Sorry for the delay in updating this - I've had the final up on AO3 for a while now, but the lack of activity on this site caused me to overlook putting the conclusion up on FFN. Then this morning I got a nice note from TEP Redux, which kindly nudged me to follow through on posting this. Sorry for the delay. And, thanks to the Professor for the reminder - I'll reply ASAP; this semester has been devastating, in terms of work.

Enjoy.


One day in March Craig found himself boarding an airplane. The remarkable thing was, he had no sense of how he'd ended up there in the grand scheme of things. It had been a long time since he'd taken a vacation, but the premise of visiting Clyde's father in Phoenix did not feel terribly like a holiday. It was to be a short flight and a short stay, three days and four nights, which Craig feared wouldn't be quite enough time to enjoy the desert.

"You misunderstand," Clyde had said as they were booking the tickets. "There's nothing to enjoy there."

"There's Taliesin," said Craig.

"What?"

"Taliesin," said Craig. "And there's the Biltmore."

"The what?"

"It's a resort hotel," said Craig. "A famous one."

"Well, I don't know what that is," said Clyde, and as a result their plans included three nights with Clyde's father and one at the Arizona Biltmore.

It had been a long time since Craig had been on a plane, and he politely requested the window seat so he could get a good view. This left Clyde stuffed into the middle seat, his girth threatening to encroach upon the personal space of the white-haired older woman on the aisle of their row. Before takeoff Clyde began to sweat, fanning himself with the seatback safety card. During the drink service he bought himself a bottled margarita the color of a tennis ball. He offered to buy one for Craig as well, and Craig declined.

"I wouldn't like to drink on a plane," Craig said. "Plus, it's a very short flight." He did not mention his disdain of imitation margaritas, their florescence the benefit of corn syrup and yellow dye. Clyde drank one nervously, then he called the stewardess for a second, which he chugged as the pilot announced that the plane had begun its descent into Phoenix Sky Harbor. "Is it too late for another?" Clyde asked, adjusting his tray table back into the seat in front of him.

Craig peeled his eyes from the window; the cul-de-sacs that littered the terrain were a disappointment to him anyhow. "Look, you don't need to be nervous. I know your dad."

"If anything that makes me nervous," Clyde said. He dismissed himself from driving the rental car, claiming he was too drunk. So Craig got behind the wheel and suffered the joy of evening traffic in metropolitan Phoenix, Clyde muttering directions over the roar of the wind cloaking their convertible. It was only fitting for a warm-weather vacation, Craig had argued, meaning to make the most of this. Then, of course, they arrived at Clyde's father's condo.

It was a two-bedroom walk-up in a massive adobe building. In some sense the place reflected Craig's imaginary picture of desert cliff-dwellings, but in practice everything about residential Arizona felt cheap. The kidney-shaped pool in the center of the complex was studded with plastic lounge chairs, the gates hung with a sign that forbade children under the age of 17 unsupervised. "What kind of high schooler wants to be supervised at a pool?" Craig asked. His overnight bag was hung over his shoulder. Clyde was sweating buckets next to him, though in the twilight the temperature was mild, hovering near 70. It would be hotter tomorrow,

"It's for insurance reasons, obviously," Clyde said.

"Do you not have a key?" Craig asked.

"Why would I have a key?"

"I have a key to my parents' house."

"I don't live here," said Clyde. "I never did."

"Why should that matter?"

"I don't think my father even wants me here," Clyde said, predictably as his father actually opened the door. Clyde blushed, his face red. He sputtered, "Hi, Dad."

Clyde's father did, in fact, appear happy to see him, offering them drinks immediately. He insisted on carrying their bags to the guest room, which was done up in happy sky-blue paint, offensive Navajo rugs hung over each bed. Twin beds. "I'm sorry about the beds," said Mr. Donovan, who sat on one and sighed. He removed and breathed on his glasses, wiping them on his shirt. "It just seemed more practical at the time. For the children."

"That's okay," said Craig. "I really don't mind." As soon as he said this he worried that perhaps it was incorrect to assume anyone cared if he minded. Here was a man whose life's work, the soft science of geology, had become subsumed by selling shoes to rednecks in an uninspiring cow town. Then his wife had died. Then he'd retired to Phoenix. What did he care about Craig's vacation plans for butt sex? Besides, the apartment was too small to really get up to anything. This room shared a wall with the master.

There was a small balcony off the eat-in kitchen, and Clyde plopped in a plastic chair heavily and fanned himself with an errant Christmas card while Mr. Donovan got them up to speed. "You don't have to see Sally if you don't want to," he was saying, "but she's very nice, Clyde. She really likes you."

"Well, I don't like her," Clyde said, as if he were 8. Craig was instantly embarrassed for both of them.

"Well, her grandchildren are staying," Mr. Donovan explained, "and I felt it might be fun if we were all to have dinner. She's an excellent cook, Clyde." The unsaid thing hovered in the air: Like your mother. It made Craig wish he'd taken Clyde's dad up on that drink.

"I don't care, Dad. You can't buy me with food." Yet talk quickly turned to the topic of dinner.

To Craig's great dismay, Mr. Donovan asked him what he wanted. "I have no opinions," said Craig. "I am merely an interloper."

"Aw, that's not true," said Clyde's dad. "You're our guest. Right, Clyde? What do you want for dinner?"

"I have honestly no idea, and no preference," Craig insisted.

"He's just going to be like that," said Clyde. "Just take us somewhere you couldn't find in South Park."

They ended up at a "Southwestern" restaurant, a combination of Latin cooking and what Craig could only understand to be nouvelle 80s California cuisine. The place was full of businesspeople grazing on bowls of tortilla soup and baffling flatbread variations. As a table they split one smeared with black beans, Chihuahua cheese, and avocado slices fanned out in inelegant fingers of variegated green. It came with a caramelized Vidalia onion marmalade, which Clyde insisted the server hold. Craig would have insisted, but Vidalia onions were not in season, and he did not like to think of them shipped to Phoenix all the way from coastal Georgia.

There was relatively little speaking between the three of them until Clyde's father crawled out of whatever guilty funk Clyde had induced in him and asked, "So, Craig, how are you?"

Shocked to be the subject of an inquiry, Craig said, "I'm well." Then he stared at the leftover section of flatbread on his plate until he realized a follow-up was warranted. "I don't know what Clyde told you," he said.

"I didn't tell him anything." Clyde's nose was stuck in the wine menu. He was not looking at his father. "I just said I was seeing you and you were coming with."

This was absolutely no help, yet Craig could not fathom that getting pissed at Clyde at dinner would be much help, either. "Well, I'm an interior designer," he said. "I furnish and paint people's houses."

"You paint people's houses?"

"No, I don't paint people's houses. I hire people to paint them. I tell them what colors to use."

"Oh."

Now Craig could only stare at Clyde, truly hoping he would ass himself to help out with this.

"You get a lot of business up in South Park?"

"Most of my clients come from Denver."

"I see."

More silence.

"I have a pretty nice condo."

"Oh, yeah?"

"Yes. It is pretty nice."

"Well, that's good to hear. A man's lifeblood is his home. You know, the Dutch have this concept, gezelligheid. It's about a feeling, you know, having a real sense of comfort in one's own home. Betsy and I always felt that was important, you know. We tried to instill a sense of that in Clyde. Isn't that right, Clyde?"

Clyde peered over the top of the wine list, which he lowered, slowly. "I'm going to order a bottle of wine," he said.

"Sure, son." Mr. Donovan reached over and awkwardly patted Clyde's shoulder. "You order whatever you like. It's my treat."

Clyde then took this as license to really go to town, ordering the most expensive bottle of wine on the menu.

On the drive home Clyde's father, in the passenger seat next to Craig, took it upon himself to point out all the dorky landmarks of his small life in Phoenix. "That's a good buffet on Easter," he said, pointing to one place. "If you ever came down for Easter, Clyde, we could get the buffet. They have a nice Christmas buffet, too, but it's too swamped. Too many children. I would consider bringing the children if they came down next year. If you came down you could come, too."

"I'm not coming to Phoenix for Easter," said Clyde, "I don't celebrate Easter. I'm not coming back next month."

"There's the movie theater I like, with the discount before noon on Sundays. Some people think it's not worth it to see a movie before noon on Sunday, but I like to think those people just don't know what's a good value."

"That sounds like a good value," said Craig. He was trying to help keep this from turning horrible quickly.

"It's five bucks to see a movie and that's fine by me," said Mr. Donovan. "You could see 50 movies for the price of that bottle of wine." Apparently this was a joke, and he laughed to himself. "Do you remember when you were a boy, Clyde, and your mother and I used to take you to movies?"

"I remember having to go to the doctor and have my colostomy irrigated."

"Oh. Well, I suppose we did that too," said Mr. Donovan. The rest of the car ride was silent.

Though it was only 9:30, Clyde's father went to bed immediately, excusing himself by way of, "I suppose you boys don't want an old fuddy-duddy like me cramping your style."

"Not really," said Clyde.

"Thank you for dinner," said Craig. He was sure he should offer some additional praise, though the meal itself hadn't been that great. He forced himself to say, "It was delicious." The wine at least had been quality.

"It's my pleasure," said Clyde's father. "Any time, it's my pleasure." He shook Craig's hand and kissed Clyde on the forehead, saying, "Good night, Clyde." Then he disappeared into the bedroom, not to be seen again until 8 the next morning, when he woke them up banging around, making toast.

In the interim Clyde and Craig sat on the balcony, drinking some low-calorie lemonade they'd found in the fridge mixed with vodka from the one cabinet into which Mr. Donovan had shoved all of his food and drink.

"Okay," said Craig, when the lights in the apartment across the way had gone out. It felt safe to speak, finally. "I know you feel like your family situation is fucked-up, but you are acting like a little bitch and it's very annoying."

"I'm not acting like a bitch," said Clyde. "My dad is an asshole."

"No he's not. My dad is an asshole. He does things like flip off check out girls and budge children in line and tells my mother to shut up when he doesn't like what she's saying. But I get along with him just fine. Your dad on the other hand is a slightly pathetic soft-spoken erudite weirdo." Craig took a sip of his drink and swallowed it. "He clearly loves you."

"He brought up my mother at dinner," said Clyde.

"She was your mother. He was married to her for like 30 years."

"So?"

"So he obviously wants to talk about her. That doesn't make your dad an asshole."

"Yes it does, because it's like he's teasing me!"

"He's not teasing you," said Craig. "It is very obvious that he is not teasing you."

"He thinks it's weird that I'm gay, and now he knows and it's going to be weird. Did you see the beds?"

"Have the beds always been like that?"

"Well, yes—"

"He doesn't give a shit if you're gay. You can be gay until the cows come home and he won't give a shit. He's just an awkward weirdo."

"You don't get it!"

"Thank god. Who wants to 'get' someone else's family situation? Not me."

Clyde pouted his way through a second drink, until little stars were fully visible in the night sky. "It would be lovely to think of someone looking down on me, making sure I'm okay," Clyde said. "Do you think that's true?"

"No. But I think there are people here on earth who care about you." Craig stood and sat down again on Clyde's lap. He wrapped his arms around Clyde's shoulders and rested his head against Clyde's.

"Aw." Clyde grabbed Craig's ass through his jeans and said, "Hey."

"Shhh. Clyde, don't ruin it."

Then Clyde was very silent, and Craig sat on his lap for a while looking up at the stars.

When they went to bed Clyde attempted to climb into Craig's narrow twin bed. Naturally this didn't work; Clyde was too fat and the bed was not sturdy, just a wan mattress on a flimsy mattress-store frame. Craig was then grateful for their hotel reservation, and once he fell asleep he dreamt of nothing at all.

They spent the next day at the pool under a wide umbrella. It was quiet and relaxed, no children in sight, possibly because they were in school. Craig slathered sunscreen everywhere, asking Clyde to help him cover his back; Clyde's stomach pressed against Craig's air-conditioned skin, his erection into the elastic of Craig's suit. Sure enough this made Craig hard, and with a sigh he asked Clyde for an overlarge shirt to drape over his dick. The sticky sunscreen and perspiration mingling on Craig's thighs caused him to stick to the lounge chair, but the breeze and the gurgling pool filter were relaxing.

"I love this soulless place," Craig said. "It's confabulous and deplorable. I could never live here. But, I could visit."

"I don't know what that means," said Clyde. He was reading USA Today and drinking lemonade out of a sippy-cup.

"It means there's something awful about this place that is appealing in small doses."

"I mean 'confabulous.' "

"Oh. Just. Humans aren't really supposed to live here like this in the desert. So everything feels inorganic. From a design standpoint, it's fascinating."

"Jeez, that's gay." Clyde went back to his paper.

Mr. Donovan brought them ham sandwiches on white bread for lunch. He sat on a lounge chair of his own, loafers planted on the concrete, his khaki cuffs a little too long to fit in, not to mention the sweater vest.

"Thank you for the sandwich," Craig said. He took a bite of it and chewed slowly. It was not a great sandwich, or even a very good one.

"It's my pleasure." Though Clyde's father was not fat he did have a certain slackness to him that echoed the softness of Clyde in the most general way. They had the same befuddled look, the same sadness in their wan smiles. Yet Mr. Donovan had worn a sweater vest to bring his adult son a poolside ham sandwich on white bread, which really just said everything. He got up with a sigh and put it down. "If you need anything, Clyde, you come tell me." He then left, the soles of his loafers scuffling against the concrete, a soft rhythm that receded eventually. The gate to the pool creaked as it swung open and clattered shut again.

"Should we actually go swimming?" Craig asked. He was not much invested in finishing his lunch, though out of politeness he had eaten two triangular quarters and set the rest aside.

"You're supposed to wait half an hour after you eat."

"Clyde, that's not a real thing."

"Well, I'll play it safe."

Craig used this time to reapply sunscreen. When he did wade into the pool he found it very shallow and underwhelming, the water heated and chlorinated to the point of inauthenticity. But what had he expected? Clyde got into the pool, too, his swim trunks billowing out as he tiptoed to Craig's side. "This isn't so bad," Craig said.

Without notice Craig was soaked, pool water dripping from his face, its chemical scent bothersome. "Oh," he said, "you didn't," launching himself at Clyde.

Giggling, Clyde dropped below the surface of the water; it was surprisingly graceful. He swooped underneath Craig's feet and lifted him, leaving Craig to command, "Put me down, don't you dare."

"What are you gonna give me if I do?" Clyde asked.

"Maybe I won't drown you."

Craig was floating, Clyde's loose grip under his shoulders and back, legs bobbing free in the current of the pool filters.

"That's not good enough," said Clyde. "I want a pool blow job."

"Well, sorry, but in your dad's complex's pool, that's just weird. I don't feel comfortable doing that."

"But, Craig." Clyde's voice was sodden and heavy as he attempted to rub his hard dick against Craig's ass. "Come on."

"Forget it. That's just weird. I'm not doing that."

"Fine!" Clyde let go, stepping back. Craig felt a definite drop as he sunk partway into the pool, enough to swallow a mouthful of water and snort some up his nose. He struggled to his feet, shaking water from his hair. His sinuses were burning.

Clyde stood gaping with his hands at his mouth. "I'm sorry!" he said. "Shit, man, I'm sorry."

"Whatever." Craig plied the wet bangs from his eyes and sputtered on the taste of chlorine. He walked gingerly toward Clyde, the water skirting the width of his waist as he moved. "It's fine. No, it is. Don't worry."

"Are you choking? Is it ruined?"

"I'm not choking," said Craig. "Nothing's ruined." He reached for the nape of Clyde's neck, playing with the fringes of Clyde's damp brown hair. "Let's just enjoy this."

"What if I hurt you?"

"How could you possibly hurt me?"

"I don't know, just, I let go—"

"Clyde, I'm fine." Craig withdrew his hand. "Honest."

"But anything could have happened."

"Well, not really."

"Craig." Clyde was clearly on the verge of tears.

He put his hands on Clyde's shoulders, sighing. "Nothing happened," he said. "See? I'm right here. Don't cry about it. It's okay." Craig wiped tears from Clyde's eyes, then tasted them on his fingers. "It's okay," he repeated again and again, until Clyde echoed with an "Okay" of his own.

"We're safe, no worries."

"I want you to move in with me."

Craig sucked his breath in. "Definitely no."

"Why not?"

The sun was beating down, the condo association pool-cleaning machine churning along the bottom of the deep end of the pool. Craig felt its vibrating path in the water, from where he stood with the shallow chlorinated water lapping at his hip bones.

"Because we've been going out for like, five weeks."

"It's been quite a while. Way more than five weeks."

"That's an absurd idea. I'm not moving into your dead mother's house, Clyde. Forget it."

"Okay."

"Are you pissed at me?"

"For not wanting to move into my dead mother's house? I dunno. I'm getting out of the pool." Dripping, he lumbered up the steps to the pool deck, leaving a wet trail back to their lounge chairs. Craig swam a lap or two, thinking hard. What the fuck was that? By the time he was done, no more than 10 minutes later, Clyde had already gone back up to the house. He showered for some time, leaving Craig to sit on the deck as he dried, reading a biography of Adolf Loos. By the time Craig was out of the shower, Clyde was back to his normally cheerful self, which had been bratty and petulant the entire trip. Craig hoped this negative energy could be channeled into sex, though he was aware that wouldn't happen until the night after next.

Roger Donovan made French bread pizzas, alongside a salad of wilted butter lettuce, blocky stunted chopped carrots, and leftover shredded Italian cheese blend. He dressed it with Wish-Bone ranch dressing, which Clyde ate up with a spoon. They all sat on the sofa in front of the television, dishes precarious on their thighs, and watched broadcast procedurals. There was nothing inherently wrong with it, and yet there was a pronounced single-father permissive desperation to the evening. Craig imagined Betsy never would have tolerated it. Of course, he'd never really known her. What did he know? Serving her damn kid buttered bread for breakfast every day. He never would have figured, running through Clyde's living room and kitchen to reach the backyard. Craig thought, briefly, of the time he pledged his fealty to Clyde, who'd styled himself in some game of vengeful make-believe a haughty, evil lord. Maybe that was after she'd died. Who could remember?

The next day they had brunch at a Denver brunch place Craig despised which had apparently opened an outpost in Phoenix. Clyde had some kind of benedict with cheesy hollandaise and insisted that Craig share an order of pineapple pancakes. With the promise of Taliesin looming Craig was agreeable and shared the pancakes, though he concentrated mostly on his eggs. They were scrambled, both of them, and were served with four halves of buttered rye toast and bacon.

"Why did you order something so boring?" Clyde asked, his mouth full of pineapple. "You always get something weird."

"The things I eat are not weird. But I don't like this place, so I have to assume this meal is the easiest thing for them to cook well, or rather, the most difficult thing for them to fuck up." Out of the corner of his eye Craig noticed, despite his interest in methodically spreading raspberry preserves onto his toast, that Clyde was eating the butter off of his portion of pineapple pancakes.

"Fair enough. I think it's delicious."

"Sure, what's not delicious about butter?" Craig then mainlined his coffee, which was satisfying at the time but led to the duration of the meal spent trying to make eye contact with the waitress. He gave her a good tip anyway, because he figured her life sucked enough as it was, and what could he possibly teach her about service in such a hollow and petty gesture? He did, however, demand a cup for the road.

Clyde balked at the two tickets Craig bought for the 90-minute tour. It was hot and he was so sweaty he was practically melting. Craig made him apply some sunscreen while they hung back in the shade before the tour began. Without getting a chance to walk into the sun, Clyde sweated it off.

"I'm no good at heat," he moaned, "and I don't like walking."

"Just come see this place with me." Craig was sipping the end of his coffee to-go; it was now cold, despite the heat. "I already paid for two tickets."

"I'll pay you back."

"Oh, the money doesn't matter." Craig paused to toss out his coffee cup. "I really want you to see this."

"Why? It's just some house."

"It's more than a house, though. Please come with."

"What's special about this house? What's special about Scottsdale? What's special about anything? God, I'm so hot."

"It's just." Craig bit his lip, considering how to handle this. The tour was leaving soon; Craig did not want to go on it if Clyde didn't come, though he would, resenting every sweaty step. "This guy, Frank Lloyd Wright, he's really important as an architect."

"I know who Frank Lloyd Wright is."

"Well, yeah. He's pretty famous. He built this giant house and studio in the middle of the desert. There's nothing in the desert, right, nothing but natural forms. So Frank Lloyd Wright comes in, and he builds these ridiculous houses that don't fight the natural environment. And he designs all the furniture, every last piece, for the house. Like a gesamtkunstwerk. An entire artwork. A fully formed, totally integrated place."

"That sounds Dutch."

"Well, close. It's German."

"Okay."

"It's really important to me, Clyde. It's important to me to see it with you. Don't you see, it's about completeness, and integrating design and an aesthetic into your life—"

"I'll go," said Clyde, "but I won't promise not to complain."

Swept up in a grateful wave of relief, Craig held out his hand. "Thank you."

"Don't thank me. If it means that much to you I'm happy just to do it."

"It does," said Craig. "I do."

"Do what?"

"Let's just go. I don't want to miss it."

Clyde took the hand reaching out for him. Together, they walked toward the group of tourists bunched together, all of them ready for a glimpse into Taliesin. "Your hand's so cold."

"I'm just a cold person." Gravel crunched underneath their feet on the manicured pathway toward the house.

"No," said Clyde. "You're not."


At some point in his life Craig had stopped measuring his productivity by the number of hotel rooms he stayed at, or the interiors he glimpsed. At some point he'd become weary of that, maybe around the time he'd bought his own condo. It was like living in a hotel room every day, a fine suite, one he'd designed for himself. Other people's houses fascinated him; he hated them if he couldn't leave his own mark on them. It was fucked up and bizarre. He was aware of them. He'd never felt so pleased to leave anywhere as Roger Donovan's widower roost. Craig blanched when he got a kiss on the cheek, European-style. It reminded him too much of Neville St. John's snootiest friends. Craig hadn't thought of that guy in a while; it had been years, he realized, getting into their rental car to drive off into the noon sun. There was nothing exciting or cowboyish about moving from one hokey contrivance to the next. He got behind the wheel. Clyde lumbered behind, wiping his brow as he sat down a few moments later.

"Dad says you're welcome back any time."

Craig turned the ignition. "That's nice."

"He sends his love."

"Okay."

"He said I seem happy. I said that was a load of crap, since I've been in a snit this whole time."

"A snit? That's one word for it."

"You know, a funk. A mood. Whatever."

"I know," said Craig, "I got it." In the rearview mirror, Roger was waving like he feared he'd never see them again.

The hotel was nice, perhaps nicer than Craig was expecting, Wright-inspired but remodeled as a generic upscale desert retreat. Their room itself was large, beige, vague — but undoubtedly lovely. The ground had a look that echoed the rhythms of Taliesin without any of the spirit. Still, it was a gorgeous hotel. Craig was doubly disappointed, primarily in the soullessness of the place; secondarily, in himself, for achieving a giddy thrill on glimpsing the whitewashed luxury of his last night in Arizona.

"This is the most beautiful hotel room I have ever seen in my life," said Clyde. He tipped the bellboy with 5 bucks and fell onto the bed, face-forward. He reached out. "Come here."

"You're not still pissed at me?"

"Over what?"

"Over like, the moving-in thing."

"Craig. That was two days ago."

Figuring this was a healthy adult attitude, Craig put the "privacy please" sign over the door and came to sit on the bed.

"I was overcome with emotion."

"Yeah?" Craig got down beside Clyde on the mattress, throwing arms around Clyde's body. "I'm sad I like this hotel. But, I like this hotel."

"I love it."

"I wish I knew what it felt like to be overcome with emotion."

"You don't ever feel that way?"

"Well, no," Craig confessed. "Mainly I just feel okay or not okay. Sometimes I feel like a sociopath."

"You aren't a sociopath. Sociopaths are anti-social."

"I'm anti-social."

"You're not anti-social, Craig. You're anxious."

"About what? I'm not anxious. I'm lying here."

"You have social anxiety. It's not that you don't like people. You like people just fine, so long as you feel comfortable with them."

Thinking on this for a moment, Craig rolled onto his back, staring up at the ceiling. "Is that so?"

"I think so."

"Well, I'll consider it."

Around 1 they went down to the pool in their suits and ordered lunch from a cabana. Billing it to the room, Craig worried that he wouldn't be able to afford this Phoenix trip when it was finally tallied up. A vision came to him of standing in front of the woman who'd given them their keys at reception, demanding payment as Craig mentally counted up what was left in his checking account. While thinking about this he downed his entire mojito, then asked for another. By his third he was feeling a bit "fuck it" about the whole money situation, and hopped into the pool to swim. Clyde refused an invitation to come along, shaking Craig off with an "I'm good" and draping a towel over his eyes.

There were kids in there, which Craig hated; it reminded him of being a kid himself, and as he waded in he felt sad, sad to be a fucking adult in this kid-filled pool on a Sunday afternoon in Phoenix, probably getting sunburned despite the SPF 100+ he'd forced Clyde to slather onto his naked body. Something about swimming, or maybe the three weak mojitos, made him forget his cares instantly. He swam laps around the deep end, which was freer of children, until he missed a curve and smacked into the wall, crying "Shit!" and grabbing the ledge. So much for that.

Clyde came hustling over. "What's wrong?"

"Nothing. I swam into the wall by mistake. I'm fine."

"Let me see."

"I'm fine." Craig realized he was holding his face, the left side, with his hand. He removed it and peered up into Clyde's eyes, brimming with concern and patience and love and some other gay shit, probably, and sure, maybe also a slight buzz from the syrupy pink slush that passed for a prickly pear "margarita" at this hotel, unless otherwise specified. "See?" Craig held his hand up, treading water, as if that proved anything. "I'm fine."

"We should go back to the room. And, um, grab some Advil. You might get a headache later, or something."

"I might, sure," Craig agreed, and he declined Clyde's offer to lift him out of the pool. Too embarrassing. Instead, he swam half-blind back to the other end, staggered back to the cabana, and grabbed a towel for his waist, slipping his spa-provided flip-flops back on. An offensive footwear, in Craig's opinion. He wore them begrudgingly back upstairs, ostensibly for Advil.

But, actually for sex. It was obvious as soon as they were in the elevator; Clyde had a boner that made a telltale lump in the topography of the towel around his waist. Craig stared at it until the elevator doors opened again. When they did, he looked up and caught Clyde's eyes. He glanced down again: "Nice."

Hustling back to the room, Clyde held his towel up with both hands. Craig padded after, appraising Clyde's backside: pretty wide, weirdly flat. Craig wanted to grab it, so he grabbed it, and Clyde was sliding the key into the door. "Hold up," he said, "I gotta get this thing." The green light and unlocking gear noise welcomed them back to the room.

Clyde was clearly excited, throwing off all of his clothes.

"Jeez, Clyde, the blinds." They were actually curtains, and Craig realized the error and then, quickly, that he barely gave a shit. He tugged them shut and as he did, Clyde tugged down Craig's bathing suit. It was the same one he'd had since high school, a pair of black soccer shorts that were not made for swimming but worked just fine for the purpose. They fell wetly on the floor as Craig tried to remember the last time he'd been swimming. Probably with Neville on some trip. Jesus, he was so young. So young, and such an idiot. He felt Clyde's hands on his skinny ass, parting his cheeks, kissing his jaw.

Craig sat on Clyde's face, thighs and knees hugging Clyde's ears, feeling their heat on his skin. Craig didn't care that it was ostensibly disgusting; he only cared that Clyde's fat tongue was in his ass, licking at the heat of Craig's body, pushing noncommittally against the amorphous spot that corresponded to Craig's prostate. It was heaven, feeling Clyde's spit drooling down his thighs, feeling Clyde's fingers biting into the small of his back. Clyde's nose nudged against Craig's balls, nearly hairless and very full, as Craig's cock twitched in his hand.

Craig sat on Clyde's dick, bouncing like a fucking kid on some playground equipment. He grabbed at Clyde's tits and admired all of Clyde's insane faces, each of them twisted and hilarious and pretty much perfect. Thank god, Craig thought, he'd never had sex in front of a mirror. He'd never want to see himself looking like that, however he surely looked at the moment, biting his own tongue and thrusting, half in a daze, against Clyde's stomach. Craig tried to think of something to say, anything really, but his brain fogged up. Clyde choked out a strained, "I'm gonna come." Craig made sure their eyes stayed locked. He didn't stop moving until Clyde sunk down against the pillows.

For quite a while afterward they were still, lying there on the bed. The air conditioning was the only noise in the room. Using his hand Clyde attempted to clean some of the come and lube off of Craig's ass.

"Forget it." Craig buried his face in Clyde's chest. "I'll shower later. I was in the pool."

"Can I shower with you?"

Craig thought for a moment about how that would possibly work, with both of them in there. Would they both fit? "That'd be hot," he concluded.

"I just wanna lie here for a while."

"That's okay."

And they did, for a while, the afternoon dissolving into a nap that lasted to dinnertime. Craig awoke, roused Clyde by pressing his lips to Clyde's ear, and said, "I'm taking that shower now."

The shower was a tight fit; it was nice but no larger than the shower at Craig's, and he'd never considered showering with anyone else in there. It made him anxious, for a moment, but Clyde's hands on his back brought him back to normalcy. Over Craig's shoulder, Clyde said, "Let me tell you something." It sounded kind of sweet with the water falling on the shower tile and, of course, their bodies.

"Tell me whatever you like."

Clyde had some difficulty getting down on his knees, but he managed it, somehow. Craig assisted by backing up, practically into the wall. "I still want you to move in with me."

"This again?"

"Move in with me."

"Clyde…"

"I love you." Clyde swallowed, wetly. He was fucking crying again. "I want to marry you."

Water falling on his loose brown hair made Clyde look like a child. It didn't really help his case. "I can't move in with you."

"Don't tell me it's because of some stupid reason like I don't know what I want because I don't know what I don't have. I have you, you're all I want."

"I feel really trapped in this shower right now." Craig turned off the water. "Get up, Clyde."

"Please say yes."

"Yes to what? Yes to moving in with you and your giant dogs?"

"Yes," Clyde sobbed.

"Look. Will you feel better if I don't say no?"

"Of course. Is that a yes?"

"It's not a 'no.' Clyde, jesus, get up. Your white dogs are going to get their white dog hair on all my cool black stuff."

"That's such a bad reason."

"I just need time. Stop — don't cry. Please, get up. We have dinner reservations and there's shampoo in my hair. Help me rinse it out." He turned the water on again and helped Clyde back onto his feet.


Craig could appreciate this about Clyde: things were not stilted between them over the next weeks. Their interactions continued more or less apace. There was something calming about it, and yet he also felt guilty. Why did he feel so guilty? They were fucking every day. The cherry on top of that delicious sundae was fucking in the back of Clyde's store. It was during business hours and one of Clyde's salesgirls was helping a young mother find a pair of her sneakers for her three-year-old. The salesgirl kept coming back and looking for shoes while Clyde and Craig stealthily humped against the office door. Surely this was disgusting; the whole place had to be filthy. An entire week's worth of the trash from the foot-long meatball sub Clyde ate every day for lunch was shoved into the wastepaper basket. Complete pandemonium, Craig felt. After jizzing into Clyde's grip he fell into a grim mood, trying to figure out if this was a high point or a low point. Clyde took a break and Craig went with him to get a smoothie from the food court. It turned into a smoothie and fries. Against his better judgment, Craig helped himself to one.

"What do you think?" Clyde asked.

"Um. It's just okay." Clyde seemed disappointed by this so Craig ate a second fry. He then bought a bottle of water, walked back to the shoe store with Clyde, kissed him on the lips, and walked home.

It was quite a beautiful day out, Craig thought, walking on the side of the road along Platte Vista. He had work to do, shitloads of it, but his head was swimming with good sex illicitly had in the back of a shoe store, so the idea of work couldn't touch him. Nothing could.

When he made it back to his apartment Stan and Kyle were loitering outside their door with a middle-aged man in a suit and tie. For once, Stan was wearing business casual attire, a nice sweater and slacks, which Craig found really shocking. It actually caused him to pause. He stood there for a moment, realizing that he'd interrupted this conversation. All three parties outside the door had different reactions on their faces: Stan's horrified; the unknown man's emotionless like a mask; Kyle's amused.

"This is our neighbor, Craig Tucker." Kyle extended a hand to Craig, not to shake but as an introductory gesture. "We went to school together, so we go way back. Craig, this is—"

Craig didn't catch the full name, because the man shook Craig's hand politely, if disinterestedly, and said, "Hello. Pleasure to meet you."

"Yeah," Craig agreed, hoping he smelled neither like jizz nor a shoe store. Or French fries. Or the mall, generally. "Well, nice meeting you," he said, understanding that his place in this conversation was a decided inconvenience, always meant to be temporary at best. He left them to whatever business they were managing. Maybe Stan and Kyle were being audited or something.

Craig was later that evening shocked to learn that he was not so far off; they were being audited, just not in the traditional sense. Never one to pry, this information was dropped unceremoniously at Craig's doorstep when Kyle knocked on the door and barged in with a bottle of wine; red, this time.

"I hope you like lambrusco," he said, riffling through Craig's drawers without asking.

"Surely it's fine." He sat on the sofa and waited for Kyle's latest intrusion to pass. He was wearing what he'd been wearing before, with that strange man in the hall: women's jeans, black this time, and a slouchy navy sweater. Craig resisted the urge to advise Kyle to burn every last shred of his wardrobe. Then again, the poor guy seemed on edge, either more so than usual, or in a slightly different way.

Kyle joined Craig on the couch with two glasses of the lambrusco; it seemed unlikely that he just happened to know the layout of Craig's kitchen, but then, Craig was also too tired to care.

Slowly, Kyle said, "I'm so nervous. I don't quite know how to tell you this."

"You're breaking up. You're transitioning genders. You gave me herpes? No, it couldn't be the last one. We never actually, physically touched."

"Sort of like all of those," said Kyle, "except not. We're adopting."

"Adopting what, a new attitude?"

"You know what, Craig. Don't be an asshole. We're adopting a baby." Kyle took an enormous gulp of wine.

Craig still hadn't touched his. "Okay."

"I'm not saying anything to anyone for a while. These things take time, a lot of time. That guy was on a home visit. I should tell you, he loved our place. He said it was impeccably decorated! Even with my choice of couch."

"Well, he didn't exactly look like he would know good from bad taste. But, congratulations. I'm sure it's always been a long-term dream of yours to have someone like your decorating."

"That's not funny, but also, shut up. This is really serious. I'm asking you from the bottom of my heart — I don't want to tell anyone until we know it's gonna happen. My parents — I can't get their hopes up."

"That's fine," said Craig. "I can appreciate that." He took a sip of the wine. It was okay, though sweeter than he liked or had been expecting. A very Kyle choice of wine.

"Another thing, though. Since you stumbled upon this. Listen. This is really important to us."

"Okay. I'll bet."

"It is, yeah. So I — we — would really appreciate if you didn't shit all over it."

"In what sense would I shit all over it?"

"Well, you sort of have a tendency to like, tell me everything I do is awful."

"That couch you wanted was awful. That Riesling you're obsessed with is awful."

"Food and Wine ranks that Riesling very highly!"

"Giving a child a home isn't awful," said Craig. "Why would I think it was?"

"You think everything is awful!"

"Well, not that. I think it's great." Craig paused, staring into his wine glass. He couldn't even look Kyle in the face. "I'm adopted."

Kyle gasped, though it was hard for Craig to tell whether it was genuine or not. For one thing, he wasn't actually looking at Kyle. But when he did look up, finally, Kyle put a hand on his knee and said, "I didn't know."

"No one knows. I didn't know until I was 18. But it's kind of obvious, isn't it?"

"You were adopted?"

"Yes. I just said so."

"Why are you telling me?"

Craig got up off the couch. He walked to the kitchen sink and dumped out the rest of his glass of wine. "I'm sorry. This is terrible."

"See? Fuck you!"

"But dumping this out only proves my point. When something's terrible, I won't mince words. I won't suffer bullshit. Adopting a kid is pretty cool. Kids need homes. It's an invasive process. It's full of uncertainty. I don't like kids, but how could I not respect someone who opens their heart to some stranger?"

"But the point is that it isn't a stranger," Kyle said. "It's like someone you've always known. Like it's pre-destined."

"You must have known I was going to find that a little sappy."

"I'm so fucking happy!" Kyle sprang up from his seat on the couch, and wrapped his arms around Craig. "When I was 8 or whatever I never would have figured you for an actual friend."

Craig rolled his eyes. "We're not friends."

"Say that all you want," said Kyle. "You're not right about everything. But everything's finally coming together! I'm so happy, I've never been this happy in my life before."

It took a moment, but Craig said, "You know what?"

"What?"

"So am I."


The day before the big event, Craig's sister called him on the telephone. "So, money's sort of tight," she said, as if this were an unusual or unexpected circumstance. "I don't think I can get you anything off of your registry."

"That's okay," Craig conceded. She was his younger sister, after all, and he did not honestly expect anything from her. Also, everything on his registry was consciously expensive. "Just your presence is a gift." It was a lie; a gift was a gift. Showing up at your brother's wedding was mandatory. But Craig expected that this was what she needed to hear.

"So I was thinking." He was surprised she had more to say. "I would like to give you Grandma's piano."

"Oh." Craig had been standing by the very large windows, but upon hearing this he stumbled over to the sectional and sat down. "Wow," he said.

"That's all you have to say?" she asked. "Just 'wow.' "

"Just, wow. And, thank you."

"Well, you're welcome. When can we drop it off?"

Craig thought about it for a moment. He looked around his apartment. He saw the large empty space in the corner, the presumptive site of his future piano. He tried to imagine the piano filling that space, especially as he looked to the other corner and saw his hothouse flowers. But try as he might, Craig could not envision actually putting a piano there.

"Look," he said, "you were right. In a sense. You have kids, and they should play the piano. My only dream for that piano was to put canapés on it during orgies."

"Um — what?"

"I mean, seriously. It belongs to you. Or, well. To them. Keep the piano. … Also, Clyde has two very large dogs, so we don't really have room for it."

"Seriously — what? You're getting dogs?"

"I'm not getting any dogs. Clyde comes with dogs. Honestly, seriously, keep the piano."

"Well, okay," she said. "I mean, if you insist."

"I do insist," said Craig. "But thank you very much. It means a great deal to me."

"I'm sorry I can't get you anything."

"The offer was enough, I promise."

Later, as he was sitting by himself with a diet Coke and vodka at Skeeter's, it occurred to Craig that the offer was not really enough, that any gracious sister would have bitten the bullet and bought something off the registry. But then, in some sense, it seemed as though this no longer really mattered. His crass family, his conniving sister; they were figures in his past now. They would accompany him into the future, of course, in some slight way, but what did it matter? They couldn't hurt him. He waved over the bartender and asked to settle his tab. He put down a twenty and let the thought wash over him. When, since moving back to South Park, had he found the time to become so sentimental?

Then he remembered he was spending the night before his wedding at a shithole bar he did not even like in the middle of fucking nowhere, instead of having a bachelor party or whatever. "Well," he said, "I tried." He left the bartender his change as a tip and called it a night, hoping he was not too drunk to make it up Platte Vista alone. As he was waiting for a semi to pass where the road intersected the Homestake Highway, it did occur to Craig that he would never have to make this walk alone in the dark again, unless, of course, he wanted to.


The ceremony was to take place at 10 the next morning, and Craig woke up feeling well. Good, even. Clyde, who had crept into bed sometime in the night, woke up around 8, quite hungover. "What did you do last night?" Craig asked, fishing two ibuprofen out of his medicine cabinet.

Clyde half-moaned his answer into the toilet: "Token took me into the city. Bad News Bears."

"Well, I'll say, if you're puking the morning after."

"No, it was a bar, called Bad News Bears."

Craig thought about whether this should make him jealous. Try as he might, he couldn't compel himself to feel envy, only sympathy. "Hey," he said, hunching down. He put his fingertips against the warm skin of Clyde's naked lower back. "We can postpone it, you know. Just tell those assholes not to come over here."

"No way. No way. I'm marrying you. That's final."

"Just don't puke on me during the ceremony." Craig paused. "Or at all." He pressed a kiss to the back of Clyde's neck.

"Ew," said Clyde. "Don't kiss me while I'm barfing."

"You're not actively barfing right this second. Anyway. Please take this. I will get you a glass of water." Craig set the ibuprofen tablets on the bathroom counter. "I would love nothing more than to tell all 20 people we collectively know not to come over here. I mean it."

"Fuck you, no. We're getting married. It's happening. Just, excuse me for a second." Clyde put his back in the toilet and retched.

"Well, if you insist." Craig stood up. "Take that Advil, Clyde, okay. I'm going to get dressed."

Craig had laid out something to wear the night before: fresh-pressed jeans, a smoky eggplant button-down, black patent lace-ups. As Clyde was still in the bathroom Craig stood in front of the mirror in his closet and slicked his hair back. It looked idiotic. He brushed it out again.

In truth Craig has not thought much about the content of the ceremony, other than to actively decide not to compose or even consider beforehand the content of which his vows should consist. But here he was, the late morning sun shining through the windows of his loft, and Clyde's smiling face was before him. Craig had expected that through some true-love mechanism perhaps the right sentiment would come to him precisely at this moment, and then a cavalcade of feelings would burst forth and he would be lost in sentiments, perhaps starting to cry. Instead, Craig felt merely the following: "I don't know why I moved back to this crummy town, and I pretended I hadn't for the longest time. But then I ran into you, and that was a highlight. And now, here we are."

To Craig it seemed like this was enough of a conclusion to warrant a move forward. Yet the room was expectant, the 20 or so people gathered around them eager for more: their families, Token, Clyde's two dogs, Stan and Kyle and their squalling baby. Clyde had a look on his face, half anticipation and half sympathy. And for that Craig decided to add, "And I think it goes without saying that I wouldn't subject myself to this kind of scrutiny if I didn't really love a person. I mean. That doesn't need to be said. But, I said it anyway. Someone let me know if I should do a little dance. Maybe I can just open up a vein for you people, perhaps that would satisfy your demand for the overly sentimental."

"Jesus, Craig," said his mother.

"I think it's beautiful," said Clyde. "I think that's very sufficient. I wouldn't want anything more."

"Well, good. Because it's all you're going to get."

"That's all I want," Clyde repeated. Now he looked like he might cry.

"Is this seriously how this is happening?" someone asked. Craig thought maybe it was Kyle, since it was a screechy sort of woman voice, but then the surreal feeling of the moment caught up to Craig, and he didn't really care.

"You should probably kiss me now," he said, to Clyde. "That's important."

Craig might have expected a shy peck on the lips, but Clyde in fact wrenched Craig forward by the shoulders and, sloppily, kissed him like there was nobody watching. Craig felt Clyde's arms envelop him, the substance of Clyde's body easy to sink into. In tentative increments Craig grabbed for Clyde's shoulders, then his neck, all the while tipping gradually backward. His right foot came off of the ground, but he was stable, Clyde's weight an anchor onto which he clung. In this moment they were a solid mass, Craig's heart racing, their lips pushed together, too frantic to breathe properly.

Craig's vision slid across the room, over the faces of gawking onlookers, and then up to the ceiling. It was not quite a comfortable moment, and yet he knew he had finally come home.