If You Really Love Me

by Gene Gant

  I ease my way down the hall. Mom’s still not home; her door is open, and her bed hasn’t been slept in. She wouldn’t hang around with her girlfriends this long. She must have met a guy. I rush to the bathroom where I wash my face, wipe under my arms again, put on more deodorant, and brush my teeth really fast. I get paper from my backpack, write a note telling Mom that I’m out with a dude from school, and pin the note to her door. Then I run back downstairs.

  It’s a relief to see that Saul is still parked right in front of the building. He doesn’t look at all concerned about the signs saying that area is a fire lane and no parking is allowed there. He turns as I fast-walk toward the car. His face stays empty, but in his eyes there’s a flicker of something, and I think maybe he’s relieved to see me too.

  When I’m in the car with him again, he says, “You get done with everything?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Cool.” He starts the engine, and we drive off.

  For a while, there is nothing but the sound of rock music from his radio and the muted traffic noises from outside. Not talking puts me on edge, and I feel that I have to fill the silence between us, but I can’t think of anything to say. How do you talk to a person when you don’t know anything about him? He doesn’t seem bothered by our not talking. He drives as if I’m not even there, looking around occasionally at the sights. So I settle back in the seat and try to relax.

  Finally, he says, “You don’t talk much. In class, I mean.”

  That’s a funny way to start a conversation. “Neither do you.”

  He shrugs. “We have that in common.”

  Maybe. Maybe not. We’re both social outcasts at school, but for different reasons. I’m a loner because people avoid me. He’s a loner by choice.

  So why does he want to hang out with me?

  “You kind of blow it all off, don’t you?” I ask. “The classwork and tests and stuff.” I wonder what Mr. Corde will do when he sees the doodle Saul left on his test sheet.

  He shrugs again. “I do what I have to to keep my parents off my back. My GPA stays around 3.0.”

  Suddenly I feel amazed. I’m in Saul’s car, and he’s talking to me. This mysterious guy with his dark edge and pimply but good-looking face, this guy I’ve been sort of crushing on for a while now, is talking to me. There’s so much I want to know about him. “Where do you live?” I blurt out. “Can I ask that? You don’t have to answer if you don’t want to.”

  “No big deal. I live in Uptown.”

  Uptown is a gated community about twenty miles north of where I live, on the lake. “You drove a long way to go to the store.” Stupid. Stupid thing to say. Now he’ll be mad.

  If the comment pissed him off, he doesn’t show it. “I felt like taking a drive downtown,” he replies, a little too casually. “That store was a stop on the way.”

  I look at him, just to make sure he isn’t angry and trying to hide it. His face reveals nothing, but he has a great profile. His nose is a straight slope except at the tip, where it turns up just a bit. He’s wearing three stars along the outer curve of his right ear. Not solid stars. They’re like tiny strips of gold that have been folded into star shapes, like a symbol or something.

  “I like your earrings,” I say.

  “Thanks.”

  “Do the stars mean something?”

  “They’re Stars of David. A birthday present from my dad. It’s his way of making himself feel I’m protected.”

  He glances at me. From his reaction, I can tell the confusion I’m feeling is showing on my face. “I’m Jewish,” he says, but that doesn’t really clear things up for me.

  “What’s a Star of David?”

  “It’s a symbol of Judaism. The same way a cross is a symbol of Christianity.”

  “Oh.” And now I feel stupid again. Sometimes I ask the dumbest questions.

  Saul keeps driving in his no-big-deal way, which makes me feel better. “This is the middle of Shabbat,” he says casually.

  “I hate to keep asking dumb questions, but what’s Shabbat?”

  “Ellis, are you Jewish?”

  “No.”

  “Then the questions you’re asking are not dumb. Shabbat is our day of rest. We avoid doing a lot of things, spend time at home with family and friends, eat a lot, and go to synagogue.”

  “But you’re out here, driving around.”

  He shrugs. “I’m not observant anymore. Just my parents are.”

  “Oh.” That brings another question to mind. “What’re your parents like?”

  “My old man’s an electrical engineer. He designs and builds electrical systems for big projects like stadiums and skyscrapers. He’s worked on buildings just about everywhere in the country—New York, San Francisco, Honolulu—and he’s won all kinds of awards for his designs. There were so many projects coming his way he couldn’t handle them all himself, so he started his own firm. He still turns down a lot of requests because he always wants time for my mom and synagogue and stuff. And my mom’s a traditional Jewish housewife, taking care of home. She says that after I’m out of the house, she’s gonna go back to school and finally have a life of her own, but I’ll believe that when I see it.”

  He lapses into silence. It seems that I should say something else, but I’m not sure what exactly that something should be. “I like your car.”

  “Thanks.” Saul gives me another glance, a wry twist to his face. “Seems like an old lady’s car to me. My parents got it for my grandmother but she hardly ever drove it, and now she doesn’t need it at all. I wanted a Mustang when I got my license, but my folks said it didn’t make sense to buy another car when this one was already in the garage.”

  We’re downtown now, rolling past the high-rise condos that line Washington Avenue. The people on the sidewalks are bundled up in heavy coats and hats, scarves wrapped around their faces, hunched over against the cold wind and the cloudy gray sky. Looking at them makes me shiver, even though the interior of the car is cozy warm. I pull my jacket tight around me.

  Saul turns right onto First Street. About halfway down the block, he turns into the parking lot of a squat, rectangular three-story building. The whole front of the building seems to be all windows, and through them I can see guys working out on various types of machines. On a vertical concrete slab outside the main entrance, there’s a sign that reads YMCA. Saul pulls in to a parking space and shuts off the engine.

  “What’re we doing here?” I ask.

  Saul rubs both hands three times over his head. Then he looks at me and says, “Come on. You’re gonna be my workout partner.”

  Chapter Four

  MY HEART starts racing, and I get hard. I fold my hands over my lap. “Wait.”

  Saul, in the process of reaching into the backseat, stops. He looks at me again. “What’s wrong?”

  What’s wrong is that the sight of guys working out has always turned me on. What’s wrong is that the idea of seeing Saul work out has really turned me on. What’s wrong is that I don’t know if he’s gay, and if I get out of the car now, he’s going to see the bulge in my jeans, and I think I’ll die of shame when that happens. “I can’t do any kind of workout. I don’t have anything to wear in there.”

  Saul gives me a quick look up and down. “The Y doesn’t have any kind of strict dress code. You’ve got on sneakers. You wearing a tee?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Then all you need is a pair of sweats or training shorts. They sell those inside.”

  Great. I can still get out of this. “I’ve only got eleven bucks, and I need that for something else. I can’t buy any shorts or anything. Sorry.”

  Saul shrugs. “I’ll buy you a pair. No big deal.” He reaches into the backseat and grabs the duffel bag. “Come on.”

  “I can carry that bag for you—”

  “No problem, I’ve got it. Come on.” He opens the door and is out of the car in a flash with the bag on his shoulder.

  Shit.

  I take off my jacket and the
n climb out of the car. With the jacket draped over my forearm, I hold it in front of me so it hides my erection. There is suddenly this weird excitement all over Saul. It shines from his face now in the way he stares at the YMCA building with a glaze in his eyes that is almost like lust. It shines from his body in the rapid, eager way he’s walking toward the entrance. I hurry to keep up with him.

  We step through the door into a small lobby that is brightly lit. There’s a long counter in the middle of the room. Behind it, a Hispanic guy in his twenties is seated, watching a football game on a small television. He stands up when he sees us approaching, a smile spreading across his face. He’s wearing a sweater that’s tight enough to show that he works out himself. He picks up a clipboard that has a pen on a little chain dangling from it and holds it out to us. “Hey, Saul,” the guy says. “What’s shaking?”

  “Hey, Carmine.” At the desk, Saul grabs the clipboard and signs a paper there. He isn’t smiling, but I can see in every move he makes that he’s happy. “Got a guest with me today.”

  “Cool.” Carmine looks at me. “What’s up, fella?”

  I kind of wave at him, keeping my jacket in place. Saul passes the clipboard over to me. I see that it holds a sheet for people to sign in with the times they enter and leave the place. Next to his name, I see that Saul has written in his YMCA membership ID number. I put the clipboard down on the desktop so I can sign using one hand. Carmine takes the clipboard and starts typing our sign-in info into the computer next to the television.

  “Hey, my friend needs a pair of sweats or something,” Saul says as he pulls out his wallet.

  Friend? I clamp my lips together to keep from smiling.

  “Sure thing, man.” Carmine takes another look at me, sizing me up. Then he reaches somewhere under the desk and comes up with a folded pair of white sweatpants, which he places on the desktop. He rings up the sale on the cash register. “That’ll be $15.98,” he says.

  Saul pulls out a twenty and passes it to him. And that makes me wonder, if Saul had cash on him, why did he steal that magazine?

  MY HARD-ON is history. It shriveled away after we finished signing in, buying new sweatpants for me, and getting locks at the front desk. Saul led the way across the lobby to the door that went to the locker room. That was when it hit me that I was about to see Saul undressed, a temperature-raising prospect for sure, but it had an unfortunate flipside: Saul was about to see me undressed.

  I’m looking at his butt again as we walk down the hall, yet my whole body is tingling with cold dread. He’s talking—babbling actually—as we go, repeatedly looking back over his shoulder at me, a bundle of excitement. I don’t understand a word he says. We turn at the first door to our left, and we’re in the locker room. The dark green lockers line the walls, with wooden benches spaced out in front of them. In the rear wall is another door that goes to the showers. Except for us, the locker room is empty, although I can hear the hissing spray of showers beyond.

  Oh jeez. What the hell am I doing here?

  Saul stops walking abruptly and turns to me. “Ellis?”

  “Huh?”

  “I said, have you ever worked out before?”

  “No. I mean, I took PE up through tenth grade because it was mandatory, so I’ve done calisthenics and stuff, but nothing like working out in a gym.”

  “No problem. I’ll show you the ropes.” He goes to a set of lockers that don’t have any locks dangling from them and dumps his duffel bag on one of the benches. He opens one of the lockers and starts getting out of his jacket. I go to a locker several spaces up from the one he’s chosen so that I have a bench all to myself and we’re not so close to each other.

  He’s humming one of the rock songs we heard on the radio as he pulls his hair back from his face and ties it in a ponytail with a rubber band. He hangs his jacket in the locker and then pulls off his sweater, and that’s when I see that his leanness is an illusion. Saul is a big guy. Not big as in fat but big as in built. Under the sweater he is wearing a white tee, and it clings tightly to wide shoulders, biceps that bulge up to the size of cantaloupes with every move, a broad chest, and ripped abs. All the hugeness of his torso tapers down to a waist as narrow as mine. He hangs up the sweater, kicks off his sneakers, unbuttons his jeans, shoves them down, and steps out of them. Under the jeans, he is wearing a pair of navy, knee-length workout shorts that display his thick, muscular legs.

  I’m intimidated, titillated, and confused, all at the same time. He wears all those loose, oversized clothes at school to make himself look smaller than he actually is. To hide a body that is… oh hell, it’s gorgeous. Why does he do that? I’ve watched guys on the football team run drills in tees and shorts, and none of them have a body as good-looking as Saul’s. Why doesn’t he show off his muscles the way the jocks at school do?

  After his jeans are hung in the locker, he sits down on the bench to pull on his sneakers. He looks up at me. It takes a second for me to realize I’m staring at him. My face heats up with a blush, and I look down as if there’s something very interesting going on with my feet.

  “Say, man, get a move on,” he urges. “What’re you waiting for?”

  I see in the brightness of his brown eyes how eager he is to move on to the gym and get at those machines and free weights. Still, I hesitate. I look like a skeleton next to an average guy. I don’t want Saul to see me undressed. I don’t want any of the guys in this place to see me undressed.

  Saul stands up and walks over to me. “Hey,” he says quietly, and I look up at him. There’s something gentle and patient in his face. “Ellis, you don’t have to be nervous or ashamed or anything. Every bodybuilder in the world had to start somewhere. And building up shouldn’t be hard for you. You’ve got great body structure.”

  I can feel a timid little smile tug at one corner of my mouth. “Thanks,” I reply.

  “Okay, then. Once you walk out the locker room, the gym is to your left at the end of the hall. I’ll be waiting for you.”

  He walks across the locker room and disappears into the hall. I watch him go, fascinated by the beauty of his perfect body in motion. I feel happy now for three reasons. First, Saul somehow knew exactly how I felt about getting undressed in front of him. Second, he was thoughtful enough not to watch me get undressed. Third, he actually noticed something nice about my body.

  Who wouldn’t smile about things like that?

  I WALK into the gym in my T-shirt and new white sweatpants and sneakers. The air in this place is kind of cold, and I have my arms wrapped around me, both for warmth and to hide my bird chest. As I expected, all the guys working out in this joint are buffed up like… well, like bodybuilders. They’re so big and I’m so skinny that if one them were to grab me and turn me upside down, I’d look like a dust mop.

  Saul is off in a corner by himself, near a couple of weight benches. I head that way. He’s busy collecting steel plates and hex dumbbells of various sizes from the racks along the wall and stacking them between the benches. When he sees me, he gets this serious look on him and steps away from the benches to meet me.

  “Sorry it took so long for me to get ready.” Some guy came out of the shower right after Saul left, and I had to wait until he dried off, combed his hair, packed up his gym bag, got dressed, and left before I could take off my sweater and jeans and underwear and get into the sweatpants.

  “That’s okay,” Saul replies, and he doesn’t look bothered at all. “It gave me time to get some stuff together for us. We’re gonna start with a few stretches to warm up and loosen up. You should always stretch to lessen the chance that you’ll pull or tear a muscle.” He anxiously flexes his fingers on both hands in a way that makes it seem as if he’s going to wrestle me down or punch me in the mouth. “Just follow my moves. We’re gonna do the stretches in sets of three and hold each stretch for thirty seconds.”

  I watch closely and mimic his moves carefully as he leads me through a series of stretches that involve every part of our bodies. I
t’s like a slow, intimate dance. We’re only a few feet apart. His eyes never leave my face, and the seriousness of his gaze forges some kind of connection between us. Just like that, he has my trust. I’ve never done stretching exercises or weight lifting before, and I don’t have great coordination or athletic skills, but I know he is not going to do anything that will hurt me.

  The stretching feels good. Being close to Saul feels even better. Soon, I’m completely over feeling self-conscious, and I want to keep stretching with him forever. But he breaks off from the exercises suddenly, saying “Okay, man, that should be enough.” He bounces lightly on the balls of his feet, shaking his arms. “Come on over here.”

  I follow him over to one of the weight benches. There are already two small gray metal plates loaded on each end of the lift bar resting in the uprights. “You don’t want to start off with too much weight,” he says, pointing at the bar. “Got a total of fifty pounds on here. Think you can handle that?”

  The weights on the bar don’t look all that heavy to me. “Yeah, sure.”

  “All right. I like to start with bench presses. That’s where you lie on your back, take the barbell, lower it to your chest, and then lift it up until your arms lock. Go ahead and lie down and give it a try. If it’s too much, I’ll take off some of the weight.”

  I lie down on the bench and scoot my body under the barbell. After that, it’s difficult to stay focused because Saul takes up a position right over the end of the bench, which puts my head practically between his thighs. He’s so close I can smell the citrusy scent of laundry detergent in his workout shorts. I take the barbell in my hands and lower it until it touches my chest. Then I push it slowly upward until my arms are straight lines. I repeat the moves, two, three times.

  “Cool,” Saul announces abruptly. He takes the barbell from me as if it weighs nothing and places it back in the rack of the bench’s uprights. “So how’d that feel? Too heavy? Too light? Or just right?”