by K. Z. Snow
I started sniggering. Jude’s shoulders jiggled. He, too, was chuckling, but the sound came out as little expulsions of breath. At least mirth had graced our stay at Stronger Wings.
Jude sighed. “Problem is, I can’t seem to conjure a single lofty thought.”
“Why’s that?” I half expected him to blame my presence. I hoped he would.
“I’ve never been that kind of person,” he said instead. “I love music, dancing, good food and conversation and books. I guess I’m too much a….” He scrunched his face. “What did Swain call it?”
“Hedonist?”
“No,” Jude said, “that’s you.”
I ignored the minor barb. “Secular humanist?”
Jude pointed at me. “Yeah, that’s the phrase.” He braced his elbows on his upraised knees and held his head. “Damn it, Misha, this sucks. I can’t stop trying. I can’t fail at this too.”
Oh God, no. “What do you mean, ‘too’? You haven’t failed at anything else. It’s other people who’ve failed you.” Jude’s declaration jolted me. I’d let myself believe he was about to give up this insane endeavor, and I refused to surrender that belief.
I leaned forward. “I hope to God you do fail at this. But I’ll be there for you when it happens.”
Stupefied, he slowly lowered his hands and gaped at me. “You think I need your help? Your help? Like, what, you’re going to ‘rescue’ me?”
I spoke without thinking. “Maybe I’m hoping you’ll rescue me.”
“Save the damned innuendo, Misha.”
“What innuendo?”
“You know what I mean.”
“What do you think I’m saying? Huh? Do you think ‘rescue me’ is some euphemism for ‘get me off’? Do you really think that’s all I care about?”
“Just drop it.”
I was good and riled now. I wasn’t about to drop any damned thing.
“No,” I said stubbornly. “No, we’re going to get this shit out of the way. Okay, I’d love it if you sucked my dick. I’d love to suck your dick. And taste your cum and lick your nipples and squeeze your ass cheeks and fuck you senseless and feel you sweat against me before you fall asleep in my arms. Yeah, I want all those things and more. Going both ways. There, it’s out in the open. But that wasn’t what I meant.”
Christ, Jude’s cheeks were red. “You need to go now,” he said tightly.
I got off the bed. “Let me ask you something first. Have you jacked off since you’ve been here?”
His wide-eyed gaze shot up to my face. “That’s none of your business!”
“Just tell me. Have you looked at Samuel’s chest or Bill Gerard’s crotch or Ashton’s ass and mentally undressed them and fantasized about—”
“No!” Very slightly, Jude’s chin quivered. He swiveled on the bed and put his feet on the floor, just to the left of mine. “Just you, Misha, goddamn you. Just your damned blue eyes and your hair and your… everything else. Just you.”
Nothing had ever filled me with more hope than that strained confession.
I dropped to my knees in front of Jude and bracketed his thighs with my hands. But I didn’t touch him; I only stared up at him. “I want you more than I can say, for reasons I don’t know how to express. And I care about you. Do you honestly believe there’s something wrong with that? Do you think the universe would skid to a halt if we made love? Or fell in love?”
“Please stop it. I shouldn’t have said anything.”
“Why? Why?” Oh, man, this was making me crazy. I felt like some machine gone haywire—welds splitting, rivets popping,
“You know why,” he mumbled.
“No, I don’t.” I hazarded a touch, lightly flattening my hands against his thighs. “Give me a chance, Jude. Give yourself a chance. I don’t understand the problem here. I shit you not. I mean, I can step back and kind of see what’s going on with the other guys, kind of, but with you—”
Helplessly, I lifted and dropped my hands. All the groveling I hadn’t done with Robbie I was doing now, but it didn’t seem demeaning. Futile, possibly, but not demeaning. I wouldn’t give up on him until I had no other choice.
“The problem,” Jude murmured, gripping the edge of the mattress, “is that we got too close. That’s why you can’t see what’s going on with me.”
I slowly shook my head in denial. “I got news for you, buddy. Nobody can see what’s going on with you. Except me.”
Jude fell silent for a moment. I read his inner conflict in his face. He had one hell of an expressive face.
“I enjoy your company, Misha.” He struggled with the words. “I might even… have certain thoughts about you. But that doesn’t mean I want to be the way I was.”
I exploded, pitching toward him, throwing up my arms in frustration. “The way you are, damn it! And it isn’t a deliberate choice, a whim, a disease, a sin, a crime against humanity, an insult to families, a psycho-emotional aberration, or a case of rotten judgment. Being gay is just… part of who you are. Like being a great dancer who’s left-handed and likes pistachio ice cream. Like being a brown-eyed music teacher who doesn’t know shit about hairstyle but everything about kissing.” All I could do was look up at him, beseechingly. “Damn it, Jude, I just wish you loved who you are as much as I do.”
I’d gotten to him. Without even trying. The sentiment had just welled from my heart and borrowed my voice and made itself known. Looking pained, Jude reached for my face, twice, but pulled his hand back both times.
My throat knotted. That sure as hell was an unpleasant surprise. “You were right,” I muttered. “I should go.” I pushed myself up from the floor.
Jude didn’t follow me this time.
What the fuck had I gotten myself into?
Chapter Eleven
DECKED out in our Friday-night best and reeking of fifty different colognes, deodorants, and hair products, we men of Stronger Wings made our way to the Grand Hall. The tin chandeliers hanging from the beamed ceiling weren’t ablaze with light. Instead, they cast a romantic glow. Against one wall sat a table, its expanse of white linen broken by punch bowls, hors d’oeuvres trays, and flared stacks of napkins. Tables for two, similarly draped but topped by fairy lamps and bud vases sprouting red roses, were scattered in a semicircle around a space for dancing. A DJ had set up on the hall’s stage.
“Why the fuck am I here?” murmured Ashton Perry on my left.
To meet a brick house with a strap-on. “To eat, drink, and be merry while you dance your ass off. I heard the punch is spiked. That should make it easier.”
Ash poured himself a cup and drank. “You’re right; it is.” The liquor chased his blues away.
“I think it’s supposed to dissolve our inhibitions, like varnish remover,” I said. “Help us get jiggy wit’ da ho’s.”
Giggling, Ash said, “I think you’re gay, Mick.”
I smiled.
Samuel sidled up next to Ash, deliberately making contact with him. “Who’s gay?” He dipped into the punch.
“We are, sweetness.”
“Hallelujah for that.”
Little by little, chatter carried on female voices ballooned at our backs. I turned to look. Our dance partners and potential girlfriends had begun to arrive.
Swain had told us the camp advertised its dances in surrounding towns, and single women of all ages, shapes, sizes, and colors usually flooded the main office with calls and emails. Stronger Wings tried to screen them—weed out the married ones, the floozies, the alcoholics and crackheads and ex-cons. No trailer trash allowed. The women all had to send in photos and fill out questionnaires. If a falsehood was uncovered, they were forever banned from the dances; if they passed muster, they could repeatedly return. Neat, pretty women with “solid values” were given priority. Just like at the Miss America pageant.
It must have begun to rain, since most of the arrivals made a great show of brushing at their dresses and hair and shaking their bare arms. Storms had been forecast for this evening.
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The mentors and their wives hurried over to greet the ladies, who were treated like minor royalty. I supposed it made sense. How generous of these gals to slog through a downpour just to help unqueer a motley assortment of awkward men. Hell, they weren’t even guaranteed any kind of payoff.
I suspected we were like forbidden fruit to them. Their feminine egos probably thrilled at the prospect of turning gay men straight through their irresistible charms. Why else would they be here?
Holy wishful-thinking shit.
I caught a glimpse of Jude talking with Tim Terjenta across the hall. Tim was part of our group, and not bad looking. A wholly unexpected and unwelcome pang of jealousy made me turn back to the food trough. I still felt all wrenched out of shape by my feelings for Jude; even more, by his willingness to become enchained like Prometheus and let the Stronger Wings bird of prey peck his goddamned heart out.
As I popped a stuffed mushroom in my mouth, Hammer appeared beside me. He even laid a hand on my back.
“You know, Mick,” he said, “you’re legally a free man now. You can let your hair down tonight.”
I had slightly curling hair that crept over my collar, and I felt Ev’s fingers graze the ends of it. I truly believed I could fuck him in a heartbeat if I applied myself to storming his personal fortress.
“I might just do that,” I said after I dabbed at my mouth. “There’s no harm in a little dancing and conversation.”
“Good man.” He patted my back and finally withdrew his hand. “Show the rest of these guys what fun it can be.”
At that moment, I almost repented of my deceitfulness and felt sorry for him. Almost.
Gradually, the genders began to mingle. I assumed some of the men just wanted to do the right thing and give straightness a try. Some might’ve been lonely. A smattering could’ve been with women before.
The hostesses kept refilling the punch bowls. Their efforts were certainly appreciated.
Moderately upbeat music encouraged people to dance, and a few couples did. I could tell this would be an evening full of lulling oldies. No driving rock or metal, no esoteric jazz, no rap or hiphop. Certainly no scurrilous lyrics. Like the wallflower I was, I sat in one of the chairs lined up on either side of the food table and sucked down bourbon-laced punch. Four women kept casting me glances, but I couldn’t even pretend to return their interest.
I was getting morose.
Not good.
Jude had started dancing with some raven-haired temptress who looked like a local beauty queen. This time, I couldn’t bear to watch him. They sat out some dances at one of the cozy, candlelit, rose-adorned tables. I considered retreating to my room, but that would’ve been worse. That would’ve invited a marathon of brooding.
Fuck. I wanted to cry. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d cried. Well, yeah, I could, but I didn’t want to think about it. Those had been angry tears. I wasn’t incensed now; I was very nearly in mourning.
Why was Jude buying into this nonsense? Had our mutual attraction spooked him? I couldn’t discount the possibility. It seemed that as our closeness had grown, so had his resistance to it. Shit. If my interest had indeed pushed Jude closer to donning the broken wings this program offered, I wouldn’t be able to live with myself.
I couldn’t let him ignore me, wouldn’t let him ignore me. I got up and slid my empty punch cup onto the table, then approached a young woman with auburn hair and prominent breasts. She’d been eyeing me, so I figured she was an ace in the hole. Not my hole, of course, but whatever hole aces went into.
“Care to dance?” I asked in a perky way, and immediately wondered who’d just hijacked my voice.
My invitation clearly pleased as well as flustered her. The two women with whom she’d been talking teetered on the brink of giddy.
“I’m surprised you asked me,” she said as I led her to the dance floor. Her name was Paulette. “You’re the best-looking guy here. You have such pretty eyes.”
“Thank you.”
The song was some slow country-western tearjerker, which was okay by me. I didn’t want to feel forced into busting moves I didn’t really have at my disposal. Paulette and I made small talk, although I was distracted by the oddly aggressive feel of her breasts against my chest, a discomfiting sensation. I was used to feeling the harder, lower mounds of pectoral muscles. It seemed as if someone had lobbed a couple of water balloons at me, and they’d stuck to my shirtfront, and then I’d been shoved against a wall that smelled of Elizabeth Taylor’s White Diamonds. I wanted to shake myself free and blow my nose.
We sat at one of the tables, talked some more, then danced some more. Paulette was smitten, especially after I fed her my divorcé story. Whoopdeedoo! She’d scored the only bona fide straight guy in the whole place! I felt kind of bad that I couldn’t conjure some wood to nudge against her little black dress.
Never in my life had my dick been so soft. The bugger was probably stiffer when I’d slopped out of the womb.
After an hour of this charade, I started getting restless. My gaze began to wander around the hall. The mentors talked with each other and danced with their wives. The other men drifted between punch bowl and tables, tables and dance floor. Ashton and Samuel murmured together in a corner. Jude moved his ass just for me.
That’s how I felt when I looked at him—all La La Land dreamy and wistful. Maybe Paulette’s perfume had merged with the bourbon to make me intoxicated.
Suddenly, out of the corner of my eye, I saw Jude cross the hall and disappear through the southeast exit. He was moving at a pretty good clip. Worried he might be sick, I excused myself and followed.
Heavy drops pelted me as soon as I stepped outside. Blinking against them, I peered down the path. Jude was little more than a dark smudge in the rain-drenched night, but I was pretty sure I saw him enter the gazebo.
I ran down the path, heedless of the slippery stones beneath my feet, heedless of the downpour that plastered my clothes against my body and added an extra five pounds to my weight. It was a warm, sensuous rain, and it perfectly suited my mood.
Jude spun around as I galloped up the gazebo steps.
Breathing hard, I slicked the wet curls back from my face. “Are you all right?”
“Yeah, I’m fine. I just… I just needed to get out of there for a while. It started to feel suffocating.”
He turned away from me and again faced the black expanse of lake. Its textured odor, richly organic, crept through the deluge.
“What happened to your lady friend?” Jude asked, speaking to the darkness.
I walked up beside him. “Paulette? She’s waiting for the line-dancing lesson.”
The side of Jude’s mouth that I could see curled into a smile. “I’m not surprised.”
“Why?”
“Big hair.”
I snorted. “It didn’t move much, did it.”
“Good place to be during a tornado.”
I laughed harder. Jude smiled wider.
“Wouldn’t you know,” I said, “I forget to wear my cowboy boots.”
Jude’s smile shrank, and he lowered his head.
I gently grabbed his arm and turned him toward me. “Dance with me, Jude.”
He didn’t throw any of the camp’s rules at me. He didn’t object. But he did seem uncertain. Faint strains of music drifted from the hall’s open windows—“The Time of My Life” from Dirty Dancing.
“Please,” I said. “I’m not as good as you are, but I’ve waited three years.”
Our hands slid up each other’s forearms, and we began to move. I didn’t even have to concentrate. As if they were charmed, my feet followed Jude’s steps.
“Great voices,” he said.
We turned, pulled closer, eased apart. “Whose?”
“Bill Medley and Jennifer Warnes. They have strong, expressive voices. I loved the Righteous Brothers, too.”
“It’s a shame Bobby Hatfield died,” I said.
Jude’s eyebrows rose. “You’ve
heard of him?”
“Beats the fuck out of Clay Aiken,” I said.
Jude laughed. “Amen.”
Christ, I was happy.
We drifted closer. Soon, my hands were on Jude’s tight waist. His hands curled over my shoulders. We still held to the song’s beat, but we held to each other more than to the music. Our movements slowed, became more subtle and sinuous. We set our own rhythm.
The dance was effortless. We’d joined as naturally as we had at Barbarosa’s and in that swimming pool… and so much more naturally than we swung axes or sat in classrooms inviting our own destruction.
Jude’s cheek scratched softly against mine. Our bodies pressed together from chests to hips. Thighs fit between thighs.
“Misha….” His breath feathered against my ear.
“Hush, Jude.” I pulled my head back so I could face him, then I dipped forward. “Hush,” I whispered against his soft, soft lips.
His hands rose and balled in my hair.
Chapter Twelve
THE kiss had a tender ferocity. It was a cluster of kisses, actually—to our mouths, our faces, our necks. Quick and coarse, our breath was louder than the rain.
“You’re so beautiful, Misha.”
Jude’s hands held my head as his tongue explored my mouth and mine explored his. He wasn’t going to let me go. I wasn’t going to let him go. Our hips butted. Cock met cock, both unyielding. I fumbled with the buttons of his shirt. When enough were open, I palmed his chest, pulled my thumbs over his nipples.
He gasped. “Harder.”
I pinched and pulled. He uttered a soft, broken cry, and my cock swelled at the sound. Our mouths kept crushing and sliding together. Jude pulled my shirt over my head, began fondling and lapping at my chest, tugging the hair with his teeth. We undid each other’s jeans and sank to our haunches.
I shoved both layers of pants past my ass. Jude did the same with his. The sight of his gorgeous, rigid cock so crazed me for a moment, I couldn’t decide where to start. I wanted to fuck him and suck him and stroke him and kiss him all at once.
“Do something,” he said with a foggy smile. “Fast.”
