Do You Trust Me?

by B. G. Thomas

  What do they say about preacher’s daughters? Jack wasn’t the daughter of a preacher, but the principle was the same. Jack was a sex fiend. If he wasn’t lying, he’d lost his virginity at twelve. And he loved to tell me the stories. In detail. Stories that gave me all kinds of fuel for my late-night masturbation. But in my imaginings, there were no girls around. Just me and Jack.

  Jack couldn’t stand that I was a virgin, and he decided to take care of it. He got us double dates with a couple of girls who had reputations for being wild. Their reputations were valid. At their instigation, we got to playing this strange board game they’d gotten from Spencer’s. To Jack’s delight, it was a sex game. You moved your pieces around the board and rolled dice and had to do what these little cards told you to do.

  One of those cards said that one of the girls (I can’t remember her name) had to kiss the person sitting across from her. That turned out to be the other girl. To our surprise they laid a lip-lock on each other that made Jack howl with joy.

  “Oh my fucking God!” he shouted.

  Several drinks later, and halfway through the stack of cards, half our clothes were off—the game demanded that too—and I was both terrified and excited at the same time. My erection was plain, but that was okay. Both girls were in their underwear and one had just, without blinking her eyes, taken off her bra.

  But then one of the girls drew a card where she could make any two people kiss. She chose me and Jack. When he told her there wasn’t any way he was going to do that, she—I think it was his date—declared that was “No fair!”

  “Wha’ do you mean?” he slurred. The beers were kicking in.

  “I kissed her,” she whined, pointing to her friend.

  “You want me to fucking kiss Neil?” He laughed.

  “Uh-huh,” she said, her voice dripping with sex, before she stunned us by dropping her hand to her crotch and rubbing herself through her panties. Above that, her breasts jiggled, and her nipples got hard right in front of us.

  Jack looked at me, looked at her, looked at me again, and then looked at her hand. Before I knew what was going on, he’d leaned over the game, grabbed me by the back of my neck, and pulled me into a quick kiss. I was hardly aware it had happened, but my cock grew even harder, and I began to leak so heavily it left a wet spot on the front of my khaki shorts.

  “Too fast,” Jack’s date protested. Donna. Her name was Donna.

  Too fast, my mind echoed. Way too fast!

  “Tough shit,” he said and gave me a look I had no idea how to interpret.

  There were no same-sex kisses for several rounds, and by then, both girls and I were in nothing but our underwear. Jack was the only one still in jeans.

  “He’s so hairy…,” said Donna’s friend—my “date.” And I feel so bad that I cannot remember her name.

  I blushed. How often had I thought about shaving my chest?

  Jack looked at me and then down at himself.

  “Is that a good thing or a bad thing?” he asked, and I nearly cringed waiting for her answer.

  “A good thing,” she all but panted.

  Jack laughed and then looked at my chest—a little longer than I would have expected. It made things happen… down below, and I shivered. “I guess it’s a good thing you’re with him, then, huh?” He laughed again and told Donna to draw.

  Donna read a card and somehow, suddenly, the girls were kissing like they were auditioning for a lesbian porn movie. Jack “whooped” through the whole show, and I could see the bulge in his jeans was straining to burst from its confines. He even had his own wet spot now—and that was through denim.

  When the girls ended their kiss, Donna turned to him, eyes flashing. I could see the “I dare you” in those blue eyes. Her hand was working inside her panties, and Jack moaned in excitement.

  “Kiss him,” she gasped.

  “Huh?” he said with a groan.

  “Kiss him.” And she was working that hand in earnest now. She brought it out and licked her fingers, and without a word, Jack spun on me, grabbed me, and this time the kiss was no quick peck. I struggled for only a second and then melted into him, my heart slamming inside my chest. When his mouth opened and his tongue demanded entry into mine, I let him in without hesitation. It was the most exciting thing that had ever happened to me in my life. My head was swimming, and I could taste the beer on his mouth and feel the stubble on his upper lip against mine like sandpaper, and it was exhilarating. I thought I would have an orgasm without touching myself. I heard moaning, and it was only when Jack finally pulled away I comprehended it was me.

  Jack’s eyes were dark, his pupils huge as he stared into mine. “I think Neil liked it,” he said. He turned to our dates. “Don’t you, girls?”

  “Fuck, yeah!” said Donna. Her hands were still playing inside her panties. Her friend was rubbing herself as well.

  “I think you liked it too,” he told my date. Anne. It was Anne. Or Annie….

  “Hell, yes,” she exclaimed. “Gay sex is fucking hot!”

  “How would you know?” he asked her as I sat there in a daze.

  “We snuck one of her brother’s gay magazines,” Donna said, pointing to Anne/Annie, “and looked at the pictures of the dudes doin’ it.”

  Jack’s eyebrows shot up. “What’s he got stuff like that for?”

  “’Cause he’s queer, you dumb shit!”

  Jack’s eyes darted back and forth between their crotches. “That works you two up, doesn’t it?”

  “Oh yes,” Donna all but shouted. “We hid and watched her brother and his boyfriend fuck once. It was so damned hot. Got me so goddamned horny we fell out of the closet. Shocked them good! God, I wanted to jump in, but neither of them wanted me. I even offered my ass.”

  Jack’s eyes grew huge. “Your ass? You’ll take it in the ass?”

  I couldn’t believe the look on Jack’s face—pure lust. Like he’d died and gone to heaven.

  “I might,” she said teasingly, drawing the two words out forever.

  “What would I have to do to be able to tap me some of that?” he demanded.

  “Suck his cock,” she said without hesitation, pointing at me.

  He laughed. “You want me to gobble my buddy’s dick?” His voice was incredulous. He looked at me, and there was electricity sparkling, crackling in his eyes. His face was flushed.

  “God yes,” Donna said.

  “You know neither of us is a fag, right?”

  “That makes it even hotter,” said Anne/Annie. “Straight men doing it? Oh. My. God!”

  “What do you think about that, buddy?” He looked at me. “She wants me to suck your crank.” Jack turned back to her. “I suck his cock and you’ll let me fuck your butt?”

  Donna grinned. “I want to taste his cum on your mouth when you kiss me,” she said.

  “You want me to take his cum?” he cried. “I ain’t fuckin’ doin’ that!” Funny thing was, Jack looked anything but disgusted. He still looked pretty damned excited to me.

  “Baby,” she said, “you do that for me, and I’ll do anything you want.”

  “Anything?” Jack said.

  She grinned lasciviously. “Little pervert like you? I bet you got all kinds of nasty fantasies.”

  His eyes got even wider. I could see the wheels in his head spinning. “Will you lick my crack?” he asked. It was almost a gasp and a whisper at the same time. He was practically drooling.

  Me? I couldn’t move. It was like all this was happening to someone else.

  Donna nodded vigorously. “Oh, yeah.”

  “You’d do that? Lick my asshole?”

  “No problem! In a fucking heartbeat.”

  Jack moaned and, to my shock, he was on me like a pouncing animal. He shoved me back, ran his hands roughly through my chest hair—Anne moaned at that—and tore at the crotch of my underwear, letting my rigid erection spring into the open.

  “Oh, yeah, look at that!” said one of the girls. “So hot!”

>   “Jesus, dude.” Jack reached out and grabbed my cock. I thought I would have an orgasm on the spot. “This thing is huge,” he said, and I looked down just in time to see him take me in his mouth.

  I nearly screamed in pleasure. I’d never felt anything like it. Jack’s mouth was so wet, hot, and tight, and he worked me like a calf sucking its mother’s teat. The girls were urging him on, and that only seemed to inspire him. To my shock, Jack was moaning. He seemed to like what he was doing! In seconds, I was ready and tried to warn Jack, but I couldn’t speak. Then I was unloading deep into his throat.

  At first, I don’t think he even knew what was happening. He’d nearly swallowed my cock, and I was shooting well past his taste buds. He must have figured it out, though, because he suddenly pulled back, and I finished shooting all over his face and my chest and belly.

  “Fuck, man,” he said and began to spit. Despite that he looked at me, his eyes flashing. “Wow, Neil. You could’ve warned me.”

  “I’m—I’m sorry.”

  Eyes still flashing, he began to wipe my cum from his face.

  “No, don’t,” Donna yelled and she was on him faster than he’d pounced on me, licking at his face.

  I fled.

  I pulled on my clothes and was out the door faster than any race I’d ever run in track.

  What happened next ensured I was never with another man again.

  “What did happen?” Amy said.

  “My mom tried to kill me,” I whispered.

  “What?”

  I nodded, unable to say it again.

  “Jesus,” said Amy.

  “Don’t even fucking say His name,” I barked.

  Amy flinched at my words. “Wh-why?” She was rubbing my back. “Tell me, babe. What happened?”

  I felt my eyes well up with tears again. Damn. I was some big fucking baby, wasn’t I?

  “Neil?”

  I closed my eyes, fought back the tears, and wondered if I could answer her question. I had not told this story in twenty years. It was something I didn’t like to think about, a memory I didn’t like to recall; of course, the memory was always there.

  I took a deep breath, let it out, took another. “I went home,” I finally said. The hair on my arms was crawling as I continued. “I walked in the door, and she was fucking waiting for me. She’d pulled up a chair right in front of the door.”

  “Oh my God.”

  “Somehow she knew. She just knew. She stood up and did this sniffing thing. She said, ‘I can smell it on you. Beer. And sex. And man. I can smell his stuff on you.’” I shuddered. “She knew.”

  “My Go—” Amy said and then stopped herself.

  “Then she walked up to me and said, ‘You can’t shake it, can you? The demon named Homosexual. The demon that makes you want men.’

  “I remember stepping back, telling her I was sorry and I’d do better, that I wanted Jesus to love me and I didn’t want the demon. And you know what she said?”

  Amy let out a sob. “Tell me, babe.”

  “She said it was too late. She said Jesus couldn’t save me. That He didn’t love me anymore. She said she was going to help me and told me it was better I was dead than live like that. And then she came at me with a knife.”

  “Neil! You can’t be serious.”

  I nodded. I was serious all right.

  “It’s like something out of that movie Carrie,” Amy cried. And she was crying. “Why didn’t you ever tell?”

  “I told Em. She told your parents. That’s how I got to stay with you all.”

  The look of shock on Amy’s face was priceless.

  “So I guess Em didn’t tell you everything?” I said.

  “I guess not.” She sagged like a puppet with its strings cut. “Jesus.”

  “I asked you not to say His name.”

  She looked back at me. “Why?”

  “Because I rejected Him. He’s supposed to be our savior, but He let that happen?” I shook my head. “No. Screw him! I gave Him up. Mom said He hated me and I was going to Hell. So why should I have anything to do with Him?” I shook my head again. “I don’t know how I got out of there without her stabbing me, Amy. Adrenaline, I guess. Like you see in movies. Or read about where some mother lifts a car off her kid. Time slowed down. She was moving in slow motion, and I grabbed her and slammed her for all I was worth against the wall. And then I ran. And I left Him there with her.”

  “Oh, Neil.” Amy shook her head. “I don’t think He hates you.”

  “She disappeared,” I said. “She moved away, and I never saw her again.”

  “Oh, Neil,” she said again and laid her head on my shoulder. “I had no idea.”

  Neither of us said anything for a while, and then she said, “And Em knew about all of this?”

  “Some of it.”

  “Oh, my friend.” She sighed. “My dear, sweet friend. No wonder….”

  “No wonder what?”

  “You’ve made the choices you’ve made.”

  I pulled away. “What’s wrong with my choices?” I asked, anger rising inside of me. “Could I have had a better companion than your sister?”

  “N-no,” Amy said.

  “I miss her!” I cried. “Your mom says it gets easier? Well maybe. But not really. I miss her every fucking day. She was my best friend. I still forget. Something happens at work, and I want to call her and tell her. I see a movie preview on television and I think, Em would like that. A button comes off my shirt, and I realize she’s not there to fix it, and I know it will take me an hour to do what she would have done in a minute. I miss her. And I don’t regret the decision I made to be with her. Ever.”

  “I didn’t mean that, babe. I just meant….” She looked at me with those huge blue-green eyes.

  “What did you mean?” I snapped.

  “Oh, sweet Neil, if only—”

  “If only what?” I shouted.

  She flinched again, and a part of me felt shame.

  “If only your mother hadn’t been like she was. If she’d been accepting, your life would have been so different.”

  “Is that a bad thing?” I cried. “If I’d become some homo, I wouldn’t have had Em. Or Crystal. Or this family. You wouldn’t be in my life. Would you want that?”

  Amy sighed. “And all those things are good things.”

  “So what, then?” I was almost crying once again, and I hated it.

  There was a long silence again, and just as I thought Amy was never going to answer me, she said, “I wonder what it would have been like if the two of you had just been best friends….”

  “Huh?” I asked her. What did that mean?

  “Do you miss her friendship? Or do you miss her as a lover?”

  The words stunned me.

  I looked at her then, my soul aswirl with emotions.

  And confusion.

  “Wh-what’s the difference?” I asked.

  “There doesn’t have to be,” she replied. “But I wonder if it’s time for you to have a lover. I wonder if it’s time for the person who shares your bed to be everything that you need and not just a friend.”

  “What are you saying?” I asked, the confusion mounting. “That what Em and I had was a waste? That it wasn’t good enough?”

  She shook her head. “No. I think maybe it is exactly what you both needed. Like I said before. Em and I were very different. What she wanted more than anything in the world was friendship and companionship. She was never really into sex. Maybe a bit more than you, but she never regretted what the two of you had. And you?” She shrugged. “Like you said. If you hadn’t gotten together there would be no Crystal. And no us.”

  She laid her hand on mine.

  “But now? Now I think it’s time for you to have more. And you aren’t going to get that with a woman, Neil. You owe it to yourself.”

  I didn’t know what to say.

  “She wanted you to be happy, Neil. That was what she had made up her mind to tell you. That as long as she ha
d your friendship, she was happy. She wanted you to have what she couldn’t give you. She knew you needed to be with a man.”

  Stunned.

  I was stunned.

  “She loved you, Neil.”

  In a blink, I was crying again. Damn it! I was some big old fag, wasn’t I?

  She pulled me into her arms once more and… and it felt good.

  It felt like how it had felt when I was very young and my mom would hold me, back before Pop left. Before she found Jesus big-time and filled the house with His pictures and made sure we went to church every Sunday morning and every Sunday night and every Wednesday night. Before she forced me to go to church camp and so many other things.

  The moment with Amy was magic beyond magic. I was a little kid being held against a mother’s breast. Safe. The way it was supposed to feel. Safe. Not scary. And not the tiniest bit erotic. Not one bit. And I told her so.

  “Neil,” she finally said, “I don’t want to hurt you, but surely you know your mother was sick?”

  I wanted to protest, but how could I? Of course Amy was right. My mother. She had been sick. Mentally unwell. And it took being held by a mother, by a real mother, to finally admit it to myself.

  My mother was insane.

  Instead of it hurting, like it had hurt for so long, the acknowledgment did something inside of me. The pain… lessened. Because the problem had been hers… not mine. Could it be that simple?

  “Neil?”

  And Amy’s words.

  She said I needed more than friendship. She said I needed to be with a man.

  Was she right? Part of me wanted to fight it… but then I realized that part was my mother.

  Because I did want more.

  I did want a man.

  I had tried to convince myself—for the most part I had—that friendship was all I had ever needed. That it didn’t make any difference what package it came in, what kind of body, that love surpassed that.

  But as I thought about Cole….

  Dear God….

  What he did to me with a simple look.