Defining Us: The Calvin & Eric Story (69 Bottles)

by Derrick, Zoey

  “IF it’s me you want, then you have got to let me help you.” Eric doesn’t hesitate.

  “I don’t know how,” I tell him. “I know in my head and in my heart that you are what I want, Eric. You’ve been what I’ve wanted for a long time. I thought that if I just ignored it, just didn’t do anything about it, that I could move on, that you,” I say with emphasis, “would move on and that we would have never had to have this conversation.”

  “I can’t help how I feel about you,” he tells me in a whisper as he sits down in the chair I was just sitting in. “I’ve tried, trust me.” His voice is soft, almost comforting in a strange way. “I’ve done everything I can to force myself to move on.”

  I cross my arms over my chest. “No, you’ve tried like hell to make me jealous, and let me tell you, it worked every fucking time. But fighting to make me jealous isn’t getting over me, Eric, fighting to make me jealous is simply your way of forcing me. If you honestly believed that making me jealous would lead you to someone who would magically make you get over me, you didn’t have much success; you still want me.”

  “And I’ll never stop,” he tells me.

  “Why?”

  “Because you don’t give up on those you love.”

  “If you love someone, you set them free,” I counter.

  “Is that what you want me to do?” His eyes meet mine and I drop my hands in defeat.

  “Sometimes yes and other times no.” I raise my eyes to him. “You have to understand that this is deeper than being in my mind, Eric. This is physically something I don’t know how to handle. It defines who I am. Sure, I could get into women and get over it with women, but with men, with you? I don’t know if I can do that.” I take a deep breath and go back to pacing. “Being with a man is exactly what I was conditioned to believe was the utmost form of blasphemy. It’s everything I was conditioned to ignore, to hate.” I’m practically growling by the end. “I can’t just fuck it away. I can just rinse and repeat until it no longer bothers me. There is always going to be something, somewhere, in the back of my mind that tells me that what I am doing is wrong.”

  I watch as he leans forward with his elbows on his knees. “If it is what you want, how can it be wrong?” His question is innocent and not one that I have an answer for.

  “I’m not saying that I believe it’s wrong, it’s what has been ingrained in me. Even after all these years, never acting on the impulses I felt about being with a man, it still makes me sick.”

  “Has it ever occurred to you that it’s fear that is making you sick and not the desire itself?” he asks.

  “I’m not sure I’m following you,” I tell him because I don’t know that I get where he’s going with this.

  “Well, think about it for a moment. You were raped, forced against your will to do unspeakable acts. Has it occurred to you that your fear is because of that? That you feel like being with a man will be like that?”

  His questions make me stop pacing, and though I can’t look at him, I’m hearing everything he’s saying.

  “Have you ever watched a gay porn? Or seen examples of real relationships?”

  “Talon and Kyle.”

  I see him shake his head. “That’s a little different. But when you see them together, how does that make you feel? Do you think that what happened to you happens with them?”

  “I try not to pay much attention to them. I guess I’ve never really tried and I can't imagine that what happened to me is happening between the two of them.”

  “Okay, so what if we positively reinforce the nature of two men being together? What if we…I don’t know, what if you let me show you that it’s not like that, at all.”

  I shrug. “I’ve never considered that before.” Which is the truth.

  “You’ve never had anyone to help you consider that before. It’s like I said, you had women to help you get over some of your fears, your issues with orgasms, things like that, but you’ve never had a man to help guide you, to show you what it can and really is like.”

  “Have you?” I counter.

  “No, but I know how to treat people. I know the things that I want from a relationship and I know how I want to be treated. The foundations of relationships are all the same, Cal, whether it is with the same or opposite sex. Love is love, no matter what body parts we have.”

  I take a seat on the couch across from him, my desire to pace fades away as my mind wanders into the things that he’s talking about. About how it shouldn’t matter to me, physically or mentally, who I’m with. Then Dr. V’s words about mind over matter come back into focus and how if I apply myself to this idea, I can change it, I can make it work for me. “This won’t be easy, Eric.”

  I look at him and he gives me a reassuring smile. “I just want the chance to try, Calvin, I want the chance to help turn this around for you, to redefine you. And I honestly think that we need to start with Dr. V. We need to go to him, separately or together, or both. I know that I am nowhere near capable of handling this by myself. I need to know what I can and can’t push with you, how I can push things, when to push things.” He runs his hand over his hair. “My biggest fear right now is pushing you too far too fast. Like earlier, my attempt to help you turned disastrous and I need to know how to avoid that happening in the future.”

  “I don’t know how you can help me,” I whisper.

  “That’s why we need Dr. V. If you’re truly ready and willing to commit to this, to working through this, I am here. But the bottom line in everything is that you have to be willing to do this for yourself. You have to want to make these changes. Until you know that, without a doubt, that you’re committed to better yourself, we can’t go further than we are right now.”

  “Jesus, when did you become so fucking psychological?”

  He snorts a laugh, “Good question. I don’t know, but I do know that I want you, I want to be with you, in every way.”

  “I’m not worth it,” I breathe.

  He smiles at me and states, “I beg to differ.”

  “You’ll see, Eric. You’ll see that I’m not worth the headache of trying to fix.”

  His smile grows a little bigger. “That is something I don’t believe to be true.”

  “You’ll see, I promise, you will change your mind about all this,” I tell him, though the confidence in the statement is gone, thereby negating its intended reaction.

  “I’ve had eight years to get to the point that no matter what you told me, it wouldn’t change how I feel about you.”

  I don’t say anything, what can I say to that? If the deepest, darkest part of who I am isn’t enough to scare this man away from me, then I should have nothing to fear, but yet I am shaking because I’m petrified. “I’m scared,” I admit so softly that I’m not sure he’s heard me until he stands up and skirts the table to kneel in front of me.

  He captures my eyes with his and that lost and found feeling returns with a vengeance. “I will do everything I can to protect you.” His hand comes to rest on my thigh. A comforting touch that I welcome. “The hardest part of all this, right now, for me?”

  “What?”

  “That I desperately want to kiss you.” My body tenses under his gentle touch because of the words that he’s spoken. “But I know that I shouldn’t.”

  “I can’t.”

  “You can, and you have, but see the part where I’ve failed in that scenario is that I’ve been the one to lead that charge, not you. I think that is something you have to do for yourself.”

  “I don’t know how.”

  “You do. It’s no different than kissing anyone else, Calvin. Just because it’s me shouldn’t change your capability of doing something,” he says softly.

  “But it does.”

  He gives me a small, sad smile. “I know.”

  Hesitantly and with shaking fingers, I reach for his cheek, pushing a limit. Just because I have to see how it feels. See what his skin feels like under my touch. The warmth, the stubble of his bea
rd against my palm. He doesn’t move, he waits patiently until my hands finally connect. I let out a rush of breath as my fingers slide along his cheek until my palm rests under his jaw, his face in my hands. There is electricity flowing between us, a passion igniting within me that is starting to take over my body, amplified when he leans into my touch and closes his eyes.

  “I’ve waited so long for this,” he whispers as he snuggles further into my touch. His hand comes up to cover mine, holding me to him. I don’t want to let him go and for the first time ever, I don’t have to let him go and that idea scares me enough that I pull my hand away. “What’s the matter? What’s wrong?” he asks quickly, his eyes flying open to assess me.

  “Nothing.” I squint my eyes in thought. I can touch him. I touched him. I held him in a way that wasn’t friendly, but romantic. “I…I don’t know how to describe it.”

  “Are you in pain?” he asks somberly.

  I look at him, our eyes meet, my face relaxes, my mind finds peace and quiet for the first time since I can remember and I shake my head slightly. “As a matter of fact, I…Eric, I just touched you and…and I didn’t get sick, I didn’t…nothing happened. I’m sorry, but I’m in shock. I’ve never…” I swallow hard, “I’ve never touched anyone like that before…I’ve never felt anything like that before.”

  “Like what?” His voice is soft but excited.

  I smile. “Desire,” I breathe.

  His answering smile could light up a room darker than hell and for the first time in my life, I actually fight my urge to kiss him. I fight… “I have a feeling I’m going to regret this,” I say hastily as I cup his face between my hands, and without thinking about it, I bring my lips to his, hard and desperate. I feel the recoil in my body, but I fight to ignore it, sliding my hands down his neck, onto his shoulders as he moves his lips against mine.

  Electricity, desire, repulsion, confusion, hope…it’s all there in the taste of his lips, the brush of his lips against my own.

  My body starts to shake against my will and I shudder as confusion, excitement and repulsion play war inside my mind, my body. My hands tighten on his shoulders and he grunts in pain. I push him back and pull away. “Shit, shit…I’m sorry.” I pull my hands from his shoulders as I take in his face, contorted in pain.

  “No, no…don’t be. Don’t…damn it, I wish you hadn’t stopped,” he finally manages to say.

  “I was hurting you.”

  He smiles. “A pain I will gladly take any day if it means I can kiss you like that again.” I feel his hand gently squeeze my thigh, letting me know that he’s still there, he’s still with me. “I don’t want to ruin this moment, but…I’m afraid to go much further. I don’t want to push you beyond what you can handle, I don’t want to ruin this moment between us.”

  He stands up and I can’t help but notice the bulge in his pants and sadness washes over me as I realize my kissing him turned him on, again. And once again, I find myself soft as ever.

  “What is it, Cal?” I can’t meet his eyes. I can’t find it in myself to look at him.

  “You should probably go,” I tell him.

  He doesn’t say anything, he doesn’t have to. I can feel his frustration filling the air between us. “Not until you tell me what’s wrong.”

  “I’ve told you so much tonight, Eric, I don’t know if I can tell you this. Can we please just drop it?”

  He sits back down on the coffee table. “No, we can’t. Talk to me.”

  I contemplate the consequences of telling him versus not. By not telling him I’m protecting him from something that will become a very real topic of discussion. Telling him may be the straw that breaks the camel’s back and my last chance to push him away completely. Despite how I feel about him, I haven't wrapped my head around the idea that he wants to help me, that regardless of what I’ve told him, he’s still here. Jesus, he hasn’t run screaming for the hills.

  “Cal?” I hear him, but I can’t answer him.

  Fuck, he’s…damn it, I can’t…I want to fucking cry in frustration right now. I don’t know what to do.

  “Calvin.”

  “What?” I snap and look at him.

  “Whoa, come on, you checked out on me. What’s wrong?”

  Because I can’t say it out loud I stand up in front of him, and it’s enough to draw his attention downward, then back up to my eyes. “That’s what,” I say before stepping away from him.

  “I’m confused.” he says, “Please just tell me.”

  “I kissed you, I fucking kissed you and for the first time in my life the desire and hope I felt outweighed the revulsion, the instinct I have to throw up all over the place and yet it still wasn’t enough.”

  “Calvin, I’m confused.”

  “It wasn’t enough to get me hard,” I say through gritted teeth and he looks down at his own crotch and back up.

  “Shit, Cal, I…fuck, I can’t help it.”

  I grab two fists full of my hair in frustration. “Argh. I know that. I know you can’t help it, I know I turn you on, I know that you want me and I…I can’t even get a goddamn erection from it. I can’t even…please, just go. I can’t do this anymore tonight.”

  His face falls, defeat all over it and in his body language. “We’re not done. I won’t let this come between us. You didn’t get hard? So what, Calvin. I was half hard when you kissed me because I was so fucking excited that you actually put your lips on me, a thousand times more excited because you didn’t throw up all over me. I cannot help that I got hard when the person I’ve longed to kiss for years was finally kissing me. So what if you didn’t get a damn hard-on, Calvin, this is not a goddamn race here. I don’t fucking expect you to turn off all the shit you’ve been through in one night. I don’t expect you to just fall to your knees and start sucking my cock and I certainly do not expect this to just magically happen between us. It doesn’t work that way. But damn it, you cannot get pissed off at me because I got a hard-on from kissing you. If you do that, this will never work between us.”

  “Please leave,” I breathe.

  “No.” He shakes his head.

  "I'M not leaving." His voice is unyielding.

  My entire body is trembling, but I can't tell what is winning out, fear and nerves or excitement. "I'm not worth all this trouble."

  I watch as his hands fist once again and he slowly rises to his feet. The phrase ‘if looks could kill' comes to mind. "Do not ever say that to me again."

  "Think about it, Eric. Think about it really hard because this is not going to be an easy journey. I am not just magically going to be physically okay with all this. Because believe me, Eric, I've tried. I've tried so fucking hard over the years to just wash it all away; throw everything to the wind and walk right up and wrap my arms around you." My body starts to shake harder, sweat forms on my brow and my stomach churns as I think about all the times I so desperately wanted to do those things to him. I swallow hard as he watches me closely.

  "It's happening right now, isn't it?"

  I wrap my arms around my stomach and cower into the wall behind me. "Yes," I breathe.

  "Why? You're there and I'm here."

  I just shake my head as I swallow hard. Panic overwhelms me as I worry that I'm going to make an ass out of myself by becoming sick. I just tap my head, trying to convey to him that I'm thinking about him, thinking about what I've just said to him.

  "You're thinking?" I nod in answer. "About what?" I point to him. "Thinking about me makes you sick."

  I let out the breath I was holding in and mutter, "Imagining." I swallow again and clear my throat, attempting to dispel the raw acid feeling. "Kissing you," I breathe.

  "But you just…"

  "I know, I know I just…but I…" I swallow hard once more.

  "Jesus Cal, you're white as a ghost." He takes a step toward me, then another, I begin frantically shaking my head back and forth as dinner starts creeping up my throat.

  "Don't, god." I cover my mouth and he freezes,
backing away from me.

  "I will never hurt you, Calvin." His voice is laced with anguish.

  "I believe you," I tell him as the churning in my stomach settles down when he takes a seat on the couch. "You don't scare me, Eric, you've never scared me. Please," I beg him, "Please never think that you scare me, because you don't. God, this is going to sound so fucking cliché, but it's not you, it's me."

  I watch as he rolls his eyes and shakes his head in my direction.

  "This is what you're going to have to deal with, me - fucked up. I don't know what will trigger it, what will cause me to feel this way and I sure as shit do not want you to have to witness this. Eric, it's not fair to you."

  "But it's my choice."

  "No, Eric, it's not."

  He stands up again and I slink back into the wall instinctively though it's the wrong response. I watch as fear and pain wash over his features as he takes in my body language. "Oh, but it is," His tone is menacing, but I feel the depth of his conviction and it slides over me like a warm breeze. "You say this isn't going to be easy, and I believe you. I'm sure there is a mountain of shit you haven't told me about what happened to you and I certainly have no fucking clue how to even start helping you work through this, but Jesus Christ, Calvin, we have too much history - too many fucking years between us. If you think I'm just going to walk away from you, run screaming in the other direction, I assure you, you have another thing coming. I have not waited this long to learn about what haunts you to just walk away from you."

  "Jesus, Eric, I'm not something that you can magically put back together. It won't work like that. But this is also my choice. My choice whether or not this goes any further. It is my choice to realize and understand that every time I see fear or worry or pity in your eyes that you don't have to be here. You don't have to watch me go through this, and for what? For you? God dammit, Eric, I would walk through hell barefoot for you, but I cannot and will not put you through this. All this pain I know I am going to cause you, is it worth it?"

  I watch as a smile tugs at the corner of his mouth, his hands unfurl themselves as his body relaxes. I watch as his eyes well up with unshed tears, tears of pain that I know I've caused him. My heart wrenches at knowing I'm already causing him so much pain already. Pain shoots like lightning through my body, zapping me in ways I never thought I could ever feel. I would take a dozen shattered cheekbones over witnessing this pain and my inability to comfort him crushes me. "Go home, Eric."