“What now?” I ask Dr. V. as I call him.
“You’ve got to decide that for yourself, Calvin, no one else can do that for you. If he’s opening the door to listen to what you have to say, let him.”
“That’s easier said than done, Doc,” I say as I switch ears with my phone.
“Yes it is, it took you nearly three years to tell me everything and even then, I’m not entirely convinced I know it all.” I can hear his determination.
At one point in all of this, he cracked a joke, saying that maybe my revulsion to women was because I was really meant to be with men. That sent all kinds of wild thoughts and impulses through me that sent me running to the bathroom. Needless to say, he dropped that subject and while I was pleased he’d tried to sway me the other way, he felt guilty for igniting a reaction from me. Thereby allowing me to open up to him about everything. Since then, Dr. V, Vincent, has been working with me on my issues, helping me to overcome the fear of intimacy and helping to reverse the impulse of revulsion when it comes to orgasms in general and sex with women.
He was finally able to put a name to what they’d done to me. Conversion Therapy, they successfully converted my homosexual tendencies in an attempt to make me straight. But I still have an aversion to women or maybe it’s just orgasms in general, that was the crux of the joke at the time.
He thought that they’d turned me against sex period, but only to realize that homosexual thoughts and actions had more impact on me than women did, period.
I sigh, “You know more than enough and the stuff you haven’t been told is irrelevant to any form of treatment plan you can concoct.”
“Well, you need to decide what is more important to you. You can decide if being with him is most important or if you want to be with someone else. Women no longer seem to be an issue for you, but I also know that you struggle emotionally with them, so ultimately, is he what you really want?”
“I like to think so. But I can’t say for certain. I can’t allow myself to think about it too much without triggering a reaction. Something I’ve worked very hard to control.”
“You just don’t want people to know,” he counters, and he’s right, I don’t. It’s not so much that I don’t want them to know that I’m pretty confident that I’m gay - well okay, there is that aspect of it too, but that’s beside the point. I don’t need to try and answer a million and one questions about why I seize up, why I throw up or why I freak out.
I continue, “Eric and I have known each other for so long, I’m pretty sure, at some point in this journey, we’ve crossed the friendship lines and I no longer know where those boundaries are with us. Not to mention the fact that I’ve been around him for ten years. I know a lot about him, but I don’t know intimate things about him. Neither one of us has ever dated anyone while the other is around. I never became that friend he confided in when shit hit the fan with whoever he was dating, therefore leaving me a very small window of knowledge on how he’d be intimate with someone. Let alone the fact that intimacy, on any level, scares the hell out of me. It’s nearly impossible to be sexually attracted to someone when you can’t get it up at the mere thought of them.” Dr. V and I have no secrets, he knows everything about the issues I have whenever I fight my converted nature, when I tamp it down long enough to attempt to feel anything. While mentally I can process a lot of it, the physical side of things is nearly impossible for me to achieve. In other words, my dick stays limp.
In an attempt to try and curb the problem I have, turning things strictly sexual, I watched porn once with two bisexual men who had no issues touching one another. I was great, it was hot, I was turned on until the two guys in the video kissed each other. I immediately went soft and ran for the bathroom. Which, even if it is straight sex, it comes up, but I rarely get off.
“What do you think stops you from ‘getting it up’?” Dr. V asks, interrupting my disappointing trip down memory lane.
I can picture Dr. V’s sheepish look on his face as he asks me that question. For being a psychologist, he’s quite the prude. It makes me smile. His clinical talk gets old fast, and I imagine he spends most of his night at home either updating patient notes or playing some random computer game. He’s older, but the eternal bachelor. I would imagine it’s not easy dating a doctor of his caliber and he seems like the type that would have given up on it for the sake of his own sanity. In short, he’s a pretty big geek.
“The pit that forms in my stomach the moment I let my mind wander in that direction. Sometimes the nausea isn’t so bad, but it’s usually enough to kill an erection.”
“Have you ever tried to imagine him as a woman?”
“Uh…” I raise an eyebrow at myself in the mirror hanging on the wall across from me.
He chuckles, “Not literally, but when you look at a woman and you become attracted or aroused by her, what is it that turns you on?”
“I’m not sure I know how to answer that.”
He chuckles again. “Well, next time you look at him, put him into the context of which you would apprise a woman. See if you can get or keep that erection. If you can, then it is a step in the right direction.”
“Baby steps,” I mutter. “I’m tired of baby steps.”
“Calvin, so much of what you’re feeling is truly 'mind over matter'. Yes, your repulsion is a conditioned response, but much like you did with women, you can overcome this too,” he says confidently.
“I wish it were that easy.”
“It wasn’t easy with women, was it?”
“In a way, yes.” I don’t elaborate.
“How so?”
I sigh into the phone and fall back onto the bed. Eric left to run an errand, giving me the chance to call Dr. V without interruption from him. I hate having to run away just to make these phone calls, but when you’re only hearing half of it, they can sound pretty fucked up. “Because a woman is a natural partner.”
“Ahh, but is a woman a natural partner to you?”
I take a deep breath and let it out slowly, “No.”
“Then what’s natural about it? Because society tells you that you should be with a woman?” I nod, realizing where he is going with this. “Because your father thinks that you shouldn’t be with a man?” That question is followed by a pregnant pause, one filled with a promise of more to come. “Who cares?” Dr. V says softly, he knows he’s breaking down that boundary, that barrier within me. “Your father certainly doesn’t and society is a bitch you can’t tame on your own. Society is what it is, Calvin. Just because they may not agree with it, doesn’t mean it should stop you from finding happiness. It doesn’t mean that you can’t be with who you want to be with.”
I screw my eyes closed. I can feel the wetness pooling. I don’t need to cry over this, fuck, why do I have to feel this knot in my heart, this gaping hole. I rub at my chest, hoping to soothe the ache.
“I think you need to decide, for you, who it is important to. Who will care? When you’ve done that, once you’ve decided that the people who matter to you aren’t going to care about who you’re with, then and only then, can you start to let go. You were told that being gay is the ultimate taboo. You were shown some of the most unimaginable things in order to program your brain into liking and loving women. You were shown things that truly do not exist, not in today’s society. Not in today’s world.” He takes a deep breath and continues, “Calvin, there will always be haters, there will always be right-wing nut jobs, religious groups, and people in society who disagree with being gay and I agree that once out, it won’t be easy for you, but that is a bridge you burn when you have to. Not before you’ve even cleared the water from the river to start building it.”
I can’t respond to him, my mind is running a million miles a minute. I know deep down, in my heart of hearts, that he is right. Because I’ve been conditioned to believe that being gay is bad - that’s putting it mildly - it’s hard for me to let go of all the pressures of what I think society would tell me to do. But just bec
ause my mind agrees with the right-wing conservatives, my heart certainly does not.
After some time passes without saying anything, Dr. V breaks our silence. “You have to tell him. Telling him will put him in his place, either beside you or behind you. If he’s beside you, he will help you, support you, and he will be there to stand with you. Hell, he may even stick up for you, but he needs to understand where you stand, what you feel, how you feel and where it is you want to go from there. If he doesn’t know and he crosses the line, crosses into the place you cannot go, he needs to understand why.”
“He has to know it isn’t him,” I interrupt.
“Yes, but he won’t know that if you don’t tell him. He’s going to think it is him and that you don’t want him.”
I sit back up on the end of the bed. “Yeah, I know. I just…fuck, I don’t know how to tell him.”
“When the moment is right, you will. I can’t tell you when to do it or how to do it, just that you need to do it. What about talking to someone else, someone you trust?”
“That’s a mighty small list, Doc,” I tell him with a humorless laugh.
“Try that first. Try it on for size, see if it fits, then decide.”
“Yeah, alright. Thanks, Doc.”
“Anytime. You still coming in during the break?”
“Yeah.”
“Think about this, don’t reject the idea so quickly, actually think about it…”
“What’s that?”
“Bring him with you. Talk here, talk in front of me.”
I start to object, but Doc interrupts, “Think about it. It’s neutral, it’s safe, and lastly, I can help you explain some things that you might not understand yourself.” His voice goes distant and he tells someone something. “I have to run, my next appointment is here. Think about it.”
“Yeah, alright,” I tell him and we hang up. I toss my phone into the chair and put my head in my hands, allowing my vision to morph to something unreal, something dreamlike, the fantasy…the one where sex doesn’t hurt so much.
“WHY are you hiding over here?”
I turn in the direction of the voice and watch as Talon leans against the railing next to me. This probably isn’t the best place to carry on a conversation. We’re in a bar after all, but when Talon wants to talk, there isn’t any place off limits. That’s the amount of tenacity that he has. Then again, his motivation and drive have gotten us this far in our careers and that means he’s someone you listen to, no matter what.
My eyes leave Talon and like a homing missile, they find him once again just as he throws his head back laughing at something the guy sitting next to him said. “Just people watching,” I tell him.
“People or Peacock watching?”
My eyes dart to his. “Am I that obvious?” I ask, bringing the beer bottle to my lips and sucking down more than half of it. Our eyes never look away from each other.
“Yeah, maybe a little. More so to me, I think, than anyone else.” Talon finally breaks our eye contact as he looks down over our group of people. The bar itself isn’t packed, but it’s not empty either. Just enough to mix into the crowd. “So Raine flew back to Los Angeles last night,” he says out of nowhere. I want to roll my eyes because I know he won’t say anything more on the issue, he’s waiting for me to say something, but the news surprises me.
“Well, that explains Dex’s dickwad attitude.”
He snorts, “She didn’t even say goodbye.”
“Ouch.” I shudder at the thought of being abandoned.
“Pretty much. He’s pissed off because he can’t go running after her.”
The waitress approaches us and hands me another beer. Talon orders one for himself and off she goes. “She means that much to him?” I ask skeptically.
Talon shrugs, “Yeah, I guess so. He’s been in a foul mood since leaving Atlanta.”
“He’s dealing with a lot. I can’t imagine being Raine and discovering all this bullshit about the guy you're with.”
He shoulder checks me. “I’m pretty sure she knew what she was getting into but Dex doesn’t see it that way. He thinks that he has to protect her from his past and that’s not something he can do, no one can.” He turns his back on the railing, I think he’s going to leave but he leans back against it, resting his elbows and overlooking the small crowd behind us. We’re elevated above the main floor and the rest of the band, but there isn’t a lot going on up here, which was why I came up here in the first place.
Talon succeeds at something he’s done best since we met; his quiet questions. He’s waiting for me to start talking. My eyes land on Eric and the guy he’s sitting with. The guy is definitely his type, well, all except for the fact that he could probably squish the wannabe with his bare hands, or step on him. My fingers flex around my beer bottle as the guy leans in and whispers something in Eric’s ear and I can see the faint blush spread across his cheeks.
“If he makes you so jealous, why aren’t you down there talking to him yourself?”
I grind my teeth in frustration. “If it were that easy, don’t you think I would be?” I mutter then ask him, “Do you ever look at someone and all you can see when you look at them is something that can only be described as ‘home’?”
“Every damn day,” he grunts before turning back around. “Every time I look at either one of them, that’s what I feel.”
“But you’re with them.”
“I am, but looking back on it now, I felt it the moment I rounded that corner and she was standing there, before you, as a matter of fact,” he tells me.
“But did you know immediately that’s what you were feeling?”
“Aw, hell no. I just knew I saw something I wanted, but it took me a long time to realize that what I wanted wasn’t something I could dispose of the next day. It was…it’s hard to describe…”
“No, I get that,” I cut him off. Thankfully the waitress returns with his beer and another for me. I quickly down the rest of mine and replace the fresh bottle with the old.
When the waitress leaves, Talon wastes no time in continuing the mini-inquisition he has going on. “If that’s what you’re seeing, why are you sitting up here watching him talk to…”
“Because it’s easier this way,” I say through gritted teeth.
“I highly doubt that.” He turns toward me. “Listen, I can’t pretend that I understand it because honestly, I don’t. A part of me always thought that you were waiting for him to admit it to himself,” he tells me.
I can’t deny his statement. “In a way, I think I was,” I say cryptically before sipping my beer.
“So he’s out and I know you’re not oblivious to how he feels about you.” I give him a sideways glance, drinking more beer. “That’s what I thought.” He swallows down the last of his. “So if you know how he feels about you, I can’t imagine anything in the world that would continue to keep you away from him.”
“Did Addison send you up here?”
He snorts a laugh. “Nah man, it’s honestly what I see when you two look at each other. There is something there, something I can’t quite explain because I’m not sure I understand it myself, but you know how sometimes you just know when something is meant to be?”
I don’t respond to him, I can’t. I’ve never been able to talk about my past with him, or anyone for that matter, and I’m not about to start now. “I have my reasons for keeping my distance.” Dr. V’s words come creeping back into my brain about social norms and society and I start to wonder if that is really what is keeping me away from it all. Not to mention the fact that if I was to finally tell someone about my past, if it wasn’t Eric, it would have to be Talon. Kyle and I are not that close, and well, Dex is a jackass and he makes no secret of that fact. While I’m confident that he could keep himself in check if it came to a heart to heart, he’s far from the first person on the list that I want to spill my guts to.
Talon shrugs, sets his beer on the table next to us, turns to me and places his hand on m
y shoulder. “Maybe it’s time to re-evaluate those reasons, brother. You should know that no one in this circle will ever judge you, or him, for your choices. Not me or Kyle - how could we? Certainly not Dex, he’s not oblivious to this either. We all love you and we love Eric, there is no judgment here.” He gives me a gentle squeeze before shoving off. I down the rest of my beer while I watch Eric and his new friend stand up and head toward the back of the bar.
“Damn it,” I grumble to myself.
“Hey there.” I turn to the voice interrupting me and find myself looking into the brown eyes of a gothic wannabe with a cute smile and hooker red lipstick.
“Hey yourself,” I tell her as she steps up closer to me.
“Wanna dance?”
I smile at the escape presenting itself, the piece of attention I need to stop myself from dwelling on what Talon’s just said to me. “Sure,” I tell her and take her hand.
I zip up my fly and leave…shit, what’s his name? Fuck, it doesn’t matter anyway. I leave him in the handicap stall of the men's bathroom. He had no problem kneeling before me, but anytime I tried to start anything, he shoved me off, so I gave in and let him suck.
Disgust washes through me. Why the hell do I do this shit to myself? Oh, yeah, because it’s my piss poor attempt at making him jealous. Piss poor because it never fucking works.
I round the corner and freeze when my eyes lock on him from across the bar. He’s sitting at the bar with some tiny trying-too-hard goth standing between his legs, kissing and licking on his neck.
What wouldn't I give to be that tongue?
Give it up…he doesn’t want you.
Fuck you…
My head and my heart begin their nightly argument. The inner war is getting old. The constant tug and pull from one direction to the other is nearly too much for me to handle anymore and walking into that bathroom served three purposes. The obvious, getting off. The next obvious was to make him jealous, and then the least obvious is my pitiful attempt at forcing myself to get over him and move on. A battle that has been playing out for months, if not years.
Defining Us: The Calvin & Eric Story (69 Bottles) Page 3