Blond October

BLONDE OCTOBER: WHY SHOULD I CARE (t/t, college) By JoshBabe josh.heilig@gmail.com

This work contains depictions of homosexuality and sexual acts between consenting homosexual adults. If that is illegal in your jurisdiction, please, do not continue reading this.

This work is copyright (c) 2007 by JoshBabe. You may download and keep an unlimited number of copies for personal use, but this work may not be used under any other circumstances without the prior consent of the author. Aesthetic changes (font size, font face, whitespace) do not constitute a change of the text of the story per se; any non-whitespace changes to the text of the story require prior permission.

BLONDE OCTOBER: AN OCCASIONAL SERIES

• "Happy Birthday"

• "Why Should I Care"

A BRIEF NOTE FROM THE AUTHOR

This story follows "Happy Birthday," my previously posted story about Adam Vanderhuyden and Josh Heilig, by almost exactly a year. This is part of a series, which I've decided to write since I finished "Happy Birthday," one for each October that Josh and Adam are in college together. For some reason, everything I write ends up taking place during the fall, no matter how I try; there's something about the rhythms and the feelings of fall that resonate in my head, in a way that no other season does. And that interacts in such an interesting way with the academic year in the United States.

I may as well go along with what works. So, welcome to "Blonde October."

Many, many thanks to all the readers who wrote last time. I was hesitant to continue writing, but I've gotten a pretty positive response. Thank you! For those of you who didn't... the address is josh.heilig@gmail.com. You know what to do. You can also send me an IM at my new-since-I-wrote-"Happy Birthday" AIM screen name: "Elijah is Hugo."

Incidentally, this story is an experiment in a variety of different ways. I think you'll see. To that end, I would also like to extend a thanks, which he will surely never see, for the amazing classics professor who introduced me to Samuel Beckett's "Krapp's Last Tape," which forms the premise of this story. Thank you. The title is a Diana Krall song.

WHY SHOULD I CARE

My apartment was deserted, in no small part through my own interference. I needed some time in an empty apartment, for the plan to go through without any hitches.

Then, I shuttered the window and flicked the switch on the wall. A couple of steps, a click of a different switch, and I had a halo of light around my desk. The ambience needed to be just right. I was a writer, damn it, and I needed atmosphere for some introspection. One of my teachers once told me, "If you have a mismatch, a wrong mise-en-scene, you'll never get anything done. Maybe you work best in the mornings. Don't try to write at night, then. Maybe you get distracted by song lyrics. Have just the accompaniment of the keys clacking on your keyboard, then."

I closed the lid on my laptop, and waited till it went to sleep. I put my tape recorder on my desk, grabbed a fresh tape, and wrote on its little white label:

"On the Two-Year Anniversary. 10/16/2005."

Carefully, I licked the tip of my finger and then affixed the label to the cassette. I scrawled the same thing on the case liner card.

Then, with the slow, practiced motions of someone who does a lot of interviewing, I put the little translucent black cartridge in my tape recorder. I always insisted on full-sized cassettes, they lasted longer. Then, I clicked 'Record.'

[Begin transcription]

On our anniversary. Today is the day before our anniversary. I'm thinking of breaking up with him.

(Pause: 3 sec.)

Adam, that is. I love him. I really do. More than anyone else I've ever dated -- well, what, that would be four, five people? Two boys and three girls. I dated them all for a really long time. Like, at least six months. I dated Mara for a year and a half, in seventh and eighth grade, and we were completely fucking chaste. Then came...

(Pause: 1 sec)

Yeah. The first Sarah, for six months, and the second Sarah, for about eight months. So far, all brunettes. I think the second Sarah was natural. She was always at the hairdresser's, though. Still chaste. Then, starting sometime in ninth grade, Julie. I broke up with her for Alex, who was truly amazing in bed, which is probably the only way we stayed together.

(Pause: 1 sec)

(Sniffling, as though crying)

Fuck, I still hate him for what he did. I go all the way down to fucking Eugene to visit that two-timing bastard, and how does he treat me? Like some fucking Kleenex. I get there half an hour early, I call one of his friends and she brings me up to his room to surprise him, and I knock on the door. Sure, sounds fine, right? Well, the door isn't completely shut, and it swings open. He's fucking some pretty-ass little waif, like, maybe 110 pounds and 5'3", curly long blonde hair and everything. He could have been a fucking girl if he'd had tits. What was I gonna do? I burst into tears right then and there. He heard me, looked over, got real surprised. Tried to come comfort me. Yeah fucking right, Alex Wright. More like Alex Wrong. Fucker.

(More sniffling. Then louder, sobs.)

What a fucking bastard. I'm still not over him.

(Pause: 10 sec)

OK, I'm over that now. Maybe I should go back and erase --

(Squeal. Tape recorder noise.)

Fuck, I still hate him for what he did. I go --

(Feedback.)

It's over. I'm over him. After Alex came Adam. Oh, my God. I met him at a party. It was a mixer some BGALA exec board member put on. What, he shows up at a BGALA party and doesn't think anyone's going to assume he's a fucking homo? He was so amazingly hot. I don't know if I remember anymore what he was wearing.

(The sound of a drawer opening, squeakily. Then, pages rustling.)

It's in my diary. I quote: "I met this super hot boy yesterday at an off-campus party. Like, so hot I thought I would scald myself on him. He's wearing a really tight red polo shirt, and cargos. He looks like a boy out of an Abercrombie catalogue. I saw him and felt like asking if he would mind me jacking off to him, that I'd clean up afterwards. What hair. Fuck me, oh, God, so hot. I was so totally drunk, I was all over him. A little too much Jaeger. God knows what I told him. Anyway, he comes home with me, and he was amazing, much better than Alex." Ha, ha. I don't know about that. He's kind of a one-trick pony sometimes, Adam. Anyway. I'm quoting. "So this boy, Adam, I drag him back to my dorm with me. Everybody here knows about me, but it's deserted, no roomie or anything, thank God. I shove him into the door, after I get it closed, not real hard but to prove a point, you know. We start kissing and soon enough I have him on my bed and his really long cock is in my mouth. It tasted like I always imagined boys like him, musky and salty and soapy. But he also kinda tasted like Tabasco. I dunno, it was weird. He was even nice enough to get me off too, none of the other boys would do more than give me a hand job."

(Pause: 2 sec)

Wow. I was such a slut. Holy God. I quote: "So I wake up this morning, and my roommate is still gone, and I have the worst hangover in the history of the world. And Adam is laying next to me asleep, totally nude, hard as the Rock of Gibraltar. He wakes up and he's panicked, he's sure someone knows he's gay. I was, like, 'So what?' He says, 'I'm a football player, they'll fucking kill me.' I say, 'What, you're a fucking football player? That's really hot. Do you have to wear a jock strap?' I know it's stupid but I wanted to know. He says yes. I'm already really hard thinking about it, and so is he, so I push him back on the bed and rub my cock against his until he comes. It's like, fuck, that was good. But he's still kinda panicked, and so I have to fend off questions about who was at the party and all that." I was such a fucking teenager. All that angst. All that sex. But it was pretty hot.

(Pause: 3 sec)

(The sound of a book closing. Then, drawer opening, squeakily, then closing.)

Well, that's not really the point. OK, so the sex was really amazing. And I still really love him. I just don't deserve him. I love him so very, very much. I used to think we were made for each other. Now I don't think so. I think he's got to be crazy to want me.

(Pause: 2 sec)

I love him so fucking much. You don't understand. But he needs to move on. He deserves so much better than me.

(Pause: 5 sec)

(Sniffling.)

I know, I know. I cheated on him. He's totally amazing. But this boy Ryan, I met him at a party a couple of weeks ago, while Adam was gone for a pre-season away game, and I totally fell for all of his charms. He was really cute, pretty gay but fucking sexy, and so very, very smooth and hairless it was amazing. I haven't been that aggressive, that much of a top, in a really long time.

(Pause: 2 sec)

But it didn't end there. Oh, God, no. We were still carrying on, whenever I had the chance, always at my apartment since Adam so seldom wanted to be there, until about a week ago. God, I feel like such a horrible person. I've never, well, no, I take that back. I cheated on Julie. But, you know what, fuck that, I didn't know I was attracted to men. But I resisted so many times, held out for so long, and then this boy comes along. Fucking hell.

(Pause: 5 sec)

I just... I don't even know where to begin. I think I've always known I was attracted to men, I don't know what I was talking about a second ago. I don't know what I was talking about four years ago. When I was twelve, before we became Unitarians, I used to pray to God for forgiveness for having sinned, for having been attracted to men. Lately I've been wondering if I should pray for something a bit, well, bigger. Cheating on the man I love more than anyone is pretty bad. Right? I know it's not quite like blaspheming or eating shellfish, but I'm not Jewish, I don't keep whatever they call it or anything. It's time to repent.

(Pause: 2 secs)

Uhh. Wow. Well, I think that says a lot. I'm so guilty. Adam, I hope Adam can forgive me, I love him so much. Today is Thursday, I finally broke it off with Ryan on Sunday. I told him I couldn't see him anymore. I asked him how he could fool around with me when he knew I had a boyfriend, knew how much I loved him, and he said, 'I never knew you were so hung up on him. It's not like you're married.' But, fuck, I want to marry him, I want to live the rest of my life with him, and I can't!

(A scream. It sounds anguished.)

Fuck! Fuck, fuck, fuck.

(Pause: 5 secs)

I love that boy so much. He means so much more to me than anything else. I have to tell him. How could I keep dating him, after what I did? I feel like such a horrible person. I can't quite get past that.

(Pause: 15 seconds)

(Sound of a drawer opening.)

I really should go. I'm supposed to meet him. Maybe I'll tell him how I feel, tell him how much he should hate me. Then I'll tell him I'm breaking up with him, that I want him to meet someone better than me, someone who can love him enough not to cheat on him.

[End transcription]

At some point, I managed to hit stop. I was still crying. My eyes were all puffy, and all that, so I put some eye drops in and then threw myself in the shower. Feeling as guilty as if I'd killed someone, I entertained a few thoughts of slitting my wrists, but I never was the kind of person who could cop out of something by feeling suicidal. I didn't even feel sorry for myself. I was just so full of remorse for the hurt I was going to do to Adam.

When I was back in my room putting on some clothes -- the usual Luckys I loved so much, a pair of 165s I'd worn down to the point that they showed wear where I kept my wallet and cell phone, and a lime-green cotton sweater -- I heard the phone ring. It wasn't the ring for the callbox downstairs, so I ignored it.

The weather was unseasonably cool, and it was already about seven, so it was cooling off even further. I grabbed my leather jacket and put on a pair of navy suede Adidas. I may have felt guilty, but I wanted to look good. (How terribly Cher-from-"Clueless" of me.)

And oh, how guilty I felt.

I walked into the kitchen, and reached up to grab a glass of water, just really quickly. But my hands were sweaty, they were shaking, and my heart was throbbing from the stress. With a crash! the glass fell, and shattered.

I looked down. "God fucking damn it. Not now," I muttered. I reached down to grab the largest pieces of the glass, so I could get them out of the way and then sweep up the small bits. Didn't work out; with a sharp, searing pain, I got a nasty gash across my forefinger.

That was the last straw. I screamed angrily, a primal "AAAAAAAAAAAARRRRGHHHH!" I grasped a plate and threw it down in anger, and it crashed against the ground and shattered into bits of porcelain everywhere. Then, I crumpled down on to the floor, sobbing miserably again. The tears came out in bursts, flooding my face, and the spasms from my diaphragm rocked my body against the ugly, peeling cabinets.

The misery of the last two weeks flooded my senses, in shameful recollection. My face burned, my head ached as I saw, felt myself making out with Ryan, saw myself pulling him by the lapel of his wool jacket into the elevator, heard myself moaning in desperation as he yanked my boxers off and swallowed my penis whole into his mouth. I had taken over then, somehow I had known I would, and I'd stopped thinking. Had never started thinking. My hand snaked out to my bedside table, where I kept a box of condoms and a tube of K-Y handy in the bottom of a half-empty box of Kleenex, and everything became a blur until I found myself gasping furiously and spattering cum all over his tanned, lightly muscled chest.

"Why the fuck did I do this? I'm destroying my life, I'm destroying him, and now I'm destroying myself!" I moaned, feeling the pricking pain of little glass shards poking into my jacket, my jeans. I reached into the cabinet and wrapped a paper towel around my finger.

Once I pressed down, the pain overwhelmed me, and I fainted. When I awoke, after an oddly pleasant, if incongruous, dream about swimming, I could feel the floor stabbing at me. Damn it! That hurt. I started to cry all over again.

I lay there a while, feeling sorry for myself and sobbing hysterically, and blabbering gibberish in the meanwhile. The lights were off, my finger was bleeding like insanity through the paper towel I had compressed around it, and I was sure I looked like hell. How on Earth could I face Adam?

Out of a daze, somehow, I heard the door click open. "Hi, guys," I said, quietly. I cringed, at the thought of what they would say, me laying there in porcelain powder and shards and bits of glass sobbing.

"Oh, Jesus," someone said. I didn't even look. "What's wrong? Are you OK?"

Oh, fuck.

It was Adam.

"Hi, baby," I said, the tears still rolling down my face. "Listen..."

He kneeled down beside me, surveyed the finger, the broken everything, the damp, salty coating on my face, and he walked over to the closet and got a broom. He moved me out of the way, grasping my shoulders with his strong arms and pulling me along the floor after I resisted getting up, and swept everything up and threw it in the trash can under the sink. Then, Adam picked me up in his arms and set me gingerly on our futon-couch, and curled up behind me.

"What's the matter?" he whispered, softly, looking at me. He stroked my hair.

"I..." I started sobbing again. I couldn't say it.

He stroked my hair, wrapped his arms around me, and said, ever so softly, "It's OK, baby. It's OK. Just let it all go."

Minutes, hours, days, I have no idea how long I lay there in his arms. It was so comfortable, so warm, so fulfilling to have someone tell me it was all going to be OK, even if it wasn't. Even if it couldn't. Every few minutes, I would start sobbing again, so he just rocked me against him. It was like being nine again, when I came home angry at something mean someone had called me and just broke down in my mom's arms.

Not like the psychoanalyst wouldn't have rolled me out on his couch and then explained to me that, of course, it was self-evident that my homosexuality had to do with my abject lack of a father figure from an early age. Moreover, my attraction to big, tall, attractive men was clearly a hang-up on an absentee father; I had idealized everything I'd ever seen that was good in men and made that into what I wanted. Of course! Clearly! It was self-evident! Even the most casual observer would have figured it out! So, why was I paying $100 an hour to be on the psychologist's couch, again? I could be spending this $100 on clothing, or a steak dinner downtown, right?

I can do a better job myself, thankyouverymuch.

At the age of 11, I was informed, really quite casually, by a neighbor that I was gay. Except, well, he used a less nice word. "Faggot." And I was, on occasion, referred to in middle school and early in high school as a "cocksucker." I have some hangups on that particular word. It always stops me cold in my tracks. It's been about three years now since anyone's called me that seriously. But it hurts, big-time.

Around when I turned 16 they switched from calling me "cocksucker" to calling me "queer." Now, that was all very fine and well, since at least I knew what it meant and therefore could pretend, innocently, that I did not, and enjoy the looks on our own resident dickwad-slash-homophobes as they attempted to articulate it in the most hurtful manner possible.

I'd never really given much thought to the act of sucking cock until I was 16. It seemed one of those painful incompatibilities, as incongruous as sticking your toe in someone's ear; there was an appropriate place for the male genitalia, according to my mother, and I knew perfectly well that the mouth was not it. I was in for a pleasant surprise the first time that my last girlfriend tried that on me, because by the time she'd gotten my pants off I was starting to wonder where I had stashed away a box of condoms and I almost made an idiot out of myself. Since one of those non-negotiables was that we wouldn't have sex.

When I was 16, of course, I met Alex. Whose cock I most definitely sucked, often, and enjoyed it. Ironically, just as I'd started learning how to suck dick, I was revealed to be attracted to men more or less genuinely. To the whole school. Thanks, Alex. I got over it, but fuck you. So they switched from calling me "queer," or "cocksucker," and a variety of variations on that theme, to calling me "faggot."

Thank God -- or, well, any other deity, I guess -- for college. Finally, no one called me ugly names anymore. It felt good.

And it felt damn good to be in Adam's arms, curled up and feeling the warm strength of a big, tall, strong man. So, fuck you, Papa Freud. I loved him so much. It tore me up that much more inside that I had hurt him so much, and that he was comforting me -- and about to throw me out. Or, well, to leave my apartment, since he couldn't throw me out.

At some point later in the evening, I had finally stopped crying and moaning and all that. I was exhausted, and assuredly disgusting. He looked at me, and gave me a kiss. "I love you," he whispered in my ear, afterward.

I almost lost my resolve. But I had to tell him.

"You're going to hate me for this, Adam."

He looked at me, a caricature of a confused look on his face. "Hmm?"

I sighed. "You're going to hate me, baby. But there's something I have to tell you." I could feel my left hand trembling nervously.

Adam stared at me. "What is it?"

"I... I... fuck."

He glared at me, not pleased. I don't blame him. "What? What is it, Josh?"

"I cheated on you."

My beautiful boyfriend, who I loved so much, froze at those words. I felt my stomach wrench at the thought of inflicting that kind of pain on Adam, who went through so much on my behalf.

It would have been so much easier for us to remain casual, 'friends with benefits,' as a terribly closeted football player, but he had gone out of his way to be a good and generous boyfriend instead. He did what would make me happy, because he knew I was still an emotional wreck from my last relationship and he wanted to show me what a good relationship could be. Shit, I'm sure he would have been fine just fucking around. And I'd fucked things up for the both of us, all because I had all the self-restraint of a four-year-old with a cookie jar on the countertop.

After a few minutes of him just staring at me, which was not how I expected him to respond, he began to cry. So, we went through the reverse, sort of.

It was almost entirely worthless for me to hold him, because he kept pushing me away. But he was still sitting on the futon, wringing his hands. "What the fuck?" he said, finally. "What the fuck, Josh?"

I looked at him.

But before I could say anything, he burst out again. "You have me fucking cradle you while you cry all the pain away, and then what? What, you were all torn up inside because you broke up with your little lover, and then you had to run to me? Is that how it is?"

I clenched my fists. "No. I've felt so guilty. I had to tell you. I thought maybe it might make you trust me more."

"Trust you MORE?!" he roared. "MORE?! How in the HELL was that going to make me trust you MORE? The FUCK? You think I trust you MORE 'cause you've owned up to this shit? Try less. A whole fucking lot less."

There were still tears streaming down his face, and I was tempted to go get a Kleenex. But I was afraid if I tried to touch him again, he might lash out, and the last thing I needed was a belligerent, angry football player of an ex-boyfriend lashing out at me. It was about the only rational thought I was capable of, deciding against touching him just yet, because I felt violently ill all of a sudden and raced to the sink in the kitchen, and started puking up the contents of my stomach.

For the first time in all the time I'd known him, which was really only about a week less than all the time we'd been at school, he made no moves to help out. He sat there on my futon, crying. That pained me, too, knowing that I'd hurt him so badly he couldn't even help me out physically.

So I vomited a few times, and then collapsed on the floor of the kitchen. For the second time that day, I fainted.

Eventually I came to, oddly, in Adam's arms. "What's the matter?" I said, groggily.

"Fuck you. Do you have to be such a fucking drama queen?" was all Adam said to me. He cleaned my face off with a towel, picked me up and laid me down on the futon again.

Adam glared at me. "You know..." His voice trailed off. He started again, "I love you. I always have, since I first met you. Well, OK, that's not entirely true; probably since about twelve hours after I first met you, when you calmed me down that morning after the party. And then, like the bitch you are, you fucking disappear for two weeks, have a fling with some supposedly straight boy, and come back into my arms when you're ready for it. Anyway, I loved you from that Sunday morning. And it really hurts thinking about you being with some other boy," Adam said, his voice practically shattered with pain. "And if you weren't such a fucking drama queen, I'm not sure I'd be holding you in my arms right now. But, probably."

I sighed, and rolled my head back into his hand. "I'm sorry, baby. I really am. I don't know what ever possessed me. But I had to tell you. I've lost eight pounds in the last two weeks! I can't eat, I can't sleep, I can't hold down enough orange juice to keep my blood sugar up. And I knew what it was going to do to you, telling you this."

Adam started to cry again, and I reached up and cradled his face in my hand. "You don't understand," he said, just a hoarse whisper now. "You can't understand. This happened to me last time too." He started whistling a tune I knew: "Why Should I Care." My heart wrenched. I could feel the knife scraping against my own heart, I felt my stomach thud. In that instant, I was so miserable for him I didn't know how to express it in words. It's a little like this:

Was there something more I could have done? Or was I not meant to be the one? Where's the life I thought we would share? And should I care?

And will someone else get more of you? Will she go to sleep, more sure of you? Will she wake up, knowing you're still there? Why should I care?

There's always one to turn and walk away, And one who just wants to stay, But who said that love is always fair? And why should I care?

Should I leave you alone, here in the dark, Holding my broken heart, While the promise still hangs in the air. Why should I care?

I was... I don't even know how to put into words what I felt, when I thought about the words to that song, and the pain Diana Krall gave it. And, fuck, now I've sent him down that road. God damn it.

But I was still confused. Last time? Huh?

My puzzlement must have shown on my face, because Adam looked at me with the kind of care I've always known him to show, and he said sadly, "My last boyfriend did this to me. In high school. We were at a party, and he ended up going home with some boy. I was inconsolable. My parents kept me out of school for a week, and I was so distraught... God. I was suicidal, briefly. I was unsuccessful, thank God. I never forgave him. That's why when you told me what had happened to you, with Alex, I promised myself, and you, that I would show you what a faithful relationship was. That you could trust men again."

I saw the sadness in Adam's eyes. "And now," he continued, "you did it to me. Again. Fuck you, Josh. Fuck you."

He got up to go. But I couldn't let that happen. I reached for his arm, and this time, he didn't try to push me off. "Yes?"

"Adam, I've always loved you. Maybe you have two weeks and a bit on me, but that time that you met me for that first date, and you were there wearing exactly what you knew would turn me on just so it would turn me on, and you took me to my favorite restaurant in Chicago because I'd casually mentioned that my mom and I had gone there once, that Sunday morning, I fell in love with you." I paused, and I took a breath. I was trying not to start crying. "I love you more than I've ever loved anyone else. I love you more than I love my own life, right now. Don't go."

He squinted at me, his eyebrows arched. "And what? I'll fuck you and it'll all be better? Sorry, babes, life doesn't work that way."

"No." I said it flatly, and perhaps too forcefully, since he cringed. "No, no, no. Don't go. Let's try this again."

The love of my life -- something I was only coming to appreciate, you might say -- would have nothing of it. "I... I'm going to go home now." His eyes clouded up again. "We can talk about this later."

He walked out then, slammed my front door shut. I slid onto my couch, crying pathetically. I hadn't cried myself to sleep since I was a senior in high school, but I did, that night.

The next afternoon, Adam called me. I didn't answer. That's why God invented voice mail, my mom used to say, as a kind of joke. We were atheist Unitarians, after all.

His voice in the message was raspy and hoarse, like he'd smoked a pack of cigarettes -- possible, but unlikely -- and I could tell that he was feeling anguished. "Josh! Damn it, answer the fucking phone when I call you! Do you have any idea what you've done to me? I have to talk to you."

So I poured myself a bourbon and sat down to think about what I would say. Whenever I'm nervous, I have a bad habit of stuttering or losing track of my sentences, and the alcohol tends to loosen me up. My therapist, probably against his better ethical judgment, told me when I was in middle school that the best way to build up a little courage to have a conversation, whenever I was afraid, was to do whatever relaxed me. Dr. Jacobsen is, to be completely fair, a sore point among some of my friends, for his curious tendency to tell you whatever it was that you already knew and to give you advice. (My friend David, who went to high school with me and ended up at the same Midwestern university, once estimated that Dr. Jacobsen made at least $15,000 over three years (!) by telling him what he already knew, that he had some anxiety problems. The whole reason that David was seeing Dr. Jacobsen was for anxiety problems. He was a nice man, and was great at being comforting, but if I could be paid $300 an hour to be comforting, do you think I would be a college student?)

Sitting there on my sofa, alone in my apartment, while my roommates were in class, with a lowball in my hand, I was reminded of an earlier time when I had done just the same thing. My mom kept a bottle of Maker's in the mostly empty liquor cabinet, for company. I had been going through a time involving a lot of stress, home for Winter Break last year, waiting to go to Hawaii with Adam and his family, when I would meet his siblings for the first time. Meeting his parents had reduced me to tears just a few minutes before they were due to arrive in front of his building in a towncar, sobbing and shaking in fear in Adam's cozy armchair; and Adam had swooped in to the rescue, wrapped me up in his big, strong arms until the shaking went away, and then wiped up my tears, blotted my eyes and wiped them with cold water until the redness went away mostly, given me Kleenex to blow my nose, and generally held me together. Thank God they were stuck waiting for a train crossing on the way in, or they would have walked in the front door while Adam was persuading me that his parents wouldn't hate me.

But, sitting at home a few days before I was due to catch a plane from Portland to Honolulu, somehow the fear had magnified itself. The nervousness was something I'd developed while I was dating Alex, in high school, because he turned me into a nervous wreck. It's almost a clichŽ to say that I felt as though I'd been emotionally abused, but I did: He held over me everything I did, everything I said, anything that displeased him in the least, as some kind of reason to break up with me. He was gorgeous, smart and funny, and the physical chemistry was perfect. Too perfect. That was really the root of the problem. At any rate, I had convinced myself that not being together with him more or less forever would be the cause of certain death for me, that I couldn't possibly stand being without him, and slowly I became more and more nervous, more and more cautious about everything that I said and did. I froze whenever Alex's name was mentioned, looked around, lowered my voice, even just to say that we'd gone out on a date the night before. At some point, one of my friends went to my mother and told her that she needed to get me to a psychologist before something went wrong, and that was when she sent me to Dr. Jacobsen.

God, what a scene that was. She -- Elise Fletcher, my mom -- came to me after school, while I was doing my work, very, very carefully. I couldn't let myself outshine Alex, because that would result in God only knew what kind of misery, so I would sometimes deliberately slip in wrong answers, typos, grammatical errors, anything to keep me hovering at the B+/A- level. "Josh," my mom said to me. "Josh, honey." She slid her arm around my shoulder.

I continued hammering away at the Spanish homework I was doing. Verb conjugations. I was carefully 'forgetting' the irregular preterite conjugations in the Vd. person. "Yes, Mom?"

"Honey. Can I talk to you?"

My left hand trembled a little, clenched, unclenched in my lap. I set down my pencil, carefully retracted its lead, and then looked up and nodded. "Sure. Hold on just a moment." I ran my fingers through my hair, twisted at the left forelock that always grew longer, faster, curlier than the rest, tried to calm myself mentally. I made a mental checklist of what she might be trying to find out, but I couldn't think of anything, so I settled on a cautious approach. Most of all, no Alex.

I turned around and looked at her. "Yes. I'm not going to do very well at this Spanish homework anyway."

She sat down on my bed. "Honey, that's... exactly the problem. What's wrong? Your grades have been off, lately, and you seem to spend a lot of time acting nervous."

"Nothing's wrong," I said, my voice carefully even. "I'm fine." My voice caught a little at the end, but I don't think she noticed it. "What makes you think I'm not?"

To that, Mom laughed. She has the most amazing laugh, a loud crackling sound that magnified as it went along, like popping popcorn. "Oh, Josh, sweetie," Mom said, "you must be kidding. A mother always knows. I promise. Something has to be wrong, or your left hand wouldn't be shaking."

I looked down, and she was right. My left hand was shaking uncontrollably against my thigh, as though somehow I had Parkinson's only in one hand. It was my nervous tick, my tell.

She said, "I don't care what it is, honestly. Or, well, I do, within certain parameters, but as long as it's not pregnancy, methamphetamines, gambling, you know, illegal or unethical activities, I couldn't care less. But I want you to talk to someone about it, be it me or someone else. Your friend David seems to like Dr. Jacobsen. Or I'd be happy to talk to the minister, or your father's rabbi" -- she sometimes didn't remember that he hadn't lived in Portland since 1995, and that the rabbi was now rabbi emeritus and had been since 1994; but they had been married by him -- "and arrange an appointment for you. But if you sit here and stew about it, and continue pretending you're Shoeless Joe in the 1919 World Series, all you're going to do is give yourself an ulcer. Or something else harmful. The specifics don't matter."

Somehow, I didn't know what to say. Instead, I got up out of my chair, carefully, sat down next to her, laid my head in her lap and began to sob uncontrollably. "Mom..." I said. I never finished the sentence. I couldn't. I've still never told her what it was that was eating at me. But she arranged appointments with Dr. Jacobsen for me, for the next six months, and that was that. She never knew what had been up.

And the most valuable thing I learned from Dr. Jacobsen, I guess, in six months, was that whenever my nerves were shot, a little alcohol would help. So, with lots of time to sit alone in my room and stew over the vacation and how I felt, I could magnify it into a real problem. I poured myself... Oh, I have no idea how many shots of bourbon over those three or four days. Enough that I was sleeping in my chair, sleeping in my clothes, waking up in the middle of the night with the room spinning, vomiting in my bathroom, and suffering from mild alcohol-induced narcolepsy during the daytime. It was bad. Miserable, awful bad. When I finally arrived in Hawaii, Adam slipped me alcohol to get through the week and then helped me through mandatory detox when we arrived in Portland. (He'd changed his ticket so he could be with me.) My mother finally understood, I think, when Adam sat her down for a private discussion. And she doesn't keep liquor at home anymore.

In any event, I did: As always, a large bottle of Maker's, carefully hidden, mostly empty after a year and a half of college. And it was to this bottle of bourbon I turned to, in order to get through the conversation with Adam. I sipped, carefully, at it, put on music to soothe my nerves, breathed deeply. When I thought that I would be capable of talking to him without stuttering, I set the glass aside where I couldn't reach it easily, and picked up my cell phone and dialed.

He picked up on the third ring. That was about how long it took him to pull his phone out and answer it. He never paid any attention to the read-out telling him who called, I knew.

"Hello, Josh," he said. He sounded a little icy. But who was I to question him? It was my fault, after all. "Nice of you to call me back."

I breathed in sharply. That stung. "It's been fifteen minutes. I was in the bathroom. I'm not permanently on call for you, you know."

Adam made a clicking sound with his tongue, the kind he usually made by slipping it between his front teeth and his lips. Then, there was a pause. "You're right, of course, but I know you weren't in the bathroom. You've been drinking. I can tell." He paused again. "You know how I feel about that," he, finally, sounding like a disappointed father catching his son with pornographic materiel for the third time in a year.

Yes. "OK, so I have. I'm sorry. You can understand why," I said, in measured, even tones. At least, I thought so. "This is all my fault, and I know that, but that doesn't make it any easier for me to talk to you. You know me better than that."

There was a long pause. I heard him breathing, a little rougher than usual. "Josh." Another long, ragged breath. "Just... I need to talk to you. You may have torn my heart out and laid it on your kitchen floor, right in front of me, stepped on it, but you know I love you. I always have." I couldn't say anything, so there was another long pause. "Damn you, this would all be easier if I didn't."

I didn't know what to say. What could I say? "I'm sorry, Adam."

"Can we talk?"

What the hell, I thought to myself. I'm in the wrong here. "Yes. But not now."

Adam started to say something, I think, and cut himself off after the first syllable. "You know," he said, finally, "I don't understand you. All this talk about how you're so sorry, how you love me so much, how you thought I might trust you more if you told me this, it's all talk. When push comes to shove you can't face up to your decisions."

"No," I said. "It's not that. I want you to think about it first. I want you to decide if I even deserve you. Because if I don't, you shouldn't even want to talk to me."

He laughed, a bitter, unhappy laugh. "Don't give me that, Josh. I wouldn't have called if I didn't want to work things out. I... I don't know what that is, what it means, but I don't want to end by walking out of your life. Is there a reason now isn't a good time? Is he there?"

I said, cautiously, "He?"

"The boy who cuckolded me. You know what I mean. Whoever he is. If this isn't over, if I find out you lied to me, you're going to wish I hadn't cleaned you up and kept you from practically bleeding to death on your kitchen floor, Josh. I mean, it was our fucking anniversary, god damn it, do you have any idea how many times I had to apologize to the fucking maitre d' at Charlie Trotter's for blowing off a reservation like that on a celebration dinner? Do you have any idea how it hurts to hear of this on your own fucking anniversary? Fuck you."

I cringed. I couldn't say anything. Without really realizing it, suddenly there were tears streaming down my face. "No. I'm sorry, Adam. I am. You have to know that. And it's over."

Adam didn't say anything for a minute. It was then that he burst out laughing, his first genuine laugh since before we'd talked the other night. "Because I'm not Latvian Orthodox?"

"Huh?" I sniffled.

He laughed even harder. "Come on! Oh, how many times have I made you watch that episode? Try another: 'Oh, lighten up, it'll only feel like an eternity!' "

Seinfeld. I should've known. Somehow we were both laughing, somehow the ice had been broken. " 'And the Christian radio stations?' 'RESURRECTED!' " I quoted.

"God damn you, Josh," Adam said, then. "I can't even hate you for the length of a five-minute phone conversation. Five o'clock tomorrow, at the coffee shop? Let's start over."

I reached over to the coffee table for a Kleenex, blew my nose. "OK," I said. "Five o'clock. I'll be there wearing bells."

Once I felt like I was a little more sober, then, I decided that I needed to talk to someone about all of this. I got up off the sofa, and walked over to my desk and woke my computer up from its slumber. It had been fortunate enough to miss out on the misery of the last couple of days; like Rip Van Winkel, it'd been asleep long enough for everything to change. When it went in, I was busy maintaining a long-term relationship and having an affair; and when it came to, I might as well have been single.

It gave me the familiar "ding!" Without instant messaging, I might've had to go drown myself in drink in a bar, or even pick up the phone and try to talk straight. Instead, I was about to do this via computer. It was my friend Laura:

southsideirish7: so, how was the hot date stud Elijah is Hugh: Uhh. Do you want to know? southsideirish7: yes!1 southsideirish7: dude! southsideirish7: wtf of course Elijah is Hugh: I, uhh, almost broke up with him. Maybe the other

way around. southsideirish7: what southsideirish7: fuck southsideirish7: why Elijah is Hugh: You remember Ryan? southsideirish7: ryan oh yeah that dude southsideirish7: screams loud as fuck southsideirish7: oh josh harder right there oh fuck josh god

fucking damn it southsideirish7: harder harder harder make me fucking Elijah is Hugh: GOD DAMN IT! STOP IT! I'm being serious! southsideirish7: cum all over ur big hard oh fuck yes

fuckfuckfuckfuckfuck Elijah is Hugh: GOD DAMN IT LAURA SHUT UP! southsideirish7: ok fine southsideirish7: so what about ryan Elijah is Hugh: I told Adam about him. I told Adam I was sorry. Elijah is Hugh: I thought he was going to lose it for a bit. Elijah is Hugh: He took it OK, I guess. southsideirish7: What does that mean? Elijah is Hugh: Well. I didn't take it so OK. southsideirish7: like how? Elijah is Hugh: Like I kind of passed out twice on the floor,

crying, broke a dish on the floor, and generally came across

like I was trying to kill myself. southsideirish7: ure fucking shittin me Elijah is Hugh: Do I ever kid? southsideirish7: no southsideirish7: that one time it happened i called guinness Elijah is Hugh: Thanks, Laura. southsideirish7: np <3 southsideirish7: so what exactly was it Elijah is Hugh: Well, I kind of had one of my nervous breakdowns

before he got there, thinking about how I was going to

proceed. southsideirish7: that damn tape recorder again southsideirish7: u know u cant lie to me josh Elijah is Hugh: OK, fine. So I was tape recording. southsideirish7: and then u gt upset and broke a plate Elijah is Hugh: I knew I could trust you to simplify things.

That's the skeleton of a chronology, sure. southsideirish7: do i need to know any more than that babe southsideirish7: how long have i known u again Elijah is Hugh: Fuck you. southsideirish7: thanks but you like the cock Elijah is Hugh: That's true. Quite a good deal. southsideirish7: such a waste Elijah is Hugh: Can I swap you for AJ instead? southsideirish7: ha ha i wish thatd be fuckin hot Elijah is Hugh: Really? southsideirish7: id bring my camcorder Elijah is Hugh: But he likes the pussy? southsideirish7: i could ask Elijah is Hugh: You sleep with the boy every day of the year, at

least twice a day, and you've never broached the subject of

whether he's also attracted to men? southsideirish7: he got drunk at a party once and made out with danny Elijah is Hugh: He was drunk. And Danny is an honorary woman. He

wears man-panties. He wears perfume. He has shoulder-length blonde

hair. AJ probably thought he was Carol. southsideirish7: true dat i can still ask Elijah is Hugh: Thanks. It would be hot. southsideirish7: so hes not fucking you anymore Elijah is Hugh: Who, Adam or Ryan? southsideirish7: adam southsideirish7: fuck ryan southsideirish7: wait no hahaha dont do that Elijah is Hugh: You should have said that a week ago. southsideirish7: yeah well maybe u shouldnt have fucked him anyway southsideirish7: with or w.o. my advice Elijah is Hugh: Thank you. Bitch. Elijah is Hugh: Anyway, he wants to talk to me tomorrow. What do I do? southsideirish7: hey youre the girly one not adam Elijah is Hugh: I wouldn't be so sure of that. southsideirish7: i still cant believe hes gay josh southsideirish7: you i knew the moment i met you southsideirish7: otherwise youd have been the only man who didnt

talk to my tits and not to my face Elijah is Hugh: That's true. Even when I thought I was attracted to women

I was never attracted to breasts. They seemed awkward. Still do. I

can appreciate their aesthetic beauty, but they do nothing for me. southsideirish7: yeah well southsideirish7: so youre horny basically Elijah is Hugh: Yes. To be that crass. southsideirish7: im very crass southsideirish7: and horny too southsideirish7: but you want cock southsideirish7: cock cock cock southsideirish7: what a fun word Elijah is Hugh: Are you going to help me or what, Laura? southsideirish7: what does he want to talk to u abt Elijah is Hugh: What do you think? southsideirish7: i do not recollect Elijah is Hugh: So you're saying, pretend I don't remember what

happened? southsideirish7: worked for ollie north Elijah is Hugh: Are you going to be ANY HELP AT ALL? southsideirish7: yes gimme one sec southsideirish7: aj has his hand in my panties southsideirish7: and two fingers inside me southsideirish7: hes really mmm good at it southsideirish7: im going to take a sec and cum first Elijah is Hugh: I'm going to puke now. southsideirish7: at least theres no jizz Elijah is Hugh: This is a virtue? southsideirish7: go away or im calling u insted Elijah is Hugh: OK, fuck you. IM when you're ready.

About five minutes elapsed. I really didn't need that.

southsideirish7: ok back now southsideirish7: i told him to go play w his fleshlight southsideirish7: and videotape it for u Elijah is Hugh: I hesitate to ask, but, really? southsideirish7: yes really southsideirish7: hes proly hamming it up for the camera right now southsideirish7: i hear him moaning yes oh yes josh suck on my dick Elijah is Hugh: Don't say any more, I might come in my pants. southsideirish7: ok ur loss southsideirish7: enjoy l8r southsideirish7: so what u want to know Elijah is Hugh: I want to know what to do. southsideirish7: talk to him southsideirish7: tell him what he wants to know w.o. details Elijah is Hugh: Will he kill me if I tell him that? southsideirish7: not literally southsideirish7: but all u can do now is be honest Elijah is Hugh: Fuck. Elijah is Hugh: I can't believe this is happening to me. southsideirish7: howd he find out Elijah is Hugh: I told you. I told him. southsideirish7: why southsideirish7: 'ive yada yadad sex' southsideirish7: just omit Elijah is Hugh: I am not some kleptomaniac insane person! southsideirish7: 'i mentioned the lobster bisque' Elijah is Hugh: Does EVERYONE in my life take love-life and sex

advice from "Seinfeld"? southsideirish7: no but they shud southsideirish7: so the sex with ryan was really good huh southsideirish7: i heard him screaming from apt 3d once southsideirish7: FUCKFUCKFUCKFUCKFUCK YESYESYES RIGHT THERE AAAAAAH

IM GONNA CUM IF YOU AAAAAAAAH RIGHT THERE SHIT YES OHMYGODYES

FUCKFUCKFUCK Elijah is Hugh: How many times must I tell you that enough is enough? southsideirish7: hey u did it not me Elijah is Hugh: Oh, Laura. So you think honesty is the best policy? southsideirish7: yes Elijah is Hugh: I think I'm going to go jack off now to the thought of

giving your boyfriend head, Laura, and then go to sleep. Can you

handle that? southsideirish7: sure sure southsideirish7: tomo ill give u the video southsideirish7: but u have to watch it w me southsideirish7: maybe hell fuck u while ure single Elijah is Hugh: I think that's out of the question. Unless Adam gets

to watch. southsideirish7: hes hot for aj too Elijah is Hugh: No, but he likes watching video of us having sex. As

long as he gets to watch, I might be able to talk him into it. southsideirish7: ok good southsideirish7: im going to fuck aj now southsideirish7: u might hear us thru the wall southsideirish7: open ur window southsideirish7: enjoy ciao southsideirish7: dont forget to throw your kleenex out Elijah is Hugh: Mmm. Thanks Laura. I'll CYA. TTYL

I closed the chat window, disconnected and lay down on my bed. My head was swimming with the evening, overwhelmed, but I really needed to sleep. Sure, it was a shame that I wouldn't be asleep in Adam's arms -- but I didn't lose him, and that's what counted. To help myself fall asleep I breathed deeply, and just listened to the sound of my breathing. I was so used to listening to someone else's, I didn't know what to do with my own. I curled up into the indentation in my mattress where Adam slept, when he was in my bed, and continued breathing deeply.

The last thing I needed, at that moment, was to hear Laura and AJ fucking like rabbits. Which they did, unfortunately, with some regularity.

Instead, I needed to be reassured, and the only person that could and would do that, right now, was me. So, I told myself, At least I didn't lose him. At least I didn't lose him. What was I going to do now?

Nyquil got me through the night. I woke up groggy and shaky, around 10 the next morning, so I called in sick to my classes for the next day. There was no way I was in any shape to go to school -- I would've been useless even if I'd been present. I've been through bouts like that before, times when I was either too sleepy or too depressed, or any number of other potential problems, where I would miss a week or two of class.

When I was in high school, I missed two weeks because Alex had helped me develop the kind of ulcer that required me basically to stay in bed and drink milk all the time. I thought my mom was going to get the axe that she had me use to cut firewood and go after him herself. She threatened to call his parents, never to let me see him again. It took hours of pleading and begging to get her to back down from that threat, and I've still never been sure whether she did get to him. Alex was on mostly his best behavior from that point on, until the day that I decided to surprise him with my little visit in Eugene.

God, after that, it was even worse. She probably thought I was going to turn into the grandpa from "Willie Wonka and the Chocolate Factory," you know, hadn't been out of bed in years. I just moped for days, and occasionally she would come in and feed me more eggs and toast, about all that I could eat at that point.

"You know, I told you so," she said, at some point during the week when I could barely bring myself to get out of bed in the morning. I didn't want to hear it, but she was right that Alex had been bad news from the beginning, and it had taken me walking in on him having sex with some pretty little college boy from southern California to understand why he was wrong for me. (To put it bluntly, he was not nice. He was a douchebag. And if I'd been able to come to the level of self-realization that we were only together because the sex was fantastic, maybe I could have gotten out.) She went on, "But that's water under the bridge, I guess. Now we have to get you back in good working order. The first order of business is that I've taken the liberty of putting in storage -- without reading, I promise -- all of the letters and photos and everything that you have from him. I think you should delete all the email, too. Make a clean break."

I was inclined to agree with her. But she thought I should go further. "Also, I want you to throw away those video recordings that you thought that I'd never noticed, 'hidden' " -- she made air quotes -- "under your bed. I'm sure they're wonderful. What, what else were you going to keep under the bed, labeled, 'A&J'?" She was right. They had been really, really hot, too. They are now in a box in our storage locker. "Not only do they put him in legal jeopardy as far as statutory rape laws are concerned, which is something even I have no desire to do, but they also expose you to more of him. They're in the box with your letters. Someday, maybe, I'll give you the key to the storage locker and let you go there and reminisce."

I've thought a lot about those words in the two years since all this took place. And that was what first came to mind, when I realized what I'd done to Adam. I think, in a way, maybe that helped me come to grips with what had happened. I resolved that I would find a way to make it better for him, in a way that Alex never had for me.

That afternoon, I managed to find enough time to take a long, hot shower, shave my face, take care of my hair, and clipper my body in all the peculiar places that a self-respecting gay man has to, all for Adam's sake. If this was going to be the first day of the rest of our lives, to use that old saw, I was going to make it like the first time we met.

Then, I did a little hunting on Facebook and made a few phone calls, and got my hands on the photo that my friend Jason had taken of me at that BGALA party the night that we met. I wanted to know what I'd looked like. My hair was a little different then, so I went back to the way it had looked that night, dug the same tight T-shirt out of a storage bin, the whole nine yards. I'd seen the gleam in his eyes when he saw me walk into that room -- yes, I recognize that I'm semi-unconsciously quoting Carly Simon -- and I knew what it meant. He'd practically undressed me in front of a crowd of people, and when I went into the kitchen to get myself a drink, he had somehow materialized right next to me, poured for me. (I know, bad idea. I made an exception and didn't get GHB'ed. I'm very lucky.) By the time he was done pouring my drink, Adam's other hand was in my back pocket, sliding up and down, and I could feel a distinct and pretty impressive protuberance sticking into my thigh. He handed me the drink, looked me in the eye and made some glib remark about how he hoped I was looking forward to enjoying it. I was only there about two hours, he was flirting with me pathetically the entire time, and when we left, I could feel his hot breath on my earlobes as he walked behind me, almost touching me.

Everyone was jealous. I wanted him to remember how bad he'd wanted me that night, when we met for coffee later that day. I needed him to remember. I wanted to rekindle what we had.

I mean, you can't even imagine how flattering that was: It's amazing, the sensation that your every move and reflex are being carefully observed. My face was like the sidewalk in Phoenix in July, hot to the touch, but inside I felt strangely serene. Feeling desirable, feeling wanted, gives you the same overall sense of well-being that running five miles every morning has to offer, plus the emotional lift. I found that, when I was around him, I felt better about myself, for most of the time that we'd been together... and that whenever we weren't, I didn't feel that way.

It's funny sometimes how intertwined two people's lives can become. You start out, two completely separate people, with separate habits and separate lives, but you creep toward each other, seeking for the equilibrium where you can remain more than one person but less than fully two. The moment of recognition is delayed, long past the point to which it is obvious to all of your friends, so that one day you're sitting at dinner and you realize you've begun to wipe your mouth the same way he does, that you talk differently or act differently as a consequence. You mention this to a friend, who says, "Well, duh!" and makes an irreverent crack about how you have essentially become one person. From there, the pendulum will swing backward, as you seek that elusive spot on the scale where the two sides are in balance -- because it is not necessarily at half.

I was there a few months before. We were. God, I've already separated us. One morning, I woke up a little early and found myself watching Adam sleep. He roused while I was watching, and rubbed his eyes in precisely the same way that I always did -- and not at all in his usual way, which was slower, languorous, less anxious. (There's a metaphor there.) He'd been watching me, I supposed, and had somehow unconsciously assimilated the way that I woke up into his own levŽe.

And I knew, then, thinking about this, that I was going to set out to accomplish what I needed to. To re-woo Adam, I suppose.

I stretched myself into the T-shirt I'd worn that day, pulled on those jeans, slipped into the same pair of shoes. Then, I took a turn in front of the mirror inside my bedroom door. I looked perfect. Positively scrumptious. How could he resist?

I smiled. Everything was going according to plan.

The day had turned bright and cheerful, and it was warm and sunny. On some level, this town was always beautiful -- I might be a West Coaster at heart, but I'd fallen hard for the Midwest -- but that day was just spectacular. My walk from the apartment to the coffee shop was a stroll under a spread of enormous elm trees, leafy and verdant in late summer, where it was relatively cool and shady underneath. The sidewalk was a little cracked, and there were a few of the seeds scattered around, the little helicopter seed pods.

All around were the lovely prewar stone buildings of the south end of town, often magnificent Chicago-style or Italianate edifices with massive facades and crumbling interiors. Like the post office, this enormous white stone building which had once housed a bustling operation and was now reduced to endless corridors to nowhere. The coffee shop was in the ground floor of an old-school brick walk-up, which, like the stone, was a legacy of the Great Chicago Fire, when Mrs. O'Leary's cow brought an American metropolis to its knees. A lot of the city looks that way, still, with magnificent Indiana limestone or red-brown brick all around the city.

The front door, on the other hand, was metal and glass, a modern addition to the building, probably an anti-theft device. I saw Adam inside, from across the street, so I stretched out my shoulders and pushed them back, felt the stretching across my chest giving me a broader span across. He liked that. Then, I crossed the street, slid the door open and walked in.

Adam looked up, then, and smiled at me, and I felt myself melting in his gaze, like a stick of butter under a magnifying glass. The proprietor gave me a hello, from the counter, so I winked at Adam, just a half-wink, and went up to the counter to get a cup of coffee. Without asking for anything -- Chris always knew what I got -- I handed him three dollar bills, two crisp like they were just off the press, and the third crumpled like an old, retired construction worker's face after a lifetime of sun and cigarettes. I got 27 cents change, and dropped it in the tip jar. He'd started the milk frothing when I came in the door, because I really was that predictable, so right after we conducted our little microeconomic exchange, in which I purchased approximately 40 cents of goods for two-bucks-fifty-one of my hard-earned cash, Chris had turned back around and was already producing a little work of art in frothed milk in a mug when I looked up. He handed it to me, with the usual caution ("It's a little hotter than usual, bud, this old machine's never been what she was since that electrical storm in 2003"), and I held the mug in two hands while I walked over to our table.

Because I was supposed to be playing it coy, trying to make Adam fall back in love with me, trying to find a way to get him to forgive me, and because I wasn't sure I could make eye contact with him and not forcibly remove him from the coffee shop and take him home and ride him until his knees fell off at the joints, at this particular moment, I looked at the mug. Each one was different, hand-painted with pre-Renaissance northern Italian motifs in earth tones, but they were the perfect physical dimensions for a latte, which suggested to me that they were of American provenance. His espresso demitasses were the real McCoy, worn old pieces of porcelain he'd brought back from the now-closed Roman coffee shop where he'd bought the espresso machine. But, as Chris always said, Italians don't drink lattes (though I prefer them), so I imagine their mugs aren't the right size for a latte. Mugs seem to be a Germanic and British thing, the better to drink your cold beer or hot tea from, and they certainly didn't invent espresso.

I took a sip, just as I arrived at Adam's table all the way at the far end of the coffee shop. I knew that, given what we were going to be talking about, he would want to be as far away from the hubbub as possible. And, since I was supposedly playing it about as straight as I could... I was going to have to walk a fine line between being flirtatious and still looking, to the casual observer, like two straight guys having a cup of coffee -- or at least one straight guy and a gay friend of his, rather than two slightly estranged lovers. So I breathed deeply, taking in oxygen and latte at the same time, hoping that it would clear my brain for the task ahead.

Just then, my eyebrow began to twitch a little, the way that it always did when I was really nervous. I took another deep breath, steeled my eyebrow to stop twitching and prayed that my stomach wouldn't start twisting and curling like a flag in a stiff Lake Michigan wind.

"Hi, Adam," I said, setting the mug down on the table, cautiously but not gently, the way straight guys always seem to. I put my hands on the tiles mounted unevenly on the center of all the tables, and felt the sun warming my back as it poured in the nearest window. "I'm glad you could meet me here today." I was making an effort to keep my voice level and deep.

He smiled at me, a pleasant smile, but not his delicious, delicate smile, the one that I was used to seeing spread from one cheekbone to the other when he was glad to see me. Was he acting? Or was he simply not feeling for me now?

I looked at Adam. "So, what do you want to know first?"

"Excuse me?" He squinted at me, trying to figure out what I'd meant.

I spread my shoulders out a little for him, giving him a show. For all the times that he'd told me he loved me just as I was -- which I was less sure of than ever; his facial expression was still the kind that your best friend gives you whenever you're having lunch and he realizes that he has absolutely no idea what you're talking about, and isn't sure he wants to ask -- I knew that on some level he wanted a big, hard, ripped, muscular jock-boy like himself. We'd talked about some of our more interesting fantasies, a long time ago, and I had disclosed how jealous I was of a friend of mine from high school whose boyfriend had snuck her into the soccer team's locker room at his college, for a good, quick fuck after a game. Adam had told me how he wanted to take one of his teammates, it didn't really matter which but I saw the lust in his eyes when he looked at the quarterback, and rough him up a little, you know, hold his jaw open while our pretty-boy captain was going down on him, and then pulling on his hair while he was fucking him.

At that point in our conversation, my eyes had probably bulged out a mile, because Adam could be aggressive in bed, he'd never shown any inclination for roughness or control or humiliating a partner, something which he knew was capable of driving me through the roof. (I don't mean to suggest that I had a less-than-fulfilling sex life, but we all have fantasies that we want to live out on occasion. And some of my fantasies involve being... dominated is the right word, though it suggests leather straps and chains and torture devices. I just mean physically subjugated.) God, we had the most unbelievable sex after that discussion, wild, unbridled, clothes-tearing, wall-grasping, pillow-gnashing, put-in-your-earplugs-neighbors sex that lasted for half an hour. I was sore for days, with life-sized handprints embossed into my ass.

And then there was the time that he actually went through with that, arranged for us to use the football field. We were... well. You can read all about that, I'm not going to rehash it.

I have digressed. "You strongly implied, the other night, that you didn't think you knew me as well as you do now. It's true that I have been keeping secrets from you. For obvious reasons. You know that I am sorry beyond all recognition for that, and you know that I want to do what I can to mend that rift," I said, carefully running through the script I'd tried to think through beforehand. My throat tightened, then, but I resolved not to cry. "I want to tell you whatever you want to know about me. I don't want to keep secrets from you anymore." I lowered my voice. "I love you with all my heart, Adam, and my heart won't forgive my body for what I've done. If I could wipe the slate clean, I would. But I'm trying to do the next-best thing. I'm trying to get rid of all the secrets."

Adam laughed softly, looked over his shoulder in the nervous way that every closeted boy knows, even after the last year, when everyone's known; turned back, reassured I guess, and smiled at me. "Do I have to?"

"Yes. We're starting over, right. You know me, but how well do you know me? I'm even more complicated than Janus. I have four faces."

Adam squinted. "Four? You're going to have to run that one past me," he said.

So I took a sip of my latte and explained my theory of myself to him. "Well. Three private and one public. I'm very self-assertive, very much in control in public. When I'm in private, I can be similarly in control, or want to be completely out of control entirely, or I can be laid back and fun. You've learned how to guess at my mood, most of the time."

"Oh, really? You've always been a little mysterious to me," Adam said. "I just wait to see how you respond to something I say or do. I can watch your eyes and tell you if you want to have sex or not."

That took me by surprise, I have to admit. "Do I not always want to have sex?"

Adam chuckled a little, then leaned in over the table. "How should I know? The look in your eyes doesn't exactly suggest it. If I stretch out, raise my arms over my head and pull my chest taut and your eyes don't follow along, I know you're not interested. And I get over it. I don't need it all the time, contrary to popular opinion."

I stared at him, and then burst out laughing. Careful, I told myself. I glanced over his shoulder to see if anyone was watching, lowered my voice again. "Maybe if you hadn't been pretending to nail all those girls, all the time, for so many years now, you wouldn't have a reputation for being a sex fiend! How did you get them to cover for you, anyway?"

"Cover for me?"

Oh, that was the last straw. I reached across the table and punched him in the arm. I think it looked like the banter of two ordinary guys, personally. "You'd better not still be fucking those girls, bitch."

He grinned at me, giving me that devilish look. Suddenly I was drowning in an ocean of pheromones. That boy knew how to push every button. Adam said, in a stage whisper, "No, but don't tell them that."

We laughed, he and I. It felt good to be breaking down the walls separating us, now, as though I was removing the weights that had been holding me at the bottom of the swimming pool while Adam floated merrily above.

"Seriously, babe," he said, quietly, but, indeed, seriously,

"I alwayas told them, I have this very rare condition that keeps me from getting an erection sometimes, and the medication fucks with my ability to play football. They buy it every time. They would apologize profusely, they'd say they're kind of glad I'd chosen the team, and I would pay for the fancy dinner and tell them I wanted to go out with them again sometime. That I liked them a lot, and maybe someday I'd be taking the medication. Yadda yadda."

It was just too rich! "I can't believe that ever worked. I guess, as long as you tell them the same story... What, this very rare condition is called impotence?"

"Nah, I did my homework first, thankyouverymuch, Josh. Some kind of kidney disorder. I can't remember anymore, it's been so long, baby. A year?" I nodded. Practically to the day. How did I remember beating Ohio State better than he did?

Adam paused then. "I was worried about you, you know," Adam said. He gave me his best worried-about-you stern-father look.

I sighed and slid down in my chair, playing along. "I know, I know. I was worried about me too. About my immortal soul. Can you ever forgive me, Father? Or at least, have me say a few Hail Marys?"

"For that crack, you fucking godless communist child-eating atheist quarter-Jew, I'm going to make you regret it. Make some more fun of my religion, why don't you? I think that's a winning strategy." In spite of his angry tone, Adam was clearly stifling his laughter. I felt myself swooning, wanting to reach out and grasp him tightly to me; somehow, I was emotionally falling into a deep well, and hoping that Adam would be there at the bottom, waiting to catch me.

Eventually, Adam and I finished our coffee, and we walked back toward my apartment. I'd felt the kind of connection with Adam that had been so lacking of late. I mean, I know this is going to sound insane, but as much as I loved that boy, I hadn't really wanted to be near him over the past few weeks. Now, I felt differently.

Of course, as happy as Adam had seemed, I could tell he was still hurting. So I didn't press the issue when he went home all alone, after dropping me off unceremoniously in front of my building. He gave me a light, friendly kiss, and then, he coasted off, waving behind me.

My heart was pounding, though, in my chest, as I went upstairs to my apartment, and my palms were sweaty. He was such an attractive boy, so pretty and tasty and all of those adjectives I associate with what I find appealing in men, and he was so ... understanding, really. He wanted to see me again! He didn't, you know, leave me right then and there, when I told him what had happened. Instead, he listened to me. He listened to me. He listened to me!

I was swooning over the tiniest things. His hair, the flax-like water of life; his gorgeous eyes, as deep and as blue as the ocean; the way he stood, shoulders held broad and high to puff out his perfect pectorals; the way he looked at me when he talked and touched my knee under the table while I was talking in the coffeeshop. Just thinking about it gave me a shiver, and a giddy excitement I hadn't felt in months.

I guess I was falling in love all over again, indeed. Just as I intended for him to.

In the elevator, and then as I walked into my apartment, all I could think about was Adam. Then I walked in, and was instantly greeted by a load grunting noise. I quickly shut the door, a sinking sensation in my stomach suggesting what I was about to be subjected to. Our apartment was laid out like Vietnam, with a giant living room and kitchen at one end and then a long hallway with two bedrooms on one side, and then a bedroom at the far end. But, because we were college students, and therefore cheap and chronically broke, we had a futon in the living room. No one ever slept on it... but I had had my suspicions that certain other activities which normally required a bed had been going on in here...

Lo and behold, my suspicions were correct. What should I see but clothing scattered all over the floor in the hallway -- a pair of shoes here, another there; a couple of shirts, a little closer to the living room; a pair of awkwardly-torn--looking red thong panties and a pair of baby blue boxers lying a little closer still; and at the end of this trail of clothing, a television tuned in to C-SPAN and my roommate Greg and his girlfriend Vanessa loudly fucking doggy-style on our red futon-couch. (At least they'd had the presence of mind to put a sheet on the futon, probably as a concession to me.) They were making fairly interesting noises, even for people having sex; Greg was making some kind of "ungh ungh ungh" noise through his nose, and Vanessa kept shrieking, "Eeeeh eeeeh eeeh eeeh eh eh eh eeeeeeh eeeh eeh eeh," occasionally punctuated by shrieking, "AAAAGH RIGHTTHERE BABY! FUCK ME YEAH!" He had his hands wrapped up in her long brown hair, and one hand around her waist, the motion of which suggested at least he was pretty generous in bed for a straight guy.

The fact that they hadn't noticed me -- they were facing away from the entrance and the blinds were thankfully all shut -- allowed me to appreciate, hardly for the first time, Greg's attractive, slim chest and delicious-looking ass. Hmm. And Vanessa, as it turned out, had surprisingly nice and pert breasts when viewed from a 90-degree angle, though I didn't especially want to have found out.

There was this, well, odd thumping noise coming from the futon, which suggested to me that the people on the floor below, too, were probably less than thrilled with this turn of events.

Eventually, Greg looked over, saw me standing there and nodded at me. "Hey, Josh," he said, between gasps.

Vanessa turned her head and smiled at me, after Greg let go of her hair for a bit. "Hi, Josh! Haven't seen you in a while."

They were awfully nonchalant about this. I'd heard them having sex so many times I assumed they were pretty, well, exhibitionist about it, between the shower and practically every imaginable spot in their bedroom, with Vanessa gladly vocalizing whatever he was either about to do, doing, or just since done to her. But... this was another level entirely.

I wanted to say, "Please. Don't do any more damage to my brain. I'm going blind already." I did not. I said, "Hi, Greg. Hi, Vanessa." I couldn't seem to move. They turned away from me, and Greg's breathing grew more irregular and his treatment of Vanessa rougher as he went on, driving in and out, continuously. I have to admit here that I was impressed with their ability to do this without ever breaking a rhythm, though the thought of having sex for at least five to ten minutes at exactly the same rate made my head ache.

Eventually, their strange exclamations and the odd squishing noises of heterosexual copulation started getting to me, and I snapped out of my weird mesmerism with their sex acts. I shook my head and walked away.

Thanks to Greg and Vanessa, I had just been reminded of what a misereable loser I was. I had just lost my entire sex life, at least for the time being, having broken things off with Ryan and having very nearly lost Adam.

Sadly, I sat myself in front of my computer and pulled up Adium, waiting to see if any of my friends were around.

Of course not.

Well, it was a Thursday night at 11. There was always some time to jack off, I guessed, before I went to bed.

Just as I was getting ready -- quick procedure: shut door, windows tightly; take off shoes, put in closet; remove socks, put in hamper; peel out of shirt, fold, lay on bed; remove belt; step out of jeans, fold, lay on bed; sit back down in chair and load reliable websites; click and rub for fun, pleasure and profit -- I heard Vanessa wailing for what I estimated was probably her third orgasm of the night. And my cell phone rang. Well, I didn't have anything better to do. I grabbed a Pacifico out of my fridge, cracked it open and sat down in my chair, having put my dick back in my white 2xist boxers.

It was Kirsten, demanding to know what had happened. I said, "I'm really, really sorry. It's just not my place to talk about it."

She shouted, "BULL SHIT! You're going to tell me everything. I'm coming right over there."

That was unacceptable. "Kirsten, hon, you can't. Uh, Greg and Vanessa are kind of ... in the living room ..."

"Oh, Jesus fucking Christ in Heaven," she said, always irreverent. "Are they going to be done any time soon?"

"I... sure hope so," I said, rolling my eyes and wondering, indeed, how much longer Greg could possibly last. Most straight guys only had five or ten minutes in them, at least by reputation, but I knew perfectly well that Greg had the better part of an hour in him. Our third roommate, Jason, and I used to call them "three Vanessas" and "four Vanessas" and "five Vanessas" nights, depending on how many times we heard her wailing that she was coming. "The thumping on the floor from the couch is starting to slow down. That usually means about ten minutes. Do you want me to call you?"

Kirsten lived a couple of floors down, on the other side of the hallway, so it wasn't like if there was a false alarm, I would be forcing her to walk back to her own building or something.

I kicked back and put on "Autoamerican," on my record player, to kill the time while I was waiting for Greg's dick to finally finish with Vanessa. That moment came more quickly than I expected it to, pun intended, when I heard him grunting loudly, "HOLY FUCKING SHIT YEAH," followed by the sound of what I really, sincerely hoped wasn't the legs of my futon couch collapsing underneath the two of them, and her wailing in one final gasp. It really was amazing, I had to admit, that they had all but mastered the art of mutual orgasm, even though she would come three or four or five times, or more -- on one memorable occasion, when I was out of town, Jason counted nine, the last of which featured her hoarsely screaming and then an anguished kind of combined long yell from both of them, for about fifteen seconds, like the kind of piss you take when you wake up after a night of drinking beer -- but also kind of disgusting. I don't often envy women, other than that Adam notwithstanding, they always end up with the hot guys, who are always straight; but I've always envied their ability to have a lot of orgasms, some more than others.

In any event, I heard the sounds of them shuffling toward Greg's room, where they would probably start back up again in twenty or thirty minutes -- but by that time, Kirsten would be in my room. She was used to hearing them. Seeing them would be a different matter, and I wasn't not really sure Greg and Vanessa would be OK with that anyway.

I waited a couple minutes, then called Kirsten to give her the all-clear. "Hurry," I said. "Knowing Vanessa's fucking insatiable sex drive, more isn't far off."

"She really is something," Kirsten said. "Has he ever considered giving her a dildo or something?"

Oh, Jesus no, I thought. "That would be baaaaaaaaaaaad," I said, quietly, so only Kirsten could hear. I realized I was being a bit too loud, before. "She'd just spend the whole day in bed, on the weekends, whenever she had a day free, you know, wailing and screaming. She's such a fucking nympho. I've seen her in bars, when Greg is studying for an exam or whatever, trying to pick a guy up just so she can get off, and then, when it's over, she does it again."

"Like a gay guy on the club circuit or something," Kirsten said.

"Just get the fuck up here. I don't appreciate that, but we can bicker about it later. Right now I just want you inside my front door before you have to see her spread-eagled on the kitchen table or something."

The infernal alarm clock went off at 8:45 like it did every morning. A few days had gone by, without seeing Adam at all. Thankfully, I was a clock-radio kind of person, so I got Karl Casell, Renee Montaigne and a cheery Morning Edition. Oh, NPR, thank you for making my day almost-not miserable.

I rolled over and out of bed, pushed my comforter back into place so it looked, like, well, I'd slept in it and tried to make my bed afterward. Ergh. Kirsten was still asleep, since she never moved in her sleep, and waking her required a Pearl Harbor-level effort. I brushed her hair back off her forehead, and then proceeded into the shower.

Standing under the hot water, which I will not deny I was enjoying, my mind drifted back to Adam again. 'I wonder what he's doing?' I thought. I grabbed a bar of soap, and imagined Adam pulling it across my chest, lathering me up. And you can only guess what that did to me. But my stomach tightened, as I started to pull up and down on Josh Jr., and I was suddenly sick.

Oh, fuck. This again? This had happened to me the last time something had gone wrong with Adam, a few months ago. I hadn't been able to come for days, had had to avoid Adam and make up a line about how I had the flu and didn't want to give it to him. It was like my brain was all twisted up with my genitals, somehow, and every time I touched myself, my gastrointestinal system lurched.

I sat down in the tub, with the water running, and tried to regain my composure, after retching a few times. Thankfully, I didn't puke. That would have been gross.

And all that did was conjure up images of Adam's arms around me. I could almost feel his warmth, his constant body heat, his smell, the tang of his sweat and the delicious taste of his cock. I licked my lips, and stood back up. I resisted the urge to jack off, as I forced myself into an even worse punishment than he could have dreamed up, fantasizing about him without any recourse at all. It was funny, I'd spent almost no time in this position, dating someone almost all the time. And now, I wasn't letting myself jack off, either.

"Mmmm, Adam," I moaned. I was watching him strip his undershirt off now, after practice. He was sweaty, and I inched my way down from the head of the bed to the foot, so I could lick at his sweaty chest and tease his nipples with my teeth. He cradled my head against his beautiful pectorals, ran his fingers through my hair, and my heart throbbed with the joyous arousal of being so intimately near the man I loved so much. I could feel him breathing, shallow breaths now, and I could feel his heart, his pulse racing. Mmm-hmm. Delicious. I inhaled deeply, smelling the delicious scent of my hunk, swooning over every touch and every sound he made. I slid my hand down between his legs, felt the massive hardness straining against his damp jock strap, giggled and pressed my hand in under the waistband. Reveling in the smoothness, the velvetlike texture of something so engorged and gigantic, I stroked my fingertips up and down along the length of the shaft. He threw his head back and moaned softly. His sweats were around his ankles, his sandals across the floor, and I had to stifle the urge to immerse myself in his pheromones. Oh, Adam.

All of a sudden, one of my roommates pounded on the bathroom door. "JOSH! Are you ever going to finish with the shower? I have class too, you know," Greg said, his voice, muffled, piercing through the door all the same. Fuck.

I sighed, mumbled something to no one in particular, and stood up again. "Yeah, I'll be out in, like, two minutes, Greg," I shouted back. "But I'm going to need to brush my teeth and all that, you'll have to start while I'm doing that." The door to the bathroom opened no more than ten seconds after I shut the water off, and I was glad he and I were more or less O.K. with each other's nakedness, or we would have had quite an embarrassing moment.

Quite deliberately I did not allow myself to fantasize about Greg, because that, too, might have led to masturbation. As horny as I was that morning, the thought of him and Vanessa getting it on on our futon might have even been arousing rather than disturbing. Instead, I pushed everything aside, brushed my teeth and went about my business. I put some gel in my hair, washed my hands and then crossed the hall to my room.

I'd always loved our apartment, from the moment I first saw it, since we had a view from the living room and all of the rooms were gigantic. It was also as hot as a sauna sometimes, like now, and that was nice when you'd just left the hot bathroom. Who wants to be cold?

I got dressed, and I put on a pair of Sevens and a charcoal sweater. I wanted to look good for Adam if I got to see him that day... my mind immediately drifted to the excitement of seeing him. Maybe in the central plaza on campus, maybe in passing on the way to class, maybe at the student union. We could share some quality time, under one of those pretty deciduous trees that I could never identify, elms or something, sitting on the sun-dappled grass in the autumn light. It was infectious, and autumn always changes my moods for the most positive -- sitting outdoors doubly so. So I grabbed my Docs, which were the only shoes I could justify wearing in this kind of glorious but slightly cool weather, and a messenger bag, and headed out the door. Class, you know. Kristen knew to let herself out whenever she felt like leaving.

Not like I paid attention to a word my professor had to say. I'd occasionally hear bits and pieces of the lecture, floating in and out of my reverie. I had to pinch myself a couple of times, to stay conscious of what was going on. I didn't want to start murmuring things in class, but the thoughts running through my head were intense. I missed him so much. It hadn't been all that long since I'd seen him, but in the mood I was in, it hurt to go even a few minutes without seeing him. I couldn't take my mind off him.

Finally, the lecture was over, and I walked out. Not even thinking, with the white earbuds in and blaring "Another Park, Another Sunday" in my head, my thoughts drifted to Adam.

Sitting in the room, staring out the window, And I wonder where you've gone, Thinking back on the happy hours just before the dawn. Outside the wind is blowing, It seems to call your name, again: (Ooooooo) Where have you gone?

It helped that this particular Doobie Brothers track always evokes a lot of fall-ish sentiment in me -- it must be the melancholy sound and the faint rustling noise in the background. It's a beautiful song. Slowly, a smile spread across my face. I rocked my head in tune with the music, tapping my fingertips against the side of my legs, where those studs are on your jeans that hold the seam and the pockets together, and wandered merrily through campus, oblivious to everything around me. I hardly noticed anything below the level of the leaves on the trees, floating through my commute to and from campus, which was not short.

I'd gotten fifteen minutes into my twenty-minute commute south when I heard a loud whistle behind me. Someone shouted, "JOSH! HEY JOSH!" Then another whistle.

I turned around. Who on Earth could that be?

My heart stopped. Adam! I'd never been more glad to see his face. Adam! You're gorgeous, babe, and you know it! I raced over to the silver M3, gazing longingly in those azure eyes as they got bigger in front of me, until I had my hands on the windowsill, or whatever it's called when the window is rolled down. I stuck my head in.

"Hi, babe," I whispered. I pulled my head out. "How's it going, Josh?" I had to pretend to act vaguely straight, for Josh's sake. I knew how touchy my relative gayness was for him. I had never made any secret of my attraction to men, of course, but it wouldn't be very seemly for the big manly wide receiver to be friends with an especially effete gay boy. We were very fortunate that we went to a sufficiently progressive school that he could be friends with me, meet me for coffee, and all that jazz, without feeling like his masculinity was threatened. But it wouldn't do for me to forget to keep my legs uncrossed at my coffeeshop, or to actually make reference to my physical attraction while he and I were together. We had a code -- I'd borrowed it from "The Broken Hearts Club," a marvelous movie with a very hot Andrew Keegan, and, funny enough, a not-very-hot Zach Braff -- and one of us would say "meanwhile" whenever a hot boy passed. He was almost always horrified when it was one of his teammates, unless it was our delicious quarterback, but we couldn't talk about it until we were safely ensconced in one of our apartments.

And after a year of at least theoretically acknowledging to the world that he was gay. What a fucked-up world we live in.

So I set my knees and my arms at just the right ankle, grateful that I was wearing sunglasses, and I leaned my head in. "What's up?"

He looked at me. I recognized what that look meant. "Get in," he muttered. "Go on, just do it. Fuck. Come on."

I popped the door, listened to the beeping in the car and the honking of the people behind us upset that we were blocking half of the major north-south artery near the Lake, and then pulled the door shut. He managed to gun the car off and close the window at the same time, a feat of coordination that impressed me. So I was a little predisposed to be impressed by him.

Adam glanced over at me. "I want to be spontaneous. Do you have a bit?"

I pushed up the sleeve on my sweater, took a quick look at my right wrist, where an 18th-birthday-gift watch from my dad enjoyed its regular spot, and then nodded. "Yes. I'm free for the day now. By the way, you're buying, I'm broke till Friday," I added. "I can pay you back if you like, but I have, like, $7 to my name till then."

He slipped his hand under his ass -- I forced myself not to stare as he did that -- and pulled his wallet out. He reached in and grabbed two twenties. "Here. I don't want you to be without money. It's not like I spend all the money my dad gives me every month, anyway. You have any idea how much he thinks I spend in a week?"

That got a laugh out of me, loud and happy. "I don't want to. You already spend more than I do in a week. If you're spending less than he thinks you do, where does the rest go?"

Adam gave me a funny look. "Huh?" His voice sounded a little shaky.

I smiled sweetly. "Well, let's pretend I'm naive and stupid -- no comments or you're never getting laid again, Adam Vanderhuyden -- and your dad is giving you $50 a week. You spend $40 of it. What do you do with the remaining $10?"

He snorted loudly. "$50 a week? You really do live in la-la land. I spend about $175 a week. He gives me, like, $300 a week. What the hell do I need $300 a week for?"

"You're not answering the question, Adam, darling," I said, putting a little more saccharine in my voice. I was quite astonished, really, that his parents gave him more a week than I was budgeted for a month. No wonder he hated it when I insisted on paying for something myself. He knew I couldn't really afford anything extravagant, and vehemently resisted it whenever I had the crazy idea of taking him out somewhere on my own dime. Either he paid, or we split the bill. $300 a week. I didn't pay that much in rent, food, and utilities, combined. I knew his rent was a lot -- I had a hunch it was probably $2000 a month -- but I can't imagine paying $2000 a month and $1200 a month in allowance. It occurred to me briefly that Adam was on an athletic scholarship, so it wouldn't be that much sweat off his back for a high-powered lawyer, corporate counsel for a Fortune 500 company like his dad, to pay what he would already have been paying to send his son to school, when the kid's education was paid for. I was willing to bet the extravagant expenses would continue in graduate school, though. I still wanted to hear Adam's answer.

"Can we talk about this another time? Just trust me," he said. He growled a little with that, so I backed off.

But we were now on Dempster, going west past the El. There's not much west of the train line, just residential property, and then Skokie; so unless he'd decided we were going to have a little heart-to-heart at Poochie's over the charred salami sandwich, not the sort of thing my football player sort-of boyfriend usually ate during the season, I had no idea where he was taking me. "Where are we going?"

Adam looked over his shoulder, as we coasted past Dodge and the Interstate came into sight, put on his turn signal and got in the left-hand lane. "You'll see," he said. And then we were merging onto the Edens, toward downtown. He grinned devilishly at me, and then reached past me into the back seat of his car, fished around for a minute, pulled out an Art Institute events calendar. "I saw this," he said, pointing at the centerpiece, an exhibition called "Seurat and the Making of 'La Grande Jatte,' " which was apparently going to be open for another week or so, "and I knew how you loved that painting. So I decided we'd go, if you were free."

My face flushed, probably a thousand different shades of vermilion, like those magnificent ancient striations of rock in Sedona, and I found myself brimming with excitement. I felt like a little kid whose mother had just told him she was taking him to McDonald's on a Saturday afternoon, and that he could play in the playground while she picked glumly at a so-called salad.

But then it occurred to me: Spontaneous my ass. I was so flattered, I decided not to make a big deal out of pointing out that he'd just tipped his hand. But I could've.

"Thank you!" I found it in me to blurt out, between my childish enthusiasm at seeing the exhibition and my more adultlike compulsion to avoid wrapping my arms around him and squeezing tightly and kissing him, since we were on the Interstate, after all. "You're going to regret this, though," I said.

"Why?" he asked, curious. He looked so darling when he didn't know what I was talking about, his long, ordinarily smooth brow wrinkled like linens left un-folded for too long, and the little crow's-eye creases at the corners of his eyes just led me to want to stare into the beautiful South Pacific iris each eye contained. Hiram Powers, a 19th-century American sculptor, wrote, "The eye is the window of the soul; the intellect and will are seen in it." I have long found that I am capable of simply staring at Adam, for what feels like hours at a time, like when he's asleep, but the best part is just staring in his eyes. They're magnificent, as deep as the ocean and as blue as the desert sky.

I looked over, grinned at him then. "Because I'm going to make you stand there in the gallery in the back while I stare at the Chagall stained-glass windows."

Adam leaned over and whispered just past my ear, breathily, while he kept his eyes on the road, "I'll stand behind you and look at that perfect ass of yours. Sounds like a fair bargain."

That gave me goosebumps all over my arms, all over my face. His hot breath massaged the nape of my neck.

"I thought you might like that," Adam said, beaming like a child. "Now, to the museum."

He put on the radio, and soon enough he was humming along cheerfully to one of his favorite songs: Led Zeppelin's "The Wanton Song," from "Physical Graffiti." It was almost too much Adam, the whole album, all loud-rock guitar riffs and attitude. But while I would always choose "Trampled Underfoot," if I were asked to pick a song I liked on that album, it was "The Wanton Song" that really got Adam moving, head bobbing and fingers thrumming on the steering wheel as he flew down the Interstate. The way he drove, you'd think there were a hurry to get to the museum, since we must have been going 75 in the express lanes and weaving through traffic. I've told him a thousand times that the highway is not a football field, that there's no deep route the quarterback's running that we have to stay on, and we can stay at the speed limit. When I drive, I usually go 55 or 60, you know, sane speeds.

But Adam had always liked to go as fast as possible. I guess that's why I drove an '87 Caravan my uncle had given us without complaint, and Adam had a brand-new M3.

C'est la vie.

He knew his way around the city, so while I was busy ogling all the big buildings, he was navigating his way through downtown. We could probably have taken the Drive, since we were going to the Art Institute and it was right on the lake, but he hated L.S.D., said it was too trafficky and slow. That it was further to take the Edens, but that we'd make up the extra distance and then some if we just took Washington instead of Congress.

That took us through the heart of the Loop. More than a streets geek, I've always been a building geek, so I enjoyed watching the buildings go by. They're skyscrapers, you see, the real McCoy, in downtown Chicago, like nothing you'll ever experience anywhere else. In New York, all of the buildings are crammed together so tightly that, with the exception of the Empire State Building or the Chrysler Building, or, in the olden days, the World Trade Center, very few stand out enough for them to be individually discernible. But in Chicago, the skyline stretches out along the lake for miles and miles, with the end result being a massive and magnificent outline in which you can outline almost each individual building for the six miles or so of downtown.

And in the daytime, on a weekday, the Loop is humming with activity, people running left and right in suits or courier uniforms, with briefcases or coffee or trench coats folded over their arms. It's a much quieter place at night, of course, with just the theaters and a smaller number of restaurants open; but in the midday, there's very few places livelier in the world. You can feel the activity humming in your fingertips, in your toes.

Then we burst through onto Lake Shore Drive, and Adam slid us across four lanes of traffic into the parking garage under Millennium Park, just a short walk from the Art Institute. It's very abrupt, but across eight lanes of traffic and a median, you can observe the mayhem of a major American business district while you picnic, or stroll leisurely. As enormous and empty as Lake Michigan is, the expanse of parkland along Lake Michigan is like New York's Central Park combined with the beach in St. Pete, in Florida.

We took a nice little amble around Millennium Park, and, as we passed the Bean, Chicago's enormous coffee bean-shaped sculpture-pop-art monument, Adam pushed me down on the ground and sat beside me. He reached in his pocket and pulled out his digital camera, and extended his arm. I felt a little bit of a poke, and then --

I shrieked! I was being tickled! I squirmed and screamed, and Adam leaned in and placed his lips to my cheek, and I heard the shutter click, in my physical mayhem. He stopped, and I caught my breath. "Fucker," I grunted, loudly, as I tried to regain my composure. People were staring at us, but I didn't really care.

Adam swiveled the camera around, showed me the photo. It was pretty damn cute, I had to admit, Adam kissing me on the cheek while I had my mouth open, laughing hard, and I was flushed like I was happy.

He leaned over and stroked my hand. "I love you, baby," he said. "You may have torn my heart apart, but your hand's still on it."

"I'm sorry," I said. My throat grew a little tight, just then. "I'm so sorry."

My beautiful, amazing boyfriend, who I realized then that I loved even more than I'd known, turned my head toward him and kissed me, hard. I pulled myself away, caught my breath. "I love you, too, Adam." A smile grew across his face, as wide as I'd ever seen. "I love you so very much."

He clicked off his camera.

"Thank you," I said.

Adam squinted at me again. "What for?"

"I think you know."

The Art Institute is really one of those amazing museums that you can get lost in. Like a lot of downtown Chicago, the building is a literally palatial neoclassical structure, a massive expanse of white limestone between Lake Michigan and downtown that is left over from the 1893 Columbian Exposition, the event that made Chicago what it is today.

Daniel Burnham, the man who was responsible for the Columbian Exposition, helped form the city of Chicago; it was his Exposition that brought the first El line, what is now the Green Line, to the Southeast Side, and two of the buildings that he masterminded are still in use today, the Art Institute's and the Museum of Science and Industry in Jackson Park. Chicagoans owe an enormous debt to him for that. But the Exposition also brought an even more massive increase in the population of the city than it had already had, which meant still more beautiful brick and stone buildings since this was after the Great Fire, and little details like the world's first Ferris Wheel, which is no longer in operation, and Jackson Park itself, which was intended as Frederick Law Olmsted's gift to Chicago, like Central Park.

Parks large and small dot the city, as a matter of fact, a testament to Olmsted's visions. Woodlands and manicured parks are to Chicago what lakes are to Minneapolis or Orlando; they're everywhere, part of the landscape. Olmsted is most famous for Central Park, and rightly so, but he deserves credit for the vision that established the Midway that runs through Hyde Park and the University of Chicago, making that neighborhood Chicago's stateliest. If not for an accident of history, the Midway and Jackson Park would rank up with Central Park, San Francisco's Candlestick Park and Portland's Forest Park among the nation's greatest municipal parks. They're two sides of the same coin, Jackson Park an enormous, seemingly unbounded park like Central Park, and the Midway a manicured stretch of lawn and sidewalk, and they're lovely.

But Jackson Park and the Midway are both on the South Side, which, in 1893, was where the city's wealthiest denizens lived -- the remnants, the beautiful but worn-down mansions in Hyde Park and on Prairie Avenue at Eighteenth Street, are testament to that fact. It's ironic that Burnham's genius was also the reason for the death of Olmsted's great gifts to the city: Rapid transit made it possible for the city to expand further from the core of downtown, which meant that living near downtown would lost its cachet for almost 100 years. Geography played a role as well; Chicago's lakeshore is shaped like an 'L,' at the southwesternmost tip of Lake Michigan, so the great majority of the city's land mass is on the South Side. The railroad nexus that made the city great is, therefore, on the near South Side, along with the former slaughterhouses, and in the early 20th century those wealthy Chicago families joined many of their compatriots in fleeing up the North Shore to Lincoln Park, and then Rogers Park, both of which have been left with a smattering of mansions and beautiful brownstones, and eventually to Evanston and beyond. Middle-class and working-class whites followed, came and left, and then, poor African Americans. (The same thing happened in Lincoln Park, which has now re-gentrified, and Rogers Park, which hasn't yet, mostly because it's at the far end of the city's longest El ride and abuts vastly more prosperous Evanston.)

The consequence of the demography, today, is that, with the exception of the Art Institute and the Museum of Science and Industry, the genius of Burnham and Olmsted is inaccessible to Chicagoans today. The vast majority of Hyde Park's denizens are either poor or affiliated with the University of Chicago, although many of those mansions are owned by upper-middle-class and wealthy black families today; and Jackson Park abuts Woodlawn, whose population is mostly living on public assistance.

But having the Art Institute makes up for all that. It is a family jewel, the kind of possession with which I simply can't imagine Chicago parting. In many of the world's major cities, there are a lot of art museums, all different places to see different kinds of art, so in Madrid one must go to the Prado, the Thyssen-Bornemisza and the Reina Sof'a to get the full breadth of Spanish art, and in New York, that city's grand and magnificent art collection is split between the Met and MoMA. But Chicago has no 'other museum,' only the Art Institute. Its collection is so vast -- medieval armor, pre-Columbian Native American art, ancient Egyptian artifacts, Impressionist painting, Expressionist painting, De Stijl, pop art, the whole megillah -- that it really takes several days just to glance at everything, much less absorb any of it.

I was magnetically drawn to it as soon as I'd first come to Chicago. Even as a child, I've always found art museums soothing, a way to contemplate the existence of the world and its curious machinations. That's why I've always been drawn to prewar art; modern art is a completely blank canvas in a lot of ways, onto which the viewer is supposed to paint his own ideas. There's a lot of tension between the audience and the art, in other words. All the gobbledygook we read in art books and newspaper articles, about "dialogue," or "participation," or whatever this week's fashionable term is obscures the fact that in modern art the artist's intent is unclear. But Kandinsky, my favorite artist, just as a for-instance, isn't asking his audience to do very much. He just wants them to look, to ponder, to think. Chagall asks you to consider your subconscious, and our cultural subconscious. More than anything else, I guess, I am a late arriver to the Expressionist ball; painters like Kandinsky, Chagall, Paul Klee, and the early Cubists sing to me in a way that neither the Vel‡squezes nor the Warhols ever will.

And I like to stand in front of paintings, to dissect every stroke, all the gradations of light and shadow, see the way that they interact with their surroundings as they change.

Poor Adam's been with me a thousand times to the Art Institute, now, but I'm always like a little kid whenever I set foot inside that museum. He stands there behind me, like a bodyguard, watching me more than he looks at the art. I know that he'd rather watch people than paintings, since it was he who told me that I fidget with my left hand when I'm nervous and with my right hand when I'm bored, and that when I'm interested in something I stand at a thirty-degree angle to it, turned to my left. He says that I've been known to stand in front of paintings, especially something massive and complex like "Paris Street, Rainy Day," for instance, one of the Art Institute's Impressionist masterpieces, for fifteen minutes, staring at every minute intricacy.

Eventually, I turn around, done absorbing a painting, and sometimes I catch his eye. His little gestures, like the fire I see smoldering in his eyes when he's been watching me, the warmth and also the barely concealed passion, were always an important sign for me. I suppose, on some conscious level, I've always known how Adam felt about me. Sometimes, I'll wake up in the mornings, if I sleep in, and I get the feeling that he's been watching me; and when I do wake up, it becomes an all-consuming conflagration. He'll push me back on his bed, kiss me hard as though I've been away on an aircraft carrier during a tour of duty in Iraq, and then straddle my head while I give him a blow job. It's always a bit rough, more than a little animal, my jaw stretched open as far as it'll go while he moans loudly, my tongue flickering over the head of his cock quickly, sliding tip of my tongue gently along the shaft while I suck on the head further back in my mouth -- it's a work of art in its own right, a good blow job. After a few minutes of that, he'll reach down and hold my jaw open with his thumbs, while he controls the pace, sliding in and out of my mouth; that only lasts a little while, and all the while I'm working as hard as I can. The smell of Adam is intoxicating in the morning, especially this time of year, male musk and a little of the salty tang of sweat, mixed with the sticky feeling of a night in the humid air without air conditioning. So I don't really mind. And soon enough, it's over.

He likes watching me afterward, too, though. Or in general. I used to tease him about it, but he's always been very sensitive about it. My mother, she of the seemingly infinite wisdom, once told me that when it comes to keeping a romance alive, it's better to marry down than up, as it were: If you're with someone who loves you far more than you love him, you're the one who is in the driver's seat.

I have absolutely no idea what Adam sees in me, no idea at all, but whatever it is, I recognized, while we were at the Art Institute, that day, that I was definitely in love with a boy who loved me far more than I loved him. As pathetically Adam-centric as I'd become, in the year we had been dating, I knew that day that it was like I was the sun and he was the moon, you know?

There's a badly clichŽd scene in almost every movie with a romantic subplot, in which the lovers stroll or browse or run through an art museum, a bookstore or an antique shop, or anywhere else where they can ponder and look good for each other, like two offbeat Michel Gondry heroes who are destined for each other but still have to find it out for themselves. The gold standard is probably Godard's "Band of Outsiders," in which its characters attempt to set the record for running through the Louvre; but my personal favorite will always be John Hughes' "Ferris Bueller's Day Off," and not just because it takes place in the Art Institute. It's scenes like that that help Hughes show his genius, which is filming genuine, light-hearted interaction between the adolescents of the period.

We were like that, sort of.

Adam instantly pulled on my hand, as soon as we were past the gate, and soon I found him dragging me through the museum. "I'm taking you to look at my favorite paintings," he said, with a stupid-looking grin on his face.

"What about the 'La Grande Jatte' exhibition?" I asked. I mean, not that I really minded the idea of seeing some of his favorite paintings, after all these times that he'd stood there, patiently, watching me looking at mine; but he'd said that was why we were here.

He turned, looked at me over his shoulder, smiled at me. "Later, babe. Just pay attention, now."

This seemed sane enough at first, but there was no real logic to what we looked at. We'd walk past some of the paintings I'd always figured he would like, and then spend five minutes looking at, you know, the sort of scratching that I didn't think he'd ever be able to stand. It was really a very strange experience.

At some point, he pulled me through a side door that looked like it didn't go anywhere in particular, and we were in a very long corridor with just a door at either end, like a back alley -- or an abandoned hall in an airport, maybe. He grasped my hand and started running toward the far end. I shrieked loudly, tried to resist, but Adam just laughed hard and pulled me along with him. He has more lively in him, sometimes, than I can bear, because I just don't have as much energy as he does. He can, and will, wear you out.

I gave in and played along, and the corridor must have stretched along the entire length of the side of the building, or so it seemed. We ran and ran, and eventually we could only just barely make out the far end of either hallway. He stopped, leaned against the wall and caught his breath. Even for a football player, running from a dead stop while pulling someone else, for at least a hundred feet, will knock the wind right out of you.

After several minutes of this, just sitting there, we stoped panting. Adam looked over at me, having caught his breath, while I was still a long way from OK -- he was the fit one of us, after all -- and said, "Fun, huh, babe?"

"I hate you."

He laughed. Loud, booming, masculine. It echoed in the tiled hallway. "No, I know you don't," Adam said. He reached out, grasped my forearms and pulled me up against him, closer and closer, and then kissed me. I was swimming in an ocean of hormones, at that moment, confused about where I was or what I was doing, except that I needed him to kiss me more. He leaned in and whispered in my ear, "You know, we're all alone here..."

That sent shivers up my spine, tingling all over. My face flushed. I knew that tone of voice, the way it was a little raspy and hoarse whenever he had something dirty in mind, and I didn't know if I would have the strength to resist Adam's appeal. I straightened up, momentarily stiff, trying to resist; but I gave in when I could feel a certain, er, localized region straightening. "Oh, Adam," I said. "We shouldn't do this."

Adam laughed, a different laugh entirely now, half-sarcastic and half-mocking. "Hey, baby, why not? Is there something wrong with it?" He made it sound as though everyone had sex in the hallway of a museum, during normal business hours, on occasion.

Oh, gosh, I can't imagine why. "Because we could get caught? Just for starters."

"Sure," Adam said, "we could get caught. That makes it better, doesn't it? You think the only thing that got you going in that football stadium, a year ago, was that I was wearing a football uniform?"

It was my turn to laugh. "Actually, yes," I said. "You think you know me that much better than I know myself, now, when just the other day you said you thought you didn't know me all that well?"

He leaned in, and I could smell that overpowering smell that Adam always had. "I don't exactly have to," he said. "You get this... look on your face, when it comes to my football gear, and this was a different look. The risk of being caught was what kept you going."

Fuck... was that true? Was it really the risk that had kept me going? I tried to imagine what it would feel like, having sex in this hallway, down on my knees in front of the man I loved so much, and who also was so gorgeous, so stunningly beautiful. I was immediately as hard as a rock, and a little woozy from the rapid rush of the blood out of my head. I tried to pry out a little more cognizance, before that was it: "OK," I said, quietly, "I'll do it. But we keep our clothes on."

My boyfriend -- ex-boyfriend? prospect? -- smiled at me, turned me around and pressed me up against the wall, hard. "Yeah," he said. "But you have to tell me what you want to do." I could feel him grinding against me, pushing his pectoral muscles hard into my chest, little beads of sweat budding on his forehead. He was, to say the least, not a small man in any regard, and I could tell pressed between his muscular physique and a concrete wall.

I whispered, "I want to give you a blow job, here."

"That's not good enough," he said, much more loudly. I tried to signal that he should be quiet, but he acted like he hadn't heard.

So it was going to be time for me to plead, it seemed. "OK," I said, a little tiredly. "I want to go down on you here in this hallway, where anyone could walk in at any moment and see it. I want you to give me the privilege of swallowing your sticky, thick come, right here in the Art Institute."

Adam grinned, and I felt his dick twitching. "Fuck," he whispered. "That's hot." He ground up against me, one last time, and then pulled away from the wall, spun us both around. He rested against the wall, more leisurely than I had been.

I slid my hands down his chest, feeling the hard musculature of the man I loved. I ground the palm of my hand into his pectorals, pinched his nipples through his shirt. Then, I kissed my way down his chest -- I hate the taste of T-shirt, but it really turned him on -- slowly, just teasing him.

Then, at long last, I undid his belt, and, with just one hand, managed to unbutton and unzip his jeans. My mouth watered at the thought of tasting, after so long, that big, long, hard dick that I'd been missing. I could already smell the musky smell of his body, trapped inside all those clothes all day long and looking for any excuse to escape. It was intoxicating, the smell of a powerful man mixed with the pheromonal after-effects of exercise and exertion.

So, I took a deep breath and felt my body quavering with excitement. I pulled Adam's jeans down around his ankles, so that he was left standing there in just his tight-as-always T-shirt and a pair of slim-cut green plaid boxers. Fuck, he looked so hot in them.

"I want to suck your dick," I said. My dick twitched hearing the words come from my mouth. He breathed, deeply. "Go ahead," he said.

I did. I pulled his boxers down, pushed them down to where his jeans were resting, on top of his shoes. Then, I kissed my way back up his left left, slowly, savoring the salty taste of sweat that built up on them. One kiss at a time, with a little tongue and some suction. That drove Adam wild, and I could feel him thrashing a little, squirming in pleasure. The sensation of his muscles twisting as I kissed them was unreal.

Once I made it to the top of the left leg, I moved right back down to the ankle of the right leg, just above where his jeans were. I gave that leg the same treatment as the left, and as I was making it to the top of his right thigh, and starting to twist inward, I heard Adam moan softly. And good sex is like a feedback loop: Hearing him make sounds of carnal pleasure made me that much hotter. I could feel my blood pressure rising, especially in localized parts of the body, thudding in my ears.

"You like that, huh?" I said. Adam nodded. He looked like he was lost in a trance, so I decided to soldier on.

I slid my tongue out from between my lips, and then slowly licked my way up the inside of his thigh. Here, he tasted even more strongly of sweat and male pheromones, which was just fine by me. Without any hesitation, I slid my tongue all the way up the inside of his leg, until I could slide it down his perineum. He whimpered, loudly, a kind of stage-whimper. My tongue went back the other way, forward, toward his balls, tasty and tangerine-sized and full of sweet juice, and then I slid one, then the other, in my mouth. I could feel his flaxen, coarse pubic hair scraping against my skin, but it wasn't a sensation I would give up for the world. His skin was so tan, burnished like it had been rubbed with oil, and I could watch his muscles straining as I stared up his torso, right into his eyes. A drop of his precome landed on my forehead, and it looked like there was another forming. Adam brushed them off; he looked down at me, eyes burning with passion, and I knew what I needed to do.

At that, I let go of his balls and slid my tongue up his long, hard cock, at last getting to taste what I'd been missing. It's a funny experience, because it's not so different from sucking on his finger, really, yet what a difference the details make. I could taste the warm, musky, salty precome in the back of my mouth and on my tongue, from the instant the head slipped past my lips. I took it a little at a time, teasing him, swirling my tongue around the shaft as one inch, two inches, three inches slid between my lips. Somewhere in the neighborhood of four inches, when the head was pressing on the back of my tongue, Adam reached down and pushed my jaw open a little wider, then held my head as he slid the remaining four inches or so in. I felt the head brush up against the back of my throat, and at that, he grunted, "FUCK! Yeah! Take it all!"

I began to swirl my tongue, to start really sucking away, moving up and down and jacking him with my left hand in concert. It didn't last long. I guess it'd been a few days since we'd had sex, to say the least, and after two or three minutes of that, while I sucked and pulled furiously on his cock and felt my own straining hard against my zipper, the teeth grinding into me slightly, Adam gasped, "Oh, fuck!" He reached down, grasped the back of my head, and began to pull it forward in a faster motion than I had. I could feel his strong hands holding on to my head, fucking my mouth with abandon, for just a few seconds, and the he grunted, loudly, "FUCK! I'm going to come!"

Adam did, then, giving me enough semen to paint a monochrome masterwork on the ceiling of the whole length of the hallway. I struggled to swallow it all, and in the end, a little dribbled out onto my lip. He reached down, pulled me up against his hard, slightly sweaty body, and licked it right off my lower lip, where it had settled. "Fucking hell," he said. "That was the best blow job I've ever had."

So I grinned. So sue me. I was being grasped tightly against my blonde football player boyfriend's hulking body, almost completely naked, in a cold, airport-like hallway at the Art Institute. "I take it you like the exhibitionism?"

"No," he said. "I'm here for the paintings."

We both laughed, Adam's voice an octave lower than mine, booming and ringing. He began to pull his clothes back on. "Yeah," I said, trying to stifle a laugh mid-sentence. "Like you read Playboy for the articles."

He finished putting his clothes back on, gave his hair a quick brush-through to make sure it was all in position, reached into my front jeans pocket for my handkerchief, took it out and wiped the sheen of sweat off his forehead. "You'll get your reward later. For now, let's go see that exhibit."

"Did you plan this all along?"

Adam smiled at me, a devilish smile. "Do I have a newfound reputation for being spontaneous?"

When we left the Art Institute, it had clouded over and was raining. Adam had an umbrella in his bag, which he'd checked at the front door, but I was completely unprepared, so we squeezed under his pocket-sized umbrella and raced quickly from the steps to the sidewalk. Just as I was about to turn left, to go to the parking garage to get his car, Adam pulled me forward. There was a man in a black town car holding a door open, and Adam grasped my hand and pulled me in. The athlete that he was, he somehow managed to fold up and hand the umbrella to the driver, all the while getting into a fairly small space.

I took this in stride, but once we were in the car, I turned to Adam and whispered, "Why aren't we driving?"

"My car's being picked up. Don't worry about it."

That didn't answer the question, and I told Adam so. I don't like being ignored.

He turned and looked at me, furrowed his brow like he always does whenever he's searching for an answer that won't make me angry. "We have a hotel room," he said, slowly. "I thought you might enjoy a little night out on the town. This way I don't have to valet the car."

I'm sure my eyes were as wide as saucers, at that moment. Wasn't I supposed to be the one wooing him? Was I missing something? How was it that he was putting all the planning into this?

A few minutes later, we stopped in front of the Drake Hotel, one of the most magnificent hotels I've ever been to. It is the swankiest hotel in Chicago, and one of the city's oldest and most magnificent institutions, to boot, a massive structure on the lakeshore. It's where Adam's dad likes to stay, when he's in town. He had already checked in, because when we walked in, his driver behind us with the bags, he took me straight to the elevators, and then right up to the top floor, using a room key in his wallet.

While we were on our way up, I turned to face him, slid my arms around his waist and kissed him, passionately. I should say, really, that I attacked him, pushing him toward the back of the car in the process. Our tongues wrestled, I could feel his firm lips pressing against mine, and I slid my hands up and down his back, kneading at the taut muscles and feeling his heartbeat thudding against my chest.

We arrived with the clunk of the elevator reaching the end of its long cable, and the door opened right onto our hotel room. So this is what the penthouse suite looks like, in an expensive hotel. I disentangled myself from Adam and got out of the elevator, before it could take us all the way back down to the lobby -- or, worse, have some tourists from Wichita interrupt our kissing.

We were in an enormous suite of rooms, with a front room the size of Adam's apartment and furnished completely unlike the rest of the hotel's rooms, like the inside of the Harvard Club in New York, mahogany panels, worn black leather and ancient ivory. We walked into the living room, and I sunk down into the sumptuous couch, feeling a little overwhelmed. But Adam walked purposefully to the far wall, and threw back the curtains. The light in the room had been diffuse, before, coming in from smaller windows along the southern and northern exposures. But this was the western wall, and I gasped at the sight of the entire city of Chicago spread before us. It wasn't at all like the view from the top of the Sears Tower, but it was astonishing. I pried myself from the couch, and stood mesmerized a few feet from the windows, scanning the horizon for my favorite buildings.

Adam threw open the curtains on the far side, and Lake Michigan was off in the distance, twinkling in the reflection of the sunset from the other side of the city, off on the horizon in the prairie.

He then came to me, picked me up off the couch -- he was, after all, the athlete, not me -- and carried me into the bedroom, which had been lavishly furnished and had a king bed, to boot. I squealed, I squirmed, because it brought back unfond memories of my pitiful attempts at playing football in gym class in high school, but Adam just laughed at me, pulled me in closer so I couldn't squirm. He had put on his poker face, but I knew that he wanted to drop me on the floor or something, just to see my reaction. I knew him that well.

My boyfriend set me down on the bed, and I found that I could breathe and did so, shallow, for a few seconds. Then he came after me with the passion of a tiger. His hands, his mouth, were all over me -- in one instant, we were kissing desperately, trying to see who could go the longest without oxygen, and the next, he was kissing my neck, my shoulders, my back. He laced his fingers through my hair, pulled my head closer to him. I could feel his cock straining against his jeans, trying to burst out of his zipper and into the open air, and pressing up against my pelvic bone.

That hurt. Adam was probably an easy 30 pounds heavier than me, all muscle weight, and having most of that difference in mass placed on one part of me was not comfortable.

So I rolled us over, lay on top of him, began to slide my hard cock against his chest. I moaned softly, looked up at the ceiling, feeling a profound hunger for Adam coming over me. Unlike him, I hadn't come already, hadn't gotten a blow job in an out-of-the-way hallway in the bowels of the Art Institute, so I had to be careful or I would ruin things before they began.

It's amazing, the things that run through your head, rapidly but also in slow-motion, when you're having sex. Somehow, you can still think, for instance, "If I'm not careful I'm going to come soon," even while your body is trying to do everything in its power to make that happen as soon as possible.

I leaned down, looked him square in the eye, and said, "I want you to fuck me."

"Do you?" he said, the bemused look of a man used to getting what he wants.

Actions speak louder than words, so I got up, and, in just a couple of swift moves, took off my shirt, shoes, jeans, socks, and underwear, and, standing naked in front of Adam with an erection the size of the Hancock Tower, I could feel his big blue eyes scanning me. He pulled off his clothes, then, right on the bed, pushed them off to one side. I crawled back onto the bed, slid myself slowly over his body, and kissed my way all the way up, like before at the museum, except this time I started with his toes. He squirmed, he gasped, he made the world's most ridiculous and yet attractive noises, and I showed no mercy. I wanted to make sure that he could feel every touch; I wanted him to have goosebumps over every inch of his skin by the time I was done with him.

We kissed passionately, once I made it through a few minutes of worshiping all the awe-inspiring musculature in his chest, and then his neck, kissed for a few minutes. I felt his hand, distantly, sliding up and down along my cock. I began to do the same to him, and his breathing grew ragged, his cock slick with precome.

"OK," I said. "Fuck me, Adam."

Second time's the charm, it seems. Adam fumbled around in his jacket pocket and retrieved a condom and two pillow packets of lube. He laid them down on the bed, reached out and grasped me by the hips, and pulled me toward him. My brain just about exploded from serotonin when, a second later, I felt his tongue licking my ass, and I knew what was coming. He gave a savage rim-job, and he wasn't afraid to use his teeth, to pry my sphincter open with his fingers and slide his tongue inside, to use his hands on my hips to give himself better leverage. There was nothing else in the world, only the waves of pleasure every stroke of his tongue sent through my body, only the feeling of his jaw against my cheeks, his hands gripping my hips, his tongue working its way around in my ass, and of my cock throbbing and dripping precome like a leaking faucet onto the sheets of the hotel bed. I'm sure we weren't the first.

For occasions just like this, I kept my ass groomed, the hair carefully clippered and scrubbed carefully with soap, like the rest of me, and I figured he appreciated it. Adam had always loved to rim me; sometimes, when we were in the right position, I could feel his cock actually growing from its already ridiculous size as he licked away. There's a fine art to using your tongue on someone's butt, a clear distinction between just sliding your tongue around and actively working on it, and Adam was always in the second category.

I felt myself getting close to coming, without even touching my cock. My entire body tensed, and the heat that was rising from my toes and my arms into my groin was definitely a sign. I managed to gasp, my voice hoarse, hardly recognizing myself, "I'm going to come, baby, stop, not yet."

Adam did. He let go of me and I collapsed onto the bed, so he leaned forward, turned my head sideways and kissed me from behind, while I could feel his rock-hard cock sliding between my cheeks, the head grazing my sphincter. It was a rough kiss, all passion and no love, and I loved it, slid my tongue out as far as I could into his mouth.

With the sound of a quick rip of plastic, while we kissed, Adam opened the first packet of lube, so I pulled myself back up onto my hands and knees. He got his forefingers wet with the gel, rubbed them together so it would warm up a little, and then started working in concentric circles around my hole. All I needed, all I needed in the whole world, in that instant, to feel complete was to have him slide that enormous cock inside of me and fill me up with it. It was so long, so massive, that it made my entire body warm and flush.

Soon he had one finger, and then a second, and then a third inside of me, all the while stroking in and out. He was leaning over me, kissing me from over my left shoulder, and my knees were trembling from the excitement.

"You're ready," he said, and it wasn't a question. He was right. He always knew.

My beautiful boyfriend, he of the blonde hair, blue eyes, and massive pecs, turned me over, then, using just his bare hands to flip me 180 degrees onto my back. I saw him then, in full, the powerful muscles working, and all Adam laid me there and tore open the condom packet lying on the bed, then the second lube packet, slid the condom on and then slicked himself up. He leaned in, kissed me, pushed my legs up one at a time with his free hand, and then reached down and bit my lip just as he started sliding the head in.

I gasped, froze. Fuck, it had been an awfully long time, too long, for that enormous piece of meat. All eight inches of it. I felt the end of the enormous flare of the head, as it passed inside of me, and I lay there, willing myself not to hurt.

After ten or fifteen seconds of silence, just our rough, uneven breathing, I started to feel the warmth that comes from good sex. I motioned for him to begin sliding in and out, and, like a good boy, Adam indulged me. He knew how to play me like a violin, and he was masterful that night, like Yitzhak Perlman at the top of his form.

I liked the incredible depth of penetration that Adam could give me, with his physical presence, his enormous cock, and his willingness to do whatever it took to get more of him inside of me. I growled, loudly, every time I felt his pelvis pressing against my ass, feeling the head of his cock buried deep inside of me, and I gasped louder still each time he pulled almost all the way out, held my hips and slammed himself back in all at once. He was everywhere, sucking on my neck, gnawing on my ear, kissing my shoulders, and all I could do was tug on his hair and grasp at his back. I was desperate, and the entire world was reduced to getting as much of his cock inside of me as humanly possible. We didn't say anything: He just grunted loudly with each stroke, and I made the kind of grating, gasping, squealing noises that I always make, just louder.

He began to drive in and out faster and faster, like the piston in an engine accelerating, and I wailed loudly in time with his strokes, as I felt his balls slapping against my ass harder and quicker. I laced my fingers through the forelocks of that blonde hair, pulled his head down and kissed him, desperately, said hoarsely, "I want you to fucking make me come, Adam. Make me come."

Adam knew what that meant. He reached out for the headboard, grasped on to it with one hand, and slid the other around the shaft of my cock, which was soaked wet and throbbing like a vibrator. He pulled his cock all the way out, until only the tiniest bit of the head was in, and then shoved his way in all at once, pulling on my cock in rhythm, while he leaned in and kissed me. At the very end, in this position, I could feel the head stabbing at my prostate, and I felt my body convulse.

The second time he did that, I shuddered, thrashed, screamed obscenities. I wailed, "FUCK! FUCK ME!" so loudly it could probably be heard from airplanes.

The third time he stabbed my prostate with the head of his cock, the entire world turned white, and I felt my body tense up. I came so hard, then, my entire body simply out of control, that there was jizz spattered all over our bed, his clothes, the floor, anywhere it could land.

Adam pulled out in a hurry, pulled the condom off in one deft move, pulled my head toward him, and slid his cock between my lips. I was exhausted, but I managed to swirl my tongue around the head for a few seconds. I reached out and stroked his balls, slid my forefinger up to rub his asshole. He was sweating profusely, his entire torso shining, and he shouted, "FUCK YEAH, I'M COMING!"

I felt the first shot hit the back of my throat, then more, and more, and more. I was struggling to keep up with swallowing everything, but I knew I would regret it if I didn't. I couldn't do anything about it though: Soon enough, there was some dribbling out of my mouth and onto the bed.

He reached out, helped slide some back into my mouth. He never did like it when I wasted any, or so he said.

"Fuck," I said, after I finished swallowing everything and caught my breath. I collapsed back on the bed, and Adam slid himself down and laid beside me, cradling me in his arms. "That was unbelievable," I added.

Adam reached out with his fingertip, flicked my nose, and gave me a kiss. A tender kiss. Not animal, not passionate. The kind of kiss you get from your boyfriend after sex, I suppose. "It was," he said. He wiped the sweat off his brow, and I leaned in to smell him, an even better kind of sweaty.

I moaned.

"You are such a fucking animal," he said. I looked down at his chest, and there were bite marks all over it.

So sue me, I thought, and I grinned devilishly. "Yeah, well. You'll get over it."

"I'd better," he said. "We have dinner reservations."

At that, Adam stood up, completely naked, deflated cock swinging between his legs. He towered over me, and really did have little red welts all over him. "I'll shower first," he said. "Alone."

I made a pouting face.

He rolled his eyes at me. "If we shower together," he said, "we'll never make it out the door. Now, take that pretty ass and go get dried off."

God, I loved that boy. "I love you, Adam," I said.

Adam smiled at me, and I saw the crow's-feet around his eyes he always gets when he's really happy. He turned around, and I heard him say, as he walked away, the words interrupted with laughter, "Just go use the shower in the other bathroom, Josh."

That night, we did end up going out for dinner, and having a night out on the town. Adam had the whole evening planned out, in a level of detail that was highly unusual for him: Dinner and a couple of bottles of rioja at the bar at Blackbird, two tickets to the Lyric Opera, snacks and wine with the lively after-theater crowd at Quartino. It was like something from a movie. He even got my roommates to pack a small duffel for me, and had his driver pick it up! Talk about being swept up off your feet!

The next day I sat down, picked up the phone and had a long conversation with my mother. I'd tried to keep her in the loop as to what was going on between Adam and me, and she had reminded me periodically that there were other boys in the world. All I'd wanted was him. When we talked, that morning, I cried when I told her that he had taken me back, and I knew, when I could hear her sniffling a little, that maybe I was right after all. "Josh, sweetie," she said, "I know how much you love him. You're going to have to remind yourself that it would have been your fault if you'd lost him. But you didn't. He loves you so much."

"How do you know that?" I asked.

She responded, plainly, "Because he told me so. He called me and told me that he had to find a way to get you back."

I was agape. "You were in on this and never told me anything?"

Elise, my mother, laughed then, the kind of laugh that gets louder the longer it goes on, until I had to hold the phone away from my ear. "Would you have gone along then?"

She had a point.

The next few weeks were a blur, full of spending many hours lying by Adam's side in bed, doing work or reading the newspaper, or just plain having sex. We were like a newly minted couple, and the days merged into one another.

But I do remember, vividly, that two weeks later, on a Friday night, Adam asked me if I'd like to have dinner with him. He picked me up around 7:00, and he looked so good, wearing a navy trench coat over tight-fitting navy slacks and a box-check oxford, that I could have eaten him up right then and there. I felt like a slouch, in a pair of charcoal dress slacks from a job interview and a French blue dress shirt, but he was insistent that I looked fine, so I didn't run upstairs to change.

We pulled up to our town's only four-star restaurant, a nouveau French place with pretty provincial-style decor. Now, I knew something was up. It was dinnertime, but I was curious. We'd eaten here before, but not recently. How odd.

He tossed his keys nonchalantly to the valet, as we pulled up to the curb in front of the restaurant, on a quiet, leafy street just a few blocks from the lake and more or less in the middle of a residential neighborhood. One of Adam's favorite actions on Earth was handing the keys to a valet. We strolled in to the restaurant, where the maitre d'hotel recognized us, probably because we were "that cute young gay couple from the university," and gave us a table right by one of the palatial windows. The place was about half-full, but it was just a sampling of the idly well-to-do townies, the kind of people who don't like cooking and think going to a bistro for dinner seems sane.

I smiled sweetly at Adam, and then we ordered lunch, quickly, talking over the light thirties jazz I always enjoyed there. At one time we had eaten here quite often. I ordered the venison, and Adam, the roast chicken, and chips and dip and an olive salad for each of us. The waiter smiled sweetly at us, and then Adam ordered a bottle of wine.

We chatted a little about our mornings, and about class. And the weather, which was absolutely magnificent, especially considering it was supposed to be muggy and miserable right now. Apparently we'd been spared the worst of a Midwestern summer, just as it was turning into fall.

Over salad, we enjoyed the first glass of wine. He'd chosen a good wine for the two of us to have, a rioja of which I was quite fond, the MarquŽs de Caceres. Even if I was a bit quaky-in-the-boots over the idea of drinking at a restaurant like this. We clinked our glasses together.

I saw a gleam in Adam's eye.

"You look like the cat that swallowed the canary," I said, perplexed. "Come on, spit it out, tell me what it is. What do you want?"

Adam gazed at me, his eyes betraying nervousness. I hadn't seen Adam nervous over anything that didn't involve a football game in a really long time.

Neither of us spoke for a few moments.

Then, he cut through the heavy silence. "I've been thinking about all the things we've said and done over the last two years, baby. I think I was wrong to react so badly to all of this... When you told me you'd been cheating on me. I wanted to apologize, Josh, you have to understand."

I smiled. "Adam, babe, I understand completely. You were a bit taken aback, and I think you were right, to be blunt. You reacted in an understandable way. Are we past it yet? I still love you."

At that, I saw his face shake a tad. "Yes. I love you. Very much." He fidgeted a little with his right hand, slid his hands down into his lap. "I want to try this again, baby. I really do. You know how much you mean to me. The thought of losing you makes me more nervous than anything I can imagine. You mean the world to me, and I don't mean that facetiously."

"Thank you, baby," I said. I could feel a blush spreading across my cheeks, hot and flushed and red. "You have no idea how much you mean to me. I thought I'd destroyed whatever chance I had of being happy again."

Adam smiled at me. "Well." He fumbled with his right hand, and removed something from the pocket of his trench coat. "That's what this is all about."

He set an envelope on the table. "Go ahead, open it, Josh." I was completely stunned. What should I make of this? An envelope?

What could be in it? Was it some kind of a letter, a proposition, a lawsuit -- just a few weeks after we almost broke up? What could it be? Is this a creative way of dumping me, he's going to get my hopes up and then--

My hands trembling, I reached out and took the envelope in my hand. I opened it up slowly, pulling the top up with my left hand, and then I flushed when I saw what was inside.

There was a black-and-white photo of the two of us, sitting together happily, on a bench under the trees, in the middle of campus. This must have been a couple of weeks ago, and it was absolutely magnificent, not to mention it looked spontaneous and yet totally posed; the look of adoration on my face was unmistakable. I loved that boy. I was utterly engrossed in the photo.

When I looked up, finally, Adam was standing next to me, instead of seated across from me. I looked up at him, gave him a funny look, opened my mouth to say something. I couldn't figure what to say, so I shut my mouth again.

Adam just gave me that "I swallowed the goldfish" look. He reached into another pocket, and pulled out a velvet box and set it on the table in front of me, a little cautiously.

I felt all the air swoooooosh out of my lungs, and I gasped for oxygen. My eyes watered up, and soon I felt a hot bead of salty water trickle down my cheek, followed by another. I didn't have the power to say anything.

"Adam..." I finally managed to croak out.

He looked at me. I saw he was concerned, I could read his eyes that well. "Just open it, baby."

So I reached out, cracked the box. In it was a ring, a silver band, the kind of classic, understated ring I guess he would expect I'd wear. My heart raced a thousand times faster still, and I began to cry much harder.

Adam stood up, went over to my side. "Josh," he said. "I love you. Will you marry me?"

Tears were now streaming down my face

I tried again. "Adam. This is the most beautiful, most wonderful thing anyone has ever done for me. I love you more than anything else, in the whole wide world. I don't know if I could ever love anything, or anyone, as much as I love you. When I thought I'd lost you, I despaired. I was seriously considering killing myself, you know. I'm glad I didn't go through with it." I paused, my lip quavering. "I want to be with you forever, baby. Yes. I will marry you."

He looked over at me, and began to cry with me too. I leaned in, and kissed him, in spite of the tears. It was a tender kiss, his lips soft against mine, with only love, and no lust.

The kind of kiss straight people routinely enjoy in a restaurant. Of course, I was kissing a boy. And at some point, it dawned on me that we were, after all, sitting in a restaurant kissing. Fuck.

I slowly pulled my head back from Adam's and looked around. To my astonishment, all the women and many of the men looked very happy and a bit misty-eyed. The woman sitting at the table nearest ours leaned over and said to me, "You sound very lucky. Congratulations, young man." She smiled and patted my shoulder.

My gaze went from the ring to Adam, to the smiling and happy crowd at the restaurant, back to Adam, and then back to the ring in its box, still sitting on the table. Then, I burst into tears.

Somehow, we made it home safely, after an uneventful rest of the meal. It's funny, I remember every detail like it was yesterday. How often do you get engaged? We spent the rest of the meal talking about it. When the wedding would be -- since we were both juniors, we'd wait until we graduated; what we would serve; what we would wear; and, of course, where it would be -- I was insistent that we should get married at Council Crest Park, in Portland, on a hilltop with the city off in the distance, but he had a vision of us being married on the beach in the backyard of his parents' home in Del Mar. I teased him that we'd be able to see the illegal immigrants sneaking into the U.S., if we were married on the beach so near the border. We eventually settled on the most picturesque location of them all: Washington Park, where the International Rose Test Garden is, on the side of the hilltops overlooking downtown Portland. It's the iconic photo of Portland, and, as I told Adam, if we were married in July, it would be the most picturesque wedding he could imagine.

And I figured we'd have a pretty lavish wedding. With his parents' money, what wedding wouldn't be? "I may be the bride," I said, "but you are not bankrupting my mother on a wedding." Adam thought that was funny, and said that he figured his mother would insist on planning it anyway. "She's been planning my wedding ever since they found out she couldn't have another child. She always wanted a daughter. She'll have a great time planning it."

Now I certainly knew where the rest of Adam's money went. Of course, he didn't have to pay for the meal himself; he pulled out the credit card I'd only seen him use a few times before, the silver American Express. Daddy's tab. Now I knew why the people at the restaurant liked us so much. Thanks, Mr. Vanderhuyden... he paid for the car, he paid for the king-sized bed, he paid for dinner, and he probably paid for the condom I heard crinkling in Adam's pocket. Fuck, that was an exciting thought. About the only thing he didn't pay for was the ring.

Ah, yes, the ring. I asked Adam, over dinner, and he told me that he'd been saving up all of the extra allowance for all the little extravagances over the past few weeks. I guess that's why he was a little touchy when I started asking all those questions, on the way to the Art Institute, about where all that money went. He didn't want me to know that he'd bought me a ring. It didn't even occur to me to sleuth and find out how he'd paid for the hotel room, the dinner the other night at Blackbird, whether he'd paid with Daddy's card or with his own money.

Adam and I walked home after the meal. It was a beautiful night, no clouds to be seen and a light breeze rustling the leaves, but he was a little cold -- what a Californian -- so I let him try to wrap my jacket around his shoulders. He had deliberately parked somewhere where we could leave the car overnight, although we stopped to double-check on the way back. We were giddy, like high-schoolers in love for the first time, on the way back, holding hands and giggling. I can't remember the last time I was that happy.

It was a short walk to Adam's apartment, and then we were all over each other in the elevator. Finally, the elevator made a cheerful sound and deposited us on Adam's floor. He fumbled with his keys, anxiously struggling to open the door to his apartment, and then pushed me inside and shoved me up against the door, as soon as he'd closed it, kissing me roughly and running his fingers through my hair. He moaned in my ear as I grasped my hands on his ass to pull his pelvis closer to mine, and then gasped when we felt our cocks connect. The sensation was overwhelming. I softly touched his head, then raked my fingers through the back of his neck. "Oh, my God, Adam," I whispered softly.

"I love you, baby," Adam whispered hoarsely in my ear. "You know that, right?"

I reached over to the wall and flicked off the switch, and then I smiled devilishly at him in the greenish half-light from the window. "Of course. I love you too. Now get your pretty little ass over here."

CONCLUDING NOTES

If you made it this far, you can read these last six sentences. Which means you should email me. How? Open your email client, and send a message to:

josh.heilig@gmail.com

Tell me how much you liked it, or didn't like it. And thank you, every one.