In which Ortiz and Butch get married. With, naturally, a little bachelor party support from Red and Bad. Despite the presence of reliable troublemakers, this is not a lighthearted story. It’s mostly about loss, grief, hope, and love.
For Wendy and Matt.
They’d split the bachelor party up into two sections. Butch spent the early section not drinking and being on normal behavior for Julio’s brothers and cousins and the handful of friends he still had from when he was younger.
Bad had described it as, “First we do the Nebraska bachelor party. Then we do the real bachelor party.”
Just short of midnight Julio slapped his ass and said, “I gotta ride my horsey home, boys! We’ll see you all in the morning!”
Butch laughed along with everyone else, hiding how fucking relieved he was to get out of there. He genuinely liked Julio’s family; after two decades, they were as close as he’d ever come to having his own family.
But he’d been “Julio’s corporate lawyer” all day; now, with just Julio and Bad and Red, he could finally be himself.
“You ready to be the party favor, slut?” Julio whispered in his ear as they waited for the elevator.
“I’m suffocating,” he replied, eyeing Julio in the reflective metal.
Julio leaned forward to speak directly into his ear. “You haven’t got enough spunk injections, boy, ain’t that right? We’ll fix that right up.”
There was no fixing the shit that was wrong with Butch’s head the night before his wedding. He knew it, and Julio probably knew it, too. But they’d sure as hell try, and by the end of the night he’d at least be tired enough to sleep.
* * *
Phase two of the bachelor party was everything they’d wanted. Bad and Red had gone shopping.
“You fuckers owe me. I spent a goddamn fortune on all this shit, and I doubt they’re gonna let us take it carry-on.”
“Hell, Bad. Here I thought we were gonna have to get creative.”
The two of them talked Nebraska sex shops and Butch made his way over to Red. The kid was still fucking young, but then Bad had always been the youngest, so it worked.
“Hey, Red.”
“Oh, hey, Butch.” Red smiled. “We got you a swing with a stand, and it seriously took less than twenty minutes to assemble. Like magic. Bad was totally determined that you have a swing for your bachelor party.”
“He’s a good guy.”
Red rolled his eyes, a move he was rapidly aging out of. “He likes fucking dudes in swings. And he’s pretty sure he’ll get me in one since it’s kind of a special occasion.”
“Oh yeah? You don’t like a swing, Red?” That was a little surprising in a kid who didn’t mind stirrups and speculums and nasty tipped whips.
“I, uh, don’t like giving head upside down, which I know is totally not a deal, but I don’t like the feeling of it, especially when I can’t get away.” He looked away, blushing. “I know that’s so dumb for a limit, and it makes me feel like a lightweight, but—”
“You aren’t a lightweight, Red.” He ran a hand over the kid’s head. They’d just had his twenty-fifty birthday. Christ, Butch was old.
“Thanks. But Ortiz is gonna fuck with me like usual.”
“Ignore him.” Butch leaned in and lowered his voice. “God knows I do.”
Red laughed and hit him. “You so don’t. That’s your almost-husband you’re talking about, Butch.”
“Don’t remind me.” It was too much again, and judging by Red’s face, he knew it.
“Shit, sorry, we’re supposed to be distracting you.”
“You are?”
“Uh, sort of. At least Bad said you were thinking of a lot of crummy stuff, so distracting you was kind of our goal. Is there, uh, anything I can do for you?”
He chucked Red under the chin. “Soon, Red. First I’m going to mainline some electrolytes. You should, too.”
“Yeah, true.” Red handed him a Gatorade. “So when Bad started getting nervous that we wouldn’t find a swing he made me google how to DIY one, like at the hardware store. My search results are going to be a mess after this.”
“You think Google doesn’t know you like kink?”
“Uh, no, that ship’s definitely sailed. But now Google’s gonna be like, ‘Here, DIY everything’, which is not my goal.”
To have been twenty-five and so secure—Butch swallowed his regrets with a swig of neon sports drink
“Look at our boys bein’ cute,” Bad said, hooking Red by the neck. His gaze raked Butch, and the desire felt warm, but the concern was far too sharp. “You holding up?”
“Sure. Thank you.”
Bad shook his head. “Your boy’s a fuckin’ liar, Ortiz. You should let me beat his ass.”
Julio, who split the difference between his age and Bad’s, twisted his ear lobe and forced him to his knees. None of them were as young as they used to be and Butch’s body accepted the position with as much grace as he could bring to bear. Julio’s fingers unobtrusively grazed the tattoo behind his ear: J on the left side and O on the right. “So you’ll always know who you belong to,” Julio had said, the night he’d had Butch inked.
Twenty years had passed since then. It had been the best they could do, though he’d known then that if marriage had been legal, Julio would have insisted.
Which is why they were here, in Nebraska, a month after the ruling.
“Excuse us, boys. I need to have a chat with my slut.”
Butch anticipated the grip of Julio’s hand around his throat, already balancing his weight toward the bathroom so the dragging would go easier. Julio wasn’t as young as he used to be, either.
“Nose on the floor,” Julio ordered, once the door was shut behind them. “I should make you stay in here all night. Quit being fucking morbid or I’ll call the whole goddamn wedding off.”
Butch closed his eyes so he wouldn’t see whatever he was inhaling off the floor of the hotel’s bathroom. “Yes, Sir.”
“Fuck your ‘yes, Sir’.” Julio whaled on his ass a few times, but his heart wasn’t really in it. Butch could hear it when he sank down on the bathtub. “I know all of this feels off. I don’t know how the fuck I thought it’d feel, but all I can think about right now is how goddamn old I am to be doing this.” His foot landed on Butch’s back. “And you keep thinking about death. Quit it, Butch, you’ll scare the children.”
Their old joke, because it seemed like nearly all of Butch’s contemporaries and too many of Julio’s had died in the plague years. Everyone too young to have been there was a child, even if children like Bad were great big grown men these days.
Julio stood up. (Butch could picture the set of his shoulders as he assumed his role.) “Get out there and service Little Red. Man, I wish Bad would let me take that boy apart. I bet he cries so fucking pretty.” A kick to the flesh of his ass. “Go on, slut.”
This was good, even if he felt detached, even if he couldn’t seem to let the scene under his skin like he should. At least, in this moment, he could suck Red down ruthlessly while Bad held a hand over the kid’s mouth to stifle his moans. This was good. And when Julio kicked his legs apart and started fucking him, it got better.
* * *
They knew him well enough to know that they weren’t getting him down to bedrock. He tried to hide it, but somewhere between Julio skull-fucking him while Bad ground his balls into the ground and an endless session in the swing (his neck and shoulders and back were burning as if Napalm had just been poured down them; it was a damn good thing Julio didn’t have access to Napalm, come to think of it, or Butch might know exactly how that felt), Butch let the pretense slip away.
He collapsed to the ground after they got him out of the swing and Bad nudged him up.
“Red, show Ortiz’s boy some stretches. If we burn him out he won’t be any use to us.”
“Here,” Red murmured, his voice low. They’d had a good deal of fun with Red tonight; Butch’s ass twinged pleasantly with the memory. “Let’s do some forward bends.”
He followed Red’s lead, recognizing the moves, letting his upper body hang as much as he could.
“Keep your legs strong to support you, but try to release all the little muscles in your back.” The boy’s hand ghosted down his spine, as if reminding his body to relax.
Red was young, and a yoga instructor, out and proud like the kids today. Not sitting by the bedside of his friends as they died, or attending so many memorials he was numb. Not checking the death notices with a morbid sense of resignation when it was no longer if he’d know a few of them, but how many?
Butch closed his eyes and allowed his body to hang in space, rocking a little as the years compressed like a weight on his skin.
“I told him I’d do it,” Red murmured. “The swing. I mean, you guys are doing this really scary thing, I guess the least I can do is let Ortiz gag me for a couple of minutes. Plus, I’ll like it, it just scares me a little. And it scares me that I like how much it scares me.”
“You don’t have to,” Butch risked saying.
“I know, I just—”
“Did you just fucking speak without permission?” Julio dropped him to the floor, kicked him to his back, and pressed a foot into his windpipe. “It’s like you want me to make it so you can’t walk tomorrow, boy. Where the fuck are your manners? The only things going into or coming out of that mouth better be what I say can go into or come out of that mouth, slut.”
He opened his throat for Julio’s foot, letting the punishment and the humiliation work deeper into him, peripherally aware that Red had turned to Bad for comfort, because he was a good boy and deserved it. Butch didn’t have that instinct. He’d only ever craved pain.
“Shit, Ortiz. Red wants to take a run at the swing.”
Your sacrifice is noted, Little Red, Butch thought as Julio pulled away. Not necessary, but certainly noted.
“Oh hell yeah. Let’s get you all rigged up, kid. Man. I can’t fucking wait for this shit.”
“Yeah, sweet Red’s giving you a hell of a wedding gift, asshole.”
From the floor Butch watched as Julio tapped Red’s cheek. “I know he is. I fucking love your boy’s mouth, Bad.”
Red swallowed. Julio laughed.
“Yeah, that’s right. Up you go, Red.”
They’d duct taped socks around the noisier parts of the swing, but it still creaked a little as Red tried to get stable.
“Your boy really doesn’t like this, huh?”
Bad laughed. “Aw, Red likes everything. Right, Red?”
“Yeah.”
“Fuckin’ couple of liars,” Julio said. “Boy, get over here. I want you to warm Red up. Got that?”
“Yes, Sir.”
“Good dog.” Julio smacked Red’s cheeks a couple of times before moving away. “My dog doesn’t have a gag reflex anymore. Can’t wait to hear you choke, little puppy.”
If he hadn’t been already deep inside himself, Butch might have said something. Recognizing that feeling protective toward Red was just the way he foolishly tried to cherish a sweetness—a wholeness—that he no longer had helped him fight it. And Red, despite appearances on nights like this one, hardly needed protecting, and certainly not from Julio, however big an asshole he decided to be.
Julio liked playing with the edge between safety and fear. That Red hadn’t known him long enough to know just how good he was at that edge made it better for him.
“I’m gonna distract you from your troubles, Red,” Bad said, flicking Red’s sac.
“Your boy doesn’t have any fuckin’ troubles. Kid leads a charmed life.”
“You mean except for he has to put up with my shit all the time?”
Julio laughed. “Yeah, good fuckin’ point. Kid leads a charmed life except he’s gotta look at your ugly ass every day.”
“Hey, dickbag, my ass ain’t ugly.”
The two of them traded insults while Butch stood beside Red, reaching out to stroke his throat. Red shivered and looked up.
Butch made his voice low. “You aren’t a lightweight.”
“This seems like a stupid thing to freak out about.”
“It isn’t.” He kept up the steady strokes, fingers moving up to Red’s cheeks. When Red opened his mouth, Butch shook his head. “I’ll show you when.”
Julio smacked Red’s balls. “Hold your boy steady so I can stretch him out. I want him nice and loose.”
“Not a whole hell of a lot of point to having his ass in a swing if we’re just gonna hold him still.” Despite the grumbling, Bad grabbed Red’s thighs. “We picked up a couple of things—did you see that fucking dildo?”
“Yeah, I’m gonna wait till he’s choking on cock to fuck him with that, see how much we can fill him up.” A few more smacks, making Red grunt and twitch. “Nice. Let’s see what this ass can do now. Bad, give me that—”
Butch tuned them out and focused on Red, whose eyes were closed. The freestanding rig wasn’t as stable as one they could drill into the wall, but they’d messed with it until Julio was sure it wouldn’t fall down. And Julio knew these things.
Julio, with his strength, with a mind that could see a dirt lot and envision the mini mall that would stand there after his crew was done with it— Julio, who right now was looking right at him, a gaze he could feel on his skin.
He expected a punishment. Maybe the bathroom, bound, blindfolded, only able to hear them.
Instead, Julio said, “Open his mouth and hold it that way, boy. I want to see the hole I’m about to rape.”
Red shuddered, muscles going tight, unable to pull in his arms or legs, which were tied to the frame. Bad slapped his ass.
“Yeah, he’ll fuckin’ love that. Won’t you, Red?”
He couldn’t speak, and Butch, overcome with a deep, aching sympathy, did as ordered and clamped the kid’s mouth open, fingers curling around teeth. It didn’t matter that his hands were too big, that there wasn’t anything really to see. It wasn’t about that.
It was about scaring him, with words, with hands, with everything three big men could do to him when he couldn’t get away. Butch didn’t want this scene. He didn’t want to hurt Red, no matter how much Red wanted to be hurt. He sure as hell didn’t want to stand in front of Julio’s whole fucking family and half of Grand Island tomorrow in his suit and recite the words that would make them married when he’d built a life on strictly segregating the part of him that valued tradition from the part of him that valued Julio.
He wanted to sink to his knees and take whatever punishment Julio could dish out. It wouldn’t matter. He couldn’t feel anything.
“Wider,” Julio growled, pressing his palm to Red’s throat. “Yeah, swallow, boy. Let me feel it. Pretend my dick’s already ripping you open.”
The lean muscles of Red’s arms knotted as he resisted his own resistance.
Butch leaned forward, knowing he shouldn’t, and brushed his lips against Red’s forehead. “Relax the little muscles in your neck and face.”
The effect was immediate. Red’s jaw unlocked and when he exhaled the next shaky breath Butch could ease his mouth open wider.
“Well, shit, Ortiz. Your boy’s like a fuckin’ hole whisperer.” Bad slapped his ass, and the sting felt like a tease. “Good little slut. I hope Ortiz lets us watch when he reams you for using your initiative, Butch.”
Yeah, that was going to be something else. Butch didn’t look away from Red’s closed eyes, his eyelids so smooth, with little tracings of veins running through just beneath the skin. No matter how fucking depraved the kid got, you could always look at him and see something pure, something good.
If he started crying, would Julio give him what he needed? Or withhold it just to be a dick?
Julio’s other hand snapped out to grip his ear again. A friendly reminder. “If you do not get your head in the fucking game, we’re gonna have a problem. Fuck Red with your fingers until he cries like a baby. If you can make him cry before I get my whole fist in his ass, maybe you can work yourself back into my good graces, slut.”
“Yes, Sir.”
They were far from home and the many things they’d collected over the years that spelled misery, but Julio was inventive and they’d made due in hotel rooms before.
And Red wanted this more than he wanted mercy. Butch knew that like he knew his name.
The kid didn’t mind his head being upside down. Butch slid his fingers along Red’s tongue and used the other to cup the back of his neck, stroking his skin. Relax. Give in to me.
As if Red had heard the thought, he gave Butch the weight of head. So much better when a man held you so you couldn’t escape his hand, his foot, his dick. Not time yet to push it; he’d wait until the kid’s muscles were more fatigued. For now he fucked deeper in Red’s mouth while Ortiz talked a lot of shit about his ass, and how tight it was, and how Bad’s dick must have shrunk because there was no way anyone could cram a full-size cock in that tiny little hole.
When he started in on Bad and Bad started beating on Red’s bound up dick, Butch eased the kid’s head back. Everything at once, thready terror he wouldn’t be able to talk himself out of completely, no matter how much he trusted Bad, no matter how many times Julio had pushed him to the brink without tipping him over.
That was the mindfuck of it. The glorious mindfuck of it.
“My cunt is slacking. I’m taking my time and he hasn’t even squeezed one tear out of your boy’s eyes.”
“Yeah, we know he didn’t get that soft spot from you.” Bad shifted, tweaking Red’s swollen nipples. “Red. Look at Butch.”
No. I don’t want to see his eyes. It’s so much harder to hide if he’s looking right at me.
But both of them obeyed. He pushed harder, letting the kid gag, and Red’s eyes fluttered open. Damp, but not dripping.
“Use your dick,” Bad said.
Little lines appeared in Red’s forehead, little creases of frustration and fear.
That each of them knew the other would do as told was a small convenience; Butch eased his hand out and Red swallowed before opening his mouth again.
Butch had never resisted. Not even when he wanted to, before Julio. Early on Julio had choked him almost until he passed out, then sat back, panting, sweating, expression guarded and unusually concerned. “What the fuck do I have to do before you tell me no?” he’d demanded. Butch had blinked and replied that he never would.
Julio had taken it as a challenge. And eventually he’d found the things that had the power to make Butch beg. The revelation that there existed in him a place that was capable of wanting pain to stop had changed Butch all the way to his bones.
He couldn’t give that to Little Red. But he could give him a taste of it. And Red was a fucking fantastic cocksucker; Butch would rather their roles be swapped, but the frantic edge of Red’s attempts to breathe and swallow was a damn nice high.
He didn’t make the kid cry before Julio got his fist in, but they’d all known he’d choose punishment over reward. He helped Bad release the kid, who couldn’t even stand at first and sagged in Bad’s arms, bruised lips curling into a smile.
“I did it,” he managed to croak.
Butch brushed come-glued hair out of his face. “You’re a good boy, Red.”
The kid’s eyelashes fluttered and Bad’s arms tightened around him.
Julio grabbed Butch’s hair and pushed him to his knees. “Well, boys, it’s been a good fucking time, but I think my hole needs his beauty sleep before I chain him up permanently in front of the whole fucking state tomorrow.”
Hardly the whole state. As if Julio knew his thoughts, the hand twisted, making his eyes smart.
“But since he gave such a piss poor show at skull fucking Red upside down, I think he needs a little reminder about where exactly he is in the pecking order around here.” Julio’s foot pressed down between his shoulder blades, flattening him to the ground. “Into the tub, slut.”
Well, that was new. Julio had invited people to piss on him in the past, but no one except Jerome had ever actually done it.
“Dammit, Ortiz,” Bad grumbled. “You shoulda warned me so I could hydrate for this.”
Butch couldn’t look up to see the expression on his friend’s face. Bad hated piss. He was way too OCD for it. But all three of them followed him into the bathroom and stood there while he slid into the tub, on his back, keeping his upper body flat on the floor of it, still just a little damp from their showers earlier.
Three men standing over him. Through the layers of numbness he could still feel the pricks of humiliation in his gut.
“You want me to pee on Butch?” Bless Little Red. Butch tried not to smile. “Um.”
“I’ll make it worth your while later.” Bad took his dick in hand and looked down, faint tension around his face betraying disgust. “Next time do what he says so I don’t have to piss on you, for fuck’s sake.”
But he did, after a minute, stream hitting Butch mid-chest and splashing.
“Don’t fucking waste it, you asshole!” Julio’s perfect aim got his mouth. “On his fucking face, or don’t bother!”
Butch opened his mouth and controlled his breathing to snatch air when his air waves were open. Being pissed on wasn’t exactly waterboarding, but there were a few seconds of chest-seizing panic while Bad and Julio emptied out on him.
Poor Red. The kid just stood there, limp dick in his hand, face all scrunched up, trying to take a leak so hard he had to be giving himself a headache.
Butch didn’t mind the taste of piss, or the smell of it. All that worked in to how it felt to be Julio’s boy, how Julio wanted this from him and he wanted to offer it up.
But cooling piss, trickling into his ears, over his scalp, soaking into his dreadlocks, pooling under his body… Butch closed his eyes and hoped Red would get it together soon.
“Holy crap, Bad. Teach your boy to piss.”
Red groaned. “It’s too much pressure. I can’t.”
“Close your eyes.” Bad’s voice. “Relax and breathe. Loosen up your grip, for fuck’s sake. You trying to strangle your poor clit?”
“No, I just—”
“Shh, boy.”
Butch exhaled. He and Bad had never seriously played, but Big Bad had grown into his own, and he had it now. The thing that you sometimes couldn’t get until you were with someone you trusted not to laugh at you. He’d gone from being a solid dominant top to being the man who could talk his boy into pissing with his eyes closed.
When the stream hit—starting and stopping a few times until Red could let it go—relief outweighed all the other things Butch felt. He’d been able to ride humiliation before, but now he was cold and wet and too old to be lying like this in a bathtub.
“Thank Christ,” Julio muttered. “We’ll see you tomorrow, assholes.”
Fingers brushed over his forehead, piss and all. From Bad’s grunt, it had to be Red. Butch smiled a little and did not open his eyes.
“Fucking shit, wash your goddamn hands,” Bad growled.
“I’m not afraid of pee. Are you afraid of pee, Bad?”
Butch had to love the kid’s reversion to being an irreverent twenty-five year old.
“You have a smart mouth.”
“You love it.”
Water ran in the sink, possibly the full two minutes or whatever was promoted as the safety standard. Butch wondered if Bad ran sessions on how to correctly wash hands. He probably did.
Finally the door to the room closed. Seconds later the shower came on, cold, and Butch lay under it. Waiting.
“Up.”
He moved slowly, stiffly, and the water had grown hot by the time he was fully upright. Hot water was an unexpected mercy, explained a moment later by Julio climbing in after him and pulling the curtain.
Butch moved to take up the soap, but Julio grabbed his arm.
“Just fucking stand there, idiot.”
He allowed himself to be dunked under the spray. When Julio’s fingers massaged shampoo into his locs, Butch closed his eyes.
They didn’t speak. This unprecedented role reversal was shattering and Butch couldn’t find any balance within it. He should be the one meticulously washing between Julio’s toes. He should be the one on his knees. He should be the one who served, who offered, who gave.
Julio washed himself after, eyes challenging Butch to argue with him. So Butch hadn’t. He’d stood there, at the other end of the tub, fingers itching to grab the soap and do this right, the way it should be done.
The bastard. How could he do this the night before their wedding? The wedding Butch didn’t even want. Inviting their friends to piss on him hadn’t been the punishment, but the appetizer; forcing him to accept, to just stand there, immobile. That was his punishment for disobeying.
Julio dried him, carefully, wrapped his hair in a towel, and led him to the bed. Butch balked.
“Are you defying me—again?”
“I’m not sure I can do this.” He should have said it sooner. He should have said it months ago, years ago, except it had never seemed real. There had been those months when it would have been legal, but they’d thought there was time, and hadn’t hurried. Or Julio hadn’t hurried; Butch had been nauseous for weeks, waiting for the news that they were on their way to the county clerk’s.
But no, of course. Julio waited until it was legal back home, where his family was. And this time he’d taken Butch by surprise. This time, hours after the Supreme Court ruling, he’d called Butch and told him what days to request off at work. He’d done it, immediately. Being with Julio meant not questioning.
He’d promised Julio his whole self. But this he’d withheld, until now.
“Down.”
Butch sank, gratefully, to his knees. When Julio’s foot snaked between his legs, he spread them. Julio ground his cock into the carpet, and Butch gasped, giving himself over to the bliss of abandon. Nothing but an eternity of this sensation, trapped pain, the betrayal of brain over body, refusal to avoid agony.
So much easier this way.
“I will fuck you without your consent. I will let other people fuck you without your consent. I will hurt you as much as I want, and I won’t stop, no matter how much you cry, or beg, or plead.” Julio’s voice was even and calm. Everything it wasn’t when they were playing. “I will mark your skin however I want. I will pierce you. I will leave your arms bound behind your back all fucking night if I want to. I will let strangers fill your ass in the morning before work and make you wear a menstrual pad to soak up all their jizz. I will make you bleed. I will bruise you, cut you, or burn you, and you don’t get to say no to any of it.”
Butch dropped his head, shaking, trying to breathe through the unending torture of Julio’s foot.
“Except for this.”
The foot disappeared. Julio pulled him up, roughly, and tossed him to the bed. Within seconds he was sitting on Butch’s chest, pinning his arms.
“I will not marry you unless you say yes. Don’t fucking lie to me, Butch.” Julio’s hand pressed against his mouth, fingers pinching his nostrils. He tried to hold out as long as he could, but eventually he needed air and started to thrash, involuntarily, the world going dim around the edges.
Julio released him to gasping, but didn’t move off his chest. “Talk to me right the fuck now.”
His throat hurt, and his lungs, and some other part of himself, some itchy part of his conscience that insisted he start by apologizing, because he had no business keeping this truth from Julio until now. And sure as hell, if he’d decided not to say anything, he should have kept his damn mouth shut.
But he couldn’t.
“I’m sorry. I should have— I never wanted— I didn’t know how to—”
Julio covered his mouth and they went through the entire process again: the vowing to remain still, the increasing panic, the frantic resistance, the release.
“Dammit, boy, just fucking talk to me.” Julio’s face, scored by years of sarcasm, laughter, and work, looked down on him, dark eyes troubled.
Butch closed his eyes. There was only this lie between them. “I shouldn’t have survived. So many of them should have, and didn’t, and I did, and this is—other men deserve this more than I do. You ask me to be happy, with you, forever, and I don’t deserve it.” His breath hitched. “You know I don’t deserve it, Julio.”
The hand again, and this time he nearly passed out. Everything went dim, his body tingled, he gave up hope before Julio took away his hand, and replaced it with lips.
Julio kissed him, desperately, keeping him pinned to the bed. When he pulled back he looked angry, but Butch was never fooled by any of Julio’s expressions.
“I’m sorr—”
“Don’t you fucking dare say that to me. Don’t you dare. Goddammit, I thought we were done with this years ago. Are you shitting me right now? Butch, Jesus Christ—” He shook his head. “You are so fucking lucky I don’t feel like calling Bad back in here to kick your ass. You think you can say this shit to me? To me of all people? You think you can tell me, who you dragged out of the fucking gutter, that you should have died?” Julio pulled back, hands held up like he couldn’t trust himself. “Tell me their names.”
One shuddering breath was all Butch allowed himself. It didn’t matter that it had been years; he could do this as if the last time was just yesterday.
“Eric, Mikey, Javier, Frenchie, Albert, Big Bill, Amanda, Lou, Terry, Miss Mike—” He sucked in another breath. “Sal, Bernard, Josephine, Alex, Simon, Randy, Rudy, Damon.” Damon. It should be Damon here, about to get married, the sweet boy with the musical laugh, who’d died coughing and gasping and choking on his own saliva, dark skin pulled over bones like a suit that didn’t fit.
Julio picked up the rest of the list with his own names. “Enrique, Wally, Jason, Carl, Amy.” Lips pressed to Butch’s forehead. “Did you think I forgot? I know we stole the future we weren’t supposed to have. You even more than me. We’ll never forget, but if you think for a second that any of them would want you to go without because they died, you’re a fucking fool.”
“I can’t stop feeling this way. I’ve tried. I don’t understand how I lived when they died.”
“It’s fucking random chance! And you—” Julio gritted his teeth. “You made something of your life, dammit. You didn’t squander it. You went to school, you studied your ass off, you passed the bar, you worked your way up for fucking years, Butch, and you are the only reason I didn’t self-destruct when I was a fucking dumbass kid trying to get off. You are the only thing that made living worthwhile for years, and you—you fucking dare say that to me?” He got up and grabbed for the hotel phone, fumbling it out of its cradle, stabbing the zero. “Hi, I need a pair of scissors and a set of hair clippers. Yes, you heard me correctly.”
Butch’s hands went to his head, to the locs he’d started growing out in 1990 and had kept neat, trimmed, acceptable even by career standards for all those years.
Julio shifted restlessly. “I’m getting married in the morning and my fiancé has just decided to dramatically cut his hair. Yes, thank you, now do you have clippers or can you tell me where I can buy some at this time of night? That would be good. 209. Thanks.” He put the phone down and turned, but didn’t speak.
It was unimaginable. Butch’s whole life was in these dreadlocks. He’d fought professors and bosses and coworkers to keep them. But not Julio. Julio had always loved them. Had always kept tea tree oil on hand, had spent hundreds, thousands of Sunday evenings with a crochet hook, tucking in the ends, then hand-rolling and moisturizing each loc.
No one knew about that. Not Jerome, not Bad. No one had any idea that Julio cued up bad television on Sundays after dinner and got Butch’s locs ready for the week.
“I am done with the past.” Julio, shoulders rigid, stared down at him. “We survived, we built a great life for ourselves. We fucking earned this, do you understand me? We fought for this our entire lives.”
“You love my hair.” It was the closest he could get to a protest.
Julio’s expression went very still. “I love you. I love everything about your past, and everything about your future, you dumb fool.”
A knock at the door startled both of them. Julio took a deep breath before answering, and Butch was grateful the door was around the corner so whoever had knocked wouldn’t be able to see him lying there, naked, hands still protectively pressed against his hair.
This had to be…a scare tactic. No. Julio wouldn’t try to scare him. But surely Julio also wouldn’t cut off his locs, carefully kept shoulder length, pulled back during the week when he worked cases, bound up in a scarf whenever he helped out on a work site with Julio’s crew so he wouldn’t get dirt or sawdust or leaves snagged in them.
Julio thanked the person at the door and closed it. Somehow the hotel had found hair clippers at half past two in the morning. Butch’s heart started to beat faster and he couldn’t look away from the things in Julio’s hands. Scissors. Clippers. Tools for an undeniable purpose.
“Sit in the chair.”
It had never come up. In all the years of Julio talking shit, in all the years of trying to find out exactly where Butch was weak, what would undo him, Julio had never once brought up his hair. Not ever. He’d had his locs—less well maintained, but neat enough—when they met. Slowly, week by week, month by month, Julio had taken over, done research, asked people questions until they told him Mexicans shouldn’t have dreads. (He always said, “I’m Nebraskan, and my boy’s a whitebread Californian. You wanna register a complaint?”) But he’d never threatened to cut them off. He’d threatened castration, penis tattoos, and anal piercings, but he’d absolutely never said anything about this.
Butch dragged himself to the chair, shivering now, feeling the weight of his locs as they moved. He could argue, but that would just make Julio dig in. He could refuse, but Julio would win. He could cry—he felt like crying—and he might. But not because he wanted to disobey.
Julio’s hands landed in his hair, both of them. “I saw you and thought, who does that numbnuts think he is, with his white boy dreadlocks? Then you looked at me and it was as if everything in me tuned in to everything in you. I wanted you on the floor at my feet for the rest of my life.” Fingers massaged his scalp. “We can’t carry them with us like this forever, the bodies of our dead, filling all the empty spaces. You know we can’t.”
His hands disappeared and Butch closed his eyes.
“Eric,” Julio said, and cut the first loc. “Mikey. Javier.” Snip, snip. “Frenchie. Albert. Big Bill. Amanda. Lou.”
This can’t be happening. I’ll open my eyes and he’ll be joking. He must be joking. Even as he thought it, he knew it was a lie. He could feel the tension of the scissors, the release each time they cut through hair.
“Terry. Miss Mike. Sal. Bernard. Josephine. Alex. Simon. Randy. Rudy. Enrique. Wally. Jason. Carl. Amy.” Julio kept cutting, and cutting, endlessly, until he drew in a breath. “Damon.”
Butch knew that would be the last one. Damon. His sweetheart. The boy who’d brought light to him. The first one who’d found the right words, who’d hurt him with a smile, with love, with humor.
Who’d died choking.
He crumpled over, sobbing into his hands, and Julio embraced him from above, wrapping him tightly with arms that didn’t waver.
He could feel Julio’s tears on his scalp, so much lighter now, so much more exposed. Butch couldn’t stop shaking, wracked with sobs, hardly able to breathe.
Irrevocable. They were gone. He couldn’t get them back now.
“I love you so fucking much, you cunt, my god. Do you even know how much it hurts when you say this shit? It’s like you’re sitting here wishing you’d died, and that’s—” Julio squeezed him harder. “If you died, I’d kill myself. There is no point to any of this without you.”
That couldn’t stand. Butch pushed up, rose out of his chair, and pulled Julio into his arms. “Don’t be stupid,” he whispered. “Bad would know you were going to try and he wouldn’t let you.”
“Like I couldn’t outsmart Big Bad Campion.”
“True.”
Julio’s hands roamed over his scalp, making him shiver. “Shit. I can’t believe I just did that. Are you okay?”
“I can’t believe you’re asking me that. I don’t think you’ve asked me if I was okay since the first time you caned me.”
“Christ, you scared the hell out of me that night.” Julio pulled back. “It’s cute I used to think you could be broken, right? Like Little Red. I thought you were all vulnerable and shit, wanting guys to hurt you so bad.”
Butch leaned in, taking Julio’s face in his hands. “You break me all the time. And don’t you ever kill yourself. I’m serious.”
“You don’t understand how much I fucking need you. You think I want to get married for fun? You think I invented this whole thing just because I could?” He shook his head. “I couldn’t do anything without you showing me who I am, Butch. Fuck. Please don’t talk about fucking dying.”
“Did you just say…‘please’?”
Julio shoved him back into the chair. “Go ahead and mouth off. We’ll see if you like the consequences of that shit, won’t we? Be still.”
The clippers buzzed and Julio wasn’t gentle, manipulating Butch’s head this way or that way as he brought the cut all the way down to skin. It was uncomfortable, and overstimulating. Butch wanted to close his eyes again, but he couldn’t stop staring at his locs, piled meticulously on the table, lined up on one side.
So many years. Realistically he must have trimmed so much over the last twenty-five years that this could only be the last ten, if that. He could not truly say that nestled deep in those locs was a hair Damon had touched, pulled, kissed. Butch had always tried to be honest with himself, and he knew it was only hair, not memories, that he had lost. But it felt like he was staring at his entire life, piled carefully, put aside to be disposed of.
The tears were silent, and cool on his face. He didn’t bother wiping them. Julio finished and led him back into the shower, made him kneel directly in the spray. Neither of them spoke through the shampooing, or the rinsing. Their towels were still damp from before, and Butch’s was on the ground out in the room where it had fallen off his hair when Julio tossed him on the bed.
Julio made do with the hand towels. “I hate to say it, but this is a fucking good look for you, boy.” Butch allowed himself to be steered toward the mirror, but Julio had to force his head forward.
He didn’t look like himself. He looked younger, somehow, which didn’t make sense. Shouldn’t he look bald? But he didn’t.
“Yeah.” Julio’s hand curled over his scalp. “Yeah, I think I’ll get used to this. Plus, I’ll be able piss on you more. I always had to worry about piss getting in your locs and fucking ’em up.”
“You lose sleep over that, Sir?” The insubordination was planned, and Julio answered it by shoving him to the floor and fucking his throat.
It was exactly what he wanted.
The fell into bed after a short, hard ass beating (over the top of everything his ass had already taken). Butch was sore inside and out.
Julio’s voice came out of the darkness beside him. “We’re getting fucking married tomorrow.”
Nothing had changed. Except his hair. But somehow now he could say, “Yes.”
“Oh Jesus. You uppity little bitch. You fucking scared me. Get your ass over here.”
Butch submitted to an uncomfortable head rub that made him writhe. It wasn’t quite pain. It was too much sensation, and the mental wounds were too fresh.
“Yeah. You’re my boy. And you’re gonna be my boy for the rest of your fucking life, aren’t you?”
“Yes. For the rest of my life.”
“Damn right.”
For as long or as short as it was, he would be with Julio. Maybe he didn’t deserve it, but it was his, and if Damon were here, he’d be pissed Butch thought for a minute about throwing it away.
Still, he was too damn old to stay up till four a.m. when he had to go to a wedding the next day.
* * *
The ceremony was brief. The reception was lively. When it came time for toasts, Julio’s brother stood up and made everyone cry, talking about how he’d worried Julio coming out meant he’d be estranged from his family, but you couldn’t get rid of trash like Julio, and one day he brought home this skinny-ass dude with dreadlocks (here he reached out to rub Butch’s freshly shaved head), and after that they knew he’d be okay.
Julio’s best friend from high school stood up and talked about how when she got her divorce Butch had helped her with the papers and Julio had helped with the kids, and she didn’t know if she would have made it through without both of them.
The DJ was about to turn the music back on when Julio himself stood, and everyone who’d begun talking stopped, curious as hell to see what he was up to.
“I know my husband is the one who’s good at talking, but I got something I want to say before we all get back to drinking and partying.” He cleared his throat.
Butch turned his chair to better see him. Julio always looked good; his body was muscled and marked by years of working outside, his movements were always deliberate, his face rugged, but nearly always smiling. Now he looked down and clamped a hand on Butch’s shoulder. Tightly.
“I’m grateful to be standing here today. A lot of you know I was a fuckin’ mess—sorry, Nana—before I met Butch, and I probably would’ve ended up dead with a needle in my arm if he hadn’t been dumb enough to fall for me. But he was, so here we are. And most of that was luck.”
One of the younger cousins called, “You worked hard!”
“Yeah. We did. But I learned something a long damn time ago about hard work, and that’s this: it doesn’t make a damn bit of difference how hard you work if the rest of your life is empty. You can tell yourself all day long that you’re the best, or that you put in the most hours, but the whole point to all of this is what you do when that work day’s over. I go home, every goddamn day, to this man.”
His hand squeezed harder and Butch reached up to cover it with his own.
“There are a lot of people I wish were here right now. Good men and women who should have lived long enough to stand up here with us to take each other’s hands, people who deserved to be as happy as I am right now, as happy as I hope I make Butch.”
Big Bad, on Butch’s other side, sniffled. Butch kept his eyes on Julio, even as his vision wavered, watery and indistinct.
“Sometimes I feel like we lost an entire generation in the eighties, and that survivors like my man, here, are refugees. And I can’t—” Julio wiped his eyes. “I can’t bring any of those people back. And I can’t go back in time to hold their hands and tell them we’d get here, that some of us would see this side of paradise. No matter how happy this day is, it’s a little bittersweet. Anyway, y’all know this isn’t my thing, but I just wanted to say I think there’s a whole lot of angels looking down on us tonight.” Julio leaned down, maybe for just a kiss, but Butch pulled him into an embrace.
Applause, slow at first, then swelling, until Butch realized that everyone in the room was on their feet. He rose himself, keeping Julio turned toward him, and took it all in: the lights, the clapping, the movement. They were applauding Julio’s speech, but whether they knew it or not, they were also making room for all of the ghosts that haunted Butch’s dreams.
Maybe Julio was right. Maybe they were angels. Maybe Damon was here, watching, smiling in that way he had when he wanted Butch to know everything was going to be all right.
He buried his face against Julio’s shoulder and whispered, “I love you.”
Julio grabbed the back of his neck, drawing his face in close so he could speak directly into Butch’s ear. “I can’t wait until we get rid of all these people so I can fuck you dry.”
Or, in translation: I love you, too.
Having lived though the eighties, having my own fears about AIDS, watching the blanket grow, i was glad i was one of the lucky ones. But in all of that, I never lost someone close to me, never had that heartbreak, this short story brought to me how lucky i really was. Lest we regret. They will be remembered. Thank you Kris.
As I sit here eyes streaming tears down my face I remember all the friends I've lost to AIDS and other tragedies or illness. The survivors guilt can wear you down if you let it. But I believe we need to live our lives to the fullest in honor of those we've loved and lost. I do believe that there are angels watching over us loving us and guiding us gently through the years.
What a wonderful story this is. It makes you reflect on your life and make sure you are living up to your potential and that there are still many people here that love us as we love them. Thank you Kris for this chance to reflect on what we've been given.
OMG, now you made me cry–again. Thank you.