The problem was… sex.
Etienne wanted it, and Lucas didn’t.
The kissing was fine. Some touching. He’d been fine with the groping and rubbing through their jeans. Making out hadn’t been bad, rolling around in the backseat of Etienne’s car. They’d even progressed to taking their cocks out and masturbating—first together and then eventually each other. Lucas finally held another cock besides his own, and it was exciting. He couldn’t deny it.
But it wasn’t Dalton’s.
He couldn’t help but wish that the first penis he ever held was Dalton’s.
Etienne had been pushing for more. He wanted them to suck each other. Etienne had half attempted doing it to Lucas already. And he couldn’t stop talking about fucking. He had even found a book at Not Just Another Book Store on Main—The Joy of Gay Sex—so they would know how. The assistant manager had let him buy it.
“I was so scared he wouldn’t let me. He gave me this long hard stare, and my heart was pounding, and then suddenly, he just rang it up, and I gave him the money, and then I was out of there!”
The problem was, Lucas didn’t want to do that. He wasn’t ready.
(Not with Etienne.)
He did, however, want to go to prom. And when Etienne asked him, he hugged him hard and told him he’d be honored.
Which meant Lucas decided it was time to tell his mother he was gay.
They were sitting on the couch when he did it. He had made tea and baklava because he loved how it all looked on the coffee table. And because he wanted to show off his newly discovered passion for baking—a fortunate by-product of his new job at a recently opened local bakery. He wore a new peach polo shirt he’d bought himself with the money he made at The Sweet Spot. Lucas had wanted everything to be perfect. This was an important conversation.
After he told her, she looked at him, blinked, gave an ever so slight sigh, and visibly relaxed.
“Well, of course I knew,” she said quietly.
“You did?” Lucas asked. He wasn’t sure if he was surprised or not. He hadn’t hidden it—years after he first started scrutinizing his reflection mornings and evenings, he still wondered how even statues couldn’t know he was gay. He just wasn’t all that masculine. But neither had he insisted his room be painted pink, nor had he flapped his wrists and called everyone “Miss Thang.”
“Well, honey, you’ve been in love with Dalton your whole life, and you didn’t go out of your way to hide that stack of Playgirl magazines in your closet. Didn’t you expect me to put your clothes away? You didn’t even put them in a box or anything like your father did with his Playboys.”
Lucas blushed. Both for himself and the father that he’d never really known. There were only shadows of memory that might not have even been real—might have been the stuff of dreams. His father had died in Panama when Lucas was three. He had a vague recollection of tallness, but then anyone would have been tall to a three-year-old, right?
He could believe she knew he was gay, but the magazines! He blushed all the harder. Did she know what he did when he looked at them? He always tried to use his dirty sweat socks to clean up with. Sweaty socks got stiff after all.
“I just wondered how you got ahold of them,” she said, eyes filled with curiosity but still maintaining a quiet cool that almost embarrassed him more. Disappointment he could have planned for. Anger. But this level of calm? “Some man at the newsstand didn’t sell them to you, I hope. Didn’t ask for something in return?”
“No!” Lucas assured her with a gasp. He’d found them at a garage sale. He’d been far too afraid to buy them, so he bought some Sports Illustrated instead, asked for a bag, and then switched them when the lady was busy with another customer. It wasn’t stealing after all.
His mother nodded, but again it was only ever so slightly.
“That I would not have liked.”
“So you’re not mad?” Lucas asked. “You’re not disappointed?”
She shrugged and patted at her blonde (beginning to go gray) hair, which was formed around her head like a loose football helmet. “Not really.” She took a bite of baklava. “I mean, goodness, Lucas. It wasn’t like you haven’t given other hints. I mean, really—baklava? That’s not easy to make. None of my friends have sons who would dream of making something so fancy. Or daughters either. They’re very tasty, by the way.” She popped the remainder of the little snack into her mouth and smiled while she chewed. Then, “And I haven’t had to worry about you getting some girl in the family way,” she said in a weird echo of what Dalton’s mother had once said. “I guess you’ll be marrying him after all?”
Lucas frowned. “No, Mom.” He let out a long, dramatic sigh. God, of course she knew I was gay! “Dalton is straight.”
Finally the look of surprise he was expecting. “Dalton? Straight?” She laughed.
“What’s so funny?”
“He just seems so gay to me,” she replied and then reached for another delicious triangular dessert.
“Dalton?” Lucas was stunned. Dalton? Dalton was a stud. If she thought Dalton acted gay, then, “What do you think of me?”
She waved the comment away. “You’re Lucas.”
He didn’t know what to say about that.
She drank some tea. “This is really quite tasty,” she replied. “No wonder the British like it so much. A lot of trouble with the boiling and the teapot and the steeping bags. My Mr. Coffee beats that hands down. But then I guess I’m spoiled. It wasn’t that long ago I used a percolator. So Dalton isn’t your boyfriend?”
The way she said it, Lucas almost missed it.
He came close to laughing, but then he thought about Rebecca. Seeing Dalton walking down the hall holding her hand. Or worse. When he would have his hand in her back pocket. And worse yet. When she had her hand in his. He frowned.
“What’s wrong, honey?” his mother asked.
“No,” he said sadly. “He’s got a girlfriend.”
She gave him a consoling look. “I’m sorry, Lucas. The boy I had a crush on in high school didn’t like me either.” She sighed.
I don’t have a crush, he thought, irritated.
“He was so cute.” She smiled at what he could only assume was some memory. Then she sat up and her brows rose high and a little color spread out across her cheeks. “But his best friend liked me! And we got married a few months after I graduated.”
His father? “Dad?”
“Your father!” She nodded happily and leaned back into the couch. A faraway look came to her eyes.
It was then that it occurred to him that he should tell her the other thing. It wasn’t like she would be mad. “I do have a boyfriend, though.”
There was only one flicker in her eyes. A tightening of her lips. Had she just stiffened? Maybe she wasn’t quite as cool as she was letting on. “Oh?”
“His name is Etienne,” he said, careful to pronounce it correctly—A-tie-enn.
“At-ee…. That’s a mouthful, isn’t it?” she asked and made a very strange little sound. Lucas didn’t even know what it was. Was it a laugh? What was it?
“He’s from the Netherlands,” Lucas said. “He’s a foreign exchange student. Most people just call him Steve.”
She folded her hands over her knees and nodded. “I think for now I better stick to Steve.”
“Okay….” God. He tried to guess what she was thinking. Was she…? “You okay, Mom?”
She froze for a second… and then relaxed again. “Yes.”
He didn’t believe her. “What is it, Mom?”
She gave him a half smile, paused for a very long time, then said, “Oh, Lucas. I told you. I’ve known forever about you. And… well… it became okay.”
“Okay?” he asked. There was a tug at his heart.
“It was you,” she said with a wave. “You were always that way. And I was a young mother and very naïve, and I kept… I don’t know… resisting. Your father was gone, and you were my only child, and your grandmother is go
ne….”
He’d never known her either.
“And I would read in the women’s magazines in doctor’s offices that….” She paused. “That boys raised without a strong male role model could become homosexual.” She sighed. Made a noise that might have been a laugh. “There! I said it out loud! Ho-mo-sexual!”
She reached for another baklava, then seemed to change her mind. She rocked for a second.
Lucas bit his lip. His stomach was doing weird things. He couldn’t tell where this was going.
“I kept wondering if I did something wrong. That’s why I tried to get you to get involved with sports, Little League, that kind of thing.”
That had been a disaster. He’d hated it, and the kids had hated him hating it—he couldn’t even hold a bat right and he didn’t want to. So he always struck out. He lasted for three games, and she finally let him drop out. It had felt like a thousand!
“I watched you grow, and it soon became obvious that it was foolish to want you to be any other thing than what you are. It became… okay. I mean, it wasn’t like carrying on the family name meant anything to me—although with it just you and me, I was sad for a bit that this would be the end of our family.”
Then she did laugh, and she snatched up her tea and took a drink, and Lucas could see the laugh was real (which was a relief), and whatever had been settling over her was gone. The tightening in his stomach relaxed.
“I realized that there have been thousands of families that have ended since the caveman times, and the Earth has continued to spin along just fine.” She put her cup down and reached out and placed a hand on his. “What matters is love, right?”
He smiled, his heart swelled, and he gave her one single nod.
Then she rolled her eyes and sat back again. “And then there was Dalton. I’ve known him nearly his whole life. He has always seemed like a son to me. And it was like… well, it’s always been you two. I didn’t have to really think about it. I think I’ve imagined you two being married since you were at least fourth grade or so.”
Lucas’s mouth fell open. “But you were the one who told me two boys can’t get married.”
She shrugged. “Well…. I did some reading there too…”
Which wasn’t surprising. For as far back as he could remember, she always had a book or a magazine in her lap. She’d never been a soap-opera-watching mom.
“…and I saw how so-called legal marriages are in many ways a relatively new thing. Many cultures just got together and said, ‘Okay! You two are married! Let’s dance around the fire!’”
They both laughed at that.
“This marriage license thing and legal documents and all that stuff? Hell! That doesn’t make a marriage! It’s love that makes a marriage. Love and commitment, right?”
“Yeah,” he said. But that didn’t mean he didn’t want to be legally married. It had always confused him that he couldn’t. Why not? Why shouldn’t he be able to marry whomever he wanted to? But recently he’d finally accepted that he’d never have that piece of paper. What other choice did he have but to accept it?
“Right?” she insisted.
“Right!” he answered and rolled his eyes just as she had.
“Anyway…. Yes, I always knew. It was fact. One we never talk about, but yes. I left a couple of magazines around the house open to articles that talked about celebrities coming out, hoping you would talk to me about it.”
Lucas blushed. He’d seen the magazines and had been excited to read those articles, hoping that one day his mother wouldn’t be too shocked if he finally got the nerve to tell her he was gay. He thought she might be okay since she’d already read about famous people doing the same—Rupert Everett and Ellen DeGeneres years ago (as if she hadn’t been obvious), Will Young the year before.
But he hadn’t been ready.
“And there was Dalton, who has always watched out for you, taken care of you, and I just naturally figured you two would move in together one day and he would keep taking care of you. And all would be… well, normal.”
The tightening in his stomach came back.
“But now you say that it isn’t going to be Dalton? Now it’s this… Steve? Someone I’ve never met? And you say he’s your boyfriend?”
“Ah…,” he said.
“So do I get to meet this boy?” She bit her lower lip.
You aren’t quite ready, are you? But you’re damned close. And that was pretty fine.
“Well… he’s going to be picking me up the night of the prom….”
And finally a warm smile spread out over her face. “Oh, baby. Wow. The prom!”
“You’re okay with that?” he asked, nerves jangling.
“Yes, honey. I am. In fact, I’m proud of you.”
“Oh, Mom!”
He would never be clear on just who hugged who first. All that mattered were those last four words.
I’m proud of you.
He could not have dreamed of anything better.
2
ETIENNE SHOWED up exactly on time. He knocked on the door while Lucas was upstairs because his mother insisted. Lucas was ready. He’d been ready. For forty minutes! He’d almost gotten dressed hours early, and his mother reminded him that he might be sweaty before they had their first dance.
“You don’t want to be all stinky when he gets here, do you?”
He’d burst into laughter at that, then fallen from his chair and realized that people really do fall on the floor laughing.
“Honey!” she yelled up the stairs. “A-tie-enn is here!” Not at all the way the French pronounced it—Eh-tea-in. No. A-tie-enn was how his name was pronounced in the Netherlands.
And Lucas loved her more than ever—trying and pronouncing it right.
What a mother!
Three days ago she had gotten a call from the principal of the school saying that there had been some controversy over the fact that two boys were coming to the prom as dates, and after evaluating everything, the school board had decided it might be best if that didn’t happen.
Then without batting an eye—and Lucas had been there to witness it (he didn’t need to hear the other side of the conversation to figure out what was going on)—she said very quietly and very forcefully that Lucas most certainly would be attending the prom with Etienne De Vries. She pointed out that Aaron Fricke had sued and won a court battle in 19-fucking-80 (Lucas had never heard her swear in his entire life) and that she would hold a press conference and do a little—well, not so little—suing herself. She also promised the principal would wish that his mother had never met his father when she was done.
She never yelled. Had barely raised her voice.
But wow, the power.
The next day the principal had called back to apologize and let it be known that the board wasn’t going to stand in the way of two human beings enjoying their prom.
So Lucas couldn’t help but stand up and look at himself in the mirror one more time, adjust his tie for the four-thousandth time, touch his hair to make sure it was perfect, and go to meet his date.
He left his bedroom, watching his feet as he walked (the shoes were very shiny), feeling almost stoned (he wasn’t), and stopped at the top of the stairs. He took a deep breath.
God. I am a fag. I am truly a fag. The girl is the one who is supposed to be doing this. Waiting for the boy to come pick her up. I’m not a girl.
Why am I the one? Letting him come to get me? I should have gone to get him! Now that would have been a statement. If I had done something manly for once in my entire life! Maybe if I had been more of a man instead of such a fruit, then maybe, just maybe, Dalton would have wanted me.
It was right then that it hit him.
Being more of a man wouldn’t have helped at all.
The only thing that had appealed to Dalton about him was that he was girly. If he’d been more of a man, he didn’t think that Dalton would have given him the time of day.
Dalton. Wasn’t. Gay.
Bu
t I am.
And it’s time to be grateful for what I have, instead of looking for what I don’t.
He came down the stairs, and it wasn’t Dalton standing there—Dalton was standing at the foot of someone else’s stairs, making someone else very happy—it was Etienne who—
Be honest! He’s gorgeous.
He is.
Lucas’s heart sped up.
—was standing there in a near-matching tuxedo (Lucas’s cummerbund was purple paisley, the concession Etienne had given him for being different), and he was gorgeous—fucking gorgeous—and how could Lucas not be happy?
The look on Etienne’s face!
I need to love him.
Etienne deserves it.
He deserves better than a guy who is in love with someone else.
After all, I am the one who went to him.
Etienne truly was beautiful. There was no way, looking at him, that anyone would have guessed he wasn’t American. He wasn’t darker or paler or taller or hairier or anything-er. That was until he talked. The accent came through strong then!
But yes, he was gorgeous. Sam had assured him of that.
Taller than Lucas, he had long dark blond hair and a lovely palish complexion that was just as clear as Lucas’s. Etienne had taken his advice on what to do about acne. He was one of the only kids at Terra’s Gate High School without pimples or with only a hint of them.
Standing there, looking up the stairs at him, wearing his black tuxedo with the shining lapels, he really was extraordinarily beautiful.
Why can’t I see how lucky I am? How half-full my glass is?
His hair was like a small lion’s mane around his face, his lips full, his brows thick, and his eyes were a shining blue. And Etienne was looking at him. Looking at Lucas the way he’d always wanted Dalton to look at him. Lucas’s heart swelled, and tears stung his eyes.
God, Etienne even had a rose.
A More Perfect Union Page 27