The story that follows is entirely fictious and because of the occasional description of sex between men, it is off limits to minors or anywhere such material is banned by law. It is also unfinished, but so was a great Schubert symphony.
In the early 2000s, when my own stories appeared on Nifty, I got asked sometimes to help edit/rewrite other writers' manuscripts. This is one of them. When it was sent to me in August 2001, I told the author, who signed himself "Jack", that I liked what I'd read and would try to help. He said he'd be in touch as soon as he got home from a business trip. That was September 10. I have not heard from him since, and, assuming he was one of the victims of 9/11, I no longer hold any hope of doing so.
"Jack" told me he wanted to publish the story as a Christmas gift to his lover as a memoir of their youth. Only some parts are complete. Although the author included some fragmentary notes, I cannot use that material to expand the story as he would have wanted. As far as I know all the names are made up. But if a reader recognizes the character named "Bill", maybe the story can be shared with him many Christmases late.
"Jack" did not even supply a title. I came up with one:
Full Moon in London
Part One: Abdullah did not become Dooley until after we saved his life. Originally, he was just the tall, quiet, foreign guy across the hall with the unpronounceable string of names. A freshman, so of no interest. Not pudgy, exactly, but sort of soft around the edges. Seemed pretty studious. No loud music came from his room. No one we knew hung out with him. He came and went so discreetly it was hard to know whether he was in or out.
Not that we paid much attention. As juniors on a social, sexual, athletic and occasionally academic roll, we were too busy with our own lives to be neighborly. Of course, that all changed when we blundered into the mugging at the Maple Grove shopping center. No maples grow there. It's just a gritty outpost in the asphalt wasteland along Route 22 north of the campus. One of the disconnected mini-malls on the outer edge of town. Sad, interchangeable clumps of shade shops and discount tire stores, of formica-cluttered Vietnamese restaurants, of pizza parlors and billiard halls, they are depressing in daylight. On a chilly Monday night in November, they are purely dismal.
But at Maple Grove, Bill and I had found Cue and Brew, a pool hall that reminded us of home. The clientele was half blue-collar, half college kids and almost all male. The beer was cheap. The talk was of sports and women, not necessarily in that order. The only drawback was the plumbing. Half the time, it was broken. But an empty lot behind the building allowed a drinker, in the dark, to empty his bladder without disturbing public morals.
C'nB, as everyone called it, was the spot Bill and I chose to wind up a 48-hour binge that began soon after Michigan's defeat. Mostly we celebrated the touchdown carry that had made my modest roommate, my best friend since first grade, a hero statewide. At about eleven o'clock, though, we ran out of steam. The joint was almost empty and, without putting the decision in words, we simultaneously laid down our cues, paid our tab and with one last high-five declared the party over.
After pausing out back to piss away some of the beer we had consumed, we zipped up and headed for the parking lot and Bill's Jeep. As we entered the narrow passageway that ran alongside the pool hall, we saw two figures silhouetted against the light at its far end. One had his hands over his head and his back to the wall. The other seemed to be doing an urgent body search with his left hand. His right held something shiny. A knife. A pig-sticker. And its point was at the other guy's throat.
The smart thing to do would have been to yell, to scare the mugger away. But whether it was beer, or testosterone, or the crazy feeling you have when you're 20 years old that you're immortal and invulnerable, Bill and I didn't do the smart thing. Instead, we dropped into sprinting position and rushed into action. We both hit the unsuspecting thief at the same moment. As I tackled him around the knees, Bill knocked his knife hand downward and slammed his body hard to the ground. I was instantly on top of him, yanking his right arm into a half nelson and pulling his head up and back. It's a painful hold. But the man under me made no protest, no sound at all.
"You got him, Jack?" Bill wasn't even breathing hard.
"Got him," I answered. "I think you knocked him out. Where's the knife?"
"I don't know. Can't see the damn thing. Hold on," I heard the sound of Bill's belt coming off. "I'm going to tie his feet. Then you can climb off and we can turn him over.
"Are you okay? Did he cut you? Did he get your wallet?" Bill was apparently talking to the almost-victim as he looped the belt around the robber's ankles. He tapped me on the shoulder. "Stand up very slowly, Jack, and keep his arm just where you've got it."
I rose to a crouch, stepped to the left of the inert form and, meeting no resistance, turned him on his side. The knife was under him. Bill snatched it up and tossed it away. The guy was out cold, but – I checked the artery in his neck – still breathing.
"He's alive," I said. "And when he comes to, he won't think this is funny." I put my hand on the arm of the man against the wall. "You, buddy," I said, "can you go call the cops? Are you hurt? Can you talk? Jack, give him a little shake. I think he's lost it."
"Allah Akbar." I swear those were his first words. "Oh, all-merciful Allah." A deep breath. "Thank you, thank you, thank you. I am well. All well." He was babbling. "I do not carry a wallet. No wallet. He did not believe me. I think he would have killed me. I am fine. Thanks to you. How can I thank you? I am just a student. From overseas. I do not know any police in this country."
"It's okay, friend," Bill cut him off. "We're just students, too. Hell, maybe this asshole," he gave the body at our feet a little kick, "was a student once. But this is real life, now. See? What you have to do is easy. Just walk out here to the right," he tugged the foreigner to the head of the passageway, "then go in the first door and tell the bartender that Jack and Bill need some help from the police. That's all. Can you do that?"
"Oh, yes. Yes. First door. Tell bartender. I'll do it. I come right back."
"Bring some beer with you," I shouted after him. "Or whiskey. Bourbon. Make it bourbon."
"Don't confuse him," Bill half-chuckled. "Either he doesn't know what hit him, or he's a couple of aces short of a deck." The mugger gave a twitch and a groan.
"I think he's waking up," I said. "He's not big, but he could be nasty. Can't we hogtie him tighter?"
"Turn him back onto his belly," my friend suggested. "Has he got a belt?"
"Nope."
"Then pull his pants down past his knees, and I'll switch my belt to his wrists."
Except for the fact that the thief either couldn't afford underwear or didn't like it, Operation Immobilization went as smoothly as a re-run of "Law and Order." And when the cops did show up, pushing their way through the clump of gawkers from the pool hall and the all-night drugstore, our captive was alive, breathing, cursing and begging us to pull his jeans back up over his naked ass. Caught in the beam of cop-car headlights and then the strobes of an all-news-channel television crew, he turned out to be an unshaven, unkempt, unprepossessing bum with the shakes. Badly in need of a fix.
I half-wished he'd been more fearsome so that we could seem more heroic, but as one of the policemen told us, writing up the report on the incident, we weren't heroes. We were fools.
"You two guys must be nuts," he said. "You could have been knifed. He could have had a gun. Next time...well, god forbid, there should be a next time, but if there ever is, holler, yell, scream, but don't butt in."
His attitude got a lot more respectful when Bill gave him his name. Wilson Elijah Halftree had a pretty high recognition factor in the university town that week. "I saw the game," the cop said. "You were great. No, better than great. That catch was unbelievable. Still, stay away from muggers. We need you next season.
"Are you on the team, too?" he turned to me.
"No, I wrestle. I'm his roommate. Jack Holmgaard. The full name is Sven Jackson Holmgaard." I spelled it. "The address and telephone number are the same as his. Officer, are we going to have to testify?"
"Depends on the perp. And the public defender's office. I'd give odds he'll plead. Get three-to-five and out in a year and a half. Say, did you know the kid you helped? Abdullah bin something el something else? You're all in the same dorm. I think he's still kind of shook up."
He was. Very. Sitting behind the wheel of a hand-me-down Acura and trembling. Bill found him at about the same time that the TV crew found out who Bill was and rushed across the parking lot to interview him. Then Abdullah, who just buried his face in his hands. Then Bill again. Then me, briefly, the accessory crime-fighter. Then they were gone, and the cop cars were gone, and the strip mall was back to its normal, discouraged self.
"He can't drive," Bill was helping Abdullah out of the car. "Jack, you drive my car, and I'll bring him. I think we got us a Chinaman."
"No way," I said, taking the keys to the Jeep that Bill usually treated like a precious extension of himself. "Abdullah is an Arab name. Or maybe Turkish. Not Chinese."
"Don't you know the saying?" Bill asked. "If you save a Chinaman's life, you're responsible for him forever."
Forever is a long time, but Bill was right. Abdullah belonged to us. Or maybe we belonged to him. That night we calmed him down with tea made on a hot plate in his neat-as-a-pin room. And with talk. Who we were. Who he was. That was more interesting. He came from a small Persian Gulf kingdom where there were almost as many oil wells as people and more goats and sheep than oil wells. His father was dead, like mine, but his first cousin – "my father's oldest brother's oldest son" – had sort of adopted him and sent him to America to learn business management.
Someday the oil wells would run dry. Then the kingdom would need experts on investments, people who knew their way around stock markets and banks and real estate deals. It was all right to hire infidels to find oil and suck it out of the ground and the seabed, but family money should stay in family hands. Abdullah bin Sayed el Khalafiyeh was the designated financial steward of the not-too-distant future.
"That's a lot of responsibility to put on you," I said to him.
"It is my duty," he explained. "My fate. Allah has willed it, just as He willed you to rescue me. It is all written."
"Abdullah," I asked, "what were you doing up there at Maple Grove so late?"
"I went to the drugstore. I had to get a laxative." He gave a sheepish grin. "I could not move my bowel."
"Allah made you constipated? Is that how you think it all happened? That's a pretty interfering God you've got for yourself."
"Watch it, Jack," Bill, the born peacemaker, stepped in. "We all have our own beliefs, and some of them can sound damn strange. How about Communion, the body and blood of Christ? If we're going to do Comparative Religion 103, the class meets at 11 o'clock, and it's now after two. I need to sleep. Abdullah, did you get the laxative?"
He nodded shyly. "Good," Bill said. "Take it. Go to bed. We'll see you tomorrow."
And the day after. And continually, it seemed. Abdullah just attached himself to us, and since he turned out to be smart and totally decent, we didn't shoo him off. We did rearrange him, though. He needed a nickname, and Dooley filled the bill. He needed denim instead of polyester, trainers instead of lace-ups, sweatshirts instead of button-downs, a fanny pack instead of a pocket protector. On his own, he decided that he needed toughening up. He started to lift weights and took karate lessons. "To be ready for jihad," he joked, "the holy war against you infidels."
Since he didn't have any place to go for Christmas, Bill and I took him home for the holiday. To Bill's home, actually. The Halftrees had a guestroom. My grandmother Jackson did not. Nor a dining room. We ate all our meals in the kitchen of her bungalow, but on festive occasions, like Christmas, we celebrated with Bill's folks, Big Jim and Maddy and Bill's younger sister, Caroline, using their gilt-edged family china and the heavy Georgian silver serving dishes.
Gran and my mother cooked at least half the meal, and I never felt that we weren't pulling our weight, even if Big Jim was a prosperous lawyer and state legislator and my mother was a widowed school-teacher, and her mother ran a luncheonette. Bill and I had been so close for so long that social distinctions had either disappeared or never existed, not just between us but between our families.
After the big, elaborate dinner, Dooley disappeared upstairs, returning with an armload of packages that he distributed around the table. "It is Christmas," he said, "and these are the only way I can begin to give thanks to my friends and their family for saving my life and for giving me a new life."
The presents included beautifully embroidered caftan-like robes for my mom and Bill's, a silver chain necklace with an opal pendant for my grandmother and, for Caroline, a gold pin shaped like a teardrop as a setting for a single, unusual, elongated pearl. Big Jim's gifts were two books, a leather-bound copy of the Koran in Arabic and English and a first edition of The Seven Pillars of Wisdom, autographed by its author, T.E. Lawrence, better known as Lawrence of Arabia.
Finally, Dooley handed Bill and me identical, heavy, oblong cedar boxes. Inside were matching daggers with engraved silver hilts, wicked curved blades and sheaths encrusted with what the giver promised us were just semi-precious stones. "You cannot refuse them," he said as we both protested that they were too beautiful, too valuable for us to receive or keep. "You have given me something so much more precious than these things that I will always be in your debt. I don't mean just my life. I mean your friendship."
He choked up. So did we. So we hugged him, and Maddy made us clear the dishes, and the awkward emotion dissipated in routine and ritual. Still, Dooley's words, as much as his extraordinary gifts, had knotted us together. Bill and I were already so close to each other we might as well have been brothers. Now Abdullah bin Sayed el Khalafiyeh had joined the fraternity.
AUTHOR'S NOTES: Jack takes Dooley to meet Grandfather Solliven, a noted racehorse trainer. Riding, Jack discovers Dooley is a terrific horseman. Dooley explains that his cousin – the sheik – also breeds horses, in fact is passionate about his racing stable.
Dooley: "You and Bill should come to my home and meet my cousin. He would like that very much. He is a great rider in our country. You could talk about horse racing."
"It's not Bill's feed bag," I joked. "His idea of a stud is someone women want in their bed."
"That could be arranged. It is the practice in our country to invite guests to enjoy ladies in the harem. My cousin the sheik has many ladies, and he is a generous man."
Dooley had a lot going for him, but he didn't have much of a sense of humor. He didn't know how to tease. So I knew he wasn't joking. A harem! All of a sudden, I began to like the idea of paying a visit to his cousin the sheik. It sounded like a great idea. But, of course, it would never happen.
Still, it did. Just before spring break Dooley came across the hall, smiling hugely. His cousin had invited Bill and me to come to the emirate when the term ended. All expenses paid. A stop in Rome on the way out. In London on the way home. We checked – no we begged – our families for their okay. And we got it. I decided not to tell Bill about the harem privileges till they were actually offered. No point in getting his hopes or anything else up.
CONTINUING
I got so wrapped up in exploring London that on our last day there, I got back to the hotel very short on time. Over our protests, Dooley had laid on a formal farewell dinner for Bill and me along with passes to an ultra-private, ultra-chic casino where we were to use the sheikh's money to break the bank or, more likely, go bust. In the room, I found Bill already dressed, already packed for our departure the next morning and all ready, I assumed, to chew me out for being so late. But all he said was, "Hi. Have a good time?"
"Oh, yeah. Great," I answered. "You?"
"Pretty good." I started undressing. "Jack," he said, "we have to talk."
"Sure." I thought I was picking up something heavy in his tone. "Come on in the can while I shower. We can talk there."
"No, I'll wait. This is kind of serious."
I didn't have a clue, but I set a speed record under the hot water. Bill went for understatement. If he said something was "kind of serious," he meant that the sky could be falling. I grabbed a towel and hurried back into the bedroom. "Speak," I said to Bill's back. "I am all ears."
He turned, looked at me as I mopped my head and chest, seemed to give himself a little shake and turned away. "You're all wet is what you are, Jackson," he said over his shoulder. "Dry off. Put some clothes on. Then we can talk."
"Bill, this is me," I answered. "Your friend. The one who can chew gum and walk straight. I can listen to you and wipe my butt at the same time. What's on your mind?"
"You." He hesitated, swung around to face me. "You and me. And I'm sorry, I can't make sense about it if you're naked. Please, Jack. Get dressed. Then we'll talk."
I set another speed record, and decently clothed, I handed him my one necktie. Bill could always tie them right the first time. It took me five tries. Minimum.
"Please?" I stood in front of him. "If I'm presentable enough, could you tell me what the fuck this is all about?"
"Dooley. He's going to live off campus. He's got an apartment in town."
"Lucky Dooley," I said. "Brave Dooley. Striking out on his own. So what?"
"Jack, he's asked me to room with him."
"Well, you can handle that. Let him down gently."
"No. I'm going to do it. I told him I would. I have to."
"And am I supposed to shack up with the pair of you? Bill, I don't think I can afford..."
"No." His voice was strained. "Jack, the thing is, I can't room with you anymore. I'm sorry. I can't do it."
"Why the fuck not?" My voice wasn't strained. It was rising in anger. "Have I come down with some vile disease even my best friend won't tell me about?"
For a couple of nerve-wracking seconds, Bill just looked at me. He finished tying my necktie and stepped back. "The disease is mine, buddy," he said. "I'm gay. And I love you. That's why I can't room with you anymore."
I pinched myself. I was so disoriented that I assumed I was dreaming. My head swam, but I was awake. "I'm missing the logic here, Wilson," I finally said. "I've loved you for years. You've loved me. We love each other. That's one reason we room together. We get along."
"You're talking about one kind of love, Jack," he answered. "And I'm talking about another. Don't pretend you didn't hear me. I said I'm gay, and if I have to spell it out to you, I will. There's nothing I want more than to make love to you. Sweaty love. Naked love. Man-to-man love. So you see why I've got to move in with Dooley."
I sort of collapsed, stupefied, onto one of the beds. I've always had a quick mouth, but words deserted me. Bill's declaration took me so completely by surprise that I didn't know how to begin dealing with. I tried denial.
"Bill, do you know what a blivet is?"
"Nope. I'll bite."
"A blivet is ten pounds of horseshit in a five-pound sack. It's what you just unloaded on me. If you're a queer, how come I'm just finding it out today? If you lust for my body, how come you've never laid a pinkie on me in passion? You can room with Dooley, if you want, but you'd better come up with a more convincing explanation."
"There isn't one," he said. "I'm telling you the truth. I've wanted to tell you, I guess, since we were 15. But I didn't dare. And I didn't have to. Now I do."
"Why do you have to. Why now? I don't get it."
"Because back there in Ras I saw you having sex, and I was overwhelmed with desire. At the same time I was liberated to be what I really am which is, as you so gently put it, a queer. That's the abridged version. We haven't got time for the director's cut."
"We jacked off together a couple of times, as I recall. How come that didn't turn you on?"
"We were, what, 14, maybe younger. It wasn't sex. It was, well, sport, competition. Who could shoot the most, the furthest. Ras was different."
"For God's sake, what did I do? What did you see?"
"I saw you in the harem that first night. Dooley took me to a place that had peepholes, and I spied on you, Jack. I'm really ashamed, but I couldn't resist. I saw the Arab boy undress you while you stood there blindfolded with that Goliath holding you, and I saw the boy play with your balls and your cock and then suck you till you were completely hard and shining with his spit and your own juice. It made me so hard that when Dooley came back to where I was, he saw the state I was in. He got me another kid from the harem, and we had sex. And I understood who I am, what I am. And I can't do anything about it."
"I don't believe a word you said," my voice rose to a near-shout. "Jack, I won't believe it. I won't believe that you snuck around like a Peeping Tom. And I can't believe there was a boy giving me head. And I absolutely, positively refuse to believe that the sight of me with a hard-on was ... was ... a turn-on for you. You're the one with the looks in this dynamic duo. I'm the sidekick. You get the girl. I get the horse."
He plunked down next to me. "Believe me, please, Jack. I love your rippling muscles and your cute outie and the way your left nut hangs so much lower than the other one. But most of all I love you for being brilliant and clear and funny and for being my closest friend, and I want, at least, to keep you that way. That's why we can't room together. I can't promise not to start pawing you, and if I did, you'd never want to see me again. Can't you understand?"
I started to repeat my incomprehension, my denial, but a loud knock on the door cut me off. "Shit," said Bill, "that's Dooley. We were supposed to be in the lobby 15 minutes ago. Come on, Jack. We can talk more later if we still have to."
"We have to," I thought. "I'm sure as hell not going to let this craziness take over without a fight."
Later, though, we found we couldn't talk. During dinner, in fact, I could barely open my mouth to put food in it. I did not make a good impression on the very beautiful, very emancipated daughter of the number two man in the Emirates' private London bank. Or on her very cute and apparently willing friend from some fancy English university. Bill, however, filled in the charm gap. Even Dooley was a conversational blast. So it didn't really matter that I was in shock. Or that at the casino I went straight to the roulette table, put my entire stake on 15, my birthday, and went instantly broke. It was not my lucky night.
Undressing back in our bedroom, I found my tongue but found that it barely worked. "Bill," I mumbled as I folded clothes into my suitcase, "I can't make any sense of what you've told me. I'm sorry. Give me time to work on it, please. Could we talk some more when we get home?"
"Sure, buddy. But things won't change. I'm having trouble facing the facts, and I know it has to be almost as bad for you. But you're right. Let it sink in. We'll cope. Somehow, we'll cope."
"We will." Too bland. I had to say something more. "It's going to be all right, Bill," I tried to sound reassuring. I even tried to put my arm around his shoulders but I couldn't bring myself to give him more than a quick pat on the back. "We're always going to be best friends, and we'll get through this like everything else. Together. Right?"
"Yeah, right," he was mumbling, too. We both got into our beds.
"Get some sleep, Beavis," I said.
"You, too, Butthead." He turned out the light, and I heard him roll over onto his stomach and pull the pillow over his head. It was a weird way to sleep, but it had always been his way.
Under my covers, I lay on my back rigid and wide-awake trying to make some sense of the last hours and of the future. With his bombshell, Bill had turned my world, our world, upside down. He would always be my best friend, just as I'd told him. But he could not be in love with me. Not that way.
I had heard his words – "I'm gay. And I love you." – but I couldn't accept them as the truth. Something, something really bad had happened to Bill at Ras el Khalaf He claimed that it had triggered feelings he had repressed for years, but that's what I didn't accept. Bill had always been completely up-front about everything. He never kept secrets, not from me. If he had been hiding a sex thing for men, especially for me, I would have felt the vibes. I never had.
Which meant that this was all just a total, awful mistake. He'd been drugged. The way I probably was that last night when I had the terrible dream. That, or the sight of me getting sucked by the Arab kid – I was willing now to believe it had happened – had touched off some crazy sexual urge that was still consuming him. It would fade. It had to. Or he could talk to a shrink and work it through. Bill couldn't be queer. I was sure of it. I just needed to find a way to shake him out of it, to bring him back to reality. Before he did something crazy. Like moving in with Abdullah.
No way. I tossed and turned and tossed ideas around, ways I could save Bill. But nothing brilliant came. And neither did sleep.
For well over an hour I fretted, getting more and more desperate, my mind spinning but running on empty. Then I sensed that Bill was out of bed moving cautiously in the dark to the bathroom. He found it and went inside, closing the door after him. After a bit, I heard the toilet flush, but Bill didn't come out. Several minutes passed, and I began to worry. Was he jerking himself off? Slitting his wrists? I waited some more and was about to get up and go to him when the bathroom door opened. I could just make out his silhouette in the darkness.
"Bill, you okay?" I asked.
"Pretty much. I just can't sleep," he answered. His voice was husky. "I didn't mean to wake you. Sorry."
"You didn't wake me." I leaned over and turned on the light between the beds. "I can't sleep either."
I looked up at him. His cheeks were wet. My God, he was crying. Big strong Bill. I hadn't seen him cry since Lasso, his collie, got run over. What? Nine years ago? Maybe more.
"What is it, guy? Can I help?" I sat up as he plunked down on the edge of his bed and put his head in his hands.
"Jack, oh god, Jack, it's awful." He sobbed out the words. "How am I going to tell my folks? And Caroline? How can I tell them? They won't understand. They'll hate me. And Coach Rasmussen? And the guys on the team? "
I shot out of my bed and sat down next to him. This time I didn't have any qualms. I put my arm around him. I hugged him. Hard.
"Bill, buddy, listen to me," I said. "You don't have to tell anybody anything right away. This is either awesome or totally bogus. Either way, it'll keep. You ought to start by talking to a professional to be sure you're not just under a kind of kinky spell or something. Tell a psychiatrist or a good counselor, even Reverend Watson at your church, what happened and see if they can't help you put the whole thing in perspective."
"What perspective? I'm queer. I'm a fag. I go for men. That's who I am and who I have been. It's not going to change now that I've faced up to it."
"You've faced up to no such thing." If I could just shake him back into sensible, solid, old Bill, this nightmare would end. "You've trapped yourself in a super-heated wet dream – `Groundhog Day' with an Arab cast and an X rating – and what we have to do is find the exit.
"If you ever do have to tell your parents you're gay, you'll do it the way you do everything. Straight out. Sorry, no pun intended. And they'll be thrown for a loop, the way I am. But they'll go right on loving you as much as ever, just like me. I love you buddy. You're the only man except Grandad I do love, and I'm not going to let you screw up your life because you watched some kid suck my cock and flipped out for a while."
"A while?" His question had an edge of exasperation. "It's been nearly two weeks since that night. And I had sex with one guy or another every day till we flew to London. I liked it. No, mostly I loved it. I hadn't imagined it could be so good to get naked with a man, but it was. It is. Jackson, I'm not going to turn back into a frog. I can't live a lie. You know me. I'm not good at hiding my feelings."
"You hid your supposed consuming passion for my fair body for the last three years," I snapped. "I never guessed, and I'm pretty good at seeing through people. Not for one minute do I believe you love me that way."
"But I do. It's sick, I know, but I do love you. That way." He shifted out from under my arm and began to cry again.
"Prove it then." I'd come up with a nutty, off-the-wall idea. I'd confront Bill with the actual possibility of fucking me, and he'd see that he couldn't go through with it. No way would he plow my ass. And when he realized that he didn't really want to have sex with me, that it would be the end of everything else between us, he'd snap out of his fantasy. It was a risky ploy, but I was desperate to save my friend and, yes, myself.
"What do you mean, prove it?" The tears had stopped.
"I mean, let's... you know, let's do what you say you want to do."
"I don't get it."
"Yes, you do. You're not as dumb as you look."
"I mean it, Jack. I don't understand what you're saying."
"Yes, you do. You say you've got the hots for me. I say, prove it. Make love to me. Get naked. Have sex. All that good shit you say turns you on."
He swiveled around to face me and put his hands on my shoulders. "Jack," as always, that familiar, intense look added years to his face. "Do you know what you're saying? What you're offering? You'll let me be your lover? Do you really mean that?"
"I do. On one condition. Maybe two. Whatever happens between us now, tonight, never happened and never, ever happens again."
Bill was silent. Thinking. "I can live with that," he said finally. "Your reputation will be safe with me," he gave a sad little smile. "But you have to agree to my condition."
"What's that?"
"Once we start, no pulling out. No pun intended. I promise not to hurt you, but if we make love, it has to be my way. I call the shots. Agreed?"
Now it was my turn to hesitate. How gross could it be? Bill cared for me. He wouldn't hurt me. And I was willing to stake my virgin ass that he couldn't go through with it. "Agreed," I said. I stuck out my hand but he didn't shake it. Instead he stood up.
"Stretch out on your back, please," he said, his voice seemingly under control. "I've got to get something from my bag. No," he added, as I started to shuck my briefs. "Leave them on. And, Jack, you'll see. I really do go for your body, but it's you I love. And it's because you'd do this for me. I couldn't have a better friend, and I won't do anything to lose you."
"I know," I said to his back. "It's what I'm betting on," I added silently to myself.
Bill rummaged in his case for a few seconds and found what he wanted. A tube of something that he dropped on the table between our beds before lying down next to me.
"What's that?" I asked a little nervously.
"Jelly," he said. "Like the stuff that big bruiser put on you so his finger could slide in easier."
"Oh." He really was going to fuck me. And he was so businesslike about it. Suddenly, the odds were shifting against me.
"Jackson, I know you're scared," Bill looked me in the eyes, and he wasn't businesslike. He was warm, concerned. "So we'll go slow. Right now, I just want to hold you, to feel you in my arms. Okay?"
"Sure," I whispered back. "Do it, big man. Slow and easy."
His left arm went under my head as his right one encircled my waist and pulled me up against him. Our chests touched. My right arm was pinned on the bed between us, but my left hand was free. I rested it on his shoulder. His skin was hot, and he was trembling.
"Jesus, Bill," I said, "you've got the shakes. Have you got a fever? I knew it. That's what this is all about."
"Stop it, Jack," he barked back. "For once, just shut up. I'm hot and my heart is in overdrive, but it's because I'm excited. Okay? I've wanted to do this for so long," he clutched me hard. "And I never thought you'd let me. Now, please don't ruin it by yapping at me all the time. Promise?" His left hand went into the hair on the back of my head and tenderly he combed through it.
"I'm sorry," I said. "I promise. No yapping."
His right hand moved up my back, then down over my butt, gently but possessively stroking my spine and the backs of my thighs. His mouth went exploring my neck and throat, then, opening up space between us, he moved to my chest. His tongue circled my right nipple, then the left, and I shivered a little at the contact. No girl had ever put her mouth there. It was new. It was nice, but it was not electric.
"Jack?"
"Yeah."
"Okay so far?"
"Sure. I can handle it. Do your worst."
"Jack, I'm going to kiss you."
"Oh." Not "I want to kiss you." Or, "Is it okay if I kiss you?" Just, "I'm going to." I didn't think it was such a hot idea, myself.
"Bill? Is that one of the shots you're calling?"
"Yep. It's part of making love."
"Eskimos rub noses."
"We're not Eskimos." He sighed. "Please, dude, I'm not asking you to love me back, just to let me make love to you my way. Once. Only this once. I know I make you sick, but this was your idea. We made a bargain. Are you going to break it?"
"No, Bill. And you don't make me sick. But this all takes getting used to. I've never been kissed by a man before."
"Neither have I. Dooley isn't in to that, and neither were the others." He made it sound like he'd been getting it off with a whole platoon of the local talent in Ras el Khalaf "I wanted this first kiss to be with you. But if you're not up for it, we'll just stop now." He started to draw away from me.
"Don't." My hand moved from his shoulder to his neck and drew his face down to mine. "Bill, if it's important to you, then I'm cool with it. Kiss me, Beavis. I love you."
He did. Our lips met. Actually, all they did at first was brush. And I knew he had to have more. So I pressed hard against him, and he gave a little gasp. More than that. With our lips locked together, he poked his tongue out and started moving the tip back and forth. It was warm and wet and scary as hell. Bill has this incredibly long tongue. I'd seen him unfurl it as a party trick and not just touch the end of his nose but scour it. I didn't want him to send the gruesome, slobbery thing excavating for my tonsils. So without pulling back, I pressed my lips tight against invasion. It turned out I was worrying about the wrong part of my anatomy.
While his left hand still gripped the back of my head, his right hand had lifted off me. Now it came back. He pushed my hip flat onto the bed. Using one knee, he prodded my legs apart and then lightly but deliberately brought his fingers into my crotch. Onto my balls. Cupping them firmly. It was my turn to gasp.
"I didn't hurt you, did I?" Bill broke the kiss.
"No, not hurt," I said. "Just kind of a surprise. I mean, like those are the only nuts I've got. Mind telling me what you want them for?"
"Just to feel, to weigh, to warm up a little. Jack, it's like this. I want to touch you everywhere. To hold you everywhere. Will you trust me?"
"Sure. Just like the guys in New Guinea."
He sighed. Then he took his hands off me and sat up. "Okay, that's it. I knew you'd fuck this up. You and your eternal jabbering. Do you ever stop talking? When you're screwing Katy, do you give a running commentary on the action, too? Damn you, Jack. Damn you to hell."
He was really pissed, not just resigned. "I give up," his tone was acid. He turned away. "Tell me all about New Guinea. As if I care."
"I already did." I sat up and hugged my knees. "Sophomore year. Applied Sociology. Professor Trager's lecture about conflict resolution. She mentioned that men in some New Guinea tribes fondle each other's testicles as a way of greeting. It's like saying, `I come in peace, dude.'
"Obviously, that got some laughs. Nervous ones. And I seem to recall a little crotch grabbing too, until some wiseass asked how women greet men in New Guinea."
"Any wiseass I know?"
"The one whose balls you were just weighing and warming. I swear I told you about it two years ago. I know I told you about Professor Trager."
"The one with the peace tattoo?"
"The very one. On her left butt. A nice lady. Gave me a 3.5."
"I thought you said it was a 69."
"That too." We both started to laugh, and I put my arm around his neck and hugged him fiercely. "Bill," I said. "I'm sorry about the jabbering. It's nerves. I talk non-stop because I want attention. No, that's not all. I want love, and I try to entertain people to get it. It's the way I am. Let's start all over. I'll behave. Swear to God."
"No," he stood up. "If you behaved, you wouldn't be you. And I wouldn't love you in all the ways I do. The sex part isn't all that important. I'll get over it." He paused, sighed. "When I'm 80 and in a nursing home." He moved to one of the windows that looked out over London.
"I'm sorry man," I said to his back. "I really am. I wanted you to see that you really couldn't go very far with this shit before you snapped out of it.
"What are you looking at?" I asked. He had parted the heavy curtains.
"Come see for yourself."
I walked over and stood next to him and looked out. All I saw were the lights of a great city I had just begun to explore and didn't want to leave.
"It's pretty," I said, "but I don't see anything special."
"Look up," Bill told me. I did. And floating over Hyde Park was the biggest, fullest, goldenest moon I had ever seen.
"God," I breathed. "It's incredible."
Bill suddenly clutched my neck. "What happens," he asked in a whisper, "when the moon is full like that?"
I drew a blank. "I don't know. Werewolves? Madness? Otherwise normal men turn into perverts? What?"
"The undead." Now the whisper was menacing. "The undead walk."
"Oh, shit. Oh, no, Bill. That was when we were kids. You can't do that to me now."
"You are a zombie," he replied, his voice deepening. "You are in my power until the light of dawn. You cannot speak. Only obey." With his hand on my neck, he turned me back into the room, guided me to my bed and made me lie down, my eyes closed, my hands folded on my chest. "Stay there," he ordered, "and await my commands."
It was a game we hadn't played in years. Not since we were 10 or 11. We had taken it from some horror movie, and the rules were simple. Whoever could get the other to look at the full moon was master of the living dead. The zombie had to do exactly as instructed including once, in my case, delivering all 57 papers on my route dressed in nothing – not even underpants -- but a sheer nightie Bill had "borrowed" from his mother's dresser.
My revenge a couple of months later was to outfit Bill in some raggedy hand-me-downs, smear soot on his face and hands and have him go to every house in his fancy neighborhood offering to clean chimneys and, when refused the job, begging for a "little change" for medicine for his sick mother. We cleared $13.75 on that one and pigged out at Burger King.
It was an "I dare you" kind of game, and somehow we had been smart enough never to do anything too risky. Just totally humiliating. And now Bill had invoked it as a kind of sacred rite so that he could have sex with me on his terms. Since I had made the offer in the first place and even repeated it, I couldn't back out. But what had started out, in my mind at least, as a sort of dare had gotten totally serious.
"Sit up, zombie. Keep your eyes shut." Bill was next to the bed. He took my shoulders and turned my body so that my back was to him. Then something soft but heavy came down over my head, covering my eyes. I sensed a strap being buckled at the back. It was just like the hood old Safiq had put on me before I was allowed to make love to my harem partners.
"Recognize it, zombie?" Bill asked. "You should. Dooley got it for me as a souvenir. Maybe you can guess what comes next." He turned my body again so that I sat on the edge of the bed with my feet on the floor. "Stand, zombie." He helped me up and steadied me by putting my arms around him.
And then, with a hand on my waist, he kissed me. For real. With passion. His tongue went into my mouth. More, his fingers went into my briefs and started stroking my cock. And I got hard. Bill gave a pleased little moan and released my lips. "Oh, zombie," he said, "that's good. So big. So hot."
He released me and stepped away. "Hands behind your back, zombie," he ordered. I obeyed. And then it began. His mouth all over me, kissing, licking, inhaling little pockets of my skin. Fingers lightly circling my left nipple, then rubbing it harder, then pinching it gently. Then his lips came back, and he was sucking the hard nub he had raised, first one nipple, then the other. And his hands. Oh, God, his hands. Caressing my arms, my backside and then hooking into the waistband of my jockeys and pulling them slowly lower on my hips.
Now it was my turn to moan as I felt his mouth in my pubic hair and his tongue lapping along my cloth-covered erection. "Do you like that, zombie?" Bill asked. "Want more?" He must have dropped to his knees because his hands were now running up and down my legs and he was kissing the insides of my thighs.
"Oh, yeah, man," I gasped. "That's bad. Bad. Yeah, don't stop." But he did. He pulled away, and I stood there blinded, straining, wanting him and terrified of what wanting him meant.
"Take off your briefs, zombie." I did. Fast. And I felt my cock jump free and slap up against my belly.
"Spread your legs, zombie. Wide. Wider than that. Good. Put your hands up behind your head." There was a pause. An intake of breath. A feather stroke on my shaft. "Oh, zombie, you are gorgeous like that. You are beauty, just like Dooley's cousin said."
As he spoke, he brought his hand up between my legs and put one finger into the cleft between my ass cheeks. The finger was slippery. He must have smeared it with the jelly, and now he was going to open me up. I cringed, but I was eager for it, too.
"Bend over a little, zombie. A little more. You know what I'm doing?"
"Yes," I whispered.
"And you want it, don't you?"
"Yes. I do." I was panting. "It's awful, but yes, I want it. Do it to me."
And he did. His finger pressed against my hole. I stiffened. Reflexively, I resisted. But Bill was in control. He seemed to know just what to do and how to do it and suddenly he was inside me, pushing forward, weaving a little, exploring, marauding. Then contact. I gave a little shriek as a wave of heat rushed through my crotch.
"Not yet, zombie, not yet." Bill's fingertip backed off my prostate as his other hand circled my swollen cock and skinned the last millimeters of my foreskin back from the head of the rigid organ. And then he kissed the tip. Kissed it, massaged it between his lips and drew it into his mouth.
"Oh, no, Bill, no," I shuddered. "Not that. Not you, man. Not my prick. Sweet Jesus, Bill you can't want me that way." It had never occurred me that this was what he meant by making love. Girls give head. Guys don't. Cocksuckers do, but the idea that my best friend was a cocksucker, that he could want to blow me or anybody, was beyond belief. Bill was strong, tough, manly, a stud. He couldn't be doing this. But he was.
"Hush, zombie," his lips freed me for an instant. "This is what I want. The way I want it. Just go with it."
I guess I had a choice. I could have disobeyed. I could have pushed him off, broken away. But things had gone too far. I had issued the invitation. I had offered myself to him. I had been my usual, wiseass, stupid, blind self. And besides what he was doing to me was unbelievably great. And part of me didn't want him to stop.
He didn't. He was really good. Expert and cool, but passionate. If his hand was caressing my balls, rolling them, tugging them, his tongue was wrapping itself around my rod, coaxing it wetly, warmly upward into an outstretched column of pulsing flesh. And if his tongue was flicking my nuts back and forth, pulling one and then the other into his mouth, his hand was fondling my cock, first with slow, teasing strokes, then, sheathing it, with a mounting rhythm. And all the time his fingertip was up my ass making lightning-flash hits on my prostate.
Finally – no, quickly – I knew I couldn't hold back. And Bill must have known, too, because he took all of me deep between his lips, so deep I could feel his nose on my pubic bone. And he picked up the tempo, plunging up and down, his lips tight around me, his tongue channeling me through the wet heat of his mouth. On one stroke he let my cock escape entirely only to wrap his mouth fiercely around it before taking me all the way in again.
I had never had such treatment, and I couldn't handle it. If he didn't stop, I knew I'd shoot into his mouth, down his throat, and I couldn't do that to him. "Stop it, Bill," I yelled, clamping my hands frantically on his head and trying to pull him off. "Stop it. Leave off. I'm gonna come. You can't do this. We can't. I can't."
But I did. He wouldn't let go. He made his lips a vise and he pressed his finger hard inside me, and I erupted. In blissful agony, I blasted him with my spunk I don't even know how many times and then I must have passed out for an instant because when I came to, I was lying on my back on the bed, limp and gasping, and I could feel the weight of Bill's head on my thighs. I scrabbled at the hood that blinded me and tore it off as I sat up. On his knees between my legs, my friend, my best buddy, looked up at me, and he was smiling and dribbles of my come were running down his chin. I started to sob. And once I'd started, I couldn't seem to stop.
"Don't Jack, don't," he scooted onto the bed beside me and wrapped his arms around me. "Don't cry now. You've made me so happy. Don't be sad. Don't be angry. I love you, man, I love you, and I loved taking you like that. It's what I've dreamed of."
He was holding me so tight as he said these terrible things that I could feel his cock, hard and big, pressing against my naked backside. That's what I'd expected him to try and instead he'd brought me off with his mouth, in his mouth.
"I thought you wanted to screw me, Bill," I wailed. "Why didn't you? Why did you suck me? That's for queers."
"I am a queer. I've been trying to make you understand that. If anyone could understand me, Jack, I thought it would be you."
"You can't be queer. Not that way, not on your knees." I rolled out of his grip and then back to face him. "You're a jock, not a sissy. You've always been a stud," I wept in anguish and balled up a fist to pound on his chest. "You can't do this to me. Bill, if this is the real you, who was the other guy? Who was my blood brother?"
"A liar. A coward. A closet case. Jack, I was so scared of scaring you away and so hungry to be with you that I never even dared hint at what I really felt. Feel. If I'd ever put my hand on you there," his fingers grazed my limp prick, "you would have cut me out of your life. So I played a role. But it was killing me."
"But I don't see that you get anything out of sex with me." My tears had stopped, and I looked down his body and saw the tip of his penis poking through the fly of his shorts. "You've got a hard-on and no place to put it. Why didn't you try to fuck me? At least I could have understood that."
"Because I don't want to hurt you. It hurts the first times."
"Jesus," I thought. "'First times!' Plural. What has happened to my best bud?" I didn't voice that question, though. Instead, I got on my high horse. "Didn't it occur to you," I asked, "that what you just did would hurt me, too?"
"If it did, I'm sorry. I really am. Jack, I've wanted you for so many years, that when you agreed to let me make love to you, I just stopped thinking about your feelings. There was only my desire. I was completely selfish." He gave me one of his compelling stares, a look of anguished honesty. "Was it really so gross?" he asked. "Have I ruined us, our friendship?"
"Of course not. Bill, I think I'd want to be your friend if I found out you were a cannibal or the bastard son of Jabba the Hutt." He smiled. "But gross? I don't know. It was the best blow job I've ever had, the most loving and most intense. Still, the truth is that you disgust me. No, that's wrong. What you did disgusts me. You're a man. Guys don't slurp on other guys' dicks. And you just did. On mine. So it's hard for me to think of you as a man any more. Really hard."
His smile vanished. His lips came together in a tight line, and his eyes closed to hide the hurt in them. For agonizing seconds he said nothing. Then he sat up and put his feet on the floor. "Well," he looked back and down at me, "thanks for sharing. I guess we have different definitions of what manhood is all about. According to you, real men only eat pussy. And in my book, real men don't take money to screw women. Whores do that, and real men aren't whores, are they, Jackson?"
He started to get up but I lunged for him, wrapped my arms around his waist and pulled him back onto the bed. "Bill, for God's sake, don't," I was nearly screaming. "Don't let us say things to each other we'll never be able to unsay. You don't really think I'm proud of what I did for the sheikh, do you?"
"Then why did you do it?"
"Money and manners. Unlike some folks, I'm not exactly rich. And I didn't see how I could refuse without being insulting. And curiosity. I'll never get another chance to see what goes on in a harem."
"But you didn't see anything, did you? You were treated like an animal, like some blue-ribbon hog or racehorse. The only parts of you that mattered to that crowd were your dick and your nuts."
"Which seem to matter a lot to you, too."
Bill gave a harsh, short laugh. "Touché. But all of you matters to me, too, buddy boy. I love you, and I promise I'll never do anything to disgust you again. Let me go to bed now. We've got an early flight."
"And you've still got a hard-on." My hand had grazed his crotch.
"Not your problem."
"But maybe my solution. Would you like me to jerk you off?"
"Doesn't that fall into the disgusting category?"
"It would if I didn't love you, too. But, Bill, you know I do. And somehow giving you a hand job is one way I can show you how I feel without crossing the line."
"The he-man equivalent of a dry hump?" Bill sneered.
"Yeah. I guess. It's just that I can't do the other stuff. Come on, do you want it, or not?"
Suddenly he had his arms around me, and he was almost crying. "Goddamn, Jack," he stuttered, "goddamn. I'm so lucky that you're my friend. Of course, I want you to do me. Oh, God, I would never have asked, but yes, shit, yes. Please."
"It isn't happening. It never happened? Right?"
"Not now, not ever." He gave me his hand. "Your place or mine?" he asked.
"Mine," I laughed. "Stretch out." I patted the bed and shifted myself to the far side of it. Bill lay down, all six feet two inches of him, with his hands behind his head and his erection creating a pyramid effect in his boxers.
"Friend," I said. "I'm sort of new to all this. Would you mind if I took off your underwear? I usually jack off in the nude, but you – being gay and all – may have your own weirdo customs."
"I do," he chuckled, "but I don't want to bend you out of shape by illustrating them. Go ahead," he raised his hips. "Have your cheap thrill."
Gently I pulled his boxers down and off. And then, as though for the first time, I looked at the man I had seen naked dozens of times. I gave a low whistle. His body was a sculptor's fantasy, muscular without being menacing, almost hairless from the waist to the neck and proportioned according to an ideal of male beauty that had been around at least since the classic statue of the discus thrower. The only thing out of proportion was his cock. To me, it looked huge.
"Bill," I said. "Thanks, man."
"Thanks for what?"
"For not fucking me with that humongous tool of yours."
"Don't pretend you're seeing it for the first time."
"Real men don't look."
"That's a lie."
"Okay. I looked. But I've never seen it really hard like now. I may have to use both hands."
"Use this." He handed over the tube of jelly he had used on me. I squeezed a glob into the palm of my left hand and rubbed both hands together till they were slick. Then came the moment of truth. I touched his cock. Cautiously. And lightning didn't strike. I didn't throw up. I could handle it. Literally. I started at the base in the thick, wiry, dark blond bush of pubic hair and slowly brought my fingers together around the fleshy column.
"Go ahead," Bill teased. "It's all right to squeeze the Charmin'."
Unlike me, Bill is circumcised, and the purple helmet on the top of his shaft was already glistening with fluid streaming from his slit. I put a fingertip into the flow and rubbed the slickness along the curved lower rim of his dick head. He stiffened. "Nice, man," he breathed. "Have you done this before?"
"Only to myself. Bill, do you want me to put my finger in you?"
"Thanks. I don't think so. Nothing personal against your finger, but it's better and easier if my legs are spread the way yours were, and I'm happy just lying here at your mercy."
"I hear and I obey, mein kapitan."
I had begun to move my hand up and down his shaft, tightening my fingers and relaxing them. Now I fitted both hands to his cock, making the strokes shorter but applying pressure to all eight-plus inches of it. As I felt his balls tighten against the base, I palmed them downward and away. Bill gasped.
"You okay?" I hadn't pressed very hard, but maybe his nuts were more delicate than they looked.
"I'm flying," he answered with a little moan. "I'm way up and looking down and I see us both and it's out of sight."
"That bad? I'm glad. This is rad." And it was. I wasn't revolted. I was kind of intrigued. And I was hoping that I would now make everything right between us, even if it never could be again.
"Jackson?"
"Yes, boss."
"Would it gross you out to sort of lie next to me? So I could touch you? Just your shoulders, say?"
"That doesn't sound terminally disgusting. But I may lose the tempo here." I gave his cock a squeeze and a pull.
"I'll take the risk." He tugged a little at my right arm and guided me down alongside him. His head went into the crook of my elbow, and one of his hands rested on my shoulder. His eyes closed, and a small, happy smile played over his lips.
"Still flying?" I was down to a single hand manipulating his rod and I was concentrating on its head, especially the ridge where the helmet joined the shaft. Experts say that's the most sensitive part. They're right.
"Believe it," Bill said. "Do you know, Jack, I'm a virgin. You're the first man to do this for me. And it's worth waiting for."
"Your Arab buddies were scared of Wilson, Jr.?" I resumed a stroking motion and felt Wilson, Jr. pulse and strain upwards. "I can see why. He's one jumbo all-American cock."
"No, not scared. Indifferent. They went for my ass and my mouth big time, but they didn't much care if I got off or not."
"Didn't you care?" I was really surprised, even shocked. "Why did you let them treat you like that?"
"I wanted to be used. Jack, you can't know how badly and how long I've wanted to hand myself over to another man. To you, first of all. Still. Always. But if it couldn't be you, then Fuad or Ahmet or Feisal. They understood me. They broke me in, and, Jack, I loved it. Can you understand?"
I shook my head. While he talked, I'd relaxed my grip on his penis. I grasped it again and started to pump urgently. Now I just wanted to get the whole thing over with. My best friend was suddenly a complete stranger to me, and I didn't feel like doing a favor like this for a guy I no longer knew.
Bill sensed the change. He grabbed my wrist.
"Stop, Jack. Let it go," he said. "You don't have to put yourself through this for me."
"I want to," I insisted, holding on to as much of his cock as I could. "You gave me head. This is the least I can do."
"I sucked you because I love you, because I want you. That's not how you feel about me. Is it, old buddy?"
Again, I just shook my head. I didn't want to put my confusion into words. But I took my hand out of his crotch. Bill just looked at me. Unhappy, but sort of accepting. "I'm sorry," he said. "Sorry that I nauseate you."
"You don't." My voice rose and my hand locked on his upper arm. "Bill, that's not it. Nauseating is the couple of times I held your head while you threw up. Nearly made me vomit myself. That was nauseating. This is different. This is... Shit! I don't know what it is."
"But you don't like it."
"I don't mind holding your cock. Jerking you off. You've got a great rod, man, and weird as this sounds, I actually liked the feel of it. What gets me is the idea of you taking it up the ass from all those rag-heads. Feisal? How could you? His belly was big enough to have its own name."
Bill snorted. "And his prick was real small," he said. "But, Jack, he knew how to use it. He knew how to make me beg him to fuck me."
"Okay, that's the part that really blows my mind. And my lunch, too, I guess. Bill, since we were about six years old, we've been as close as two people could be without being related or married to each other. And I've worshipped you. You're smart and good-looking and totally decent. You're a great athlete." He started to protest.
"No," I said. "Let me finish. You're comfortable with all kinds of people. You can talk to anybody. You've always been the one who decides, who leads. I trusted you. And now, goddammit," I choked as tears sprang to my eyes, "goddammit, Bill, you tell me that you get off on crawling naked in front of some fat, hairy Arab and pleading with him to corn-hole you. I just can't handle that. I feel like an asshole for looking up to you all this time, for letting you fool me."
I tried to roll away, out of the bed, but he stuck out an arm and hauled me back.
"Now, Jack, you listen," he said. "Don't you think I've been trying all this time to fool myself? I didn't want – I don't want -- to be this way, but it's the way I am. That's what I found out, and it's what I can't go on denying. But it's only one part of me, Jack. All the rest is pretty much the way I was before. I was your friend. I want to go on being your friend. I'm going to need a whole lot of help that only a real friend can give me."
"Then why do you want to live with Dooley, and not with me? Senior year, for chrissake!"
"Two reasons. I don't want to embarrass you, and when people find out I'm gay, they'll assume that you knew all along and are probably a flamer, too. Second, at school nobody knows Dooley, and he wouldn't be embarrassed having a gay roommate. It was his idea, basically to protect you."
"Is he... Are you ... shit, you know ... lovers?"
Bill laughed. "Hell, no. He mostly goes for girls, and he's not my type."
"And I am?"
"Fucking-A. That's the third reason. How can I share a room with you, watch you walking around half naked half the time when all I want to do is have sex with you? I'd go out of my gourd."
"If you haven't already." I wasn't just being sarcastic. "Bill, seriously, will you talk to somebody, a good shrink, about all this? I'm not saying you're wrong about yourself, but it doesn't seem to me that it's just `one part' of you. It's more like you've suddenly gone schizo. And that's a sickness. You can get help."
"If it'll make my best bud happy, I'll talk to Phil Donahue. I'll go on Jerry Springer."
I started to protest, but he cut me off. "No, I know what you mean. I'll do it, but it isn't going to change things. And I've got it part way figured out myself, anyway. With clothes on I'm a take-charge, A-type over-achiever, like you said, but when I get naked, I want to be someone else, someone who gets off by giving himself to another guy for sex but also for protection and, I guess, for love. I don't think that's a split personality. It's just two sides of the same personality, the charming, studly Wilson Elijah Halftree and inside him a little boy who wants to suck cock."
"I liked the charming stud better," I said. "And I wish you'd leave the little boy on some hill side for the wolves. But I can handle two roommates and two best friends if I have to." I looked him in the eye. "Bill, I do love you. It's platonic love. But it's love, and it's forever. Please, don't dump me, not for Dooley, not for anybody."
He put his arms around me for a long hug. "OK, Butthead. I'll think about it. I'll sleep on it."
"No," I said. "It's too late to go to sleep. It's nearly five a.m. Let's go for a run instead. I'll show you the cute Guardsmen at Buckingham Palace."
"Deal." He got off the bed. "Do you suppose they'd stand like statues if you unzipped their flies and gave them some good head?"
"Only one way to find out," I laughed, "but I hear the food in English jails sucks too."
We did run. Miles and miles under that still full, still golden moon. Pumped up and pouring sweat, we got back to the room, ordered a huge English breakfast sent up and plunged into the glass-enclosed shower together. And I finished the hand job. Standing beside him, with one arm around his waist, I jerked my best friend to climax.
It was awesome. His cock got so goddamn big and hot. And he must have shot four feet. He said I was great and maybe he would room with me after all. We laughed. Wearing just the hotel's terrycloth robes, we ate the eggs and bacon and nasty sausages and cold triangles of soggy toast. And when we finally dressed and finished packing and were headed out the door, I put down my bag and grabbed him by the arms. "It's going to be okay, Beavis," I said. "You're going to be okay. You and the kid inside. I love you both."
He gave me one of his great smiles. Then he put down his bag and leaned into me, kissed my forehead and rested his head on my shoulder. And then he blew me away. "You're the strong one, Jack," he said. "You're the stud in this twosome. That's why I love you. Because you can help me. And I know you will."
God knows, I tried.
AUTHOR'S NOTES: Bill tells his parents, but not his coach or teammates. We go on rooming together. No sex. In April Dooley tells me I have two children in Ras el Khalaf, and the sheik, now an emir, wants me to perform again. Not just for him. For others who have girls they want to crossbreed. A lot of money. And more if babies result. One condition is that I get circumcised.
Not an easy decision, but I really need the money for grad school. And I get the promise that I can travel around to look at the wind towers some Arabs still use to draw wind into their houses and have it blow over pools of water to create cool air. I want to understand the designs and work on the concept in architecture school.
Dooley makes the arrangements. We get on the emir's private plane in New York in mid-June. Bill goes home to his parents and a therapist they've hired. He is miserable, so depressed that I am afraid for him.