Circumstances 35

Friday night, I was lying in bed with Gary.  He was a happy boy.  He’d gone to the movies with Amy, the girl he kept enthusing about to me, and said they’d kissed a little bit before she’d gone inside for the night.

He felt he had to show me how they’d kissed, and since he didn’t need to worry about Amy’s father coming outside with a baseball bat and because I was eager to get in some practice to improve my osculatory talents, we went at it pretty good and somehow ended up doing a whole lot more than kissing.

Then he decided he had to give me a blow-by-blow description of their date, which could have ruined my happy mood, but because of what we’d just done, it bothered me less than it might have.

“... my hand in the movies, and she kept squeezing it, like she wanted me to remember I was holding hers.  Girls are funny.  I’m not sure she was watching the movie at all, and it was pretty good!”  He was telling me more than I wanted to know about his date.  I’d have been happy just to doze off at that point.  “But then she moved way over in her seat and sort of put her head on my shoulder.  Well, she tried to, but the armrest was in the way.  So I pushed that up, and there wasn’t anything between us now, and then she did put her head on my shoulder and took my hand, and then she laid both of them in my lap, with hers on the bottom and sort of moved it around a little.  And you can guess the effect that had!”

“Yeah, I know, or can imagine.  I don’t really need all these details, you know.”

“Sure you do.  You’ll go on a date someday, and you need to know what to do, how it works.”

“How do you know I’ll ever go on a date?”

He sat about halfway up then, propping himself on an elbow, and looked down at me.  “Why in the world wouldn’t you?”

“Well, you might not have noticed and all, but I’m gay, I don’t have a boyfriend and I’m sure not going to be dating any girls.  I don’t know any gay boys, and I’m not sure I could ever in a million years do what you did tonight in public.”

“Nonsense!  You’re 14.  It’s time you started dating!  Why don’t you form one of those gay clubs at school?  All the gay kids will join.  Then you’ll know who’s who, and you can take your pick of the cute ones.”

“Yeah, right!  You’re talking to me, Gary.  Mr. Nobody with zero personality.  How am I supposed to start a club?  And there’s something else.”

“What?”

“Mr. Johnson.  He’s homophobic.  He’d never let a club like that get started.”

Gary thought about that, then nodded.  “You’re probably right about that.  But wrong about the rest of it.  There are lots of gay kids.  I don’t know how you find them, but the first step is to start making friends.  I know that’s hard for you, but you need to work on that.  To actually do it.  Isn’t that part of that essay you turned in today?  Standing up for yourself means just that: not being so shy that you’re afraid to talk to people.  If you believe in yourself, you can talk to people.”

I had to think about that.  He was right, I knew that instinctively. But it was so hard for me!  He had no idea about that, because he wasn’t shy.

I had to say something.  So, I told him, “I do have a friend now.  Sort of.  You know I’m eating lunch with Darryl.  I like him, friend-like him, and he must like me enough to keep coming over to my table to eat lunch with me.”

Gary lay back down again, and dropped his hand onto my stomach, where he started making little circles with his middle finger lightly, just above my bellybutton.  “Well, there you go then.  Anybody who’d take the time to get to know you would like you, Keith.  That’s the truth.  Is he gay?”

“Huh?”

“Darryl.  Is he gay?”

“I don’t know.  I doubt it.”

“Does he know you’re gay?”

“No.”

“Why don’t you tell him?”

“Gary!  I can’t do that!”

“Why not?  You say he likes you.  If he does, your being gay won’t bother him any.”

“You don’t know that, and anyway, I don’t want to lose him as a lunch buddy.  And stop with the finger.  Stop!  You’re getting me hard again.”

He ignored that.  “You worry too much.  You have to take some chances, sometime.  Do you like him like him?”  He did stop with the finger, but only to slide it down just below my belly button and start up with the light circling again.

“Well, he’s kind of cute.  And I said stop that!”

“Cute is good.  A good start.  Is he smart?”

“I think so.  He talks OK.”  I wriggled a little.  He was driving me crazy.  My breathing was starting to come faster, making it difficult to keep up my end of the conversation without my voice going all raggedy.

“So, if you don’t want to tell him you’re gay, or ask if he is, just go with the fact you two are friendly and ask him if he’d like to hang this weekend.  Call him on the phone tomorrow, ask if he’d like to come over for a swim, or go to the movies, or get pizza later.”

“Uh, maybe.”  That’s all I could get out, because he’d gently taken hold of me, and was stroking easily, lightly, casually, almost like it was an afterthought, something he was doing almost unconsciously, and I was just about going out of my gourd.

“Not maybe,” he said, “tell me you’ll do it.”

He slowed and loosened his stroking even more.  I became desperate.

“I’ll think about it,” I gasped.  “Uhhhh.”

“No, tell me you’ll do it.”

“Tighter, and speed up some,” I begged, “and I’ll think about it after.  Ohhhh.”

He let go altogether, then started just sort of lightly tickling the end of it, and started humming.  Humming!  I started thrusting my hips up towards his fingers, trying to create more pressure.  “Tell me you will,” he insisted.

“OK, ahh-ahh, OK, ahh-ahh, I will, I will,” I grunted, then sucked air sharply into my mouth through clenched teeth while thrusting up as high as I could, my back arching toward the ceiling so I looked like I was advertising McDonald’s.  I was desperately trying to reach his hand.

“Tomorrow?” he said.

“Tomorrow!” I gasped.  I’d have promised him I’d leap off the Golden Gate Bridge right about then.  He took hold of me properly at that point and resumed a more effectual rhythm.  “I’m holding you to that,” he said, and then, to my sheer relief, finished what he’d started.

In the morning, he wouldn't stop pestering me, so I got Darryl’s number and called him.  He sounded really happy I was calling him, and also implied, just with the enthusiasm of his response, that swimming at Gary’s house was the greatest idea I’d ever had.  He said he’d come over right after lunch.

I was nervous all morning.  Gary saw it and sat me down and told me this was just two friends getting together and not to make more of it than that.  A friend didn’t get nervous when another friend was coming over to hang out, he told me.  It’s what guys did.  I told him yeah, other guys, but not me.  He said it was about time to join the crowd, then.  He asked me if I wanted him to be there or for the two of us to be alone.  I didn’t have to think about that.  Having Gary there would mean, if I couldn’t think of anything to say—a problem I had about as often as the wind blew in Wyoming—he’d be there to help fill in the gaps.