Beyond Complicated (6 page)

Jesus Christ, I'd fucked my son's boyfriend.

Bareback. On my living room sofa. Could my life get any more complicated? Sense didn't just creep back into my head. No, it was more like someone with a hammer decided to nail sense into my brain. My heart revved up to a scary level and I climbed off him and retreated to the end of the sofa. I averted my eyes to the cum leaking from his gasping ass. Mine. He used to be mine. He wasn't now. I couldn't look at him. I couldn't look away. He didn't open his eyes.

"It's fine," he said after a few minutes. What was fine? "Maybe. I don't know. I forgot how damned good you are. How you make me feel. It's fine."

"It's not fine. We just… I haven't had unprotected sex since I was sixteen years old. At least I can't get you fucking pregnant. And fuck, Seth, you're fucking the kid I made that time. This is anything but fine. This is fucked up." I rose from the sofa and dragged my jeans on to hide my shame. Seth just lay there and smiled. His eyes stil closed. His legs stil splayed, cum stil leaking from his ass. My cum.

"Liam?" He did that slow smile he used to do after sex, the one that made me fal in love with him the very first time. I closed my eyes pretending I hadn't seen. Pretending I wasn't sitting here beside him covered in spunk and wanting to take him into the bedroom and start al over.

"Yeah?"

"I think this is pretty fucked up."

"Glad you finaly caught up. Get dressed and get out. We wil pretend this didn't happen."
This didn't
happen, this didn't happen, this didn't happen
, I chanted in my head hoping to somehow convince myself.

"Nuh, uh," he uttered as he finaly drew his legs together and opened his eyes.

"What does that mean?" I was pretty sure I knew Seth shorthand and that was always a no.

"It means I'm not done with you. It means I'm not leaving until I'm done with you. It means you're going to show me your bed and we're going to get the last four years out of our systems and then we'l figure out what to do next."

I hated when he got articulate. I hated that my brain turned to mush. I hated that I forgot what my goddamned fucking name was for the next several hours. But mostly I hated waking up sometime around dawn. Alone. With my heart lying in shreds around me on the bed. So I stayed there. Walowing in the goop. I never turned my phone on and I didn't eat and I didn't bathe. I slept and walowed. And slept and dreamed.

And slept. I just slept.

There was a tremendous pounding on my front door sometime Sunday morning. I was pretty sure it was Sunday. It could be Monday. I'd be at work if it were Monday. Wouldn't I? Someone from work would cal to find out why I didn't come in. My boss, or that cute as sin little intern twink. Sometime soon I was going to have to tap that. He wanted me. I didn't realy care if it caused tension at work. Hel, I'd do him at work. On my desk. That would just be fucking perfect.

I sat on the floor in the corner under the window resting my face against the cold wal. I think I dragged on a pair of sweat pants but I wasn't realy sure. Didn't realy matter.

Revenge fuck. I laughed softly. He just wanted revenge for leaving him. And he got it. Fucked me into the mattress. Held me down and fucked me. And I begged him for more. We didn't talk. Just sex. Deep into the morning. Fuck, doze, fuck some more. Hel, I needed to get tested. I didn't care. My fucked up life was… yeah, probably what I deserve.

My bedroom door flew open and bounced off the wal leaving a hole the size of the knob. The landlord wouldn't care, this place was a dump anyway. Why the fuck did I live here again?

Kel stood in the doorway, he was angry. I didn't have time to deal with his shit. I'd spent my life dealing with a kid who never realy was mine. His whore mother just wanted money. He didn't even think of me as his dad. Just his friend. Some fucking friend I turned out to be.

"You slept with him?" It wasn't a question. Sort of, it sounded like a question shouted at the top of his little diva lungs. "You slept with my boyfriend? How could you? The only person on the planet that I trust and you slept with the first guy I ever gave a shit about."

"Yeah, wel, right back at you, sport," I said for some strange reason. It hadn't realy dawned on me that I was fighting over a man with my son. My beautiful son who did look a little like Seth when he was that age. Al lanky and blond and stereotypicaly surfer boy to the core. Something they both embraced. Maybe I did have a type. The guys I liked the most weren't necessarily blond but fair haired of some type—ginger, dishwater, very pale brown and al lean and tal. Maybe that's why I let Sabrina into my pants. She fit the type except for the additional parts. Athletic. That was the term. Fair haired athletic type. Yep that was what got me going.

"You don't deny it?" He dragged a hand through his hair as he stood in the door staring at me.

He didn't see me. Just his anger. I didn't realy want to be seen. I just wanted him to go off and pester someone else. I'd give him the keys to my car if I knew where they were, if it meant he'd just go the fuck away.

I didn't say anything. What could I say?
Yeah, we
had nasty sex on the couch, the floor, the bed,
against a wall at least twice. I fucked him, he
fucked me. It got quite intense. Wish you could have
seen us. Fuck. Go home, kid.

"Liam?" His voice dropped a few octaves from hysterical cast member of one of those Housewife shows to near normal. It didn't actualy hurt my ears. I didn't answer just on principle. Or because if I did, I'd say something I'd regret. "Are you drunk?"

"Unfortunately, no. Wouldn't mind finding myself in that condition but that would mean I'd have to get up." I stil didn't look at him. Didn't want to see him or hear him or—

"What's going on with you? I've never seen you like this." His voice sounded closer and not hysterical at al.

"Yeah, sort of wish you weren't seeing me like this now. Don't you have someplace else to be?" I wrapped my arms around my knees and buried my face somewhere in the cavity I'd made there, trying to curl in on myself. I winced at the light touch that grazed my shoulder. His fingers were warm.

"You're like ice. Liam? Have you taken something? You know like pils or…" His voice was right next to my ear. There was fear and concern and fear… did I mention fear? I felt the first tear slip down my cheek folowed by another and another until I was shaking. "Okay, it's okay. Whatever you took, I'l cal someone and get you some help. It's going to be okay."

Something soft smoothed my hair. His fingers, I guess, I wasn't sure. I didn't want his touch, I didn't like the fear I heard in his voice. It shamed me. "I'm sorry, Kel, so damned sorry."

And then I broke down. Just fucking lost it. My son puled me to him like I'd done him when he was smal and held me while I cried. He brushed my hair with shaking fingers, his arms so warm I sank into his embrace and didn't want to leave. He whispered platitudes but it wasn't al right. It was never going to be al right. It was so fucking past complicated now. He didn't understand. How could he understand? He sighed after a while and settled on the floor next to me letting me lean on his chest. I think I'd stopped crying, he kept his arm over my shoulder. I didn't have the strength to move.

"Seth," he said the name softly and I flinched. I hadn't meant to. He noticed. "I figured you knew him by the way you left Friday night. I just didn't know you knew him, knew him." I stil didn't say anything. A whisper-soft warmth touched my forehead. Kel kissed me? He hadn't kissed me since he was maybe nine and declared kisses to be gross. "He said you were old friends who'd lost contact. Like an idiot, I gave him your address. I'm so stupid."

I shrugged. I didn't agree nor disagree. My own stupidity sort of consumed me at the moment so I was in no shape to judge.

"So he was the one, huh?" Kel said after a few moments of silence. "Four years ago, when you came back from wherever you'd moved away to, it was him you were running from, wasn't it? I noticed. I didn't ask questions, but I was old enough to spot a broken heart when I saw one. And Gran sort of said you'd lost someone you loved. I thought it was something worse, you know, more permanent. Where were you for those years?"

"California, mostly. We spent six months in New York," I answered through my tear-clogged throat. "Working mostly. Fucking more than that."

"How long were you with him?" I heard him sigh as he shifted beneath me and I leaned with him until he had me cradled with one arm under me and one over me. My kid, comforting me, how ironic.

"Six years. I met him while doing a job. He was so damned young then. I just sort of fel hard in love with him the second he smiled at me." I tried to pul away to get myself together but he squeezed me tight.

His hair grazed my shoulder making me shiver but I didn't think anything of it.

"Six years? Shit, Liam. Why didn't I know about him? I wouldn't have… you know… if I'd known," he said, his voice breaking and I could feel him trying to keep himself together as his body shook. "I wouldn't have falen for him. I wouldn't have… shit."

"I didn't tel anyone about him. I kept that part of my life a secret. He and I… wel, it was sort of complicated. No one would have understood. We had each other, that's about it." I said too much. He went tense and let me go. I moved back to my corner and waited for the fal out. But it was his turn for stony silence. "I did what I had to back then. I'm not proud of it. But I'd do it again if I had to."

"You were his older guy? The one who protected him? Shit, Liam." He was across the room pacing in front of my television, giving it strange glances as if he was afraid at any moment it would randomly start showing his dad having hot monkey sex with strange men. "You did porn! To pay my mom child support. You did porn for me."

"Those first few years I worked construction during the day and took night classes. It took me six years to get my bachelor's degree. I was broke al the time, paying tuition and buying books. And yeah, paying child support when you're a teenager sort of blows. I was offered money just to let a guy take nude photos of me. Then to, wel, I'm not going to tel you how it happened. It happened and you shouldn't even know that much."

"How much did you pay her?"

"Twelve hundred a month. But that was after I wouldn't let Ken adopt you. He figured out that it was in their best interest not to fight me for my rights. And then I figured out that Sabrina had a mean streak. The judge sided with her so I paid triple after that. I did what I did. Don't judge me. You've had a pretty good life."

"I'm not judging you. I'm just shocked, that's al.

She caled you a deadbeat. Used to tel people you weren't taking care of your debt to her but she had to let you see me. She caled you a pervert in front of me."

There was anger in his voice. I didn't want to have this discussion right now but it al tied together. My whole fucked up life had come to some whacked in the head circle of insanity. My kid and I fighting over the same man, the one I did porn with so I could make my child support payments and stil live from month to month to pay his crazy mother. "When did you stop? Making movies, I mean? You and Seth made movies together, shit. Why haven't I ever found one?"

"Why were you looking in the first place?"

"Helo, boyfriend told me he did porn and I was curious. Couldn't find any and he wouldn't tel me where to look."

"Wel, I guess I can be thankful for that. Since al of his were with me. Just before your seventeenth birthday… that's when I got out. Seth and I busted up and I came home. I haven't seen or heard from him in al this time."

"Until Friday night."

"Until Friday night. I told him to leave you alone. Things sort of got out of hand after that."

"That's the understatement of the century." Kel plopped down on my bed and sprawled on his back. I winced, knowing the sheets would probably reek of sex. He didn't seem to notice. "I didn't see him yesterday. Neither one of you would answer your damned phones. And this morning he caled and told me we couldn't see each other anymore. Because he was stupid and couldn't be with me because of you. I asked him pretty much everything I asked you. He told me you had a history that… anyway, I guess it doesn't matter. Much."

I snorted and went back to leaning. No, it didn't matter at al. Much. "Go home, kid."

"Liam?"

I sighed. We'd gone back to this. "Yeah?"

"If you loved him, why did you leave him? He loved you too, right? I don't understand."

"Nothing to understand. Sometimes no matter how much you love someone… things just end. We ended. With an exclamation point, ended."

"And you're stil messed up over it four years later?"

"Not something I'm proud of. Go home, Kel.

Let me walow in peace."

"Liam?"

"Shit, what?"

"You sort of stink. Like spunk. Which is sort of massively disgusting if you think about it long enough.

Two day old spunk. And shit, I'm probably lying in it.

My dad and my boyfriend's spunk. Holy fucking crap."

He clambered out of bed as if he'd been bitten and, for a moment, everything became hilarious.

Perversely ridiculous and funny. I knew it wouldn't last long, this feeling that if I didn't laugh, my head would fil up like a cartoon baloon and float away. So I laughed.