Epilogue
So, Arthur, that's what happened. "Who I did over summer vacation," as it were. The second month of camp went on much like the first, with a few notable exceptions.
Shmu stayed another week. He and Matt did hit it off, and will continue seeing each other, I'm sure, when the semester begins in the fall. By the end of his visit, half the boys were calling him 'Shmu' - even Steve, arguably the straightest among them. But, as Shmu likes to say, "spaghetti's straight too - until you put it in water." When Eric finally called him 'Shmu', we had a little unofficial party.
Brad remained Brad, of course -- a pretty, happy, self-absorbed, sexy, selfish, lazy, good-natured dude. We resumed our regular trysts after he had healed. He still never got me off, but at least he never again suggested how pleased I must have been simply for the honor of getting to blow him.
Doug, too, remained Doug. As the summer went on, I became more and more fond of him. Adam had seen it in him from the start. I, to my regret, had first to learn how not to categorize. Brad started a craze around week five when he likened Doug to the Scarecrow in The Wizard of Oz, and the boys took to calling him 'Crow' until Adam put a stop to it. Doug has gained admittance, as far as I'm concerned, into the great pantheon: the Cool Straight Guy Hall of Fame. He doesn't have a lot of company, of course, but he has earned his spot.
Matt? My kid brother. Granted, he may not be the brightest bulb on the marquee, but Christ! A sweeter, more adorable, gentler soul has never existed. He will be my friend to the day I die, and I thank my lucky stars I had the opportunity to be there when he was beginning his wonderful voyage of discovery. He and Shmu and I did end up doing a three-way before Shmu left, but not as the result of any bet. I think I just wanted to hear that gloriously joyous, easy hysterical laughter one more time. I don't need to go into the particulars of the scene, but perhaps I should? I know, Arthur, despite your professional indifference on the subject, how much explicit discussions of gay sex bothers you. That is one of the reasons I have been so detailed in my account.
And Dan, of course. He and I continued to discover each other and ourselves. Will I spend the rest of my life with Dan? I doubt it. Will I fall head over heels in love with him? I don't know if that is possible for me with anyone. But we work well together, and regardless of whether we continue on into the future, I am fortunate to have had my time with him. He is a star in the making, Arthur, and I was able to be there to watch the moment the swirling, dense cloud of dust collapsed and ignited into a beautiful blaze of fusion. Dan has become fully alpha. And like any alpha, he is blindingly beautiful to watch.
As for me, I spent much of the rest of the summer writing this epistle. I wanted you to understand the decision I have come to and I knew this was the only way to make you pay attention.
But you care nothing of any of this, Arthur. There is only one thing you care about, and I know what it is.
Let me tell you about something else for which you care nothing. How I have grown! I have spent silent evenings and left questions a mystery. I have discovered ambiguity and that the lines we construct to differentiate things are artificial. There are parts of me I do not recognize today, and others to which I've bid a happy farewell. This will not surprise you as much as it does me, of course, as you saw it coming all along. More than saw it coming, Arthur, you banked on it.
And here is something else you counted on: I did, indeed, make the breakthrough. It was glorious. The lucidity with which I was able to think afterward! The transparency of the world! I needed so few observations once I made the leap. Within a week, I was through transcribing behaviors and was writing the paper out longhand in my little green notebook while I sat in the stands. How strange it is to write longhand, I must say. But that is beside the point. It's all there. How it works, why it works and who it works on. It's well documented. It presents a whole new paradigm, Arthur! And get this: it was a breeze to write! Can you imagine? And here's something else - I wrote the whole thing in two weeks! Mechanisms of Social Control in the Human Alpha Male. It's good, Arthur. It's very good. It breaks new ground. It's important. It drips with future grant money offers.
And you will never see it.
Did you think I wouldn't figure it out or did you think it wouldn't bother me? I wonder which it is. Either one I find unspeakably insulting.
How hard it must have been for you, Arthur! To be so close to him, and yet to be so completely bound by the law. That doctor-client privilege thing cuts both ways, doesn't it? It protects you, yes, but, alas for you, it protects the client more. I can imagine you sitting there in your therapeutic semi-detachment listening to him talk and desperately trying to figure out a way you could get him to sign an informed consent to allow you to do the research yourself. But of course, you knew he never would. You never even bothered asking. Instead, you plotted.
How long, Arthur? How long did it take for you to come up with the plan? How did you plant the idea of me in his head, I wonder? In which therapy session? He was a client of yours -- you could, therefore, say nothing to me about him. I don't for a moment fool myself into thinking you'd have any moral qualms about it. You'd have sung like a canary if you were able to. It is, though, the law, and if you were caught you would have been ruined. If only there were such protections for the relationship between a graduate student and his advisor! Alas, there are not, and we can be treated like slaves. No, you could not tell me about him. But you could tell him about me. And did you ever! Well, not everything, right Arthur?
So you had an alpha in therapy. You knew what he was and you knew how valuable he would be as an object of study. But you couldn't do it. Meanwhile, the alpha had a yearning -- he was lonely. He wanted a friend, and you saw a way he could build himself one. I filled so many of your needs, didn't I? You whispered in Adam's ear. "I know a student who is very submissive. He doesn't know it yet, but trust me: he is. Have your coach hire him as a gofer for the summer, then set him up with Dan. Who knows?" you probably added as an afterthought, "maybe he'll even be able to help you understand some of your power over people."
And what did you say to Johnston when he called you after Adam began acting on your ploy ? "Yes, I have a student who's doing some research into something he calls the alpha male syndrome. Really? You have one? How fortunate!"
And Arthur! How surprised you seemed when I called you that evening with news of the job. Brilliant acting, I must say. "Oh, yes, Mark, I think that would be a wonderful experience for you. Who knows? It might lead directly to the diss itself! I urge you to consider it seriously."
But to work, Adam had to cooperate with me, and, as we both know, Adam doesn't cooperate unless Adam wants to cooperate. What was it then? "You might want to consider not telling him that he's for Dan." Did the suggestion come from you or did Adam figure that part out for himself? You, I tend to believe. You would not have left such a large thread dangling in chance's wind. "He could take it wrong," you probably said. "Let him believe that he's there to study you. It will make it easier for you to get what you need from him."
How brilliant! A double feint! In sheer deviousness, Arthur, you are unsurpassed.
You did miscalculate, though. Not in my ability to figure out the parameters and mechanisms of alphadom. I did it! What a feeling of float, Arthur! What an accomplishment! What you did not expect was that my recognition, belated as it was, of my own tastes and proclivities would begin to unravel a chain of long-standing, deeply seated self-delusions and blind spots.
There was a logical inconsistency in your plan, Arthur. It was glaring. The boys knew about me on the bus. Adam started working me from the moment he saw me. I was a Corey when the summer began: older and better defended, but a Corey nonetheless. So why didn't Adam treat me the same way he did Corey? Why did he never once approach sex with me until Dan invited him to?
If the only point were to help me realize my submissive side, he could have done that on the first day. His methodology was taking time to work with Corey, but it surely would have been instantaneous with me! But he didn't. That wasn't his goal. His goal was not to get me to submit, but to get me to submit to Dan. Why? Why would someone who had ostensibly brought me to the camp to study him spend all that time and energy working me when he could have focused me on himself with no more than a quick, if forceful poke? It didn't make sense. From Adam's perspective, the research must have been of secondary importance at best. And he hardly cared when I explained my discoveries. He was politely attentive. I don't think my breakthrough was even particularly newsworthy to him. I was just explaining, in scientific terms, things he intuitively knew all along.
So if I were there for Dan, if that had been the plan all along, how could Adam have possibly known to invite me, of all people, to the camp? My research was known by many. But my submissive nature? Even I didn't know about that! No, that was known by only one person, Arthur.
I won't even ask you if you had any misgivings about betraying me the way you did. But did it make you uneasy to betray Adam? You could not get the credit for the research on him. So instead you arranged it so that you could get credit in a different way. If I do the research, you still get the credit, don't you? You knew he would never give you informed consent. But what made you think that he would give it to your proxy, if he knew that was the reality of how things worked?
And what of the little green notebook?! That is the only question you want me to answer. Has it pissed you off, Arthur, that I have written all these pages and still not made that clear? I will do so now.
I gave it to Adam, of course. It is his.
And what do I have for you? Consider this my official resignation from the program. I can't work with someone who uses people the way you do. Isn't that funny coming from a submissive bottom? Here's the difference between you and Dan, though: for Dan, no means no.
I am going to take a year off. I'll probably hang around campus for a while in the fall, if not just to see what develops with Dan and Adam and me. Then I need some time to discover myself. Isn't it ironic? One of the first things Dan ever told me was he didn't like psych majors since they usually went into the field to figure themselves out. My, but I was so well defended at the time!
The need to publish seems less pressing to me right now. There are more important things to me than my career. Did you ever think you would hear me say that, Arthur? Besides, I know everything that's in that notebook. If I do decide to publish, with Adam's okay, of course, it will not be under your tutelage. I can get a degree from anyone now.
So Sharon has the sweat -- she'll make a pretty penny off that, I tell you!
And oh, Arthur, such a pity! You're not her advisor, are you? You won't see a cent of it. And I can return to the field if and when I want. With what I bring to a program, I can have my pick of advisors. So if I choose to publish, your name will appear nowhere on the dissertation.
And what do you get Arthur? For all you work and plotting and machinations, what do you get? Well, here's a hint: watch your backside, my dear. Adam knows how to find you. And Adam is angry.
The End
A Final Note From the Author:
Well, ladies and gentlemen, I hope you enjoyed the tale. I certainly had a wonderful time writing it and receiving all your (mostly) wonderful feedback. Now, having posted a book for free, it is my time to ask a favor of you.
I have discovered, in writing, a new talent. I did not know I could do it.
I do know, though, that while I seem to be able to string words together, there is something that I lack altogether: ambition. While it may seem strange, though I can spend hour after hour at my computer writing the story, I can't seem to find the energy to compose a cover letter, look up an address, or stamp an envelope. Toward that end, I am attempting an experiment. Here's where you come in.
I've received emails, at this point from just shy of 900 different people telling me how much they have enjoyed Alpha Male. Many of those have urged me to publish. Certainly, among you, is at least one connection to an accomplished literary agent. If you have enjoyed the story, if you think it has merit and should be published, if you want to thank me for taking the time to write it and post it for free, I ask, in return for this favor: do the footwork for me. Ask your friends to ask their friends. Someone of you must have some connection to the publishing industry, whether you know it or not. If not, find the name of someone who is good, and send him or her an unsolicited letter. Find a literary agent. Contact him or her, point him or her to Alpha Male, and, if (s)he likes it, invite him or her to email me.
What have I to offer a publisher? Why publish something that is already posted for free? Well, I plan on spending much energy on a rewrite. There are some problems I need to fix - not the least of which is the arc of the story. In addition, I have left room for the addition of value. I have left a number of characters relatively blank, thinking that I could flesh them out in a publishable edition. I can also easily adjust the ratio of sexual to non-sexual scenes as an editor deems fit. I expect that the book can readily increase to twice its current length, should that be called for.
To an agent, I offer my talent, profligacy (as evidenced by the pace at which I wrote and posted the original) and the boundless energy with which I throw myself into a project.
What have I to offer you in return for your successful footwork? Once I check the credentials of your contact and we start working together, I will happily include you in the rewriting process, making new and adjusted chapters available as I produce them.
I will not be publishing anything new on the internet until I am done with the rewrite and publication of Alpha Male. If you want access to my work in the meantime, write a couple of cover letters and send them out to good gay literary agents.
And to all of you who wrote, thank you.
Sincerely,
David Buffet