Date: Mon, 20 Mar 2000 17:54:51 -0500 (EST)
From: landgrave@iname.com
Subject: Now-3 (t/t)

Disclaimer -- this story may contain straightforward descriptions of
male teens engaged in consensual sexual relations.  If that turns your
stomach, you've obviously got some fairly deep-seated fears you need
to deal with, so keep reading.  If the people who make your decisions
for you don't want you to know about this sort of thing, bear in mind
that you can always repress it later. If you don't know what the laws
are in your local jurisdiction, the chances are you're fucked, whether
you know it or not.  If you don't know what the word minor means, then
that's probably what you are, in which case you're definitely fucked.
If you're offended by the f-word, then you're just plain f---ed.


************************************************************************

I was a totally different person when I was with him.  I didn't have to
be such a smartass.  He had a way of cutting through all my fucked-up
defenses and making me ask myself what mattered.  I still couldn't
focus on anything beyond what I felt, but at least I let myself feel
something.  The second I walked back into my house alone, though, the
person I had been when we were together just faded away.  I couldn't
keep him alive for five minutes.

On my own, I tended to assume the worst about everything, because it was
simpler that way.  I was still the precocious little prick entertaining
the adults while they got shitfaced at one of my mom's brutal dinner
parties.  It was easy to convince myself I was superior to people like
that.  They never looked past the next fuck, or the next drink.  The
only difference between me and them was that their world was the one we
all had to live in, and mine didn't even exist.

The next few months went by in a blur.  He would pick me up a little
earlier than he had to, and we would hang out in the park across from
school until it was time to go to class.  Eric would stretch out on a
bench while I paced around in front of him or kicked at the soles of
his shoes.  I had so much nervous energy, I didn't know where to go with
it.  I tried not to molest him in public, but sometimes I  couldn't
control myself.  He didn't seem particularly paranoid about that; he
would just shrug me off or put me in a headlock or mess up my hair and
push me away.

At lunch we hung with Eric's friends.  Sometimes Jake would come sit
with us, but my other friends were too intimidated by Mark's obnoxious
comments.  Mark was acting even more jealous than before, and I don't
think he was just being territorial about Julie, although she still
slobbered on me every chance she got.  I really disliked Mark, but he
was Eric's friend, and I didn't want to stir anything up.  I just gave
him an asshole pass, even though I was really tempted to kick him in
the head.  I knew I could take him, but the whole thing wasn't worth
whatever unknown sum it would cost.

Jake wasn't acting weird with me, but I was pretty sure he knew
something was up.  He made a point of talking to Eric, which he had
never done in the past.  He seemed to hook up with me between classes
more often than before.  I think he was running some kind of inter-
ference for me with my friends, too, which I tried not to think about.
I didn't have time for anybody else outside of school anymore, and most
of my time with Eric was spent riding or fooling around in the pool or
making out.

I don't know why I didn't tell Jake about Eric and me, since he knew
I liked guys.  It shouldn't have been a big deal, but somehow it was.
I think I had only told him about me in the first place because I was
afraid it would fuck up our friendship either way, and I guess I wanted
the truth on my side for a change.  Jake never lied to me.  I lied to
him all the time, but this was different.  I think I trusted him more
than I trusted myself.  I wanted him to make it right somehow.  I had a
crazy feeling that he could.

Eric and I spent all our free time together.  I could tell he cared
about me.  He bought me cds all the time, even though he was only
working a few hours a week for shit wages at the club.  I could buy
pretty much whatever I wanted on my card anyway, but I felt better
about whatever it was we had together when he did things like that
for me, so I let him do it.

He touched me and kissed me a lot, which seemed like a good sign, but
as far as I could tell there wasn't much passion there.  The more I
thought about it, the more I had to admit that he treated me the way a
really affectionate guy treats his totally clueless golden retriever.
The sad thing was that a part of me needed that, too.  I didn't even
want to think about walking away.  It wasn't everything I wanted it to
be, but what else did I have?

After school, we usually went back to my house for a swim.  In the pool,
I didn't worry about where the relationship was headed.  I didn't ask
myself if we were ever going to cut to the chase and just fuck.  I knew
the maid was probably watching us, but I did whatever I wanted to him
in the pool, short of bending him over.  It wasn't like the maid could
tell anybody, outside the local Khmer-speaking community anyway.

More and more, though, the fucklessness was starting to get to me,
because I didn't know what it meant.  We made out at my house all the
time, but for the most part I was lucky if I got to feel his cock
through his boxers.  There was definitely something in there, and it
definitely wanted out, even if he didn't, so I wasn't sure what the
problem was.  Every time I got too friendly with it in the shower, he
pushed me away.

I probably wouldn't have let it go on like that for so long if I hadn't
secretly begun to have doubts about whether he had ever felt that way
about me in the first place.  I think somewhere down deep I didn't
really want to know.

In the beginning I thought he just wanted to wait, which to me seemed
pretty pointless, but I figured he had a game plan, so I went along
with it.  After a while, though, it started to chip away at what I felt
for him.  Every time he pushed me away, a little bit of it died for me.

The scary thing was that it was also pretty funny.  I mean, if he
wasn't gay, straight, or bi, what was he?  I'd heard of curious, but
it didn't seem to be that.  What was it?  Was it me?  Did I expect too
much of the guy?  He could already drive, vote, and take me to shitty
R-movies.  In a few more years he'd even be able to drink.  Was he shy?
Too lazy to leave the cocoon?  Some kind of learning disability?  Fear
of fucking?  A little-known blow-job-related phobia?  I just wanted to
find the place in the encyclopedia that described why he was doing this
to me.  Anything would do, even a skin disease.

Eventually, I decided to force the issue.  We were at his house for a
change, making out on the couch.  I got him out of his jeans, humped
his crotch for a while, and then slipped his boxers out of the way.
He was totally hard, and I just leaned over and started licking around
the tip of his cock.  He froze for a moment, and then shoved my head
away really roughly.  Then he kicked me off the couch.  It was not a
friendly kick.  I fell over on my side, and when I looked up at him,
he had a look in his eyes I had no way to interpret.

'What the FUCK was that for?'  All the blood rushed to my face.  I was
one false move away from a total meltdown.

'Fuck you, Kevin'. He wouldn't even look at me.

I leapt up and yanked him up off the couch and hammered him in the face.
He landed on his back again like a lucky charm, and I spun around and
left the room. I was so pissed off when I walked out of there that I
forgot I didn't have a way home.  I slammed the door and just stood there
in the driveway, staring at Eric's bike.  That just pissed me off that
much more.  I walked back into the house, stalked into the living room,
picked up Eric's jeans, pulled the keys out, then stalked back out again.
This time on my way out I made a conscious effort to do some lasting
damage to the front door.

I got on the bike and started speeding back home.  After the second
stop sign I ran through, I heard some loser honking his horn at me,
but I didn't look back.  I was so angry I couldn't see more than five
feet in front of me.  The road was a blur running through a maze of
little green lawns and cookie-cutter houses.

I finally escaped onto the freeway, which was frozen solid as usual,
and then I worked my way up the shoulder until I was cut off by the
overpass.  I tried to ease back onto the outside lane, but the fuckers
closed up the hole to block me.  I just ignored them and slid into the
only open slot I could find, about a foot and a half of exhaust fumes
trapped between two bumpers.  I sat there wedged in crossways between
the two cars, with my shoe resting on the bumper panel of a white Camry.
The guy in the Camry rolled his window down and started shouting at me,
but I just stared him down.  Eventually he shut up.  Once I got around
the overpass,  I cut back across the shoulder, splashed through a big
mud puddle, then dropped down onto the access road and headed toward
the interchange.

Every time I thought about Eric my stomach knotted up, so I tried to
focus my anger on the road in front of me.  When I thought about what
I had done, I started crying.  There was mud spattered all over me.
At the stop-light, I noticed a guy staring down at me from his SUV, and
I hopped off the bike, stomped over to his car, and screamed 'WHAT THE
FUCK ARE YOU LOOKING AT' through his window.  His window was up and his
door was locked, or I might have pounded him too.  Traffic started to
move again, so I got back on the bike.

As I cut through another subdivision, I cornered a little too sharply
and clipped a parked car.  I just grazed it and veered off.  I
swerved involuntarily, and suddenly there was a dog in my path.
I braked down hard and cut over toward the curb, and then I felt the
dog hit the side of the bike down by my foot.  The bike leapt the
curb at an angle and started to skid sideways.  I could hear the dog
squealing as the bike tipped over on top of me and then slid across
the sidewalk and onto the grass.

For a minute I didn't feel anything.  I was conscious, but time was
standing still.  Then my nose and sinus began to sting, as if I had
accidentally breathed through my nose underwater.  There was a metallic
taste that must have been blood in my mouth, and the back of my head
hurt.  I got up on my hands and knees and tried to focus.  The blood
was pounding in my ears.  I could hear it rushing through my head,
trying to find the fastest way out.  The dog wasn't even whimpering
anymore.  I couldn't hear anything but the traffic over on Baker.  I
got to my feet and staggered back into the street.  The dog was lying
on its side, completely motionless.  It looked like a collie.  I went
to it and knelt down in front of it and tried to see if it was breathing.
It was.  Its white belly was covered with blood and dirt.

Suddenly it all hit me, and I couldn't breathe anymore.  I just rocked
back and forth holding my stomach, saying 'Oh fuck, oh fuck, oh fuck,'
but I still couldn't breathe.  I broke down and sobbed for a minute, and
then I could breathe again.  My nose was bleeding all over my mouth and
down my chin.  I got up and went over  to the bike and got the rain shell
out of the back.  I worked it under the collie as gently as I could until
I could pull it around her from the back side.  Then I picked her up in
my arms and started stumbling across the empty lot toward Baker.

I tried to balance the dog on one arm so I could flag down a car, but
the fuckers just blew right by me.  In the other direction, traffic was
stopped at the light, so I hobbled across the road and over the median
and looked for a car with its windows down.  I found one, walked around
to the passenger door, and got in.  The lady at the wheel looked like a
little troll in a pink blouse, and she had a look of pure terror on her
face.  I told her to drive two blocks and take a right and get turned
around the other way on Baker.  She just sat there and stared at me.
Her face was frozen in panic.  I slid over closer to her on the bench
seat and got right up in her face and screamed 'DO IT' at the top of
my lungs.  Little gobs of my blood and spit flew all over her face,
and that seemed to wake her up.  She faced forward and signaled to
change lanes.

A couple of minutes later we were going the right way on Baker, and the
collie was still breathing.  My crotch was totally soaked with blood
where the shell had slipped out from under her.  The pink troll was
changing lanes left and right and passing like a stunt car driver.  She
was doing at least twenty to thirty miles over the speed limit.  In five
minutes we were at the vet's.  I struggled out of the car with the dog
in my arms and limped inside.

There were a couple of people waiting at the reception counter, and I
started shouting hoarsely at the receptionist to get the vet.  The
receptionist disappeared from behind the counter, and a few seconds
later a couple of guys came out with a little table on wheels, and they
took the dog away from me. Part of me didn't want to let her go, but I
knew I had to.

I just stood there with tears streaming down my face and watched one
of them wheel her through the door into the back, while the older guy
stayed with me.

'What the hell happened to you, son?'

I couldn't answer, I was trembling so hard.  All of the energy was
draining away into a black hole in my stomach.  I started to speak,
but the only sound that came out was a sound like a hiccup.  One of
my legs started to buckle, and he grabbed hold of me under my arm
and braced me against him.

He asked the receptionist to wheel her desk chair around into the
waiting area, and then he sat me down in it and wheeled me back through
the door and into an examining room.  He gently examined me for a few
seconds, and then waved over a college-aged girl in a smock and asked
her to call an ambulance.  When I heard that, I started laughing.  I
wanted to tell him it would be way faster to get the lady in the pink
blouse to drive me, but I was in too much pain.  I was holding my sides,
because it hurt so bad to laugh.  Then I leaned over and puked on the
floor between his feet.  I tried not to get any on his shoes, but it
didn't work out that way.

The guys from the ambulance came in and took me away.  I kept trying to
get out of the stretcher for some reason, who knows what was running
through my head, and eventually they must have strapped me in somehow.
When we got to the ER, they kept rolling me around from place to place.
They cut away my blood-soaked clothes and started trying to decide where
I was hit.  A lot of it was the collie-blood, but every time I tried to
explain that to them, I started to sob or laugh like a maniac, and it
felt like I was about to cough my insides up.  Eventually I must have
passed out, and I guess they figured things out for themselves.

When I came to, things seemed to have calmed down around me.  I was
covered with bandages, and parts of my face felt like they had been
stitched together all wrong.  I couldn't find a nurse, so I got out
of bed and started dragging my IV-stand down the hallway to look for
a phone.  I found one about eight or ten doors down and called home.
The answering machine picked up.  I left a message for my mom telling
her to come and pick me up at the hospital when she got back.  Then I
tried her cell-phone, but it was turned off.

I thought about calling my dad at work.  Assuming he was in town (as if
that even made a difference) there were about three distinct possi-
bilities:  he was playing golf, he was in the middle of a conference
call, or he was playing golf in the middle of a conference call.  I
figured he'd just send one of his lackeys, and I really didn't want
to deal with any of them at that point.

I picked up the phone again and tried to make myself call Eric's number.
I couldn't do it.  My respiratory system was off-line.  I had this
choking feeling in my throat and chest, and it wouldn't let me punch in
the numbers.  I knew it was over.  He was mine, and I trashed it.  I
couldn't call him, I had hit him.  I couldn't believe I had let myself
do that to him.  I couldn't ever face him again.

Then I remembered the dog.  Oh fuck, what had I done?  I shoved my
head into the wall and started to cry again.  I had no clue what was
wrong with me.   Everything I touched smashed to pieces.  I couldn't
imagine how I'd ever get around the pile of rubble my life had become.
I tried to think of something practical, like the damage to Eric's
bike, my fucked-up head, something I could pay to get fixed, but I
couldn't get the dog out of my mind.  The sounds coming out of me
weren't even human anymore.  I rubbed my face against the cool green
surface of the pockmarked concrete wall.  I knew I had to get a grip
on myself quick or they wouldn't let me leave.

When I had calmed down enough, I called Jake's house, and his mom
answered.  I asked if she could come and get me at the hospital, and
she wanted to know what had happened.  I told her I had a bike accident,
but I was fine.  She sounded really worried, and asked me where my mom
was.  I said she wasn't picking up on her cell-phone, so she must be at
the club or the spa.  Anne said she'd be there in fifteen minutes.

While I was talking to her, a guy in a nurse's uniform was lurking
nearby and giving me weird looks.  When I hung up, he asked me what
I was doing out of bed, and I told him I was calling my mom.  He
seemed disturbed by that, and said the doctor hadn't discharged me
yet.  Then the doctor came up and we all started slowly marching back
to my room pushing the IV-stand in front of us like three out-of-step
pallbearers trying to keep up with the coffin.  At some point in the
procession,  I realized that all I had on was a big piece of green
tissue-paper that wasn't covering things up very well.  I started to
feel embarrassed, but then I figured fuck it, the half-assed tissue-
paper nightie-thing wasn't my idea, let them deal with it.  My ass was
still cold, though.

They put me back in bed and the doctor started asking me questions.
He made some lame joke about the police having checked in earlier to
take a statement about the bike wreck.  He said I was obviously a
'wanted man', or some shit like that.  He was being a little bit too
congenial for my tastes, so I figured he recognized my dad's name from
whatever checks had been signed at drunken hospital charity galas, not
to mention whatever charitable golf shams my dad invariably turned up
at.  Assuming I didn't die on him unexpectedly, he could reasonably
hope for a round of golf at my dad's club, if nothing else.  They would
have a few chummy drinks together.  It was more than I ever got.

The bottom line was that they weren't going to let me go that quickly.
The friendly doctor wanted to 'run a few more tests.'  He wanted
Dr. What-the-fuck-was-his-name to take a closer look at me.  I was
pretty sure from watching doctor-deification shows all through my
childhood that it wasn't standard practice to order an MRI for a mild
concussion.  Maybe he was trying to chalk up enough points to win that
trip to St. Thomas.  He probably figured people like Eric's mom would
be covering whatever unnecessary tests were ordered with the premium
deducted from their data-entry-clerk paychecks every month.  I didn't
bother to argue with him, I knew it was useless.

At this point Anne came in, and her face completely fell when she got a
look at me.  She looked like she was about to lose it, and that made me
tear up too.  I couldn't believe how much she cared about me.  My own
mother was either getting a massage or sucking down her third gin-and-
tonic of the afternoon, but Anne was there for me, even though Jake and
I didn't spend as much time together as we had when we were kids.

Anne used to pick me up from school, too, when my mother couldn't be
bothered or forgot to call my dad's assistant to take care of it for
her. (My mom would really be ticked that her slutty son had date-raped
his ride home.)  I couldn't count the number of hours I had spent
waiting on a big leather couch for someone to ferry me back to the
house from my dad's office building.  I used to sit there like a statue
watching the tropical fish slowly being poisoned to death in the glass
wall somebody had actually believed would be tasteful decor for the
sleazy lounge where my dad's clients were supposed to cool their heels
until he got off the phone.  When nobody showed up for the second leg
of my trip home, I would call Anne, and she always came.

'Honey, what happened to you?'

'I just flipped the bike over.  I'm ok, Anne.  I just want to go home
and sleep for a while.'

'You don't look ok, Kevin.  You look really worried, what's wrong?'

I tried to hold on, but I could feel my defenses breaking down again,
and I looked away from her.  I lay there and tried not to fall apart
right in front of her eyes.  I was crying again, but I didn't make a
sound.  She took my hand in hers and started rubbing it, but she didn't
say anything.  Finally I looked over at her without turning my head
and blurted it out.

'I think I killed a dog.'

Then I broke down.  I was sobbing and hiccuping like a donkey, and she
started slowly brushing my hair away from my forehead.  I knew something
was wrong with me, I didn't usually act like this, but there was nothing
holding me in place anymore.  I couldn't find anything to hold on to, so
I tried to concentrate on the soothing sounds she was making, but I had
no idea what she was actually saying.  Eventually I ran out of steam,
and started breathing normally again.  Maybe I really did need that MRI.

Somebody came and adjusted my IV, so they must have decided to shoot me
up with something better than sugar-water.  Anne was still sitting there
holding my hand when I drifted off to sleep.

When I came to again, my mother was standing over by the window talking
on her cell-phone.  She sounded fairly bummed out by something, so I
could only assume that my reckless misadventures had interfered in some
way with whatever plans she had for that evening.  She glanced over at
me and mouthed something I interpreted as her way of blowing me off for
another few minutes while she finished apologizing to whoever she was
being forced to stand up.

For some reason I felt a lot better than I had earlier.  Maybe just
being in the same room with the breast-milk lady was worth something.
As she often told me, she had a lot on her plate.  I could see what an
inconvenience it must have been to her to have to drop everything to run
over and get her son out of the hospital.  After all, that's what taxi-
cabs were for.  When she got off the phone, she snapped it shut and
dropped it back in her bag.  Then she came and sat down by the bed and
asked if I wanted to tell her what had happened.

I just lay there and looked at her for a while.  My mother was still
more or less a goddess.  If I were straight, or a little bit more bi
than I had been feeling lately, she would have done in a pinch.  I don't
think there could have been too many forty-year-old women in her league
when it came to looks.  She'd had plenty of nips and tucks and lifts
over the years, but even without them she would have been beautiful.

I couldn't really hate her, even though she had let me down so many
times.  She was just careless with things, I think I was a lot like
her.  She did what she liked, and other people paid for it.  There
was nothing phony about her.  Unlike my dad, she wasn't pretending.
She really enjoyed her life.  She didn't have any obligations to speak
of, and that suited her fine.  She had nothing but contempt for my
father.  She treated him like a spoiled child she fortunately wasn't
responsible for.  I was something to be turned over to whoever was
handling that this week.  Soon enough I would take care of myself.

I don't know why it made me feel better, but seeing her sitting there
looking the way she looked felt so right it hurt.  I didn't ever want
her to change.  Maybe she couldn't really help me in any way, but at
least I knew she was happy.  She wasn't even aware of what a colossal
fuck-up I was.  She thought things were the way they were supposed to
be.  I felt like she was a child I had to protect from the truth.

'Mom, I tried to blow Eric, but he wouldn't let me, so I punched him
out, then I stole his bike, wrecked it, almost killed a dog, not quite,
but it may have died by now, and I think the police dropped by earlier
to follow up on the accident.  I didn't talk to them, but something
tells me we may need to have a little chat with our lawyers.  I don't
know what kind of legal issues could be involved here.'

No, I didn't say any of that.  I kept my mouth shut, the way I always
had, and prayed it would all go away before anybody else had to face up
to it.

I just lay there and looked at my mother's pretty face, her pale blue
eyes.

****************************************************************

The next morning, my dad actually stopped by for about five minutes.
Sure, he was with Parsley, but hey, you can't have everything, now,
can you.  (I just called her Parsley, her real name was the name of
some other spice, and it wasn't Rosemary.  Maybe it was Tarragon, or
Chervil.  No, let's not lie to ourselves, it was Sage.)  Parsley had
lasted over six months now, so she obviously hadn't given my dad
everything he wanted in bed yet.  She had probably learned to fuck up
a brief memo by now.  Anyway, she sure looked great next to the tropical
fish.

Parsley unexpectedly produced a rasberry scone for me out of her Gucci
or Louis Vuitton or whatever it was, so I couldn't say I was completely
sorry to see her.  If she weren't getting my dad off between business
trips, we might have been friends.  We were nearly the same age.

I'd hate to give the impression that I thought all families were like
mine.  My family was never really more than a polite fiction, anyway.
I knew there were better examples.  I'd seen them on TV at 2:30 in the
afternoon when I was home sick, trying to teach one of my mom's maids
English.  I never did find out what languages some of them spoke, but
I loved them all like they were my own.  Once my  mom left the house,
you couldn't keep them off the furniture, but at least they obeyed the
few simple commands they understood.

Anne came in again, and this time she had brought Jake.  He came over
to the bed and put his hand on my arm and then left it there.  That
really got to me.  He cared about me, too, just like his mom.  He knew
I liked guys, because I'd told him so, but he still wanted to be my
friend.  I loved him, but I never fantasized about him or let myself
look at his body in that way.  I wouldn't even swear I could get it up
for him if I tried.  I needed him too bad in other ways.  If I started
to think too hard about how I really felt about him, it would cripple
me, so I didn't ever go there.

We had been pretty competitive as kids.  I usually beat him at whatever
we played, but I also cheated every chance I got, so probably we were
about even.  We were competing for girls for a while there, too, and
that was starting to get sort of ugly about the time I told him I was
gay or bi or resourceful or whatever.  After that, all the cut-throat
competition was just a memory.  He watched my back, picked me up when
I was down, and loaned his mom out to me when he probably needed her
too.  We didn't spend the same kind of time together as before, but
then he was pretty busy loosening up most of the pre-moistened girls
I had left on my plate.  Jake was always a quick study.

Anne chatted with us for a while and then said she would wait
downstairs so we could have a few minutes alone.  I looked over at
Jake to see if this was his idea, and it looked like it was.

'So.'  Let's see him try to run with that.

'Kevin, man, I need to ask you something.'

I looked at him.  He was looking into me with everything he had.  I
could feel the warmth of his hand on my arm. He was so much stronger
than I was.  He had picked up the pieces so many times.  I knew he
loved me, but I had to find a corner where I could hide from that.
I closed my eyes so I wouldn't have to face what he felt.

'Just fire away Jake.  I'm not going anywhere in these clothes.'

'Eric called me.'  He seemed to think that if he pushed the right
button, I'd go ahead and pop open the whole can of worms for him.

'And your point is...'

'Kevin, is something going on with you two?'

I opened my eyes and sort of snorted at that one.  Something was sure
as hell going on, but how was I ever going to put it into words?

'It's ok if there is, you know.  You're my friend whoever you get off
with, I just need to know.'

'Why is that?'  I gazed at him blankly, trying not to let my eyes focus
long enough to let myself see what he was feeling.  I don't know why
I had to do this to him, he was trying to help.  I couldn't let him all
the way in.  He still cared about me.  It wasn't safe.

'He sounded bad, Kevin. He really did.  He sounded the way you look.'

I turned my head away, it was a reflex, I had no control over it.  I
couldn't believe he could see through me like that.

'He said the police asked him some questions about the bike and the
car you scraped.  He didn't know what he should tell them.  He said
he thought you had your permit, so he loaned you the bike to get home.'

'Sounds pretty fucking unlikely to me.'

'Kevin, he didn't tell me shit.  He didn't have to.  I've been wondering
about you two for months, but I didn't think you'd want me to ask.'

'I didn't and I don't.'

Jake just looked at me.  He didn't judge me.  He didn't look hurt.  He
hadn't let me hurt him for a long time now.  Maybe that's why he was
one of the few people I could relax with.  When I was with him, I didn't
feel like every move I made was cutting somebody else to pieces.  He had
already protected himself from me, so I didn't have to protect him
anymore.

'He really wants to see you.'

'Go figure.'

'Only he's afraid you won't want to see him.'

'Well fuck, there's no restraining order on his ass.'

'Then I'll tell him that you'll see him.  Ok?'  He stood up.

'Whatever you say, Jake.'

'Just fuckin' say ok and carry the ball, Kevin.'

'Kay.'  I didn't have anything left to fight him with.  He loved me.
He could break me whenever he wanted.  I just bowed my head and
accepted defeat.

He leaned down and rested his forehead against mine, and didn't say a
word.  I could see his eyes up close, closer than I had seen them in
years.  For a moment there, nothing existed in the space between his
eyes and mine.  I didn't even have to choose which eye to look at,
because both of them were looking straight into mine.

Then he stood up and walked out of the room.

************************************************************

Thanks to all the people who mailed me their thoughts on the first
episode.  I know this one is way different, but that's how it worked
out.  Maybe it should really have been a separate story, but it's the
same character, just a little bit bitterer, so you figure it out.  Life
doesn't always carve out a clean narrative line.

Let me know what you think.  Even the slightest indication that you care
one way or another will do.  Jay