Brushfire
  By: Adam Phillips
(©  2007 by the author)

Part 1, 2, 3

The thing you gotta understand is, I was gunnin' for trouble.

I mean, c'mon. I never colored outside the lines before:

Always did my homework. Played the right sport (Football. This is Texas, okay?). Picked the right major. Married the high school sweetheart, found a good-paying white-collar job, and started the family. Good ol' reliable Jeff. What a family man. What a stand-up guy. You can always count on him. The classic southern-boy-betters-himself-and-does-right-by-everyone.

How long can a guy go on like that before his nuts shrivel up and die? Before somebody stitches a tag to his ass that says "Property Of..."?

Screw that. I'm my own damn property. I make my own fuckin' decisions.

Look, I knew it was wrong. But I been good my whole fuckin' life.

I wanted to see what it felt like to be bad.

And, sweet Jesus, he was so damn good-looking.

It's been so goddam hot this summer. Kind of hot that makes the blacktop down I-35 boil, the kind of hot that causes the scrub to catch fire. All you need is one good spark. Some heat lightning gets a little ambitious. Or some idiot in a car decides to flick his cigarette butt out the window. And bam, just like that, you got yourself a brushfire.Who knows where that fucker's gonna burn out, or when, or what it's gonna take with it before it does? That kind of heat, it does something to you. Makes you restless. Antsy to make something happen.

I swear it wasn't just me, though. So spare me your fuckin' condemnation. He was ripe for it; as ripe as I was. See, they didn't ask, and he didn't tell, and that kind of heat does something to you too.

Still, I knew this shit was hotter than a pawnshop pistol.

But I was tired of shopping at Sears, you know?

So here we are. Fucked, both of us. Burned bad. And that's not the worst part: The heat got so hot, those bridges-behind-us they always talk about are now just so much charcoal.

What the hell do I do now? What the hell does he do now?

And why hasn't he told me he hates my sorry ass?

* * * * * * * * * * *

You only end up in San Antonio if you've just started your career or if you've pissed off a superior.

Or if you have reason to be associated with Lackland Air Force Base.

In my case, I hadn't had a superior long enough to piss one off. I was an assistant math prof at a private college. I sure as hell didn't intend this city to be my final stop, although as a bullet point on the r?sum? it looked pretty good.

But c'mon. San An-fucking-tonio.

Let's face it; the Alamo is a fucking bore. The Riverwalk is pretty, but the river itself is dirty. The entertainment is for shit, and not much of it. The whole motherfuckin' road system was constructed from cattle trails, and got no rhyme or reason to it. And the Spurs? Well, at least we got us a sports dynasty. Arguably the most boring sports dynasty on the planet. But you gotta have something. Something besides the fake-Mexican "charm" of the place.

Anyway, I guess I'll always remember the Spurs and the championship and that night, because that's when he walked into my life and I started down the road to Let's-See-How-Bad-You-Can-Fuck-Yourself.

It was the final game of the NBA championship and the whole fuckin' town had gone nuts. I was at a sports bar, watching the Spurs wipe the floor with LeBron James and his Cavaliers. Michele had pretty much banished me and Denny from the house during game time when the playoffs came around. Okay, so we get a little loud. I think the last straw was when we woke Scotty and it took her an hour and a half to get him back to sleep.

Denny Gray's from the physics department. I like him because he's smart, but also, we have a lot in common. He's not from the pocket-protector crowd. He knows his way 'round a basketball court. He's my friend and my workout buddy; we pace each other as we try to keep twentysomething and husbandhood and parenthood from neutering us and adding thirty-five pounds in the process.

He was sitting on my right side that night. He's from Cleveland, and he was into his sixth beer and talkin' trash to me; fat lot of good it did him. The bar was packed; there was only the one bar stool available, and it was the one to my left.

I wasn't paying much attention when a guy walked up and asked, "Anybody sittin' here?" I didn't even take my eyes off the screen. "You are, looks like," I said, as LeBron turned over the ball yet again. Man, talk about tanking under pressure. I punched Denny on the shoulder and cracked, "Looks like Wonder Boy can't handle the big games." He muttered something I couldn't hear above the ambient noise, and about that moment the new guy on the other side of me said, "So who's ahead?"

Look at the score, dickhead, I thought. I was into my third beer, and while I don't consider myself a mean drunk, the beast tends to rattle the chains when alcohol loosens things up a little. Still in control, though, I turned to him to say, "We got this one sewn up."

I got as far as opening my mouth when the visuals hit me.

Jesus. An Air Force boy. Short brown hair, piercing dark eyes and a perfectly-proportioned chin that looked like it was cut from granite. A boyish-handsome face you wanted to stare at forever. Broad, masculine shoulders, perfect for grabbing and squeezing and hanging-onto. And a grin that pretty much said, "I'm trouble, but you're gonna like it."

I choked on the words. I felt the blood drain from my face. All of a sudden, my three beers felt like seven. And just like that, a voice inside my head spoke up and said, Life as you know it is over, buddy. 

* * * * * * * * * * *

I don't like me no fairies. I mean, I don't really care if a guy puts a dick in his mouth, but why the fuck do so many of them have to talk like that, act like that? Okay, already: Go ahead and call bullshit on me. It's not like my life has fallen down around my ankles because I got caught boinking Claudia Fucking Schiffer. Not that I'd pass that up either. But that's what I mean: You wanna use the terms, go ahead. I wouldn't even be talking right now if things were crystal-clear like everybody seems to think they are. So call me a fuckin' queer 'cause of what happened. I don't give a shit, because I know you're full of shit, and I know you don't know shit. All I'm saying is that you go down to the gay bars and I don't generally want to hang with those guys. The over-the-top gesturing and ridiculous way of talking: it's just not me. And seems like that's what you have to be, right, if you play for the other team, right? I've watched Will and Grace reruns.

So I don't use the words. I don't even know what they mean, what they say about a person. When I say I don't like me no fairies, I'm not saying I get sick at the thought of a guy pumping his stuff into another guy's mouth. Matter of fact...

Never mind. What I was saying was that whatever the words mean, when I say that I don't like fairies, I mean that guys with effeminate mannerisms...it's not that I don't like 'em. It's just that...well, I'm sorry, but I don't know how to relate. They make me uncomfortable. And I don't particularly want to get to know any of them any better.

But this was not that, and anyway, all that's hindsight. I didn't have any thoughts about any of that shit. As far as I was concerned, I was the only guy in the world that ever had to shove that shit into the corner, but that's the price you pay to get a real life, and there's no way I was thinking anything like that about him. All I knew was that when he held out his hand for me to shake, and grinned, and said, "What? Last swig of beer go down wrong?" it was clear that he was just a regular guy; well, a hot regular guy. And it was clear that, quick as light, we'd sized each other up and had decided we'd be friends. Nothing beyond that, but that in itself was something. I don't usually decide I like somebody on a dime.

All right, all right. There was something beyond that. Of course there was more. I'm just saying that my head couldn't have told me that. I knew I was fucked; I already told you that. I just didn't know I knew. Because it takes two, see? And I'd never. Never. The "life-as-you-know-it-is-over" voice I told you about? I shut that fucker down fast. But for all that, well, yeah, I felt shit spinning out of control. I felt major slippage happen in the universe.

It didn't take long for Denny to introduce himself. Thank God. We all got to talking together, which calmed me down a good bit and gave me some cover. If I could have listened to that Alabama drawl all night, I'd have gladly turned away from the NBA game and Denny's rah-rah-Cleveland shit, and I'd have focused all my attention on this flyboy. So it was good to have Denny there to break things up a little, inject a little normality into a scene that had quickly become surreal for me. The conversation, helped along by the beer and the game's excitement, was easy, and good, and flowed as natural as could be.

Something else was clear. From the first words of conversation passed between us, I knew I'd have to be on my guard every time I opened my mouth. Every time my eyes fell on him. Otherwise all those years of pushing this shit to the back of my head, denying myself something my body was screaming for...

Well, all that would come rocketing out of me and heading toward him like a fucking heat-seeking missile, and I'd end up embarrassing myself, sending him running, and probably getting a bloody lip and a black eye in the bargain.

* * * * * * * * * * *

The thing that helped me keep it light those first moments, the thing that helped me keep the lie cooking, while I tried to put my head back on straight, was his name.

"'Fitz Clapton?' What's up with that?" I asked, laughing.

He blushed a little and said, "Yeah, laugh it up, funny boy. It's short for Fitzgerald."

"Even better," I grinned. "Jesus, man, did your mama hate you?"

"My mama loved The Great Gatsby, " he said. "It's her favorite book. Well, that and This Side of Paradise. And 'Clapton' we didn't have no say over."

I puzzled over all that for a couple of seconds. Yeah, I know. Give me a break, I'm a math guy. But finally the light dawned, and I said, stupidly, "Ohhhhhhh. Okay."

He looked at me funny, as if he'd expected me to say something else. About that time Denny said, "What say next one's on me, soldier-boy? I don't get much chance to be a patriot." The distraction gave me a chance to reboot.

By the time his beer came, I'd recovered a little. "Hey, when I get out I'm looking to get back to school," he said. "I fucked up first time around and wasn't ready. That's why I joined the Air Force. But I really want a college degree. Where y'all teach: I know that school. It's good."

"Yeah, it's good, but it's expensive," I said. "Probably a lot of places you could get just as good an education and not pay so much."

"I figured," he said. "I don't even know where I want to go. And I've been out of all that stuff for so long, I need to look into some things, get some questions answered."

Perfect, I said to myself. At that point I still didn't know why.

I pulled a business card out of my wallet. "Here," I said, handing it to him. "I'm definitely not out of all that stuff, and I'd be happy to sit down and talk with you about your next moves. Call me this week and we'll set up a time for you to stop by and we can look at it together. Maybe I can help you out."

"Fuck," he said, eyes wide with enthusiasm. "You'd do that for me?"

Yeah, of course I would. That and then some.

"Not a problem," I smiled. "Think of it as my patriotic duty. But I wouldn't want you to think Denny was more American than I am, so your next beer's on me."
"Well, shit, Jeff," he drawled, eyes sparkling. "I'll take you up on both o'those things."
 

* * * * * * * * * * *

I tell myself I went into this thing with the best of intentions. And I guess in the top layers of my brain, I did.

But it's still a fuckin' lie.

Fitz was my age, and it was a kick to make a friend from a totally different world. I was a southern boy, I guess, if you could call Texas a "southern" state. But surely Alabama was the fuckin' apotheosis of southern. And I sure didn't have that honey-coated Alabama drawl.

I'd convinced myself that my dick had nothing to do with it. So, best of intentions.

Then there was the whole man-in-uniform thing. The blatant masculinity of the Air Force. And along with that, it was the first time I'd ever made friends with a real honest-to-goodness conservative. It surprised me that I didn't get pissed off when he held forth on the virtues of Fred Thompson or the Reagan Revolution. The only other guy I'd ever been great friends with who was both conservative and not mind-shatteringly stupid was this lawyer up in Austin. And I hadn't even really met him, so I don't guess we could count as great friends; I only knew him from our common membership in a Yahoo group; and anyway, he was old enough to be my father. But Fitz, man: I could sit there for hours listening to him spout knee-jerk red-state nonsense. And I gotta tell you: Maybe it was the southern accent, or maybe it was the chronic grin, or maybe it was just the fact that he was so damn nice, so respectful whenever I threw down some of my clich?d academia-grown-liberalism; or maybe it was something else entirely, but when he'd start talking politics he could almost make me a believer. I was in entirely new territory: Until Fitz, I'd never gotten a hard-on listening to someone talk about the virtues of small government.

In any case, the conscious part of my brain was ignoring things like hard-ons and just enjoying the hell out of making a new friend. And while the summer was still mild, that's all I had on my mind.

He'd show up once in a while at lunchtime. As the days ambled on, over sandwiches and sodas we let ourselves into each other's lives. In between bites, I'd help him through some questions he had about getting back to school; we'd talk about my family and his; my wife and kid; his last girlfriend; his hopes and dreams; his most recent booty call; what we liked in women.

On Thursdays, after lunch some of the younger faculty would head to the gym, mix together with some of the graduate students, and throw together a pickup basketball game. In mid-July I invited him to bring his gear and join us.

Most of the guys arrived at the locker room at roughly the same time. I'd met Fitz outside the front doors and showed him in and around, and as everybody dressed out, I made the introductions and people shook his hand, high-fived him, said appropriately admiring things about the Air Force.

We grabbed adjacent lockers and started getting out of our street clothes, and that's when the mild days of summer came to an end.

He was telling me about his best friend back home and the great times they'd had together back in the day. I was telling him about Grant, my best bud from high school, and about our high times.

It was the juxtaposition of the "then" and the "now" that finally fucked me.

I mean: Grant, man. All those years. All that need, that want, that goddam desire I had to walk around with, silent, carrying a big fuckin' load that got heavier each year. And I just couldn't. I wouldn't. Ruin the friendship, is what I'm talking about. Because for what.

Grant. And Fitz. It was like the frames of two movies syncing up. It was like that.

I was talking to Fitz about this thing Grant and I had on the football field, this incredible connection, and I was letting my mind go back there, and some of the regret and wistfulness rolled over me right about the time Fitz stepped out of his trousers and pushed his boxer briefs down around his ankles.

And I guess maybe some of that regret-and-wistfulness-and-unsatisfied-desire from the Jeff-and-Grant days imprinted itself onto the synapses that were busy taking in the magnificence of my new friend's naked body. A decade's worth of unrequited love for Grant, a love I'd pushed out of my consciousness in favor of chasing women, came forward to meet and mix with the impact of Fitz.

Fitz-close-enough-to-touch. Fitz-sending-out-a-fuckin'-ocean-of-pheromones. Fitz-smooth-and-perfect;

Fitz-with-an-uncut-dick-like-mine.

And I wanted.

Ached, with a longing--a need--I'd made myself push to the darkest recesses of my brain years before.
I'm not sure where in the Jeff-and-Grant story my voice had trailed off; I have no idea what word he'd heard last. The cognitive centers had frozen, and when I came around, I was only aware that I was staring, and that it was obvious, and awkward.

It couldn't have been more than five seconds, but the damage was done. I looked up toward his eyes, waiting for the inevitable sneer, the cruel indictment.

My face felt like a goddam blast furnace.

But I got no sneer, no indictment. His eyes, twinkling, locked with mine, talked with mine, a quick couple of sentences that our brains would take a few weeks to decipher.

And then Fitz spoke up. "I'm sorry, man, I wasn't paying attention. Where'd you say y'all had your senior party?"

Damn. They do teach them to be gentlemen in the deep south.

I think it was the tactfulness, the consideration, the goddam gallantry, that finally made my dick rock-hard.

Fortunately by then I'd dressed out.

We hit the gym. I was fuckin' juiced and couldn't be stopped. And Fitz definitely had some game in him. So the math-and-science boys pretty much murdered the damn economics department. Who says we're a bunch of nerds?

And afterwards, working on keeping my dick down as I watched him soaping up his armpits under the shower head next to mine, I realized I'd crossed some internal line.

It didn't make me happy. It wasn't something I got any joy out of. There was an inevitability to it that was almost depressing. And, at this point, I wasn't even fully capable of putting into words what my head was beginning to know. But that didn't make it any less a decision on my part:

Just barely below the conscious surface, where awareness comes but doesn't quite hook up with words yet, things were shaping up. And down in those almost-conscious layers just underneath what we know we know, I didn't care if it was wrong; I didn't give a fuck that he was straight. I didn't give a fuck that I was straight, or at least doing my best impression of it: I was gonna fuckin' have this guy, or ruin my life trying.

How was I to know I'd end up having it both ways?

Part 2

What I hate about this the most is that Michele was always good to me. You couldn't ask for a better wife. And she's beautiful on top of it. And little Scotty was always worth comin' home to. Damn, I love that boy...

Spilled milk, I guess.

By late July Fitz was dropping by campus once or twice a week. I was teaching classes during summer sessions; the extra pay helped. A couple of times during any given week, Fitz would stop by my office around three. Sometimes to talk about going back to school, sometimes to play basketball. And at least one night a week Denny and I would stop by our watering-hole after work, and invariably Fitz would be there too.

There was something growing, intensifying, in the air between the two of us. I think we both knew it, and I think we both knew I didn't care, either. God only knows if he did. But we never acknowledged it. From time to time I'd catch a curious glance from Denny, who seemed to be on his way toward becoming a third wheel. Not that I'd intended it that way; it's just that Fitz and I were in such perfect sync, Denny sometimes seemed to gum up the works.

I guess it's cold, but I didn't care about that either. I mean, externally nothing had changed. Denny was a great colleague and a good friend. But deep down I knew where all this was headed, and I was determined I'd let it drift as far as it would on its own, and then push it the rest of the way--if I could--when the time came. I said it before: I'm not sure I knew this consciously, or intended it consciously. But if I didn't, it for damn sure wasn't too far below the topsoil.

* * * * * * * * * * *

One Thursday after hoops in the gym, I left Fitz drying his hair in the locker room as I went on ahead to catch up with Denny. The three of us usually grabbed a few beers before we went home on Thursdays after basketball. Denny was about twenty steps ahead of me, but I pulled up even with him by the time we reached the foyer.

"Dr. Gray," I said, trading high-fives with him. "Good game. That final three from the edge was outstanding, my man."

He smiled and laughed. "Yeah, I was in the zone, right?"

"Absolutely," I replied. I made a show of looking at my watch. "Beer-thirty, man; first round's on me."
I thought I saw his smile dim just the tiniest bit. "No can do, bud, I gotta get home. Janis had to work late tonight and I gotta pick up Kyle from the babysitter's."

"Too bad," I said. "I'd buy one for him too."

"Yeah, you'd do it," he said, grinning. "But look at it this way: Your money'll just go farther with only two to buy for."

He pushed the glass door open and headed outside. I followed him back toward Science and Math, where our cars were parked.

As we walked, we chatted about the upcoming fall semester. We were working on a joint class, an upper-level seminar on chaos theory. It was my first chance to teach something besides the obligatory algebra and calculus that the new guy always gets loaded down with. We talked about that for a while, then shifted to the home-and-family stuff. I got caught up on his domestic scene and he got caught up on mine.

We got to his car; he put the key in the lock and paused briefly, looking into my face.

"Jeff...." He stopped. And continued to stare into my eyes, unsmiling.

"What?" I smiled, trying to keep it light. Weird.

"Look," he finally stammered. "Just...just use your head, man. Be careful. Don't be stupid. Think about everything you have."

I was completely thrown. "What are you talking about?"

He put a hand on my shoulder. "You know what I'm talking about; don't make me say it."

My eyes grew wide. Before I could respond, he opened the car door. "Look, forget about it. I won't bring it up again. Just think, okay? That's all I'm sayin'." He smiled a little, and gave me two quick slaps on the shoulder. "I gotta go." And with that he got in, shut the door, turned on the ignition, backed out of his parking space, and drove off.

Can't say I wasn't warned.

* * * * * * * * * * *

I hadn't pulled out of the parking lot before my air conditioning gave out.

Perfect. I needed cooling-down six ways to Sunday; I'd put a lot of sweat into the game at the gym, and I'd taken an extra-hot shower. And the scene with Denny left my face burning; How the fuck did he know? What the fuck did he know?

And now this.

Sweat dripped from my forehead.

It's hot; it's so motherfuckin' hot, why the hell does it have to be so hot? Why the hell can't I escape it? What the hell does it want from me?

Never any cool never any cool it just keeps on sweatin' me out always raising the temp never lowering

I grimaced, clamped my eyes shut, and banged my head against the dashboard four or five times, as frustration blazed away inside:

I tried for ten years. I did what was expected of me. And the heat never left me, never left me alone.

This was never going away this was never going to leave me in peace this was never never going to cool down

And just like that--right in that moment; in the car, by myself, sweating like a pig, a/c all fucked to hell--the fire inside kindled into a rage.

Dark; smoke-black.

Blind and driven and set on destroying something.

I was tired of fighting it, tired of turning away from it, tired of trying to save the people around me from it.

Andso I stopped. Right then. It's really the only excuse I have for myself, and I know it's a piss-poor one. I don't care anymore, I found myself thinking. Fuck it all. Burn it all.

Fuckin' bring it.

Gonna be hot? Heat never gonna let up on me? Then come on. Consume me. Leave me charred and ruined on the side of the road.

I caught myself in the grip of this nihilism and tried to fight it. I'm a decent guy, I said to myself. I've done pretty well. I don't really feel that way, and I'm just gonna go have a beer and relax with my new bud a little before I head home.

But I knew it wasn't true anymore. And somewhere in the previous five minutes I'd stopped caring.
So I decided I could at least have enough fucking integrity to own up to what I intended:

I intended to break my marriage vows.

With a man.

I don't care, I told myself. I don't give a shit. Motherfuckin' heat won't let up. Good. Fuckin' bring it. I want heat. I want to burn in hell. I want a goddam inferno. I want a bonfire that destroys everything.

Screw it all; I intended to cheat on my wife. Fuck the straight and narrow. It never give me any goddam break from the heat, so I'm fuckin' throwing myself into the fire. Fuck propriety; light it up.

I was done with this good boy shit. I was set on experiencing the ecstary of joining my body with someone else's. Sharing and exchanging and combining fire, and fluid, and passion, until the friction--the heat--burned out the thinking cells and nothing remained to navigate but insatiable desire, undeniable demand, unquenchable thirst. And then, in that frenzied, desperate drivenness, exploding into him; years of frustrated need slamming into him as my stuff jetted into his insides and my body left his body raw; wounding him in retaliation for his having awakened this ravenous monster in me that had slept, not always peacefully, for a decade.

Fuckin' Fitz, man. I was doing fine and doing good..

Then he had the fuckin' nerve to disturb my predictable, happy life with his catastrophic beauty.

As sweat covered my skin, I reached over and rolled down the passenger-side window.

And for just a moment, I had a misgiving or ten:

Goddammit, will this fuckin' summer ever be over?

* * * * * * * * * * *

The fire had died down a little by the time I reached the bar. I don't know how, but Fitz had gotten there ahead of me.

He was drinking Blue Moon with an orange twist, and when I walked up he smacked the bar stool next to him with an open palm and said, "Sit your ass down here, hoss, and let's toss back a few."
"Negra Modelo," I said to the bartender.

We started talking a little about my upcoming semester. Right about the time the bartender slid me my beer, he looked toward the door. "What happened to Denny? I wanted him to tell me more about this multiverse theory shit he was talkin' last week."

"He had to go home. Duty calls," I said. "You ought to know something about that, right?"

"I'll never tell," he said, smirking.

"I guess I'll never ask then," I responded, oblivious to any subtext.

That is, until I saw his grin falter.

A good five seconds of silence passed as he looked into my face, apprasing.

He took in a breath, let it out slowly, and shook his head as he said, "Well, your call. Whatever you need, hoss."

Before I could get a handle on the moment, though, he laughed and said, "Anyway, it's his loss; I was buyin'."

With that, he launched into a yarn about a girl he'd picked up--and fucked--in an elevator.

We drank. We recapped the basketball game we'd played. We talked long and loud. Laughed. Drank some more. He slapped me on the back a couple of times. The heat surged, the heat ebbed. In certain spaces, there was a calm and a deep joy to it all. And then there was an unbearable intensity. Maddening in its inconsistency. Flickering, alternating, one feeling replacing the other one and being replaced again, sometimes within the space of a minute.

He had a way of making his whole life sound like a comedy routine as he talked. Even the hard times and disasters he'd faced, he managed to find the weird humor in all of it. He was self-effacing and confident all at the same time, and the combination just served to stoke the coals for me, but I was so busy drinking and smiling and laughing and feeling completely at ease with him, I'd distanced myself from the urgency just below the surface.

Back and forth the conversation went. Occasionally we'd look up at the baseball game on the screen and then head back into the next subject. The rhythm and the flow and the wash of good feeling and the beer had taken the edge off.

I was drumming my fingers on the bar, in rhythm with the drumbeat on an old Whitesnake tune--"The Deeper the Love"--coming from the speakers.
It was in the middle of all that, during a natural lull in the conversation, one of those quiet places between remarks that feels perfectly comfortable when you're good friends, that I looked up from my beer and saw him staring into my face.

As I started to speak, he touched my hand with his; pulled away a little; then, tentatively, tenderly brought it back and let it rest on top of mine.

When he finally spoke--so low I could barely make out the words--all I could think of was acres of burning scrub.

"Look, Jeff,...don't you think it's time we got real and owned up to we don't wanna keep our feet on the brakes?"

Part 3

There's an Argentinian writer, José Luis Borges, who wrote a book about scoundrels and thieves and thugs and murderers and liars. The English translation of the title is A Universal History of Iniquity. Yeah, shut up. Just because I'm a Texan and a math boy, that don't mean I never read anything. Anyway, as I called up my wife to lie about where I'd be the next couple of hours, I couldn't shake the feeling that what was about to happen to me belonged right in that book next to the despicable Lazarus Morell, or one chapter over from that fraud Tom Castro.

I could have put the brakes on, as Fitz put it. I should have.

I didn't.

In response to his rhetorical question, I sighed. My shoulders slumped a little bit. I shook my head and looked at him and said, quietly, "Okay. I'm tired of fightin' it."

I ordered him one more beer and said, "Let me go make a phone call," and that's when I called up and lied to my wife.

Of course she was nothing but understanding. She offered me sympathy. So unfair how hard I had to work at these summer courses. She'd see me when I climbed into bed. I should wake her up and she'd give me some welcome-home.

Jesus.

I wasn't sure how I felt when I got back and sat down. I looked at him, shrugged, and said, "Fuck it."

He raised his eyebrows and said, "'It'?"

I snorted. "Okay, fuck you, then."

"Now you're talkin', hoss," he tossed back at me, smiling wickedly as my heart began to pound in my chest.

I looked around briefly to make sure nobody was watching, then put his hand in mine and clasped them together. "God help me," I said.

His expression was tender as he patted me on the shoulder. "I can't speak for God, but I'll help you, bud. Always. And you'll definitely be helpin' me."

"Let's go, then," I said. "The La Quinta up the road."
Funny, the things you remember. I remember the ugly blue-and-white patterned tablecloths that struck my eye as we walked out of the bar together. I remember Sheryl Crow singing over the loudspeakers, asking me if I was strong enough to be her man. I remember falling deeper as I watched him walk, six paces ahead of me, fixated on the broad shoulders that before the night was over I'd be kissing, caressing, possessing. And I remember the vaguely Asian-looking college guy whose eyes were glued to Fitz's ass as he walked toward the door. He couldn't have been a day over twenty-one. Yeah, you wish, kid, I remember thinking, smiling to myself. He's mine tonight; you're just gonna have to go home and jerk off to the memory of it.

* * * * * * * * * * *

I pulled up in the parking lot right next to him. I'd been one car behind him the whole way over. I got out and went over to him; he sat there with the window rolled down, quiet expectation on his face.

"I'll get us a room; just stay here," I said.

"I'm not goin' nowhere 'cept with you," he responded.

I filled out the paperwork, and the lady behind the desk gave me a key to Room 451.

Very funny. It didn't help my mood much; it was pretty damn clear Fate never destined me for no cooling oasis.

* * * * * * * * * * *

Behind the door, Fitz put his hands on my shoulders and pulled me toward him.

"No," I said, pushing him gently away. "Not with the shirts to come between us."
I backed him into the room until the bed was directly behind him, then started in on his shirt buttons, from the top down. When I'd gotten the last one undone, I pushed the shirt down off his shoulders and pulled the sleeves off his arms. Folding it carefully, I put the shirt to my face and inhaled.

Overpowered, I let my face rest on his shoulder, trying to recover. The cotton fabric of his t-shirt was impossibly soft; intoxicating. Hands shaking a little, I put my arms around his waist. He stroked my hair with his hand, kissed the top of my head.

I tossed his shirt onto the nightstand and reached for his t-shirt. Lifting up, I bared his abs; they were rock-solid and baby-smooth. Devastating in their beauty. A surprisingly bushy trail led from his belly button into his trousers.

My eyes followed the lines of his torso upward, drinking him in. His pecs were barely dusted with hair. Small pink nipples, standing at attention, waited for us to do things we shouldn't be doing.

I put my mouth on one, ran my tongue around the perimeter. He groaned; My cock spasmed in response, and I let out an involuntary whimper.

I lifted the shirt onto his arms, exposing his armpits. Medium-brown hair lightly covered the upper portion and the lower portion, leaving a bare spot in the middle.

I wriggled the t-shirt off and threw it onto the floor, and before he'd had a chance to put his arms down I brought my nose to his left armpit and buried my face in it.

The heat was incendiary. And he smelled of sweat and sex and soap and Axe Kilo. The combination drove out what little cognitive function remained. I pushed my face harder into him, kissed the tender skin, and inhaled deeply.

I couldn't stand up anymore; I pushed him gently backward onto the bed. Standing over him, I pulled the Polo shirt over my head and tossed it onto the nightstand, on top of his. "Halfway there," he said, smiling, as he motioned me down toward him. "Not even close," I said in reply.

I sat down on the bed beside him. It was going so fast, so hard. I needed to get my head back.

"Jesus, man...I didn't have a clue."

He sat up beside me and began massaging my shoulders, kissing my neck. "Yeah, you did," he said. "From the first second. I know I did."

"Fitz..." I turned to look at him, to search his eyes. "Are you gay?"
He laughed. "I dunno, Jeff," he said, "But given the circumstances, does it much matter what I answer?"

"Guess not," I said quietly.

He put his hands on his knees and paused, deep in thought. After a moment, he continued. "If you need an answer, well, yeah, I guess I am," he said. "I've had my share of women, and it was good. I tried, man. I wanted to be like my buds. And I was raised a good Baptist boy. I tried to get away from this, tried to leave it behind. That's part of what fucked me over at college. There were guys, and I don't know, I did a lot of drinking, and smoked a lot of dope. But I was havin' a lot of trouble facing myself, and just couldn't get my shit together enough to study. I just couldn't face it, couldn't deal with it. I ran away instead."

I nodded, leaned over, and kissed him on the shoulder. He smiled, tousled my hair, and continued.

"I got into the Air Force to get away from myself. But what I discovered is that you can't fly high enough, you can't run fast enough, you can't shut your mind down hard enough. I tried, buddy. I tried so damn hard."

I know, babe, I thought bitterly. Believe me; I get it.

"I'm not no little girl, but sometimes I'd just fuckin' break down at night and cry into my pillow so nobody'd hear me," he said. "I didn't wanna be this way. I thought if I could just think straight thoughts, do straight things, shit like that, I'd get back normal. I laughed at the damn jokes, hell, I told 'em myself, I said awful things about gay people." He paused a little, breathing heavily and clearly trying hard for some control. His eyes shone with moisture, but the dam never gave way.

I sat there, admiring. The self-control he was exhibiting broke my heart. It was all I could do to keep from taking him in my arms and holding him and trying to kiss all the painful shit away.  

"I think I'd be insane by now if it weren't for Ryan," he said. "I met him here at Lackland. Ryan...he must've been able to look inside me and see a guy who's had to face the same thing he did. He taught me it was okay, showed me how to be gay and all right with it. He's a strong man, stronger than any of them other guys. With his help, I was finally able to stop beatin' on myself. I gotta keep it all in for now, but when I get outta the Air Force, Jeff, I'm not gonna lie any more just to make people comfortable."
He reached out a hand and slowly stroked my cheek. Turning my face toward his, he leaned in and, closing his eyes, put his lips on mine. We sat there, kissing, the room totally silent except for our breathing and the sound of our lips getting to know each other.

Pulling away, he sat up again, and said, "I don't believe in that 'gaydar' stuff, but, I dunno, when I sat down next to you that night..well, this is gonna sound totally weird and stupid..." he trailed off, blushing.

"Tell me anyway," I grinned. "You're an Air Force guy; y'all aren't afraid."

"Okay," he said. "I mean, well, you don't look gay, whatever that means. I'm saying I wouldn't 'a picked you out in a crowd. But I couldn't keep my eyes off you; God put you together just right, buddy. And then I'd look into your eyes and--this is the weird and stupid part--it's like I could see your hurt, man; and it...well, shit; it looked like mine."

It was my turn for the room to get bleary and blurry. I took a deep breath in and steeled myself as he kept talking.

"And you know the other kind of thing guys like us do."

I didn't actually. Or if I did, I didn't really know what he was talking about.

"I watched your eyes. I watched what you were watching. I could tell you liked me. I mean, of course we hit it off all them other ways, but that's not what I mean. Sometimes when you'd think I wasn't noticing, I'd catch you staring at me and it's like you were a starving man, or like you were in pain or something. I know that look, Jeff. I knew you wanted me."

"Jesus," I whispered. "Fitz, I shouldn't be here. I shouldn't be doing this. I don't even think I'm gay."

"But you're here, aren't you?" he said with compassion. "I can't help you with the 'shoulds' and the 'shouldn'ts," man. But I've learned a lot about lying to myself. I've learned that it was gonna kill me. Is it gonna kill you?"

"I don't know," I muttered, staring at the bedspread. "All I know is that I'm here with you, and I set it up to be with you tonight, and I lied to my wife so I could be with you, and I..."

He put an arm around my shoulder. "Look, I hear how it's rippin' at you," he said. "But if you're fucked up," he added as he leaned in and kissed me, "well, you got you some company."

I looked at him, my mouth hanging open. "Fuck," I muttered.

"Sounds like a plan," he said, grinning. "We done talked enough."

* * * * * * * * * * *

You wanna hear, I guess, about the sex. Thing is, I don't know, to put it in words...well, hell, words can't even touch it. So maybe just a little.

We got the rest of the way naked.

I'd never held a man in my arms naked before. Or dressed, for that matter. I wanted as much of my body to touch as much of his as was physically possible. We lay, side by side, in each other's arms, my mouth sealed against his, my tongue reaching out for his and his for mine, our nipples brushing against each other. My dick was smearing its juice all over his and there was nothing in my mind but white noise and desire and Fitz.

I guess it's crass for me to talk about Fitz's dick in my mouth. Probably falls into the category of "too much information" for me to assault you with the details of how I felt, what it tasted like, when he groaned, tightened up, pushed my face into his crotch, and blasted five jets of semen into my mouth, down my throat. Maybe if you've ever wanted a man you understand how deeply emotional an experience it is to take another guy's stuff in your mouth. It's like, it's not enough that my eyes were full of the look of him, my nose full of his scent, the scent of young, and beautiful, and sexed-up; on top of all that, he filled my mouth with the intimate, life-giving essence of him. Fuck, I know that's ridiculous and I sound like a damn drama queen, but I'm just sayin' I was just awash in him, you know? Overpowered and, for once in my life, totally filled, totally fulfilled. It was like I'd found my way back to a place I didn't even know I was missing. You need proof? Well, how's this: When he blew his cum into my mouth, my own rocket launched. And I didn't even touch myself. He was standing and I was kneeling at his feet, and when he came, my dick pumped cum up and out and all over his thigh. Maybe that proves nothin' to you. It was a first for me; and, thing is, as sexy as it was, what I felt the most was how much I needed him.

It was wicked tender. It's the tender that sunk me, that marked me, that ensured I'd be needing it, and needing him, pretty fuckin' chronically. Well, to be specific, it's the tough with the tender. This strong man, this flyboy, bringin' that kind of vulnerability to me and fuckin' offering it to me: I don't know, that combination of tough and tender, hard and soft--that's where I belong; it's where I've always belonged. I know that now.

It's incredible to kiss that; to be kissed by that. There's nothing I can compare it to. It's like kissing a woman, but so much more intense; so much more fierce, more primal. I have to tell you, it's fuckin' transcendent. You feel bigger than yourself. You start thinking about the cosmos, about the fuckin' Mysteries. I thought about whether women picked up that combination of tender and tough when we were with them. If they do, hell, no fuckin' wonder they love us.
After we came, I flipped off the lights and we slept for a little bit, his ass spooned up against my dick, my arms around him. Somewhere around two in the morning I got caught up in a dream and began kissing him on the back. I wasn't even sure he was awake when he pushed his ass against my dick. I felt my nutsack tighten, and ever-so-gently I began thrusting my dick up and down the length of his crack. I can't do this, I thought. I can't rub off on him like this while he's sleeping, that's just creepy. In response, I stilled my body and tried to will my erection down.

He was awake, though. "It's good, Jeff; it's okay, man. I want it. Lube it up with your spit and put it in me."

Hearing that was almost enough to make me squirt. But I'd never fucked a guy's ass before. Hell, I'd never fucked a woman's ass before.

I sat up and turned on the lamp on the nightstand. "Aren't you afraid I'll hurt you?"

He laughed a little and sat up himself. "You're not that big, killer. I done this before."

Horny as I was, I was nervous and wantin' to talk, stall for time. "You like it on the bottom, then?"

"I like it both ways. You'll see eventually."

I grimaced. "You make it sound like this is gonna happen again."

He looked at me seriously. "I...you...you don't want it to?"

I sighed. "Fitz, man..." It was late, and my brain was reeling, and, horny as I was, the guilt was starting to rise.

Whatever. I shook it off. "I guess it's too late," I said, shaking my head. "I'm in. For as long as we can ride it. Not like I can walk away, anyway." I felt sorrow rise in my throat, but I batted it back. I grinned and pushed him back down on the bed.

He laughed and sat back up. "What happens is what's supposed to happen, Jeff. You been pushing some shit away for too long. Maybe you and me..." Then, shaking his head and shoulders he said, "Maybe you and me oughta quit talking so much and get your dick up me."

I wasn't done stalling. "I don't know, man. You think we should do it bare?"

"I promise not to hit you up for child support if I get pregnant," he said, then burst out laughing.

I was about to tell him to cut the crap when he said, "You been out fuckin' around condomless?"
"Not since I was 15," 'cept with Michele," I said.

"Well, guess what, bud, I never had unprotected sex ever. And I get tested twice a year. So I think we're good. Now would you please just shut up and fuck me?"

He lifted his legs and put them on my shoulder. After I'd gotten my dick and his asshole all spit-slick, he lay down on his back. I went to turn the lamp off but he said, "No, man, I wanna see your face."

I got over him and wiggled my torso around, looking for the right angle, the right alignment, until the head of my dick was up against his pucker. "You ready for me?" I asked.

"Dude, you have no idea," he said. He smiled and said, "Now take me hard. Don't be fuckin' gentle with me. Ram it in."

I was totally thrown. "Are you fuckin' kidding me?"

He replied, "What? You afraid you gonna rip me up or something? I told ya, Jeff; you're not that fuckin' big."

"Fuck you," I said, blushing.

"Yeah, you keep saying it," he laughed; "don't you have the cojones to do it?"

That did it. I took him hard and fast. Before he'd realized I was going to.

God, he was so tight and hot inside.

He took in a fast breath and let out a chest-deep groan of pain.

Alarmed, I said, "Shit, Fitz, I'm sorry man." I started to back out, but he grabbed my ass and clutched me into him.

"Don't be sorry; I told you to do it. Just be still for a minute."

I lay on top of him, feeling his warmth grip me. Fitz began massaging me lightly with his fingertips. He started at my neck and moved slowly, sensuously down to my ass, then back up. Chills ran up and down my spine.

He smiled and lifted his head to kiss me. "Okay, Big Tex. Fuck me."

* * * * * * * * * * *

Again, I don't have the words.

I could talk about the mechanics, I guess, and some of you perverts would be splattering your screen and havin' to wipe it up before the wife gets home.

Hey, I like a jerkoff story as much as the rest of you. But I'm just saying that talkin' body parts won't even capture it.

The need. The ache. The need met, the ache eased.

The powerful sense of belonging that I'd lost since the day I'd said "We'll keep in touch," and watched Grant get on a plane and fly away from my life forever.

Fitz. Buried deep in his guts, I didn't feel like a stranger in my own body anymore. Licking his tongue, the inside of his mouth, biting his lip, claiming those moist places with my own, I didn't feel exiled from my own existential country anymore.

The sex was fierce and hard and mindless, and, above all...hot. The flames roared and the heat was all-consuming.

I'd chosen hell, and I'd chosen myself--my real self--and him, and there was a unity to all of it that felt more like me than I'd ever felt before.

Sweat coated our bodies as I slammed into him. Sometimes he'd lick it off my neck. It dripped off my forehead into his eyes, his mouth.

When I came, I growled and collapsed into him. I felt myself expand inside of him, spasming again and again and again and again. Fucking him with my tongue as my dick dumped its seed into him, I felt the walls between the two of us grow permeable and indistinct. I didn't know who belonged to which body part, the man fucking from the man being fucked. Before I was halfway empty, he grabbed himself, moaning as my tongue continued to thrust into his mouth. He jerked himself to climax, splattering my neck and his upper chest with his spunk.

Spent, I collapsed on him. As we rubbed our chests together, the sweat and the semen got smeared around and mixed together until we were both coated in goo. Clowning, he ran a finger through the mess and put it into his mouth. "Pretty fuckin' good," he said, grinning.

No shit.