But now, in my car on Pass-a-Grille Way, I asked myself for the tenth time if I’d made a mistake by letting Kevin stay with me for the weekend. When I’d called Lane to cancel our movie date, I could tell he was disappointed. I told him a complete lie: that a family situation had come up that required me to stay home, and he accepted my explanation without complaint, which only made me feel guiltier.
Now, on Pass-a-Grille Beach, Kevin and I arrived at the street where the gay bar was located. The place was called Jack’s; it occupied one quarter of a city block. The one-story building was nondescript and looked like it hadn’t been painted in twenty years. Its wooden sign was no bigger than the Dart’s windshield. After I street-parked in a space maybe thirty yards from Jack’s, Kevin and I lit up two L&Ms from a pack we’d purchased a half hour before. Our parking space afforded us a clear view of the bar’s front door.
I’m not sure what I’d expected to see, but as men came and went from Jack’s, the first thing I noticed was how normal they appeared. They didn’t wear garish clothing or sport weird hairstyles. Instead each guy looked like he might be a postman or a school teacher or a barber. Two guys who looked about thirty-five left the bar together. They both wore chinos, button-down paisley shirts, and penny loafers. One guy smoked a cigarette. When they strolled past us on the sidewalk, they discussed the most mundane of topics: which restaurant they would dine at that evening.
“I wonder what goes on inside Jack’s?” Kevin said after the couple passed us by. “Do you think there’s dancing, or is it just a place to drink and meet guys?”
“Beats me,” I said, as I tried to imagine Kevin and me dancing together in Jack’s, in front of all the other patrons. Then it occurred to me that Kevin and I had never once danced together, not fast or slow, even though we’d had plenty of opportunities to do so at my house, and I wondered what he might say if I asked him to.
Kevin jerked a thumb over his shoulder, in the direction the gay couple had gone. “Do you think those two guys live together?”
I lit a fresh L&M, then blew a stream of smoke out my driver’s window. “I’ll bet they do, and I wonder what their neighbors think about it.”
Kevin shrugged. Then he turned to me and said, “Remember when I said you and I could move to another city and live together like that?”
I nodded.
“I still think about it sometimes,” Kevin said. “Do you ever?”
I stuck my arm out the window to tap my ash, then looked at Kevin. “Not really,” I said. “In fact, I don’t think us living together is a realistic idea.”
Kevin gathered his eyebrows. “Why not?”
I rolled my eyes. “We’ve talked about this way too many times. You’re not the kind of guy who can make a commitment and stick to it. Hell, you can’t even call me at a certain time once a week, so how could you possibly live with me and keep up your end of things?”
“What kind of things?”
“I don’t know…like coming home when you say you will, or helping pay the bills or cleaning the bathroom. I can’t see you scrubbing a toilet, and I sure don’t see you being faithful to me either. For all I know, you’re still screwing that neighbor of yours when you’re not screwing me.”
Kevin hissed. “I haven’t seen that guy in months.”
After I turned to Kevin, I put my arm on the seatback. “Back in October, when I went water-skiing with my friend Lane, do you remember how mad you got at me?”
Kevin nodded.
“I tried calling you that night, when I got home, but your mom told me you weren’t there. She said you were visiting a neighbor, so why don’t you tell me which neighbor it was?”
Kevin lowered his gaze. Then he grimaced and shook his head. “You sound like a jealous bitch, do you know that?”
I crossed my arms at my chest while anger boiled in my belly. I wasn’t backing down on this one. “You still haven’t answered my question,” I said. “Which neighbor was it?”
“What does it matter?”
“It matters a lot if we’re going to be boyfriends.”
Kevin reached for the L&M pack, and after he lit a cigarette, he slouched in the car seat, just smoking and staring out the windshield at the Jack’s entrance. I followed suit, and neither of us said a word for at least five minutes, not until a pair of guys, maybe thirty or so, emerged from the bar. They stood on the sidewalk in front of Jack’s. One guy’s face was red and his expression was distorted. He seemed to spit out words at the other guy while waving his hands here and there. The other guy stood on the sidewalk with his hands in the rear pockets of his chinos. He kept his chin lowered and his gaze fixed on the sidewalk.
Kevin blew air out his nose. “I’ll bet that’s what we look like when we fight.”
I tossed my cigarette, then rearranged my limbs. “We wouldn’t have to fight if you’d show a little respect for me. Why is that so hard for you to do?”
Kevin didn’t answer me; he only shrugged.
Saturday night, Kevin drove us to downtown St. Petersburg, where a rock band played for free at the band shell at Williams Park, a rectangle of greenspace with towering live oaks, azalea shrubs, and plenty of benches arranged in a semicircle around the stage. The band was from Tampa; they were fairly talented, especially the singer and the lead guitar player. They played numbers by the Jefferson Airplane, Buffalo Springfield, Jimi Hendrix, the Yardbirds, and the Doors.
Some of the guys in the audience had grown their hair past their shoulders; they wore dashiki shirts, bell-bottomed blue jeans, headbands, and sandals. A thick cloud of smoke hung over the crowd, and the odor of burning marijuana was strong.
I, of course, had never smoked grass at that point in my life. In fact, I didn’t even know anyone who had. But as I watched a long-haired guy and his girlfriend share a joint, I wondered exactly how the stuff might make you feel. The couple I watched grinned at each other from time to time, but they weren’t acting weird at all.
On the way home, while we sat at a traffic light, I asked Kevin, “Would you ever consider smoking grass?”
He shrugged. “Maybe. I know a few guys at school who smoke; I could get us some if you’d like to try it. The stuff’s not all that expensive.”
“We might be missing out on something,” I said. “Maybe sometime soon we should smoke a joint, just to see what it’s like.”
By the time we reached home, the time was eleven thirty. My mom had already turned in, but my sister was watching the tail end of Alfred Hitchcock’s film Psycho on TV. We watched the rest with her, and I really liked the scene when Norman Bates, dressed as his mother, stabs the private detective on the staircase. Then it was time for bed.
Kevin and I always slept naked now; we kept my bedroom door locked so our privacy wouldn’t be intruded upon, and after we crawled between the covers, we lay side by side on our backs, just staring at the ceiling while the occasional car roared past on Gulf Boulevard.
“What do you feel like doing?” Kevin asked.
The concert and what I’d seen there had stirred something inside me. Was it curiosity?
“Something different,” I said.
“I have an idea,” Kevin said, then made a suggestion that took me completely by surprise. “Would you like to try screwing me for a change?”
What?
His question made my head spin. After all, our roles in bed had always been clearly defined, ever since the inception of our sexual relationship, and now the thought I’d be top man for a night had my heart racing. After a half hour of foreplay, I brought out the jelly and hand towels. Then we took our positions on the sheet. Kevin lay face-up with the backs of his knees resting on my shoulders while I knelt before him. His legs were a bit heavy, but I didn’t mind; my body tingled all over.
Kevin held my hip while he guided me inside him. “Easy,” he whispered as I felt him stretch. “This isn’t something I’m used to.”
I had never penetrated another guy before, and now I knew why both Kevin and
Lane craved this sort of surrender from me. The warmth of Kevin’s gut felt amazing. When I commenced thrusting, Kevin grunted each time my hips smacked his ass, and it didn’t take more than five minutes before we both reached orgasm. I cried out when it happened—I couldn’t help myself—and collapsed onto Kevin, feeling satisfied in a way I’d never really known before.
“That was…beyond great,” I whispered after I finally caught my breath.
Kevin ran his fingers through my hair. “You liked it?”
“Heck, yeah.”
After we separated, we went about cleaning ourselves, and then I asked Kevin a question. “Tell me something: did you like what we just did?”
Kevin raised a shoulder. “It hurt a little at first, but once I relaxed, it felt really good. And look, I shouldn’t always be the guy on top.”
His words made my heart sing—his statement was totally out of character for Kevin—and once again, I asked myself if perhaps we’d turned a corner, maybe due to the conversation we’d held in my car outside of Jack’s. Was it possible Kevin had finally decided to recognize me as his equal?
We slept with Kevin’s cheek resting on my sternum and his arm draping my belly. His warm breath swept my ribs, and he quickly fell asleep, leaving me to my own thoughts. At that point, there was no doubt in my mind I’d made the right decision by letting Kevin stay the weekend. Otherwise, what we’d just done would never have happened. Would Kevin let me do it again one day?
I also thought about Lane and where my budding relationship with him might be headed. How serious did I want it to become, and could I possibly juggle a life with two boyfriends in it?
Chapter Seventeen
Sunday afternoon, not long after Kevin left for Largo, Lane phoned me, and just hearing his voice took me back to the Cape Canaveral motel and what we had done there.
“My VW broke down yesterday,” he said. “It’s in the shop—for how long I don’t know. Could you give me a lift to school tomorrow?”
“Sure,” I said. “It’s not a problem,” and then we talked about our upcoming weekend.
“If the weather’s good,” Lane said, “we should take my family’s boat to Egmont Key. Ever been there?”
“Never,” I said. “What is it?”
“An island near the mouth of Tampa Bay. It’s a very cool place with a lighthouse and an old fort we can explore. What do you say?”
“Sounds great,” I said, but already I felt guilty about spending an entire weekend with Lane when I knew Kevin would want to be with me. The night before, Kevin had submitted to me in a significant manner. I believed he had told me, in his own way, that I owned him just like he owned me. So would I seem like an ingrate if I left him alone next weekend?
At the same time, I really looked forward to Friday night. Lane and I would have his house to ourselves, and not just for a few hours, but for two whole days and nights. I could only imagine the mischief we’d get into, and just thinking about it made me shiver.
“I’ll pick you up at seven fifteen,” I told Lane.
“Great,” he said. “I’ll be ready.”
The week raced by.
Lane’s car needed a serious repair—it was something having to do with the transmission—so he rode to and from school with me every day. And while we didn’t do much other than discreetly hold hands, it felt great being with him so often.
Because I would spend all weekend at Lane’s, I altered my lawn care schedule so I could service all my customers between Monday and Thursday. And since darkness falls early in December, I had to work quickly, knocking out two lawns per day, right after school, which made for an exhausting schedule. On Thursday afternoon, just after sunset, I rolled my mower and edger homeward, savoring the cool evening air and thinking about something Lane had told me when I dropped him off after school that day.
“There are special things I want to do with you tomorrow night, so I hope you’re ready for some fun.” He winked at me while a shiver ran through my limbs.
Now, after I stowed the mower and edger in our garage, I took a warm shower, then spent a half hour at our kitchen table, talking with my mom while she peeled and sliced potatoes. She, of course, already knew where I’d spend the upcoming weekend, and when I mentioned a possible visit to Egmont Key, she sighed and shook her head.
“I went there with a group of kids when I was in high school,” she said. “You’ll love the island—it’s such a pretty place—but what about Kevin?”
“What about him?”
She glanced at me briefly before returning her gaze to her work. “Last weekend, you boys seemed inseparable. So what’ll Kevin do without you this weekend?”
My scalp prickled at Mom’s remark, and again I found myself wondering if she knew what went on in my bedroom whenever Kevin slept over. “Kevin will be okay,” I said. “He’ll find something else to do.”
But Kevin wasn’t okay when he and I talked two hours later. He phoned at exactly eight p.m. I took the call in my mom’s bedroom, and when I told Kevin of my plans with Lane, he exploded.
“You’re spending the whole weekend with this guy? What about us?”
“It’s just two days,” I said. “And besides, I spent last weekend with you; I even canceled my other plans so we could be together.”
Over the phone line, I heard a loud bang, as if Kevin had kicked over a trashcan or a chair. “At least let me come over Friday night,” Kevin said. “I’ll go home Saturday morning, and then you can do whatever you want to with your pal, if that’s all he really is.”
I drew a breath, then let it out while I twirled the phone cord around my finger. Once again, Kevin was insisting I alter my plans with Lane, and again I had a choice to make. I had already canceled on Lane once and didn’t want to do it again, but Kevin’s neediness gnawed at me. What should I do?
“Listen,” I said. “Why don’t you come over here tonight? We can take a drive in my car; we’ll find someplace private where—”
“Is that the best you can do?” Kevin cried.
“You aren’t being fair,” I said. “I’m entitled to make plans with other people; it’s not like you and I are married.”
“Fine,” Kevin said. “I guess what I gave you Saturday night didn’t mean that much to you. So, go ahead, have a great time. I’ll just sit here at home with my dick in my hand.”
Before I could say anything in response, Kevin slammed down his receiver. I sat there listening to my phone’s dial tone while I stared at the carpet and wondered where all this would lead to.
During my sixth-period class on Friday, I squirmed in my seat like a kid waiting to board a carnival ride. I kept glancing at the classroom clock, but the clock’s hands barely seemed to move. My English Lit teacher talked about a scene in William Faulkner’s novel The Sound and the Fury, but I couldn’t concentrate on what she said.
All I could think of was Lane.
On our drive to school that morning, while I steered the Dart down First Avenue South, Lane’s hand traveled from my knee to my groin. He squeezed my tender flesh, then said, “I can’t wait to get you back to my place.” I got so stiff I had to wait ten minutes in the Dart once we reached school just for my erection to subside before I went to class. I barely beat the first-period tardy bell.
Now I leaned against the Dart’s front fender in my school’s parking lot, smoking a cigarette while kids teemed past me, heading for their cars and chattering about their weekend plans: seeing a movie, going to a party, or whatever. But I was pretty sure none of them had plans like Lane and I did.
The afternoon sun burned in a cloudless sky. The air was chilly; I wore jeans along with a sweater layered over a button-down Oxford-cloth shirt, and yet still I shivered when a wind gust ruffled my hair. I watched Lane approach with his fluid gait. His yellow hair fluttered about his face and shoulders. He carried a notebook and two texts under an arm; they rode on his hip. When he drew near me, his gaze locked onto mine, and a sexy grin crossed his lips.
&
nbsp; A tremble started in my feet; it worked its way up my legs and into my torso. It found its way into my fingers even, and when Lane said hi, my voice cracked like a seventh grader’s when I said hi back.
Lane crinkled his forehead while he studied my face. “You’re looking a bit pale. Are you okay?”
I lowered my gaze and licked my lips. Then I looked at Lane again. “I guess I’m a little nervous,” I said. “But in a good way.”
He smiled, then nodded. “I’m a little nervous too. This isn’t going to be like Cape Canaveral. We’ll have the whole weekend to ourselves, with no interruptions. And we’ll have a house, a boat, and your car. We can do anything we want to, can’t we?”
I nodded while I told myself, This will be unlike anything I’ve done before.
When we got to Lane’s, he let us in with a key. I followed him to his bedroom, where I tossed my overnight bag into a corner. The room was carpeted, with a queen-size bed, a bureau with a mirror, and a walk-in closet. Lane even had his own bathroom with a toilet, sink, and tiled shower. The room’s windows offered views of Boca Ciega Bay and the Davises’ shiny powerboat that hung from their dock davits. The boat looked like a freshly scrubbed tooth.
Afternoon sunlight slanted into the room; the light gave objects a burnished look. Lane wrapped an arm around my waist. After he placed his hand on the back of my neck, he pulled me to him. His mouth met mine, and our tongues dueled while I smelled Lane’s earthy body odor. Our lip-smacking was the only sound in the room. I ran my fingers through Lane’s hair while we slobbered. Our hips pressed together, and I felt Lane’s erection nudge mine.
I won’t go into detail about everything that happened during the next hour, but Lane introduced me to a few practices Kevin and I had never shared, including something Lane called “rimming.” It drove me nuts because the feel of his tongue exploring the cleft of my ass felt so good. We also got a little kinky. At Lane’s request, I let him tie my hands to the headboard and blindfold me. I lay face-up on his bed, unable to see, but quite able to feel Lane’s tongue travel over my body.
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