Foolish Fire (17 page)

We finished the second joint, and Mark lay back on his bed.

“Do you feel better, Guy?” he asked, lying there gazing up at the ceiling.

“Much better. Thanks to your medication.”

“You’ve been so unsociable recently. I guess it must have really hurt you to break up with Vanessa, huh?”

“I told you I was never really going steady with her.”

He looked at me. “Oh? Then you might be interested to hear that I saw her with Ron Holmes yesterday. They looked quite chummy.”

“So?” Despite my casual reply, I was surprised at the stab of hurt his statement gave me.

“You’re not jealous?”

“Not at all. In fact, Ron’s welcome to her.”

“Ron Holmes is welcome to any girl in school.”

“That’s true.”

He lowered his voice. “Listen, I happen to have some dirt on Ronnie that might change your image of him.” There was a wicked glint in his eyes.

“Oh?” A thrill went through me; I could tell he had some juicy gossip coming up. Though I didn’t know how far to believe him sometimes, he always told his stories so well that I found myself captivated.

“You might not believe this, but….”

As his tale unfolded, I found myself becoming fascinated by it, though only half-believing it.

According to Mark, Ron’s happy facade hid a tormented Don Juan who was a slave to an almost pathological desire to have sex with as many girls as possible. Cursed with a monstrous libido over which he had almost no control, he was sometimes driven—in order to add spice and variety to his endless, monotonous quest—to pluck fruit of a more exotic kind.

There was never a shortage of boys, mostly heterosexual, who would do anything for him for a glance, a word, a smile of approval. They felt happy in the presence of his magical charm as if some of his popularity might rub off onto them. To be seen talking with him between classes—even for one minute—was to have people eagerly ask the lucky conversee what the subject of their talk had been.

And Ron didn’t mind dispensing his glory to the least of his worshipful devotees, even freshmen, who were only too willing for some excuse to get close to him. If, for instance, he hadn’t been able to date a girl for several days due to a heavy practice schedule, or was forbidden by the coach to have sex before a big game, the boys understood that, for him, it was like being deprived of an essential ingredient of life such as air or water, and they understood completely when he complained that girls were such blabbermouths who liked to kiss and tell; and that boys, unlike girls, could be trusted to keep a secret between pals, and that, really, if you closed your eyes, you couldn’t tell the difference….

It was amazing how many boys fell for this line and stooped to do his bidding. But who wouldn’t? One look into his sparkling blue eyes, at his dazzling smile, his blond locks, a wisp of which curled rebelliously down over his forehead…he was irresistible. Mark said he knew of “a certain boy” who’d fallen for it.

One day “the boy” had been sitting on the bleachers after school watching Ron at baseball practice. To his thrilled surprise, as “the boy” was walking home, Ron pulled over in his car and offered him a ride home. Naturally he accepted.

But instead of driving him straight home, Ron turned into the park and made a detour out toward the duck pond which was usually deserted during the week. “The boy” saw nothing strange in this. On the contrary he rejoiced, for it allowed him to be with his hero that much longer.

He didn’t ask questions.

They parked under the willow trees whose tendril-like branches brushed the hood and top of the car, enclosing them in a gauzy, pale green curtain. And they began talking in confidential tones.

“The boy” didn’t need much prodding, for he’d been secretly head over heels in love with Ron ever since he first saw him on opening day assembly. He pretended to reluctantly acquiesce to Ron’s urgings and pleas, when in fact he could barely restrain himself from such an unexpected feast.

The sports hero let his seat back all the way until he was stretched out as if on a dentist’s seat. From that position, he allowed “the boy” to go to work on him, and “the boy” worked his heart out. In fact, “the boy” was torn between a desire to use every loving trick he knew, and the fear of being exposed for what he was. He ended up by play-acting the part of an inexperienced boy who unwittingly gives his partner the most exquisite pleasure.

When he was done, Ron zipped up, returned his seat to the upright position and asked, “Where do you wanna be let off?” as he backed the car out.

Not a word was mentioned about what had just taken place, not a single comment. It was as if it hadn’t happened, or that it was a brief, business-like transaction which required no further attention. “The boy” felt let down and hurt, and his initial euphoria gave way to a grim and bitter satisfaction at the thought of all the other people in school who had suffered the same crushing humiliation.

“Did you see him since then?” I asked.

“See who since when?”

“You know…Ron. I’m sure that if you told him your feelings—”

“Oh, get lost! I’m not ‘the boy’.”

I laughed. “Oh yeah, that’s right. I keep for
get
ting.”

“Do you want me to introduce you to ‘the boy?’ Maybe you’d like to get a few pointers on how to please a guy.”

“Forget it! That’s not in my line.”

“Oh? Don’t knock it till you’ve tried it.”

“Why? Have
you
tried it?”

“Of course not.” He smirked. “But even if I did, do you think I’d tell
you
?”

“Sure. We’re friends, aren’t we?”

“Not
that
close friends….”

He had been rolling a third joint during the telling of the story, and now he lit it up.

It was completely dark outside now, and as I gazed past Mark’s face at the night sky framed by the window, I saw a sudden flash in the sky.

“Look,” I said, “a shooting star.”

“Where?”

He turned to look, but it was long gone. The meteor’s quick slide down the sky had occurred in the blink of an eye, like the striking of a celestial match, snuffed out almost before I’d had a chance to register my own reactions.

He turned back to me. “Can I ask you a personal question, Guy?”

“Sure.”

“All those girlfriends you had—Wendy, Judy, Vanessa…how do you do it? I mean, you seem to have no trouble getting girls.”

“You have plenty of girls around you, too.”

“Those are just friends, not girlfriends. It’s different.”

“How so?”

“Well, you don’t think I’m actually fucking them, do you?”

“I don’t know—”

“I don’t even have to
ask
if you fucked Judy or Vanessa. I just assume you do.”

The statement made me feel good. In high school it was virtually an insult to call another boy a virgin, so my tacit acknowledgement of his statement had been automatic. But I was keenly conscious of the falsity of my claim. Something inside me made me want to turn my guilt against him, to make him an accomplice in my lying.

“You mean to tell me you’re still a virgin, Mark?”

“I didn’t say that.” He took a deep drag at the joint and handed it to me. “I lost it when I was thirteen,” he said somewhat smugly.

“Thirteen?” At that age, I had just discovered masturbation, and considered myself all-knowing merely because some other boys hadn’t. Mark had already been experienced then. I felt crushed. And then I thought about it. If he wasn’t a virgin, and all the girls around him were just “friends”…. I saw how to belittle his new-found superiority, to bring him down to my level.

“Was it with a boy or a girl?” I asked with a smirk.

“Does it matter?”

I felt a jolt. My taunt hadn’t fazed him at all. In fact he seemed to take it in stride. This was the first time he hadn’t directly denied my innuendoes about his sexual leaning.

His face, when he turned to look at me, wore the strangest expression, an enigmatic mask which I despaired of ever reading. Was it a mocking grin, or just a gentle smile?

“Are you feeling all right, Guy? You look a little sick.”

“It…it must be from all our smoking.”

He was staring at me now, and I grew uncomfortable. I had to turn away from his gaze. A sudden thought popped into my head.

“Mark, can I ask you a question?”

“Sure.”

“The stories about you…at that Boy Scout campout back in junior high school. Are they true?”

“Stories?” He looked away. “Oh, them.” He slid off the bed and sat down on the floor. For a long time he was silent, picking at his toe. I noted the tiny hairs at the nape of his neck, just below the cleanly barbered hair, and for some reason found this sight so erotic that I felt faint. My eyes misted over and I felt a lightheadedness distance me from the bedroom. I brought my knees up to my chin to hide the sudden erection which blossomed hot in my jeans. I’d never felt such an instantaneous excitement, so powerful that it hurt.

“Well?” I prodded.

“They say I was gang-banged, don’t they?”

I nodded, not trusting my voice to speak.

“It wasn’t exactly a gang-bang. But I was caught.”

“Doing what?”

“You know. With Jeff Lyons, a guy from another school.” He took a hit and exhaled quickly. “A couple of the guys that caught us made me take turns with them, with the promise that they wouldn’t tell on us.”

A heavy weight settled in the pit of my stomach. I knew I was about to ask a question which would change my whole life.

“Mark. Are you gay?”

He looked at me but said nothing. The heaviness in my stomach wouldn’t lift. Finally he said:

“Would it change anything if I said I was?”

“I—don’t know.”

He looked down at his toes. “You’ve probably guessed anyway, so I’ll go ahead and say it. Yes. I’m gay. I like boys and I always have.”

I felt as if I’d just exhaled, though I knew I was still holding my breath. “But do you like girls, too? I mean, if you see a good-looking girl, do you feel anything?”

“Of course. I had a crush on a girl named Leona for a whole year. It’s just that my first experience was with a boy, and that’s probably what made me the way I am. If my first experience had been with a girl, who knows what might have happened?”

“So when you told me just now that you lost your virginity at thirteen, it was with a boy?”

“Actually, I lost my virginity when I was twelve, in the sixth grade. But that sounds too young for most people to believe.”

The memory of the time I’d bullied Mark in the music room came back to me. So it had been true then, all the things I’d accused him of. He had done those things with boys, he had already been experienced. Yet, even after hearing this confession from his own lips, I still found it hard to truly believe in. Such things just didn’t happen to someone you actually knew.

“Who was it?” I asked, my voice almost a croak.

“A friend of mine named Dave.”

“Dave who? Do I know him?”

“No. This was in summer camp. He’s from Oregon.”

“Have you ever done it with a girl?”

“No.”

“But if you had your choice—let’s say you were marooned on a desert island and could pick one other person to be with you. Which would you choose, a boy or a girl?”

“I don’t know. That’s hard to say. Like I told you, I’ve never been with a girl yet, so I don’t know what it’s like. If it turns out I like it better, sure, I’ll turn hetero for the rest of my life.”

And then he looked questioningly at me.

“How about
you
? Did you ever think about doing it with boys?”

My throat felt raw. “Sometimes. But only things like beating off together…things everyone does. Heck, my cousin Bobby and I used to beat off together when we were kids. But we never thought of doing—anything else.”

“‘Anything else’…?” he prompted me with a catch in his throat. “What is ‘anything else’?”

I flushed. My head was throbbing, and I felt almost suffocated…my ears felt stopped up.

“You know,” I said with a parched mouth, “blow jobs and that kind of stuff.”

The sound of a passing car sliced sharply into my consciousness after what seemed a long interval of complete silence, as if the whole universe had halted momentarily at my words. These were words I’d never dreamed of saying to another boy. But I knew if I stopped now I would regret it forever.

“Mark…have you ever…sucked a guy off?”

He laughed, then leaned forward onto his elbows and slid his legs out from underneath so that he was lying flat upon his stomach. In an attitude of reverie, he rested his cheek upon a fist, bending one knee coquettishly so that his heel lazily brushed a buttock. The position only emphasized the rounded fullness of his buttocks and I was disconcerted. I hugged my knees harder against my chest.