Truth, Pride, Victory, Love

by David Connor

  “Maybe your hands are cold.”

  “Are they?” he asked.

  “No.”

  He sat on the white netting and gently pulled at me as I stood in front of him.

  “We better slow down,” I said.

  “If I go any slower, my hand will be still.” He smiled and then let go.

  “Sorry.”

  Mathias took my wrists and hoisted himself up. He turned me around, said “Sit,” and gently lowered me to the hammock. Leaning down, he kissed me, once he’d moved my hand again. Then he pushed me back with the weight of his body, flung one leg over, placing the other knee on the opposite side, and hovered as if doing a push-up. The tip of his erection touched the most sensitive part of my anatomy. It left a mark I could feel, and I shivered. When I flexed my cock, it made them rub together. Still holding himself up—not an easy feat at any time, but especially challenging with the open webbing and swinging of the hammock—Mathias lowered himself, so they connected even more, and then he came in for yet another kiss.

  “Stop!”

  He did, immediately.

  “We shouldn’t.”

  “No?”

  “Maybe not.” Mathias settled his body beside mine. Mostly beside, some of it rested on top. “I’m sorry,” I said.

  “You say that a lot. What is it you’re sorry for?”

  “For being a tease.”

  Mathias laughed. “That wasn’t your intent, I’m sure.”

  “No. God, I want to….” I met his eyes again. I wanted to everything with him. “But what if…?”

  “What if what?”

  “Can we wait?”

  “I’ve waited seventeen years.” His facial expressions were both dorky and sexy. “Another few minutes…?”

  I raised a brow.

  “Days?”

  I offered nothing.

  “Weeks? Months? Years?”

  I chuckled. “You know that expression ‘There’s the Olympics, and then there’s everything else’?”

  “I’ve heard it.”

  “Well, we’re going to be stuck together a long time, right?”

  “I hope so.”

  “What if we have sex, and then we don’t like each other after?”

  “I don’t think I’d be that bad at it.”

  I kissed his chest. “Shoot. Sorry.”

  “No problem.”

  “If we got together for just the sex… or for something more….”

  “I’m definitely interested in something more. I want to put that out there. I mean, I know we’re kind of in and out on all of it, but every time I see you, I think of almost kissing you.”

  “Oh.”

  “Hell, every time I see a tree, I think of almost kissing you, because that’s where we almost did. There are trees all over the place, Reed. That means I think about you a lot.” Mathias pointed out toward the woods. “You. You. You. When they rustle, it’s like you’re talking to me. When they were covered in snow, I wondered if you were warm enough. When the leaves came back this spring, I wondered how long your hair was.”

  “You’re making all that up.”

  “Nope. You’ve captured my imagination, my interest, and I kind of think my heart.”

  His words made me smile.

  “Such dorky words can only be spoken here in my hammock by the lake. You have no idea how happy I am to finally have you here, so I can say them.”

  “But the thing is… you don’t really know me yet.”

  He sighed, parts of him still touching me, not just an elbow, not his dick either, but part of a leg. For some reason that was still a big fucking turn-on. “I suppose not,” he admitted.

  “It was sweet. But… there’s something else too… something I probably should have mentioned before we got naked.”

  “Is that something else… someone else?”

  “Sort of.” I touched his cheek. “It’s complicated.”

  “Cal?”

  “Yes. We’re not a couple. We never were, not really. But he’s my best friend. My best guy friend. More like a brother—except not.”

  “I see.”

  “You couldn’t.”

  “You’re right. I don’t.” He touched my cheek. I wanted to fuck him. “Do you… love him?” In such a dramatic way, he asked. I returned his caress, to reassure him, maybe, and I still hoped he wanted to fuck me too.

  “I do. But I’m not completely sure in what way. The truth is important to me,” I said. And it was. I wasn’t totally sure how I felt about Mathias either. One minute, all I wanted to do was kiss him. In the next moment, though, I wanted to race him across his huge backyard, back and forth in the water, or jacking to ejaculation. I wanted to cream his ass—so to speak—and then tell him right afterward that his house, his car, his clothes, his pool, and the guy who mowed his lawn were all fucking ridiculous. The jealousy issues, which I fully recognized as such, were my problem, not his, and I certainly couldn’t say all that. Therefore, I just went back to Cal. “This whole Olympic dream was me and him at first, right? And I’m glad you get to be in on it. Don’t get me wrong. But I… I’m sad he doesn’t.”

  “I understand.”

  “We messed around a couple times—Cal and me—Cal and I. Lately, it’s just a lot of talk. I’m pretty sure I was thinking burgeoning romance and he always saw it as friends with benefits—if that. He mentioned liking both genders not long ago, and it sucks if it’s not that, and he just can’t accept it, or even if it is that and…. God. Shut up!”

  “You’re fine. Sexuality can be a tricky thing.”

  “The saddest thing is… we didn’t leave things on such a good note today. I want to make sure he’s okay before….”

  “Before you think about your own happiness.”

  “Don’t make me out to be some sort of saint. I’m lying beside a hot guy with my hard dick pointing back at my face while talking about another one I think of as a kind-of, sort-of potential boyfriend back home.”

  “Back home.” He snickered. “It sounds so… World War Two movie.” A loud sigh followed. “Maybe we should get up.”

  “And get dressed?”

  “Not necessarily.” Mathias stretched toward the sweltering sun and then took off without warning toward the lake. The visual, his pale skin dappled with sunlight and the moving shadows of the leaves above—leaves that were singing or talking in my voice as the wind blew—was stunning. “Come on!” he yelled back, but I didn’t move until he’d jumped off the dock and into the water.

  “Thanks,” he said when I jumped in.

  “For what?”

  “If you had followed right behind, I’d have missed the sight of you running at me and all that came along with it.”

  “It’s nothing special. I’m not.”

  “Dude… I have imagined you naked a whole bunch of times, and trust me, it lived up to expectations and then some.”

  “Me too. And you too… too.”

  “My ass is flat, but my cock is big. That’s what they told me back in prep school.”

  I laughed. “They’re both perfect. All of you is.”

  “Naw. But thanks.”

  “Is prep school as hot as in porn? The boys’ dormitories and all that?”

  It was his turn to laugh. “I’m going to say no.”

  “Why’d you leave… to go to Schenectady High?”

  “Dad changed jobs.”

  “So, you moved?”

  “No. Not really.” We were both just sort of bouncing slightly, up and down at the knees, making the water move with minimal effort. “Dad did change positions, from one title to another, but we didn’t move. I’ve lived here almost since leaving Dover in fourth grade. My mother’s father actually owned it, but he gave it to my mom.”

  “Ah.” The family wealth went back a few generations, and at least some came from Mathias’s mother’s side. “My mother’s dad let her take the cat when she left home.”

  Mathias ignored my commentary, which was probably
for the best. “I just didn’t like it there anymore.” And that was how he left it, as he suddenly started to hum.

  We swam awhile, primarily in circles. The Webber pool was bigger than the Webber lake, but here it seemed like we were the only two people on Earth, maybe lost on a tropical island, where we would bicker for days and then eventually fall in love.

  “I guess I should head in soon,” Mathias said after a while, having gone through almost the entire score of My Fair Lady without words.

  “You cold?”

  “A little. You?”

  “Yeah.” I kind of was. “My mom likes that musical.”

  “What’s that?”

  “My Fair Lady. You were humming it.”

  “Was I?”

  “Yeah.”

  “We did it in drama club right before I left AMP…. Albany Mountain Prep. I wanted to be Professor Higgins, but I didn’t get it.” He stood up out of the water, all the way out. It ran down his body in a clear, gleaming sheet and dripped off the tip of his cock, leaving sparkling droplets in the fur above when finally it stopped. “Okay. Time to head back.” It’s not as if I had forgotten he was naked, but seeing him that way again was quite the jolt. “We’re doing another benefit thing, and I’ve been ordered to clean out my closet.”

  He said it as if so beleaguered, prompting me to ask, “You don’t have someone to do that for you?”

  “I do, actually. And I hate it.” He went back under and came up with a mouthful of water that he spit into the air like one of those naked cherub fountains, one with man-sized genitalia. It was hot as fuck. “I don’t need a wardrobe each season. If I didn’t get so many frigging new clothes, I wouldn’t have to go through my shit twice a year to get rid of some.” It sounded like rich-people bitching to me. “When I go to college, I’m taking three shirts, two pairs of pants, and lots of underwear and socks. Nothing else. I’m going to wear the same outer clothes a week or more, until my roommate can smell me coming.”

  I chuckled. “Eww.”

  “I don’t mind, really—the donating part—not if someone else can use them. I hate anyone else touching my things, though, and making decisions for me. I don’t suppose you’d like to help.”

  Don’t say it, I thought.

  “It could be fun, like when we raked leaves.” I pictured him throwing me into a mountain of Calvin Klein underwear piled high on his bed, and then falling atop me in nothing but his swim trunks. “And if you see anything you like, you can just take it.”

  Then the moment was ruined. He fucking went and said it. I took a deep breath and made myself answer in a semicivilized tone. “Thanks, but I don’t really need anything right now.” That sounded polite—I hoped.

  Somehow we got through the rest of the day and night without touching each other inappropriately—sort of. It was just the two of us. If Mathias’s parents were about, they kept themselves well hidden. I never did meet his father, and the only words exchanged between two Webbers was when Mathias asked his mom to pass the peas at dinnertime. Mrs. Webber cooked. She heated, more precisely. The lasagna and the peas both came frozen. I saw the boxes in the trash when I took my plate from the dining room to the kitchen. They weren’t grocery store packages, like Stouffer’s or Green Giant, but rather some name I’d never heard of in a plain white box with gold lettering. Even their trash looked fancier than ours.

  I offered to wash the dishes—everyone’s—but Mrs. Webber informed me they had a dishwasher. I joked that I was one too. Her smile left me wondering if she got it, and also if she’d meant hers was a person or an appliance.

  Up in Mathias’s room, I wondered some more. He had a big bed, with room for one or two more, each big enough for at least three people. Earlier it had been covered with clothes, some of which I’d really, really wanted. I had to stick to my guns, however. Since he didn’t offer again, I didn’t ask. Had he cleaned out his underwear and sock drawer, resistance may have been futile. I was developing an interest in his toes, which were always on display, his feet either bare or in flip-flops all day. But alas, we only did the closet as he hummed more show tunes. Maybe I’d get a go at the laundry hamper later.

  SLEEPING ARRANGEMENTS had not been discussed. What were the odds we were going to share the big bed, like we had the hammock most of the late afternoon and early evening? We’d resisted all urges then—sort of—but involuntary things happened overnight, and willpower waned with drowsiness.

  “So tomorrow is the first day of the rest of our lives,” Mathias said, sitting on the edge of our—his—really thick feather top mattress.

  “I guess. Coach Keller wants us at the pool at six.”

  “Do you feel different?”

  “What do you mean?” I leaned against the dresser. We were both back in clothes. Mathias had changed his, which made at least three outfits that day that I knew of. I didn’t think that whole “wearing the same clothes for a week in college” thing would ever be doable for him.

  “Well, a few days ago, we were kids on summer vacation. Now we’re future college guys and Olympians. We should feel different.”

  “I feel more different about seeing you naked.”

  Mathias laughed. He patted the spot beside him. “I get it. Me too. Sit.”

  “If I sit I’m going to want to kiss you.”

  “I’ll risk it. Sit.”

  I sat. We kissed. Then my cheap-ass cell phone rang.

  “I miss you.” Devon said that the moment I’d pulled it out and answered.

  “I miss you too, Devon.” I smiled at Mathias.

  “Tell him hi.”

  “Mathias says hi.”

  “I can’t fall asleep. Mama said I could call.”

  “How can I help?”

  “Come home.”

  “Dev…. I can’t. Not tonight.”

  “Mama says you’re going to be gone all the time—forever.” His voice caught.

  “She didn’t say forever.” My voice caught too. “I’ll be home off and on. And I’m not really leaving for a little while, remember? We talked about this.”

  “But then you went. And it’s still summer.”

  Ow. My heart. “Just for the night. I’ll be home in the morning. I’ll be at the pool. Have Beth or Julius bring you at, like, ten.” The pool didn’t open to the public until noon. I didn’t know how Coach Keller would feel about Dev coming early, but the way I saw it, at that very moment, there was my sad brother, the Olympics, and then everything else. “Eleven, maybe. When I go to college, it won’t even be that far. I can come home every weekend, probably.”

  “I’ll drive,” Mathias said.

  “I still don’t think I’m going to like it,” Devon told me.

  “I don’t know if I will either.” I would never be dishonest with him. “But I’m going to try it.”

  “I wonder if Cal could take your place while you’re gone.”

  “As your brother?” He was killing me! “I’m sure he’ll be going to college too, eventually. Maybe he’ll come hang out, though.”

  “Mama says I have to go.”

  “Okay. Tell her I love her.”

  “Reed loves you,” I heard him say. “She loves you too.”

  “And we both love you most of all.”

  “Do you love Mathias?”

  Frick. My mother was standing right there. “I’m starting to, I think.” I still couldn’t lie.

  “Cool.” Of all the things I had said, that was the one that seemed to cheer him up. “Good night, Reed.”

  “Night, Dev.”

  “Starting to what?” Mathias asked when I ended the call.

  “He asked me if… I loved you.”

  “Oh.” We kissed again. This time, both of our phones chirped—texts instead of calls.

  No sex, you two! I mean it!

  The messages had come from Coach Keller, the same one for both. We stared at our screens, and then at one another.

  “I hope I didn’t out you by mentioning the gay guys on Days.”
>
  “Oh.” I hadn’t thought of that—about why Coach Keller had presumed Mathias and I would even be thinking about having sex with each other.

  “He’s kidding, right?” Mathias asked.

  I was a little uneasy. “I don’t think so. I’ve known the guy a while now. His jokes are more like threats. If he’s saying ‘No sex,’ he means it.”

  “Like ever? With anyone?”

  Buzz.

  “You have other options?” I suddenly felt quite possessive.

  “No.” Mathias checked his phone and I checked mine.

  No sex with each other.

  He’d read our minds. I wasn’t surprised. I guess he knew me too, better than I’d thought.

  “You have other options, though. You said so,” Mathias reminded me.

  “Yeah,” I said proudly. There was that competitive thing again, so I decided to worry about Coach knowing about my sexual orientation later. “I guess I do.” I had to say it, whether it was true or not.

  No jacking off together either.

  “Damn, yo!” Mathias exclaimed. “It’s not like he’d know, though.”

  I’ll know.

  “How?” Mathias asked me.

  “No clue, but I believe him. And I’m a lousy liar, which is why I never try.”

  “Never?”

  “This one time, at NYSSMA All-County middle school band camp?”

  “Yeah?”

  “I took the twenty-five bucks for the concert DVD but never bought it. I blew the money on other shit, then I felt so guilty, I nearly gave myself an ulcer. Ever since I started working, I slip a twenty in my mom’s purse every now and then, still trying to make up for it.”

  “Truth?” Mathias smiled.

  “T-r-u-t-h.”

  “So, I guess what you’re saying is, we can’t do it and then say we didn’t.”

  “I don’t think so.”

  Coach Keller signed off then with, See you bright and early.

  “How many bedrooms you have in this palace?” I asked. “Maybe I better find another one.”

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