Chain Lightning

Honesty


By Billy Joel

If you search for tenderness
It isn’t hard to find
You can have the love you need to live
But if you look for truthfulness
You might just as well be blind
It always seems to be so hard to give

Honesty is such a lonely word
Everyone is so untrue
Honesty is hardly ever heard
And mostly what I need from you

I can always find someone
To say they sympathize
If I wear my heart out on my sleeve
But I don’t want some pretty face
To tell me pretty lies
All I want is someone to believe

I can find a lover
I can find a friend
I can have security
Until the bitter end
Anyone can comfort me
With promises again
I know, I know

When I’m deep inside of me
Don’t be too concerned
I won’t ask for nothin’ while I’m gone
But when I want sincerity
Tell me where else can I turn
Because you’re the one that I depend upon

Chapter sixteen

Honesty

By

Ghost in the Mist


“What?” Billy exploded. Billy exploded like a bomb. “What the fuck? What the fuck did you just say? What the fuck did you just say to me, Sean?”

Sean winced as if he had been struck. He hadn’t realized sweet little Billy could get so angry. And over this? “Now, Billy baby, don’t get yourself all upset over such a minor thing.”

“Minor? Minor? You call this minor?” Billy glared at Sean. The beautiful green eyes were now hard green stones, hard green stones like emeralds, like emeralds, cold and hard. “Fuck, Sean, I thought you knew what you were doing! I thought you could get me through the ins and outs of this… this… this kind of love. I need you to know what to do, how I should handle this, Sean. And now I find out you know as much about it as I do… and, and worse! You weren’t honest with me, Sean!”

“Billy baby, look, I really think you’re over-reacting.”

“Over-reacting? How can you say that? Sean, I was depending on you to tell me what to do! I don’t know anything about relationships with men, for Christ’s sake! And now I find out you don’t either which means…”

Billy sighed. Billy sat down and sighed and held his head in his hands. “Which means you really like women. Which means sooner or later I’ll lose you.” he finished.

“Billy, I knew you hadn’t had a man before me, I guessed it the first time. Then the next morning, you told me. I didn’t react like this. So you see, I knew you really like women, too, but I didn’t let that stop me. Just because I like women doesn’t mean I can’t love you. You, Billy, you. And I do love you, baby, so you see, you couldn’t be more wrong. Sure I love women, just like you love women, but for whatever reason, you wanted me and I wanted you, and that went far beyond what sex we are.”

“But… but how did you know? How did you know what to do? You seemed to know just what to do, Sean. Only you didn’t.”

“Billy, baby, it isn’t that different from loving a woman. Do you think all women only use just their cunts when they fuck? Because if you do, I can tell you you’re wrong. The only thing I’ve never done with a woman that I did with you is suck their cocks. Because they don’t have them, they have cunts. There really isn’t that much difference in the rest.”

“But… but…”

“But bullshit, baby. It’s still love; it’s still sex. And it shouldn’t matter who we love or how we love, the only thing that should matter is that we love.”

Billy rubbed the back of his head and exhaled. He seemed to be relaxing a little. He still shot Sean a disapproving look every once in a while, though. “Sean, what do we do? How do we handle this? I mean, sooner or later it’ll come out, and you have your career to think of. Our relationship could ruin your career.”

“Baby, my career is established. It’s your career I worry about. As for how to handle it, we have others we can go to for advice.”

“But Sean, why? Why didn’t you tell me?” Billy looked at him, and this time there was no disapproval, only a silent plea floating in depthless green eyes.

“Because I’m an insecure asshole, Billy, that’s why! I figured that if you thought I wasn’t experienced you might back out. So I didn’t lie, I just didn’t tell you. A fine point, I know, but I was scared, baby. I wanted you so badly.” Cautiously Sean eased his arms around Billy, half expecting to be pushed away. But Billy didn’t push him away. Instead he just melded into the embrace with a fluid perfection. “As for being honest, baby, I just now told you I wanted to come clean. I want to be honest with you, baby, because I need you to trust me. And you did trust me, you trusted me with all the innocence and sweetness of a child. I love that trust, Billy baby. I need it, just like I need your love.”

“Hmm, yes, the child thing again. You like to play the father-figure, do you?”

“I thought that was fairly obvious, baby.”

“Well, I have to admit you are about as subtle as a train wreck.” Billy said. “Which leads us back to the Daddy thing, doesn’t it?”

“Billy baby, I know the word hurts you, I told you there would be no more of that. I never said I didn’t like it. I only just told you all about that.”

“I know. I know.”

“And it doesn’t mean you don’t like it either. You know you do, you know you like having me be the father-figure.”

“Guess I’m as subtle as a train wreck, too.”

“To say the least.”

“Oh, fuck, Sean. Can we work this out little by little?” Why did Billy suddenly feel like a child, confused, in need of comfort and even a need to be looked after, watched over? Billy had to sort this out. He had to work it out because he had some issues to sort out. Was he really bothered by the Daddy thing? Or did he really need and even want this? Was he looking for a lover that fit the bill as a father figure? Was he just scared? Was there an overpowering urge to look at Sean as his “daddy” and his nurturer? Was his aversion to calling Sean by his favorite pet name just a self-created dilemma designed to keep him from facing his need of a strong caretaker of a lover? Was he just hurting Sean because he was afraid to face his own need? His need to be cared for? Was he looking for a Daddy of sorts? After all, he liked Sean’s strength, his protection, even his possessiveness…

He found he just couldn’t think of it anymore tonight. He felt confused and frightened and lost and he wanted someplace warm, some strong refuge, some shelter from this storm. Was that shelter Sean? Billy curled into a small ball of misery.

“Sean, Sean, I need you,” was all he could say. “Sean, I’ll be your baby tonight, I will, and, and…”

“What is it Billy?”

“Take me to our bed, please? Please? I just want to be your baby, and I…I want you to be my Daddy.”

Sean, as was their custom, took Billy’s hand and led his little hobbit to their bed and gently lay down beside him. “Baby, I’ll let you call me that on one condition. It can’t bother you. It’s just that I want to be the one who takes care of you. So no more games to please me. If you do that, do it because it makes you happy.”

“Sean, you’re so strong, so…powerful, so protective. A Daddy doesn’t have to mean a parent. Sometimes it can mean ‘Sean,’ sometimes it can mean you’re the…the…”

“Father figure? Dominant one? The husband, if you will? For lack of a better word?”

“But not my master?”

“Well, you don’t have to be a slave for me to be a master, I suppose. But I rather think of it as more like you’re my Billy baby. Daddy may not be the best word, but…”

Sean’s mouth was shut by a deep kiss from Sean’s profane little angel, and then that perfect mouth said the sweetest words Sean had heard since Billy first said he loved Sean.

“Kiss me, Daddy. Show me I’m really your baby?”