by Todd Gregory
“It is. He’s engaged.”
I can’t help it. I start to laugh.
“He is engaged, you heartless cynic! He’s in love.”
“That’s so nice.”
Jordy cuts me a look, so I don’t say anything else. He’ll start talking in a moment anyway. Jordy is also a believer in true love and romance and happily ever after. Why wouldn’t he be? He has a gorgeous lover who’s crazy about him, and they’ve been together for over two years now and they’ll probably spend the rest of their lives together and wind up being one of those old couples who dress alike and spend every minute together and get written up on those tiresome gay websites as examples of True Love for the rest of us sad, lonely queens, proof positive that if we are all patient enough and good enough and hold out for the real thing, someday our prince will come.
You know, all that tired bullshit they start force-feeding little girls when they’re in their cribs.
Jordy thinks I’m cynical about love, but I’ve never been in love. I’m sure the condition exists, but I’m not an emotional person. I never have been. When I was little I didn’t dream about the man I was going to marry when I grew up. I always knew I was gay. I always knew I wanted to suck dick. I started when I was in junior high school. Straight boys don’t care who sucks their dick as long as someone does, and I was a jock, besides. Jocks can’t be fags, you know, even in the public school I went to, and I never had a girlfriend but no one ever gave me shit about it because I was big and strong and I had all the jocks behind me.
I was sixteen when I got a fake ID and went to my first gay bar. I met a hot older guy there that night and I went home with him, and he would have probably shit all over himself had he known how old I really was but instead he was so fucking excited to have me there in his house and naked in front of him and he sucked me for a while and then he wanted me inside him and I couldn’t believe how nice it felt to be inside him, how good it felt to be fucking his tight ass, and I could also watch myself in the mirror on the wall behind the headboard, and don’t believe those stories about boys shooting immediately because I certainly didn’t, I was a natural at fucking and I loved fucking him and I loved how much he was loving being fucked by me and I fucked him twice before he drove me home and gave me his number and asked me to call him because he wanted me to fuck him again.
I wonder what his name was?
Damn, I’m getting horny just thinking about it, so I flip over onto my stomach so Jordy can’t see my erection and think I’m getting turned on talking about this Dylan kid.
“Dylan,” Jordy says finally, “wrote an essay for Out.com about commitment, monogamy, and marriage.” He’s fidgeting with his phone and he hands it over to me. “See?”
I lift my sunglasses and peer at the screen. The headline screams at me A LIFETIME COMMITMENT, which makes me want to laugh out loud. There’s a picture, too, two decent-looking guys beaming at the camera. One is in a dress Marine uniform, complete with the hat. They look way too young to be getting married and way too young to be that happy.
I bet they won’t look so happy when they’re getting divorced.
I wave the phone away. “They’re cute.”
“They met when Dylan was a sophomore in high school and Marc was a senior. Marc went into the Marines—that was his dream, and once Dylan got into college they got engaged. Dylan dreams of being a journalist—”
“A dead profession, poor boy.”
“And so of course Out jumped all over the idea of him writing for them, he may even do a love advice column—”
I make a gagging noise.
“And this piece has gotten hundreds of thousands of hits. He’s kind of become a bit of a celebrity this summer.”
“Good for him! Has he started a YouTube channel yet? How many followers on Twitter?”
“I always forget what a bitch you can be,” he observes. He relights the joint, which has gone out. “But when he arrives, you can suggest a YouTube channel for him. You are going to be nice to him?”
“Why wouldn’t I be?” I smile at Jordy. “I won’t touch him, and I’ll be nice. Are you happy?”
Although…the poster boy for gay marriage and monogamy?
There’s a challenge.
One worthy of me.
Maybe I’ll extend my stay on Fire Island…
KENNY I’m in love.
I don’t know what to do.
I’ve never felt like this before.
What do I do?
His name is Ricky Monterro and he’s just moved into the house. Phil brought him by my room to see if I could help him out, since he’s new and going to be pledging and I’m a junior active.
He’s so beautiful.
I mean, there are lots of good-looking guys in the house, and some of them are even gay, and some of them I’ve heard will do things with you even though they’re not gay if they can blame it on being high or being drunk but I’ve never tried I can’t believe this beautiful angel dropped into my lap like this oh God what am I going to do someone who looks like Ricky would never look at me twice or give me the time of day or anything and I don’t know what I am going to do I can’t stop thinking about him he’s so good looking and his body is so amazing oh my God oh my God oh my God and he’s just downstairs from me and he’s so good looking and he’s nice too and I don’t know what to do maybe I should talk to Phil he’s always been so nice to me.
PHIL Maybe I don’t need Brandon here after all.
RICKY My first night in Beta Kappa house and my first date.
My first kiss.
I am lying here in my bed staring at the ceiling and I can’t sleep. I can’t sleep because I am so excited. Coming here was the right thing to do. I made the right decision!
It’s almost like a sign from God…
I wish there was someone I could talk to about this, share my excitement with. I’ve never been aware how lonely I’ve been. I don’t have any friends that I can text or call. I don’t feel comfortable enough with Sergio or Lupe to call them. I mean, I know they love me and they don’t judge me…but details about dating a guy?
I think about it all again. He knocked on my door right after Sergio and Lupe had left me and I was finishing setting up my room. The knock was so soft that I wasn’t sure I’d actually heard it, and I thought maybe Sergio or Lupe had forgotten something, or maybe it was Phil, seeing how I was settling in? He’s so nice, too, and so good looking. He made me feel so welcome.
Anyway, there was a knock on my door, and as I wondered if I’d imagined it there was another knock, so I walked over to the door and he was standing there, all red in the face and embarrassed looking, and like he didn’t know what to say to me or what to do. I said hello and he stuck out his hand and said, “Hi, my name is Kenny, and Phil asked me to kind of watch out for you since you’re new here and I was just a pledge last semester.”
I invited him in and he sat down in my desk chair. “Where are you from?” he asked, still stammering a bit. It was really cute, he was really cute.
So I told him about being from LA and going to Notre Dame before deciding to come here, and I asked him why he joined Beta Kappa.
“I wanted to join a fraternity because I wanted some place to belong.” He was turning even redder with every word. “My high school…I’m from San Bernadino…was pretty homophobic. I got picked on and bullied a lot. I was in the choir, I like to sing.”
“Oh, that’s terrific! I sing, too. I was in the choir at my school and it wasn’t that bad.” It took me a minute to realize what he’d said. “Your high school was homophobic?”
“I came out when I was a freshman. I mean, everyone was already calling me a fag, so I figured how bad could it be, and then I got to college and even though the university has a non-discrimination policy…I wanted to join a fraternity but some of them say they aren’t homophobic but they don’t have any gay brothers but Beta Kappa does, I mean we even have a gay president now.” He said it all in a rush like he was afra
id if he didn’t get it all out he wouldn’t have the courage to say it at all.
“So you’re gay?” I asked, just to be sure.
He was now so red he was almost purple. I mean, I’ve read that in books but I’ve never seen anyone actually turn purple in real life. He just nodded and he wouldn’t look me in the eyes.
“I’m gay, too,” I replied. “I haven’t really gotten used to saying it. I’m gay. I’m gay. That’s why I left Notre Dame. I was in the seminary. I couldn’t stay there. Besides, it’s so cold in the winter! I missed California winters.”
“You’re gay?” He looked like he didn’t believe me.
“I’m gay,” I replied. “Have you ever had a boyfriend?”
He shook his head. “I’ve had some crushes but I’ve never had a boyfriend and I’ve never been with anyone and so I’m still a virgin.” His face was starting to go back to its normal color. “What about you?”
“Me, either. I mean, I just came out. My parents don’t know. My uncle knows, though. I didn’t know Phil was gay.”
“I know, right? You’d never know. Sometimes I wonder if gaydar is just a myth.”
“Gaydar?”
He giggled. “We’re supposed to have this sense so we can tell if someone is gay or not.”
“Well, mine must not work.”
We talked for a long time, and then we were hungry so we walked to the Togo’s a couple of blocks away and he bought me dinner (my first date! I can’t believe it!) and we talked a lot more, and then we decided to walk down to the beach and walk along there, and it was already getting late and the sun was setting in the west over the water and we just talked so much, about everything, about music and what we liked, and we sang a couple of songs together and we were able to harmonize almost perfectly together without even trying—
Like we were meant to be, kind of.
And then we came back here and he gave me a kiss and I thought about asking him and making out with him but then thought that might be kind of slutty and so I said good night and here I am, lying in bed thinking about him.
My phone chimes.
He texted me.
Thanks for a beautiful night.
Coming here was so the right thing to do.
Totally.
BRANDON “There’s a difference between attraction and love,” Dylan is saying, very self-righteously, as he grinds pepper onto his salad.
He arrived about an hour ago; Jordy went down to the dock to meet him. I’m hungover and a little sore from last night. Jordy and I got good and baked and went dancing at the Pavilion last night. I drank a lot of beer and danced a lot and met some muscleboy from Chelsea with abs I could grab with my fingers and an ass that needed to be on my face and razor stubble on his pecs and ingrown hairs on his balls. We sucked each other and then I brought him back here and fucked him until he came a couple of times and I finally shot my load all over him and then I went to sleep hoping he’d be gone when I woke up, and he was.
My dick is sore and I’m getting a zit on my balls and my head feels like it’s going to explode.
“And there’s no rule that says you have to have sex with everyone you find attractive,” Dylan says, offering me the pepper mill. “It’s so…I don’t know, 1970s to just drop trou for everyone who winks at you.”
“1970s?” Jordy raises an eyebrow and looks over at me. He isn’t hungover in the least, the asshole. He never gets hangovers. I don’t know how he does it. “I mean, yeah, I get it. The sexual revolution, gay rights, everything had its start in the 1970s. But I don’t understand the equivalency, you know?” He’s managed to put together the most amazing lunch, an enormous bowl of salad with everything you can think of in it, including shredded turkey and avocadoes and onions and watermelon, with club sandwiches on the side, in quarters with the crusts cut off, skewered perfectly by toothpicks. “And besides, Dylan—you shouldn’t judge people whose morality is different than your own.”
“I don’t judge people for their morality.”
“Sounds like it to me.” I pick up my glass of LaCroix grapefruit and wish it had vodka in it. I suppose this preachy little bitch doesn’t drink, either. “What does it matter to you if other guys are horny and want to get off?”
He gives me a patronizing little smile. He’s cute, I’ll give him that. He’s maybe five foot six and a natural blond, one of those who are so blond that his eyelids are pink, but he’s also one of the lucky ones whose hair turns white in the sun and skin turns reddish gold. His eyes are a startling bright yet pale blue, big and round with long curly white lashes above and below. One of his front teeth is crooked and there’s some gaps between his lower teeth. I wonder why his parents didn’t get him braces. He has a sturdy little body, strong thick legs and a bubble butt and a flat stomach and a dewy freshness to his skin, which looks like it would be soft and silky to the touch. His legs are covered in thick white-blond hair, but his chest is smooth. One really pink nipple keeps peeking out from the side of his tank top. “Life is about choices, Brad,” he says. His voice is even more condescending than the look he is giving me. I can see one of Jordy’s eyebrows going up in amusement. “And people are their choices, don’t you think?”
“Maybe.” I shrug my shoulders a little bit. “But most people make choices on the spur of the moment and don’t think them all the way through. If you did, you’d spend most of your life trying to make up your mind. I don’t believe you should judge people for spontaneity, Dave. And my name is Brandon, not Brad.”
He colors a little bit. “Sorry, Brandon. Mine’s Dylan, not Dave.”
I smile back at him. “I know.”
He looks me right in the eyes. His eyes really are pretty. “Have you ever been in love, Brandon?” He emphasizes my name, and I can see a bit of a twinkle in his eyes.
If I didn’t know better I’d think he was flirting with me.
“I’ve not, sad to say.” I sip my LaCroix. “But I don’t feel like I’m missing anything. You’d say it’s because I don’t know what I’m missing, right?”
“I like being in love, don’t you, Jordy?”
“I do,” Jordy says, wiping some mayonnaise off his face with a paper napkin. “But I also didn’t know what I was missing before I met Dante and fell in love with him.” He gets a faraway look in his big brown eyes. “I thought I was in love before…”
“When did you know you were in love with Dante?” I change the subject. I don’t want to talk about Chad and I’m pretty sure Jordy doesn’t either. “Before or after you had sex the first time?”
“Sex and love are different things,” Dylan says before Jordy has a chance to answer, but Jordy does give me a grateful look.
Chad is still a sore subject for both of us.
Probably always will be.
Besides, he has nothing to do with what we’re talking about.
“I was drawn to him when we first met,” Jordy says, and too late I remember that Dante was dating Chad when we all first met him. Jordy winks at me. “It’s okay, Brandon, I appreciate it but I can talk about it. And it kind of fits into the conversation anyway.”
Dylan looks back and forth between us, confused.
“Brandon and I met, Dylan, when I pledged Beta Kappa at CSUP,” he goes on. “Brandon was only there so he could get his grades up to transfer to San Felice, but he was pledge brothers with a guy named Chad. I was different when I pledged…I was fat.”
“Out of shape,” I amend. “You were never fat, Jordy.”
“Thanks, but that’s how I felt. Long story short, I fell for Chad. I thought I was in love with him and he felt the same way, but I was wrong. I was crushed when he told me how he really felt, that I repulsed him.”
That’s not exactly how it went down, but it’s Jordy’s story to tell, not mine. It kind of sucked because Chad was my friend, too.
“I got in shape and I wanted to get even with him,” Jordy was saying. “He did date Dante for a little while—that’s how Dante and I met—but they
broke up and Dante asked me out. I was attracted to Dante but I was trying to get even with Chad. That’s why I went out with him at first, to get back at Chad. We fell in love.” Jordy bites his lower lip. “I’m not proud of it, but I was insecure back then. Dante made me feel like I deserved to be loved, you know? He made me feel worthy. I’d never had that before…so it was easy for me to fall in love with him.”
“And the sex was good, right?” I say.
Jordy laughs. “The sex is fantastic.”
“So, let me ask you, Dylan.” I turn my aching head to face him. I do feel somewhat better—the food is helping—but my head still aches and I long for a joint. “Have you ever had sex with anyone besides your fiancé?”
“No,” he replies.
“Then how do you know you’re in love with him and it’s not just passion?”
“Because I miss him, and not just physically,” Dylan says. “I feel better when he’s around, you know? And I’m worried about him every second. I mean, he’s in the Middle East, doing a tour in Afghanistan, and I won’t even get to see him again for months. He could be killed”—his voice starts to shake here, his eyes getting wet, and for a brief moment I feel sorry for him before I get mad at myself for feeling sorry for the judgmental little prick—“before we get married. I may never see him again. And that goes a lot deeper than missing the sex.”
“But you do miss the sex?” I ask, finishing the last of my sandwich. The headache is starting to go away too, and my eyes don’t hurt anymore.
