by David Connor
“Hey.” Eric Spidderman put a calming hand on my arm, then both in the air, as if he feared I was about to deck him. The thought had crossed my mind. “Just me,” he said.
“Jesus, man! You scared the shit out of me.”
“Sorry.” Mathias appeared next. “It was my idea. I wanted to see you.”
“I’ll leave the two of you alone.” With that, Eric backed out the door. The moment he shut it, Mathias was against me, twirling me around and backing me against the knob.
“Hey!”
His hand went down the back of my shorts, and my right one, which he’d snatched, was put down the front of his. He pressed the thick, hard heat of his hairless cock into my palm, slid it between my fingers, and grinded it about as he performed oral sex on my ear, and his hand and the doorknob worked my ass.
“Hey.” I was far less strident with my second objection. “What are you—”
“Did you bring your leaf to Omaha?”
“Yes.”
“Me too.”
“Well….”
He tapped out I love you on my ass. “We love each other.” Then his finger went inside.
“Fuck.”
“I know it’s better if you stay mad at me,” he said. “It’s been working. I’ll buy you a car or something before this afternoon’s race. That’ll really piss you—ahh.” He groaned with his mouth to my neck, then came in my hand inside his underwear. “Fuck, man. Too fast,” he said on hard, noisy exhales. “Too fast. I told Eric five minutes.”
“What?”
“Two… I didn’t even need two.” His words came with breath as warm as his cum, and it was driving me crazy. “I had to see you. Your turn.”
“Stop.”
He didn’t stop, but rather put his hand atop mine, all covered in his fluid, down inside his khakis and tight undershorts. He took it out then, all wet and sticky, and slid it up the leg hole of my jersey knit athletic kind with a pair of briefs beneath.
“Stop.” I stilled him before he reached my erection. “We’re not together.”
“I know. I know you need to be mad to—”
“No, Mathias. I don’t need to be mad. I am mad. Madder… madder than I was. You told Eric I’m gay?”
“Oh. I guess, but—”
“You had no right.”
“He’s cool.”
“I don’t care if he’s cool.” I finally backed away from his touch. “Jesus. It wasn’t your place.”
“I’m sorry. I missed you so much. I wanted to make some grand gesture… like the balloons, only more private.”
I just shook my head. “I thought we were over grand gestures. And this… this isn’t so quiet. It isn’t private. You outed me… to a frigging bulldog of a reporter. That’s, like, the worst thing you could have done to me right about now.”
Mathias’s expression was almost pitiful, like Devon’s when I’d chastised him at the dinner.
“I’m out to my family, Mathias, and that’s it. No one else. I don’t want that right now.” I was pacing in a circle still close to the door. “I can’t deal with it. I can’t… I can’t have it. You had no right to tell anyone.”
“I didn’t have to tell him, you know.” He went petulant, hands on hips, jutted chin, like the spoiled child he was. “It’s not a secret. He kind of already knew.” Then he walked to the dresser.
“He assumed, maybe. I get the impression he assumes everyone’s gay until proven otherwise.”
Mathias chuckled. “He’s pretty awesome.”
“Then go jack him off. Fuck him. Date him. Fall in love with him.”
“I’m already in love with someone else.” He reached for me again.
“Don’t.”
“So you’re mad for real?”
It sure was hard to be when he took off the top shirt of two he had on and shoved it down behind his belt, flashing his fat, spent cock in order to clean it off. All that, plus he had a leaf pattern on the underwear I’d felt but not seen. Sweet and hot. Still, I persevered. “I am.” I reached for the doorknob with my clean hand. “And if you don’t get it….”
“Maybe if you’d cut the shit and talk to me, I could. I can only know what’s going on in your head… in your life if you tell me. I need to grow the fuck up? You still have some maturing to do too.” Mathias held up his hand, halting himself. “Eric’s not going to say anything.”
I looked at him, doubtful.
“He’s not. I know he can be… kind of overzealous when it comes to the gay stuff. And I don’t mean to dis him. It’s good there’s someone fighting the fight, right?”
When Mathias tossed me his cleanup shirt, I wanted to wipe it all over my face instead of using it to clean my messy hand. I did neither, but rather tossed it back, and then unzipped my gym bag one-handed for a towel. “He’s pretty frigging judgmental about how other people fight it—how other people live. Anyone who doesn’t tattoo a rainbow on their forehead isn’t doing enough for him, it seems.”
“It’s complicated.”
“Everything’s complicated, Mathias.” I threw my towel on the floor. “Coming out is complicated. Not coming out is complicated. Not being gay enough… being too gay…. Trying to figure out how much we owe the people who support us and watch us swim is complicated. And I’m not even talking about money. Black and white stuff, that’s really complicated—black dads who don’t want their sons to be gay, black dads who don’t care if their sons are gay as long as they don’t bring home a white boy, black parents who don’t want their son bringing home a white girl, a white girl’s parents who might not like the fact their daughter’s black boyfriend is into dudes… complicated, complicated, complicated. Let me tell you about a kid who grew up thinking and feeling like he was black until other kids pointed out to him that he wasn’t. He figured he could deal with that, until other people pointed out he wasn’t white enough either. And then let’s talk about another kid who seemed to have everything but was missing so much. My parents loved us to the moon and back but couldn’t always do for us what they wished they could. Dev needs that school, Mathias.”
“What school?” How could he know? He was right. We hadn’t talked about any of it.
“A special school Macon Charter will pay for, but not if I’m gay… not if I’m out. Every damned day is complicated.”
He came at me again. “I love you, Reed.” He took my wrist, his grip so tight his knuckles went whiter as my skin got red.
“Let me go.”
“That’s simple.”
“That’s the most complicated part of all.”
“We don’t have to tell anyone. We can keep it quiet, if that’s the issue. We can just pretend—”
“Mathias… obviously we can’t. This… just now. Right here. In the hotel. At the event. Right before the commercial in question. Jesus! It’s the worst possible place and time, and yet….”
“I’m sorry. I’ll be more careful next time. I shouldn’t have. It’s my fault.”
“No.” I touched his cheek with the hand not in his and immediately wished I hadn’t. “I let you. I let it happen. It’s sweet, really. If I wasn’t so…. Please…. Let me go.”
He did. “I’m not holding you against your will.”
I turned the knob, but it didn’t move.
“Okay. Wait. Tell me there’s still a chance… later….”
“Let me out, Mathias.”
“Or tell me you stopped loving me.”
The hurt on his face, the pain I had put there, I wanted so badly to take it away. “I can’t.”
Mathias tapped on the door then. It finally opened, so I shoved past Eric Spidderman and left.
MY MOM and dad were staying in the same hotel. I told myself, as I stood outside their room, I needed family time, but as Devon and I headed out for ice cream, I had ulterior motives. “So, what do you want to be when you grow up?”
“I am grown up.”
“Mostly. Yeah, but after you graduate.”
“I wan
t to build stuff. Like Cal. Except big buildings. Like the hotel we’re staying in.”
“Really?”
“Yup.”
“Why?”
“Because I’m good at it. Dad said so. Cal too.”
Again with Cal.
“I can solder and nail, and I paint way better than you and Mathias.”
“True that.”
“I painted the downstairs bathroom all by myself. And Dad’s going to teach me electrical. He said a guy can make a lot of money if he knows how to fix stuff.”
“True that too.”
“I already know how to do plumbing and carpentry. I went to work with Cal a whole bunch of times last summer, and I fixed the furnace once this winter. Did you know that?”
“I did not. That’s awesome. But… but what else do you like to do? Do you ever think about becoming a fireman, a race-car driver, maybe an astronaut?”
“I want to become a dad too. Then I can pretend to be all of those things with my kids.”
“Ah.”
“And I’ll be rich by then, because first I’ll start building buildings, and then eventually, I’ll be the boss.”
“You got it all figured out.”
“Yup.”
I only noticed then how he’d pause a second or two to touch the facades of different storefronts and structures, as if he really was interested in how they were made. Shame on me for never noticing before. “Cool. Can we talk about something else now?” I asked.
“Yeah.”
“The commercial?”
“Oh.” Just like that, I saw him tense, and the smile left his face. “What about it?”
“Well, remember how I said yesterday it was about us more than the bank?”
“Yeah.”
“Well, that’s true… in a way.” We strolled down the same sidewalk I had with Eric Spidderman. It was less crowded, maybe because it was still kind of early. “See, what I was going to say is… the commercial is sort of about pretend me—make-believe me.”
“Huh?”
“It’s about Reed the swimmer, not Reed the… whatever. You know what I mean?”
“No. Do you?”
I gave my brother a gentle bump as we walked. “Not really. Okay, so, like, you know when we used to watch Days of Our Lives?”
“Before they got rid of all the gay people?”
“Shit.”
“What?”
“Nothing.”
“Sonny came back.”
“I know. But yeah, before that. That’s a good example, because Will and Sonny, the actors who played them, they’re not gay in real life. You know that, right?”
“I guess.”
“Actors sometimes have to pretend to be something they’re not. That’s why it’s acting. When we’re in the commercial, we’re going to be pretending.”
“What are we pretending to be?”
This wasn’t going well. “Ourselves… just not exactly as we are.”
We reached the ice-cream place. I bought myself a frozen yogurt and Devon hot fudge over vanilla in a cup—before lunch. I still sucked as a caretaker. I paid the young clerk with one of my credit cards, prayed to God $5.14 wouldn’t put it over its limit, and if it did, that the kid wouldn’t recognize me as a famous swimmer. “Basically,” I continued as we started to walk again, and I wished I had never started the whole commercial conversation, “I don’t want anyone there to know I’m….”
“You’re what?”
“Gay,” I barely uttered.
“How come? Aren’t gay people supposed to be proud about being gay?”
We were living in the right decade, where that was the first thought—at least for some. “I am proud. It’s not that. It’s not even that I’m pretending not to be gay, but rather more like I’m just not… anything.”
“You’re not anything?”
“Just, you know, don’t bring it up. No one else probably will either. And if anyone does ask”—I wouldn’t put it past Eric Spidderman—“just don’t tell them that….”
“You love men?”
“Yeah.” I was so glad he’d said “men” and not “Mathias.”
“Don’t tell them you love Mathias?”
“Fuck.”
“Don’t tell them you fuck Mathias?”
“Shh.” Damn it! “Don’t tell them that, especially don’t tell anyone that. And I don’t.”
“Can I say I love Amy?”
“If someone asks, yeah. But maybe we should just go in and say our lines. Maybe we don’t talk much about anything to anyone.”
“I can’t talk… like at the meeting?”
I was a lousy caretaker and a lousy brother.
“No. Yes. You can, talk, Dev. Tonight, though, especially when I’m not there, just try not to talk about me with the other people in the commercial. Did you ever tell any of your friends I’m gay?”
“I don’t remember. I don’t think so.”
“Shoot.”
“Did I do something wrong?”
“No, Dev. Not at all. Just…. Just try not to say anything anymore… and if it seems like I’m pretending to be different, well, know it’s because I have to.”
“How come?”
“That’s just the way it is sometimes.”
“Okay.”
Those seven words most generally put an end to any complex conversation. This time, though, I could still see the wheels turning as he took another bite of ice cream. “Do I have to pretend to be different?”
“No, Devon. Never.”
“Good. Because I think it would be too hard.”
“Yeah.”
“I think I just won’t talk.”
I didn’t argue anymore, because that was what I’d wanted in the first place, asshole that I was. As if that didn’t leave me feeling bad enough, when Devon went in, Dad stopped me from doing so, and joined me in the hallway for a poignant conversation.
“I guess it’s easier to deny your sexuality than your skin color.” That was his opening line. No metaphors or comical scolding, no curse words or gentle touches.
“Dad….”
“We’re not taking Macon Charter’s money for Devon.”
“That’s st—” I couldn’t call my father or his decision that word.
“I’m not lying to them. Your life is your life. Your choices, especially concerning a decision like this—one I can’t fully understand….”
I thought back to my discussion with Captain Falcon about my race and things I couldn’t grasp.
“It is certainly not something I’m going to force, one way or another. The money’s not worth denying who we are, though.”
“Isn’t it? For Dev?”
“Would you want him to do it for you? Devon would never ask for something like that.”
“Devon doesn’t even get it. He can’t…. He couldn’t.”
“Don’t sell your brother short. Sometimes he’s smarter than all of us.” Dad offered me a hug then. “Good luck at your last race. I’m proud as hell I get to be here to see you make the Olympic team in person.”
“I’m glad too.”
I WENT to the arena for that final event feeling the anger and frustration I’d come to count on as a necessary ingredient to winning. This time, it was all aimed right at myself. If my father wouldn’t take the money from Macon Charter, I would. I’d use my commercial paycheck, just as I had originally planned, to send Devon to Cloverton. That and the money I already had would get him all the way through college so he could do and be whatever he wanted. After that, I was sure I could make some more, a lot more, if I kept my mouth shut about who I went to bed with.
I couldn’t shake the fan page post I’d read that morning from my mind, though. Not the post or its poster. I was still thinking about them both when Mathias walked in, and suddenly I couldn’t shake the feeling of his warmth on my hand.
As the locker room started to fill up, the chatter and aroma soon reminded me why I was there. After an entire
week of swimming, I was mentally exhausted, mostly from thinking about being gay in a commercial about the Olympics rather than the Rio competition itself. Making the 2016 team was pretty much guaranteed. It wasn’t all about numbers, though. The official decision was made by a selection committee of US Swimming hierarchy and coaches. Sometimes, if someone showed great promise but had an off competition, he made the selection for past showings. Some guys were picked to swim just one particular race or were put on the team for the relays, if they had a specialty. More often than not, however, the men with the shortest times were sent. Only two US participants could compete in each individual Olympic race, however, a tough pill to swallow for someone continually coming in behind the top two, like Mathias. This final race was it for him. He was either in or out based on it and it alone, a rather harsh reality I’d still been trying to ignore.
There were long-distance swimmers and sprinters. Whereas I found the 1,500-meter freestyle grueling, it was his favorite event. He was bouncing with energy as we waited behind our starting blocks, some forty minutes after arrival. We were side-by-side again, our lanes—our Olympic destiny as a pair—separated only by a long row of red, white, and blue plastic circles threaded through a steel cable.
“Swimmers to your places.”
He adjusted his cap and then his dick. He squatted and rose, stretching and lolling his head side to side. I considered blowing the race as my eyes were transfixed by his motion and his body, his determination and—fuck—his grand gesture in Eric Spidderman’s hotel room and his leafy undershorts. I would have to come in third at best, in order to assure Mathias a second-place finish and a spot on the roster for the 1,500-meter in Rio. A poor flip at the far wall, a slower kick, a shorter reach, I could easily take a dive.
My thoughts surprised me. I hadn’t come in third place since fifth fucking grade. This surely wasn’t my best race. I might actually not have to.
Shit. Who was I kidding? I’d kicked ass in the 1,500-meter freestyle a hundred times or more. Fuck that shit about not being a long-distance swimmer. There was no doubt I liked the quick ones better, but I was just as good at this one.
I climbed up on the block and shook the notion of tanking purposely out of my head. Then I glanced to my left, and it came back on its own when I saw the tattoo, the homage to fall foliage. Fuck!