I Know Your Dad and He Wouldn't Mind (XII)
Governing Concept: can’t an up-and-coming actor send nudes to his onscreen dad, torrid, get dumped, and not learn his lesson post-pandemic? gosh. normie pocket dimension of ask for a key, or the comedy-of-marriage-minded sequel to sex, or a bag of rocks (i, ii, iii, iv, v, vi, vii)
prev:
do you have anything that smells like old dick (warm bulb), so are you courting me or (morel map), do you want to suck a dick or do you want to solve a puzzle (sydney rock pool), don’t look a gift whore in the eye (terror & magnificence), you mean i just blew some random guy (fathom v), calculate the area under the cock (lignum vitae), the crap has a coherence (moth), hell is a deletion (pyroclasm), that jilted shit (tonnerre), SADNESS bruh (snow on fire), impossible (with the candlestick)
chapter summary: kiss here (crushed fruit)
cw: nsfw, mention of abuse, death but the bad things only happen to men so it doesn't count
dedicated to @vermiculated, who taught me how to (depict) love. pov pov pov
me: i'm writing the ending of (wave emoji) how gooey do you want it
@getlouder: The consistency of the inside of a Cadbury creme egg in 70 degree weather but not in direct sunlight
Ben gets the text after he lands at LAX.
He liked having a proper burner phone in London. His personal assistant handles all the work correspondence, anyway. Easier to focus on the holiday, cordial, without the usual gang of miscreants gobbling the international data plan.
The girls had enjoyed his gifts, his jokes, for the duration. His eldest, stoic and utilitarian, had requested fancy Japanese markers, Copic Sketch Sets C and D. Something she’d readily use, regardless of provenance. I already have Sets A and B, and you can get me E for my birthday, so then I’ll have the full 358-color range. No bag charms or leather notebook covers, please. Hesitating around a moist cuticle, Louise Carmen is wasteful and basic.
Meanwhile, his youngest, classically popular, relaxed in her power, had tittered, Daddy, surprise me. She’d gotten all her grubs, earnest, on the lo-fi recorder with built-in mic, fat key-lime buttons on hot pink wood, pitch control, delay effects, reverse audio switch and 1/8 stereo audio output jack for the connoisseurs. Pusheen chain bracelet jangling against the black control knob, scrubbing the audio of Ben’s, well, scratched pass at his ex-wife’s sister during the Christmas party, what did Pierre Choderlos de Laclos’ Grand Dame say? Only flirt with those you intend to refuse?
At altitude, everyone’s midi-famous. Knackered, dolorous from the 11.5-hour flight, he box-breathes under controlled-beam lighting, bar for bar. Slept fretful, twisted, on the plane; mind the carbon stamp, he’s not going to buy out a whole biz-class row just because he hates the idea of other people watching him, eh, brumate, lizard micro-dose on anxiety upon return to his natural, hated habitat (himself, alone).
Peanut dust on his jersey joggers, Ben stumbles to the baggage carousel, numbly thumbing through the pings, lost the casing somewhere, when—fuck—
He drops his naked phone on the arctic terrazzo. Misses his TUMI Tegra-Lite, graphite with vinyl boba stickers, rumbling by. A wheely cart clips his arse as he squats, cursing.
Screen’s shattered, naturally, so now he gets to see Owen’s cock, high/rise, in tessellation; b/lue//greentie/of/f base/fur//red trim/ope/nt/rayof/thig/hs/or/ange/garnishc//rease/nap///kin///
The zoom-in, fractal, is a swipe of Icy-Hot down Ben’s gullet, just an alimentary plummet from esophagus to fist. Owen ironing the sheets, spreading his legs, sucking the citrus from his fingertips, looping the stretchy plastic around his dick, delicate, careful not to snag, moans bubbling out the corners, champagne, divot in his knuckles from an old slice—an accident—Ben’s actually tasted his blood...
Sweat stipples his cowl neck. A whole Filipino family, three generations down to the infant in footie pyjamas, is staring at him. Great, blocking foot traffic. To a brush of desultory Tagalog, palms his cracked phone into his zipper pocket and scuffs his algae trainers to the airport garage before remembering his luggage still wobbling on the carousel.
—
Air’s better in the coupe. Engine off, seat racked back, Ben rubs his forehead against the steering wheel. Accidentally hits the horn with his chin.
Play it cool, invite him over. He turns over his wounded phone, inspecting. His tongue’s batting. Thumbs, too, in this guilt quilt of many colors. Instead of responding to Owen, he dashes off multiple New Year’s Eve party inquiries, even blinks twice at his email before starting the drive home.
On the 405, claggy with the usual, Ben swigs remnant water from a teal Klean Kanteen twist-cap, deserted by his eldest. Flicks to a world-ambient station, grimaces through the Scandi drone, perks up at the jungle reverb, gambus, rebab, gong. Humid, Ben had spiled himself in the chest, drawn off liquid on the page under the calm pretense that Owen would very sensibly walk away, seek medical help for that gash. Instead of. Nursing at the spigot.
Sky’s peach parfait when he pulls into the Gelson’s with his insulated 30-lb canvas, on a calculated whim. In a fugue, checks out with a Rachel Ruysch of impossible abundance, ripe for painting: Somerset seedless in a luscious cluster, heavy clingstone apriums, squat persimmons, glossy puckered tangerines, a single matte Cara Cara, a yellow mini-watermelon—a mealy bite in winter, but that’s not the purpose. Jumbo eggs, panko breadcrumbs, capers, flat-leaf parsley, spiralized kohlrabi, spine-on sand dab fillets. Pint of mango sorbet and five lemons for tea, or ouzo.
The grocery canvas bulges, botulism. He havers at the open, stuffed trunk. Goes back for 5 pounds of Black Forest gummy bears, regular, six flavors, six splashy mockups of “Juicy” and “Real” on the resealable packaging. The candy value-pack, big as a newborn, rides passenger with him.
Gummy shotgun, he’s just a shelf-stable fuckup now. Next time round, he’ll keep the trip shorter. Seven days. Less time for him to smash it.
Sky parfait’s deepened to a raspberry mango as he parks. Air’s fidgety, ill-parted, in the garage. Luggage still in trunk, fruit cornucopia on a waxed-canvas swing, he drags the whole rig across the bloody foyer and stolidly unloads in the kitchen, hunching over the haunted-habit tricks, shoes never where he put them, night-swim splishes in his sleep, an exhale at his nape when he’s brushing teeth alone-alone.
Panic limns his guts. If he’s gonna die, he’ll go out clean. Belly sucked, scrubs his face in the guest bath, don’t look in the mirror, swishes with the Marvis strong mint in absinthe-green, even though his dentist’s lectured him that mouthwashes are mostly kiddie sweetener or alcohol, terrible for the local flora.
To his right, main bedroom door’s shut. Cowl neck sags damp to his chest, thick with. Phone slaps against his thigh as he puts his bad shoulder, at a tremble, pushes to the span of empty-empty-empty dim but for—
The puncture of Owen, on the bed in a dolphin t-shirt, creamsicle swim trunks, a simpering drawstring tug.
“Surprise, Dad.”
—
“Before we get to the derision,” Owen over-explains, around a bulge of grapes, “I do have to say that I love you.”
“Oh,” Ben parries, plummy squirt to the molars. Nearly clamps on a pit, catches the tangy runoff with a paper towel. “You’ve made your recklessness quite clear in that regard.” On the quartz, three-ply crumples, Tyrian purple.
They’re standing up in the kitchen, either side of the smart-divide sink, fruit bobbing in plastic tubs, mashing produce by the fistful. The track lighting’s too harsh, the vintage lamps too weak, but that’s a director’s problem. Ben’s showered, changed into field tan trousers and a heavyweight white tee under bleached-out slub denim, sawtooth pockets, pearly snaps. Owen’s got on, some kind of discard flannel over his kiddie fundraiser merch and swim shorts.
Too hungry for mood music. Ben’s a gentleman; post-pilgrimage, he’s going to feed Owen first, before they get to. Assaying. Besides, at this age, it’s all French drainage. Pretty sure Owen doesn’t want to huff gravel and methane, after coming all this way.
Still flush with confession, Owen refills his moss-green ribbed glass. After the uncomplicated sweetness of the red grapes, the juniper stings his sinuses. Swallows bubbles, flannel rolled: “He doesn’t want to harm you.”
Owen can actually see the vapor barrier writhe around Ben, the taut Drano cocktail of denial, deceit, reproach at ascending densities: gasoline, sea water, milk, glycerin, mercury.
Safer to walk away? Yes. Easier? No.
He drinks it anyway. Elbows hydroplaning on the counter, maybe five paces away. Ben’s not a killer, but he does hate himself enough to destroy his reflection. Never mind what Logan says about waterproofing, spray foam insulation; that’s why they call it a teardown.
“He doesn’t want to harm you,” Owen repeats.
The premonition’s a perforation down Ben’s spine: ready to tear, neat. Already knows the timestamps won’t match. He touched down on the 28th, Owen on the 27th, judging from the boarding-pass origami in his rucksack pocket, so what of those missing hours, that slip-skin gape?
Cross-grained, Ben rocks back against the stainless fridge, casts for an exit. They could get a hotel, blast the cost. Get photographed coming in, or leaving, matte aviators, staging a real stormy row, tears bright as sequins on Owen’s cheeks.
How saturnine, self-involved, thinking the small-g guests, all of them, were cut-to-order torments. Significant apertures of misery/invention for a bright, lonely boy marooned in his own body, what was done to—
He blinks, damp, to Owen’s sticky fingers cupping his face, petting his hair. Steel at his back, a dig of a magnet through his inside-jacket and heathered shirt.
“It’s not a secret,” Owen says with unalloyed gentleness. “Just private. But if you ask, I’ll tell you.”
Spin the syringe, they could play this game forever. Who is Ben to pry now, after all he’s inflicted? Chert’s durable, abundant, because its chemical simplicity doesn’t hold geological memory; the biography slides right off. Sand on most beaches is tough, common quartz, same as the countertops they’re gumming up. The dumbest, greatest survivors.
At this rate of erosion, it’s not about who’s at fault. Songs of, key in Blake. The objective’s not about locating the guilty; it’s about exhuming the innocent interred with the riprap of suspicion.
And with Owen’s bratty archaeology, his game chisel of such flinty, unworkable matter. Exonerated thusly, who is he to burrow for the truth?
{Ben’s always had two graves prepped, near every home he takes.}
“As long as he didn’t hurt you.”
This close, the worry, the quiet release, crushes Owen afresh, and he’s fifteen again, peering with binocs at his annihilation on the shore. Up against the French-door fridge, flank jammed against the reeded pull bar, Ben’s let himself get caught, trapped, weighed. All Owen has to do, after that gory odyssey, is take a godly-sweet, baby-incisor bite.
“You mentioned,” nipping around the tear treads, top tang of plum, cumin, flop sweat, “that sex has different registers,” kissing audibly down the ear, neck cricked, “stopwatch, ink blotter, a, a mercy kill.”
Truculent, devotional, Owen pushes off against the stainless, backs off a pace, the blush tracking down both their stretched collars. The sunset’s probably a full burn on his forehead.
“And,” he says on quarry tile, vibrating with nerves, “I wanted to try them all with you.”
The auto-rebuke quavers. Ben doesn’t dare deny Owen, not when he’s trekked such, rough terrain, with his scrip of lip-chap and tonsure of wild notions.
Quick, hurl a stone. A slur. The dig from his valise of rocks doesn’t yield. He’s gone through the whole bag of insults, at Mohs, pumice, calcite, chert, quartzite, and at the end of this world, in this open-scream kitchen, he thumbs a single, unidentifiable pebble, etched with the worst appellation he can find, mine.
—
If he gets on with the girls, I’ll probably marry him, Ben thinks, cracking eggs in a maroon bowl. Skillet lubed, dips the seasoned sand dab fillets into the eggy mix, shakes off the excess, rolls in the panko crumbs, separate pan going for the kohlrabi.
Oven fan purrs in accord. Across the prep area, Ben’s got a nice view of Owen doing his homework at the dinner table. Very academic. He does have the verve to win it in this industry, but there’s time and funding for trade. With that freaky diligence and jock body, no reason he can’t train up into a hot geologist or hot diver. Marine archaeologist.
Dabs on skillet, couple minutes, flip. Keep the wiggle to a minimum, til the grease hits the nose-hairs. Silicone tongs, ease the fish atop the blue-rim stoneware, side spiral of kohlrabi. Eighths the lemons for squeezing. Sprinkle of capers, crush of parsley. Brassy, verdant.
Watermelon rind, a dull crackle-stripe, slips in Owen’s grip. On his forearm, the produce sticker—winking baddie sun logo, DULCINEA—announces, “It’s yellow inside!”
Obviously. His hips pulp. There’s juice on the tarp, kids’ birthday tablecloth in Meri Meri cherry print. Juice on his tee hem, his thighs, his knees. The other sever’s on the counter. Little below center, he had bored a hole with his fingers directly in the sunny yellow styrofoam, slurped up the porous mash with a shy backwards look at Ben.
It’s mealy, and cold, and squidgy. Feels like he’s fucking a green bowler hat. Can’t get a good angle, much less any—cadence.
The melon-half skids, rucking up the cherry tablecloth. A smack hits his ass on the bias.
Nonchalant, Ben hooks his chin over Owen’s shoulder. Gets parsley on his shirt. “Why’d you use a rubber? Watermelon can’t give you the clap.” Fry-up smoke clings to Ben’s denim, pearl snaps shiny as.
Medusa vase on the sideboard. Owen peels off the waterlogged condom with a sullen splutch. “I didn’t want a seed going up my urethra.”
The whole thing’s seedless, Ben doesn’t say as he sets the table for two, spinning the fuck-melon. Cutlery, Kirkland napkins, stoneware, mortar of lemons. Two mason jars of water, two flutes of ouzo fizz, each with a gummy bear floater. Moving mix-and-match seating aside, very tastefully positions Owen at the head of the table and gets to his knees on thick-tufted rug.
The blowjob’s a formal apology. Revved for it, oven-warm, licking the sugar from Owen’s haunches, Ben gets to project planning. Where’s his publicist at. Does Aeryn take texts on holiday. She could confidently soft-launch a twink on New Year’s Eve.
Tempo’s in the forehead, not the tongue. The wet muscle glide follows. Everything else is topiary; that’s the music lesson he’d meant, with the watermelon.
The premeditation, squiggle of precum, fills him. Owen’s clean; he could go for a rim. Flips him round, hips to tablecloth, facing the spread.
Pert squeeze, get him a Rivian R1S, more rugged than coddle-minded. Solid power delivery. Something that rides like a truck, feels fast, throws you up high and flings you back with authority.
Tight frill, there. Musky, medial, Owen whines on ironwood that he doesn’t want to come yet, but food’s getting cold. Ben forces it.
Mashing his face into his braced forearms, mantis, Owen shreds his lungs as he comes. Drool stretches, taffy-like, from his lip to inner elbow. Cherry tablecloth’s abraded, his nails, lunellum. The malty dark of the ironwood glowers through.
Hauling up, Ben sips lemon-gummy water, kisses round the whetstone of Owen’s clavicle. Sits downstream, back to the west wall, merrily deboning both portions of fish. Fork-feeds Owen, still woozily bare-assed on the pullout pine bench.
Tongue-warm, the fried flat-fish undulates, melts on spikes of parsley, veg spiral. Aniseed bite of ouzo. Loopy, scraped, Owen sinks into the terroir: brittlestars, small sea-urchins, hermit-crabs, amphipods, worms, mollusks. Sand-eels.
Just as he’s finished a joke, looks down with slo-mo surprise to a cleaned-out plate. Water and ouzo glasses drained down to the gummies. He prods a swollen mini-bear with his finger. Pineapple.
Chair scrape, moving with a happy, sinuous ease—where was this on set, ten years ago?—Ben stands behind the backless bench, taps him on the right thigh crease, slimed.
“Should get a tattoo here. Orange slices in a rosette.”
Squirming in his seat, already sore/ripe at the touch: “My dad cuts them that way for me.”
“Rather perverse,” Ben hovers at a respectful rub, air caress, heat-seeking an invitation.
“Why, because he loves me?” Still seated, reaches up to drolly yank Ben’s hair, get him down to level. Dining bench straddle, pearly button pop, bunching up cotton white. “Did your dad make you call him Mr. Mendelsohn?”
Dipping his head, he scours the prize, enamel on nipple. “Or was it Sir?”
Change of plans, Ben thinks helplessly, gripping ironwood at the suckle. I really am going to marry this one.
Shirting flung, fervid visions of a big party, won’t tell the guests what they’re celebrating. Drive up the Rivian to a scummy NorCal beach town, fog thick as cotton candy, muck about the ghost cypress in rubber booties, mindful of the beetle blight, salted, smoked. Calligraphy stroke of a strap on Owen’s shoulder, that pearl-dangle lure. Kiss against aquarium glass, lit up with jellyfish.
Bed next, surely. No, couch. On performance linen weave, cushions and girding strewn in the lowering dark: “Say we drive up the coast for a honeymoon.”
Mid-bounce, Owen blinks, mesh crop of sweat. “What, like rent-to-buy?”
Cleaver smack to the flank, fond, hard: “Cleverness gets you thrown from the group project. Breach of contract.”
“Oh.” Thrumming with sweetness, draws himself off, rattles the lube ramekin on the coffee table. Re-angles, fucks Ben at tempo in the panorama of nightswim glass, black mirror of the video-game TV, cinematic, intimate, special.
After all, his Ben, his not-not-Ben, loves to watch.
So, his reflection mouths.
“Tear it up.”
