Notes: So, I don’t get as in-depth on
the game as I wanted to, but I just ran out of time to write and I need to move
past this particular day in the story. Don’t
hate me, Bostonians! Plus, smexy
chapter! Plus introspection, plus
history, all equals what I hope is a good time.
Thanks for the birthday wishes, guys, I had a lovely dayJ
Title:
Love Letters
Part Twenty-One: Gestures, Letters and Brief Mentions of
Baseball
***
On Wednesday morning Ben gratefully
escaped to the library before most of the apartment was awake, only pausing to
grab a cup of coffee and share a few words with Jasmine before he was on his
way. He’d wanted to do more, had
actually been planning on waking Ryan up and talking to him first, but the
other man had looked tired. Plus, there
was a suspicion at the back of Ben’s mind that there was nothing he could say
right now that wouldn’t simply be a rehash of what he’d said last night, and
that conversation had been decidedly unsatisfying.
Today would go better. Tonight was the game, so at least Ben had an
excuse to get them out of the apartment for a while.
Passive-aggressive,
Ben heard Michael sing-song in his mind.
Ben rolled his eyes at himself as he got into a cab and headed back to
the library. Even his mental versions of
his friends were bugging him now. He
laid his head back on the seat and focused on what he needed to go through
today. Planning, getting a system in place
in advance, that was what made him happy.
What had he been thinking, springing a surprise visit on Ryan? Who wanted that kind of hassle?
Ryan
does, Michael reminded him. Or do
you not remember that first greeting?
“You can shut up now,” Ben groaned out
loud. The cabbie looked back at him with
a scowl. “Sorry, not you.” He gave the guy a bigger tip in apology for
being a dumbass.
This morning the Arnold letters, some
of the Adams letters and the Toth letters were pulled for Ben. He’d already read the Arnold letters in the
online database, but it was interesting to see them in person. The paper was very high quality, folded
precisely and written on with an elegant, almost fussy hand. Benedict Arnold had been a meticulous lover,
courting his women with pretty words and grandiose promises. He had also been a determined lover,
persisting in his courtship in one instance until the lady he was interested in
married another man. His last wife had
fallen more easily to his charms, and their marriage by all accounts had been a
good one until Arnold’s downfall. He
went on to be castigated in England, burned in effigy on Saint John and nearly
beheaded by the French on Guadeloupe.
By contrast, the Adams letters were
warm and cramped and occasionally sloppy, a mixture of affection and family
information and advice to one another from afar. They spoke of a long and profound understand
between the two of them, and a mutual admiration that wasn’t affected by time
or distance. Not many men of the period
could or would confess true friendship and admiration for their wives, but John
Adams did both, continually, with almost every letter he wrote.
After this wandering Way of
Life is passed I hope to return, to my best friend and pass the Remainder of
our Days in Quiet.
I cannot learn that Great
Britain is yet in Temper to listen to Propositions of Peace, and I dont expect
before another Winter to have much to do in my present Capacity.
My tenderest affection to
our dear Children, and believe me, ever yours,
John Adams
They
were pleasant letters to read, and Ben touched each one with careful reverence
before moving on to the next. He got
through about a quarter of the collection before the pain in his back reminded
him that he needed a break, and he sat up and took a moment to check his phone. Three new messages from Linda, nothing from
Ryan. Ben frowned and put the phone back
on his bag. He could talk to Linda
later.
The other letters that Ben was looking
at today had been written by Avery Toth, a carpenter’s son who joined the 3rd
Virginia Cavalry in 1779. In 1780, he
and over a hundred of his fellow soldiers were massacred by British dragoons
after the British commander’s horse was shot down, pinning the commander
beneath it, as he rode forward to negotiate a surrender.
What made Avery Toth’s letters particularly
special was the fact that their intended recipient was unknown. The letters were addressed to C, and sent through the intermediary of
Avery’s sister Geraldine back home.
Numerous historians had speculated over the years as to who C could be, some thinking it was
Catherine Darrow, the sister of a friend of the Toth family, while a few
radical ones had suggested it might even be Charles Lancaster, a young man who
had attempted to join up with the same regiment but had been dismissed after
his parents Loyalist sympathies were exposed.
Whoever had been the intended, the
letters had ended up back in Geraldine’s care after her brother’s death, and
she had passed them down to her own children.
They were sweet, tentative letters, less full of grandiose words and
more about the small things of everyday life, and how hard it was to miss the
other person.
We
are settled now in a meadow outside of Charleston, while our Commander has gone
into town. The ground is churned to mud
from the horses, and the rain is not pleasant.
I have made my bed beneath a tree, that I must share with four other
men.
That
I can and should bear such things is the life of a Soldier, but I feel I
would bear them better were you with me.
I feel yore absence like I would the loss of my own limb.
There were never any
replies, as far as later readers could tell.
If there had been any letters on Avery Toth’s body, then they had been
buried with him in a mass grave in Waxhaws, South Carolina. It put Ben in a melancholy state of mind as
he read, each letter a bit stumbling, the words occasionally misspelled or
scratched out. These were the words of a
hopeful young man to his love, and unlike so many of the other letters that Ben
read, this one had no happy ending. Even
Benedict Arnold had lived to die of gout at the age of 60. Avery Toth was dead before his eighteenth
birthday.
Still, the letters must have
been a comfort to C, whoever he or she was.
They had been something special, something for C alone even if they’d
gone through Geraldine’s hands first.
That sort of connection was important.
After reading the last one Ben
was seized with a mood. Moods happened
every now and then, the kinds of moods where the bits and pieces of his psyche
that held his impulses for grandiosity firmly in check suddenly stopped
working. He glanced at his watch; a
little after one. Plenty of time.
Ben was able to persuade
Calanthe to help him find a florist and hook him up with a delivery service,
while Ben called up Eddie, the Man with the Tickets, and got seats in Fenway
Park up by the Green Monster.
In the end, after half an hour
of indecision, Ben forced himself to just write it out on a torn piece of
notebook paper. It wasn’t pretty, but
that wasn’t the important part.
Ryan,
So
it turns out that courting is hard, harder than I thought when we began. I don’t always think things through, and as a
friend pointed out to me the other night, I can’t expect you to read my
mind. You have decades of my letters,
but those aren’t me. I have impressions
of you, but they aren’t complete. This
is okay. We have time to fill in the
blank spaces, but I think you shouldn’t have to make do with secondhand letters
anymore. This is the first that’s just
for you: a slice of my time, the impressions of my hand and mind, and a piece
of my heart. I’ll give you more; I want
to give you everything. I want to know
you best.
Ben
All true, all stuff that scared
the hell out of Ben, and still not complete.
But, Ben consoled himself, it was only the first letter of what would hopefully
be many. He gave the letter, the
sunflowers (roses were cliché, and not bright enough) and the tickets to a
courier and had them delivered to the apartment, then got back to work.
Ben was halfway through the Toth
letters when his phone began to buzz. He
checked the number: Ryan. Before Ben
could pick up, though, the call ended.
That seemed like a bad
sign. Ben too off his cotton gloves and
stood up, ready to head outside, but then the texts started to come through.
Sorry I totally
forgot u r in the library.
This
is amazing.
I
love it.
U
need to be here, like now.
I
love the flowers.
Ive
never gotten flowers before.
Srsly,
be here 5 minutes ago.
It
was still early, but Ben cut out anyway.
Vaguely he was aware he hadn’t eaten lunch, or breakfast, and that he
was going to suffer for that soon, but right now he was coasting on
anticipation. He managed to get up to
the apartment before Ryan jumped him this time, but there was still enough
enthusiasm to slam his back into the door as Ryan kissed Ben, winding his arms around
Ben’s neck and holding on for dear life.
Jesus Christ, the way Ryan could
hitch his hips up was going to be the death of him. Ben’s libido came swarming back to life so
fast he got light-headed, and had to pull away and look up for a moment just to
catch his breath and remind himself that he couldn’t go down on Ryan in the
living room.
“Ye-owch!” Ben looked over Ryan’s
shoulder and saw Jasmine standing by the window, fanning herself. “Feel free to keep going, don’t stop on my
account,” she said.
“Aww, that’s so sweet,” Ben
heard Lenny say, probably from the couch but he couldn’t see because Ryan
tugged his face back down and kissed him again.
“Why don’t you ever get me flowers and write me love notes after we have
a fight?”
“Um…what?”
Those were the first words Ben
had heard Grant say, and he might have heard more but by then Ryan was pulling
Ben down the hall and into his room, shutting the door and dropping to his
knees so fast it must have hurt them. He
didn’t seem to notice.
“Ryan,” Ben said, weakly tugging
on his hair. “Wait, maybe we should—”
“All I’ve been thinking about
all day is you coming down my throat,” Ryan said hoarsely, grappling with Ben’s
belt and tugging his pants down. “We can
talk later, okay? Please?”
“Well, since you said please,”
Ben joked, then groaned when Ryan’s lips brushed the head of his cock, opening
to barely wet him with his tongue and then sliding down, taking him in deeper
and deeper until there was no further he could go. “Oh fuck,” Ben sighed. Fuck, that felt so good. Ryan licked around the base of his cock, then
back up, humming happily. Ben relaxed
his hold on Ryan’s hair and stroked him instead, scratching his nails across
Ryan’s scalp and cupping his straining jaw and thrusting, just a little, with
his hips.
Ryan pulled off for a
moment. “Do that more,” he said, his
voice wrecked, then sucked Ben in again, his tongue dancing across the hot,
hard flesh. Ben didn’t need any more
convincing to thrust harder, and Ryan took it, gagging a few times but holding
onto Ben’s hips tight, urging him forward.
Ben felt his orgasm coming on far too fast to be good for his dignity,
and he tried to pull away but Ryan wouldn’t have it. He came, and Ryan swallowed with a moan, and
if Ben was a slightly more selfish person he would have collapsed to the ground
right then and gone happily dormant for a few minutes. Or hours.
Instead he rested just enough to
catch his breath, then pulled Ryan to his feet and walked him back to the
bed. Ryan’s mouth tasted bitter and
sweet at the same time, and Ben licked into it as he urged Ryan out of his
clothes. It was easy enough; he was just
wearing boxers—electric blue this time—and a t-shirt, and the boxers weren’t
doing much to keep his erection under wraps anyway. Ben slid down Ryan’s body and mouthed over
the precome stain in the fabric, spreading it with his tongue as he traced the
line of Ryan’s cock through the slick fabric.
“More,” Ryan begged. “More, please, I need you.” And Ben wasn’t a sadist, so he gave Ryan
more, pulling the fabric away and brushing his lips over the silky skin of Ryan’s
cock. This was the first time he’d
gotten so close to it in the light of day, and it was gorgeous, just like
everything else on Ryan. Ben fisted the
base as he closed his mouth over the top, and in less than a minute Ryan was
coming, shamelessly loud, his back arching with pleasure. Ben swallowed the first pulse, then let the
rest flow over his fingers, thick and viscous and real. The air smelled like sex and heat, and Ryan
was still moaning, soft but genuine, still lost in orgasm. This was good, this was worth it, uncertainty and anxiety and inevitable mistakes. Ryan was worth it.
“Mmm, was that make-up sex or
just regular sex?” Ryan asked lazily.
“I’m not sure,” Ben said. He sat up to take off his jacket and shirt,
and kick his socks off as well. “Did we
have a fight?”
“I don’t think so. Just a weirdness.”
“Those are going to happen with
me,” Ben warned.
“Me too,” Ryan said with a
sigh. “Sorry about the party, I really
didn’t think you’d mind. You used to
party all the time, didn’t you?”
“Back when I smoked a lot of
pot,” Ben agreed. “But it’s been a few
years.”
“Got it. Parties in moderation.” He reached out and pulled Ben down on top of
him. It was sticky and sweaty, but Ben didn’t
care. “Except for two-person parties.”
“A natural exemption.”
“Excellent. Wanna go party in the shower?”
Ben tucked his face into the
side of Ryan’s neck and laughed. God, he
felt loopy now. “Okay, but then I need
food.”
“We can eat at the stadium!”
“I need real food, not hot dogs
and beer.”
“Aww, baby, don’t be a hater.”
In the end they were rather late
to the game, but the Red Sox were winning and so the people they had to push
past to get to their seats were inclined to be forgiving. They had beer and hot dogs, although Ben had
eaten something back at the apartment first, they jeered the Yankees with the
crowd (Ben felt a little guilty doing it, but his loyalty to New York was
fleeting) and they sang Sweet Caroline
during the 8th inning.
As a gesture, it was a good
one. As a date it was even better, and
even in the middle of the crowd, all of Ben’s world was Ryan. He could handle that.
***Avery Toth is a
fiction invented by me. Sorry, letter
lovers.
