To Bring Him Home and Other Tales

Chapter 1: The Boys-3

“In the summer the yard is lit up with fireflies: yellow-green, twinkling, like tiny stars in the grass and trees.” He smiled at Fletcher. “Sorry. Any more questions?”

“Just one more,” Fletcher said slowly, grateful the interview questions had saved him from his topics list and sounding stupid. He was acutely aware that Sam was just inches away and how much he wanted to touch him and how afraid he was of what would or would not happen. “There is one more question that neither of us asked the other. Significant others? Girlfriends? Boyfriends?” The last word came with great effort and he couldn’t look at Sam; he stared instead into his Pepsi cup, as if there was some answer in the dark liquid or the crushed ice.

“No, no significant others, no boyfriends,” Sam said, staring into his own cup, before setting it on the floor. “What about you? Boyfriends?” he asked just as slowly.

“No boyfriends.”

They finally looked at each other and Sam reached out to touch his face. Fletcher sat very still, the swing barely moving, wanting to run, but knowing he didn’t know which way, that he was going to let this happen, and that life had finally come looking for him. Sam touched him with the tips of his fingers. Fletcher shivered at the touch. Sam kissed him. There was an explosion of light, a shattering, as if from somewhere, walls of shining glass rained down around them. Chunks of rose and golden light exploded in Sam’s dark hair, Fletcher’s red hair, and all they could do was hold on to each other. The light passed through them, breaking on the porch into small bits, like confetti, of yellow and green and blue and white that littered the floor, the grass, the trees, everything.

“Wow, I thought that only happened in movies. Fletch, you okay? My God.” Sam looked around without letting go of Fletcher. Behind them lights in the dining room seemed to be blazing, sparking, flaring, and dying, to flare again the cycle repeating, over and over.

“What’s going on? You’re glowing all over,” Fletcher asked in an awed voice as Sam took his hand and led him into the living room. It was as if someone had peeled off a plastic seal covering up the real picture beneath. Over the fireplace mantel, the picture of the dragon ship on the sea had changed—no longer a picture, a painting, but a window. Fletcher felt he was staring through a translucent window looking at a fast sailing ship running before a strong wind.

“The Voyage of the Dawn Treader picture—it looks like we’re looking into a window—like in the book.”

“Yeah, a little closer and the waves would smack us. I don’t know what’s happening—I can’t turn this glowing off. It doesn’t hurt. I don’t feel bad or sick—I feel normal.”

“I don’t think we’re crazy. This all seems real—I mean, it is real, and your ears. They’re pointed,” Fletcher said, grabbing Sam’s hand and then Sam himself. Fletcher almost groaned at how warm Sam felt. They watched as the bits of light dissolved, oozing into the wood, the earth, the air. But what did it all mean? Fletcher flashed back to the neighbor in Durham, his dream. That was nothing compared to this. Magic seemed the only explanation. He couldn’t believe it was happening and to Sam, too. It was happening to the both of them.

“I don’t want to be alone. Stay here,” Sam said. “Stay here tonight with me, Fletcher.”

* * * *

“Hey, you.”

“Hey yourself,” Fletcher whispered back, reaching out to touch Sam’s face. He was amazed to be where he was now, naked in bed with a boy, to have had s*x with the boy, and to be touching the boy now, the boy who had really had been glowing all over, and on the walls of this room, more too-real pictures of a rolling green countryside which wasn’t England. He still didn’t understand. He still felt afraid. Fletcher tried to name the fear: the neighbor had disappeared after the glowing dream. He reached for Sam’s hand and held it to his heart.

“You want to go to the doctor? We can go to Student Health. You might start glowing again.”

“What—for that? It didn’t hurt. It didn’t feel weird, which was weird. My parents will be home in a few days. That’s what they said last night when they called, remember? We can wait. They’ll know what it means: the lights, those pictures that look too real, how everything looks different now. Besides, what will a doctor do, anyway, except freak out?” Sam added, his hair looking just as wild as boys’ hair did in the movies after spending the night, no matter with whom they had shared a bed. Fletcher ran his fingers through his hair, hoping his head looked just as disheveled.

“Yeah, I guess. But what do we do now? It has to be magic, Sam.”

Sam shrugged, which Fletcher found a little maddening. He wanted someone to tell them what to do. Sam had such trust his parents wouldn’t freak and they would know what to do. He wished Sam had told his parents everything, and then, zap, from somewhere in Scotland, over the Irish Sea, over Ireland, the Atlantic, to McGee Street, in Greensboro: the answer. Instead, they were coming home on Sunday, that was the earliest they could get a flight at short notice. London into Dulles by early afternoon, a connecting flight to Greensboro, home by five. Fletcher shook his head. Even if his parents were to come home early; they would never call. They would just show up.

“Why didn’t you tell them about the glowing? Are you going to tell them about us?” Fletcher added in a whisper, realizing he was afraid of what Sam’s answer might be.

“You and me—this?” Sam asked as he traced the line of Fletcher’s jaw, each collarbone, the thin line of red hair bisecting his chest. “I told them I liked boys a year or so ago. I told you about the hand jobs and making out with Festus and Alex before school started, and bringing Alex home for dinner once. They weren’t surprised and they won’t be about you. My mom even said there was a boy in Scotland they met on another trip, she thought I’d like him. Besides, I wanted to tell them everything in person.”

“Your mother said that?” Fletcher asked, stunned. He had been a little jealous when Sam had told him about the two boys he had fooled around with when they had gotten into his bed. He wished he had been Sam’s first the way Sam was his first. “How I feel about you, it’s not the same, it’s not the same at all,” Sam had said and had pulled Fletcher to him.

Sam shrugged. “What do we do now? I can wear a headband to cover my ears, I guess.”

“Act normal. Eat breakfast, go to class, see what happens next? I don’t think we should include this in my portrait interview personal essay,” Fletcher added, thinking that maybe, of all people, Dr. Crawford might understand, or at least not be afraid. “Wait for your parents to get home on Sunday? You stay home if you’re glowing? I can turn in stuff for you. And we aren’t telling my folks anything when they get back.”

It wasn’t much of a plan, but it was the best they could think of at the moment.

Sam sat upon one arm and let his free hand be a spider on Fletcher’s chest, first stroking each n****e, and then wandering down to wrap around his erection and started to slowly stroke him. Fletcher groaned and reached to stroke Sam in return and then pulled him down to kiss him. By the time their lips met, Sam had started to glow again, a pale brightness beneath his skin. “He paused, and then added, “Like I told you, I haven’t done this before with anybody, not what we did, what we’re doing.”

“I haven’t even fooled around before,” Fletcher said, as he held Sam against him, stroking his hair, his back, his ass. “This is my first time.”

Sam’s reply was slightly muffled, as he rubbed his head, then his face against Fletcher. “You’re doing fine. Just keep doing what you’re doing…”

* * * *

Wednesday, October 21

Fletcher met Dr. Crawford the next afternoon for his midterm conference. He realized as he waited outside her office that he wasn’t quite sure how to act normal. Trying to be invisible and wishing for Narnia and Middle-earth for the past seven years hadn’t been the best practice. Being invisible, he could do. Teachers would even forget he had been at school. Acting normal might be harder than he thought. To make things worse, today he was sure she and everyone else could see it on his forehead, in bright red neon letters, blinking on and off, in alternating words and sentences: Gay/Fairy/Faggot/He had s*x with a boy last night/Let me tell you what they did/They did it again this morning. Fletcher could still feel Sam’s hands and mouth on his skin, Sam’s mouth on his mouth. He could still feel the warmth of Sam’s skin when he glowed rosy-gold all over. How could people look at him and not know?

“Fletcher? Are you not feeling well?”

“Uh, no, I’m okay, Dr. Crawford, I’m fine. Sorry. So, I can still revise my first essay? Sam and I are almost done with our portrait interview. He’s going to come over to my house and observe my bedroom this evening. I’m almost done with the all-first-year read book—” He stopped. He was blanking on the book’s name, the book they had been talking about just about every day since August. She must think I’m a complete i***t.

“Enrique’s Journey, by Sonia Nazario. Well, you’ve about a B average now, but if you do a good job on the revisions, and on your portrait of Sam, you can bring that up. Let’s take a look at that first essay…”

She knows. That’s why she put us together. He desperately wanted to tell this kind woman with her wild hair and pale, pale blue eyes that seemed to see everything, ask her for advice, but Fletcher knew he wasn’t that brave. If he was, would she believe him? Why should she? The only way he could think of to try and convince her of his wild story, was if she could see Sam glowing, that rosy-gold light just under his skin. Sam had told him no, not without talking to his parents first.

Fletcher sighed and got out his first essay.

* * * *

Wednesday afternoon, Carr Street

“I’ll wait out on the porch, until you’ve looked around,” Fletcher said after showing Sam the house, ending with his bedroom downstairs.

Sam had nodded, and he started his observation in the living room. He wondered as he noted the old blue couch and chairs with split seats and cushions, if Fletcher felt what he was feeling: sadness, shadows, fear, and danger. The lamps on the end tables, and the bookcases with no books, but an odd collection of what seemed like random items, a gold leaf pen, three or four watches, a pair of silver wire rim glasses, a brown-and-yellow teddy bear, a handful of cell phones. Every shelf had more of the same. He gingerly picked up a few things and put them down. The cell phones all seemed dead.

The kitchen was next. The room was divided by a snack bar. On one side was a small dining table, covered with a red-and-white tablecloth. On the other side, the stove, refrigerator, and the sink and a linoleum counter, and cabinets. The room seemed like a set stage, and it felt sad, almost despairing. Sam realized as he stood there, that he was sensing emotions that were not his own, in a place where he had never been. Was it because he loved Fletcher that he could feel the emotions in the house? Ever since he had slept with Fletcher, things had changed.