All Over Him

by Ronald L Donaghe

  I am not doing well without him. I’m dying to make love with him, dying for that essential flesh-to-flesh consummation. I finally figured out why I acted like a slut on the LSD. In my hunger for Lance I think I reached out for the nearest semblance of it when I was least able to know what I was doing. It’s as I already wrote about, Lance and I are on either end of an emotional tether that we’ve stretched as far as it will go. From here on, it will either snap into two broken cords with nothing on the other end, or we’ll somehow manage to close the time and distance between us and get back together.

  And so I’ve been thinking...

  Why in the hell am I going to school here in Austin and missing out on my time with Lance? We should be together no matter what else is going on in our lives. Uncle Sean is taken care of with Hank and the kid. So I’ve decided to propose something Lance won’t expect when we see each other in December. The more I’ve thought about it during the last few days, the more excited I have become.

  This is going to be my last semester for at least a year, maybe two. Lance can finish his schooling and then we can take off for Europe for a year, as his agent suggested. It was stupid and selfish of me to follow Uncle Sean out here. It must have been my old desires for him. I should never have let Lance go even for a moment, even if Lance went along with me. Besides, his opportunity there in San Francisco is much more important than my ordinary college classes. I can go to school anywhere. A degree in geology is not that special. But Lance is an artist. He needs to follow his visions, his talent. And I’m going to do it with him.

  * * *

  Day 46.

  I saw Charlie on campus and he was in a foul mood. Would hardly stop to speak with me. But I remembered how he made the first move to repair our friendship, so I followed him as he walked rapidly through Union South and caught up with him just as he went outdoors.

  “Hey, man, what’s going on? Where’s Lee?”

  “Fuck Lee,” Charlie said, frowning. He didn’t look too good.

  The weather was somber, which is not that unusual here, and it finally feels like fall. We were both wearing light jackets.

  “You break up?”

  He was still frowning. His green eyes seeming almost gray-green with his emotional state. “Look, Will, it’s just too dreary out here to go into it much. I’m just going to go get stoned, now that I’m through for the day.”

  “Then I’ll come with you. You’re dorm or somewhere else?”

  He smiled thinly. “Thanks. Let’s just take a drive, okay?”

  This time his Mustang’s cloth top was up and we took off into the darkening afternoon. I really didn’t want to be gone a long time, but I figured Charlie needed to talk.

  Once we were out of the downtown construction mess and had gotten onto I-35 North, he leaned over and flicked the glove box open, expertly locating a joint he had in there without taking his eyes off the road. He pushed on the lighter and a few moments later it popped out. He lit the joint off the glowing coil, sucked on it until it filled the car with it’s weedy aroma and handed it to me. I took a puff, but didn’t draw it down into my lungs, then handed it back, blowing the smoke out quickly before it penetrated.

  We passed the joint back and forth, and then he laid it in the ashtray, which was luckily empty. I would have put spit on the end to kill it, but its tendril of smoke soon stopped.

  Despite my care not to take in too much smoke I felt the characteristic lift I got on pot, though I wasn’t that stoned. When Charlie glanced at me, I could see that his eyes were red, but I figured part of it was from crying. Like I said he didn’t look too good.

  “Yeah...Lee and I broke up,” Charlie said, as if I’d just asked the question, rather than fifteen minutes before. “I just couldn’t take his cheating, anymore.”

  “But I thought you said you two were in an open relationship.”

  “Yeah, well, it was a lie. I don’t want that. You know what I mean, right? You were so upset yourself when you thought you’d had sex with one of us.”

  I understood. I looked out the passenger-side window at the passing sad landscape. Even though it wasn’t that late in the day, it felt later with the somber gray clouds roiling overhead adding to the darkening, and the fall colors off in the distance were muted. At times like this, when the weather was messy, I missed the clarity of the desert, the sun and clear blue sky.

  “How are your classes coming, then? Are you able to concentrate, Charlie?”

  He sighed heavily. “They’re passable. My parents are going to be pissed, though. Yours?”

  “My parents or my grades?”

  “Both. Either.”

  He already knew my father had died years before. “My mom is a whole different person here. I told you she was taking piano lessons. She’s doing quite well. She’s happier than I’ve ever seen her. My grades are passable too, but...can I tell you something you won’t tell anybody else?”

  Charlie glanced at me, his face blank. “Sure.”

  “I’m going to pull out of school. Go back to San Francisco with Lance.”

  This time Charlie grinned. “You know, I’m not surprised. I’ll miss the hell out of you, Will, but I always thought you were nuts to ever leave somebody like him. Now, can I tell you something?”

  I shrugged my shoulders. I had no idea that what he was about to say would make me cry.

  * * *

  Charlie dropped me off back on campus. He had finally told me what I had suspected, but couldn’t know, which was that all those times I had seen him alone, when he was concentrating on something, it was on Lee.

  “We had a three-way with Renato,” Charlie had said as we turned around at Georgetown and headed back toward Austin. “That was on the Sunday after the concert. I didn’t like it, because I wanted to just be with Lee.”

  “Couldn’t you have said no or something?” I said, kind of confused as to why Charlie would go along with something he didn’t really want to do.

  “I was afraid, Will. I didn’t want to lose Lee and I figured if I came off as a prude or something, he would lose interest in me.”

  So it kind of hit me. Charlie was so unsure of himself, so afraid that he didn’t have something to offer a guy, he would do things he didn’t like to keep him, and I guess having a three-way was one of those things.

  “Then what about later? I thought you and Lee were getting along pretty well, like the day we went for coffee. You seemed happy.”

  Charlie shook his head. “By then, I was already sure it wasn’t going to work the way I wanted.”

  “Why not? Didn’t Lee ever make you feel good when he made love to you? Surely—”

  “He’s not really capable of making love, Will. I think he was just playing me along. He wasn’t even interested in me, really, until I told him I was a virgin. I guess he thought it’d be fun to pop my cherry.”

  “But—”

  “Let me finish before I explode.”

  I squirmed when Charlie looked at me with tears in his eyes, lingering on my face long enough that I was worried he wasn’t watching the road. He glanced at the road, then back at me, a single tear escaping and trailing down his cheek.

  “I’m in love with someone,” he said. “Anyone else just doesn’t measure up. I would follow him anywhere, but I know I’ll never stand a chance. He’s just unreachable.”

  “Is he straight?” I asked, feeling sorry for him. “That can be tough.”

  Charlie looked straight ahead and, as we entered the outskirts of Austin and he had to maneuver onto the upper deck of I-35, he didn’t even glance at me, though I could tell he was crying in earnest now. “No. He’s not straight.”

  “How long have you felt this way?”

  “Since I laid eyes on him in January.”

  “Have you tried to let him know you’re interested?”

  Charlie laughed, glancing at me. By then it was already coming on dusk, and his face was in shadow. “Yes, I’ve told him, but he’s so dense and so involved wi
th someone else, he just can’t—won’t—give me a chance. You understand, Will? You know who I mean? There’s nothing to be done about it, is there?”

  “No, Charlie. It sounds hopeless.” My heart ached for him at that moment, and I fought back tears of my own when I realized who he was talking about. “But I’ll just bet that you would be the guy he could fall in love with if anything ever happened to his...you know...his husband.”

  * * *

  Day 42.

  Charlie and I went out for spaghetti at the same little Italian café on Guadalupe that we had gone to with Uncle Sean. It was cold enough now, that the windows were steamed up, and the smell of the food wafted throughout the café like the smell of burning wood in a fireplace. It made things cozy. We talked more than we had in quite a while, and we even enjoyed cruising the other guys who came into the café, as they began peeling off layers of their clothing when they took a seat. “Is he a regular enough guy?” I asked when we eyed one we both thought was good looking.

  It reminded me of the dance Charlie and I had gone to together in the spring of this year. Back when Lance’s visit was a thousand years off and I was just trying to hang on for dear life. We were both a little tipsy tonight, too, but not stoned. We’d been like a couple of high school boys, buying a bottle of Thunderbird wine at a seedy liquor store on Guadalupe Street, and I surprised myself by drinking it, trading the bottle back and forth and sharing each other’s spit. But I could feel things coming to an end for me here, and I was still hurting over Charlie’s confession that he was in love with me, and there wasn’t anything I could do about that. So I decided the hell with it, I would try to show him a good time, and maybe even get a little physical with him. Like I threw my arm over his shoulders when we were sitting in the cold in the park near the café downing the wine.

  Then I took his hand and we ran across the park going from darkness into the first glare of street lamps as we hit the sidewalk. A moment later I let go of his hand and stuffed mine in my pockets.

  “What about her?” Charlie said, hand on my shoulder and breathing a combination of wine and garlic breath into my face. We were sitting close together at our table. He indicated a tall, thin guy, who was obviously gay (or so we thought).

  “Nope. Way too ‘Tim,’“ I said, and we both howled, because the guy did remind us of Tim, the drag queen, when he wasn’t in drag. He even pursed his lips and sent us a withering stare the way Tim would.

  Charlie was hanging off my shoulder, his breath hot in my ear, and I noticed that others in the café were watching us and frowning.

  So I shrugged him off, and pushed him into a sitting position at the table. He frowned at me and I leaned in and whispered that we were causing a scene.

  “Then let’s blow this joint,” he said, with the conviction of a drunk.

  “Yeah!” I said, feeling quite fluid as I struggled to stand up, and deciding I was too drunk, myself, to drive home. I had parked my pickup at Charlie’s dorm, so I hoped our walk would sober me up.

  Once we were back out on the street, the colder air hit me full in the face, but the alcohol in my system had warmed me beyond feeling chilled.

  So when Charlie took my hand and pulled me back through the park and then back to the liquor store, I stood outside while he went in.

  He came back out with another bottle of Thunderbird, uncapping it before we had even moved away from the yellow, glaring lights of the store.

  I shrugged when he handed the bottle to me and took a long slug, then handed it back.

  We went back to the park and sat in our spot within the darkness of a hedge surrounded by evergreens.

  “So you’re going to leave me for sure?” Charlie asked. We were sitting side-by-side, our shoulders touching.

  He had handed me the bottle, and I took another slug. I knew I was getting too fuzzy headed, but his question was important, the way he had put it.

  “I’m not leaving you, Charlie! You have to be my best friend. Did you know that?”

  He swayed and placed his free hand on my thigh as he took a drink. Then he leaned into me and kissed my cheek. “Then who are you leaving? Renato?”

  Where he had kissed me, the air cooled my cheek. “I’m not leaving anyone. But I told you, I’m going to be with Lance. If things were different, Lance would be here and you and I would still be friends.

  “You’re leaving me,” Charlie said with finality. Then he began to cry, sniffling at first, then working himself into a drunk’s self-involved sobbing.

  I hated to see him like this, but I knew a great part of it was the alcohol. I put my arms around him and pulled him close. It was a mistake, because without warning he landed a warm kiss on my lips, and I kissed back, instantly becoming aroused, and for a moment too long, we kissed, trading tongues and moving into a full-body embrace.

  It reminded me so strongly of my LSD trip when I was struggling to get up from the bed that I freaked and broke away, sitting up and holding my head in my hands.

  “I can’t do this, Charlie. It’s not right.”

  He sat up and laid his head on my shoulder. But I pushed him away, then took both his shoulders. “No more, Charlie, okay?”

  “Please Will, just let me kiss you for a while. Give me something to remember you by!”

  I shook my head, then looked him in the eyes. Although it was dark out, his eyes were shiny with tears and his face was streaked with them, which shone in the light from a street lamp nearby.

  I still had him by the shoulders. “Just remember me as your friend, Charlie. A good friend. You’ll find someone who will love you back and won’t use you.”

  “Yeah, right,” he said, pushing my hands off and struggling to his feet. “Someone like Lee or Renato? You know what they want from me. That’s all there is and you know it.”

  I stood up as well, but I was quickly sobering up, because I had to for both of us. “It’s not, either, Charlie. Uncle Sean had almost given up and he’s eight years older than you or me. Sometimes it takes patience. But you’re good looking, smart, and fun to be with. You don’t need to sell yourself short. You don’t need to let someone like those assholes take advantage of you.”

  How many times Uncle Sean’s wisdom would come through in situations like this, I don’t know, but it was the same thing he had told me all those years ago, and which I had told Charlie at least a couple of times. But it’s the truth. No matter how many gay men settle for quick and easy sex, and don’t take time to or want to have a strong and committed relationship with just one other man, I know such a relationship is possible. It’s that knowledge that gets me through my separation from Lance.

  So Charlie and I walked back to his dorm in near silence and when we stood together in the parking lot, we hugged each other, and I even kissed him on the mouth one more time then drew away quickly. “You’ll find someone, Charlie. Okay?”

  He smiled thinly, searching my eyes. “You really do believe that don’t you?”

  I did. And what scared me was that I had found it in Lance, and I couldn’t wait another whole year to keep it going. No matter how strong we both had been, looking back over this one year, temptation had almost got me several times, as I’m sure it had Lance. I wasn’t going to take any more chances of losing him.

  Chapter Fifteen:

  An Old Habit of the Season

  Something about a little snappier weather and the smell of burning wood in the air as I jogged reminded me of home in Hachita and football season in Animas, and one afternoon when I was leaving campus, I stopped to watch a touch football game near some frat houses. Even with the cooler weather, they had broken into the skins and the shirts. And part of my enjoyment in watching was to see that it was less of a football game and more of a chance for the guys with good bodies to show off. Whom they were showing off for was beyond me, since I didn’t see any girls on the sidelines, and I kind of doubted that they were getting any mileage out of showing off to each other.

  Maybe this was that strai
ght male bonding I’d heard about, which looked to me a lot like the same body admiration I engaged in with Charlie when we compared other guys and tried to decide which ones were the best looking. As football players went, they weren’t very good. The quarterback for the skins made a great show of receiving the ball from the hike, but he was not a good business man, because he hung onto the ball too long, as if that was the point of his position, rather than trying to get it downfield.

  But he was lucky, because the defense clashing with the offensive line seemed to play to the clash of their bodies, forgetting that the point was to get through the line and down the quarterback before he had a chance to get rid of the ball.

  I was smiling and shaking my head and was about to move on when the present play came to an end, and one of the players near me caught my eye.

  “What’s so funny, guy?” he said, coming up to me. He was a shirt, a little on the fat side, and no doubt in the game for the game, because he sure didn’t have anything to show off.

  I blinked, realizing the guy was approaching and looking a little angry. “Oh...nothing. I don’t think anything is funny. I was just watching you guys play.”

  Others had turned to look at us, but fat guy was unaware of them. “Yeah, well, I thought you were laughing or something.”

  “No...it’s just I used to play in high school.”