Truth, Pride, Victory, Love

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Truth, Pride, Victory, Love Page 13

by David Connor


  We spent most of the day in the LaValleys’ backyard. Music blared. The Wanted’s “Glad You Came” was fine. As for “Mr. Know It All,” that one caused a bit of trouble when timed with Mathias’s suggestion that we stack the coals when lighting the grill, instead of spreading them out.

  “I didn’t know you knew Kelly Clarkson, Webber.”

  “I don’t.” Mathias fell into Cal’s verbal snare.

  “Hmm. I would have sworn this song was all about you.”

  “It’s science, Cal, not experience.”

  “I guess it would have to be. I mean, how many meals have you cooked for yourself, White Oprah?”

  “White Oprah?” I was about to step between them, as it seemed they might come to blows, but Adele’s “Someone Like You” came on next, calming the savage males and causing Caryn to run crying for the house with Mathias in hot pursuit.

  “White Oprah?” I said to Cal.

  “I couldn’t think of any rich people his color.” He smiled, and seeing how long I’d been waiting to see it, I let the rest go.

  Cal rarely left my side that day. Despite a lack of conversation, I think he was trying to claim me for himself. When Mathias and Caryn were off in one corner by the fence, he copped a feel in front, and later grabbed my ass right in plain sight of the other two. It was nice to see him in better spirits as the day went on. It was almost like old times, at least until he had to go and ask if I could come spend the night at his place.

  “We’ll do the field thing you put out there on prom night.”

  I pictured tent sex again, then got mad at myself for cheating on Mathias in my mind. “What about Caryn? She likes you, you know.”

  “She can come.”

  I pictured Cal and Caryn having tent sex and me watching. “I don’t think Mathias will be comfortable at my house without me there.” I hoped that would be a broad enough hint for a double invitation. Then I thought about four-way tent sex, and wondered if I’d found a loophole in Coach Keller’s edict.

  No such luck, though. Instead of inviting Mathias, Cal repeated the offer to me as Mathias stood within earshot.

  “Come on. One more sleepover before you go. Webber’s a big boy. He doesn’t need you to hold his hand while he takes a piss.”

  “Go,” Mathias said. “I’ll feel bad if you don’t.”

  I was pretty certain that was Cal’s plan either way. “All four of us,” I said again.

  “Naw. Never mind. Guess you made your choice. So much for never going back.” He walked away, and it took me a while to get the last jab. I felt like crap.

  EVERYTHING SEEMED to happen as some sort of movie montage after that. Time passed quickly, and little scenes were all I was left with, memories with Leo Arnaud’s “Bugler’s Dream” playing as the accompaniment. Once that song got into my head, it stayed there. We watched the first week of the 2012 London Olympics as a group in my living room—my whole family, including Shemar, as much as he could stay awake for.

  “Next time there are Olympics, Reed’s fixin’ to go,” Devon said excitedly. “Not the winter ones, but the summer ones after that.”

  “You’ll be a big boy by then,” Beth told Shemar.

  Caryn, Mathias, and even Cal were there as well. Cal was civil, but he was also distant, though rarely literally. The game of musical chairs he and Mathias played for the next cushion over on the sofa or the folding chair on either side of me was obvious and comical. I got up at least one time per night to use the john, whether I needed to or not, knowing the seating would be rearranged while I was gone, so everyone could move one spot up in luxury and comfort. Whenever I stood, my two suitors did. The little duel and the jealousy behind it went to my head. I regained my healthy ego for a while, even as far as my looks were concerned, and it didn’t really need much stroking.

  In the end, nothing came of it, though. I still went to bed alone, my only companion my right hand—and sometimes my left one, if I felt like changing things up.

  The second week of the XXX games I had to go up to Mathias’s. There was a “cleanliness issue” at the community pool.

  “Someone must have peed or pooped,” Devon deduced.

  Coach Keller made some sort of deal with the high school Mathias had been attending. We trained there that week and watched the rest of the swimming, diving, track, and gymnastics competitions on his big-screen TV. This time, I felt even more as if I had forsaken poor Cal. Mathias and I had gone to the Dover pool Saturday morning and then left for upstate without a word, after a quick trip home to pack an hour later. It was too early to call him, so by the time I did, it wasn’t “I’m going,” but more like “I’m gone.”

  Mathias said I could invite everyone else up for the remainder of the games. In fact, he’d extended the offer to most of them personally, those who were awake when we’d returned for our things. My family had declined while Mathias was upstairs.

  “We just wouldn’t feel comfortable,” my mom had said. I appreciated her honesty and could hardly blame her. I hadn’t painted the friendliest portrait of Evelyn Webber. The travel time would have been a killer anyway. “Your father and I can’t take a whole week off. Not right now.”

  “What if I go into labor? I’m already late.” Beth’s excuse was by far the best.

  As for Cal, his response was more profane, when I finally called him from up in Schenectady. “No motherfucking way.”

  “It would mostly just be us, Cal. The Webbers—”

  “Kiss my black ass!”

  Though Devon had begged to come, my parents talked him out of it. Honestly, I’d been somewhat relieved. As much as I dug Mathias, I still got a rather cold reception from his parents. Then again, so did he. I met Mister during my second stayover, and he was no friendlier than Missus. I imagined them both losing their grace very easily, if not their temper. If either one had done something to hurt Devon, who was always a font of inquisitiveness—“Which guys are Americans?” “Does the water taste different in England?”—I wouldn’t have been able to hold my temper.

  My brother had also developed a condition that rendered him unable to keep any secrets, as I’d found out when I was punished for encouraging him to use profanities when he was younger. I figured he would probably out me any day now, even though he hadn’t really asked for specifics about the nature of my relationship with Mathias. Truthfully, I was more afraid he might blurt out some of the things I’d said about the Webbers during one of my childish resentful moments, like the night I was helping my mother start dinner and I called Mrs. Webber the human equivalent of a frozen fish stick when I dumped a whole box onto a cookie sheet. It was better our families stayed separate.

  All of that pretty much resulted in Mathias and I being left to ourselves and our horniness. Neither one of us bothered to try and hide our frequent Olympic erections, quite prominent in thin, nylon sports shorts, as we exchanged tons of dirty comments about the divers, swimmers, and sexy gymnasts. Ben Thornton was amazingly beautiful. We searched the Internet for the alleged sex tape the British tabloids were threatening to post, but came up empty. We did enjoy his Sports Illustrated nude spread, however, on Mathias’s iPad played through the huge smart TV.

  “Oh my God… that ass!” I exclaimed. It was so much fun being my true self with no filter—out and proud—even if just in front of Mathias and Caryn. We hadn’t been able to wait to show her Thornton’s spread—yeah, I giggled when I called it that—the night she drove up.

  “They’re going to ask you two to pose, you know,” she said from the second fawn leather couch in Mathias’s media room.

  “Reed’s ass is better,” Mathias declared.

  “Than yours? Let me see.”

  “Than Ben Thornton’s.” Mathias stood and showed Caryn anyway. “And how cool would it be if we got to pose together, the first openly gay Olympic lovers?”

  Caryn answered with an “aww,” and my heart skipped a beat. Mathias still saw us as a couple in four years. That was the cool part. The quest
ion was, though, considering Coach Keller’s decrees, were we one now? As it stood, my relationship with him rather mirrored the one with Cal, though the current prevailing feeling there was one of guilt, as opposed to any sort of longing and wishes for happily ever after. If I was in love with anyone, which was still sometimes back and forth, with trees and Morse code versus not feeling quite good enough, it was definitely Mathias.

  “The track events must be like porn to you horny homos.”

  I barely heard Caryn’s remark, and I doubted Mathias had, as some beautiful, well-hung specimen of African athleticism broke through the finish-line tape. Though our little swimsuits covered only what was absolutely necessary, at least they were lined, and the fabric was thick. The material used for the runners’ clingy outfits was barely opaque. It was easy to tell exactly what they were packing.

  “Look at it moving,” Mathias marveled.

  “Are yours that big?” Caryn asked.

  “Bigger,” Mathias joked—only it wasn’t a put-on.

  Finally, Bob Costas turned to the swimming. The star of the event was as spectacular as predicted, and it didn’t take long for my mind to get off my cock and his and to get my butt on the edge of the couch cushion in order to concentrate and admire his strength, speed, sheer determination, and stupendous talent. He and the shorter one the media had labeled as not so intelligent were phenomenal competitors. Another of Coach Keller’s directives was that we never mention either of their names, so I never did. I fantasized a bit, after leaping to my feet to cheer them both on toward the end of one of the closer races, about the one billion spectators around the world who’d be doing the same for Mathias and me in four years. The one expected to win, won—just like I would—but there was no harm in cheering for the second-place finisher, like the valley boy stereotype who didn’t really come from there, or Mathias.

  “Their rivalry is what makes them both so strong,” Coach Keller said on the phone another night. “I almost wish you two weren’t into each other,” he added, sort of absently, as if he’d forgotten he was actually speaking to us and not just thinking aloud.

  As far as I could recall, we had never acted “into each other” in front of him. We certainly never declared as much. His only clue was Mathias’s excitement over Days of Our Lives having gay guys on it. Neither of us mentioned the idea of Mathias and I having sex, not face-to-face, not since that one text earlier in the summer, actually.

  “Sex! Why would I have sex with Mathias? He’s a dude.” Looking back, maybe I should have protested a bit more back then. Something along those lines would have been good. I thought about saying it now, but didn’t, so Coach went on.

  “Friendship and rivalry is one thing. Anything else is just going to get in the way.”

  I looked to Mathias. Though he pretended he’d been glued to the plasma screen the whole time, I was certain he had glanced in my direction during the proclamation.

  “And let me tell you, I was married when I tried to make the Olympic team. Was. By the time I had to walk away from the dream, my wife had walked away from me. We were young. Training was hard. I’m not sure anyone can pull off a new relationship and an Olympic bid both at the same time.”

  It was the most personal thing he had ever said, and though I wanted to ask him if he was happy with his second wife too, or if the first was the great love of his life—the one who got away—what I really wanted was the commercial block to end so he would shut the fuck up. What I said was “My parents don’t know, so… I’m not quite ready, okay?”

  I was suddenly struck with the realization my relationship with him was in some ways closer than with them.

  “Oh. None of my business,” he said. “Though I think they’d be okay with it. You’re… you’re good kids. It doesn’t matter. I’ll keep my mouth shut.” He did, for more than a moment. “Study the swimmers,” he eventually said. “See if you can learn anything. No sex.”

  9

  COACH’S SPEECH, the private story with a not-so-hidden message, got to us. By the time the swimmer I dreamed about beating walked for the closing ceremonies, coming away with six medals—four gold and two silver—as the most decorated athlete for the third Olympic Games in a row, something was definitely different between Mathias and me.

  “What if he’s right? I feel we’re already not as close as we used to be.”

  “We do everything together but shower, sleep, and fuck, Reed. How much more togetherness could we stand?”

  “That’s the point. Remember the night you pushed our beds against the walls so we could feel like we were sleeping together? Now you sound like you’re sick of me.”

  Mathias rolled his eyes. “You’re imagining any kind of rift and being overly dramatic.”

  That in itself was the source of more strife and accompanying attitude on my part. Maybe that was what Coach Keller had wanted all along.

  As the few remaining weeks of that summer flew by, we started to bicker about those little things he did that bugged me, and—surprise of all surprises—I did things that bugged him as well. I turned the water off and on as I brushed my teeth and even when I showered, instead of letting it run the whole time. Why that annoyed him, I had no idea. It wasn’t like he was showering with me, as he’d already pointed out, except for one time when we did.

  We were back at my house by then. Beth had finally gone in to have Desiree, and everyone had gone up to Hope Foster for a visit. I had as well, but then I’d volunteered to drive Dad’s car home, since he’d come up after work. I found Mathias down in the basement half-naked and covered in gray paint upon my return. No. My bad. The color was ocean fog.

  “What the…?”

  He was standing there, apparently admiring his work, in his underpants, paintbrush in hand. One basement wall was freshly coated, with streaks, lines, and drips clearly visible. “I wanted to do something nice for your dad,” he said. “But I think I made a mess.”

  “Where did you get the paint?” It wasn’t a color my father would have chosen.

  “I bought it… and all the stuff. He keeps saying he’s got to do it. I figured I had two days before Beth comes home. How hard can it be? Turns out, it ain’t easy.”

  “You’re a mess.”

  “That’s why I decided not to wear clothes.”

  “I like that part… except how is there paint in the crack of your ass?”

  He pulled up his boxers.

  “I wasn’t complaining, just asking.” I shook my head. “It’s in your hair, on your lashes, in your belly button….” I was making myself hot.

  Our college maps and schedules had arrived in the mailbox earlier in the day. We’d have only one class together, and our dorms were on opposite sides of the campus. It was all rather surprising. We’d assumed, because we were both going to Cloverton for the same reason, under the same circumstances, that we’d somehow end up connected at the hip at all times. Apparently that wasn’t the case. College suddenly felt like the end instead of the beginning. We made a quick but conscious decision then to test the latitude of Coach Keller’s wishes.

  “I doubt I’ll be able to reach half of it in the shower.”

  “I don’t see how,” I said. “I… I guess I could help.”

  “We’re going to be showering together if we’re on a collegiate team,” Mathias said. “So….”

  “So, we just shower and nothing else, to prove we can, right?”

  “Yes.”

  “Because we’ll have to resist each other after swim practice.”

  “Yes. And then beat off in separate rooms again, like back at my house.”

  “Or outside them, in the foy-ay, as it were.” I was already touching him, scraping at dots of ocean fog with my thumbnail.

  “But we never touched. And the world didn’t end. And neither of us suddenly turned into leaden anchors.”

  “True.” I swiped paint off his nipple, and licked my lips when the head of his dick appeared through the gap in his fly as he reached under m
y shirt and tapped something on my chest. “What did it say?”

  “Fuck me.”

  “Oh.”

  “Except… not really. Now, we could keep discussing the pros and cons, and waste what little time we have left before someone gets home, or we could just pretend we have ample willpower to resist what this is really all about and get naked.”

  I washed his hair first, the downy yellow fluff he kept shaved close to his skull. He washed my entire body—most of it—purposely teasing me by coming close to my most sensitive areas without actually touching them. I did the same to him, and it was the most sensual and romantic thing I could ever imagine. Touching his slick, wet skin, massaging his muscles, feeling every hair and each goose bump that came up because of the intimacy and eventual lack of truly hot water… it was pretty fucking intense. My favorite part was stroking his earlobes between two fingers. His favorite part seemed to be a bit lower down and in back. Perhaps the frustration over the lack of follow-through was what brought on the complaint about turning off the tap. Every time I touched the area up between his legs and under his soapy sac, I stayed there a little longer. I never wrapped my fingers around his hard cock, though, and I clenched when his finger toyed with the opening inside my crack. I refused to make—or even more so allow—the blatant move that would turn a shower into sex. It was yet another competition. Who would give in first and cross the next line?

  When he eventually closed his long fingers around my slippery hard-on and pulled, I silently cheered. Then I almost came.

  “Mmm.”

  Mathias released me quickly, knowing I was close, I figured, by my staggered breaths and muscle contractions. He pushed me against the wall. We kissed, and then he turned me toward it, planning, I assumed, to either eat or enter me.

  I shouted “Stop!” because I had already won. “We can’t. Let’s just rinse off and get out.”

  “That’s dumb, by the way.” Mathias angrily flicked the suds from his body. “The water thing. On, off, on, off.”

  “I hate that word. And stupid…. And for your information, we’d have run out of any hot water a long time ago if I didn’t do it.” I rinsed under water that was tepid at best, desperately working to not give him the satisfaction of one single shiver. “And what’s wrong with conservation?”

 

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