Gap Year - 95. Chapter 95

April 21, 2004

Escorial

Palo Alto, CA

Will

I opened the door to find my father there with Jake behind him, as if he were Jake’s human shield. “Welcome home,” Dad said, and embraced me warmly. I thought it was nice that he’d taken off his tie and shed his jacket, as if to announce that he was no longer Mr. Corporate America.

“I missed you,” I said warmly.

Dad looked at Travis, then at Jake, then back at Travis, pretty much just like I had, then finally kicked himself into gear and gave Travis a friendly hug. “I’m glad you’re here with us. Hang in there. We’ll work this out.” It was amazing how his confidence reassured not just me, but Travis as well.

Then the attention shifted to Jake and Travis. “I’m really sorry that I reacted like that and ran away when I saw you,” Jake said earnestly.

“Yeah, that wasn’t exactly heart-warming,” Travis said bitterly. “I mean, I didn’t think you’d be happy that I was your son, but I didn’t expect you to act like the world was ending.” Jake looked like Travis had punched him.

“Have a seat,” I said, to try to mitigate the tension. Dad and Jake sat on the sofa, while Travis and I took the chairs. “Want something to drink?”

“A beer,” Travis said, in the tone that said alcohol was required to deal with this shit.

“Beers?” I asked Dad and Jake, getting nods, so I grabbed us each a bottle of Chimay, this cool Belgian beer I liked to drink occasionally.

“This isn’t easy for me to talk about, and it probably won’t be easy for you to hear,” Jake said. He was obviously trying to set the stage for this conversation, but Travis wasn’t in the mood for that.

“Are you my father?” Travis demanded boldly.

“It seems that way,” Jake said. “I mean, we look too much alike for this to just be a fluke.”

“It really is uncanny,” Dad said, then focused on Travis. “When I met you, there was something really familiar about you. I mean, I knew you when you were thirteen, but it was different than that. I couldn’t quite figure it out. But now that you’re both in the same room, in front of me, it’s so fucking obvious that I can’t believe I missed it.”

“That’s exactly how I felt,” I agreed.

Travis ignored us and directed his attention at Jake like it was a laser. “Did you fuck my mother?” I got where he was coming from. He had been trying to figure out who his real father was, and everyone who knew had stonewalled him. He rightfully felt he deserved to know and wasn’t willing to put up with a bunch of banter.

“I did, but it wasn’t consensual,” Jake said, and just that admission impacted him like a sledgehammer. As soon as he’d said it, he bent over, making it look like someone had stuck a knife in his stomach and twisted it. My father moved closer and put his arm around Jake in a very supportive way.

“You’re fine; you will be fine,” Dad said to Jake. “No one here is going to hurt you.” Travis looked at me, his eyes bulging and his eyebrows raised in surprise. None of us expected Jake to react like this. All I could do was shrug slightly in puzzlement. Then it was like something clicked in him, and his whole attitude changed.

“It will be fine,” Travis agreed. “Just tell me what happened.” He’d said that last sentence in a gentle and caring way, and Jake responded to his gesture by sitting up again, the anguish he felt apparently abating a bit.

“I grew up in Phoenix, or Scottsdale, to be more accurate,” Jake said. “My father worked for an investment firm doing compliance, and that meant he traveled a lot. My mother was a stay-at-home mom, but she was more focused on drinking. She had her own demons.”

“So you were pretty much on your own, unless your father was around?” I asked him. He’d never talked about his family before this.

“Hardly,” Jake said, shaking his head. “Even when my father was home, he wasn’t all that into me or what I was doing. He’d come home from work, my mother would make dinner, and he’d give her dirty looks because, even though she was a pretty good cook, she usually made something crappy for us to eat.”

“Guess that’s why you’re so slim,” I said, trying to make this easier on him.

He smiled slightly to thank me for my effort but ignored my comment. “The evening meal was a nightmare. They’d both start drinking before dinner, so by the time we started eating, they were both pretty hammered.”

“Did they fight when they were drunk?” Dad asked.

“No, in fact I don’t remember them ever even yelling at each other. They would just sit there in silence, brooding,” he said. “Because they didn’t fight, the tension was like a pressure cooker. I can’t remember a time when I wasn't worried that something suddenly would snap inside one of them and they would erupt.”

“Not exactly a happy home life,” Dad said.

“It wasn’t, so I made a point to be gone as much as possible,” Jake said. “The only real requirement was that I be around for dinner.”

“Kind of like it is on Sunday at Escorial,” I said, smiling at him.

“Kind of,” Jake said, smiling briefly at me. “I figured out that I could dodge that nightmare by working. My parents were big on making sure I had a job, so that would get me off the hook for meals.”

“So you got a job,” I concluded. He nodded.

“I turned sixteen in 1985, and as soon as I hit that magic age, my parents were on me to get a job. The job market was really tight then, so they were all pissed off that I didn’t start working until the middle of July. I managed to get hired at one of the resorts in Scottsdale,” he said. “I did a stint as a bellboy, and as a cabana boy, plus sometimes I’d get sent over to help out at the spa.”

“Is that where you met my mom?” Travis asked. “Scottsdale is one of her favorite places to get away to.”

“That’s where,” Jake said. “I was stationed to work her cabana when she was at the pool. I got attention from some of the men and most of the women. That’s where being this hot is a problem.” Dad and I chuckled to encourage him and to thank him for introducing a little levity.

“I feel your pain,” Travis said, smiling at him, and that seemed to give Jake the courage to go on.

“I was pretty good, even when I was sixteen, at deflecting the attention of most of the customers, but your mother was really aggressive,” he said. “I remember the first day I met her. Within five minutes she was demanding that I put suntan lotion on her back.”

“Is that like a normal request?” Travis asked.

“No, it wasn’t, but the guests at the resort were used to getting what they wanted,” he said. “They were usually rich and powerful, and I knew that she was both of those things, magnified.”

“Yeah, but there are limits to what they can demand,” Travis said.

“That’s not how it works,” Jake snapped, then apologized with his eyes. “The other guys there would joke about catching a cougar, and some of them had some cool shit they claimed they got as presents by fucking the customers.”

“Sounds like a place that would fit in back in the ancient Roman days,” Travis said to me.

“No shit,” I agreed.

“That’s what the guys claimed, but they were probably full of shit,” Jake said, getting back to his story. That brief comment brought to my mind the culture that must have existed among the teenage boys at the resort, one full of fake bravado. “The first day she left me alone after the suntan lotion thing, but the next day she was there at the pool, and the whole time I took care of her she was hitting me hard with these sexual innuendos. She’d brought this big beach bag to the pool with her. When she got ready to leave, she asked me to carry her bag back to her room for her.”

“Was that something you were supposed to do?” Dad asked. He was probably mentally trying to construct Jake’s job description at the resort, and the thought of that almost made me laugh out loud.

“We were supposed to do whatever we could to make the guests happy, and carrying a heavy bag was well within the range of reasonable requests,” Jake said. “I lugged the bag, following her back to her room. I knew what was going to happen, I knew that she was going to seduce me, and my mind was racing, trying to come up with ways to avoid it. I had all of these little plans to try and get out of the situation politely, but none of them worked. As soon as we got into the room, she shut and locked the door, and got really close to me. She told me how hot I was, and how she was lonely, and how she could really show me a thing or two. She told me how much she’d appreciate some companionship, which was a pretty obvious reference to getting a big tip.”

“Christ,” Travis said, shaking his head at the situation. I could sense his struggle. His mother was really important to him, yet he was sitting here listening to her being described as a sexual predator.

“She’d talked in a sexy way, so her meaning was obvious, but she hadn’t touched me yet. She told me to wait for a minute, that she needed to get some cash to tip me. She went into the bedroom and came back out shortly, stark naked,” Jake said. This was clearly a stream of consciousness, and even if I didn’t know and trust Jake, the way he was laying things out made it obvious that he was telling the truth. “She walked up to me, rubbed her tits against my chest and arm, while her hand slowly moved up my leg until it grabbed my dick.”

“What did you do then?” I asked. “I mean, did you tell her ‘no’?”

My father gave me a frustrated look. “That’s not how this works,” then turned his attention back to Jake. “You felt trapped. You felt like if you objected, she’d get you fired, so you just froze.” Jake nodded weakly.

“Doesn’t ‘no’ mean ‘no’?” Travis asked, grasping at straws.

“If he’d turned her down, then he’d have ended up getting fired,” Dad said. “Then I’m guessing he would have gotten shit from his parents for losing his job, and then he would have been the target of all their negative bullshit at dinners.”

Jake looked at him, amazed, and blinked. “That’s exactly what would have happened,” he said, and gave my father an appreciative look.

“I understand now why it was so important for Dad to be here when you talked about this,” I said supportively.

“I almost don’t want to know what happened next,” Travis said with dread.

“It was pretty much like you probably imagine,” he said. “She massaged my dick, then she kissed me, and the next thing I knew I was in bed with her and she was guiding my hands, showing me how to touch her. I remembered being so out of my body that it was like I was watching a movie. She got frustrated with me because I barely moved, and that ultimately ended up with me on my back and her on top, doing all the work as she fucked me.”

“I’m assuming that since I’m here you shot your load,” Travis said bitterly, because this whole thing was upsetting him. Jake nodded, and looked guilty.

“That probably made it worse,” Dad said.

“How does that make it worse?” Travis challenged.

“Because your body responds even when you don’t want it to, and when it does, you feel guilty, because even though you’re being raped, you decide that because you came, you must have enjoyed it,” I said, my voice solemn as I remembered my own encounter with that in Paris when I was abducted.

I felt Travis’s hand grab mine, supporting me just like Dad was supporting Jake. “I understand. Thanks for explaining it to me.” I nodded and tried to push the memory of that incident out of my head. Jake helped me out by continuing his tale.

“She was at the resort for a week, and I worked three more days while she was there,” he said. “Every one of those days, she all but demanded that I come back to her room with her, and on every one of those days she fucked me.”

“She raped you,” Dad corrected. Travis’s eyes narrowed at having that label pinned on his mother, then they relaxed into sadness when he realized Dad was right.

“I was going to call in sick after the first time, but I was worried that she’d get pissed and get me fired,” Jake said. “I didn’t really see a way out of it.”

“Did she at least tip you well?” I asked Jake, kind of joking.

“She gave me $3,759,” he said. I was absolutely stunned that he remembered the exact dollar amount. “And it cost me so much more than that.”

“How did it cost you more than that?” I asked.

“It completely fucked me up,” he said. “I had a good friend who I hooked up with back then. It was one of those deals where we both pretended what we were doing wasn’t gay, even though it totally was. After that, I was so messed up, I completely avoided him. He got pissed off at me and ended our friendship.”

“That could have happened to us,” I said to Travis, thinking back to how we’d messed around when we were younger. “That would have been awful.” The situations weren’t entirely the same, but I could tell that resonated with Travis, and helped him better understand what Jake was talking about.

“When I tried to date girls, I was so uptight about it, they were horrible experiences. Just holding a girl’s hand made me almost break out in hives,” Jake said.

“How did you get beyond that?” I asked. “Did you manage to get some counseling?”

“No,” he said, then swallowed hard. “I never told anyone about it. I just blocked it off and pretended like it never happened.”

“Not even after you went into counseling later on?” Dad asked, amazed.

Jake shook his head, then focused on Travis. “That’s why I reacted so badly when I saw you. I am really really sorry about that.”

“So seeing me brought that memory back?” Travis asked.

“The one you’d buried for over 18 years?” I augmented.

“Yes,” Jake said. Holy shit. Jake had blocked this whole thing, forgotten or pretended it hadn’t happened, and had managed to keep it buried until he’d seen Travis, and then the memory was forced to the surface of his consciousness.

“Dude, that is some intense shit,” Travis said, then smiled. “I think I would have run faster than you did.” And with that, Travis had given Jake absolution for his reaction, and he got a warm smile from Jake in return.

Their bonding moment was interrupted by a knock on my door. I got up to answer it and found three people there: Stef, a maid, and a nurse. “We are sorry to bother you, but we have some things to take care of.”

“What?” I asked, even as I ushered them into my room.

“I am just here to deliver Mr. Travis’s suit,” the maid said, holding the garment on a hanger. “I will put it in your closet.”

“Thank you,” I said. We watched as she did that then left.

“The similarities between Jake and Travis are such that we thought you may want to get a paternity test done. This is Ann Gomez. She is here to extract the bodily fluids required for such a test,” Stef said.

“Thanks,” Travis said. I’d kind of expected that the nurse would have to take blood samples, but instead she just swabbed their mouths.

“And you’re here because you were dying to know what this was all about,” Dad accused Stef. I had to bite my lip not to laugh at that.

“I am merely serving as an escort for Ms. Gomez,” Stef said loftily.

“I’ll explain things to you shortly,” Dad said. Stef and Ms Gomez left, closing the door behind them. “I can lay it out for them so you don’t have to go through this again,” he said to Jake lovingly.

“Thanks,” Jake said, then shifted his focus on Travis. “I guess we’ll find out soon enough if you’re my son, but regardless, I’m really glad you’re here.”

“It’s like shit just keeps flying at me,” Travis said, shaking his head. “My siblings hate me, my father, or whatever the fuck he is, wants to have me killed, and my mother is a rapist, which, as a matter of fact, my father is too.”

“Your family tree hasn’t always had such shitty people in it,” I said, thinking of Travis’s grandfather.

“Are you fucking kidding me?” Travis asked, although it almost came out as a shout. “They’ve all been like that. Don’t you realize how twisted you have to be to win in the California oil and agriculture industry.”

“Yeah, but you’re not like them,” I said.

“I hope I’m not,” he said. “I keep wondering if I’m just as evil as they are, and it’s just hidden beneath the surface, waiting to pop out.”

“I don’t think it works that way,” Dad said. “I believe that genetics has no impact on morals and values, and a limited impact on personality. You should just embrace the ‘you’ that you are.”

“Maybe,” Travis said, unwilling to let go of his pity party and his grumpiness.

“Will doesn’t give me a say in who he goes out with,” Dad said, which was funny enough to make me chuckle. “I’m lucky if I get to have any input on his decisions at all.”

That last sentence annoyed me enough to respond in a bitchy way. “You know why I shut you out of things, and you know I have damn good reasons for doing that.”

He grimaced at me in annoyance, then spoke to Travis again. “Regardless, I’m really happy that Will decided to have a relationship with you, and I’m really happy that you’re willing to put up with him.”

“Ha, ha, ha,” I said deadpan.

Dad ignored me and remained focused on Travis. “No matter what those paternity tests show, you have a place here with us.”

“Thanks,” Travis said, and he was only a little more stunned than I was.

“Usually he tells me that the dudes I date are smarter than I am and that they’ll hurt me, so I think all he’s really saying is you’re kind of dumb,” I said to Travis. Predictably, that made him laugh.

“I can totally see that in my case, but I’ve met a couple of the guys you were with, and you are way smarter than they are,” he said to me lovingly.

Dad looked at his watch and stood up. “We need to get ready for dinner. There will be a big crowd for Marie’s birthday.” There was plenty of time for that, but I got that he was giving us all a chance to retreat to our corners to digest all this shit. Jake followed his lead and stood up as well, which prompted Travis and me to do the same.

“Did you guys do anything for her on the 18^th?” I asked.

“She had dinner with Jack, John, Claire, and Ryan,” he said. “That was what she wanted to do.”

“How are Jack and Claire doing?” I asked. He was going to give me some bullshit answer, but Jake intervened to tell me the deal, and to keep me from getting annoyed with Dad.

“They seem to be doing well,” Jake said. “My understanding is that they’re trying to repair things by starting over, more or less.”

“What does that mean?” I asked, confused.

“It means they go out on dates, and do things together, but there’s no formal commitment,” Dad said. “Or at least that’s my impression.”

“That’s good,” I said, smiling.

My father stepped forward and gave Travis a really warm hug, the kind he reserved for me and my brothers. He broke off the hug and walked over to me, putting his arm around me. We watched as Jake walked toward Travis, so they were both standing there in front of each other, in what rapidly became awkward. Travis looked like he was a zombie, like he was spacing out, while Jake seemed unsure as to how intimate he should be. Travis didn’t make any moves, so Jake extended his hand, and that seemed to pull Travis out of his trance. He pushed Jake’s hand aside and embraced him. They ended their hug, then Jake strode over to me and gave me a somewhat perfunctory hug, but I could tell how discombobulated he was, so it didn’t bother me. My father ushered him out of our room and I walked them to the door, shutting it after them, so finally we were alone together.

I stood to the side, watching Travis as he stood there, deep in thought. I finally walked up to him and put my hands on his hips. He came out of his daze, smiled at me, and gave me a really sweet kiss. “Thank you.”

“For what?” I asked.

“For being here, for being with me,” he said.

“Dude, that was some heavy shit that got dropped onto you,” I said. “Are you alright?” I led him over to the sofa that my father and Jake had just vacated.

“I don’t know,” he said honestly. “Like I said, I’m just trying to figure out how to deal with my family. Every single one of those people is completely fucked up.”

“Looks like you have another family,” I said. “I mean, we don’t know for sure if Jake is your father, but it sure seems that way.”

“I can’t believe my mother raped him,” he said, and started crying, not in a sobbing way, but in a quiet way, where tears occasionally fell out of his eyes.

“How do you feel about Jake being your father?” I asked, to try and move him on from obsessing about his mom and what she’d done.

“I mean, he seems like a good guy, but I don’t know him all that well,” Travis said. He sighed. “Then again, I should probably take your word for it that he’s awesome.”

“You probably should,” I agreed. He still seemed kind of agitated, and I decided maybe he needed some space. “You mind if I go down and check on Marie?”

He smiled, positively beaming, because I’d read him so well. “Tell her I said ‘hi’,” he said.

“Text me if you need me,” I said, then leaned in and kissed him. “Or if you get horny.”

“I will definitely do that,” he said. I walked down the hall to Ryan’s room and noticed the door was open. I knocked as I entered and found him and Marie just hanging out: He was listening to music and she was doing homework.

“Hey there,” I said. They both got up and gave me warm hugs.

“Is Travis with you?” Ryan asked.

“He’s in my room,” I said. “He’s had a freaky day.”

“What happened?” Marie asked. I told them about how similar Jake and Travis were, and about Jake’s encounter with Miranda Buck. “That must have been so awful. Poor Jake.”

“Yeah, and it’s pretty much freaked Travis the fuck out,” I said.

“Dude, drama, everywhere you go,” Marie quipped, making me chuckle.

“I really am sorry we missed your birthday,” I said.

“Will, stop,” she insisted. “It was not a big deal. We had a nice dinner with my parents. They’re getting along and everyone was happy. That was the best birthday present ever.”

“Well, you may change your mind about that being the best present after tonight,” I said. I had gotten her a totally kick-ass gift.

“Is this the present you got me that is so cool you won’t tell anyone about it?” she asked in her know-it-all way.

“I see you talked to Stef,” I said, pretending to be annoyed, even though I knew he’d make a big deal out of it. She laughed.

“I hope you didn’t spend too much,” she said, which was a weird thing for her to worry about.

“It cost more than your car,” I said, making her eyes bulge. “That’s how important you are to me.”

“I rate higher than a Porsche,” she mused, then smiled at me. “I love you, too.” My phone dinged, indicating I had a text. I saw it was Travis, so I bailed on them and went back to our room, where Travis worked off some of his angst by fucking me hard. I was still tingling when we were walking down the hall for dinner.

“Dude, that was amazing,” I said, leering at him and making him blush.

“Duh,” he said, making me laugh. He chuckled briefly, then stopped abruptly, exposing how nervous he was. I stopped walking too, so we ended up standing in the middle of the hall facing each other.

“What’s wrong?” He gave me a frustrated look. “I can feel how uptight you are.”

He sighed. “It’s just a little freaky.”

“You mean because you’re going to be in the spotlight because of the deal with you and Jake, and because you have no idea what these dinners are like?” I asked, raising my eyebrow as I did.

“That’s probably it,” he said, then pretended to be mad. “Quit reading my fucking mind!” I started laughing all over again.

“You know pretty much everyone here now,” I said. “They all really like you.”

“Thanks,” he said. “You described a few of the dinners here over the years, and it seems like sometimes things can get a little intense.” It was all I could do not to laugh hilariously.

“I think saying ‘a little intense’ is one of the biggest understatements ever,” I said. “But things will be fine tonight.”

We got to the dining room a little before seven to find everyone else there but Jake and my father. “I am so glad you are with us,” Claire said to Travis, as she greeted him smoothly. She gave me a warm hug. “And I have chosen to decide that your being back is a good thing as well.”

“I’ve decided that’s a good thing too,” I said, laughing with her, then shifted my focus to Jack, who stood close enough to Claire to convince me they were intimate again. “Travis, this is my Uncle Jack,” I said, introducing them.

“Nice to meet you,” they both said simultaneously, which was cute. And then, just as the clock started to strike seven, Jake and my father walked in. Jake walked straight over to Travis, eliciting a quiet gasp from those who hadn’t already seen them together.

“I understand now why that genetic test was so urgent,” Jack said, kind of mumbling it to himself.

“I’ve decided that no matter what the tests show, I’m going to treat you like you’re my son, as long as that’s alright with you,” Jake said to Travis.

Travis looked at me playfully. “Do I need to worry that he has control issues too?” Everyone but my father laughed uproariously at that, while he grimaced, making the whole thing even funnier.

“He’s much more mellow,” I said.

“Then I’m good with that,” Travis said, and gave Jake a very intense and meaningful hug.