First Chapter of Project Iceworm: a human marriage in three parts

 

From my biographer . . . .

Thank you fans of Deetz and Angus!  You've been waiting for so long for the second book and it is coming together, albeit slowly just like everything else in this pandemic!  My travels to home of the Glamorgan Progeny, Wales, UK, has been limited and interviewing these two on Zoom is not that easy - Angus is kind and a bit flirty while Deetz is the king of one word sentences.  But a flight in late March is looking quite likely as the variant numbers seem to be dropping.  Keep your fingers crossed.  I'd say I'd cross my legs too but that sounds constricting.  Meanwhile, I could use your help.  Here is a link to a draft of chapter one of Project Iceworm: a human marriage in three parts.  It is five years later and Deetz Mac Innes-Reese is about to graduate from rabbinical school.  Hubby Angus is anxious for them to start a family but Deetz has other ideas.  Meanwhile, Deetz's best friend, La Tonya "Toni" Hoffman has come for a visit and Miss Sassy needs a favor.  And, of course, the aliens never stop - this time something is killing members of an Inuit village in Greenland but do deities have such unusual teeth?  As always, there are government shennagins, passionate sex, and, of course, things are complicated - in the 21st century, what does marriage look like?  You know the boys will have unique answers, some of which will piss off the "woke" in Project Iceworm: a human marriage in three parts.

 Chapter 1 - copywritten A.G. Davis (2022)-NO DUPLICATION

 

Any love that depends on a specific cause, when that cause is gone, the love is gone; but if it does not depend on a specific cause, it will never cease.

-         Pirkei Avot, 5:19

5 ½ years after The Roswell Discrepancy

 

“Angus, you’ll just love her!”

“I’m sure I will,” my husband said while the bellhop deposited the last of our bags on the hotel floor.  “it’s just I thought we’d have some time alone.”  If the bellhop was shocked by two men sharing a room, he didn’t show it.  But then again, the bling from the generous number of shekels my husband had just dropped in his hand was a universal anti-homophobic gesture.

“I know,” I smiled, “it’s just I haven’t seen Toni in ages.”  After setting out a matt for my dog’s Velvel food and water, I plopped onto the nearby extra modern couch, my feet dangling over the side, and watched the chocolate Lab eagerly lap up what looked like tiny cat poops.  That image made me smile.  For a quick second, I was thinking about how insulted my sister’s familiar, Armes (Welsh for “prophetess”), a white and tan ragdoll cat, would be at the visual of “this dirty canine’s horrid eating habits”.  Armes is a bit of a snob and not as good-natured as Velvel.

Angus walked over and opened one of the penthouse’s balcony French doors, the breeze from off the Mediterranean immediately relieved the stuffiness in the room.  If Jerusalem was an old maid, Tel Aviv was its amusing, slutty sister.  The latter was also the bastion of Israel's secular liberalism, a combination of Wall Street, Castro Street, and Rodeo Drive.  For Jews and Arabs alike, the city’s glittering lights hid sin like a sex worker’s black book.  Truth be told, I really wanted to go out.  Maybe I couldn’t drink but I could smoke Angus’s vapes and eat some of these mushrooms I procured from a fellow at the kibbutzim where I was an assistant to the rabbi.  “Yeah, I haven’t seen you in ages either,” he said in a disappointed tone.  “I just got here too!  Frankly, I thought we’d hold up in these rooms, eat lots of take away, and shag until we had to head back to America for your orientation.”

[copywritten A.G. Davis (2022)-NO DUPLICATION]  We’d only been married a year when I enrolled even though he was anxious to start a family.  He had been genuinely supportive of my educational pursuits and visited me frequently for weekend long romps in my flat in Philadelphia within the campus of the Jewish Reconstructionist Rabbinical College.  Now nearly 5 years later, in Angus Reese’s mind, I was as good as settled with a small congregation in the Welsh countryside.  And I would be by the side of my husband, the 12th Earl of Glamorgan (lands just outside of Cardiff), while he oversaw one of the remaining prosperous titled estates left in Western Europe – Reese Industries would serve as a shining example of “good capitalism” and the Reese Foundation would “eliminate barriers” to those socially or economically disadvantaged.  It was all a part of his plan and he was in no mood for me to remind him, again, that is was the 21^st century. 

Then, I got an email from my girl in Detroit saying, she got a ticket to Israel when a congregant from her synagogue, at the last minute, had to pull out of the temple’s annual trip.  My BFF’s arrival helped me postpone my announcement. “She’s only going to be in Tel Aviv for these few days – we are here two more days after that - then we can be alone as much as you like, eh?” 

I met Toni nearly ten years ago when I joined an Aikido dojo when we both lived in Chicago.  I had been studying Karate in Portland previously – living off the interest from a modest inheritance and bartending.  I was getting restless, so, on the recommendation from a guy I met through work, I moved to the Windy City to learn a different fighting style.   It helped too that the Midwest’s gay mecca, what the locals referred to as “Boys Town”, with all of its clubs, bathhouses, and shopping, was within walking distance of the dojo.  When I arrived to offer my recommendation letter to the studio’s master, LaTonya “Toni” Hoffman was in the dojo’s small front office, gently chastising a 10-year-old who’s yellow belt was wrapped incorrectly.  Toni was already a black belt, having grown up under the tutelage of Sensei Fumio Toyoda, one of the foremost masters of that martial art style.  Toni’s West African mother enrolled her in Aikido at age 7, looking for a self-defense style that wouldn’t detract from but take advantage of her femininity.  Once I joined the dojo, Toni spent several months throwing me around like a rag doll before I finally learned that this martial arts style was quite different from the others I knew.  Aikido was based on the idea of not fighting but using your opponent’s movement, stance, and direction to undermine their attack.  For the person I was at that time, full of rage and driven to self-destruction, this was a mental readjustment that, in combination with daily sessions of Zen meditation and her support, started me on a healing journey.

[copywritten A.G. Davis (2022)-NO DUPLICATION] We were an odd couple.  She’s fun, alive and always looking for an adventure.  When I wasn’t drinking, I was craggy with a chip on my shoulder.  During the day, while I was sneaking out of my dishwashing job for a blowjob from the sommelier (or a waiter, in a pinch) in the alley, she was leading adult beginner classes while simultaneously teaching Hebrew school and finishing a master’s in psychology.   But we both had the sexual energy of a 16-year-old boy and admired one another for it.   Girlfriend played hard and was always up for a night of smoking weed, drinking, and clubbing.  We’d run around Chicago’s northside - she’d chase the girls while I’d pick up whatever looked good in a haze.  It was nice to have someone to keep an eye on me as I tended to unwittingly attract rough trade.  On several occasions, she had to pull me out of sticky situations involving dungeons, leather, and positions that would have a monkey confused.  My younger sister Ciara said Toni had a “saviour complex”.   G-d knows I needed saving. 

One such bad scene happened when I took umbrage - using the safe word and all - at what was expected of me at a pre-scheduled gangbang and demanded to be released.  Evidently, this crew must have failed BDSM 101 or just didn’t care (likely it was both).  Toni sat the bar upstairs flirting with the butch bartender because “fish weren’t allowed “down there”.  I don’t know how Toni intuited I was in trouble but the next thing I knew, buff boy wannabes were flying around the room as she fought our way out of the winding rooms of the main play area.  Once outside, having dragged my limp, bruised body two blocks from the club, Toni had to relocate her shoulder before she could flag a taxi.  Eventually making it to the living room floor her flat, while holding a bag of ice to her shoulder, she screamed, “Where is this death wish coming from, Desmond?”  Toni never used my nickname, Deetz.  She said it sounded silly. “I’m not going to keep rescuing you unless you tell me what is going on!”  As I cried and slurred my words (because I wasn’t yet undrunk), I’d told her of my abuse history.  I started with my mother abandoning me and my sister then my father, an already difficult man, becoming an alcoholic whenever parenting was required.  Childhood ended at fifteen when a new, young rabbi was hired to revitalize our synagogue and quickly mesmerized male and female congregants alike, all of them a facelift or tummy tuck away from inviting him over for “drinks after Friday night services”.   

[copywritten A.G. Davis (2022)-NO DUPLICATION] I idolized him as well, in that way only young adolescents can.  He came with a reputation of being a scholar, having just graduating from Yeshiva University.  And I wanted to be a Jewish scholar, in part in hope that would finally bring some words of love from my only remaining parent.  I was also just coming to accept bisexuality and the predator must have sensed my abandonment and neediness.  He groomed me for nearly a year, told me that there was nothing wrong with me – that was true but then used that truth to isolate then brutally rape me during a teen camping trip.  Luckily, my bunk mate, upon discovering my unconscious body behind our cabin, had sunk in a cell phone and was able to call an ambulance before the tear in my rectum led me to bleed to death.

Toni was the first person other than a litany of useless therapists I’d told the whole story to.  And she didn’t react with scripted pity or rehearsed tenderness but simply said that if I kept drinking and running, “. . . one day you’re going run so far that you’ll run into yourself, and you won’t like what you see.”   From that moment on, I caught an AA meeting every other day and we quit the standard pick up clubs and spent our time exclusively in dance halls learning ballroom.

I mean, girls still just want to have fun, right?

[copywritten A.G. Davis (2022)-NO DUPLICATION] We never had sex but were inseparable mates until she met Chris then I was more and more on my own.  The story became that without my wingman and several shots of bourbon, I was useless to my other friends.  I decided to try my luck in the sunny land of queers without fears, San Francisco.   We kept in touch infrequently via email afterwards.   A year later, Toni moved with Chris to Detroit, planning to get married after opening their vision of the perfect foster care group home.  They would have been the only friends at Angus and I’s wedding had their car not been t-boned.  Chris was killed.  Toni survived but was in the hospital for months then she had twenty-five weeks of intensive physical therapy.  We promised and tried to visit a few other times once her recovery was over.  But that was after I’d started rabbinical school and it turned out I barely had time for Angus’s visits let alone to get to Michigan.  Plus, she was busy finishing her dissertation and working full-time at a free clinic.  In her call to me, she told me she’d finally turned in the final draft and she wanted to celebrate.  “She should be here in 30 minutes.  You unpack and I’ll check for someplace nearby where we can get a meal, eh?”  He shrugged and reluctantly attended to his assignment.

Tel Aviv was, like most cosmopolitan cities, always busy. The Brown Beach Hotel, where we were staying, was elegant, picturesque with a solid dash of honeymoon-perfect.  It had all the posh of an early 1950s Playboy hotel, with lots of hard edges, angled accessories, tight cushions, and beach coloured themes.  But because the hotel was steps from Trumpeldor Beach and the Mediterranean Sea, from the top floor, rolling waves of saltwater muted the hustle of modern urban living.  Angus purchased the top penthouse suite when the U.S. embassy relocated because the English are cowards.  Downing Street felt it better to have an interested British citizen with unofficial credentials nearby instead of standing with the U.S. in the muck of Middle Eastern politics.

[copywritten A.G. Davis (2022)-NO DUPLICATION] I was anxious, so after a while, Angus and I headed to the lobby to wait.  We were huddled in the back of the lift by the time it reached the ground floor, but our timing could not have been better. In the distance, double doors were opened by two porters in crisp white uniforms.  LaTonya Hoffman emerged from between those doors like Freddie Mercury at the 1985 Live Aid concert – I could have sworn someone simultaneously had cued one rock anthem or another.  She was even more ravishing than I remembered – FaceTime was doing her a disservice.  At 5’ 4”, she was Pam Grier’s love child with Paul Newman – creamy, golden complexion covering the shit brick house body the Commodores crooned.  She was styling a carefully coiffed Jew-fro formed from finger thick brown curls that cascaded just past her shoulders, long, natural lashes fluttering over big blue eyes, and plump, full lips that were smiling at me.  I wasn’t sure if I should run toward her or warn everyone in the lobby of an incoming tsunami.  Instead, I scolded Angus, “Put your tongue back in your mouth.”

“Wow, you weren’t kidding!” he whisper-shouted as we exited the lift.  “A fine lass that is!  How is it that you never tapped that?  She’s not a double agent for the Russians, now is sheMy apologies but these fit females from your past tend to come with an agenda.”  He was recalling a professor from my days at Uni who tried to murder him – a previous story.  “And by the way, you may want to put your jacket on as your brand is shining through your shirt,” he countered.  He was right and I thanked Hashem (G-d) it was a cooler day.

Since the 17th century, the members of the Mac Innes clan were born with a raised figure of a tree somewhere on their bodies.  This is what Angus was referring to - a Celtic-style brand on my back - an Allwedd Derw, a Welsh oak key that resembled the biblical tree from the Garden of Eden.  My sister, like most of the women, had a small Awen or “three bars of light” brand on her left shoulder.  They represented magic powers bestowed by the Druid line in our family.  Ciara was a telepath and animal whispered.   I was bestowed clairsentience, the ability to sense people’s emotions, particularly from the objects they recently touched.  Once I reached puberty, I could also receive psychic messages and my brand began illuminating whenever I became highly emotional, especially when sexually aroused.   While most males got boners in class or woke up in the morning with their beds drenched in sweat and cum, I went through shirts and mattresses like Elizabeth Taylor went through husbands.  Eventually, I learned how to control it or hide it – well, until I started fucking around with Angus.  After nearly setting our townhouse on fire, my husband had a division of Reese Industries develop fire-resistant sheets, pillowcases, and shirts.  As a joke, one of the assistants posted the project line on the company website.  They were sold out of everything within five days – who knew there was such a market out there?

[copywritten A.G. Davis (2022)-NO DUPLICATION] Angus and I grew up together in a world where the existence of magic was taken for granted.  Our house is full of animal and human familiars.  The butler, head cook, and family physician are magical creatures who had been with the family since the turn of the last century.  Lady Nora, the Reese family’s matriarch, was the leader of the county’s grove, or Druid coven, with powers of insight and physical manipulation of the environment.  If Hogwarts was real, they’d have an entire course on her.   And her congregation weren’t cosplaying nellies doing Halloween 365 but highly respected, learned men and women from all over the Vale of Glamorgan.  In Wales, with a wide mix of cultures and faith practices many went to more than one service – you can’t get too careful when it comes to your everlasting soul.  The Mac Inneses was one such family, we just didn’t tell the rabbi, just like liberal American Jews say they’re vegan then order a cheeseburger with fries from Grubhub.

 “Desmond!” she exclaimed before planting a kiss on my left cheek, “it’s so good to see you.  And how the fuck is it that you’ve gained not a pound?”  She turned her bright smile toward Angus, “And you must be hubby!”  She gave him a similar smooch.  “Oh my!  Magazines and Facetime aren’t capturing you right, darlin’!  I mean you are utterly yummy.”  She spun him around like she was prepping a model for the catwalk.  “You didn’t lie Desmond!  He’s fabulous!”  Toni eyed him up and down once more for effect.

[copywritten A.G. Davis (2022)-NO DUPLICATION] And Angus ate that shit up – my baby was nothing if not vain as hell.  This is just what he needed too – some sharp Shirley to shoot compliments his way – since when he got off the plane to greet me, the second words out of his mouth were the fact that he found two grey hairs.  I didn’t say anything but solely wanted to remind him that his father’s sideburns were completely grey by the time he was 40.  With shoulder-length auburn hair, hazel-green eyes, and a body ripped from the cover of Bodice Ripper Monthly, young and old slappers were falling all over themselves to get some Angus Reese.  Many were disappointed, some suicidal, when the cover of The Sun screamed in capital letters that the most eligible bachelor in the world had married a cisgender boy.  Sorry ladies . . . sorry not sorry.    

“Thank you, it is good to meet you as well,” he said while kissing the back of her hand.  “How was your flight?” Angus asked, likely struggling for something intelligent to say.

Toni looked at him queerly, likely expecting he would shake her hand.  But she quickly recovered.  “Great!  But I’d murder for a cup of coffee.”

“The hotel has a coffee shop right over here,” I answered. 

 “I’ll have the bellhop take your bags up to the room,” Angus said.

“Ah, don’t I need to register or something?” she asked.

“No, I’ve taken care of it,” I answered.  “We’ve the Penthouse suite.  There’s plenty of room!” 

She didn’t blink, not a twitch, at that statement.  Toni’s father was an Israeli station chief for the State Department, so she’d lived overseas most of her life.  She like me, the son of a valet to the richest man on the planet, was used to being on the edges of the world of the stupidly rich – close enough to smell the perfume but far enough away to avoid the stench it tried to hide.  Pretenders got to pretend; I believe Taylor Swift would confirm.  “I’ll keep this one,” she said grabbing a droopy, oversize blue purse.  As I walked off to take care of her bags with the bellhop, I shot Angus a look that said, show off.  When I returned, they were already seated on the patio of the Flamingo Café looking at the menu.  The café was busy with summer tourists who were too busy trying to manage jet lag while keeping kiddos quiet to pay much attention to the table of the rising libidos.  “Toni said she was a little hungry too,” Angus said raising his eyebrow and smirking.

[copywritten A.G. Davis (2022)-NO DUPLICATION] “I’m sure she’s not the only one,” I said shaking my head as I took a seat between them.  I picked up the menu but remained distracted.  I looked over at her from the corner of my eye.  It was good to see her though, I thought to myself.  As strangely aroused as I was, I felt a contented, maybe for the first time in a long time.  Despite the whirlwind that always came with her, Toni was dependable, loyal, and would know what to do with the horrid choice I had before me.  Toni caught me looking and simply smiled back, which shifted my thoughts again.  She maintained a look that was best described as hippie chic, light coloured clothes that dripped off her curves to blow leisurely in the breeze, at least that was her intention.  

We ordered an oyster platter with a warm bread basket with our coffees to start.  As soon as the waiter took two steps away from our table, Angus eagerly asked Toni about “the Deetz before I was married to him”.  She let out a hearty laugh but threw me a quick look that asked for permission for how far to go.  I shrugged, so she volunteered, “This man could party like nobody I’d knew then or since.  I think one night we must’ve hit at least eight or ten different clubs by last call.  And what a flirt!  He could charm the habit off an old nun!”

“Deetz?”

“Oh yes, honey!  Not, like a lot of silly queens out there.  Initially, he’s fun and easy to talk to.  But as soon as he latched on to something, brother look out.”  The waiter brought our coffee.  She took a sip and continued, “And I tell you – this one ditched me so many times . . .”

[copywritten A.G. Davis (2022)-NO DUPLICATION] “Oh go on now!” I defended.  “As I recall, you abandoned me on several occasions too for something that patted your butt the right way.” 

Angus feigned surprise, as I had told him many a story of my times in Thailand, an equally sexually salacious period of my life.  “Really?  I can’t imagine.”

Toni looked at him queerly, uncertain if he was joking and if she should be talking so much.  “Ah, yeah.  I mean, well, he was still drinking then.  And if you got him alone when he got drunk, all he’d talk about is you.  He used to keep a scrapbook of articles and pictures of you from the papers.  He used to call you ‘his prince’”. 

“You never told me that,” Angus said to me.

I rolled my eyes and blushed – she could have left that part out.  I ended that awkward moment by asking, “So Toni, you’re only here a couple of days.  Were there some attractions you wanted to see in particular?”

“Child please!” she laughed.  “Thus far, I’ve seen more museums and archaeological sites than a kid on a school trip to Mackinaw Island!  These are my last days in Israel and I’m in Tel Aviv.  You may be married but I’m not and I plan to hit as many clubs as I can.”  Angus was nodding but he had no idea what he was getting into.

If this still was even half of the Toni I remember, she could drink an Airforce officer under the table then shame a sumo wrestler at the buffet.  “Desmond, you know how it’s been.  I gotta get my mind off that place somehow!”  She was talking about her job at a community centre that was simultaneously working her into the ground while ignoring any intervention she had for making work-life easier for herself and the other employees.  “I need to figure out what I’m going to do with my life.  I’d quit but I don’t have a rich husband to lean on and my father’s retiring this year.”

[copywritten A.G. Davis (2022)-NO DUPLICATION] “Right, well, we’ll find something fast and crazy you can do while I watch from the corner of the bar with a light lemon spritzer.”

“I think I have a better idea,” interjected Angus abruptly.  He looked at his watch then wiped his mouth with the napkin.  “It’s 11 am.  What if say, I’ll be back by 2 and we’ll head out?”

“Head out where?” I asked.

He was standing by this time and nearly turned on his heels.  “Just sit tight.  I shall be back!”

“What should we do?” Toni then asked.

Angus threw back at us, “Shop for outdoor frolicking and a couple of days of caravan living.”

“Shop?” questioned Toni after he was out of sight. “What does he mean?”

I got my wallet out and withdrew the Reese family credit card, you know the kind, right?  The kind of card Mr. Jeff wishes he had.  Waving it at her like an offering of double-chocolate cake to an Adkin’s dieter.  “Well, my dear, I don’t quite know.  Maybe we can ask him when we get back at 2, eh?”  I waved it again for emphasis and watched her eyes get real wide.

She smiled and offered one of her characteristic giggles.  “You’re bad, really bad you know.”

“Oh darlin’, you only know the half of it!”

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