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“Vagabond” by TiberiusRings & Fruitz (part 1 of 2)
Today’s story is the first of two parts of “Vagabond” by Tiberius Rings & Fruitz, who have co-written their Victorian Age thriller, Come to Dust, and are currently publishing the sequel, Burn down the Tower. Each chapter illustrated by Fruitz. A third book is currently being written to end the trilogy of Simon King.
What does it mean to be gay? Is it rainbows and parades, what you wear, or where you live? Is it as simple as who you share your bed with? Beau looks back on his life when he wondered these very things and pieces together how he came to understand what it meant, for him, to be a gay man in the 21st century.
Read for you by Rob MacWolf — werewolf hitchhiker.
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https://thevoice.dog/episode/vagabond-by-tiberiusrings-fruitz-part-1-of-2
Transcript
You’re listening to Pride Month on The Voice of Dog.
Speaker:This is Rob MacWolf, your fellow traveler,
Speaker:and Today’s story is the first of two parts of “Vagabond”
Speaker:by Tiberius Rings & Fruitz, who have
Speaker:co-written their Victorian Age thriller, Come to Dust,
Speaker:and are currently publishing the sequel,
Speaker:Burn down the Tower.
Speaker:Each chapter illustrated by Fruitz.
Speaker:A third book is currently being written to end the trilogy of Simon King.
Speaker:During Pride it is vital we keep
Speaker:two things in mind:
Speaker:our variety of identities,
Speaker:for there are as many ways to be queer as there are queer people,
Speaker:and the history that says we have always been here.
Speaker:And so we present the story
Speaker:about remembering a history
Speaker:of a man discovering that variety,
Speaker:and his place within it,
Speaker:for himself. Please enjoy
Speaker:“Vagabond” by TiberiusRings and Fruitz, Part 1 of 2 When my arthritis is a real bitch, I often sit on my battered couch,
Speaker:carefully tucking my bushy ringed tail underneath.
Speaker:For hours I think about the life I’ve led, the places I’ve visited,
Speaker:and the people I’ve met.
Speaker:You do that when you get to be my age,
Speaker:when the world seems to be speeding up more and more and you’re doing your best to keep up,
Speaker:only to realize that the world isn’t for you anymore, it’s for the young folks.
Speaker:For men like me, all we can do is to watch the seeds we planted grow and
Speaker:nurture those who are willing to listen to our stories.
Speaker:Yes, stories are why I’m writing this.
Speaker:A young friend of mine suggested that I write them down. He listened to the rambling of this old raccoon whenever he came over to help with the car or groceries,
Speaker:and he told me that they were too good to just leave as spoken words.
Speaker:So here I am, ninety years young and typing away at a computer,
Speaker:going down my long-gone memory lanes.
Speaker:I have few regrets in my life
Speaker:—I lived a good, long one
Speaker:—and this is a story about how I found myself
Speaker:in a world that didn’t quite
Speaker:know what to do with me.
Speaker:History says that people’s attitudes toward gay men began to shift in the 21st century.
Speaker:For the most part, that is true; laws were
Speaker:being passed left and right to ensure equal protection and tolerance,
Speaker:and seeing gay people on TV shows was becoming more and more normal. Hell,
Speaker:everyone had gay friends
Speaker:—and I think that’s what helped push the gay rights movement forward as much as it did.
Speaker:It’s hard to hate someone you know intimately.
Speaker:That isn’t to say that everything was great during those years.
Speaker:Far from it. Even as the laws changed,
Speaker:bigotry, hatred, and fear were
Speaker:still running through the veins of our country.
Speaker:There were countermovements everywhere,
Speaker:all under the argument that society had moved too fast.
Speaker:Hate crimes still happened,
Speaker:and people could still be awful.
Speaker:A smart boy would have kept it to himself that he fancied his own gender.
Speaker:I was not so bright back then.
Speaker:My name is Beaumont “Beau” Jeune. My story as a “vagabond”—as I like to refer to myself at that stage in life
Speaker:—began when I was eighteen years of age.
Speaker:I was a spring chicken who had just freshly graduated from a small high school in an equally small town called Cooper in the West Virginian hills.
Speaker:People there are a different kind of folks;
Speaker:time seemed to move differently in Cooper.
Speaker:It had definitely sheltered my country boy butt.
Speaker:But this isn’t a story about me growing up in Cooper.
Speaker:The only reason I start here is because up until this point,
Speaker:my hometown had been the only thing I’d ever known.
Speaker:An innocent and glass-half-full kind of guy that I was, I believed that
Speaker:people would accept me if I started letting out my dirty secret.
Speaker:As it turns out, I was quite wrong.
Speaker:Don’t get me wrong, though. People there—the ones
Speaker:I told my secret to, at least
Speaker:—were never cruel to me.
Speaker:But they treated me differently those last few weeks of high school.
Speaker:People were a bit quieter around me and
Speaker:asking me all sorts of questions about what it meant to be gay,
Speaker:and gosh I had no idea at the time!
Speaker:Thankfully my small group of friends kept it to themselves
Speaker:until I left. I didn’t know what I would’ve done if Pa had found out back then.
Speaker:We never quite got along, but he was one of the best miners you could ever find in the hills. We raccoons take pride in our wonderful night vision,
Speaker:and Pa used that to his advantage, always
Speaker:leading the way for new lines of coal.
Speaker:He even talked about having me get a job there.
Speaker:I balked at the thought. That wasn’t
Speaker:what I wanted. Though young and inexperienced,
Speaker:I still had the sense to feel that Cooper was no longer as welcome to me, and that
Speaker:Pa would never understand.
Speaker:So I packed up the few things I owned into my old baby-blue pickup truck one morning, before
Speaker:anyone else was awake,
Speaker:and left. I left a note to Pa,
Speaker:telling him that I loved him and
Speaker:that I would call him when I got a chance.
Speaker:I remember the moment I left my town. 4:35 AM in July.
Speaker:That is how this story
Speaker:begins. That is how I became
Speaker:a vagabond. ———— Looking back on my choices in those early months, I was a
Speaker:dummy for trusting the Internet as much as I did.
Speaker:I could’ve ended up dead or worse,
Speaker:but back then, that was my only support group for being gay.
Speaker:I knew that if I wanted to understand myself I needed to understand what it meant to be
Speaker:gay. I talked to my friends I made online,
Speaker:and one of them, a guy by the name of Nick, invited me to come stay awhile at his place in Boston.
Speaker:I had never seen the ocean until I arrived in Boston,
Speaker:and I was like a kid in a candy store when I parked my truck that late summer afternoon at an old brownstone building.
Speaker:My ringed tail was tired
Speaker:—and extra messy after hours of being jammed between my butt and the
Speaker:car seat—so I flicked it to get the blood moving. I was told to come to this address by 3:00 PM. The clock in my truck now displayed 3:20 PM. “Beau?” a voice said from outside the truck.
Speaker:I turned to see a young bobcat looking into the window. He wore an athletic pair of shorts and a
Speaker:fitted athletic t-shirt which
Speaker:clung to his body and showed off the lines of his muscles underneath.
Speaker:It was subtle, but it was clear that he wore it to show off a little.
Speaker:I smiled and got out of my truck.
Speaker:“Yeah. Nick?” I offered my hand, which got Nick staring at it before
Speaker:pulling me into a nice, tight hug.
Speaker:I tensed up but
Speaker:slowly relaxed. Where I came from, you did not
Speaker:hug other guys so openly. I was
Speaker:worried someone would see.
Speaker:“You made it! You get out of the country okay?
Speaker:You tired? How’re you feeling? You should come in!”
Speaker:The bobcat was shooting out words like a machine gun,
Speaker:a furball of energy with a bounce in his steps.
Speaker:His eyes twinkling like a pair of bright stars, the boy led me into the old building and up the
Speaker:stairs. “Sorry I was a little late. I wanted to get a latte before you got here and then I got caught in a conversation with someone…” “Heh,”
Speaker:I laughed with a shrug as we kept going up and
Speaker:up. “You always miss my messages online, you know. Seems to be a thing with you Boston fellas.”
Speaker:“We definitely work by our own time, Ring Butt.”
Speaker:That was his nickname for me.
Speaker:We met in a chat group for people who
Speaker:weren’t sure exactly what being gay really meant, but he seemed further along than I was.
Speaker:He was confident and
Speaker:proud, and I wished I could be as open as he was.
Speaker:I was still wearing baggy clothing over myself, worried that
Speaker:showing off would get me
Speaker:unwanted attention.
Speaker:The bobcat opened the door to his small apartment and we stepped in.
Speaker:“Welcome to home!” my host said,
Speaker:spreading his arms wide.
Speaker:“You can stay as long as you want.
Speaker:You said you were just passing through,
Speaker:but I hope you stay awhile. I could show you around.”
Speaker:The apartment had just one bedroom and a tiny front room.
Speaker:The kitchen was so small that I thought my Aunt Emma would’ve died in frustration had she needed to use it.
Speaker:The whole place was clean but also lived in—you could
Speaker:see a few dirty cups here and there,
Speaker:some books not so nicely arranged, dust on the shelf…
Speaker:signs that Nick took care of the place but wasn’t going overboard on the cleaning.
Speaker:“Thanks,” I said as I put my backpack down.
Speaker:“I’d like that. I have some money if you want me to chip
Speaker:in—” Nick vehemently shook his head.
Speaker:“Don’t mention it! I got my scholarship.
Speaker:You’re fine as long as you don’t try to break my hospitality, you know?”
Speaker:He patted me jovially on the back.
Speaker:Opening the fridge, the bobcat got me a cold bottle of water.
Speaker:Those first few hours were so
Speaker:awkward. Nick and I didn’t know how to talk to one another.
Speaker:We were happy to see each other, sure, but we were embarrassed, too.
Speaker:We played it up and hid it by making jokes and acting like we were old friends. But in actuality, we didn’t
Speaker:know all that much about each other.
Speaker:But we tried. It wasn’t until after we opened a few cans of cold beer did we
Speaker:finally, finally, start to relax.
Speaker:By then, the sun had set and
Speaker:the streetlights turned on. When I say that things had felt weird, I mean
Speaker:it. Even a game of Halo couldn’t really get us to relax.
Speaker:Looking back, I can guess why.
Speaker:Neither of us knew if this meeting would lead to sex.
Speaker:Neither of us really knew how to take the lead,
Speaker:and neither of us was sure what we wanted.
Speaker:If we had just talked about the awkward bits, things wouldn’t have taken so long to finally get moving. But that’s
Speaker:hindsight for you, 20/20. We listened to soft music as we got
Speaker:more and more drunk, or at least more relaxed.
Speaker:I was being careful to not get too
Speaker:plastered, since I tended to fall asleep if I had
Speaker:too much alcohol in my
Speaker:system. I garnered enough courage to ask the question that had been burning on my mind since I left Cooper.
Speaker:“So…Nick…you had any luck figuring out this
Speaker:gay stuff?” Nick shrugged and sipped his beer.
Speaker:“Not really, no.” That surprised me. “Well,
Speaker:what’s going on?
Speaker:Maybe I can help. Think of it like
Speaker:posting online.” “It’s pretty boring.”
Speaker:“Hey, you’re helping me out by letting me crash here. Least I can do is be a shoulder. No judgment.” That earned me a smile from the bobcat.
Speaker:He reached up and ran his hand through one of his cheek ruffs and
Speaker:exhaled slowly. “Well, the thing is…I’m
Speaker:into older men.
Speaker:By that, I mean I really like men who are
Speaker:old enough to be my dad.
Speaker:My dad, he ran out on me and my mom,
Speaker:so I never really had someone
Speaker:masculine in my life.
Speaker:That’s why I like them, I think.
Speaker:I like being held and told I’m a good guy.
Speaker:It made me realize I was missing something in my life.
Speaker:life.” I nodded. Pa was always in my life, and while
Speaker:he was a quiet man he had always been the pinnacle of masculinity in my little world; he had
Speaker:taught me how to hunt and
Speaker:fix cars. We weren’t
Speaker:close at all, but he taught me what, I believed at the time, was to be a man. “But, Iunno. I came to art school here in Boston because it’s more open than my hometown,
Speaker:but I’m still scared. I keep thinking:
Speaker:what if people make fun of me? What if I’m wrong about liking men?
Speaker:It’s really confusing, Beau.”
Speaker:“Let me ask you this.”
Speaker:I turned to face him,
Speaker:my beer almost empty now.
Speaker:“When you…you know…”
Speaker:I moved my hand up and down in a pumping motion. “Do you
Speaker:think about men? Women? Both?”
Speaker:Nick blushed and looked down at his hands.
Speaker:His ears folded back against his head, swallowed hard, then quietly answered:
Speaker:“Men.” “Doesn’t that clear it up?”
Speaker:“No! It’s different.”
Speaker:He took a deep sigh.
Speaker:“There’s this guy I met on a gay dating app, the one that the guys on the message boards are always using.
Speaker:He’s a raccoon, like you. He was
Speaker:older than I expected—he’s a professor of engineering—and can talk forever about
Speaker:science and the world.
Speaker:It’s humbling, and I love it because
Speaker:it’s like he has the whole world figured out.
Speaker:I tell him about some of the stuff going on and he has a story or an experience he shares with me and it’s…it’s
Speaker:nice to know I’m not the first to walk that path.”
Speaker:I nodded. My beer was finished and I felt
Speaker:tense, excited. We were
Speaker:onto something for Nick, I could feel it.
Speaker:This was also the longest verbal conversation I’d ever had about being gay. It felt
Speaker:dangerous and alive. I loved it.
Speaker:“But I get these weird thoughts, like,
Speaker:what does he see in a kid like me? What will happen if we get together in a relationship?
Speaker:What about if he dies?
Speaker:He isn’t ancient or even old, but he’ll likely die before me—”
Speaker:“Woah!” I held up my hand.
Speaker:“You’re gettin’ a little ahead of yourself, aren’t ya?
Speaker:You said you weren’t even dating and now you’re imagining a life after his funeral. Calm down!”
Speaker:“I don’t know, Beau, I’m scared.
Speaker:scared.” Nick’s face said it all.
Speaker:He had been holding that in for so long, and I knew that fear.
Speaker:All the worries about being
Speaker:out about yourself
Speaker:—it was true and very real.
Speaker:I flashed the warmest smile I could muster at my feline friend.
Speaker:“I’d like to meet him
Speaker:if at all possible,
Speaker:but I also know that you miss every swing you don’t take.
Speaker:Nothing commits you to anything. But if you don’t
Speaker:try, you’ll never know and maybe even regret
Speaker:it.” My time in Boston started on an awkward friendship between two boys who didn’t even know if they were really gay.
Speaker:But after that night, things changed for the both of us in slow
Speaker:but remarkable ways.
Speaker:A couple days later,
Speaker:Nick introduced me to Professor Bensley,
Speaker:a raccoon with graying tail rings,
Speaker:a bit of a heavy set body, and a
Speaker:jolly laugh that made you want to laugh with him.
Speaker:As my bobcat friend said, he had a story to tell about everything.
Speaker:He was a fan of history and he told us all about
Speaker:Victorian England.
Speaker:Supposedly there had been a menace plaguing London going by the name Jack. I wanted to know
Speaker:more but Nick fell asleep,
Speaker:much to our laughter.
Speaker:I stayed in Boston for a year.
Speaker:I had officially become Nick’s roommate and paid my rent. I had
Speaker:a decent amount saved up from my life of not really needing to spend it, and I got a job downtown in a bookstore.
Speaker:I was never overwhelmed with cash, but I had enough to survive.
Speaker:When I look back
Speaker:on that year in Boston, I remember
Speaker:feeling so alive and so
Speaker:adult; that I could really be this way and everything would be fine.
Speaker:Nick and I explored each other at first.
Speaker:Nick was my first kiss with a boy and I saw stars when our lips touched. It evolved from there, of course.
Speaker:I lost my virginity to him
Speaker:on a stormy night. It was
Speaker:awkward and funny,
Speaker:legs and limbs everywhere,
Speaker:but we laughed and had fun. I was worried, at the time, that I would have
Speaker:fallen for Nick when we had sex,
Speaker:but nothing more than a warm friendship ever developed.
Speaker:Besides, his heart belonged to someone else I would soon come to realize.
Speaker:Professor Bensley and Nick started to date by the time I realized
Speaker:I needed to leave Boston.
Speaker:Everything was fine,
Speaker:of course, but Nick wanted to move in with the professor
Speaker:and I felt too comfortable
Speaker:here in Boston. I knew I was gay, and I knew that I liked
Speaker:men, but I didn’t know much about what it meant
Speaker:to be gay, including the goods and the bads. I wanted to meet and talk to more people who had different experiences from my own.
Speaker:While I could have lived in Boston for the rest of my life
Speaker:and been happy, I was still searching for something and I knew it wasn’t there.
Speaker:So I packed up everything, once more,
Speaker:in my truck and set out on the road.
Speaker:My friends stayed in touch after I left.
Speaker:Three years later, I found out that they got serious enough to get married.
Speaker:Nick was nervous, of course, but when I saw them again at their wedding, I knew they were still in love and would likely remain that way
Speaker:for a long, long time.
Speaker:When Nick asked me to dance on the night of the wedding reception
Speaker:(during which a couple of guests whom I’ve never met before asked us if I was Bensley’s son
Speaker:—which got an awkward chuckle out of all three of us),
Speaker:he leaned in and whispered something into my ear.
Speaker:Something I’ll never forget and I want written down on these pages:
Speaker:“Thanks for helping me take the swing.” ————
Speaker:I had no idea where I was going for a while and
Speaker:that was part of the adventure.
Speaker:I went around the United States, working odd jobs here and there. My down-to-earth country-boy side did me wonders when I had to rely on the kindness of strangers to let me work or
Speaker:show me where a boy like myself could sleep on the dime.
Speaker:I didn’t meet many gay men in that period of my life, though honestly I was enjoying the trips and the sights and the people
Speaker:to really focus too much on finding other gay men.
Speaker:That was, until Arizona,
Speaker:when I bumped into Claude.
Speaker:Claude was someone I spoke to online when I was a kid,
Speaker:but we had grown distant.
Speaker:In my last year chatting with him regularly, the coyote said that he was having family problems
Speaker:and then stopped coming online as much.
Speaker:We still kept in touch though, usually an
Speaker:email every few months,
Speaker:but nothing specific about either of our lives
Speaker:—we chatted about the things we liked,
Speaker:like games and guys. Truth be told,
Speaker:I knew he was out this way—Flagstaff, to be specific. But I didn’t expect to actually find him.
Speaker:I wasn’t going to impose on him either since I didn’t know his life situation like I had Nick’s,
Speaker:and I was honestly just treating Arizona as a rest stop on my way to California.
Speaker:So when I bumped into the coyote at the diner,
Speaker:you had to believe we did that thing you see on TV;
Speaker:the stare and the look up and down…and
Speaker:then the happy embrace. We had exchanged
Speaker:many pictures over the years (yes, even those kinds of pictures)
Speaker:and so I knew him by looks alone
Speaker:—sandy-colored fur, ears tipped with light milk chocolate highlights,
Speaker:brighter wheat-colored highlights on his face under his eyes going down the length of his neck.
Speaker:He was handsome, and fit.
Speaker:He was wearing a fitted black muscle shirt that held to his upper body like it had been
Speaker:airbrushed on. Over his left pectoral was the logo for a mechanics shop, and he had an oily rag
Speaker:hanging out of his back pocket.
Speaker:When I met Nick for the first time, there was that awkwardness
Speaker:between us, but the same didn’t happen with Claude.
Speaker:The coyote was always warm, friendly, and cheerful.
Speaker:He had his arm around me and led me to the circular booth in the back of the diner. “Dude, I can’t believe you’re here!” Claude said once we sat down in the booth, flashing one of his famous coyote grins.
Speaker:“You shoulda said something!”
Speaker:“Ah,” I rubbed the back of my head, embarrassed.
Speaker:“I didn’t want to
Speaker:impose or nothin’, you know?
Speaker:Plus we don’t talk as much these days and I didn’t know what was what…”
Speaker:Claude reached over,
Speaker:grabbing me by the neck and pulling me in closer, looking me right in the eyes.
Speaker:“Beau. You’ve seen me naked,
Speaker:I think you can ask if you can visit.”
Speaker:I laughed and shrugged.
Speaker:“You got a couch to surf on?”
Speaker:“You think I was going to let you stay at the hotel? No way. You’re bunking with me.
Speaker:How long are you here for?”
Speaker:“Not sure. Don’t want to impose too long.”
Speaker:And like that Claude and I picked up
Speaker:right where we left off.
Speaker:Claude filled me in on why he went M.I.A. for a while:
Speaker:“Folks didn’t take well to me coming out.
Speaker:They were…okay at first, but things kept building and building, you know?
Speaker:But I stuck around for a bit, tolerating it, thinking it was just them
Speaker:coming to grips with what had changed—though really nothing changed.
Speaker:“It got worse, actually.
Speaker:Every problem in the house was my fault: it was my fault my Mom wouldn’t have grandkids, it was my fault we couldn’t go to family gatherings, it was my fault for global warming…I swear, they found things to blame me for.
Speaker:Like not mowing the lawn when it was snowing…can you
Speaker:believe that?
Speaker:I think my Dad just wanted to scream at me for being gay.
Speaker:“So eventually, Ihad to say goodbye to them.
Speaker:It hurt, honestly. I mean…they’re
Speaker:my parents, and I knew
Speaker:they loved me…in some twisted, awful way they probably thought they were helping…but
Speaker:nothing I said worked. Nothing I did was fine.
Speaker:“I found my Mom snooping on my computer one morning, and that was it. I left with just
Speaker:my car, my wallet, and some
Speaker:clothes in a backpack and
Speaker:ended up here in Flagstaff.
Speaker:“It was hell, man. I’m sorry I didn’t keep in touch more back then, but I was so
Speaker:depressed and going through so much. They tried
Speaker:following me, stalking me on social media, so I went dark.
Speaker:I didn’t have the energy and I didn’t want to talk about it…so
Speaker:I kinda stopped talking to a lot of people, including you.”
Speaker:I found myself frowning.
Speaker:“Claude, you don’t have to
Speaker:apologize. That sounds
Speaker:rough. I can’t imagine…”
Speaker:“Hey!” Claude interrupted my sympathy speech and perked his ears up.
Speaker:“You wanna meet my boyfriends?”
Speaker:My mouth hung open. “Um…boyfriends?” Claude was in a polyamorous relationship. The three of them (he and his two
Speaker:boyfriends, to be specific)
Speaker:shared a house tucked between some
Speaker:really tall green trees and rocks.
Speaker:The house was old but looked
Speaker:well-maintained. The coyote gleefully led me inside, cupped his hands over his muzzle, and yelled:
Speaker:“GUYS! I’M HOME! C’MERE!!”
Speaker:There was the sound of heavy feet falling as two men came rushing to the front door,
Speaker:one rubbing an eye like he had just woken up from a nap and
Speaker:the other dressed handsomely in a nice pair of jeans and a polo shirt. “Beau,
Speaker:let me introduce you to my boyfriends, Jason and Miles.
Speaker:Jay, Mi, this is my old internet friend Beau.
Speaker:You know, the raccoon who was an ace in Ring Masters RX?” The two men were
Speaker:around my age.
Speaker:The sleepy one was a black panther wearing a
Speaker:tanktop and a pair of sky blue briefs.
Speaker:Once he stopped yawning and looked at me, I could see that he had a pair of the most
Speaker:handsome violet eyes. “Hey,
Speaker:I’m Miles. Claude talks about you when he’s missing his old gaming days.”
Speaker:The other boyfriend, Jason, was a white wolf. He was
Speaker:fit but lean, like a
Speaker:muscular swimmer. He had
Speaker:dyed his fur tips red on his head and his ears so it looked like he was
Speaker:being bathed in red light all the time.
Speaker:He smiled and pulled me into a hug.
Speaker:“Jason’s a hugger,”
Speaker:Claude said with a laugh.
Speaker:“I…Can…Tell…!” I pretended to wheeze.
Speaker:This was my first encounter with a
Speaker:poly relationship.
Speaker:I was incredibly curious but also wary about
Speaker:picking through their lives and asking weird questions.
Speaker:So, for the first week of living with them, I mostly just
Speaker:watched. The trio had a special dynamic, and it was interesting to see how they
Speaker:equally cared about and focused on each other
Speaker:sometimes. They seemed to be aware that they needed private time
Speaker:just as much as group time.
Speaker:It wasn’t until one morning,
Speaker:when I was making some eggs in the kitchen and the other three sat at the dining room table, that Claude chuckled with a piece of toast in his muzzle.
Speaker:“You’re being too polite, Beau.”
Speaker:“About what?” Jason giggled a little as he poured himself some orange juice.
Speaker:“I can’t believe he’s lasted this long.”
Speaker:I dropped the finished eggs on four separate plates, brought them on the table, and looked at the two with an innocent tilt of my head.
Speaker:“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
Speaker:“You watch us like you’re studying us,”
Speaker:the white wolf said, reaching for his plate.
Speaker:“Yet you don’t ask any questions.
Speaker:I get the respect but we’re friends here.”
Speaker:And thus, the floodgates were open.
Speaker:“Okay, so how does it work?”
Speaker:I asked as soon as I sat down at the table.
Speaker:“You mean the three of us?” Claude answered.
Speaker:“We just love each other, and we’re aware of each other.
Speaker:I care for them equally, and they care for me too. We don’t
Speaker:branch off. We really need each other, and we all fill a gap that
Speaker:none of us could really fill before.”
Speaker:“Were you guys dating and then invited a
Speaker:third or…?” It was Miles’s turn
Speaker:to shake his head.
Speaker:“We were friends. Local gay bar downtown. We got
Speaker:close, became roommates eventually,
Speaker:and found that we all just clicked.
Speaker:I wanted more from both of them and it turned out they wanted the same.
Speaker:We talked about it one night—”
Speaker:“After sex.” “Jason!” Miles growled at his interruptor, then shook his head.
Speaker:“Yes…after sex. We decided to give it a shot.
Speaker:Going on three years now.”
Speaker:“And your feelings never get hurt?”
Speaker:“Sure they do,” Jason added.
Speaker:“But that happens in regular relationships, too.
Speaker:If you mean whether we get jealous of one another if I see Miles and Claude go off and be romantic, then
Speaker:—nope. I’m comfortable with our relationship and how we are to one another.
Speaker:I know that they aren’t trying to push me out, and that
Speaker:they just want to enjoy each other.
Speaker:We pair off from time to time, and it
Speaker:lets the third person get some alone time. But it’s not that often.
Speaker:We really like being together.”
Speaker:“What do you tell people in town?”
Speaker:“Roommates,” Claude said with his trademark coyote grin.
Speaker:“Most people around here are fine that we’re gay, but the poly stuff can weird them out, so we just keep our lives private.
Speaker:If someone gets close to us, they generally figure it out.
Speaker:Hell, I’m sure the town knows already.”
Speaker:“But how do you maintain it? Isn’t it hard?”
Speaker:“All relationships are hard, silly,”
Speaker:Jason laughed. “The key is the corny thing you probably already know: communication.
Speaker:We talk about anything that may be bothering us about the whole thing, and we work it out.
Speaker:Usually those issues are just misunderstandings or someone needing more attention.
Speaker:We also don’t judge.”
Speaker:“You judged me when I wore that yellow shirt to the club two months ago.”
Speaker:“Someone had to,” Claude said.
Speaker:“But you still looked good in it.”
Speaker:Flagstaff offered me a huge learning experience.
Speaker:The three-way lovers,
Speaker:or throuple as they were actually called,
Speaker:told me to be open about my questions. I did, and they answered honestly.
Speaker:I learned during the trip that love is not a one-to-one ratio
Speaker:but can be split in many directions. And with
Speaker:a lot of work and dedication, you can maintain those bonds,
Speaker:even if society tells you to fuck off
Speaker:because you’re different.
Speaker:This was the first of two parts of “Vagabond” by TiberiusRings & Fruitz,
Speaker:read for you by Rob MacWolf, werewolf hitchhiker.
Speaker:Tune in next time to find out how Beau learns that not every scar is on the surface.
Speaker:As always, you can find more stories on the web at thevoice.dog,
Speaker:or find the show wherever you get your podcasts.
Speaker:Happy Pride, and thank you for listening to The Voice of Dog.
