After David and I left my Grandparent's place, I drove the long way around to his house. If he noticed, he didn't say anything. I was trying to give myself some breathing room before I had the talk with him I think we both knew was coming, and inevitable, after the scene in the powder room. I was angry at him, angry at myself, angry at the situation I had created because I couldn't seem to control myself when I thought about him or got around him. "Don't give in to the anger...maybe you haven't lost everything yet...maybe he just needs more time...he needs more time to get his own mind around all this... we're just fooling around... guys fool around..... .play it cool... leave him room to maneuver... don't push him into a corner..."

We eventually pulled up in his driveway, and I turned off the lights and the ignition, and we just sat there saying nothing. I wanted to say a thousand things, but couldn't find the first word to start any of them. I found myself gripping the steering wheel so hard my hands started to hurt. Half of me wanted to yell at him, half of me wanted to crawl into a hole and cry.

"Jeremy?" he said very softly. I swallowed the lump that had suddenly risen in my throat, and blinked back the tears that stung my eyelids. I swallowed with some difficulty.

"What?" I whispered. A whisper was all I could manage to get out. I didn't trust my voice.

"Bud, thanks for letting me have a turn at the Buick," he said, still using the soft quiet voice.

The lump returned to my throat, my eyes pricked with tears. "Fuck! I'm nearly seventeen!" I thought. "Men don't cry! Get a grip!" I turned my head towards him, and he was looking into my eyes.

"David," I said, "in our whole lives when did we not share everything together?"

"Jeremy, look I..." he started to say, but I held up my hand to cut him off.

"Stop. Now. Just stop, okay?" I said. "I need to say something, and I need you to listen, okay?"

"Okay," he whispered.

"What's said in the truck stays in the truck," I said.

"Gotcha," he said.

"The truth, even if it hurts, okay?" I asked.

"Okay," David said.

"You had no right to yell at me like that David. No right!" I said.

David hung his head and stared at his hands in his lap. He breathed once, very deeply and said "I know."

I didn't say anything. I wanted to see if he could say the words I needed to hear more than anything else right then. He breathed deeply two or three times.

"I'm sorry Jeremy," he said, and my heart jumped in my chest.

"Okay. That's over then. Closed," I said. "Now we have to get this gay thing straightened out between us Davey."

"I'm not gay Jeremy," David said.

"I never once said, or even thought you were," I said, "and I'm not gay either, but I need to know why you think I am."

David was looking down at his hands again, and he didn't say anything. I let the silence drag out for a while.

"Okay," I said, "you don't wanna talk, so I will. You listenin'?"

"Yes," he whispered.

"Okay then. Here it is David. If you need somebody to take the blame for this... this... thing... that's grown up between us, then I'll take the heat for it. I should never have started it with you. I'm sorry I did. Honest. I'm sorry David. I should have let you go in the bathroom that night and jack off, and I should have jacked off in the bedroom, same as we always did. I'm sorry I didn't, but that night I wanted more. I felt like I wanted to jack off with somebody. I figured we'd already done everything else together, fuckin' girls, eatin' pussy, gettin' blow jobs together, I didn't think jackin' off together was all that big a deal."

"It wasn't....it's not that Jeremy..." he started to say.

"Please. Lemme finish what I need t'say, okay?" I said.

"Yes," he whispered again.

"So yeah, I started it. Big fucking deal. I pulled my pants down, and you looked David. I saw you look. You looked right at my package. You were as hot to do it as I was that first time. So, I broke the ice, and you jumped into the hole along with me. You could have said no, but you didn't. Then in bed together, we did it again, and you could have said no, and you didn't. And ever since then, you've told me 'come on' with one hand, and 'no, stop' with the other. It's like you get horny, and hot, and feeling like you need to cum, and if I'm there we go at it together. Then you get these guilt feelings, and we get in fights and arguments about what's gay and what's not."

I took a breath, and looked at him. He was still staring at his hands.

"I don't have a girlfriend that gives me anything David, and neither do you," I continued. "Jackin' off alone in my room is all I had until we started doin' this together. Yeah, I like it. Big fucking deal. I like doin' that with my best friend. And you like it too David, don't even think I'm gonna let you pretend you don't like it! You like jackin' off with me, as much as I like jackin' off with you. And you start some of it too Davey. Right or wrong?"

"But..." he started to say.

"No man, no 'but.' Am I right or wrong?" I insisted.

There was a long pause, and he took another audible breath. "Yeah. Yeah, you're right. I started some of it too," he admitted.

"You can't say shit to me like 'bring the fuck flick,' and 'cum on my belly,' and then do stuff like show me your hard-on in the car, and not expect me to react. I'm human David. You know me... you know me. I'm horny all the time, just like you! Hell, just like all the guys our age! Last night you did everything but beg me to spend the night with you. I know what you wanted man, and so do you. If I had stayed you and me would have jacked off again. So stop the goddamn double signals okay? From now on if you don't want a fuckin' fire then stop strikin' matches, okay?"

There was a very long and very uncomfortable silence. David took one of those deep breaths.

"Okay?" I pushed.

"You swear, what we say in the truck stays in the truck?" he asked in a low voice.

"I swear," I said.

"It's all I can think about... what we do....it's drivin' me crazy. When you and I started this... shit... I didn't know what I was getting into," he said. "My head.... my head, it's so fucked up... remember I told you I felt like I was on the edge of this cliff, and you were pushing and pushing and man I'm scared shitless of going off the edge, because I don't know where it's gonna bottom out."

I sat looking at him for a few seconds, and he looked up into my eyes.

"What if it's not a cliff Davey, what if it's just a step?" I asked quietly. "It seems to me I take a step, and you follow. Then you take a step and I follow you. I can't see any fuckin' cliff here."

"Okay, you're right. Like most always," he said. "We lead each other on, and take these steps, and maybe there's not this cliff I have in my mind. But is seems like a cliff to me bud. It does. It seems like whenever we do this with each other I'm gettin' closer and closer to somethin' I'm trying to run away from. It's like my head's goin' in circles."

"So what's so scary Davey?" I asked quietly again. "I don't get it! If we do somethin' we both like doin', and then the next time spike it up to somethin' more, who cares? It's just the two of us! Just us. Just me and you. Nobody else ever needs to know anything about it."

David looked at me. "Yeah, but where does the spikin' up end Jeremy?" he asked.

"I honestly don't know stud. I honestly don't know. Maybe, if we keep on together, we'll get to a point where I wanna take a step and you can't follow anymore. Maybe you'll wanna take that step and I can't follow you," I said. "I dunno."

"So, what's the next step?" he asked.

"Oh, come on Davey, you're not stupid! You know as well as I do what the next step is gonna be! For chrissakes we're almost jackin' each other off now, you know that's the next step, don't play dumb," I said.

There was another of those long and uncomfortable silences.

"You'd jack off another guy?" David finally asked. "Really?"

So there it was. "I'm right up against it," I thought. "Fish or cut bait...shit or get off the pot...do I have the guts to tell him the truth?"

"What we say in the truck stays here, and truth even if it hurts?" I asked him.

"Swear," David replied.

"No David, I wouldn't jack off somebody who was just 'another guy,'" I said very carefully. "But I'd jack you off if that's the step we decided we wanted to take." I said just as carefully.

"We?" David said.

"Yeah. It's not gonna be me decidin' or wantin' to do it to you, but if we decide we want to jack each other then yeah, I could take that step," I said.

"So, where's all the steps gonna end man, with us decidin' we're gonna fuck each other like the two in the movie? David asked.

"David, jeeze man, I don't think I could ever let another guy put his cock up my ass, even you! Even you with that little bitty dick you got!" I said and laughed, and David snorted.

"Hey, you ain't been complainin'!" he said.

"No. No complaints. And no shame either Davey," I said quietly.

David took another few deep breaths.

"So....I... d'you wanna take that next step?" he asked.

I looked into his eyes again. "Yes. I think I do. I think I wanna do that with you," I said.

There was a longer than usual silence, and David looked out the side window. He turned his face to the front and let his head fall back on the seat back.

"So where do the steps end?" he asked very quietly.

"I dunno. When they end, they end," I said.

"That's no answer," David said.

"It's the only answer I have," I said. "I'm sorry if you wanna game plan for what's goin' on between you and me, 'cause I don't have one. You wanna know what's gonna happen the next time we're together and we're horny? I don't know. You wanna know if that's the time we take another step and do somethin' more than hold each other's balls? I don't know that either. You wanna know what's the step after jackin' each other off? I don't know that either. Are we gonna lay on each other and cum? I don't know. You think maybe we'll wanna trade blow jobs? I don't know. I don't know. I don't know, I don't know! I'm ridin' this beast just like you are, tryin' to hang on and not get hurt."

"What if there's no next step? What if I decide I can't take another step, what then?" David asked seriously.

"Then we decide if we're gonna stay where we are, doin' what we're already doin' with each other, or we decide we're gonna stop altogether, or we scale back an' don't do it as much, I don't know," I said.

"Truth if it hurts?" he asked again.

"David, you're my best friend. Just say what you need t'say, alright?" I said.

"Jeremy, I need to know, are you doin' this with anybody else? I mean... you seem to be getting' pretty tight with Ethan lately, and I've been....I've been wonderin' if.... y'know, you and him.... are doin' stuff together," he said.

"No. Absolutely not," I said and looked right into his eyes.

"If we stopped doin' this, then would ya?" he asked.

"Another brick wall. Right up against it again. The truth, even if it hurts." I thought again.

"I think... yeah.... I probably would David. It would have to be some guy I knew really well... some guy I could trust, like I trust you... some guy I know, like you and I know each other...but...yeah, I think I would," I said.

"Ethan?" he asked.

"Yeah, Ethan... or some guy like Ethan," I said. "Somebody close. A friend...a really close friend... like Ethan."

"So, you are gay," David said, not a question, but a statement.

"No bud, I'm NOT gay. I'd do girls over boys any day of the week, but there's a part of me that wants to see what's out there, ya know? There's this part of me that needs to experiment and find out where my own limits might be. But I could never do stuff like we do, or more, or take another step down the road with just 'any guy.' I'm not gay Davey, I'm not out hunting for other guys to have sex with, but like I said.... it's.....I dunno man....I'm just so freakin' tired of beggin' a girl for what I need.... and jackin' off alone just ain't like jackin' with you bud....or somebody else," I said.

David inhaled and then blew out a whoosh of air.

"Okay. At least you're honest about it," he said. "I dunno about another step Jeremy....I don't even know about keepin' on with what we're doin'...it's too weird....it's too much, y'know?"

"Yeah," I said.

"Let's just see where it goes," he said. "Y'know....day for day."

"Fine," I said.

There was another pause, but it wasn't quite so uncomfortable this time. David cleared his throat.

"Friends man?" he whispered, and I felt the tears start in my eyes again, and one escaped and ran down my cheek.

"Beyond forever Davey, beyond forever," I whispered back, and I put my arm over his shoulders and squeezed his right bicep and shook him a little. "Never doubt it man, beyond forever Davey."

He got out of the truck and stuck his head back in the window. He looked like he was gonna say something, and drew in a breath, but we just locked eyes, and he did those little jerky nods he does sometimes, and gave me a thumbs-up and walked up the path to the front door.

The drive back to my house was relatively lighter hearted than the drive to David's had been, but Davey's' statement kept turning around in my head like the tires hitting the expansion joints in the road..."So you are gay Jeremy... So you are gay Jeremy... So you are gay Jeremy... So you are gay Jeremy... So you are gay Jeremy..."

"I'M NOT!" I screamed into the night, "I'm not!.. I'm not!.. I'm not gay!!" Then the tears that had been held at bay for so long finally flowed, and I wondered for the thousandth time what the fuck was the matter with me.


Back to Chapter Twelve

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An Albemarle Tale is Copyright © 2007 by The Whitewater Kid
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