Little Squirrels Can Climb Tall Trees

by Michael Murphy

  “Well, look who’s finally out of bed!”

  “Huh,” the sleepy man said.

  “You awake yet?”

  “Not really. Where am I?”

  “My apartment.”

  “How’d I get here?”

  “You came here after work.”

  “Oh, right. And who are you?”

  “Bite me, bitch.”

  “Sorry. Not awake yet.”

  “I can tell. You want some coffee?”

  “Do you have any tea?”

  “I’m gay. Of course I have tea.”

  “You’re gay?” he sleepily joked.

  “You couldn’t tell when I was sucking your dick?”

  “That was you?” he asked with a smile.

  “Hey! Watch it!”

  I heated some water in the microwave and returned to the dining room with an assortment of teabags for my guest to consider.

  “Ohhhh, English Breakfast! My favorite.”

  “Mine too.”

  While the tea steeped, I asked, “Would you like some breakfast? Do you usually eat breakfast? Some people don’t, which I think is crazy. Breakfast is the most important meal of the day.”

  “Yes, I like breakfast.”

  “Do you have favorites?”

  “Umm, I like scrambled eggs, I like french toast, I like pancakes….”

  “Okay, that gives me something to work with. Here’s the morning newspaper to read while you drink your tea.”

  “Thank you! That’s so sweet.”

  “Sweet?”

  “Yes! Sweet.”

  “It’s tea and a newspaper,” I complained.

  “Work with me, will you!”

  “Okay,” I said as I stepped into the kitchen to prepare breakfast for my guest. Every time I glanced in to check on my guest, he seemed totally absorbed in the newspaper. I could only guess that the morning newspaper was one of his favorite treats but was one that he didn’t get to enjoy every day. I startled the man when I reappeared and placed a plate in front of him.

  “How’d you do that so quickly?”

  “Quick? It took me half an hour. I see you missed me terribly.”

  “No. Yes! No. Sorry, yes! I just got wrapped up in an article.”

  “Nice to know I’m so easily forgotten. And here I was slaving away in the kitchen preparing breakfast for you. Working my fingers to the bone.”

  Kyle was awake now and was perfectly capable of responding to my teasing. From his spot at the table, he simply turned his head and batted his beautiful eyelashes.

  “All right, all is forgiven.”

  “That was easy,” Kyle said.

  “Hey, what can I say, I’m a sucker for your beautiful eyes, your smile, and those damned eyelashes,” I admitted.

  “I told you I had extraordinary abilities!”

  “Eat your damned breakfast!” I complained as I sat down at the table beside Kyle.

  For the first time, Kyle looked at what I had placed in front of him. “You have more guests coming over for breakfast?” he asked as he surveyed the amount of food I had produced.

  “Nope, just you.”

  “This is all for me?”

  “Yes.”

  “You must have thought I was starving.”

  “Hush up and eat before it gets cold.”

  Kyle poured some maple syrup on top of the beautiful cinnamon swirl french toast. When he took a bite, he moaned with pleasure. “Oh my God! That is incredible. Did you make this?” he asked in disbelief.

  “Yes. I had some cinnamon bread left over from a few days ago, and that makes the best french toast.”

  “I love the maple syrup. That is so good!”

  “Comes from my family upstate.”

  “Where do they get it? This is great!”

  “They make it.”

  “Your family makes maple syrup? This maple syrup?”

  “Yes,” I answered hesitantly, not entirely sure where Kyle was going with his line of questioning.

  “You’ve got to understand, I love maple syrup but can’t stand most of what people try to pass off as maple syrup. I don’t know how anyone can advertise maple syrup when the closest it ever came to a sugar maple tree is having a label printed that was made from some scrap wood chips. Most of the crap you get is corn syrup with artificial flavoring that isn’t even very close.”

  “I’m sensing that you have a strong opinion on these matters,” I said, stating the obvious in a serious tone.

  “Yes, absolutely. I fell in love with maple syrup while I was in medical school and miss having the good stuff.”

  “Where did you go to medical school?” I asked, curious to know anything about the stranger I had slept with last night and taking the obvious opening.

  “Harvard.”

  “You went to Harvard Medical School?” I asked, somewhat disbelieving.

  “Yes.”

  “Harvard? Cambridge Harvard?”

  “Yes. Why? Something wrong?”

  “No. Nothing. It’s a good school. But I thought you said you were from Oklahoma.”

  “I am. What? Can’t an Oklahoma boy be smart enough to get into Harvard Medical School?”

  “Sounds like someone is a bit defensive.”

  “Sorry. You wouldn’t believe how often I get that. ‘You went to Harvard? Wow! Did they have some kind of quota they had to meet? Did they give you a free education?’ No! If they did I wouldn’t have $250,000 in student loans to repay!”

  “Hey! Calm down!” I said, placing one hand on one of Kyle’s hands. “Sorry. I didn’t mean to hit a nerve.”

  “Sorry,” Kyle apologized.

  Desperate to change the subject, I asked, “So what were you reading in the newspaper that grabbed your attention so much?”

  “Long editorial by some nut job about overhauling the Social Security system by cutting benefits, raising the retirement age, and putting means testing in place. No one should get a say in restructuring the Social Security system unless they depend on it to survive!”

  “That seems like an entirely reasonable idea to me.”

  “Thank you. I can’t tell you how many people we get coming into the ER who have just Social Security between them and the street.”

  Suddenly Kyle stopped, looked up, and said, “Hey. Wait a minute! Why aren’t you at work?”

  “I took the day off so I could spend it with you.”

  “You did what?” he asked.

  Kyle’s usually animated face was suddenly entirely neutral, with the result that for once I couldn’t read him.

  “I took the day off so I could spend it with you,” I tried to explain once again.

  The neutral expression on Kyle’s face faded. And unless I was reading the situation entirely wrong, I was afraid that Kyle was actually going to cry. Trying to lift things up a bit, I said, “So what do you typically do when you have some days off?”

  Kyle composed himself once again and answered the question. “Well, I lead a life straight out of the lives of the rich and famous. Be careful about trying these things yourself without adequate training. I usually do laundry, wash dishes that have accumulated while I worked like a big dog, catch up on medical journal articles I wanted to read, respond to some of the e-mails from my family that come in faster than I can follow, go to the gym. If the weather is nice, I go for a run in the park. Stuff like that.”

  “You’re right… shouldn’t try those things without adequate adult supervision. So, to spice things up a bit today, we could go running together and then maybe go see a movie.”

  The suggestion was met with an absolutely blank stare from Kyle. “Sorry.” The man looked down at his lap in what appeared to be embarrassment.

  “What’s wrong? What did I say?”

  Shyly and hesitantly, Kyle answered the question. “I’ve never seen a movie in a theater.”

  “You’re kidding me, right?”

  Kyle shook his head. “No.”

  “Why?” I asked i
n disbelief at what I was hearing. I had never heard of anyone who hadn’t been to see at least one movie at some point in his life.

  “My parents were very strict and thought that movies were tools of the Devil and would only lead me to do something evil.”

  “So you weren’t exaggerating when you said you were raised by ultraconservative fundamentalist parents, were you?”

  “Nooooo! You look in the encyclopedia for ‘conservative’ and you’ll find a picture of my parents. I love them, but they are not very worldly in their views.”

  “How did they react when they found out that their son was gay?”

  Kyle didn’t meet my eyes.

  “They don’t know, do they?”

  “No.”

  “So how do you explain being as old as you are without having been married and divorced a couple of times with a passel of kids?”

  “Divorce is not an acceptable option for a married couple.”

  I stared at Kyle, not believing what I was hearing. “So… so… let me see if I have this. I’m thinking that your self-esteem issues and your feeling unworthy of love are psychologically tied in to not being able to share with your family who you really are. And you’ve probably internalized a lifetime of teaching that gay is wrong.”

  “Not wrong—evil.”

  “Evil? We’ve been elevated from wrong?”

  “Yes, some time ago.”

  “I see I’ve let my conservative credentials lapse. So they don’t know?”

  “Absolutely not!”

  “How are you gonna keep them from fixing you up with some unsuspecting woman who wants to be a good submissive wife—a baby-factory-type woman?”

  “They’ve tried. They think I’m in the belly of the beast at the moment, living in New York City. It was bad enough when I went to Massachusetts for medical school, but New York? They view New York as Satan’s waiting room.”

  “If this is the waiting room, where does the guy reside or work?”

  “New Jersey, I assume,” Kyle said with a smile. “I mean, dude, have you been to Jersey?”

  We shared a hearty laugh.

  “You really took the day off today? To be with me?”

  “Yes! You big goofball! With you! I like you! A lot!”

  “This is all so new to me. No one’s ever done something like that for me before. This is really new for me.”

  “I can tell,” I said.

  After refreshing Kyle’s tea, I returned to the table and asked, “Do you have any siblings? You know, brothers and sisters?”

  “I know what ‘siblings’ means!”

  “Fine. Poor choice of words. What can I say, I’m used to dating dumb guys.”

  “Clearly.”

  “So?”

  “Oh, right. Yes, I have five sisters.”

  “Five!”

  “Five.”

  “So, no brothers?”

  “No. I’m the only son. My parents are sort of counting on me to carry the family name and legacy into the future. To keep the genetic line happy and healthy.”

  “To go forth and propagate?”

  “Something like that.”

  “No, probably exactly that. What I don’t really understand is how you’ve pulled it off up to this point.”

  “Believe me, it hasn’t been easy.”

  “So tell me, how did you do it? Did you tell them you’d been kidnapped by crazed circus people? Held against your will by Satan’s secretary?”

  “No. My father…. I can’t believe I’m about to say this.” He hesitated. “My father sort of has two gods.”

  “Two gods? One wasn’t enough?” I asked, terribly intrigued.

  “He holds money in very high regard as well as God.”

  “Ah, I see.”

  “And when I told them what I could earn in New York and how much debt I had accumulated while in medical school, he accepted the economic argument with little objection.”

  “And your mother? Is she allowed to have opinions?”

  “Oh, yes, my mother has opinions. Trust me.”

  “Okay. There’s something you’re not telling me,” I said after a moment of silence.

  “Damn! You’re good!”

  “Yes. So what’s the other shoe to drop in this story?”

  “Well, my mother has been a little impatient for me to come back to Oklahoma, marry, settle down, and start a family.”

  “Not surprising. And?”

  “And she’s coming here this fall… with some woman she met that she wants me to meet.”

  “She’s bringing an arranged bride for you to marry and knock up?”

  Kyle blushed. “Something like that.”

  “Sounds exactly like that! What are you gonna do?”

  “I don’t honestly know. I’ve kept her at bay for longer than I thought I ever could. My dad helped me.”

  “Thinking that your reasoning was strictly financial in nature.”

  “Yes.”

  “And if they knew that you and I had been sweating up the sheets, they’d disapprove?”

  “No. They wouldn’t disapprove. They’re probably arranging an exorcism for me and an execution for you for leading their innocent son into a life of debauchery and impurity.”

  “No trial?”

  “No. They’re very firm in their beliefs.”

  “Guilty until executed?”

  “Yes.”

  “Hmmm. I see.” We sat quietly for a moment.

  I was just mulling over everything the poor guy had just told me, but he probably thought I was mad at him for being from such a fucked-up family, because he said, “I should probably go.”

  “Why?” I asked, honestly confused. “Wasn’t my breakfast good enough? Did I burn the toast or something?”

  “No! You’ve been so awesome to me!”

  “Then why the fuck would you think you should go?”

  “Because I have such bigoted parents.”

  “Newsflash, big guy: you are not your parents.”

  Kyle nodded in tentative pleasure.

  “Our parents might give birth to us, teach us our first lessons, and start us on our way, but ultimately, our lives are our own to live, our own to make or to fuck up. You’re a smart guy. You must see that, right?”

  “In theory, yes, but my mother can be a bit of a force of nature. If she ever found out that I’d—”

  “Screwed around with men?”

  “Yes. She’s probably call in the troops to start the exorcism.”

  “So what were you gonna do when she arrived with bridezilla? I mean, you’re gay! You can’t marry some woman just to please your mother!”

  Kyle looked down once again.

  “Oh. My. God. You were! You would marry some woman because that is what was expected of you in their world!” I couldn’t believe what I was hearing! I shook my head in disbelief. “What about your world? Your life? Your needs? Your desires? Your aspirations? Don’t they matter? Don’t they count for anything?”

  “Those are secondary to my duty to the family and to their expectations.”

  “Being a doctor isn’t enough of a repayment to society?”

  “No. They never really understood that. Being a doctor is what I wanted to do. It was just sort of something that fit into their worldview in a way they could handle.”

  “Wow.”

  “I probably should go,” Kyle said again.

  “Sit your ass back in that chair!” I ordered when Kyle started to stand.

  “Why?”

  As patiently as I could, I tried to explain. “Well, really. How can we talk about what we’re gonna do today if you leave now?”

  “You… you still want to spend time with me?”

  “Yes! Everything I said yesterday and the day before and the day before is still true! You’re still smoking hot. You are still incredibly bright and a fucking fantastic conversationalist. You still have the most sexy, adorable eyes I’ve ever seen on a man in my life.”

  “Jos
eph?” Kyle interrupted. “Could I ask….”

  And for once I was ahead of him and knew exactly what he was going to ask. He was about to try to ask me to take him back to bed but was suddenly hesitant.

  “Yes,” I said as I stood, grabbed Kyle’s hand, pulled him up, and guided him into the bedroom.

  We shed what clothes we had on in short order, and ten minutes later we really were literally sweating up the sheets. Kyle had his long legs in the air, and I was firmly entrenched between them, plowing his sweet ass with the energy and enthusiasm of a pile driver, one of my hands firmly wrapped around Kyle’s beautiful erection jerking his dick for all it was worth.

  Even though I hadn’t planned it that way, I was fucking him so hard that Kyle’s head was actually banging against the headboard of the bed. Had the man been able to put together a sentence at the moment, he probably would have commented on that, but conversation was not possible.

  Orgasm overtook both of us, Kyle about two minutes before me. When Kyle reached climax, I planted myself fully in his sweet ass and held on as the big man went through the spasms of an orgasm. The muscles of Kyle’s ass clenched down so tightly on my dick that I was momentarily worried that I would lose the poor thing. But Kyle slowly came back down to Earth, boneless and seemingly without a tight muscle anywhere in his long, limber body.

  When Kyle was fully back, I grabbed both of his legs, bent the man nearly in two, and returned to pile driving my dick into Kyle’s ass. I leaned forward and stared into Kyle’s big eyes before attaching my lips to his. We breathed as one, moved as one, for the next sixty seconds, while I moved to and then over the edge of one of the best orgasms I had ever experienced in my life. And I’d had a few orgasms before in my life—both alone and accompanied by other men. This one was good. This one was really, really good. This one blew all of the others away. This one cleared the hurdle with room to spare.

  As my orgasm started to subside, I collapsed on top of Kyle in the same boneless fashion Kyle had experienced just a moment earlier. I slipped out of Kyle’s ass and gently lowered the man’s legs to the bed, then rolled over to lie next to him on the bed.

  Kyle rolled to lie facing me. “I can’t believe what I’ve been missing all these years.”

  I raised my head and looked at Kyle. “You’ve….”

  “No. Not until you.”

  “You’re kidding me! You’ve never been fucked… until me?”