Final Encore (24 page)

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