Date: Tue, 25 Sep 2001 18:43:30 -0400
From: C. E. Jordan <c.e._Jordan@MailAndNews.com>
Subject: MY DENNIS 10: COMING TO TERMS

 My Dennis Copyright c.e. jordan



                    MY DENNIS 10: COMING TO TERMS



     As I related previously, for the first few years Dennis was around only
during the Summer holidays--part of which he also spent traveling with two
other kids and a chaperone through Europe. On one of those trips, a much older
Italian girl, probably dazzled by his arrogant attitude and beautiful brown
skin, expertly seduced my D in Rome....and I suspect that experience was the
beginning of the end of the 'intimate' part of our friendship...I guess he
thought he had to choose.......

     Still, Dennis taught me how to relax and have fun--he drew me out of my
shell, pulled me away from my books, taught me to play cards, and all about
baseball; for the first time I found myself having fun at dumb movies in Times
Square, screaming on the monster rides at the parks...playing video
games...all stuff I'd never done before.

     So, D made me laugh and made me just a little crazy. I took him to
museums, to Broadway shows, and helped him with schoolwork. I may've been the
adult, technically, but he was more assertive and outgoing and knew some stuff
I didn't. Looking back now, I have no idea why nobody ever questioned our
relationship--but just before I moved into an apartment of my own, my mom, a
serious, brilliant person and a `diciplinarian' finally asked me, "How is it
you let D manipulate you like that, why do you let him talk to you so
disrespectfully?"

     I think she may have heard him cussing.

     I remember being with D at Coney Island beach the same summer we first
met. His hand clutched mine tightly as we strolled along without speaking. It
dawned on me that this boy I barely knew trusted me implicitly, actually
wanted to be with me. I could hardly believe it. He demanded a ride on my
shoulders. And as we walked along the edge of the Atlantic ocean late that
afternoon, the breeze whipped up frothy little whitecaps on the ocean and sent
tiny waves to lick at my feet squishing along in the sand.

      Dennis was sitting on my shoulders. His slim bare legs hung over my
chest and I could hear him humming--a contented, happy, tuneless song. I also
felt him slowly hardening against the back of my neck. I didn't say anything.
I took it simply as a sensual tribute to his pleasure in being with me in this
place, at this time, on this perfect day. There was no need to say or do
anything about it.

     I began to experience life partially through him. Everything--the
weak-tea colour of the Atlantic, running barefoot in the warm sand, and even
the sticky-sweet pink and blue cotton candy he insisted on inhaling in large
quantities, suddenly became a rare treat for me. There was so much I'd been
missing before he came into my life. It seemed, sometimes, I was in a state of
heightened awareness. Every now and again my mom would look at me quizzically
and raise her eyebrows--she didn't say anything, but her smile told me she was
glad I had suddenly blossomed in the presence of this boy. She approved, I
think, or else she'd have certainly done something about it, or said
something.......like that time she'd overheard D cussin'...

     In retrospect, the sadder times came only at the very end. Without any
real experience of such a deep relationship with a boy, and uncertain of the
intrinsic rules of the game, I guess I wasn't quite prepared for it....tho'
instinctively, I knew it was my duty to let him go on to the next stage of his
life unimpeded by my need to hang on to him.

     Although my jealous instinct was to try competing with his growing number
of friends. I didn't. Instead I withdrew. Thus we were apart more often. I
know he noticed what was happening but he didn't say anything. Perhaps he
simply didn't have the words to talk about it. But I'll tell how everything
finally ended.

     Dennis was now fourteen. He went off to his regular trip through Europe.
I got cards from England, France, Spain and Germany....but in Rome, he told me
later, he met a couple of girls who wanted him, one was an American tourist
and the other a local girl. The older one, an Italian, probably about
nineteen, sneaked him out of his room and set about making love to him--they
didn't get to the point of intercourse because the chaparone did a check and
went looking for him.

      At home, after that encounter, it seemed he'd made some sort of radical
decision. Girls came out the woodwork. They'd follow him home from school and
go up to the roof of his apartment to make out. They'd want him to go further
but for some reason he couldn't, or wouldn't. That girl would leave. And
Maria, unaware of the other girl, would return home from school and she and
Dennis would sneak back up to the roof for the only bit of privacy they could
find. You might say D was having a busy time of it. And all along he was still
seeing me on most weekends.

     It was odd, but in his customary late night hours-long calls to me
telling me all about his day, he would describe every last detail of these
trysts--who did what and exactly how it was done. This was the only time we
ever talked specifically about sex--still, we never, ever discussed our own
intimacies. It was excruciatingly painful for me to listen to, but I didn't
let him know it.

      At the time I wondered if he was deliberately trying to make me react in
anger--to hurt me, or make me jealous.  But eventually it dawned on me that he
wasn't deliberately being mean. Because of his deep intimate connection to me,
he was actually struggling to hold me close; he wanted me to know exactly what
was happening with him, to share all his feelings. And I tried, I really did.

     By this time Dennis could travel around on the subway by himself and he
had a key to my apartment. Because Maria's parents were so strict, she and D
rarely got together except for those stolen minutes on the rooftop. So he
asked me if they could meet at my apartment. They would tell their parents
that they had to stay for some hour-long after-school activity, but instead
they'd meet at my place.. They could get home quickly from there--it was
relatively close. I wasn't sure about this whole plan. But I was very afraid
of what else they might attempt at some other unsafe venue--so I said okay.
But I hammered home over and over again in one of our long phone
conversations, about the need for protection. I told D that one slip and he
would have a baby to take care of. He told me he understood. And knowing his
normal superb good sense, I trusted him to be careful if they decided to have
sex. And after listening to Maria on the phone, that was a foregone
conclusion.

     Dennis planned his assignation with the precision he does everything
else. I wasn't supposed to return home before four-thirty pm. That day was the
most miserable of my life. If I used alcohol I would have gone out and got
very, very drunk, but I was fated to be clear-headed and tormented, an
over-imaginative, heart-broken man assisting my young love to make love to
somebody else--to become a man.

(to be continued)