Flipping the Coin

CHAPTER 12
REVELATIONS

When Orion and I arrived at our apartment, the landlady was totally charmed by him. He and I followed her up to the apartment. Patrick had not yet arrived, so Orion and I got first choice of beds. As she left, she said to be sure to ask if we needed anything.

Patrick arrived later in the afternoon. He immediately took to Orion. Orion was friendly and wagged his tail, but I could see that he was playing it cool until he knew Patrick better.

We finished settling in and I fed Orion and took him out to do his business before Patrick and I went in search of a restaurant. We found a pizza place within a short walking distance, so we opted for pizza that night. It was excellent pizza, and we would return there many times. We talked about our summers. I told him about some of the boys at camp.

All the time we were eating, I was dying to ask Patrick what his question was, but I surmised that the pizzeria was probably not the right place to ask.

On the way back to the apartment, we stopped and picked up some food for the next few days. Neither one of us had much idea of what the other liked, although we had eaten dorm food which all seemed to taste the same. I told him that if I got daring enough, I’d try out a few Persian recipes on him.

When we got back to the apartment and had been greeted by Orion, we both gravitated to the bed alcove and sat on our own beds facing each other. “Okay,” I said, “you can’t put this off any longer.”

“This is very difficult,” he said.

“Okay, but I want you to know that you can ask me or tell me anything. I may be surprised, but I won’t be shocked, and I promise I won’t judge you.”

“Well, um… um…” he began and then blurted out, “Have you ever watched porn?”

I was surprised, but I answered, “Yeah, quite a bit actually. I wouldn’t be surprised if most guys our age did. Does that bother you?”

“No. I hadn’t really looked at any until this summer, and once I watched some I couldn’t stop. I guess some of the sites had cookies or viruses, because near the end of the summer my laptop pretty much stopped working and I had to take it in to get cleaned out. So, you don’t think it’s awful that I do that?”

“No, I don’t. What kind of porn did you like?”

“God, this is so embarrassing!”

“It’s okay, Patrick, I told you I’m not going to judge you and I won’t be shocked.”

By now his face was nearly the color of his hair. Actually, I thought he was kind of cute that way. Finally, he said, “Gay porn.”

Oh my God, I thought to myself. Aloud, I asked, “Do you prefer older men, or bears, or twinks?” Then I had to explain to him what bears and twinks were in this context.

“No! I don’t prefer bears or old men. I prefer guys about our age, preferably without a lot of hair.”

Well, there I had it. We were both gay and our tastes were very similar.

My next question surprised him. “Have you been having sex with other guys?”

“Jesus, no. I’ve never had sex with anybody—boys, girls, or knights in shining armor. I would love to, but I’m afraid to bring it up with anybody, so I just jerk off when you’re not around.”

“And do you fantasize about anybody in particular when you jerk off?”

“This is getting more and more embarrassing. Yeah, I do. When I was in high school, there was a boy, Will, who I thought was really attractive, and for more than three years I pictured him naked whenever I jerked off. I carried that image of him with me all through the beginning of last year.”

“What happened then?” I asked quietly.

Equally quietly he responded, “This is the most embarrassing part of all. I began to fantasize about you.”

By then, the sun had set, and there wasn’t much light in our sleeping alcove, so he couldn’t see that I was smiling. Slowly I got up and went to sit beside him. I put my arm around his shoulders, gave him a little hug, and said, “I’m flattered. And I have to admit that sometimes very recently I’ve been doing the same about you.”

“Oh, I thought if you were gay that you were probably doing things with Roshan.”

“I did. I loved him. We had sex multiple times a week and it was glorious. But,” and here I sighed, “that’s mostly been over for some time now. He’s changed. I don’t know, maybe I have too. But we have done virtually nothing since I began college. I missed him terribly at first, and I still do in a way. But I don’t think I love him in the same way anymore. I guess we’ve both grown up and apart some. I know I will always love him as a brother, but no longer as a lover.”

We stayed sitting with my arm around his shoulder. Then he turned, put his arm around my waist, and asked, “Can I kiss you?”

“Oh yes!” I sighed and leaned towards him. He leaned towards me, and our mouths met—warm and delicious. Soon, our tongues were exploring each other. I reached down, took hold of the bottom of his T-shirt, and slowly raised it. He lifted his arms and the shirt slipped smoothly off him. He did the same for me, and presently we were both rubbing each other’s chests and backs. He felt as I had imagined he would, smooth and warm and perfect. By then, I knew I was very hard, even aching. Without breaking our kiss, I reached down and undid his belt buckle, then the button and the zipper on his jeans. I started to pull his pants down and he stood up, breaking our kiss, so that I could get them off completely. As they came off, I could see that he too was very, very hard. Soon, he had my pants off too and we stood there hugging and kissing as our erections met and we leaned into each other. Simultaneously, we each pulled down the other’s undershorts and stood naked and gazing at each other.

We sat down again on his bed and then lay front to front, kissing, touching, and fondling. Finally, I said, “Since this is your first time, you get to choose what we do.” Without saying anything, he reached down and took hold of my nearly bursting cock and began to move his hand slowly up and down. I did the same for him, and it wasn’t long before we both came, spurting all over each other and the bed. When we finished, we lay there, not moving our hands, our mouths joined.

At last, Patrick pulled his mouth away just far enough so that he could say, “That was just perfect. I’ve dreamed of doing that with you, but I never thought I would, especially on our first time together. I watched you all last year, and I have to tell you, I’m in love with you.”

“I told Roshan years ago that I loved him. I feel differently about you than I did about him, but then, I’m older now. A lot of things feel different now. I think that feeling could be love too. Will you give me some time to figure it out and to let my love grow?”

He thought for a minute and then asked, “Does that mean we can’t do this anymore until you decide?”

“Certainly not,” I said quietly. “Are you ready to do something again?” When he smiled and nodded, I told him that this was my turn to decide what we did. I moved so that my mouth was close to his hard cock which conveniently placed my cock close to his mouth. Then I licked up and down his rod and on its head before putting it into my mouth, moving up and down slowly, and sucking as he did the same for me. Once again, we both came almost simultaneously. I swallowed his cum and moved back up so that our heads were together. We fell asleep that way.

In the middle of the night, I heard Orion whining softly. Oh shit, I thought. I forgot to take him out to pee before I fell asleep. I got out of bed trying not to disturb Patrick. I put on a pair of pants, put Orion on his leash, and went barefoot down the stairs and out the door. We didn’t need to walk far before he did his business. As he was doing it, he looked at me as though to say, “Don’t ever do that again.” I promised him I wouldn’t.

As the fall progressed, Patrick and I satisfied each other many times. We shoved the beds together so we could touch each other without having to be crowded in one bed. We also talked a lot, because I thought I needed to know him better if I was going to figure out whether or not I loved him.

One night, I told him that he didn’t have to answer my question if he didn’t want to, but I was wondering what happened to his father.

He didn’t answer immediately, but eventually he said, “When I was little, I loved my dad a lot, and we did a lot of things together. I guess he and my mom grew apart. They began arguing and I would hide in my bedroom with my pillow over my head so I couldn’t hear them. Finally, one night, Mom came to my bedroom and told me that they were separating. I cried and cried. Dad left, and I never saw him again.”

By then there were tears in both our eyes. I hugged him close and then kissed him, not a sex kiss, but a comforting kiss.

By November, we’d grown very close; I knew by then that I truly loved him. Of course, it helped that he already loved me, so we worked on the relationship, found common ground, and discussed things on which we disagreed. Sometimes we agreed to disagree; sometimes one of us changed his mind.

On the night I finally told him I did indeed love him, I said I wanted to do something neither of us had ever done before. We both stripped, got into bed, and kissed and rubbed each other before I said, “Okay, lie on your stomach and put your butt up in the air. When he did, I moved around so that I could pull his cheeks apart and see his butt hole. I stuck my finger in and he moaned. Then I stuck two fingers in and then three as he moaned some more. I got the lubricant which I had purchased a few days before. I rubbed it all over my cock, took some on my fingers, and rubbed it on his hole and inside. Then I pulled him a little towards me. I leaned forward and very gently inserted my cock. I think it hurt him a little at first, but when I asked him if it did, he said to go on, so I did, and soon I slid all the way in. The feeling was something I’d never experienced before, and I wondered if this was what it felt like when a boy had sex with a girl. Slowly, I moved in and out, and soon I came, hard and wonderfully inside him. When I finally stopped throbbing, I stayed there, enjoying the sensation of being inside him. At last I pulled out. He turned so we could lie facing each other and he gave me the most beautiful smile.

“Do you want to do that with me? I asked.

“Not now, but that was such a wonderful feeling when you were inside me. I almost came. Would you finish me?” And with him in my mouth I quickly brought him to a climax.

The next morning, as we were walking on campus, I took his hand. He looked at me, smiled, and squeezed my hand. I squeezed and smiled back, and we walked that way until we had to part to go to our classes. In the following days we often walked hand-in-hand. Occasionally, someone frowned; more often, someone smiled and gave us a thumbs up.

Now, I had a dilemma. How was I ever going to break the news to Roshan? I had moved on, but I had no way of knowing whether he had or not. I figured he might have, because of how distant he’d become, but I wasn’t sure. It was a question, like Patrick’s questions, that needed to be asked in person.

I drove home for Thanksgiving, but Roshan stayed in New York, so I fretted about my dilemma through the rest of November and up until the Christmas holidays. I knew that Roshan would be at home for Christmas so that would be when the reckoning came. What could I say to him? What if he got angry or disappointed with me? Was there any way I could ease the blow?

I tried talking it through with Patrick, who was sympathetic but could offer no easy solutions. He did say, “You once said that Roshan seemed to have changed. Maybe he’s feeling the same way you are.”

I thought about that and wondered if Roshan’s increasing distance was a sign that he was feeling the same way I was, but I had no way of knowing. What to do?

When it came time to leave for home, Patrick and I had a long hug and he said, “Good luck,” as he patted my back.

As I drove home, I tried to talk it through again with Orion. I knew Orion wouldn’t help because he had given his heart to me, and to Roshan, and to Patrick, as well as to Mom and Dad. He seemed to be an equal opportunity lover.

When I got home, Roshan had already arrived. Orion was very happy to see him as well as Mom and Dad. As Roshan and I hugged, I took a deep breath and whispered in his ear, “We need to talk.” He nodded, but we never really got a private time together until we went up to bed.

That night, I went into Roshan’s bedroom where he was sitting on his bed. He looked preoccupied. Finally, I said, “Roshan, I need to tell you something.”

He looked up at me and asked, “What?”

I sat down beside him, looked into his beautiful, liquid eyes and said, “This is really hard for me, but… I’ve fallen in love with somebody else.”

I looked at him, anxiously trying to read his reaction. For a long time, he looked surprised as I grew increasingly worried. Finally, he began to smile and then he laughed out loud.

That hurt. “What’s so damn funny?” I asked.

He tried to control his laughter, before saying, “So have I. I spent the whole fall trying to figure out how to tell you without hurting you.”

At first, I was angry because of all the anguish I‘d been through, but then I began to see the humor of the situation and I burst out laughing too.

We talked for a long time. Roshan had fallen hard for Dylan. He told me a lot about Dylan, how they had so much in common, how Dylan was kind and affectionate. Finally, he said, “You know what they say about high school romances? They never last.”

I nodded, and then told him all I could about Patrick. At last I said, “I will always love you, Roshan, just not in quite the same way.” We talked about how beautiful though perhaps naïve our love had been and we said we’d always treasure the memories.

I went back into my room, closing the bathroom door behind me. First, I called Patrick to give him the news. I could tell he was relieved. I got ready for bed, invited Orion up on my bed, and jerked off thinking very happily of Patrick.

Finally, the coin, which had been on edge all fall, fell over and came up heads.

In the morning, Roshan and I told Mom and Dad what had happened. At first, they were a little sad but then they too saw the humor of our mutual confessions. Before Roshan and I left to return to school, they said that we should bring both our new boyfriends to the house so they could meet them. We looked at each other and agreed.

When classes ended in the spring, all four of us—Roshan, Dylan, Patrick, and I—convened at our house. Roshan and Dylan had never met Patrick while Patrick and I had never met Dylan. We all sat around the dining table over a delicious dinner, getting to know each other. At one point, Patrick looked at me and asked, “Is this some of the Persian food you said you’d cook for me?” I said that it was, but I needed a lot more lessons first. I smiled and everybody else laughed.

At bedtime all four of us boys went upstairs, Dylan to Rochan’s room and Patrick to mine. It took a bit of time to get logistics straightened out in the bathroom, but finally we all said good night and retired to our beds. I had to give a treat to Orion to get him into his own bed, but he accepted the treat and got down with a might sigh. Patrick and I snuggled together for a long time before we relieved our 19-year-old boyhood urges.

In the days and years that followed, I still felt Roshan’s home was my home, his parents my parents. I felt entirely free now to give everything I had to Patrick with no reservations, no worries about Roshan, no wondering if I was doing the right thing. I realized that the love Roshan and I had experienced was the love of teenagers, fiery and enveloping, but transient, ephemeral. What I had with Patrick had a depth and closeness I hadn’t felt with Roshan, not to this degree.

I was happy for Roshan, and very happy with Patrick. Roshan had been the love of my youth. Patrick was the love of my life.