see you at the end

Leander

Insatiable.

My tongue rolls the word around the Jolly Rancher in my mouth. It’s not such a bad word, is it? Maybe it’s all those ‘s’ sounds in it that makes it sound so risqué. A lot like sensual. Or suspense. Or sensation.

I say the word to myself a couple of times. Alex hears me and mumbles, “What?”

I glance over at him in the bed beside me. “Nothing.”

He’s on his phone. He’s been on it ever since he finished fucking me an hour ago. He stares at the screen as he says, “Webber’s texting me again.”

“That’s nice.” It’s not. I get out of bed.

“He wants me to go to his office tomorrow and get some affidavit and FedEx it to him in Virginia Beach.”

I look around for my phone and realize I left it outside by the hot tub. “You work for the dickhead. Guess you’ll have to do it.”

He grunts in response. His thumbs move over the screen of his phone as he types.

I exit his bedroom to go outside, still completely naked because my clothes are out by the hot tub too. I don’t know why I even bothered coming here tonight. The guy at the gallery has a fiancée, so I couldn’t exactly try to seduce him. So, what else was I going to do? Or, more importantly, who else was I going to do? It was a lonely ride on the Metro to Alexandria, and I could’ve just gone to my place. But instead I went to Alex’s home and started the night with him by the hot tub, moved to the sofa in his living room, and ended it in his bedroom—after about three hours and two and a half orgasms.

Two and a half for me. And three for him.

The half one was because Alex stopped blowing me right as I was starting to come. He had to answer a call from James “Jim” Webber, Virginia’s 2nd district Representative in the House. Alex put his hand over my mouth because James “Jim” Webber wouldn’t have been pleased to know that his aide was sucking my dick.

And that’s the whole fucking point of this.

I find my clothes right where I left them and my phone. I see a couple of texts and a missed call from Lionel. I don’t even bother to read the texts or listen to the voicemail, because my shithead brother can go to hell.

I put my underwear and pants back on. I open the Uber app and consider just calling it a night. I don’t have to stay here, but it’s after two in the morning. I’d probably have to wait a while for a ride. I sigh and put my phone in my pocket.

I really wish I’d thought to ask Gallery Guy his name, but he sort of threw me off standing there, looking as if he might drive the wife and kids to Cracker Barrel—with toilet paper all over his shoes. I grin to myself.

Usually, I just wander around those events and people watch, preferring to keep a low profile because there’s always the possibility someone is going to recognize me. Gallery Guy didn’t seem to. He could’ve been pretending, I guess. Either way, it’s too bad he’s taken and it’s too bad I’ll most likely never see him again. I got this vibe—and it could have just been my imagination—that he would’ve gone out for a drink with me if I’d asked.

And maybe back to my place.

Why do I always want what I can’t have?

I drag myself back up to Alex’s bedroom with my stuff.

He makes a quick glance at me then back to his phone. “If I go into DC tomorrow, would you want to come with me?”

I throw all my shit in a chair and sit down on his bed. “I don’t know.”

I feel Alex moving behind me, and then his scratchy beard on my shoulder. “The building’s pretty quiet on Saturdays.”

“I’m not fucking you in Webber’s office. He’s got guns and a creepy deer head in there.”

“I didn’t mean his office. I meant mine.” He moves his face into my field of vision, frowning. “How do you know what’s in Webber’s office?”

“I went in there once. With my dad.” I turn away from him. “You know you’re basically writing the script for a political scandal, right?”

He seems to consider that, and I do too. With a little smile on my face. Oh, how the dominoes would fall. The first one being James “Jim” Webber. His constituents in the 2nd District would be appalled that old Jim has a gay man on his staff. A gay man fucking the twenty-year-old son of Jim’s old college buddy, Senator Craig Garrison, who, just like him, loves guns and hates gays.

Those two things are usually the subject of arguments between my dad and the other Virginia Senator, Kristi Avenham. She’s a plucky Millennial liberal and the perfect antithesis to my dad’s frowny-face conservative Boomer. It’s a match made in Internet Meme heaven. They argue all the time and the second Kristi brings up anything L, G, B, or T in front of him he goes from Our Freedom Craig to But Not Your Freedom Craig in about two seconds.

So as that domino fell, it would be a moment ripe for hot takes, a moment of reckoning, a moment when people discovered that Senator Garrison’s own son is gay.

Gasp.

People would be confused at first, though. They’d say, but I thought Senator Garrison’s son was some kind of junkie? Didn’t he get arrested a few months ago for purse snatching? But somebody—maybe CNN or Fox or ABC or anyone else in the alphabet—would discover that Senator Garrison has two sons. My literal existence would make the news. And then some people would lament about how unfair that is. What a shame. One son an addict. And the other gay. What a terrible shame. And, honestly, it would probably work in my dad’s favor. He’d just get elected again. People feeling sorry for him and all, having two defective sons, and he’d have to say something about me. Something. I don’t know what, but I do know that I would be used to get votes, that’s for certain.

Alex’s hypocrisy would be aired out, and he’d be banished from the nation’s capitol only to write a tell-all book a year later. He’d be interviewed by the daytime talk show hosts and make guest appearances on podcasts. And me? I’d be a featured extra in his book, a blip on the screen, a plot device. He might mention me by name or he might not, I don’t know all the legal shit, but in all that mess of fallen dominoes, nothing much would change for me. I frown, the fantasy going a way I hadn’t thought of. How disappointing. I’d play a bit part in other people’s stories. I’d be a stepping stone, a paragraph, an example.

Now I’m pissed at Alex over this hypothetical reality. “Move.” I push him aside so I can lie down.

“I’m not going to fuck you all over Webber’s guns and deer heads, Leander. I just wanted some company.”

“I don’t want to be your company.” I get under the covers.

I should just leave and not say goodbye. Alex might be bothered by that for a couple of days, but he’d be banging some other politician’s son real quick, and I would too. So, why in the fuck am I doing this again?

I’d heard a rumor about Alex. That’s how this started. It was just last year. It was fall, or close to fall, and someone said it in passing, not directly to me, it was just stated that one day they’d seen Webber’s aide with a guy and it seemed odd, whatever they were doing; it looked suspicious. Then one evening, during a party my dad was throwing for some donors, I was introduced to Webber’s aide and I knew then that it was one hundred percent odd and one hundred percent suspicious.

Alex ogled me all night. Long stares from across the room that I returned until I casually excused myself outside. At first, I wasn’t going to do it. I was going to lie to him if he approached me and say I hadn’t been giving off any signals. I’m not gay. But then somebody brought up my older brother, Lionel, and both my parents turned into heartbroken martyrs, suffering through the selfish addiction of their most cherished boy. The one they put in dad’s campaign ads when Lionel and I were little because I was too camera shy. The one who would surely follow in dad’s footsteps and get his law degree from the University of Virginia or William & Mary, because I’m dyslexic and it takes me forever to read a fucking menu.

But, you see, it’s not my heartbroken martyr parents Lionel texts or calls.

It’s me.

His fallen-short, misfit brother.

So, I don’t know. Call it revenge maybe. A recklessness I’ve come to embrace. Call it outright jealousy. Whatever it was that night, when Alex came outside and found me leaning up against one of the massive oaks beside my parent’s brick colonial, when he saw me standing there in a dark and shady place with zero foot traffic from the party, when he came over to me, his smile self-assured and expectant, I decided I was going to do it.

Alex actually got on his knees first. I’d been sucked off exactly three times before that night. All three times by the same guy. Alex was better. I came hard and had to stuff my tie in my mouth to muffle my cry.

And then it just kept happening. I guess you could say we’re both lonely.

Just not the same species of lonely.

Alex touches my shoulder, turning me toward him in the bed, examining me with amusement.

“Stop fucking looking at me like that,” I growl at him.

He smiles and makes his way down my body, wrapping his hot mouth around my dick.

Right before I come, I tell him through gritted teeth that fine. Fine. I’ll keep him company tomorrow.

***

I get ready to leave Alex’s house on Sunday night.

When I get on my phone for an Uber, I notice another text from Lionel that I ignore, and Alex comes downstairs, fresh from a shower with his brown-gray beard trimmed.

“I’m going to go wait at the end of the driveway,” I tell him.

“I can take you home,” he offers.

“No thanks.”

He stands in front of me before I go out the door. His gray sweatpants are cuffed at the ankles. He slides his hands in the pockets. His chest is bare, the hair curly and still damp from his shower. He’s not bad-looking. I like his chocolatey-chip eyes and the hard chest he’s let soften the past couple of months. I like his dick. I don’t like the patronizing way he speaks to me, though. Or the smug way he’s looking at me right now.

“Will I see you this week?” He says.

“I don’t know.” I look to my right, pretending to be interested in a commercial on the muted TV.

His smug look doesn’t budge. “All right. Have a good week then. You’ve got a class tomorrow, don’t you?”

“Yep.” I pull a hoodie over my head. “See ya.”

I can feel Alex’s eyes on my ass as I walk out the door. He’s smug because it was his all weekend long, and I’m sore because of him. I don’t care about him. There’s no emotional connection, no deep fondness for each other. There’s none of that. But there’s often this sensation while I’m leaving, this sensation like I’m all wound up, yarn ball-tight, something gnawing at me, a skin-deep itch that just sinks deeper each time I reach for it.

I take the Uber to Seminary Hill. It pulls up in front of a stone building with white trim that houses an art supply shop. I punch my code into a keypad and go inside. I walk up a set of stairs and get out my key to unlock the door. I turn on the florescent lighting and it makes me squint. In one corner is an easel with an almost-blank canvas set on it. In another is a futon, folded out flat with blankets and a pillow all askew. In another, near the big front window, is a bean bag chair with my sketch book laying on it.

I toss my bag down on the floor of my place.

It’s an art studio I’ve been renting for the past year or so…and that I’m also sort of living in.

I’m pretty sure by doing so, I’m violating all kinds of lease agreements and building codes because that’s not what this space is for. But I just sort of started staying here. Right around the the time Lionel was last arrested. Ever since his mugshots started showing up in the news, I started avoiding home. On occasion, I notice suspicious cars following me. I wouldn’t say that Lionel and I look that much alike, but you can tell we’re brothers.

Neither of my parents have paid much attention to me ever since Lionel started having all his issues. The only exception being my dad pressuring me to take classes somewhere, so it doesn’t look like I’m headed to complete Loserville to the media or his voters. He’s not exactly thrilled that I want to be an artist. But I’m way too stupid to get a law degree like him.

As I turn to close the door, I notice a piece of paper on the floor. It’s folded and must have been stuck in between the door and frame. I pick it up. It takes me longer than usual to read it because the handwriting is so bad.

I’VE BEEN WATCHING AND WAITING.

I roll my eyes. This is so almost transparently from Lionel. His handwriting has gotten shakier over the years, I guess from all the drugs, but he’s been doing weird shit like this lately to get my attention. Whenever I ignore texts or don’t answer calls, he leaves notes. I’m still not exactly sure how he found out I was staying here, though. It’s possible I told him and just forgot.

It’s also possible that he’s been following me around.

I almost want to laugh at how pathetic this is. I guess Lionel’s always been that way, though. He liked getting attention when we were growing up. And the big difference between us is that I didn’t. At least not the kind of attention Lionel got, which was hyperfocus from mom and dad, critiquing him on everything from his grades to the cleanliness of his room. I guess with my learning disability and second-born-son status, my parents weren’t nearly as concerned so I didn’t get the same kind of treatment. Maybe mom and dad figured I was a lost cause. Who knows.

But the kind of attention that I want exists in the half-finished/half-started paintings stacked in the corner of my tiny studio. My latest sits on an easel by the lone window that overlooks the back parking lot. It’s not done. In fact, I’ve hardly started it, and it taunts me as I crash on the futon.

I’m in that place situated right in between restless and too tired to give a fuck. Indecision settles over me as I try to arrange a to do list in my head.

But my phone chimes and interrupts me.

Yo, are you home?

“For fuck’s sakes,” I mutter when I see it’s Lionel.

I should just delete his number and block him. Both mom and dad did. They’d tried to help him, one final time, earlier this year when he was arrested. He was lurking in Brentwood, stealing purses out of women’s cars. The deal was supposed to be that he would avoid fines and jail time if he went to rehab. So Lionel went to rehab. He stayed for all of thirty six hours. When the director called my parents to tell them Lionel had voluntarily checked out, they decided cutting him off would be for the best. They couldn’t keep bailing him out and being hurt when he didn’t follow through. Enough is enough. So, they made that tough decision and now they soak up the hugs and sympathy anytime Lionel is brought up.

It’s not that I don’t think they’re really upset over him, they are, but it angers me that they’ve used him to bolster sympathy for my dad. He doesn’t have as many fans as he used to. Virginia is a purple state, but the tides are turning. More Kristi Avenhams are popping up all over the Commonwealth, ready to challenge my old school dad, even from within his own party. But Senator Craig Garrison and former Miss Virginia, Melissa Page Garrison, have generously donated to addiction treatment centers all over the state and voiced their deep concerns over substance abuse to the media. They’re not completely transparent, they keep some things private, but everyone knows the trouble they’ve had with my brother. And they keep voting, because Senator Craig Garrison has understanding and compassion.

And he approves this message.

I startle when my phone vibrates and there’s a call coming in. It’s an unfamiliar number, but I know it’s Lionel. I look over at the note from my door. Watching and waiting. Sure, Lionel.

I’m ready to tap on ignore. I’ve got my finger poised right over the button. All these calls and texts are for the same goal. He’s going to want the same thing he always does. I know this. I know it upside down and sideways, but I still answer the call with, “What do you want, asshole?”

“Jesus, Lee.” His voice sounds prickly, like he just woke up. “Hello to you too.”

“What the fuck do you want?” I repeat.

I hear someone in the background. Probably Desi or Nell, the junkie couple he’s been living with for the past few months—aka his enablers.

The background noise fades like he’s going into another room. “Are you home?”

“No. Why?”

“I need money.”

“No.”

“C’mon. A hundred bucks?”

“Are you fucking kidding me?”

“Dammit, Lee. I need to pay Desi some rent. It’s not for what you think.”

“Liar.”

I end the call and turn my phone off.

I don’t know why I do this. He’s an addict and he doesn’t want to change. He’s been to a treatment center at least six times in the last four years, and he never stays. He would quite literally rather live in squalor with Desi and Nell and owe rent apparently when, if he just got clean, he would be welcomed back into my parent’s house like a long lost Prince. They’d probably get him a fucking crown and everything. I don’t get it. I’ve tried to. He’s a selfish asshole now. He’s a user of substances and of people. He’s a liar and a thief.

But he’s also my brother.

I sit on the edge of the futon, tossing my phone onto the blankets, and dig my fingers into my hair. He’s my brother. What the fuck am I supposed to do? We fought and argued like any two brothers would growing up. He picked on me, I tagged along. He play-wrestled me in the backyard, and I took his things without asking. But he looked out for me. He did do that. He punched a friend of his in the face for making fun of me once. And he yanked me out of the street when I nearly walked in front of a bus. And when I asked him one day, when I was fourteen and he was seventeen, when we were in the yard during a family cookout laying under a big oak, when I was fourteen and still figuring out why I liked looking at Zach Effron so much, when Lionel was still himself and hadn’t busted his knee playing soccer yet, I asked my big brother, what if I was gay?

I just sort of blurted it out. Quiet enough to where no one could hear but him. He didn’t say anything for a minute, and I was ready to retract my statement. But then he looked at me and he said, “If you are, that’s cool. If you’re not, that’s cool too.” Then he’d paused, looking back up through the oak leaves. “We’ll always be brothers either way, Lee. Nothing changes that.”

And if that’s true then addictions wouldn’t change that either.

I tug at my hair. I fucking hate this.

And, you know, I was happy to let Lionel have the spotlight, happy to walk behind him, happy to admire him the way everyone else did. Lionel really had it made. He really did. And he was supposed to keep looking out for me, but it’s all switched around now, and I’m not cut out for this role. Some days I feel like I’m too young for this. Other days I feel like I’m too old.

So, what the fuck am I supposed to do?

***

I get off the Metro near Brentwood.

I walk the three blocks to the duplex. I would have gotten an Uber, but I don’t want to summon someone else into this area this time of night. I keep an awareness of my surroundings as I walk, and grip the knife in the front pocket of my hoodie.

The cluster of duplexes my brother lives in looks as if they were built in the 1900s and never kept up with again. And there’s always this lingering scent of like something burning on a stovetop mixed with hot rubber. A patch of the sidewalk is missing, and I trip over it as I approach number 114. I get out my phone, send him a text, and put it back in my front pocket. After about a minute, the door to the duplex opens, cautiously, and I see Lionel, bleary-eyed and frowning, wearing a shirt with a big hole torn under the collar.

He looks around, like I might have brought the cops with me, and gestures for me to come inside.

“I’m not going in.” I say firmly.

I’m standing at the bottom of some concrete steps, and behind him there’s about five people crowded around a coffee table. Something’s getting passed around as puffs of smoke go up in the air. Nell is sitting at the end closest to the door. I see her turn her pockmarked face to my brother, before her red unfocused eyes unfocus on me.

Lionel shuts the door. He comes down the steps, hands in the pockets of jeans that are way, way too big for him. When he gets near one of the streetlights, I see his face is greasy-looking and pale.

He rubs at his nose. “Did you, uh, come on the Metro?”

“How the fuck else would I get here?” I snap.

He winces, crosses his arms. Each time I see him he’s got new marks on his face and arms. Last time, he had a banana-shaped bruise on his left cheek, a cut just below his hairline, and scrapes all over his knuckles and elbows. Tonight, I see most of that is gone, but he has a scabbed-over gash sliced diagonally on his left forearm. And there’s what looks like sores or blisters all over his chin.

I shake my head, close my eyes for a second, and soften my tone. “What are you doing here, Lionel?”

It’s a rhetorical question, but he scratches at one of the blisters and answers it. “Minding my own business.”

You can look at him and tell he used to be better than this. The traits of growing up privileged still linger. He still has all his teeth for one thing. And even though he’s gotten far too skinny you can still make out the build of someone who was athletic. With my mother’s beauty queen bone structure and dad’s thick brows, Lionel is handsome. The combination suits him; a lucky genetic arrangement that didn’t necessarily get passed down to me. He wouldn’t have to try so hard if he didn’t want to. He could get on Instagram and smile and maybe after lifting some weights, flex a few times, and the fucking asshole would be drowning in followers and pussy. And what is he doing? He’s fucking standing here.

“You make it my business when you call me,” I growl.

He uncrosses his arms. “Fine, then.” He rubs at his nose again. “So, uh, how much did you get?”

I counted out exactly $77.53 in my wallet. If I sell my painting and start selling more of them, I’ll have more money but I won’t hand it to him in front of a shithole duplex in the middle of the night. I’ll hand it to the best treatment center I can find and make the fuck sure he stays.

“Tell me what it’s really for,” I say.

He rolls his eyes. “What I said. I gotta give Desi some rent.”

“Quit fucking lying to me,” I say. “What’s it for, Lionel?”

The door to the duplex opens and Nell’s standing there in Garfield pajama pants and a sweatshirt that’s inside out. She stands in the doorway, leaning, holding I’m assuming a cigarette. I’m not sure how old she is. Or Desi. They’re definitely older than my brother. Maybe late twenties, early thirties. I don’t know how he met them or if either of them do anything other than drugs. They are the last people on earth he needs around him.

She’s watching us. Lionel turns around to look at her.

“It’s, um, it’s for the rent, man,” he says, turning back to me. “Just the rent.”

It is a bold-faced lie and he’s not going to admit it. I just want to know what all he’s using. He started with pills, and maybe if I knew, I could find a good place for him. They’d know how to handle him, they’d know how to get him to stay. But Nell watching us makes me uneasy, so I don’t press him anymore.

“Okay, then,” I say. “The rent.”

Nell turns around in the doorway to talk to someone inside. I quickly take the cash from my pocket and hand it to him.

He palms it, looking down, a brief look of shame crossing his features. “Thanks.” He rubs at his nose again, still looking at his bare feet. “I owe you one, bro.”

“I’d say you owe me a lot more than just one.”

I turn from him before he can answer, and quickly walk back to the Metro Station.