by Mia Kerick
“Know of any parties tonight, guys?” She winks as she seats us in a corner booth. She obviously thinks we’re loading up on food prior to a night of partying, when we’re actually on our very first official date. “Maybe we can meet up somewhere when I get out of work.”
Liam is gentle in his discouragement. “It’s not a party kind of night for us. But there’s always something going on at RetroHouse.”
The hostess looks puzzled by the rejection, but she smiles and thanks him. After another long look at me she strides back to the hostess table. Meanwhile, I struggle to accept that I’ve voluntarily placed myself in an enclosed space with a bunch of strangers who have not been frisked for weapons.
When we’re alone, Liam hooks his ankle around mine. I suck in a quick breath, which I think he hears. “This okay with you?”
I’m not sure if he’s referring to the restaurant or our seating or the way his ankle is hooked around mine, but I nod. I want to get to the heart of the matter that’s weighing on me before we order and eat, and I figure there’s no better time than the present. “Something’s been on my mind.”
“Yeah, what?” Liam looks at me from across the table, and I know that I’ve made the right choice in throwing most of my caution to the wind and becoming involved with him. His eyes are breathtaking—the most intelligent and compassionate eyes I’ve ever seen—and I want him to always look at me with such intensity. But there’s also concern. He’s worried about what I’m going to ask.
“Last weekend, you started to tell me that there were things about you that I don’t know. And I’m starting to believe that these things are hurting you.”
Liam’s stunning gaze drops to his lap.
“I want you to trust me with the stuff in your past that hurts.”
“Shit.” He doesn’t look back up at me. And I’m pretty sure he slides just slightly to the outer edge of the booth as if contemplating escape.
“We don’t have to talk about it if you don’t want to, but you need to know, I can help you cope with your problem, whatever it is.”
He replies too quickly. “Okay… so it’s like this… I feel like shit because I let my buddies die in that theater… it’s not easy for me to live with.” I hear the sigh and then his gaze is back on my face. He swallows hard and looks away, and I know that there’s much more behind the haunted expression I’ve started to see more and more often. “I lost somebody else a long time ago… in a fire. Not a subject I like to talk about. But there it is… and it still gets to me every now and then. Not gonna lie to you.”
A fire. He lost “somebody” in a fire. I want to know who, when, how… all of it. But I can sense that he just confided more in me than he’s ever confided in anyone else. I don’t press him for details. “Thanks for telling me that.”
Liam reaches across the table and takes my hand in his. A public first for us and I wait for my own reaction to it—embarrassment, shame, worry? I experience none of these; all I feel is relieved that I’m the one sitting across from him who he has reached out to. “Yeah, sure. Uh… no worries.”
Sometimes when he says no worries I think it’s code for—you might want to worry about this, dude.
“So how about we check out the menu?”
“Sounds like a plan.”
***
Dinner is great and not nearly as awkward as is sitting together in the school cafeteria being studied by the masses. Liam takes the long route home, and I’m not sure whether this is a stalling tactic or just a scenic ride through the rolling hills of our Vermont college town. At his apartment, he parks, grabs my bag, and escorts me to the door. Standing in front of his apartment, he says very softly, “This… uh… this night means a lot to me.”
I hope he means that we’re going to fully find our way back to each other tonight.
Once we’re inside, Liam gets a bottle of wine, a couple of glasses, and we sit on his futon, which is now folded up like a couch, to drink it. He makes no move to put on the television or music, and I don’t miss the background noise at all. I’m hoping to soon hear the thudding of his heart—a sound I’ve missed.
“It’s not so weird as I thought it would be… you know, being in a relationship with you… another guy,” I volunteer, in an effort to say what I’m fairly certain we’re both thinking.
Liam looks at me, tilts his head, and smiles. “We aren’t exactly out of our own little closet yet.”
“You know what?” I ask. He shakes his head slowly, so I continue. “I’ve faced death twice. I’ve lost the person closest to me to a brutal act of violence. I don’t think I care too much what the people on the other side of the closet door think.”
“Same here.” And he takes my glass from my hand, places it on the low coffee table beside his glass, and leads me to the bed. “But the truth is, Jase, I never have.”
This is an area where we’re different, and it’s one of the things about Liam that reminds me of Ginny. Neither of them cares much what the crowd is thinking or doing. The list of common qualities between my two most recent lovers really isn’t very lengthy, though. It pretty much begins and ends with this.
No words are spoken as we stare at the bed, but I’m not troubled by the silence. This man with whom I’ve shared such significant moments in my life is about to express to me how much he cares. And I’m going to show him how very mutual that sentiment is. There really are no perfect words for this moment so silence is better.
Before we lie down, we sit beside each other on the edge of the bed. The kiss he places on my lips is something about which I could write poetry, and I’m no flowery lyricist. But with proper motivation, such as the brushing of his solemn lips to my eager ones, I might very well be inspired to give poetry another try.
After the kiss, his fingers are on the buttons on my shirt, and he never looks away from my eyes as he unbuttons each one. He pushes it off my shoulders, and pulls my thin white T-shirt over my head with a swift stroke and then studies me. I know what he’s thinking as it shows in his wider-than-usual eyes. He’s thinking that he has never seen anything as beautiful in the world as my naked chest, and he’s remembering how close he came to losing me, on more than one occasion, for more than one reason. The way he touches me, a feather-light touch I had no idea he was capable of, shoots tremors of desire though my limbs, and everywhere else too.
I want to remove his T-shirt, as I would do right now if he were a woman. But my motivation is different with Liam than it was with Ginny; I need to see his chest… to touch the thick curls there, to lose myself in his strength and masculinity. Without a hint of drama, he rips his own shirt over his head and the deed is done without my assistance. And I’m surprisingly fine with my lack of participation.
What happens next comes from pure instinct on both of our parts. At the exact same moment we spontaneously clutch each other with tightened fists and drag our bare chests together so we can feel the joining of our bodies in a way that isn’t so much sexual as it is spiritual. When we finally release each other, our pants and boxers come off in a heated rush, each of us hurriedly removing our own. I don’t think any buttons or zippers were undone in the process. Everything was just yanked off and dropped to the floor.
I’m the first to reach out and touch. Although I want Liam to take charge, as he did that night last summer, it needs to be this way tonight. I need to initiate the intimacy, to prove that this is truly what I want... and that him being male isn’t too much for me to handle.
When my fingers tentatively wrap around his swollen dick, Liam groans deeply, which breaks the spell of silence. He returns the gesture, reaching out to hold my dick that is as ready for action as his, and I allow a similar sound to escape my lips. There we sit, our hands and eyes on each other, and I can’t deny that it’s very different from anything else I’ve experienced, even from the single night we were intimate last summer. But maybe this kind of different is also better.
“I wanna make love to you tonight, Jase. Can I?” H
is voice doesn’t tremble or break on the words, and I’m impressed. I couldn’t have asked with such confidence.
“Yes.”
“Tell me what you want me to do.” He sighs once and I can tell he means, “Who’s gonna do what to who?”
I answer with honesty. “I want you to fill me.” Isn’t being on the receiving end of penetrative sex the ultimate in hero worship? It’s actually giving myself to him, and it’s what I want. His closed-lip smile indicates that he knows my desires, and was hoping that this would be my preference tonight.
“Jase….” He whispers into my ear and prickly chills rush to cover every inch of my skin. “I haven’t ever done this with a man.”
“You’ll know what to do.” I don’t whisper, instead I speak softly, as I want to relay my confidence with the tone of my voice.
“Yes… you’re right… I’ll know.” He smiles again and this time it’s more deliberate, and I believe him. And I suddenly feel certain that I love him. A long list of logical reasons for this love doesn’t come rushing into my mind at this abrupt recognition; it’s more of just an inner knowledge. I wonder if I’ll be honest enough to tell him so before the night is over.
Liam is prepared. He leans to his bedside table and pulls from the top drawer the things we’ll need. Without a word he pushes me onto my stomach and squirts something cool and moist on his fingers, which he applies to my ass without expertise, but making up for it with determination. I feel shy and awkward and probably a lot like a sixteen-year-old virgin as Liam’s unwieldy fingers massage and then enter me. It’s incredibly intimate to be touched this way. I blurt out, “I think I might come.”
“Me too.” He says, and in the middle of this clumsy and intimate moment, we’re able to look into each other’s eyes and laugh. I think that we can do this is a positive sign, or more likely, a gift. Liam clears his throat and utters, “Let’s slow down… there’s no hurry tonight. And when I come, I want it to be inside you.”
“Words like those are not going to help me to slow down, Liam.” We laugh again.
Then he takes control in the same way he did last summer. He explores me thoroughly with eager fingers, until I can tolerate the new sensation without too much squirming. Eventually the probing eases and Liam lies on his stomach beside me, and we again start to kiss. He breaks away from me after every third or so kiss, to study my expression, to kiss my eyes, to watch my face as he inserts a single finger, or two, more deeply. “I want you so much,” he confesses.
“I’m ready… I’m ready for you now.” My voice is shaky, but he gets the message.
I assume he’s going to climb onto my back to enter me from behind, because it fulfills my mental image of two men making love, but he doesn’t. Maybe he’s afraid that the position will bring me back to the worst of days, when he climbed on my back to save my life. Gently, Liam pushes on my side and I roll again onto my back. “I want to look into your eyes.” He kneels and lifts my ass onto his thigh and only then does he quickly pull a condom on. Without a word he raises my left leg to his strong shoulder and guides himself inside me, his expression tense with need and concentration.
I feel the pressure of an invasion that my body tries to fight. But Liam’s gentle persistence is greater than my body’s resistance, and once he gets to a certain point the struggle ends. His need has won this brief, but intense, battle, and he slides fully inside me.
“Oh, God… you’re in me.” Not the most intelligent of observations, but my remark seems to work for him.
His eyes are wet, but it’s with the intensity of his pleasure, not sadness. “Yeah… please say it’s good for you.”
I’m awed by the full, stretched sensation but I’m not sure “good” is the right word for it. Before I respond, I take myself in hand and begin to rub. With the unique dual sensation of Liam deep inside me and the friction where it counts, I’m able to say honestly, “Move inside me… and it will feel better than good.”
He seems to struggle to keep his eyes open because of how good he feels. “I need to go fast….” His words come in a rush.
“Yeah… I do too.” He immediately quickens his pace and I try to pump myself to match his thrusts but soon any rhythm we’d established disappears; the result can be called nothing but a frenzy of movement.
When he sees me start to come, he stiffens, squeezes his eyes shut, and lets go as well. The moment of release seems to last longer for me than ever before; there’s time enough for the magic of this moment to leave a lasting imprint on my brain. After we finish, his breathing doesn’t slow right away as I expect. Instead he sucks in a breath, swallows deeply, and says, “I’m going to tell you something… that maybe I shouldn’t.” I have no idea how he can talk at a time like this so I know that whatever he has to say is very important. “I’m gonna… say it… I love you, Jase.”
I haven’t cried since last summer. I’ve wanted to, plenty of times, like when I got back to school and was missing Ginny because she should be here and not in a grave. And I wanted to cry when I thought I’d lost Liam for good. But I always held back my tears. Right now I just let go and cry out the depth of my passion for this man. “I wanted… to tell you I love you too… so much… but I was afraid….”
“No more fear.” These are Liam’s last words to me before he falls asleep.
Time to live life fully because you never know when it’s all going to be over.
The most unique and meaningful and maybe even awkward experience so far in my life concludes the way it started, with an adoring kiss worthy of inspiring lyrical verse. I guess now I’m a poet.
15
I look down at his head that’s resting on my lap. He’s asleep, and I know I should wake him as he’s in the middle of studying for an Information Systems quiz that he wants to ace. But he looks so peaceful, and when he’s sleeping I don’t see the haunted look in his eyes. It hurts so much to see it; I hate the thought of Liam being in any pain. But worse is the awareness that he’s witholding something important from me. And maybe I haven’t known him all that long, but it’s clear that he needs to come to terms with whatever is bothering him. So instead of waking him up, I reach down and push back his blond hair that is surprisingly silky, like a child’s hair might feel.
Liam and I have tumbled more easily and naturally into “coupleship” than I’d anticipated. Last summer, when I realized I’d developed intense feelings for him, I avoided him completely because I couldn’t imagine how two straight guys could function effectively as boyfriends. I thought a romantic relationship would be impossible, and trying to establish it could be torturous. Maybe my need for him has nothing to do with romantic love, I’d decided at the end of July, and if I leave it (him) alone the need will go away.
First of all, there’s the issue of sex, and being young and male, this topic is of primary concern. I’ve always liked the way girls looked, smelled, sounded, and tasted. And it might be true that I’ve never gone for the softest and sweetest of girls, but no one would ever question their femininity. I had a few girlfriends in high school, Carrie Dodd being the girl I dated the longest, and she was known as the prettiest girl in town. Carrie worked very hard to be beautiful but I knew she was as tough as those fake nails she wore, which was honestly part of her allure. For two years, I made a huge effort to think of her as challenging and free-spirited, but eventually I had to admit that she was really obstinate and narcissistic.
Then there was my college love, Ginny, who prided herself on being edgy and unconventional. Ginny was attractive in an alternative sort of way—she wore beat up old clothes found at thrift shops, although her parents were quite well off, sported long ratty dreadlocks, and the dark skin on her hands and legs was covered with bumps and bruises from her favorite pastime, rock climbing, as well as scars from frequent falls from her mountain bike. And she was cynical, even distrusting, of certain aspects of society, which intrigued me beyond belief. I was fascinated by her complex mind; I wanted to learn from her. I’d ev
en say I admired her. And we had great sex, even if I wasn’t completely transparent with her about all of my innermost desires. Before I met Liam, though, I really hadn’t been fully aware of what I’d wanted in bed.
As far as Liam goes, he hasn’t told me too much about his past relationships, other than that he’d taken two different girls to the junior and senior proms in high school, and had spent a lot of time with a girl he’d met at a summer second job painting houses between sophomore and junior years in college. He said he’d mainly participated in “physical relationships” with women, which I understood to be no-strings-attached hook-ups. From the very casual way he mentioned the ladies in his life, it seemed to me that romance hadn’t ever been his top priority. He informed me that he’d never considered the possibility that he could be gay until he met me.
Sex hasn’t turned out to be a problem for us. I always figured that sexual desire was based on how sexy my partner looked, but it isn’t that way with Liam—not that Liam doesn’t look good, because I think he’s about as good-looking as a guy can be. But it’s his protectiveness, gentleness, selflessness, and love for me that take me to a place where I’m emotionally moved to feel sexual desire, which I wouldn’t have believed was possible had I not experienced it firsthand. Maybe it’s easier for me, as a man, to think of making love to Liam as worshipping my hero. I want to see the tender expression on his face when he gets turned on and I want to see the awe when I touch him and he can’t believe it feels so good.
