THIS WORK IS FULLY PROTECTED BY U.S. COPYRIGHT LAWS. NO PORTION OF THIS WORK MAY BE COPIED OR REDISTRIBUTED BY ANY MEANS WITHOUT THE EXPRESS CONSENT OF ITS AUTHOR.
THIS WORK DEALS WITH A FICTITIONAL RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN TWO MEN. IF READING ABOUT HOMOSEXUAL RELATIONSHIPS OR SEXUAL CONTACT BETWEEN TWO MEN IS EITHER ILLEGAL IN YOUR AREA OR OFFENDS YOU, PLEASE DO NOT READY ANY FURTHER.
ANY SIMILARITIES TO ANY PERSON LIVING OR DEAD ARE PURELY COINCIDENTAL. THIS WORK IS ENTIRELY FICTITIONAL.
Guys I really appreciate all the great responses you've sent me after the original posting of Daniel's Love. Because of these letters and the multitude of requests I am writing the sequel. Since these characters have taken on a life of their own, they are writing this story, not me. We will continue as they direct. Again, thanks for the encouragement.
DANIEL'S LOVE
Michael A. Raburn
Chapter 8
Command central was set up at the cottage after we returned from New York. Alan Parker and his buddies from the security agency installed extra phone lines and commandeered Daniel's computer to use in the search for Kyle. A round the clock schedule was established, each of us taking turns monitoring the phones and checking with our friends at the police department. We were warned to let them do their job and to stay out of the investigation, but that was not a possibility. Since Kyle's father was a police officer, currently suspended, but still an officer, he knew the routine that the force would use to find him. Our little outsider gang might just be the extra bit of manpower needed to find Kyle.
Jason was released from the hospital three days after he regained consciousness over the objections of the psychiatrist that had been assigned to his case. The doctor wanted him to remain under his care until Jason was able to acknowledge that Kyle was gone and better deal with his feelings. Daniel and I knew him well enough after three months to realized that he was quickly withdrawing from us and entering a dark place. He would either be found crying and calling for his Kyle or staring out the window, oblivious to our attentions. Cornelia, as usual, made the final decision and whisked us all away from the city and back to our familiar Monroe Drive home.
Even my resolve to remain strong for my family began to crumble as each day passed. It became difficult to watch Jason's self-destruction and not be able to do the one thing that would solve the problem-find his lover. Daniel and Cornelia tried their best to keep us occupied and distracted. Every update about the case was presented to us to keep our minds away from the thought that Kyle would never be found, or would be found... I tried everything possible to stay as far away from that thought as possible.
Finally, Cornelia guilted me into finishing the canvases for the Garland building. That work, now book ended by tragedy, quickly absorbed me, but I finished in a few manic painting sessions. I again began to pace around the house brooding about anything and nothing.
"Paul, take Jason to the park, please." Daniel approached me one morning. "He needs to know you still love him. You've been too distant lately." Bless him for realizing what was happening and trying to intervene.
"Okay, baby. You need to know that too. I do love you and we will get through this." I pulled him into my embrace.
"Paul, I never doubted it. You both need to get better though. It's like a tomb around here. Oh god, I don't believe I said that." A tear welled up in his eye.
"We'll find him. I've got to believe that. You've got to believe that, Daniel. Thank you for keeping this family together."
We still found ourselves intertwined every night but the stress of our situation had taken its toll on our freewheeling love. I had begun to break the schedule we had established for my painting, I was slipping back into the old routine. I would awaken in Daniel's arms and ease out to the studio for several hours of work before quietly slipping back into bed. I thought I was being quiet but Daniel knew every time I left and would open his arms for me every time I came back to bed. We had not made love since the night before the boys were attacked and neither of us knew how to get back to where we had been before this whole mess started.
"Jace, come on. Catch up with me." I yelled over my shoulder to the straggling boy. He was much quicker on the roller blades that I would ever be, but he was dawdling. We had started out from the house hand-in-hand and entered the park at the south entrance. It was still a little chilly, March had turned out cooler than February. A few of the early spring daffodils were blooming in sporadic clumps and appeared to be shivering in the weather. Bare branches of the great forest of leafless deciduous trees appeared to guard over us as we skated the paths of Piedmont Park. Our mood seemed to be mirrored in the overcast, gray skies that either promised rain, or snow.
"Paul, can we stop and sit for a few minutes?" he asked.
"Sure, kiddo. You tired already?"
"No, I just...I just need to sit." He sniffed.
I gathered him into my arms and eased us down to the bench along the trail. I was unable to tell if he was shivering from the cold or shaking from his grief, until he started to cry.
"Why did this happen? Why couldn't his father leave us alone? He didn't want Kyle, he didn't want a faggot for a son. Why?" he sobbed into my chest.
"Jason, I don't know. I don't know what happened. All I know is that everybody we know is working to find him. We all want Kyle back. We're not complete without him."
"What am I going to do if, if he's dead? He asked in an amazingly calm voice. That sense of acceptance shook me. My voice caught in my chest and tears began to stream down my face.
"Honey, we don't know that he is not okay. Alan and the police are trying to find him." I tried to keep up the front.
"But, daddy, what if?"
"Jason, I don't know. I don't know what we'll all do if that happens. I couldn't imagine losing Daniel. I'd feel so, so torn apart. But he would want me to keep on going. I do know that. Kyle would want you to grow up and do all those things you talked about doing together."
"I shouldn't have let him get him. I should have fought harder." He wailed.
"Listen here! You did all you could. He was stronger than you. He could have easily killed you, but he didn't. There has to be some reason that you're still alive."
"I love you Paul."
"I love you too, son. Let's go home. I'm freezing my ass off."
For the first time in two weeks, I heard Jason's clear, strong giggle. "Come on, old man. Let's get you home before I have to call an ambulance." He pulled me up by the hand.
We took our time in getting back home. His smaller hand grasped mine, pulling me along. We talked about the times we had been here as a family, the picnics where we ended up feeding most of our lunch to the ducks in the pond, the skating trips he and Daniel had taken, the times we walked along the lake, two couples secure in our love.
"Cornelia, what are you doing up?" I asked, not bothering to turn from the easel.
"It was my turn to check on you. I got up to check on everybody. Jason had kicked the comforter off the bed, so I stopped and pulled it back over him. When I looked in our room, Daniel was asleep clutching your pillow, so I knew where you'd be." She shuffled to stand beside me.
The search for Kyle and his father seemed to have reached a dead end. All the leads we thought we had two weeks ago had been investigated and nothing had been found. Kyle's mother had died in childbirth and his grandparents were all deceased so there were few relatives to contact. All the father's friends at the department had been questioned to no avail. Jason's dad had refused to have anything to do with the search and had refused to answer anyone's questions. It was as if they had disappeared into the wind.
I had rearranged the studio over the past couple of days and stood in the middle of six easels. I had circled myself in the large canvases so I could turn and work on whichever demanded my attention. Most of my commission work had been loosely figurative, either based on my drawings or from literal images I saw in my head. This series reflected the restrained hysteria that my family and I were feeling. Not as frantic, scattered as the pieces I completed after our shooting, but still reminiscent of that period. Large blocks of Payne's gray, cobalt and muddy browns dominated the canvases; I suppose the darkness I felt surrounding us.
Nina sold the August grouping at prices that amazed all of us. I was unsure of the work and was even more unsure that anybody would want them hanging in their home. That fear quickly evaporated as the twelve paintings sold the opening night of the fall show. I guess the media attention had been good for my sales after all. She breezed through the studio a few days ago and gathered up the finished "ravings" as I had begun to call these nightmarish things that found their way through my paintbrush. I felt a change coming, a lessening of the manic stress that fueled these sessions. I was not sure how many more nights I would spend churning out paintings like this.
Cornelia and Daniel knew that my escape from the world was my painting, so they only interrupted me to make sure I ate periodically. During the day I would check with Alan on the investigation and search then try to keep the group together. We visited Nina and the gallery, went shopping, and tried to not get bogged down too much. Cornelia had plugged into the social scene in Atlanta and tried several times to get us to accompany her on her visits. But mostly, we stayed close to home, anxiously waiting for any lead that would help bring Kyle back to us.
The special bond that had developed in the beginning between Daniel and Jason helped keep them both sane. They would spend hours skating through the park or around the neighborhood not really talking, just enjoying each other's company. Several times I had wandered through the den and found them sitting on the sofa engrossed in discussion about some book they had both read.
"Honey, I'm going back to bed. Don't stay up too long." Cornelia yawned as she hugged me."
"I won't. Sleep well, mom." I smiled back at her.
"Dad, can I join you?" Jason asked a couple of nights later.
"Sure, drag up a stool. Want to talk?" I asked.
"Nah, I just couldn't sleep and I knew you'd be out here." He said as he pulled a stool into my circle.
I was actually amazed that I was awake. The break in the tension I was feeling was almost complete. Daniel and I had made love well into the night after a quiet dinner with Jason and Cornelia. We both sensed the change earlier in the day and had moved several times to caress each other, to hold hands or just to kiss each other. The lack of outward affection that had been so obvious in the past few weeks had disappeared. Once I caught Jason's eye after I had hugged Daniel in the middle of the kitchen. His smile silently voiced his approval that things were returning to some sense of normal.
We had played footsie all during dinner, almost rushing the meal's end. The building sexual tension we both felt was driving us toward the bedroom. After delaying as long as possible doing the dishes, we finally said good night and almost rushed from the room. Rarely were we the first to go to bed, almost always waiting up to tuck in the kids. Tonight we could wait no longer and almost ran down the hall.
When we closed the bedroom door and made sure it was locked, we almost felt like we were newlyweds. The hesitation, the nervousness caused us to slow down and take our time. Daniel turned to look out the window, suddenly shy. I moved to side and reached to grasp his hand. Slowly we eased closer together until we were in each other's arms. I stretched my arm to close the curtain as Daniel's hand found the buttons on my shirt. Turning back to the love of my live I ran my hands down his shirt and caressed the amazing muscles of his back.
We were in no hurry and spent the following hours exploring and reconnecting to each other. Each kiss, each caress reaffirmed our ever-growing love. My last conscious thought before sleep claimed me was how much this man had come mean to me in such a short time and I muttered a silent prayer of thanks for our life together.
The six huge canvases had been completed and were replaced by five smaller, yet good-sized panels. The manic phase had eased and the work was returning to the figurative. Almost unconsciously the new images appeared before me, Daniel in the park, his incredible hair blowing around him, dominated one canvas. The next was Jason curled up on the sofa in the den reading a thick book by lamplight. It seemed to reflect his deep intellectual side, but with a sense of quiet peace surrounding him. The third was a loosely rendered sketch of Kyle lying on the floor, his homework and books scattered around him. That was his typical place to finish schoolwork, but reminded me so much of the night before we left for New York. His face reflected that mischievous grin that always signaled we were in for trouble. The next was Cornelia, seated on the patio, ever present coffee mug in hand. Her blonde hair was gently windblown and a faint smile on her face. The final was a family portrait, but not the stodgy posed setting. Daniel and I were sitting together beside the pool and the kids were playing in the water.
"Dad, these are great. Can I have that one?" he asked, pointing to the one of Kyle.
"Of course, who do you think I painted it for?" I replied, reaching to ruffle his hair.
He moved to hug me, a faint blush on his cheeks. "He looks so peaceful. His smile reminds me of the time he was getting ready for that fishing trip. Oh, shit!" he yelled.
"Oh, hell! I can't believe we didn't think of the cabin. I've got to call Alan." I turned to find the portable phone in the junk pile on my table.
"Okay, I'll be ready." I said, clicking off the phone.
"Jason, go back to bed, buddy. Alan is going to pick me up in a few minutes. We're going to try to find the cabin."
"Paul, we don't know where it is. How are you going to find it?"
"I don't know, but he's making phone calls."
"I'm going with you." Jason demanded.
"Jason, no. I need you here. Daniel and Cornelia will need to know what is happening when they get up. You need to stay here and help hold down the fort."
"Aww, dad. I wanta go." He whined.
"If we find anything, I'll call and Daniel can drive you up. We don't know where we're going, so it could be a while."
"Okay, if I hafta."
"I love you, kiddo. Now off to bed."
"Yeah, dad. I love you too."
I made a quick dash through the shower, dressed and packed an overnight bag. I stood by the bed for several minutes looking down at the peaceful face of my lover, the only person I could imagine ever bringing happiness to my world. As I was turning to leave his eyes fluttered open.
"Paul, what's happening?"
"Alan is picking me up in a few minutes. We think we know where Kyle is. We've just got to find the cabin." I leaned down to embrace Daniel.
"Shouldn't I go with you?"
"No, it could take a couple of days. We've got to search property records to see if we can find anything. You need to keep things going around here."
"Okay, will do. Daddy Bear, be careful. I love you." He pulled me hard into a hug.
"Baby, you know I love you. And I always will."