by Willard, Guy
“So what did you do when you found out I wasn’t with Christine?” I asked.
“I left a note here and went over to her place. We tried to think where you might be, and I went around to several places—Doggie Diner, Erewhon—but couldn’t find you. We couldn’t think where else you might be. We could only hope that you would come to her apartment, or back here. I came back here several times to check. Where were you, Guy?”
“I can’t tell you right now, Scott.”
“I have to tell you she thinks you were with another girl.”
“Yeah, I know. We had a little fight over that.”
He shook his head. “Guy, I’m worried about you. It’s not only last night. Lately you’re acting strange. Skipping classes, staying out at all hours. What’s the matter?”
I hesitated. My knowledge of what had happened between him and Christine gave me a reckless surge of power. I felt almost giddy at what I knew and he didn’t. What added spice to the mixture was his guilt—no matter how hard he tried to hide it, he had to feel some culpability for his betrayal. And I wanted to play upon that guilt. This might be my only chance to save everything.
I let out my breath. “You’re right. Something is bothering me. And has been for a long time.”
“About what?”
“It’s about Christine.”
“Christine?” His voice wavered.
“Yeah. Something’s eating her. We’ve had our fights before, and always made up. But this time it’s different.”
“How? What do you mean?”
I looked at him. “I’ll tell you, but you have to keep it a secret. You’re the only one I can trust with this.”
He looked grave.
I went on, trying to keep my voice steady. “You say she thinks I’m seeing another girl. Well, that’s not true at all. If anything, it’s the opposite.”
“What do you mean?”
“It’s me who’s suspicious of her.”
“Suspicious?”
“Yes. I think she’s seeing another guy.”
I couldn’t see the expression on his face because I hadn’t been able to look in his eyes at the crucial moment. But I heard the pain in his voice as he asked weakly:
“What makes you say that?”
I dropped my voice almost to a whisper. “She acts different lately. It isn’t anything really noticeable, just little things. And she seems a little distracted about something. Believe me, I can tell something is up.”
“Do you have any evidence?”
“Nothing. Yet. But when I’m with her, I can feel another guy there, between us, like his ghost.”
I was finally able to look at his face, and what I saw there made everything worthwhile. He was trying to hide his alarm, while at the same time, was obviously wrestling with the possibility of confessing. What stopped him, evidently, was his concern about defending Christine’s role in the betrayal. It was thrilling to watch his perplexity. I savored his discomfort, and something mischievous inside me wanted to toy with his feelings some more. My love for him was making me want to hurt him, to see him suffer, as I had suffered. I knew he felt guilty—his guilt was palpable, like something I could almost touch, to caress in my hands and mold, shape in any way I wanted to. I felt god-like.
I went on, “Christine used to be so much fun. She’s changed recently. Become secretive. She’s not open and free like she was in the old days. And lately she’s been saying things like, ‘is it possible to love two guys at the same time?’”
His expression was hard to decipher. My head was reeling a little and I was actually afraid I might reveal everything. I had to tease the confession out of him slowly. To bring everything out into the open too quickly would have destroyed what I was trying so carefully to orchestrate.
“Scott, do you know anything about it?”
“No.”
I felt like an adult seeing through a child’s transparent lies. For all I knew, this was his very first lie. It was like witnessing the loss of a virginity—a virginity whose loss was even more delectable than his sexual one.
“Are you sure? She hasn’t said or done anything that might give you a clue?”
He looked uneasy. “Uh, I’ll try to find out more about it if you want me to.”
“Will you do that, Scott?”
He fell silent as if thinking deeply about something. And then I began to get scared—for suddenly I knew what he was thinking about.
“Guy….” He looked at me with eyes that were beginning to fill with tears. “I have something to say.”
This was what I’d been waiting for, had been goading him on to, yet a part of me wanted to stop him from speaking. I became afraid that what he was about to say would change my whole life, would forever put him out of my reach. I wanted to interrupt him but my lips wouldn’t respond. All I could do was helplessly look on.
“I’ve done something terrible, Guy.”
“What?” My voice responded without volition on my part.
“It’s about Christine.” He looked down, then away from me as he said, “Ever since I first met her…I’ve felt very strongly about her. And not just an infatuation, either.”
Even though I was expecting it, I was startled. His silence about it had given me my most potent weapon. My open knowledge of it now shattered the hold I’d had over him. To actually hear it from his lips made me feel slightly ill. It was as if in one instant, he’d been removed from me, and was now far, far away.
“I felt so guilty, Guy, because I knew she loved you and you loved her. And you were both my best friends. Even though I kept my feelings to myself, I felt like I was betraying your trust.”
“Well,” I said slowly, “it’s happened before. Guys fall in love with their best friend’s girl.” It was all I could do to keep from saying: I know, Scott, I know!
“But—it’s more than that.”
“What do you mean?”
He hung his head. “Guy. I slept with her.”
In the long silence which followed, I tried to assess the emotions which were agitating me. Slowly I became aware that it was happiness—a happiness so intense that it threatened to kill me. “You did what?”
His voice was a monotone. “It was just something that happened so naturally. Against my will, almost. I knew I shouldn’t have, but it was like it was out of my hands. Guy, can you understand? I love her, and though I knew I was hurting you…I just had to. She means so much to me. She’s the only one.”
I felt a thrill race through my heart. My love for him had never been stronger than it was at this very moment. His confession was like a drug which was charging me with a strange energy. With it I would be able to crush him, completely, and love it. For in the crazy logic of my ecstasy, I knew that my love could only culminate in his utter destruction.
“So it was you, Scott.” I felt drunkenly distant from all that was taking place. I heard myself mouthing the words of a cheap television melodrama: “I never guessed.”
He looked crushed. “I don’t know what to say.”
“It was you she was fucking—my best friend, behind my back.”
“Please don’t blame Christine for anything. It was me. It’s all my fault.”
“Yeah, take all the blame like a fucking hero.” I turned away and felt his hand on my shoulder.
“Guy, please. Can you forgive me? I know it’s abysmally insulting and presumptuous of me to say so, but I convinced myself that Christine was a little in love with me, too. There were all the signs….”
My heart felt full to overflowing. I knew I had already lost him—he was Christine’s now.
“I guess you hate me now, Guy. And you have every right to. If you were to punch me, I would understand. Whatever you do, I’ll understand.”
I felt a crazy singing inside me, my heart spiraling ever upwards, giddily out of control. Nothing but love. “I’m not going to punch you, Scott. I don’t want to hurt you. That’s the last thing I want to do.”
H
e looked at me, baffled, and his expression changed to alarm when I reached up and took his elbow in my hand. As I pulled him towards me, he made no effort to resist. With my finger I lifted his chin, and before he could say another word, I kissed him on the lips.
His lips were unresponsive, but I didn’t care. I was in a dream. Our lips were touching. In the middle of the kiss, as if he’d just realized what was happening, he pulled away. “What are you doing, Guy?”
I had shut my eyes just before kissing him, and now as I opened them, I saw his look of alarm.
“What’s going on, Guy?” he repeated.
“I….”
Suddenly he—we both—became acutely aware that he was still naked from the shower, with only the towel wrapped around his middle. He shook himself loose from my light clasp and retreated a few steps.
“I love you, Scott.”
“What?”
“I love you. I always have.”
He looked at me as if I’d suddenly begun speaking in a foreign language. He wanted it to be a joke and searched my face, his expression veering toward hopeful laughter, and then, when there was no response from me, fright, then questioning. I tried to smile.
He didn’t respond. It was as if the life had flowed out of him, leaving his body behind like a husk.
He looked at me closely. “Guy—this seems to be a silly thing to ask at this point, but…you are gay, right? I mean, not bisexual, not ‘sexually ambiguous,’ not ‘searching for yourself.’”
“I’m gay, Scott. And I’ve always been gay. All my life. I didn’t mean to deceive you or anything, but for a long time, I didn’t know it for sure myself. It’s a pretty hard thing to live with, you know.”
“You could have told me you were gay. Anytime. You know I would have accepted you.”
“I know. But it’s not an easy confession to make, even to your best friend. I tried it before and it didn’t work.”
“Did you try telling Christine?”
“Of course not. No matter how open-minded she is, we were lovers, after all.”
“But—can a gay man love a woman? I—I’m confused.”
“I know, Scott, I know. I loved Christine as much as I’m able to love any girl. Don’t get me wrong—I really did love her, at first. But I’ve begun to see that for me, she was just a cover-up. Not only for the world, but for me. I didn’t suspect the depth of my homosexual feelings until recently. Really, until I met you. Until then, I thought I was just playing around, having little adventures.”
“Adventures?”
“That night I showed you that area behind the football field. I knew about it all along.”
“I see.”
“Don’t think I was ‘deceiving’ Christine in the usual sense. My homosexuality is a part of me which has nothing to do with her, and there was nothing she could do about it.”
“So that’s why your relationship wasn’t working. For the longest time I couldn’t understand it. You seemed so perfect for each other. Now I understand.”
“It wasn’t because of any failing in her. Rather, it was a failing in me. I should have known myself better. Then I wouldn’t have had to put her through what I did.”
“I supposed it couldn’t be helped.” His expression went a little blank.
“So. I suppose that changes things a bit, doesn’t it? I mean, to know that your best friend is queer.”
He focused his eyes on me. “I don’t see why it should. Remember what you said about my being uncircumcised? That it was just another idiosyncrasy, like having red hair? That’s the way I feel about homosexuality. Some guys have red hair, some guys desire boys, so what? There’s room for everybody in this world. We can be friends, Guy. I always want to be your friend. What exists between us goes beyond all this. And what’s more, I’m sure Christine will also accept you as you are.”
“Even the fact that I love you?”
He turned away and brought his hand up to his face, covering his eyes. For a moment, he stood in that pose. Then, impatiently, he shook his head and brought his hand down again. There was a look of utter helplessness in his eyes.
“But why did you fall in love with me? I just can’t understand it. I mean, I did nothing to encourage it.”
“It’s nothing you did. It’s just for being what you are.”
“I feel—I don’t know what to feel. Honored? Happy? Flattered?”
“Scott, I know it’s something you can’t understand. Maybe to you it’s grotesque, a cruel joke nature played on me. But for me it’s hard reality. And the fact that you are hetero and out of reach doesn’t diminish my love for you in any way. In fact it might be what’s fuelling my passion. And that’s the tragedy of it. I love you as a guy, knowing you’re completely heterosexual, knowing you can never share my feelings.”
“Surely there are enough gay guys out there looking for friends, for lovers.”
“Yes, but none of them are you. There’s only one you, and that’s just my point. You’re the guy I’m in love with…have been in love with ever since I first set eyes on you. You’re the only boy I’ve loved from my heart. It’s a feeling I’ve never had for a girl. Can’t you understand? The only time I ever felt it—” Here my voice was in danger of breaking. “Ever since I can remember, I’ve been looking for someone like you. And now when I finally find him, I can’t touch him. Sure, there are gay guys out there—you’d be surprised at how many there are, secret and otherwise. I found out this past year in college. But they’re not for me.”
He just shook his head helplessly again. But I knew I had moved him by my plight. There was a soft, sympathetic look in his eyes. He wanted to help, and maybe there was still a chance for me to save everything.
“I was afraid you’d hate me forever if I confessed.”
“Don’t worry, Guy. I can rise above silly prejudices. You know me better.”
“I know. But it’s been so hard on me not to know for sure how you’d take it. I’ve been so lonely with my secret, Scott. Sometimes I felt like I was going crazy. Do you think I wanted to be like this? Do you think I enjoy falling in love with guys who’ll never return my love?”
He gazed at me in some alarm, his focus shifting anxiously from my right eye to my left eye, and back. “Don’t worry, Guy, it’ll be all right.”
We were looking into each other’s eyes with a desperate hope. I felt such a compassionate tenderness in him that I wanted us to stay like that forever, knowing that if I moved even slightly, his image would shatter.
“Let me kiss you again, Scott.”
“No, Guy. Don’t.”
“Please, Scott. Just this once. Will you let me?”
Again, he looked so helpless, so guilty, that I almost regretted what I was asking of him. And then he nodded.
5
Before he could change his mind, I moved my face closer to his and kissed him again. At first his lips resisted mine, and his eyes were shut tight. For a while I kept my lips pressed against his, not kissing. Then, when I felt his lips soften, I made my mine more mobile, and his lips responded, tentatively. But his eyes remained determinedly shut tight, as if trying to will away this reality. Undeterred, I began making my kisses more lubricous still, and suddenly his mouth, as if of its own accord, began greedily pushing itself against mine. He had caught fire and his movements became passionate.
His response surprised me a little, coming after his earlier coolness. Perhaps in the emotional turmoil following his confession, then mine, the kiss was even a relief for him, a balm. I felt a little guilty at making him do something so contrary to his nature, at using the emotion-filled moments following the confessions to get my way. On the other hand, he might be merely doing it out of friendship for me, out of pity at my hopeless love. In any case, the kissing was getting me sexually aroused.
My own actions became much more passionate. I pulled away from his mouth and kissed his cheek, then his mouth again, then his eyes. I put my hand up to his chest and felt his heart hammering. Gen
tly, I began caressing his breast with my palm, rubbing in slow circles. As I glanced down, I noted that the towel wrapped around his middle had lifted slightly where his penis had raised its head. His body, at any rate, was responding, if not his mind.
I dropped my hand down onto his erection.
His body stiffened. “No, Guy. Don’t.”
“Scott, I’m not gonna hurt you. Don’t you understand? I need it right now. Don’t make me beg for it. Please.”
“Guy, I can’t. Damn it, you don’t know how difficult you’re making it. I like you so much. Please don’t do anything which will make me change that opinion of you.”
“Scott, this is something outside of me, outside my control. I know how I must seem to you, I see it all too clearly. Don’t you know how wretched I feel? You of all people should know. Don’t make me beg for it.”
“No, Guy.”
“Scott.”
I slipped my hand under the towel and gripped his dick. He caught his breath. Perhaps he hadn’t realized how aroused he’d become.
My boldness was fuelled by a deep despair at my sense of imminent loss. Or was it that I felt this desperate action would save the ideal relationship we’d had for so long, which was soon to dissolve? At any rate, I knew that the guilt he felt about sleeping with Christine had weakened his position with me to the point where he was no longer able to protest even the most insolent assault. This was the proverbial once-in-a-lifetime chance I couldn’t pass up. Everything I’d engineered came down to this sweet moment, freighted with the feeling of doom.
For a long time I just kept my hand resting on his dick, allowing him to get used to having it there. I would have to play it very carefully. This was the point toward which my whole life had been leading; after this I could die feeling fulfilled.