Fic -- Donald Strachey Mysteries -- Autumn Leaves
Title: “Autumn Leaves” by NyteFlyer
Fandom: The Donald Strachey Mysteries
Pairing: Donald/Timmy, of course!
Length: 4,000 words
Rating: R for Donald’s potty mouth
Spoilers: Several for On the Other Hand, Death
Summary: Donald’s been thinking again, and that’s never good.
Disclaimer: Richard Stevenson created them, Ron Oliver interpreted them, Chad Allen and Sebastian Spence brought them to life. Legal stuff notwithstanding, we all know that Donald and Timmy belong completely and exclusively to each other. Sometimes I get to be a fly on the wall, though….
Gratuitous Groveling: I just finished this, so I didn’t have time to run it by either of my usual betas, storyfan or bkmikan. My daughter mothwarrior was kind enough to do an eleventh-hour run-through for me, however. Any and all mistakes are entirely my own.
A/N: Written for the fall 2013 tim_don_a_thon
Do you think we’ll still be together forty years from now?
Oh, yes. We will….
Forty years. Damn.
I’m sitting back on my heels, listening to the logs hiss and spit like a nest of pissed-off boa constrictors, when Timmy walks in carrying the silver tray his grandmother gave us for a wedding present. It came with a ten-piece tea service, very la-ti-da stuff that would have put the queen of England to shame, but we’re not exactly the tea-and-crumpets kind of guys. I’m not, at least. If the situation called for it, I guarantee Timmy could crumpet with the best of ‘em.
The tray gets to come out and play on a regular basis, but Timmy sent the other pieces to permanent timeout decades ago. They’ve been collecting dust on the top shelf of the linen closet ever since and only see daylight every six months or so, when Timmy gives them and his mother’s heirloom silverware their semi-annual rub-down with Tarn-X.
If he sold all that stuff, he’d probably get enough to finance the trip to Europe we’ve been talking about, and we wouldn’t have to dip into our savings to do it. I’m not about to suggest it, though. Timmy’s all about what he calls “practical functionality,” and you almost never catch him hanging onto something for purely sentimental reasons. If it doesn’t serve what he considers some useful purpose, it goes to Goodwill and that’s pretty much that. But his mom’s been gone for two decades now and his grandmother close to four, and he still misses them both like crazy. For him, polishing all that damned silver’s a memorial ritual, like putting flowers on their graves or raising a toast to them on their birthdays. Asking him to get rid of it would be like asking him to tear off a limb, or to rip out his heart.
“A quarter for your thoughts,” he says, handing me a perfectly chilled martini. He sets the tray on the coffee table and eases down on the couch, wincing a little because the change in weather’s got his arthritis acting up. I can tell he’s really feeling it tonight, especially in his back and knees.
“A quarter? Thought a penny was the going rate.” I get to my feet, staggering a little, which he pretends not to notice. My knees are pretty much shot, too - hazards of the trade when you spend half your life crawling around in wet alleys and crouching in drafty hallways, spying on people while they do the things they pray their nearest and dearest will never find out about.
I take a drink of the smoothest vodka martini on the planet and grunt my appreciation, giving him a chance to sample his own before settling in beside him, wrapping an arm around his shoulders and drawing him close. I’m glad I thought to get the fire going while he made the drinks. As much as he claims to love cold weather, he’s feeling the chill more these days, and the fire warms him in a way not even the new, super energy-efficient HVAC unit we had installed last week ever could. Well, the fire and me, that is.
“A penny won’t go far in today’s economy. As a matter of fact, a quarter hardly seems adequate. Maybe I need to pull out my credit card. Do you take American Express?”
“I take you, any way I can get you,” I tell him, wriggling my eyebrows to make him laugh. He chuckles and leans in for a kiss. Now that I’ve got his lips right where I want them, I’m in no hurry to let them go. I draw out the kiss, deepening it just enough to let him know exactly where I’m hoping this evening is headed. I’m not gonna rush it, though. If there’s anything I’ve learned over the years, it’s that with Timmy, pacing means everything.
When we come up for air, he settles back into the crook of my arm and sips his drink. I take a long pull on mine before setting the glass on the coffee table, making sure to hit the tray instead of wood so I won’t get another lecture about the evils of wet rings on mahogany. I lay my hand against his face, stroking his cheek with my thumb. “Have I told you lately how beautiful you are?”
“Not since the last time I asked you a question and you tried to evade the issue. Something’s on your mind tonight, so out with it, Detective Sparky. No secrets, remember?”
Remember? How could I forget?
Forty years, and it’s gone by in the blink of an eye, so fast it almost scares me, makes me wish I could hit the pause button and replay it all in slow-mo, freeze-framing the best parts and just staring at them long and hard enough to burn the images onto my retinas so they could never be lost, never be forgotten. Not that I could ever forget a single second of my life with Timmy.
Most of the time, it feels like my life started the day I met him, and nothing that happened before counted for much except maybe to show me what a fucked-up, lousy place the world can be unless there’s somebody in it worth giving yourself to, somebody who thinks you’re worth giving themselves to 110% all day, every day. Somebody who never holds back, no matter what. Somebody worth dying for, for sure. But more importantly, somebody worth living for.
We’ve had a hell of life together, Timmy and me.
Forty years. Can it really be forty years since we sat together on this couch - no, wait, that old black leather one we bought right after we moved in together - in front of this same fireplace and had that talk about Dorothy and Edith and that two-faced dirtbag, Andrew McWhirter? We kept it light, of course, and laughed about our second date, which Timmy still carps about to this day. But beneath all the joking, Timmy was hurting, and not just because his good buddy and old flame had stabbed him in the back and in the heart. He was hurting because I’d kept something from him, something that mattered.
I’m not keeping any secrets from you. Never again.
I’ve kept that promise, too - in every way but one.
I’ve never let Timmy know how terrified I am of losing him.
Yeah, I know. The guy’s got five years on me, but he’s aging a hell of a lot more gracefully than I am. He’s still got all his hair, which is more than you can say for me, and for the most part it’s still the same rich, dark brown it was when we first met, with just enough gray at the temples to make him look unbelievably hot in a distinguished, GQ kind of way. He still swims laps at the club three days a week while I hit the weights, and if we don’t run together anymore, at least we still walk around the neighborhood for half an hour every morning before breakfast and again after dinner as long as the light holds out and the weather cooperates.
For a guy pushing eighty, he’s pretty damned amazing. Stiff joints and an occasional respiratory infection aside, he’s healthy as a horse…now. But we’re not spring chickens anymore. Old roosters is more like it, and we don’t flap around the barnyard as fast as we used to. But we’re both still flapping, and that sure as hell beats the alternative.
I’ve got my share of battle scars and so does he, but I somehow made it to retirement without anyone bashing my head in. No one’s killed either of us off because of our career choices, though God only knows a few have tried. We did have that bad scare back when he got sick, so sick I turned the business over to Kenny and never looked back. Timmy needed my undivided attention, and I spent the next six months driving him back and forth to treatments and tests, holding him steady while he puked, and telling him how beautiful he was as often as he needed a reminder.
He’s had a clean bill of health for ten years now, and his lab work looks great, but once you’ve played Russian Roulette with mortality, you can’t shake the feeling that life’s just a little more precarious than you’d like it to be - especially when your lover’s life is the one in question.
Timmy’s studying me now, eyes the same clear, sharp, cornflower blue as they were when we first met, even if they are watching the world through trifocal lenses these days. I get the old, familiar feeling that he can see straight through this thick skull of mine and read every thought in my head. Worse, I’m pretty sure he’s gearing up to discuss every last one of them in detail.
A log shifts with a shotgun crack, sending up a shower a sparks. We both jump, then laugh at our own foolishness. Before he can say, “I’ll get it,” I’m off the couch and across the room, rearranging the stack of burning wood with the poker and tongs. I toss on a couple more logs and sit back on my haunches, trying to ignore the screams of protest from my knees as I wait for the wood to catch. Fire-tending is my job - always has been. Timmy laughs at me sometimes, says it brings out my caveman tendencies.
He may be right. I like doing all the husbandly stuff like building a fire or checking the windows and doors before bed, keeping the cave warm and secure for my mate. For decades now, he’s been taking care of me in more ways than I can count. It makes me feel good to be able to take care of him, too.
Even though he has to tease me about it once in a while, Timmy loves it, and I know he loves me for it. He’s as smart and successful and self-sufficient as they come, yet he’s secure enough and generous enough to give my hyper-active male ego room to breathe, to let me play caveman as often as I want without making a pissing contest out of it. People who don’t know him as well as I do think it means he’s soft or weak. He’s a gentle guy, all right, and as tender-hearted as they come. But weak? Not on your life. When a man as capable of taking on the world the way Timothy J. Callahan does lets a guy like me be…well…a guy like me, that sure as hell isn’t weakness. If you ask me, it’s the definition of strength.
“Are you going to spend the rest of the night over there, or do you plan to join me sometime soon?” The notes he’s hitting are light enough, but there’s an underlying tone that warns me his patience is wearing thin. Not that I can blame him. I’ve been zoning out on him ever since I shuffled through the evening papers. Everybody else on the planet gets their news from the computer, but not Timmy. We - meaning he - still subscribe to the Times Union, of course, plus The New York Times and a couple of weeklies from small towns where we have friends and family. As sensitive as he is to my moods, he couldn’t help but notice my reaction as I flipped through the Hollis Gazette.
“Be right there, sweetheart.” I get to my feet, managing not to stagger this time, and reclaim my spot on the couch, pulling him into a light embrace. He smells like sandalwood soap and martinis, plus the country vanilla candles he has burning on every flat surface in the room, with just a trace of the dry leaves we were raking before the rain set in. I nuzzle his neck, snuffling my way down to the base of his throat and tickling him enough to make him squirm as I follow the scent trail, remembering this afternoon.
The yard work degenerated into playtime pretty fast, and I’m sure the neighbors got a good laugh at the sight of the two old farts romping out by the back fence, tossing armloads of leaves at each other and rubbing them in each other’s hair. They’re all pretty much used to us, though, and I’m sure nothing we do surprises them anymore. We had our usual roll in the one pile we’d managed to rake up before the fun and games began, of course, and one thing led to another. When it started to sprinkle, we moved the festivities inside, sparing the folks next door the sight of what came after.
Timmy shivers and tugs at his old Brooks Brothers cardigan, which is the cue for me to quit clowning around and hold him tighter. Whatever Timothy wants, Timothy gets. That’s been the rule around here from day one, and I’m more than happy to abide by it.
“Talk to me, Donald. You’re thinking too much tonight, and that’s never good.”
Wind and rain beat the window pane, giving me an easy out. “It’s just this time of year, I guess.”
“But you love autumn. We both do.”
He has me there. September always comes as a relief because it finally gives us a break from the miserable summer swelter. October’s even better, with the changing leaves and thousand-and-one fall festivals Timmy drags me to - not that I take much dragging. Timmy may be in it for the arts and crafts and music and socializing, but me, I’m there for the food. Inch-and-a-half thick barbequed pork chop sandwiches, bourbon-laced fudge, sweet-potato fries, funnel cakes, caramel apples, chili by the bucketful, and monster wedges of pumpkin-pecan pie - that’s what I’m talking about. We embrace a “healthy lifestyle” the other eleven months out of the year, meaning Timothy embraces it and makes damned sure I embrace it right along with him. But in October, all bets are off. He just sips his preservative-free hot cider and smiles his indulgent Timmy smile while I pig out.
“We both love early autumn,” I tell him, “but November weather’s for shit. Clouds, rain, and it’s getting cold. Nothing but yard work to do-”
“I didn’t hear you complaining about the yard work today. You seemed unusually enthusiastic, as I recall.”
“I was enthusiastic about what came after the yard work,” I say, giving his thigh a squeeze. “Not that we got a lot of actual work done. The homeowner’s association‘s gonna slap a fine on us if we don’t get those leaves up soon.”
“We’ll work on it tomorrow if the weather clears. If not, we’ll do it the day after. The McKennitt’s lawn looks worse than ours, and Shane and Arthur are going to be completely buried if they don’t start raking soon. I don’t think anyone will be calling the yard police on us just yet. We have time.”
“Do we?” I’m suddenly having a tough time meeting his gaze. I grab my martini and stare down at it just to have something to do with my eyes. “That’s the problem with November. It’s not really fall anymore. It’s just this weird transitional period, like a sneak preview for winter, only worse, because it never quits. Every day reminds you of what’s coming, and there’s not a damned thing you can do about it. It’s all about winding down, ending.”
“My memory isn’t what it used to be, but from what I recall about this afternoon, winding down had very little to do with it.”
He still has the memory of an elephant, and we both know it. “You know what I mean. It’s goddamned depressing, if you ask me. Autumn leaves. Right. When autumn leaves, winter can’t be far behind. And then-”
“Hey.” He touches my chin, gently lifts it so I have to look at him. His eyes search mine, and I see that familiar spark of recognition when they find what they’re looking for. “I read it, too, you know.”
“Read what?”
“You know exactly what. The auction notice in the Gazette. Dorothy’s daughter held onto the farm for as long as she could, but we both know her health has been bad for years. She doesn’t have any children to look after the property, and I’m sure she can use the money. This was bound to happen sooner or later.”
“I know. It just feels like the end of-”
“An era?”
“A legacy. They fought so hard to save that farm. We all did. Now it’s gone.”
“The life they lived together is their legacy. Dorothy helped hundreds of kids in her day. Some of those kids wouldn’t be alive today if it weren’t for her. They’re her legacy. And she and Edith were a living testimonial to the solidity and staying power of same-sex marriage. They were beautiful role models during an era when young people coming to terms with who they were and how they were going to fit into the world needed role models desperately. And they were an inspiration to so many couples, us included.”
“Until Edith died. Then Dorothy wasn’t a friend to anybody, least of all herself.” Feisty, warm-hearted Dorothy, who turned bitter and mean once the love of her life was gone. She outlived Edith by a handful of years and died angry and confused in an assisted living facility near Glens Falls, where her daughter lives. A swearing, spitting, food-throwing nurse-slapper, she was the terror of the dementia wing at Crossroads Terrace. We used to drive up to see her on Sunday afternoons and sneak her martinis, but it got to the point where she obviously didn’t recognize us anymore or appreciate the company, so we gradually slowed the visits down to once every couple of months or so. Eventually, we quit going altogether. The truth is, I couldn’t take it anymore. The whole situation hit too close to home.
“She had Alzheimer’s, honey. She couldn’t help the way it affected her.”
“Bullshit,” I say, sounding every bit as bitter as Dorothy had been. “It wasn’t Alzheimer’s that made her pissed off at the world. It was losing Edith. Her life ended the minute Edith’s did, but her existence dragged on and on. It wasn’t fair.”
“No, I don’t suppose it was.”
Seconds tick by, turning into a minute or two. Timmy quietly sips his drink, waiting with the patience of a goddamned saint. He knows it takes me a while to get my thoughts together sometimes, and he’s not about to rush me. Finally, I spill it.
“Edith would’ve been ashamed of the way Dorothy acted toward the end. That’s the way it’ll be with me. If you go first, I mean. I’ll make you ashamed.”
“Edith would never have been ashamed of Dorothy any more than I could be ashamed of you. Besides, there’s no danger of that happening, you know. You’re not going to outlive me.”
“How do you know? You planning to kill me and make off with all my worldly goods?” The half-assed stab at humor falls so flat I flinch inwardly even as I say it. Maybe I flinch outwardly, too, because Timmy gently breaks the death-grip I’ve got on my glass and sets it down along with his own, then takes my hands, lacing our fingers together.
“All your worldly goods are half mine already. You won’t outlive me, honey, and I have no intention of outliving you. One night many years from now, we’re going to make love in front of the fire. The sex might tire us out just a little bit more than usual, I think, but I’ll still take the time to rinse out our martini glasses while you check the locks. Then we’ll walk up the stairs and go to bed. We’ll kiss each other goodnight and fall asleep in each other’s arm the way we have thousands of times before. Just before dawn, we’ll slip away to a place we’ve never been before, someplace so incredible we can’t even imagine it. We’ll be at peace there, and once we’ve rested, I think we might decide to start all over again.”
“Some Jesuit you turn out to be. Catholics don’t believe in reincarnation.”
“Who said anything about reincarnation? Catholics believe in heaven. For me, that’s synonymous with spending eternity will you.”
I’ve never bought into the whole religion thing, but the image definitely makes me feel better. When I close my eyes, I can almost picture it, the peaceful, sweet release of sleeping forever in Timothy’s arms. Someday. But not today.
“So you have this all planned out, do you?”
“I do,” he says with that note of finality I know all too well. If Timmy says it’s so, you better believe it’s so, and there’s no sense arguing about it.
“And when will all this happen, exactly?”
He pretends to think hard for a minute. “In 2088, I believe. I suggest we plan it for early October. That way you won’t have to worry about the homeowners association fining you posthumously for unraked November leaves.”
I have to laugh. “In ’88, huh? That’s still forty years away. We’ll be…what? About 120 by then? Pretty old to be screwing around on the living room floor, don’tcha think?”
“We’ll never be too old for that. I’ll be 120. You’ll only be 115. Honestly, Donald, it’s no wonder you can’t balance the checkbook.”
“Wise guy.” I hand him his drink and we clink glasses. I drain mine in one gulp. He takes his time finishing his, savoring every drop the way he savors every minute of every day, every new experience, every touch or kiss or shared look. The way I savor every moment I have with him.
“So, you really think we’ll still be together 40 years from now?” I ask.
“Oh, yes. We will. Whether it’s here or somewhere else, we’ll be together. And just in case you’re thinking of flirting with any wanna-be outlaw bikers in the meantime….” He kisses me, and again I smell martinis and candles and autumn leaves and Timmy. Forever Timmy. Then his hand finds my crotch and gives it a firm squeeze.
The way to a man’s heart is through his dick, even one as old and well-used as mine. Nobody knows that better than Timmy. But we had a pretty energetic session this afternoon. Between the leaf dust and the exertion, his asthma’s acting up. He’s bound to be tired - God knows I am - and in spite of a dose of allergy medicine and a hit from his inhaler, I’m still hearing a faint wheeze every now and then. I may be a caveman, but I can be a gentleman when I want to be, too.
“Sure you’re really into it after the workout I gave you this afternoon?” I ask, even though I’m pretty sure I know the answer. I’ve seen that look in his eyes before.
“Once you stop talking and get those clothes off, I’m planning on having it in you. I was thinking about another roll in the leaves, but considering the weather, I suppose this will have to do.”
In one quick move, he has me off the couch and pinned to the floor without so much as breaking a hip or cold-cocking either of us on the coffee table along the way. He takes off his glasses, folds them, and places them on Grandma Liz’s silver tray. For an instant, I see firelight in his eyes. Then he leans down to give me a thorough, no-nonsense kiss. My dick’s apparently gotten its second wind, because it rises to the occasion. The damned thing’s not spring-loaded the way it used to be, of course, but it doesn’t take a hell of a lot of coaxing, either.
Timmy rolls us over, smooth as silk, so he’s on his back and I’m straddling him with our crotches practically fused together. My knees don’t protest a bit.
Winding down, my ass. We’re just getting started.
Fandom: The Donald Strachey Mysteries
Pairing: Donald/Timmy, of course!
Length: 4,000 words
Rating: R for Donald’s potty mouth
Spoilers: Several for On the Other Hand, Death
Summary: Donald’s been thinking again, and that’s never good.
Disclaimer: Richard Stevenson created them, Ron Oliver interpreted them, Chad Allen and Sebastian Spence brought them to life. Legal stuff notwithstanding, we all know that Donald and Timmy belong completely and exclusively to each other. Sometimes I get to be a fly on the wall, though….
Gratuitous Groveling: I just finished this, so I didn’t have time to run it by either of my usual betas, storyfan or bkmikan. My daughter mothwarrior was kind enough to do an eleventh-hour run-through for me, however. Any and all mistakes are entirely my own.
A/N: Written for the fall 2013 tim_don_a_thon
Do you think we’ll still be together forty years from now?
Oh, yes. We will….
Forty years. Damn.
I’m sitting back on my heels, listening to the logs hiss and spit like a nest of pissed-off boa constrictors, when Timmy walks in carrying the silver tray his grandmother gave us for a wedding present. It came with a ten-piece tea service, very la-ti-da stuff that would have put the queen of England to shame, but we’re not exactly the tea-and-crumpets kind of guys. I’m not, at least. If the situation called for it, I guarantee Timmy could crumpet with the best of ‘em.
The tray gets to come out and play on a regular basis, but Timmy sent the other pieces to permanent timeout decades ago. They’ve been collecting dust on the top shelf of the linen closet ever since and only see daylight every six months or so, when Timmy gives them and his mother’s heirloom silverware their semi-annual rub-down with Tarn-X.
If he sold all that stuff, he’d probably get enough to finance the trip to Europe we’ve been talking about, and we wouldn’t have to dip into our savings to do it. I’m not about to suggest it, though. Timmy’s all about what he calls “practical functionality,” and you almost never catch him hanging onto something for purely sentimental reasons. If it doesn’t serve what he considers some useful purpose, it goes to Goodwill and that’s pretty much that. But his mom’s been gone for two decades now and his grandmother close to four, and he still misses them both like crazy. For him, polishing all that damned silver’s a memorial ritual, like putting flowers on their graves or raising a toast to them on their birthdays. Asking him to get rid of it would be like asking him to tear off a limb, or to rip out his heart.
“A quarter for your thoughts,” he says, handing me a perfectly chilled martini. He sets the tray on the coffee table and eases down on the couch, wincing a little because the change in weather’s got his arthritis acting up. I can tell he’s really feeling it tonight, especially in his back and knees.
“A quarter? Thought a penny was the going rate.” I get to my feet, staggering a little, which he pretends not to notice. My knees are pretty much shot, too - hazards of the trade when you spend half your life crawling around in wet alleys and crouching in drafty hallways, spying on people while they do the things they pray their nearest and dearest will never find out about.
I take a drink of the smoothest vodka martini on the planet and grunt my appreciation, giving him a chance to sample his own before settling in beside him, wrapping an arm around his shoulders and drawing him close. I’m glad I thought to get the fire going while he made the drinks. As much as he claims to love cold weather, he’s feeling the chill more these days, and the fire warms him in a way not even the new, super energy-efficient HVAC unit we had installed last week ever could. Well, the fire and me, that is.
“A penny won’t go far in today’s economy. As a matter of fact, a quarter hardly seems adequate. Maybe I need to pull out my credit card. Do you take American Express?”
“I take you, any way I can get you,” I tell him, wriggling my eyebrows to make him laugh. He chuckles and leans in for a kiss. Now that I’ve got his lips right where I want them, I’m in no hurry to let them go. I draw out the kiss, deepening it just enough to let him know exactly where I’m hoping this evening is headed. I’m not gonna rush it, though. If there’s anything I’ve learned over the years, it’s that with Timmy, pacing means everything.
When we come up for air, he settles back into the crook of my arm and sips his drink. I take a long pull on mine before setting the glass on the coffee table, making sure to hit the tray instead of wood so I won’t get another lecture about the evils of wet rings on mahogany. I lay my hand against his face, stroking his cheek with my thumb. “Have I told you lately how beautiful you are?”
“Not since the last time I asked you a question and you tried to evade the issue. Something’s on your mind tonight, so out with it, Detective Sparky. No secrets, remember?”
Remember? How could I forget?
Forty years, and it’s gone by in the blink of an eye, so fast it almost scares me, makes me wish I could hit the pause button and replay it all in slow-mo, freeze-framing the best parts and just staring at them long and hard enough to burn the images onto my retinas so they could never be lost, never be forgotten. Not that I could ever forget a single second of my life with Timmy.
Most of the time, it feels like my life started the day I met him, and nothing that happened before counted for much except maybe to show me what a fucked-up, lousy place the world can be unless there’s somebody in it worth giving yourself to, somebody who thinks you’re worth giving themselves to 110% all day, every day. Somebody who never holds back, no matter what. Somebody worth dying for, for sure. But more importantly, somebody worth living for.
We’ve had a hell of life together, Timmy and me.
Forty years. Can it really be forty years since we sat together on this couch - no, wait, that old black leather one we bought right after we moved in together - in front of this same fireplace and had that talk about Dorothy and Edith and that two-faced dirtbag, Andrew McWhirter? We kept it light, of course, and laughed about our second date, which Timmy still carps about to this day. But beneath all the joking, Timmy was hurting, and not just because his good buddy and old flame had stabbed him in the back and in the heart. He was hurting because I’d kept something from him, something that mattered.
I’m not keeping any secrets from you. Never again.
I’ve kept that promise, too - in every way but one.
I’ve never let Timmy know how terrified I am of losing him.
Yeah, I know. The guy’s got five years on me, but he’s aging a hell of a lot more gracefully than I am. He’s still got all his hair, which is more than you can say for me, and for the most part it’s still the same rich, dark brown it was when we first met, with just enough gray at the temples to make him look unbelievably hot in a distinguished, GQ kind of way. He still swims laps at the club three days a week while I hit the weights, and if we don’t run together anymore, at least we still walk around the neighborhood for half an hour every morning before breakfast and again after dinner as long as the light holds out and the weather cooperates.
For a guy pushing eighty, he’s pretty damned amazing. Stiff joints and an occasional respiratory infection aside, he’s healthy as a horse…now. But we’re not spring chickens anymore. Old roosters is more like it, and we don’t flap around the barnyard as fast as we used to. But we’re both still flapping, and that sure as hell beats the alternative.
I’ve got my share of battle scars and so does he, but I somehow made it to retirement without anyone bashing my head in. No one’s killed either of us off because of our career choices, though God only knows a few have tried. We did have that bad scare back when he got sick, so sick I turned the business over to Kenny and never looked back. Timmy needed my undivided attention, and I spent the next six months driving him back and forth to treatments and tests, holding him steady while he puked, and telling him how beautiful he was as often as he needed a reminder.
He’s had a clean bill of health for ten years now, and his lab work looks great, but once you’ve played Russian Roulette with mortality, you can’t shake the feeling that life’s just a little more precarious than you’d like it to be - especially when your lover’s life is the one in question.
Timmy’s studying me now, eyes the same clear, sharp, cornflower blue as they were when we first met, even if they are watching the world through trifocal lenses these days. I get the old, familiar feeling that he can see straight through this thick skull of mine and read every thought in my head. Worse, I’m pretty sure he’s gearing up to discuss every last one of them in detail.
A log shifts with a shotgun crack, sending up a shower a sparks. We both jump, then laugh at our own foolishness. Before he can say, “I’ll get it,” I’m off the couch and across the room, rearranging the stack of burning wood with the poker and tongs. I toss on a couple more logs and sit back on my haunches, trying to ignore the screams of protest from my knees as I wait for the wood to catch. Fire-tending is my job - always has been. Timmy laughs at me sometimes, says it brings out my caveman tendencies.
He may be right. I like doing all the husbandly stuff like building a fire or checking the windows and doors before bed, keeping the cave warm and secure for my mate. For decades now, he’s been taking care of me in more ways than I can count. It makes me feel good to be able to take care of him, too.
Even though he has to tease me about it once in a while, Timmy loves it, and I know he loves me for it. He’s as smart and successful and self-sufficient as they come, yet he’s secure enough and generous enough to give my hyper-active male ego room to breathe, to let me play caveman as often as I want without making a pissing contest out of it. People who don’t know him as well as I do think it means he’s soft or weak. He’s a gentle guy, all right, and as tender-hearted as they come. But weak? Not on your life. When a man as capable of taking on the world the way Timothy J. Callahan does lets a guy like me be…well…a guy like me, that sure as hell isn’t weakness. If you ask me, it’s the definition of strength.
“Are you going to spend the rest of the night over there, or do you plan to join me sometime soon?” The notes he’s hitting are light enough, but there’s an underlying tone that warns me his patience is wearing thin. Not that I can blame him. I’ve been zoning out on him ever since I shuffled through the evening papers. Everybody else on the planet gets their news from the computer, but not Timmy. We - meaning he - still subscribe to the Times Union, of course, plus The New York Times and a couple of weeklies from small towns where we have friends and family. As sensitive as he is to my moods, he couldn’t help but notice my reaction as I flipped through the Hollis Gazette.
“Be right there, sweetheart.” I get to my feet, managing not to stagger this time, and reclaim my spot on the couch, pulling him into a light embrace. He smells like sandalwood soap and martinis, plus the country vanilla candles he has burning on every flat surface in the room, with just a trace of the dry leaves we were raking before the rain set in. I nuzzle his neck, snuffling my way down to the base of his throat and tickling him enough to make him squirm as I follow the scent trail, remembering this afternoon.
The yard work degenerated into playtime pretty fast, and I’m sure the neighbors got a good laugh at the sight of the two old farts romping out by the back fence, tossing armloads of leaves at each other and rubbing them in each other’s hair. They’re all pretty much used to us, though, and I’m sure nothing we do surprises them anymore. We had our usual roll in the one pile we’d managed to rake up before the fun and games began, of course, and one thing led to another. When it started to sprinkle, we moved the festivities inside, sparing the folks next door the sight of what came after.
Timmy shivers and tugs at his old Brooks Brothers cardigan, which is the cue for me to quit clowning around and hold him tighter. Whatever Timothy wants, Timothy gets. That’s been the rule around here from day one, and I’m more than happy to abide by it.
“Talk to me, Donald. You’re thinking too much tonight, and that’s never good.”
Wind and rain beat the window pane, giving me an easy out. “It’s just this time of year, I guess.”
“But you love autumn. We both do.”
He has me there. September always comes as a relief because it finally gives us a break from the miserable summer swelter. October’s even better, with the changing leaves and thousand-and-one fall festivals Timmy drags me to - not that I take much dragging. Timmy may be in it for the arts and crafts and music and socializing, but me, I’m there for the food. Inch-and-a-half thick barbequed pork chop sandwiches, bourbon-laced fudge, sweet-potato fries, funnel cakes, caramel apples, chili by the bucketful, and monster wedges of pumpkin-pecan pie - that’s what I’m talking about. We embrace a “healthy lifestyle” the other eleven months out of the year, meaning Timothy embraces it and makes damned sure I embrace it right along with him. But in October, all bets are off. He just sips his preservative-free hot cider and smiles his indulgent Timmy smile while I pig out.
“We both love early autumn,” I tell him, “but November weather’s for shit. Clouds, rain, and it’s getting cold. Nothing but yard work to do-”
“I didn’t hear you complaining about the yard work today. You seemed unusually enthusiastic, as I recall.”
“I was enthusiastic about what came after the yard work,” I say, giving his thigh a squeeze. “Not that we got a lot of actual work done. The homeowner’s association‘s gonna slap a fine on us if we don’t get those leaves up soon.”
“We’ll work on it tomorrow if the weather clears. If not, we’ll do it the day after. The McKennitt’s lawn looks worse than ours, and Shane and Arthur are going to be completely buried if they don’t start raking soon. I don’t think anyone will be calling the yard police on us just yet. We have time.”
“Do we?” I’m suddenly having a tough time meeting his gaze. I grab my martini and stare down at it just to have something to do with my eyes. “That’s the problem with November. It’s not really fall anymore. It’s just this weird transitional period, like a sneak preview for winter, only worse, because it never quits. Every day reminds you of what’s coming, and there’s not a damned thing you can do about it. It’s all about winding down, ending.”
“My memory isn’t what it used to be, but from what I recall about this afternoon, winding down had very little to do with it.”
He still has the memory of an elephant, and we both know it. “You know what I mean. It’s goddamned depressing, if you ask me. Autumn leaves. Right. When autumn leaves, winter can’t be far behind. And then-”
“Hey.” He touches my chin, gently lifts it so I have to look at him. His eyes search mine, and I see that familiar spark of recognition when they find what they’re looking for. “I read it, too, you know.”
“Read what?”
“You know exactly what. The auction notice in the Gazette. Dorothy’s daughter held onto the farm for as long as she could, but we both know her health has been bad for years. She doesn’t have any children to look after the property, and I’m sure she can use the money. This was bound to happen sooner or later.”
“I know. It just feels like the end of-”
“An era?”
“A legacy. They fought so hard to save that farm. We all did. Now it’s gone.”
“The life they lived together is their legacy. Dorothy helped hundreds of kids in her day. Some of those kids wouldn’t be alive today if it weren’t for her. They’re her legacy. And she and Edith were a living testimonial to the solidity and staying power of same-sex marriage. They were beautiful role models during an era when young people coming to terms with who they were and how they were going to fit into the world needed role models desperately. And they were an inspiration to so many couples, us included.”
“Until Edith died. Then Dorothy wasn’t a friend to anybody, least of all herself.” Feisty, warm-hearted Dorothy, who turned bitter and mean once the love of her life was gone. She outlived Edith by a handful of years and died angry and confused in an assisted living facility near Glens Falls, where her daughter lives. A swearing, spitting, food-throwing nurse-slapper, she was the terror of the dementia wing at Crossroads Terrace. We used to drive up to see her on Sunday afternoons and sneak her martinis, but it got to the point where she obviously didn’t recognize us anymore or appreciate the company, so we gradually slowed the visits down to once every couple of months or so. Eventually, we quit going altogether. The truth is, I couldn’t take it anymore. The whole situation hit too close to home.
“She had Alzheimer’s, honey. She couldn’t help the way it affected her.”
“Bullshit,” I say, sounding every bit as bitter as Dorothy had been. “It wasn’t Alzheimer’s that made her pissed off at the world. It was losing Edith. Her life ended the minute Edith’s did, but her existence dragged on and on. It wasn’t fair.”
“No, I don’t suppose it was.”
Seconds tick by, turning into a minute or two. Timmy quietly sips his drink, waiting with the patience of a goddamned saint. He knows it takes me a while to get my thoughts together sometimes, and he’s not about to rush me. Finally, I spill it.
“Edith would’ve been ashamed of the way Dorothy acted toward the end. That’s the way it’ll be with me. If you go first, I mean. I’ll make you ashamed.”
“Edith would never have been ashamed of Dorothy any more than I could be ashamed of you. Besides, there’s no danger of that happening, you know. You’re not going to outlive me.”
“How do you know? You planning to kill me and make off with all my worldly goods?” The half-assed stab at humor falls so flat I flinch inwardly even as I say it. Maybe I flinch outwardly, too, because Timmy gently breaks the death-grip I’ve got on my glass and sets it down along with his own, then takes my hands, lacing our fingers together.
“All your worldly goods are half mine already. You won’t outlive me, honey, and I have no intention of outliving you. One night many years from now, we’re going to make love in front of the fire. The sex might tire us out just a little bit more than usual, I think, but I’ll still take the time to rinse out our martini glasses while you check the locks. Then we’ll walk up the stairs and go to bed. We’ll kiss each other goodnight and fall asleep in each other’s arm the way we have thousands of times before. Just before dawn, we’ll slip away to a place we’ve never been before, someplace so incredible we can’t even imagine it. We’ll be at peace there, and once we’ve rested, I think we might decide to start all over again.”
“Some Jesuit you turn out to be. Catholics don’t believe in reincarnation.”
“Who said anything about reincarnation? Catholics believe in heaven. For me, that’s synonymous with spending eternity will you.”
I’ve never bought into the whole religion thing, but the image definitely makes me feel better. When I close my eyes, I can almost picture it, the peaceful, sweet release of sleeping forever in Timothy’s arms. Someday. But not today.
“So you have this all planned out, do you?”
“I do,” he says with that note of finality I know all too well. If Timmy says it’s so, you better believe it’s so, and there’s no sense arguing about it.
“And when will all this happen, exactly?”
He pretends to think hard for a minute. “In 2088, I believe. I suggest we plan it for early October. That way you won’t have to worry about the homeowners association fining you posthumously for unraked November leaves.”
I have to laugh. “In ’88, huh? That’s still forty years away. We’ll be…what? About 120 by then? Pretty old to be screwing around on the living room floor, don’tcha think?”
“We’ll never be too old for that. I’ll be 120. You’ll only be 115. Honestly, Donald, it’s no wonder you can’t balance the checkbook.”
“Wise guy.” I hand him his drink and we clink glasses. I drain mine in one gulp. He takes his time finishing his, savoring every drop the way he savors every minute of every day, every new experience, every touch or kiss or shared look. The way I savor every moment I have with him.
“So, you really think we’ll still be together 40 years from now?” I ask.
“Oh, yes. We will. Whether it’s here or somewhere else, we’ll be together. And just in case you’re thinking of flirting with any wanna-be outlaw bikers in the meantime….” He kisses me, and again I smell martinis and candles and autumn leaves and Timmy. Forever Timmy. Then his hand finds my crotch and gives it a firm squeeze.
The way to a man’s heart is through his dick, even one as old and well-used as mine. Nobody knows that better than Timmy. But we had a pretty energetic session this afternoon. Between the leaf dust and the exertion, his asthma’s acting up. He’s bound to be tired - God knows I am - and in spite of a dose of allergy medicine and a hit from his inhaler, I’m still hearing a faint wheeze every now and then. I may be a caveman, but I can be a gentleman when I want to be, too.
“Sure you’re really into it after the workout I gave you this afternoon?” I ask, even though I’m pretty sure I know the answer. I’ve seen that look in his eyes before.
“Once you stop talking and get those clothes off, I’m planning on having it in you. I was thinking about another roll in the leaves, but considering the weather, I suppose this will have to do.”
In one quick move, he has me off the couch and pinned to the floor without so much as breaking a hip or cold-cocking either of us on the coffee table along the way. He takes off his glasses, folds them, and places them on Grandma Liz’s silver tray. For an instant, I see firelight in his eyes. Then he leans down to give me a thorough, no-nonsense kiss. My dick’s apparently gotten its second wind, because it rises to the occasion. The damned thing’s not spring-loaded the way it used to be, of course, but it doesn’t take a hell of a lot of coaxing, either.
Timmy rolls us over, smooth as silk, so he’s on his back and I’m straddling him with our crotches practically fused together. My knees don’t protest a bit.
Winding down, my ass. We’re just getting started.