Date: Fri, 20 Nov 2009 17:27:56 EST
From: Park517@aol.com
Subject: Doctor of the Heart   Chapter Six

[DISCLAIMER: The following completely fictional story, the sole copyright
for which belongs to the author, contains explicit depictions of sexual
intercourse between men and should not, therefore, be read by anyone under
the legal age of consent in whatever jurisdiction or by anyone offended by
homoerotic and/or pornographic material.  It is forbidden to post the text
electronically or disseminate it in any manner without permission of the
copyright holder.  The author-- park517@aol.com -- welcomes comments]




Breakfast, he also announced, was not an occasion for talk about love.  And
as soon as it was over, Luc and Jean-Pierre were at the door eager to start
another sitting.  Mitya said he would go to an Internet cafe and check
his mail and do some errands.  "Don't worry," he said, "if I do not come
back for lunch.  I need to think and I think well when I walk much."  With
which, he was out the door and I was alone with my models.  They were both
wearing baggy shorts and gym shirts, the kind with huge armholes that
created a peekaboo tunnel to their nipples.  I found the sight distracting
and asked if they couldn't go home and change into regular t-shirts.

"Why do we have to wear shirts at all?" asked Luc, stripping his off.
"It's really hot today, and it's a lot more comfortable without them."

Jean-Pierre looked at me for permission, and I just nodded.  "Later,
though," I said, "you'll have to wear shirts with sleeves at least for a
few minutes.  For now, you can strip to the skin for all I care."

They both blushed, whether because the idea turned them on or scared them I
didn't know.  The important thing was that I had kept the psychological
upper hand, and for the next 90 minutes or so, I also kept them hard at
work arm wrestling as I sketched.  I was really pleased with what I'd been
able to capture, their cheerful, animal vitality and the passion they put
into competing, into winning and losing.  The portrait was going to be
good.

"Coffee break," I announced after a particularly fierce round.  "Or do you
want something cold?"

"Beer?" Luc grinned.

"Coke," I answered.  "Or iced tea.  I'm not going to contribute to the
delinquency of minors, especially not before noon when they're my clients
and their mother lives a few doors away and would come after me with a whip
or a gun."

"Both, probably," Jean-Pierre laughed.  "I'd like coffee, please."

Luc chose a Coke, but because he'd lost the last round, he was sent home to
get the t-shirts.  Jean-Pierre followed me to the stove.

"Yves," he said, his voice surprisingly husky, "could I ask you something?"

"Sure.  What's on your mind?"

"Would you like to draw me some more?"

I thought for a moment.  "By yourself?  Without Luc?"

"Well, yes."

"Do you want another portrait for someone?  For a girl?"

"No."  Now he was almost whispering.  "For me.  And Yves, I wouldn't wear
any clothes.  Would you like me like that?"

I nearly dropped the coffee pot.  This gorgeous boy, half of my wildest
fantasy, was coming onto me.  It couldn't be.  He had to be teasing.  But
he wasn't.

"Yves, I've seen how you look at us.  I don't mean now, for the picture.  I
mean, in the street.  And I like looking at you.  So, I thought..."

"Don't," I tried to stop him.  "Don't think about things like that."

"I can't stop," he suddenly wailed.  "I thought you would help me, show me
things, so I could understand what I am, whether I am ... you know..."

His eyes were dangerously moist.  I put my hands on his pumped upper arms.
"Jean-Pierre, I'll talk to you about it, about being gay, anytime you want,
for as long as you want, but with all your clothes on and without either
one of us touching the other.  You're just 16..."

"I'll be 17 in December."

"And until you're 18, anything sexual with you could put me in prison.
Worse, it would make your mother hate me.  And Luc.  He'd want to kill me."

"I'm not so sure.  We're twins.  He has feelings, too."

"Lots of boys do.  For a while, when we're still not certain, when we're
curious.  It's natural.  But it's also against the law for an adult, which
is what I am, to make love with a child, which is what you are.  Please,
Jean-Pierre, we can talk all about it, and I want to help you if I can,
but," I dropped my hands, "as a friend. That's all.  You understand, don't
you?"

"I suppose." His head drooped, a portrait of dejection, the lover spurned.
If I had dared, I would have hugged him.  Instead, I patted him on the
shoulder.

"Come on, Jean-Pierre," I urged him.  "You're right about the way I look at
you and Luc.  You two are fantastic hunks.  I dream about you, but I never
dreamed that you and I would be friends.  And now we are.  And for me,
that's better than all the other stuff because I never imagined that you
would want me..."

"I do want you."  He started to put his arms around me.  I pulled away.

"Would want me as a friend.  I'm really flattered.  And I'll try to be a
real friend, if you let me."

He didn't say anything, but his eyes began to overflow.  Just then Luc
hammered at the door to be let back in.  "Upstairs," I said sharply.  "Wash
your face.  Cold water.  And come back down grinning.  We'll talk another
time.  I promise."  I kissed his nose.  "Go!"

He was a good actor.  Once we'd had the coffee break and the boys had their
shirts on, he threw himself into the work of posing with all the gusto he
had shown earlier.  In less than an hour, I was finished with them.  "Come
back around six o'clock," I said.  "I should have something to show you by
then, and, remember, if you don't like it, you don't have to take it."

After they left, I put the sketches up on my cork board and blocked out the
outlines of the composition with a very fine pencil.  It would work.  But I
needed a break.  I made a sandwich and a small salad and put on the
Penderecki CD I had thought of playing for Tommy.  "The Seven Gates of
Jerusalem."  Weird and moving but also soporific.  I napped, but not for
more than ten minutes, and when I woke, the picture was complete in my
mind.  It was just a matter of putting the image on paper.  I used charcoal
and crayons and pen and ink for most of the details and gouache for the
shirts so that those two strong blocks of color anchored the design while
the boys' heads, necks and arms flowed out of them.  The result wasn't
perfect.  I hadn't realized how hard it would be to get their fine, golden
heads of hair to look natural.  Still, I was pleased with what I had
accomplished, and I thought that Luc and Jean-Pierre and their mother would
be pleased, too.  I had caught two, handsome, playful young men in a moment
of mixed joy and anguish, a moment from their everyday lives that would be
preserved long after their youth was gone.

"It's a miracle, Yves.  You are a genius."  The voice was Mitya's.  I had
been so absorbed in making final touches that I had blocked out my
surroundings.  I swiveled around, arms wide open, to embrace him, but as
soon as I saw him, I stepped back.  He was filthy.

"You're filthy," I said.  "You look as if a building fell on you.  Are you
all right?  Where have you been?  What happened to you?"

"I am wonderful," he grinned through a mottled coating of sweat, dirt and
plaster dust.  "I have been knocking a house down.  Not such a big house,
but old.  It was already falling apart, and I just helped.  And got money."

"Which you will have to spend on new clothes.  Those are ruined."  I eyed
the sweat-streaked shirt and grimy jeans that had looked so nice when I
bought them for him.  At least, his shoes were those horrible gray boats he
had brought from Montenegro.  I'd never have to wince at the sight of them
again.

"They have only to be cleaned somewhat," Mitya insisted.  "They are to be
my work clothes, and I am to be a worker."

It turned out that on his morning walk, he had overheard loud, fluent
cursing in Serbian and discovered a wrecking crew of his more-or-less
countrymen.  They were short-handed.  He was hired on the spot with the
promise of more work for the rest of the month.  "And Yves," he beamed, "it
was a feeling of being in home, a really good feeling.  I ache in many
places because it was hard work, but my heart is very, very happy."

"Then I am happy for you, and if you will go upstairs and take three long
showers, one right after the other, I will come and rub your aches away."
I looked at my watch.  "The twins should come soon to see their portrait,
and as soon as they go, I'll put on my massage clothes and find you."

"What do you wear to give a massage?"

"Nothing," I giggled. "And you should be in the same costume."

"I will have to look in my wardrobe... The closet, I am sorry, to see do I
have such non-clothing.  I think I do."  He was laughing.  Relaxed.  Happy.
The grief in his eyes had shrunk out of sight.

I pulled his dirty face down to mine and kissed him.  "Go right now. You
are shedding like a mongrel dog.  If you stay here any longer, Madame
Dubois will never get the place clean."

Halfway up the stairs, though, he stopped and turned back.  "Yves, my work
today has made me happy, but your work, it should make you famous.  You
must have fallen into love with those boys to make them so alive and ... I
do not know the word ... so charmful."

I blushed.  I like being praised, but I never know how to respond.  "Thank
you, Mitya," I stammered.  "They were fun to work with, but I have enough
love already to keep me busy.  If you would pose for me ..."

"In massage costume?"  He was laughing.

"That might be too distracting.  Go clean up while I think about what you
should wear."

As he climbed the rest of the stairs, the boys knocked at the front door.
I let them in, pointed them to the easel and went to the kitchen.
Suddenly, I was very nervous.  They might not like my idea or the way I'd
done it.  I kept my back to them, waiting to hear their disappointment,
their anger, anything.  But there was only silence.  After a while, I
couldn't stand the suspense. I turned to look.  One boy had his arm around
the other's shoulder.  The other's hand was in the small of his brother's
back.  They were frozen in front of the picture, their heads touching at
the temples.  When I walked to their side, I saw something astonishing.
Each had tears in his eyes.

"Is it all right?" I asked.  "Is it what you wanted?"

At first, they didn't look at me.  Then, together, they nodded.  And
finally Luc spoke.  "I... I mean we ... have never seen ourselves like
this, as different guys who are the same.  Yves," he reached for my hand,
"you have made us understand ourselves.  Hasn't he, Jean-Pierre?"

"Oh, yes."  Jean-Pierre's cheeks were wet.  "Plusque mon frere, t'es mon
ƒme.  (More than my brother, you're my soul.)  I'm sorry," he hugged Luc
to him, "that I hit you with that stick.  I love you, Luc," he was weeping.
"I love you so much.  I'll never hurt you again. I promise."

"It's okay, Mou-Mou. It's okay."  Luc wrapped his brother in his arms.  I
might as well have been invisible.  They were completely in their own
world.  "I'm sure we'll fight again.  It's what we do.  But we'll do it for
fun from now on.  Like in the picture."

"Yes," Jean-Pierre breathed.  "Oh, yes.  Like in the picture."  He suddenly
lifted his head and stared straight at me.  "Yves, how did you know to see
us like that?  You didn't have anything to do with us, really, till
yesterday.  Which was our fault.  All our fault."  He separated himself
from Luc and put his hands on my shoulders.  "We were so wrong about you."
His hands went around my neck and his lips grazed my cheek.  "We can never
pay you what we owe you."

>From behind me, Luc leaned in and kissed my other cheek.  "We can pay you
the money, don't worry," he said, "but Jean-Pierre means we can never make
up for being so stupid about you and not understanding how terrific and
totally sympa you are.  If Mitya hadn't come along, we would have just gone
on being stupid."

"So, will you thank him for us?" Jean-Pierre chimed in.  "And, Yves, will
you let us be your friends, for always?"

I promised.  I was so moved and frankly surprised by the effect of my work
on them that I started to shake their hands.  Instead, I kissed both of
them on the cheeks.  Then I got a little teary myself, and that broke the
tension.  We all laughed.  They high-fived me.  It was over.  No, they
didn't want anything to drink.  No, I didn't mind if they just hung around
for a while and looked at their portrait some more.  And it was okay if I
went and took a shower.  They would let themselves out.  Tomorrow, after
I'd been to the frame shop, they'd come get the receipt and pay me my fee.

It was all so cordial and easy, and it was all Mitya's doing.  I hurried
upstairs to reward him with a massage, for starters, but even though he was
sprawled naked and face down on my bed, he was not waiting for a back rub.
He was sound asleep.  I took a long look and then a long shower, but when I
came out, he was still lost to the world.  I quietly collected some clean
clothes, dressed in the other bedroom and went back to my studio to call
Tommy and tell him about everything that had happened.  Almost everything.
I decided to keep Jean-Pierre's confused affection to myself.

Tommy wasn't in, or wasn't answering his 'phone.  I hung up without leaving
a message.  I didn't want him to call back and wake Mitya.  I thought of
doing that myself.  I thought of sneaking back to the bedroom with my
sketch pad.  And to stop the thoughts that came as I recalled that perfect,
supine body on my bed, I took a hunk of modeling clay and started to shape
shoulders, a torso, a pair of magnificent buttocks rising from strong, long
legs.  As my fingers worked, though, my eyes closed, and all the strain of
the day caught up with me.  I lowered my head to the work bench -- just for
a little nap, I told myself -- and was instantly, deeply unconscious.

"Yves, Yves."  The voice was gentle.  So was the touch on my arm.  Slowly,
confused, I came awake to find Mitya bending over me, smiling.  I tried to
turn to him, but my neck was terribly stiff, and I groaned loudly.  "Are
you hurt, Yves?" he asked.

"Just my neck," I said, rubbing it.

"Let me."  He put my hands at my sides and slowly helped me sit up
straight.  Then he began kneading my shoulders and neck, diffidently at
first and then with measured pressure.  It was agony, wonderful, blissful
agony, and I moaned my pleasure.  "I am hurting you?"

"Yes," I said.  "No, it feels great.  Don't stop yet, please."

He didn't, but he gradually reduced the probing of his thumbs and after
tenderly moving my head back and forth, he pronounced me cured.  "I, too,
can give massage," he chuckled.  "I waited for you after my shower but you
did not come and I fell to sleep."

"I saw.  I decided to let you rest.  You had a hard day."

"But I got money enough for a nice supper.  You will decide where we should
to eat, please, and I will pay for it."

I didn't argue.  There was no point.  But I remembered a cheap, halfway
decent Greek restaurant across town, where we could sit in a sort of
garden.  I also remembered that Montenegro was almost next door to Greece.
I had looked it up on a map.  Mitya loved the souvlaki, and the moussaka
was all right, but the Greek beer was unspeakable and the Greek (meaning
Turkish) coffee was too sweet.  Still, it was fun just to be with Mitya.  I
told him what the boys had said about the picture and about him, and he
seemed pleased.  "What would be wonderful, though," he said, "would be if
you had known Rifat so you could to make a picture of him.  Sometimes, I
have the fear that I will not remember his face."

"I could try, I guess, but it wouldn't be a feeling portrait.  When the
police are trying to catch a criminal, they sometimes have witnesses help
them to make a sketch.  If you can describe his looks, I can draw and you
can correct as I go along."

Mitya got very excited by the idea.  As soon as we got home, he made me get
out pencil and paper and hovered over me as I tried to sketch a boyish face
with deep-set eyes, a mane of curly brownish hair and slightly prominent
ears.  We settled temporarily on a neutral shade of gray for the eyes.
Mitya said they could go from silver to storm-cloud, but I suggested we
leave the coloring till later.  That was the easy part.  "His chin?" I
asked.

"It was like yours," Mitya thought a while. "Or maybe it was not."  He put
a finger at the back of my jaw and gently traced it forward.  "This bone,"
he said, "in Rifat it was not so long, so elegant as yours, I do not
think."

I fudged the chin for the time being but got the eyebrows right - straight
and thick - and, with a lot of guidance, managed to set down a nose that
was both aquiline and pert and couldn't possibly be both.  "He had spots on
both sides," Mitya gestured.

"Pimples?" I asked.  "Lots of teenagers have that problem."

"No.  Specks of color.  A little bit red.  A little bit brown.  Not very
much to be noticed at first."

"Freckles, then.  Like Huck Finn."

"Yes.  Just so.  They were adorable."

When I asked for help with the mouth though, Mitya lost it.  "I am full of
shame," he groaned, "I do not properly remember.  We kissed so much, and I
still have in memory the scratchy little hairs under his lip, but except to
see in my mind how he laughed, I cannot to tell you of his mouth.  We
cannot to make a good picture."  His eyes were very wet.

I stood up and hugged him.  "It's all right, Mitya.  We can make a picture.
Let me try to draw Rifat in profile and you can help fix it, and that will
bring back the memories.  But would you mind if we do it at the lake?  I
thought we would drive up tomorrow evening and have a long weekend.  You
can work tomorrow, and I'll get you back Monday morning early."

"I have made you to be tired, Yves, is that not right?  I was not
thoughtful of you.  Yes, of course, we will do more drawing when the times
are good for you.  And maybe my rememberings will be stronger."

We put out the lights, and as we went upstairs, Mitya took my hand.
"Yves," he asked, "would you let me to hold you in the bed tonight?  Only
to sleep, but I would be very happy to be close to you when I try to
remember my love and how he looked."

"There is nothing I want more, Mitya, than to be close to you.  Awake,
asleep, all the time."

"But maybe not when I am to be working."  He chuckled.  "When I am dirty."

"When you become a doctor, you will have to be super clean all the time,
and, if you let me, I'll be there all the time."

He looked embarrassed.  "That is to be much time from now, Yves.  Let us
just to be together now."

I knew when to leave well enough alone.  After using the bathroom, we
climbed into my bed, I in my briefs and Mitya in his droopy boxers.  Mitya
kissed me goodnight on the cheek, drew my body into his and with one arm
around my waist went almost immediately to sleep.  I was tired enough to
follow, but I was hopeful enough to dream that we were at the lake and I
had him completely undressed and he was pulling me between his legs,
letting me mount him.  And he was smiling encouragement at me.

"Yves, Yves," I woke up to find that he was smiling at me, but from above.
Standing by the bed and dressed in grubby jeans and a fresh shirt, he held
out a coffee cup to me.  "I must to go," he said.  "They start the work
early.  Tell me, please, when I should to be home to go with you."

"Four o'clock or so," I muttered, taking the cup.  "Or sooner if you want a
massage." He smiled and vanished.  I took a sip of the coffee, put the mug
on the floor and went blissfully back to sleep.

The telephone woke me.  My mother, with a list of provisions I was to bring
from the city.  Artichokes.  Smoked salmon.  A Reblochon, my father's
favorite cheese.  Fennel.  I wrote everything down and added to her list
the American peaches I hoped were still for sale and brioches from my
favorite bakery.  "We'll be there by seven, Maman," I said.  "Maybe
earlier.  Maman, my friend, Dmitri, well, he likes to be called, Mitya.
Maman, he's getting over a terrible tragedy, so not too much teasing,
please."

"Will you tell me the story, darling?"

"Not now.  Maybe up there.  You might be able to help him.  He can be so
sad."

	"Comme tu veux, mon ame.  Drive carefully."  She made a kissing
sound and hung up.

	After breakfast and a call to Tommy to arrange timing, I did the
shopping, took the twins' portrait to be framed, packed for myself and
Mitya and put the drawing of Rifat and my sketch pad and pencils in a
carrying case that Tommy had given me for my birthday last year.  Wondering
if Mitya played, I got out my two tennis rackets and some balls.  I knew he
didn't have white shorts and shirts, but we could buy them at the club.

Just as I finished lunch, the doorbell rang.  It was Jean-Pierre.  He gave
me the money for the portrait.  I gave him the receipt for the framers.
And then he just stood in the doorway, shifting from one foot to another,
head down, about to say something but not able to get it out.

	I ached for him.  "Come on in, Jean-Pierre.  I have some iced tea.
You do want to talk, don't you?"

	"Oh, yes.  Yes, please."  He looked at me and smiled a little.  "If
you have time, Yves."

	Once we were safely on opposite sides of the kitchen table, I
reached across it and took his hand.  "I'm only 23, Jean-Pierre.  I
remember what it's like to find out that you're different.  It's awful, I
know, but it gets better."

"When?"  His eyes were brimming.  "And I don't think it's awful to
be... well, to be different, like you said.  What's awful is to have to
pretend all the time and to be afraid you'll get caught."

"You," I hesitated, "you aren't doing anything with other boys, are you?
Or men?"

"No.  I want to.  You know that.  But that's not what I mean.  Getting
caught is having one of the guys I like catch me looking at him.  I can't
help but look.  And then I wonder if he could be like me and be hiding,
too.  How do you find that out, Yves?  Without coming on to somebody, I
mean?"

"Is it one friend, in particular?"

"He's not really a friend.  We just met roller-blading.  He's really good.
Like, maybe the best in the park.  And he's nice.  And he has big, brown
eyes, Yves, like Mitya's.  Maybe not so dark.  And his lips..."

"You really go for him, don't you?"

"Oh, yeah, absolutely.  But he doesn't pay that much attention.  Except
that he thinks it's funny that he can't tell me and Luc apart."

"Have you seen him with any girls?"

"No, but roller-blading isn't much of a girl thing.  There's a bunch of
dudes he hangs around with."

"Do you know any of them?"

"No."

"Or where he lives?"

"No.  It must be somewhere around here.  LaFontaine is pretty much for this
neighborhood."

"Well, then, I think the park is where you have to work things out.  Try
talking to him the next time you're both there."

"About what?"

"His family.  How long he's lived around here.  What school he's in, since
it's not the same as yours.  I don't know, Jean-Pierre, could you ask him
to help you get better at blading?"

The boy's face lit up briefly.  Then gloom clouded it again.  "Well, I saw
him helping a little kid once.  Maybe it was his brother.  But I couldn't
ask for help.  That would make me a wuss."

"You said he was nice."

"Yeah.  He's real polite.  And he's always smiling."

"Then, I don't think he'd mind being asked for some help.  You're good.  I
saw you.  He must know that.  So, he'd probably be flattered."

"You think so?"

"It's worth trying, isn't it?  If you think you're in love with him."

Silence.  "It isn't love, Yves.  You're the one I think I love.  I dream
about you sometimes.  With him, it's different.  I just want to ..., well,
I want to do things with him and feel what it's like.  He's not as tall as
I am or as strong, see, and I want to hold him up against me.  And put my
hands all over him."

He was blushing deeply.  I'm sure that Jean-Pierre had never told a living
soul what his fantasies were.  I hoped that just telling me would help him
come to terms with himself, but I could see that the boy was miserable.  I
squeezed his hand.

"It's nothing to be ashamed of, Jean-Pierre.  And with the right person,
somebody who wants to be touched and held that way, it's really special.
Worth waiting for."

"How long did you wait?"

Uh-oh, I thought.  I should have seen that question coming.  But I wasn't
going to lie.  Jean-Pierre had to trust me, and I'm terrible at lying about
anything important.  "I was 14 and a half, but it was with my best friend.
We'd been best friends since the first grade.  I wasn't afraid that he'd be
angry or wouldn't let me touch him."

"But he did?"

I nodded.  I tried to remember that magic night in the cabin at the lake.
Tommy and I were both in pajamas.  He was lying on his bed reading, and I
was about to get into mine when, without thinking, completely on impulse, I
bent down and kissed him.  He didn't act surprised or offended.  He just
calmly put the book on the floor and then drew me down beside him and
kissed me back.  "I'm so glad you did that, Yves," he said.  "I've wanted
to kiss you for a long time."

"I love you, Tommy," I whispered.

"I know, Yves, and I love you, too."

That was all we said, but we slept that night in each other's arms and
many, many wonderful nights afterwards.  "I was pretty sure it would be all
right," I told Jean-Pierre, "and it was."

"Do you still see him?" the boy asked.

"All the time."

"Are you still in love with him?"

The inquisition was getting to some tender places.  "I thought we were
going to talk about you, Jean-Pierre."  I ducked.

"Well, I asked because ... because I need to know if," he was chewing on
his lip, "if, well, someday you think you could feel that way about me, the
way I feel about you."

"I already love lots of things about you, Jean-Pierre.  You are incredibly
good looking and you're smart and you're really nice.  Most of all, I love
the fact that you felt you could tell me about yourself and your feelings.
That makes you very brave, on top of everything else."  I stopped.  But
that wasn't enough.  I could see from his expression that I had to be
really honest, even if it hurt.

"Jean-Pierre," I groped for the right words, "you'll always mean a lot to
me, but I don't think that we'll be lovers.  Right now, I'm in love with
Mitya, even though I'm pretty sure that his strongest feeling for me is
gratitude.  And when you asked me about being still in love with my friend,
you made me think.  I'll probably always be in love with him.  If he would
let me, I'd give up everything for us to be back together the way we were."

"Is your friend the skinny brown guy who comes around a lot?"

"Do you really think he's skinny?"

"Well, he's tall and thin. He doesn't look as if he works out much.  But
his eyes are terrific.  Really fine."

"Yes, they are, and yes, that's him.  Tommy.  So you see why I don't think
you and I ..."

"Yeah."  The hurt look surfaced again.  I got up and walked around the
table to him.

"Can we hold each other, Jean-Pierre?" I asked.  "It's just a hug, but I'd
like to be able to hug you."

He stood up and opened his arms.  I stepped into them and put mine around
his back.  "I'll always love you, Yves," he muttered into my shoulder.

"And I'll always admire you," I stroked the back of his bent head as I felt
his chest heaving with sobs he wouldn't let out.  "You're a wonderful,
beautiful kid and, Jean-Pierre, I dream about you, too, sometimes."

He squeezed me and then he let go.  "I oughtta go," he mumbled.  "I'm
supposed to meet Luc and do some 'blading."

I smiled at him.  "Good hunting, Jean-Pierre.  If he's as nice as you
think, I bet things will work out.  Just don't rush it."

He grinned, the first real sign of happiness and ease he had shown since he
came through the door.  "Yes, sir."  He stood at mock attention.  "I'll
tell you what happens.  If anything does..."

After he left, I wondered if I'd given him the right advice.  Maybe I
should have told him not to take any chances.  To wait.  He might meet a
great girl and see that his crush on me was just hormones racing down the
wrong trail.

I'd been so lucky.  Tommy was always there.  My parents loved me enough to
respect my declaration when I was 15 that I was gay and wouldn't change.  A
couple of people at school did hassle me, but mostly I was accepted.

Jean-Pierre would probably have a harder time. Luc, for instance.  He was a
tough, no matter how much the portrait had gotten to him.  If he turned on
his twin brother, the boy would be desperate.  And the parochial school
that he went to was full of doctrinaire Catholics, intolerant, mean,
probably brutal.  But it was his life, and he was the only one who could
live it.  I couldn't do it for him.


(To be continued.)