This story is about male/male relationships and contains graphic descriptions of sex.
You should not read this story if it is in any way illegal due to your age or residence.
This is a work of pure fiction. It mixes fictional characters and events with real people. However any real person mentioned in this work is purely an actor playing a part. This story in no way is meant to imply anything about the sexuality, personality, or behavior of the actual person.
Copyright 2006 Jason Calme. This story is the sole property of its author and may not be copied in whole or in part or posted on any website without the permission of the author.
Questions and commentary can be sent to: "JasonCalme@yahoo.com". My blog: http://jcalme.blogspot.com/
-------------- Authors note. This chapter has taken far too long. I have no good excuse. The dog didn't eat it. I can't blame a change in circumstances, a new love affair, a combination of sleeping pills and alcohol, or anything else for the delay. I'm lacking a good excuse.
So I'll blame David instead. I know you want someone to blame, and naturally your first choice would be me. But that's unsatisfying for both reader and author. So let's blame someone else. It's really David's fault. So if you're angry, send any hate mail to David. And if you're single and live in Boston, write to me instead.
Snow Day - Chapter 7
Walking back to my bedroom - Howie trailing behind me - I started to have second thoughts. Or third ones. I began to feel nervous again. Butterflies were doing cartwheels in my stomach. It was weird. Why was I suddenly nervous with Howie? We'd been getting on so well before, and we'd even spent the night together and that had gone well. Why was I getting antsy about going to bed with him a second time?
But things had changed and gotten more complicated. A lot more complicated.
'Just go to bed with him,' I told myself. 'You know you want to. You want to feel his body against yours. You want him on top of you again. You want to kiss his lips and feel his tongue inside your mouth. You want him.'
Yeah, I wanted him.
But I wanted him permanently. Not just for tonight. Not just for sex. As much as I tried, I couldn't put tomorrow out of my head. Suddenly, going to bed with him seemed like a bad idea. I should have let Howie sleep in the guest room. But that was a bad idea too! If I did that, then it would all be over.
I wanted to talk to him. I wanted to know how he felt about me. Did he feel the same way I felt about him? Did he really like me and was afraid of what his family would say, or was it a casual fling and he was using the family as cover?
I so badly wanted to know; and yet I didn't want to know. The answer scared me as much as not knowing. But I wanted - no, I needed - him to volunteer the information. I couldn't ask him. God, how needy would I sound if I asked him?
I was stuck, and it sucked.
We were now in my bedroom. I stopped in the middle of the room, and I was stuck. And Howie was beside me. Waiting.
I turned to face him, and found him so close it felt like he was about to knock me over. I startled and he grabbed me and I fell against him. He laughed, and I felt warm and happy for a moment.
"Hey," he whispered.
I looked into his eyes and smiled at him, but my doubts flooded back and I pulled just a fraction away.
"Hey," I responded softly.
Howie looked thoughtful. "Are you...you sure this is okay?" he asked.
I shrugged. It was my first impulse, and I did it. Damn!
"Yeah, I'm fine," I added hastily, trying to cover my doubts, but Howie wasn't buying it. He looked at me quizzically; one eyebrow slightly higher than the other. He pursed his lips, then smiled slightly.
"I think I should sleep on the floor," he said finally.
Damn you Howie! Why do you have to be so fucking sensitive when I'm trying to figure out my feelings for you?
"Howie, it's..."
"Sam, it's okay..." he said, and I didn't know what to say in response.
I hate long silences. Those times when you don't say anything to the other person, and they don't say anything to you. You feel like something needs to be said, but you don't know what.
"Umm...you're sure it's okay?" I asked tentatively.
"Yeah, I don't mind Sam. I like you. I don't want to..." he paused. "We should take things slow. I think that's best."
"Okay," I nodded, and we stood there for a moment, neither really sure what to do.
"Well, I'll go wash up," I finally offered.
"Yeah," Howie nodded. He looked a little sad, and I leaned forward and kissed him quickly on the cheek.
"Don't go anywhere," I said jokingly, and then, before he could reply I went into the bathroom to splash cold water on my face and stare into the mirror for long moments, wondering what the hell I was doing.
Howie changed into sweats while I was in the bathroom, and then he went and washed up while I changed. I was in bed when he returned, and he rolled out the sleeping bag and set up the pillow.
"You could sleep in the guest room if you like," I offered.
"You want me to?" he asked.
"No," I smiled nervously at him. "Just thought it would be more comfortable. But I'd rather you stayed."
"Okay," he smiled back at me, and then he went over and turned out the light. I could just see him in the faint light as he made his way back to the sleeping bag. I heard the rustling of him getting into the sleeping bag and making himself comfortable.
"Comfy?" I asked once the noise had stopped.
"Yeah," he half laughed.
"Okay, well, good night Howie."
"Yeah, night Sam."
I tried to sleep. I tried to get comfortable, but it seemed I just couldn't stay still. I tossed and turned all the time. Just couldn't get comfortable.
"Sam?" I heard Howie whisper.
I'd been lying there for at least an hour, and was no closer to sleeping. I debated whether to answer, or pretend to be asleep.
"Yeah?" I grunted, trying to sound sleepier than I was.
"I'm sorry."
I sighed. I felt so strange lying there, looking up at the ceiling, while Howie was lying on the floor; so close, and yet so far.
"It's okay Howie. I know it's not easy...and family are...I'm sorry I didn't even think about it."
"Yeah well..." and he was quiet for a moment. "So you don't want to come to New York?"
"Ehh...I dunno Howie," I answered truthfully.
"Okay," he replied curtly.
"I'll think about it, okay?"
"Okay," he said, a little warmer. "Night."
"Night Howie."
I lay there, somehow wishing that he'd do something to try and persuade me. The problem was, the only thing that would persuade me would be if he changed his mind and said it was okay for me to go with him to Maine. I knew I was being a bitch wanting that, but that was what I wanted. I didn't want him to introduce me to his parents as his boyfriend or anything. Hell, I'd even stay at a motel and not see them; I was willing to go that far. Maybe that seems stupid. How would it be different if he took me, and I hid away, versus not taking me at all? But in my mind it was different. I couldn't explain it.
I knew I was being stupid. I didn't like what I secretly wanted. The problem was, I liked the alternatives even less.
I was stuck.
The next morning was, if anything, more awkward. When I woke up, Howie was already downstairs having breakfast, and he and Mom went to pick up his car from the garage while I was in the shower.
When they got back, Howie started getting his stuff into the car and I helped him. We talked about the weather. We talked about whether the car would make it okay and what the drive would be like. We talked about lots of things. We talked about nothing.
We didn't talk about what would happen next. We didn't talk about New York.
I wanted to say something; start a conversation somehow. But Howie just kept moving and I didn't know what to say. I'd try and engineer a moment together in the bedroom and he'd grab something and head out before I had a chance to say something.
I guess he was mad, or annoyed, or disappointed. I guess I was too.
And then, before I could process it all, he was saying thanks to Mom and they hugged, and then I was walking him out to his car. Mom tactfully stayed inside, I guess realizing that I wanted to talk to him.
"Well, Sam, thanks so much for everything," Howie said, smiling and holding out his hand. I stared at it a moment, and then took it and he tugged me to him and put his arms around me and hugged me hard.
"Thanks so much," he whispered, and kissed me on the cheek. I hugged him back.
"Howie..." I began, but he was having none of it. He pulled away,
"I'll call you," he said quickly, tugging at the door.
"Howie, I..."
"Sam. It's okay," he said, and he stood there for a moment and we were staring into each other's eyes, but I couldn't tell what he was thinking. "Don't worry about it," he said.
"But I..."
"I'll call you," he said, a catch in his voice, and I realized he was as upset as I was. I should have said something. I should have just held onto him.
But I didn't. The next thing I knew he was in the car starting it up. He looked out the window at me briefly, giving me a crooked smile, and in a blink of an eye he was gone and I was standing there watching the car drive down the street.
I didn't feel sad, so much as empty. Like there was suddenly a big empty space inside of me.
I didn't hear from Howie for three weeks. I was miserable for most of it. At first I kept thinking that he must be missing me and that he'd call and we'd talk and somehow work it out.
Then, after several days had gone by, I started to get mad. I knew it was stupid, but I guess I thought that he'd caused the problem and he had to be the one to try and solve it. Or do something. I needed him to show me he cared. I couldn't believe it would just end like that. Had I been that unreasonable?
But he didn't, or he couldn't. Not in the way I wanted him to.
And every day he didn't call, I got angrier.
Well, first I got depressed; then I got angry. If he'd called the second week, I'd probably have strangled him over the phone.
By the third week I thought I was getting over him. Of course I was wrong, but I thought I was.
"You what?!" Louise almost screamed.
I hadn't seen Louise since Howie had left, and my Mom and I had gone over to my Aunt and Uncles for dinner. Usually Louise and I avoided each other, but this time Louise was doing her new, friendly act, and had dragged me up to her room 'to talk.' She then proceeded to try and get every detail of the Howie fiasco out of me.
I wasn't sure if this was an improvement in our relationship.
"I haven't called him," I repeated. I'd got up to the part where he'd left, and he hadn't called.
Louise seemed to be of the opinion that I should call him and beg him to take me back. 'Take me back to what?' was the part I wasn't sure of.
I shrugged. I couldn't think of anything else to say, so I tried the non-verbal approach.
"But he was so into you!" Louise exclaimed. She gave me a serious pout. "You get all upset because he wouldn't take you back to meet his Mom and Dad. Who cares about that? Just go to New York with him!"
"I couldn't."
"Why not?!"
"Because!" I huffed.
"Because why?!"
This was getting annoying. I really didn't want to talk to Louise about this. I hadn't even really talked to my Mom about it much, and she had at least had the good sense not to push it. I liked to get over these things in my own way. I'd nurse the hurt out; pull it apart and examine it until I'd pulled every part of him out of my heart. Only when I couldn't feel anything anymore could I move on.
But Louise didn't understand that I didn't need to spill my guts out to her.
She patted the bed beside her.
"Sit down here," she said, smiling in imitation of friendship and concern. I knew she was just getting me closer so she could dig her claws in, but I sat down anyway.
"Why didn't you just go? Maybe after that he'd be more comfortable and..."
I shook my head. "He wasn't going to change," I said.
"How do you know?"
"I just know, okay? I knew that if I went, he'd just...we'd have a good time for a day or two, and I'd get even more attached to him and then he'd have to go off and do something and he wouldn't want me to go and I'd be hurt even more."
"You don't know that."
"Yeah, I know that," I said, shaking my head. "He doesn't want to be out to anyone he knows. He can't handle it. That's fine, but it's...it would be hard enough to have a relationship with him anyway. If he doesn't want anyone to know, then when am I going to ever see him? A day here and there every couple of months? I just can't deal with that."
"If you don't try, you don't know," Louise countered.
"I knew enough," I said. "Look, he left over two weeks ago and I haven't heard anything from him. Nothing. Nada. Zip..."
"I get it."
"Well that kind of tells you how much I mean to him, doesn't it?"
Louise reached out and took my hand in hers and I felt all weird. Not because it was a girl holding my hand, or even that it was my cousin, it was that it was Louise.
"Maybe he thought you needed your space? Maybe he was hurt too, did you think of that?"
"Yeah," I said. Oh yeah, bastard that I was I was secretly hoping he was hurting. I knew he could never hurt as much as I was, but I hoped he was hurting too. Hurting really bad.
God I'm a sick fuck.
I managed to get out of Louise's bedroom without breaking down, or changing my position. Thankfully, dinner was called, and after that I did my best to keep away from Louise.
In some ways I was even more confident after the little talk with Louise, that I was over him. I'd talked about him without going to pieces. I'd also managed to more closely articulate what had happened, at least as I saw it.
I was doing okay.
That's maybe why it was such a shock that I went to pieces when he did finally call.
It was the very next day, and Mom was out with a client and I had been just about to go out the door when the phone rang and I picked it up.
"Hey, Sam?"
The voice sounded familiar, yet I couldn't believe it. I didn't want it to be who I thought it might be.
"Hello?" I repeated, trying to buy myself some time. My world had been returning to normal. I was over him. I was dealing with it. And then the phone had rung, I picked it up, and bam! Suddenly things were back to where they were three weeks ago.
Fuck!
"It's Howie," came the simple response. There was kind of a half laugh behind it, as though he was a little embarrassed I didn't know who it was.
I knew who it was. I was being a bitch, but somehow it made me feel good to put him on the defensive.
"Hey, Howie," I answered noncommittally. I honestly had no idea what to say to him. Why was he calling now?
"Uh...um...how are you?" he asked.
It seemed like he didn't know what to say either. I felt a little better about that.
"Uh...not much. Just working again and stuff," I answered slowly.
"At the factory?"
He remembered. "Yeah," I said. Okay, he was trying. I guess I had to try too. "How are you doing?"
"Oh, you know..." he paused. "Just been playing and stuff..." he trailed off.
"Yeah?"
"Yeah."
"How'd the show in New York go?" I asked. I didn't even ask it to be mean, though as I said it I wondered if he'd take it that way.
"Oh, it was okay. They seemed to enjoy it, you know?"
"Cool," I answered. His voice was so calming on me. I just wanted to hear him talk to me, but I didn't know what to say to him. Just talk Howie, that's all I want.
There was an awkward silence.
"Sam," he said quietly.
"Yeah?"
"I'm sorry."
I took a deep breath. Where was this going? I knew he was sorry. I knew he didn't really mean for this to happen. I was still angry, but to what end?
"It's okay Howie," I said just as quietly.
"Yeah..." he was quiet for a moment. He sounded upset. "Okay, well... I just wanted to..."
"It's okay."
"Look I gotta go. Maybe I'll call you, Sam?"
I took a breath. Did I want that? Yeah of course I did.
"I don't know Howie. Maybe not," I took a deep breath. "I'm sorry." I was almost crying. But I couldn't deal with him calling me. Not at the moment. I couldn't go from feeling for him to just being friends. I couldn't do that. Not so quickly.
"Okay," he said sadly.
"I'm sorry. I just...I just can't."
"Yeah. I understand. Well, take care," he said.
"You too," I said as he hung up.
I didn't see Howie for another year.
Boston. One year later.
Looking back, it wasn't that I had to get over Howie. I didn't really 'have' him in the first place. Yet somehow there was something there; hope? anticipation? imaginings? Whatever it was, I still had to forget him enough so that I wouldn't be comparing him with the next person that came along.
That was the problem. And for the first few months, well I just wasn't interested in anyone.
Life can suck that way.
But eventually you give up moping about and get on with it.
So here I am, one year later, in Boston, taking classes, still thinking about being a movie maker, baffled, lost, confused. Pretty much your average 19 year old.
One thing had changed; I started dating again. I met a guy at a party. It started slowly; we went on a few dates, and it was okay, but not earth shattering. I knew he wasn't the love of my life, and I don't think I knocked him off his feet either. It was as if neither of us wanted to commit; we just wanted to date. To have someone to do things with. It was an odd relationship; almost a placeholder. Each of us waiting for something better to come along.
Does that sound bad?
I don't know. It kind of worked. Or maybe we were loath to go back to being along. We were together because it was more fun than being single. At least for the moment.
Man, that sounds like it was just about sex. Yet honestly, it wasn't. We watched more TV and went to more movies than we had sex.
Yeah, I couldn't figure it out either.
The really sick part of it all; his name is Sam too. On that basis alone, we shouldn't have been allowed to date. Sam and Sam, the Samease twins as one friend called us, even though we were nothing alike. Sam is extremely thin, with long thick dark hair and very pale skin. He dresses a little Goth, I think mainly because his hair and complexion work so well for it.
My living arrangements are equally strange. I'm sharing an apartment with two others; a guy and a girl. It was actually pretty neat because Sharon has a boyfriend, and is hardly ever around, and Chris has a girlfriend, and I haven't seen him in a month. So most of the time it is just me and Sam at the apartment. He'd come over and we'd hang out and have the place to ourselves.
It's the kind of arrangement you dream of, but couldn't arrange if you tried. Pretty neat, really.
And so it was. Just another March day and Sam had arrived after classes, bringing the mail in with him.
"Don't you ever bring up your mail?" he asked, throwing the stuff on the kitchen table.
"No," I said. It was nearly always junk mail. Any bills could wait. I left it all to Sharon to do when she was back.
Sam sat down at the table and looked through the pile idly. He stopped at a thick white envelope.
"This is for you," he said pulling it out from the pile.
"Who's it from?" I said, trying to find something to drink in the refrigerator.
"Your Mom!" Sam said.
"Oh, maybe it's cash!" I joked.
I took it from him and ripped it open. To my surprise, it contained another envelope, as well as a short note and a couple of paper clippings. My Mom liked to send me bits and pieces from the local paper.
The letter was pretty short and sweet; but then we talked on the phone a lot and emailed too, so there wasn't really much to put in a letter.
"What's this?" Sam asked, holding up the other envelope.
"I don't know," I shrugged. "What's it say on it?"
"Ehh nothing, it's from a..'H' Dog?"
"Dog?" I said.
I looked over at the envelope he held up.
"Oh," I said, realizing who it was from.
"Who is it?"
"Nothing important," I said shrugging. "Toss it over on the counter with the other crap," I said as casually as I could.
It wasn't until later that evening - when I got back from the movie, and Sam had gone home after some heavy petting - that I retrieved the letter and opened it carefully.
It wasn't the first. Howie had written to me twice before. Both short notes, the first one a few weeks after our phone call. A short 'how are you, what are you up to, I'm on the road, thanks for everything, say hi to your Mom' kind of letter. Very casual; much like the phone call. And then, at the end, written almost as an afterthought; 'I miss you - call me?'
I never did, but I put the letter away in a box with some other things and took it out now and again to read. The second letter was in the box too. It's tone was not so casual; it was a little more annoyed. He'd called a couple of weeks after the first letter and I'd basically told him never to call again and hung up on him.
The second letter asked questions he shouldn't have needed to ask; 'why won't you talk to me?' 'can't we be friends?'
Because of it, I had called and left a message on his phone explaining why it made no sense to continue things. I told him we had no future and it would just hurt us both to try and stay in contact.
I was still pissed at him. I couldn't be friends with him; it was just too difficult. If he wanted more than that - and I doubted that he did - then he had to show it. But I knew he wouldn't, and I just wanted him to go away so I could forget him.
The funny thing was, when the first letter arrived I'd been almost desperately waiting to hear from him, and then when it finally came it so pissed me off that I wanted nothing to do with him. Then when we'd spoken the second time on the phone it had been such a storm of emotions. When I'd hung up I was almost sick. I so wanted him to call back and beg. God, he didn't even have to beg much at all.
But no, he waited far too long before sending the second letter, and by then I was over him.
Mostly.
I think he called one other time and spoke to my mother.
And then I'd gone off to college, and I really thought that would be the end of it; but here was Howie, going through my mother again.
I opened the envelope slowly. Inside were a one-page letter, two tickets and a back stage pass. The tickets were to a show in a couple of weeks. The note simply said, 'Hey, gonna be in town opening for a show in a couple of weeks. These are good seats! Hope you can come. Please come! - HD'
I spent far too long reading that damn note. Damn you Howie. Don't write, don't call, that's what I'd said. I really thought I'd gotten away from him. Not with Sam perhaps, but at least with Sam I felt like I'd started the process of moving on. I could now actually imagine meeting someone else and falling in love...
But that was never going to happen if Howie kept turning up. After the tenth or twentieth time of reading, I took the letter and carefully put it with the others in the box, and tried very hard to forget about it.
"Who's are these?" Sam asked.
For a moment I had no idea what he was talking about, and then I turned around and saw I'd left the damn ticket's on the counter, meaning to throw them out. Sam had found them and picked them up.
"Oh...uh"
"Wow! A backstage pass too! Who the fuck are these? Are these yours?! Fuck I'd give my right nut for this."
I stared at him for a moment, before I realized that he was excited about the main act; who I didn't even care about. All I knew was, I wasn't going to that show.
But what was I to tell Sam? Ideas of telling him they belonged to one of my roommates flashed through my head, but then I envisaged the trouble that might cause, if - or more likely when - he found out they weren't. Knowing Sam, he'd hunt down whomever I said owned the tickets and offer to buy them.
"They're mine," I said.
"No shit! Cool! When were you gonna tell me about these?"
"They just came yesterday," I pointed out.
"Oh, that letter. Who sent them?"
Sam was nothing if not sharp.
"I know the guy that's opening," I replied evasively.
"Cool," said Sam. He was already admiring the tickets and the pass as though they were his own property.
"You can have the tickets," I offered.
"Huh?"
"I don't want to go. Why don't you take the tickets? I don't think you can have the pass. I don't think I can just give that away."
"Sure you can...but why don't you want to go?"
"Uhh.."
That was the hard part. Sam finally looked up from the tickets and stared at me.
"Well..." shit! Honesty is the best policy - and all that crap - I told myself. "I kinda dated the guy."
"Oh," said Sam. He actually looked surprised, and maybe a little disappointed.
Curiously, I had no reaction to Sam's reaction. We hadn't talked a lot about past partners or boyfriends, mainly because I felt uncomfortable about it. Clearly Sam was uncomfortable too.
"So you still got a thing for this guy?" he asked.
"Nah," I lied. So much for honesty. I'd feel guilty, but I don't know that Sam bought it anyway.
"He still gotta thing for you?" Sam asked.
I shrugged. "I think he wants to continue to be friends. I just don't think it's possible."
"Love 'em and leave 'em huh?" said Sam.
"Something like that."
"Still, no reason you can't go to the show. Not like you have to go back stage and talk to him," Sam pointed out.
That was true, but then I wasn't that excited about going anyway. The only reason for me to go was to see Howie, and that was the reason why I couldn't go.
"You go, and tell me about it after," I suggested.
"Nah, come on, it'll be fun. You two aren't together anymore...how long were you together anyway?"
"Umm..." this was where it was getting silly. Did the fact that we only spent a few days together mean that there was less connection than if we'd been dating for six months? In some respects, yes; the cynic would argue we were still in the deep puppy love stage, whereas someone that had been together for six months would already be feeling bored and annoyed with their partner.
"Not very long," I equivocated.
Sam looked at me curiously.
"It just wouldn't have worked out, and he travels a lot and doesn't even live in the same state so it was..." and I just trailed off.
Sam shrugged. "No reason not to go then," he said quietly, and I wasn't sure what he was driving at. Or why he just assumed that I was going to go with him, but that's what he did, right up to the day of the concert.
Part of me resented the way Sam assumed I was being irrational or stupid. He believed that there was no reason for me not to go, and that therefore I was going to go with him. I began to suspect that he actually wanted me to go just to prove that I didn't still have a thing for Howie. That I was his now. That it was some kind of competition.
The whole thing was ridiculous. Hadn't we just agreed the week before that we weren't boyfriends, and that we weren't going to get hung up on what we had? Wasn't it me that had pushed to have some kind of resolution, and he who had been less than enthused about declaring 'boyfriend' status? About all we'd agreed was that we were going to be monogamous for the moment, and we promised to tell the other if we were - or had - slept with someone else.
That was his idea too.
If that doesn't tell you that the relationship doesn't mean much, then what do you need; a neon sign?
But here was Sam getting territorial.
Having bickered about it for almost a week, we ended up having a bit of a fight about it the night before the concert when he once more mentioned going and I laughed and said I wasn't. He then demanded to know if it was because I still was in love with Howie. I said I wasn't in love with him, and he said 'prove it and go,' which is just the dumbest thing he could have said.
So I said the next dumbest thing; "Sure, I'll go."
----------------- to be continued