Billy's Bones (9 page)

“Have you ever looked at gay porn?”

“No.”

Tom smiled at him and shook his head. “Look, Kevin. Maybe you’re a little bi-curious. More people are than want to admit it. And that’s perfectly healthy. But that doesn’t mean you really want to go as far as having sex with other men. There’s a big difference between looking, or even fantasizing, and actually doing.”

Kevin had his beer in his lap, contemplating it as he picked at the label with his thumb. After a long silence, he asked, “What if I asked you to kiss me?”

Tom’s breath caught in his chest, and he had to force himself to let it out slowly, trying to appear relaxed. He’d be lying if he said he hadn’t half expected it. Or perhaps “feared it” would be more accurate. “I’m not sure that would be a good idea,” he said slowly.

“Not even just as an experiment?”

Tom couldn’t answer. Part of him wanted to say “Yes!” and go for it, but another part of him pictured Kevin shoving him away, perhaps even deciding that he didn’t want to hang out anymore.

“Look,” Kevin said, lifting his eyes to Tom’s, “I’ve been thinking about this for a long time now, ever since things fell apart between me and Tracy. I mean, if you couldn’t get it on with your wife without feeling sick to your stomach, wouldn’t you start to wonder if maybe you… weren’t straight? That night you told me you were gay… well, that scared the shit out of me because I thought, ‘Fuck! Maybe I’m about to find out if I really am that way.’ Except I wasn’t ready to deal with it.”

Well that explained his reaction. “You think you’re ready to deal with it now?”

Kevin shrugged. “I like you. It feels good to hang out naked with you. I don’t know if it’s sexual or not. But I know I can trust you.”

The temptation to offer himself up to the experiment was strong for Tom.
Let’s go upstairs and see if you like how it feels. No strings attached.
But of course there
would
be strings attached for Tom. That was the thing Kevin was overlooking. He was focusing on his own feelings and his own concerns: Would he like it? Would he want more? If he wanted to stop, would Tom let him?

Tom would let him stop, of course. But he wouldn’t want to. And even if Kevin decided he wanted more, wanted to keep going until they both came, would he want to ever do it again after the first time? Tom didn’t want a sleazy one-nighter—or even shorter—with Kevin. Even if Kevin didn’t take off and never talk to him again afterward, it would still be hell for Tom if Kevin decided that was all he wanted. Every time they hung out together, Tom would wonder if there might be some magic combination of beer and relaxed conversation that might get the two of them in bed again.

On the other hand, some things might just be inevitable. Tom wasn’t sure he really had it in him to resist giving Kevin what he wanted.

Kevin leaned forward in his chair, planting his feet on the ground to either side of it. “If I kissed you, would you be able to deal with it, if I didn’t like it? If I decided I didn’t want to do it again?”

Tom took a deep breath.
Fuck
. “If you decide you don’t like it, are you going to leave? For good, I mean?” It was a lame question. Kevin probably didn’t know the answer himself. Not really.

“You’ll still be my best friend.”

“We’ve known each other just over a month,” Tom pointed out. But he knew it was true that they were best friends now, if for no better reason than neither of them had any other close friends. Well, Tom had Sue, but he honestly felt closer to Kevin, even after this short time.

“I won’t do it if it will upset you,” Kevin said.

Famous last words.

Tom looked deep into those beautiful eyes, the lids seemingly heavy with arousal. He really
didn’t
want to do this, but he really
did
want to do it. This was a fucked-up situation, and he was annoyed at Kevin for putting both of them into it.

“I guess I can handle a kiss,” Tom responded slowly, feeling as if he was making an enormous mistake. “But if you don’t like it, you need to be honest with me. I had sex with a guy once who didn’t tell me until
afterward
that he hated it. He said that he hadn’t wanted to be rude. Well, fuck that! There’s nothing worse than someone telling you an experience you thought was wonderful sucked for them.”

“I wouldn’t do that to you,” Kevin said softly. “I’m not going to ask you for sex if I don’t like the kiss.”

“All right, then. I’ll do it.”

“Can we get in the hot tub?”

Tom rolled his eyes and gave him a smirk. But he went along with it. They climbed into the water and sat there for a long while, close together, looking into each other’s eyes, both afraid to make the first move.

Then Kevin glided a bit closer until their faces were nearly touching. He hesitated just a moment before leaning in and kissing Tom on the mouth. It wasn’t a half-assed quick peck on the lips. He gave it everything he had, joining their mouths together fully, even slipping Tom a little tongue. Tom felt his own excitement mounting, his cock stiffening. But even before the kiss ended, he could tell the experiment was a failure. Kevin pulled away, his expression downcast, as if he’d hoped this would solve everything for him. But both men knew it hadn’t.

“No good?” Tom asked, trying to sound casual, but there was an enormous lump in the pit of his stomach. For an all-too-brief moment, it had been wonderful. Now, he wanted to run away and hide in shame. He tried to remind himself that he had no reason to be ashamed or embarrassed. Kevin’s failure to get aroused wasn’t a criticism of Tom’s attractiveness. Kevin had said he thought Tom was attractive, but apparently that just wasn’t enough to overcome whatever Kevin’s issues were. Or perhaps Kevin was still basically straight—he just had a small amount of curiosity about men, like others who weren’t absolute “tens” on the Kinsey scale.

In any event, Tom’s sympathy for Tracy had just increased dramatically. Rejection sucked, no matter how you sliced it.

Wordlessly, Kevin climbed out of the hot tub and went to go stand by the deck railing, but not before Tom got a glimpse of his erect penis—all seven inches of it, at full mast. But Kevin didn’t look turned on. He was hunched over the railing, hanging his head and rubbing one of his hands through his hair, as if he were about to be sick.

“Are you all right?” Tom tried again.

Kevin shook his head. Tom realized that he was gasping for air, as if he couldn’t breathe, and his other hand was clutching the railing so hard that his knuckles were white. He was having a panic attack.

Tom climbed out of the tub and approached him but made no move to touch him.

“Kevin….”

“I can’t breathe!”

“Yes, you can,” Tom replied, soothingly. “I won’t let you suffocate. The hospital is right down the road if we need it. But I want you to listen to the sound of my voice, okay? I want you to follow along with what I say.”

Kevin was still breathing rapidly, but he nodded.

“I’m going to count now. Take a breath and hold it… three… two… one. Now, let it out… three… two… one. Hold it… three… two… one. Another breath… three… two… one….” He kept counting, pausing just a tiny bit longer between the counts as he went on, for several minutes.

Eventually, Kevin’s grip eased on the railing, and his breathing calmed down to a normal rhythm. “I feel dizzy….”

“It’s probably just too much oxygen,” Tom said. “Let’s go sit down. Can you take my hand?”

He was afraid the physical contact might cause Kevin to panic again, but Kevin took the hand he was offered and allowed Tom to lead him to one of the deck chairs. He fell into it, exhausted, his body dripping wet, though Tom couldn’t tell if it was from the hot tub or from sweat.

“Christ….”

Tom sat down in the other chair and waited for Kevin to relax enough to talk.

When the silence had grown heavy between them, Kevin finally said, “What was that? Hypnosis?”

“Not specifically. I was just helping you slow your breathing down so you’d stop hyperventilating.”

“I used to think I was going to die. My heart starts pounding and my chest hurts and my whole body feels numb and tingly.”

Tom nodded. “I know. That’s common. People often start hyperventilating during panic attacks. It can make your chest hurt, and the extra oxygen you’re inhaling can make your body tingle.”

“But people don’t die from it?”

“No.”

Kevin leaned back in his chair and wrapped his arms around himself. “Is it getting colder?”

Tom hadn’t noticed that it was, but he went into the house and dug out a blanket he didn’t mind getting wet and brought it out for Kevin. When he returned, he was disturbed to find Kevin hunched over in the chair, sobbing. Tom draped the blanket over him and took the chair near him, watching in distress while Kevin cried until he was too exhausted to continue.

When he’d calmed down at last, he lay back with his eyes closed and the blanket wrapped tightly around his body. “I’m sorry.”

“There’s nothing to be sorry about. It was an experiment, and we both knew it might not go well.”

“I hurt your feelings.”

He had, unintentionally, but Tom just said, “After I gave you that speech about you being honest with me, I’m not going to start whining because you
were
. You’re not attracted to me. And that’s fine. There’s no reason for me to feel insulted and no reason for you to feel guilty.”

“Except you do,” Kevin replied. “And I do.”

“Yeah. Maybe. But we’re adults. We’ll get over it.”

After another silence, Kevin asked, “Did you see my dick?”

Tom had to laugh. “Yes, I saw your dick. I’m a gay man. What do you think?”

“I mean, when it got hard?”

“Yeah,” Tom said, more seriously. “What was up with that?”

Kevin shook his head and took a long, tremulous breath. “I don’t fucking know. It happened with her too. She’d kiss me, and I’d feel like puking, but my fucking dick always got hard as a rock. So she thought I wanted her—that I wanted
it
—when I just wanted to get the fuck away!”

Tom didn’t know what to say in response to that. Hearing Kevin say he’d felt like puking after kissing him still hurt, even though he knew it wasn’t personal.

“Christ, I’m tired,” Kevin said.

“Do you want to stay here tonight? I can take the sleeping bag. I’ve been sleeping in that since I got here anyway.”

Kevin laughed. “Dude. We can share a bed. I’m not
that
freaked out about you being near me.”

T
OM
stayed downstairs to cover the hot tub and make sure there weren’t any citronella candles left burning on the deck, while Kevin went inside. By the time he’d locked up and followed Kevin to the bedroom, Kevin was in bed, already dozing off. He’d found a folded towel in the hall closet and had that under his head for a pillow. The damp blanket had been discarded on the floor.

Tom lifted the blanket on the bed and saw that Kevin was still naked. Still, he wasn’t sure of Kevin’s mental state right now, so he didn’t think it wise to crawl in there naked himself. He dug a pair of boxers out of the laundry basket and put them on before slipping into bed and turning off the light.

I
N
THE
morning, Tom opened his eyes to see Kevin’s face lying not far from his, Kevin’s open eyes watching him intently.

“Hey,” Tom said sleepily.

“Hey.”

“How are you feeling?”

Kevin shrugged. “Okay, I guess. How about you?”

“I’m fine.”

“You’re not upset with me?”

“I don’t see what I would have to be upset about,” Tom said. “You wanted to try kissing, I agreed, and you discovered you didn’t like it. So we file that under ‘Things not to try again’ and get on with our lives.” He knew it wouldn’t be quite that easy for either of them. For him, it still stung, even though his rational mind told him there was no reason for it to. And for Kevin…. Well, Tom suspected Kevin had almost wished he’d discover he was gay. It might have been easier for him to deal with than the idea that he just couldn’t enjoy sex with
anyone
.

“Yeah,” Kevin replied, sitting up and putting his legs out over the side of the bed. Then he stood up and stretched. “I gotta take a leak.”

He walked out of the room and into the bathroom. Tom groaned in frustration. Kevin in the morning, disheveled and sleepy-eyed, was a beautiful sight. And it didn’t help that he was not only naked, but also appeared to be oblivious to the fact he had a raging morning hard-on.

Fuck my life.

I
T
WAS
Saturday, so neither of them had to go anywhere. Tom had no desire to kick Kevin out, and Kevin likewise didn’t seem inclined to leave. So they scrounged up some breakfast and drove down to Ikea to pick out some more furniture. The only vehicle they had to carry it in was Kevin’s truck, so Tom couldn’t go completely nuts. But he managed to pick up a blocky (yet very comfortable) sofa with matching chairs—in black since he wasn’t big on cleaning them every other day—and a coffee table. They also managed to wedge in a small bedroom nightstand to put the lamp on and some extra pillows.

Tom wasn’t sure how he felt about the extra pillows. They were Kevin’s idea. Was the guy planning on sleeping over a lot? And sharing the bed? Part of Tom hoped this was exactly what Kevin was planning. But the other part of him thought it was weird, especially after they’d just proven that Kevin wasn’t sexually interested in him.

But the pillows were cheap, so Tom bought them.

The trip had taken about five hours, but it was still daylight while they unloaded the boxes from the truck.

“You want help putting this stuff together?” Kevin asked, surveying the assortment of waist-high boxes in the living room. All the furniture required assembly.

“Sure. I’ll go find a knife to open the boxes with.”

Tom went into the kitchen, retrieved a knife from one of the drawers, and then returned to the living room to find Kevin stark naked again. He stopped and stared for a moment, unable to hide his surprise.