Jimmy did a good job of leading me to believe that there was something wrong with our friend Gilbert. He did it with skillful ambiguity and without ever saying anything that was a lie, but it was surely misleading. "Hey, it"s me." Jimmy said sadly over the phone. "You need to make time to come and see Gilbert and you need to do it soon." He continued. I can recall the two points along Superstition Highway where that cellular phone call began and ended. Never in a million years would I have suspected that it was all part of a ruse by Jimmy to reunite Danny and I or that he even suspected that there was something between us that went beyond friendship.

I don"t think that Jimmy knew what the outcome of his well-intended ruse would be, but even he agrees that he wasn"t expecting the "coming-out" party that it bacame. The entire incident has become that "what if" point in my life that seems to be responsible for everything that has happened since. What if Jimmy hadn"t reunited Danny and I? - Would we have seen each other again? - If so, would we have ever come-out to our two best friends? - What if we would have waited too long and lost Gil to the bottle before we gathered the courage to tell him? - What might he have thought about Danny and I not only being gay, but being in love with each other?

It wasn"t until then that Danny and I realized that "coming out" didn"t end that day on Jimmy"s patio and that there where other people to be told, especially our parent"s. That was going to be a much larger hurdle for Danny that it would be for myself. The thought of telling his parents that he was gay was the reason that Danny left to begin with. From the very first time that we crossed that line back in high school, Danny made it clear that he wasn"t gay. Like any already self-admitted gay teenager in love, I let it go in one ear and right out of the other because I saw it as a defense mechanism.

If what Danny was saying was true, why did he always wait until we where in the middle of jacking each other off to say it? - It never happened in casual conversation, but like clockwork in the middle of a blowjob. "I"m going to get married someday!" He would say while I sucked on his dick. "I"m going to have kids too!" He"d say pushing firmly downward on the back of my head. "I"m going to have lots of kids! and I"m going to uh....To um!...To cum!...I"m going to cum!- Oh God, I"m cumming!" Danny would gasp.

It was ironic how the thought of a this wife and kids would always leave his mind as quickly as his semen would leave his balls. I would never hear another pep about them until the next time that Danny needed to rationalize the intense feelings of pleasure that my mouth would administer to his penis. I either suffered from an undiagnosed protein deficiency or Danny"s semen contained a substance that I could not seem to get enough of. The first time that I swallowed Danny"s load, he said that it felt incredible, but also asked why I did it. "Didn"t you hear me warn you that I was about to cum?" He asked.

"Yeah, but I just got carried away. - You"re not mad, are you?" I asked.

He said that he wasn"t mad and was more worried that I might be the one that was mad. He was afraid that I might not have heard his warning and I might think that he intentionally ejaculated into my mouth. I saw the look on his face when I said that I did hear both of his warnings, but that I got caught up in the moment and just let it happen.

"Oh, well...should I warn you sooner or louder maybe?" Danny asked.

"Why? - I mean you said that it felt incredible, right? - So just don"t worry about warning me anymore. I mean, I don"t mind if you don"t?" I said.

"Okay then! - I guess that..(gulp)..makes sense." Danny said swallowing hard between the words "that" and "makes"and was an adorable sign of nervous excitement.

After all of these years, I can still reflect upon these special moments as vividly as if they happened only minutes ago. Danny is as beautiful today as he was when I first laid eyes upon him more then a quarter of a century ago and I have Jimmy to thank for that. I"m reminded of his good deed every morning when I wake to find Danny sleeping peacefully beside me or standing naked at the foot of our bed as he lays out the clothing that he"ll wear to work. In fact, he hates it when I refer to his job as a college professor as work. I suppose that like a doctor goes to the hospital to practice his profession, Danny goes to school to practice his. Me? - I just call mine going to the office.

I"ve sat in on many of Danny"s classes and I am amazed at how confident he is with so many eyes focused directly at him. It"s a far cry from the incredibly shy and introverted teenager that he was when we met. To be fair, I would have to admit that I was just as shy and introverted as Danny. In fact, falling in love with him was the first thing to happen in my life that I accepted with absolute certainty the moment that it happened. Before that, I rationalized the living fuck out of every aspect of my daily routine right down to what I should wear to school and if it made me look gay.

He still posessed some of that shyness when we reunited at Jimmy"s house, but he had at least learned how to suppress it in professional settings. I didn"t see it again in full force until I mentioned a desire to come out to my parents. Almost two years had passed since our reunion at Jimmy"s house and by then Danny had left Berkley to move to Arizona with me. I knew that my parents where old fashioned and assumed that it would come as quite a shock for them to learn the that their only son was gay and was carrying on a homosexual love affair with his long lost high school friend.

I even imagined having to pull my dad off of Danny and my mother blaming him for turing her little Nicky into a homo. I had everything that I wanted to say written down on 3 x 5 cards and made sure to start with how none of this was their fault or due to anything they did or had failed to do. However, I had failed to realize that my parents where much smarter then I had ever given them credit for and that coming out was not something that they needed to hear, but something they had been waiting to hear and had been waiting for nearly a fucking decade. I knew it from the second that my dad opened his mouth after Danny and I walked into the living room to find him in his lazy-boy with the evening paper.

"Dad, where"s mom? - Danny and I need to talk to both of you." I said and was totally unprepared for my dad"s immediate response.

"Well it"s about fucking time! - Jesus Christ! - IRENE! - get your ass in here! - I think the boys are finally going to give us the talk!" Dad shouted to where ever in the house my mother may have been.

I heard a dish breaking in the kitchen sink followed by the sound of my mom"s house slippers flip-flopping across the lineolium floor. She entered the living room drying her hands with a dish towel and stopped cold with her hand over her heart. She gave us that tilted "How cute" look like she did the night I took Amy whats-her-name to the winter formal. For some reason, I just started reading from my cue cards not knowing what else to do.

"First of all, I want you to know that I couldn"t ask for better parent"s then the two of you and that what I"m about to tell you is nobody"s fault. It"s just the way that things where meant to be." I said flipping to the next card.

"Oh sweetie! - We know that! - You"re here, you"re queer and we"re already used to it. Tell him Joe!" My mom said swatting my dad with her dish towel.

"Yeah-Yeah, here, queer, used to it, Blah!-Blah!-Blah!- So anyway, you boys look hungry." Dad said.

"Oh my! - You boys do look hungry." My mom echoed.

"Well for the love of Christ then Irene, fix um" something to eat!" Dad said.

That in a nutshell was the total sum of my comimg out experience with my totally insane parents Joe and Irene. Over a spaghetti dinner that my mom whipped up in minutes, Danny and I learned all about what my parent"s knew and when they new it. I had many male friends during high school besides Danny, Jimmy and Gil. However, it wasn"t until then that I realized that my parent"s use of the term "the boys" was somthing that was only used in reference to Danny and I. It all seemed to clear now that I could picture all of the times that they shouted through the house.

"Irene! - The boys are here!" Dad would say.

-or-

"Joe! - The boys need a ride to the mall!" Mom might say.

With any other friend it was "Nicky and Gil" - "Jimmy and Nicky" or "Nicky and whomever" - Yet with me and Danny, it was always simply the boys. My parents went on so much about how they have always liked Danny and had even come to love him a few years ago when we reunited, that it made him cry. Then mom and I turned on the water works and dad just did as dad always does. He used humor as a way of not dealing with true emotion.

"Oh Christ! - Look at this!" Dad said. "I"m going to go and finish reading my paper while you girls have a good cry!" He added as he got up from the table and walked towards the living room.

"I love you dad." I said.

"I love you too. You know, I mean...........all of you." He added.

Danny confided in my mother how worried he was about telling his parents about us and she said that she couldn"t speak for his father, but that there are just some things that a mother always knows. However, she added that to what degree she might be willing to accept them was an entirely different matter. I never pushed Danny to tell his parents and said that it was up to him whenever, or even if ever, he was ready. That day did come, but not for another year and my mom was right, there are some things that a mother always knows. It wasn"t the wild whacky experience that we had with Joe and Irene, but it wasn"t nearly as grim of an experience as Danny had imagined it would be.

His mom admitted that she suspected as much, especially after we reunited after so many years. Danny"s dad was unusually quite, but at least made an effort to explain his silence as we where leaving. And I mean at the last minute when we where already in the car and backing out of their driveway. Danny"s dad came out of the house and leaned against the passenger door. I was scared fucking solid becuase I though he might say something like not to bother coming back ever again. At least that was what the look on his face was telling me, but when he spoke his expression changed 180-degrees.

"Danny-Boy, Can you give your old man a little time to adjust? - You kind of caught me off guard here a little bit. - Well...a lot!" His dad said .

"However long it takes pop!" Danny said.

"Ahh! - That"s me boy!" Mr. Sullivan said with his Irish brouge.

It wasn"t until the following Thanksgiving that we realized how conditional Danny"s mom"s acceptance was. She totally fooled me and shit like that really pisses me off. It seemed more then okay when it was just us visiting them, but with a house full of extended relatives, it was suddenly a subject not suitable for any of Danny"s neices and nephews to be subjected to. It was obvious to Danny"s siblings what their mother"s problem was and shortly after dinner, it lead to a major blowout between a mother and her children. The following year Danny"s sister-in-law spearheaded a boycott of thanksgiving at the Sullivans and hosted the event at her house. She had obviously explained things to her two oldest children and they seemed to be okay with it. Danny"s 12-year old nephew had a friend with two mom"s and unwittingly said one of the most hysterically funny things that I have ever witnessed. It was when he was introducing Danny to one of his friends.

"This is my uncle Danny." He told his friend.

"The gay one?" His friend replied.

"Yeah, and this is..." He said and then paused. "If he"s my uncle Danny, does that make you my Aunt Nick?" He said totally 100% fucking serious. I might have been embarrassed had it not been so God damn funny. Danny"s brother Billy laughed so hard that he farted and that only made the room burst into even more hysterical laughter.

"You can just call me Nick" I said.

"Can I call you uncle Nick?" He asked.

"Sure, I"d like that." I said.

Then the Sullivan"s arrived and the rest of the visit was basically a bust, except for when Billy Jr. asked his Grandma why she didn"t like gay people. It was a priceless moment that money could never buy. However, a month later money did buy Billy Jr. the coolest mother fucking bicycle that any 12-year old could hope to find beside the Christmas tree.

Mr. Sullivan tried to control his wifes antics and even apoligized to Danny and I on her behalf. "Lighten up Maggie, will ya?" He said to her on more then one ocassion, but to no avail. I had stopped caring about what Mrs. Sullivan thought, but I could tell that Danny was hurt by it during the entire 5-hour dive back to Arizona.

"She hates me!" Danny said.

It was almost 1 o"clock in the morning when I called the Sullivan"s house and started screaming to Danny"s mom that we had been in a bad accident on the highway and that Danny was dead. He could hear her screaming as I yanked the phone away from my ear only to have him rip it from my hand.

"He"s only kidding mom! - Go back to sleep!" Danny said before hanging up.

Mr. Sullivan called right back and busted my balls bigtime, but I didn"t care because it wasn"t about him or his wife. It was about Danny thinking that his mother didn"t love him when I knew God damn well that she did. How sad is it that I had to stoop to that level to trick a mother into admitting that she loved her son? - Hell, she was lucky because I would have put a loaded gun to her head if that"s what it would have taken. It might just have been her seeing thelengths to which I would go to for her son that finally got her over her foolishness. It never solicited an apology from her for her previous behavior, but it brought a swift and certain end to any further bullshit going forward.
After the sting of just how cruel and heartless my little stunt was, Mr. Sullivan admitted that he was doubtful that anything would have changed over time had I not done what I did and I saw him shiver when he said it.

"My God! - You do love our Danny, don"t you boy?" He asked.

"Yes sir!" I said.

"Well then, I"m happy for ya! - And for Danny!" He said.

"You"re a good man Mr. Sullivan." I said.

"Aye! - As are you Nicolas! - A fine man!- A patient man!" He said.

Danny"s dad was not a man of many words, so whenever he did speak you could always count on it being something worth waiting to hear. Those where the most words that we had spoked to each other in years, yet they where words that would be remembered for a lifetime. He seemed to be able to detect the torment that I endured during the 5-years that Danny disconnected himself from Jimmy, Gilbert and I, but from me in particular. Those years did torment me because I didn"t know where Danny was or if he ever stopped to think about me as much as I thought about him. However, I could think of more torturous moments when the secret love affair between Danny and was in full swing.

I just can"t describe what it"s like to feel love and fear at such an intense level at the same time. I was so in love with Danny, yet so afraid of him finding out that I would often become panic stricken. I finally came to point where I didn"t care if Danny loving me was probable or even possible, I just didn"t want to be impossible. However, when he left followed by his parents moving away, I had to accept the possibility that he had really gone to find that wife that he had spoken about. The women that would be the mother of his childern, something that I could never do. It was the first time that I realized that no matter how much I loved him, it would never be enough to take the place of a family or a son to carry on his name. That was a hard pill to swallow because only I knew how much I loved Danny and to think that it wasn"t enough didn"t seem possible. I always wondered if he remembered about the three stars?

I"m not sure if was a premonition on my part, but I made a habit of pointing out these three stars to Danny on moonless nights. They seemed to be evenly stacked on top of each other and where easy to locate so I told him that if we ever found ourselves seperated someday, all that he had to do was to look for those stars and know that I would be looking at them too no matter how far we had strayed.

"Don"t be silly! - That"s never going to happen." He would say.

I can"t even begin to fathom how many times over those 5-years did I look up into the night sky for our stars. I often cried when I though about the possibility of Danny looking at them at the same moment from where ever he was at the time. Did they offer him any comfort or had he figured that I had forgotten about them? - There where no nights worse then those nights when I needed to see them so badly, but couldn"t find them becuase it was too cloudy or because the moon was too bright.

For a long time those fucking stars where my only connection to Danny, especially once Jimmy and Gil began to entertain the possibility of us never seeing him again. I was never quite there! - I didn"t when I would see Danny again, but I knew that I would not leave this earth without saying goodbye and reminding him that I loved him. I had accumulated a shoebox full of letters
for him to read someday should I die suddenly or unexpectedly, but they became kindle for the fire shortly after we saw each other at Jimmy"s house. I"ve spent the years since then reciting the contense of my letters to him in our bed at night strictly from memory.

Danny has shared the darkest moments of his life during those 5-years and the one thing that hit me the hardest was him saying that he never contacted my parents because of how sure he was that I hated him. It was almost infueriating to hear him say that because I could not think of a single thing that I had ever said or done that would lead him to beleive that I could ever hate him.

Then one day Jimmy called. "Hey, it"s me" He said sadly. "You and Danny need to make time to come and see Gil and you need to do it soon." He said. I handed Danny the phone and went into our bathroom to cry until he could join me. In a instant, all of the bullshit that we had been through was miniscual. Our friend was dying, we were losing Gilbert and there was nothing that could be done about it. All of the foolish dreams, the childish hopes, and every fucking star in the sky couldn"t stop this or even offer an ioda of comfort! - Danny and I where there at Gilbert"s side when he left and I"ll never forget it.

"I have to now guys, k?" Gil said in that childish why that he"s always spoken in. It was like he was asking for our permission and when we said that it was okay, he left. Just like that! - No gasping! - No shaking! - No nothing! - He just fucking left!- He emptied his lungs, closed his eyes and died right there on a hospital bed in the middle of Jimmy"s fucking living room. Why didn"t we say "No Gilbert! - Not yet! - Stay with us just a little longer, please! - Just a little while longer and then you can go, we promise." I can hear his answer.

"K guys! - Just a little while, but then I gotta go, K?" He would"ve said like he had to be in heaven before the fucking street lights came on. But that was Gilbert"s charm and in a way, it kept us young as we grew older. He made it okay to be 20-somthing and still have foolish dreams, to hold onto childish hopes, and to even stop from time to time and wish upon a star when times got tough. Gilbert made everything okay, even dying...

bottom story ads

---

Review this story : [ Read 0 Reviews ]

Urls is NOT allowed!

Your name :
Your email :
Message   :