by Sam Elswit
"Oh... great!" Thomas said. "Who's hungry, then?"
"Starving," Alan and Wendy said in unison.
"We're having salmon and saffron brown rice with an egg white spinach frittata.. And... sparkling apple cider, to celebrate Alan's new lease on life."
"Aww, Thomas!" Wendy cooed. "That's so sweet of you."
"Isn't it? I'm the best," Thomas agreed, picking the groceries back up to start putting them away. "So, uh... you two are all... made up?" He cocked his head, looking meaningfully at his lover.
"Yeah, I... I'd say we are, how about you, sweet pea?"
"I think so."
"And we're honest now," Alan added, flushing with contrition. "I told her about my, uh... you know." He held up his wrist.
"About your broken heart?" Thomas joked weakly.
Alan chuckled, appreciative that his young lover was trying to lighten the mood, but he shook his head and said, "No, babe, this... this is the least broken I think my heart has ever been."
The End
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Go Deep
Prologue
Michael Dwyer was surrounded by naked men.
His whole life he'd been forced to hide in the closet, terrified for his life, and now he spent almost all day, every day, surrounded by men who were sweating, grunting, and in various stages of undress.
Was it a Turkish bathhouse? Was it a brothel? Was it a den of iniquity?
No.
This was the NFL.
***
His love affair with legendary quarterback Terrence Richmond was now Michael's deepest, darkest secret. It was also the pride and joy of his life. Terrence was the man of his dreams, but at training camp, constantly surrounded by homophobic teammates, they had to keep their relationship under wraps.
Occasionally, it got away from them.
The locker room began to empty out. Michael dawdled in front of his locker. He had delayed his shower by chatting with his teammates, congratulating them on their first preseason win, talking smack, and generally acting obnoxious. As if from outside his body, Michael saw himself guffawing at vulgar jokes and dealing out high-fives and he wondered, Who is this guy? Back home he'd been so mild-mannered, quiet and polite... but quiet and polite would only get you so far as the quarterback of tomorrow.
He was also getting better at making excuses to stay in the locker room. He lingered and lingered, shrugging the guys off as they invited him to come get drunk in celebration, and he said he'd be along shortly.
But there was something else he had to take care of.
Soon it was just Michael, and one last person in the shower. Michael knew who it was. He finally stripped out of his soiled uniform, grabbed a towel, and headed to the showers.
And there was Terrence Richmond in all his glory. He looked a bit bored as he waited, but Terrence even made "bored" look beautiful. Michael was tall, but Terrence was taller. Michael was muscular but on the slimmer side, while Terrence looked like a mountain of pure muscle. Michael hadn't been "small" in comparison to anyone in over a decade, but he loved it that Terrence made him feel downright petite. He grinned in anticipation, admiring the way the water beaded on Terrence's rich, coffee-colored skin, his features somewhat obscured by the clouds and clouds of steam.
"Thanks for waiting, babe," Michael purred, hanging his towel on a peg outside the shower.
"Get over here," Terrence growled, taking Michael's hand. He could be gruff sometimes, downright rude on occasion, but Terrence's touch was always gentle and caring. Michael melted into his arms, their naked forms pressing against each other, and their lips met in a soft kiss. His arms snaked around Terrence's neck as the bigger man firmly held on to Michael's narrow waist. Terrence's hand was wandering around, making its way down to Michael's groin, when they heard a commotion out in the locker room.
A pained expression crossed Terrence's face, and Michael bit back a whimper. They rarely caught a moment alone together, and to say it strained their relationship was a dramatic understatement. Michael had been closeted and single for his entire life, he wanted nothing more than to just be with Terrence, whether they were having sex or just holding hands over a cup off coffee. It was something like grief that gripped his heart as he slipped his arms off of Terrence and retreated to the other section of the shower. Terrence's expression was unreadable as he turned away from Michael and grabbed the soap.
"DWYER!" someone bellowed from the locker bay. "Where the fuck are you!? We've got a twelve-pack with your name on it, motherfucker!"
"Hope off my dick," Michael hollered back, "I'm tryina shower."
"Hey, is Richmond in there with you? Y'all better not be doing any gross faggoty shit—"
"Hey shut the fuck up, you homos shower together all the time," Terrence cut in. His voice was severe and rough with emotion. The other guys quieted down. Michael heard grief in his lover's voice.
"All right, whatever, meet us in the common room when you're done jerking off," they said.
The commotion retreated from the locker room. Michael and Terrence finished showering, but they didn't finish each other. The threat of violent homophobia had a way of killing one's libido. Michael tried to take Terrence's hand, just for a second, but Terrence yanked it away. They toweled off and went to their lockers to get dressed, not uttering another word.
The NFL was nothing like Michael had imagined it would be.
Chapter 1
Michael Dwyer was flying first-class.
Michael had never had "first-class" anything in his entire life, having grown up in a poor rural town in Minnesota, then going to college on a football scholarship and a shoestring. Much to his surprise, Michael was better at football than he ever knew. He had been lauded for his talents back in Winsted, but in a town that small, a sizeable dust bunny could make front page news because people were so bored and nosy. It was hard to believe that he was anything special, even though he helped carry his team to the county championship. It was an exciting time for pretty much everyone but Michael, because, despite his talent, and despite his winning a football scholarship to MSU, at his heart, Michael wasn't a football star.
Michael didn't know who he was.
Michael had a secret. All his life he'd harbored this secret, guarded it close and held it to himself, protected it for all he was worth, knowing that if anyone ever found out, it could cost him everything. It could even cost him his life.
Michael was gay.
Ever since he could remember, he'd been attracted to men. Even as a very young boy, Michael remembered that, rather than idolizing GI Joe as his hero, he had a "crush" on the action figures he loved to play with. One day, when Michael was about four years old, his mother caught him playfully kissing the GI Joe. She beat him within an inch of his four-year-old life and screamed at him, lectured him until her face was red and her whole body shaking, about how love between two men was a sin, and if she ever caught him doing such a thing again, so help her God, Michael would wish he'd never been born.
As he got older, Michael secretly explored his sexuality, he read online, he looked at all kinds of gay culture, and read about gay history. He did it all discreetly, sometimes driving to a town fifty miles away just to avoid being seen reading a particular book. He learned as an adolescent that being gay was okay, and began to nurse within himself a desperate hope for a new life somewhere far, far away, where he could be unapologetically queer. Unfortunately, Michael's inner life was completely at odds with his outer life. He had the heart and soul of a sophisticated, liberated, empowered gay man; but was forced to live the life of a poor, straight, football-lovin' Minnesotan, just to keep himself safe. Violence against gay people was common, when they were "outed." The one openly gay student at Michael's high school got beaten up man
y times, until the final time he got beaten up and nearly died. They never saw him again after that, and Michael continued to live in fear and secrecy.
Things were only slightly better at college. Being surrounded by younger people, attitudes were a little less stringent, but still not very accepting. Especially for a sports star. His teammates were all raging homophobes, slinging around gay insults by the minute. But as a star football player, Michael had his own dorm room, which meant he had some shred of privacy. He kept his room "clean" of gay ephemera, but when he was alone at night, with the door locked and the blinds drawn and his headphones on and the lights off, Michael could go on his computer and with a private browser window open, continue to educate himself. Pink Flamingos, Paris is Burning, Stonewall, Matthew Sheppard, Matthew Barney, Harvey Milk. Michael discovered that he was not the dangerous, disgusting pariah he'd felt like his whole life. He was part of something bigger, something beautiful and important. There were millions, maybe billions of other people like him in the world. Now if only he could get the hell out of Minnesota and find them!
Michael threw himself into football not because he loved the game, but because it got his mind off of his life. Running drills vented off his anxiety, tackling and kicking siphoned off his aggression, and winning games won him the love and approval he so badly craved and could not get anywhere else. Michael never, in his entire life, dreamed that this barbaric, hetero-normative, ridiculous game would be his ticket to the gay capital of the world.
Yet here he was, in a first-class seat on a one-way flight to San Francisco, California, one of the biggest and most important cities in the queer community, and also the home of his new football team: the San Francisco 49ers.
Chapter 2
It was literally a dream come true. Michael had always thought of San Francisco as a mystical, magical land that he could never touch, like a fairy tale. Yet here he was, being escorted through the San Francisco International Airport by a burly man in a crisp black suit and sunglasses, presumably sent by his agent.
"Welcome to San Fran," the man grunted. He was holding a placard with Michael's name on it.
"Hi! Thanks, I'm happy to be here," Michael enthused, grinning.
The man led him through the airport, to baggage claim, and then out front to a taxi idling near the exit. Much to Michael's disappointment, they weren't going to San Francisco proper. The stadium where they would be training and practicing and playing was actually about forty-five minutes south of San Francisco in a place called San Jose. Michael wanted to ask if there were a lot of gay people in San Jose, but somehow he didn't think that his escort would be amused by the question, so he kept his mouth shut.
Hey, anything will be better than Winsted, he reasoned with himself. Even if San Jose wasn't the gay capital of the world, it was nearby, and the culture there was sure to be different.
Maybe more different than he realized.
***
By the end of the training period, his salary would kick in, and he'd be able to find his own place to live, but for now, Michael was to be housed in a dormitory-style arrangement. The taxi took them to the dorms, which reminded Michael of the dorms back at school. His stomach churned with anxiety. Logically, he knew that this was going to be nothing like MSU, and yet he could not help being apprehensive about entering a similar situation. He'd worked so hard for so long to escape all the bigotry and homophobia, what if he was just met with more of the same?
"Here's your room," the escort grunted, leaving Michael in an industrial-smelling hallway in a building that was probably built the year he was born. It had that feel of a sterile environment gone slightly to seed, with dingy linoleum floors and white-painted cinder block walls. The door was closed. He was on the third floor in room 3B and he was to have a roommate. Michael sighed, nervous, because he'd enjoyed his own room at MSU for the last four years, and was not looking forward to sharing. He opened the door, and his jaw dropped.
Four shirtless, muscular, college-aged boys like himself were wrestling on one of the beds. They were cursing and cackling and shoving one another's heads in their armpits and generally acting foolish, but it was the most beautiful thing Michael had ever seen. His heart pounded. Logically, he knew that these guys probably weren't gay, not a lot of gay dudes played football for various reasons, not the least of which was the rampant homophobia. The homophobia always puzzled Michael, because, at times, football could be quite a homoerotic sport. And then you had moments like these, where four nubile, athletic young men tangled with one another with brushing limbs and pressing chests and gasping throats, and Michael trembled. Usually he didn't have a problem with being attracted to his teammates, but he was tense and it had been a while since his last opportunity to... well, you know.
"Hey!" One of the boys finally noticed Michael standing in the doorway. "New kid!" The speaker disentangled himself from the dog pile, and the others variously stood, sat, and lounged, apparently finished with their wrestling match. The speaker was a blond, with handsome dark eyes and broad shoulders. He was about the same height as Michael, but not quite as thick. "Are you Mike?"
"Michael," he corrected. He'd always hated to be called Mike. "Yeah, I'm supposed to be staying in this room." He smiled and extended his hand.
"I'm Guy Lawrence," he said, taking Michael's hand and pumping it enthusiastically, "and over there is Malik, Chad, and Guzman."
"Sup," the other three said practically in unison, nodding at Michael. Guy was welcoming enough, but the other three seemed content to keep their distance.
"Anyway, welcome to Hell," Guy laughed.
"What?" Michael's eyes widened. He had thought he just left Hell.
"Oh, yeah. Coach Ahren is a total hardass. Training is fucking brutal, especially for the first few weeks, and especially for the newbs."
"Guy cried on the field during his first week here," Chad jeered.
"Hey, you puked like every other day on the field," Guy shot back, "at least I can hold my fucking lunch during drills."
"I'm not afraid of working hard," Michael said softly. The other guys all had such big personalities, and while Michael was quite confident in his own abilities, he felt like an outsider. Still, part of his success on the field was Michael's willingness to push himself to the limits of his endurance, and the other guys' talk didn't scare him.
"It's not just hard work for your body," Guy said, inching closer to him, "it's, like, psychological training too. He tries to break you."
"He will break you," Malik muttered. "If he doesn't, he won't put you on the field. He might even send you home. He's gotta be able to..."
"... mold you," said Guzman.
"Oh?" was all Michael could manage to say.
"Yeah." Guy clapped him on the shoulder. "It's not all bad though. Living in the dorms is nice. The whole team stays in the dorms for the first couple weeks as, like, a team-building thing, you know? To build camaraderie or whatever."
"Oh." Michael forced a smile and set his suitcase down. "How long have you all been on the team?"
"Well me, like I said, three years. Chad came on the same year I did."
"Five years for me," said Guzman.
"This is just my second year," said Malik. "I don't envy you being a newb, man, I wouldn't wanna do that again for all the money in the world."
Michael nodded and said nothing. The guys were probably just trying to psych him out, right? It was like hazing, he was sure of it, like an initiation ritual. Scare the new guy, very funny, ha-ha. He sat down on his own bed, across the room from Guy's.
"Where you from, Mike?"
"Michael. I'm from Minnesota. I'm kinda jet-lagged, actually, is there, uh... anywhere to get a cup of coffee or something?" He stood up again and straightened his shirt.
"Sure, yeah, there's a cafeteria downstairs. It's always open, they have stuff all day, you should be able to get coffee down there. Want us to walk with you?" Guy offered.
"No thanks, you guys... go back to wrestling," Mi
ke joked, then he turned and left the room.
Chapter 3
It was strange, walking into the quiet cafeteria. They'd had a similar place at MSU, but bigger and busier, as they had to accommodate many more people. This place could accommodate maybe one or two hundred people, and right now it was dead quiet. One or two other guys milled around, munching and talking quietly, but mostly it was empty. Michael wandered a little, inspecting the food offerings, wondering what would be for dinner and when, and finally he found the coffee machine. He picked up a paper cup and as he was filling it, someone came up beside him.
Michael's jaw slowly dropped, and he stared at the great hulk of a man who was perusing the pastry case beside the coffee machine. He was huge, maybe two inches taller than Michael and wi th at least fifty pounds' more muscle, with creamy cafe au lait colored skin and tightly braided black hair. He was absolutely beautiful, and the only person who had made Michael feel petite in the last four years.
"Coffee," the bigger man said.
"Yeah," Michael said, awestruck by the man's deep, rumbling voice.
"No, your coffee. It's overflowing."
"Oh, shit!" Michael cried, hopping backwards as the piping hot coffee dribble over the edge of the counter and on his shoe. "Ow..."
"Good job," the bigger man teased. "You okay? You spaced out there for a second."
"Yeah, I'm fine, I'm... just..." Michael swallowed hard and poured off some coffee to make room for cream. "Just tired, I guess."
"Well you better take a fuckin' nap or something and look alive 'cause we've got our first team dinner tonight, and Coach Ahren is out for blood this season." The bigger man shook his head, and put his own cup under the machine. "You're new, right?"