Man of Constant Sorrow

by allewyn

Summary:

The man of constant sorrow isn't always the one you'd expect: Llewyn runs into Al Cody at a music festival a year after his trip to Chicago.

Chapter 1

It was more than a year before Llewyn saw Al Cody again.  Llewyn got an invite to a country-western music festival up state, and he went because he didn’t have anything more lucrative going on.  He hitched up there and found a Motel 6 that wasn’t booked up, took a shower, and caught another ride out to the fields where all the New England cowpokes were having their hoedown.  Llewyn looked and felt out of place, and he wondered why they’d asked him there, but a gig was a gig.

There were three temporary stages cobbled together from reclaimed wood, a big one and two smaller ones in adjacent fallow fields where the tops of the weeds grazed Llewyn’s knees as he walked with his guitar out to where he was supposed to play.  The sunlight gleamed a hazy gold like in autumn, even though it was only May, and leggy insects flew drunkenly through the air and whacked into Llewyn’s face from time to time.  It was late afternoon, but everyone who’d been there all day was already drunker than the bugs, and half of them were stoned on top of that.  Llewyn took a beer when one was offered to him by a wasted girl in chaps, boots, cowboy hat, and underwear, but he passed up the joint she held out to him.

Get in, play, get my money, and get out, he reminded himself, reiterating the plan he’d worked out on the ride up from the city.  This isn’t my scene.

Llewyn didn’t consciously think that it might be Al Cody’s scene, yet he wasn’t really surprised when he finally located the schedule of performances, scrawled on a piece of soggy poster paper and tacked to the side of the stage, and saw Al’s name listed, two acts beneath his own.  Llewyn exhaled a breath through his nose in a muted laugh, and one side of his mouth drew back in a half smile.  It was a coincidence, but not a huge one considering that the festival was designed to draw in wannabe cowboys, and anyway, Llewyn was used to strange little flukes of fate cropping up like that.

Al Cody, he thought and turned to look for Al, like he could spot one stupid cowboy hat out of a sea of them.  Al was the next to last act that night, and he probably wasn’t even there yet, but Llewyn looked all the same.  He hadn’t heard any news of Al since the rainy morning Llewyn left for Chicago, although he assumed Al had done all right, at least while “Please Mr. Kennedy” was getting airplay.  Maybe Al hadn’t done so well if he was booked here on the small stage, but he was no doubt making the best of it, warm and goofy and cheerful as ever.  Llewyn hadn’t been around anyone warm or goofy or cheerful in some time, not since Jim had packed up Jean and moved them out to California, and he’d missed that.  Maybe he’d even missed Al specifically, considering how Llewyn’s mouth had wanted to smile all on its own when he saw Al’s name on the schedule.

But Llewyn didn’t find Al anywhere in the crowd, and his turn to get up onstage came not long after the sun had set and the field fell into darkness, except for watery illumination from the floodlights which drew the leggy bugs up into the sky, where they crowded around the lamps.  Llewyn played and sang, unable to see the crowd behind the smaller lights pointed up at his face.  He wondered if Al was there yet, if he was watching or listening.  For that matter, Llewyn didn’t know if anyone was listening—the audience was loud and drunk, and he wasn’t playing their kind of music.

I’m just here for the money, Llewyn thought, but because he felt angry disappointment nevertheless, he realized he did still care about the art of it too.  Of course he did—if he didn’t, he would have quit a long time ago.

But he still demanded his pay from the organizer keeping an eye on the stage, as soon as he was through and back on the ground with the tall grasses around his calves.  Llewyn counted the money and pocketed it before wading out into the crowd.

He checked off his list mentally: Got in, played, got my money.  Nothing left but to get out, although he looked back over his shoulder at the band of hayseeds up on the stage and thought about how Al should be coming on in an hour or so.

I could stay and see him, Llewyn mused.  Yeah, but what then?  What had he hoped to accomplish by finding Al in the crowd, for that matter?  Everything that had kept him from going back to Al after coming home from Chicago still applied: the girlfriend from Boston, the car Al might be pissed at Llewyn for abandoning.  The fact that Llewyn had been a good lay, but Al had sent him off to Chicago with Johnny Five and Roland Turner anyway.

Llewyn hadn’t let it hurt.  Al wasn’t the first person who’d cheated on someone with Llewyn, or the first person who’d kicked Llewyn out afterwards.  But seeing Al again would give it another chance to hurt, another chance for Al to mean something to him.  Llewyn decided he couldn’t afford to take chances like that.

But then, just as Llewyn turned away from the stage and started back toward the road where he hoped he could hitch a ride to the Motel 6, he saw Al.  He was a few yards away, still tall and lanky with narrow hips and broad shoulders, wearing his cowboy hat and a button-down shirt in an ugly pattern like something you’d see on an Indian blanket.  His jeans were dark and tight, disappearing into the grasses that didn’t come close to reaching his knees.  He held a guitar case in one hand.

Al had been coming toward Llewyn, but he stopped when Llewyn saw him.  They looked at each other, and Al’s wide mouth twitched in a hesitant smile.  Llewyn smiled back, reflexively, and Al came over to him.

“Llewyn, hey,” said Al.

“Hey,” said Llewyn.  He had to tilt his head to look far enough up to meet Al’s dark eyes.

“What’re you doing here?”

“Singing,” said Llewyn, and Al laughed in that sudden, awkward way he had.

“Well yeah.  I was watching you.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah,” said Al.  “You still sound good.  Sound great.”  He had set down his guitar case and hooked his thumbs in the pockets of his jeans with the rest of his large hands braced on his bony hips.  “But I meant, what’re you doing singing here?  I didn’t think you’d be into, uh. . . .”  He lifted a hand and gestured around the field with its artificial lighting and din of faux-country inebriation.  “This.”

“I’m not, but they asked me, God knows why,” Llewyn told him, then shrugged.  “A gig’s a gig.”

“Yeah,” said Al.  He looked past Llewyn, up at the stage, and Llewyn wondered if Al was already thinking of an excuse to get rid of him.  But then Al looked back down at him and licked his lips.  “How long you here for?  Coming back tomorrow?”

“No, hell no,” said Llewyn.  “Going home tomorrow.  I just came to play, not to hang out.”

“Oh,” said Al.  He rubbed the back of his neck with his loose hand, then hooked his thumb into his pocket again.  “Yeah.  I guess not.  I, I’m playing tonight then. . . not coming back, either.”

“Yeah?  Isn’t this your kind of thing?” Llewyn asked.  “Cowboy shit?”  Al smiled again, but it didn’t look genuine.

“Yeah,” he said, “but I ain’t staying.  Not this time.”

Llewyn looked up at him and frowned.  Something seemed off about Al, like something was bothering him.  He wasn’t drunk or stoned, but he was being weird—not the usual Al Cody kind of weird, but a weird kind of weird.

“Uh, you’re playing later, right?” Llewyn asked after they just stared at each other for a minute.  Al’s smile had disappeared; he pressed his lips together and nodded.  Llewyn nodded too then asked, “You mind if I stay and listen?”

Al blinked.  “Listen to me?”

“Yeah,” said Llewyn.

“Uh, sure, yeah.  I mean, I’d—I’d like you to stay.  If you really want to.”  Now when Al smiled, it seemed real.  His smile was as awkward as his laugh, kind of dorky, but Llewyn liked it.

Llewyn said, “I want to stay.  See you after?”  Al’s full lips parted uncertainly, and Llewyn added, “Dunno where you’re staying, but there’s a bar near my motel.  They’ve gotta have something better to drink than the piss they’re calling beer out here.”

“Uh, okay.”  Al flashed another quick smile then bent at the knees to grab his guitar case.  The hayseeds had left the stage, and a busty bottle blonde was screeching away about her cheating husband.  Al said, “I’m on next.  Meet you here later?”

“Yeah,” said Llewyn.  He watched Al amble toward the stage until he was swallowed by the crowd again; then Llewyn set his own guitar case down in the grass between his feet and waited for Al to sing.

--

Al Cody had been better in bed than Llewyn had expected, especially considering how ambivalent he’d acted after they finished recording.  The quip about touring Uranus and the way Al smiled at Llewyn sometimes, that all made it seem like Al was coming on to him.  But then there was the girlfriend and Al wanting Llewyn not just out of his place on Tuesday, but out of his place and on the way to Chicago.  Llewyn figured Al’d had second thoughts about the proposed tour, and he’d already settled down on Al’s couch that Sunday night, with the orange cat sprawled on the windowsill, when Al came out of the shower wearing a threadbare bathrobe.  His short hair was wet, and even when he raked his fingers through it, it didn’t do much to cover his large ears.

Guess that’s why he wears that stupid hat, Llewyn mused drowsily.  Oughta grow his hair longer too.  He’d turned the lights off in Al’s little living room, but the kitchen light was still on, and he watched Al breaking ice cubes out of the tray and into a glass.  Then Al stopped and looked over at Llewyn.

“Want a drink?” he asked.

“Sure,” Llewyn mumbled.  He scrabbled up into a sitting position, and Al fixed a second glass of ice and poured whiskey into both tumblers.  He came over and handed Llewyn one glass, then sat down beside him with his long legs stretched out.  The bathrobe only came to Al’s knees, and his calves with their wiry muscles were bare.  Llewyn drank from his glass and watched Al drink from his, wincing as the whiskey went down.

“You got any cigarettes?” Llewyn asked Al.

“Uh, maybe,” said Al.  He slapped his thighs, over the empty pockets of his robe, then frowned and looked around.  When he spotted a crumpled pack on the half-wall dividing the room from the kitchen, he lurched up and grabbed it and the lighter lying next to it.

“Just one left,” Al observed, looking into the pack and shaking it, as if that might make more cigarettes appear.  He lifted his eyes to look over at Llewyn.  “Share it?”

Llewyn shrugged and said, “Okay.”

Al sat down beside him again and tapped out the cigarette, then held it between two long, bony fingers as he lit it and tossed the empty pack aside.  He took a drag before passing the cigarette to Llewyn.  Llewyn took the cigarette but swallowed more whiskey before smoking it and handing it back to Al.  Al took a second drag and tilted his head back to exhale the smoke.  He looked tired.

“You okay?” Llewyn asked after a minute.  He didn’t usually ask things like that, things that weren’t any of his business, but he felt like he owed Al some conversation in exchange for the drink and the cigarette, and he didn’t know what else to talk about.

“Yeah,” said Al.  He was holding the cigarette off the edge of the couch cushion, and ash was building up on the end.  Llewyn looked around, took an ashtray off the end table, and set it on the cushion between them.  Al turned his head down toward it then tapped the ash off into the ashtray.

“Yeah,” he muttered again, “I’m okay.”  He lifted the cigarette to his lips, sucked at it, then held it out again.  Llewyn raised a hand to take it, but Al tilted it up toward Llewyn’s mouth.  Maybe he just didn’t want to hand it over because he thought Llewyn might smoke it all the way down.  Llewyn leaned forward and took a drag with Al holding the cigarette for him.  There was something intimate about it, and Llewyn felt a little flicker in his chest.  He hadn’t felt that flicker in a long time.

Al drained the rest of his glass in a couple swallows, shook his head like a wet dog shaking off water, and set the glass of ice down on the floor.  Llewyn took another sip of his whiskey and watched Al do that, watched him draw off the cigarette and tap off more ash.  Then Al shifted on the couch to face Llewyn and held out the cigarette again.

“Finish it,” he muttered.  His deep voice sounded husky from the alcohol and the smoke.  There wasn’t much of the cigarette left, and Al’s fingers were close to the end he held out to Llewyn.  Llewyn thought about it, then leaned forward again and closed his lips around the cigarette, far enough up that they touched Al’s fingers.  He closed his eyes and sucked in, then opened them and looked at Al as he exhaled the smoke through the side of his mouth.  Al was watching him.

Llewyn took one last drag that turned the paper to ash almost all the way up, and as he pulled away, he flicked out his tongue to lick one of Al’s fingers.

“Fuck,” Al hissed.  He stubbed out the cigarette butt and moved the ashtray off the cushion to the floor.  Llewyn tipped the last of his whiskey into his mouth then set the glass down on the floor too.  Al put his hand on Llewyn’s bare thigh, just below the cuff of his shorts.  His hand looked huge there, spanning Llewyn’s thigh all the way across, and his fingers were very white in contrast to Llewyn’s skin, even though Llewyn was winter-pale.

Llewyn muttered, “What about your girlfriend?”

“She ain’t here yet,” said Al.  He leaned forward, hesitated like a kid about to kiss a girl for the first time, then put his mouth on Llewyn’s.  Llewyn didn’t usually kiss much, not even with women, but he’d looked at Al’s mouth, wide and full-lipped, every time they ran into each other that day.  He liked how those supple lips felt, and how Al’s mouth tasted when Llewyn pushed his tongue in.  Al tasted like whiskey and cigarettes, just like Llewyn must, but there was something under that too.  As soon as Llewyn responded to his kiss, Al clenched his left hand over Llewyn’s thigh and brought the right hand up to the back of Llewyn’s head, burying long fingers in the curls of hair just above his neck.

Al kissed rough and sloppy, about like Llewyn had expected, but Llewyn liked it that way coming from another man.  Al had been a paradox all day: nice, polite, goofy enough to meow back at a cat, a little shy most of the time. . . then there’d be the glimpse of another side to him, the side who told dirty jokes and made Llewyn haul Al’s shit upstairs for him, like Llewyn had to earn his keep if he was going to crash on the couch and smoke half of Al’s last cigarette.  Llewyn was a little surprised to find he liked both sides.  The nice one drew him in, and the pushy one turned him on.

As he broke the kiss, Llewyn hissed into Al’s mouth, “So what’s a night on your couch cost?  Hand job, blow job?  Or ‘m I gonna have to give up my ass?”  Al jerked back away from him and stared.

“Llewyn—it ain’t like that,” he stammered, all nice guy again.  “You—you don’t have to—”

“You’re ruining it for me,” Llewyn interrupted, and he grinned.

“Oh,” breathed Al.  His mouth quirked into that dorky, awkward smile; then he pulled Llewyn closer to him by the back of his head.  Al put his mouth to Llewyn’s jaw and dragged it upward through his beard to his ear, where he whispered, “I want all of you.”  He kissed Llewyn under his ear, kissed and licked him over the pulse point there, and Llewyn arched his neck back and groaned.

“If you—if you’re gonna stay here, you gotta let me blow you,” Al muttered against his neck.  His hand slipped upwards from Llewyn’s thigh to close over his erection, through his shorts.  Llewyn hadn’t expected to be on the receiving end of the proffered blow job, and he groaned again as he thought about Al’s full lips wrapped around his cock.  Al groped him and licked his ear and growled, “And then I’m gonna tap that sweet ass I been checking out all day.  Gonna make you feel so good, Llew.”

And he did, first kneeling on the floor with his robe open while he went down on Llewyn, Llewyn grasping handfuls of Al’s short, dark hair and thrusting up into his mouth as he stretched one foot down to rub Al’s cock with his bare toes.  It felt enormous, but Llewyn couldn’t be sure until after he’d come in Al’s mouth with two of Al’s fingers up his ass, and the taller man pulled back and stood up.  Llewyn was sure about the size of Al’s cock then, and even surer when Al bent him over the couch and fucked him and made him come a second time.

Afterwards, Al got shy and awkward again and closed his robe back up.  Llewyn couldn’t be sure in the dim light coming from the kitchen, but he thought Al even blushed when he asked if Llewyn wanted to come to bed with him, instead of sleeping on the couch.  Although Llewyn considered it, he remembered the girlfriend then and said no, he preferred the couch.  Al mumbled good night and went to bed.  Llewyn lay awake awhile, enjoying a level of satiety he hadn’t felt in a long time but trying not to think too much about what had led to it, especially the kissing.  He craned his neck to look for the cat so he could distract himself, but it had disappeared.  Maybe it had gone to sleep in Al’s bed since Llewyn wouldn’t.

--

After Llewyn blew up at Lillian Gorfein, he decided he had to go to Chicago with Al’s friend Johnny after all.  He’d burned pretty much all his other bridges.  Johnny picked up Al’s mother’s car early to go get whoever it was he was driving, and he wouldn’t be back for Llewyn until after Al was gone to work.  Llewyn was sitting with a cup of coffee at the little round table in the kitchen when Al passed through on his way out.

“Just leave your key on the table, and pull the door to when you leave,” Al said over his shoulder.  He didn’t look at Llewyn as he spoke, hadn’t really looked at Llewyn at all since he went to bed while Llewyn stayed on the couch.

“Okay,” Llewyn said.

“You taking the cat?” asked Al.  He stopped at the door and sort of turned toward Llewyn but still didn’t look directly at him.

“Yeah,” Llewyn said.  “I’m not gonna leave anything behind to get in your way.”  He looked up at Al and thought about what a dork he was when he sang, the awkward way he laughed, his gangling limbs and big ears.  Then Al finally met his gaze, and Llewyn thought about how intent those dark eyes were, how Al fucked and kissed and the way he tasted.

“Good luck in Chicago,” said Al.  He licked his lips.  “Llewyn—take care of yourself, okay?”

“Yeah,” said Llewyn, “I will.”  Al looked at him, and Llewyn imagined him saying, No, you won’t.  I know you too well already.  He imagined Al saying, Don’t go to Chicago.  I’ll call my girl and tell her not to come down.

When Al didn’t say anything at all, Llewyn added, “You take care too.”

Al nodded and murmured, “G’bye, Llew.”

“Yeah,” said Llewyn.  “See you, space cowboy.”

Al smiled, quick and awkward.  Then he was gone, and the next time Llewyn saw him was fifteen months later, standing in a field with a guitar case in his hand.

--

Llewyn hadn’t ever heard Al singing on his own, or singing something other than a novelty song.  That May night, even on the small stage, his deep voice sounded good—probably would sound even better in harmony with someone, but still sounded good.  He sang mostly traditional stuff Llewyn recognized, not much, if anything, Al had written himself, and he opened with “Man of Constant Sorrow.”  Llewyn had heard Dylan’s version, but he liked the way Al sang it better, kind of how the Soggy Bottom Boys had done it.  Llewyn’s father had had their record of it; he’d always joked that it came out around the same time Llewyn had, and that he’d had a harder time getting a copy of the album than Llewyn’s mother had had birthing Llewyn.  The Soggy Bottom Boys had been that popular.  Now Llewyn found them too frivolous to take them seriously as musicians, but he’d listened to the record over and over as a kid and decided he wanted to sing songs like that too.

Al’s voice took Llewyn back to those feelings, moved him that same way even though the song came out a little less frivolous and a little more poignant the way Al sang it:

It’s fare thee well, my own true lover,
My face you’ll never see no more,
But there’s one promise that is given,
I’ll meet you on God’s golden shore.

Llewyn held his calves against the sides of his guitar case to steady himself against the press of the crowds around him as he watched Al sitting under the lights, folded up on a stool and singing without self-consciousness.  His long fingers caressed his guitar’s strings, and the brim of his hat bent over the instrument.  Llewyn thought about those fingers playing his body, Al’s lips singing moans to him in between bites and kisses.  He started getting hard remembering that night on Al’s couch, but then Al’s last song brought him down again.  Al sang it slow, his voice outright beautiful, but he made it sad too even though the song was a hymn of hope:

Sadly we sing, and with tremulous breath, as we stand by the mystical stream
Through the valley and by the dark river of death, and yet it’s no more than a dream.
Only a dream, only a dream of glory beyond the dark stream
How peaceful the slumber, how happy the waking, for death is only a dream.

Llewyn lit a cigarette and smoked it as he watched Al’s face.  The expression there matched the sadness in his voice, and Llewyn wondered if someone Al loved had died.  Probably no one else there noticed how Al looked or sounded, or even what he sang, and that made his sadness all the sweeter.

Over the turbid and onrushing tide doth the light of eternity gleam,
And the ransomed the darkness and storm shall out-ride, to wake with glad smiles from their dream.
Only a dream, only a dream of glory beyond the dark stream
How peaceful the slumber, how happy the waking where death is only a dream.

The crowd cheered and applauded Al whether they’d listened or not, and he flashed his smile before scrambling down from the stage.  The last act of the night took the stage after him, and Llewyn wanted to get out of there before they finished.  A lot of the audience would stay, probably sleep right there in the field if they slept at all, but a lot would be clogging the roads too.  Llewyn picked up his guitar case and lifted up on his toes a few times to look for Al.  Just as he was starting to consider seriously the idea that Al had stood him up, he saw the taller man’s guitar case shove through the crowd ahead, followed by Al’s long arm and his lanky body.  Al stumbled a little as he broke free, and Llewyn’s mouth grinned all on its own again.  Even though Llewyn hadn’t been around him for long, Al’s clumsiness was familiar and, in a way, comforting.

“You ride here with someone?” Llewyn asked when Al reached him.  Al shook his head.

“Nah, I drove.  By myself.”

Impressed, Llewyn asked, “Oh, you get—get a car?”  He almost said, “You get the car back?” but stopped himself in case Al hadn’t.

“Yeah,” said Al.  “With the royalties.  You know, from our song.”

“Oh,” said Llewyn.  “Yeah.”

“I’m over there.”  Al gestured with the guitar case, took a step in the same direction, then put his hand on Llewyn’s shoulder to turn him that way.  His hand was warm, even through Llewyn’s shirt, and Llewyn’s shoulder felt cold once Al let him go, after they’d started walking.

They didn’t speak again until they were out of the crowds and weaving through the scattered, haphazardly parked cars.  Then, Al asked, “Did you come with someone?”

“No, I just hitched up,” Llewyn told him, “from New York.  You still there?”

“I was,” said Al.  Llewyn squinted at him, and Al said, “Yeah.  I’m still there.  Here, this is me.”  He’d stopped at a car too old to have been new when he bought it.  “You can put your guitar in the back.”

Llewyn opened the door and laid his guitar case in the back seat, which was empty except for an unopened bottle of liquor and some cigarette packs.  Al put his case in across the floorboards from the other side, then got in behind the wheel.  Llewyn got in beside him and looked straight ahead as Al cranked the car and eased it across the bumpy field to the nearest of the dirt roads that squared off the land.  Once they were away from all the light except what came from the car’s headlights, Llewyn looked down at Al’s hand on the gear shift and its fingers wrapped over the knob.  He started getting hard again, cursed himself, and looked out the window instead.

Should have gotten laid before I came up here, Llewyn thought.  This is ridiculous.

“Where’m I going?” Al asked once they got to the end of the dirt road and it dead-ended into asphalt.  Llewyn looked at him, but Al was staring out at the road.  Al clarified, “Where’s that bar, the one where you’re staying?”

“Oh.  I’m at the Motel 6,” said Llewyn.  “Bar’s like behind the parking lot, kind of.”

“Okay, I saw the motel coming in.”  Al turned left onto the asphalt, and Llewyn watched his profile under the cowboy hat.  His goatee was a little thicker than it had been the year before, but otherwise, he didn’t look any different.

Llewyn asked him, “Where’re you staying?”

“Nowhere,” said Al.  Llewyn squinted again.

“You didn’t get a room somewhere?  You driving back tonight?”

“I. . . .  Gonna sleep in the car,” muttered Al.

“Fuck man, I thought you had royalties,” snorted Llewyn.  He faced forward again.  “And anyway, you got your money after you played, right?  Get a room.”

“Yeah, I got paid but—but there’s probably nothing left, this late.”  Al said it quickly, like an excuse, not like he was angling for an offer of a place to sleep.  Llewyn wondered if he was shacking up with someone in the area and too embarrassed or ashamed to admit it.  Jealousy slow-burned somewhere near Llewyn’s diaphragm.  I really should have gotten laid, he thought, because I must need it bad if I’m getting jealous over Al Cody, but he decided to push Al a little further anyway.

“You can stay with me,” Llewyn said.  “You’ll be next door anyway, at the bar.”  He glanced at Al from the corner of his eye and saw Al’s Adam’s apple bob as he swallowed.

“I—I wouldn’t impose on you like that,” Al said.  The word “impose” struck Llewyn as oddly formal, like Al was putting on airs. . . or else like that was how he really talked, and all the “ain’ts” and “gonnas” were the airs.  Things someone named Arthur Milgrum would say if he was pretending to be a cowboy.

“Al, the room cost six fuckin’ dollars,” muttered Llewyn.  “You can pay me three if you feel that bad about it.  If they catch you coming in and charge us extra, you can pay me four.”  He paused then, in case sharing a bed was the issue, added, “If you want your own bed, we’ll get it and you can pay me five.”

“It ain’t the money, Llewyn,” Al mumbled.  Llewyn clenched his mouth shut and glared out the window, and Al didn’t say anything else until he’d pulled into the parking lot under the blue sign.  “No Vacancy” was lit now.  Llewyn closed his fingers over the door handle, but then Al said, “Llewyn,” and he waited.

“What?”  Llewyn looked back at the other man.  Al still had his left hand on the steering wheel and the right gripping the keys in the ignition.  Llewyn glanced at the hand on the steering wheel, but its fingers were bare.  Al hadn’t married his girlfriend, so that wasn’t the problem—unless he’d taken his wedding ring off on the way up from New York, in which case the marriage still shouldn’t be a problem.

“I’ll—I’ll stay in the room with you if I really won’t be a bother,” Al told him.

“You won’t,” said Llewyn; then he added, “Uh, we can catch up.”  By that, he meant to imply that they could just talk without fucking, but that he was not adverse to fucking without talking, either.

Al nodded and pulled the keys out of the ignition, then sat with the keys and both hands in his lap.  He looked down at them, and at the denim of his jeans stretched over his wiry thighs.

“You okay?” Llewyn asked, like he had the night they shared the cigarette.

“Yeah,” said Al.  “I just. . . need a drink, is all.”

“Okay,” said Llewyn, and he got out of the car.  Al got out too and locked their guitars up inside; then they crossed the parking lot to the bar.

--

To be continued

Chapter 2

The bar was dimly lit and dirty.  There wasn’t much to it but a bar, and a tired pool table where a few men were gathered.  No one was at the bar, and Llewyn figured anyone at the hotel and all the locals were probably still out at the festival.

Al folded himself onto a stool, and Llewyn took the one next to him even though there were three others unoccupied.  Llewyn rested his lower arms on the bar and leaned on them, and when he reached for an ashtray, the sticky surface made a soft ripping sound as he pulled his sleeve off it.  Still, it wasn’t the worst place he’d had a drink, by far.

Llewyn slid the ashtray between him and Al, pulled a pack out of his shirt pocket, and offered a cigarette to Al.  Al looked surprised that Llewyn had his own but took the cigarette and stuck it between his lips.  He started to slide his hand in one pocket, searching for a lighter, but Llewyn flicked his and held it out.  Al’s dark eyes fixed on his face; then he leaned forward to touch the tip of his cigarette to the flame.  He drew in, and the tip flared with a brighter glow than any of the dusty lightbulbs that hung exposed from the ceiling.  Llewyn lit a cigarette for himself and ordered a beer that was marginally better than what he’d had at the festival.  Al got a rum and Coke.

“So how you been?” Al asked after a while.  He tapped the ash off his cigarette into the ashtray, which was already nearly full with the remnants of other people’s smokes.

“All right,” said Llewyn.  “I’m getting by.  You?”  Al shrugged.  Llewyn watched his hands and how he let the cigarette dangle from his fingers, and he tried to think of something to talk about.  He glanced up at Al’s face, and Al was looking back at him.  He looked sad, the way he had when he was singing “Death Is Only a Dream,” and he dropped his eyes as soon as they met Llewyn’s.

What’s the matter with you? Llewyn wanted to ask, but he didn’t think he had the right.  He sucked on his beer, then asked instead, “So anything ever come outta ‘Mr. Kennedy’?  You get a record deal?”

“No, just the royalties.”  Al shifted toward him on the stool and looked at him in a more normal way.  “Ain’t you getting them too?”

“No, I signed as independent.  Stupid mistake,” Llewyn muttered.  Thinking about it pissed him off—not that he resented Al or Jim the money, but he was pissed at himself for missing out, and maybe jealous-pissed at Jim for getting a deal out of it for him and Jean, a deal and money enough to move them out west where Jim had an offer to do the soundtrack for some movie.  Llewyn growled around his cigarette, “I made a lot of fucking stupid mistakes last year.”

Al made a low, indecipherable noise that drew Llewyn’s eyes back to him.  Al stared at him then blinked—in fact, he flinched so that his whole body seemed to blink—and turned on the stool to face the bar again.  He gripped his glass and gulped down the last of the Coke.  Llewyn abruptly felt horrible.

“Al,” he said.  When the other man didn’t react, Llewyn stuck his cigarette in the ashtray and reached out to grab Al’s bony wrist.  “Al!  Not you, okay?  I didn’t mean you.”

“It’s all right.”  Al’s voice was husky again, but not just cigarettes-and-alcohol husky, not even just post-performance husky.  It wavered a little as he stammered, “I-I know I. . . you. . . .”  He stopped and pressed his lips together.

“Al, no.  I—fuck.”  Damn my big fucking mouth, Llewyn thought.  He licked his lips and fumbled for the right thing to say.  Finally, he mumbled, “I didn’t mean you.  It was good with you.  And it’s good to see you again.”  He let Al’s wrist go and picked up his beer instead.

Al finished his cigarette and stubbed out the butt next to Llewyn’s; then he folded his hands around his glass.

“I didn’t know what happened to you,” he muttered.  “Didn’t even know if you made it to Chicago.”

“I did, nothing came of it.  So I went back to New York,” Llewyn said.  “You could’ve asked Jim.”

“I thought you didn’t want me to know,” said Al.  “If you did, you would’ve told me yourself.  You knew where I was.”  He still was looking at his glass, not at Llewyn, but Llewyn looked up at him in exasperation.

“I wasn’t gonna just—just show up,” he protested, although he’d done it often enough before to other people.  “Fuck things all up with your girlfriend. . . .”

“It wouldn’t’ve mattered.  We broke it off anyway,” said Al.  Llewyn felt vindicated but thought he hid it well.

“Why, the distance?” he asked judiciously.

“Yeah.”  Al toyed with his empty glass and looked up at the bartender, but he was ignoring them.  Al sighed and said, “No.  Not really.  I told her—fuck, Llew, you don’t wanna hear about me, about my life.”

Llewyn said, “You don’t see me with anything better to do, do you?  Tell me.”

Al clenched his jaw; Llewyn saw the bone jut out under his pale skin.  Then Al pulled off his hat and set it on the bar to the side opposite from Llewyn, and dropped his head into his hands.

“Her parents, they were friends of my parents, and we just. . . it was one of those things, they always just assumed we’d get married.  But she didn’t like the music scene, and finally I got sick of fighting about it, and I told her I wanted out.”  That didn’t sound bad enough to warrant Al’s misery, so Llewyn waited for more.  It finally came out when Al muttered, “And talk about your fucking stupid mistakes, I’d been drinking, and I told her I wanted out ‘cos I’d rather fuck men.”

“Shit, Al,” Llewyn blurted out before he could stop himself.

“Yeah,” Al agreed in a glum tone.  “Later, I tried to pass it off as, uh, hyperbole—” Now there’s a word that’s putting on airs, Llewyn thought. “—but I guess I told her more details than I remember, and. . . .”  He lifted his head and sat slumped over the bar looking down at his hands again.  “And now my family won’t talk to me anymore, and I lost my job.  Still got the apartment and all, but the money’ll run out one day.  I know a lot of places, they don’t care who you fuck long as you can sing good enough, but—I can’t sing good enough.  Not by myself.  I’d be okay for the summer doing shit like this, but after that. . . I’d be fucked.”

“I’m sorry,” murmured Llewyn.  It was all he knew to say.  Anything else—that his money ran out all the time and it wasn’t the end of the world, that families quit talking to their sons for all kinds of reasons and that wasn’t the end of the world either—anything else would trivialize what Al had just told him.

“So you could’ve come by,” Al said as if his confession was just a detour on the way to his main point.  “It wouldn’t’ve fucked things up any worse.”  His tone was vaguely accusatory, and Llewyn scowled at the ashtray before fishing his cigarette out and relighting it.

“You didn’t ask me to come by when I got back,” he said after he’d taken a drag.

“You slept on the couch,” said Al.  Llewyn puzzled over that until he finished the cigarette, then gave up trying to understand it.

“You through, or you want another drink?” Llewyn asked Al.

“I’m through,” Al said and put his hat back on.  They left some money on the bar and went out.  Llewyn had wanted to get drunk and was disappointed, but then he remembered the bottle in Al’s backseat.  He hoped Al would bring it into the motel room, yet after he unlocked the car, Al just took out his guitar case—no liquor, no cigarettes, no bags of clothes, which Llewyn had assumed he’d put in the trunk.  Llewyn got his guitar case too, and Al followed him to the door of his room, on the first floor almost right in front of the car.  Llewyn set his case on the floor near the door and went into the bathroom to piss.  He didn’t shut the door, and he could hear the latches on Al’s guitar case opening.

“You need the shower?” Llewyn called.  Al didn’t answer.  Llewyn flushed the toilet, and when he came out of the bathroom, Al was putting his case down on the floor too.  He’d untucked his shirt, but he didn’t make any move toward undressing further, just straightened up and faced Llewyn.

“Do you need to take a shower?” Llewyn repeated.

“No.  I’m, uh—I’m gonna take a walk,” said Al.  Llewyn stared at him.

“A walk,” he repeated.  “Al, it’s the middle of the fucking night, in the middle of fucking nowhere.  Where you gonna walk to?”

“I just need to unwind,” Al mumbled.

Llewyn sighed, “Okay fine, whatever.”  Maybe he’s gonna go find a hookup, he thought. Maybe he signaled someone at the bar, and I just didn’t see.  He sat down on the end of the bed, and Al walked to the door then stopped.

“Llew?” he murmured, almost whispered.

“Yeah,” said Llewyn.

“Here.”  Al lifted his shirt on the left side and fished his keys out of his pocket, then turned to toss them on the bed next to Llewyn.  Then he dug his hand in again, pulled out a thin pad of folded money, and tossed that over too.

“What the fuck,” muttered Llewyn.  “Afraid you’re gonna get yourself in trouble?”

“No,” said Al, “but you can drive the car back tomorrow.”  The idea of getting a ride with Al back to the city had already occurred to Llewyn, and he was glad he didn’t have to ask.

“Oh,” he said, “thanks.”

“Take care of my guitar too, hunh?”  Al really was whispering now.  Llewyn frowned, and when Al looked at him for an answer, something in his eyes set Llewyn on edge.

“What’s going on?” he hissed.  “Where are you going?”

“Nowhere,” said Al.  He turned back to the door and unlocked it.  “I’m not going anywhere.”

Llewyn snapped, “Dammit, Al!” and pushed himself off the hard bed and up on his feet.  He got to Al and grabbed his wrist for the second time, before Al got the door open; then Llewyn hauled the larger man around to face him and demanded, “What the fuck is going on?  Are you going to meet somebody, is that it?  You can fucking tell me, I’m not your—”  He stopped without ever knowing what he intended to say, because Al’s eyes were bright with tears.

“Al. . . ?” Llewyn whispered.  Al sniffled, and two memories hit Llewyn at once, as if they were part of the same thing:

Mike standing up and stretching after a morning of smoking and half-assed practicing, saying over his shoulder, “I’m going out for a while, Llewyn,” and never coming back.

Al’s voice, deep and throbbing, singing, “How peaceful the slumber,” because that was the part that mattered; he probably didn’t give two shits about the happy waking on God’s golden shore, and Mike probably hadn’t either.  The only river Mike had cared about was the Hudson, not some mystical stream he would wait for Llewyn by.  And while Llewyn hadn’t seen any rivers near the Motel 6, he guessed by how the tears had started coursing down Al’s pale face, Al would find a way to do it anyhow.

“What the fuck, Al,” Llewyn hissed, and he grabbed Al’s shoulders and used them to slam the larger man’s back up against the door.  Al was big enough to have thrown him off, but he just stood there as Llewyn slapped his hands down over Al’s untucked shirttails, frowned at what he felt, then grabbed the hem of the shirt and yanked it up past Al’s waist.

Llewyn didn’t know much about guns; what Al had jammed into the waistband of his jeans on the right side was a revolver, but that was as much as Llewyn could tell about it.  Probably a Colt .45 or something, Llewyn thought, to fit with the whole cowboy act.  He grasped the stock with two fingers and a thumb and slid the gun up over Al’s flat stomach before tossing it away onto the bed like it could bite him.  A second later, Llewyn realized how stupid that had been—the thing might’ve gone off—but then he pushed the thought aside and turned back toward the door to berate Al for how stupid he had been.

“What the fuck are you thinking, you fucking moron?” Llewyn shouted up at him.  Al’s breath hitched as he drew it in between his quivering lips, and he stared back down at Llewyn with a look of abject misery.  That just pissed Llewyn off more, pissed him off to the point that he was shaking with anger when he pointed a finger and jabbed it into the middle of Al’s chest.  “You were gonna fuckin’—gonna go for a walk and fuckin’—fuckin’. . . .”

Al sucked in another shuddering breath and let it out around Llewyn’s name: “L-llew-wyn—”  Then his face seemed to shatter as he started to sob.  Al looked ugly when he cried, Llewyn observed, but then, who didn’t?

“Jesus Christ, Al!” Llewyn yelled over Al’s sobbing.  He grasped the taller man’s shoulders in his hands and held Al up against the door; then Llewyn’s strength gave out, and he collapsed into Al’s chest.  His muscles felt weak and his blood watery from the near-miss, the way he might feel after almost getting hit by a car, or after jerking awake from a dream of falling.  He pressed his face into Al’s hideous shirt and slid his arms around Al’s shoulders and growled, “Don’t you fucking leave me, Al Cody, don’t you leave me too.”

Al’s arms came up around Llewyn’s back and held him tight.  He sobbed into Llewyn’s hair, and after a minute, Llewyn rubbed the back of Al’s neck with one hand.  He didn’t know what else to do, and he was scared—scared of losing Al, and even more frightened because that prospect was so terrifying.  Llewyn stroked the short hair just above the other man’s neck, under the brim of his hat, and feared he was falling in love with Al Cody.

Al shuddered in Llewyn’s arms as his sobs quieted, and he mumbled, “I’m sorry, Llewyn, I’m sorry.”  He lifted his head and sniffled again, then dropped a hand from Llewyn’s back to his pocket.  Llewyn tensed with suspicion, but Al just pulled out a handkerchief, turned his head, and blew his nose.  Al shoved the handkerchief back into the pocket and put his hand on Llewyn’s shoulder.

“I’m okay now,” Al whispered, then again, “I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be fuckin’ sorry,” Llewyn grumbled.  He looked up into Al’s face.  His nose and the skin around his eyes were red, and his eyelashes were still damp.  Llewyn put his hands on either side of Al’s head, thumbs smearing the tears from his cheeks, and added, “You don’t have to be okay.”

Al gave a quick bob of his head, sort of a nod; then his lips silently formed Llewyn’s name again.  He pulled Llewyn up with the one hand on his shoulder and the other on his back, held him there, and kissed him—no tongue, just his lips seeking, covering, and releasing Llewyn’s.  Llewyn clenched his fingers around Al’s head and stayed there, up on his toes, to kiss Al back the same way.  When Al’s mouth opened, Llewyn waited.  He imagined Jean berating him as an asshole taking advantage of some poor man’s fragile mental state.  Even more than 2000 miles away, Llewyn still heard her voice sometimes, and he wanted to dispute her because he wasn’t trying to take advantage of Al at all.  He was trying to be what Al needed.

Then Al’s tongue slipped into his mouth and brushed Llewyn’s.  It wasn’t the desperate messy kissing they’d shared on Al’s couch, wasn’t foreplay.  It was Al needing him, and Llewyn wanting to be there.  It occurred to Llewyn that he’d probably never been there for anyone in his entire life; he’d had enough to juggle just keeping himself going.  But for once, Llewyn was getting along okay, and he wanted to take Al along with him.

They kissed for another minute, softly and slowly; then Llewyn dropped back down on his heels.  Al’s eyes stayed closed a couple seconds, but he opened them when Llewyn took his arms and tugged him toward the bed.  He sat Al down on the end of it, let him go, and picked up the revolver instead.  Llewyn fumbled with the gun until he got the cylinder open, then turned it until he found the single loaded bullet.

“Shit,” he muttered as he tipped the bullet out.  He looked up at Al, and all he could think of to say was, “Just one bullet?  You were sure you wouldn’t miss?”

“If I missed, I wouldn’t be in any shape to try again,” Al replied bleakly.

“Do you have any more bullets?  In the car or anything?”

Al shook his head.  “No.”

“Okay.”  Llewyn went around the bed to put the unloaded gun on the nightstand but kept the bullet cupped in his hand.  “Anything in the car you need for the night?  Do you have any other clothes?”

“No,” mumbled Al.  “I didn’t bring anything.  Wasn’t gonna need it.”  The casual flatness of his tone made Llewyn want to shiver as much as the words did.  On his way to the door, Llewyn picked up Al’s keys anyway, thinking of the liquor and cigarettes out in the car; then he looked back at Al and growled, “Stay there.  Don’t move.”

“Okay,” said Al.

Llewyn turned the deadbolt to keep the door from closing and locking him out.  He looked around, fingering the bullet, then crossed the parking lot to a storm drain set into the curb and tossed the bullet down in there.  He couldn’t hear it land, no clunk or splash.  Llewyn walked back to Al’s car, unlocked it, and scooped up the three packs of cigarettes he could find in the back seat.  One was open and half-empty, but the other two were new.  He looked at the bottle then changed his mind about that; he’d still like to get drunk, but if Al got blitzed, he might try to think of another way to kill himself.  And if I get blitzed, I might not be able to stop him, Llewyn thought.  He left the bottle where it was.

Before he locked the car back up, Llewyn looked in the trunk, but there really wasn’t anything back there but a tire iron.  He checked the glove box too to make sure Al hadn’t lied about more bullets; then he locked the car and went back inside.  Al was where Llewyn had left him, hunched on the bed with his hands dangling between his knees.  His eyes darted to Llewyn’s face, seeking comfort there, as soon as the smaller man got in the room.  Llewyn managed a little smile at him, and Al’s mouth twitched in an attempt to smile back.

Llewyn balanced the cigarette packs in one hand while he bolted the door, went back to the nightstand to leave the packs there, then moved to stand in front of Al, where he began to unbutton the awful shirt.  Al looked up at him.

“What’re you doing?” he asked in a disinterested, amenable tone, like he’d go along with whatever Llewyn had in mind.  Llewyn liked that in a way, Al trusting him, but in another way, it scared him.

“We’re gonna get a shower,” Llewyn muttered, “then we’re going to bed.”  He thought about how that sounded and added, to remove any ambiguity from his motives, “To sleep.  I’m fuckin’ beat.”

“Okay,” said Al.  He let Llewyn undo all the buttons, but then he finally pushed the small, brown hands away and stripped off the shirt himself, leaving Llewyn to get his own clothes off.  Al was wearing a white t-shirt under the awful Western thing, and he took off his hat before tugging the undershirt off over his head.  His chest was beautiful: broad and pale, with prominent pecs and small, flushed nipples.  Llewyn looked away and stepped on the heels of his shoes to take them off.

When he glanced back at Al, the other man had gotten off his boots—fancy cowboy shit, of course—and was shimmying his jeans down off his hips.  Llewyn looked away again and finished stripping down to his shorts.

“Are we taking the shower together?” mumbled Al.  Llewyn could feel his eyes on him.

“Yeah,” Llewyn said.  “Saves water.  I’m getting into this whole environmentalism thing I keep hearing about.”

“Hah,” Al laughed.  Llewyn liked hearing the laugh, and knowing Al was laughing because he thought Llewyn just wanted to get naked with him.  In reality, Llewyn was scared of leaving Al by himself for very long.  But Al followed him to the bathroom and into the shower without protest.  Even though Llewyn had showered once already, it felt good to wash off the dust of the field and the sweat that had accumulated during his performance.

They washed themselves without touching each other save to pass the soap back and forth, but then Llewyn muttered, “Turn around and I’ll do your back.”  He wanted to touch Al, not even sexually but just to reassure himself that Al was there and safe.  The taller man obeyed without speaking, and Llewyn rubbed the bar of soap down his spine, then massaged the film of suds in with his hands.  As he brushed his fingertips over Al’s prominent shoulder blades, Al made a soft sound of pleasure.  Llewyn spread his hands over Al’s back, touching his white, blemished skin with both palms and the full lengths of all ten fingers.

After he’d tugged Al back under the spray to rinse, Llewyn leaned into him, laying his cheek against Al’s spine and putting his arms around him.  Al covered one of Llewyn’s hands with his, then brought both their hands to his mouth and kissed Llewyn’s knuckles.

“Llew,” he whispered against them.  Llewyn pressed his lips to Al’s back in between his shoulder blades before pulling himself free and turning off the water.

They dried themselves, again without touching, and Llewyn dropped his wet towel on the floor and left the bathroom naked.  Al might have hung up both towels, or he might not have, but he followed Llewyn a few seconds later.  Llewyn was pulling back the sheets on the bed, on the side next to the nightstand with the cigarettes and Llewyn’s lighter and Al’s gun.  Al was still naked too, but he moved self-consciously with an arm braced at his hip in such a way as to partially cover his cock, even though he wasn’t hard and they’d just spent the past fifteen minutes in the shower together.  Even before that, it wasn’t something Llewyn hadn’t seen before.

Al got into bed on the other side and lay down, dampness soaking from his hair into the white linen covering his pillow.  He watched Llewyn sitting up in bed with the sheet pulled up over his lap as he lit a cigarette.

“Want a smoke?” Llewyn asked around it.

“No,” said Al.  Llewyn tossed the lighter back on the table, switched off the lamp, and sat up smoking in the dark.  After a moment, Al murmured, “Do you want to know?”

Llewyn held the cigarette between his second and third fingers and muttered, “Know what?”

“I dunno.  Why.  And. . . and how.  What I had planned.  Why here.”

Llewyn wasn’t sure if he wanted to know or not, but he said, “Yeah.  I guess.  But not now, tell me in the morning.  I just wanna get some sleep.”  He heard Al shift in the darkness to lie on his back.

“I owe it to you,” his deep voice rumbled.  “If I hadn’t run into you—”

“You don’t owe me shit,” Llewyn cut him off.  Someone owing him something for a change, instead of the other way around, made him uncomfortable.  He had finished most of the cigarette, so he ground out the butt and slid down under the sheets until he was reclining on his elbow.  His eyes had adjusted to the little bit of dim fluorescence coming in past the blinds from the parking lot lights, and he could see Al’s profile, the large nose and curve of his lower lip.

“Llewyn,” Al whispered from between those beautiful lips, “what the fuck ‘m I gonna do?”

“You’re gonna go to sleep.”  Llewyn dropped himself down flat on the mattress and closed his eyes.  The bed wasn’t bad for a Motel 6.  “Things’ll look better in the morning.”

“No,” whispered Al.  “They won’t.  And I won’t be able to sleep.”

Llewyn sighed and hauled his eyes open, pretending to be exasperated as a cover for his fear.  Al turned his head towards him, and Llewyn reached over to hook a hand over Al’s shoulder and pull the larger man to him.  When Al first laid his head on Llewyn’s chest, his wet hair felt cold on Llewyn’s bare skin, but then it warmed with Llewyn’s body heat.  Llewyn draped his arm over Al’s shoulders and sang to him.

Why should we weep when the weary ones rest in the bosom of Jesus supreme
In the mansions of glory prepared for the blessed, for death is no more than a dream?

Llewyn paused, breathed.  Al was still, chest rising and falling against Llewyn’s stomach.  Llewyn licked his lips and went on.

Naught in the river the saints should appall, though it frightfully dismal may seem.
In the arms of our Savior no ill can befall, they find it no more than a dream.
Only a dream, only a dream of glory beyond the dark stream,
How peaceful the slumber, how happy the waking, for death is only a dream.

Llewyn fell silent and thought, Not just a dream for the ones who have to go on living—and it’s not the dead we cry for, it’s ourselves, having to live without them.  But Al had fallen asleep to his singing and he slumbered peacefully enough in Llewyn’s arms.

--

To be continued

Chapter 3

When Llewyn woke up to the sound of someone knocking on the door to the motel room, he was in bed alone.  He sat up, panicked, and looked at the clock.  It was past noon.  As the knocking sounded again, Llewyn scrambled out of bed and grabbed for his pants, his mind filling with theories of who was at the door and what they were there to tell him.  By the time he had his pants on, he decided he was about to open the door to a police officer telling him they’d found Al’s body.  But as Llewyn was unlocking the deadbolt, he noticed that the bathroom door was shut, and the person doing the knocking turned out to be the motel manager.

“It’s past checkout time, Mr. Davis,” he said politely.  “It was at noon.”  He didn’t pay any attention to Llewyn’s bare chest, although he looked past Llewyn, probably checking to see if someone else was in the room with him.  Llewyn hoped Al wouldn’t come out of the bathroom—not so much because of the two extra dollars it would cost them, but because he didn’t think the manager would be so polite if he knew two men had been sharing the room’s single bed.

“Uh, yeah, sorry,” Llewyn mumbled.  “I overslept.”

“Will you be staying another night?” the manager asked, ignoring Llewyn’s interjection entirely.

“Uh,” said Llewyn.  “Yeah, sure.”

The manager smiled tightly.

Llewyn sighed, “Yeah,” and dug in his pocket.  He found his wallet and took out one of the twenties he’d gotten for singing the night before.  He held it out to the manager.

“I’m afraid I don’t have change on me,” the manager said.  Llewyn flicked the twenty in half over his fingers and looked at the bathroom door again.  Then he remembered the money Al had tossed to him and went to the nightstand to get it.  He found a five and a one and took it back to the manager.

“Thank you, Mr. Davis,” said the manager.  His smile was still tight.  “Check out tomorrow will be at noon as well.”

“Right,” said Llewyn.

As he was bolting the door, Al came out of the bathroom.  He had put his underwear back on but was still naked otherwise.

“Who was that?” he asked.

“Manager,” Llewyn told him.  “We missed checkout, so we’re staying another night.”

“Sorry.  Uh, I’ll pay for it,” Al mumbled.  He looked around for his pants, then went past Llewyn to scoop them up off the floor and put them on.  “And we don’t have to stay another night, even if they still make us pay.  Or you don’t have to, you could go on back.”

“I’m not leaving you alone,” Llewyn retorted from the bathroom, where he’d gone to find his shorts.  He pulled his pants off and stood at the toilet to piss.

“Llewyn, I’m not—not gonna do anything,” Al called back.

“I don’t care, I’m not leaving you.”  Llewyn put his shorts and pants back on then stood in the doorway of the bathroom to watch Al.  He’d put on his t-shirt and sat down on the bed to do his boots.  Llewyn looked at his biceps and how they stretched the tight sleeves of the t-shirt as he said, “We’re gonna stay another night.  I could use a vacation.”

“Yeah, I’m sure they’re working you hard at the office,” said Al; then he laughed.

“You’re an asshole,” said Llewyn with a smile.  He wasn’t sure why he wanted to stay, why he’d nixed the idea of them both going back to the city.  Maybe because Al would’ve lost his six dollars either way.  Maybe because Llewyn wanted another day and night with Al to make sure he’d be okay.

Or maybe I just like being around him, Llewyn thought, and when we go back, he’s gonna kick me out again.

Al looked up at him and asked, “Where are you staying now?  Are you living with someone?”

Llewyn shrugged.  “No.  Thought I might be able to find something cheap to rent with what I made up here, like for a month at least.”

“Oh,” said Al.  He looked back down at the floor.  “I’ve gotta pay my rent soon as I get back.  It was due yesterday—didn’t pay it ‘cos I thought I wasn’t coming back.”  His brow furrowed and he mused, “First time I’ve ever been late with the rent.”  Llewyn allowed himself to feel some cautious hope; if Al was worrying about the rent, he was probably okay.

“You got enough?” Llewyn asked.

“Yeah, with what they gave me last night.  Next month’ll be tough though.”  Al sucked his lower lip in between his teeth and chewed on it a second; then he leaned down to pick up his Western shirt.  “You hungry?  I’m gonna go get something to eat, if you want to come.”

“Yeah, I’ll come.  I’m starving.”  Llewyn realized he hadn’t eaten anything since he left the city yesterday.  He watched Al starting to pull on his shirt, then went over to him and plucked it off his arm.  “But I won’t come if you wear that ugly ass shirt.”

Al looked down at him, sucking on his lip again, then thrust it out and said petulantly, “I like this shirt.”  His mouth twitched, trying to hide a smile.  “And I can’t go out in my undershirt.”

“Yeah you can, it’s just a t-shirt.  It looks fine,” said Llewyn.  He plucked at one sleeve, but there wasn’t much room to pull it since it was already stretched tight around Al’s muscular arm.  “You look good in it.”

Al was blushing when Llewyn glanced up at him.  He started to lean forward then stopped, eyes moving over Llewyn’s face.

“You look good too, but you’d look good in anything,” he murmured.  He put his hands on Llewyn’s bare shoulders and gripped them, then slid them down to his arms as he added, “And better in nothing.  You’re beautiful, Llew.”

Llewyn dropped the shirt and grasped Al’s head in both hands and rocked up on his toes to kiss him.  When Al had mentioned food, Llewyn had become aware of a sharp stab of hunger in his stomach, but now he felt a sharper stab of lust below that, and he kissed Al hard.  When Llewyn levered his tongue into Al’s mouth, Al thrashed his against it.  One large hand lifted to grab a fistful of hair on the back of Llewyn’s head, and the other dropped to close over his ass.  Possessive and pushy, just how Llewyn liked him, Al held the smaller man against him and kissed him until Llewyn’s jaw ached.

Finally, Al broke his mouth apart from Llewyn’s and drew his head back.  A string of saliva connected their lips for a second before falling away, and Llewyn wiped his mouth on his sleeve.  Al still held him close, bending his head to kiss that spot below Llewyn’s ear; then he let Llewyn go.

Llewyn looked up at him, breathing hard.  Al was still blushing a little, and he wiped his own mouth on the back of his hand.  Llewyn felt bad about the kiss, because Al was in a fragile state and Llewyn probably shouldn’t be thinking with his dick just then.  But then, maybe Al needed to be thinking with his, needed to be distracted. . . needed to be shown he was desirable.

“Uh, we’d better—better go eat,” Al mumbled.

“Yeah,” said Llewyn.

--

They went to a diner that served breakfast all day and ate a huge amount in relative silence.  While Al was still chewing a third piece of toast—he certainly ate a lot for such a skinny guy—Llewyn drank a second cup of coffee and watched him.

“Al,” Llewyn said after a minute, “do you still want to talk about it?”  Al stopped eating but kept his head turned down to his plate.

“Talk about what?” he muttered.

“You asked if I wanted to know why.  And how.”  Llewyn took a long swallow of the coffee; it was fresh and surprisingly good.  “Well, I want to know.  If you want to tell me.”

Al poked the crust of his toast with one long finger then sighed, “There ain’t that much more to tell.  You know why.”

“But why here?”  Llewyn gestured out of their booth, indicating the whole town and the fields beyond.  “Why’d you go sing first?”

“‘Cos I’d committed to it,” Al said.  He glanced up at Llewyn.  “I couldn’t just not show, right?  It wouldn’t be nice.”

“Er, I guess not.”

Al looked down again and went on, “So I was gonna sing and then—then do it. Out in the fields somewhere.”

“Fuck, Al,” Llewyn hissed.

Al murmured, “When you went to Chicago, I thought I’d never see you again.  But then I got out there to that stage, and there you were.  So I thought it wouldn’t make much difference if I put it off for a few hours.”  His dark eyes flicked up to meet Llewyn’s again.  “I missed you, Llew.  I wanted to spend those hours with you.”

Llewyn felt that old flicker in his chest, and he blurted out, “Al, are you really okay now?  You aren’t gonna try again?  Promise me you won’t.”

“I won’t,” said Al.  “I promise.”

On the way back to the motel, Al stopped at a drug store to buy a toothbrush since he hadn’t packed anything.  In the parking lot, when he started to get out of the car, Llewyn stopped him with a hand on his arm.

“Are we gonna fuck?” Llewyn asked him.

Al flushed.  “What?”

“When a guy kisses me the way you did, I usually assume that’s what it means,” Llewyn said.  He was sort of lying since guys didn’t kiss him like that, because he didn’t like kissing except, apparently, when it came to Al.  But he still needed to know.

“I. . . .”  Al looked away and swallowed.  “Llewyn, I want to.  I want to make love to you.”  He said “make love” without irony or pretension, like he was talking about something utterly different from fucking.  He went on, “But do you want to, really, with me?”

Llewyn’s eyebrows drew together in bemusement as he said, “Uh, well yeah.  I told you, it was good before.”

“I know, but—do you want to, not just because it was good or because we’re stuck here with nothing better to do, but. . . but because it’s me?”

Then Llewyn understood all too well what Al meant, and he remembered the previous evening’s silent panic when he wondered if he was falling in love.

“Yeah,” Llewyn muttered, “because it’s you.”

“Okay,” said Al.  “Then I want to.  Um, but why—why’d you ask now?”

“‘Cos we’re gonna need to buy something for lube.  I’m not letting you put that monster in me dry.”  Llewyn looked up at him with a grin, and Al blushed even deeper.

“Oh,” he mumbled.  “O-okay.  Uh, do you—d’you wanna use condoms?  ‘Cos I don’t have any.”  He cast Llewyn an oblique look.

“Uh, it’s up to you,” said Llewyn.  “I mean, I think I’m clean.”

“You got those vaccinations?”  The corner of Al’s mouth twitched in a suppressed smirk; Llewyn was starting to recognize that meant he was trying to be funny.

Llewyn gave a short laugh and said, “Well that, and it’s uh, it’s been a while and nothing’s. . . turned up.”  He paused.  “You can do a thorough check down there before we get started, if you’d like to be sure.”

“Fuck,” Al breathed.  He was still blushing.  “I’m—I’m clean too.  It’s been. . . .  I haven’t been with anyone since my ex, and that’s been five, six months.”

Llewyn stared at him and said, before realizing it might not be the best response, “You dumped her ‘cos you wanted to fuck men, then you didn’t fuck any men?”

“Heh.”  Al laughed the way he had when Llewyn balked at going to Chicago, without much humor.  “I haven’t felt much like it since all that happened.”

“But you feel like it now?” Llewyn asked.  “I wanna be sure, Al.  If you don’t want to—”

“I do, I want to,” Al interrupted; then he looked at Llewyn straight on.  The blush had faded from his face, and the look in his dark eyes was intense. . . possessive.  “I want to with you.”

“Okay,” Llewyn breathed.  “Condoms?  Or no?”  Al shook his head and flicked his tongue out to lick his lower lip.

“No condoms,” he whispered.  “I want to feel you.”  Llewyn nodded, and the flicker in his chest thrummed.

They went in, checked out, and left separately to be sure the old lady working behind the counter wouldn’t guess they were sleeping together.  Al bought his toothbrush and a straight razor; the razor made Llewyn nervous, but Al really could use a shave, so he didn’t say anything.  When Al was on his way out the door, Llewyn sidled up to the counter, purchased lube and a disposable enema, and told the old lady all about how much his poor pregnant wife was suffering with constipation, and how scared she was of using the enema because it might hurt going in.  Al stopped in the doorway, looked back, and stared.  The lady clucked over the poor dear woman, and when she started praising Llewyn for being such an attentive husband that he would go to the store and buy such extremely personal items for his wife, Al lost it.  He bit down on his fist to stifle his laughter and left in a hurry.

“What the fuck, Llew,” he gasped when Llewyn joined him in the car a couple minutes later.

“You didn’t want her to think the lube was for us, did you?” replied Llewyn.  “Drive.”

“You didn’t have to invent an imaginary pregnant wife though,” retorted Al as he pulled out of the parking lot and turned back toward the motel.  “You could’ve just bought the stuff without lying to her.  She looked like my grandma.”  He frowned.  “Bubbie woulda killed me for lying to her.”

“She didn’t look like my grandma,” said Llewyn, “so I don’t see what the problem is.”

Back at the motel, Al shaved and brushed his teeth, then left the bathroom to Llewyn.  They didn’t discuss what Llewyn was going to do in there, or the fact that Al was already undressing before Llewyn even got the bathroom door shut; they had just somehow reached a tacit agreement to fuck right then and there.

To make love, Llewyn corrected himself.

When Llewyn came out of the bathroom, Al was in bed naked with his guitar on his lap, plucking it and singing to himself.  He was so engrossed, he didn’t notice Llewyn at first, and the intent and blissful look on Al’s face finally convinced Llewyn that he really would be all right.  Al had shaved the shadow of a beard beginning to grow, leaving him with just the goatee and mustache framing his lips as they in turn framed the words he was muttering.  His broad shoulders bent forward toward the guitar, and his long arms cradled it.  Llewyn wanted to be in those arms, he wanted those fingers touching his body as lovingly as they touched the guitar strings.  He wondered if Al had fucked any other men at all since him.  He wondered if Al had thought of sex with his girlfriend as fucking or as making love.

Then Al glanced up and caught sight of him.  His fingers stilled on the strings.

“You wanna keep playing, go right ahead,” said Llewyn.  “I’m not in any hurry.”

Al laughed and leaned over to move the guitar to the floor beside his side of the bed, on the right; then he turned back to face Llewyn and leaned in that direction to grab the edge of the covers and flip them down on Llewyn’s side of the bed.

“That an invitation, cowboy?” Llewyn asked.  He moved a few steps closer, close enough to toss the lube onto the nightstand.

“Get over here,” said Al.  Llewyn got, and as soon as he was on the bed, Al pulled him into his arms, right where Llewyn had wanted to be.  Al kissed him hard again and ran his big hands all up and down Llewyn’s back.  Llewyn hooked a leg over Al’s bony hip and ground their cocks together as they kissed, until he felt Al’s swell fully erect.  One of Al’s hands crept down his back to grope his ass, and Al’s mouth left Llewyn’s to bite him under the ear.

“Llew,” he breathed, “fuck, Llew.”  He nuzzled the curls of Llewyn’s dark hair behind his ear.  His fingers probed and teased Llewyn’s ass but didn’t penetrate it, and Llewyn growled with frustration against Al’s neck.  Al laughed again and took his hand away altogether, using it instead to hold the side of Llewyn’s head so Al could kiss him again.

“What d’you want?” Al murmured when he broke the kiss.  He looked into Llewyn’s eyes with wide pupils and whispered, “I’ll give you anything you ask for, little darlin’.”  He said it the way he said “making love,” in complete earnestness.

Llewyn shivered and thought about it before he hissed back, “I wanna blow you while you eat me out with that gorgeous mouth of yours, then I want you inside me.”

Al kissed him again, then pulled Llewyn on top of him, upside down.  Llewyn wrapped a fist around the base of Al’s erection and squeezed as he started sucking the head.  Al had gripped Llewyn’s ass in both hands, and he groaned and clenched it when he felt Llewyn’s mouth on his cock.  Then Al tugged Llewyn down onto his face and started rimming him, firmly but not roughly like Llewyn had expected.

Llewyn moaned around Al’s cock at the sensation of Al’s tongue and lips massaging and teasing him.  Llewyn bobbed his head up and down, working his own mouth over Al’s shaft and head, but then the tip of Al’s tongue penetrated him, and Llewyn gave a choked squeal.  He writhed on top of Al for the next few minutes as they pleasured each other.  When Al finally drew back, Llewyn squirmed and bucked, trying to maintain contact with his mouth.

He pulled off Al’s cock and whined, “Fuck, Al, don’t stop, c’mon!”  Al smacked his ass and laughed; then a minute later, the wet coolness of the lube on his hot skin made Llewyn squeal again: “Al, fuck!”

One of Al’s long fingers snaked inside him and was soon followed by a second.  Llewyn made a token effort at continuing to blow Al but then just gave himself over to the pleasure he felt as Al probed his ass and sought out his prostate.  Al drew his two fingers out then pushed three back in, and Llewyn gasped.

“You ready, darlin’?” Al asked with a twist of his fingers after a moment.

“Nngh yeah, fuck,” Llewyn panted.  “H-here, gimme the lube.”

Al tossed it to him, and Llewyn coated the larger man’s cock in it, even as much as Al had loosened him up.  Al pulled his fingers free and smacked Llewyn’s ass again.

“You wanna ride my cock, then saddle up,” he said, almost in a growl.  It should have sounded corny, taking the phony cowboy thing to the extreme, but it sounded hot instead.  Although Llewyn had always hated being told what to do, he usually responded to authority figures with a quiet, though sometimes sullen, sort of submission.  Now, something in him responded to Al that way too, except there was nothing sullen about it.  Llewyn wanted it, wanted to be pushed around and dominated by the lanky, dorky, beautiful man who had broken down sobbing in his arms less than twenty-four hours ago.

He sat up and scrambled around so that he was straddling Al’s hips, facing him.  Al had a pillow behind his head but was otherwise flat on his back, and his eyes dropped to Llewyn’s hard, aching cock for a second but then fixed on his face.

“I wanted it like this,” Al murmured.  All the bossy bravado had disappeared from his voice.  “I wanted it so I could see your face, Llew, wanted to see your pretty face when I made you come.”

Llewyn reached back to grasp Al’s cock and hold it still while he positioned himself over it.  Then he dropped down, forcing his breath out when Al’s erection penetrated him.  Al tensed and parted his lips in a grimace of pleasure as Llewyn sank down on him slowly, rocking back and forth a little to work the thick shaft into himself.

When he was seated on Al’s groin, fully impaled, Llewyn leaned forward and put his hands on Al’s chest.  He rubbed the firm pecs with his whole hands and ground his palms against Al’s stiffening nipples.  Al thrust his hips up and bounced Llewyn on his lap, and Llewyn’s fingers clenched over his chest.

“F-fuck!” Llewyn gasped.  Al grinned and grasped Llewyn’s hip with one hand.  With the other, he covered Llewyn’s hand and held it tight as they started moving together.  Soon they fell into a rhythm, and Llewyn closed his eyes as a wave of ecstasy washed over him each time the head of Al’s cock scraped past his prostate.  Al guided him up and down with the hand on Llewyn’s hip, rocking his hips up to meet Llewyn each time he lowered himself.

Llewyn began groaning, “Nnnnngh, nnnnnngh!” as Al slowly built up speed and force.  Al felt perfect inside him: stretching him wider and filling him deeper than anything else ever had.  But it was more than that; Al’s hand on his felt perfect too, and the hand on his hip, and the way Al wasn’t just fucking him but was trying to make it good for Llewyn too.  Al squeezed his hand and murmured his name in between quick pants for breath.

Then, abruptly, Al gasped, “Llew, ‘m close, gonna come if I don’t stop.”  He stopped thrusting, but Llewyn could feel his cock twitching and throbbing.  Llewyn opened his eyes and grinned as he clenched around him, and Al gasped again.

“Fuck, Llew, I ain’t kidding, I’m gonna—”

“Then come, dammit, what d’you think we’re doing this for?” Llewyn growled.  He started grinding on Al again and panted, “You wanna see me come, then make me come with you!”

“Ugh, Lleeeew,” Al whined, but he started thrusting again, harder than ever so that Llewyn bounced up and down again.  Then Al’s hand left Llewyn’s hip and closed over his erection instead, where it started pumping.  Llewyn cried out, loud and shrill enough that anyone in the neighboring rooms had to have heard him, and then he was coming before he even realized he was close.  Llewyn let his eyes fall close as he tilted his head back and let it happen, distantly conscious of Al watching him and getting off even more on that.  Al orgasmed too, but Llewyn wasn’t even aware of it until he had finished himself.  Then, as he leaned forward with his hands still braced on Al’s chest, he heard the larger man’s moaning and felt the pulsing at the base of Al’s cock as he clenched around it.  Al twitched under Llewyn then finally lay still.  Llewyn opened his eyes, and they looked at each other.

“Well,” Llewyn breathed after a second, “you get what you wanted, cowboy?”

“Unh hunh,” said Al.  He sounded as dazed as his dark eyes looked before they dropped closed.  He squeezed Llewyn’s hand again, then brought it up to his mouth and kissed it.  Llewyn shivered and pulled off of Al before collapsing next to him on the bed.

“Llewyn,” Al murmured.  He turned his head to face the smaller man and opened his eyes.  They looked at each other once more, heads side by side on the pillow and noses a few inches apart.

Llewyn whispered back, “If you wanted it like this, why didn’t you tell me?  We could’ve done it again, this way.”  He paused, considered, then said the rest of it: “I would’ve stayed if you’d asked.  If you hadn’t sent me off to Chicago with those assholes.”

Al’s eyes studied Llewyn’s; then he sighed, “Yeah, but you would’ve left sooner or later.  I knew that when you wouldn’t sleep in the bed with me.”

Maybe he was right, maybe Llewyn would have left, but he resented Al for not giving him a chance. Maybe things wouldn’t have turned out like this if he had, Llewyn thought.  Maybe he wouldn’t have hit bottom like this.

Or maybe he would have anyway, and I wouldn’t have been there anymore when he did.

“I’m in bed with you now,” Llewyn pointed out.  When Al reached for him, Llewyn slid closer and curled against him, and he mumbled into Al’s neck, “I’m not gonna leave you this time.”

--

To be continued

Chapter 4

They spent the rest of the day in bed, except for when Al pulled on his pants long enough to go out to the car and get the bottle of gin in the backseat.  When they woke up in the late afternoon, they had sex twice more, once with Llewyn on his back and his legs drawn up to his chest while Al fucked him; then because Llewyn didn’t come that time, he fucked Al as well.  Al seemed to like it both ways, which was good since Llewyn did too.  After that, they took another shower together then got back in bed to watch TV and mess around with the guitars and drink and smoke.  Late in the evening, Al asked if Llewyn wanted to go get something else to eat, but neither of them was very hungry.  Then Llewyn suggested they go back to the bar since they’d finished all the gin, and Al refused.

“You’ll be bitchy tomorrow if you’re hung over,” Al told him, “and you said you’d drive us back.”

“You told me I could drive,” said Llewyn, “not that I had to.  And how do you know I’d be bitchy?  You’ve never seen me hung over.”

“You’re already bitchy when you’re sober,” said Al.

Llewyn gave his bare shoulder a shove and said, “Fuck you, Al Cody.”

“You’re making my case for me, darlin’,” said Al.  He grinned and pulled Llewyn close and kissed him.  Llewyn fought it for all of five seconds, tussling with Al until he got the larger man down on his back; then he kissed Al’s mouth and neck and chest.  It didn’t lead to sex, or even to either of them getting off again, but Llewyn lay there on top of Al caressing his muscular chest and mouthing his nipples for at least half an hour while Al stroked Llewyn’s hair and coiled the curls around his fingers.

Llewyn remembered to set the alarm that night, but he woke up before it went off the next morning.  Al was still sleeping, and Llewyn sat up in bed and smoked a cigarette and watched him sleep.  When he’d smoked the cigarette down, Llewyn got up, pulled on some clothes, and started packing up his stuff.  Al woke up and mumbled his name.

“Llew?  What time’s it?”

“Uh, nine something.”  Llewyn looked over at the bed; Al was curled up with a pillow in his arms, watching him.  “Go back to sleep if you wanna, we don’t gotta be out until noon.”

Al sighed, “No, I’ll get up,” and pushed himself up into a sitting position.  “Fuck, I’m glad I didn’t let you talk me into going to the bar.  I’ve got a bad enough headache now, and I’m not hungover.”

They didn’t say much as they finished dressing and put their guitars and Llewyn’s bag in the car.  Llewyn had no way of knowing what Al was thinking, but his own thoughts kept jumping ahead to when they’d get back to New York.  When he’d say goodbye to Al.  When they’d go their separate ways, when they’d both be on their own again.  They checked out of the Motel 6 and went back to the diner for breakfast; then they got on the road.  Al drove.

They still didn’t talk much; instead, they listened to the radio, and Llewyn complained intermittently about the shit that made it on the air.  After about an hour, Al turned the radio down a little and glanced over at him.

“So where am I dropping you off in the city?” Al asked Llewyn.

“Hunh?”  Llewyn looked at him, then away.  “Oh.  It doesn’t matter.”

“Doesn’t matter?” Al repeated.  “Well where’s that place you were gonna rent when you got back?”

“Haven’t found it yet,” muttered Llewyn.  “Just wherever is fine.  Let me out at your place if you don’t wanna stop, and I’ll go from there.”

“You have an idea of where you’re going, though, right?” Al persisted.  “I mean, you have a plan.”

“Al, I never make plans anymore,” Llewyn grumbled.  “I’d always just fuck ‘em up.”  Maybe that was the real difference between him and Al, he thought.  Llewyn was the kind of guy who didn’t make plans.  Al was the kind who did, who planned out his own suicide to the point of not even packing an extra shirt or bringing more than one bullet.  The kind of guy who never imagined that he might change his mind.

And then he runs into me, and there go all his plans, all fucked up, thought Llewyn.

When they reached the outskirts of the city, Al said, “I need to stop by the bank and deposit the cash I got, so I can write a check for the rent.”

“You can’t pay the rent in cash?” Llewyn muttered.  He was looking out the window with his chin propped on his hand.

“I like to have the canceled check for a record,” said Al.  He left Llewyn in the car when he went in to make his deposit; then he drove them towards Downing Street.  Llewyn felt grouchier—or bitchier, as Al would have put it—the closer they got.  Al wasn’t in the best of moods either.

He grumbled, “I have to pay extra now to park this piece of shit.  Fuckin’ ten bucks a month for this.”  He gestured at the outdoor parking lot as he turned in.  “I shouldn’t’ve ever bought a car.  Oughta go leave it at my parents’ place.”  After he turned the car off, he sat back and looked glumly at the steering wheel and said, “I still owe Mom a car.  She never let me forget it either—at least until they quit talking to me.  This one ain’t as nice as hers was, though.”

Llewyn was still glaring out the window, at the car in the next spot over, but now he turned and looked at Al again.  Al had his long fingers hooked over the bottom of the steering wheel, and he twitched his thumbs under it.

“It wasn’t your fault,” Llewyn said, “about the car.”

“Yeah it was.  I let you guys use it.”  Llewyn bristled, but before he could say anything, Al amended, “I let Johnny use it.  He was pressuring me, said he was gonna start telling everyone that I’m a queer if I didn’t loan it to him—but it wouldn’t’ve mattered.  Fuckin’ Amy took care of telling everyone.”

“Johnny was an asshole,” said Llewyn.  “But how did he know—mother fucker.”  He was referring to himself, not Johnny Five, for blurting out the question before taking the time to really think about it.  He started to say “never mind,” but it was too late; Al was already laughing that humorless laugh of his.

“Yeah, how did he know.  That sonuvabitch.”  Al unbuckled his seatbelt and opened the driver’s door.  As he turned and swung one long leg out, he added over his shoulder, “I coulda told everyone he’s a queer too, but no one woulda cared.  He didn’t have a real job, and everyone loved him anyway, and he fucked more girls than guys.  They woulda let it slide.”

“I didn’t love him,” Llewyn mumbled as he got out of the car, but he didn’t think Al heard him.

The lot was a couple blocks from Al’s apartment, and Al carried his guitar case along with the heavier of Llewyn’s two bags.  Llewyn carried his own guitar and satchel and walked quickly to keep up with Al’s longer strides.  His feet didn’t want to do it; they felt heavy.  Llewyn thought of cement shoes like gangsters were always talking about in the movies, and that made him think about Mike and the Hudson.  The dark river of death.

When they got to the door leading into the stairs of Al’s building, Al didn’t give Llewyn his bag.  Instead, he caught the doorknob in three fingers of the hand carrying his guitar case, and he opened the door.

“Come on up,” he said, talking over his shoulder again.  If he had asked, “You want to come up?” Llewyn would have said no.  He would have taken his bag and gone on down the street.  But Al didn’t ask, so Llewyn followed him in.  Al dropped the stuff he was carrying to unlock the inner door; then they trudged up the stairs and into the narrow hallway on Al’s floor.  Al unlocked the door to his apartment too, and they went in.

Not much had changed since Llewyn had been there before: it was a little neater and the ashtrays were empty, but that was all.  Al set his guitar and Llewyn’s bag down by the door, then went and looked in the refrigerator.

“Damn,” he muttered.  “I’ll have to go get groceries.  And cigarettes.”  He shut the refrigerator door and frowned.  “Maybe I should just quit.”

“You can’t quit eating,” Llewyn pointed out.  “What, you don’t got anything at all?”

“Not really,” said Al.  “I threw out the last of it so it wouldn’t spoil.  I didn’t think I was coming back.”  He walked over to the living room and shuffled through some books and papers on the shelves as he said, “I tried to straighten up some, didn’t want to leave a mess for when my parents’d have to come clean it out.  But where’d I put the fuckin’—there it is.”  He came back into the kitchen with a checkbook and sat down at the table.  Llewyn watched him write out a check for the rent and sign it “Arthur Milgrum.”

“You didn’t ever get your name changed?” he asked.

“No,” said Al.  He got up again and shuffled through more stuff for an envelope and stamp.  Once he had it all ready, he went to the door and said over his shoulder, “I’ll be back in a minute, gotta take this down to the mailbox.”

“Okay,” said Llewyn.  After Al was gone, Llewyn paced into the living room and thought about picking his stuff up and walking out.  Leaving Al to restock his fridge and get on with his life.  Llewyn thought, I’ve fucked up his plans twice now.  It’s time to move on.  He wanted to drop me off somewhere, but instead he brought me here and told me to come up because he’s nice like that.  Too nice back then to tell me I couldn’t crash on his couch.  Too nice now to tell me to get the fuck out of his car and out of his life. 

Llewyn turned to pace back to the kitchen but stopped at the dividing wall between the two rooms, next to the turntable, when he heard Al’s key in the door.  Al came in and tossed some mail on the table, then looked at Llewyn over the room divider.

It’s not that I don’t have anywhere to go, Llewyn thought.  It’s that I don’t want to leave.  I liked him needing me—even though I could have been anyone.  Anyone would try to stop a guy from offing himself.

“Llewyn?” Al was asking.  “You okay?”

“Yeah,” Llewyn muttered.  “Yeah.  I was just thinking.”  Al looked at him a few more seconds, then went past the kitchen table toward the little hall that led back to his bedroom.

“I’d better change clothes before I go to the store,” Llewyn heard him saying.  “These are pretty gross by now.”

Llewyn saw his chance; if he was quick, he could grab his stuff and be out the door and down the stairs and out of the building before Al even finished changing.  No awkward “see you” for either of them.  No more making Al wait for Llewyn to leave on his own before Al finally kicked him out.

Because I could have been anyone, Llewyn told himself again, trying to believe it because he thought he should go, because the alternative scared and thrilled him.  None of it meant anything, it was just me that was there.  And then it was just sex.  I could have been—  Llewyn’s thoughts stopped short when he glanced down at the record player, and his eyes focused on his own name.  Al had left an album on the turntable, the last thing he’d listened to before he left to go sing at the festival and shoot himself.  He’d listened to Inside Llewyn Davis.

Llewyn’s brows drew together in thought, all the thoughts he’d tried to suppress: Al in the bar saying he’d wondered what had happened to Llewyn, in the car asking if Llewyn wanted to have sex with him, in the diner saying he’d missed Llewyn, saying he’d wanted to spend the last hours of his life with. . . .

With me, Llewyn thought.

“Llew?”  Al came back down the hall, buttoning up another shirt.  It was solid brown, not as ugly as the blanket-patterned abomination.  “You wanna come to the store with me?  Or are you. . . .”  He stopped at the edge of the kitchen with one hand on the wall and the thumb of the other hooked into his pocket again.  “Or are you leaving?” he murmured.

They looked at each other; then Llewyn shoved his hand in his pocket and looked at the money he pulled out.  He thumbed off half the amount of the check Al had just written and smacked it down on the divider between the ashtray there and the supporting post that ran to the ceiling.  Then he looked at Al again.  Al’s brows had drawn together too.

“What’s that for?”  He came over to the opposite side of the divider from Llewyn and looked down at the money.

“My half of the rent,” said Llewyn, “if you want me to stay.”  Al’s eyes jerked up to Llewyn’s face, and his full lips parted.  Llewyn went on, “I think we can make it if we’re both getting gigs.  Like you said, it’s almost summer, there’ll be a lot going on.”

“Yeah,” Al said faintly.

“I’ll sleep on the couch if you want me to,” Llewyn added.  “I mean, you don’t have to. . . you know.”

Al was quiet for what felt like a long time; then he said, “You ain’t sleeping on my couch again.  We already tried that.”

Nothing ventured, nothing gained, Llewyn thought, and he nodded.  He reached to take his money back, but Al clamped his large hand down over Llewyn’s small one, pinning it on top of the bills.  Then Al’s fingers slid under Llewyn’s palm and clasped it.

“Llew,” he murmured, “I want you to stay, but I want you sleeping in my bed, not on the couch.  I want it to be like it was the past couple nights—not just the sex part, but you being with me.  If you don’t want that, then you’d—”  His voice wavered, then solidified.  “Then you’d better go.”  He didn’t take his hand away, but he loosened his grip so Llewyn could pull his back if he wanted to.

Llewyn swallowed past a dry lump in his throat and said, “Full disclosure, Al.  I’ve never done this before—living with somebody, being in a—a real. . . .”

“Relationship?” Al prompted.

“Yeah.”  Llewyn decided he should make himself say it.  “A relationship.”

“Well I ain’t exactly got a good track record either,” said Al.  “And—I’m gonna keep my promise to you, I won’t do anything to hurt myself, but I’m still. . . not quite right, yet.”  Llewyn didn’t think Al had ever been “quite right,” but he didn’t say so.

Instead, Llewyn said, “I know.  I told you, you don’t have to be okay.”  He turned his hand up under Al’s and folded his darker fingers around the pale ones.  He licked his lips but couldn’t get his voice above a whisper when he went on, “Al, I want to be with you, I want us to get right together.  But—you really think we can make it work?”

He looked up into Al’s dark eyes, watching him from under the brim of his hat.  Al smiled, gently.

“We can try,” he said.  He lifted his free hand to cup Llewyn’s jaw and rubbed his thumb across the smaller man’s bristly cheek; then he leaned down to kiss him.  Llewyn tasted Al’s lips, and the thing in his chest flickered and sparked into a flame.

They went out to buy groceries and cigarettes, and Al brought the empty revolver and the rest of the bullets, which he’d kept in their box at the apartment, along.

“What’re you gonna do with that?” Llewyn muttered as they walked up Downing Street.

“Pawn shop,” said Al.  “Same one where I bought it last week.  We could use the money.”  Llewyn felt good about that, and better still when they were on their way out of the pawn shop with more money and less gun than when they went in; but he kept his mouth shut since he didn’t want Al to think he’d been worried.

At the grocery, Al lectured Llewyn on replacing whatever food he used up, instead of just putting the empty container back in the fridge like he’d done when he stayed over before.  Llewyn sulked for a little while but then decided Al had a point, and the right to set a few rules considering it was his apartment.  Llewyn even apologized for sulking, which bewildered Al.

Pleased with himself, Llewyn informed him loftily, “I’m trying to make this work.”  Al chuckled and swatted his ass when no one else was looking.

When they got home, Al put away the groceries while Llewyn took his clothes and Al’s ugly shirt down to the basement and washed everything.  Al made sandwiches, and they spent the rest of the evening watching television and listening to music and messing around with the guitars.

“I’ve got a gig tomorrow night,” Llewyn said late that night.  He’d just showered and put on some shorts, then sunk down on the couch next to Al, who was in his bathrobe still watching TV.

“Yeah?” said Al.

“Yeah.  You should come play too.”

Al looked at him.  “Is it that kind of thing, where anyone can just show up?”

“No, but you can play with me.  And nobody’s gonna care if you step in for a while.”  Llewyn shrugged.  “Hell, they might be glad.”

Al got up and went over to the TV to shut it off.  He didn’t say anything until he went back to the couch and sat down on the edge, and even then, he didn’t acknowledge what Llewyn had said.

“I’m gonna start looking for another job tomorrow,” Al muttered.  “Something where you ain’t gotta have references.  Since I can’t ask for ‘em from my old job.”

Llewyn wondered if him staying with Al might make finding and keeping a job harder, because it could confirm any rumors that got around.  He wondered if Al was saying he didn’t want to play together.

But then Al looked at him and said, “Yeah, I’ll come with you, since it’s at night.  Maybe they’ll like me.”  The corner of his mouth turned up.  “Maybe we’ll be good together.”

“I bet we will,” Llewyn murmured.  He glanced down at the triangle of Al’s chest revealed by his robe, then back up at Al’s face.  “So earlier you were saying something about wanting me in your bed, instead of on your couch.”

“Yeah?”  Al put his hand on Llewyn’s thigh the way he had more than a year ago.  “You wanna go to bed?”

“I gotta start earning my keep, right?” Llewyn teased.  He tugged the tie of Al’s robe until it fell open, then plunged his hand in.  Al shuddered when Llewyn’s fingers closed around his cock and tugged on that too.  Llewyn whispered, “So what’s it gonna take?  More than a blowjob and a quick fuck, I guess.”

“Yeah,” Al breathed.  He put his arms around Llewyn’s bare shoulders and pulled him close.  He kissed Llewyn’s mouth briefly then trailed more kisses over his cheek and ear and neck.  “It’s gonna—gonna take—”  His mouth latched onto Llewyn’s neck and sucked; then he groaned against Llewyn’s skin, “Oh God, Llew, baby, it ain’t gonna take nothin’ but you.  Nothin’ but you, darlin’.”

Llewyn gave up on pretending to whore himself out and hissed into Al’s hair, “Then take me to bed, Al Cody, make me yours.”

After they made love, they lay together in Al’s bed in the dark little bedroom at the back of the apartment.  Llewyn hadn’t ever seen the room before, and he didn’t see much of it that night, but there wasn’t much to it anyway.  The bed was a double, only just big enough for the two of them what with Al’s long limbs.  Llewyn liked it though, the way it kept them close to each other and how warm Al felt beside him.  He turned on his side facing Al and put his head on the larger man’s shoulder, wiggling until he had it cradled against muscle instead of the bony clavicle.  Al draped his arm over Llewyn and stroked his back.

“Was it good, darlin’?” Al murmured.  Llewyn exhaled in a faint laugh.

“You fuckin’ kidding me?  Baby, you’re gonna get me addicted to you.”

“I hope so,” whispered Al, “‘cos I need you, Llew.  I want you to need me too.”

“Al. . . .”  Llewyn wondered what to say, how much to say.  It’s too soon, he thought.  All of this is too much, it’s happening too fast.  But then he thought about how close they’d come to losing each other, more than once, and he whispered back, “I do, Al.  I love you.”

Al’s fingertips dug into the flesh of Llewyn’s back, and Llewyn heard his breath hitch before he mumbled, “L-llewyn. . . .”  Al turned his head to press his lips into Llewyn’s curly hair, and he said, “I love you too, Llewyn, oh God, I love you too.”

They lay there together in quiet until Llewyn yawned, and Al chuckled.

“I wore you out, hunh?”

“Like hell,” Llewyn mumbled.  “I could go again.  ‘M just a little sleepy.”

Al laughed; then he kissed Llewyn’s hair and chided, “Go to sleep.  I’ll see you in the morning, little darlin’.”

“Yeah,” Llewyn mumbled.  “See you, space cowboy.”  He drifted off with Al’s arm around him and the memory of Al’s voice in his head, singing: How peaceful the slumber, how happy the waking. . . to wake with glad smiles from the dream.

--

The End