Vern took the time to make three big sandwiches. I cut the tomato and onion to pile on top of four different kinds of lunchmeat. There was a pickle for each of us and a bag of chips, ice cubes, and soda. He carried the three places and I carried the rest back to the room. Gene hadn't moved and still lie naked on the far side of the bed.
"All right! Brenda doesn't cook like this," he said, biting enthusiastically into the sandwich, biting the pickle before he started to chew.
Gene was like a human garbage disposal, vacuuming up everything that got near the opening. The plate sat on his rounded stomach, rising and falling as he breathed, talked, and laughed. The black hair shinned around the plate and down into his crotch where his limp dick lay. Vern and I ate politely and before we were half way done, Gene had finished with the sandwich and was working on the chips, eating them out of the bag.
"What happened?" I asked, being careful to clear my mouth before speaking.
"I got hungry and thirsty and then I ate and drank," Gene said, drinking.
"To the kid at the boardwalk; at the bathroom? Did you get with him?"
"There were a lot of kids," Gene said, crunching potato chips and gulping soda, being careful to rattle his ice each time he finished drinking. He held out the glass and Vern reached to pour him more, and then Gene drank again, until the new soda was half gone. Then he studied the glass after putting the plate on the nightstand next to him.
"The one that you watched do all that stuff."
"Arnie. I don't know."
"You don't know? That was it? You never did anything."
"I touched his dick, didn't I. What did you want me to do, take it up the ass, suck him down to the root, or what did you have in mind for me?"
"I touched a dick when I was nine," I said. "You only did it because he set you up to do it," I explained. "That's not a sexual experience. It's something that happened to you."
"This kid is so full of shit I bet his shorts have skid marks," Gene told Vern.
"Cut it out," Vern said. "What did happen."
"Arnie never came back. Not while I was there that summer, but I left three days later and we didn't go back until the next summer. So we might have missed each other. What did he need me for? He had plenty to do without me."
"Did you see him again?" I asked.
"See who?"
"You know who I'm talking about," I said.
"Why are you so interested in Arnie? He's even older than I am."
"I don't know. You took the time to tell us about him. There has to be more to it than that or you wouldn't have bothered."
"Yeah, maybe. I didn't know anything then. I was a lot like you only younger. You're older than I was back then and you know a lot less than I knew."
"What, because I haven't fucked around with everyone that has a dick?" I objected.
"No, because you object to guys who have," Gene said. "It's not your call kid."
"There are limits. You can't just do stuff because you feel like it. If everybody did that, it would be a fucked up world."
"If everyone did that the world would be a hell of a lot more peaceful. So, what are the limits anyway? And do you get to do stuff if you don't feel like it? Will that make you happy kid? Who decides who gets to do it with who and how often? You?"
"No. You just can't do it with everyone you meet," I said. "It takes the mystery out of it. Then it's just routine and it should never be routine."
"Who do I get to do it with according to Ted? I need to know so I can tell Brenda. She enjoys sex with my friends."
"RC," Vern said, smiling.
"She'd ah married him if he had been old enough."
"I don't know," I said, feeling cornered by his attitude.
What's that you said?" Gene inquired loudly.
"I said, I don't know."
"Exactly. You don't know shit. Don't sit there looking all superior, because I did things so I could have the experience. I wanted to know why things were the way they were and why I felt the way I felt. I didn't want to grow up being clueless. Whatever it was about back then, I wanted to know more not less. I was certain experience would allow me to figure out what was best for me."
"Did you see him again? Arnie?" I asked.
"His folks spent the summer there, too. His father anyway. He didn't have a mother. I saw him the next summer. He'd grown. His voice got deeper. He had some hair on his chin. It wasn't enough to shave but he hardly had any hair at all the summer before."
"I'd been down to the bathroom and to the arcade, hoping to find him. I went strolling into that bathroom the first afternoon I got there. There were like three guys standing in there. I think it was the college guys Arnie mentioned. They were all older, but not much older. Whatever was going on, it stopped when I showed up. They all looked at me and I started to pee at the trough, but I changed my mind and went into the first booth to pee. None of them said anything the entire time I was in there; all of two minutes. They watched me come out of the booth and kept watching me until I went out the door. I heard laughter once I was outside. I'm not sure what they were laughing at."
"What were you looking for?" I asked. "I mean the first thing you did when you got back down there was to look for him."
"Yeah, why was this guy so important to you?" Vern asked.
"If you're looking for me to say I was looking for a dick to suck, I'm sorry to report that I wasn't. I'm not sure what I was looking for, but Arnie excited me. He scared me because of what I felt when he was near me, but there was excitement to it and I liked it. I was young and didn't know how to get where I wanted to go, but I figured Arnie could help. If that meant feeling his dick or watching him suck guys off through a hole in the wall, that was fine with me. I wasn't in charge. I was just curious."
"What was it that scared you, when you were with him?" Vern asked.
"Like I'd do whatever he wanted so he'd let me hang around him."
"Where'd you catch up with him?" Vern asked.
"What makes you think I did?"
"He had grown. His voice was deeper," Vern reminded him.
"Yeah, that's right. He was with a guy and they came into the arcade at the end of the first week I was back. I didn't recognize him at first. His hair was cut short. The year before it had been hanging over his face and covered his ears. He was wearing a nice shirt and slacks and the guy with him was about the same age, only he had dark hair. They played some games and I lost track of them, but he came over and said, Gene, right? Yeah, I said, not taking my eyes off the ball.
"He said that I looked older but nothing like how much he'd matured. He was nearly a man. I was still growing up and not making a lot of progress. The boy he was with had a deep voice and sparks in his eyes when Arnie stopped to talk to me. I figured they were friends but I wasn't sure it was any different than the boys he had hung around him the last summer. I kept playing and they disappeared out the front door. I wanted to go see where they were going but I thought they might be heading for the bathroom, and I didn't want to go in there with two guys, especially two pretty good size guys. I thought they might be able to make me do something I didn't want to do."
"You said you wanted to be around him," I said. You'd do what he wanted you to do."
"Him but not his friends. It bothered me that he had so many friends. I wasn't sure how much time I could get from him, even if I could get his attention. I didn't want to share him with other guys."
"When did you run into him again?" Vern asked.
"The following week. I was up on the boardwalk down by the place where they had great French fries. I had just poured some vinegar on mine and was walking away, lost in the taste of my treat. There he was, sticking his fist in my fries and popping some in his mouth.
"He walked with me and helped me eat them. I always got more than I could eat and they were never any good once they got cold, so I didn't mind the help. We walked and he talked about the summer being slow and how a lot of the kids he knew hadn't come back. He said it was good that I came back. We walked in the opposite direction from the bathroom, so I liked that, although I'd have gone there with him if he had said he wanted to go there.
"Hey, I got to go over a few blocks. You want to come along? he asked me. I was eager to go with him. We came around the corner heading for the riverside of the main drag and there's the dark haired kid I'd seen him with the week before. The one he was with the first day. He doesn't look all that happy to see me with Arnie. They talked about a she and the dark haired kid wanted to know if she was going to be there, and if I was going along. Arnie said she was and I was and we walked further away from the ocean. We turned the corner and he starts up the steps of the first house we come to. I trot up the steps with him and the other kid follows. Arnie knocked on the door and this blond haired girl answered. She had long blond hair and Arnie kissed her on the lips and she glanced at me and then at the other guy and said, hi Joshua. How are you today? It was obvious she liked him."
"Everyone agree that everyone else was fine and we ended up sitting in her living room as she put ice in glasses and brought us tea. Joshua kept staring at her and Arnie touched her every time she passed him. It was odd. Not odd what was happening but odd that Arnie was involved with a girl. They obviously knew each other pretty well, but then, I thought back to the things I had seen Arnie do with guys and the way Joshua hung close to him, like they were together.
"We're all sitting and talking but I'm mostly quiet. Arnie says she should go put that "shortie nightgown" on Joshua likes. Joshua smiled and the girl blushes as she smiles back. Joshua gets out of the chair. The front of his pants are all tented out. He sits down at the other end of the sofa from Arnie and seems really nervous. He spends his time watching the doorway and looking at Arnie. The girl came back in what looked like a pink slip, only you can see her pink panties because it is so short. Arnie says how lovely she looks, only she's skinny and don't have much of a rack on her, but Arnie and Joshua don't seem, too, worried about it.
"She sits in the middle between them and Arnie kisses her. I felt even more uncomfortable all the time. This isn't what I'm expecting to find on my return to the beach. I start thinking that Arnie has changed. She half leans on Arnie and her feet are in Joshua's lap and he is right away feeling them and then her legs as she gets into making out with Arnie. Then the guy's hand has worked its way up the inside of her leg into his fingers are feeling the front of her panties.
"She keeps kissing away on Arnie, acting like another guy doesn't have his hands in places where guy's hands weren't usually allowed to linger, at least not in a crowd. Joshua now has the front of his pants pressed hard against her leg. He is leaning closer and using his hands more vigorously as she wiggles a bit from all the attention she's getting. That's about the time Joshua's fingers started to slip under the leg of her panties, so his fingers are now rubbing the prize. His face is getting closer and closer to her crotch and now Arnie's hand is on top of the pink panties, too.
"Joshua has a wild look in his eyes as his face presses against the silk and Arnie's hand as his finger's probe deeper under the material. It was all quite confusing because it caught me by surprise. I thought maybe I didn't know as much as I thought I knew about Arnie, or maybe he had changed. He was certainly into the activity on the couch, but why did he want me there?"
"I got to pee, Arnie said and Joshua pulls his hand our from under her panties. You got to pee, Josh, Arnie wants to know and Joshua says he does. Then Arnie says the girl should ought to go change, because they will be going after they pee. She heads up the stairs and Arnie goes into the hall with Joshua behind him. I figured I had to pee, too, and so I got up and went into the hall once they were out of sight.
"Then I see the light on and the door half opened at the end of the hall and so I head for there before they finish, but what I see changes everything back again. Arnie's leaning on the sink with his hard dick sticking out of his pants. Joshua is in front of him sucking him off. Arnie's grown there, too, and it's way thicker but no longer as far as I could tell. I stand and watch as Joshua sucks up a storm and then Arnie turns his head to look at me, and he smiles. He didn't care I saw, or he planned on me seeing. I think Joshua might have objected to the view I had but he was so busy trying to swallow Arnie's dick that he didn't look my way."
"So, let me get this straight. Arnie's making out with a girl to make out with a guy?" I say. "How weird is that?"
"Very close kid. You aren't far off the mark for once. Arnie and his girlfriend use her pussy to get him guys. I was amazed that guys that wanted girls would do stuff with other guys," Gene confessed. "Arnie played all the angles and he hung with girls that liked the excitement he provided."
"Like you do?" I asked.
"Yeah, like I did. It was quite exciting seeing a guy like Joshua do a guy like Arnie, all the time thinking he was paying a toll so he could cross the bridge to where the pussy is. All is fare in love and war. I had the feeling that Arnie would educate me but I had no idea how complicated and how varied the education might be. I had to rethink everything after that, because everything I knew had turned 180 degrees and then it turned back all in an hour."
"You decided you like girls and got married?" I deduced.
"You're getting way ahead of yourself kid. I liked watching them, both of them, with the girl, but I didn't want in on that action. The action with Arnie in the bathroom, I'm not so sure about. I was way more excited by what went on in there than what was going on out on the couch," Gene insisted. "I did enjoy seeing Joshua on his knees though. He was tough looking and he had a tude and Arnie had make a cocksucker out of him. I liked that action."
"You're gay," I said. "Arnie's gay. Joshua was being used so Arnie could get what he wanted from him and both Joshua and Arnie were using Arnie's girlfriend, but what was she getting out of it?"
"Well, thank you very much, Sigmund," Gene said. "I s'pose you don't need to hear the rest of the story since you've already figured it all out?"
"I didn't say that," I said. "My name is Ted by the way."
"You're a dick," Gene said.
"Gene!" Vern said.
"He's a dick. He don't listen and he thinks he knows stuff without ever having been there. He's the kind of fag that gives fags bad names."
"I'm not a fag," I protested vehemently.
"La Tee Dai. Who the fuck cares? It's not about you, Ted."
"I have my opinion and I'm not a fag."
"You have an opinion based on what?" Gene argued.
"Based on my opinion."
"You need to have experience to develop an intelligent opinion about simple concepts, but you want to share you opinion with something as complicated as sexuality. Forgive me if I don't come to you for advice. Come back in ten years and then you might have something to say."
"I'm hoping we can achieve that in a little less time than that," Vern said.
"I never said it was intelligent. I said it was my opinion," I said. "I want experience but not from the varsity sex club. I think I can figure things out if Vern's helps."
"Vern is all in favor of that," Vern said. "I think we can come up with a plan we can both agree on."
"Why don't we put a hold on your wise ass remarks until you do that?" Gene said.
"Yeah," I said, not being particularly in favor of keeping quiet.
"This is all sounding quite familiar," Vern said. "Is Arnie your mentor?"
"I suppose I got a certain amount of instruction from Arnie. What he taught me was that you don't need to label everything you do. I'm not gay because I screw Vern. I'm not straight because I screw Brenda. I'm not asexual when I'm not screwing anyone."
"So you're telling me I might not be gay?" Vern said. "I'm going through a stage, right?"
"No, I'm pretty sure you're gay. From my observation your interest has always been in dicks," Gene said.
"When put in the right place, yes, you could say that," Vern said.
"But you're not because your interest is in assholes," I said, unable to control myself.
"I'm not because I'm more flexible. I can go without guy's assholes but that doesn't mean I don't enjoy them. I also enjoy my wife and I love her and we agree on most things, especially guys. I don't particular think the available labels fit me," Gene said thoughtfully.
"Bi-sexual," I said.
"Sexual," Gene said. "I like sex. I can enjoy it with men, with women, or with both, or many variations on the theme."
"So what's that make me?" I asked.
"You are an unknown quantity. You think you like guys now. I only liked guys when I was your age. I'd met Brenda but I was having sex with only guys. Once I found out I could appreciate being with Brenda, it was easier being with her than being with guys. Way easier. We had more in common. We did everything together."
"She changed you?" I asked.
"No, nothing changed. Guys are dicks. I'm a dick. We can hit and run, get our needs met and then go back to the acceptable life."
"Acceptable life?" I asked.
"Yeah, sure. If you date and have a girl around your apartment, everyone assumes you're straight. Then if a guy or two show up, stay the night, and aren't too wild in bed, no one thinks about it. They're just buds because he's got a girlfriend."
"So you're living a lie to convince people you aren't fucking guys, but you are fucking guys?"
"I'm living my truth. My reality. Even when I saw it, I questioned it. I saw Arnie with Peggy. I saw him with Joshua. I saw him with any number of younger guys, older guys, and guys his own age. Almost every time I was around him, he was having sex, planning to have sex, or just had sex. He liked sex and adjusted to all its facets, during his summers at the beach. He told me he never found anything like it anywhere else. At home, Newark, New Jersey, he had very few chances to have sex with guys. Once he found out what went on at the beach, he made up for lost time."
"So you became friends with Arnie?" Vern asked.
"No, I don't think you became friends with him. You were having sex with him or you weren't. Everyone he showed up with he was having sex with. He was having sex with the young guys during the day, college guys in the afternoon, and old guys at night. When I hung around him, something always happened pretty quick. He liked sex. He said it excited him and made him feel alive and otherwise his life sucked."
"I bet," I said. "Sucked big time."
"What was with the girl?" Vern asked.
"She fell in love with him. He told her it wasn't going to work but they kept seeing each other until he realized that it worked fine. She knew. She wanted to be with him, and she accepted the other guys as part of the package. Whatever Arnie wanted was okay with her."
"Brenda?" Vern said.
"Brenda," Gene said. "Thank heaven for Brenda or I'd be looking for cock every day. She helped me to realize that I could take it or leave it as long as she stuck with me. She's loyal. She has no competition as far as women are concerned and she likes my friends. We've got similar taste and the one rule is that I'm home at night with her."
"Like tonight?" I said.
"I'm getting there. It's different because everything is upside down. Day is night and night is day and she knew I needed to get out of there. Brenda loves me the way I am and I'm there when she needs me."
"You're a gay guy having sex with a woman," I said.
"That's your problem? You need to label everything. That's the trick of the government and religion. Label everything and then make certain things less likeable. Sex! Drugs! Rock and Roll! Give people a hard time for not conforming to their rules."
"What's any of that got to do with what we're talking about?" I asked.
"You divide people up into groups. You, you, and you, are okay. You say the right things and you act right."
"Go with girls," I said.
"Bingo. If you don't go with or aren't seen with a respectable number of chicks, you're suspect, especially if your buddies sleep over or if you laugh too much or touch guys in ways that appear to be too affectionate. Guys mustn't be too familiar or show affection, unless they don't mind the jokes and the whispers."
"I don't go out with girls. I have a few girl friends, but nothing romantic," I said.
"You're already suspect," Gene said.
"I don't think so? I've never done anything with anyone."
"Ah, but you haven't done the right thing with the right people to be acceptable either. Did you go to the last school dance?"
"Nah, I have no interest in staring at guys with girls."
"Oh, you stare. Yeah, that's one of the signs. Not dating is a sign. Being a loner is a sign, because you are afraid if you are with a guy you'd lose control."
"That's bullshit. I'm not interested in guys who aren't interested in me. I want to love someone not rape them," I argued with him.
"Maybe! How do you know? How do they know that's true? You don't do what's acceptable. You aren't seen with the right people."
"I don't' see why it would matter to anyone else," I said, irritated by his supposition.
"That's where you have gone astray. It matters very much that someone isn't sitting next to a fag in class, or at lunch or, heaven forbid, in the shower. It's very important."
"That's bullshit. I'm in all those places every day."
"Exactly! Don't think they aren't looking to find you out. You think any self respecting guy wants a fag sitting next to them?"
"Gene, don't be ridiculous, every ten guys and you come to one of us."
"Which one? How gay? Does he date? Is he married? Does he have children?"
"I don't know," I said, more confused than informed.
"So, you love guys and...."
"Not yet I don't. I have high hopes."
"You love guys. Call yourself gay, quite convenient for those who would like to ferret you out for a little special treatment, and you make no attempt to do the right things to throw the haters off your trail. You do nothing to make it appear you are acceptable in society. Therefore you are suspect. People, good normal people, must keep an eye on you, until you make a mistake and are found out."
"You're paranoid," I said. "I don't give a damn what people think?"
"No, I'm a realist. You're an idealist. I can cohabit with the female of the species, and I do. It's all quite acceptable and what I do with guys is immaterial, just as long as I appear to be in compliance with the rules and regs society likes to say are the gold standard of goodness and virtue."
"You fuck guys up the ass," I protested in laughter.
"Ah, as do many other guys who appear quite acceptable. The quarterback, the congressman, the judge, all fucking guys up the ass but appearing to be quite regular guys, when they aren't fucking guys up the ass, and just how long is spent in that pursuit anyway, two, three hours a months at most? Who will know as long as the other 600 hours that month are spent in honorable pursuits."
"That's totally whacked," I said.
"Yeah, but true, too. I haven't done a guy since I was twenty-one or twenty-two. I can't say it hasn't crossed my mind, but Vern lost interest, after I stayed with Brenda. RC lost interest once he thought someone was going to accuse him of being the father of one of my kids. I saw Vern tonight and one thing led to another and here we are, Ted, having totally intellectual intercourse together."
"And some other kinds of intercourse, too," Vern said.
"You're still living a lie. You like fucking guys. You like guys and you can love them but because you don't you think that makes you straight? Get real. You're queer as a three dollar bill."
"No, safe. It's easier being married with children. There's less talk around the water cooler. I see guys I like but so do most guys who like other guys. It doesn't mean I've got to get in their pants. Using your logic, Ted, I love someone and I'm with her. I have a lot of feelings about a lot of things but the reality doesn't change because my dick gets hard when a cute boy bends over in front of me."
"You even talk like a fag," I said.
"And as long as you keep labeling yourselves to be separated out for punitive measures, you'll moan and bitch about gay men being treated so wrongly. That's what fags like to do most of all. It's not about sex, or love, or who you want to spend the rest of your life with, it's about feeling wronged because you live in a society that refuses to accept the biological reality of homosexuality. I, on the other hand, see the reality and choose to live a life that makes it unnecessary to waste so much energy on self-pity. I feel fine about my life."
"Everyone can't do what you do?" I said. "I like guys and I want to be with them. I'm not cheating a woman by pretending I love her and then giving her half the loaf. That's wrong."
"No, you probably can't make the decision I've made. There aren't that many Brendas out there, but you get to do it your way. I get to do it my way. There is no right or wrong. It's what everyone does. You take the road that's provided for you. You take the path of least resistance if you want to have any hope of happiness. That's what is open to you. The reality is that you'll have it tougher than me, unless you latch on to Vern here and never let go. Then you might find love in another man and live happily ever after, and for that I'd be grateful, because I'd love to see Vern live happily ever after. He's a wonderful guy and if I wanted to do only guys, and stay with one guy, it would be Vern."
"RC Green," Vern said, turning his head to smile at Gene.
"Like I said, I'd want it to be RC Green, but he's so dumb it would never work. He's straight, too, and that would be a handicap. He simply had the misfortune to fall in love with another dude and that's a problem for straight guys. I'm sure there are guys fucking him now and RC still hasn't figured out that he's not gay. He merely loves sex and the feel you get from letting someone get that close to you for however long it takes them to cum and move on."
"He's not straight then," I advised him. "If he let you fuck him and now he is letting other guys fuck him, he isn't straight."
"Oh, yeah, I forget, Sigmund. If I ever run across RC again, I'll be certain to bring him straight to you so you can explain what he is to him. You really need to have a relationship with Vern here. I think it would do you a world of good to love and feel loved. You might learn you don't know as much as you think you do, and please, quit reading books. You've obviously read what's said by the experts, and they have little expertise if they haven't had the experience. All they do is listen to the ramblings of others and then form conclusions, all the time hoping the person or persons they got the info from isn't a lunatic or retarded. You know how lame that is? There is only one sex education that works, Ted. Experience with honesty. You come back to advise me and RC and millions of others, after you've experienced sex and love. I might take you seriously then."
"How long have I known you?" Vern asked.
"Nearly six years," Gene said.
"Six years. Do you realize that you've said more in one evening then you've said to me in all those years?"
"Wasn't much to talk about until you brought old Ted into the picture. He's pretty far out there you know, Vern?"
"No, I don't think he's far out there at all. Maybe too far away from me right now, and certainly too far once he goes home, but Ted's the real deal. He does it to me in a way no one else ever has."
"Moi?"
"Gene, you're a good fuck. You've always been a good fuck, but you've never been there for me. Like you said, you like sex, and you're good at it, but there's more to it than that. I did love you for a long time but even a kid grows up enough to understand that love is a two way street and with you it was a dead end."
"Yeah, that is all very true, and maybe if I'm guilty of anything it is that I like sex too much, but does that disqualify me from the human race? Do I then not get to play because I like it, too, much? What of the other guys who like it too much? Are we all disqualified? Isn't it sad that someone has to put someone else down in order that they can feel good about themselves?"
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