Heat Wave: Grosse Ile

Chapter 1: Who Says You Can’t Go Home?-3

“Did you hear Darcy when she slipped off to go to the john? She knew where you were headed. She mumbled, ‘Me first, b***h,’ as she left. Didn’t you hear her? She called you…oh, sorry.” Ned wiped his eyes of the tears that were leaking out. He was still giggling. It was annoying. But it had been so funny, and then Ned had felt that glorious b***r behind him, and when he’d figured out it wasn’t on Darcy’s behalf—ew, ugh, incest—he had been very happy. When he had heard that Darcy’s unattached gay brother was coming for a visit, he began to realize that there were more reasons his relationship with her had been on the skids than just her overbearing attitude. Part of it had to do with him, with his own long suppressed gay feelings. Right now he was too happy, too drunk, and too delighted for his own good. “What kind of bushes are those behind your garage there?” he asked as innocently as a hungry cat telling the canary it was safe to come down.

“Well,” Peter started, as the two walked slowly out toward the tall bushes in the darkness, leaving the back of the house behind them. The back porch light came on, and people came out to jump in the pool. “I think they’re p***y willows,” Peter finished. He seemed to find Ned’s laughter highly contagious.

Ned said, “I’m really sorry about the shirt we gave you. Darcy picked it out. I tried to talk her out of it, but, well, girls, you know?”

“I plan on wearing it in public, whenever we’re out together,” Peter said piously, “just to embarrass her.”

They had reached the bushes by this time, and were well out of sight of the house. A dozen feet separated the back of the garage from a chest high concrete and wood slat wall, with a flower garden on the slanted ground above it. It might have been the highest point on the island for all Peter knew.

Ned turned to face Peter, his face so close. His lips parted, and then something brushed against his ankle. Then before he could even wonder what it was, something landed on his head, apparently having leapt off the garden above him, knocking him to his knees in the grass, his face hitting Peter in the stomach. The weight was lifted off his head, his breathing was coming in long gasps, and his face was planted firmly in Peter’s crotch, but Peter was laughing. Yes his delightful body was definitely responding, but to what? Peter was gasping out, “p***y, p***y, p***y!” and then roaring with laughter, his belly moving so much Ned began to feel dizzy, as well as pissed off.

Peter reached down with one hand to help Ned stand up again. “Are you all right?” he got out.

Before Ned could answer, something soft ran between his knees. Then a bright light lit up the whole scene, like a flying saucer full of aliens looking for victims, and a voice rang out, “There they are! And oh my God! Look!”

Nothing was actually going on between them, but it probably didn’t look like it to Darcy, who was standing there holding the four-cell flashlight from the kitchen drawer. There were people crowding behind her. The scene that met their eyes brought gasps and laughter and at least one incoherent scream. Ned was on his knees, his creamy slacks covered in dirt, his face just turning sideways to Peter’s jeans, still half-unzipped from earlier, and under Peter’s arm was a wriggling mass of black fur.

“p***y?” Peter got out, holding out what he had.

“Isn’t that Waldo, the Schrodinger’s cat? He’s been missing for weeks! We didn’t know if he was dead or alive!”

Ned stood up, smiling and rubbing his head, pretending everything was great, as well as normal. Darcy stalked up to him, her eyes narrowed. “You!” she snarled, then turned her gaze on her brother. “He was my boyfriend first!” she shouted.

“Come, dear, let’s go back into the house. I think a lot of our guests are waiting to bid us good night.” That was Peter’s father, ever the ambassador of good will. “Oh Peter, please bring the cat into the house with you; the neighbors will be so pleased to get him back.”

“Her,” muttered Peter. “He’s a her. A very full and pregnant her, and with a boyfriend to boot, unless I miss my guess.”

“Like your former girlfriend,” snarled Darcy, “in both regards.” She wound her arm through Ned’s and drew him away with her. “Come, darling, you’ve had too much to drink and now a knock on your head, you poor thing. I know what you need.”

Ned looked back over his shoulder at Peter. They both looked at the cat, and then at each other, and smiled.