NO PLACE LIKE HOME

KIM FIELDING

Copyright © 2017 by Kim Fielding

All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the publisher except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

www.kfieldingwrites.com

NO PLACE LIKE HOME

KIM FIELDING

WHEN Stephen used to be invited to spend the night at some guy’s place, or when some guy wanted to spend the night at his, Stephen always begged off. “I have to get up early to run,” he’d say. Like all good lies, the words held a core of truth. He did get up at six every morning—no matter how late he’d been out the night before, no matter how terrible the weather—and he jogged for miles. He’d even run a few half marathons, although competition wasn’t really his thing. He ran because it kept him fit, and because he liked the way the exercise freed his thoughts to shape themselves into new and interesting patterns.

That was some years ago. Today he’d walked to the library, barely a mile—slowly—and his knee hurt like hell.

“I think I’m going to need that surgery soon,” he groused to Karen the librarian as she scanned his books.

She shrugged her long blonde hair back over her shoulder. “Well, give me a little warning before you do, and I’ll make sure you have a nice thick stack of things to read while you’re recovering.”

“Thanks.”

“Oh! That reminds me. That book you requested through Interlibrary Loan just arrived. I haven’t even had time to send you an e-mail. Hang on.” She walked to the crowded room behind the circulation desk, where he could see her searching a shelf. “Aha!” she said and returned to the desk with a plastic-wrapped volume in her hand.

Out of habit, he hid the book between two others in his pile.

Karen frowned a little. “I wish we had more of these in our own collection so we didn’t have to keep borrowing them for you.”

“I can’t imagine there’s a lot of demand in Bailey Springs for books on”—he lowered his voice almost to a whisper—”gay history.”

“I don’t know. It would be good for folks around here to read up on the topic. I’m going to talk to my boss about putting together a display. Maybe in June for Gay Pride Month.”

Stephen gave her a wan smile. He liked Karen very much and enjoyed her book recommendations as well as her support, but sometimes he suspected that she saw him as a project. He was fairly certain that if anyone remotely eligible lived nearby, she’d be trying to set Stephen up with him. Thanks to her, Stephen already shared his house with a half-grown cat who knocked over his paintbrush jars and napped in the middle of his morning paper. He wasn’t sure why Karen was so taken with him, although he suspected it was because he didn’t stare at her chest and was one of the few other people in town who didn’t take Fox News as gospel.

Karen handed him his library card and the receipt with the books’ due dates. “If I can persuade my boss about the display, will you help me curate it?” she asked.

“I don’t know that I’m such a great expert. And besides, people might get upset.”

“So let them get upset. Let them think for a change.” She had a determined look on her face, as if she was ready to lead a protest march at any moment. “A few more opened minds would be a really good thing.”

He decided it wasn’t worth arguing over; probably the head librarian would veto the plan anyway. So Stephen simply nodded, thanked her, and gathered his books before stepping through the creaky door and down the wide front steps into an unusually warm spring day.

He’d walked this same route hundreds of times when he was a kid, and the sights hadn’t changed much. Maybe the houses he passed had settled a little more into old age, their porches sagging a bit, their driveways cracking. The trees, which hadn’t yet leafed out, were taller than they used to be. The cars were different—sleeker, smaller. But nothing had changed as much as he had.

When he’d gone to the library as a youngster, he’d nearly run the whole way, eager to get to that magic place that promised so much, then eager to get home and bury himself in all those pages. As he’d rushed along the sidewalk, his head had been filled with dreams of escaping Bailey Springs. He’d imagined himself someplace much more exciting—nearly any other place on earth—where he could be himself, where he wouldn’t feel so much like a transplanted alien. He’d had these fantasies long before he’d realized he was gay, because even then he’d known he was different.

His childhood dreams had been wild and unrealistic. Never once had he pictured himself fifty-eight, walking the same old sidewalks of Bailey Springs, his left knee aching like a son of a bitch.

The house where he’d grown up was still at the edge of town, not far from the Memorial Bridge over the Smoky Hill River. The house had been white when he was a boy and blue for a while later, but now it was pale green. The place had fallen into disrepair after his father died and as his mother aged, but Stephen had found a good handyman who worked cheap, and over the past several months the house had been spiffed up pretty nicely. Stephen was eagerly awaiting the chance to start a garden—assuming his knee held up.

He smiled at himself as he unlocked the front door. Even nowadays, few people in Bailey Springs bothered with locks, but he’d gotten into the habit during his decades in Kansas City. He set the books down on the little table near the front door and nearly tripped over Berthe Morisot, who was meowing for her dinner. “Patience,” he scolded her.

He fed the cat and made himself some tea, then settled into his favorite armchair with the new stack of books beside him and reading glasses perched on his nose. The chair was one of the few pieces of furniture he’d dragged with him from Kansas City; aside from the furnishings in his studio, most of the things in the house had been his mother’s. He supposed he could have brought more of his things here, but they would have looked out of place. That floral couch with the crocheted afghan, that polished and scarred dining room table, the sideboard with the china he never used—those things had been in this house longer than he had, and they belonged.

Berthe hopped onto his lap and curled into a ball. He petted her absently while trying to decide which book to tackle first. It was a bit like being presented with a really tempting dessert tray, even though he knew he’d eventually get to gobble them all.

Finally, he settled on the Interlibrary Loan. It was Paul Monette’s memoir, Becoming a Man. Stephen had read it several years earlier, when he’d been gradually coming out to a small circle of people. The book—poignant, somewhat angry, and beautifully written—had resonated deeply enough that he’d decided it was time for a reread. Holding the book somewhat awkwardly so as not to squash the cat, he flipped to the first page of text. But as he turned to the next page, an index card slipped out. It fell on Berthe, making her ears twitch indignantly.

Stephen set the book aside and examined the pale green card. One side was blank, but a message was scrawled on the other side in black ink: MAX 5553229 0328 DON’T SPILL.

“Huh,” Stephen said out loud. He’d always had a bad habit of talking to himself; now he just pretended he was speaking to Berthe instead. “Is it a secret code?”

Berthe didn’t answer.

Stephen stuck the card back into the memoir. It would make a handy bookmark.

“DON’T you think it’s kind of early for that?”

Stephen straightened his back, rested the tip of the garden spade on the ground, and turned around to look at the man who had addressed him. “I’m just getting it ready. Amending the soil.”

“Your mother used to order some fancy fertilizer from Indiana. I delivered boxes of the stuff to her every spring.” Stephen’s mother had been on Carl’s mail route for years.

Carl Longwell was a few years younger than Stephen, so Stephen hadn’t known him all that well when they were growing up. But Carl’s brother was Stephen’s age. Bobby Longwell had played football and basketball and served on student government. During gym class he used to brag loudly about all the girls he’d screwed. Now Bobby owned an insurance agency and had a couple of grandkids.

Stephen leaned on the spade handle, hoping he looked more relaxed than sore. “Mom loved to garden. She used to pay me a penny for every ten weeds I pulled. Things kind of got away from her those last few years, though.”

Carl nodded. “Yeah. It’s a shame. She was a nice lady, your mom. Used to give me cookies and things, ice water when it was real hot out. She used to brag on you all the time too. Her big-shot artist son, off in the big city.”

Nobody thought Stephen was a big shot except his mother. He’d had a few little shows, sold a few paintings here and there. But the bills were paid by his teaching job. His mother also liked to tell everyone her son was a professor, but in fact he had been an instructor at a community college. No amount of explaining had helped his mother see any difference, and he’d long since given up trying.

Now he gave Carl a small smile. “Now I’m back here, retired.”

“Yeah. Our oldest, she moved to Topeka. But I told the wife that Jenny’ll be back some day. She’ll get tired of big city life. When you grow up in a place like Bailey Springs, it stays in your blood.”

Like a bad infection, Stephen thought to himself. But he chatted pleasantly with the mailman for a few more minutes, until Carl handed him an electric bill and something from AARP and then moved on down the block.

The little break had stolen Stephen’s momentum. After stuffing the mail in his back pocket, he took the spade to the back of the house and stored it in the little shed. He needed to check soon whether the lawn mower was operational. When he’d moved back to town last summer, he’d been too busy caring for his dying mother to take care of the lawn himself, so he’d hired some kid from down the street. The kid had brought his own machine. Maybe, Stephen thought, he should get an old-fashioned reel mower. It would be environmentally friendly, and the exercise would do him good.

He closed the shed and returned to the house. After washing up, he went to the room he’d set up as his studio. It used to be the third bedroom, a repository for his mother’s sewing machine and out-of-season clothes and his father’s household papers. It had served as a guest room when his mother’s sister came for a visit, but Aunt Bernie had died years ago.

The room didn’t actually make a very satisfactory painting studio—the light wasn’t good. Stephen was hoping he’d find enough money in the budget soon to have the windows enlarged, maybe even a skylight installed. But for now he was equipped with brushes and canvases and shelves, and the room smelled comfortingly of paint.

A large canvas was propped on an easel. He’d begun a winter landscape, something vaguely Impressionist in style, but his inspiration had run out. And his muse didn’t reappear today, not even after he stared out the window for a long time, looking past the neighbors’ houses and toward a field that hadn’t yet been plowed for spring.

Sighing noisily, he wandered to the living room and settled into his chair. Berthe appeared magically from God knew where to plop onto his lap. He picked up his reading glasses and the Monette biography and began to read.

He’d gone through perhaps half a chapter when the index card fell out again. This time it fluttered to the floor and he had to move the cat to retrieve it. Berthe stalked off indignantly. Stephen stared at the message. It looked hastily written—urgent, he decided. The pen had left deep indentations in the card stock and every downstroke looked emphatic. What did it mean?

For a while he entertained fantasies about secret codes and Midwestern spies. The only real clue was the book itself, which had come from the Manhattan library—Kansas, not New York. Assuming the first set of numbers was a phone number, the exchange wasn’t local to Bailey Springs. Maybe it was from Manhattan.

It wasn’t likely that James Bond had left the card in the book—although the image of Daniel Craig in a tuxedo was diverting. But that didn’t mean the message wasn’t important. What if it was the security code to a safe deposit box? Or the passcode to a bank account? And what did the part about spilling mean? Don’t spill what? He’d found the card in an autobiography of a gay man. What if a guy was in a coffee shop, book in hand, and had spilled coffee over another man—Max? And then maybe they’d started talking and Max had given the reader his phone number. Maybe they never hooked up again because the reader forgot where he’d put the card.

Those musings led him to picture Max. Stephen had a detailed visual imagination—one of the perks of being an artist—and he could see this man quite well. He looked a lot like the men Stephen used to hook up with—handsome, a little on the slender side. Max had a strong chin and slightly crooked nose, piercing blue eyes, thick blond hair. He wore a plain white T-shirt that showed off his lean torso, and faded, broken-in jeans that molded themselves to the rounded contours of his ass and stretched across the generous bulge at his crotch.

“Jesus Christ!” Stephen yelled—to himself, because Berthe wasn’t in the room. He crumpled the card and tossed it aside. Here he was, a pathetic old geezer spinning fantasies about men who didn’t exist. “Might as well go jack off to Internet porn.” Because that’s the kind of sex life he had left. Unless he wanted to drive a hundred miles or more just to get laid, and even then his chances of finding a willing partner were growing slimmer as his hair was growing grayer.

He set the book down and stalked across the room. He kept his laptop in his bedroom—the same bedroom where he’d slept during his childhood, with the same twin bed. He hadn’t quite decided to move into the master bedroom yet.

But before he got to the stairs, his eyes fell on the crumpled card. He picked it up and smoothed it out, then stared at it again. And without even deciding to, he pulled his phone out of his shirt pocket and dialed the number. Well, tapped the number. Nobody ever dialed anything anymore.

A male voice answered after two rings. “Hello?” The voice was slightly on the deep side and unremarkable.

“Um….” It suddenly occurred to Stephen that maybe the guy’s name wasn’t Max. Maybe it was a shortened form of “maximum,” whatever obscure meaning that might have. “Um, is this Max?” Stephen winced a little as he said it.

“Yes. Who’s this?”

“My name’s, uh, Stephen Walker. I found something that might belong to you. Sort of.”

This time there was a long pause. “Oh?” came the eventual, if skeptical, response.

“I borrowed a library book and there was a card in it with your name and some numbers. I thought it might be important, so I decided to call.”

“A library book? Which one?”

Stephen blushed, which was ridiculous. “Becoming a Man. It’s, um, a memoir—”

“By Paul Monette. Sure. One of my favorites. But I have a copy of my own. I wouldn’t need to borrow one.”

Slightly reassured to learn that Max not only knew the book but liked it, Stephen decided to continue. “But maybe somebody else borrowed it, someone who knew you. And maybe had something important to tell you. There are some numbers….”

“Sure, okay. Where are you, Steve?”

“Stephen. And I’m in Bailey Springs.”

“Hey, right down the highway from me! Tell you what. I could meet up with you tomorrow morning in that little restaurant downtown. What’s it called? You know, the one with the pies.”

Louella’s Café. Stephen knew the place well. But he had a vivid mental image of everyone in town watching as a handsome stranger met him for breakfast. What if Max was one of those kids who pierced their ears and did weird things with their hair? He would sashay into Louella’s, hips swinging….

“Can we meet somewhere else?” Stephen asked.

“No problem. But I don’t really know Bailey Springs all that well. Want to meet up at the Wild Horse Grill instead? That’s in beautiful downtown Laupner.”

Stephen probably wouldn’t know anyone in Laupner. It was in a different county and the kids went to a different high school. “Okay,” he said. “Ten?”

“Ten it is. See you then, Stephen.”

It wasn’t exactly that Stephen was in the closet. Back in Kansas City, he’d carefully kept his personal life separate from his professional one. If anyone had asked if he were gay, he wouldn’t have lied, but nobody ever asked. He’d hook up with men in bars or clubs, but he never talked about them with anyone else. Things hadn’t changed much when he moved back to Bailey Springs, except the bars and clubs were in his distant past. When someone asked him why he wasn’t married—and several people had—he answered that he’d never found the right person. Again, a lie that was really a truth. Karen knew he was gay, of course, and probably some others suspected. Hell, his mother had known and she might have let something slip to a friend, maybe a casual mention at the hairdresser’s or the dentist. But he mostly pretended he didn’t have a sexuality, like a modern-day eunuch, and his neighbors just sort of played along. Easier that way.

Stephen tucked the phone back in his pocket and decided to tackle more of the front yard after all.

STEPHEN hadn’t been to Laupner since a high school trip with the debate team. But like Bailey Springs, Laupner probably hadn’t changed much since then. A lot of the farmhouses he passed on the way looked empty, the land bought out by farming corporations, and quite a few of the downtown storefronts were vacant. Nowadays, most people probably shopped at the Walmart a few miles away. But some businesses survived—a couple of banks, a dry cleaner, a paint store, a shoe repair place. And the Wild Horse Grill, which had a bench in front and two barrels full of blooming crocuses.

The restaurant encompassed several rooms, with walls covered in floral wallpaper and an array of vintage black-and-white photos of rural scenes. It smelled of coffee and frying potatoes. The hostess was a plump lady about his age, with a gingham dress and green apron and a hairstyle his mother might have worn many decades ago. “Table for one, honey?” she asked him.

“Actually, I’m supposed to be meeting someone. But I’m a little early.”

“No problem, sweetie. Let’s get you a seat and some coffee while you wait.”

He half expected her to pinch his cheek, and he wondered if she was really like this or if it was an act, a persona she’d created to fit in with the restaurant’s down-home ambience. But her smile seemed genuine enough as she led him to an empty wooden table in the corner of the next room. Several older people were already seated, including two codgers wearing denim overalls and with faces buried in their newspapers.

Stephen was still taking in his surroundings when the hostess set a steaming white mug in front of him and handed him a laminated menu. “So your stomach can make up its mind while you’re waiting. Our ham steaks are real good and we’re famous for our biscuits.”

“Thanks,” he said. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d had a substantial breakfast. He’d been cutting back on calories lately, dismayed at the way age and the bad knee were swelling his waistline. God, when he was younger he used to be able to eat all day and never gain a pound.

“Stephen?”

He’d been so engrossed in the menu and old memories that he hadn’t noticed the man approaching his table. The guy was maybe a few years Stephen’s senior, with a shaved head, a neat mustache, and a short salt-and-pepper beard. He was tall, on the beefy side with a bit of a paunch. There were deep crinkles at the corners of his eyes. He wore a pair of khakis, a white-and-blue-checked shirt, and a brown leather jacket that looked as if he’d owned it a long while.

Stephen scrambled to his feet, wincing a little at the twinge in his knee. “Uh, yeah. Max?”

“Yep.” They shook hands. Max’s was big, broad, and callused, with dark stains under the fingernails. “Dolores figured you might be my date.”

“Um….” Stephen stammered.

But Max winked at him and slipped his coat over the chair back before sitting down. Stephen reclaimed his seat as well. Before either of them had a chance to speak, Delores appeared with coffee and a menu for Max. “Blueberry muffins today?” he asked her.

She rolled her eyes. “Chuck decided to try something fancy today. Pineapple coconut. You ask me, that combination belongs in a glass with lots of rum, not sitting next to bacon and flapjacks.” She huffed and then marched away.

“Chuck likes to experiment now and then,” Max explained with a grin. “I suppose that’s how he expresses his creative side. Some of his efforts are more successful than others.”

“You must come here often,” Stephen said and then flinched because it sounded like a really lame pickup line.

But Max only laughed. “My gram and grandpa used to bring me and my brothers here every Saturday morning so’s Mom and Dad could have a little quiet time to themselves. ’T’s probably why I have so many siblings.”

“So you grew up here.”

“Born ’n’ raised. My great-great-grandparents homesteaded here, back in covered-wagon days.” He took a noisy sip of his coffee. “How ’bout you? You from Bailey Springs?”

“Yes. But I moved away when I was eighteen. Just came back last year when I retired.”

Max gave him a considering look. “You look kinda young for that.”

“I took early retirement. My mother was sick and then… then I thought maybe I’d paint full time.”

“You’re an artist?”

“Not really.” Stephen drank some of his own coffee. It was better than he’d expected.

“So are you happy to have returned home or sad to be stuck someplace you thought you’d escaped?”

Stephen was surprised that Max had figured out his situation so quickly. “A little of both, I guess. I can afford to live there without worrying too much about money, and that’s nice. It’s quiet. But it’s not….” He allowed his voice to trail off as he searched for the right words.

“No bright lights. I getcha.”

Dolores reappeared from the next room. “Made up your mind yet, boys?”

When Max looked at him expectantly, Stephen stammered. “Um….”

“You really oughta have the biscuits,” said Max. “Best anywhere.”

What the hell, it’s only this once, Stephen thought. “All right. Biscuits and gravy it is.”

Delores nodded as she wrote on her order pad. “All right, honey. Sausage or bacon?”

“Sausage.”

“How about you?” she asked, turning to Max.

“What he has sounds good. And I’ll have one of those muffins too.”

“See, now you’re just sucking up, hoping Chuck’ll give you some extra meat.”

“I’ll take all the meat I can get.”

She cawed with laughter and slapped him on the shoulder before leaving.

Max caught up the thread of their previous conversation. “I used to dream about taking off when I was a kid. Never did, though. Well, not really. I got drafted but never got sent farther than North Carolina. Then I came back here, got married, had kids… sort of ended up stuck. After a while I stopped minding, and mostly I even like it.”

“You’re married?” Stephen blurted.

Max laughed. “Divorced. Twice. Took me a while to admit to myself that a wife wasn’t what I was lookin’ for.” He winked at Stephen again.

Stephen felt his face warm. Dammit, he was too old to blush! To hide his embarrassment, he fumbled in his pocket and pulled out the index card, which he’d attempted to de-crumple with limited success. “Here,” he said, setting it down on Max’s paper placemat.

Max squinted at the card for a moment and then burst into laughter. “This is the big important message?”

“Um, I didn’t know—”

“A few years back I was planning a surprise party for Benny—my older son. These numbers here—oh-three twenty-eight—were the date of the festivities. I got hold of his contacts list and called up his friends. Benny was a student at KSU then, getting his teaching credentials. I bet this note was written by his pal Marco, who’s queerer than a three dollar bill.”

Stephen wanted to sink into the floor. “Oh. So the ‘don’t spill’ part….”

“Was Marco reminding himself to keep his trap shut about the party. At least around Benny. Marco’s a funny kid. When he found out Benny’s father’s a big old fag, he practically blew a gasket in shock. Hadn’t figured there were any of our kind way out here in the boonies.”

Stephen wasn’t sure what to make of the “our kind” part, and he was painfully aware of the blood that still colored his cheeks. “I’m sorry I dragged you out here for this.”

“Aw, you didn’t drag me that far. Besides”—he caught Stephen’s eyes with his—“I ain’t sorry at all.”

The heat in Stephen’s face intensified and spread, slipping down his spine and to his belly, making his heart speed up a little. Could it have been years since he felt this way? He glanced nervously around the room, but the other patrons weren’t paying any attention to them. “Are you out around here?” he said in a near-whisper.

Max’s answering chuckle did funny things to Stephen’s skin, making it feel too tight. “Yeah, no closet for me. Hell, I lived with another man for a couple of years, and we used to come here together at least once a week. Delores just about killed me when we split up and he moved away—he was built like you wouldn’t believe and given the tiniest excuse he’d peel off his shirt. Uh, not in the restaurant, of course. Health codes.”

“But… nobody cares that you’re gay?”

Max shrugged and drank more coffee. “I get a few comments now and then. Some folks prob’ly make jokes behind my back. Mickey Belvedere says I’m gonna burn in hell, but that might be just ’cause I voted for Obama. Look, there’s only two mechanics in town, and the other one’s a drunk who can’t tell an exhaust pipe from his dick. If people ’round here want their cars running right, they gotta get over the whole homo thing pretty fast.”

Stephen shook his head slowly. “I wish… I wish I had your courage.”

“My balls aren’t any bigger’n anyone else’s, Stephen. I just figure that after I finally quit lying to myself for all those years, hell if I’m gonna lie to anyone else.”

Just as Max finished speaking, Delores showed up with plates heaped high with food. It smelled wonderful and tasted even better. Stephen took several big bites, chewing over Max’s words as he chewed his breakfast.

“Want some muffin? Ain’t as bad as Delores is making out.”

“No, I’m good, thanks. You were right about the biscuits.”

Max pointed at him with his fork. “I’m right about a lot of things.”

They continued to chat as they ate. Stephen talked a little about his old job, about Kansas City, about his mother. Max told about his sons—the younger one worked at Max’s garage—and his exes. One of the wives and the former live-in boyfriend still spoke to him, which Stephen thought was a pretty good percentage.

They were most of the way through the meal before Stephen realized that he’d been staring at Max’s mouth, watching the way his throat worked. Max wasn’t his type—too big, too rustic, too… old. Except Stephen didn’t really have a type anymore, judging by the perpetually frustrated state of his libido. And Max was unexpectedly sexy, with his confident manner and his slightly raspy voice. By the time the plates were cleared and more coffee was poured, Stephen was wondering what it would feel like to kiss that bearded face and to hold that big, slightly squishy body tightly against his. Besides, Max was funny. Stephen hadn’t laughed so much in ages.

Delores brought the check and Stephen grabbed it first. “I made you come here for nothing,” he explained. “I can at least buy you breakfast.”

A serious look came over Max’s face and he locked eyes with Stephen again. “It was definitely not for nothing.”

That got Stephen’s heart racing again. His doctor had recently told him that aside from his knee, he was in good shape “for a man your age.” Stephen had felt like punching the doctor—who was in his midthirties—over that last part. But at least he knew he was probably not going to have a myocardial infarction just because a handsome man seemed interested in him.

Stephen paid the bill, leaving a generous tip for Delores. Max looked at his watch. “Damn. I have to go. Frank Argersinger’s check-engine light came on and I don’t quite trust my son with a Corvette.” His eyes sparkled merrily. “Frank Argersinger is having a midlife crisis.”

Stephen chuckled. “Sure. I didn’t mean to take up your whole morning.”

“Stephen, I’d sure like it if you’d take up a whole lot more than that. How about we do dinner later this week? Or a movie? Our theater closed a few years back, but you still got one in Bailey Springs, don’t you?”

On the one hand, the idea of sitting in the dark very close to Max was appealing. Very appealing. But other people would be there too, people who knew Stephen, and he wasn’t sure he was willing to date quite so publicly. “Um, maybe… somewhere more private?”

To Stephen’s relief, Max didn’t look offended or upset. “Sure thing. Tell you what. Come on over to my place for dinner and a DVD. Doesn’t get much more private than that.” The corner of his mouth twitched in a way that suggested that privacy wouldn’t be a bad thing at all.

“I… I’d like that.”

“Good!” Max flipped the index card to its blank side and, after taking a pen from his shirt pocket, scribbled quickly. “My address. You need directions or can you MapQuest it?”

“GPS in my car. I’ll find you.”

They set a day and time and walked to the door together. Dolores called from across the room, “Have a good day, boys!” They both waved back.

Downtown Laupner wasn’t exactly Times Square; there were only a few people out on the sidewalk or driving by. Still, when Max put his hand on Stephen’s shoulder and squeezed, Stephen felt like a thousand eyes were watching. He was proud of himself for not flinching away. In fact, he even reached out and sort of patted Max’s other arm.

“See you Friday,” Max said.

“See you then.”

WHEN Stephen returned home, he felt far too restless to curl up with a book and tea. He would have headed back out to the garden, but the sky had darkened and a cold, stinging rain had begun to fall. If the temperatures dropped much more, there would be sleet or freezing rain. He spent several minutes fretting over whether the roads would be too dangerous to drive to Laupner on Friday night.

Trying to distract himself, he wandered into the studio. As he stared at the half-finished canvas, a new scene jumped into his mind. It wasn’t a landscape. Instead, it was a car repair shop, a small garage in a building that was showing its age but still serviceable. A handsome older man leaned over the engine compartment of a car—a sports car—while a younger version of the man stood slightly off to the side, watching his father closely.

He couldn’t paint it from imagination alone; he was going to need some models or photos to work from. But he knew the basic composition already, the lines of the men’s bodies and the expressions on their faces. He could sketch out the basics now. He grabbed a piece of white paper from the virgin stack on one shelf and sat at the nearly-new drafting table, his pencil moving almost of its own accord.

He couldn’t wait to prime a new canvas.

FRIDAY was cold but sunny—no hint of impending ice or snow. Stephen fervently wished that he could jog again, that he could run until his chest heaved and his legs felt like rubber and he was too exhausted to worry about anything. He had to settle instead for a hobble downtown, where he defiantly ate a piece of Louella’s walnut pie.

After eating, he wandered slowly through what passed for the fancy part of town. Most of the big houses were well cared for, but the Moore house was falling to ruin. Years ago, the Moore family had been beset by tragedy, but Stephen didn’t remember the details. One son killed by a train, he thought, and the other… suicide? He wasn’t sure; he’d left Bailey Springs by then. The house was a sad place, and he walked past it as quickly as he could.

Stephen ran into Carl the mailman on the way home and they stood for a while on the sidewalk, chatting about gardening and the weather and Stephen’s mother’s snickerdoodles. A woman who drove by honked and waved. Stephen couldn’t remember her name but knew she was in a couple of his classes in high school. He and Carl waved back.

Berthe was in a particularly demanding mood that afternoon. He spent a while teasing her with her favorite toy, a purple felt fish tied to a plastic pole. He gave her some freeze-dried salmon treats and brushed her until she fell asleep on his lap, purring. He sat contentedly in his chair, planning which colors to use in the new painting.

Shortly before sunset, he fed Berthe her dinner. He shaved, despairing as ever about that old man who had somehow moved into his mirror, and then spent the most ridiculous fifteen minutes of his life worrying about what to wear. Jesus, maybe he was having a midlife crisis too—except he was past midlife, wasn’t he? He finally settled on jeans, a black T-shirt, and his favorite pullover sweater, which was the exact same shade of blue-green-gray the Pacific had been when he’d vacationed in Big Sur.

The drive to Laupner seemed to speed by yet somehow take forever, and nervous butterflies cavorted in Stephen’s stomach. He glanced often at the passenger seat, where he’d placed a bottle of red wine, and he wondered if it was okay. Maybe Max was more a beer kind of guy.

Max lived in the middle of Laupner, in a tiny house that was as old as Stephen’s. It wasn’t the house he’d grown up in—that one was outside of town and occupied by one of his older brothers. But this place looked tidy and in good repair. A wind chime hung on the front porch, the thin glass pieces bumping in the slight breeze.

Max opened the door before Stephen had a chance to knock. He was dressed very much like Stephen, except that his pullover was gray with cables and looked homemade. “It’s good to see you, Stephen,” he said, and enveloped him in a warm hug. Right there on the front porch.

Stephen liked the inside of the house at once. The comfortable-looking furniture was upholstered in worn leather. There were two big bookshelves, stuffed full, a somewhat battered coffee table, and a few dust bunnies in the corners. There were a lot of photos too, of two handsome dark-haired boys at various ages. In one large photo, one of the boys was all grown up and wearing a tuxedo, standing next to a pretty girl in a white dress.

“No grandkids yet,” Max said. “But I have one on the way. Due in June, and the kids won’t tell anyone whether it’s gonna be a girl or boy.”

“Is that the teacher? Benny, right?”

“Yeah, that’s him. They live in Topeka. It’s Joey who lives here in Laupner. Right next door, actually. He’s got a girlfriend, but I hope to God he doesn’t knock her up anytime soon. She’s kind of flaky, and Joey… well, he’s a good kid but he still needs to grow up some.” He smiled. “And here I am jawing. Can I take your coat and the wine?”

Stephen handed over the bottle and his jacket. “We don’t have to drink it,” he said as Max examined the label. “I mean, it’s no big deal.”

“Naw, I bet it’ll go great with dinner. I didn’t make anything fancy. I got about five things I can cook really well, and this is one of them—spaghetti with my own sauce.”

“That sounds great.”

They sat side by side on the couch, and Stephen relaxed a little once he finished his first glass of wine. They chatted some more and discovered they both liked Woody Allen, Clint Eastwood, and Martin Scorsese, and they’d read a lot of the same books. Max somehow got Stephen talking about his paintings and didn’t seem bored at all. He told a funny story about having to remove a king snake from inside the back seat of a hysterical woman’s car.

They ate in the kitchen, which hadn’t been updated since the seventies. The spaghetti sauce and garlic bread were really delicious. There was a salad as well, and of course  the rest of the wine.

As they headed back to the living room couch, Max dug around in his fairly extensive DVD collection until he found The Aviator. “You know, Scorsese lost the best-director Oscar for this movie to Eastwood,” he said, settling next to Stephen and pressing play on the remote.

“Which Eastwood movie was that?”

“Million Dollar Baby.”

“Oh. That was good.”

“It was, but I like the cowboy stuff better. I wanted to be a cowboy when I was a kid.” Max chuckled. “At the time I was thinking it was ’cause it seemed really exciting, but now I wonder if it wasn’t just all the men in chaps.”

The movie began, and they inched closer on the couch until they were leaning against each other like teenagers. It wasn’t a position Stephen had often found himself in during his life, and it was surprisingly comfortable. Max was warm and a little soft, and he smelled slightly of engine grease and oregano. His arm lay across Stephen’s shoulders, not too heavy at all. He had obviously worked to scrub the automotive grease from under his fingernails.

Afterward, they were never certain which of them initiated the kiss. Maybe they both simply turned their faces toward one another at the same time, and there they were, lips to lips. In any case, they did kiss. A little tentatively at first, and then more boldly, with their hands clutching at each other. Max tasted like garlic butter, but then Stephen must have as well. Max’s whiskers were scratchy and tickly in a surprisingly pleasant way, and when Stephen gave in to impulse and cradled the other man’s shaved head in his palm, that skin was soft and smooth and very warm.

“Oh God,” Max moaned when they broke off to take a breath. “You have no idea how long it’s been for me.”

“I might have a pretty good idea,” Stephen replied.

“I don’t wanna screw things up between us ’cause I really like you, and I hope we can be… something. But neither of us is getting any younger and I ain’t gonna pretend to be a blushing maiden, so do you want—”

“Yes!” Stephen shocked himself with the speed and enthusiasm of his response.

“Thank God. Um, I don’t have any rubbers. I thought about going to the drugstore today, but then I figured that was kinda putting the cart before the horse and you might think I was being pushy.”

“I don’t have any either.” He hadn’t needed them in a very long time. “I used to get tested every so often, and I was still clear last time. Last year. But maybe….”

Max clicked off the TV and leaned in close to whisper in his ear. “The way things are goin’, Stephen, I could prob’ly come in my pants just from more of your kisses.”

Stephen groaned, which Max interrupted with another kiss. This time, they allowed their hands to become bolder, wandering across expanses of shoulders and backs, dipping down to caress just beneath the backs of their waistlines. Stephen was the first to begin tugging at clothes—Max’s, not his own—but Max immediately followed his lead. They tossed their sweaters aside and then fumbled at one another’s shirt buttons until they were both bare-chested. Stephen was both embarrassed by his own little tummy and unaccountably turned on by Max’s paunch. Max still had powerful muscles in his chest and arms, and the hair on his pecs and abdomen was grayer than his beard.

Stephen liked the feel of Max’s skin against his palms, liked it even better when they pressed their chests together and kissed fiercely.

Max moved his head slightly to suck at Stephen’s neck and then made a rough sound deep in his chest and drew away. “I wasn’t kidding about comin’ in my pants. For the past couple of years, I’ve been certain I was gonna need them little blue pills if I ever found someone. But you’ve got my blood boiling, Stephen. See?” He moved Stephen’s hand to the considerable bulge at his crotch, arching slightly upward when Stephen gave a gentle squeeze.

“I was thinking I was ready to be put out to pasture too,” Stephen said.

“I think we both got a lot of good years left in us. Unless I die of frustration first. Goddamn, man! More skin!”

In absolutely no mood to argue with that, Stephen kicked off his shoes. He didn’t even pause to remove his socks, instead unbuckling his belt and unfastening his jeans, then pushing them down along with his boxers. Everything got all tangled up near his feet and he nearly fell on his ass, but he eventually managed to strip off his clothes and leave most of his dignity intact.

Max was more accomplished—he was able to get his socks off too. And then they stood and looked, lightly stroking each other here and there. Max’s cock was not especially long, but it was thick and fully erect without any help from Viagra. And the rest of him…. He was not a young man. He was probably two decades older than anyone Stephen had ever had sex with. But as Stephen played his artist’s gaze over the other man’s body, he concluded that Max was beautiful. Every wrinkle, every pound of extra flesh or inch of less-than-taut skin, every gray hair and little scar told a tale. This was no vapid kid, pretty to look at but empty of thought and depth and experience. This was a man with a long, rich history and many stories to tell—a little like the house he lived in, or a treasured classic car.

“Thinking of changing your mind?” Max said, sounding uncharacteristically uncertain.

“No! I was just… thinking.”

Max raised his eyebrows. “Thinking what? That I’ve had too many of Chuck’s muffins?”

Stephen wasn’t normally the type to share his feelings. But here he stood, literally naked in front of Max. If he could bare his skin, maybe he could bare a little of his soul as well. “I’m thinking that I spent way too long looking in all the wrong places, and then I gave up looking at all. Who would have expected me to find what I needed right here?”

With a huge smile, Max gathered Stephen in a tight embrace. “We’re friends of Dorothy, Stephen. You should have known that there’s no place like home.”

They both laughed, but at about the same time they both realized that they were unclothed and hard and pressed together. Their chuckles turned to groans and panting as they kissed and groped and thrust against each other. They moved in a slightly awkward waltz until they were up against the couch, at which point Max gently pushed and Stephen fell back, full length, onto the cushions. Max draped himself over Stephen’s body, giving Stephen the opportunity to grab a double handful of Max’s ass—which was very muscular. Did car repair do that, or did Max have some kind of really good workout routine? Stephen was making a mental note to ask that question later, when Max reared up slightly and wrapped his big, rough hand around both cocks. Stephen’s ability for higher reasoning promptly fled.

“Unngh,” he said, and Max responded with something equally cavemanesque. They writhed and twisted and bucked in a fashion that was inelegant, possibly unwise given their ages, and absolutely, completely wonderful.

“Oh God,” someone moaned. Possibly both of them. Every neuron in Stephen’s body was firing all at once, some kind of fireworks show where the bursts of light spelled out SEX!

And then the door flew open.

“Hey Dad, where’s— Oh Jesus!”

Stephen and Max tried to scramble up at the same time, getting caught in one another’s limbs. Max barked his shin on the coffee table, swore, and jerked back into Stephen. Max’s sudden weight made Stephen’s bad knee shriek with pain. Stephen grabbed frantically at Max to keep from falling, but upset Max’s balance so that they both ended up in a painful pile on the floor.

It took some time to extricate themselves from each other and rise to their feet. Stephen hid halfway behind Max, peering around to see a young man gaping back.

“Dad!” said the kid.

Stephen wondered if it were possible to die of mortification, as the word itself suggested. He kind of hoped so.

“What the hell are you doing here?” bellowed Max.

His son—Joey, Stephen presumed—looked as if he couldn’t decide whether to faint or vomit. “I… I wanted to borrow your six-point quarter-inch metric socket wrench. I can’t find mine and Candy’s Yaris is acting up again.”

Max took a deep breath and let it out again. “You could have knocked.”

“But I didn’t… I didn’t know….”

“Stephen, this is my idiot son Joey. Joey, meet Stephen. He’s special. If you haven’t completely scared him off, I’m really hoping you’ll be seeing a lot more of him.” Max turned slightly to leer and grin at Stephen. “Not that he ain’t seen plenty of you already.”

“D-Dad! I— Dad!”

“Joey, go home. You can fix your girlfriend’s car tomorrow.”

Joey opened and closed his mouth a few more times, like a gasping fish. “Uh… bye, Stephen,” he said before hightailing it out the front door.

As soon as Joey was gone, Max strode across the room and locked the door. “Guess I should’ve done that before,” he muttered. He walked back to Stephen but stopped outside of touching distance. He rubbed his smooth scalp. “Look. I’m really sorry. I know you’re protective of your privacy and he doesn’t usually come barging in like that and…. Christ. I’m really sorry.”

Stephen looked down at himself—at his naked, aging body; his wilted dick; his throbbing knee; his ridiculous-looking white socks. Then he looked up again at Max, who might have stood his ground against his trespassing son but now looked anxious and downcast. He was nude and pudgy and gray-haired and gorgeous.

Stephen began to laugh.

At first, Max looked concerned, as if he thought maybe Stephen had slipped a gasket. But as Stephen continued to cackle, and his legs gave out so that he flopped back on the couch, Max’s lips began to twitch as well. Soon he was roaring with laughter. He staggered to the couch—narrowly missing the coffee table—and collapsed next to Stephen. Sometimes their laughter would taper off, but then they’d glance at each other and lose it again. Stephen’s eyes ran with tears and he was seriously afraid he might piss himself.

Every sound he and Max made together was like another year taken off his age, another disappointment forgotten.

A long time later, the men slumped against each other, still chortling softly, trying to breathe normally again. “I really am sorry,” Max wheezed.

Stephen grabbed his hand. “I’m not.”

“Kinda killed the mood, though.”

“It kind of did. Tell you what. Tomorrow night you join me for dinner at Louella’s and dessert at my place. I promise you nobody’s going to come busting in on us. Maybe I’ll even stop at the drugstore beforehand.”

Max sat up straight and gave him a long look. “Really? You’re not worried about being seen in public with me?”

“Not as long as I have my clothes on.” Stephen shook his head. “It’s like you said the other day—I’m done lying to myself and everyone else. In fact,” he added as an idea struck him, “how would you feel about meeting up with a librarian friend of mine? She’s trying to put together this display on gay literature and you’re at least as well read as I am.”

Max smiled widely. “Sure. I kinda figure we owe the library one, don’t we?”

“I think we do.”

They sat back again, leaning against each other, as comfortable and content as old lovers. Max pulled a fleecy throw over their laps, settled an arm around Stephen’s shoulders, and turned the TV back on. Leonardo DiCaprio shattered the record for flying around the world. But Stephen was elsewhere. He closed his eyes and imagined a painting—in a garage, with an older mechanic leaning over a little to peer into the engine compartment of a classic car, an early fifties-vintage Ford. But the mechanic was naked. His body was like the car, an old machine but a good one. And instead of a younger man looking on, in this painting there was an older man—naked too—standing off to the side and gazing at the mechanic. He was smiling.

Stephen’s fingers itched to wield a pencil or brush. He wondered if he should ask Max to pose for him before or after dinner the next day. Maybe both. The painting would be nothing like Stephen’s usual still lifes and landscapes. It would be… a little wild. Good.

His knee was shot and he didn’t want to run anymore. Stephen was finally home.

KIM FIELDING is very pleased every time someone calls her eclectic. She has migrated back and forth across the western two-thirds of the United States and currently lives in California, where she long ago ran out of bookshelf space. She’s a university professor who dreams of being able to travel and write full time. She also dreams of having two perfectly behaved children, a husband who isn’t obsessed with football, and a house that cleans itself. Some dreams are more easily obtained than others.

Kim can be found on her blogs: http://kfieldingwrites.com/ and http://www.goodreads.com/ author/show/4105707.Kim_Fielding/blog, Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/KFieldingWrites, and Twitter @KFieldingWrites. Her e-mail is kim@kfieldingwrites.com.