He was smoking pot again. In
another time, in a few years, when Felix was less innocent, he wouldn’t mind that.
He wouldn’t mind anything that Ben did. But at this moment, though six years
older than Ben, in some ways he was infinitely younger.
I
love the time and in between
the
calm inside me
in
the space where I can breathe
I
believe there is a
distance
I have wandered
to
touch upon the years of
reaching
out and reaching in
holding
out holding in
He was younger, because he was
innocent. He didn’t really understand too much. He understood love, but he
didn’t understand loving someone didn’t meant you would be loved back, or that
loving a sorry person meant you would be loved in a sorry way.
“I
believe this is heaven to no one else but me
and
I'll defend it as long as I can be.”
Ben sat on the floor smoking what
Felix now knew was bad pot, and raising one finger in the air he explained,
“Sarah McLachlan really isn’t good at all. The real artist is her father,
John.”
Apparently
John McLachlan was a great guitarist, and apparently Ben was too. Now that he
was high enough, Ben was about to take out his electric guitar, and show him
how good he was. This was Wednesday night, and he was more or less happy. Still
living with his family at the time, just having begun graduate school, Felix
would travel to the mini efficiency of the pale Benjamin Daniker . He would
leave Thursday afternoon to return to his family’s home. Ben was the beginning
of his life. Ben was the door to life. Felix thought all of those things, and
he was right, even though he didn’t know the painful way in which this
beginning would end.
While
Ben sat on the floor, eyes closed tight, passionately riffing on his electric
guitar, Felix reached for the pack of cigarette’s near Ben’s thigh. Years
later, remembering, Ben sitting on the floor playing guitar was funny. Back
then, when Ben was the deepest, sweetest, most wonderful boy in the world and
the bearer of all good things, watching him play was a worshipful experience.
It’s not silly. Its not
foolish to love someone with all your heart. When you love someone unworthy of
it you’ll learn that the most interesting thing about them is that you loved
them…
There were mornings when he would
wake up on his pallet in Ben’s apartment. They always slept separately, Ben on
his mattress on one side of the entertainment stall, Felix on a pallet on the
other side. Ben would be sitting up playing his folk guitar. He would look at
Felix and sing, in his sweet tenor:
What would you do if my heart was torn in
two
More than words to
show you feel
That your love for
me is real
What would you say
if I took those words away
Then you couldn't
make things new
Just by saying…
But
the son of a bitch would never make it to the “I love you,”
“It’s funny,” Felix thought, years later,
how easy it was to put up with bad love,
half love, less than what you deserved, when I was young.”
Benjamin Thompson would do all
sorts of awful things. They sat up and planned their classes together one
semester. He scheduled planned an especially horrible class: The History of Epistemology:
How Do We Know That We Know? Five weeks into it, Ben dropped out to smoke pot.
In fact, he simply disappeared for days, turning up again with a bruise under
his eye and saying, “I’m not going back to that class.”
“The
only reason I’m in it is because we planned to be in it together.”
“I
didn’t make you take it.”
This
had been the root of another long separation, and after a month they sat across
from each other in the Pub.
“We
should never fight again,” Ben declared. “Life’s too short.”
He
surprised Felix by holding his hand under the table.
That
night Ben told him that he’d met a new friend named April, and they were going
to a party on Saturday. He was free to come.
Later
that night they prepared to sleep in their separate spaces, and falling asleep,
Felix’s hand landed on something square, like a wet nap packet. No… not quite.
In the semi darkness, as Ben fell asleep, Felix’s hand realized a condom.
“I hate him already,” Scott said.
“No wonder you were so careful with me.”
“And
I was right to be.”
“Well,
then where does he get off with doing what he did?”
“Well,
there is more to the story.”
Amidst
the wreck of the room, Felix and Scott lay, fully clothed under a light blanket
on the fu ton.
“Do
you want to tell me the more of the story now, or as we’re driving?”
Felix
looked around his living room where all of his books were most carefully
disorganized and spread all over the floor, where a bookshelf had been tipped
onto the ground.
“Oh,”
Felix said, “I think we can talk while you drive.”
Ben was the most interesting
thing Felix Owens had ever seen. Felix was in the public library one day when
he saw a boy, otherworldly pale, with the palest almost shaven blond hair,
checking in and checking out books. When he came down, Nancy
Over
the course of their relationship Felix, who had never been in love with
anything, would fall in love with every feature of Ben, be amazed by how his
pale blond hair grew into a honey red beard at his cheeks, how red his perfect
mouth was, even the shape of his somewhat sharp nose. He would fall in love
with his quietness, with his reserve. He would also be disappointed by what was
revealed when those things fell away, and he, like many before him, would deny
the truth of what he saw.
“I
knew so well, in a way that Ben was for me. That I had to be with him, had to
know him.”
After
nosing around he even planned his classes in the hopes that Ben would be in one,
and so Ben had been. In fact, looking back he had set the trap for Ben as neatly
as anyone could set a trap. That it would backfire on him so profoundly was
almost a just desert. They were walking from class when Felix suggested, “We
should exchange numbers.” They did. Felix used Ben’s back as a notebook and
scribbled his number.
After
Ben folded it into his backpack he said, “I’ll probably never call you.”
“Is this the house?” Scott
demanded.
“Yup,”
Felix shielded his eyes from the sun. “And that…. Is the car.”
Scott
parked behind him, and Felix murmured, “Never thought he’d come back here. I
haven’t seen that duster in years.
“Can
we change seats?”
“Sure?”
Scott looked doubtful, but he handed his keys to Felix.
“Are
the license plates still covered?”
“You’re
doing something bad?”
“Do
you mind?”
“Nope.”
Scott said.
They
switched seats and Felix pulled out just as the door of the house opened and
out came good old Ben.
“Is
that him?”
“Yup.”
“He
looks different.”
Felix
pulled out into the street, perpendicular to Ben’s car and said, “Well, that’s
what hair and a beard does to you.”
And
then, just like that, he pulled into drive, and then into reverse, and
broadsided the hell out of Ben’s car.
Ben
was screaming, coming down the yard, as Felix turned and pulled back down Hurst Street
` “And
now,” he began, while Ben shook his fist in the rear view mirror, “the rest of
the story.”
Once
a week they spent the night together, and one afternoon while Ben was in the
shower Felix got on his computer and, because he was nosey, went through the
history.
Gayboys
Gaylove
Gaysex
Notgay
Bicurious fellows
Felix moved away from the computer.
Up
until then liking was liking, and he liked Ben a great deal. He had to have Ben
in his life. He had never actually conceived of what having a boyfriend would
entail. He didn’t know much about sex let alone gay sex, and while Ben sang off
key in the shower:
This is the light that keeps me awake
My head explodes and my body aches!
Felix tried to picture having sex
with him, but he could not.
All
he knew was that he was in love with Ben, that he was pretty sure by now that
he was gay and he had sensed, but could never be sure, that Ben was the same.
He didn’t have that type of assurance or knowledge yet. Now he knew, and he
wondered if, perhaps, Ben might be gay for him? After all, why were they in the
same apartment together? But what would happen if Ben let him onto his bed? And
was that the reason Ben wouldn’t?”
That
afternoon Felix walked Ben to his job at the public library, and when they got
there he went into the sexuality and sociology section, sat down and pulled out
The Book of Gay Health and Maintenance. One day he would buy the book
and from the book he’d learn a great deal other men found out the hard way.
Anal sex is often seen as the definitive form of gay love-making. You
might think, and be pressured to think, that if you’re not doing it, be you
top, bottom or versatile, you must be some sort of second rate closet case. But
is it for you? It can hurt (a lot) at first, comes as something of a shock to
the system, and might well be termed an acquired taste. If you fancy it, here
are a few tips on how to begin to acquire that taste…
That
was the most unappealing thing he’d ever read, but he read on.
Spend time on your own
discovering your anus before having sex with others. Run a bath and get naked.
Go to the toilet. Then put some lube on a finger, work it around the outer
anus, stay there awhile, and start pushing it in.
The sensations you get
might already be quite intense. If you’re unsettled, use your other hand to
masturbate and reassure yourself with feelings with which you’re familiar.
Allow yourself to enjoy the new feelings. Relax and feel free to fantasise.
Explore and get a sense of the shape and texture inside you. Then, when you’re
comfortable, try inserting a second finger. Be careful, but rest assured your
anus can certainly cope with this.
Was
he supposed to do this to Ben? Or was Ben going to do it to him? Couldn’t they…
just hold hands or….
When you withdraw you might
feel you want to defecate again. This is normal. Probably nothing will happen.
If anything does, don’t worry. Clean up when you’re done, and there’s no shame
attached. It’s just a reflex reaction.
You might also want to
experiment with something more life-size. If so, use a proper dildo – not a
deodorant canister or a cucumber. You don’t want to scratch the lining of your
anus or have something nasty break off in there. And, yes, the guy in the sex
shop may well take one look at you and know exactly where it’s going to end up.
But so what? He’s seen it all already. Just acknowledge to yourself that you’re
doing this as part of your exploration of yourself as gay.
Well,
maybe, possibly…
When using the dildo, begin
again with your fingers and use a lot of lube. You need to find a relaxed
position. Sitting with your ass to one side can work well. If you’re standing,
make sure your legs remain relaxed. If they tense, the sphincter will follow.
Push it in slowly. Don’t force it. Don’t sit on it.
“Hey!”
Felix
slammed the book shut and looked up to see Ben grinning down at him.
“Don’t
you ever stop reading?”
“Uh…”
Felix began, shocked.
Chuckling, Ben shook his head and
went down the aisle, leaving Felix alone.
Maybe we’ll just… sleep
close together. One day.
But only a few months later they
were in the Pub without Valerie.
“We
should never fight again,” Ben declared. “Life’s too short.”
He
surprised Felix by holding his hand under the table.
That
night Ben told him that he’d met a new friend named April and they were going
to a party on Saturday. He was free to come.
Later,
that night, they prepared to sleep in their separate spaces and falling asleep,
Felix’s hand landed on something square, like a wet nap packet. No… not quite.
In the semi darkness, as Ben fell asleep, Felix recognized a condom.
And,
in the dark, tears springing into his eyes, his heart cracked open.
Just then there was a knock at
the door. Scott held up a finger in the middle of Felix’s story.
When
he opened the door, there was Ben.
“Is—”
Ben began, but the last thing he heard was Scott growling:
“Asshole!”
as the tall man’s fist crashed into Ben’s face and sent him spinning into
darkness.
Ben blinked into the light,
moaned, and turned his head to see Felix sitting over him, looking down with a
sinister smile.
“Welcome
back, motherfucker,” he said.
“He’s gone now,” Felix said. “He
hit you in the head.”
“Who?”
“Scott?”
“Is
he… What is he?”
“He
is my friend. He’s back in town,” Felix said.
“Are
you all…”
“It’s
really none of your goddamned business what we are,” Felix said almost
negligently.
Ben
sat up, winced and put his hand to his head.
“Can
I at least have a cigarette?”
“No,
motherfucker, you can’t.”
Ben
sank onto the sofa and Felix continued, “You cannot break into my house, ,fuck
up my house, and then come back to my house and expect a cigarette.”
“You
ruined my car.”
“You
ruined my life.”
Felix
continued, tonelessly.
“It’s all about you, isn’t it? You think it’s
all about you. You always did.”
Ben
sat up, looking like a poisonous cat.
“You
know why I did what I did.”
Suddenly,
Felix leaned forward, hit him in the head, and Ben yelped.
“And
you know why I did what I did,” Felix told him.
Ben didn’t drive, and Felix
always rode a bike, so this day they had to walk all the way to the house where
Felix stayed with his family, rolling the bike at his side.
“You’re
going to meet my folks,” Felix said, “and you’re finally going to see my
house.”
The
first thing Felix discovered was that his family was not terribly welcoming.
There were two times he had had friends over and, on both occasions it was awkward.
Now there was a static in the air. They didn’t like strange people coming into
their territory and this house was their territory. Mom made a meal and she was
so friendly, but a little phony. They took a walk around the lake north of the
house, and for the first time Ben admitted looking at a guy whose shirt was off
when he jogged, but the guy did not look at Ben however, but Felix.
They
sat up smoking and talking all night, and when it was time to go to bed, Ben
got on the floor and Felix said, “What are you doing?” and Ben said, “Going to
sleep,” and Felix said, “You can sleep on the bed with me. We’re adults.”
“Are
you sure?” Ben asked.
That
night they slept in the same bed and Ben began to squirm closer to him,
touching him. Suddenly Felix kissed him and Ben sat up and said, “No.”
Hurt
again, Felix backed away, and then Ben said, “Maybe just a little.”
They
made out and then Ben sat on the edge of the bed, disconsolate.
“You’re
not the one,” he said.
“Excuse
me.”
“I
thought you were the one—”
“You
did?”
“But
you’re not.”
“Oh,”
said Felix, because he didn’t know what else to say. “Well, then…. Come back to
bed.”
Ben
did, and this time when Ben reached for him, Felix pushed him aside.
“You’re
still with that April, aren’t you?”
“Yes.”
“Well,
then don’t try to be with me.”
He
had been kissed. He had kissed. He had been groped and felt up and he’d never
been with anyone until then. He had not imagined it. Ben had thought he was the
one. Ben had been in love with him. Ben said he wasn’t the one, which meant Ben
wasn’t in love, or wasn’t sure. But Felix knew one thing was true. He wasn’t in
love with Ben.
Felix
rolled over and went to sleep.
“I think we could… have
something,” Ben said the next morning over breakfast. “I think we could.”
“I
had thought so too,” Felix told him. “But I’m not so dumb or so desperate I’d
do something with you when you were still with that April.”
That
was the first day they hugged and the first day Ben kissed him, and when Ben headed
for home, Felix went to Mass and thanked God because, after all the years of
being a plaster virgin, which was all fine and good, he was finally someone who
had stepped into the world of love and desire.
The next week, when he returned
to Ben’s place, after a drag out, exhausting fight with his family, after his
father said men did not lay in beds with other men and Felix vowed to get his
own place, as he should have long ago, he came to Ben, and Ben said sleep on
the pallet, not with him. He went to sleep on the floor and looked at a rolled
out condom that had slipped from under the TV. A lump of misery swelled in his
throat and he wanted to leave, but tonight there was no place else to go. He
had put such a gulf between himself and his family. Loss and despair burned in
his heart, and his love for Ben was gone, but so was the love for his family.
In the middle of the night, face hot and wet, the life he would know ever after
had finally begun.
“Hello?”
“Hey,
it’s me.”
“Joey,
I ‘know you!” Felix lied. He had thought it was Scott.
“Scott
said I should call to see if you were alright?”
“I’m
fine,” Felix turned and looked at Ben who was sitting on the couch rubbing his
head.
“Is
your car alright?”
“Why
wouldn’t it be?” Joey asked.
“Nevermind
then,” said Felix.
“Do
you want me to come over later?”
“Yes.
Yes I do. Are you in the building now?”
“I’m
downstairs.” Joey laughed. “I can’t come up though, now. I mean I could, but I
couldn’t stay.”
“No,
no,” Felix shook his head. “Don’t you worry about that.”
“I’m
free after six-thirty.”
“Then
six-thirty is good.”
FELIX BEGAN GOING to the coffee
shop, going there as much as possible to get away from home and the memory of
Ben, and it was on a computer, from the coffee shop he wrote a letter to Ben
that he eventually pinned to the walls of the coffee shop and on message board
online.
Dear Ben,
I’m sorry to deliver this bad news to you, and maybe
you’re not going to want to speak to me again, call me all sorts of an asshole
after I write this. That’s my second biggest fear. My real fear though is that
you’ll blow it off and keep on denying some shit that’s pretty obvious and not
just to me:
You’re
gay.
I’m
sorry, I don’t know how else to put it. Maybe you don’t like that word, but if
you’re not gay then what you are is as close to gay as cornflower is to navy or
lilac to lavender. So let’s just use the word gay. I’m not being presumptuous
or using wishful thinking. I know, I know, you sort of like girls, you find
females attractive. You’ve eaten pussy. You’ve even fucked. You’ve had girls in
the past. Blah, blah blah. No one has
the right to tell you what you are. But when you embark
on a massive campaign of denial, then someone should tell you, and I’m looking
around and the only person who’s going to be the angel of the Apocalypse is me.
You were
gay when I found at least twenty gay porn sites on your computer and chose to
say nothing. You were gay when you didn’t notice any girls in our philosophy
class but got hooked on Kevin. You were gay when Julia at the library asked me
how come you never talked to any of the pretty girls who came through. Oh, and
when
you started dating (yeah, let’s use that euphemism) Her
and then you would strut down the street talking about, “I like hot chicks…”
yeah, you were still gay. You were gay when you wrote a letter to Her saying “My
Dearest, I want to be hugging and kissing you, but I like men and I’m going to
describe how much I like them and how I always have only I’m going to make it
sound like a sickness,” and then at the end of the letter
tack on, “but I’m not gay. (though last time I checked,
that’s what being gay is). I like girls too, don’t leave me.”
You were
gay when you made me read that letter first. You were gay when you’d sit up at
nights in the apartment talking about how lonely your relationship with Her
was. And you were gay when you met Her and for reasons unknown decided to start
fucking Her instead of just going out and finding a guy. It would have been just
as sleazy, but a little more honest. Every time you have to pretend She’s
someone else and She sits
around—like a dumbass—saying, “I know my boyfriend talks
about how he likes guys, but I can’t figure out why he isn’t into me”—you’re
gay, Love.
You were
gay when you found out I’d had a boyfriend in the past and spent the next part
of a month flirting with me. You were gay that night when we went around campus
and you stared real hard at that guy’s ass and incidentally, you’re gay
whenever you check out men and think I don’t notice. You were gay when we
watched lesbians
fucking each other and you just yawned through it. You
were gay when you slept in my bed. You were gay when we made out. And you were
gay when you tried to forget it and act like nothing happened. Every time you
make me sleep on your floor or hold yourself off from me and become cold
because you don’t trust yourself, you’re gay. You can go through all the
Trojans and Trustex’s in the world (which is, by the way, a dumb way
to prove something to yourself) and spend five minutes
feeling like a real heterosexual man and then leave your condom wrappers on the
floor for me to find, and you’ll still be gay. You can get sucked off and
pretend she’s a man to make yourself come faster and you know what? You’ll
still be gay. You’ll just also be a really fucked up person incapable of being
in a happy, sane relationship.
You’re
gay. Quit asking me to deny it. Quit acting like it’s dirty, and going on about
how you like girls, all these girls you loved in the past. Just stop it. Stop
revising stories and changing pronouns. Give me that much respect. It doesn’t
have to be dirty. It doesn’t have to be you surfing around looking at fisting
websites. It could be beautiful. It could be happy. You could actually start to
feel good about yourself. But if you treat it like its dirty, like you’re
dirty, then you will be.
Okay, so
maybe you don’t like that word. Gay. Maybe you don’t want to be navy. You want
to be cornflower. And maybe you don’t want to end up with me. But I think you
will. Fine. But end up with someone. You know why you can’t be into her. But
ask yourself this, if a girl KNOWS that the guy she’s with wants to be with
other people, wants to be with other MEN, then why the hell would she hang onto
you—no matter how
much you begged—if she loved you?
Sitting in his recliner, in his
living room, Felix looked at Ben with his swollen head and said, “You need to
leave. I wasn’t sure if you needed to leave or not, but now I remember how much
I hate you.”
Felix wrote more:
That was a gift you have given me in the last few weeks. Your
conduct, or lack of it, has been so shitty that I have finally been forced to
realize what life without you is like. It’s actually quite free. I began to
realize that as long as I was in that apartment, in your world I wasn’t really
in mine and as long as we were doing whatever we were doing it meant you got to
have someone who understood you like a significant other and then,
when I left, someone you could fuck. And what I had was not much of a
chance of finding a real relationship. As soon as I left all that I had to go
out into the world. Or the town. Be single again, put on decent clothes, hit
the scene, meet people.
I did something I
have never done. Last Thursday we were at the pub listening to a band and Dena
pointed out the drummer. I said I didn’t do that, go up to people and I didn’t
feel like being with anyone. That I realized now that I wasn’t in it I’d been
in a protracted relationship with someone who was fucking somebody else and I
really wanted to be left alone. And then I looked at him and looked at him the
whole night and finally sussed up the situation and went to go meet him. I’ve
actually started talking to people, seeing people. I realized that I was glad
you didn’t give me a chance because I think I’d be unhappy with you. As a significant
other I mean. Not as a friend. You make
a good enough friend, but I think you’d be a shitty anything else. I
need the chance to meet other people, see what it could be like. I’m not
talking about the One True. I’m talking about getting to meet people.
Everything was so
difficult with you. You never told the truth, you always wanted something, but
didn’t. Wanted to touch, but didn’t. Were gay, but wanted to be straight. It
was just one long session of frustration and indecision. And that got old after
a while. I didn’t know how to look for someone else without being disloyal to
you and them. This apparently never bothered you while you while you cooked for
me, took me out
places and then turned around and fucked someone else. With the
drummer it might be nice. It would be sane.
I’d like sanity.
Ben wrote him back several shrill
letters, showed up to the coffeeshops, running a red pen through the posted
poems until people shouted at him to stop and called him a closet pansy. But
Felix did not respond. Felix did not write back. For the first time, in a very
real way, as far as Felix was concerned, Ben was gone, and he would never love anyone
the way he had loved Ben. He would never love so unwisely.
Things
with the guitarist in the band did not turn out, but a little while later he made
a profile online and he met more men than he could shake a stick at. He kept
looking for each of them to be the love of his life, but Val said a large penis
was better than another heartbreak, and by then he had actually seen porn, so
when Ezequiel came by, an olive skinned Argentinian who was a doctoral
candidate at the university, Felix said yes. They got a hotel room and when he
saw his penis, sausage large and heavy, Felix immediately put it in his mouth.
“Sook
that coke! Sook that coke!” Ezequiel urged, then Ezequiel “sooked” his “coke”, and
they made love to him all night. They didn’t do everything, but they did a
great deal, and after Ezequiel he learned that men weren’t very dependable, and
that it didn’t matter if you weren’t sure if you wanted to see them again
because they were often afraid of seeing you. So he made a lot of love and he
wrote a lot of poems.
And after a year of this, he
walked into the public library and, of all people, who was working there after
having lost his job, after saying he was moving to Colorado
Felix
checked out books because he wanted to see him, and Ben checked them out for
him, looking at him now and again, and then he said, “Well, would you like to
go to lunch?”
“Don’t
you have to work?” Felix asked.
“I’m
off at one. If you could wait.”
And
Felix said, “I can.”
They went to the Pub, and Ben
told him how he was thinking of moving to Seattle
“I
was a virgin when you knew me,” Felix said, suddenly.
Ben
blinked at him.
“Maybe
you never understood that. I always thought I would come to you when you really
loved me. When you were really mine, when I knew we would be together forever.”
Ben
nodded, looking a little stupid.
“You
needn’t worry about that anymore,” Felix told him. “I don’t feel that way now.
It’s been others since you. It’s been a while since you.”
“Are
you seeing someone?”
“I’m
seeing a bunch of someones.”
“Anyone
special?”
Felix
gave a cheesy smile and said, “Everybody’s special.”
When
the waitress came and said, “One check or two,” Felix pointed at Ben and said,
“Put it on his tab.”
Ben
blinked, and then when the waitress looked at him, he nodded and said, “Uh…
yeah. Put it on my tab.”
When Felix was getting ready to
leave, Ben said, “Where are you going?”
“I
thought I was going home. Where should I be going?”
Ben
seemed so dumb. He couldn’t put an answer together. Finally Ben said, “We
could… go back to my place.”
“Alright,”
Felix nodded. “We can do that.”
Back in his apartment, Ben was
obviously glad to see him, glad to talk, to be with him, but neither one of
them brought up their last time, and Felix could not fully look at him, could
not love him. After an hour Ben bit his lower lip and tapped his foot
nervously. He rubbed his hands together and said, “Ehhhh… So what should we do
now?”
But
Felix understood a little of what he was. He understood what was wrong with how
they had been before. Ben had no business leading anything. The idea of he on
one side of Ben and April on the other had been as bad as anything else. So Felix
looked at Adam for a while and then took him by the hand and into the bedroom.
When they both lay naked, on
their backs, catching their breaths, settling into their bodies, Felix said, “I
just thought that was the elephant in the room... the thing we were both
nervous about.”
Ben
laughed and turned to him, lying on his side, running a finger over Felix’s
chest.
“So
you thought, let’s just screw, and get all the awkwardness out of the way?”
“Or
at least know where we stand.
“I
love you,” Ben said. “I’m in love with you. I’ve always been in love with you.”
Ben
sat up.
“Tell
me you love me too.”
“No,”
Felix said.
“What?”
“No.”
Ben
blinked.
“Why?”
But
Felix was already getting dressed when he explained, “Because I don’t. And I
was pretty sure that I didn’t. But I wanted this moment—” He pulled on his
shirt and reached for his messenger bag. “I wanted this moment, with you, right
here, naked, looking at me the way you are right now. I’ve wanted it for
years.”
While
the life drained from Ben’s stricken face and he sat, hair sticking up, naked
in bed, Felix continued, “And now, after all the shit you put me through,
you’ve given me the best present in the world, and I want to remember you.
Just—like—this.”
And
so Felix left him.
“You there?” Joey whispered,
leaning on his side and tapping Felix’s chest.
“Huh?”
Felix said, then shaking his head he said, “Yes.”
Joey
nodded and under the covers he pressed his body against Felix’s.
“Could
I ask you to do something for me?”
“Well,”
Joey said, his lips against Felix’s shoulder, “I am the maintenance man.”
“Could
you run me on an errand?”
“Uh?”
Joey stretched and sat up in bed, looking down at Felix.
“I
guess. Like… right now?”
Felix
nodded his shaven head.
“I’m
afraid so.”
A light went on when the car
pulled up behind the battered car on Hurst
Street
“What
are you doing now?” Ben shouted.
Felix
caught his shoulders.
“What
are you doing to me now?” Ben’s voice almost broke.
“Apologizing,”
Felix said.
Ben
blinked at him.
From
the inside of the car, Ben saw Joey looking up at him, but now he looked back
at Felix.
“I
did love you,” Felix told him. “I loved you more than anyone else ever did. Alright?
I want you to understand that. I… I would have given my whole life to you. You
remember that. You remember me taking pictures of you when you slept. You
remember what I wrote you, the letters, the notes, how much I loved you. You
remember that. Somebody loved you, really loved you. For you. Alright?”
Ben
closed his eyes, his face twisted and he turned around. Felix released him.
Another light went on in the house.
Finally,
Ben looked up at him.
“Do
you still?” he asked him.
Felix
took a deep breath, but what he said was, “Good night, Ben.”
He
kissed him on the cheek, and then he climbed into the car, and signaled for
Joey to drive.
As
they went up Hurst Street
“Do
I what?”
“Still
love him?”
“Oh,”
Felix looked distracted. “No, I don’t think so.”
And
then he added, “And I’m definitely not paying to fix his car.”
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