Friday - 1. Chapter 1

I watched him through the reflection of the window read his book. He lay on the bed, knees bent, legs spread apart, and his feet inches from his butt. He had a habit of moving his free hand while he read. Sometimes it be scratching the comforter, and sometimes it would be slapping his stomach to random tunes.

Today he held a drink bottle. It found its way up and down his arm for a time and then he moved it to his stomach, moving down until it was where I wanted it on his crotch. Gently he moved it up and down, over his bulge.

“Stephen,” he said, a sneaky smile lighting his face. The sound of his deep voice sent a shudder through me, “you've stopped breathing.”

It was true; I held my breath, hoping my silence would encourage him to continue. I was meant to be proof reading Alan’s writing. He’d been into poetry lately and wanted my opinion. Alan. My friend and occasional lover the last fifteen years, since college. We did anything and everything for each other, and sometimes that included a little one on one.

“How is your book?” I asked, forcing myself not to stare at the bottle. More precisely what he was doing with it.

'How is my poetry?' he replied, raising a brow. He knew me too well. No chance he didn’t know what I was thinking.

I turned around, taking the poem nearest to me and read:

Seeing an
Invisible
Life
Truth sinking
Stones
Arms
Swinging
Pendulums
Eyes haze at the
Conjunction
With no
Direction

The impossibility to see
Light
Whispering different shades of
Black
Deprived of
Sleep wanted
And awakening
Needed

“I think it’s Passionate, in both senses of the word.”

Alan got up and moved over to my chair, straddling my lap like he often did. Rubbing casually in the right places. The minx. But I rested my chin on his shoulder. “Oh, Alan.”

He moved to look at me properly. “I think it’s time.” And I knew what this meant. I nodded. “We need to accept what we have between us.” In my ear he continued in a whisper that almost caressed. “We are more than best friends. We have been for a long while.”

I swallowed, my insides churning, happy. Relieved. But this step had to be his move. I couldn’t always be the one to initiate. Had to know it meant something for him. More than a way to pass time. To keep from being bored. Though the visits, the one-on-ones had become more and more regular. And he always stayed for breakfast. Honestly, I’d started to hope. I let out my breath, and with it said, “Yes, a very long while.”

Lowering his lips to mine, we kissed. Before I could deepen it, he leaned back. “But let’s not hide this, Stephen. I want us to be proper boyfriends. Lovers.” We kissed again, his tongue searching mine, taking my answers from me. I gasped. He stopped, and grinned. “Fuck it, we’re not getting any younger. Stephen, you’re my whole world. Marry me?”

***
Five years later

I want to talk with you again. I waited but nothing happened. Well then?

Creaking through the wooden floorboards, echoing from wall to wall, rattling off the windows I heard the laugh.

You-'re eas-il-y ir-ri-ta-ted, came the answer through the shuddering of the window-frames behind me.

I turned around.

You laugh, but you don’t have the guts to show yourself.

Silence.

The room in which I stood stilled with tension. A cold breath tickled my ear and sent shivers down my spine. I closed my eyes, and rested my hands on the window sill, leaning so breath fogged the glass and rebound to warm my neck.

No guts? came the long awaited reply.

I smiled. Now who's irritated?

Yes, perhaps.

My smile dropped. The voice unnerved me. It felt like I recoiled into the pit of my own stomach.

It is Friday

I got a hold of myself a little more. No, today is Sunday.

It's always been Friday.

Maybe for you it has.

Yes.

A pause. I stood tall, my legs apart, hands clasped behind my back, and looked straight into the darkness.

It is Friday.

I rolled his eyes, and turned back towards the windows. Looked out through the dust of the lower left pane at the back garden. The ground rose like a miniature hill. A hairy mole; it had been unkempt for years. Two, to be precise. Ever since...

I sighed and focused on the thick grass and onion weed dominating the area, with the exception of a thorny blueberry bush that lined the left side of his property. A pond overgrown with lilies and a Kowhai tree struggling to survive, the depths of winter stripping it from the only sign it still lived: yellow flowers.

Like I did every night, I waited for morning. It had been a similar routine going on nearly two years. Sleeping didn’t grace my life anymore. Just as he didn’t.

I let go of the sob rising in my chest. I’d cried enough to fill the pond in the yard. The pond where he’d confessed to wanting children. Where we talked about adoption, and surrogacy. We were going to be a family.

Would have been a family. If.

If not for that truck. The collision.

I bowed my head so it rested on my chest. I shouldn’t be here without him.

That was the same thought I’d had since the beginning. The thought that spun in my mind the first three months after Alan had died. It never quietened. Never allowed me a moment’s rest. So I paced the night away, living in memory.

Like our first Christmas together. Out on the beach frying steak and sausages on the barbeque. Laughing and blushing, as his niece had asked what being gay meant.

There were so many memories, sometimes it felt as if I could re-create him. But our house—the one we’d built together, remained ever silent.

Until.

Until the day the voice joined me. That’d happened on the first anniversary of Alan’s death. I remembered being scared at first. But tired of being lonely, I accepted it.

Only, he sounded familiar, not his voice, but the intonation he used. Too familiar. And it hurt, because it was his. Alan’s.

Finally, a stretch of yellow morning cut the grass. I sighed. Refused to look behind me and remember how he’d wake me up with a none-too-gentle shove. But a rewarding kiss after. Or a little loving in the shower.

A silhouette of my body stretched on the floor as the sun rose, casting four squares of light, matching those of the windowpanes. Me in the middle. My muscles felt heavy in the sun. I needed something to keep me going. For what reason, I had no idea. Maybe because that’s what he would have wanted.

But I was pain. Heaviness. So fucking lost without him. It was our biggest disagreement. Still, gone, he’d won.

I walked out of the bedroom leaving the intersected square of light behind.

In the kitchen, the fridge hummed still alive but there was nothing in it. I grunted. The closest I came to a dry laugh. Just like me. I closed it and made for the pantry, but all that was left was a bag of plunger coffee and breadcrumbs. I brushed the crumbs to the floor; they were only good enough for the rats.

I drank the coffee, ignoring the grains that went with it; I had no plunger that worked. Our—my only one long rusted. Because I’d refused to clean it that day. And the few months, after. But it was the last thing we’d done together. Enjoyed a cuppa. For months I’d thought if I didn’t clean it, he might come back. Somehow.

I fiddled with a pen and a block of paper. What should I do today? The fridge hummed louder, complaining. Hinting. Guess shopping didn't seem like such a bad idea. After a shower and change, I left the house and started in the direction of town.

At the supermarket, I wandered about aimlessly, five oranges and a single banana in the basket. Slowly, it filled. The next aisle supplied cleaning products. I thought about the dusty windows and crumby floor, perhaps they needed a clean. A memory paralysed me; how he had laughed at the way I cleaned. He’d liked it. Especially, since he hated having anything to do with spider webs...

My worst fear? he’d asked, two weeks before our civil union—our wedding.

Yeah, I’d said, restraining myself from jumping him, after spiders.

I guess that would be not being remembered...

I placed the cleaning products in the basket. I won’t ever forget you Alan.

I returned to the house. Cleaned. Until the voice came again.

It’s Friday.

I threw the rag onto the floor. No, it’s Monday.

When will you accept, Stephen? He’s gone. You know I can’t stay, keeping you from being lonely forever. I’m just a voice in your head. I sunk to the floor. Deep down you know that. And no, you’re not crazy. But it’s time to move on. To live your life again.

I sobbed, and shouted toward the ceiling, “But it’s so fucking hard. And I miss you!”

Just remember, to him, it’s always Friday.

I shuddered as I relived the memory again. Every day without fail it replayed in my mind. Only this time, I sensed finality to it. Like it had reached the end of its reel...

Stephen, guess what? Alan had cheered as he’d come home from work, dropping his keys and shucking his coat.

What?

He grinned. A smile I would never tire of seeing. It's Friday.

So?

Chucking both arms around my neck he kissed me. So, I love you. And it's takeout.