Date: Sat, 12 Jun 2010 06:35:57 EDT
From: BertMcK@aol.com
Subject: Dancing on the Tundra, 13

DANCING ON THE TUNDRA
by Bert McKenzie
Copyright 2010

Disclaimer: This story is a work of fiction.  Any resemblance to any real
person alive or dead is coincidental and unintentional.

CHAPTER XIII

     Terry needed to talk with someone.  This was just too
overwhelming for him.  He first tried his family back home, but
he couldn't really discuss such personal matters as his love
life.  It was nice to hear his mom's voice.  He even spoke
briefly to his father, but he never brought up the anxiety he was
feeling.  After hanging up the phone he felt no better than he
had before, so he sat and thought for a while, trying to decide
what to do next.  He was so overwhelmed by the loss that he even
contemplated suicide.  He mentally argued with himself.  On one
hand he couldn't understand why he was hurting so badly.  He had
only known Dan for a little over a month.  They had actually been
lovers for less than a week.  But on the other hand he felt as if
his whole world was falling apart.  It was his first real
experience with a broken heart.

     After several minutes of silent agony, he picked up the
phone and dialed a long distance number.  When a female voice
answered, he asked, "May I please speak to Paula Brown?"  In a
couple of minutes the familiar tones of his old friend came on
the line.  "I really need to talk to you in person," he said.
"It's important."  Paula finally agreed to drive down and pick
him up the next day.  They would both cut classes and spend the
afternoon together, just the two of them, no friends, lovers,
roommates, or acquaintances.

     The next day the blue Camaro pulled up in front of his
apartment.  Terry grabbed his wallet and jacket and dashed down
the stairs.  He hopped in the car beside his old friend and they
sped off, heading down the street to the local hamburger joint
where Terry bought them lunch to go.  They then drove out to the
lake just outside of town.  The two friends sat on the shore, the
water lapping in small wavelets just scant feet from them.  They
huddled in their jackets as they ate their lunches with the cold
breeze from the water blowing on them.

     "So what was so important that I had to come back here right
after I was just down?" Paula asked as she wiped mustard from the
corner of her mouth with the coarse paper napkin.  "And why
couldn't you tell me over the phone?"

     Terry felt his eyes beginning to mist up as he thought of
what he was about to say.  The burger and fries sat like a heavy
rock in the pit of his stomach.  He took a sip of the strawberry
shake he had gotten, but the thick, creamy concoction did nothing
to quench his thirst or help clear his throat so he could speak.
He took a moment to swallow hard in an attempt to force down the
food that threatened to regurgitate and choke him.  "I'm . . .
I'm gay."

     "Yeah?" Paula said calmly and continued to stare at him
expectantly.  She was obviously waiting for him to say something
more.

     "Didn't you hear me?" Terry asked in surprise.  She couldn't
have.  She was still sitting calmly beside him.  He expected some
sort of explosive reaction, perhaps an expression of disgust or
loathing.  But she looked as though she were still waiting for
his big announcement, the one he had already made.

     "Is that it?" she finally asked, realizing that he had made
his statement.

     "Yeah."

     "Well, I knew that."

     "You knew . . . what do you mean you knew that?"

     "Terry, no one moves in with two guys, one an obvious flit,
and then shares his bed with one of them, and is still straight."

     "But . . . but you're not upset or shocked or anything?"
Terry felt odd, almost let down.  His announcement had been such
a catharsis that he expected something monumental in return.  His
friend's calm reaction deflated the moment and seemed to make his
revelation and his new, unique lifestyle seem totally
unimportant.

     "Ever since you and Jim started messing around together in
high school I suspected as much."

     "You mean he's gay too?"  Terry couldn't believe Paula
suspected his sexuality before he had even admitted it to
himself.

     "No, I don't think so.  I think he just used you, but I knew
you were a willing participant so that meant something."  They
sat in silence for a few minutes and looked out at the water.
"So you and the jock are lovers?"

     "Not any more."  Terry couldn't even cry now.  He felt cold
and empty inside, like the frozen tundra had finally taken over
his soul, forcing out all his emotions with its cold, white
expanse.  "He quit school and moved home."

     "What happened?" she asked.

     "I'm not really sure."  Terry thought about the situation,
then as he opened his mouth to explain, it seemed as if his heart
leaped into his throat.  It was as if a volcanic vent had been
building for quite some time, pushing up under the frozen tundra,
exerting its ever-present pressure.  Finally, a tiny crack formed
in the ice and it broke through the surface thrusting up full
grown and exploding wildly.  He couldn't breathe and tears began
to flow as if faucets had been turned on behind his eyes.  All he
could do for a few minutes was sob, his body racked with
convulsions as the tears mingled with his gasps for air.  Then he
was telling Paula all about the party and Wayne getting beat up,
and Dan's fight with his former roommate.  He ended with their
argument about living together and Dan's decision to move home.
"I . . . I don't want him to go," Terry cried as he tried to get
control of his emotions.

     "Did you tell him this?" Paula asked.

     "Yes."

     "Do you love him?"

     "I don't know.  I guess so."

     "Did you tell him?"

     "No," Terry admitted, the tears returning.

     "Well tell him, stupid."

     "I can't," Terry wailed.  "He's already gone."

     "And you can't write or call him?

     As always, she was the voice of reason.  It all seemed so
easy when she put it in such simple terms.  All he had to do was
call Dan and explain how he felt.  That was all it would take to
make everything all better.  Somehow, deep in his heart of hearts
he had some misgivings.  It sounded so easy, too easy.  "Thanks,"
he finally said as he wiped his eyes on his jacket sleeve.  "I
didn't mean to fall apart."

     "It's okay.  I'm still your friend."

     "Yeah," he agreed after a long pause.  "Thanks for the
advice, but I'm afraid it really is over between Dan and me."

     "I'm sorry," Paula replied.

     "It's okay," he answered.  "I just thought . . . well . . .
I guess it doesn't matter."

     "Well someday you'll probably find a really nice girl and
change your mind."

     "Yeah, maybe."  But Terry really didn't think so.  He just
wasn't interested in girls that way and couldn't imagine anything
or anyone really changing his mind.

     "Now take Melanie for example," Paula said after a pause.
"She's really great.  She's a lot of fun and good company."

     "You trying to set me up?"  Terry looked at his friend with
a new skepticism.

     "No, I was just . . . forget it."

     "Besides I thought maybe Melanie was already involved."

     "Involved?  With whom?  Why did you say that?  Did she tell
you something?"  Paula was suddenly tensely alert.  Her posture
and body language had instantly changed.  Terry was almost
frightened by the sudden change in her demeanor.  He felt that
this almost confirmed Wayne's and Dan's suspicions.

     "She didn't say anything," he replied.  "It was the guys."

     "What guys?"

     "Wayne and Dan."

     "What did they say?"

     Terry turned to look deeply into Paula's eyes.  He
hesitated, not knowing how she would take his next statement.
But then, she was so calm about his declaration of his sexual
orientation, surely she wouldn't react any differently.  And then
again, maybe that's why she was so calm, because it was true.
"They said you and Melanie were lesbians."

     "What?!" she almost screamed.  "They said what?"  Paula
jumped to her feet, storming up the bank of the lake, then
turning rapidly around and stomping back down to the water's
edge.  "Of all the nerve!  How could they . . . why they don't
even . . . those bastards!"  She bent down and grabbed a big rock
from the shore, hurling it out into the water like a shot put and
creating a fountaining splash in the process.  This seemed to
help release some of the anger she had built up in the last few
moments.  Meanwhile, Terry sat in stunned silence.  Her tirade
frightened him almost as much as it had surprised him.  This was
much more the reaction he had first expected from his
announcement about himself.  When he didn't get it he was lulled
into a false sense of security.  Now her anger threw him for a
loop.

     "I'm sorry," he said meekly as she tried to calm herself,
her chest still heaving with the passion of her emotions.  "I
didn't mean to make you mad."  He began to feel resentful,
realizing that by her actions she was saying it was alright for
him to be gay, but not her.  Subtly, she was acknowledging that
there was something wrong with it, even though she had just
accepted him.

     "Make me mad?"  Paula took a couple more seconds to catch
her breath.  "Well I guess I am pretty upset, but not at you.
I'm mad at those jerks you call friends."

     "Then it's not true?" he asked to confirm his own
assumption.

     "No, it's not true," she replied with a slightly sharp edge.
"God, Terry!  You of all people . . ."

     "I told them they were wrong," he added hastily.

     "Melanie and I are really good friends.  I like her a lot.
She's fun to be with."  Paula sat back down on the ground beside
her friend.  "In fact, I'd much rather be with her than with any
stupid guy.  It's just that we get along and have fun together.
But that doesn't mean I'm a lesbian . . . does it?"

     Terry almost stopped breathing when he realized what his
friend had said.  She had actually asked him a question.  He
thought it was meant to be a rhetorical statement, but instead
she was waiting for a response.  Now Terry was thrown into
confusion.  Paula preferred the company of her girlfriend to that
of a guy.  She didn't think this meant she was a lesbian but she
wasn't sure.  "Well, I guess it depends," he temporized.

     "On what?"

     "Well, on you.  I guess just because you want to be with a
girl instead of a guy, that doesn't necessarily mean anything. .
. but . . ."

     "Yeah?"

     "Well, I like being with a guy instead of a girl and in my
case it does mean I'm gay."

     "So you think I am too?"  She looked at him sharply.

     "I've never had sex with a girl and I don't really want to.
When I see girls they just don't turn me on.  But I do feel that
way about guys.  I guess that's how I know about me.  You're the
only one who really knows about you.  As for whether you like
guys or girls, it's nobody else's business.  I'm your friend and
I always will be.  That's all that really matters."

     Paula fell back on the ground.  "You know something.  For a
mixed up guy, you're awfully sensitive."  She smiled over at her
old friend.  "It really doesn't matter to you one way or the
other?"  He shook his head in response.  "Oh, Terry, I just don't
know."  Tears began to trickle out of her eyes, running down the
sides of her face.  "Sometimes I think maybe I am . . . that way.
I just don't have any interest in guys anymore.  But I don't
think I really want to be . . . you know . . . queer."

     "Queer means weird or strange," Terry said, reciting what
Dan had once told him.  "There's nothing weird or strange about
it.  It's just that what's natural for us is different for
somebody else.  That's why we use a positive term, like gay,
instead of a negative term like queer.  So if you are as you say
'that way,' you aren't queer."

     "Okay," she replied, sitting up.  "But how do I know if I'm
gay and not just uninterested in guys?"

     "How do you feel about girls?"  Terry watched her closely as
she tried to formulate a response.

     "I don't know," she finally admitted after a long moment of
soul searching.  "Well take Melanie for instance.  I really like
her a lot.  I love to be with her.  She makes me smile."

     "Do you want to have sex with her?"

     "There's a lot more to it than just that," Paula protested.

     "Yes, there is," Terry agreed.

     The two sat in silence for another few minutes.  "I've never
had sex with Melanie . . . in case you're wondering.  I've never
even discussed this kind of stuff with her."  She leaned over to
rub shoulders with Terry.  "I'm afraid she'd probably freak out
if I tried even talking about this."

     "So what are you going to do?"

     "What can I do?  I guess I have to talk to her.  If she
freaks, then she does."  Paula tilted her head, leaning it on
Terry's shoulder.  "So what are you going to do?" she asked
softly.

     "About Dan?"

     "Um hmm."

     "I guess I'm going to forget about him and get on with my
life.  What choice do I have?"

     "Doesn't it hurt?"

     Terry shivered, partly because of the cold breeze that came
off the water, but mainly from the vast, cold tundra that had
reasserted itself inside.  It had frozen over and quieted the
volcano.  "Yeah, it hurts," he agreed softly.  "But in a way
that's good.  It proves that what I felt was real, it existed.
And it proves that I'm alive.  Someone once said that through our
pain we grow in strength."

     "I hope that's true," Paula said as she sniffed back a tear.

     "So do I," he agreed.  She turned her head and pressed her
nose to his cheek, giving him a gentle, affectionate kiss.