Date: Sat, 2 Feb 2002 20:19:31 -0800 (PST) From: jfinn <writnword@yahoo.com> Subject: The Human Condition Chapter 3 Author's note: This is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to any person living or dead is purely coincidental. This is also a story that does, eventually, include graphic sexual scenes of mainly of a homosexual nature but, where appropriate to the story, also heterosexual and bisexual encounters. If you are underage or it is illegal for you to read such writing, stop now. For those of you who are continuing, be further warned that this is a novel with plot, character development and a very, very slow introduction to the sexual elements of the story. If you're looking for a stroke piece you need to look elsewhere. The author reserves all rights to this story but will allow others to repost this work to any free Internet sites that wish to use it as long as full credit to the writer is given. When I posted Chapter One I said that though I probably couldn't respond, I would welcome all emails. Another author wrote to me and, correctly, pointed out how unfair of me to expect feedback with no promise of acknowledgment. I apologize for this. It was not my intent to make anybody think I was uninterested in what they have to say. Actually, I always had every intention of responding to any comments or criticism, I just wasn't sure if I'd be able to do so in a timely manner and I thought it would be better to say I might not answer rather than have anybody think I was ignoring them. Obviously, I was wrong. So I promise, if anybody out there is reading this and wants to talk to me about it, I'll answer them. And to those of you who already have, thank you, I know I've said it to you all personally, but it means a great deal to me that you like this story. jfinn The Human Condition Chapter Three "Come on babe," I leaned over Joe and shook my head over his chest, "it's time to get moving." My hair was still dripping from the shower and cold drops fell on him waking him instantly. "Arghh!" He grunted and grabbed my arm pulling me on top of him. His hands moved to my head and our lips met. I kissed him briefly then raised my head and shook it as he tried to pull me back to his mouth. "No way buddy, we're late as it is." I protested with all the strength of will I had as he started to lick that spot right behind my ear. "Mmmmm, why not, it's Saturday, the day for fun and relaxation." He reached down and pulled my towel out from under me. "That's right, and today we're going to relax at the ballfield, remember?" I tried to sit up, I really did, but his hand had slipped between my legs trying to reach the on switch I seemed to have right behind my balls. "Oh God." I sighed as he found it. The man knew all my buttons. I made one last ditch argument for being ready on time. An argument, I might add, that I was rapidly hoping to lose. "They're going to be here in an hour and you still have to shower and if we keep doing this I'll have to take another one." But my arms had snaked around his waist and were, even as I spoke, stroking his back lightly, urging him closer. "Good, we can shower together." He bit lightly at my ear and I shivered involuntarily. "God, what got into you to make you so horny?" Joe stopped his nibbling and looked at me with fake disappointment. "How soon they forget." He sighed ostentatiously. "That's okay just use me and forget me." He went back to attacking my neck. I hadn't forgotten. Last night had been a rarity for us. In our normal choice of lovemaking, I bottom. I like it that way and so does Joe. But, on occasion we get the urge to switch. The result is usually spectacular which we both agree must be, in part, because it doesn't happen very often. I know this doesn't make sense. If it feels so great why don't we do it more often. I can't explain, it just works that way for us. One of the most interesting side effects of our role reversal is the effect it has on Joe's libido. For two or three days afterwards the man is insatiable. Of course I complain, but he doesn't pay any attention to me, especially since I can't keep the shit eating grin off my face while I'm bitching. "Oh damn!" I sighed wearily. After all, I have to keep up pretenses don't I? "You promised this wouldn't happen this time." He moved like lightening and flipped me over until he was sitting straddled on my pelvis, my now hard cock resting in the crack of his ass. He leaned down and licked my lips. "I lied." He said softly and my cock throbbed in glee. He lifted himself to his knees and slid down moving between my legs until he could stretch out. Our cocks touched and did a dance of recognition. We both always had a lot of precum and we slipped and slid together now, our breath getting harsher and our hips more urgent. "Now," Joe whispered, "I want your mouth now." "Turn around." I grunted hoarsely, my mouth already salivating in anticipation of the treat it knew it was getting. He obeyed, just like he did everytime I ordered him to do exactly what he wanted. As I took his hard tool in one long practiced gulp, I felt him lick my knob and grab my balls with the determination of a man on a mission. I moaned, vibrating his cock deep in my mouth. "Oh God!" He growled in response then went back to licking his favorite lollipop. It didn't take long for him. The feel of his cum splashing down my throat set me off and I found myself gripping his thighs spasmodically as I fought to catch every drop of his sweet seed. I held him in my mouth until he softened while he lapped me clean like a cat. We both moved to meet in the middle of the bed, our arms intwined, our tongues trading cum soaked kisses. Eventually, we collapsed back on the bed in a reversal of our positions of earlier in the morning. "How can it be," Joe's head rested on my chest as he lazily circled a nipple with his finger. "that this keeps getting better?" "Beats the Hell out of me, but ain't it loverly." I know there are a lot of people out there, straight and gay who insist that no sex is as good as that at the beginning of a relationship. I don't agree. I've had my share of beginnings and so has Joe, but for both of the us the intimacy of a mature relationship is the ultimate satisfaction. Who could ever know me better than him; what I like, what I want, what I need. "I knew you couldn't hold out." He snuggled in closer. "Think your so irresistible do you?" "Only to you babe, only to you." I kissed the top of his head in silent agreement. He looked up at me and grinned. "And to think, there was a time you didn't want me for a roommate..." April 20, 1988 "It aint fucking going to happen." I said to Joe as we stood outside the manager's office of the apartment complex. "Why not?" He stopped and waited for an answer, but I just kept on walking. He sighed and caught up with me and stopped me with a hand on my sleeve. "I don't see what's the problem here." He argued. "You like the apartment, I like the apartment, let's rent the damn thing and be done with it." Now it was my turn to sigh. I'd been looking for an apartment for senior year for about 3 weeks now. Carl, my roommate since my freshman days, was getting married and would be moving into married student housing when he returned in the fall. I was sick to death of dorm life anyhow, so I'd decided to try to find a place of my own. My job as a billing processor at a local law firm didn't pay very much but that, and the allowance my folks insisted on still sending me, would allow me to afford a small efficiency somewhere. The problem was that most of the housing around Ann Arbor was set up for multiple roommates and I just didn't see me going that route. Frankly, I never liked living with a bunch of guys. I longed to have some space of my own, but the apartments I could afford were either snapped up before I could see them or were sties a pig wouldn't live in. That morning I finally seemed to have gotten a break. A friend called and said a girl who lived in his complex in Ypsilanti was breaking her lease because she'd decided to move in with her boyfriend and would I be interested. Hell yes, I was interested. I was supposed to meet Joe at the library so I swung around and picked him up and told him there'd been a change in plans. He'd been hearing me bitch for weeks about finding a place so he knew I'd have to jump on it if I wanted to seal this deal. He went with me to the complex only to experience first hand what I'd been putting up with since I'd started apartment shopping. She was really sorry, the pretty young thing behind the desk said as she batted her eyes at Joe, but the apartment was already spoken for. Joe batted back and asked if she didn't have anything we could look at. I knew what she wanted to show him. But instead, she pulled up a screen on a computer and grabbed a key out of drawer and said to follow her. She took us to a corner apartment on the top floor of one of the newer buildings. When we walked through the door, I immediately knew this was way out of my price range. The living room was big and modern, all angles with a cathedral ceiling and a skylight. There was a fireplace in the corner and a wet bar on the wall and it looked like a Hollywood movie set. I stopped and started to say something but Joe was behind me and he pushed me forward into the room. "Wow," he whistled softly, "this is great." The girl, smiled at Joe and told him her name was Kelly. She chattered on about space and light and said the bedrooms were on the right. She walked down a hall and Joe followed. "What are we doing?" I hissed in his ear as I caught up to him. "I wouldn't be able to pay for this if I had six roommates." "It doesn't cost to look does it?" He smiled and shrugged and went into a bedroom that was as big as my parents whole upstairs. I'm not sure when I caught on to what he was thinking. Maybe it was when his eyes lit up at the sight of the Jacuzzi, or when he asked Kelly about the possibility of garage space, but before we'd even gotten to the kitchen with its JennAir stove and built in trash compactor I'd figured out what was on his mind. We walked back to the office. At the door I asked Kelly if she minded if Joe and I talked alone for a minute. She giggled and shrugged her shoulders and said she'd be waiting and left us. I turned to Joe and saw he was grinning. My heart sank. "No." I looked at him sternly. "Yes." He said still smiling. "You already have a place to live next year." I continued. "I'm tired of the frat house." He protested. "You love the frat house." Which I knew to be true, the boy was as gregarious as they come. "And anyway, I couldn't pay my share." In my innocence I really believed that would end the discussion. "So pay what you can." He shrugged. "I'll make up the difference." It didn't surprise me that he could make the gesture. Joe was a TFB, or trust fund baby if you need it spelled out. Yeah, not only was he handsome, smart and athletic; he was also rich. But he wasn't very comfortable about it. I'd only learned about it myself because I'd inadvertently heard him on a call to his stockbroker and realized he wasn't just talking about 5 shares of AT&T like my granddad left me. When I'd point blank asked him if he was wealthy he'd nodded reluctantly, but asked me to keep it to myself. He'd apparently had enough of people who only liked him for his money so he kept quiet about it and let everybody think his family was just 'comfortable'. It wasn't really difficult to pull off because it appeared that the rest of his family was just as unostentatious about their money as he was. I'd seen a picture of his family home and, although it was fairly large, it looked more like a big farmhouse than an estate. Too, whenever his parents made it to Ann Arbor they arrived in an older model Volvo station wagon so, nobody had tumbled to his little deception except yours truly. But the money was definitely there and now it looked like Joe had decided to spend some of it. His only problem was that I wasn't going along with the plan. "Can't let you do that Dude." I shook my head. "No way you can stop me Bro." He grinned and went into the office. I stayed on the sidewalk and seethed. It wasn't that I was entirely opposed to Joe as a roommate. In fact if I was honest about it, he was the only person I knew that I'd even consider moving in with. But even as the thought entered my head, I knew it would never work. After that first Thanksgiving at school, we had remained friends. He'd continued to visit at the hospital and, when I was released, he'd drop down the hall to see me and get away as he said, from the assholes, his pet name for the huge circle of friends who always seemed to congregate in his room. I was not part of that circle. It was an unspoken understanding between us that I did not intrude on that part of his life. I know, that sounds like Joe was the biggest asshole of them all, but you have to understand this was just as much my choice as his. And my reasons were far more selfish. Simply put, I liked having Joe's undivided attention when we were together. So even though at first, he'd politely tried to include me in get togethers with his friends, we'd settled into a routine which pretty much kept our relationship exclusive, if limited. We would meet for a beer maybe once a week, in my room if Carl was out, or down at one of the local watering holes otherwise. And every Sunday afternoon we'd head to the library to study and shoot the shit with the emphasis on the shit part. As for the fallout I'd expected from our being friends well, it just never happened. Amazing isn't it. Just when you think you've come to grips with the inequities of life, something nice happens. I'd been prepared for sneers, fights, at the very least an innuendo or two, but it never came. Instead of insults, the only response I ever got from one of his friends was an occasional clap on the back and a 'Hi Mike, how's it going dude?' Really took the wind out of my sails, I can tell you. My Mom did actually meet him on her next visit to campus the spring of my freshman year. Like every other woman who knew him, she was utterly charmed by his boyish smile and kind eyes. He hit it off with my Dad too and arranged for him to play a round of golf with Beau, something he still talks about to this day. My brothers, of course, idolized him, especially after he took a Saturday afternoon to show them around the stadium including a trip to the team's lockers and training rooms. When he gave each of them a team football complete with autographs they were speechless for almost 15 minutes and forgot to keep up their constant bickering. Even Sarah forgot her Ms Cool act around Joe and she giggled and chattered with an unconscious delight nobody had seen in her since she hit puberty. To this day she keeps a framed picture I took of the two of them, in a place of honor by her bed. They're in front of our dorm, their arms wrapped around each other as they both stick out their tongues to the camera. At the bottom is Joe's autograph and the picture is addressed, 'To Sarah, the little sister I always dreamed of having, Joe'. I met his folks too, on several occasions. They would take us to dinner and his father, Bill, an older, darker version of his son, would argue about politics, telling us our liberal views would fade with time and success. Joe's mother, Alice, would roll her eyes and take our side and tease her husband until we would all be laughing so hard the other diners would stare. Things would only get serious again when the talk came around to Josh, Joe's brother. Then Bill's face would turn somber and he'd sit there silently while Alice showed Joe his brothers letters and the pictures he would sometimes send home. Bill didn't like it that his son was to be a priest. Joe told me when Josh had announced his decision his father had gone into a rage. When Josh had tried to make him understand that he felt God needed him, Bill's response was that he needed him too. Bill and Alice had always planned on a big family but an ectopic pregnancy had ended those hopes and almost ended Alice's life. Bill had accepted that, but he'd only postponed the need for family. Now it was grandchildren he craved and Josh's choice of vocation had cut his chances in half. He had struggled to come to terms with his loss and his love for his son had allowed him to do so. But he would never be able to actually take pleasure in his son's choice. As for Josh, I never met him when we were in college. The seminary he'd picked was strict and his vacations were short and limited to brief visits to Chicago. Occasionally Joe would read me a passage out of his letters or tell me stories of them when they were kids. But I only knew Josh as a rumor. A boy with the face of my friend, but a soul and an identity I couldn't begin to imagine. But not so Joe. As the years past we forged a bond that would be necessary later when events would take us to the extraordinary places we'd never imagined would be our fate. I think of those first three years of our friendship as the foundation of our lives. It is thick and tough and built of words and ideas that solidified into the basis of the men we are today. We talked about everything, covered every topic imaginable, politics, religion, the validity of big time wrestling, nothing was off limits. Well, almost nothing. We never talked about sex. Which is amazing when you remember that we were in our late teens, early twenties, a time in life when the normal male conversation always ends up being about sex. How you liked it, where you found it, when you'd had it last, when you were going to get some more... With Joe and I, the subject was strictly off limits. When he was still dating Betsy he'd occasionally mention her name, but Betsy like Jenny was now ancient history. She'd graduated our sophomore year and had moved to San Francisco to experience the whole, big city lifestyle. But even when she was there, I didn't get too involved. I saw her once in a while, on campus or around town, sometimes with Joe, sometimes not. We'd wave or make nice for a few minutes but we never recaptured the intimacy we'd known in the hospital. When she left, I thought Joe would want to talk about it, but he never offered and I never asked. He didn't seem too broken up over it though. We only had a couple more weeks to go before the end of the semester and he seemed to enjoy his new found freedom, celebrating with a never ending round of parties and plenty of flirting though no one replaced Betsy as far as I could tell. He started dating seriously again when we returned for our junior year. Joe wasn't the kind of guy who was comfortable without a girlfriend. I couldn't help but be aware of it. Shit, there was always some girl hanging all over him and always a few more waiting in the wings playing understudy. I'd see him with somebody at a game or at some bar afterwards and we'd acknowledge each other with a nod or maybe meet while fetching drinks, but he never introduced me, never slipped their names into a conversation, never bitched about girl problems in our weekly bull sessions. As for me, I have to admit I was conducting my own sexual adventures. Joe had told me that Ann Arbor was a wide open town; he had no idea how right he was. From leather to lace, gay is an established and for the most part, accepted lifestyle in that educational Mecca. Now I fully admit, I'm a strictly vanilla kind of guy, even then, but I was young, far away from home and the disapproving eyes of my parents and very, very available. What you expect me to say for Christ's sake! That I sat in my room every night and pined for the straight guy? Not a chance. Okay, so I loved the guy. So what. He was straight, I was gay, end of discussion. Even in high school, I'd always thought it was stupid when a group of my gay friends would get together and start yaking about how hot some hetero was and how wonderful it would be if they could get him into bed. My contention had always been that if we were so vocal about people needing to accept us for what we were, then how could we turn around and talk about forcing our choices on somebody else. Ironic as shit isn't it. Hoisted on my own petard, whatever the Hell that means. So, I put my feelings for Joe into a box and shoved it to the back of my mind. I tried to never take it out except sometimes, in the dark, late at night, when my hand would reach for my cock and my fingers would curl around the wood. I'd remember and I'd imagine that it was another hand that stroked me and I'd groan silently and whisper his name and I would cum. In the morning, I would shove the box and it's temptations away again and I would go on with the life that was reality, not wishful thinking. And when I would see Joe I would clap him on the back and call him dude and never, not for a moment, did I ever let on that my knees had turned to water and my heart was doing somersaults while my lungs filled with the aroma that was his alone. At first I thought I would go crazy from the deception; but as the days turned into weeks I would take the box out less and less and my knees began to stiffen and my heartbeat slowed and one day I realized it had been months since I'd thought of Joe as anything but a friend. I was relieved but curiously empty too. Such is the perversity of the human condition. The drive to love, to connect, is so strong that any attraction, no matter how hopeless, fills us. I had crushed my sexual love for Joe, but I hadn't found anyone to replace him. I had, however, found plenty who were willing to share my bed, figuratively if not literally; there was my very straight roommate after all. I met a variety of men and, much like Joe, I found I liked having someone to date. I may never have fallen in love with any of them, but I managed to fall in like several times and in lust with even more regularity. I practiced safe sex, at least as safe as a teenager is capable of in a testosterone haze and, as I said before, my tastes were pretty mild. I'd never been big on the clubs, I was too scared of AIDS to try the baths and glory holes just struck me as silly. Now, I don't look down on those who like those scenes; far be it for me to tell somebody else how to live their life. It just wasn't what I was interested in. I was looking for some kind of relationship, not anonymous sex. A couple of times, I even found a variation of the beast. There was Bobby in my freshman year, a closet case who approached me when he'd found out, through some of his less impressed friends, that I was gay. We'd spend lazy afternoons in a room in the attic of a friend of mine's house. I'd stick my cock into his various holes and he'd moan and thrash and tell me he loved it, could never get enough. For a while I thought it would all work out; that he'd come to terms with his needs and realize that being gay wasn't the sin his Baptist minister insisted it was. But we never got past the sneaking around stage and I finally got tired of the bullshit and gave him an ultimatum. He cried and begged me to be patient, but I was adamant, sure that all he needed was this one little push. I never saw him again. I heard he got married his junior year to some girl from his church league. Bet that's an interesting marriage. Colin was next. He, had no problem telling everybody about us, reveled in it in fact. He told me he was a risk taker and, after seeing him in action a couple of times, I believed him. He liked to jump out of airplanes, he liked to climb mountains, but most of all, he loved to fuck in public. He'd show up at my door with his come hither smile and hither I'd go to a park or a movie or one time, for shit's sake, to the blacksmith's shop at Greenfield Village. We'd suck or jerk each other off with an unaware audience and more than once I blessed the fact that our affair took place in winter when my coat went a long way towards hiding the wet spot(s) I invariably came home with after a date with Colin. The sticking point, bad pun, in our relationship came on the day he wanted to insert his Tab A into my Slot B at the Maritime Cathedral in downtown Detroit. Now I had no real reverence for organized religion, particularly after Bobby, but doing the nasty in church sounded a lot like spitting in the eye of God, something I wasn't comfortable with at all. There was another issue too; at that point I had never taken a cock in my ass. I wasn't totally adverse to the idea, it just hadn't been something my other partners had been too interested in pursuing. I'd have done it if he'd been willing to forgo the exhibitionism and shown the slightest interest in getting me prepared for the big (not really) event. He wasn't and the thought of my first time being so public and well, painful... Nope, wasn't going to happen. I explained my reasoning to Colin. I was eloquent, but forceful. He seemed to except it and I was pretty pleased with myself for standing my line. That is, until a friend told me that Colin had spent the night in jail for lewd conduct in a public place. He'd found another guy, apparently not so fastidious as me, to act out his fantasy. Things would have been all right, as he told me later after we were speaking again, if the boy hadn't have been a screamer. I decided Colin and I were not meant to be love's young dream. After Colin, I played the field. There was the married guy who was grateful for every lick of my agile tongue and the twink who liked it a little rough. There was the professor who could only cum if he was wearing a garter belt and the little short guy who greeted me at the door wearing a storm trooper's uniform when I picked him up for our first, and last, date. I don't think he liked it when I laughed so hard I cried. The way he slammed the door in my face was a clue. There were others too. Most of whom, I'm embarrassed to admit, I barely remember. A long line of cocks, is how I think of them now. Flesh hot and turgid, balls filled with milky cum and all for my enjoyment. And, to be honest, anyone else's that cared to make the effort. Yep, my first three years away from home had become the kind of sexual banquet that stroke stories are written about. But I wasn't a kiss and tell kind of guy. Not even to my gay friends let alone to somebody like Joe. So, instead of trying to figure out the intricacies of babes of either sex, we spent our time talking about Coleman Young the last of the great or horrendous, depending on your point of view, big city bosses or classes we hated or loved or sports, my favorite subject though not, surprisingly enough Joe's, unless baseball was the game in question. This included football though you'd have thought that would have been one subject he'd always want to talk about. He'd always insisted, that when his eligibility days were over, so was his football career even though there were plenty of pro teams who would have loved to change his mind. Joe could not be swayed. He wanted medical school, not a Superbowl ring. He was so sure of his desire for a career in medicine, that he had a hard time dealing with my obvious inability to make a decision about what I wanted to do with the rest of my life. The only thing he had postponed was what specialty he'd choose. I, on the other hand, was halfway through my Junior year and still hadn't declared a major. I toyed with the idea of business, too boring, then media, too fake, and then I thought about a career in academia. After all, the only thing I really liked to do was be a student and with a professorship in mind, I could stay in school for another 6 or 7 years. Joe thought it was a great idea, although by that time, I think he'd have been relieved if I'd decided to be a Ronald MacDonald clown. Anything, so long as I settled on something. I went to my advisor, Dr. Richard Cline, and told him my decision to declare in Art History. Fuck it, I'd taken a class in it and liked it, sort of, and it sure sounded professorial. Dr. Cline's enthusiasm was less than stellar. He snorted and told me that football player I hung out with looked more like Indiana Jones than I did and if I was so unsure about what I really wanted, I'd be whole lot better off screwing up my life in a profession that at least other people had heard of; like the law. He looked at me over his wire rims and raised his bushy eyebrows and just like that I decided. I'd be a lawyer. It seems funny now, but I'd never even thought about law school. But from that moment on, I realized it was perfect for me. In case you haven't tumbled to it by now, I was smart, maybe not as brilliant as Joe, certainly not in the science department anyway, but I got good, even excellent grades in everything else and my mental agility was one of the things I liked most about myself. Law school would be just the kind of challenge I thrived on and best of all, there was no Chemistry requirement. With a law degree, I could go into a number of fields and, if it turned out that I didn't like any of them, the three years it would take me to finish the graduate work would give me some leeway to finally figure out what I wanted to be when I grew up. I thanked Dr. Cline and told him he'd just convinced me. His eyebrows rose again but he had the sense to keep his opinions to himself. We shook hands and I left, eager to tell the world about my epiphany. My parents were thrilled, my friends started planning my career as a gay activist counselor, Joe was, thoughtful. It deflated me a little and I asked him if he thought I was making a mistake. He shook his head and said no, he just wanted to make sure I was doing what I wanted to do. It seems that I had really convinced him that Art History was the great love of my life. Good trick when I never believed it myself. I assured him, that this time I really was happy with my decision and was surprised to find that I was, for once, speaking the plain truth. He saw it too and a big grin spread over his handsome face. Six hours later we were holding each other up in a drunken haze and swearing semper fi while planning our futures as an ambulance chaser and a malpractice lawyer's wet dream. It was a couple months later when we went on our now infamous house hunting expedition for me... I watched Joe's cute ass swagger into that office and for the first time I felt like I could learn to hate him. I could barely breath I was so pissed at him. I didn't take time to analyze my reaction, I only knew that on some level it felt wonderful. I had driven my car, a beat up 1970 Duster that still ran great but had more rust than paint and torn upholstery that left white clumps of lint on your ass. I got back into it and gunned the engine. I thought about leaving Joe but he'd probably con a ride and God knows what else out of Kelly and no way did I want this to turn out to be a good experience for him. I waited, my fingers tattooing a drum solo on the steering wheel. Finally Joe came out. In his hand was a sheaf of papers that I didn't have to look at to figure out what they were. He climbed in the car. He was whistling; one look at my face and he stopped. "You're not really mad are you?" I slammed the car in reverse and peeled out of the parking lot. Joe groped wildly for the end of his seat belt. "Guess you are." "You are such an asshole. Of all the arrogant, stupid, unthinking stunts!" I was grinding my teeth so the words came out in a hiss. "Hey, come on." Joe replied mildly. "I just thought it might be fun." "Oh, you thought it might be fun." I was just getting started. "Then it's okay, cause the great Joe Lassiter thought it might be fun. What was I thinking, of course if you think it might be fun, then by all means we should do it." I shouting now and still driving like a maniac. It felt terrific. Joe sat up straight, his face grim, his mouth a hard line. He didn't look at me but that didn't make me shut up. "Yeah, what was I thinking? I couldn't possibly be wondering when my feelings were supposed to be considered in this grandiose plan of yours?" "That's enough." He spoke quietly but I heard him fine, I just chose to ignore him. "Quite a little pied a terre that place could be for you and your friends. And the chicks, man they'd love it. Meanwhile I could sit in my room or maybe you think I'd be handy in the kitchen, maybe whip up a little quiche?" "I said, that's enough!" He grabbed the wheel a second before I rammed a cyclist who'd had the nerve to be riding down the same road as me. I slammed on the brakes and the car shuddered to a stop. I took my hands off the wheel and looked at them, they were shaking. A whoosh of air left my lungs and with it all the rage that had so filled me only moments ago. "God Dammit, Mike!" Joe whispered. "Are you trying to kill someone? Look, I'm sorry if you think what I did was so wrong. You need a place, I thought this might be the solution. I guess I was wrong." "It would never work." I agreed tiredly. To my amazement, that was the statement that finally pissed Joe off. I had sworn at him, screamed at him, tried to kill him for Christ sakes and it wasn't until I said the first rational thought that had come into my mind in quite a while that he decides to get ticked. "Yeah, you're right Mike. It wouldn't work." He unsnapped his seatbelt and flung the car door open and jumped out. The door slammed before I had a chance to ask him where in the fuck he was going, we were miles from campus. I thought he must have realized this when five paces out he suddenly pivoted, came back and opened the door. "But you know what buddy?" He didn't wait for an answer. "If we aren't good enough friends it's not because of me." "What the hell does that mean?" "It means pal, I'm not the one who keeps half himself locked up inside so tight, nobody gets in. It means, I don't know how to reach you, to make you see that I want to be there for you. I don't want to just get together when, and if, you think it's appropriate. And just because your gay and I'm not doesn't mean our lives can't intersect a little more socially." "You like it that way." "Bullshit. I'm not the one who shut you down everytime you started to talk about something I felt might be getting a little personal. I'm not the one who refused every invitation to meet your friends. Hell, I never had the chance; you never asked." He shook his head. "God I must be really obtuse. I guess I wanted to be your friend so much, it never occurred to me that you didn't feel the same way." With that, he slammed the door again and trudged off. I watched him go with my mouth hanging open like some kind of idiot. What the fuck was he talking about? I had always been so concerned about his feelings. I never pushed him to do more because I knew it would make him uncomfortable to be seen too much with a gay guy. That's why I turned down his invitations to frat parties and after game keggers with the team. And as for not inviting him into my circle; that was ludicrous. My friends wouldn't have interested him. I stopped short. I thought about Saul and Kevin two guys from the now famous Art History class. Saul was majoring in Anthropology and he knew a lot about forensic science, something that fascinated Joe. Kevin was the funniest guy I knew with a wicked sense of the ridiculous; I'd never met anybody that didn't love being around him. But I'd never introduced either of them to Joe and the only reason was because they were gay. They lived together as a couple and although they weren't particularly effeminate, they were openly affectionate and unapologetic about who they were. In my small little mind, I guess that had been enough to make me think that Joe would be uncomfortable around them. But was that the truth, or had I gotten so caught up in proving what a real man I was to Joe, that I couldn't stand the thought of him seeing me in a gay setting. In that moment, all my perceptions clicked one degree to the left and I saw with awful clarity how wrong I'd been in my judgments of Joe. He hadn't been being polite when he'd invited me to join in, he'd wanted me to be there. In the beginning, he'd tried to talk to me about girls and he'd tried to get me to do the same about the guys I'd dated, but I'd always shut him up with a smart ass answer until he finally got the message and never brought either subject up again. I'd told myself we were setting necessary limits, but that was bullshit. I'd been the one to define the relationship and the only reason it was necessary was because I said so. I looked at myself in the rear view mirror. Shit, could I be such an asshole? Unfortunately, the answer was yes. Jesus, I realized, I was the biggest homophobe I knew! I started the car and began looking for Joe. He wasn't hard to find, he'd only made it about 2 blocks. I pulled over beside him and leaned over to open the passenger door. "Get in." He kept walking. "Goddamn it Joe, get in." He stopped and turned to look at me. The look in his eyes made me ashamed but I held his stare. He finally shook his head and turned away. "Do you even know where you're going?" I tried again. "Do you even know where you are?" He stopped again then slowly came over and got in the car. I sighed in relief then felt my stomach knot up as I prepared to speak. He beat me to it. "If you'll take me home, I promise I'll leave you alone after that." "No." I was surprised at how strong my voice sounded. Joe raised his eyebrows in shock. "You won't take me home?" "No, I'll take you home but I won't let you out of my life." "Mike..." "Let me finish, no, let me apologize. What you said back there was right." I swallowed and plowed on. "I haven't been fair to you. Or it seems to anyone else. I have these preconceived notions about how things are supposed to work and guess I was trying to impose judgments on the people I know." "Aren't you the guy that's always saying there are no more stereotypes?" He was already forgiving me. "Yeah and I was right. I just didn't know it at the time." Joe chuckled. "S'okay. Forget about it." "You're too easy on me." I responded. It was one of the things that always touched me about this guy, his capacity to accept and let bygones be bygones. "I just don't like to see the people I care about feeling bad." He raised his eyebrows and stared at me assessingly for a moment. "You have a date tonight?" "Not really but..." I could see where this was heading. "But," he sighed, "you have plans." "Just dinner and a movie with some friends." He nodded in resignation. I grinned at him. "But I bet they wouldn't mind if you tagged along." I felt ashamed again when I saw the pleasure and shock register in his eyes at the sound of the invitation. I was meeting Saul and Kevin. I wondered if they'd be just as surprised when they saw me show up with Joe. They knew we were friends, but they'd never even seen him up close. They teased me about my 'secret pal' and for the first time I wondered how much hurt had been behind the banter. "That'd be great, Missy is out of town tonight, one of her old friends is getting married and she's having a shower." "So her name is Missy? How long has this one lasted?" I pulled the car away from the curb and carefully made my way back to Ann Arbor. "Three months, she's a nice kid, but too many of her friends are getting married and I'm afraid she's come down with the 'I want a ring too' virus." "Can't have that." "No we can't." We both laughed and I realized that this conversation was kind of fun. "And what about you?" He asked. "Seeing anyone special?" I tensed, had I just thought this conversation was pleasant? But I knew that if Joe and I were to continue as friends this was one question I was going to have to answer. "Nope. Not someone who means anything to me." "But there is someone?" He pushed. "Well yes," I sighed ostentatiously, "there's always someone." I made myself go on. "His name is Rick." Joe grinned. "I think we're a lot alike." I snorted. "I doubt it bud." "Sure we are," he disagreed, "just opposite, you know positive and negative." "Gee thanks." "No that's not what I meant, more like left and right, north pole and south pole," he was nervous and digging himself in deeper, I let him wallow, "yin and yang. Oh fuck it." He threw his hands up in the air. "It seemed like I knew what I meant at the time." I looked at him seriously for as long as I could then I couldn't help it and started to laugh. "Asshole." He muttered. "But listen," I said when I had myself under control again, "there is something I need to tell you seriously." "Okay..." "The guys we're going out with tonight; they're a couple." "Yeah, so what's you point?" He was wary again. "Well I know how you like to be informed of these little social niceties and since I don't think they'll be wearing any tutu's or pink armbands..." I had never let him forget that comment. "Aw Jesus Christ, now you got me thinking about that again!" He shook his head in mock disgust. But he was grinning. And so was I. Authors note: To all of those who have written, thanks again for all support. I love hearing from all of you and hope you'll continue to let me know what you think of Mike and Joe's story. I know you've heard this before, but it really is the only payment Internet writers receive. jfinn