"What the fuck!"
The door of our room banged open and two men only slightly older than us stood in the doorway, arms crossed, mouths open, enraged faces glaring at us.
I almost jumped up, but Teddy held me tight and looked over my shoulder at the pair.
"Hey Tom. Hey James. Something wrong?" Teddy wearily said. I buried my face in his shoulder, wondering who these guys were and knowing that my bare ass was pointing right at the men, only a swift kick away.
"Fucking faggots," one said. "I can't believe this! How could you. Fuck! I could puke." He turned around and slammed the door shut.
The other one tore a blanket off Teddy's bed and threw it over us.
"Get dressed. We need to talk," he ordered.
Teddy stirred, left the blanket on me and walked naked to the bathroom, started the shower and closed the door. I stood on very shaky legs, wrapping the blanket around me as I stood, and walked over to my dresser, where I grabbed a pair of sweats, putting them on under the blanket.
"No need to be shy," the remaining guy smirked. "We've already seen everything you've got."
I turned and glared at him. "Get the fuck out of my room," I snarled. "Come back later if you must."
He strode over and snatched the blanket off as I pulled up my sweat pants, my cock getting caught by the waist band. I pushed my spent gonads into the material and turned toward my desk. "I said get out."
He grabbed me by the neck and squeezed hard. "Not yet, little man, not yet."
He pushed my head down and was about to push again when the bathroom door banged open and Teddy leapt across the room. "Hands off, you bastard!" he screamed, tearing the hand from the back of my neck and pushing the smaller man away. The second guy barged into our room again, fists up, ready for a fight.
"Come back in an hour," Teddy ordered. "Out! Move! Now!"
The two men looked at each other, then at Teddy, then at me, and without a word turned and left the room, closing the door quietly behind them.
"Who the fuck are they?" I asked. "What are they doing here?"
Teddy sat on the edge of his bed, still naked, and shook his head. "This isn't good," he said. "This isn't at all good."
I waited. What wasn't good? Who were these guys? I pulled on my sweat shirt and sat on my bed, staring at Teddy.
"You better tell me what's going on," I whispered.
Teddy took a deep breath, exhaled, and then looked at me for a long time. "They're my father's political advisers -- now my advisers. Actually, they're two of my cousins. They're here to help me get ready for the next steps." He paused. "Shit. What next steps now?" he asked.
He stayed silent, looking at the floor, staring into space. Taking a deep breath he stood, scratched his balls, then simply said, "Shit." He rummaged around for his pants and shirt, shrugging them on and sat down again.
"I forgot they were coming here this afternoon," he said, staring at me. "We were supposed to have a talk, go to dinner, then talk some more." He paused, sighed, "This is going to be tough to explain."
He went to his desk and grabbed a folder then put on a jacket and went to the door.
"Look, Mike, I'm sorry this happened." He grabbed the doorknob then let it go. Walking back to the bed where I still sat, completely dazed by the situation, Teddy sat next to me and wrapped his arm around me. "Things haven't been going the way we planned, have they?" he asked.
I shook my head and looked at him. "No. They haven't. I'm completely confused. And hurt. What the fuck is going on here?" I was near tears and my lip quivered.
Teddy held my gaze, then looked away, focusing on some point between the door and his desk. He took a deep breath and held, exhaling slowly.
"Mikie, I love you. I have from the first moment we met years ago." He sighed. "But we can't go on this way. I have obligations. Family obligations. Expectations. I don't know." He paused again. "I didn't want it to happen this way. I thought you'd understand after this summer -- y'know, Margaret and all -- and that we wouldn't have to do this. Ever."
I started to shake. "Do what?"
"End it. Remember the good times, forget the bad, and move along with our lives ... " he trailed off. "I didn't want to hurt you...."
A tear rolled down my cheek and I trembled, suddenly cold and very alone.
"But I love you, Teddy. I always have." I cried softly.
He hugged me close and wiped the tears from my face.
"I know, Mike, I love you, too. But I can't." he said.
My world ended for a moment. I was afraid I would pass out, or throw up, or simply sit there and die. Right then.
He stood up and ruffled my hair. "We need to talk later."
I simply nodded as he walked away and out the door. I curled into a fetal ball, hugging my knees close to my body and sobbed as I had never sobbed before. I sobbed until I had no breath, no strength, no will to live. I fell asleep that way, at some point crawling under the covers, not waking until morning.
Teddy apparently never came back to the room that night. His stuff was still strewn about the room and I tripped over a shoe as I walked to the bathroom like a zombie, barely conscious as I let go with a massive morning piss. As the last dribble left my cock, I suddenly bent over and puked into the toilet bowl, retching and heaving until my sides were sore. Then I rinsed out my mouth and crawled back to bed. Fuck classes, fuck my future, fuck Teddy and his family and whatever future he has -- or thought he had, or was expected to have. Tasting the sour bile in my mouth, I turned and faced the wall and fell asleep again, waking long after noon, hungry and still tired. My mouth tasted like the bottom of a bird cage.
I got up, took a long hot shower, found some jeans and a shirt, and started walking. I walked all over Cambridge, crossed the bridge into Boston, and wandered aimlessly for hours until it grew dark and I was again ravenously hungry. Stopping at the Charles Street Steak House, I ordered the largest, reddest piece of steak I could buy and ate until I couldn't take another bite.
Hailing a cab, I got back to Harvard about 9 p.m. and walked into our dorm just as Tom and James were leaving our room. Dressed in regulation khakis and blue blazers, they brushed past me without saying a word, not even acknowledging me as I pressed myself to the wall to let them by. Fuck them, I thought.
I knocked on the door -- I knocked on my own door, for Christ's sake! -- and waited until Teddy said, "Come in."
I went into the bathroom, took a long piss, brushed my teeth and undressed. Without saying a word I flopped into my bed and fell asleep. Teddy never even looked up from his desk. This was hell. Pure hell.
We avoided each other for the next few days. What was happening? I went to classes as if drugged. My favorite professor stopped me after my last class and asked if I was OK. I simply shook my head no and walked away. "If you need to talk, Mike..." But I was already down the hall.
When I got back to the room -- no longer "our room" simply the room -- Teddy was there waiting for me.
"Hey, Mike, we need to talk," he said, patting the bed beside him. I stood, glaring at him.
"Talk about what?" I snarled. "Talk about your duplicity? Your hidden life? Your hidden agenda? Or are we going to talk about `Whatever are we going to do about Mikie'?"
He hung his head. Good. This was going to be difficult.
"I don't know what to say," he said, looking up at me. "This really hurts, y'know?"
Yeah, I knew. If he had cut my balls off with a pair of garden shears it couldn't have been more painful. But I was also really angry now. Even angrier than when my father -- the bastard -- had died cursing me for being a faggot with Teddy. That hurt, but this was a thousand times worse.
I said nothing in response. I simply waited for him to speak again.
He looked at my face, hoping for at least a glimmer of understanding. But I simply glared back, waiting for him to flinch.
"I should have told you long ago what my future was supposed to be," he started. "I guess I didn't -- I couldn't -- because I didn't want it. That future. And what it all means. What I wanted -- and still want -- is a future with you..."
My heart turned over in my chest, crashing about, thumping wildly. Where was this going?
The silence was palpable. An old clock ticked away the moments and neither of us moved.
Then Teddy looked at me, and with a tear rolling down his cheek, he said, "But I can't do that now. I have to do this. Without you. And I can never explain to you what that means for me to have to let you go." Silence. "I love you Mikie. I always will."
What could I say? I felt truly fucked -- emotionally raped -- by the boy I had loved for many years. He looked so pathetic, sitting there on his bed, crying softly, deflated, forlorn, alone, and afraid.
I knew I had two choices: I could beat the living shit out of him -- and I was angry enough that I knew my adrenaline would be no match for his inherent strength -- or I could love him in the only way that would make a difference now.
I stood there, weighing my options, wanting to hurt and to heal. Finally, I walked over to his bed and stood before him. He actually flinched as I stopped. He also knew the choices I had.
Then I bent over and lifted his chin in my hand, waiting until he looked me in the eyes.
"Teddy, I will leave you willingly because I love you and I don't want to hurt you."
He shuddered and grabbed me around the waist, squeezing hard and burying his face in my stomach. We both knew it would be too easy to make love right then. We both knew we couldn't.
We held each other for a long time until I had to stretch. I grabbed his arms and peeled them from my waist and sat down.
"I think we have said all that can be said," I whispered. "Take a long weekend and go home. When you come back, I will be gone. I know about a single apartment downtown and I'll move in there. We'll still see each other, but you have a new path to take -- and so do I. Let's part as friends."
I patted his hand and stood up. "I'm going to take a night off," I said. "It's Thursday, so maybe I'll go hang with a few of the guys for a while." He didn't move. "Then I'm going to book a room at the Ritz Carlton and relax."
He looked at me and smiled that old Teach smile. Wriggling his brows he said, "Maybe find a nice call boy and fuck the daylights out of him?"
The thought hadn't even occurred to me, but, yeah, maybe.
I did move out, immersed myself in work, embraced my circle of literary friends and hurtled toward graduation. My focus brought high honors, awards, writing offers, and a universe that would take me far, far away from Cambridge, Harvard, and Teddy. I raced through Columbia journalism school, got my master's degree, landed a job with the New York Times, got bored, signed up with Associated Press and news magazines and traveled the world for years. Along the way I had a series of lovers, more than a few tricks, spent more time than I should in the wonderful saunas of Europe and elsewhere. But I never found love again. Ever.
Oh, I saw Teddy from time to time at Harvard and afterward. I was surprised and honored to be the best man at his wedding to Margaret the year after graduation. That took balls! Teddy insisted; his mother almost had a stroke, but he wouldn't back down. Max, having sampled a goodly portion of his esteemed brandy at the reception, took me aside for a quiet conversation. He told me that he always knew about our relationship and that he always approved -- to a point. But Teddy had to do this. It had been a year since I left Harvard and I had accepted what was happening -- like I had a choice. I told Max what I had told Teddy that last day in our room together: that I loved him enough to leave him and not hurt him in the process.
Max looked at me with his alcohol-blurred eyes and then hugged me. "That is the truest definition of love I have ever heard. You DO love him. And I'm glad that you do. Mike, I know it hurts. It will always hurt. I know." I looked at him and searched his eyes. "Yes, Mike, I mean that I KNOW that kind of love. And I love you for it, too."
Teddy and Margaret were the center of social circuits in all of the cities along the East Coast. Teddy did -- with Margaret's able assistance -- thrive in the political arena, eventually being elected numerous times at all levels of local, state and national government. Why shouldn't he? He had the looks, the brains, the money, the connections, and the perfect wife.
He surprised me again when he asked me to be the godfather to his firstborn son: Theodore Michael Harrington. I flew back from Bangkok for the ceremony and we spent a wonderful weekend at the family home in Prides Crossing. It felt like home, somehow, and surprisingly it didn't hurt.
Years later I was somewhere in Europe when I saw a news bulletin that Sen. Ted Harrington had collapsed in Washington during a congressional hearing and was hospitalized. Details at 11.
I made a few calls and discovered that they suspected a brain tumor. He'd been having serious headaches, dizziness, loss of memory and had tried to cover it up. The first episode had been a year ago and he had undergone treatment in Boston. Very hush hush. They thought they had gotten it. Apparently not.
The tumors returned with a vengeance 15 months later and within a month he was dead. He was 48.
That's why I was here, in the middle of the night, alone in an empty hospital room, to say good bye. I leaned over the hospital bed and hugged Teddy and held him tight. His body was still warm. But there was no life there. Teddy's essence was gone. Forever.
For the first time in decades tears came to my eyes. Me, the hard-bitten, cynical, crusty old journalist who had no emotion left in his parched soul, crying for a dead man. I felt the warm drops course down my cheeks and I tasted the concentrated salty brine of the tears I had withheld for years.
A deep sob came from the bottom of my soul and and I gasped for breath.
"I always loved you, Teddy. I left you because I loved you and I didn't want to hurt you," I sobbed, as if it would mean anything now.
I held him for a moment longer then gently returned his head to the pillow, feeling suddenly silly talking to a corpse. I dried my eyes on my sleeve and pushed myself up from the bed, turning stiffly to grab my jacket and scarf from the back of the chair.
He was still beautiful. It was as if he had never aged. I half expected him to sit up with that broad grin and shout, "Fooled you!" But he was dead. I was tempted, briefly, to lift the sheet and gown and see if his body was still breathtaking. I still dreamed of having sex with Teddy, watching his face as he sank his cock into my willing ass, or sliding his cock into my mouth while I watched his eyes blaze with lust. Shit, I was getting half hard!
As I straightened up I realized that I was not alone; a chill ran up my spine and made the back of my neck tingle and my pulse race.
Then a voice said, "He knew. He always did. And he told me to tell you that it was OK."
It was Teddy's voice. The same timbre, the same inflection. The same confidence and simplicity of expression.
I gasped and turned toward the voice and felt light-headed, disbelieving what I was seeing. There he was. My Teddy. In the flesh, as alive as I was, young as we once were young. And the grin was the same, the flash of the eyes the same.
He walked from the half shadow into the light in the doorway and I knew then that it was young Ted, my Teddy's son. He must be in this 20s now. The exact image of his father at the same age.
He held out his arms and walked toward me, enveloping me with the same fierceness that Teddy had always used when we embraced.
I sobbed once and went limp in his strong arms, releasing all of the pent-up sorrow that had festered in me for decades. The sense of loss washed over me and I was totally empty of thought and feeling. I sobbed until I could sob no more.
Young Ted sobbed with me and then held me silently for many minutes, giving me a squeeze -- my God! just like his father used to do -- and held me up at arms length.
"That was the most beautiful thing I've ever heard a human being say to another," young Ted told me. He looked into my eyes, searching my soul, not in judgment but for truth.
"I know the whole story, Uncle Mike," young Ted said. "During his last days, he wanted to talk about you. A lot. He wanted you to come here before he died but I couldn't reach you until it was too late. He loved you -- as few people have ever been loved -- and he wanted you to know that."
"`I left you because I loved you and I didn't want to hurt you.'" He knew that, Mike. He knew why. And he knew how much it cost you -- because he paid the same price. And I know, too -- more than you imagine. We have a lot to say." young Ted said. "Let's go get something to eat and talk about it."