by Todd Gregory
He nodded. “I couldn’t bear to share you, no.” He kissed the head of my dick. “So it’s best if we just remain friends and allies?”
“Friends and allies.”
I have wondered some nights, alone in my bed with my dick hard, remembering that weekend with Brandon, if we made the right decision, but I know in my heart we did. We would have only ended up hating each other if we tried to make anything more of it. There have been moments, of course, when I’ve seen him with someone where I have felt a pang in my heart, a wish that things could have somehow been different, but they couldn’t have been.
We would have ended up hating each other.
Hard as this is, sometimes it is better.
It is better to be friends than enemies.
I lay my head back on the pillow and close my eyes. I slide my hand down under my briefs and start slowly stroking my dick. I push all thoughts of Brandon out of my head.
That wouldn’t do. That wouldn’t do at all.
Instead, I think about Joey’s massive dick, how he tastes, the way I can utterly control him and dominate him with my mouth, how no one for the rest of his straight life will ever give him the kind of blow jobs that I gave him, for as long as he lives he will remember the pleasure I gave him…and at some point in his life he’ll question whether he is actually straight or not.
That’s what I think about as I jack off.
My power.
DYLAN Brandon is nothing like I thought he would be like.
He’s a very sweet guy, with depths and feelings I would have never expected him to have based on what I’d been told about him. I was told he was selfish and shallow and uncaring, and none of that is true.
He’s kind, and thoughtful, likes to laugh and have fun, and doesn’t ever worry about tomorrow.
I…I kind of wish I was more like him. He’s a nice guy.
It makes me wonder what my friend Joni has against him. When I told her I was transferring up to San Felice, she was adamant about staying away from Brandon Benson.
“There’s a brother at the Beta Kappa house there you absolutely need to have nothing to do with,” she said to me one day when we were out shopping. Her brother Kenny belonged to Beta Kappa there, and he’d told her stories about Brandon, stories she told me about while we looked for clothes for her trip to Europe. Joni and I went way back, to when we were kids and used to live next door to each other. We’ve always been the best of friends, but I never really got to know her brother Kenny very well. We both entered UCLA together—my parents wanted me to go to school locally before transferring up to San Felice—and I joined Beta Kappa and she was a Little Sister. She actually recommended Beta Kappa to me because Kenny was also joining Beta Kappa.
“Brandon Benson?” I asked when she came out of the dressing room, checking my iPhone emails. “What a weird coincidence. He’s going to be staying with Jordy on Fire Island while I’m there.”
“Cancel your trip,” she said without missing a beat.
“I’d like to think I’m a better person than that,” I said, a little insulted. She was my best friend and she didn’t think I could honor my engagement to Marc.
He’s off in Afghanistan risking his life and she thinks I’m going to hop into bed with some smooth-talking, entitled douchebag?
Thanks for the encouragement, Joni.
And she was wrong about him, anyway.
For one thing, I don’t have to worry about being tempted because I’m in love with Marc. For another, he’s not my type. I mean, he’s a good-looking guy, there’s no question about that. I can see why guys would be attracted to him. He has the most amazing blue eyes I’ve ever seen and they twinkle when he smiles; they look like they have stars in the blue. I almost wonder if they are real or contact lenses, I don’t think I’ve ever seen someone with eyes like that before. But he’s too tall for me and too muscular. I’m barely five-seven and weigh about one fifty, he’s well over six foot three or so and he’s got to weigh about two twenty. Marc is only a couple of inches taller than I am and he’s a lot stronger than I am, but I’m never afraid of him.
Big guys make me uncomfortable.
Marc wasn’t my first, even though I act like he was, but he’s the only person I’ve ever told.
I was raped when I was fourteen.
My parents don’t know, either. All they know is I got terribly depressed when I was a freshman in high school and they sent me to a shrink. I don’t know why it happened to me. I blamed myself for a long time. I met a guy on the internet. He seemed like a nice guy, he was older, and we chatted for a long time. I mean, I always knew I was gay; I was never interested in girls that way—I only liked girls for friends, other little boys didn’t interest me unless I thought they were cute or something, but I didn’t really know any gay kids and so I found a chat room online for questioning teens even though I wasn’t questioning, I just wanted someone to talk to about it and maybe find a boyfriend or something and I met this guy, his name was Allan, and he told me he was sixteen and went to private school. We talked a lot and soon we were texting each other and talking on the phone, and he seemed like a good guy and so he invited me over to his parents’ house and I took the bus over there and when I got there he seemed older to me than sixteen, but he was also really big, about Brandon’s size, really, but not nearly as good looking and certainly not as muscular, just a big guy, and when I wasn’t comfortable with him kissing me, he forced himself on me and I tried to resist but he was too big and too strong and—
It took a while for Dr. Sablosky to earn my trust, but once I finally felt like I could tell him, that he wouldn’t tell my parents, he worked on teaching me that what happened wasn’t my fault and being trusting didn’t mean I deserved to be raped.
Dr. Sablosky did want me to go to the police, but I wasn’t about to do that.
It was bad enough for women, and too much time had passed.
My mother is a crime novelist, and she’s always talking about how horribly women who get raped are treated by the system, so I can’t imagine how they’d be about a gay boy.
Dr. Sablosky did a great job of convincing me that I was worthy of being loved and it was just a matter of time before I met a great guy and fell in love. He made me believe in myself again, and that was when I realized that this concept of gay promiscuity wasn’t something I had to subscribe to just because I was gay; that the beauty of our society was that I could be gay however I wanted to be. I decided that I wanted to fall in love and I would only have sex with someone with whom I was in love. I wanted something like The Princess Bride or Beauty and the Beast or Aladdin.
I wrote about this a lot. I want to be a writer, like my mother, when I finish college, and I’ve always written. I wrote an editorial that got published on my school’s website called “Someday My Prince Will Come” about holding out for being in love. It got a lot of hits and they asked me to start writing regularly for them. I’d never thought about being a journalist, but my mother told me if I was serious about being a writer I should do this, because it would train me to meet deadlines and to write even when I didn’t feel like doing it.
My piece about monogamy was published in the UCLA Bruin originally, and that’s when the editor at Out got in touch and asked me to rewrite it, add more to it and go into more detail, and they wanted to run a picture of me and Marc with it. I had no idea it would go viral the way it did, with people commenting on it and sharing it all over social media, and of course it pissed off some people.
I don’t understand why everyone has to think that someone who has a different opinion than they do is criticizing them. I stopped reading the comments and started deleting emails unread.
I struck a nerve, apparently.
Even Marc, when we FaceTimed, mentioned that some of the guys over there had read it and thought I did a good job.
I miss him so much, and I worry about him all the time. We don’t get much time to talk because of the time difference and what he’s doing ove
r there but…
“You look like you’re going to cry,” Brandon says. “Are you okay?”
We’re walking to the gym to work out. He’s offered to help me with my workouts, and it’s so generous of him.
He’s not what I expected at all.
Joni’s not always right.
“I’d rather not say,” I reply.
“Were you thinking about Marc?”
It’s uncanny. That’s the other thing about him. He always seems to know what I’m thinking. And he’s so kind.
I nod. I don’t know if I can speak without starting to cry right there on the boardwalk. I know it’s silly but I can’t help it and then he’s putting his big strong arms around me and pulling me in close, and instead of feeling afraid and threatened I feel safe and loved, and I put my face against his bare chest and cry for a moment, and he’s just holding me and stroking my back softly and I’m so mortified and embarrassed and when I try to pull away from him he doesn’t resist me.
He wipes my tears away. “It’s only natural to miss someone you love, Dylan,” he says softly. “Are you okay now?”
I nod again. “Thank you,” I somehow manage to say.
He smiles at me. “I so envy you. I’ve never been in love.”
“Never?”
He shakes his head as we start walking again. “I haven’t. I guess I’ve just not met the right person yet. Sometimes I wonder if I can love someone, or if I’m just unlovable.”
“Don’t say that. Everyone can fall in love, and you’re not unlovable.”
“I’m not?” He says it shyly, so softly that I almost don’t hear him over the sound of the gulls and the guys walking along and talking and laughing and the ocean waves. “You don’t know me, Dylan.”
“Maybe I haven’t known you for very long, but I know you’re very kind,” I reply. “You’re—you’re nothing like I expected. I don’t know what I expected, but you’re nothing—I don’t even know how to say this, but you’re a nice guy, Brandon.”
“There are a lot of people who would disagree with you about that.”
“They don’t know you very well.”
He bows his head a bit. “I’ve done some things I’m not very proud of,” he goes on as we walk into the gym. It’s crowded, guys sweating and muscles rippling and weights clanking over the grunts and the sound of some dance song blaring over the sound system by Rihanna, I think, and we give our passes to the guy working the front desk and we head into the weight area. “I think we’ll do chest and back today, does that work for you?”
“Sure.” And he takes me through an exhausting workout, teaching me form and technique (“work out smarter rather than harder, Dylan”) and we keep talking and he tells me about his loneliness, and how he actually doesn’t really have a very high opinion of himself and he finds validation as a person in the attention he gets, his self-worth all comes from whether guys are attracted to him or not, and it’s so sad it almost breaks my heart, and he tells me how every time he sleeps with yet another guy he feels emptier afterward, it always comes back to that.
“You slept with Jordy, didn’t you? Before he and Dante got together?” I ask as we leave the gym, my heart breaking for him.
“Jordy and I were a lot alike,” he replies. “That’s what brought us together, I think, the loneliness and the lack of self-esteem. It never would have worked between us, but we did manage to stay friends. Usually the guys I sleep with don’t want anything to do with me afterward.” He shrugs those big shoulders, all veiny and defined and pumped now. “I don’t really have a lot of friends.”
“What about Phil Connors? Isn’t he your friend?”
He scowls, wipes sweat from his forehead. I want nothing more than to get back to the house and jump into the pool and cool off. “Phil and I are friends, but not the kind of friends you’d think. You seem to know an awful lot about our chapter for someone who’s never been there.”
I laugh. “My best friend Joni’s brother pledged last year. Kenny Gaylord?”
“Oh, yes, Kenny. Nice guy. I don’t know him all that well—we don’t hang out very much. You say his sister is your best friend?”
“We used to live next door to each other when we were kids.” He is smiling now, looks very happy as I say this. “They moved away when we were about ten, but Joni and I have stayed friends. She’s a Little Sister at UCLA chapter. Why are you smiling like that?”
“No reason. Just glad you’re transferring to our chapter, is all. It’ll be nice to have a friend in the house.”
“You don’t have any friends in the house?” This is so sad I can hardly stand it. At UCLA I consider all the brothers to be my friends. Some of them aren’t as close to me as others, but I like all of them. They’re good guys.
Maybe at San Felice they’re different?
“Oh, we’re all friends, I’m just—I don’t feel close to any of them, is all. Like I said, I don’t have a lot of friends.”
“You have me now.”
He pushes open the gate to the backyard. The pool surface is glittering in the sun. “You have no idea how much that means to me.”
How could Joni have been so wrong about him? I think as I smile back at him.
I jump into the pool.
The water feels amazing.
KENNY My sister Joni is annoying.
You’d think my sister would show some interest in the fact I’m in love and met a great guy. She claims to be this big gay ally because her best friend is a gay guy and she’s all about him and the gays and loves RuPaul’s Drag Race and is proud to have an iPhone case that says FAG HAG on it and can’t wait to be old enough to go to gay bars and gay everything, but she doesn’t give two shits about her gay brother.
I don’t know why I thought this would be different.
Joni’s always thought I was an embarrassment to her.
When I was getting bullied in high school for being gay she never once stood up for me, never said anything to anyone, never defended me.
She’d fucking walk barefoot on broken glass for Dylan Parrish, though.
Joni can go fuck herself.
I’m tempted to tell her that but it’s not like she ever gives me a chance to even say a word anyway.
No, I’m supposed to be excited that she’s coming up for the Baby Bash, but she isn’t coming to see me, she’s coming to see Dylan. She fucking FaceTimed me from Europe to tell me this. It’s bad enough Mom let her go to Europe by herself this summer with some of her friends.
I didn’t get to go to Europe.
“It’s going to be a surprise for Dylan, so don’t tell him anything when you see him, okay?”
“I won’t.”
“And you can introduce us both to this guy you have a crush on.”
I grit my teeth to keep from screaming at her. “We are dating, Joni.”
“Of course you are. Just like you were dating Colby in high school, remember?”
I want to strangle her. “It’s not the same thing.”
Colby Whitfield was one of those stereotype golden boys you see in all the teen movies and TV shows. Star athlete and smart and nice and good looking and voted Most Likely to Succeed and all that bullshit. Colby was nice to me. Colby stopped people from picking on me whenever he was around.
Who wouldn’t fall for Colby? Every girl in our school—my bitch sister included—was in love with him.
Colby was straight, of course. I was the only gay kid in our school, and even though I never came out, everyone knew I was gay. I’ve never been able to figure out how the nasty assholes do it—how they figure it out, but they have this mutant superpower that helps them figure out what everyone’s weakness is. School was torture for me. I didn’t have any friends. And my bitch sister was popular, and her best friend was a gay kid at another school and she enjoyed my misery. Every day I wanted to kill myself. Every. Single. Day. I thought about it every night before I went to bed and every morning when I woke up, and I thought about it at least two or
three times a day. Online support groups were all I had, but I had to be careful and always make sure I erased my browser history because my bitch sister would rat me out to her bastard friends at school and they’d make my life even more miserable than they already did.
“Of course it’s not,” she says nastily, mocking.
“You’ll meet him at the party,” I reply, making a mental note to see how I can make Dylan’s life miserable once he gets here. Oh, I can’t wait to see her face.
I cut off the connection just as she starts talking again.
I hope she’s not planning on sleeping in my room that weekend.
She can get a fucking hotel room.
I’m still angry about it when I run into Phil a few minutes later on my way to the soda machine.
“Kenny! Are you all right? You’re shaking,” he says, looking at me funny.
I shake my head. “I—I’ll be fine.”
“Do you want to talk?” he asks me. “You want a soda? I have some in my fridge in my room. Come on, let’s go talk, okay?”
I follow him into his room. Phil has always been so nice to me. He’s probably the nicest guy in the house. Before I know it I am crying and telling him all about my sister Joni and what a bitch she was to me and has always been and why is she so supportive to Dylan and so mean to me and Phil dries my tears and gives me a big hug and kisses the top of my head and tells me to just ignore her.
“Wait till she sees Ricky,” he says, a big smile on his face. “And sees how much Ricky likes you.”
“Thanks.” I feel kind of stupid for crying in front of him, but she always does this to me. She doesn’t even have to be around to humiliate me.
