Date: Tue, 25 Sep 2001 18:51:22 -0400
From: C. E. Jordan <c.e._Jordan@MailAndNews.com>
Subject: MY DENNIS 11: THE RUMPLED BED

My Dennis Copyright c.e. jordan



                  MY DENNIS 11: THE RUMPLED BED


     Museums are quiet like churches. I usually feel soothed there. But this
day my walk through the Metropolitan Museum of Art didn't help. The movie I
couldn't stop from running through my mind overwhelmed and obscured the
masterful Rubens and the bright impressionist landscapes hanging right before
my eyes. I left and took a long walk looking in the windows of the ritzy
stores along Madison Avenue. I walked from 96th Street uptown all the way to
8th Street in lower Manhattan near SoHo. I checked my watch, it was four p.m.
I wondered what was happening at that very moment in my apartment. My anxiety
increased and I surpressed an urge to phone home. So I stopped in a small
Pizza place on Broadway where I knew they wouldn't throw me out if I lingered
too long.

      While I picked at my pizza, I tried to focus on a novel I had with me. I
even remember the name of the book...it was `DHALGREN', a complex literary
Science Fiction masterpiece by Samuel R. Delany. It's set in some
indeterminate future. But any kind of future for me, at that moment at least,
was unimaginable--just too difficult for my uncomprehending brain to grasp. So
I just sat and idly stared out at the people passing by.

     I must have dozed off, because when I jerked awake and glanced at my
watch, it was near six pm. I looked around embarassed, but the friendly pizza
guy just smiled and asked, "You had a nice rest? Looked like you needed it."

     "I guess I did, thanks for not throwing me out." And I left for home.

                              ****

     I dropped the keys twice as I fumbled to unlock my door. I entered and
looked around. Everything seemed in place but the quality of the air was
subtly different. Perhaps it was my overactive imagination again. The kitchen
was fine except there were two empty soda cans on the counter. I entered the
bedroom with some apprehension. And, yes, the bed was rumpled. I suppose
Dennis deliberately left it that way for me to see--and experience. His normal
neatnik impulse would be to, at least, pull it smooth. I got out of there and
entered the bathroom to throw some water on my face. As I toweled my face dry,
I happened to glance into the toilet bowl and my stupid heart nearly stopped.
There on the surface of the water was a sheet of baby-wipes or paper towel,
blushing reddish pink at the center. D had left me vivid proof of his brand
new manhood, the virgin blood of his young love floating in my toilet.

     I threw myself upon the mussed up bed that used to be ours, on which we
once rolled around together wet in a crazy rain of Coca Cola, and a squalid
mess of crunched potato chips. And I wept. Not very manly, I know, but I
couldn't help it. I wept for the end of all the things we had shared....and
the impossibility of love that would last forever....I was disconsolate that
the central fact of life is that, eventually, things change .......

     I waited wondering if he'd call as usual. And as usual he did. He was
hesitant at first, but soon D was enclosing me in his web, pulling me in
close, trying to get me to feel exactly what he'd experienced. The bloody
evidence, I knew, was meant to involve me in some way with his first
hetrosexual act that established his identity as a functioning male. I could
tell as he spoke, that doing it in my bed was like I, his loving partner, had
been right there for him. It's hard to explain...I wondered for a second if he
was thinking of me even as he made love to the unsuspecting girl. I shook my
head. Probably not. He was telling me:

     "She was so soft inside, and she was begging me to do it. But when I
pressed in harder she yelled `no, no' get off, get off, it hurts..."

     I did nothing but breathe, and Dennis continued to speak, "But when I
tried to get off of her, she wouldn't let me go....then it was `get off', `get
off' all over again....but I couldn't stop myself this time and she went
`oooof' and Charles, I sunk deep, all the way in...inside she felt so soft and
so damned tight at the same time..."

     He continued on like this for awhile and I listened to him in a daze.

     "Charles, she kept cumming over and over and over again. I only came
twice. But she didn't want to stop at all." He sounded astonished that girls
were like that.

     "Then...after my third time, I was really tired and it was getting late.
It was after four. We were going to be in big trouble. I had to beg her to get
dressed."

     Well, all I can say, is that Maria got an introduction to sex from a boy
with stamina, one who was thoughtful, inventive, and unselfish in bed. No
wonder she didn't want to let him go. And he got a girl who was responsive and
who truly wanted him. I suppose it was a good experience all around. Except,
of course, for me.

     "We got dressed, an' as we were about to go out the door, Maria started
kissing on me and pulling me back, saying we didn't have to go and saying
stuff like, she didn't care if she was late, and she didn't care what her
parents did to her....she wanted to stay and do it again! But it was late and
my `little D' was just about dead...I told her I didn't have any more
condoms....but she said she didn't care.....hey, I remembered what you said
about babies....so I grabbed that girl and told her we had to leave NOW!"

     I was glad my advice sank in, but I was about to throw up. I had to make
him shut up. "D, I'm sorry....we can't do this anymore."

     "Huh? What you mean."

     "Talk...like this...and.........the other thing."

     Silence.

     "It's too painful for me to keep on doing this D..."

     "I....I know...."

     "You know what?"

     "That.....that ......we got to stop......"

     Was I imagining it? I thought I heard a snuffling. D never displays much
emotion.

     "I love you D, I always will." I don't think I had told him that so
directly before...I guess, because it was too easy a thing to say.

     I was astonished to hear him reply, "I love you too
Charles............look, you're makin' me cry."

    There. I said it, and he'd said it. Somehow, I began to feel better even
with all the tears. If we had to part, at least we could go our own way
knowing that whatever happens, dispite Maria, wife, kids, whomever and
whatever, there'd be a special kind of love, a bond between us which would
survive forever. That was my hope, at least.

     "So, what's gonna happen now?" D asked.

     "I don't know kiddo...I guess were gonna find out as we go along..."

                              ****