Where the Boys Are, page 13
He pulls back the covers and while I strip he gets stuff from the nightstand: condoms, lube, whatever’s needed these days. Then he undresses.
I sit on the edge of the bed feeling almost too naked as he reveals himself. He’s hairier than me, curly brown across a nicely defined chest. I see nipples in the fur, think how I can get my mouth on them but first I want what he’s got below.
His dick is average and cut, a lot like mine. It’s also hard and drooling. When he’s naked he starts to stroke it. “Stretch out,” he says and I lie on my back. He climbs on top of me.
“I have wanted you since day one,” he tells me. “Remember how Finstrom was going on about all your experience and how you could teach me so much and I’m thinking I’d like to teach him something. You’re so fucking sexy, Keith.” And with that begins the most true and complete sexual experience I’ve ever known.
Where I expect to be rolled over and fucked, Tim surprises me by taking it slow. As his lips and tongue move from mouth to ear to throat, I allow my hands to slide onto his butt, to rub and knead, all the while his slippery cock between us. His hips move like he’s already fucking and it drives me crazy. All the years and sex was nothing like this.
He looks up at me finally and I want to say things, how much it all means, how good it feels, but then he’s easing down to get that tongue onto my chest. I’ve never had my tits licked and I’m moaning, pushing at him and he responds, nibbles at the little nubs, which makes me start to beg. “Fuck me, please. I can’t stand it. I want you in me.”
He raises up, gets condom and lube without comment. I watch him prepare himself, thinking how it’s all for me. Then he’s rolling me over, pulling my ass up. He shoves gobs of grease into me and I about go nuts from just his finger. He’s opening me, I know that much, because I’m tight back there, and when he adds a second finger it hurts but who cares? I push back at him like I want the whole fucking hand.
Once I’m ready I tuck my knees in and feel his hands on my butt. As he parts my cheeks his dick pokes at me, hits the center. Without comment, he pushes in. I let out a welcome cry.
As he begins an easy stroke, I am transported. It’s what I’ve always craved. No more resistance. He’s in me; he’s fucking me.
I note everything about what’s happening—feel, sound, reason. I think of him back there shoving it in, imagine him looking down to see his cock do it. I concentrate on my butthole fully occupied, accommodating his thrusting prick, and I see that this is where true pleasure lies.
“So good,” I tell him.
In reply he rams into me and from then on he’s more forceful. I hear him grunting back there, know the juice is stirring, balls boiling; he’s ready to unload. “Give it to me,” I tell him and he goes faster, fingers digging in as he pounds it out and then he’s there and yells “I’m gonna” before it turns to your basic guttural gibberish. I picture his dick firing spunk. Into me.
When he’s done and pulls out I roll over and watch him strip away the condom. It’s tossed over the bedside as he falls forward. He’s breathing heavily, sweat all across him. He lies facing me and I inhale the pungence. “I like that,” I say. “The smell of sex.”
He offers no reply and we settle into a bit of quiet in which I explore him. When my finger finds his tit he smiles, lets me rub and play, get my mouth on him. I feel the hard nub on my tongue, lick and bite, then finally just suck. I keep my eyes open because I want to see myself buried in this gorgeous man’s chest.
We evolve from this point into an hours-long foreplay, each claiming the other. In addition to his tits, I suck his balls, delighted when he lies back and spreads his legs. After a while he raises his knees and I’m looking at his hairy butthole. I glance up, questioning, and he tells me to do what I want. “Give and take,” he says. “I like it all.”
I wet a finger and hesitate because I’ve never touched anyone there, not the guy in college, not Maureen. But I know how good it feels so I push into him, feel the spongy warmth, hear him moan. I look up to see his eyelids flutter.
I work him and he squirms just like I did. My dick is up now because this is so hot and I realize I’m going to fuck him up the ass. The possibility is almost too much. I start to gasp but don’t care if it’s another heart attack because I’m going to do this. As if to confirm my intent he utters “Fuck me.”
I scramble for protection, hands shaking as I tear open the condom packet. He watches me apply it, then says “lube.” I grease myself and just about come running the stuff into him but then we’re ready and he raises his legs high and clenches his muscle so the hole itself beckons. And I do it, honest-to-god I shove it in, and once there I cannot stop. I can’t speak either, everything in me pooled in my dick again only this time with purpose and also a bit of madness. It becomes my all, the give and take. Fuck me; fuck you.
I don’t last as long as I’d like but who cares when it’s shooting into a guy’s ass, a guy you like, a guy who’s just fucked you? Christ, it’s good and he strokes his dick as I do him, telling me “Fuck yeah” over and over until I let out a howl and the come shoots out of me and into him and I look down at his face, his eyes, because I want that connection too.
It’s over, but not really. We lie entangled, tired, sweaty, and I tell him this and he gets it. Over does not apply to what is happening between us. Respite? Interlude?
Tim laughs. “Time out?”
Lying in his arms I need consider nothing beyond him and this is so new for me because I’m always thinking of the next thing while still in the present, whether work or sport or the rigors of marriage. There hasn’t really been a stopping point and I’ve never seen this until now—because how can you see anything when you’re always rushing because maybe, just maybe, you’re afraid to stop. I’m shaking my head in wonder when Tim asks, “What?”
“I don’t know, just stuff. Do you know I’ve never really stopped until now? I’m like some perpetual motion machine and maybe that’s what’s been wrong. It’s so good to lie here and just be. You give me that.”
He kisses my cheek. “My pleasure and you know, it’s a two-way street.”
I chuckle. “Like how?”
“I don’t chase around a lot. I prefer something more stable, relationships instead of one-nighters. I’m way too domestic so when a man feels really right, like you do, I make myself known.”
“So what we’re saying…”
“Is we have something here.”
I close my eyes because they’re wet now and I don’t want to get maudlin or mushy, even if that’s how it feels. I’m stirred to the deepest core and it’s so incredibly new, which brings both joy and sadness. All those years.
“Can you stay over?” Tim asks.
“I want to.”
“But?”
“I’m expected home. I can call but what on earth do I say? I mean, how do I approach what’s happening, because it’s ultimately happening to her?”
Tim nods, ponders, then asks, “What’ll happen when you go home?”
I open my eyes, let the tears run down my cheeks. “I don’t want to think about that.”
Tim gives it a few more seconds, then says, “You have to at some point.”
“I know, I know, and it pisses me off if you want the truth. I’ve never felt trapped until now and you know why that is? Because we’re over here fucking and she’s over there waiting. Christ, it’s impossible.”
I hear my voice rising, feel my face flush. Tim says nothing and I sit up, suddenly uncontainable. “How do you tell someone it’s all been a mistake? Sorry, wrong choice, never mind the kids and the house and the life. I don’t want to hurt anybody but don’t I get to stop hurting? But I’m the one who set the trap, aren’t I? Laid it out there and stepped right in and now I’m going to have to chew off my foot to get free.”
I stop to gather breath; I clench and unclench my fists. Tim sits up but remains silent as I resume the rant. “I have to tell her but I hate having to tell her, you know? I hate it! I am not a hurtful person but I have to hurt her—but how do I do it? ‘Maureen, there’s something you need to know,’ or ‘Maureen, I’m fucking a guy at the office,’ or ‘Maureen, you’re a great wife but I like men.’ There is no good way out.”
I’m angry at myself for creating the situation and I hate that too, marriage reduced to situation. I tell Tim all this, feel it escalate inside me until he starts trying to calm me down and I pull away, leap out of bed like there’s somewhere to go where none of it can follow. I’m even angry at Tim but don’t know why and I’m sick of the questions, and more, of the answers.
I pace the room, naked madman consumed by predicament, and then Tim is at my elbow and I turn, shove him, then cry out, reach for him. I’m shaking; I have no control over any of it, trapped in some unearthly storm of my own making. I look at Tim, who walked into my life and turned it onto its side. I think of those first weeks, aroused by his proximity and thrilled by the arousal, working to get up close and distance myself at the same time. I feel the agony all over again, an urge so strong it came up in my throat like bile and I swallowed it down over and over until my insides couldn’t take it anymore. I remember the bathroom, jerking off and practically throwing up at the same time.
“What?” Tim asks. He’s in front of me, hands up like he’s trying to corral me. “Tell me what’s happening.”
I can’t speak. It’s all there again; I wait for chest pains.
“What’s going on?” Tim demands. He takes me by the shoulders, holds on. “What is it?”
“I remember that day, getting off in the bathroom because of you, I couldn’t stand it, you were so close and my dick was hard and earlier that morning the New Jersey governor was on TV, outed because he’d been seeing this male hooker, and god how I hated him.”
“Why would you hate him?”
“Because…because…”
“Why?”
“He just stood there and told everyone yes, he was gay, just like that.”
“Why would you hate him for that?”
“I don’t know but I was angry driving to work, really pissed with traffic, the garage, the elevator, everything going along like always when it wasn’t anymore. Then you and all of the rest.”
Tim eases me down onto the bed. We sit side by side. “Are you still angry?”
The question makes it reignite. “That’s silly,” I snap, then, “I don’t know. Yeah, maybe.”
“Why would that be?”
“I guess because that governor is out and I’m not.”
“Is that all?”
I look at him, puzzled.
“Could it be,” Tim says softly, “that you’re angry because he didn’t have to call his wife and tell her he’s gay? Someone did it for him.”
I’m repulsed, try to leap up but Tim holds me where I am. “No, no way,” I insist. “No.” But he’s right, of course, and after a bit I slump against him. “That’s pitiful.”
“No, it’s just human. The media did his confession for him while you have to go it alone.”
I feel like I’m swimming behind another levee only this one hasn’t yet burst. It’s straining at the seams though and I cling to Tim, wishing it would just give way once and for all.
“I’m going to stay with you,” I finally tell him. “I’ll call home later.”
“I’ll make us some tea.”
Tim puts on a robe, hands me another. We sit on stools at a tiny breakfast bar in his miniscule kitchen, the window before us open to a faint spring breeze. San Francisco is in one of those rare interludes between winter drear and summer drear. It’s almost warm. I suck in air between sips of tea.
“Better?” Tim asks.
“Much.”
“How about we go over to the Castro for an early dinner. Ever been?”
I snort a laugh.
“Okay, I kinda figured that, which is why I want to take you there.”
It’s like he’s casually suggested a trip to Mecca. “Fine,” I say while the married part of me jabs at such blasphemy. As we dress a whole new set of concerns hits me. Fledgling gay man, I am at a loss out of bed. I feel overdressed in charcoal slacks and white dress shirt but Tim assures me I’m fine. I watch him bypass jeans in favor of khakis and white shirt.
We take a streetcar instead of the underground Muni because Tim likes the old relics collected from all over the world, a colorful assortment trundling up and down Market Street. Soon we’re tucked into a small seat on a yellow car that says Cincinnati and I once again enjoy us being a couple. Looking around, I see others like us, old and young, all headed toward Mecca.
The car ends its run at Castro Street. We hop off and there it is. I stand in awe until Tim takes my hand, which makes me issue a nervous chuckle. He holds on, guides me forward.
The Castro Theater marquee announces the new land. Its towering neon spire looms over the block but I’m just as caught by the people. While the setting isn’t all that different from Polk—small shops, cafes—it has an energy so distinct that I experience a new kind of rush. I watch people approach—singles, couples holding hands, dogs on leashes, a few children with parents—and I recognize that I am with them and they me, that here in this street, this neighborhood, I can shed the old skin and come into myself.
“So what do you think?” Tim asks.
“It’s like Disneyland.”
He laughs and squeezes my hand. As we stroll past a hardware shop and bookstore, bank, dry cleaners and all the usual neighborhood shops, I note among them bars, adult video stores, leather specialty shops and I can’t help but feel I’ve been caught over the line when I know full well there is no line here. As I gaze at a window display of leather harnesses Tim mercifully does not ask if I’d like to go inside. He does suggest it when we come upon a noisy bar where I get the idea he may be known.
“Maybe some other time,” I manage, too many eyes upon me. Tim guides me on, still holding my hand. I don’t think he gets it that the hand-holding is, for me, the equivalent of the bar and leather shop rolled into one. “How about we get that dinner?” I suggest.
We agree on something simple and double back to a diner called the Cove on Castro where we order burgers and fries. I find myself gawking like some tourist but I can’t get enough of the male couples. I also note how quiet and calm and consistent they are, eating and talking so easily while inside me the amusement park gates have been thrown open, hordes rushing in.
“What?” Tim asks when I stare too long.
“I don’t know. It’s just another neighborhood and yet it’s so much itself, so distinct, so definite and sure. The idea that I might be allowed in is almost too much to believe.”
Tim nods.
“I think maybe I’ve found a home,” I add
He reaches across for my hand. “Good. Good.”
Later, as we eat, I tell him I’ll make the call to Maureen when we get back to his place. “She deserves the truth,” I add, “but for now I just want to take it all in. You included.”
THE BIRDS AND THE BEES
Alpha Martial
I’m not usually big on the significance of numbers and the like, but staring absently at the calendar, I just noticed that today is the eleventh of November—the eleventh day of the eleventh month—and it so happens to be exactly eleven years since I first met Jenner.
The way he used his surname as his first name like that reminded me of those damaged public school boys who would attempt to cover up their insecurities by clinging to the custom that had marked them out as privileged in their eyes. Okay, so I don’t know many men who’ve retained the habit into adulthood, but my grammar school sixth form had played host to boys from the third-rate public school down the road; for some reason, they couldn’t teach their sixteen to eighteens so they sent them to plague we lesser folk whose parents thought that a good education was more important than rituals involving crumpets and whips. Does it show that I resented their presence? But in any case, Jenner was no public school boy; he just didn’t like to be called Darren. I tried Daz on him a couple of times, but if it hadn’t been for my larger build, I think he’d have decked me. I don’t like to feel like a bully, so Jenner it was.
I’m trying to write my monthly column for the Kent Courier and finding myself unusually distracted by almost anything. It’s because I’m trying to avoid appearing too hard-line on the subject the editor strongly hinted he wanted me to cover this month; it’s supposed to be a gentle kind of column. So, today, I pick thoughts of Jenner—or of then, at least—for my distraction. If he were here now, he’d roll his eyes at me and grimace before disappearing outside for a smoke. His lack of understanding of my studiousness and favored subjects bordered on aggressive at the beginning of our relationship and only got worse as it trundled on its merry way to the finish.
“How can anyone get passionate about carrots?” he’d wonder in his most ignorant, whining tone. “I mean, even the most interesting possibilities are boring!” (Obviously he’d never reached the very depths of deprivation.) I can still visualize the way he’d shake his head, making the bleached tips of his trendy haircut tremble just ever so slightly. He wasn’t vain, but one did get the impression that he never made a gesture or a move without first running it by his own personal image police.
It’s hard to believe he came from a background and locality not that dissimilar from my own. In fact, he’d lived pretty much next to open countryside, as I did. For me, its pull has always been inexorable; Jenner was different.
With a great sense of timing, a green woodpecker chooses to fly past my window, a flash of scarlet and lime, cackling as he goes. Finally, the task in hand loses ground again (hell, the deadline’s not until tomorrow evening) and I devote myself to reverie…and questions. I’ve never stopped asking them—always the same ones—and, as the years go by, I have to wonder if this continued inquiry is ever going to yield answers. Is it him I miss? Or is it there? The him part, well, it was doomed to failure, wasn’t it? Didn’t stop it from being fun…at times.
As for there, that’s another matter entirely. There is technically only an hour-and-a-quarter’s drive away if you put your foot down; I’ll go at the drop of a hat for any other purpose. But the idea of being part of the community is now so far away in a psychological sense that I seem to hit a block just trying to focus my attention on the possibility. Am I scared? Perhaps, yes.
