P R O L O G U E PART 2: SAM'S JOURNEY
Sam woke up to what sounded like a horse marching above his head. He imagined a Clydesdale from the beer commercials playing out a scene in the dining room upstairs. He had said too much last night at dinner and now it was time to pay.
Sleeping in the basement of the home he had grown up in was an odd experience to say the least. The chances of him ever returning there were infinitesimally small and previously certified to be zero, but there he was, back in his father's house in what used to be the office. The couch from his apartment was adjacent to bed and looked on the floating bookshelves he had used as room divider in his mid-sized studio apartment in the city. It was hard to imagine his dad posted up in the corner where his nightstand now stood, spending his afternoons and evenings hunched over a tooth colored box that lit up sky blue. He hid out there so much his second wife had called it "the other woman", the gravity of that lost on him, he changed the name of root drive to match. New fake-wood floors had been installed where carpet used to be, it shined where the pervious plastic hadn't, the reflection of his table lamp was almost a mirror.
His father's third wife did not suffer any misconceptions about her husband. With a handful of divorces between them there was a level of honesty born out of sheer exhaustion. A like what I like, see ya when I see ya, sort of warts-and-all type of attitude permeated all their choices together. The beauty of that is they made a lot of room for each other to just be and for the little amount of effort they could muster, to be enough. She had brought two young teenagers into the home and pretty much raised them on her own, her relationship with Sam's father operating in discrete parts. Sam's father had never had much interest in having kids and thought himself lucky he'd never again have the chance to make that mistake. It was part of their agreement, your kids are your kids. Of course life wouldn't have it that way for very long -- one day it's normal and all the rules you've imposed on it hang there in balance, the next you realize everything was put up with tape that wont stick anymore. Susan had been watching TV alone late one night, as she often did, and had a stroke.
She was taken to the hospital the next morning when she was found there on the couch, barely able to respond. Her language was all but gone, and what was left made no sense at all, only pleading eyes that asked formless questions. A battery of tests revealed a valve in her heart was being eaten away by bacterial infection which had broken off and traveled to her brain.
Sam and his father had barely spoken in six years but he had attended their wedding and had met his step-mother's children so when he got the call he left immediately. A train left the city and went as far into the suburbs as it went before he took a cab the rest of the way to the hospital. He assumed the worst, that she would die there and he'd be forced to comfort a man that he couldn't bare to touch. He always went to the worst case scenario -- that way he'd know what to do when it happened. It seemed very practical him. He told himself he was going for her, not him anyway. She had comforted him once when his boyfriend moved out suddenly. They were kindred spirits in that they were both sober. Sam had racked up a year and half with her having twenty-seven under her belt. She was a good listener and coming from a pseudo-parent that meant more than he could rightfully share.
She didn't die though, she was just separated from her life in a cruel way. Unable to connect to anyone that wasn't able to intuit her needs and feelings or read a room. He pitied her deeply knowing that two reliant children and husband that would only meet her part-way was going to mean huge deficits. The kids too, were top of mind, not that they wouldn't get their needs met, their father was around, but that they would be subject to my father's parenting. If you could call it that. Sam had left his father's house through a window. The next time he saw him was in a court room. He shuddered at the weight of memories he did his best push back.
He had actually never seen his father like this -- beaten down and scared. It made him feel powerful. This was not the man who terrified him as a kid, he was shrunken and impotent. It let him look at him longer, to see him like that. He noticed the added wrinkles and the slimming streak of black hair that had last been silver in a mound of black. He was known for being good in a crisis -- because his father had been so good at creating them. He had a calming effect in the hospital room constantly revolving with doctors, specialists, family and friends. He sat in the corner and observed, saw what went unnoticed, and made sure his step mother had a place for her eyes to land when the chaos got overwhelming. At the end of that first long day his father thanked him for coming and meant it, breaking down into tears. He didn't know what he was going to do. Sam didn't know either, just that he wasn't capable of doing it on his own. "I'll quit my job and move in" he said.
"What?"
"If you can afford to pay for all my meals and whatever else I might need, I'll move in... and I'll take care of her so you can go back to work" Sam rattled off, thinking it for the first time as he said it. Not knowing why he had said it but feeling desperate for his father to accept nonetheless.
"You would do that." His father admitted, looking at him in a way that made him uncomfortable.
"You need help. I'll help you." Sam read from an abbreviated script he had hoped his father might've read from one day, but that was a long time ago.
So Sam had moved back into his father's house. He rose early every morning to make sure his stepmother had help from the time his dad left for work until he came back home again. He helped her walk, and eat, and learn to speak again. He anticipated her every need and when he guessed wrong made the effort to find out. She loved him for it. She seemed to have two feelings she broadcasted. Fear and comfort. She didn't recover quickly or completely, her emotional intellect had been severely damaged and seemed to plateau even as she gained more words. After six months her wounds were largely invisible to anyone who didn't look too closely. His father was eager to celebrate her restored health and so was she... but Sam knew more was going on: that she had relapsed on pills, that she was suicidal, that she pretended to understand more than she did. She began to be frustrated with the help she needed, refusing it at times until one day she demanded that she be able to drive. Sam was floored but his father entertained it saying this meant that she could be independent again. Whether anyone believed that or not Sam never knew, but one thing was for certain, they were all tired and they were all frustrated. Calling it over seemed more like a proclamation of fatigue than anything else but it was clear Sam in an instant that his time there was done.
He didn't waste anytime, he reached out to his old job and his old apartment building who were all to glad to have him back whenever he was ready. He wasn't sure why but he didn't want to go back to his old life. Having lived someone else's story for six months made him crave adventure. Someplace new, he thought, somewhere where no one knew him.
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P R O L O G U E PART 2: RIVER'S JOURNEY
River waded into the water, sloshing with the mug tugging at his boots. He'd spend the next four hours there, alone with nature and luckily, a few fish, too. He was at the edge of his family's property where the trees gathered around a fishing hole. A warm sticky afternoon had him in overalls and his favorite hat. He'd brought a sandwich and a couple tomatoes from his mother's garden. He'd often spend time here alone and it's how he wanted to remember this place, peaceful and quiet.
He was on summer break of his graduate program. It's not where he had planned to be but his parents had phoned and told him that they were selling the farm and he dropped everything to be here one last time. His folks had decided to retire early, the strain of running the farm without any of the kids had only sped things up.
He couldn't imagine his life separated from this land, it was a part of him. He had come back one last time to get it in his lungs and under his fingernails one last time. He had never talked to his folks about buying the farm but that had been his plan. But that had been years down the line. He had no money and no time right now nor would he for a few more years while he was in school.
His parents were moving on and he couldn't blame them. They had earned some easy living after all these years but he couldn't help but wish they had held on just a little bit longer. It left a giant void in his plans for the future. He camped there that night, roasting the fish he caught for dinner. No tent, just a bag and one of the dogs that had followed him out. He fell asleep looking up at the sky, it was the same sky he looked up at all his life but tonight the stars looked heavy, stuck in place, forced to repeat the patterns season after season. He smiled thinking about how his parent's had taken themselves down from their own fixed positions choosing a new story.
He went back to school in the fall feeling good about the change. Strangely he felt free from the destiny he had imagined and wondered if it had been too small of a dream. He was less focused at school that year, he went out on the weekends, allowed himself to meet friends where he would've studied before.
Proposes to a straight man (has sex)
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C H A P T E R T W O A NEW FAMILY
A year had gone by since Sam and River had driven that old pick up from California through the Midwest and San Francisco was starting to sound like old news. That is to them of course, not to any of their friends though.
"Manhattan." said Toby.
"Yes" said Sam without looking up.
"You're moving to Man-hat-tan" Toby ran his hands through the air like he was directing a choir.
"YES!", Sam was tired of explaining the move. It was hard enough to wrap his head around all the changes this would bring. The loss of friends, which were like family -- especially to Sam, the life he and River had built here. It was beautiful what they had made but it didn't fit anymore.
"Well holy shit, Sam I was worried the girls said you were fucking Kansas!" Toby rattled off at lightning speed.
"Manhattan is in Kansas, Toby." Sam taped another box shut dragging the plastic ring down carefully this time, it kept slipping and this was just the sort of thing that sent him over the edge when he was frustrated or tired or hungry and right now he was all of those things.
"It sure as shit aint!" Toby shot back.
Sam turned to look his old roommate in the eyes. One more time. I'm just going to have to do this one more time.
It came as shock to their little community that they would even think of leaving, especially right now when the baby was so little. Everyone had chipped in or donated time or meals or spent hours on the phone supporting them through the many hospital visits. Things had just calmed down, they were normal. It didn't make sense to them why they would up and move now. And to Kansas!
But Sam and River saw how their lives had changed permanently bringing home Amelia. They had new interests, a new routine, and a little person to think about. San Francisco had been the perfect place for them to land in their 20's, that's where they had met and they loved that city for that reason alone but adding another person to family was a strain on their finances to say nothing of the medical bills. Amelia had been born with a heart defect and it was touch and go for the first six months. The happy life they had imagined, all the cute photos they had planned to take, the baby clothes that looked more like costumes.. none of those things happened. Instead their life played out in a hospital with wires and tubes and plastic cages. Sam and River had taken opposite shifts to be with her every day. It took a heavy toll on their relationship each of them focusing entirely on what the baby needed and no longer on what was good for each other or all three. They just had to survive - and they had. Amelia was a year old now and they were just starting to feel normal again but their old lives didn't fit anymore and their bodies and hearts, all three, were worn.
They started to talk about where they could afford a home with a yard, cities with more children and opportunities to play and get dirty. River had a strong argument for the country and Sam was hard pressed to argue, if Amelia turned out to be half the human his husband was they would have done a good job. It didn't take long to find work, a college in Kansas, River's home state, was eager to bring on a professor with his credentials and background. Sam wouldn't need to work with their cost of living dropping so dramatically, he could stay home the baby -- one with a lot of options they just didn't have in their apartment. A patch of land they could grow flowers and vegetables on, have chickens and collect rainwater. Maybe a doggy-door for the pup they planned on getting Amelia when she was older.
But it came at a high cost. They wouldn't know anyone in Kansas save River's parents and no one was quick to discount the benefit of helpful caring grandparents. But neither of them had seen their lives playing out in a small conservative town. They would be subject to whispers and private disdain, their child might be teased or shunned by folks weren't ok with what her family looked like. It was a far cry from the culture and attitudes that they had long been accustomed that much was sure.
So they set out to start telling everyone close to them that it was done deal. A month from now they would be living in Kansas with no plans to return. It was a raw way to say goodbye and it made it hard for Sam and River to enjoy the new dreamscapes they were creating.
This time they'd fly, River hired a moving company to most of the packing they just needed to bring a couple suitcases, most of which were commandeered by Amelia's things: the quilted blanket she needed to take naps, the tiger she needed to go anywhere when they left the house, bottles, formula, special wash cloths.. the list went on.
They threw a party, if you could call it that, in their mostly empty apartment the day before they left. It started at 2pm and ended at 3:30 sharp according to the invitations they had sent out. "Bring Your Own Everything" it read, they would be supplying hugs goodbye and giving away the last few plants that hadn't died in the past year. Their people came, most cried, a few told them they'd be there if they ever wanted to come back. A few got it and did their best to keep their spirits high, asking about the new house or River's job. At 3:15 Sam locked eyes with River across the kitchen moving Amelia out of the way of his face mouthed "Get. Them. Out." By the time River had ushered the last person out Amelia was fast asleep and it was time to take a break if they could get one. Sam laid the baby down in pop up crib in the living room and tip toed away toward River. He shut their bedroom door like his life depended on it, carefully peeling his fingers back should the door shift and creak. It didn't.
He turned around took a deep breath. River was lying on the only thing in the room, an inflatable mattress adrift the middle of a perfectly-clean wood floor. They had taken the window coverings down, Sam noted, that was a mistake in hindsight.
River reached out for his best friend, fingers outstretched, opening and closing his palm a couple times like Amelia did when she wanted to be picked up. Sam crept up to mattresses edge and withered as gracefully as he could but the energy to care about anything at all was quickly leaving him. River pulled his crumpled body close and they took in the quiet for ten minutes or more before one of them said, "Our lives started here" and they both wept. Later when they talked about it neither could remember who said it, just the feeling that they had said so much more. The late nights without air conditioning, finding their landlord's dildo in the closet, or meal the meal they had ruined by both salting it when the other wasn't looking.
Same pulled his sticky face off of River's cheek so he could look him in his eyes. The slow-burn brown was steadfast, soothing and warm. "Hi" he said smiling, like it was the first time they had met as the people they were now which felt almost nothing like the people they had been when they met. "Hi" said River happily. His voice sounded older to Sam, he could hear all the fights they had ever had, the songs he had heard him sing, the noises he had made during sex, the way he cried when they though Amelia would die. He heard his rage when he found out Sam had relapsed, he heard his hope, and a hardened tenderness. The gravel there carried all there hard-won stories. Sam kissed that man, the man that had stood with him through all of that. He didn't need to wonder "what if" anymore, it felt like it had all happened already. They had found their edges and had forged themselves into something that fit.
River could see the torrent of ideas and feelings flood Sam's eyes as they searched his own. He knew he was recounting their lives together in this place and it made him homesick even though they hadn't left yet. Where Sam carried their story in his mind, he carried it in his body. Through all of it it whispered to him; his back had told him stand no matter what, his neck told him to carry the weight, his eyes told him to stay awake or he'd miss it. He had almost lost them both but that was a story for this house and these walls. River wasn't often glad for change but a fresh slate, he was glad for that today.
River stared back breathing in Sam's breath, wiping the tears from his face and felt his own exhale be pulled into Sam. Back and forth they continued, mixing, building. He could feel Sam swelling against him and pulled him even closer, running a thick hand into the back of his jeans. He was sweaty there and his fingers travelled easy down his crack until one landed just where he wanted it to. Sam blinked slowly, careful not to make sound. They were good at that by now - so good it was like hitting mute on the TV.
River held his finger there shifting just the surface of his sphincter, slowly in a circle. He kissed him then, his mouth wet, sweeping the full length of his tongue through Sams mouth and with his other hand pressed against his chest to keep him from being able to respond in kind. He pushed the pad of his finger inside. Sam's breath shifted and shortened. River kissed him again, the same way: forcefully, leaving more spit behind than he found there. Sam let it gather without swallowing, travelling towards the back of his throat as River took him by the neck turning his head back and licked him from his adams apple to his ear. Sam reached down and unbuttoned the top of his pants, letting the ribbon of the remaining buttons pull apart as River spread his hand cupping his lovers butt while turning his forearm out and away to make more room. Sam turned onto his back pinning Rivers arm against the rubber that formed around it. With one finger barely in his ass, the others spread out and curled gripping his cheeks where they came together holding him in place. He carefully pulled his pants down the first few inches River waiting to take them off the rest of the way. As Sam pulled his second leg free of his jeans River pressed his cupped his hand just under his mouth and he spit.
"Good boy." River whispered his ear. His beard had turned to sand paper over the years and scratched his sweating face.
Sam pulled his heels up a couple inches and splayed his knees inviting his love's hand to come in. River releasing just his middle finger while he applied the spit with his other hand and then then the same finger went back inside. This time the slicked finger went up to the second joint and hooked there. Sam couldn't easily move if he wanted to. River brought his left hand back up and put two fingers in Sam's mouth.
"Suck." Another quiet command, one that would have been inaudible if his mouth wasn't pressed tightly against his ear, scratching. The heat of it and the way it tickled and burned made Sam squirm. He wanted more.
Sam took River's paw with both his hands and held it there while he ran his tongue along the line where his fingers met and started to suck. Gently at first, just the tips, pausing to lap at them which cause River to push his hand further into his mouth. When it couldn't go any further, Sam gagged and felt the pulse of River ramming his finger in his ass in as far as it would go.
Sam's dick stood as straight as his dick ever got, bending three quarters of the way up, down and twisting to the left. His foreskin was still closed over the tip overhanging by a quarter of an inch forming a broken pyramid. River pulled his fingers out of Sam's throat and in a wide arch quickly met the middle finger of his right hand, pulling down to create an easy path inside. He leaned his head in and took the nipple closest to him in his mouth the same way he had kissed him earlier and began sucking him there until it hurt. Sam almost let out a yelp but River knowing what he was driving him to, pulled out and clapped his hand overhis mouth. Sam nodded that the moment had passed.
River slowly placed his palm flat against Sam's low belly. His pinky lined up at the start of his untrimmed pubes and gently held him while his pinned right hand closed around Sam's ass, squeezing almost as hard as he coud. Sam's breathing quickened, his back arching to pull away. River took his other to the tip of Sam's dick and pinched the gathered tip of Sam's foreskin slowly pulling as he released his ass, allowing Sam to buck toward his travelling dick. River kissed him then, releasing his foreskin and gripping the thick snake as he pulled down retracting the skin. Sam did moan then, quietly. Sam kept kissing softly at first against the bottom lip now the top, licking at the corners of his mouth. Their tongues danced following each other in and outside each other's mouths. River pulled his face away so he could watch as he let go of Sam's 10" cock and gathered his nuts into a fist, Sam's testicles ballooning out the top, red and increasingly angry. The finger under him began to search and prod until it found a rhythm of long slow insertions followed by a full retreat. River would trace the entrance of his hole a few times before wagging his finger like a windshield wiper and diving back in. He knew Sam was on the edge. He brought his mouth back to his ear. "You wanna come baby?" River pulled his head away so he could see his face again. Sam stared at him transfixed and nodded. He reached across his face and covered his other ear with his palm and drew him in, sealing his ear from sound and creating a pocket of pressure. He pulled Sam's head toward him lining his tongue up to receive his open ear and drove his tongue inside. Sam's entire body lit up, hot and sweating. The only sounds he could hear were slurping and thumping as Rivers tongue came crashing in and out. The arm underneath Sam him was steady as Sam's slick back rolled over it held in placed by the finger in his ass, he had about inch of clearance and used it to slide up and down fucking himself on the fixed finger inside him. River brought both his hands together retiring the used finger and instead using that hand to spread his cheeks. The other came in with two fingers now freshly wetted by Sam's mouth. River massaged his prostate while Sam forgot who or where he was. River felt the walnut shape inside reach its full size and his anus dilate. He worked a third and fourth finger inside and when he could feel Sam bearing down for more he leaned back in. "Ok baby. You can have it now" He purred. Reaching over Sam's right shoulder pulling the slick arm that was mostly numb now from beneath him and straddled his half naked body. He took Sam's hand and placed it the rod that pushed through his pants, let him find the circle of precum spreading out to show where it ended. River reached down and guided Sam's hands back to his dick and showed him how he wanted him to jack himself off. Releasing his cupped hand from Sam's River skipped over his belt in favor of unbuttoning the crotch. He reached in there, pulling his underwear down and his dick through the keyhole of his jeans. The white and pink freckled cock hung there standing straight out like a monument. Sam could see a pool of precum still hanging in the tight circle of River's foreskin. It made him thirsty.
River took Sam by the wrists and pulled him up so he could wet his dick thoroughly before getting fucked. Sam knew what he was there to do but first sucked and nibbled at his foreskin until all the sweet juice was in his tummy. His dick had smelled like piss and sulpher but now was clean and ready to be lubed. He knew River would make him gag to get the thickest spit from the back his throat. It's what they'd need to get his dick all the way inside. River faced fucked Sam carefully letting him off to breath more often than he normally would to keep the noise down. Sam's face turned red, thin tears streamed down his face as a consequence and when it was thickly coated laid back down. Sam gripped his ankles and rolled onto his back showing his husband the hole he had generously worked, River approved hooking him again with his forefinger to hold him open while he let a long train of spit fall inside.
Somewhere outside a fire engine sounded off. They booth looked toward the window they were too low to the ground to see out of. They held their breath. It was getting louder. Sam shut his eyes to listen. It was coming up the street now... if it wasn't going to come right past it was on the next block over.
Now awake, Amelia did her best to match it in tone and volume.