DANCING ON THE TUNDRA by Bert McKenzie Copyright 2010
Disclaimer: This story is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to any real person alive or dead is coincidental and unintentional.
CHAPTER XIII
Terry needed to talk with someone. This was just too overwhelming for him. He first tried his family back home, but he couldn't really discuss such personal matters as his love life. It was nice to hear his mom's voice. He even spoke briefly to his father, but he never brought up the anxiety he was feeling. After hanging up the phone he felt no better than he had before, so he sat and thought for a while, trying to decide what to do next. He was so overwhelmed by the loss that he even contemplated suicide. He mentally argued with himself. On one hand he couldn't understand why he was hurting so badly. He had only known Dan for a little over a month. They had actually been lovers for less than a week. But on the other hand he felt as if his whole world was falling apart. It was his first real experience with a broken heart.
After several minutes of silent agony, he picked up the phone and dialed a long distance number. When a female voice answered, he asked, "May I please speak to Paula Brown?" In a couple of minutes the familiar tones of his old friend came on the line. "I really need to talk to you in person," he said. "It's important." Paula finally agreed to drive down and pick him up the next day. They would both cut classes and spend the afternoon together, just the two of them, no friends, lovers, roommates, or acquaintances.
The next day the blue Camaro pulled up in front of his apartment. Terry grabbed his wallet and jacket and dashed down the stairs. He hopped in the car beside his old friend and they sped off, heading down the street to the local hamburger joint where Terry bought them lunch to go. They then drove out to the lake just outside of town. The two friends sat on the shore, the water lapping in small wavelets just scant feet from them. They huddled in their jackets as they ate their lunches with the cold breeze from the water blowing on them.
"So what was so important that I had to come back here right after I was just down?" Paula asked as she wiped mustard from the corner of her mouth with the coarse paper napkin. "And why couldn't you tell me over the phone?"
Terry felt his eyes beginning to mist up as he thought of what he was about to say. The burger and fries sat like a heavy rock in the pit of his stomach. He took a sip of the strawberry shake he had gotten, but the thick, creamy concoction did nothing to quench his thirst or help clear his throat so he could speak. He took a moment to swallow hard in an attempt to force down the food that threatened to regurgitate and choke him. "I'm . . . I'm gay."
"Yeah?" Paula said calmly and continued to stare at him expectantly. She was obviously waiting for him to say something more.
"Didn't you hear me?" Terry asked in surprise. She couldn't have. She was still sitting calmly beside him. He expected some sort of explosive reaction, perhaps an expression of disgust or loathing. But she looked as though she were still waiting for his big announcement, the one he had already made.
"Is that it?" she finally asked, realizing that he had made his statement.
"Yeah."
"Well, I knew that."
"You knew . . . what do you mean you knew that?"
"Terry, no one moves in with two guys, one an obvious flit, and then shares his bed with one of them, and is still straight."
"But . . . but you're not upset or shocked or anything?" Terry felt odd, almost let down. His announcement had been such a catharsis that he expected something monumental in return. His friend's calm reaction deflated the moment and seemed to make his revelation and his new, unique lifestyle seem totally unimportant.
"Ever since you and Jim started messing around together in high school I suspected as much."
"You mean he's gay too?" Terry couldn't believe Paula suspected his sexuality before he had even admitted it to himself.
"No, I don't think so. I think he just used you, but I knew you were a willing participant so that meant something." They sat in silence for a few minutes and looked out at the water. "So you and the jock are lovers?"
"Not any more." Terry couldn't even cry now. He felt cold and empty inside, like the frozen tundra had finally taken over his soul, forcing out all his emotions with its cold, white expanse. "He quit school and moved home."
"What happened?" she asked.
"I'm not really sure." Terry thought about the situation, then as he opened his mouth to explain, it seemed as if his heart leaped into his throat. It was as if a volcanic vent had been building for quite some time, pushing up under the frozen tundra, exerting its ever-present pressure. Finally, a tiny crack formed in the ice and it broke through the surface thrusting up full grown and exploding wildly. He couldn't breathe and tears began to flow as if faucets had been turned on behind his eyes. All he could do for a few minutes was sob, his body racked with convulsions as the tears mingled with his gasps for air. Then he was telling Paula all about the party and Wayne getting beat up, and Dan's fight with his former roommate. He ended with their argument about living together and Dan's decision to move home. "I . . . I don't want him to go," Terry cried as he tried to get control of his emotions.
"Did you tell him this?" Paula asked.
"Yes."
"Do you love him?"
"I don't know. I guess so."
"Did you tell him?"
"No," Terry admitted, the tears returning.
"Well tell him, stupid."
"I can't," Terry wailed. "He's already gone."
"And you can't write or call him?
As always, she was the voice of reason. It all seemed so easy when she put it in such simple terms. All he had to do was call Dan and explain how he felt. That was all it would take to make everything all better. Somehow, deep in his heart of hearts he had some misgivings. It sounded so easy, too easy. "Thanks," he finally said as he wiped his eyes on his jacket sleeve. "I didn't mean to fall apart."
"It's okay. I'm still your friend."
"Yeah," he agreed after a long pause. "Thanks for the advice, but I'm afraid it really is over between Dan and me."
"I'm sorry," Paula replied.
"It's okay," he answered. "I just thought . . . well . . . I guess it doesn't matter."
"Well someday you'll probably find a really nice girl and change your mind."
"Yeah, maybe." But Terry really didn't think so. He just wasn't interested in girls that way and couldn't imagine anything or anyone really changing his mind.
"Now take Melanie for example," Paula said after a pause. "She's really great. She's a lot of fun and good company."
"You trying to set me up?" Terry looked at his friend with a new skepticism.
"No, I was just . . . forget it."
"Besides I thought maybe Melanie was already involved."
"Involved? With whom? Why did you say that? Did she tell you something?" Paula was suddenly tensely alert. Her posture and body language had instantly changed. Terry was almost frightened by the sudden change in her demeanor. He felt that this almost confirmed Wayne's and Dan's suspicions.
"She didn't say anything," he replied. "It was the guys."
"What guys?"
"Wayne and Dan."
"What did they say?"
Terry turned to look deeply into Paula's eyes. He hesitated, not knowing how she would take his next statement. But then, she was so calm about his declaration of his sexual orientation, surely she wouldn't react any differently. And then again, maybe that's why she was so calm, because it was true. "They said you and Melanie were lesbians."
"What?!" she almost screamed. "They said what?" Paula jumped to her feet, storming up the bank of the lake, then turning rapidly around and stomping back down to the water's edge. "Of all the nerve! How could they . . . why they don't even . . . those bastards!" She bent down and grabbed a big rock from the shore, hurling it out into the water like a shot put and creating a fountaining splash in the process. This seemed to help release some of the anger she had built up in the last few moments. Meanwhile, Terry sat in stunned silence. Her tirade frightened him almost as much as it had surprised him. This was much more the reaction he had first expected from his announcement about himself. When he didn't get it he was lulled into a false sense of security. Now her anger threw him for a loop.
"I'm sorry," he said meekly as she tried to calm herself, her chest still heaving with the passion of her emotions. "I didn't mean to make you mad." He began to feel resentful, realizing that by her actions she was saying it was alright for him to be gay, but not her. Subtly, she was acknowledging that there was something wrong with it, even though she had just accepted him.
"Make me mad?" Paula took a couple more seconds to catch her breath. "Well I guess I am pretty upset, but not at you. I'm mad at those jerks you call friends."
"Then it's not true?" he asked to confirm his own assumption.
"No, it's not true," she replied with a slightly sharp edge. "God, Terry! You of all people . . ."
"I told them they were wrong," he added hastily.
"Melanie and I are really good friends. I like her a lot. She's fun to be with." Paula sat back down on the ground beside her friend. "In fact, I'd much rather be with her than with any stupid guy. It's just that we get along and have fun together. But that doesn't mean I'm a lesbian . . . does it?"
Terry almost stopped breathing when he realized what his friend had said. She had actually asked him a question. He thought it was meant to be a rhetorical statement, but instead she was waiting for a response. Now Terry was thrown into confusion. Paula preferred the company of her girlfriend to that of a guy. She didn't think this meant she was a lesbian but she wasn't sure. "Well, I guess it depends," he temporized.
"On what?"
"Well, on you. I guess just because you want to be with a girl instead of a guy, that doesn't necessarily mean anything. . . but . . ."
"Yeah?"
"Well, I like being with a guy instead of a girl and in my case it does mean I'm gay."
"So you think I am too?" She looked at him sharply.
"I've never had sex with a girl and I don't really want to. When I see girls they just don't turn me on. But I do feel that way about guys. I guess that's how I know about me. You're the only one who really knows about you. As for whether you like guys or girls, it's nobody else's business. I'm your friend and I always will be. That's all that really matters."
Paula fell back on the ground. "You know something. For a mixed up guy, you're awfully sensitive." She smiled over at her old friend. "It really doesn't matter to you one way or the other?" He shook his head in response. "Oh, Terry, I just don't know." Tears began to trickle out of her eyes, running down the sides of her face. "Sometimes I think maybe I am . . . that way. I just don't have any interest in guys anymore. But I don't think I really want to be . . . you know . . . queer."
"Queer means weird or strange," Terry said, reciting what Dan had once told him. "There's nothing weird or strange about it. It's just that what's natural for us is different for somebody else. That's why we use a positive term, like gay, instead of a negative term like queer. So if you are as you say 'that way,' you aren't queer."
"Okay," she replied, sitting up. "But how do I know if I'm gay and not just uninterested in guys?"
"How do you feel about girls?" Terry watched her closely as she tried to formulate a response.
"I don't know," she finally admitted after a long moment of soul searching. "Well take Melanie for instance. I really like her a lot. I love to be with her. She makes me smile."
"Do you want to have sex with her?"
"There's a lot more to it than just that," Paula protested.
"Yes, there is," Terry agreed.
The two sat in silence for another few minutes. "I've never had sex with Melanie . . . in case you're wondering. I've never even discussed this kind of stuff with her." She leaned over to rub shoulders with Terry. "I'm afraid she'd probably freak out if I tried even talking about this."
"So what are you going to do?"
"What can I do? I guess I have to talk to her. If she freaks, then she does." Paula tilted her head, leaning it on Terry's shoulder. "So what are you going to do?" she asked softly.
"About Dan?"
"Um hmm."
"I guess I'm going to forget about him and get on with my life. What choice do I have?"
"Doesn't it hurt?"
Terry shivered, partly because of the cold breeze that came off the water, but mainly from the vast, cold tundra that had reasserted itself inside. It had frozen over and quieted the volcano. "Yeah, it hurts," he agreed softly. "But in a way that's good. It proves that what I felt was real, it existed. And it proves that I'm alive. Someone once said that through our pain we grow in strength."
"I hope that's true," Paula said as she sniffed back a tear.
"So do I," he agreed. She turned her head and pressed her nose to his cheek, giving him a gentle, affectionate kiss.