Condolences

A little something, not much.

            His green eyes shot up at Carlyle. "How did you know?"

            "How did I know what?" Carlyle flashed his own at Henry.

            "That I was --"

            "You needn't worry, Henri," he pronounced his name with a heavy French accent, always. Carlyle thought it built them both into very pretty characters. "There's nothing obvious about it. Unless you yourself are subtle." he winked coyly and went about making coffee.

            "Oh, and you’re subtle? That gives me hope in being inconspicuous."

            "Ah, but we are too very different types of men. You are everything a guy has to be today, and I am everything a man was." he wagged his finger in the air, his body turned: "No one suspects me because I am too charming, and no one suspects you because you are a member of a sports team."

            "Uh-huh." Henry said doubtingly.

            "Coffee? Cream? Sugar?"

            "None."

            "Well certainly you must have some coffee," Carlyle turned, revealing a pouted lip. His tweezed brows knitted and his well-kept face opened to say: "Coffee is the savior of ... ah, I lost it."

            "What?"

            "Forgive me, I'm altogether too strange," he passed a cup, regardless of his friend's refusal.

            "I said I didn't want any." Henry put a hand up, shunning the cup.

            "I asked if you wanted to come to my place, you say no; but you are here. I asked if you wanted to sit down, you say no; but you sat. I asked if you were --"

            "Enough." Henry took the cup from Carlyle's effeminate hand and sipped it. "Cream please, and maybe some sugar?"

            Carlyle went over to an overhead cabinet and fished out a delicate china egg. Opening the top there was a fresh mound of crystalline powder. He plucked a spoon from an already open drawer and stuck it in the snowcap and placed it before Henry. As Carlyle slinked over to the refrigerator, with cat-like smoothness, he asked: "So when did you know?"

            "Me? Know about what?"

            "You know."

            "I don't."

            "Faugh!" Carlyle rolled his eyes and produced a carton of cream from the icebox. "About that 'other side' of yourself."

            "Well, I always knew." Henry said reluctantly. "It's not much of an other side for you, is it? You seem to be the very personification of it."

            "Untrue," Carlyle looked up at the ceiling. He spoke as if it was a rehearsed phrase; "I am a gay metrosexual."

            "That's just very confusing."

            "It tries to be, but in reality not very," Carlyle waved his graceful hand. "It just requires some thought."

            There was a pause, and Henry, without words, supposed he himself was giving it some thought. Though he didn't know how to measure thought, let alone some thought. All the while, Carlyle was staring.

Henry grew uneasy in the quiet stare of what so many of his teammates had snickered at. That waif in the bleachers in a gaggle of girls, a beacon of unblinking eyes on Henry; Carlyle was a joke to many, so it didn’t matter. Carlyle was a joke to many, that’s why he’d agreed to walk with him, chit-chat with him. Carlyle was a joke to many, that’s why Henry had agreed to stop at his house. Carlyle was a joke, and Henry was caught off guard that he was taking him seriously.

            "You have hands like a b***h. Their long and look like their easily broken." Henry recovered for a moment of having thought too long and too well of him.

            "You have a voice like a b***h," Carlyle riposted.
            "Do not."

            "Do to: it is long-winded and easily ignored." Carlyle raised and wagged his finger again. "This is my brilliant finger, whenever all of me is brilliant -- it rises!"

            "And when it wags?"

            "Ah, Henri, that is when all of me is shaking."

            "Why are you shaking?"

            Carlyle smiled. In a wonderfully artificial manner, he went over to the kitchen window and popped his head up as if investigating a cloud; "I cannot tell you."

            "Why?" Henry turned to look at him. His curved back, his slight figure, quietly snug in a stripped, tight sweater. His bell-bottom jeans, like two blue curious twigs. Henry's big, ball-playing hand reached out for a moment and darted back. It was like he plucked an invisible flower from the air. "Why can't you tell me."

            "For the same reason you can't touch me." Carlyle's bleached hair turned back and skidded where it was loose and long. "We are in love, aren't we?"

            "How do you know?" Henry gulped.

            "I felt you move. I have been able to feel you move since I met you. I know where you are in a room," he knelt at Henry's chair, "You see," he whispered with a silken shyness, "when you come into a room, even if I do not see you; I feel your weight as if I were the floorboards, I can feel the heat come off you as if I were the walls. I am so sensitive to you that if I said too much to you, I'd go mute. If I stared too long I'd go blind. If I heard too much of you I'd become deaf."

            "What are you talking about?" Henry asked with a certain oafishness.

            Carlyle turned his head with an ironic smile. He had expected Henry's sloth to cripple the moment. He got up and did his cat-like stride over to his own cup of coffee. He drank deeply, and went back to where Henry was sitting.

            "What are you talking about?" Henry repeated, perturbed. "Well? Aren't you going to say anything?”

            The self-proclaimed gay metrosexual stood there drinking his coffee.

“Carlyle; even your name is so powdery, so feathery, so soft, like a baked good. Like a cookie. You're that moment when the cookie's broken and all the strings of chocolate struggle to keep together; Carlyle. I like your name." Henry paused. He had not expected an intended insult to turn around, and so quickly.

            Carlyle made no sound. His soft honey eyes darted back and forth, taking pieces of Henry in, one at a time. The sunset bounced in Carlyle's eyes. Little gasps of light shot to and fro in a dance of tiny madness. Henry made a little grunt annoyed by the uneasy quiet, but Carlyle, again, said nothing.

            Henry shook his head; a mop of tight dirt-colored curls. "You're so weird."

            Carlyle's eyes fell to Henry's cup. He lowered his head to it, and spat out a thick black splash of his unswallowed coffee into Henry's. "I've been holding that in for so long. Forgive me."

            "You little creep!" Henry shouted, partly shocked.

            "Drink it! Drink it!" Carlyle taunted laughing.

            Henry got up, "Oh yeah?" he hissed, but with a smile on his face. He chased Carlyle from the kitchen to the living room. He grabbed his femme friend by the waist and flung him on the couch. Henry pounced onto him like an animal. Where as he'd normally wrestle with a teammate of his, he just started tickling Carlyle.

            "Oh, my god. What am I doing?" Henry rose from the sofa and circled the rug.

            "Tickling me." Carlyle effortlessly reminded. He fixed his hair and blew at a strand coming down onto his forehead. "Why do you ask?"

            "What's going on?"

            "You're adoring me."

            "I am not, Carlyle."

            "Oh? 'Your name is like stringy chocolate,' or whatever that comment was." Carlyle tipped back his head and laughed.

            "Well it is." Henry shrugged. "Well, hey! I'm not a poet."

            "You are." Carlyle shook his head and grinned. "You are. I read the notes you scrawl on little note-cards and crinkle up just moments after."

            "I just whine on paper, I wouldn't complain aloud -- that's not my thing."

            "Ah, poetry!" Carlyle mused.

            “Do you really think it’s good?”

            “I think you could do whatever you set your mind to. I know I could.”

            Henry smiled, rapture and warm chirping like birds inside him, but recovered with a grimaced -- "You're too froofy."

            "You are too gruff. In between us lies perfection."

            Henry perked up, and asked with innocent candor:

            "What is between us?"

            "Oh, Henri," Carlyle said flatly. He bit his pink lip, and the sunlight came back into his honey eyes. But the sun had already set.

 

Reviews

[Writer CW Kirkland]

This was a great story, Zachary! Your attention to the little details of each character and movement was very good. The characters were developed well in this short story, and I was impressed with the way you expressed the frustration and desire of each character. Nicely done! There are some random grammar errors, but nothing significant enough to detract from the story. I hope you will post more on Writer's Cafe.

[fireblossom]

Zachary. You are splendid. I love your writing. It is easy and natural and evocative. It is well edited.

Keep writing you young man! (as if you could stop lol)

PS - Carlyle made no sound. His soft honey eyes darted back and forth, taking pieces of Henry in, one at a time. The sunset bounced in Carlyle's eyes. Little gasps of light shot to and fro in a dance of tiny madness. Henry made a little grunt annoyed by the uneasy quiet, but Carlyle, again, said nothing.

The detailed observation is remarkable. Telling facts to tell the story. Nice.