Major Conflict (23 page)

“No really, Paul, I'm fine. I'm fine,” I said. But I knew I probably shouldn't drive, and when I thought about it, I liked the idea of Paul coming back to my place. I imagined his coming upstairs and the two of us jumping each other's bones.

“What about PT in the morning?” I said. “I'll need my car to get to work.”

“I can pick you up. It's actually on the way for me. And then we can have lunch here together and get your car.”

“And you're okay to drive?” I asked.

“Yeah, I'm fine. I'm cool, don't worry.”

He had it all figured out, I thought. In my mind we'd moved from just inside the apartment door to the bedroom, and he would be in my arms, and then he would be in my bed. “Sounds like a plan, dude,” I said. “Let's blow this pop stand.”

He drove me home in silence, the two of us comfortable enough, now, simply to be in each other's presence without feeling the need to talk. I'd noticed his scent before, but had never had a chance really to stop and take it in for any extended period of time. Now here it was, enveloping me inside his car. It was extraordinary—a clean, fresh, healthy musk—and I found myself breathing it in deliberately, through my nose, my mouth, and thinking (there was no mistaking I'd had a few) about how scents are composed of particles, really, tiny particles, that odor is matter in the end, and that by inhaling the scent of Paul's body I was, in fact, taking pieces of him inside my own body.

As he pulled the car in front of my complex, he said, “I haven't seen your apartment yet. You want to show it to me?” There was an innocence to his voice that confused me. I was trying desperately to think clearly though the mild haze of alcohol. Why would he want to see my apartment at one in the morning? Why would he want to see my apartment at all? The possibility of something happening between us was so overwhelming to me that I couldn't even bear to think about it straight on.

“Why don't you come on up for a minute,” I heard myself saying in a voice I barely recognized, something from an old Hollywood movie. Had it sounded seductive? I worried. He said nothing, just followed behind me. We walked up the two flights of stairs to my apartment.

“So here it is, nothing special, really,” I said as I pushed the door open and we entered the apartment. And then I yawned. I was very tired.

“Cool. Nice,” he said, looking around the place a little, trying to be polite.

“Thanks for the ride, Paul. I usually go in around six. Is that good for you?”

He stopped and turned around in the middle of the room and just stood there with his arms at his side, looking at me, the lighter strands of his dirty-blond hair brightening from the overhead bulb in the kitchen. He looked perfect standing there. I couldn't believe he was here in my apartment, so close to me, his scent actually filling the rooms I lived in. What could he possibly see in me? I asked myself. I mean, I knew I wasn't bad-looking, but Paul was truly in a whole different league. And tonight, now, he looked even better than usual, all that sex in his body. I always thought his body looked like it was built for sex, to be desired and to desire in return. What was he, I was never quite sure, half Italian, half Norwegian, I want to say, something like that, which, when you think about it, is about as perfect a combination as you can get.

We stood there staring at each other, listening to the silence of the night—a passing car, the running shower of a neighbor down below, my little fridge kicking on—the moment almost certainly a prelude to a kiss, I thought. The truth was in between us now, in the air we shared together, and I thought I saw it in his eyes; there was no way out but through each other.

But then suddenly the shower downstairs stopped and Paul shifted and looked away, and the truth got sucked right out the window and pulled off by that passing car, so lonely on the highway in the middle of the night.

“Six is fine, Jeff,” he said, starting toward the door. “Guess I'll just see you then.” And he opened the door and went out.

“Good night, Paul,” I said.

But instead of going straight down the stairs he turned around and faced me again.

“Jeff?”

“Yeah?” I moved toward the open door.

“Do you think I could stay?”

Before I could respond, he was moving to come back in the door. Our eyes locked again, and this time it was as if we were screaming at each other. He was coming right at me and before we knew it we collided, our mouths slammed together, and his tongue was inside my mouth. I was startled. I stumbled back a little bit, with my mouth still locked onto his, and banged my head into the wall.

The kiss was rough; the need was tremendous. Hands through the hair, on the neck, pulling the other's face closer, closer, and then down, the hands fumbling down over the torso, the butt, until our crotches met and our bodies urged us forward, uniting hips and thighs and shoulders and chests. The creaking of jeans aching to pull away from the body, from hands undoing snaps and zippers and buttons, so eager to get to the skin of the other.

I realized then that the door was still open, revealing two male officers of the U.S. Army locked in what must have looked like a hysterical embrace, so I shuffled the two of us toward the door and slammed it shut with my foot, not once pulling my mouth away from his. This felt so good, so right, so beyond the need for explanations or words of any kind. Desire trumps everything.

The jeans came down around the ankles and then off came the sneakers in order to get the scrunched-up jeans past our feet and off us entirely. It never occurred to me to take him into the bedroom. The floor was closer, and the floor was fine. And soon we were both naked and kissing and wrapped up in a tight ball on the hardwood floor. And soon after that we were coming, convulsions, really, almost simultaneously, until our chests were covered and we lay sweaty and spent on the floor, out of breath, and laughing in each other's arms.

“My God,” Paul said.

“You said it.” I sighed.

“I've been wanting to do that since that first night at Kyalami's,” he said.

“Me, too.”

We took turns showering and then got into bed. I thought it might be a little awkward, but it wasn't at all. He went to sleep almost as soon as his head hit the pillow, leaving me alone with my thoughts. I was exhausted and wanted to sleep, but I couldn't shut my mind down.

I felt enormously relieved. And happy. And a little pissed, too, thinking about all the time we'd wasted dancing around each other. What if one of us had died in the war? Of course, we'd have never known, so . . . but still, in a way that's tragedy, that would have been a real, bona fide tragedy. No point in dwelling on it, though, I thought, as Paul stirred a little and rolled over next to me.

What now, though? I had no experience with this, and I was pretty sure Paul didn't either. Would we see each other again? Of course we would, I thought, at least if I had anything to say about it. But how would that work? Suddenly, a thousand questions were racing through my head. The logistics just seemed overwhelming. How were we going to do this?

I didn't have the slightest idea, but looking at his face resting on the pillow next to me, that beautiful face I'd been dreaming about for so long, was enough to convince me that somehow we'd figure out a way. It was something we just had to do. He was snoring gently now, and the sheet was only a little more than halfway across his body, revealing a tan shoulder, the curve of his perfect back, one firm ass cheek, and the fine blond hair on his golden legs. I stared at him for a few minutes and then pulled the sheet up over him. For now, I was happy. I was filled with a kind of warm, brown feeling, a feeling of deep satisfaction and safety. I just wanted the moment to last forever.

I woke only a few hours later, at about five-thirty, to find Paul staring at me.

“Hey,” he said, softly, “how you feeling?”

“Great,” I said, smiling at him, “tired as hell, a little hungover, I think, but great. How about you?”

“Happy,” he said, smiling as well.

We both lay there for a few minutes, on our backs, staring up at the ceiling, in silence, but for the occasional car passing outside and the twittering of morning birds. The sun was rising and the bright light of daybreak began to flood through the bedroom window.

“So how come this didn't happen sooner?” I said, breaking through the silence without turning my head.

He took his time to consider before answering. I worried that he might be annoyed by my asking the question. Anxious to see if I could find an answer on his face, I turned my head and looked at him just as he began to speak.

“You know, Jeff,” he said, pulling himself up a little and resting his head on the back of his hand, and then looking at me, “I wasn't lying last night when I said that the first time I saw you, that night in Kyalami's, I wanted it to happen. After that I thought about you all the time. I couldn't get you out of my head. But I didn't know what to do. I guess . . . I think I was too afraid of what might happen if I was wrong. I was always, like, you know, 80 percent sure, and then sometimes almost positive, but then something would happen and I'd worry about my career and everything and I thought I was probably imagining the way you seemed to be flirting with me. So all I could do was to hint as strongly as I could, but you didn't seem to be getting it. There were times when I thought I was being so obvious, but then you'd react and I'd be so confused. This is a really tough situation. It's not like I could just come out and say it, you know, ask you out on a date or something. And it's not like you could've asked me—I mean, you could have, it turns out, but you had no way of knowing that. Damn, it's fucked, isn't it?”

“Is that why you didn't bother to keep in touch after you were relocated?”

“Yeah, Jeff, you have to understand how much I wanted us to get together. I mean, it was bad.” He laughed at himself a little. “And when it seemed like it was never going to happen, I just couldn't deal with it.”

“Believe me, Paul, I understand. I totally understand. It was bad for me, too. Think about how much you wanted to get together with me and multiply it by ten. That's what I was going through.” Now, we laughed together, amazed.

“Jeez,” I said, “what a waste. My God, five years! You know, if we hadn't met by chance again, it would never have happened, probably.”

“I know,” he said. “Five years, amazing. And tonight, I'm not sure what convinced me tonight. I guess it was just a leap of faith. I felt it so keenly between us. And then the way you looked standing inside the door. Damn.”

“It was really very . . . courageous. I'm so glad you did it.”

“Well, I figured even if I was wrong that you were a good enough guy not to rat me out.”

I just smiled and rolled over and kissed him good morning.

In the car about an hour later, as we were stopped at a red light, he turned to me and said, “So do you want to see me again?”

“Of course, are you crazy? I want to see you a lot.”

We both smiled, and I reached for his free hand and held it for a moment. I was nervous about doing this so openly, worried that someone we knew was going to drive up alongside us. But no one did, of course, and I made it to work on time. I even managed to sneak a quick and very chaste peck on the cheek in the parking lot where he dropped me off.

Within a couple weeks we'd already established a nice routine, seeing each other two or three times a week. I would go to his place or he would come to mine and we'd cook something or eat takeout and then spend the night together. We didn't go out very often because we were both paranoid about being seen together. We didn't feel capable of acting as if we were just two straight buddies because we had trouble keeping our hands off each other. We were convinced, too, that when we were together, even if we did manage to keep our hands off each other for an extended period of time, we still looked too much like exactly what we were: a couple. Going out was too stressful as a result. Occasionally, if we were really aching to get out and do something, we'd make the hour-and-a-half drive to Raleigh, where no one knew us.

It was, while it lasted, the happiest and most fulfilling time in my life. It was the first real relationship I'd had, and I moved through my days always a little drunk with the newness and thrill of being involved with someone I loved and cared so much about. The relationship had opened up a whole new world to me. This was the closest I'd come to living what I thought of as a complete life. I'd fulfilled my boyhood dream of being a soldier,
and
I had someone to share it with. Having someone in my life, someone to unwind with at the end of the day, with whom I could be unreservedly myself, put my professional life as a soldier in a brand-new light, a brighter one, one that gave everything more meaning and value. I found myself much more motivated to get up in the morning and go out and do my job knowing that I had someone to come home to who would replenish me. Not only did I have the power of a dream fulfilled, but I also now had the power of two, which is, I've come to believe, the greatest power of all.

Paul and I seemed tailor-made for each other. We shared roughly the same politics, the same interest in history, and even a similar sense of humor. We never seemed to run out of things to say. And he was the smartest guy I knew. No matter what the subject, he had a take on it; he had something to say about it. His face would light up, signaling that he had something profound to point out, and he'd say, “Well, you know . . .” He exuded great confidence and a kind of mastery of the world around him that I'd never seen in anyone before. There was an ease with which he moved through the world that I found so attractive. Everything seemed possible when I was with him, and he brought out the very best in me.

About a month into the relationship we drove to Raleigh to have dinner. Toward the end of the meal Paul said, “So, listen, I have some friends coming in next weekend and they want to hang out, so is it okay if we don't see each other then?”