Page 4 of What I've Tasted of Desire

Chapter Three

I scanned the PDF again, making sure I had filled in every piece of required information. I didn’t want to miss anything and have his application denied. Once I was certain I had covered every field, I digitally signed the form, forging Alex’s signature as well as that of the caseworker whose account I was currently logged into.

I normally had to study someone’s keystrokes over a few days, but she was easy. Alex’s caseworker liked to linger in Starbucks with her laptop open. I sat down behind her with a cup of coffee and, not three minutes later, she got up to go to the bathroom and just left her state-issued laptop open and unlocked.

It took me perhaps 11 seconds to slip the USB drive into it and implant the spyware. Easy-peasy.

I logged out of her DocuSign and clicked over into her emails. I opened the automated confirmation that the document had been signed and received, and then deleted it so she wouldn’t see it in the morning when she logged on.

The woman had been perfectly useless as a case manager, but I was hoping she would at least have enough sense to reach out to Alex if his application was accepted. Alex was 18 now, and technically not under her care anymore. Despite him still living with his last foster family, according to the government and social services, he was an adult and officially no longer their problem.

This all would have worked out much better if the Westing House project had started six monthsbeforehis birthday. Unfortunately, however, the city had only just listed it. It was like a dream come true. Alex had always had some kind of weird fascination with the old house. Every time he passed it, he paused to take in it’s dilapidated facade and overgrown gardens. It was special to me, too, albeit in a different way. The first time I’d ever seen Alex was in front of Westing House, several years ago…

I watched through the blinds as the coroner loaded the gurney into the back of an unmarked white van with no windows.

“I’m so sorry, Gabriel. Your mother is at peace now. She’s with God. No more cancer, no more pain.”

I nodded silently, my gaze laser-focused on the back of the van as it pulled out of the driveway and disappeared down the street.

“Thank you, Father McKinley.”

It was the only thing I could get to come out of my mouth. He placed a gentle hand on my shoulder. “Have you been able to get a hold of your father, yet?”

I shook my head as I finally turned from the window to face him. “He’s usually home pretty late nowadays.”

Translation: he hadn’t stumbled in from the bar before midnight for at least the last month.

“I’m happy to wait. I know it’s going to take a lot to get you both through this. Your mother was so involved with the church. Please know we are at you and your father’s disposal. Anything you need.”

“Thank you, father. But you don’t have to stay. I think we are both just going to need some time.”

“Of course,” he replied, a somber smile on his lips. “I’ll let you have some time. Mary Ellen will start preparing the service arrangements. Take a few days, and we’ll get together to finalize details.”

I nodded and walked two steps behind him as he crossed the living room and opened the front door. He paused halfway through the frame and turned back. “I know it’s been a long time since you came to Sunday Mass, but there are a lot of people there that loved your mother very much. And you, too. In times like these, we need to seek out community, and find comfort in those around us.”

I nodded and offered a strained half-smile. “Thank you.”

Once he’d gone, I took a seat on the small sofa and took a long look around the room. The family pictures on the mantle. The accent wall Mom had demanded to have painted and then absolutely hated and complained about for the next five years.

“The swatches didn’t look like this… the color is all wrong,” she’d say. Convinced the folks at Sherwin Williams had performed a bait-and-switch. Dad and I had both tried to convince her it would be ugly as sin, in the first place, but she was always hard-headed.

I caught myself smiling at the memory as I stared at the terrible posy-pink varnish, still as godawful as the day she'd made my father roll it on. That was back when we still functioned as a family. When Mom wasn’t bedridden. When dad came straight home from work instead of stopping at the pub to down a fifth of Bombay.

When we got the news the cancer was terminal, Dad completely lost it. He managed to keep things together long enough to get through his work day and keep up his income with the firm. He was too weak to handle being here too long with her in the shape she was in, so he just stayed at the bar. I dropped out of my second year of college to come back to Emberford and take care of her once it was evident my father couldn’t be trusted to do so. She didn’t want to die in some facility somewhere, and he was out to lunch, so I moved home. That was eight months ago. And now what?

My grades were great, and I was well on my way to an early bachelor's in finance, but I hated it. I used my mother’s illness as an excuse to walk away, but, in all honesty, I’d probably have quit anyway. Her cancer was just the scapegoat.

I had these childish ideations about what going off to college was going to be like. I’d get to be my own person. Explore different things, meet different people. Wild parties, hot college boys to play with every night. A big circle of friends…

I’d been at university for a year and a half, and had managed to get my dick sucked exactly one time. The next morning, when the booze wore off, and the bright morning sun illuminated the dorm room, it was over. He never spoke to me again. I wasn’t the kind of guy boys drooled over. I was overweight and still had a fuzzy face thick with baby fat—not exactly a desirable combination.

No twink wants to cuddle up to the fat kid from their math seminar. They wanted the athletes… the gym bros with more abs than brain cells.

I sighed and looked down at my round gut. I’d started walking in the afternoons. A mile and a half, down to the queer-owned coffee shop and back. It wasn’t much, but I figured it was a start.

My mother's voice echoed through my mind as if she’d just spoken the words.

“You are perfect, just the way you are, Gabe. Don’t ever let anyone else convince you different.”

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