The Freshmen - 84. Chapter 84

December 25, 2004

Escorial

Palo Alto, CA

Will

Marie and John had gone down to the hospital, while the rest of us had sort of scattered into different groups. Travis and I stood to the back of the room checking everyone out. “I thought about it, and if you want to fuck Paul, I’m good with that.”

“I thought about it, and I only want to do that if you’re with me,” I said. “If you’re up for that?”

“That could be fun,” he said, and swallowed hard as he started to visualize it. It was funny because he shook his head briefly, as if to rid himself of some lust. “Why did you change your mind? Seriously, I didn’t mean to be a buzz kill.”

“You were not being a buzz kill,” I said. “Look, I like the boundaries we set for ourselves. I don’t want to fuck that up, and I think that if we start making spur-of-the-moment exceptions that’s exactly what will happen.”

“You think that because it wasn’t a big deal now, the next time will be easier, and the next thing you know, we’ll be able to go off and fuck a dude when we’re at a party together?” he asked.

“Yes,” I said definitively, because he’d summed it up perfectly. “That whole ‘slippery slope’ concept.”

“I can see that,” he said. “I’m good with how we handled that.”

“You mean because I suggested it, I gave you time to talk about it, then recognized it could create an issue for us?” I said in a playful way. “And the way you were totally calm and open-minded, and didn’t lose your shit at all?”

“Yeah, that,” he said, cracking me up. I scanned the room and watched Darius head to the bathroom, leaving Paul all by himself. God he was sexy, and everything he did, from the way that he moved to the way that he talked, was so smooth.

“Let’s go,” I said, and nudged Travis to head towards Paul. “Hey, having a good time?” I asked.

“I am, but I think I need to crash soon,” he said.

“You’re like me,” Travis said. It was a strange statement, and also weird because Travis didn’t usually blurt out things like that.

“I’m like you?” Paul asked. “Dude, I’m not nearly as hot as you are.”

“Almost,” I said, raising an eyebrow suggestively.

“How am I like you?” Paul asked.

“You’re an introvert,” he said. “You aren’t really tired; you’re just done being in a group of people.”

Paul got ready to argue, but ultimately nodded. “I can see that.”

“Then I have the perfect solution,” I said. “Let’s go swimming.”

“I don’t know,” Paul said nervously.

“I’m down,” Travis said. “Come on.”

He glanced at me, clearly relishing the idea of seeing me nude. “Why not.”

We went down to the pool and hit the changing rooms. Travis was in a rush but I slowed him down and started making out with him. “What are you doing?”

“Getting you hard,” I said.

“Looks like it’s working for you too,” he said.

“I want you to saunter out there kind of slowly then jump in the pool,” I said. “I’ll go when you’re in the water.”

“Got it,” he said, and did just what I’d said. I peeked through the louvers and watched Paul’s eyes damn near blow out of their sockets as he watched Travis. As soon as Travis splashed into the water, I made my debut, with my big hard cock leading the way. It was such a turn-on to feel his eyes feasting on me. I got to the pool and jumped in and swam over to them.

“Dude, you are fucking hung,” he said to me.

“You noticed,” I said, flirting. “Bigger than you?”

“Yeah, I’m not so lucky,” he said.

“Show me,” I ordered.

“I don’t know,” he said, but the lust was driving him now, and the common sense had evacuated his brain. “Alright.”

He stood up and showed us his cock, which was hard as a rock. It was a very respectable six inches long, and on the thick side. “Nice,” I said, then took a risk and reached out to stroke it.

“Ahhh,” he moaned. “You have to stop.”

“No I don’t,” I said. Travis appeared next to me and took Paul’s hand and put it on his own dick, while I lowered myself down and inhaled Paul’s cock, giving him my best blow job.

“Fuck that’s good,” he said.

“Want to come back to our room?” Travis asked in a really seductive way.

“Yeah,” Paul said, totally crazed.

We wrapped towels around our waists but clearly didn’t dry off enough because I saw drops of water on the floor behind us. “Welcome,” I said, as I opened the door and led him in.”

“Nice,” he said nervously. I went up and kissed him, starting to refire the passion, when he stopped me. “I need to tell you guys something.” He was almost shaking, he was so petrified.

“Go ahead,” I said in a friendly way. It was cool that Travis was quietly in the background and that meant Paul could pretend he was only talking to me. If the three of us were having this conversation together, he probably wouldn’t say anything.

“I have done nothing with other dudes,” he said. “I’ve been blown twice, and that’s it.”

“And you’re worried that you’ll feel stupid and do something wrong?” I asked. He nodded. “It doesn’t work like that. It’s not a contest; it’s about pleasure. So relax.”

“I’ll try,” he said, and I then realized that the wild monkey-sex session I was anticipating was not going to happen, at least not right away.

“I’ve got a better idea,” I said, then looked at Travis. “Why don’t we teach Paul how to fuck other dudes?”

“I’m all over that,” Travis said. It wasn’t as much fun, but I felt really good about it because, in the end, Paul had started to develop confidence in himself sexually, confidence that was well-earned.

December 26, 2004

Escorial

Palo Alto, CA

Will

I was just finishing up breakfast when Marie came into the room. “I’m going back to the hospital,” she announced.

“Dude, you need to get some sleep,” I said. She looked worn out.

“I can do that when he’s well,” she said.

“I’ll go with you,” I said, not wanting to leave her to do this all by herself. “I’ll drive us down there then you can call for a car when you’re ready to come back.”

“I can drive myself,” she insisted.

“You’re likely to fall asleep if you do,” I said. “Come on.”

“Fine,” she grumbled, then followed me out to my Ferrari. I had missed this car when I was in Boston so it was good to be reunited with it.

“So why does this all fall on you?” I asked, referring to her vigil over her father.

“Because my brother doesn’t want to come down here more than twice a day, and my mother goes about once a day,” she said.

“So you have to fill the void,” I concluded. “And you’re mad at them for not being here more often.”

“He’s really sick,” she said. “Don’t you think that John would want to spend more time with him.”

“I don’t think it’s fair for you to use your zealot behavior in this situation as a yardstick by which to judge everyone else,” I said, knowing I was probably picking a bad time to have this argument.

“Zealot behavior?” she demanded. I ignored her.

“I talked to John about this, and he said he’d rather spend an hour having a good visit with your father, than spend four hours and have a crappier visit,” I explained.

“Maybe if he spent four hours it wouldn’t be crappy; it would be good too,” she said.

“You also forget that he needs lots of rest,” I said.

“John does?” she asked, surprised.

“No, dipshit,” I said, shaking my head at her. “Your father.”

“Whatever. I’m just glad that he’s lucid,” she said. “Jessica says that a lot of times people with severe infections get all mazy and delirious, but Daddy is as sharp as ever.”

“That’s good news,” I agreed. “Are you two besties now?” I asked, referring to Jessica.

“You’re such an ass,” she said in a slightly loving way. “I’m going to check in with the nurses first.”

“Cool,” I said. “I’ll go visit him while you’re doing that.” I walked into his room nervously, then strode over and sat next to him.

“Will?” he asked, surprised.

“It’s me,” I responded. “How are you feeling today?”

“About the same,” he said. Things were pretty tense between us. “I know you’re mad at me.”

“I’m over that,” I said, then sighed. “Look, you and I have never been close, and for the past year we didn’t even get along.”

“Then why are you here?” he asked. I thought it was funny that he didn’t even try to argue with me about that.

“To tell you that if you don’t make it, I’ll be there for both Marie and John, but especially for Marie,” I said. “We’ve gotten even tighter since we started at Harvard, and I’ve got her back.”

He smiled in a peaceful way. “You are a strong person, and you fight hard for the people you love,” he said. “Knowing that you’re there for Marie takes a huge burden off of me.”

“I’m glad I could do that,” I said.

“Did Claire come down with you?” he asked.

“No, she’s planning to visit later,” I said. “She’s smart enough to know that being here all the time won’t help you but will only exhaust her.”

“That’s not why she’s not here,” he said sadly. “She’s not here because she’s done with me. She says she’s not, just to make me feel better, and to make things easier, but she’s written me off.”

“I didn’t get that impression at all,” I insisted, even though I suspected he was right. He ignored my words anyway.

“Tell her not to feel guilty about that, about not being here as much as Marie is,” he said. I nodded. “Tell her I appreciated the time we did spend together.”

“I’ll tell her,” I promised. Marie chose that moment to come in, and I opted to leave, letting her deal with her father. His comments really confused me, so when I got back to Escorial I migrated to Grand’s office where I found him with Stef, my father, Grandmaman, and Claire. I glanced obliquely at Grandmaman, then spoke to Claire. “I just saw Jack. I’ll update you when you’re free.”

“You can update me now,” she said pleasantly.

I glanced at Grandmaman. “No, I really can’t,” I said, and started to exit the room. I was still pissed off at the stupid game she’d played on Christmas Eve. It was only Jeremy’s gesture of solidarity that was echoed by the others that made that night bearable.

“I will see you all later,” Grandmaman said in her huffy way, then walked out of the library, closing the doors loudly but not loudly enough that she slammed them.

“This is getting a little ridiculous,” my father said.

“What does that mean?” I demanded a bit loudly, thinking he was trying to pin the blame for this on me.

“I’m saying that it’s a shitty situation and it’s stupid,” he said. “I didn’t say you were in the wrong, because I don’t think you are.”

“Sorry,” I mumbled a bit.

“How was Jack?” Claire intervened.

“He didn’t seem at all well to me,” I said honestly. “Marie and Jessica keep talking about all this improvement, but I’m not seeing it.”

“That’s too bad,” she said. “Did he talk to you?”

“He did,” I said, then replayed my conversation with him for them.

“I’m glad you promised to be there for John and Marie,” Grand said. I smiled to thank him.

“Is he right?” I asked Claire.

“I was so hoping I could hide that from him,” she said sadly, shaking her head. “I think I will go down and see him, and maybe I can put on a better act this time.”

“I’ll have Travis give you lessons,” I teased.

“Jack said you had given up on him, and you are saying that you do indeed feel that way,” Grand said, but it was more of a question.

“I have,” she said.

“It seems so final,” Dad said. “Did something happen to cause this?”

“That letter he sent,” she said. “It was a big lie.”

“I don’t get it,” I said, because it had sounded sincere.

“Jack didn’t tell me, John, or Marie about his illness,” she said. “Instead, he shared it with Jessica.”

“He wanted to go through this with her, and only her,” Dad concluded, and I could see how angry that made him, because if Robbie had done that he would have lost his mind.

“And all of that rationale about her being at the hospital so she’d find out anyway, in no way does that excuse him from not telling us,” she said. “We were basically completely over at Thanksgiving, but if he had wanted to make us better, he would have let me walk this path with him.”

“If you had fought this together, it would probably have drawn you closer,” I concluded.

“Yes,” she responded, “but I am not sure that it would have been enough. I think, though, that it would have made it easier for us to be friends and co-parents. That’s what his decision has cost us.”

“You’re pissed off at him because he chose Jessica over you, John, and Marie,” I concluded.

“Yes,” she answered.

“How do you feel about Jessica?” Stef asked her.

“I don’t know her very well, but I expect that as I get to know her better, I will discover that I like her,” Claire said.

“What makes you so confident?” I asked.

“Because Jack picked her, and he was usually a good judge of character,” she said.

“I am not sure that he picked her because of her character,” Dad said skeptically, assuming Jack was more focused on her hotness.

“As we learned, Jack has been with quite a few other people,” she said grimly. John had told me all about the freaky conversation they’d had in the car. It continued to irritate me that anyone in this house felt pure enough to give me shit about my sex life, or those of my cousins. “But Jessica was more than that. She was in a very close relationship with him, one that was so close he opted to spend what could be his last days alone with her.”

“And that means she’s probably a good person,” I concluded.

“That is my hypothesis,” Claire said, giving Grand a slightly smarmy look for using such a scientific term. “The best part of that analysis is that it compels me to give her the benefit of the doubt, which I should do anyway.”

“I think that is a noble approach,” Grand said. “Do you know where she lives?”

“Why?” I asked.

“I was of a mind to offer to let her stay here with us,” Grand said, while eyeballing Claire, seeking her approval.

“The next time I talk to her, I’ll let her know that’s an option,” Claire said. It was interesting that she had taken the responsibility of dealing with Jessica onto herself.

“Excellent,” Grand said. I left that meeting and as I was walking down the corridor to track down Travis, I heard some mournful guitar music coming from John’s room.

I knocked, then heard the guitar stop along with his mumbled “Come in.”

I went in and found him sitting in bed, his eyes red from crying. His guitar was tossed aside on the floor in a haphazard way, a true sign of how upset he was. “Hey,” he said sadly as I came in.

“You doing okay?” I asked. He shook his head and I nodded.

“I should be there with him,” he said, and made to get up.

“You do not have to be on Marie’s schedule,” I insisted. “I told her that you valued quality over quantity.”

“Yeah, but if he doesn’t make it, I’ll feel guilty for not grabbing the time we could have had together,” he said glumly.

“Or maybe instead you should focus on the good times you had with him when you were there,” I suggested. “Besides, did it not occur to any of you that for him to get better, he’s going to need his rest?”

“You make a good point,” he said, then sighed. “Still, I think I’ll head down there.”

“Let me know how he is when you get back,” I said.

“Did you go see him?” he asked. He was being mellow, but at the same time he was trying to hide his annoyance that I might just blow Jack completely off.

“I just got back,” I told him. “I had a short but nice conversation with him.”

“Thanks,” he said. I left him alone to get ready, then an idea surged in my brain.

I pulled out my phone and called Ryan. “What?” he asked rudely as he answered.

“Merry fucking Christmas to you too, asshole,” I said, letting him know that I wasn’t willing to put up with any shit from him.

“What did you need?” he asked much more pleasantly, making me almost chuckle.

“We found out yesterday that Jack Hobart is in the hospital,” I said. “He’s got cancer, and it’s touch and go as to whether he’ll make it.”

“Fuck,” he said. “How are John and Marie doing?”

“Depressed,” I said. “John’s handling it mostly by moping, while Marie has turned into a dynamo where she’s focused on spending every minute that she can with him.”

“This will be especially devastating for her,” he said, exposing how much he still cared about her.

“She is not dealing with this well,” I concurred. “John is dealing with it a little bit better, but not all that much.”

“Sucks for both of them,” he said with sincere sympathy.

“I have a plan to help them deal with this a little better,” I said. He snickered because I always had a plan.

“Let’s hear it,” he said.

“I was thinking that if you could come up here and maybe round up your band, that might give John something else to focus on,” I said.

“I don’t know about that,” he said skeptically.

“I think it will let him express his grief through music,” I said.

“Dude, you do not need to take more psych classes,” he teased. I said nothing, waiting for him to respond. “I’m worried that if I’m there it will upset Marie.”

“It’s also possible that you’ll be able to help prop her up,” I said.

“She has made it very clear that she wants nothing to do with me, and that she doesn’t want me around,” he said adamantly, exposing how much that hurt him.

“Her father is lying in the hospital and there’s a good chance he won’t make it,” I snapped. “Bullshit drama may be irrelevant. If she’s still pissed at you, you can at least be her whipping boy.”

“You realize that I have no frame of reference on this deal,” he said in a slightly jocular way, referring to how much he hated his father and how he wouldn’t mourn him at all.

“Yeah, I do, but I’m hoping you can rise to the occasion,” I said.

“Like that’s ever been a problem,” he said, alluding to his erection. “I’ll see what I can do.”

“I’ll make sure we have rooms for you guys ready,” I said, then ended the call.

I walked up to our door and heard moaning so I opened it quietly. I snuck in and saw Travis and Paul, lying on the bed in a sixty-nine position, blowing each other. Paul’s back was to me, so I could see his gorgeous ass thrusting very gently in and out in time with Travis’s oral efforts. I could only see Travis’s hair and forehead peeking through Paul’s legs, framed by his hairy balls. It was a very erotic scene, and a blow job was really no big deal, and I shouldn’t have been upset about this at all. In truth, I wasn’t enraged, I was just annoyed. We had just had this talk about making exceptions to our rule and what this could mean, and Travis had gone right down that road. I decided that the best thing to do, especially for Paul, was to sneak back out, and so I did. I had no sooner finished gently closing the door when I saw Colin coming out of his room. “Hey,” he said cheerfully. He walked up to me, looked around furtively, then planted a major lip-lock on me. While I was enjoying this amazing kiss, an idea formed in my brain.

“Hey,” I said. “Come on.” I gestured at my door and he got nervous.

“Dude, what about Travis?” he asked.

“It’s fine,” I said. “He’ll be good with it.”

He shrugged, then made to follow me, but I put my finger on my lips to tell him to be quiet. We walked into the room and saw Travis and Paul, only they’d rolled over so that Paul was on top of Travis, still blowing him, while Travis played with Paul’s ass. Paul hadn’t exhibited any desire to bottom, so I suspected that Travis was doing that to slow down his fuse. Colin stared at them, eyes open so wide I thought they might fly out of his head, even as his pants tented. I shut the door loudly, freaking out both Travis and Paul. When they turned to look who had come in, they saw me and Colin fully dressed. “Fuck!” Paul said, and tried to dive under the covers.

“It’s okay,” I said to him firmly, then I stood behind Colin and started massaging his dick, while I nibbled on his neck. “Take off your clothes,” I cooed into his ear. Paul’s terrified look mellowed, then turned into a smile as he watched as Colin’s clothes fell off of him. I guided Colin over to the bed, all but pushing him into it.

“What about you?” Travis asked me in his husky voice.

I leaned in and whispered in his ear. “Looks like there’s a slippery slope,” I said caustically, then watched as his eyes shot open in alarm. I walked out of our room and shut the door, leaving them to their threesome. I headed back up to Grand’s study and was just about to his door when my phone rang and the caller ID told me it was Marie. “Hey,” I said somberly, trying to anticipate her mood.

“He’s dead,” she said, sobbing. “He’s dead.”

“I am so sorry,” I said. “Did this just happen?”

“I was holding his hand, he smiled at me and told me that he loved me, then his hand went limp and he was dead,” she said.

“Who is there with you?” I asked.

“Jessica was here about half an hour ago, but she left,” she said.

“You’re all alone?” I asked.

“My father is dead, so yeah, I am,” she replied.

“I’ll be there as soon as I can,” I promised, then knocked and went into Grand’s study without anyone bidding me to. I ignored everyone else and walked up to Claire, who was seated on a chair. I knelt in front of her, took her hands in mine, and our eyes focused on each other. She knew what I was going to say before the words came out of my mouth. “Marie just called. Jack died. I am so sorry.”

She nodded. “Thank you for telling me.”

“Do they know what happened?” my father asked. I ignored him and turned to walk out of the room. “Will!”

“Marie is at the hospital alone. I’m going there,” I said, then took off running. I fired up my Ferrari and backed it out of the garage, then put it in gear to drive away. I saw Travis come running out of the house, trying to catch me, but I just gunned the engine and tore down the drive. I didn’t have the energy to deal with him right now. I drove like a madman, stunned that a Palo Alto cop hadn’t arrested me. I did a shitty job of parking the car then ran into the hospital, dodging some old lady with a walker and getting yelled at by an old man using a cane, until I got to the ICU, and to Marie.

She smiled when she saw me, then the sadness overwhelmed her again. I hugged her, just enveloped her for the longest time, letting her cry on my shoulder, feeling so good that I could be here for her. Then slowly, piece by piece, I could feel her pulling herself together. When she had, she broke off the hug. “Did you fly down here? You got here incredibly fast.”

“I broke every traffic law in California,” I said. “I really am sorry.”

She shook her head and led me over to a bench where we sat side-by-side. “He was so weak.”

“He was a real fighter,” I said. That was pabulum and she called me on it.

“No, he wasn’t,” she said. “I think he’d lost his will to live.”

“You can’t say that for sure!” I objected.

“He got pretty coherent toward the end, rambling on about how he’d made such bad choices, about how much he screwed up his family,” she said. “Then he went on a rant about how much he loved my mother, and how he treated her so badly. I think that was why he gave up his will to live.”

“I can see that, based on how he had indeed fucked up his family,” I said. She gave me a dirty look. “What? I’m just agreeing with him.”

“He said he could tell my mother was done with him,” she said, and I could see where this was going. “If she’d been able to show him more warmth, more love, he probably could have made it.”

“I think she reached out to him as much as she could, and I don’t think that you or I would have handled it any better,” I said.

“Bullshit,” she spat. “I was here all the time.”

“I talked to your mother about this. She said that your father’s lame excuse that he had to include Jessica in his secret journey to get well because she’d find out about it anyway was just so much bullshit. In reality, he blocked all of you out. He wanted to go through this with only Jessica at this side,” I said.

“That’s not fair,” she objected.

“It’s fair, and it’s right, and you know it,” I said. “You have been trying to spend as much time with him as you could, but you didn’t know he was sick until two days ago. In reality, if he’d shared this with you, you’d have had almost a month with him, and some of it would have been when he wasn’t all that sick.”

“I don’t want to think about that now,” she insisted, and I understood her clearly. She wanted to lapse back into denial to spare her psyche, and she didn’t want to blame her father for this.

“You are totally allowed to do that,” I said. “Look, it’s probably awful for me to come up and drop this on you right after he died.”

“Then why did you?” she asked, lashing out at me.

“Because I didn’t want you to accidentally hurt the people who are still with us, especially your brother and your mother, while ignoring the facts of the situation,” I said. “You either ignored or forgave him for what he did, but that doesn’t mean they have.”

“I’ll do better now that we talked,” she said, but it was insincere. She sighed. “Thanks for telling me.”

“No problem,” I said. We sat there on the bench, where I kept my arm around her, for half an hour until the rest of the family started arriving. When she was absorbed by John and Claire, I felt like that gave me permission to escape from their mourning. It still hadn’t dawned on me that Jack Hobart was dead, or if it had, it really hadn’t made much of a ripple in my psyche. I grimaced, knowing that when my anger at him faded over the bullshit way he’d acted the past few months, and especially over Thanksgiving, I would be in for one hell of a grief experience.

I looked up and saw Travis there, and I smiled at him weakly. He walked up and gave me a big hug, then led me out of the hospital to a place where I could grapple with the situation.