Everyone has that first love that dances on your balls with cha-cha heels, and Patrick was mine. But holy fucking Christ, it hurt. Nothing like an eighteen-year-old’s angst, is there?
She held my hand for a minute, then dragged me out onto the dance floor, and soon enough, we let the booze and the music take us away from our loves for a moment and flew. We danced to Sylvester and the Thompson Twins, Cyndi Lauper, and Prince, and Madonna and Deniece Williams, and when a slow number—Tina Turner’s “Private Dancer” came on, we made our way off the floor and back to the bar. I’d just got us two more beers when Patrick nudged in next to me and swiped mine. Chugging half of it in one big swallow, he handed it back to me, and I could see how big his pupils were and how he almost bounced with energy.
Suddenly, I was done for the night. I looked over his shoulder at Sonia, and she must have seen something in my eyes that let her know how I felt because she punched Patrick on the arm and yelled, “Where you been, you big homo? You know Matthew has to be at work early in the morning. It’s time we went home.”
“But I’m just starting to have fun and—”
“Then fucking stay. Call a cab.” I nodded to Sonia, and turned to leave. At that point I didn’t care if he came with me or not. I needed to get my wounded ass home and have a good pity cry and get the hell over myself. And I needed it ten minutes ago.
When I got outside, I kept going, out through the parking lot of the Tara shopping center and to my car. I stood there a minute, not looking back, then unlocked it and popped the passenger door for Sonia. To my surprise, she reached in and pulled the seat up and Patrick crawled into the back seat. She got in when he was settled, and I cranked the car and started home.
The silence in the car was heavy, and no one said a word. Just as well, the mood I was in I didn’t want either of them to say a word to me. I pushed in my Depeche Mode cassette and let the heavy beat pound inside me. I thought about dropping Patrick off first, since he only live a mile from my house. That was petty, even to me, and I sure as hell didn’t want him to know how much the evening had hurt me, so I cut the music down, reached across and squeezed her hand before she got out of the car. She just nodded and went inside while Patrick climbed out of the back seat and got up front.
I turned the stereo back up as I backed out of the driveway, but Patrick reached and turned it down. My anger spiked and I turned to open both barrels on him, when I saw how badly his hand was shaking and how he was bent over in the seat. A cold splash of panic put out the fire that had been brewing in my gut, and I flicked the sound system off completely.
Just as I was about to ask what happened, he spoke. “I think I did something really stupid tonight, Matthew. Really, really stupid.” He let out a sob and rocked back and forth in the seat, arms crossed over his stomach. I reached over to touch him and he flinched away from me.
That hurt. But I finally got it, that it wasn’t about me this time.
I kept my voice low, because while I understood this was something bad, I still loved the guy and anything that hurt him would make me fly apart too. “Tell me.”
He sniffed, and tried to sit up a little straighter. “I was dancing with that guy, you saw him, right? Hot as hell, looked like Kevin Bacon only better, and he really seemed to like me, right? So I went back to the bathroom with him and he had a little bottle with something in it he called poppers, and we sniffed them. God, it made my heart beat like a motherfucker, Matthew, and then, then…” He trailed off.
I waited, dying a thousand deaths. I might have been eighteen and a virgin gay boy in a Southern city, but even I knew bad things happened when drugs were introduced into the mix of horny, young, and dumb. When he didn’t say anything, I whispered, “What did he do to you?”
He slowly turned his head and looked out the passenger window. His voice was gravelly and whisper smooth all at the same time. I’ll never forget it. “I let him fuck me.” I wanted to stop the car and make him get out and just drive. Drive until all the hurt in me was gone, until I forgot the words and the feelings and how much I loved and hated my friend. Then he spoke again. “I think something was wrong.”
“What do you mean?”
“He was…there was something wrong,” he repeated. “He didn’t look as good with his clothes off, like he had sores on him, and I didn’t see it until he was finished. And…”
“Go on.” I gritted my teeth.
“He didn’t use a condom,” he whispered. “What if I get that gay cancer or whatever they are talking about on the news? What if I get the clap? My dad will kill me.”
I shook my head. His dad was a nutcase, and I wouldn’t let that happen. I was freaking out a little too, since I wanted sex so badly and was scared of it all at the same time, but I wanted to be a good friend and wouldn’t quiz him about it. “Here’s what we’re gonna do. You are staying at my house tonight. When we get home, you’re gonna take a hot shower and wash…wash everywhere,” I told him with an embarrassed rush of words, “and then next week we’ll go to the health clinic and tell them what happened and see what they say.”
He started crying again. “Okay.” He was quiet a few minutes, and as we pulled into the driveway, he asked, “Can I sleep with you tonight? I…I don’t want to be alone and you’re my best friend.” He turned to face me. “I love you, Matthew.”
I closed my eyes, wishing he’d have said those words two hours ago. “I love you too.”
Chapter Three
The next week was one of the worst of my life. After I got Patrick in the house, I sent him into the bathroom to clean up and take a shower. He was still so freaked out I ended up running a bath for him instead while I grabbed a pair of my pajama bottoms and a T-shirt and turned to leave the bathroom when he whimpered. I stood there for a minute, back to him and gathered my courage, then turned back and made him strip and get into the hot water.
He was so beautiful, and I felt like a pervert. I tried to not look, but I was eighteen and in love. But the misery, I swear, it rolled off him in waves I could almost see. Whatever thoughts and feelings I had, outside of my friendship with him, soon melted away and went down the drain like a summer shower. I took a washcloth and very gently cleaned him, everywhere, then dressed him and brought him into my bedroom.
He’d spent the night with me before, and my parents loved him like a second son, but he usually stayed in the guest room. I carefully locked the door and put him in my bed with me. When I got in on my side and moved to turn away, I heard his short shallow gasps and felt the slight shaking of the mattress. It only took a minute to decide, but I moved in behind him, pulled him against my chest and wrapped the blankets around both of us.
I think I grew up that night. It might have been Patrick that lost his virginity, but it was me that lost my innocence. Laying in the dark, holding the guy I’d loved since I was twelve and being the friend, the rock he needed…without being corny or schmaltzy, I think I became a man.
Good damned thing, too, because when we did get the results back, he had a nice big case of syphilis. Thankfully, the doctor was able to prescribe some antibiotics and since Patrick was legally an adult, we didn’t have to tell his parents. But he did have to list his sex partners, and when he stuttered, I stepped in and told them it was me. That I’d been to Thailand over the summer and wasn’t a good boyfriend and could only hope he’d forgive me. Between the doctor’s stern look and Patrick’s slack-jawed silence, I was able to move it along and get the prescription so we could get the hell out of there.
“Why’d you say that in there?” Patrick finally said when we were in the car and on our way to the drug store to fill the scrip.
I looked over at him and rolled my eyes. “What were you going to say? ‘I was a slut and dropped my pants and let a guy fuck me in a club?’ I was trying to help you keep your dignity. What’s left of it,” I joked, trying to lighten the mood.
Patrick stared for a moment, and I pulled into the parking lot at the Walgreens. I parked and shut the engine off. When I moved to open the door, he reached out and grabbed my arm, stopping me. I turned to look at him. “I don’t know whether to kiss you or punch you in the face, you asshole.” He shook his head, never breaking eye contact.
I tried to smile, but I think my eyes probably showed what I wanted, because I saw how his face softened. He let my arm go and raised a hand to my cheek and stroked it. I had to close my eyes to keep him from seeing me lose it. His touch was gentle and I felt it all the way to my toes. Part of me wondered when I became a character in a Rosemary Rogers romance novel, another part was mortified someone might see us, but the biggest part of me? It was doing a fucking jig that Patrick was finally touching me.
All too soon his touch was gone, and when I opened my eyes he was already out of the car and walking into the store. I know I must have looked like a fool sitting there, this goofy ass grin on my face, so I quickly got out and went in after him. We got the prescription filled and when we got back in the car, he reached down to turn up the music and didn’t say another word.
That’s the way things stayed for the next couple of weeks. Then it became months, then we were graduating and it was summer. The flirtation was still there, and I know I was probably a wuss for not doing anything about it, but every time I flirted back, or made a move that was even somewhat physical, there was this shadow that passed over Patrick’s face and he would flinch, and I would back off.
Sonia hung out with us less and less, her plans to move to San Francisco and enroll in culinary school and become a full-out card-carrying dyke were rolling right along. The night before she was supposed to leave—driving, of course, in the El Camino her parents bought her—we all got together for one last evening on the town. By unspoken consent, we stayed away from the Warehouse, but ended up at the Battalion. It was a little tamer there, with a dance floor, two bars and quiet areas, and it was also more comfortable. Neither of us had told Sonia what happened, and she didn’t press, but she sensed the tension between me and Patrick and, for once, left things alone.
Anyway, we were at the Battalion and it was drag night. We’d had a few drinks and decided to stay for the show. This was the first time I’d seen drag, and it was hysterical. Guys of all sizes in dresses and full makeup lip synching to all sorts of music. Some of it was funny, some profound, some profane, but the longer the evening got, the rowdier we got. Until one poor queen had enough and decided to read our beads. I’m not a shy person, but I usually keep my mouth shut. But this poor wannabe Whitney Houston pushed me too far.
“Little white boy, you need to shut your mouth up and go on back home. Let the lady do her work, boy.”
That was more than I could take. I howled, with Sonia and Patrick shushing me. But I wasn’t gonna be shushed. “Oh, honey child,” I drawled, “you ain’t no lady, and you sure as hell aren’t working it.”
I’d never been mouthy, and I sure as shit never flamed it up either. I was a shade over six-two and about one eighty then, and looked and acted more like a jock than a gayboy. But something about the night was just making me throw all caution to the wind. One of my best friends was leaving, I was dancing this slow seductive waltz with my other best friend, and I had about six Jack and Cokes in me.
The crowd howled and clapped. The bitchy little diva snatched off her wig and threw it on the floor, stomping and yelling, “Well, fine then motherfucker, you think you can do better? Get your redneck ass up here and let’s see you do it.”
And damned if I didn’t jump up and grab her wig off the floor, made a show of putting it on, which must have looked funny as hell with my scraggly beard, black polo shirt and khaki shorts. Oh, and size thirteen topsiders. I walked over to the DJ booth and asked him to put on Deniece Williams’s “Let’s Hear It for the Boy.” I’d worn out my copy of the
Footloose
soundtrack, but nobody had ever seen me singing along with her and dancing around my bedroom. The booze, the dare, the looks on my friends’ faces…it was enough to have me strutting around like a two dollar whore on payday.
Dollar bills rained down on the stage, and at the end, I made a nice curtsy, stepped off the stage and collapsed at the table with my friends. Patrick just shook his head, an expression on his face I couldn’t place. Sonia was hanging onto the chair for dear life. And I was gulping down the beer that was placed in front of me by a grinning waiter. Who proceeded to stay and look me up and down like I was a piece of prime rib. I noticed Patrick glaring, and my grin got even bigger.
The DJ came over and gave me a slap on the back, laughing. “God, man, I haven’t seen Teena flip her wig like that before. Thank you, my friend. You are welcome back here anytime. Name’s Phil. Ask for me.” He handed me a wad of bills, slapped me on the shoulder again, and went back to the booth to spin records for the next queen.
“What was that all about?” Patrick asked when I’d caught my breath.
“Just having some fun. Why, did I embarrass you?”
He sized me up. “No, just never seen you queening it up before. It’s kinda hot.” He gave me a small smile, and turned to talk to Sonia. That put his face into the light, and I noticed how thin his face was looking and wondered if he was eating. He tended to forget, especially when he was stressed or if his dad was giving him shit. But then he turned back to me and smiled and all the blood left my head and went south. Because the smile wasn’t a friendly one. It was a
Hello, big boy, nice to meet you and how about a kiss
smile. His hand came down on my thigh under the table, and I felt like I was going to go up in flames.