Chapter Three
They'd been at Dragon Con, the largest science fiction and fantasy convention in the United States, a trip they'd taken together every year since they were sixteen.
Each year on Labor Day weekend, the three major hotels in downtown Atlanta, Georgia were invaded by legions of Storm Troopers, platoons of elves, armies of pirates, and a plethora of every other film and literary character imaginable. The costumes, often costing the wearer hundreds if not thousands of dollars, were incredible. It was, and remains, the one place on earth aside from perhaps Carnivale in Venice where Bill was free to be himself without anyone tossing him a second look except to compliment him on his “costume."
Luckily for Bill, Mitch was a living, breathing, Tolkien geek. He adored J.R.R. Tolkien's writings, had practically memorized the Lord of the Rings trilogy, and could in fact, quote from the Silmilarian like the Pope could quote the Bible. At the convention he could join ranks with other Tolkien-fanatics, dressing as the characters, acting out scenes, and sitting in on workshops until his brain exploded from Middle Earth overload.
Dragon Con was their Mecca, and every September they made the pilgrimage to Atlanta, Bill in his satyr-form (with the necessary concession of a black leather codpiece for the sake of public nudity laws), and Mitch in his elf ears, jerkin, and leggings.
It had been Friday night. Mitch had gone to “An Evening At Bree,” a concert-slash-costume contest event that was traditional with the Tolkien fans. After that, he had plans to go to the Dealers’ Room with a few fellow Tolkienites, for a shopping orgy.
In the meantime, Bill, who had discovered about a year ago that he preferred men but had sat tight on that secret—telling no one, including Mitch—had met a cute guy, a Spartacus fan, who'd been dressed in a short leather skirt and not much else. Bill had been instantly smitten.
In retrospect, Bill conceded that it had not been the brightest of ideas, taking a practically naked man up to the room that he shared with Mitch for the sole purpose of getting laid, but Bill had been so horny at the time that he'd—as became his usual pattern—been thinking with the head of his dick instead of the one on his neck.
Plus, Bill had figured that he would have at least four or five hours before Mitch came back—more than enough time to make history with his own personal gladiator.
Oh, how wrong he'd been.
The door had swung open just as Bill, in his human form and stark naked, had been impaling himself on his gladiator's spear—slowly, and with great pleasure, as he recalled.
"Bill? What the fuck are you doing?"
Mitch's voice, rising in pitch until it ended several octaves above the range of human hearing, echoed in the hotel room. It carried down through the hall via the open door, until Bill was certain even that even the vendors, downstairs on the hotel's lowest floor, had heard him.
Bill, being his usual, sarcastic self and victim of an incurable case of foot-in-mouth disease, had quipped, “Oh, my God! I appear to be shitting out a man! Quick! Dial 911!"
Gladiator-boy—Bill couldn't remember his name to save his sorry soul—had giggled, while Mitch had turned so red that he looked as if his head were about to explode, spraying the hotel room with messy clumps of Mitch-matter.
Mitch had stormed out of the room without another word, leaving the door to swing shut slowly behind him.
Now, in Bill's experience, that was totally un-Mitch-like behavior. Whenever they'd disagreed in the past, whether it was about what movie to see or which team to back in the playoffs, Mitch had gotten right up in Bill's face, yelling and poking his finger into Bill's chest. Mitch had been known to swear like a drunken sailor, gnash his teeth, even punch a wall or two, but the one thing Mitch did not do was clam up and walk away from a fight.
That not only scared Bill—it pissed him off.
He'd jumped off the gladiator, ignoring the guy's complaints and subsequent screams when Bill had shifted into his satyr-form, grabbed up his codpiece and had run after Mitch, fully intending to rip Mitch a new one over his childish behavior.
How dare Mitch run away? What kind of pussy was he? So what if it was another guy Bill had been fucking—if it had been a woman, Mitch would only have laughed and probably would have wanted to join in.
Bill cornered Mitch on the Concourse, near the escalators. Oblivious to the gawking of gaggles of Jedi Knights and Sailor Moons, Bill proceeded to lace into Mitch.
"What the fuck was that?"
"That's what I should be asking you, you pervert!"
"Pervert! I'm not the one who barged in unannounced and then stood there watching us!"
"I couldn't help it! I was waiting to be struck blind. What the fuck were you thinking, Bill?"
"I was thinking that I was getting laid."
"That was a guy! You were fucking another man! You're gay!"
"Wow, what gave me away? Was it the fact that I dress really well, or that I had his cock up my ass?” Bill was never more at his sarcastic best than when in the middle of an argument with Mitch.
Mitch sputtered—actually sputtered like a frying pan full of hot oil—then hopped the escalator with Bill only a few steps behind. They rode down, yelling at one another all the way to the first floor of the hotel.
"I can't believe you're so upset over this! What difference does it make?” Bill demanded, stomping after Mitch as he pushed through the revolving doors and hit the pavement. “I'm still me, Mitch. I'm no different—"
Mitch had turned on his heel, planting a large hand flat against Bill's chest. “Stop. Stop now, Bill. I can't talk to you right now, okay? I need some time, some space. Leave me alone."
Bill had gaped at him, for once in his life at a loss for words. Never, ever had he expected his best friend, the guy he'd gone from the purgatory of middle school right through high school Hell with, whom he'd first gotten drunk with, had first gotten high with, had told every dark secret in his soul to (with the obvious exception of this last one), had effectively just turned his back on him.
By the time Bill had recovered enough to speak, Mitch had disappeared, just another guy in elf ears, melting into a crowd of hundreds of others.
* * * *
Bill didn't see Mitch again until Sunday night. He'd already packed up, and had been sitting despondently on the side of the bed, staring at Mitch's stuff strewn across his side of the room. Mitch hadn't come back to the room at all, or if he had, it had been during the few times Bill had left it.
He was absolutely miserable. He'd never had a fight with Mitch that had lasted more than a few hours, let alone an entire weekend. What hurt the most was the feeling that Mitch hadn't left so much because of what he'd seen, but because he'd realized that it wasn't going to be a one-time thing. Because he'd found out that Bill was gay.
Bill was afraid that he'd lost Mitch's friendship forever, and what hurt even worse was the fact that he had to question how deep that friendship had been to begin with, if Mitch couldn't accept this about him.
In any case, Bill was lost without him, torn between staying put until Mitch came to his senses and grabbing a bus home. In the end he'd stayed, unable to give up what little hope he had that Mitch would come around.
He needn't have worried. Mitch did come back, just before midnight on Sunday night. Bill looked up at the sound of the door opening, to see Mitch standing in the doorway looking every bit as miserable as Bill felt.
"Hey,” Mitch said softly, letting the door swing closed behind him. He leaned against the wall, arms folded across his chest, staring down at his shoes.
"Hey back."
"Look, I'm sorry, okay? It was just ... a shock. To see you like that, I mean."
"I guess I could have been a little more politically correct, huh?” Bill said, a half smile creasing his cheek.
Mitch chuffed. “Yeah, but I should be used to that by now. The only PC in your vocabulary is the one with a keyboard and monitor. I guess I mean that I've always known, but to hear you say it, to see you doing
it..."
"Whoa, hold up, pal. What do you mean? How could you have known? I just admitted it to myself last year, and I never said a word to you about it!” Bill's smile slipped a notch as he rose to his feet and walked to the window, unconsciously putting space between himself and Mitch. It was his turn to be shocked. He'd always thought he'd been discreet.
"Come on, Bill. I've got eyes, for God's sake. In high school, I drew boobs in the margins of my notebooks. Think I didn't see what you were drawing?"
"Washington monument. Empire State Building. Eiffel Tower. The monolith from 2001: A Space Odyssey."
"Yeah, and that might have worked on Mrs. Grady in eleventh grade World Geography, but not on me, pal."
"Pal? Still pals?” Bill's voice almost failed him; all he could manage was a raspy wheeze. Hope threatened to blaze up in a white-hot conflagration, burn him to a cinder. He squashed it like a foot on a cigarette butt, not willing to risk the pain it would cause if Mitch's answer was “no."
"Of course, you idiot. I just needed a little time to sort things out in my head. You're not going to go all frou-frou on me now that its out in the open, are you? Not going to get a little yapping dog and tie ribbons in its hair, or drown yourself in hair care products, or..."
"As of this minute, I swear off little yapping dogs and hair care forever, I promise. I'll get a German Shepard. A Great Dane. A fucking Mastiff. Let my hair grow down to my ankles, never even run a comb through it. And since we're into stereotypes here, I won't flap my hands around like my wrists are made of rubber, or replace my Iron Maiden albums with show tunes, either."
"Not gonna make a pass at me after a few beers?"
"Eww."
"I'll take that as a ‘no.’”
"Dude, you're not my type."
"I'm everybody's type. I'm gorgeous."
Bill snorted, feeling relief well up and burst into fireworks that singed his eyes from the inside out, making them tear up.
"Oh, man, add ‘crying’ to that list of don'ts, will ya?” Mitch said, suddenly finding something intensely interesting in the room's ceiling light fixture. He stared at it, blinking rapidly.
"Crying is not limited to gay men. Point in case, the big fat wet things that are rolling down your cheeks as we speak, bro."
"I'm not crying, and you're an asshole."
"I love you, too, man."
"Yeah, I know. But you're still an asshole."
"You've got a thing for my asshole, don't you? Gonna make me hot, dude."
"Shut up."
* * * *
Bill flicked off the monitor, both men sitting silently, watching the screen fade to black.
"Guess we need to re-shoot it, huh?” Bill asked, more than a little worried about Mitch. He was trembling, an honest-to-God shiver running across his shoulders, and he was still pale and sweating. “Bro, are you okay? Are you feeling all right? You don't look so good..."
"I'm fine."
"Yeah? Because you look like shit."
"Thanks a heap, friend."
"Anytime. I calls ‘em like I sees ‘em."
They sat in an odd, strained silence for a long time, Mitch sipping coffee long gone cold, Bill eating two more doughnuts.
As he ate a third, knowing that he was going to have physically move in to the gym, sleep on the fucking Nautilus if he was going to keep his flat stomach after scarfing a half-dozen doughnuts, a glob of yellow custard shot out of the back of the one between his teeth and hit Mitch squarely in the chest.
"Oh, shit. Sorry, man. Let me get that,” Bill swore, reaching for a napkin. He leaned in, brushing at the gob, managing to smear more of it than he cleaned.
It suddenly struck him as odd that Mitch wasn't swearing a blue streak and giving him the “you-are-the-biggest-fucking-slob-on-the-planet” lecture.
Glancing up, Bill froze as surely as if he'd been tossed into a cryogenic chamber.
Their faces were only a few inches apart, close enough for Bill to feel the warmth of Mitch's coffee-scented breath. His lips were slightly parted, but it was the look in his eyes that held Bill motionless.
There was a fire in them that Bill had never seen before, burning so hot that Bill almost expected flames to shoot out of Mitch's irises. There was anger in that fire, barely suppressed rage, and something else. Something Bill had never before seen in them—at least not when they'd been looking at Bill.
Lust.
Bill knew lust well. Felt it often himself, had wallowed in it, made his living in it. But seeing it simmering in Mitch's eyes was ... frightening.
What the hell?
Bill had no time to ponder the meaning of the look Mitch was giving him, because in the space of time it took Bill to recognize what it was he was seeing in Mitch's eyes, Mitch had dipped his head down and kissed him.
It was short-lived, hard, almost more like an attack than a kiss.
But a kiss it remained.
Mitch.
Kissed him.
On the lips.
On purpose.
Oh, my God.
Chapter Four
Bill was still blinking, trying like hell to come to terms with the fact that Mitch had out and out kissed him smack full on the mouth, before he realized that the gargled noise he'd heard had come from Mitch's throat and that the loud bang he dimly remembered echoing in his apartment had been the door slamming shut behind him as Mitch had run out hell-for-leather.
He remained at the table, half-eaten doughnut in his hand, heart racing, palms sweating, feeling as if he were huddled in a foxhole on the front lines, artillery shells exploding all around him.
In that one brief moment when Mitch's lips had touched his, Bill had been forced to acknowledge that his world, his safely structured universe, was no less sturdy than a house of cards constructed in a wind tunnel. With a pithy kiss Mitch had flipped the switch on the fan, blowing the hell out of Bill's carefully ordered life.
Because after that, after that tiny taste of Mitch, all of Bill's secret fantasies, the ones he kept so close to the vest that he barely admitted them to himself in the light of day, the ones he brought out only in the dark of night when he was too drunk or too lonely to keep them leashed, reared up as big as elephants in a field of mice.
He loved Mitch.
He always had.
Loved him as a friend, as a brother, yes, but as something much more, too. Loved him in the way Bill knew could never be, the way a man loved with his whole heart, his whole being.
It was the reason Bill had never had a relationship that had lasted more than a few weeks. Had never moved in with anyone, had never allowed anyone to park their toothbrush and shaving kit in his bathroom.
Bill realized that he'd spent his entire life wanting, waiting for the impossible, for Mitch to walk through his door and do just what he had today. Well, not exactly in the way he'd done it—in Bill's dreams, Mitch kissed him slowly, tenderly, with enough fire and panache to melt Bill's underwear right off his body—but the effect was the same.
It blew the lid off Bill's neatly packaged fantasy.
He loved Mitch, but he couldn't ever, ever have him. Not like that. Not like he wanted.
But Mitch had kissed him.
Holy shit.
What the hell was he supposed to do now?
* * * *
In the end, Bill did what he always did when things got too hairy for him to handle alone, when he needed an infusion of normalcy, of stability, to put things in perspective.
He went home.
The drive down I-75 to the Gulf-lapped beaches of Naples was usually a pleasant one, driven with the ragtop of his Mustang down, with the CD player blasting his favorite eclectic mix of 70's and 80's oldies. The Black Crows “Too Hard To Handle,” and Men Without Hats’ “Safety Dance” alongside the Pointer Sisters’ “Jump” and the BeeGee's “Staying Alive.” Him belting out the lyrics, fingers drumming on the steering wheel, enjoying it, really getting into it, the wind in his hair, the sun on his skin, and th
e bugs in his grill.
This time he took the drive in brooding silence, his mind only marginally on the road and the traffic around him. The Kiss—it had thrown Bill enough to merit capital letters in his mind, becoming an Event, like the Super Bowl or the Academy Awards—replayed over and over in his head, on an unending loop.
Hours after Mitch had stormed out of Bill's apartment, once Bill had finally gotten himself more or less under control and able to form cohesive sentences, he'd dialed Mitch's number but all he'd been able to reach was Mitch's voicemail. “You've reached Mitch. Either I'm not here, or I don't want to talk to you. Either way, leave a number."
Sarcastic son of a bitch.
Wonderful, hot, crazy son of a bitch.
Confusing son of a bitch.
Bill had left enough messages to fill up Mitch's voicemail box, but Mitch hadn't called back. Not that Bill had really expected him to—he had to be more flummoxed over The Kiss than even Bill was at the moment, which added a new dimension of worry to Bill's already over-taxed mind.
Where was Mitch? Shut away in his apartment in the dark, ignoring the phone, trying to sort things out with a bottle of Jack? It wasn't like Mitch to dive into a bottle, but then again, it wasn't like Mitch to do what he had in the first place.
Was he driving around aimlessly, replaying The Kiss over and over in his mind like Bill was? Had he liked it? Hated it? Had it disgusted him? Frightened him?
Had he picked up some bleached blond bimbo and taken up residence in one of the rent-by-the-hour motels on Orange Blossom Trail, trying to prove to himself that he was still straight-as-a-fucking-arrow Mitch by screwing her into the mattress?
Or had he already forgotten all about it, not giving it another thought, chalking it up to a momentary lapse from sanity and had gone about his business as usual? Was he not answering or calling Bill back for no reason other than he'd just left his phone at home?
Satyr-Day Night Fever Page 3
