Bath Haus

by P.J. Vernon

I’m not naïve or stupid or willfully ignorant when it comes to the consequences of apathy. It’s happened to Mother too many times to count. Her pain is a big part of why I fixate on fidelity. Whatever understanding or unspoken agreement she may have had—or still has—with Father didn’t ease decades of emotional estrangement. For everything Kathy Klein isn’t, the woman’s ability to endure heartbreak is, well, heartbreaking. Unzipping my bag on the duvet, I reason through an imaginary affair of Oliver’s. None of the typical symptoms are present. No incessant phone calls, only to turn into hang-ups when answered. No sudden preoccupation with appearances on his part; he runs for other reasons entirely.

He fondles me as he jerks himself off. He hopes I’ll stir and stiffen, but it won’t happen. I’ve got nothing for him but guilt. I’m amused by what this might look like to an outsider, someone expecting a relationship between two men to be saturated in sex. Straight men saying gays have it good because it’s all sex all the time. Whenever they want it. However they want it. Just males and their wanton biology.

As Nathan’s fingers tap-tap-tap, a server drops off the check. Not once looking up, not stopping to think or missing a beat, Nathan tucks his card into the leather billfold. This tiny action is as bothersome as the parenting, if not more so. There’s zero expectation for me to pay. Sure, Nathan makes more—and any outsider would conclude I benefit handsomely from it—but it serves as a stark reminder of my place. In every way, I need Nathan. I need him to keep me from drugs. I need him for shelter, for food. Most important, I need him for life. Nathan is the reason I breathe.

Indiana’s never been part of the Old South, but white cis-het male entitlement gets to pick and choose through history like a lost and found. Taking whatever it wants and turning a blind eye to the rest.

It never occurred to him that cancer patients stay at cancer centers and this cafeteria serves exactly zero of those. But it didn’t matter; I’d already pulled his file from Psych. No admin questions a request from a white coat, stethoscope, and badge reading medical doctor.

By the point, the red flags were getting less subtle…

Let Nathan have it. It’s hardly a good spot to hunker down. The kind coveted by someone who’s never wondered when a meal’s coming. Never shut his five-year-old eyes and wished the malt liquor in the fridge would turn itself into bologna. Never ate ranch fucking dressing for lunch when it didn’t.

Nothing about the man suggests he does discreet well. But then again, he works for a Republican. A family values pro-lifer who paid for a staffer’s abortion because he already had one family he valued. In politics, the ability to keep secrets is the difference between pillar of the community and prison.

Though we likely haven’t met—and perhaps never will—I hold an undeniable truth about you, Reader, deep in my heart: You belong in books. Characters who look like you, live like you, and love like you belong in books. Our experiences, our communities, our lives with all their richness and depth and soul are the very things stories are made of—and I owe a profound debt of gratitude to those who read this story and told this queer writer in no uncertain terms, You belong in books.