feelings to myself. Do you know how many times I
wanted to tel you I was in love with you but didn’t?”
“That’s why it’s not fair to you,” Ian said. “No
one should have to hold back their feelings.”
“But why is this happening now?” Bily asked.
“I’ve never pressured you.”
“Because I’m in love with you, too, damn it, and I
can’t, I won’t go through this again,” Ian shouted.
Bily yeled back, “You’re going to have to,
because I won’t give up without a fight.”
“Please, Bily, don’t make me relive this. It’s not
going to change anything.”
“Maybe it won’t, but I need to know. You’re
asking me to let go of the most important thing in my life
and it’s not fair to make me do that without an
explanation.”
“If I tel you, wil you go, and move on with your
life?” Ian asked.
“If you open up to me and tel me what happened
to you, and when you’re through, you stil want me to
go, I won’t fight you. I love you too much to cause you
any more pain.”
Ian sat on the edge of the bed, dropped his head
in his hands, and said, “Okay, Bily, you win.” Ian
opened his mouth, but it took a couple of attempts
before the name Todd came out. “Todd Slocum was
my best friend since elementary school. We were on the
wrestling team together in middle school; we joined the
swim team together in high school and continued
swimming in colege and became roommates when we
went away to Bob Jones University. We were both
majoring in marketing with minors in business
administration. Todd’s mother was from a prominent
South Carolina family, and his father was the district
attorney of Greenvile. My parents were pretty wel-off
as wel. My mother was a stay-at-home mom who did
lots of charity work, and my father was a pediatrician.
Our families were long-time friends with strong,
Christian values. Somewhere between our junior and
senior year in high school, Todd developed a romantic
attraction to me that I was unaware of. Coupled with
the fear of losing his best friend and the fact that his
Bible-beating parents considered homosexuality the
ultimate sin and damned al homosexuals to burn in hel,
Todd kept his feelings for me wel hidden. But what
Todd didn’t know was that I was experiencing the
same feelings.
“As we went off to colege, it became more and
more difficult to pretend or ignore the strong attraction
we secretly had for one another. One night, early in our
freshman year, we’d gone to a frat party. I didn’t realy
drink much in colege, so I was always the designated
driver. But as usual, by the party’s end, Todd was
pretty intoxicated. I drove us back to our dorm and
struggled to get Todd up the stairs and back to our
room, as I had done many times before. When we
arrived at the door, I propped Todd against it and held
him there with one hand as I fished my keys from my
pocket with the other. I slid the key into the lock,
turned the knob, and because of Todd’s weight, the
door flew open with a thud. I lost my footing, and with
Todd in my arms, we both fel to the floor. I managed
to get him to his feet and maneuvered him toward his
bed. When we got there, I could no longer support our
weight, and I fel to the bed with Todd on top of me.
“I roled Todd to one side and slid from beneath
him. I repositioned him on the bed with his head on his
pilow and started to undress him so he could sleep. As
I slid Todd’s jeans down to his thighs, I suddenly
realized that Todd’s dick was very hard. Shocked, I
looked up and saw Todd staring down at me from the
head of the bed, resting on his elbows. In a flash, he
managed to get to a sitting position, hook me under
both arms, and pul me up to him until we were looking
into each other’s eyes. Before I could react, Todd
reached one hand behind my neck, puled my head to
his, and covered my lips for a long, passionate kiss. I
felt my mouth open to the warmth and exploration of his
tongue. He tasted of beer and nachos, but who cared.
He was kissing me, and al I wanted to do was get lost
in the moment.
“Something jerked me back to reality, and I
puled away. As hard as it was to stop, I couldn’t bear
to have Todd not remember this in the morning or, even
worse, pretend this interlude didn’t happen. Secondly,
no matter how much I wanted him, I wasn’t wiling to
take advantage of him, not in this condition. His next
move took me by surprise; he reached down and puled
my T-shirt over my head. Before I could gain my
balance, he puled me down on top of him and we were
again face to face, but this time my bare chest was
touching his.
“His hands began to lightly rub my chest muscles,
slowly teasing my nipples and finaly settling on my
waist. As he looked at me with desire, I leaped out of
his bed. I needed air, needed to breathe, to think. I
didn’t want to stop, but I didn’t want it this way, either.
“Todd made his way off of the bed and reached
out to me. With his blue jeans stil around his ankles, he
stumbled and lunged forward. I caught him just before
he hit the floor. I puled him back to his feet and
wrapped my arms around him, and we stood locked in
an embrace that neither of us wanted to break, Todd in
his boxers and me naked from the waist up. I reluctantly
broke the embrace and guided him back to his bed. He
stepped out of his jeans, and I puled back the covers
and nudged him down into his bed. I wil never forget
the look of rejection in his eyes when I left his side and
moved to my own bed, to think and eventualy sleep.
“The next morning, I awoke with Todd in his
boxers sitting at the foot of my bed. The words
between us didn’t flow easily, but Todd, despite his
hangover, wanted to explain and more so wanted an
explanation. He stil wore the look of rejection, and it
hurt me to the core.
“Finaly he said he shouldn’t have kissed me last
night and that he was sorry. I asked him why he had
done it. He looked down at the floor, and I saw tears
running down his cheeks. I tried to reassure him and
told him it was okay, he could tel me anything. In an
almost inaudible tone, he told me he was in love with
me. Then he looked at me and told me he’d been in
love with me for as long as he could remember but just
never had the bals to tel me. But after last night, he
couldn’t hide his feelings for me any longer. I told him
I’d had no idea and that he’d done a pretty remarkable
job of keeping his feelings hidden.
“Then I told him that I’d been looking for a sign,
any sign for the longest time, and that I’d almost given
up on him and I couldn’t believe this was happening.
“The words had barely left my mouth, and he said
he would leave Bob Jones, change schools. Then as if
he had just heard me, he said, ‘Wait, did you say
you’ve been looking for a sign? What does that mean?’
“I placed a hand on each side of his face, wiped
his tears away with my thumbs, and told him it meant
that I loved him, too, and I was just as scared to show
my feelings. I was so afraid of losing him that I would
never have made the first move.
“With tears now weling up in my eyes, I told him
that I’d waited forever for a moment like we shared last
night. I had dreamed and fantasized about it more times
than I cared to admit, but I didn’t want him under those
circumstances, not with him intoxicated, not without
clear heads. More importantly, I couldn’t bear the
thought of his rejection in the morning, if he regretted it,
or even worst, pretended it hadn’t happened. I couldn’t
have lived with that!
“Todd took me in his arms and told me that he
loved me. As the words came out of his mouth, I
wasn’t sure if I’d actualy heard them or simply
imagined them. I thought I might be dreaming. Then I
said I loved him too.
“We looked at each other for the first time with
the hopes of a future together. Could it realy be
possible? Could we actualy have a real life together?”
“It sounds like you got everything you ever
wanted and then some,” Bily said with a little jealousy
in his voice.
“Let me finish, Bily. I need to get through this,”
Ian said softly.
“After we’d professed our love, Todd puled
back the covers and crawled into my tiny bed, and we
simply held on to each other. He told me we weren’t
intoxicated now and that we were both of clear minds,
dealing with a smal hangover, but stil of clear minds.
He asked me where I wanted to go from there. We
made love for the first time.” With a smile on his face,
Ian said, “Neither of us had been with another man
before and didn’t realy know what to do, but we
figured it out pretty quickly.”
Despite himself, Bily smiled.
“We continued our love affair discreetly through
the next semester to the folowing spring break. Neither
of us wanted to think about going home, but our parents
were expecting us and we had no good excuse to stay
at the University.
“Once back home, we knew we would have to
be very careful not to let on how we realy felt about
each other, knowing our parents would pick up on the
slightest indication. Looking back, I think our parents
had possibly seen something that we hadn’t and had
always questioned the time we spent together.
“Spring break came, and we headed home and
did the best we could to find time and privacy to be
together. The night before we were to head back to
school, our parents, who were good friends, were
having dinner together and asked us to join them. We
declined, with the excuse that we needed to finish
laundry, pack, and get a good night’s sleep and get an
early start in the morning.
“Soon after our parents had left for dinner, we
went upstairs to Todd’s room and tried to relax. We
were both very tense at trying to deceive our parents
and stil find time for each other. We stripped out of our
clothes and slipped between the sheets and started to
make love.
“Just as we were getting into a rhythm, the door
opened and Todd’s mother walked in the room with his
father in tow. The look of hurt and betrayal on their
faces was beyond what we could have ever imagined.
We knew they wouldn’t approve, but we thought they
would come around. Todd jumped up and found his
underwear and began to speak. At his father’s raising of
a hand, he stopped. His father yanked me out of bed
and instructed me to get dressed and get out. He told
me to never show my face in their house again. I did as
he was told. I was sure Todd’s parents would cal mine,
but I had hoped to get home to talk to them before they
got the cal. Unfortunately, when I got home, my
parents were waiting for me. They told me how
humiliating it was to hear the Slocums tel them things
about their son, things that went against everything they
believed in, everything they had taught me. They said I
made their stomachs turn. They didn’t give me a chance
to speak, they told me to pack my bags and get out. As
far as they were concerned, they no longer had a son,
and I could kiss my family and my education goodbye.
“When I tried to explain that Todd and I were in
love, my father accused me of being delusional. Then I
asked them what the Slocums had told them. As I
stood there listening to my father recount the story, I
couldn’t believe my ears. The Slocums said that they’d
caught me raping Todd. They also said, with his hand
on the family Bible, Todd confessed to being
blackmailed. He convinced them that I first raped him
after a frat party, when he was intoxicated and couldn’t
defend himself. Then after that, I had threatened to tel
his parents he was gay and get him kicked out of school
if he didn’t continue to have sex with me. They also told
my parents that if I left town immediately and never
contacted Todd ever again, they wouldn’t press any
formal charges.
“I realy couldn’t believe what I was hearing. I
remember faling to my knees and pleading. I told them