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A number of you have expressed an interest, in your kind emails, in discussing the story with me. While I do enjoy the fan letters, discussion is difficult to do via email. Instead, I invite you to log into the Nifty Chat Room. You can get there by going to the Nifty Welcome page, clicking on Chat Rooms then clicking on the Nifty Chat Room. Since my first visit there about a month ago, I have found it to be peopled with an unusually friendly, diverse, intelligent group. There you will find a variety of readers and authors of stories published on the Nifty Archive. We range in age from 12 to 70. We are male and female. We are gay, straight and bi. Our only rule is that we be courteous to each other. Our topics range from the trivial to the traumatic, our tones from silly to serious. It is an excellent venue in which to discuss all things, including the plots and themes of stories with their authors. You will find me there many evenings out of the week, under the nickname TightServ. I would be delighted to chat with you about anything except the serial comma.
Chapter 31: The Name of the Rose
Adam retreated to his bed to read a magazine while Dan joined me on his.
"Anything you want to ask me before we get into it?" he asked, stripping off his clothes before lowering himself onto me.
"Nope," I sniffled, still spent, weak and teary from the outburst. Why did you transfer here?
"You sure?"
Why did you just put me through that? Why can't I use my hands? What's going to happen next? Are you gay or straight? Are you going to still be interested in me when the camp is over? Why can't I ever predict what you're going to do? What's your relationship to Adam? Who is hotter - you or Adam?! When snow melts, where does the white go? How do they get the teflon to stick to the pan?
"Yup," I said, "no questions I want to ask." Not all restraints are physical, I was realizing. Not all bondage required ropes.
He lifted me up to remove my T-shirt. I passively let him, sniffing occasionally to keep the emotional run-off from escaping. When it was free of me, he brought its bottom hem to my nose.
"Blow."
What the hell. It was a ratty old shirt anyway. I cleared for him. He threw the shirt on the floor and removed my shorts. He lay back and wrapped me in his arms while I shivered lightly. It was cooler, I realized. The heat had finally broken in the storm.
He was lying on his back and had placed me on my side, draping me over him.
My head rested on the pillow of his deltoid while with his near arm he stroked my back and drew me into him. My arm was bent and nestled under me, but my other hand was able to lie freely on his chest. It began to explore.
Dan allowed it. It traced the patch of hair between his pectorals. It felt the strength of the muscles beneath his skin. It learned the curves of him. His free hand slid down to my hip and below, pulling my knee up to rest on his tremendous erection. This rotated my hips in, grinding my own stiffness into his thigh.
He turned to look into my eyes, still red and puffy.
"You feel what you do to me? You feel how hard I am?" Bringing his free hand up to my face, he brushed the tip of my nose as one would in an endearing gesture with a child.
He had said this before. He had said it on a number of occasions. Was this Dan's way of telling me? Was this how he communicated that I, in my way, was affecting him as completely as he was me in his way? How could I be? I was not doing anything. And yet the tender caress of his hand on my back - the look in his eyes! There was caring there. Tremendous, layered, complex depths of caring. Dan was putting me through hell. Of that there was no doubt. But he was doing it in response to some fundamental fondness he had for me. Dan was playing out the quest for the satisfaction of his need as completely as he was playing out the gratification of mine. There was balance here, I understood for the first time. There was parity. Shivering again in the ecstasy of closeness, I pressed my knee into his dick. He tightened his hold on my back.
We lay there looking into each other's eyes, seeing each other, discovering wordlessly each in the other what we needed for ourselves was there, ready to be taken, ready to be shared. It was the most intimate moment of my life. Dan's free hand came to the back of my head and pulled me into him. But he did not kiss me. Rather, he extended his tongue and languorously, slowly, licked the tears from my cheek in one broad swipe.
I came.
We lay in each other's arms after the racking convulsions subsided. It was like no other orgasm I had ever experienced. Gone was the haunting sensation that something was missing. It was complete. Dan again lazily began to run his finger through the congealing cum and fed me it. I sucked his fingers, and enjoyed my empty-headedness. I was not deluged with thoughts. I was not thinking up questions or answers or puns. There was no committee meeting in my brain. I was...what was it? Relaxed?
"The reason I came here was to work with Johnston," Dan said quietly. "But the reason I left where I was was that a girl accused me of rape."
I looked at him and blinked.
"You can ask," he said.
"Did you do it?"
"I don't know. I think so."
"Were you drunk?"
"No. Sober."
I looked at him and waited for him to continue.
"I was just beginning to understand what I liked," he said slowly, haltingly. "It freaked me out. I ignored it for a long time. Then I met this girl. We started to get it on. I thought she understood what we were doing. I thought...I thought she was into it. I wasn't...So then when she started saying no, I thought...you know...it was part of it. I kept going."
Dan was beginning to have difficulty speaking. I was having difficulty listening.
"So it wasn't like I went out to rape some girl. If I...If I had known what was going on, I would have stopped. I thought...She had said she fantasized about it. I had said I fantasized about doing it. I thought it was a scene, you know? I didn't know shit. If I had known...So, yeah. I didn't know I was doing it, but yeah. I think I raped her."
"You said you didn't like scenes." I didn't know what else to say.
"Yeah, well that's why."
I lay on him in silence, amazed by my reaction. No - amazed by my lack of reaction. If it were a month ago, I would have been overcome by reactions. Feminist Mark would have been outraged, instantly condemning. There are not shades of gray, he would have thought. Rape is rape, an act of violence pure and simple and eternally unforgivable. QueerPower Mark would have been equally outraged because it had been with a woman - QueerPower Mark was outraged by bisexuality in general. No, QueerPower Mark was merely outraged in general. PsychMan Mark would have been flooded by questions. PublishOrPerish Mark would have been flooded by answers. But the Mark that lay there was empty. He let the information enter him and merely exist. And the last Mark - DetachedSelfObservant Mark - was too amazed by the other's silence to focus on anything other than that.
"Well?" Dan asked.
"Well what?"
"No snappy retort? No little witty dagger?" His accent had begun to accentuate. It came out as 'witidaga'.
I shook my head.
"Say something."
"What do you want me to say?"
"Something. Anything."
Nothing came to mind, and I just looked at him.
"How do y'all feel about it?"
"I don't know, Dan." It was the God's honest truth.
"'Course y'all know. C'mon. Out with it." His voice raised a little in annoyance.
"Lighten up, bud." This from the other side of the room. Adam had put down the magazine and had been following our conversation. "You just got finished telling him he didn't have to have the answer to everything."
"That was different," Dan returned testily.
"Maybe so," Adam said, calmly shrugging his shoulders, "maybe not."
Dan frowned, displeased. I'd certainly never experienced a golden glow like this one before.
"I gotta clean up," he said. "I'm takin' a shower."
"You want me to join you?" I asked.
"Naw. You hang out." Gone was the incredible intimacy of not five minutes before. Gone was the intense closeness that had allowed me to cum with only pressure against his thigh as an aid. This man with whom I had just had a depthless, wordless conversation was now distant and peeved.
Dan got up, wrapped a towel around himself and left. Adam continued looking at me with the magazine on his waist.
"You okay?" he finally asked when I didn't say anything.
"Confused," I replied.
"Yeah, I can see why."
"You knew about this?"
"Of course," he said.
"Do you think he raped her?"
"Doesn't matter what I think."
"What does matter?" I asked.
Adam flexed his jaw in thought for a moment. "What matters, Mark, is that a year ago, his answer was, 'No, I didn't rape her,' and now his answer is, 'Yeah, I probably did.' What matters is that he told you in the first place. What matters is he understands how not to do it again. What matters is you didn't make a joke, or come out with some fucking eight-syllable word. What matters is you guys just connected."
"We did connect, didn't we?!"
"Yeah."
"Sometimes he makes me feel like I'm nuts. We did connect! But then 2 minutes later, he's totally distant again."
"He's learning, too, champ. Cut him some slack."
"Huh?"
"He's learning as he goes just like you are."
"He is?"
"Of course."
I was astounded by the suggestion. Dan was learning as he went? I had just assumed he was...he always knew...I don't know what I had assumed, I realized. But it wasn't that he was some kind of dom top in training.
"That's not very comforting."
"Why not?"
"I'm kind of putting myself in this big position of trust, here. It's not very comforting knowing he doesn't know what to do. It's like hearing the doctor say, 'Oh, goodie! My first operation!' just before he puts you under."
Adam laughed. "S'okay," he said, "he knows what to do. He just needs to practice a little. And don't sweat it. Ya got the senior resident on call."
I was beginning to glimpse something important. Something important about Adam and Dan. But Adam went on, and it was gone.
"So you learn together. You both make mistakes. You both forgive each other. So what? Welcome to the real world."
"It's like coming out all over again."
"Yeah," Adam said, "I s'pose it would be."
"Do you know how much that sucks? Coming out is a fucking pain in the ass!"
"Glad you did?"
"Of course!"
"There you go, then."
My lord. Adam and I were having a real conversation. How was this possible?
"Look, champ," he said, "you're both going through a lot of change. Change is like childbirth. There's all this hidden growth, then one big catastrophic event."
"Cataclysmic," I said in shock.
"What?"
"One big cataclysmic event. That's so incredibly strange! My advisor says that all the time."
"Really," said Adam. "That is strange."
We looked at each other in silence for a while.
When Dan came back, he didn't want to play. He apologized for his mood swing, which, after Adam's disclosure, shouldn't have surprised me but still did. I went back to my room, showered, and fell into bed. I can't ever remember sleeping more soundly.
Friday dawned clear, blue, crisp and gorgeous. The birds sang, the grass and mud began to dry out, and everyone's mood elevated appreciably. At breakfast, the boys were back to their old selves.
"It's about fucking time the weather was nice," Doug said over his plate of pancakes, eggs and nitrites. How could someone who looked so good eat such shit? The rest of the boys took much more care with what they ate, I had noticed.
"Yeah," said Brad, "my tan has, like, totally faded. Maybe we can catch some rays. What say we call in sick?" The boys laughed. They were used to not having tans. It was one of the many prices of devotion to their sport. That they all came to the camp golden was a fluke of timing. They had had a week off between finals and their arrival.
"When's Sam coming?" Matt asked.
"Sam's coming?" Adam echoed.
"Yeah. Sometime today. He said dinner, but you never know with him. When you ask when he'll be somewhere, he'll tell you exactly. 2:49. You're lucky if it's within a couple of hours either way. If it weren't for Sharon, he wouldn't have..." Woops.
"Is Sharon coming too?" Adam asked. God bless that boy. He didn't miss a beat.
"Naw. Just Shmu."
"Shmu?" asked Steven. "A whale is coming?"
I laughed. "Shmuel. A friend of mine."
"And God heard," said Eric.
There was silence at the table, as, I realized, always happened the moment Eric mentioned his Good Friend.
"What?" he said, innocently. "That's what it means. Shmuel means, 'God heard,' like, 'and God heard my cry for help.' It's a biblical name."
Conversation resumed easily when the boys realized he was adding, not provoking.
"Names mean things?" Doug asked. "I thought they were just like...I don't know. Names."
"Yeah," said Matt, "all names mean things. Like Doug means 'dufus' in Swahili."
"At least I wasn't named after something you walk over," Doug said.
"Look out!" Steven exclaimed delightedly. "Score one for Doug!"
"Matthew means something like 'present'." Matt said.
"Gift of God," Eric answered. "Matthew means 'gift of God'."
"What's Sam doing here?" Dan asked.
"More like who's Sam doing here," Doug chided.
"Fuck off," Matt said, laughing. "At least I don't get pussy juice all over the back seat."
"Yeah," Doug grinned, "she was a wet one, all right."
"Oh my GOD I didn't need to hear that!" I protested. Even Dan smiled.
"You know why girls have two holes?" Brad asked. "So you can pick 'em up like a six-pack." The boys laughed uproariously.
The workout went better, too. The boys seemed reinvigorated in their practice. Lunch was passed in equally easy banter. By the afternoon Eric had mastered the routine on the high bar that had been giving him such trouble, Steven was nailing tumbling combinations he had never gotten before, Brad had actually worked up a sweat, even Adam was red hot. It would be a fun night in the commons room.
Shortly before the workout ended, Shmu appeared in the doorway. I waved, and he made his way to my perch in the stands.
"Hey, Pinky!"
"Hey, Brain!"
"You make it up all right?"
"No probs. Nice setup ya got here." He looked out over the gym floor. "You got a fucking smorgasbord going."
I laughed. "Yeah, they're pretty callipygian."
Shmu laughed right back. "Supercalli-whogy-what?"
I smiled at him with fondness. "Why did we ever break up?" I sighed.
"'Cause you're an obsessive, over-analytical freak, and I'm a lazy, do-nothing, ignorant slob. Remember?"
"Oh, yeah."
"Who's that?" Shmu asked, pointing.
"His name is Corey. Hands off."
"Yours?"
"Hardly," I scoffed. "That's not why you're here."
"Right, right. Matt. Yeah, he'll be fun."
"You be careful with him. He's a baby fag."
"Nice. My favorite."
I turned to look at him. "Look, Shmu, I'm serious. Be careful. He just came out. I was his first doubleton."
"Total crush?"
I nodded. "That's one of the reasons I called you. I don't want this one to be hurt, and there's only one cure for what he's got."
"The Shmuster!"
I laughed. "Well, I was thinking more generically, but yeah. You two are perfect for each other. Give it a chance, will you?"
"Heeeeere I cum to save the daaaaaaaaay," he sang, "Mighty Shmu is on the waaaaaaay."
I laughed and punched his arm playfully.
"I'm serious," I said. "And I really have missed you."
"Got it, captain. Shmu be careful."
When the practice broke, I walked him over to Johnston and introduced them.
Johnston had agreed to his coming earlier in the week, all the more quickly when he recognized the name. I had no idea Shmu was that good, or that well-known on the campus, or that the coach of one sport might know the players on another sport's team. I left the two of them talking shop while I attended to my tasks in the locker room.
At dinner I made introductions to the rest of the boys. Shmu, of course, was an instant hit. A fellow jock in a sport which has universal appeal among that odd breed known as the American Heterosexual Male, he shared their outlook and their sense of humor. And the boys were bored with each other. Shmu was that most important ingredient in any camp: he was new meat. Naturally charismatic, he was instantly one of them. I liked him too much to be jealous.
After showing him my suite after dinner, we retired to the commons room. We entered as Doug was finishing a story.
"So she fucking took out her teeth, right? And she's holding her teeth in her hand, and she says, 'well then, how about I do it like thith?!'" The boys burst into laughter so hysterical I thought one or two would wet themselves.
"Tell her to call Heywood," said Brad through the tears of laughter. "He could learn a thing or two." The hysterics increased to breathless gasps and table pounding.
They were playing their own variation on quarters - a drinking game. As alcohol was banned at the camp (despite my small stash) they had transformed it into a gambling game. In turn, each player tried to bounce a quarter off the table into a cup at the table's center. If it missed, it was placed into the cup. If it went in, the player took all the money from the cup. Shmu and I were invited to join. We sat down opposite each other.
"So you guys work out every day?" he asked as Drew bounced his quarter, overshooting the cup by half a foot.
"Half days on Sundays," answered Doug while lining up his shot, "but other than that, yeah." Doug hit a rim shot, missing by a hair.
"Robbed!" he exclaimed. Brad positioned his quarter in his hand, adjusting its angle.
"No days in the weight room?"
"We work weights in as we need it," Evan said, "but it's an individual thing. It's not like the whole team spends a day there." Brad missed, and Dan took his turn.
"Oh," Said Shmu. "We spend a shitload of time in the weight room. A day out of every three at the start of camp. Builds up strength." He pounded his chest like Tarzan to illustrate his point.
"We do all right in that department," said Dan, having missed in his turn. I took one of the quarters from the pile of three I had found in my pocket and lined up a shot. It went in the cup without even touching the rim. There were murmurs of approval from around the table. I took the change from the cup and added it to my pile.
"Yeah?" Said Shmu. "How much can you bench?"
Evan took his turn. The quarter bounced off the other end of the table, was retrieved and placed into the pot.
"Enough to do the job," Dan said, smiling.
Matt concentrated on his shot, his tongue curling up the outside of his upper lip as he negotiated the angle he wanted. He struck the table with the quarter, which bounced vertically into the air and landed on his own hand. There was general laughter around the table.
"And what's enough to do the job?" Shmu asked, goading Dan in an entirely friendly, jockish way. "I wouldn't ask, you know," he added, smiling, "but it's not like you guys are in a real sport, or anything."
The entire table burst into raucous response - the very effect Shmu was looking for. I found myself detached, again. They all knew it was a joke coming from Shmu. If I had said it, half of them would have taken great offense. Why was that? What was there about the brotherhood that allowed them to interact so? When did they learn the rules? Before the summer, I had always assumed it had to do with them being straight and my being gay. But Matt was gay. Shmu was gay. And they were members of the secret order.
And I was athletic. It was not just that. Was it being a member of a team that did it?
There was no anger in their replies - bravado, challenge, humorous attack, campy self-deprecation - but no anger. When the commotion died down, Doug said to Dan, "looks like you're going to have to show him."
"Show him," added Matt. The others agreed readily, and a small chorus of 'show him's' formed.
"Show me what?" asked Shmu.
"They want me to lift Mark," Dan said smiling. There was joy in his eyes. He was truly enjoying this exchange.
"Fuck," Shmu scoffed. "Mark is like a fucking mosquito. Anyone could bench Mark."
I thought about responding, but didn't feel, somehow, it was my place. This was a conversation among The Boys. I was not one of The Boys. I didn't know their language.
"Not quite bench him," Dan said. "Y'all think you could lift him?"
"In a second," said Shmu.
"Okay," Dan said. "How 'bout this? A little bet. I lift him. Then y'all do it the same way I did. If y'all can, you win. If y'all can't, I win."
"Fair enough," Shmu said. "What's the bet."
"Name it," Dan said. "Y'all're the guest."
"Twenty bucks?"
"Twenty it is." They each dug a twenty out of their wallets and put it on the table.
Dan found a patch of floor in the center of the room in which he could spread out. He lay on his back, bent his knees, and planted his heels eighteen inches away from his hips. He adjusted a little, aligning his body, making sure his hips were where he wanted them.
"C'mon over, little man," he said. Fully aware of the irony, I was dubious, at best, at the idea of allowing myself to be used as Dan's dumbbell. But this was between Dan and Shmu, and I was as curious as the rest of the boys to see how it would play out. I walked over and stood beside him.
"What do you want me to do?"
Dan put his arms on the floor stretched out over his head, elbow straight, as if he were signaling a touchdown in football. His T-Shirt lifted a little off his shorts, exposing his navel and a bit of his treasure-trail.
"Stand with your heels in my palms," he said. I walked back to where his hands were extended, and began to step into them.
"No, turn around. Face me." I turned around.
"Just stand on your hands?"
"Yep."
"Okey dokey. What ever you say." I stepped onto his hands. Facing that direction, with my heels in his palms, the balls of my feet extended over his wrists. His fingers wrapped around the pads of my heels, and he took a few cleansing breaths.
"Keep your knees a little bent," he said. "Don't lock 'em. Use your arms for balance, if you need to. You trust me?"
Realizing what Dan was intending to do, Shmu said, "you can't be fucking serious!"
Dan smirked.
"Yeah," I heard myself saying, "I trust you."
Dan took a deep breath and pushed the air out. A second deep breath, and his upper body turned into a dynamo. Every muscle from his waist up bulged as I began to be lifted off the ground. His face turned a deep crimson as he controlled the hiss of air that he let escape while he raised me. His armpits, cavernous to begin with when he lifted his arms over his head, became bottomless as the edge of his pectorals all but met his latissimi dorsi. Up I went, slowly, a little shakily. He clasped onto my heels with force, and while I fought somewhat to retain balance, on the whole it was a relatively smooth ride. Before I knew it, I was high in the air atop his arms, which were fully extended, perpendicular to the floor.
"Holy fucking shit!" Shmu exclaimed breathlessly. "That's un-fucking-believable!"
"Jump off," Dan said, his breath having returned to normal once his arms had become vertical.
I hopped down, landing with my legs on either side of his waist.
"That was pretty cool," I said. I turned and gave Dan a hand to help pull him up off the floor.
"Your turn," he said, smirking at Shmu.
"No fucking way, man," Shmu said, holding out his hand to shake Dan's, "you win. You're a fucking freak!" Dan shook his hand and laughed.
"Not quite. Doug, you want a go?"
"Sure," Doug said, and began to make for the open area of floor.
"You can't be fucking serious. He can do it too?"
"Sad news for you, guy," Dan said. "We all can." The boys nodded nonchalantly. "Still think it's not a 'real' sport?"
"Man," said Shmu, "It's like Cirque-de-fucking-Soleil! Naw, you win. I take it back." He clapped Dan on the back and returned to the table. "Un-fucking-believable." Dan pocketed the forty dollars.
The quarters game broke up and the night wore on. Ten o'clock found Matt and Shmu sitting together in a corner of the room talking quietly. Their body language was classic first-date.
I leaned over to Dan. "Can you all really do that?" I whispered into his ear. "The lifting thing, I mean." The tumblers among them were strong, but that strong?
"Naw," he whispered back, "just me. I am a freak." He winked at me, causing me to burst out in laughter.
"You mind if I stay with you tonight?" I asked quietly. "Looks like my room's gonna be busy."
"I was going to suggest it, actually," Dan said. "I got plans for ya, little man."