It took Flaubert 20 years to finish Madame Bovary, so all things considered, my 11-month absence isn't noteworthy. In any event, you might want to review the earliest chapters and reacquaint yourself with the narrator.
If you like it please let me know.
If you don't like it, please tell me why.
This is fiction, but not so much. I'm reminded of Tim O'Brien's description of a "true story that never happened."
pijito52@aol.com
God Save the Drama Queen
Once I caught Oprah talking to all these gay kids who'd been cast out by their parents. Opes trained her big ol' Bambi eyes on this one boy - central-casting emo dude who looked strangely like Kim Kardashian after a particularly rough night - and asked, her voice honeyed with compassion, "are you hoping for a reconciliation?"
It occurs to me as I shove a piece of toast in my mouth, say goodbye to my little brother Antoine, and run out to Crispin's Audi, that I have never had to reconcile with anybody. My mom was born without edges. Last year when I told her I thought I was gay, she said, "That's wonderful, pumpkin," then asked if I wouldn't be a sweetheart and freshen her drink. Nothing but love in her eyes.
My dad, the litigator, was similarly unfazed. "Remy, you are who you are. If it matters, I've known since you were seven. Remember that castle you built in your room at the beach house? You had kings and princes and vassals galore, but I don't recall a single lady in the mix. It was about the gayest castle I'd ever seen. Look, I didn't love you any less then, and I'm not about to stop loving you just because you've put a label on your feelings." I'm guessing I won't be on Oprah anytime soon, unless they're doing a segment on well-adjusted families and the biker-chicks that stalk them.
"'Sup, Rem. Where were you yesterday, anyway? I texted you like 35 times."
"I don't know. What'd I miss?"
"Otto got GTA: Chinatown. Diego claims he hooked up with Tiffany-Amber. I'm thinking of ordering a Sarah Palin blow-up doll. Just kidding, of course."
"Same old same old?"
"Pretty much. But not quite. We've got new neighbors. The McMansion on the corner that got foreclosed. I saw the movers unloading Saturday. Mom says they're Brits. I wouldn't trust her, though. She's a raving monarchist. Cried for a week when Princess Di died. Di Died. That's funny."
"Cool. Any scenery?" Sometimes Crispin calls it "talent." For the things he likes, for the girls who power his dreams, he's always got a special lexicon. Sometimes he goes for the polysyllabic: pulchritude or seraphim. He's big on mythology, too, calls the Triplets Artemis, Eurydice, and Clytemnestra - only he pronounces the first syllable like that little love button he longs to diddle. Just never girls, or God forbid, pussy.
"Well, since you ask, no. But there's a dude. Homo erectus, my GLBT pal."
"Shut up, Crispy. You know that would violate the neighborhood covenant." Sometimes I wish he were a little more homophobic. The game would be easier.
"I saw him, you know. In the flesh, as it were."
"Who?" I don't feel like playing along.
"Nigel. Clive. Graham. The Brit. He's a bleedin' poof, Remy, I just know it. Bloody wanker. And he's tres, tres chaud, mon petit prince. BF material in the biggest way."
"Yeah. Sure. Nigel, my ass."
"That's what I'm saying, dude: Nigel and your ass. It's a match made in heaven."
"Whatever." He probably can't hear it, but there's a catch in my throat. My life is pretty easy, I know, but sometimes I wish I was less of a punch line.
"Hey, dude. Just shittin'. Just shittin."
Crispin's okay. For a heterosexual.
El Sid
I do not as a matter of course shower at school. There's plenty of hot water at home and a door I can lock. Okay, so if my family moves to China and we have to bathe en masse as part of some local custom, I guess I'll have to adjust. Now reason is forever stepping in to dispute this silliness, but then I think of who I am and what I want so badly to do, and how it all seems to come from this part of me that refuses to listen, this inconsequential part of me that hangs so beautifully and so terribly between my legs.
It's 2:15. Last period just started, and circumstances have mandated that I skip it. As we walked back from our ritual Friday Chipotle lunch, Jimmy beckoned me over to see something in his hand, then shoved me over a suddenly-kneeling Crispin - the oldest trick in the Loser's Handbook, a copy of which I obviously never received. At any rate, I tumbled ass-backwards into a perfectly positioned puddle left by earlier rains. They were crazed with laughter. I laughed, too, of course, because not to laugh would signal defeat. So, muddy, wet, and embarrassed, I had no choice but to find the dreaded shower room in the Parker Athletic Center. I'd bag my dirty clothes and wear home the sweats I keep in my locker.
I am alone. The hot spray feels amazing. My skin sings. The nerves along my spine seem to jump out of their casings. I wonder briefly how water beads and soap lathers, and I let myself imagine for an instant that sex must be like this, sensation to the ninth power, a surrender of logic to the whip of desire. The 45 seconds I planned have stretched to five minutes. I'm tingling at the core, and only that vestigial modesty keeps me from sprouting the biggest boner of my career.
Then, suddenly, I'm not alone. Another shower is turned on across the room. The occupant coughs up a wad of phlegm and hawks it God-knows-where. I've still got my back to the interloper when he starts to sing "I want your ugly, I want your disease" in a key not even Lady Gaga could contrive. So I turn around to face the music.
The soloist is El Sid. Sid-Freakin'-Vicious. I'm ten feet away from the Prince of Darkness, who apparently has also fallen in a puddle or is also skipping last period to bathe. I can't run and I can't hide, so I say, as matter-of-factly as I can manage, as if it's the most normal thing in the world for the Dork and the Devil Incarnate to meet naked in the shower:
"What's up, Sid?"
He declines the opportunity to chat. He's chuckling, but there's no light or laughter in his beady eyes, eyes that do not remove themselves for one decent second from my person, my naked person. I look down, inexplicably shamed. As I raise my eyes, I see that Sid is covered with fur, a forest uninterrupted by firebreaks of white skin. He keeps staring. I turn off the shower, grab my towel, and vow never again to return.
Understand this: Sidney Weisenthal is an anomaly. Sui generis, in fact. The most dangerous Jewish kid ever: part Son of Sam, part Bugsy Siegel, part Rottweiler, and all motherfucking menace to society. Rumor is he got an AK-47 for his Bar Mitzvah. Rumor is that, instead of going to Music Camp or playing American Legion, he trained with Mossad in the Golan Heights.
If Sid decides that you're worth ignoring, you've got nothing to worry about. There's peace in the neighborhood. But if for some reason Sid decides otherwise - you might as well face it: your ticket is punched. You will suffer. You may not die - after all, this is Caulfield High, not some killing field in Kandahar - but you may wish you had.
Sid has resources to match his reputation. One day Trent Jameson was in my A.P. Bio class; the next, they found his body in a dumpster behind the Wal-Mart. Just kidding, of course - though the next time I did see Trent he was wearing a St. Bart's letterman's jacket. By way of explanation he said something about Catholic schools and early admission to the Ivy's, but the way he kept surveying the scene like some security guard on Black Friday, I felt the dark, hairy presence of Sid Vicious around the corner. I'd heard the stories: Trent at a party. Trent, loud, drunk, ambitious. Trent hooking up with the lovely Rachel Milstein in a back bedroom. Then Sid, appearing magically at the door, the Angel of Vengeance. Rachel screaming. Sid, expressionless, coming out of the bedroom with Trent. Neither boy saying anything, making their way through a sea of slack-jawed spectators, then out the door into the night.
Sid got rid of Trent. I don't know how, but I'm guessing he made the pretty boy an offer he couldn't refuse.
I've slipped on my sweats and am bundling my wet clothes, when I hear that voice again, high and nasal, not at all like one might imagine coming from him, the voice of a TV grizzly or the lead singer of Mastodon. His phrasing is part hip-hop and part Flatbush, as if he's spent a lifetime studying the Hughes brothers' movies.
"You need a mohel," he says. "My father can set you up. He knows fuckin' everybody. Randy, right?"
"Remy." I have no idea what he's telling me I need, but I could swear he's recruiting me for one of his covert ops. He's blocking my exit with all 220 pounds. A bouncer in reverse, arms folded against his massive chest. The towel wrapped around his waist conceals a heavy lump.
"Yeah. Remy. Whatever. Listen, it'll hurt for a bit, I guess, but fuck, you got to get rid of that anteater."
Now I'm really confused. I'm pretty sure I'm the smart one in this transaction, but I'm missing a key concept. Moles and anteaters? Maybe he's got me mixed up with one of those Science Fair kids.
"Your dick, Diddy. Your putz. Your schlong. Your baby-maker, Batman.! It's unclean. You're violating the covenant. You'll never get a chick to chow down on your unit with all that skin."
Clarity. Sidney Wiesenthal would prefer that I were circumcised. A mohel would be the dude with the scalpel. The anteater is my penis - my occasional nemesis and constant delight. I don't think it looks like an anteater at all, but Sid sees it how Sid sees it. If I could think of anything meaningful to say, trust me, I'd give it a go, but what do you say to a guy who's telling you to cut off your foreskin? In any case, I don't want to talk about my dick with Sid Vicious - even if there's no way out. It's mine, and I like it the way it is, thank you very much - which is what I should say, being honest and all, but instead I go there, back to the danger zone, that place of no return that Diego and my friends say will deliver me to an early grave.
"And you need a waxing, Sidney. My mother can set you up. She knows fucking everybody. It'll hurt for . . . "
In the movies, it happens in a flash, the drama, then the blood. In the empty locker room at Caulfield High, it builds, the pauses groaning under the weight of inevitability. Words hit harder than punches, if only because one from a guy like Sid who knows what he's doing and I will crumble senseless to the floor.
"That was quite unnecessary," Sid says, the accent suddenly gone, and though his words are civilized, even dainty, I know I'm going to be punished. Bully meets wiseass - a staple of literature, a classic. "Quite unnecessary."
"It was necessary, Sid. You gave me no choice. I mean, my dick isn't any of your goddamn business."
"It's ugly. It truly disgusts me. Look, Randy, my people are clean. I'm just being an environmental activist. Just helping a goyishe friend."
"Go fuck your hairy self, Sid. Come on. This is all too stupid." I make a move to squeeze past him, to catch him off guard. Nope. He grabs me by the shoulders like the proverbial rag doll and bangs me up against the locker. He's not really hurting me - or maybe adrenaline is masking the pain - but I do wonder if when he pulls the trigger they'll find me complicit in my own death.
"I offered some friendly advice. You chose not to take it and you chose, instead, to mock me. I had no quarrel with you except with your dirty fucking turtleneck dick, then you go all infidel on me. I am charged with exterminating the infidel." Now he's having fun. If I had at least one foot on the ground, I might be having fun, too. For an instant I think that I'll kick off his towel, that naked he might somehow be neutralized.
"I'm not the infidel, fur-ball. Let me go." I'm saying shit I shouldn't say, I know, but humiliation seems to have sharpened my conscience and dulled my synapses.
"Feisty motherfucker! You'll make a good little soldier once we get you clean." He's found a couple of pressure points and against all better judgment, I'm starting to yelp.
"Goddamnit, Sid. Let me down!" Bang goes my head against locker #453. Out go my legs. Down goes the towel. "Go pick on a fucking terrorist, you hairy Jewboy sack of shit!" Hairy Jewboy sack of shit? I don't say stuff like that, not even when I'm being threatened with extermination. My mom would kill me.
"Not cool," says Sid. "Not cool." The smile is gone. It won't be today and it won't be tomorrow, but I understand that I've just sealed an unfortunate fate. "Never forget," he says in what sounds more like prayer than menace. "Never forget." It's not just about me, I realize. To Sid, I've become the unlikely avatar of a whole wicked history.
He lets go, picks up the towel, shakes his head, and adds a benediction: "See you around."
Sleep Tight Ya Morons!
Jimmy and Crispin apologize on the ride home. I accept without hesitation, mutter something about "once burned." What's a little mud between friends, anyway? Besides, being muddy isn't as troublesome as being dead. Mud washes off.
"You a'ight, Remy?" Jimmy knows something's bugging me.
"Not so much."
"Out with it," Crispin commands.
"Sid."
"Sid?"
"Weisenthal."
"What you got to do with Sid Vicious, homes?" There's alarm in the question, totem power in the utterance of a name.
"I don't know. I pissed him off. Inadvertently punished the motherfucker."
"What exactly did you say, Remy?" Crispin knows my Tourette's better than anybody. "Oh my God, Rem, what did you say? Just walk on by, dude. That's always been the plan, right? That's how to survive in Sidville."
"Too late." Suddenly, I don't want to talk about it.
"Jesus, Remoulade. You know better. Don't poke the anthill. Don't mess with the wasp's nest. Sid only fucks with those who fuck with him. He's like AIDS. There's protection. You don't have to get it." Crispin is quite the moralist when he wants to be, but I guess he means well. At this point, everybody's telling me what to do, and I don't have the energy to do any of it.
"Look, Cripsy. I'll figure something out. No sense getting you and Jimmy mixed up in it."
"Hey, we've got your back, dude," Jimmy states with convincing sobriety. But they don't. They can't. They live in a Call of Duty world. The soundtrack may be rough and metallic, the ordnance is always unerring, but the death is only temporary.
"Thanks, guys. I mean it. But I'll think of something. I'm an idiot, but I'll think of something."
"Trent Jameson? Lee Hardesty? God. What did you say, Remy?"
"He's got guns, Rem."
"Hey, Crispy? Can we let it go? I'll figure something out. Whatever it is he's planning to do won't happen tonight and it won't happen at Caulfield. He'll find me at his convenience."
The lads are hushed. They may even be scared. It's always been a big game for them, and I'm guessing this whole mess smacks too much of the reality we've managed for so long to avoid.
I get out of the Audi and bid them a surprisingly cheerful farewell. Jimmy asks if I want to play Halo online. Crispy says his mom's made a lasagna. There's a party at Sylvie's Saturday night, he adds. It's Make-A-Wish time for Remy.
"Man, Sid is so fucking hairy," I say, apropos of nothing. "Wall-to-wall shag, dudes. Never seen anything like it."
For Every Drop of Rain That Falls
I want a hug from Mom - we hug a lot in the Delorme household - but I need solitude and sanctuary even more, so it's good she's still at work and Antoine is still huffing glue or whatever the little fella does at his afterschool program. I head straight upstairs and close the bedroom door behind me.
Ordinarily when I talk to myself, good points get made and questions get answered. Of course that's because I set the agenda with unapologetic self-interest. I'm both teacher and student, young Alexander at Aristotle's knee.
Not so this afternoon. My mind is a mess. I replay the whole weird scene with Sid, and find myself alternately smiling and gritting my teeth. I tell myself I could get my dick cut and show Sid and wear a yarmulke and eschew bacon - and live happily ever after, maybe even buy an Uzi and head out to the Settlements to hunt down the infidel with my new tribe. But then I tell myself that anteater or not, Sid doesn't want my friendship, he just wants to own me, or at least own the world that for so long has beleaguered his people. Besides - and it's weird how it keeps coming back to this - I really, truly, deeply love my penis exactly the way it is. I haven't spent a lot of time giving voice to this truth (even gay boys don't talk about their dicks all the time), but I think I would give up my Play-Station or my just-acquired driver's license or even a dozen of the A's I've affixed to my transcript before I gave up my turtleneck. Countries fight over borders more arbitrary than the blue lines on a road map. Montagues fight Capulets, McCoys fight Hatfields, Bloods fight Crips - and not a one of them could give you a convincing reason why. So I choose to fight for my foreskin, for a few square inches of precious and private real estate, and it seems to me the most perfect reason for a war ever contrived.
My dick listens when I talk to it. And the way it's swelling in my right hand tells me it likes what it's hearing. Erect, it looks just a little different from the few I've seen in my brief career as an aficionado: longer, I suppose, though not pornographically so; more, I don't know, colorful - the white skin of the shaft setting off the bright red plum that is my glans; wetter, somehow, moist, even juicy; but I'll be goddamned if it's dirty, even slick with precum. Fuck you, Sid Vicious! Fuck you, you fuck. It's my dick and I'll die for it if I have to!
A boner of fury, that's what I've got going now. Boners of Fury - in stores, April 15! Breathing's tighter, heart's thumping, dickhead's raging, and I've got about 25 seconds 'til I spit gobs, furious gobs . . .
"Re-Meeeeee!" It's Antoine. They're home. Damn.
"Remy, honey! Come on down. I need your help!"
Masturbating boy interrupted. I bring to my lips a dab of watery semen scooped off the tip of my rapidly shrinking penis, and think, "snot," then head downstairs to see what's going down on what may just be the last weekend of my life.
"Hey," I say.
"Hey Remy," my brother says.
"You okay, pumpkin? You look a little puffy." Damn, she's good.
"Yeah. Just caught a little siesta. What's up."
"Company. Could you put the groceries away for me?
"Sure. Who're we feeding? The Lindsays?"
"No, it's the new neighbors," Antoine interjects. "Dad told me they're Limeys."
"Hush, my little cockatoo," my mom says. "That's dated terminology. Your father knows better."
I've put two and two together and got the customary four. They've got to be Crispin's Brits, Nigel's parents. I don't know where I'm going to go, but I'm not sure I'm up to polite chatter after my earlier brush with the nevermind.
"Mom, Crispin invited me to dinner. Mrs. Shaw's making lasagna."
"Sorry, Rem. We need you and your sparkling conversation here tonight."
"Antoine's pretty good in a pinch, Ma. He can cover, can't he?"
"Sorry, hon. They're bringing their son with them. He just started at Caulfield on Wednesday. He's a junior just like you, a fifth former. Have you met him?"
Crispin wants me to marry him, I'm tempted to say, but all I can manage is "not yet."
"Well, perfect then. It's a great time for the Welcome Wagon to roll in. I'm guessing you're annoyed with me, but I think it's the right thing to do." My parents say this all the time, and funny thing, it works pretty well.
"Okay, Mom. Always want to do the right thing."
If bad news comes in threes like they say it does, this could be one difficult evening.
I'll Stop the World and Melt With You
They arrive with flowers and a bottle of wine, the Montgomery clan, bright, blond, and effortlessly chatty - mom radiant, dad dapper, and daughter, Celia, a dead-ringer for War of the Worlds-era Dakota Fanning. Recessive genes in full bloom, they fill our living room with light and health.
No Nigel.
"You must be Remy," says Mr. Montgomery. He shakes my hand without crushing it. His smile tells me to relax, that it accepts me as I want to be accepted, no awkward questions or presumptions on the horizon. His grip is kind.
"Pleased to meet you." I feel like bowing.
"Remy, Denis will be here any minute. This move seems to have fouled up his clock."
"That's okay." Nigel is Denis. He doesn't want to be here, and I'm okay with that.
The parents are drinking and nibbling, talking about this and that as if they've been friends for life. Celia has gone to the basement to play Pokemon Gold with Antoine, suddenly a 10 year-old gentleman, charming, solicitous, and beautifully sexless. I nod from time to time, even toss in a quip or two to show that I'm listening, but I can't ignore the uninvited guest, Sidney Wiesenthal, who nuzzles invisibly against me, whispering tick-tick-boom, tick-tick-boom in my ear.
The door bell rings, breaking the reverie. I get up to answer, El Sid at my side. And there he is.
"Hello. I'm Denis. Sorry I'm late." He reaches out to shake my hand, which I've somehow forgotten to extend. "Remy, right?"
"Remy, right." God, I sound retarded. "Everybody's here." At long last, my hand decides to cooperate, and I bring him in to the living room.
Another round of introductions ensues. Denis is the soul of contrition. He apologizes to my mother for holding up the meal. He apologizes to my father for arriving without a peace offering. He apologizes to his parents for losing track of time. I'd hate him if he weren't so goddamned perfect, though I suppose that fact alone shouldn't stop me. Feet of clay must hate Prada on principle. The fallen angel hates the heaven he has abandoned.
No, I can't hate him because to meet him is to love him. You're saying no way, silly boy, and I'm saying I love him. And when he looks over at me to make one last unnecessary apology, I want to die a thousand more deaths because he has read my mind and its simple declaration as if it were a billboard or a text message. He knows without a word spoken that I love him, that I want to spend the remaining days of my life, however brief they may be, with him. I haven't felt so naked since, well, about 2:30 this afternoon. I can't take anything back now; my heart has spoken, so my only hope is that he ignores this telepathic confession or writes it off to jet lag.
"You like Caulfield?" I ask, once we are seated - right across from one another. He looks straight at me when he responds. His eyes feel like big blue heat lamps and I'm melting like the wicked witch.
"It's big," he says. "One can lose himself."
I wish I could lose myself, too, but it's too late, I'd just wind up in his eyes. "Not really. Not so big, once they've got you pegged and tracked."
"Pegged and tracked?"
"Academically, I mean. I see pretty much the same kids in all my classes."
"Like A Levels, I suppose?"
"Like A Levels I suppose." That echo thing again.
It goes on like this, inanities between bites of tenderloin and sips of iced tea. I've never felt quite so inadequate, never had so much trouble being funny or smart or just plain normal. Denis is so easy with everybody: he's sweet to Antoine; he's sharp with his folks; he adores his sister, who is, to be honest, utterly adorable. I pride myself on my ability to spot frauds, but nothing about him is wrong. He's not a suck-up. He's not excessively mature, a peach gone to rot. Even his clothes are great, chosen with confidence, not conformity; Levi's a little snugger than the locals favor; white cotton Oxford shirt; off-the-rack sneakers and black socks. I love black socks. If he were anybody but who is, beautiful and brilliant, I could find an excuse to be indifferent. And I wouldn't have to face this most perplexing paradox: I've fallen for a stranger on the very same day I've received a death sentence.
"Remy," he says sliding the last bite of raspberry tart past fluted lips. "You got plans?"
"Not really."
"Show me around, then?"
"Sure, Denis. There's not much to show, but sure. Dad'll give me the keys."
"Great."
"Good."
Rhapsody in Blue
I get Mom's ride, of course. Dad covets his Beemer, so I'm usually stuck with the Prius. But what the fuck, I'm not trying to fool anybody.
"Family gone green, eh?" Denis says. "We've hired a car for a few weeks, but my dad is thinking hybrid when we buy. Not so many miles to cover back home."
"Do you miss it?"
"Yes."
"What's it like?"
"Small, I guess. Familiar. Comfortable. But I suppose wherever you are, that's where you are."
"I suppose. Reston is all I know. It's not much, but it's home. God, that sounded stupid."
"If you don't mind me saying, you seem pretty bollixed."
"Bollixed?"
"You know, on edge. Like I'm gonna bite you or something. Bad-day bollixed."
Silence is often the most articulate response. Part of me wants to scream, "Bite me, please!" Part of me wants to cry. But Denis is not a vampire and I only cry at funerals.
"I spell my name with one N, you know. I catch shit for it all the time. Dennis the Menace becomes Denis the Penis. In any case, I've got to be careful with my penmanship."
"Why do parents do stuff like that," I ask. "Fuck around with us before we can do anything about it? There's this guy at Caulfield, Michael Hunt. We aren't allowed to call him Mike. Per his parents' directive to the Main Office. But it's like, you know, the more you say Michael, the more you think Mike. Where's Mike Hunt? What's with that, anyway?"
Denis laughs. Then, quite abruptly, he asks, "what happened today?"
"What do you mean, 'what happened'?"
"I'm psychic. Seriously, mi peque¤o yanqui, it's written all over you. Something happened and I'm pretty sure it wasn't good. Talk to me. I don't know you well enough yet to pass judgment."
"Father Denis?"
"Father Penis?"
"Look, don't rub me the wrong way."
"Sorry."
"Just kidding, dude. Rub me the wrong way. Bada boom!"
"I'm going to stop here, Denis. I've only had my license for three months. I can't drive and talk yet. I don't think that happens until year two."
There's nobody at Baron Cameron Park, at least not where I've parked. Denis follows me to a bench and sits right next to me, violating all the etiquette of space. I think on any other night but this I would move a discreet distance, but Denis has become a shield, and I feel strangely safe with him at my side.
"Denis, I'm in pretty deep."
"Pretty deep how?"
"I couldn't even tell Crispy and Jimmy, that's how deep."
"Mates?"
"Yeah. You'll meet 'em."
"So tell me."
I can feel dinner tumbling in my gut. It's 75 degrees and I'm shaking. My balls have shrunk and I'm having a hard time breathing."
"Get it out, lad. I'm not going to hurt you. I won't sell you out."
"I love you." Oh my God.
He laughs. "No you don't. You don't even know me. And anyway, that's not what happened. You looked like a ghost when you opened the door for me. Something was wrong way before you fell in love."
"Go easy, Denis. I'm gay. I'm not quite used to saying it yet."
"So? I'm gay, too. I thought that was clear by dessert. But that's not what happened, Remy."
"You're gay?"
"As they come, mate. A bleedin' homosexual, I am. But that's not what you need to get out of your system. We'll deal with all that when you're doing better."
So I tell him. Everything and more. About the mud puddle and the shower. About hairy Sid Vicious. About the fate of my anteater and the covenant of the Tribe. About those who faced him before me. About Uzis and the diaspora and my uncontrollable Tourette's. About how much I want to have sex with someone who wants to have sex with me.
"I see," Denis says, as if I've just told him I got a B in Trig. "I see."
"What do you see?" I've stopped trembling and my stomach has returned to its upright position.
"I see that you need a plan, and that I'm just the guy to devise it."
"He's got guns."
"He's not a killer, Remy. I know him well."
"You know Sidney?"
"He's hung around me all my life, lover."
"What do you mean?"
"I'll tell you soon, but this is your night."
"Thank you. I do feel better. What are we going to do, then?"
"Not quite sure. Gotta survey the terrain, you know. What worked in Surrey may need a little tweaking here in beautiful Reston. But trust me; we'll take care of things. I'm a sucker for happy endings."
I'm leaning up against him in the dark. He is the essence of calm. This is a close place now, but it's the intimacy of soldiers, of the foxhole.
I'm not so good with any stretch of silence. "Denis, do you like me that way?"
"What way would that be, guv'nah?" He's grinning.
"The way I said earlier. You know, me being a guy and all."
"I like you a lot, Remy. In that way. A lot."
"I'm a virgin."
"Do tell."
"Is that okay?"
"Sure. I used to be a virgin once."
"Then you weren't?"
"Then I wasn't."
"Is it amazing? Tell me it's amazing."
"Better than amazing. Transcendent."
"Will you take me there? To transcendence?"
"With pleasure, my little colonist. With pleasure."
This is where we kiss. It lasts forever, or at least until a car full of Friday drunks pulls up and we head back to the Prius.
Talk about coitus interruptus! Patience, please. The sex has to be just right, and hard as it is to make this happen in real life, it's even harder when all you've got is words.