Jump to content

Duncan Ryder

Classic Author
 View Profile  See their activity

  • Posts

    340

  • Joined

  • Last visited

 Content Type 

Everything posted by Duncan Ryder

  1. Duncan Ryder
    The wind blew in from the St. Laurence cold and hard, clawing through the thinsulate of Luc’s supposedly windproof winter jacket. Behind him the cobbled streets of Vieux-Montreal somberly awaited the next snowfall, its friendly warm-weather bustle just another faded ghost. Before him was the mighty river. He stared out beyond the dreary ice and snow of its frozen steel edges to the hard choppy water and to the grey sky beyond. He was alone on one of the otherwise deserted benches that l
  2. Duncan Ryder
    At 6:15 Matt was in the cafeteria, antsy and bleary eyed after a restless night in Scott’s narrow bed. Even in the darkness, Josh’s photograph had haunted him. He couldn’t let it go. Several times he’d actually turned the light back on so he could stare at it, searching the laughing face for something he couldn’t quite remember. Finally, he’d reached out in the darkness and turned the damn thing face down. The only other people in the caf were the gymnasts, sitting together quietly aro
  3. Duncan Ryder
    Montreal. Late afternoon. January 10th. The Starbucks at the corner of Crescent and Rue St. Catherine’s was crowded with students from McGill, the world-renowned English university in what has become an essentially French city. Fresh in the new semester, the café positively sparkled with the energy of the excited kids crowded around its tiny tables. Christmas and Chanukah money made fancy coffee a possible treat for a few days yet, and their excitement at being back together agai
  4. Duncan Ryder
    Time, it is said, heals all wounds. The single, deep ones. The thousand cuts. But sometimes, sometimes, the scars left behind are just as debilitating. Can two wounded young men find the path that reaches out beyond their own scars to find each other?
  5. Duncan Ryder
    For a breath, a century, Josh stood silent, motionless in my arms, and those three syllables vibrated in the air between us. I held on and waited. I felt surprisingly sure, now that I was with him. The moment of doubt I’d experienced in the taxi had vanished. I could not believe that I might somehow have missed the moment, waited too long. Somehow, something in me knew, that despite the way I’d brushed him off that afternoon, beneath it all he understood how I felt. Somehow, he would find
  6. Duncan Ryder
    It was two hours later when Rob and Angie returned, and the waiting room, with its single small window overlooking the hospital parking lot, was dreary and dark. They brought with them a serious supply of Tim Horton’s extra large coffees – eight cups of the stuff in two cardboard trays – to spare us more of the watery brown liquid dispensed by the hospital vending machines. Yes, us. Because Josh, thank God, was still there, sitting quietly beside me. Calm, distant, with a space aro
  7. Duncan Ryder
    It explained a lot, I guess, Bran having a gay brother. His quick and easy acceptance of me. His insight. His concern. But it didn’t explain his hostility to Josh. And Josh didn’t seem to want to offer any explanations either, and I know he noticed. Our plan was to go to a restaurant near the condo for breakfast, and then head back and spend the morning working. As he drove, Josh was silent and thoughtful. I waited for him to say something, but when he didn’t, I finally had to
  8. Duncan Ryder
    I awoke slowly to a room that was deeply grey, the pale morning just beginning to push back the night from the wall of windows overlooking the ocean. Fatigue still clawed at me; my mind felt drenched in fog. More real than the room was the warmth of Josh’s body, pressed against mine. Sometime during the early morning hours he had moved back up the bed, and now his back was pressed against my chest, and his head rested on my bicep. His knees were bent and mine were bent behind them, so th
  9. Duncan Ryder
    We took the stairs from Luc’s floor to Josh’s, and when Josh closed and locked the door behind us, he stopped me from turning on the main lights and instead turned on only a small table lamp. He then slipped an arm around me and led me across to the window where he stood, behind me and to my left, with his chin on my shoulder and his head leaning against my cheekbone. Everything about standing there with him like that was right, his warmth, his touch, the scent of his skin, the soft, steady in
  10. Duncan Ryder
    Looking back, I’m amazed at how calm I was. I guess all those years of first aid courses and leadership training and camp counselling and helping to coach younger kids just kicked in, and when the need for calm was there, my mind was cold and clear. I pressed *5 to check the time and date of Luc’s call – and breathed an enormous sigh of relief to discover it was less than an hour ago. Then I called a cab, and on my way down stairs, called Josh’s cell. “Hey,” he said softly, and even thro
  11. Duncan Ryder
    The instant I saw him, I felt that hard, fast rush. The quickened breath. The sharpened senses. Fight or flight. It was like you get sometimes on the hockey rink or on the rugby field. You know, when you’re about to make some great offensive move and some asshole breaks the rules with some illegal move to stop you and it’s just too late to get out of the way and you know you're gonna collide and… No. Fuck, not like that. Not like that at all. This wasn’t a game, and Luc wa
  12. Duncan Ryder
    I followed Josh into his condo thinking: “I know what betrayal looks like.” I had, after all, learned it the hard way, barely two months before, the first time I’d come here. Betrayal looks like a beautiful, blonde boy with newly pierced ears. It looks like a boy I had loved and trusted utterly telling me he needs someone else. It looks like a boy weeping faithless tears as he kisses my face and says goodbye. That’s what betrayal looked like to me. I had no idea what it looked like to
  13. Duncan Ryder
    Bran had most of a two-four in his mini fridge (for you non-Canucks out there, beer up in the great white north is generally sold in cases of 24 refundable bottles or cans – known as two-fours), which made for a late and beery night. The first three went down slow and smooth, as we talked rugby and whatever else came to mind. By three beers deep we started to get personal. I brought up Laura. I mean, there was something about her and Bran that reminded me of Luc and me. Sorta. Because
  14. Duncan Ryder
    I don’t know what I expected from Luc when I agreed to have dinner with him that evening. That he would be nervous, I suppose, as he always seemed to be with me. Wary. Maybe even a little frightened. But I was determined to get us past that. I’d resolved to take Brandon’s advice and pull back a bit, focus on being friends before exploring anything else that might be between us. I wasn’t going to mention Josh – I didn’t know what to say about Josh – but I was going to tell him that we needed t
  15. Duncan Ryder
    Hot Docs is the Canadian International Documentary Film Festival. It’s held every spring in Toronto. It’s the biggest documentary festival in North America, and features the best documentary films from around the world, including a ton of world premiers. Josh’s friend had sent a selection of highlights, and they were just what I needed to get my mind clear: intelligent enough to get me thinking, but distant enough to give me space. And watching them with Josh,was great. I loved being th
  16. Duncan Ryder
    By noon on Sunday, Josh’s body has re-established his outward unwavering calm. His mind, however, was a mess. He couldn’t eat, he hadn’t slept, and he couldn’t concentrate. Thesis, books, music, video – nothing could hold his attention or calm his agitation. No regrets. Who the fuck was he kidding? He had nothing but regrets. He’d broken every rule he’d set for himself since Graham’s departure two years before, every rule that let him maintain his self respect and his sanity. He’
  17. Duncan Ryder
    No regrets. What’s that supposed to mean? My whole being ached. Is that what regret feels like? *** You’d think it would be too damned cold to play rugby in Canada in late November, but you get used to it. And it’s not like the south shore of Nova Scotia is the coldest part of the great white north. I mean, I wouldn’t want to be playing in Winnipeg or Thunder Bay. But it wasn’t really all that cold. Yet. I actually prefer the fall rugby season to the spring one. I me
  18. Duncan Ryder
    Ok, so I’m a guy. Jerking off kind of goes with the territory, you know? And I admit that, since those first tentative fumblings of puberty, I’ve jerked off to fantasies of hundreds of guys. Guys real and imagined. Guys known and unknown. Friend, foe and acquaintance. Guys in movies, magazines, and on the web. When it comes to jerking off to hot fantasy guys, I’m an old hand, so to speak. An old, sure, experienced hand. Fantasy is a funny thing. You imagine what you’d like to do, what yo
  19. Duncan Ryder
    It’s late afternoon, and I’m lying on my back staring at the ceiling. The room is dim; the weak November light is barely enough to penetrate the long, narrow window. The boy I hold in my arms is quiet now. Beneath my jaw and against my throat I feel the softness of his curling black hair, and I breathe him in. I hold him close to me, his chest pressed against my side, his face buried in my shoulder. My shirt beneath his cheek is wet with his tears, and hot from his breath and his skin.
  20. Duncan Ryder
    I’m not a guy who spends a lot of time thinking about my face. I mean, I look ok, you know? Light brown hair, grey eyes, regular features – well, except for the nose, which is a little crooked from multiple breaks. Overall though, ok. Whatever. But when I looked into the mirror the next morning, even I had to admit that I looked like a horror show. Two black eyes. Swollen nose. Cheek bone starting to scab. It meant a lot of stares everywhere I went. I was just glad my Mom couldn’t s
  21. Duncan Ryder
    Thanksgiving was a pretty sombre affair after that, though we all did our best. The whole family saw me off at the airport Monday afternoon: Mom, Dad, my sister Emily, Ben and Ryan. I could feel their love and their concern, and I could also feel their strength. There were no platitudes, just warm hugs, and when I caught up with Josh in the departure lounge, I was feeling ok. Not for long. “So Big Guy,” he said, moving his bag from the chair he’d been saving for me. “How was it? Di
  22. Duncan Ryder
    They call it the Thanksgiving Turkey Dump, that glorious fall ritual when college freshmen return home for the first time to shed their high school sweethearts. If they’re lucky, it’s fast and what waits for them on campus is exciting, and they leave behind the broken hearts and guilty consciences, and return to new campus liaisons with an incredible lightness of being. Last year, my senior year of high school, I’d watched some friends come back and do it, and comforted other friends to whom i
  23. Duncan Ryder
    The following Monday, I had rugby practice from one to three, and our economics study group in the Student Union at four. Practice was particularly rough. I got nailed by Jason Petrov, our 220 pound Eight Man, and came down hard, giving my nose a good crack. I knew from the sudden spurt of blood and that familiar little sound that I’d broken it again. My nose has been broken often enough that it didn’t really worry me. I knew it wasn’t serious. The bleeding let up fairly quickly, and when I ge
  24. Duncan Ryder
    I worked hard to settle my life into a routine. I didn’t feel much like socializing; I had a single room, which made it pretty easy for me to be by myself. Instead I focused on sports and academics. Fall rugby season was in full swing, giving me the opportunity to channel all my physical energy into getting stronger and faster. And I was getting my sea legs academically as well, and did a lot of studying, which I was actually enjoying. I’m doing my degree in economics and political science,
  25. Duncan Ryder
    Three young men, all wounded by past relationships. Can they learn to trust and to love again? Are some wounds deep beyond healing?
×
×
  • Create New...