Gift of the Snow Queen - 1. Gift of the Snow Queen

"Um, Khayyam, I have a question to ask you," Satar stated from the open doorway of my room.

My internal alarms immediately went off. This was Satar, my two years younger brother who was about two times as self-assured and outgoing compared to me. He was also like a billion times hornier than me, so I suppose it is to a purpose. That might seem beside the point, but it worried me that the same person who has at least once a week tried to talk me into his bed felt nervous asking about anything. I lifted my eyes from the computer application I'd been working on to look at him. "What is it?" Satar did not meet my eyes. If it was anyone but him, I'd swear he looked guilty. However, while my brother was acquainted with guilt, the two had not spoken in some time.

"I need to borrow your car. A friend of mine is coming in to the train station, and I said I'd pick them up. But this storm came up, and the TV said it's going to get worse. Your car has 4WD, mine doesn't," he explained. Now I knew he was, despite my words acting guilty. He was even doing the I-didn't-mean-it-honest shuffle known to kindergarten teachers around the world.

I nodded. What he said made sense, and helped to explain part of his behavior. I loved my car, he knew it, and the train station was an hour and half drive in good weather. In the rapidly increasing snowfall, it could easily be double that. Each way. And I knew better than to let my brother alone in a private location with anyone, male or female, for that long. It wasn't that I was unwilling to help, especially in these conditions, in fact...

"Why don't I go with you instead? You just got your license a month ago, and I'd feel better knowing you weren't doing your first long distance drive in the snow." Satar looked up, surprised, and I grinned at having caught him trying to have sex in my (much roomier than his) vehicle.

But then he paled, and I wasn't quite as certain. "You might not want to do that." His words said that, but his tone said I really didn't want to do that.

"Why not?" It occurred to me then that he never mentioned who he was picking up, not even a gender. "Who is your friend?"

Satar hesitated. He looked away again, closed his eyes, and even took a step back out of my room. "Mason," he said, like that explained everything.

It did. I tossed the keys to my SUV out into the hallway and told him to drive carefully. I had to shut the door before I added the instruction that if he did hit something, aim for Mason.

At the end of last school year, I had a boyfriend called Dylan. He asked me out, much to my shock and delight, because while I knew him, was fond of him, I had no idea he liked me back. He was wonderful, beautiful, caring, a good kisser and better in bed, and while he was not perfect I was pretty damn happy with him. It annoyed me that he waited until he had less than a month left in school before asking me out; so that he could come out in a situation he was escaping, while I would wind up facing the gossip network on my own. But that was only an annoyance, a couple years back there was a series of prominent "coming-outs" that happened all at once, including a mass walk out of the queer seniors at one graduation, and the students found themselves with a pretty accepting attitude towards gay and lesbian teenagers that they still hold. Any flack that I caught from the Gay- Straight Alliance and the 4-H clubbers was that I "turned" a boy that had previously displayed no interest in his own sex. I took it all in stride, both because they were full of crap and because he made me that damn happy. He told me daily he loved me, and I would suffer much worse for that.

I also had a best friend at the time. A guy named Mason. He was one of my dearest friends, though not the oldest, mostly because we'd just started hanging out together that year. When we realized we were both gay, there was talk among our mutual friends, including Satar surprisingly enough, that we would make a great couple. It was probably true, but Mason wasn't the boyfriend type, and I wasn't the casual sex type, so friends we remained. Close friends.

Right up until the day I found them screwing each other on Dylan's kitchen table.

My family had taken a two week vacation to Pismo Beach that July, but I just couldn't stay away from Dylan that long. I drove back a couple days early, hoping to surprise him, and instead I was the one shocked. They didn't realize I was there for some time, and I overheard them talking. Dylan saying Mason was the best lay he’d ever had. Mason laughing when Dylan claimed he loved me. Them both agreeing that it was best I never find out what they did. Neither wanting this to happen again once I got back. "But until then," Mason had said when he did a series of deep thrusts into my boyfriend that made his eyes roll back and his body arch off the table. Dylan came a heart beat after he finally noticed me, and by the time he'd regained his voice I'd already walked out the door.

I had not spoken to either one since. Satar knew that, and knew why, since I made him screen my phone calls. I just never pictured him remaining close to Mason, close enough to spend three hours driving him home. In fact, since Mason lived twenty minutes further up the mountain, it would closer to four or five hours, most of the day. I don't understand quite why it bothered me so much, since my brother didn't need me to choose his friends for him, but it did. Maybe it was because over the last five months I had managed to not think about Mason or Dylan at all, and now I was being forced to.

Thinking about it all was so distracting that I gave up trying to program, and just stared out the window, watching the snow fall. The radio had been right; it was getting thicker. So bad that my parents, who'd been shopping in with my mom's sister down in San Francisco, decided to stay overnight there and wait the storm out. I promised not to burn down the house, and hung up. I wasn't really interested in talking to them, lost as I was in memory. Dylan saying, "God, Khay never does it this hard," and Mason, his back to me and so hiding from me his expression, saying back, "Damn shame. It's a pity when someone," he grunted then, "doesn't know how to use their own body right."

I heard my car pulling up the driveway before I saw it. The storm had well and truly hit then, and I was glad Satar made it back alright. "I shouldn't have let him go out like that," I said to myself, and mentally promised that I would make it up to him. I just wasn't ready. I threw open the front door, ready to usher Satar into the house I'd kept warm for his return, when I noticed someone getting out of the passenger side door. For a second, I hoped against everything before me that my brother could not have been that stupid, but when Mason looked up at me and gave a slight wave, I knew, ready or not, he was here. "God dammit!" I yelled, going back in and slamming the door behind me.

"When we saw that the roads were starting to close, we figured that it was better to hole up here for the night and wait the storm out. They're saying it might be a full blizzard, the first one we've had in decades," Satar said, babbling a little. I nodded; it made sense, since Mason's town of Stent's Cut-off was at a higher elevation than we were down in Virtue. It was doubtful with that much snow on the way that anyone was allowed out on the roads at this point, and the snowplows wouldn't budge until the storm had passed. If Satar and Mason had tried to continue on, most likely they would have either been trapped up at Mason's house, or stopped and turned around along the way. From what I remembered of his family, Mason's folks would be hard pressed to feed and house an extra person, but my house had the room. I said as much.

"Thank you, for being willing to put up with me," Mason said. I gritted my teeth but said nothing. We had pretty much not said anything to each other since he walked in, and I wasn't sure I had it in me to talk to him calmly as he was to me.

Thankfully, Satar noticed, and said, "Well, let's get you settled in then. If you aren't going anywhere, we might as well make you comfortable." He stood and took one of Mason's bags, but the older boy waved him away.

"I can manage. I remember where your guest room is well enough; I'll just put this there myself. No sense in you guys being even more put out than you already are." He looked at me, daring me to comment, but I let that go too. He walked away after a moment.

I turned to Satar and showed him every bit of anger that I'd been refraining from saying in my eyes. It is lucky he can read my eyes so well, since the only articulation I could manage was a growl. "I know, Khay, it sucks, but he needs our help. I can't just make him walk home in the snow."

"I can," I said. I wondered if I meant it. "Look, you're old enough to pick who you choose to hang around without my interference. I can't even say you're a bad person for letting him into our house, or that he is for taking advantage of it. He can stay, not that I can do much about it anyways, but don't expect me to be happy about it. Don't even expect me to say that it is alright that he stays, because for me it isn't. I haven't spoken to him in months, and quite frankly I could live the rest of my life without ever talking to him again."

Satar opened his mouth to say something, stopped, then sighed. He shook his head at me, as he often did when I showed just how much more stubborn I was than him. "So that's it then? You're done with him," he asked finally, though he wasn't really asking. "Are you really ready to throw away the friendship you two had? I know you don't forgive easily, but you also don't make friends easy either. You shouldn't throw away all of them for every mistake they make."

"I don't, and I won't. Besides, there's nothing to forgive. He never even tried to say he was sorry."

"Because you wouldn’t let me," Mason said, coming back into the dining room we were sitting in. "You blew me off, stopped taking my calls, made Satar and your cousin tell me to go to hell when you wouldn't face me yourself. So exactly when was I supposed to apologize?"

It was a good question, but I knew Mason better than that. "Alright then, here's your chance," I said, calling his bluff. He looked shocked, perhaps expecting that I would meekly look contrite and let him side-step the whole issue. He'd manipulated me in the past before, using the same method, and the only reason I let him get away with it was because I liked him. I had no such blinder now. "Tell me you're sorry that you slept with my boyfriend behind my back. Tell me it was a mistake, that you regret that act. And don't say it and mean you regret getting caught, and that your mistake was letting me find out. I'm giving you, right now, the chance to admit you did wrong."

I knew what his answer would be before he said it. Evasiveness was one thing, but he was always honest, in his own way. "I can't."

I nodded. "I'm going to make dinner. Please, the both of you, get the fuck out of my kitchen."

I cried that night. Long after one of the most awkward dinners I'd ever had, where even Satar wasn't talking. He was wary of me, because I rarely got pissed at him, and obviously Mason hadn't been as forthcoming with him as I'd made him be with me. Mason and I of course had nothing to say to each other. There was absolutely no conversation or eye contact, and when it was over I simply took everyone’s plate and washed them without waiting for anyone else to volunteer. It was one of my habits, when angry, I buried myself in house work to distract me. But at night, there was nothing to distract me from the two words Mason had spoken.

It was silly to cry. As I said, I knew he wasn't sorry, didn't regret it. But it still hurt to get it confirmed like that. I guess a part of me still wanted to believe, but that was over now. And now all I had left to do was wonder how stupid I must have been to let someone like that get close to me without realizing what kind of person he'd been. "God," I whispered, "it hurts."

I was curled into a ball on my bed, lost into my own misery, so I guess it can be forgiven that I didn't hear someone opening my door and sitting down next to me. It wasn't until he put a hand on my shoulders and said, "It’s alright," that I realized I wasn't alone.

"Mason?" I asked. "What are you doing in here?"

The darkness in my room was total. We'd lost power about an hour after dinner, and I'd kept no candles burning. I couldn't see his expression when he said, "trying to make you not hurt so much."

"Why?" I asked him, finally voicing the one thing I'd been wondering since July. "I loved Dylan. Didn't you know that? Didn't you care? Or was getting in his pants more important than my friendship?"

"I didn't mean for it to get that far. And yes, I did care, more than you know." This would be as close to an apology as I'd ever get, but it still wasn’t enough.

"But why?"

"I guess I was jealous," he said. By this time, he'd lain down next to me, but this revelation made me sit upright and stare at him, all my anger back in force.

"You were jealous. Jealous!" I shouted. I wasn't afraid of waking Satar. I rather hoped he would hear, really, and understand for himself what kind of person he'd brought home. "Jealous of what? You could have had dozens of boys. In fact, you did have dozens of boys. But no, you had to get jealous of the one that was mine. Some friend you are."

"Shhh," he said, sitting up himself to put a finger over my lips and an arm over my shoulder. I couldn't help it, there was enough attraction left in me to melt in his arms right then, especially seeing how keyed up I was. "I never said it was you I was jealous of. Point of fact, it was him. Dylan I could have taken or left, but you were always special to me."

I didn't know quite how to take that. "Are you trying to say you wanted me? Mason, that's bull and you know it. You could have had me too, anytime you wanted me. You had to have known that."

"Yeah, I could have. Up until that jackass made his move on you and you stopped giving a damn about me. We were tight, basically a couple except we didn't have sex with each other." I frowned, and he had to have felt it, because he went on to say, "That's why everyone kept joking about what a good pair we'd have made. They were right, and we both knew it. But you chose Dylan instead." Horrible comprehension was beginning to dawn, but it didn't prepare me for his next words. "I love you Khayyam. I loved you then, but it wasn't until you started dating Dylan that I realized that I did."

"So you slept with him?" I asked, incredulous, both at his actions and at his delusion.

"Like I said, I didn't mean for it to go so far. To be perfectly honest, at first I was trying to warm him up for a possible threesome, if I couldn't have you all to myself. But once I saw how easy it was to get him away from you, I had to do it. He caved too easy to me, and that meant that either he'd already cheated on you once, or it would be even easier for him to cheat on you again. He would have only hurt you, and I couldn't just let him go back to you when I knew you would be vulnerable to him."

It made sense, in the nonsensical way that Mason did things. "So you decided it was better for me to get hurt early on in the relationship, rather than let it continue on and still wind up hurt?" I asked. He nodded after thinking it through. So I hit him on the forehead. "You idiot! You asshole! Is that why you made it so I would catch you?" He paled, and I had my answer. I had always wondered how much luck it was that I managed to stumble on them in the middle of their affair, and now I knew it wasn't luck at all. "Let me guess, you called Satar when you couldn't reach me, because I don't answer the phone when I'm driving, found out I was on the way home, and saw an opportunity you couldn't pass up?"

"I wasn't thinking," he admitted. "I loved you Khay. Love you."

"And I loved you too. That's why you hurt me worse than Dylan ever did. Dylan I could have eventually gotten over, it was what you did that hurt so much worse." And with all my questions answered, I found I had no tears. Just weariness. "Good night, Mason," I said. I didn’t bother to kick him out of the bed, unlike him, I knew when enough hurt and pain was enough, and I had no need to cause him more. I was asleep in minutes.

We wound up having no electricity for two days, and Mason stayed for three. The blizzard ended late on the second day, and soon the main roads were plowed and the power lines could be worked on. But our guest stayed on the extra day, because it wasn't until then that all the streets were cleared, including the one he lived on. It wasn't as bad as I thought it'd be. Satar obviously had heard our conversation, and didn't know what to make of either of us, but Mason and I became acclimated to each other. He'd been an idiot, yes, but what he'd done was not the end of the world that it had felt like at the time. To be honest, I was embarrassed that I had gotten so worked up about it in the first place. Hardly anyone gets to keep their first love, after all.

So we eventually found ourselves at his doorstep. I drove him this time, on a whim, and because I really was a better driver than Satar. He stayed at home, since someone had to greet our parents when they arrived later on in the morning. "So," I said, when my car rumbled to a stop.

"So," he replied, making no move to get out of the car. "Where do we go from here?"

It was a good question. "I don't know, to be honest. You have to understand that whatever feelings I had for you then, I do not love you now. I'm not even sure if I like you all that much."

He winced, but he should have known I'd be completely honest. It was one of the things he liked about me. "I know."

To this day, I don't know why I did it. Perhaps, at the end of the day, I'm just not as stubborn as I like to think I am. "Give me a call some time. We'll talk. You can tell me about college."

"Really?"

"Yeah, really." After all, why hold a grudge? I did like him at one point, maybe I would again.

He smiled, wide, at my words. It was the first time I'd seen him smile in what seemed like forever, but what really only a few months. With a shock I remembered how beautiful I found him. "That sounds like a plan," he said, and then opened his door to get out. He waved from his porch at me before disappearing inside his house.

'Damn,' I thought to myself. But then I shook my head, put my car in reverse, and made my way home.