Someday, p.4
Someday, page 4
“Stop,” he said. “You didn’t make me do anything.”
Dalton opened his eyes, and tears flowed down his face. “Lucas…. We never touch each other.” Dalton looked away. “He wanted to do more, but I wouldn’t.”
Lucas blinked. Wait. What was Dalton saying?
“And I swear,” Dalton said so loudly that Lucas jumped, “I swear I had no idea he would try and force you to….” He covered his face with his hands and let out a long moan.
It wasn’t the same kind of moan Dalton had made when he had his orgasm last night.
It was awful.
“He kept asking me about you…. He kept saying you were prettier than any girl at school and kept asking me if you and I had ever… fooled around. And I said no… but I thought you wanted to.”
Lucas’s stomach leapt. You know I wanted it.
“So he begged me to ask you to join us.”
Lucas felt his stomach drop. It was all coming together now. “J-join you?”
Dalton opened his eyes but didn’t meet Lucas’s. “We get together sometimes and… you know… jerk off.”
Pain shot through Lucas’s heart. “L-last night….” Lucas trembled. “Last night wasn’t… the first time….” He couldn’t finish saying it. Couldn’t. He didn’t want to hear what Dalton would say.
“No. We’ve done it several times.”
Now it was Lucas who wanted to cry.
“Did….” Don’t ask! But now he had to know. “You two ever… suck each… other’s—”
“No!” Dalton was shaking his head in denial. “Never.”
The relief was immense.
“But you kept telling me you were gay, and I thought you might want….” Dalton looked away, not finishing his sentence.
Then Lucas was speaking before he even knew he was going to. “I would have for you. I…. God, I realize now I did want to. But only you. Not Diego.”
Dalton shook his head. “No. It’s over. I told Diego it was all over. I’m not doing anything else with guys again.”
The relief was replaced with sorrow so huge it felt like his heart might explode. No! You can’t say that! You can’t give me what you did and take it away!
“My mom was right. We’re just confused. Horny. All those hormones rushing through us. It’s just because we can’t have sex with girls. And that’s good so we’re not getting some girl pregnant.”
A cauldron of emotions and hormones. He remembered the conversation well.
A car horn honked. Dalton’s parents.
“So from now on,” Dalton said, “I’m just going to jerk off alone. It’s better that way.” He turned and stepped off the stoop. “I am so sorry, Lucas.”
“Dalton!” Lucas called after him.
His friend turned around.
“I meant it,” Lucas said quietly. “I would have done it for you. I would have sucked you. I will. I will right now if you want. I want to!” And despite the pain he felt, his penis, his cock, began to stir at his words.
Dalton’s eyes went wide. “No! I’m done. I’m not doing any of that anymore. No guys ever again. I’ll wait until I’m older and I’m ready to be with a girl. And I won’t make her do anything. It’ll be when she’s ready.”
“But Dalton. You wouldn’t be making me. Did you hear what I said? I want to.” Lucas knew it more and more and more. It was true. He did want to. He was getting hard again just thinking about it.
Thinking about sucking Dalton’s beautiful cock.
“No, Lucas. I can’t. I won’t.” Dalton took another step back. “I love you, Lucas. Just not that way. If you’re gay… then, okay. But I’m not.”
But if that was true, why didn’t he sound like he meant it, Lucas wondered. He didn’t sound like he meant it at all.
Then, as Dalton was turning, Lucas stopped him again. “Dalton?”
Dalton looked back.
“If you change your mind, please don’t do it with Diego.”
Dalton gave a half laugh. “Believe me, I won’t.”
“Or any other guy. Please. Let me be the first. Please.”
“I’m not gay, Lucas.”
“Then it won’t be hard for you to promise, will it? If you ever decide that maybe you do want to be with a boy, a guy… please? Let me be the first?”
Dalton looked at him long and hard, opened his mouth, shut it, looked away, looked back.
“Okay,” he said so quietly Lucas could barely hear him.
“Promise?” Lucas asked.
“I promise.”
The car horn blasted again.
“I have to go,” Dalton said, and with that he was running down Lucas’s driveway.
And Lucas was happy.
It wasn’t what he really wanted. It wasn’t the promise he wanted. But he’d take it.
The promise of a possibility.
It was enough.
For now.
2003
1
DALTON’S SENIOR prom was a week away.
And Dalton wasn’t taking him.
Dalton was taking a girl.
It wasn’t like Lucas didn’t know ahead of time, but it still hurt.
Rebecca D’Angelo.
Aarrgh.
What kind of name was that anyway?
But it wasn’t like Dalton and Rebecca hadn’t been on again, off again since… well, Dalton’s freshman year. And before.
So when the foreign exchange student from the Netherlands, Etienne De Vries—whom everyone called Steve because they couldn’t pronounce his name—came out as gay when he was a junior, Lucas went for him. Because it really was looking more and more every painful day that passed as if Lucas’s childhood vow would never come true. Shouldn’t he do the adult thing? Shouldn’t he move on? Dalton had, after all.
Etienne was more than happy to take him. He told Lucas it had taken a lot of guts for him to come out. He’d been afraid, which surprised Lucas, because “scared” was the last word he would have ever used to describe Etienne. He was already on the Terra’s Gate High football team. He was in the glee club and even the speech club.
“It helps me with both my English and my accent,” Etienne explained.
Etienne was the epitome of brave.
They began dating—movies, going out to eat, walking in the park. Lucas even attended Etienne’s games, though sports had always bored him to tears. Actually knowing someone on the team helped, though.
What was really incredible was how cool most of the kids at school were about the whole gay thing. Lucas wouldn’t walk down the hall holding Etienne’s hand (and he certainly wouldn’t put his hand in Etienne’s back pocket or let Etienne do the same, like so many of the kids did), but it was nice that they didn’t have to hide. It certainly threw out Dalton’s theory that letting people know he was gay would mean his high-school life was over.
The problem was… sex.
Etienne wanted it, and Lucas didn’t.
The kissing was fine. Some touching. He’d been fine with the groping and rubbing through their jeans. Making out hadn’t been bad, and that time or two of rolling around in the back seat of Etienne’s car had been kind of exciting. They’d even progressed to taking their cocks out and masturbating—first together and then eventually each other. Lucas finally held another penis besides his own, and it was exciting. He couldn’t deny it.
But it wasn’t Dalton’s.
He couldn’t help but wish that the first penis he ever held was Dalton’s.
Etienne had been pushing for more. He wanted them to suck each other. Etienne had half attempted doing it to Lucas already. And he couldn’t stop talking about fucking. He had even found a book at Not Just Another Book Store on Main Street—The Joy of Gay Sex—so they would know how. The assistant manager had let him buy it.
“I was so scared he wouldn’t let me. He gave me this long hard stare, and my heart was pounding, and then suddenly, he just rang it up, and I gave him the money, and then I was out of there!”
The problem was, Lucas didn’t want to do that. He wasn’t ready.
(Not with Etienne.)
He did, however, want to go to prom. And when Etienne asked him, he hugged him hard and told him he’d be honored.
Which meant Lucas decided it was time to tell his mother he was gay.
They were sitting on the couch when he did it. He had made tea and baklava because he loved how it all looked on the coffee table. And because he wanted to show off his newly discovered passion for baking—a fortunate by-product of his new job at a recently opened local bakery. He wore a new peach polo shirt he’d bought himself with the money he made at the Sweet Spot. Lucas had wanted everything to be perfect. This was an important conversation.
After he told her, she looked at him, blinked, gave an ever-so-slight sigh, and visibly relaxed.
“Well, of course I knew,” she said quietly.
“You did?” Lucas asked. He wasn’t sure if he was surprised or not. He hadn’t hidden it—years after he first started scrutinizing his reflection mornings and evenings, he still wondered how even statues couldn’t know he was gay. He just wasn’t all that masculine. But neither had he insisted his room be painted pink, nor had he flapped his wrists and called everyone “Miss Thang.”
“Well, honey, you’ve been in love with Dalton your whole life, and you didn’t go out of your way to hide that stack of Playgirl magazines in your closet. Didn’t you expect me to put your clothes away? You didn’t even put them in a box or anything like your father did with his Playboys.”
Lucas blushed. Both for himself and the father that he’d never really known. There were only shadows of memory that might not have even been real—might have been the stuff of dreams. His father had died in Panama when Lucas was three. He had a vague recollection of tallness, but then anyone would have been tall to a three-year-old, right?
He could believe his mother knew he was gay, but the magazines! He blushed all the harder. Did she know what he did when he looked at them? He always tried to use his dirty sweat socks to clean up with. Sweaty socks got stiff, after all.
“I just wondered how you got ahold of them,” she said, eyes filled with curiosity but still maintaining a quiet cool that almost embarrassed him more. Disappointment he could have planned for. Anger. But this level of calm? “Some man at the newsstand didn’t sell them to you, I hope. Didn’t ask for something in return?”
“No!” Lucas assured her with a gasp. He’d found them at a garage sale. He’d been far too afraid to buy them, so he bought some Sports Illustrateds instead, asked for a bag, and then switched them when the lady was busy with another customer. It wasn’t stealing, after all.
His mother nodded, but again it was only ever so slightly. “That I would not have liked.”
“So you’re not mad?” Lucas asked. “You’re not disappointed?”
She shrugged and patted at her blond (beginning to go gray) hair, which was formed around her head like a loose football helmet. “Not really. After all, you did tell me you were going to marry Dalton when you were five years old. I didn’t think a thing about it at the time, but after reading a few articles in those magazines at doctor’s offices, it seems a child’s sexuality is pretty much set by that age.” She took a bite of baklava. “And I mean, goodness, Lucas. It wasn’t like you haven’t given other hints. I mean, really—baklava? That’s not easy to make. None of my friends have sons who would dream of making something so fancy. Or daughters either. They’re very tasty, by the way.” She popped the remainder of the little snack into her mouth and smiled while she chewed. Then, “And I haven’t had to worry about you getting some girl in the family way,” she said in a weird echo of what Dalton’s mother had once said. “I guess you’ll be marrying him after all?”
Lucas frowned. “No, Mom.” He let out a long, dramatic sigh. God, of course she knew I was gay! “Dalton is straight.”
Finally the look of surprise he was expecting. “Dalton? Straight?” She laughed.
“What’s so funny?”
“He just seems so gay to me,” she replied and then reached for another delicious triangular dessert.
“Dalton?” Lucas was stunned. Dalton? Dalton was a stud. If she thought Dalton acted gay, then, “What do you think of me?”
She waved the comment away. “You’re Lucas.”
He didn’t know what to say about that.
She drank some tea. “This is really quite tasty,” she replied. “No wonder the British like it so much. A lot of trouble with the boiling and the teapot and the steeping bags. My Mr. Coffee beats that hands down. But then I guess I’m spoiled. It wasn’t that long ago I used a percolator. So Dalton isn’t your boyfriend?”
The way she said it, Lucas almost missed that last sentence.
He came close to laughing, but then he thought about Rebecca. Seeing Dalton walking down the hall holding her hand. Or worse—when he would have his hand in her back pocket. And worse yet, when she had her hand in his. He frowned.
“What’s wrong, honey?” his mother asked.
“No,” he said sadly. “He’s got a girlfriend.”
She gave him a consoling look. “I’m sorry, Lucas. The boy I had a crush on in high school didn’t like me either.” She sighed.
I don’t have a crush, he thought, irritated.
“He was so cute.” She smiled at what he could only assume was some memory. Then she sat up and her brows rose high and a little color spread out across her cheeks. “But his best friend liked me! And we got married a few months after I graduated.”
His father? “Dad?”
“Your father!” She nodded happily and leaned back into the couch. A faraway look came to her eyes.
It was then that it occurred to him that he should tell her the other thing. It wasn’t like she would be mad. “I do have a boyfriend, though.”
There was only a flicker in her eyes. A tightening of her lips. Had she just stiffened? Maybe she wasn’t quite as cool as she was letting on. “Oh?”
“His name is Etienne,” he said, careful to pronounce it correctly—A-tie-enn.
“At-ee…. That’s a mouthful, isn’t it?” she asked and made a very strange little sound. Lucas didn’t even know what it was. Was it a laugh? What was it?
“He’s from the Netherlands,” Lucas said. “He’s a foreign exchange student. Most people just call him Steve.”
She folded her hands over her knees and nodded. “I think for now I better stick to Steve.”
“Okay….” God. He tried to guess what she was thinking. Was she…? “You okay, Mom?”
She froze for a second… and then relaxed again. “Yes.”
He didn’t believe her. “What is it, Mom?”
She gave him a half smile, paused for a very long time, then said, “Oh, Lucas. I told you. I’ve known forever about you. And… well… it became okay.”
“Okay?” he asked. There was a tug at his heart.
“It was you,” she said with a wave. “You were always that way. And I was a young mother and very naïve, and I kept… I don’t know… resisting. Your father was gone, and you were my only child, and your grandmother is gone….”
He’d never known her either.
“And when you were very little, I would read in the women’s magazines in those very same doctor’s offices that….” She paused. “That boys raised without a strong male role model could become homosexual.” She sighed. Made a noise that might have been a laugh. “There! I said it out loud! Ho-mo-sexual!”
She reached for another baklava, then seemed to change her mind. She rocked for a second.
Lucas bit his lip. His stomach was doing weird things. He couldn’t tell where this was going.
“I kept wondering if I did something wrong. That’s why I tried to get you to get involved with sports, Little League, that kind of thing.”
That had been a disaster. He’d hated it, and the kids had hated him hating it—he couldn’t even hold a bat right, and he didn’t want to learn how. So he always struck out. He lasted for three games before she let him drop out. It had felt like a thousand!
“I watched you grow, and it soon became obvious that it was foolish to want you to be anything other than what you are. And the articles in the magazines changed. Saying things that made me feel better. It became… okay. I mean, it wasn’t like carrying on the family name meant anything to me—although with it just you and me, I was sad for a bit that this would be the end of our family.”
Then she did laugh, and she snatched up her tea and took a drink, and Lucas could see the laugh was real (which was a relief), and whatever had been settling over her was gone. The tightening in his stomach relaxed.
“I realized that there have been thousands of families that have ended since the caveman times, and the Earth has continued to spin along just fine.” She put her cup down and reached out and placed a hand on his. “What matters is love, right?”
He smiled, his heart swelled, and he gave her one single nod.
Then she rolled her eyes and sat back again. “And then of course, there was Dalton. I’ve known him nearly his whole life. He has always seemed like another son to me. And it was like… well, like it’s always been you two. I didn’t have to really think about it. I think I’ve imagined you two being married since you were in at least the fourth grade or so.”
Lucas’s mouth fell open. “But you were the one who told me two boys can’t get married.”
She shrugged. “Well…. I did some reading there too. Like I said, the magazines changed.”
Which wasn’t surprising. For as far back as he could remember, she always had a book or a magazine in her lap. She’d never been a soap-opera-watching mom.
“…and I learned how so-called legal marriages are in many ways a relatively new thing. Many cultures just got two people together and said, ‘Okay! You’re married! Let’s dance around the fire!’”
They both laughed at that.
“This marriage license thing and legal documents and all that stuff? Hell! That doesn’t make a marriage! It’s love that makes a marriage. Love and commitment, right?”
