by Todd Gregory
“Brandon is my friend,” he says carefully, “and we’ve been friends ever since he transferred here. He’s a great guy, he’s a lot of fun and I care about him a lot, but I would be lying if I said he was the kind of guy anyone would want to try to have a relationship with, to fall in love with. Brandon’s a heartbreaker. He’s left a trail of broken hearts in his path.” He shakes his head. “I hate to tell you that, and it makes me feel like a bad friend to him, but I have to be honest with you. I think it would be a mistake for you to get involved with him.”
“We’re just friends,” I say, knowing it’s a lie as soon as I say it, and just the act of saying it out loud and knowing it for the lie it is makes me understand who I am a bit more, and I know I have been lying to myself ever since I first laid eyes on Brandon next to the pool at Jordy’s house on Fire Island. I knew as soon as I saw him he was dangerous, he was too good looking and I wanted him and deep inside my heart I was sorry I hadn’t met him before getting engaged to Marc.
“It doesn’t sound like you’re just friends.”
“I don’t know what we are,” I say, and it’s true. I don’t know what to do. “I like him a lot, I do, but I’m engaged to someone and I love Marc and…” I stop talking and feel like an idiot, can’t believe I’ve said all of this to someone I barely know, but he’s my fraternity brother and that counts for something, and I had to talk to someone but am glad I don’t have Joni anymore because she would just be a bitch.
“If you love Marc, do you really want to take that risk?”
“But I told Marc. I told him because I don’t ever want to keep secrets from him and I know it was maybe not the kindest thing to do but if I can’t be honest with him”—I know I’m babbling, but the pot is making me think that I’m not being clear and honest with him and he needs to understand, I’ve got to make him understand—“then we’re not really meant to be. I should be able to tell him anything, right? And he said he understood and he just wanted me to be happy and we can’t be together right now and he doesn’t want me to feel like I can’t be honest with him and he understands everything and it makes me feel like I’m an even worse person than I thought I was before and I just don’t know what to do.”
“I can’t tell you what to do, you know,” he says finally, after an agonizing moment where I wish I were dead and had never run into him in the first place. “Only you can decide what you want to do, what’s worth taking a risk for. If I were you, I’d be grateful I had someone like Marc—I mean, what a great guy, who loves you and trusts you enough to say it’s okay for you to have feelings for another man? He’s one in a million. That alone would give me the strength to be firm with Brandon, to only be friends. He’s a good friend,” he stops and thinks for a moment, “but the reason we are such good friends is because I would never for a second consider being anything other than his friend.” He shivers a little bit. “Maybe he does care for you, Dylan. Maybe you’re the one who’s different.” He shrugs. “But every single one of the other guys before you thought that, too.”
PHIL That shakes him up a little bit. He goes pale and he swallows, can’t even look me in the eye, looking around the room.
Such a fucking idiot on every level. I should let Brandon go ahead and fuck some sense into him. I shouldn’t have said anything at all. I should have just let him go on thinking he’s special and that Brandon honestly has feelings for him and blown it all. He deserves it, after writing that stupid, offensive, homophobic anti-sex piece in the first place. He deserves to be outed to the entire world as a hypocrite and a phony and everything else that would happen to him, being laughed at and talked about and mocked.
He deserves every little bit of it.
But I’m not going to wrap him up and put a ribbon on him and deliver him to Brandon.
Brandon needs to work for this one.
And this little idiot is so beneath Brandon. Really.
I want to just grab him by the shoulders and shake him.
He’s wearing a goddamned engagement ring, he’s promised to marry someone, and now he is going to let Brandon mess that up for him?
I should tell him the truth, that all he is to Brandon is another notch in his belt and he thinks it’s funny to get the poster boy for gay monogamy.
But of course, I can’t. I can’t tell him now without making myself look like a complete asshole, and if I’m going to run this place and turn it into the fraternity it should be, all the brothers—every single one of them—has to think, has to believe, that I’m a great guy, a good brother, the standard bearer of the ideals of Beta Kappa.
All of which, I might add, is a fucking crock in the first place. They all pay lip service, but being a brother in this house isn’t like having eighty best friends. The brothers are no different than any other group of people. They’re petty and backstabbing and two-faced, and none of them can be trusted not to knife you in the back if given the chance.
I mean, seriously. If Beta Kappa was real, if we all actually lived up to our creed and our ideals and our standards, would Brandon be trying to fuck with this kid? No, he wouldn’t. And Brandon is no different than anyone else in this house.
The only reason I’ve gotten to be president—and made everyone in the house feel like I’m the fucking living incarnation of Beta Kappa—is because I’m better at playing the game than the rest of them. I’m too smart to get caught.
The only person who knows the real me is Brandon—and he’d never say anything because he’s not able to; he’d go down with me.
Mutually assured destruction.
So instead of telling this idiot the fucking truth and slapping some sense into him, I have to sit here and try to convince him that sleeping with Brandon isn’t in his own best interests.
If it weren’t so sad it would be comical.
I mean, seriously. Could this kid be any bigger of an idiot?
Brandon doesn’t have feelings for him. Brandon doesn’t have feelings for anyone besides Brandon.
If he was going to fall in love with anyone, it would have been me.
And he didn’t fall in love with me. He didn’t commit to me.
There’s absolutely no way he could possibly have feelings for this prim little—smug little—I absolutely refuse to believe it no matter how much Dylan Parrish wants to believe it.
I should be enjoying this more, after reading that fucking op-ed he wrote about monogamy, about how sad and pathetic promiscuous gay men are, how he would never be one of those men—you could practically read the scorn dripping from his words, the sneer on his face as he typed them, believing them all, smug and prim and proper and virginal with his engagement ring on his finger and his fiancé serving.
The picture of him that ran with the piece was bad enough. I wanted to slap the smug superior smile right off his face.
And now Brandon’s got him rethinking it all, wondering if monogamy is everything he thought it was, wanting to drop his drawers and bend over and take it right up the ass and be Brandon’s little bitch boy.
But if he does, Brandon will be insufferable. And it’s past time for Brandon to be brought down a couple of notches.
I mean, look how long it took him to do me the favor I asked him for! I practically had to beg him, and look at Ricky! LOOK AT HIM.
Compared to this mealy-mouthed little douchebag?
No, I won’t have it.
You will not have Brandon, and Brandon won’t have you.
Not if I can help it, bitch.
DYLAN He lights another one of the roaches and hands it to me.
I’m so confused.
I don’t know what to do, what I’m thinking.
This is some seriously good weed, though, I am getting so high and feeling a lot more relaxed than I did when I came in here. Phil’s a good guy, and I’m glad I transferred here, I’m glad I have a president and a brother like Phil to turn to, to confide in and talk to.
“Believe me,” Phil says, looking me right in the eyes, “I want to
believe Brandon’s changed, can care about someone else. I’ve just seen it happen so many times before. He might be interested at first, but he gets bored and moves on. I’ve seen so many hearts get broken by him. And you—you have so much more than any of those other guys had to lose, Dylan! I mean, your monogamy piece was so important and so heartfelt—” He breaks off.
“Thanks,” I reply. Wow, I am so high, my head feels like it weighs a hundred pounds. “I meant it at the time I wrote it, but now I’m not so sure. I mean, maybe men aren’t supposed to be monogamous, with the whole propagation of the species thing, you know, how men are biologically engineered to spread their seed everywhere—”
“Don’t be silly,” he says. “When I fall in love I want to be in love, I want the man I love to love me and only me—”
“But sex isn’t love.”
He stares at me, blinking, his mouth open in a round O of shock. “That sounds like something Brandon would say,” he says quietly, so softly I almost can barely hear it, and he shakes his head. “You’ve got it bad, Dylan. You might need to go away for a while, clear your head.”
“What do you mean?”
“You aren’t taking any summer classes, are you? Go home. Go spend some time with your parents. Get out of San Felice before you do something you’re going to spend the rest of your life regretting.”
“Maybe—maybe you’re right.” I stand up and almost lose my balance. I am so stoned. I pick up my soda can and say thanks to him and mean it, and I smile and say I’m going to go up to my room and lie down and think about it for a while, and I hear him close the door behind me and I go back up the stairs and almost lose my balance more than once and I make it to the top of the stairs and there’s someone upstairs in the dark hallway and I hope he doesn’t notice how high I am there’s nothing like making an impression on someone you barely know by being so fucked up you can barely walk and I’m trying not to weave as I head for my room reaching into my pocket for my room key maybe he’s right maybe I need to go visit my parents get away for a little while get my head back together Brandon is all wrong for me it would be a mistake to have feelings for him I love Marc dammit I want to spend the rest of my life with Marc—
“Dylan?” he says and I turn around and he’s standing there with a bemused look on his face, he’s not wearing a shirt because of course he never wears a shirt, and he takes my key and unlocks my door and opens it and I stumble inside and he closes it behind me and says with a bit of a laugh, “You’re high, aren’t you?”
“What if what if I am?” I am swaying, I know I am and I know he is laughing at me, but fuck it, I don’t care. “Ever since I met you I’ve been off balance.” I hiccup and almost spill my Diet Coke, but Brandon snatches it out of my hand and pushes me gently so I sit down on the bed hard.
“Lie down and sleep it off,” he says, kissing the top of my head.
I sit back up. “I don’t want to sleep it off, and yes, I am really high and it’s your fault.”
“My fault?” He’s just standing there, looking at me, smiling that infuriatingly sexy smile, his shorts riding low enough for me to tell he’s not got any underwear on, and I want him, I do want him, damn it all to hell, I do want him.
I don’t know what to say I don’t know what to tell him, because I can’t say what I want to say, I’m so fucking high and that was a mistake, I can’t handle him when I’m this messed up and I lie back on the bed and put my head on the pillows and fold my arms and he sits down at the foot of my bed by my feet and is still smiling at me.
“How is you being this high my fault?”
“Oh, you know why,” I finally say, and that has to be good enough because I’m not going to say anything else. I can’t tell him how I feel. I can’t tell him how much I want to kiss him and feel his arms around me and…and…and he says, “What’s this?” and he looks at my desk and my laptop is open and the picture, oh my God the picture of him at the beach is open and he looks back at me.
“Why do you have this picture of me on your laptop?” He’s smirking at me, he knows the answer but he wants me to say it, he’s going to make me say it, well FUCK YOU BRANDON BENSON I’m not going to say it.
“It’s a nice picture.” My words seem slurred to me. “I like looking at it, I did a good job.”
“It is a good picture, can you send it to me?” He’s smiling back at me now, closes my laptop so the picture is gone from view. “I want to make it my profile pic on Facebook.”
“Uh-huh,” I say and I am so relaxed now, my eyelids are heavy I AM TOO HIGH and I can’t stop it, I’m drifting off and as humiliating as it is I can’t stop it, I can’t…
BRANDON He’s snoring a little bit, poor little stoned boy.
It won’t hurt to lie down and cuddle with him a little bit, will it?
Ricky won’t be showing up at my door for hours, anyway.
DYLAN I wake up and the clock on my nightstand says eleven and my stomach is growling and I realize I’m not alone in my bed, I’m lying on my side with my back to someone and there’s an arm draped over me, and in that moment I know that it’s not Marc and then it flashes through my mind what happened before I fell asleep and I know it’s Brandon.
Brandon is in bed with me. I passed out in front of him and he got into my bed with me.
I don’t know what to do.
Should I feel violated? But my shirt and my shorts are still on, and he’s asleep, I can tell by his even breathing, and his chest is against my back and I can feel his breath on the back of my neck and it’s actually more sweet than anything else.
Sweet. Brandon is being sweet.
He could have done anything he wanted to me. I was so high and wasted I wouldn’t have been able to say no to anything he wanted, even if I wanted to say no, but I wouldn’t have. He could have taken total advantage of me and he didn’t.
I’m not totally sober even now, but he feels so warm, his body feels so lovely against mine—even better than those times when Marc and I have spent the night together—I don’t want to wake him up. But I’m thirsty and there’s no way I can drink my Diet Coke lying down.
And if I do sit up, and then curl back up with him again…
That would be admitting it.
Friends can cuddle, but I don’t think of him as a friend anymore.
I love him.
Not the same way I love Marc, but I do love him. I’m attracted to him, I want to be with him, and I want him inside me and I want to love him, I want to explore his beautiful body with my hands and my mouth and my tongue, I want to do things with him I never thought about doing with Marc or having Marc do to me, and maybe that makes me a slut and a hypocrite, but I don’t care.
I gently move his arm off me and sit up carefully, so carefully, trying not to disturb him or wake him up. The Diet Coke is lukewarm and going flat but I take a big sip from it, muffle the inevitable belch and wonder if I can lie back down and move his arm back in place when I realize his eyes are open and he’s watching me.
He smiles when he knows I know he is awake and he says, “I just like watching you.”
And my heart melts and I lie back down, facing him this time, our noses very close, looking deep into his eyes and losing myself in them, and I know he won’t make the first move, I’m going to have to do it, so I move closer to him and press my lips against his. He doesn’t kiss me back at first. For a brief second I’m terrified that I’ve done the wrong thing, but then he pressed back against me, slips his arms around me, and pulls me in closer, and he tastes like toothpaste and his heart is pounding deep inside his chest, I can feel it through his hot skin and we keep kissing gently, it’s very sweet and kind and loving, and I like it, even though I want to let everything go and become one with him.
He pulls his head back and whispers, “Are you sure you want to do this, Dylan?”
I open my mouth but nothing comes out, so I nod and my heart is racing with an excitement I’ve never felt with Marc, and I wonder if I truly love M
arc or if I just love the idea of Marc—
Stop that! Don’t think that! That’s wrong!
—but being with him here and now feels the way I’ve always thought it should feel, when I was a virgin and trying to come to terms with my own sexuality and the crushes I was developing on the boys in gym class, stealing looks at them in the shower, dreaming of the day when someone would make me feel the way the Beast made Belle feel, the way Jasmine made Aladdin feel, and Ariel and Eric and all the other couples in my wonderful Disney movies, and I used to dream of the day my prince would come for me, and I thought it was Marc but this is different, this is so much better and different than Marc, and I’m overwhelmed and my eyes fill with tears and I don’t want him to see me cry.
“We don’t have to do anything,” he’s barely speaking, the words are like breaths, “I love you too much to want to ever do anything you’d regret.”
And I kiss him as hard as I can, press my hips forward and no matter what he might be saying I can tell he is aroused, he wants me as much as I want him, and I say, “Brandon, I am in my right mind and I want you so much. I love you, Brandon. I do.”
And then he’s rolling me up on top of him and he is kissing me, and I know he is going to be inside me soon and I’m happier than I’ve ever been in my life, I’ve loved and wanted him from the very first and I am so glad, so glad that he wants me back and he loves me, he does, everyone was wrong about him, he loves me, and my shorts and my shirt are gone, taken off somehow and thrown aside and his shorts are down and he is inside me, he’s so big, he’s bigger than Marc and oh my god oh my god this is amazing, and he is so gentle and I don’t know if I want him to be gentle I want him oh my god I want him to fuck me I didn’t know I could feel like this…
