[DISCLAIMER: The following completely fictional story, the sole copyright for which belongs to the author, contains explicit depictions of sexual intercourse between men and should not, therefore, be read by anyone under the legal age of consent in whatever jurisdiction or by anyone offended by homoerotic and/or pornographic material. It is forbidden to post the text electronically or disseminate it in any manner without permission of the copyright holder. The author-- park517@aol.com -- welcomes comments]
Doctor of the Heart - Chapter Eight
"Earth to Yves, earth to Yves." Some giant bird was digging its talons into my shoulder. "Come in, Yves. Or should I say, come to?" The bird chuckled. I opened my eyes to find my brother-in-law Larry leaning over me, smiling, with his hand still on my shoulder. "It's past 10:30, Leonardo. You've missed breakfast. At this rate, you might miss lunch, and some people - like your mother - are worried about the last supper."
"Hi, Larry," I said. "It's nice to see you."
"It's nice to see you, too," his eyes wandered over my body, making me uncomfortably aware that I was naked, on my back, and completely on view. "Very nice, if you don't mind me saying so. Thank God, you're not the womanizing sort, Yves. You'd be really tough competition."
"I thought you weren't the womanizing sort, either. At least not any more." I sat up and swung my legs over the side of the bed. "Didn't you promise Ceci to 'cleave only unto' her?"
"That doesn't mean that I can't empathize with straight males who haven't gotten lucky yet. Unlike you." His eyes went to the other bed in the room, still neatly made. "I'm glad you and Tommy are together again. I really like him. We all do. And your new friend, too, the Bear of the Balkans."
"Where is Tommy?" I got to my feet, deciding that I didn't have to correct Larry's assumption as much as I had to get to the bathroom. "And Mitya?"
"They're teaching the twins to play chess," Larry joked on his way out the door. "Yves," he turned, "it really is nice to see you. This is going to be a great weekend."
He was right. It was. The weather was Camelot-like. It only rained at night. Larry and I tried to teach Mitya to water-ski from a standing start at the dock and would have given up until Ceci whispered some tip in his ear that did the trick. My attempt to sketch Rifat in profile also worked out. Mitya stayed dry-eyed through the whole session and told me when I finished that I had given him back his memory.
Best of all, once my father and Uncle Benoit showed up Friday evening, my mother stopped behaving like a coquette every time she was close to Mitya. Benoit, of course, had been to Montenegro. He'd been everywhere, and he was delighted to talk Balkan politics with Mitya even if - they both agreed - the quarrels there were insoluble and had been since the Ottomans took Constantinople in 1473, after which the Venetian Empire ... and then the stupid Hapsburgs ... and Woodrow Wilson ... They delighted one another, but bored the rest of us silly. Even Tommy.
Friday night, lying on the floor to watch another of Tommy's vintage movies, I was surprised when he not only took my hand in the dark but ran his knuckles up and down my forearm in light caressing strokes off and on during the film. And later in the cabin, as I was about to follow Mitya into the big bedroom, Tommy held me back.
"Yves, just a minute. There's something I want to say."
I put my forehead on his, an intimacy that we had used years before to show that our attention - and in those days our love - was undivided.
"Yves, I just wanted to tell you that I'm happy."
"Oh, Tommy, so am I. And I'm so glad that you are, too. We've always had good times here."
"It's not just this place, Yves. It's you. I'm happy because I'm here with you."
"And my family. They love you, Tommy. Just this morning..." I wanted to tell him that Larry had thought we were sleeping together again, but Tommy cut me short.
"You're trying not to hear me, Yves. I said that you're the one who makes me happy. I love you, Yves. I'm sorry, but I have to tell you that I love you. I don't think I ever stopped loving you or that I ever could."
"Oh." I felt like a complete fool. I couldn't speak. I couldn't say what Tommy wanted to hear. I didn't know what to say. I just stood there.
"It's all right, Yves." Tommy put his hands on my waist and kissed me behind the ear. "I just wanted you to know. I have to be honest. It's the way I am. Now, go to bed. It's late."
He turned away and went into his bedroom. I couldn't move. I should have followed him. I should have covered his face and his body with kisses and given myself to the shelter of his strong arms and his sensible, sensitive spirit. But I wanted Mitya. I wanted, unselfishly, to finish healing his terrible grief. And selfishly, I wanted to complete my new conquest, to explore his body more than I already had and to have him explore mine until I could be sure that he'd never forget me.
The only hitch was that Mitya said he was exhausted. He could have been telling the truth. It had been a long, strenuous day mostly out of doors. When I got into the bed with him and tried to kiss him, he turned his head away and blocked my hand on its trip into his crotch. "Please, Yves," he said, "I am truly tired. Let us just to sleep. Maybe in the morning, we can to make love. Only not for now."
"In the morning," I said. "Golden dreams, Mitya."
"Oh, Yves!" he exclaimed. He turned on his side and drew my body tight against him. "You are so wonderful to remember my words to me. Everything you do is full of loving. I am so lucky that you are my special friend."
"I am the lucky one," I said, not meaning it. "Friend!" I cursed silently. The last title I wanted on my gravestone or my headboard. I wanted romance, passion, total surrender of soul and body, and I was getting a handshake and a hug. "I have you next to me, Mitya," I said. "That means everything. The love-making is just an extra kind of closeness, and we will do it better when we are not tired."
"But you will sleep down against me, please. Yes?"
"Yes. As long as I do not disturb you."
"Disturb? No. You are comfort to me, Yves, very great comfort." He yawned. I pretended I was a human comforter and draped myself like a quilt over him and tried not to think about love or Tommy or rejection or the comfort of sex that I was being denied.
Still, I slept. And I actually woke before Mitya did. That gave me the chance to examine his magnificent body in the morning light, to marvel at his physical power, even asleep, to debate with myself the possibility of sucking him from sleep to orgasm. I decided that I preferred my partners conscious and settled for a session with my sketch pad instead of his gently twitching sex organ. I drew quickly, but the odd thing was that I left him headless, all my effort going into capturing the planes of his shoulders and torso, the masses of his thighs and the bulging flesh between them. The result was a genuinely dirty picture, so suggestive that it became a pornographic tribute to his body, neglecting his soul. Ashamed, I stuck the drawing into my case and went into the bathroom to take a long, cold shower.
When I came out, I heard the rhythmic thump-splat of Mitya doing his morning push-ups. I waited till they ended and then entered the bedroom to see what the sight of my naked body would do to his. Nothing. He stood up in his baggy boxer shorts and beamed at me. "It is another beautiful day, Yves," he panted slightly. "And you are beautiful, too." I beamed at him. "And I have decided something of very much importance."
My hopes rose, and other parts of me started to do the same.
"I have decided that I wish to be like you."
"You mean...?" I wasn't sure what he meant. "You want to be gay? Openly gay? Mitya, are you sure?"
"Well, gay, too, maybe. But no, I mean I wish to be Canadian, like you are. And I wish to have it happen today. And you can help me. You can show me how."
"Mitya, that is a wonderful idea, but it's not so simple. I think it takes a lot of time. Paperwork. We can ask Benoit."
"I do not think that would be of help. I heard him to say he does not like to canoe."
"Canoe?" I was totally flustered.
Mitya grabbed me around the waist and gave me a lecherous look. "Did not Tommy say," he was laughing but he was also getting hard and he was pawing my behind, "that a Canadian is someone who can to make love in a canoe? Well, I want to start to be Canadian. Today, please. And I do not want to be Canadian with your very nice uncle but with you. Do you not think that would be good?"
"I think that would be very good." Actually, feeling the size of what was pushing away from him and into me, I was not completely sure how good it would be. But I wanted to find out. "Would you like to practice first? Here? On the bed?"
"Thank you." He kissed me quickly and released me. "No. First, breakfast. A big breakfast to make me to be strong for such goodness. And before breakfast, I will to clean myself. Then, after breakfast, we will see how to become Canadian." He disappeared into the bathroom. Laughing.
After breakfast, though, Ceci and my mother scooped Mitya up and took him to the weekly farmers' market in Mont Tremblant. Benoit, Larry and my father went off to play tennis with a neighbor. Tommy and I were appointed baby-sitters. The twins are cute, and they're into crawling in a big way, but conversation with them is pretty limited. Which meant Tommy and I had to talk. And I didn't know what to say or even how to begin.
"You don't have to say anything, Yves." Tommy had always been able to read my mind. "I'm sorry that I embarrassed you last night. It's one of my bad habits. Saying what I feel whenever I feel like saying it."
"It's not a bad habit, Tommy. It's who you are. It's why I love you, too, and always will."
"But I shouldn't have tried to pressure you that way. We promised a long time ago not to be jealous, and then I tried to get between you and Mitya, when I know how you feel about him. I was selfish and wrong."
"But did you mean it?"
"Mean what?"
"That you've never stopped loving me?"
"Well," he grinned maliciously, "that time you were trailing behind that oaf Randy with your tongue and everything else hanging out, I did wonder what I'd ever seen in you."
"That didn't even last a week," I protested, "and besides, you had him first."
"No. Actually I didn't. He was a go-fer at the film festival, and he had the hots for me. I was just trying to get rid of him. You were only supposed to distract him, not let him screw you brainless. And it went on at least ten days, Yves. I really worried about your judgment."
"Do you worry about it now? About Mitya, I mean."
Tommy didn't answer. One of the twins, Amelie, I think, had managed to scuttle off the big blanket and into a flower bed. She was digging into it like a Labrador, when Tommy gently back-pedaled her, giggling, onto the cloth.
"Yves," he said, "I'm not worried about your judgment. No. Mitya is wonderful in every possible way, and he needs your love now. All I worry about is how you'll feel when he goes his own way. Which he will someday. His way isn't ours, and I don't want you to be hurt when he drops you."
"You don't know anything about him. Not really. And you're patronizing me." Suddenly I was angry, and I didn't hide it. "So last night what you were really saying is that when Mitya dumps me, big, strong, sensible Tommy will catch me before I fall and hurt myself.
"I didn't understand then," I should have stopped, but I babbled on. "I thought you felt something for me like what we used to feel for each other, but I see now that I was being stupid. As usual." I got up from the lawn. "You're such a good nanny," I jibed at him. "You can mind both the twins. I'm going for a walk."
I went to my favorite sulking spot, a boulder I had been using as a shelter against emotional storms since, at about the age of six, I began to realize that I couldn't always get everything I wanted. That first time, my despair had been focused on a GI Joe doll that Ceci drowned just because I'd told Odette that I'd seen Ceci peeing in a flowerbed. I still remembered the whole thing because I cried myself to sleep while Odette and then my mother were frantically searching for me. When I woke up and wandered back to the house, Odette spanked me really hard, and my mother wouldn't comfort me afterwards.
I don't think that's when I turned against women. Actually, I really like a lot of women. But for love, I prefer men. They won't drown your dolls. The trouble is that I learned I can love lots of men. One at a time, of course. And now it sounded as if Tommy was telling me that he wanted to be the one, the only one, again. He acted as though Mitya was just an escapade. But I loved Mitya. I was excited by his body and what he let me do with it, but really I loved the way he needed me. I was his boulder, his shelter against the storm of sorrow. He wouldn't leave me.
Tommy was just so wrong. Except Tommy was always right. And I did love him still. I'd even said so out loud to Jean-Pierre. "I'll probably always be in love with him," that's what I'd said in my own kitchen just two days before. "If he would let me, I'd give up everything for us to be back together the way we were."
When I said it, I meant it. But you can mean something really sincerely and truthfully and still not be ready to do anything about it. At least not right away. Not anything that would completely settle your life for all time. I did love Tommy. I would tell him so. I would apologize for snapping at him. Everything would be all right, and nobody would be hurt. And I would keep my freedom.
First, though, I had to finish capturing - no, let's say, captivating - Mitya. If he really wanted to make love in a canoe, I would oblige. Initiating someone into those slightly uncomfortable mysteries isn't all that difficult. All you really need is enough cushions, a good sense of balance and the rhythmic control to make each stroke gradually more powerful but never overpowering. With Mitya bent over the central thwart and me kneeling between his splayed legs, I would be in charge of the proceedings and of the sexual spell to cast over my Montenegrin giant. Stretched over his back, I could wrap my arms around him and work his chest and his groin, teasingly, masterfully, with the kind of expertise that would make him hungry for more and more such transports ... but, on dry ground, in my bed, as my enchanted, love-enchained, giant-sized GI Joe doll.
It was a really hot fantasy, as fantasies go, but like most really hot fantasies, it went lukewarm and then cold in the real world. Mitya and I did take out a canoe, supposedly to go fishing. But Larry insisted that we wait till near sunset when, he said, the fish were sure to be biting in a clump of reeds off the far shore. At that hour, my mother insisted that we put on long-sleeved shirts and long pants against the mosquitoes and smother ourselves in insect repellent, with an extra layer on our sandaled feet and ankles. Ahead of time, my father insisted on showing Mitya how to flycast. The result of all this attention was that we paddled off, stinking to high heaven, in cotton armor and silly hats with beekeeper-like veils and a couple of awkward rods. The romantic initiation I had planned had turned into a genuine fishing expedition, complete with instructions to bring back supper for everyone or stay on the lake until, at least, we caught breakfast.
I know I looked sour, but I couldn't see Mitya's expression, because he was in the bow of the canoe straining to pull the craft ahead all by himself as though hostile Indians were pursuing us. Knowing how sound carries over water, I waited till we were several hundred yards offshore before telling him firmly to slow down. "But we must to go with speed," he grinned over his shoulder, "so we have time to discover the fishes and also to ..."
"We'll have time," I cut him off before any unseen audience tuned in to the plans he was about to broadcast. "Besides, it is better to float in with no noise so the fish don't get scared. Paddle gently and just whisper from now on."
He didn't make another sound until we slid alongside the reeds, and he reached back in the bottom of the canoe to get the rod and reel my father had prepared for him. "We don't really have to fish," I said in a low voice. "That wasn't the original plan."
"We must to bring home fishes," Mitya answered, trying to whisper. "Your mother, your family, I mean, is awaiting that we bring them some dinner. I made promise to try."
"Did you come out here for my mother," I heard my voice rising, "or for me? I thought you wanted to make love in a canoe and make yourself a Canadian. Now, you're only interested in fishing."
"Hush, Yves, hush," he smiled as he put a finger to his lips. "We can to do both. I told to you I have relativeness to Neptune. You will see. I will sing to the fishes and they will come."
He did, and they did. His singing was more like humming, and I couldn't make out any tune, but almost every cast ended with him reeling in some bewitched smallmouth bass or muskie. I sat in the stern astonished and appalled as one fish after another flopped, gasped and expired in the bottom of the canoe. Mitya's performance was truly scary, a frightening kind of magic that - along with the shiny, slimy pile underfoot -- turned me off sexually. Finally, or maybe after only 20 minutes, I begged him to stop.
"You think we have enough of fish for everyone?" He turned around, smiling broadly. "Or, maybe, Yves, you have fear that I should become tired and not be so good at loving you in the Canadian way."
"No. That's not it." I tried to think why I suddenly felt that he was dangerous, somehow alien and, yes, fearsome. "Mitya, it's just..." I groped for some neutral explanation of my discomfort. "It's only that all those dead fish, well, they aren't very romantic. I wanted, I hoped, that when I made love to you, everything would be beautiful, that we would make a special memory to share."
"But it will be beautiful, Yves," he protested. "See, the moon is just mounting, and the water is so quiet, and I will be most gentle with you. I will be polite but loving, like a Canadian of truth." He chuckled a little as he rose from his seat in the bow and swung his legs around toward me. "Also," he said, "you will not have to see the fish while we are together in loving." He used his paddle to shove the mound of fish forward and then carefully, slowly moved on his knees to the middle of the canoe.
"Which is better, Yves?" he asked. "We lie down side by side or on our knees on top of the other, like dogs? I think like dogs," he answered his own question. "It is to be more romantic if you can look to the lake while I am in you. Will that not be so?"
I cringed but I managed to hide my dismay. Things were not going the way I had fantasized. Still, I think a lover should always care most about his lover's pleasure. It's not who's on top that's important. It's being together, being as close as you can get, that matters. Mitya had let me enter him. And I wanted to belong to him so that he would belong to me.
So, "Yes, like dogs," I said and smiled. "But also like men who are in love. Let me come to you and get us both ready."
(To be continued.)