Date: Tue, 8 Dec 2009 10:43:04 EST
From: park517@aol.com
Subject: Doctor of the Heart  Chapter Eight

[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]


Doctor of the Heart - Chapter Eight


       "Earth to Yves, earth to Yves."  Some giant bird was digging its
talons into my shoulder.  "Come in, Yves.  Or should I say, come to?"  The
bird chuckled.  I opened my eyes to find my brother-in-law Larry leaning
over me, smiling, with his hand still on my shoulder. "It's past 10:30,
Leonardo.  You've missed breakfast.  At this rate, you might miss lunch,
and some people - like your mother - are worried about the last supper."

       "Hi, Larry," I said.  "It's nice to see you."

       "It's nice to see you, too," his eyes wandered over my body, making
me uncomfortably aware that I was naked, on my back, and completely on
view.  "Very nice, if you don't mind me saying so.  Thank God, you're not
the womanizing sort, Yves.  You'd be really tough competition."

       "I thought you weren't the womanizing sort, either.  At least not
any more." I sat up and swung my legs over the side of the bed.  "Didn't
you promise Ceci to 'cleave only unto' her?"

       "That doesn't mean that I can't empathize with straight males who
haven't gotten lucky yet.  Unlike you."  His eyes went to the other bed in
the room, still neatly made.  "I'm glad you and Tommy are together again. I
really like him.  We all do. And your new friend, too, the Bear of the
Balkans."

       "Where is Tommy?" I got to my feet, deciding that I didn't have to
correct Larry's assumption as much as I had to get to the bathroom.  "And
Mitya?"

       "They're teaching the twins to play chess," Larry joked on his way
out the door.  "Yves," he turned, "it really is nice to see you.  This is
going to be a great weekend."

       He was right.  It was.  The weather was Camelot-like.  It only
rained at night.  Larry and I tried to teach Mitya to water-ski from a
standing start at the dock and would have given up until Ceci whispered
some tip in his ear that did the trick.  My attempt to sketch Rifat in
profile also worked out.  Mitya stayed dry-eyed through the whole session
and told me when I finished that I had given him back his memory.

       Best of all, once my father and Uncle Benoit showed up Friday
evening, my mother stopped behaving like a coquette every time she was
close to Mitya.  Benoit, of course, had been to Montenegro.  He'd been
everywhere, and he was delighted to talk Balkan politics with Mitya even if
- they both agreed - the quarrels there were insoluble and had been since
the Ottomans took Constantinople in 1473, after which the Venetian Empire
... and then the stupid Hapsburgs ... and Woodrow Wilson ... They delighted
one another, but bored the rest of us silly.  Even Tommy.

       Friday night, lying on the floor to watch another of Tommy's vintage
movies, I was surprised when he not only took my hand in the dark but ran
his knuckles up and down my forearm in light caressing strokes off and on
during the film.  And later in the cabin, as I was about to follow Mitya
into the big bedroom, Tommy held me back.

       "Yves, just a minute.  There's something I want to say."

       I put my forehead on his, an intimacy that we had used years before
to show that our attention - and in those days our love - was undivided.

       "Yves, I just wanted to tell you that I'm happy."

       "Oh, Tommy, so am I.  And I'm so glad that you are, too.  We've
always had good times here."

       "It's not just this place, Yves.  It's you.  I'm happy because I'm
here with you."

       "And my family.  They love you, Tommy.  Just this morning..." I
wanted to tell him that Larry had thought we were sleeping together again,
but Tommy cut me short.

       "You're trying not to hear me, Yves.  I said that you're the one who
makes me happy.  I love you, Yves.  I'm sorry, but I have to tell you that
I love you.  I don't think I ever stopped loving you or that I ever could."

       "Oh."  I felt like a complete fool.  I couldn't speak.  I couldn't
say what Tommy wanted to hear.  I didn't know what to say.  I just stood
there.

       "It's all right, Yves." Tommy put his hands on my waist and kissed
me behind the ear.  "I just wanted you to know.  I have to be honest.  It's
the way I am.  Now, go to bed.  It's late."

       He turned away and went into his bedroom.  I couldn't move.  I
should have followed him.  I should have covered his face and his body with
kisses and given myself to the shelter of his strong arms and his sensible,
sensitive spirit.  But I wanted Mitya.  I wanted, unselfishly, to finish
healing his terrible grief.  And selfishly, I wanted to complete my new
conquest, to explore his body more than I already had and to have him
explore mine until I could be sure that he'd never forget me.

       The only hitch was that Mitya said he was exhausted.  He could have
been telling the truth.  It had been a long, strenuous day mostly out of
doors.  When I got into the bed with him and tried to kiss him, he turned
his head away and blocked my hand on its trip into his crotch. "Please,
Yves," he said, "I am truly tired.  Let us just to sleep.  Maybe in the
morning, we can to make love.  Only not for now."

       "In the morning," I said.  "Golden dreams, Mitya."

       "Oh, Yves!" he exclaimed.  He turned on his side and drew my body
tight against him.  "You are so wonderful to remember my words to me.
Everything you do is full of loving.  I am so lucky that you are my special
friend."

       "I am the lucky one," I said, not meaning it.  "Friend!" I cursed
silently.  The last title I wanted on my gravestone or my headboard.  I
wanted romance, passion, total surrender of soul and body, and I was
getting a handshake and a hug.  "I have you next to me, Mitya," I said.
"That means everything.  The love-making is just an extra kind of
closeness, and we will do it better when we are not tired."

       "But you will sleep down against me, please.  Yes?"

       "Yes.  As long as I do not disturb you."

       "Disturb?  No.  You are comfort to me, Yves, very great comfort."
He yawned. I pretended I was a human comforter and draped myself like a
quilt over him and tried not to think about love or Tommy or rejection or
the comfort of sex that I was being denied.

       Still, I slept.  And I actually woke before Mitya did.  That gave me
the chance to examine his magnificent body in the morning light, to marvel
at his physical power, even asleep, to debate with myself the possibility
of sucking him from sleep to orgasm.  I decided that I preferred my
partners conscious and settled for a session with my sketch pad instead of
his gently twitching sex organ.  I drew quickly, but the odd thing was that
I left him headless, all my effort going into capturing the planes of his
shoulders and torso, the masses of his thighs and the bulging flesh between
them.  The result was a genuinely dirty picture, so suggestive that it
became a pornographic tribute to his body, neglecting his soul.  Ashamed, I
stuck the drawing into my case and went into the bathroom to take a long,
cold shower.

       When I came out, I heard the rhythmic thump-splat of Mitya doing his
morning push-ups.  I waited till they ended and then entered the bedroom to
see what the sight of my naked body would do to his.  Nothing.  He stood up
in his baggy boxer shorts and beamed at me.  "It is another beautiful day,
Yves," he panted slightly.  "And you are beautiful, too."  I beamed at him.
"And I have decided something of very much importance."

       My hopes rose, and other parts of me started to do the same.

       "I have decided that I wish to be like you."

       "You mean...?" I wasn't sure what he meant.  "You want to be gay?
Openly gay?  Mitya, are you sure?"

       "Well, gay, too, maybe.  But no, I mean I wish to be Canadian, like
you are.  And I wish to have it happen today.  And you can help me.  You
can show me how."

       "Mitya, that is a wonderful idea, but it's not so simple.  I think
it takes a lot of time.  Paperwork.  We can ask Benoit."

       "I do not think that would be of help.  I heard him to say he does
not like to canoe."

       "Canoe?"  I was totally flustered.

       Mitya grabbed me around the waist and gave me a lecherous look.
"Did not Tommy say," he was laughing but he was also getting hard and he
was pawing my behind, "that a Canadian is someone who can to make love in a
canoe?  Well, I want to start to be Canadian.  Today, please.  And I do not
want to be Canadian with your very nice uncle but with you.  Do you not
think that would be good?"

       "I think that would be very good."  Actually, feeling the size of
what was pushing away from him and into me, I was not completely sure how
good it would be.  But I wanted to find out.  "Would you like to practice
first?  Here?  On the bed?"

       "Thank you."  He kissed me quickly and released me.  "No. First,
breakfast.  A big breakfast to make me to be strong for such goodness.  And
before breakfast, I will to clean myself.  Then, after breakfast, we will
see how to become Canadian."  He disappeared into the bathroom.  Laughing.

       After breakfast, though, Ceci and my mother scooped Mitya up and
took him to the weekly farmers' market in Mont Tremblant.  Benoit, Larry
and my father went off to play tennis with a neighbor. Tommy and I were
appointed baby-sitters.  The twins are cute, and they're into crawling in a
big way, but conversation with them is pretty limited.  Which meant Tommy
and I had to talk.  And I didn't know what to say or even how to begin.

       "You don't have to say anything, Yves."  Tommy had always been able
to read my mind. "I'm sorry that I embarrassed you last night.  It's one of
my bad habits.  Saying what I feel whenever I feel like saying it."

       "It's not a bad habit, Tommy.  It's who you are. It's why I love
you, too, and always will."

       "But I shouldn't have tried to pressure you that way.  We promised a
long time ago not to be jealous, and then I tried to get between you and
Mitya, when I know how you feel about him.  I was selfish and wrong."

       "But did you mean it?"

       "Mean what?"

       "That you've never stopped loving me?"

       "Well," he grinned maliciously, "that time you were trailing behind
that oaf Randy with your tongue and everything else hanging out, I did
wonder what I'd ever seen in you."

       "That didn't even last a week," I protested, "and besides, you had
him first."

       "No.  Actually I didn't.  He was a go-fer at the film festival, and
he had the hots for me.  I was just trying to get rid of him.  You were
only supposed to distract him, not let him screw you brainless.  And it
went on at least ten days, Yves.  I really worried about your judgment."

       "Do you worry about it now?  About Mitya, I mean."

       Tommy didn't answer.  One of the twins, Amelie, I think, had managed
to scuttle off the big blanket and into a flower bed.  She was digging into
it like a Labrador, when Tommy gently back-pedaled her, giggling, onto the
cloth.

       "Yves," he said, "I'm not worried about your judgment.  No.  Mitya
is wonderful in every possible way, and he needs your love now.  All I
worry about is how you'll feel when he goes his own way.  Which he will
someday.  His way isn't ours, and I don't want you to be hurt when he drops
you."

       "You don't know anything about him.  Not really.  And you're
patronizing me."  Suddenly I was angry, and I didn't hide it.  "So last
night what you were really saying is that when Mitya dumps me, big, strong,
sensible Tommy will catch me before I fall and hurt myself.

       "I didn't understand then," I should have stopped, but I babbled
on. "I thought you felt something for me like what we used to feel for each
other, but I see now that I was being stupid.  As usual."  I got up from
the lawn.  "You're such a good nanny," I jibed at him.  "You can mind both
the twins.  I'm going for a walk."

       I went to my favorite sulking spot, a boulder I had been using as a
shelter against emotional storms since, at about the age of six, I began to
realize that I couldn't always get everything I wanted.  That first time,
my despair had been focused on a GI Joe doll that Ceci drowned just because
I'd told Odette that I'd seen Ceci peeing in a flowerbed.  I still
remembered the whole thing because I cried myself to sleep while Odette and
then my mother were frantically searching for me.  When I woke up and
wandered back to the house, Odette spanked me really hard, and my mother
wouldn't comfort me afterwards.

       I don't think that's when I turned against women.  Actually, I
really like a lot of women.  But for love, I prefer men.  They won't drown
your dolls.  The trouble is that I learned I can love lots of men.  One at
a time, of course.  And now it sounded as if Tommy was telling me that he
wanted to be the one, the only one, again.  He acted as though Mitya was
just an escapade.  But I loved Mitya.  I was excited by his body and what
he let me do with it, but really I loved the way he needed me.  I was his
boulder, his shelter against the storm of sorrow.  He wouldn't leave me.

       Tommy was just so wrong.  Except Tommy was always right.  And I did
love him still.  I'd even said so out loud to Jean-Pierre.  "I'll probably
always be in love with him," that's what I'd said in my own kitchen just
two days before.  "If he would let me, I'd give up everything for us to be
back together the way we were."

       When I said it, I meant it.  But you can mean something really
sincerely and truthfully and still not be ready to do anything about it.
At least not right away. Not anything that would completely settle your
life for all time.  I did love Tommy.  I would tell him so.  I would
apologize for snapping at him.  Everything would be all right, and nobody
would be hurt.  And I would keep my freedom.

       First, though, I had to finish capturing - no, let's say,
captivating - Mitya.  If he really wanted to make love in a canoe, I would
oblige.  Initiating someone into those slightly uncomfortable mysteries
isn't all that difficult.  All you really need is enough cushions, a good
sense of balance and the rhythmic control to make each stroke gradually
more powerful but never overpowering.  With Mitya bent over the central
thwart and me kneeling between his splayed legs, I would be in charge of
the proceedings and of the sexual spell to cast over my Montenegrin giant.
Stretched over his back, I could wrap my arms around him and work his chest
and his groin, teasingly, masterfully, with the kind of expertise that
would make him hungry for more and more such transports ... but, on dry
ground, in my bed, as my enchanted, love-enchained, giant-sized GI Joe
doll.

       It was a really hot fantasy, as fantasies go, but like most really
hot fantasies, it went lukewarm and then cold in the real world.  Mitya and
I did take out a canoe, supposedly to go fishing.  But Larry insisted that
we wait till near sunset when, he said, the fish were sure to be biting in
a clump of reeds off the far shore.  At that hour, my mother insisted that
we put on long-sleeved shirts and long pants against the mosquitoes and
smother ourselves in insect repellent, with an extra layer on our sandaled
feet and ankles.  Ahead of time, my father insisted on showing Mitya how to
flycast.  The result of all this attention was that we paddled off,
stinking to high heaven, in cotton armor and silly hats with beekeeper-like
veils and a couple of awkward rods.  The romantic initiation I had planned
had turned into a genuine fishing expedition, complete with instructions to
bring back supper for everyone or stay on the lake until, at least, we
caught breakfast.

       I know I looked sour, but I couldn't see Mitya's expression, because
he was in the bow of the canoe straining to pull the craft ahead all by
himself as though hostile Indians were pursuing us.  Knowing how sound
carries over water, I waited till we were several hundred yards offshore
before telling him firmly to slow down.  "But we must to go with speed," he
grinned over his shoulder, "so we have time to discover the fishes and also
to ..."

       "We'll have time," I cut him off before any unseen audience tuned in
to the plans he was about to broadcast.  "Besides, it is better to float in
with no noise so the fish don't get scared.  Paddle gently and just whisper
from now on."

       He didn't make another sound until we slid alongside the reeds, and
he reached back in the bottom of the canoe to get the rod and reel my
father had prepared for him.  "We don't really have to fish," I said in a
low voice.  "That wasn't the original plan."

       "We must to bring home fishes," Mitya answered, trying to whisper.
"Your mother, your family, I mean, is awaiting that we bring them some
dinner.  I made promise to try."

	"Did you come out here for my mother," I heard my voice rising, "or
for me?  I thought you wanted to make love in a canoe and make yourself a
Canadian. Now, you're only interested in fishing."

	"Hush, Yves, hush," he smiled as he put a finger to his lips.  "We
can to do both.  I told to you I have relativeness to Neptune.  You will
see.  I will sing to the fishes and they will come."

	He did, and they did.  His singing was more like humming, and I
couldn't make out any tune, but almost every cast ended with him reeling in
some bewitched smallmouth bass or muskie.  I sat in the stern astonished
and appalled as one fish after another flopped, gasped and expired in the
bottom of the canoe.  Mitya's performance was truly scary, a frightening
kind of magic that - along with the shiny, slimy pile underfoot -- turned
me off sexually.  Finally, or maybe after only 20 minutes, I begged him to
stop.

	"You think we have enough of fish for everyone?"  He turned around,
smiling broadly.  "Or, maybe, Yves, you have fear that I should become
tired and not be so good at loving you in the Canadian way."

	"No.  That's not it."  I tried to think why I suddenly felt that he
was dangerous, somehow alien and, yes, fearsome. "Mitya, it's just..." I
groped for some neutral explanation of my discomfort.  "It's only that all
those dead fish, well, they aren't very romantic.  I wanted, I hoped, that
when I made love to you, everything would be beautiful, that we would make
a special memory to share."

	"But it will be beautiful, Yves," he protested.  "See, the moon is
just mounting, and the water is so quiet, and I will be most gentle with
you.  I will be polite but loving, like a Canadian of truth."  He chuckled
a little as he rose from his seat in the bow and swung his legs around
toward me.  "Also," he said, "you will not have to see the fish while we
are together in loving."  He used his paddle to shove the mound of fish
forward and then carefully, slowly moved on his knees to the middle of the
canoe.

	"Which is better, Yves?" he asked.  "We lie down side by side or on
our knees on top of the other, like dogs?  I think like dogs," he answered
his own question. "It is to be more romantic if you can look to the lake
while I am in you.  Will that not be so?"

	I cringed but I managed to hide my dismay.  Things were not going
the way I had fantasized.  Still, I think a lover should always care most
about his lover's pleasure.  It's not who's on top that's important.  It's
being together, being as close as you can get, that matters.  Mitya had let
me enter him.  And I wanted to belong to him so that he would belong to me.

	So, "Yes, like dogs," I said and smiled.  "But also like men who
are in love.  Let me come to you and get us both ready."


(To be continued.)