Chapter 10: Analysis
The next morning, I asked Johnston if I could take the morning off. I told him I had some errands to run in the town. He gave me the green light, so long as I could set the boys up first.
After breakfast, I took my position at the laundry, exchanging what needed to be exchanged, handing back work out clothes which had been cleaned, and distributing towels. This done, I went, as usual, into the gym to await Johnston's okay to get going. I surveyed the floor. Brad was working the pommel horse -- his weakest apparatus. Matt was on the parallel bars, being instructed by Johnston. My eyes scanned. Adam was on the rings, hanging, perfectly still, upside down. Agonizingly slowly, his body, completely layed out, rotated to horizontal in a strength move called a planche. He locked into position, his body perfectly straight, perfectly parallel to the ground, his upper chest and shoulder muscles perfectly straining and perfectly defined. Satisfied he had held for the requisite three seconds, rather than breaking the move, he remained horizontal and, in seeming effortlessness, raised his head and looked up. He was chewing gum lazily. His eye caught mine, and, with a smile, he winked.
Fuck this, I thought, totally unnerved. I'm not waiting for Johnston.
I stole into the laundry room, and found one of Adam's used unis, and a jock. Placing them in a Ziploc bag I had brought, I put them into a knapsack, and made for my car.
The ride to the town was therapeutic. As the miles between Adam and me increased, I found myself beginning to relax a little. The wink was the topper. Hi, I'm doing something that competition level bodybuilders aren't strong enough to do, but I still have the energy left over to ridicule you. Hope you appreciate it. This boy was too much. But long as it was, his dick was still too short to fuck with me! I had a few tricks left up my sleeve.
So Brad blew him, but he fucked Corey, huh? That interesting factiod kept turning over in my mind. Did that mean anything? Did Adam just like Corey's ass better? That seemed wrong. They all had spectacular asses, each and every one of them. Was it because Corey was youngest? There was possibility there. Was it just a coincidence? That didn't feel right either. My guess was that whether or not he consciously understood what he was doing, nothing that he did was by coincidence.
Finding myself in the center of town, I pulled up to the post office. I slipped the Ziploc bag from my knapsack into one of the overnight delivery envelopes, sealed it, and addressed it. Fuck you, I thought. Fuck you, fuck you, fuck you.
Next I stopped at a phone booth, and called a friend I had who was getting her degree in organic.
"Sharon," I asked, when she picked up the phone?
"Hi, Mark," she said, "where you been?"
"I got a gig for the summer in the mountains. Look, I have a favor to ask of you. A big one."
The university had a forensics lab, and Sharon was a genius at molecular isolation. I explained that I had found a candidate for alpha male, and that I thought that there was something chemical going on. I needed an analysis of a sample. She hedged. I pleaded and promised a six pack and a mention in the thesis. She demurred. I begged and promised a bottle of champers with a credit in the thesis. She agreed.
"Thanks," I said, biting my lip, "I'll send the package out to you in the next post."
"What do you want me to look for?"
"Anything. I don't know. Anything that's out of the ordinary that's organic. Keep an open mind, and just tell me what you find."
"You know, your little 'I don't know' added about a day and a half to my work."
"I'll make it Dom," I said. She laughed.
"Christ, am I so cheap?"
My errands done, I got back in the car and headed toward the camp. It was lunch by the time I arrived. I got my food from the service line, and brought my tray over to the table, where the boys were already half done with their meal.
As I was passing behind him, temporarily holding my breath, not looking at him, Adam spoke.
"Hey, champ." His tone was neither competitive nor insulting. If I didn't know him better, I would have called it friendly.
"Hey," I said back pleasantly, not looking at him. "Hey, I got your number," I didn't add, "hey, le roi est mort." Instead, I sat and smiled at the boys.
Doug was complaining about the fact that there was to be a workout on Saturday.
"Fuck, man," he said, between mouthfuls of mashed potatoes, "it's not bad enough we gotta work in the summer, now we gotta work Saturdays too?"
"Yeah, man," said Matt, imitating Doug's plaintive whine, "next thing you know he'll want to make us work Sundays!"
"Yeah," Doug groaned in angry agreement!
"And then," Matt went on, not missing a beat, "he'll make us work Mondays!"
"Fuckin A, man!" He was totally sincere.
There was a beat of silence before the rest of the boys cracked up in unison at Doug's righteous, if misplaced, indignation. Brad lost the milk he was drinking through his nose. Even Adam smiled.
"You're too easy, amigo," Matt said, laughing, "you gotta give me a challenge." Doug grinned sheepishly, having realized his mistake. The two punched knuckles in the classic bonding ritual.
I spent the afternoon in the laundry happily catching up on the work I had let slide from the morning. Whistling, I fancied myself one of the Seven Dwarves. Perhaps the Seven Dwarves updated. Sleazy, Skanky, Whorey... Which would I be, I wondered? Foxy? Brainy? I changed the paradigm. No. More like a superhero. I am WinsInTheEndMan. See him turn the tables on aggressors, and bring them to their knees! I am QueerPowerMan. See him take it to the evil StraightTradeMan, and, with nothing but his rainbow flag and a copy of the DSM III, analyze him into submission! The afternoon flew bye.
I rejoined the boys at dinner.
I sat across from Drew, who smiled when I joined the table.
"How ya doin' Heywood?"
"What's with the Heywood," I asked back, perplexed. Steve had called me Heywood the day before. Drew smiled, and looked at his food.
"It was Matt," said Brad, pointing his fork in Matt's direction, and never, it seemed, at a loss to discuss things freely. "He named you 'Haywould' after you got me off the first time."
"Heywood?"
"Yeh. Djablowme."
"Pardon?"
"Heywood Djablowme, dude. Get it?"
I got it. The boys laughed heartily except Corey, of course, and Matt, who blushed and focused on his hands.
After dinner, I went back to my room, and fixed myself a drink. It had been a busy day, and I had to unwind a little. I sipped half of it over the beaten up paperback edition of Marquez' classic tribute to unrequited lust I had brought along. But even that did little to soothe me. Feeling as if 100 Years of Solitude might have been a better choice, I found myself restless and needing some air. I determined to take a walk.
Nights in the mountains are special. Used to the city, I had forgotten the sheer number of stars that pocked the sky. It was cool without being uncomfortable. The air was thick with pine and clover. I took the jogging path that circled the compound. It was dark and meandering, but at least I wouldn't get lost on the mile long circuit. The trees crowded the trail, covering it in an arboreal arch. There were eyes, but they were benevolent. A 'possum and I startled each other. I apologized. The 'possum, haughtily, did not, withdrawing, instead, back into the wood. The promenade drew me on.
Halfway around, the trees opened where the path edged a pond. The vista was tremendous. I had seen it in the daytime before, but never at night. The clarity of the air and closeness of the cosmos were breathtaking. Below that, the pitch silhouette of the mountains. Below that, the inky stillness of the pond. Below that, the broken line of the grass at the near shore. And on that grass, lying, splayed out and asleep was...
...no one.
But that would have been a great place to come across a sleeping hunk, I thought, wouldn't it? If only life were cliche. He would be the man of my dreams. Alas, it was not to be.
And who was the man of my dreams? I returned to this, the perennial question. He had Brad's easiness and charm and joie de vivre. And the wonderful combination of intellectualism and raunchiness of John, an ex, who, alas, had moved away before I was old enough to understand that I should follow him. He'd have a great dick, of course, and an unabridged Oxford. Beautiful face, beautiful heart, beautiful soul. There would be tenderness and sharing; there would be play and foreplay. And there would be something else. Something unnamable. Something which, despite my best endeavors and years of therapy, would not show itself to me. Something my superego always had always kept hidden.
Wondering where he was, and when we would, at last, find each other, I fell asleep under the beautiful blackness that cradled the canopy of stars.