3

by Jacob Z. Flores

“It’s just that I haven’t experienced something like that in a long time.”

  “What do you mean?”

  Justin told him about the first time he saw S at the Bonham eight years ago.

  “Confetti and noisemakers on a first kiss?” he asked. “That’s a tough act to follow.”

  “I thought it was impossible to follow,” Justin admitted. “But the blaring horns of mariachi music isn’t too shabby.”

  Justin was right. But Dutch wondered what that meant. How was it possible for Justin to have two such momentous first kisses with two different men? Did it mean that his time with S was done? S had left him for Europe, after all. Maybe this was the universe’s way of telling them he and Justin were now meant to be together.

  Was that a possibility?

  “What’s wrong now?” Justin asked. He moved his head from Dutch’s shoulder and positioned himself on the bed so that his head was now lying on Dutch’s stomach; his full head of hair spread out onto Dutch’s body. Justin looked squarely into Dutch’s eyes.

  “Nothing. I’m just wondering what it means.”

  “When you figure it out, let me know.”

  He smiled at Justin. The vision of Justin lying on his stomach filled him with warmth that was more than simple desire. Although his body was definitely gearing up for another round of lovemaking, the warmth that fueled him from within wasn’t entirely fed by passion. It felt more like an old familiar blanket, one that you wrap around yourself when you’re sick or in need of comfort.

  As the warmth spread, Dutch felt as if he had come home.

  “How much do you really value honesty?” Justin asked him.

  The question came at Dutch like a curveball. “Are you asking me if it’s okay for you to lie to me?”

  Justin grinned. “Not at all. I’m just wondering how much of what I’m feeling do you really want to know.”

  “I want to know all of it,” he said. “The good and the bad.”

  Justin looked away. While regret hadn’t previously reflected in his eyes, it now emblazoned itself upon them. Dutch was determined to be a man of his word; he wanted only the truth. “Tell me,” he told Justin.

  “I don’t regret what we did,” he said. He looked at Dutch but then quickly looked away. “But I do regret what I’ve done to my relationship. I’ve betrayed the magic that brought us together. I broke a promise that I wouldn’t cheat.” He sighed heavily. “I’ve become my father.”

  He and Justin had yet to share the skeletons hidden in their family closets, but the comment told him a great deal about the kind of person Justin’s father was and the kind of man Justin wanted to be.

  For a few moments, they sat in silence. He fought the urge to immediately make Justin feel better; his paternal instinct to protect those he cared for was strong. Still, reassurance wasn’t what Justin needed. The simple truth was, Justin had cheated. For all intents and purposes, he was now an adulterer, which made Dutch the mistress.

  Words couldn’t sugarcoat their actions.

  “We have done an awful thing to your partner,” he admitted. He found the words hard to say, and they seemed to be even harder for Justin to hear. Honesty, however, was the only way to navigate through the turbulent waters of an affair. “There’s nothing we can do or say that will make this go away.”

  “I know,” Justin said. His eyes still looked away from Dutch. They gazed somewhere beyond this moment, perhaps to Justin and S’s first kiss, or to the first time they uttered the words “I love you” to each other.

  “Your life at home is important to you, and I know that. I don’t want to come between the two of you any more than I already have.” Dutch swallowed hard. Although he meant what he said, he secretly wished he didn’t. He had no desire to simply let Justin go after what they had shared, but the decision to stay or go wasn’t Dutch’s to make. “I know my saying this won’t absolve either of us of the guilt. That’s something we have to carry with us, but what we’ve done doesn’t have to be the end of your relationship.”

  “So, you’re okay with us never seeing each other again? Never doing this again?”

  Justin’s slightly almond-shaped eyes locked firmly onto Dutch’s. Sadness now lingered in the corners of his vision.

  “How much do you really value honesty?” Dutch asked.

  “It means the world to me,” replied Justin. “If the words of an adulterer mean anything.”

  “They do to me,” Dutch told him. He wiped a stray strand of hair out of Justin’s face and continued. “Yes, I would be okay with never seeing you again and never feeling your body against mine.”

  The sadness that crept at the edges of Justin’s eyes sprang from the shadows. It was now in full view.

  “Do I want to never see you again? Do I want to never feel your body against mine again? My answer would have to be no.”

  “Really?” Justin asked. A new emotion that could only be hope leaped from the back of Justin’s eyes. It batted the sadness aside and beat it back into the darkness. “You still would want to see me even though it makes us awful people?”

  “I don’t think it makes us awful people,” he said. “I think it makes us human. Humans are imperfect creatures who rarely live up to the ideals we hold ourselves up to. I never dreamed I would get involved with a man who is as good as married. I never imagined my life would consist of sharing a bed with someone who wasn’t free to share his life with me. In the movies, those people are the villains. They’re who we boo at. In real life, villainy is a lot less black and white.”

  “Do you really think so?”

  He thought about it. In the movies, the cheaters were usually caricatures, one-dimensional people who lacked depth. They cracked wise and tossed around one-liners like a stand-up comedian, but the movies had it all wrong. All cheaters weren’t callously abandoning a commitment for carnal pleasure. That was a logical fallacy, a broad generalization that had been accepted as fact.

  If he and Justin were any indication of real-life cheaters, then there were many others out there who felt just as badly as they did.

  Having an affair wasn’t something sought, planned, or plotted. For the two of them, it felt scripted, as if some divine writer composed a manuscript that broke Justin and Spencer apart and then added Dutch to the mix. Their affair represented cosmic irony rather than malicious intent.

  The universe had brought them together; what they did with it was up to them.

  “Yes, I do,” Dutch finally said.

  Justin’s furrowed brow told Dutch that Justin was in deep thought.

  “What about you?” he asked Justin. “Do you want this to end now?”

  Justin opened his mouth to answer, but Dutch placed his sizeable hand over Justin’s mouth. “Be honest,” he said. “I’m a big boy. I can take the truth.”

  When he removed his hand, Justin didn’t immediately reply. He thought carefully about his answer, something Dutch appreciated. If Justin wanted their affair to end, then he would accept the decision and move on. He would harbor no animosity, and he would no longer pursue Justin. But if Justin was willing to see how this might play out, if he was willing to put his relationship on the line, then Dutch was equally as willing to place his heart on the chopping block.

  “Before I answer that question, there’s something you should know.”

  “What’s that?”

  “My partner is HIV positive.”

  The admission floored Dutch. He had no idea what to do with this new piece of information; his brain seemed incapable of processing the revelation and played it on a never ending loop.

  “I’m not positive,” Justin told him. “He was infected before I met him, and I get myself tested every six months, even though we always use a condom when we have anal sex. My last HIV test was two months ago.”

  “And we had unprotected sex?” Dutch asked no one in particular.

  “I know,” Justin said. “That was hugely irresponsible of me. I was so caught up in the moment. Even so, it’s
unforgiveable. I completely understand if you want me to leave.”

  “I don’t,” Dutch replied. He was surprised he meant those words. If someone else had kept such vital information from him, he would have been out the door. Dutch, like most gay guys, typically shied away from positive men to avoid even the slightest risk of HIV infection. Justin, however, wasn’t positive; his partner was.

  Even more amazing was that Justin had known S’s status prior to falling in love with him. Yet, Justin still willingly gave his heart away to S. That dedication not only made Justin’s affection for S more apparent, but in a strange way, it also redoubled Dutch’s feelings for Justin.

  For him, it demonstrated that Justin was definitely the kind of man he could spend the rest of his life with, the kind of man who risked anything for love, even his life.

  In the face of such gallantry, could he risk any less?

  “Really?” Justin asked, surprised. “It’s okay?”

  “I won’t lie,” Dutch said. “I would’ve preferred knowing before we jumped into bed, but neither of us were thinking about any consequences. If we were, we wouldn’t have gotten naked to begin with.”

  “True.”

  “I need to ask you something, though.”

  “Okay.”

  “You’ve never had unprotected sex in the nine years you’ve been together. Why did you and I bareback the very first time?”

  “I can’t explain it,” Justin said. “It just felt right, like it was supposed to be that way. As if you and I were meant to share each other’s bodies without anything, even a condom, coming between us. Does that make sense?”

  It did make sense, because Dutch felt exactly the same way. He’d always used condoms in the past. He’d even used them in past long-term relationships. But when the thought entered his mind to slap one on before entering Justin, he had quickly dismissed it. Their bodies were meant to be joined, free of all encumbrances.

  “It makes perfect sense,” Dutch told Justin.

  “Do you still want me to answer your question?”

  “What question?” Dutch didn’t remember asking one.

  “You asked me if I wanted this to end.”

  Dutch nodded. He remembered the question now. “Yes, please do.”

  “I love him,” he told Dutch. Hearing those words caused his heart to sink. Justin’s connection to S was simply too important for Justin to risk.

  “Say no more,” he said. Dutch sat up in bed, forcing Justin to move his head off his stomach. “I respect your decision.”

  “I’m sure you will,” Justin said. “Once you hear what I have to say.”

  “There’s really no need. You love your man. That tells me all I need to know.”

  Dutch stood up from the bed, his back to Justin.

  “Can I please finish what I was going to say?”

  “Like I said, no need.”

  “Will you listen to me, please?”

  Dutch turned around to face Justin. Justin lay on his side, his head resting on his right arm. His still naked body managed to once again stir Dutch’s passions even though his insides felt empty.

  “I do love him,” Justin repeated. “I’m not going to deny that. That would be a lie and would be unfair to you and him.”

  “There you go,” he said. He turned his back once again to Justin.

  Justin grasped his wrist. He gently tugged Dutch backward onto the bed. He sat on the edge of the bed while Justin moved behind him. Justin wrapped his arms around Dutch from behind and laid his head on Dutch’s back, pressing his bare flesh against him.

  “Even though I love him, I don’t want this to end,” Justin said. “Maybe I’m a selfish bastard who wants to have his cake and eat it too, but even before I met you, you were special to me. I confided in you my worst fears and opened myself up to you in a way I hadn’t opened myself to anyone in a long time.”

  Dutch turned around in Justin’s arms. They sat facing each other, naked and cross-legged. Their foreheads rested together while Justin spoke.

  “On Cyber, you became my lifeline. Now that we’ve met and shared such a magical evening, you’ve become someone I don’t think I could live without.”

  “Where do we go from here?” Dutch asked.

  “I don’t know,” replied Justin. “But I’m willing to go wherever whatever this is takes us.”

  Relieved and terrified at the same time, Dutch sighed deeply. This was a risky venture for both of them. The road ahead twisted and turned, making it impossible to see what lay just beyond the bend. Far too many times had he placed his heart on the line only to have it mistreated and abused. Even so, he couldn’t hold back the rising swell of hope that this time might be different, that this time, he might have found the one.

  For such a prize, no other option existed.

  “Me too,” he said and kissed Justin on the lips.

  With their souls laid as bare as their flesh, their kiss turned into an embrace that ended in one final joining of their bodies for the night.

  CHAPTER 27

  2010

  “BE HONEST,” Dutch said.

  Justin felt the lightheartedness of their previous conversation die. Distracting Dutch from his medical and legal woes made him feel better, more like himself. At first, he pretended to be interested in their debate on the pros and cons of Dick Grayson, formerly Batman’s partner Robin, taking up the cowl since Bruce Wayne’s death. Discussing comic book characters, a favorite topic of theirs, over pizza and Coke made it easy to forget his pain over losing Spencer.

  After a while, though, he was no longer pretending. He fell into their old routine quite easily, which comforted him and eased his troubled soul. Losing himself in comics had always been a defense mechanism since he was a child. When his father missed a birthday, he pulled out the latest Justice League of America comic and fought alongside his heroes as they battled the android Amazo or Starro the Conqueror. When a bully ruined his day or he battled his longings for other boys in class, Superman and Batman were there to whisk him away to a place where good always won and the endings were always happy.

  That was why he gave himself so completely to their debate. He didn’t agree with Dutch that Dick’s Batman destroyed the Batman mythos. Dutch found Dick’s humorous flair conflicted with the idea of striking fear in the hearts of criminals. Batman needed an edge to deal with the villains of Gotham, according to Dutch.

  Justin disagreed completely. Bruce’s Batman became too dark and too distant. Dick added a refreshing spark to the cape and cowl Bruce Wayne never captured. Dick kicked ass as Batman while Bruce’s Batman floundered in gloom and grit.

  Their debate, while often heated, felt as warm and soothing as chicken noodle soup on a cold day. This was what they were about, or at least what they used to be about. They could talk about comics, politics, education, even the weather, and their discussions were always easy, even if they disagreed.

  For a few moments, he forgot the pain of the past few hours and the complete mess he'd made of his life. Worries about whether or not Spencer would forgive him, or even call, disappeared.

  Their debate rekindled their connection, reminding him how they used to argue about events or popular issues while naked in bed on Sunday morning. They ate their breakfast and drank their coffee while trying to convince the other he was wrong, which never happened.

  They saw things from different perspectives; that would never change, no matter how much they loved each other. They were destined to disagree on most every topic. While most couples might have found that a negative, he tallied it a positive. Not just because the relationship was so different from him and Spencer, since they usually agreed on everything, but because their differences never led to resentment. They grew together because of them.

  Respect for each other’s opinions brought them closer together instead of creating a yawning chasm. They never tried to change the other; their debates weren’t about that. It never mattered if the other didn’t share the same beliefs
. It only counted that they were both secure enough in their relationship that the beliefs could be voiced without fear of drawing blood.

  But as he launched into how Damian Wayne, Bruce Wayne’s son and the new Robin, destroyed the balance of the dynamic duo, Dutch’s question forced the pain of the real world back into view.

  It made him realize their discussion, no matter how good it felt, was merely a distraction. Now, pain once again flooded his soul, washing away the ease and comfort that previously protected him.

  “Why are you in so much pain?” Dutch asked him again.

  He decided to lie and force the conversation back to comics. The pain threatened to drown him again, and he longed for the more soothing waters of distraction and denial.

  “Be honest,” reminded Dutch.

  Justin held the lie back and looked away. He couldn’t lie to Dutch, not now. Honesty was something they held dear, but on the shores of honesty rolled the heavy fog of hurt.

  “Don’t worry about it,” he said at last. The pain gobbled him up on the inside. “It’s just another mess I have to clean up.”

  “What kind of mess?” Dutch asked.

  He didn’t answer. He rose from Dutch’s bedside, where during the course of their debate, he had come to rest. He couldn’t sit next to Dutch any longer. Not only was the pain back, but he was annoyed with Dutch for refusing to let the subject drop. He crumpled up their dirty napkins and tossed them into the empty pizza box. He carried the box and the two empty Coke bottles to the trash can by the hospital room door.

  Suddenly, waves of exhaustion and loss crashed over him. His insides writhed in misery he didn’t want to share. He felt more forlorn than Karen Carpenter’s hauntingly lonesome voice.

  “I think I’m gonna go get some air,” he said. “I’ll be right back.”

  “Don’t do that,” Dutch told him. “Tell me what’s going on.”

  “I can’t,” he replied. His attempt at a smile failed. It felt thin and forced.

  “How about I guess?”

  He laughed. “I don’t think even you’re that good.”