Several chairs had been set up along the wall in the studio and everyone was watching with rapt attention as Alistair, in his gray tights and white leotard, leapt across the floor, glided back and forth, spun about, and performed chaînés tournes across the floor in an energetic explosion of joy. At one point he crouched on the floor and slowly rose in emotional agony before he burst forth with anger and fury across the floor. Back and forth, he danced with a vehement intensity until he leapt across the room in a burst of spirit that ended with him standing in the center of the room with his legs wide, arms held up, forming an “x” as he looked upward with rapture on his face.
Jonathan was breathing almost as hard as Alistair as he finished playing the incredible music. He stared down at the keyboard with emotion as Alistair slowly lowered his arms and looked at Rafael, who was facing him by the wall.
Jeremy stared at the man with utter amazement. Dylan simply shook his head and muttered, “Damn.” Teddy stared with his mouth open. Conrad stood and began to clap fervently. The others followed suit. Rafael simply stared at Alistair.
Alistair looked at him with love in his eyes and slowly stepped forward. He placed his hands on the boy’s shoulders and smiled. “You can do this, Rafael. Just reach inside and find that pain, that anger, that love, that joy, all that emotion that you have in such abundance inside you. This is your dance, Rafael. This is my gift to you. This is my way of telling you how much you mean to me.”
Rafael fell apart as he leaned against the man. Alistair held him tightly as the boy lay his head on his shoulders and sobbed.
Jeremy had tears in his eyes seeing the emotions being so passionately displayed before him. Teddy placed a gentle hand on the boy’s shoulder as Dylan simply shook his head and once again muttered, “Damn,” as he sniffed. Conrad turned to Jonathan and extended his hand wordlessly. Their eyes met and the composer whispered, “Thank you.”
Alistair pulled away and looked Rafael in the face and said, “You will, of course, find ways to make this your dance, Rafael. You will express yourself with this in your own way, but this is how I see you, my boy, so full of life and passion, enduring pain and fear, yet strong and resilient beyond your years, overcoming everything at the end. It’s going to be difficult. I deliberately made it difficult. It’s going to take all your strength, physically and emotionally, but you can do this, Rafael. You can do this and when you do, the world will know who Rafael Colón is. You may be fifteen, Rafi, but they will know who you are. They will know Rafael Colón is a world-class dancer, even at fifteen, even as a trainee at Ballet Academy of America. They will know Rafael Colón.”
Rafael simply nodded and in a shaky voice replied, “Let’s get to work.”
Conrad and Teddy walked up to Alistair and shook his hand, patted him on the back and congratulated him.
“That’s amazing, Alistair. Absolutely amazing,” Conrad declared. “I’m jealous as hell,” he added with a smile.
He turned to Rafael and said, “Young man, that would be a challenging dance even for me, but as I watched Alistair, I kept thinking to myself, ‘This is Rafael. This is Rafael’s dance.’ You can do it, Rafael and when you do, Alistair is right. The world will know Rafael Colón.
Rafael took a deep breath and said, “They’ll know that Alistair Mountjoy is the greatest choreographer in the world. I’ll only be showing his work to the world.”
Alistair shook his head and said, “A choreographer can go only so far. It takes a dancer to give his work life. I know you can do this Rafi and I know that you will stun the audience. You can do this.”
Jeremy stepped up and nodded. “I hope I can dance this someday.”
Alistair smiled and said, “Maybe someday I’ll create a Jeremy Fenwick dance.”
Jeremy smiled and hugged Rafael. “You can do this. You’ll be amazing.”
Teddy put a hand on Rafael’s shoulder and said, “You’ve earned this Rafi. Everything you’ve been through, all the pain and suffering, all the work, all the success and joy, everything has prepared you for this dance. You can do this and you deserve this dance.”
Rafael hugged his uncle and then hugged Alistair again before he repeated, “Let’s get to work.”
Alistair nodded and smiled at Jonathan, who smiled back. Jeremy and Dylan returned to their chairs and watched with fascination as Alistair and Rafael began working on the first moves of the dance. Conrad, too, watched on the edge of his chair, occasionally asking a question or making an observation. Soon, however, Teddy slipped away with the remains of the chardonnay, untouched by Conrad, who had found something else to stimulate him. Jeremy noticed him leaving, despite his concentration on Alistair and Rafael’s work.
In the quiet and solitude of the house, Teddy retreated to Alistair’s study, found a legal pad in one of the drawers of Alistair’s desk and a nice Mont Blanc pen before sitting down and staring at the blank page. He knew what he wanted to write, but he couldn’t think of the words to express the emotions he was feeling. He kept seeing the rapture on Rafael’s face, the amazement, the disbelief. Teddy knew he had just seen the first performance of something remarkable, a dance that would make history—another Rite of Spring. And, suddenly, he felt inspired to write—and empty of thoughts.
Alistair was always the creative one. Alistair could take an idea and turn it into magnificence with very little effort. He could create entire new worlds and describe them with only the movement of his dancers. It all seemed so easy for Alistair, though Teddy knew the pain in his heart, the memories that tormented him, the fears, the terror of failure. It was worse, however, for Teddy.
It was always like this when Teddy sat down to a blank sheet of paper. He always did so with a general idea of what he wanted to do, where he wanted to go, who he wanted to create, and yet the actual act of writing, of doing what he wanted to do, of going where he wanted to go, and creating those whom he wanted to create always left him in a state of terror, expecting failure, condemnation, or, worse, derision. The majesty and scope of the English language…scared the bloody shit out of him.
He looked at the remains of the chardonnay and frowned. He was not a grape man. He was a grain man, a malt man, a Macallan man. Yet, he had started the evening with wine and he knew it was not a particularly intelligent idea to begin with California and end with Scotland. Yet, Scotland was his inspiration. California had given the world Rowan and Martin’s Laugh-In, while Scotland had produced Robert Burns and…um, uh, lots of others whom he was too drunk to think of. The point was…merde. He had forgotten his point. Oh, yes. Alistair could create with ease. For Teddy, writing was like performing surgery on himself without anesthetic—at the beginning. Once he got going, it all just sort of vomited up onto the page. He would outline, he would sketch out his characters, he would plot it out, research it, write his three-by-five note cards and…then the story would take over, the characters would tell him to go to hell and do whatever they damn well pleased and then he would have a celebratory lunch with his editor at Tavern, he would see his name in the New York Review of Books or in the bestseller list in the Sunday New York Times, and he would find himself short-listed for some British award, and he would smile and nod and thank everyone and wonder how in the hell he had actually produced his latest book while being amazed at it’s cogency and depth.
It was just getting through the agony, the insecurity, the sheer bloody terror of that first moment when he sat down with the legal pad to write down his first incomprehensible thoughts. If he could just get through that…
He had no idea how long he had sat at the desk staring at the blank page before him and drinking his wine—long enough to have only about half-a-glass left at the bottom of the now room temperature bottle—when Jeremy knocked softly on the door frame.
“Come in, Little One,” Teddy said with a warm smile.
Jeremy gave him a nervous smile and tentatively stepped into the room. He looked around with much the same awe as when he first stepped into Teddy’s study two nights earlier. His eyes pored over the shelves of books, sheet music, and dance notes as he slowly walked across the carpet.
“Is this Alistair’s study?”
“This is where he does a lot of his thinking and creating,” Teddy replied. “This is where he probably first conceived of The Gazelle.”
Jeremy looked around slowly and then walked over to the desk.
“You seem lost, Little One,” the man remarked gently. “What’s the matter?”
Jeremy frowned and pulled a chair over to the desk, sitting down in front of the man and clasping his hands in his lap. Teddy automatically looked down and noted that Jeremy wasn’t hiding one of his frequent erections. There was no rise beneath the zipper. It was a gesture of anxiety.
“Teddy, I’m scared.”
The man set the legal pad aside and leaned forward. He took Jeremy’s hand in his and asked, “What are you scared about, Little One?”
Jeremy looked down with shame and said, “I’m scared that…that I won’t be able to dance like Rafael, that I won’t even be able to dance at all, that I won’t be any good. I mean, everyone tells me I’m good, but then…then I see Alistair create this completely amazing dance and he knows, he knows Rafael can do it, and I watch them work together on it and Rafael does the first few moves perfectly and…”
Teddy squeezed his hand and said, “Jeremy, Rafael’s been dancing for several years longer than you have. Of course, he can dance better than you right now. But, it a few years, you’ll catch up. You wouldn’t be here if you weren’t good. Madame Pulchova knows you’re good and it was on her recommendation that Ballet Academy accepted you for the summer intensive, on her recommendation that you’re here tonight. Besides, Alistair watched you today and Conrad worked with you yesterday. They’ve both seen you dance and they wouldn’t waste their time with you if they didn’t think you were exceptional.”
“I know, I know, but…inside me, deep inside me, where I know what the truth is, Teddy…I know I’m not good enough.”
Teddy released the boy’s hand and sat back in his chair. He glanced at the empty page atop the legal pad and smiled ruefully. How many books had he written and how many times had he begun each new project paralyzed with fear and self-doubt?
“Teddy, I’ve never been afraid before, never. Nothing ever scared me. No one at Breckenridge ever made fun of me for dancing because they knew I’d have pounded the snot out of them. I don’t get scared, Teddy. I’m not like that. But, now…I don’t get it. I know it’s because of losing my parents and everything I went through with Uncle Jimmy Dale, but…I can’t get over it.”
Teddy nodded and looked at the boy with sympathy. He was about to reply when the boy quickly added, “And, what’s weird is that most of the time, I’m okay. Today, with Alistair, I danced my heart out and I impressed him so much and now…It’s like I keep going up and down. One minute I’m cool and then the next, I’m a pussy. What’s the matter with me?”
“Nothing, sweetheart,” Teddy replied softly. “There’s nothing wrong with you, honey. You’ve gone through horrendous emotional upheavals and you’ve survived, Jeremy. You’ve survived. It’s not unusual to have doubts sometimes. Look at me. I’ve been writing for twenty years. My first book was published my junior year at Columbia. I’ve won a Pulitzer Prize and a dozen others, I’ve written a dozen bestsellers. I’ve been on Johnny Carson, the Today Show, David Suskind, Dick Cavett…and yet, I still…I still feel terrified when I start a new book. Will it be as good as the last? Will the publishers want it? Will the critics like it? Will the public buy it? In fact, as you came in, I was sitting here trying to work up the courage to begin making notes for a ballet story and I’m scared to death.”
“But, what about the book you’re writing?”
Teddy smiled and said, “I always have two or three projects going, but it doesn’t matter how successful I am. I’m always insecure, but I push on and I write. Jeremy, I was always the chubby kid in school, the shy kid, the sissy kid and you know that kids in private schools are just as vicious as kids in public schools. The only difference is the public school kids get physically violent. The private school kids get emotionally violent. I went through years of torment, but I overcome it every time I start a new project and you will, too. You’ve just never had experience with loss and pain before. But, as the philosopher says, that which does not kill me makes me stronger.”
Jeremy looked down at the floor and said, “The only reason it didn’t kill me is because Benji stopped me. I couldn’t face life anymore. I was too much of a coward. I was too weak, Teddy. I couldn’t fight it anymore.”
“Whatever the reason you survived, Jeremy, you survived and you are building on that pain and loss. You’ll be a better dancer for it and a stronger man. You heard Alistair tell Rafael to pull all that pain, fear, and anger out and use it in that dance. Well, you will do the same. Don’t run away from your fear. Use it. Embrace it. Feed on the fear. Don’t let the fear feed on you. You’ll eventually begin to see that you do deserve to thrive, Jeremy, and you’ll be proud of yourself. You will, and you’ll be the kind of young man your parents would have been proud of. You’ll see.”
At the mention of his parents, Jeremy flinched. He took a deep breath and said, “I don’t know, Teddy. I…sometimes I think I’m a pervert and that my parents would hate me.”
“Why are you a pervert, Little One? Because you like other boys and men? You think you had a choice in that? Do you think that one day, when you were seven, you decided, ‘Hey, I think I’ll like boys and become reviled and hated by everyone?’ Can you help thinking that Rafael is beautiful?”
Jeremy shook his head, but added, “Teddy, all of a sudden, it’s like I’m always hard, like every guy I see makes me hard. Conrad, Alistair, Rafael, Dylan…they all make me hard.”
He blushed deeply and whispered, “Teddy, you make me hard.”
Teddy chuckled. “Even me? Mr. Toad?”
Jeremy quickly looked up and cried, “No! No! I didn’t mean it like that! I meant that you’re so sweet and you are cute and when you hold me and hug me, it feels so good and it makes me hard. Everyone is making me hard. It’s like I’m this wild sex maniac. Everyone makes me hard. My parents would hate me.”
Teddy smiled and said, “Sweetheart, you’re twelve. That’s what happens to boys when they turn twelve. Your body is beginning its changes and it’s being flooded with testosterone. That’s why you’re hard all the time. Hell, a plate of sauerkraut could make you hard right now. Don’t worry about it. And another thing about all those hormones rampaging through your body; they’re a big reason your emotions are all over the place. So, relax, be happy, go play with yourself and feel good. Or better yet, why don’t you ask Dylan to suck your dick. He’s been hiding behind the door for the past ten minutes. I’m sure he’d love to. You know how redheads always get off on each other.”
The door opened to reveal a grinning—and not blushing—Dylan.
“Hey, I just wanted to make sure Gomer was okay. I didn’t want the little turd doing something stupid like running away or deciding he likes girls or something disgusting like that.”
“Hey! I’ll show you who’s Gomer!” Jeremy cried as he jumped up from his seat. Dylan squealed and ran away as Jeremy started toward the door. The younger boy, however, stopped before leaving the room and turned back toward Teddy. He smiled with love and said, “Thank you, Teddy. I love you.”
“I love you, too, Little One. Now get out of here and quit distracting me. I’m trying to write a bestseller about ballet boys in love and the last thing I need getting in my way is ballet boys in love!”
Jeremy giggled and ran out of the room.
Dylan was waiting at the end of the hallway, in the atrium and as soon as Jeremy emerged, he pointed and cried, “Gomer!”
“You!” Jeremy responded as he took off after the teenager.
Dylan giggled and ran through the atrium and up the stairs, closely followed by a slightly wincing Jeremy. The fourteen-year-old ran into his room across the hall from Jeremy’s room and was lying in a provocative pose, his legs wide open and his arms lying above his head, atop the bed. As Jeremy entered, Dylan cried, “Take me, you beast! Have your way with me! I surrender!”
Jeremy giggled and then stood still as his face took on a look of confusion and lust. Dylan smiled and said, “Come here and let me play with your nipples.”
Dylan saw the front of Jeremy’s shorts pulse, but the boy whispered, “What about Rafael?”
“Oh, he’s not going to care,” Dylan replied. “He won’t mind if you and I do it. Besides, he’s busy with Alistair and Conrad. Come on. Let’s mess around and have some fun!”
Jeremy still hesitated, pressing his lips tightly together as he considered the situation. Dylan smiled as he groped himself and asked, “You’ve never done it with anyone except Rafael, have you?”
“I used to beat off with my cousin,” Jeremy replied.
Dylan nodded knowingly and smiled. “Close the door and come here. We’ll just mess around and feel good—nothing too involved, just a couple of guys having some fun.”
A smile slowly formed at the edges of Jeremy’s mouth. Slowly, he turned and closed the door before he grinned and crossed the room to the bed.
“Get naked,” Dylan breathed as Jeremy stood before him.
The younger boy responded with a deep, breathy, “Yeah.”
—o-0-o—
Rafael’s body was drenched with perspiration as he stood beside the piano, drinking water and wiping the sweat from his face with a towel. Jonathan sat on the bench and smiled at him as Alistair placed an affectionate hand on his shoulder.
“You’re going to be magnificent, Rafi,” the composer said to him as Alistair nodded.
“You are, sweetheart,” Alistair agreed. You’re going to amaze everyone. I’m amazed and I created the dance.”
Rafael smiled and nodded as he fought for breath. “I’ve never danced anything so hard, but…I love it. It’s incredible. And, the music…” he added as he turned to Jonathan. “A full orchestra?”
“Of course,” Jonathan replied.
“I can’t imagine how beautiful this music is going to sound with a full orchestra. You’ve both been amazing. You’re a fantastic team.”
“Yes, we do work well together, don’t we, Jonathan,” Alistair responded.
Jonathan nodded and said to the teenager, “We’ve begun working on a Halloween piece, something Edgar Allen Poe-ish for a few years from now. We have nothing serious right now. A raven and a phantom driving a beautiful woman to madness. Set in the early nineteenth century. What do you think?”
“Lot’s of women as succubuses and demons?”
“Yeah,” Alistair replied dryly. “That shouldn’t be too much of a stretch for our ballerinas.”
Rafael laughed and Alistair said, “I’d like for you and Jeremy to stay the weekend and then maybe into next week. I want to get a solid foundation for you with this before you start in on your own. I will make time for you while we prepare Corsair and I want to bring in Charles and Julian, too. I want our ballet masters to understand this so they can teach others in the future. I may alter it some in the future for others, but this is what I want for you, because of your energy and your life, Rafael.”
“Thank you, so much, Alistair,” Rafael replied. “You couldn’t have given me a better gift.”
He kissed Alistair on the mouth and then turned to Jonathan.
“And, you, Jonathan…magnificent. The best music you’ve ever written. Thank you.”
He leaned over and kissed the composer on the mouth, as well.
He turned and found Alistair drinking water and looking away. He stood before the man and placed his hands on his shoulders.
“Alistair, you’ve always understood me. You’ve always gotten in my head and known what was going on in there. And, with this piece, you’ve proven that you know me better than anyone. How is that? Why? Why do you know me so well?”
Alistair sighed heavily and replied, “Because you’re me and I’m you,” he replied. ‘Your stepfather and my father were very similar. I know what it’s like to be raped and beaten and treated like trash, to be insulted, to be humiliated, and then to have him turn around and act as if he loves you. I know what it’s like to crave love, to crave sex, to crave applause and ovations. “I’ve…always understood you, Rafi.”
Rafael looked into Alistair’s eyes and his lips parted as tears formed. He started to lean forward to kiss him, but Alistair stopped him and whispered, “Go make love to Jeremy. He needs you.”
Rafael looked into the man’s eyes and slowly nodded. “I will,” he whispered back.
Slowly he turned and walked toward the door of the studio. He turned and looked at the man for a final second or two before leaving the room.
Conrad was standing on the veranda outside the French doors from the atrium as Rafael passed. He stopped and watched him for a second. It was dark outside and the lights were off. The man was only partially illuminated from the back by the dim lights of the atrium. Rafael stared at the strong, but slim torso in the white Izod, the khaki shorts, the powerful legs, the Tospiders—the exact clothes Jeremy had worn that morning and, except for the blond hair, he realized that Jeremy would probably look just like Conrad when he was twenty-nine.
Conrad’s hands were in the pockets of his shorts. He seemed to be staring off at the dark woods at the edge of the property. Rafael wondered what he was thinking, what he felt, how he felt. Was he jealous that Alistair had never choreographed a dance for him? Did he desire to lie in bed tonight and make love to someone—to Jeremy?
Dylan. Of course. The man was probably lonely, watching the way Rafael and Alistair had worked so well together. Rafael wasn’t quite to the point where he could accept Jeremy sleeping with the man, but Dylan…they had dated. That would work. It was just that…Conrad looked so lonely out there, by himself. Alistair and Jonathan would probably be out later…and Teddy. Where was Teddy?
He stepped to the French doors and quietly opened them. Conrad turned and looked and Rafael could see a hint of disappointment in the man’s face.
“Are you enjoying the peace outside, tonight?” Rafael asked as he stepped out and closed the door behind him.
“Yes, I am,” Conrad replied as he turned back. “I love the night, the cool air, the brilliant stars that can’t be seen within the city, the sounds of the night life.”
He raised his arm and pointed across the sky and he said reverently, “There’s the Milky Way. Look how brilliant and beautiful it is.”
Rafael stood beside him and nodded. “Alistair sometimes sits out here with me at night and we gaze at the sky. He made love to me out here. Over there in the garden.”
“How wonderful. I would love to take…”
He stopped.
“It’s okay,” Rafael whispered.
“No, it’s not,” Conrad replied. “It’s all too easy for us, here at the top, with our honors and our egos, to think that our actions don’t mean anything, that there aren’t consequences. We don’t bother to think of the wreckage we leave in our wake.”
“Not everyone is like that,” Rafael replied. “Alistair has made all the difference in the world to me. He’s saved my life. It…kills me to say this, but…you can do that for Jeremy.”
“As his friend, as his mentor…not as his lover.”
Rafael waited a moment and said, “You’re an honorable man, Conrad. A decent man. Jeremy could do worse.”
“Yes and he probably will.”
He looked up at the sky and said, “We dance with these boys. We train them. We gaze at them and love them and…we—some of us—are afraid to touch for fear we may do to them what was done to us. Even if we don’t hurt them, even if we treasure them and love them—I wonder, I fear…I…”
He turned to face Rafael and said, “You love him and I admire you. You won’t hurt him, but there are so many men in the ballet world and the world of performance and the world of those who follow us…so many who would flatter him and…adore him and use him and then leave him when they’re bored and ready to move on. I…remember what it was like for me, what it was like with Lionel Mountjoy…to be flattered and called the future of ballet and then…to be raped as if I were gutter trash and then thrown aside.”
Rafael was stunned to hear the man speaking so candidly to him. He didn’t know what to say. He remained silent and suddenly Conrad turned to him and said, “I don’t condemn your…promiscuity, Rafael. I could very, very easily have done the same as you. In some ways, I did, until my final year of training. That was when I shut down on the outside. I became the cold and seemingly unfeeling man that I am. The ‘Ice Man,’ they called me for years because I was so enamored of The Ice Prince and because of my demeanor. No one knows the fires of emotion that burn within me, though, emotions so powerful that I sometimes fear what might happen if I were to give free rein to them. I love so powerfully, I hate so strongly…I dance. That is how I free my emotions. I dance.”
Rafael watched his face transform as he seemed to realize how candidly he was speaking to the boy. He quickly withdrew back into his character as The Ice Man. It was almost as if he clicked his heels in the manner of a Prussian as he nodded his head and said, “I apologize for being so…familiar with you, Rafael. It was rude and improper of me to reveal such feelings to you.”
“No, it wasn’t,” Rafael replied. “I feel as if you’ve honored me with sharing your feelings. Thank you.”
Conrad turned and Rafael said, “I can’t face it tonight, Conrad. Not yet, but, maybe tomorrow or Friday…you and Jeremy…”
He saw Conrad swallow before the man said, “You should go to him now. He seemed…troubled before he left the studio earlier. He needs you, Rafael.”
Rafael nodded and turned. However Conrad took his shoulder and whispered, “Take care of him.”
Rafael nodded, moved by the depth of emotion in the man’s words.
“I will. We will.”
Conrad met his eyes and then turned and slowly walked out onto the lawn.
Rafael was too moved to speak. He turned and opened the French door and entered the house. He could hear Alistair and Jonathan laughing in the lounge as Teddy spoke, possibly telling one of his numerous stories. He slowly walked through the dim light of the atrium, watched the koi as they sluggishly swam about the water, and then climbed the stairs. In the hallway, he found Geoffrey, barefoot and in boxers and a tee-shirt, stepping through the door to Alistair’s bedroom. Geoffrey turned and spotted Rafael at the other end of the hall. He grinned and waved. Rafael gave him a smile and quick, upward nod before the beautiful young man closed the door behind him. Rafael felt more than a twinge of jealousy as he thought of the man he loved lying with Geoffrey, making love to the beautiful young man—even if he was paid to be the man’s lover.
Rafael leaned against the wall and gazed down at a bronze statuette of a boy, perhaps thirteen, naked and sitting on the ground, his legs bent before him, leaning on one hand, his other draped over his thigh, his uncircumcised penis lying against the other thigh. His head was framed with thick curls. He gazed at the exquisite boy and wondered why he looked so familiar.
Conrad, Alistair, Teddy, him. They were all so damaged and hurt. What was it that had drawn them all together? Was everyone damaged in some way? Did no one have a happy and nurturing childhood? Was everyone full of pain? And he, Rafael. He loved Jeremy and he was jealous of Jeremy loving Conrad and of Conrad loving Jeremy. Yet, Rafael loved Alistair, as well, and was jealous of Alistair sleeping with Geoffrey—and all the other dozens and dozens of men the great man met across New York and around the world. Dylan…Rafael loved Dylan. Rules. Society’s rules. In ancient Greece, it was proper—expected for a man to take a youth as his lover, to mentor him and love him, teach him the rules of a civilized society, the proper conduct of a citizen of Athens…to mold his character into one of honor and courage. And, now…Pain for anyone who didn’t conform, condemnation, even hatred and violence and death for those who didn’t conform to the demands and standards of the tribe.
Was it the power of the enduring mythology of that tribe of goat herders in the Judean desert two and a half thousand years earlier? Was it something else—the need for everyone to conform that transcended everything else? Why couldn’t society just leave everyone the fuck alone?
And, here, tonight, one of the most powerful and emotional nights of his life, he was facing the interconnections of love that resulted from so many of them hurting and being hurt.
He needed to love Jeremy…more than anything, he needed to hold and love the most beautiful, the sweetest, the most decent boy on earth. He needed Jeremy.
He took a deep breath and exhaled, brought a smile to his face, and strode down the hallway to his bedroom. The light in the room was off when he opened the door, which was strange. Where would Jeremy be? Where else could he be? Was he down in the lounge with Alistair, Jonathan, and Teddy? Possibly.
He could see a light under the door to Dylan’s bedroom. He stepped across the hall and knocked lightly. There was no response, so he opened the door and said, “Hey, girlfriend, have you…”
Jeremy and Dylan were naked atop the bed engaged in a passionate sixty-nine, their hips squirming about, their hands caressing each other, soft moans emanating from their throats. So involved were they in their sex that they were unaware Rafael had entered the room.
He froze and watched for several seconds as Jeremy’s head bobbed back and forth, his red hair falling around, as Dylan did the same, the sounds of slurping mixing with heavy breathing and soft moaning.
Silently, he turned and stepped out of the room. Quietly closing the door, he crossed the hall back to his room and closed that door, as well. Leaving the lights off, he removed his tights and leotard and still sweaty, his curls matted down to his forehead, he stepped out the French doors of his bedroom and onto the balcony outside. His penis was rigidly erect, even as his heart was breaking.
He didn’t begrudge Jeremy his fun. Dear God, he thought to himself, he had encouraged the boy to have fun! But, right then? At that moment? When Rafael had needed him so deeply?
Gazing out into the night, the cool ocean breeze blowing in from the south, as crickets and frogs chirped and croaked and a myriad stars shown down upon him, he set his feet apart, thrust his hips forward, and grasped his erection. He pounded furiously, stroking himself as if he would die were he to stop. It was not the satisfaction of desire, the stroking of one dreaming of love and making love. It was something else, something primal, a scream at the heavens declaring his pain and anger at the cruelty of life. He escaped from that pain and anger and became lost in the feelings of his hand on his penis until he exploded, his seed shooting across the concrete and over the balustrade down to the grass below.
He stood, staring numbly into the dark, until he did it again…
And, again…
Until the light came on behind him.