Giuseppe and Me

by Robin Reardon

everything seems better when he says, "God, you're beautiful."

  Naked, half-erect, I walk to the bed and pick up the trunks. Speedo. Of course. When I have it worked it on (and around my nearly-hard dick), Ron goes to stand in front of a full-length mirror. "Come look." He stands behind me, hands on my bare shoulders, while we both admire the reflection. He sighs. "Too bad you can't afford anything like this."

  My head snaps toward him, and it's on the tip of my tongue to tell him to go to hell when he steps back against a wall, holds his arms out to the sides, and gives me another command. "Undress me. Slowly."

  I can't help wondering if slowing things down was something he'd learned from his friend in Cannes-another thing he'd wanted to show me perhaps? New moves?

  Putting his comment about my lack of finances aside in favor of testing my ability to go forward with what was promising to be a sexual encounter well beyond anything I'd experienced since Mr. Ellis, I do as I'm told, holding Ron's eyes with mine as much as I can. I realize with a start that I've never actually seen his dick before. I can't say why, but I'm getting more anxious by the second. His erection is complete, but mine has actually deflated. This should be fun; what's wrong with me?

  "Kneel," he commands, eyes closed. "Suck me."

  You'd think this would be no problem. I've held his hard dick in my hand many times by now, used his own cum as after-cum lube, rubbed it on his balls. But my heart is in my throat, and my hands shake. To try and calm down, I remind myself that he knows so much more about this than I do, and what he's having me do is how it's supposed to happen. He hasn't led me wrong so far, has he?

  So I kneel, take his dick in my hand, and point it toward my face. As I take the end into my mouth, he says, "Wrap your lips over your teeth," and suddenly his hands are on my head, forcing him deep into my mouth. Partly from surprise and partly from inexperience, I choke, and my teeth graze him. He cries out, "Imbecile!" only with a French accent, and pushes me away. I fall backward onto my ass.

  The look on his face softens, and he holds a hand out. "Sorry. I forgot you don't know what you're doing yet. Come on." He holds a hand out and pulls me to my feet, leading toward the bed. Relief, fear, and desperate hope are fighting for attention in my brain.

  He throws the covers back and turns to me, arms draped on my shoulders, our noses touching. "I'm going to teach you how to fuck, Alex."

  Maybe it's that he's never said my name before. Maybe it's the sweet way he kisses me after he says it. Maybe it's my wanting so much to know how to fuck. Whatever it is, I don't say anything to stop him from pulling the Speedo down and off. He has me lie on my back.

  "Here's how you suck somebody," he tells me, knees on either side of my legs, and he proceeds to do so.

  Oh, my God. Ecstasy replaces fear as he works me to just short of coming. Then he stops, brings his face up toward mine, strokes the inside of my mouth with his tongue, and flips me over.

  Immediately my ass clenches, and my hands form tight fists. What is he going to do? How far will I let him go? The words Wait! and Stop! bounce around my brain but won't come out. I'll have a few seconds to think, while he puts on a condom, right? I know enough to expect that. But he starts to knead my ass, and the next thing I know there's lube in my crack. I'm still waiting for the crinkle of the condom wrapper when I feel his dick poke me.

  My clenched fists grip the sheet, and I pull myself up and away from him. He follows. I flip myself over, onto my back. I barely manage to say, "What are you doing?"

  "I told you. I'm going to teach you how to fuck. Now turn over."

  "I-I can't!"

  "Why the fuck not?"

  Now doesn't seem like the time to tell him about Mr. Ellis. So I say, "You don't have a condom."

  He sits back on his heels, lube-slimed dick pointing at me. "Are you kidding me with this shit? That's for sissies."

  Am I crazy? Am I really going to turn down this opportunity to learn what I desperately need to know? I want to shout at him, to tell him I'm not a sissy, to tell him I want to know how to fuck but I'm not going to go through that hell of wondering if I'm sick, ever again. But I can't speak. All I can do is shake my head.

  He throws the tube of lube at me. It bounces off my neck. "You really are a piece of trash, you know that? Shit." He gets off the bed, finds my clothes, and throws them at me. "I can't believe I ever touched you. Get out of here, you little nobody."

  He stands there, naked and deflated, while I struggle to dress myself with hands that shake so badly I can barely fasten my jeans. I pick up my shoes and socks, but before I can put them on, Ron pushes me toward the door. "Get out. Now. Do that in the hall." Then, more to himself, "Jesus."

  Feeling like some disgraced servant who's been caught pilfering silver spoons, I stumble down the hall and collapse into a chair in a clump of furniture in a lobby near the elevator. I sit there, heaving breaths to keep from screaming or crying or both, until I'm calm enough to put my shoes on.

  What the fuck had just happened? Had Ron really almost fucked me and then thrown me out of his house? Out of his life? And is it because I didn't have the guts to let him do it to me bare? Or is it also because of who I am, or who I'm not? You really are a piece of trash. You really are. The way he'd said that had made it sound like there'd been some kind of debate he'd gone through in his head. Am I worthy of him, or am I too much of a piece of trash for him to touch? I can't believe I ever touched you.

  Eyes closed, I see Ron's face when he'd said Suck me. The next thing I see is his dick, slimed and waiting, and my brain skitters away from that image, like it's something that's too hot to touch without getting burned. And burned is kind of how I feel. And Ron wouldn't care. He'd never cared about how I feel.

  Fuck him. I don't care how he feels, either. Trash, am I? He doesn't want to know what I think about him, right now. He can't touch me. He can't hurt me.

  Outside on the sidewalk, my old, reliable shell firmly in place, there's no thought about where I'm going. My feet turn me automatically toward the West Village, toward Stonewall, where gay men who'd been treated like shit yelled Fuck you! at the world. Where, as one voice, they'd said, You can't hurt us.

  At Christopher Park I go in and sit on one of the benches, intending to soak up that Fuck you feeling from Stonewall across the street, expecting to feel better and better as I push the pain of Ron's rejection further and further away from me. My face feels like a hard mask, but it feels brittle, not strong. I fold my arms hard across my chest; maybe that will help.

  It doesn't.

  But I don't care! I don't care that I'll never have enough money to go to Italy. I don't care that I'll never live anyplace like Ron's. I don't care that I'll never live anyplace where there are fresh flowers in every room.

  My breathing is odd. Because as soon as I remember the flowers, that same warm, soft feeling is there, that feeling that had made my heart swell when I'd seen all those flowers. What the fuck is it about flowers?

  I'm Italian.

  So fucking what?

  But that soft warmth won't leave. And it's threatening my shield. It's seeping in between those cracks I can't even see.

  My head falls back. I stare overhead, seeing nothing, breath starting to rasp. I close my eyes and send up a silent prayer for strength, for courage: Giuseppe, help me!

  Suddenly I hear a soft voice to my right. "You okay, kid?"

  It's him. My Italian guy, the one I want to become. The one I want to be right now.

  "You don't look so good." He sounds like he actually cares, like he actually wants to know what's wrong. But I can't speak. So he speaks again. "What's your name, kid?"

  I manage, "Alex." And then, to test our mutual Italian heritage, I add, "Alessandro."

  He nods, grins, and says, "I'm Joe. Giuseppe."

  I don't know why that opens the floodgates, but suddenly I can't stop crying. Every time I try to stop sobbing, I can't breathe, and every time I breathe I sob. He just lets me go on, doesn't move,
doesn't say anything.

  He waits until I can speak. Then he says, "So, Alessandro, you wanna tell me what's upset you so much?"

  Out of everything that's upsetting me, what do I want Giuseppe to know? What can I tell him that won't make him turn his back on me, too? All I manage to say is, "I'm gay."

  "Okay, me too. So what's the problem?"

  "I don't-I don't know if I'll ever be able to have sex."

  He scowls, like he's trying to figure out whether I have some physical disability or might be missing critical body parts. Then he says, "Are you positive?" I know he means HIV positive. I shake my head. "What's the issue, then?"

  What is the issue? Well, it hasn't changed. "I couldn't have sex with this guy I know. He was all ready, and we were alone. His parents were out. And? and I couldn't do it."

  Giuseppe nods. "Well, you're still a little young, aren't you?"

  It comes out of me like it's someone else's voice: "Not too young to have been raped."

  "Ah. So your boyfriend was ready, and you weren't?"

  Boyfriend? I set that aside. "I guess so. I don't know. Maybe if he'd had a condom?"

  Giuseppe's posture changes, and it seems like he's holding himself back. The look on his face makes me brace myself for another lecture on condoms like I'd heard from the clinic. But then his body relaxes. Both arms resting along the back of the bench, he says, "No one gets inside me without one. And I wear one when I'm top."

  I stare at the side of his face for a few