire that I've never had before.

"I...I have..." His pants cling to his butt and I'm staring. "...a scone. If-If you wanted one."

A burst of nervous laughter erupts from him and he turns to face me, his arms still crossed tight over his chest, like he's afraid it might get away from him.

"I love scones!"

He almost shouts it, and he says it in a pitch several octaves above his normal one. More nervous laughter bubbles out of him, and I'm comforted to know that it's not just me who's anxious about this whole thing. It strikes me that he's comforting me even as he fights to control his own nerves. Even without meaning to. My affection for him swells and I want him even more now. I want him, even though I'm not terribly sure what we're going to do together.

I open the refrigerator. The cool handle feels good against my hand, and the cold air that flows out toward me is welcome, too. I realize that I'm sweating, and hot, and that I'm losing whatever control I have. Soon, I'll do something embarrassing. I can feel it.

I pull my out my breakfast scone.

"It's strawberry," I say. "I had a key lime one yesterday, but I already ate that one. I only make one scone a day."

He picks the scone up off the saucer and takes a bite of it. We stand in the kitchen and look at each other while he chews.

"It's really good," he says. The plate makes a small clinking sound when he sets it on the countertop.

"Thanks."

There's a silence, and then he kisses me, soft and sweet. It only lasts for a second, perhaps less, but the intensity is too much for me and I back away, frightened. I liked it, I know I liked it, but suddenly it's all just too much and I can't bear to look him in the face.

"Jeremy?"

I keep my eyes on the floor and my arms folded over my chest. I'm leaning against the stove and he's halfway across the room, beside the table with the saucer on it.

"Are you okay?"

He takes three or four steps toward me, and even though I want to back further away, I can't, because there's nowhere to go. So I stay there, the oven handle pressing into the small of my back, and try to think of something to say to keep distance between us.

"Uh..."

"It's okay," he says. He's back in front of me, so close I can see the fibers on his drying shirt. I'm trying to keep my eyes on the floor, but now that he's here I'm staring at his belt buckle. "We can go really slow, I promise."

I'm anxious, more anxious than I've been since I first went to see Dr. Rondan, and I don't know what to do, because I could send him away and then I could calm down but I want him, oh, God, how I want him, and I don't even know what for.

He places his hands on my hips and presses his crotch against mine. I can feel him through his pants, arching against my thigh, and it's an exotic sensation. I think about Mairi again, and how I used to wonder what it was like for her when I touched her, what it felt like to touch a cock, to feel it inside you. I asked her once, when we were drunk on her birthday, and she told me it was like having love pressing against you and then crawling inside you until you exploded. She-

His lips are on me again, and this time they don't let me wriggle away - they're insistent and demanding but soft and coaxing as well. He's good at this, kissing, and I'm beginning to calm down. I can handle it after all, I suppose, if it's going to be like this.

His mouth is doing something on my neck now, and it's difficult to think, it feels so good. His hands caress the skin of my back, and I wonder when he untucked my shirt because it was just-

And now it's gone, floating to the floor like a forgotten kite, and I keep thinking of things to say and then forgetting them. His shirt is gone too, now, and the sprinkling of hair on his chest brushes against my nipples. They tingle so hard it almost hurts and I hump against him.

"Does that feel good?" He speaks softly, looking me in the eyes.

I nod, disoriented as I swell in my pants. They're wet and clinging to me in all my sensitive places, and my cock is throbbing so hard I wonder if Lane can feel it. He kisses me again, and this time his tongue slips out and plays across my lips and I hump against him with a small moan.

"That's it..." he whispers.

My pants slide to the floor. Somehow, his are already gone. He's some kind of magician, I suppose.

Our cocks are touching now, and it's too much for me, I know. His tongue in my mouth stops me from speaking, so all I can do is try to twist my hips away from his. But he won't let me, and he strokes us together. I groan into his mouth and try to break the kiss to tell him it's too much and that I can't-

But he just strokes faster and squeezes tighter, one hand on my hip to steady me and keep me from running away. I fight him for a few more minutes and do my best to tell him to stop before it's too late, but he ignores me and keeps tonguing my jaws and the roof of my mouth and kissing me sweetly and stroking hard and fast and there's nothing I can do.

It starts inside, somewhere behind my navel, and spreads out and down. It's hot and shuddering and it makes my legs weak, but he's still pumping us and it squirts out of me in strong jets that seem to have no end. My eyes are closed and I'm ecstatic and confused and terrified, but I can't speak, I can't stop shaking, not until this things that's got hold of me lets go.

I open my eyes and he's coming too, I see, his seed mingling with mine and streaming over his hands and both our cocks. My grip on the oven door handle tightens as I watch and come. I can't move, can't breathe, and just when I think I'll faint it slows, fading as color and sound return.

His face is buried in my neck and he's breathing hard, too. I lean on the stove behind me, grateful that it's heavy and bulky enough to support our combined weight.

"Let's go," he whispers. His stubble scratches my neck as he speaks, and it rouses me again. I can't believe it; I've always been a once-a-night man. "Bed. We need a bed..."

I almost trip over my pants in my haste to step out of them. He laughs, and then I laugh, and soon we're sitting on the kitchen tiles, giggling like schoolgirls as rain batters the windows and lightning flashes.

I lean against the refrigerator and catch my breath. He's still giggling intermittently.

"That was nice."

He giggles more.

"I guess that's one way of putting it."

"I...I've never done that before now."

He smiles at me, warm and true, and his golden hair is stringy and unkempt and swirling about his head. He's beautiful, I realize again, more than anyone I've ever had sex with. More than Mairi, even. The thought unsettles me, and I'm getting anxious again. Lane seems to feel it, because he slides toward me on his butt and wraps an arm around me.

"Whatcha thinking?"

He's so perceptive, and it comforts me and makes me wary of him.

"Nothing..."

"Jeremy..."

"I like you," I blurt. "More than my ex-wife. You're more beautiful than her. I want to have sex with you more..."

Heat rises through my neck and into my face, and I'm astounded at his ability to get me to say things, things I would rather keep to myself. It's as though he can see me, all of me, and getting me to talk is just a formality. Like the talking aloud is only for my benefit.

He gives me another light kiss and nuzzles my ear.

"It's nothing to be embarrassed about," he whispers. "You don't have to be ashamed."

"I..."

"We're going slow, remember?" His tongue runs over my earlobe. I gasp. "Just enjoy it, Jeremy. Worry about the other stuff later, if you have to. Just enjoy this little time. You seem like you don't enjoy a lot of stuff, Jeremy..."

A spasm seizes my chest and suddenly I can't breathe and my cheeks are wet. I'm shaking and Lane is holding me and asking what's wrong and telling me it's okay and to just breathe. I'm trying, I'm really trying, but it just keeps coming and soon I'm lying on his lap with my face buried in his belly. I wrap my arms around his middle and squeeze, hoping he can ground me.

He strokes my hair and my neck and my back and tells me it'll end soon, to ride it out, that he's right here. I do. It takes a long time, hours, it seems, but I do, and then I can breathe right again and I let go of him, sliding down his midsection and onto his thighs where I lay like a dead fish.

"Better?"

He smiles at me again, and his face is like the sun. I know it's a cliché even as I think it, but it's true.

"Y-Yeah," I say.

We lay there for a while longer and then he pats my hair again. "Come on," he says. "It's getting cold down here, naked on this tile. I demand to see your bed."

I lead him to the bedroom. For some reason, we walk on tiptoe.

We walk into the room and I turn to speak to him, but he bounds past me and leaps onto the bed, trying to bounce. It doesn't work, and he's disappointed.

"What the hell?" He tries to bounce again, and sinks further into the mattress.

I climb in after him, sitting on my knees. I've never sat on my comforter completely naked before. It feels good. Free.

"It's memory foam," I say.

He makes a face. "Who wants a bed that doesn't bounce? That's the point of a bed, Jeremy. Where did you get this awful thing?"

"It's great for your back," I tell him. "I sleep really good every night." That makes me think of my pills, and I wonder if the mattress does anything at all to help me sleep.

"Ugh," he says.

"There's a guest bedroom with a really cheap mattress, if you want to go in there." He's on his back, trying to make a blanket angel. "It squeaks and everything."

The room is down the hall, and we tiptoe our way there, just to maintain the mood, I guess. He leaps onto the bed, grinning when it squeaks under the strain, and I jump on too, flopping back onto the pillows. It's odd, being so spontaneous. I don't think I've done anything unplanned since the Fifteenth.

"You're quiet again," he says, leaning on his elbow.

"I like the quiet."

"I've noticed." He wiggles closer to me, biting his bottom lip. "Why?"

"It's peaceful," I say. "Keeps things in order."

He looks around the room.

"I take it order is something you really like, too."

His tone isn't neutral.

"What does that mean?"

"Do you have OCD or something?"

"No!"

"Okay, okay," he says. He flops onto the pillow on his side and looks at the ceiling. "Sorry."

"No."

"No? No what?"

"I just like things in the right place, okay? I like knowing where my shit is when I need to get to it, okay?"

The outburst is uncontrollable, and it scares me, and I'm embarrassed again. But I don't apologize.

"Okay," he says. He's sorry, a little, but he's pouting, like I've insulted him. He takes my hand and strokes the back of it with his thumb. His kisses me on the cheek, but it's not the same as before. Something has changed, and now there's a weird thing taking up space between us.

We lay there until the storm passes, and at some point I fall asleep. When I wake up, he's gone.

*****

It's Sunday morning.

I'm outside in a pair of flannel pajama pants and a robe, looking around. His car is gone, and there's no note or anything. I wonder if I should be disappointed, but if I'm honest, I'm relieved that I don't have to face him after everything I told him.

I go back inside and put on some coffee, not bothering to search for my Sunday spoon and taking the Wednesday one instead. I pull a packet of potting mix from under the sink and head outside, wincing as my cuffs absorb water from the ground.

The tomatoes are ripe and heavy, and they weigh the plant down. I've been putting off picking them, since they look so nice and healthy on the bush, but I know that if I don't they'll soon rot. I pick up the basket I keep beside the water hose and trudge over through the mud. My pants are wet to mid-calf, but it's too late to worry about it now.

I'm not sure how I feel about what we have, where we're going.

He's wonderful, I know that, and I really like him, more than I've liked anyone since before the Fifteenth. And I like having sex with him, even though he's a man and I haven't done that kind of thing since middle school, but somehow in the scheme of things that's the part that bothers me the least. He's unsettling and loud and talkative and boisterous, and every time he enters a room I'm strangely afraid that he'll knock things over and break them with the force of his spirit. I forget to remind myself to grateful when he's there, and I do things out of order like park on the street instead of in the garage and use my Wednesday spoon on Sunday.