by Kage Alan
Nate had really turned my night around after the incident in the bathroom and made me question society's beliefs about gays even more than I had before. I had so many questions that had to be answered before I returned to the humdrum life I'd left behind in Michigan. Unfortunately, there wasn't much time, and as much as I still didn't want to admit it, I needed Jordan's help answering them.
"Jordan, I'm—” I started, but was cut off by another voice.
"Jordan!"
We both looked up to see who had called his name. A guy—dare I call him that?—was walking towards us. He was probably a year or two older than Jordan, about a foot taller, built like a brick shithouse, had a stud in his left ear, two hoops in his right, wore a large cowboy hat and carried himself like he was God's gift to homosexuals. I didn't find him particularly attractive—maybe a bit more than Jordan's dancing partner in the club, though I'm sure he'd be the belle of the ball in a prison block.
"JR,” Jordan acknowledged. There was a definite coldness in his tone, and I was curious why.
"It's been a while.” JR looked him over appreciatively. He had a Southern accent, probably Texan. Well, I thought it might be Texan because of his name, which was straight out of the TV series Dallas. “A year at least, right?"
Jordan agreed.
"You still look as good as you did then, maybe better."
I didn't particularly like the way JR was un-dressing Jordan in his mind and going through a number of sexual fantasies without his consent.
"I've wondered how we keep missing each other at the clubs."
"Luck, I guess."
"Oh...” He grinned arrogantly. “...I can't believe you still have hard feelings. We had some really good times.” JR looked around and then motioned back toward his car. “Why don't you get rid of the twig and let's go relive some old memories."
Twig?
"I mean...” He glanced at me again. “...how desperate are you these days?"
I tensed up and sensed Jordan tensing up, too. This was a complication I really didn't need. It was, to say the least, very inconvenient. There was obviously some history between them, and it wasn't entirely pleasant, at least, for one of them. It wasn't difficult to figure out that they'd had sex.
I understood why JR was attracted to Jordan, though I couldn't figure out what Jordan saw in this inspiration for the creature in Pumpkinhead. What was that name Jordan told me to call people who were annoying me?
"Why don't you leave him alone, Marie.” I finally decided to speak up. After all, the dick had called me a twig.
"Marie?” JR frowned.
"Mary,” Jordan leaned over and whispered in my ear.
"Mary,” I corrected myself. “Why don't you leave him alone, Mary!"
"Why don't you get lost, Pee-Wee, before I have to take you over my knee, spank you and send you on your way crying for Mommy."
That did it!
"Why don't you go head South for the border, you down-home-on-the-farm, Bob-Evans-eating, sister-molesting, sheep-rearing, bull's-horn-up-your-ass-riding byproduct of a lesbian clusterfuck!"
Jordan did a double-take, and JR's mouth dropped open.
"Now, if you'll excuse us.” I put my arm around Jordan and pulled him close. “I'm going to take this hot Adonis home and do something that will make him forget you ever existed, bitch."
It was a safe assumption that JR could have whipped my ass without too much difficulty, but he was too shocked to bother lifting a finger.
I had steered Jordan to the car and locked all the doors before he snapped out of it. He was in a state of shock as well, but not so much that he didn't know not to stick around the parking lot any longer than we had to. We were on our way back home moments later.
* * * *
"I still can't believe you said that to him.” Jordan unlocked the back door and let us in. The house was dark, which made sense since we were the only ones there. “That was great!” He flipped on the lights and then looked directly at me. “Nobody's ever stuck up for me like that before.” It was the first time I think I'd seen him this sincere and almost at a loss for words. “Thank you."
"I didn't do it for you.” I was so angry I was shaking. “He insulted me, and I lost my temper."
Jordan turned away and lowered his head, which pissed me off all the more.
"I can't believe you had sex with that asshole! I mean, what the hell were you thinking?” I didn't give him a chance to respond. “You could do so much better. At least you know what you're looking for, and you're not afraid of go out and find it, but next time, find something human."
I stopped and tried to calm down. This wasn't the time to berate him. I'd already done plenty of that during the last few days. I needed to find some way to tell him that I actually admired him.
"People don't have to guess with you. It's not at all like that with me. I can just imagine what your aunt thinks about me right now, and it sure wasn't helped by that ... friend of hers who seems to think I'm a closet sex donkey sodomite wannabe."
"You want to sodomize a donkey?” He turned to me and made a feeble attempt at humor. It was either that, or he wanted to change the subject.
"Don't fuck with me right now. I'm trying to be serious."
"Well, didn't you ever make a mistake?” Jordan started losing his temper, though his eyes were a bit glossy. “Out of all those women you bragged to me that you've been with, never a mistake?” He fought to regain his composure. “How about when you were younger and only had guy friends who stayed overnight? Did you ever get curious? Anyone ever tell on you? Come on,” he pleaded, “level with me. Did you ever experiment with any of your friends when you were a kid?"
"Sure. There was Jimmy, Andrew, Mike, Scott, Randy, Rob, Keith and Craig."
He seemed dumbfounded at the number of people on my list. Apparently, he hadn't expected me to be that honest with him. In any case, it took several long moments before he could put his thoughts into words and respond.
"And it never occurred to you that you might be gay?"
"No.” It hadn't, really. “Should it have?"
"Who are you?” Jordan looked at me like I was one of those pod people from Invasion of the Body Snatchers. I might look and talk like Andy, but I definitely wasn't the Andy he'd come to know.
Little did he know that he was hitting on a question I'd been struggling with for a long time now. However, I'd been putting off answering that question for a long time, too.
I'd flirted with an answer once or twice, but never seriously. Part of me desperately wanted to find out and finally come to some resolution, while another part of me fought that course of action with everything it had. That's why I was in turmoil, and that's why I could never be happy with myself or anyone around me, but I was refusing to acknowledge that, either. It was just frustrating.
"I don't know who I am.” I looked away from him. “I'm not one way, and I'm not another, so I don't know what I am!"
"And that's why you're so confused.” Jordan reached out and gently turned me back around to face him again. “You think it has to be either this way or that way.” He was desperate to get me to understand what he was saying. “Don't you get it? There is no this or that! There's only you, and then everybody else."
"I don't want to be like everybody else,” I countered.
"You don't have to be.” Jordan spoke very softly now. “Why should you have to stop being who you are? Why should you lose your own identity to become like what you see in your mind as everybody else? Don't you think that others would benefit from who you are, what you have to say and how you choose to say it?"
"It hurts to be me.” I was beginning to choke up.
"You think it doesn't hurt to be me? Remember JR? Do you think I'm proud of that?” He looked disgusted just talking about his ex, so I gathered not. “But that's life. We live and learn, but at least I'm out there trying and I'm going to learn by my mistakes. Why should you get off scot-free while the rest of us have to suffer through t
his?"
"Because I'm better off alone."
"You might think you've got it made by yourself, but when those people who are suffering now eventually find happiness in another human being, regardless if it's a man or a woman, you're still going to be at the starting line wondering how they got so far ahead of you. Worse yet, you won't understand what they have, and you'll still be lonely, still be needing. If you have a chance to find happiness, why not take it? Whatever it is ... or whoever."
"Because I don't want to be different!” I screamed, and we both jumped. “Let me tell you something about different—it sucks.” I started to shake. “I went to grade school with a kid who was different. He played with dolls and acted more feminine than what was accepted or considered normal in adolescence. Everybody teased him, including me, and it never stopped, not even in high school. In fact, it got worse.” I grimaced. “It disgusts me to even think about because I was part of the problem.
"Hell, I helped perpetuate the problem by never trying to understand what he instinctively knew and accepted about himself. There's no doubt in my mind that he was and is to this day gay, but that's who I saw in my early years and what I equated all gays to be like. They acted like him, and everybody else reacted like we did."
Jordan didn't say a word. I was hoping he would stop me, tell me that I hadn't done anything wrong because I just didn't know any better back then; but that didn't excuse how I had been acting lately, and he remained silent. How ironic it seemed at this moment that I had been so willfully ignorant in the past and didn't seem to be doing much to improve it lately.
"I never defended him,” I continued, “and I detest myself for that. There were opportunities to help him out, but I took advantage of them to fit in with a much larger crowd who didn't accept me any more then they did him. When I graduated, all I could think about was getting away from them and never looking back. Maybe I couldn't change the past, but I could have at least told him that I was sorry, and I didn't even do that. Instead, I just left and brought the ghosts and problems with me."
"Problems?” he asked softly.
I don't think I knew another human being I could have had this conversation with. Yes, I had problems, only I had never admitted them before. My defenses had stopped that from happening for years, and now I was being confronted by the absolute worst thing a human can be confronted with—himself.
The cards were all on the table. Only the truths of the hand dealt to me from birth were there to be read. No more cunning bluffs. No more lies.
"I never did apologize to you the other day when I said all those things about gays. You were right. I was—am—ignorant, and I've been very cruel to you, even tonight. I'm sorry."
He started to say something, but I raised my hand to let him know I wasn't done. If I didn't say these things now, I might never.
"I also lied to you that first night about having slept with all those women. The only naked women I've ever seen were back in grade school in National Geographic and they were spreading the wings of insects they were going to eat for a snack, not their legs for me to pleasure myself in. I've never had sex ... with a partner, anyway. I wouldn't even know how to attract someone."
"You wouldn't know how?” Jordan looked at me as if I'd spoken gibberish. “Excuse me? That boy, Nate, really liked you tonight. I feel sorry for him, because he's going to be taking cold showers for the next month."
"Please, don't ... don't joke right now.” I fought back a pain in the pit of my stomach. “There's something else I have to tell you. God, this ... I don't know how ... I've been lying to myself for a long time now. I think I just finally ran out of ways to justify my efforts to keep myself quiet.” Tears welled up in my eyes. “It's supposed to be wrong, morally and religiously, yet I can't quote scripture supporting that argument to save my life. It's supposed to be a choice, yet I know it's not a choice."
I looked past Jordan—through him, maybe, and into my past. “It couldn't be, not with what I know and how I feel, how I've never stopped feeling it.
"The only conscious choice I made,” I continued, “was to do absolutely nothing about it. It was never safe to confront myself before, and it's not now, but it's who I really am. When I was slow-dancing with Nate tonight..."
Jordan's gaze dropped for a moment, and I knew he was expecting me to tell him that I'd felt something for my dance partner.
"...the only arms I wanted to be in were yours."
His eyes rose up and met mine.
"I wanted so badly for you to be jealous when I was with Nate that I became someone I didn't like. I didn't have the courage to tell you how I'd started to feel. How could I? I never even had the courage to admit to myself that..."
Here it was at long last.
"I'm gay.” It felt both terrifying and liberating to say, so I said it again. “I'm gay."
"Come here.” Jordan moved closer and gave me a hug.
Perhaps it was the simplest form of expression in the world, but it made all the difference in my world right then. The tears I'd been holding back began to flow, and I was soon sobbing like someone who's just had the weight of the world lifted from his shoulders.
"I want you to know that I understand how you feel right now. You've taken a big step in life. and the first is always the hardest.” He held me tighter. I didn't care if he talked or not because I felt safe for the moment, safer than I'd ever felt before. “It's going to be okay.
"I've known my entire life that I'm gay,” he continued and shuddered, no doubt remembering his own ghosts. “I never told anybody. It felt so natural for me that I never really thought to tell anyone.
"When I got into high school and saw how people who felt like I did were treated, I decided I couldn't stay quiet anymore. It wasn't fair, but I was too naive to realize that it was never going to be fair. I sat both my parents down one night not long after and told them the truth about what I am ... about who I am."
"What happened?” I was finally calming down enough to talk without making all sorts of strange noises. “What did they say?"
I looked at him through blurred eyes. Had they hurt him? Disowned him? It must have been bad for him to leave and not go back or ask for help when things got rough.
"It's not important because this isn't about me. It's about you. I just want you to know that you aren't alone and that things will work out."
If there was any pain in his past, not a single trace of it showed in his expression, at least that I could see. He wasn't going to tell me—if there was anything to tell at all.
"Now I want to ask you something."
I didn't know what he could possibly have to ask. There was nothing left of my life that was much of a secret, and even if there was, I doubt I could take the stress of unearthing any more of my ghosts tonight.
"What you said about dancing with Nate and all? Maybe you're going to think I'm a little arrogant, but you've been hot for me from the start, right? You were just playing hard to get?"
"What?” I pushed him away from me. A little arrogant? “I go through one of the most traumatic experiences of my life...” I took a step towards him, and he took a step back. “...and all you can think of is whether or not I'm hot for you?” We repeated the step thing again. “I bare my soul to you, and all you can wonder is if I've been playing hard to get?"
"No.” He took one more step back. “I also wondered if I'd get a chance to see that ass of yours that seems to have impressed so many people.” He wiggled his eyebrows up and down several times. “Does that count?"
"You are so dead!" I started for him, and he bolted out of the room.
Jordan didn't have much of a head start, so I ended up easily cornering him in the living room. The infuriating part of this was that he was fast, much faster than I was. Just when I thought he couldn't escape, he made a mad dash for the hallway and to the bedroom at the end of it. While it was a clear shot for him, the couch blocked my way. I wasn't about to let that stop me, however. I used it to my adv
antage and, yelling a war cry, simply launched myself off the end of it and tackled him before he made it to safety.
He was too stunned to resist when I rolled him over and held his hands down. I was just starting to gloat when he recovered, brought his legs up and knocked me off-balance. Next thing I knew, we were rolling around trying to see which one of us could get the upper hand.
It wasn't much of a struggle because by this time we were both laughing too hard to put up much of a fight. We ended up in the same position we had been in at the beach, his arms wrapped tightly around my neck, only there wasn't any water under us. Jordan didn't have to worry about being dunked, and I didn't have to worry about keeping his head up as well as my own.
Maybe he planned it this way, but my strength was about gone and I had to lower myself before I collapsed. I didn't want his head to bounce on the ground, so I went down slowly and gently. I expected him to release me once he was safely flat on the floor and then let me fall to the side. That didn't happen, though, and I ended up directly on top of him.
My chest was on his, and I could feel the heat of his body. Something stirred inside me; my heart skipped a few beats then sped up. I looked down at him then, my face surely echoing my mass confusion, and closed my eyes.
A few seconds passed, but it felt like an eternity. It wasn't because it was awkward; rather, it was because I was taking everything in that I possibly could about him—the heat from his body, the smell of his cologne, the feel of his breath on my face. My heart was pounding so hard I thought it was going to come right out of my chest.
I was about to rest my chin on his shoulder, to be that much closer to him, when he let go from around my neck.
"We've been here before,” he whispered.
"Not like this.” I knew what he was doing, but I didn't want it to end. After all the grief I'd given him, and even after I'd told him that I was gay, he was still giving me a way out. If only I could get up the nerve to do what I wanted to. “Not like this,” I repeated and opened my eyes.