9.11 - 5. Chapter 5

June 23, 2001

“So the first thing you need to do is tell me what you want us to be,” I said, trying to lay this out logically for him. His mind was like that, so if I spelled it out in an organized sequence, it would be easier for him to work through it.

“I want to be with you, but I don’t know what that means.” Tony wasn’t emotional, and he wasn’t very demonstrative. I’d learned with him that I really had to look carefully to figure out what was going on inside his brain. Not this time. This time, he was flailing around, totally confused.

“It can mean that we’re a couple, or it can mean that we’re not.” He stared at me blankly. “Tell me what you’re thinking.”

“I want to be with you, to be a couple, but I don’t think that can happen.”

“Because I’m so young, and we’re both in school?” He nodded. “Tony, it doesn’t have to be this exclusive thing.”

He seemed relieved. “Look Will, you’re so important to me, and I love you. I have to get a grip on what this means.” And that made me smile, made me really smile, which made him happy and confused him at the same time. He must really love me, enough that it had short-circuited all of his defenses and forced him to look at who he really was.

“You mean because if you love me, you must be gay?” I asked. If I would have punched him, it would have had less of an impact. It was really sad to see him struggling so hard with this.

“I don’t know.”

“When you fuck Dana, is it as good as when we fuck?” I challenged. I could see him cringe at the question.

“It’s different.”

“I’ve fucked a woman. I know it’s different. The thing is, is it better?”

“No,” he admitted.

“When you jack off, what percentage of the time are you thinking about men?”

He didn’t say anything for the longest time, he just looked down at his lunch and swirled his pasta with his fork. “More than 90% of the time.” I just nodded. We both knew he meant all the time. “What?” he demanded.

“You want me to be honest with you?”

“Go ahead,” he said, dreading what I was going to say.

“You’re gay. You’re not bi. You’re not straight. You’re gay.” He sat there, squirming as he grappled with it. He knew I was right, but every fiber of his being was telling him not to admit it. The waiter came out and I paid our bill, and then guided Tony back to our hotel. It was a nice walk, and a beautiful day, but we didn’t say anything. I just let him think about our conversation. We got back to the hotel and managed to get to my room with no one seeing us. I locked the door behind us, like we’d made some big escape.

He took both of my hands in his, just like he had at the Pantheon. “I’m gay. I’m a fag,” he admitted. A tear fell down his cheek, then another, until he was all but sobbing. I hugged him, holding him tightly; trying to make him feel secure and loved.

“Want me to show you why it’s so awesome that you are?” I teased. He smiled softly and let me guide him over to the bed. We took off our clothes deliberately, dispassionately, and just lay naked on the bed, side by side. I ran my hand softly across his abs, moving up to his chest, then back down while I leaned in and kissed him. We just made out for a long time, enjoying the connection between our mouths, and then we made love, only unlike when we usually fucked, we did it slowly and deliberately. I felt every move, every twitch, and I could feel how much he did love me with every thrust and moan. And when we came, we came together, in one massive explosion.

“Yep, I’m gay,” he said, joking about it now, as we lay there side by side on our backs, panting.

“No shit. And you’re really good at it.” He laughed with me over that.

“So what do I do next?” I almost shook my head at how predictable he was. The after-fuck euphoria had faded, and now he was being direct and serious. I guess that was better than what he’d done in the past, where he’d run away or avoided me.

“Dude, I’m not a big expert on this. I can give you my thoughts, but shit, I could be wrong.” I was really nervous that he was putting his life in my hands. This was way beyond my capabilities. He needed to talk to a shrink to deal with this, but if I suggested that, he’d really lose it, so I decided I’d just have to wing it.

“I don’t want you to tell me what to do; I just want to know what you think.”

“Alright,” I said, and pondered his situation. “I think that you need to dump Dana. You can’t be gay and have a girlfriend. It’s not fair to her, and it’s not fair to me. And it’s not fair to you.”

“That’s going to be hard,” he admitted. “She thinks we’re perfect together.”

“It is going to be hard,” I agreed. “But you have to do it.”

“I know,” he said glumly.

“So when are you going to do it?” Dana tended to dominate him, so I knew that at the very least I had to get him to set a date to end it with her.

“She’s supposed to come into St. Louis for the big VP Fair celebration on the weekend before the fourth of July. I’ll tell her then,” he said, dreading it.

“Are you going to tell her why?”

“I don’t know what I’m going to tell her,” he said. We both knew there was no way he was going to tell her the truth. He’d make up some bullshit reason. The only problem was that with Dana, she’d be relentless in trying to convince him to be with her. It was possible that the only thing that would force her to accept they were over would be his telling her he was gay.

“Does she think we get together?” I asked him. He glared at me. “She hates me, I just wonder if she’s jealous.”

“She doesn’t think we’re together,” he said confidently, but I wasn’t so sure. I could see Dana deciding that I’d prey on him and do something like suck his dick when he was drunk and vulnerable. “She knows you’re gay. She thinks you like me. It bugs her.”

“I am gay, and I do like you,” I said, smiling at him. He smiled back at me and put his hand on the back of my head and pulled me in for a nice kiss.

“I’m gay, and I like you too,” he said, and seemed relieved that he’d admitted both of those things. “So after I end things with Dana, then what?”

“After that, I think you have to figure out who else is going to know.”

“What do you mean?”

“Are you going to tell your mother? Your grandparents? Your sister? Your friends?” He stared at me, freaking out at the thought of it. “If you want to practice, you can start with my family.”

“They already know.”

“Not really,” I said, even though they did. They knew, they just didn’t know for sure. “They know we hook up. They know you’re really important to me. But they don’t know you’re gay. You can confirm it for them. And you’ll probably find that they can help out. Shit, Matt had a tough go of it, but he made it through.”

“He did?”

“Yeah,” I said. I told him how Matt had invited his parents out to visit over Thanksgiving back in 1998, and how my Uncle Brian, the biggest douchebag that ever lived, had outed him to his parents. I told him how Matt’s parents had freaked out and made him take them straight to the airport, and how they’d all but disowned him.

“I don’t think my mom and my sister will do that to me,” he said, trying to visualize their response. “I don’t think my other relatives will either. But it’s fucking scary.”

“No shit. But in the end, Matt’s parents worked through it, and now they’re much tighter with him than they were before, because now they know the real Matt, and he can let his guard down around them.”

“Guess I never thought about it like that,” he said.

“You should talk to him, and even Wade. They can tell you how they dealt with it,” I offered. I knew they’d do that for me.

“Maybe I will,” he mused. “In the meantime, we have to get ready to go see Vinnie, and meet his new boy.”

Vinnie’s mom was Tony’s mother’s sister. She had invited all of us over to her house, and it was this big deal. She lived in a nice apartment in the San Lorenzo district, the same area I’d spent so much time in with Berto. Everyone in Tony’s family seemed to get along, but Tony told me that his mother and his aunt sometimes were a little competitive with each other, especially about their kids. That probably explained the tension I felt. I wondered if Tony’s mom would be gloating inside that her sister had a gay son. We took a cab, sharing it with Tony’s mother and his sister, Julia. Julia was pretty hot. If I were straight, I definitely would have hit on her. “Be nice to Vinnie,” his mother said.

“I’m always nice to Vinnie,” Tony said defensively.

“I don’t want any teasing because he’s got a boyfriend. You understand?” she said to all of us firmly. It was funny how she just assumed I was straight. And it was pretty cool to see how she didn’t let Vinnie’s gayness detract from his right to be a respected part of the family.

“If I tease him, I’m going to tease him about his big nose,” Tony joked.

“He got it fixed,” his mother said. “So there you go.” We got to his aunt’s house and were subjected to the normal Italian effusive greetings. We all switched to that language seamlessly as soon as we were with Tony’s extended family. On the one hand, their exuberance was pretty overwhelming, but on the other hand, it made me feel at home, and very welcome.

“Vinnie should be here any minute,” his aunt said, irritated that everyone else but her son was here. “We can go ahead and get ready to eat.” His aunt directed us to our places, and I noticed that there were two empty chairs to the right of me, presumably for Vinnie and his date. Tony sat on my left, which kind of surprised me, since I figured they’d have put Tony and Vinnie together.

His aunt vanished into the kitchen with Tony’s mom and Julia, and the three of them emerged with a whole bunch of food. They laid it out on the table and I felt my mouth start to salivate in anticipation. It looked great, but it smelled even better. They were Catholic, of course, so they all crossed themselves and then said a short prayer, then crossed themselves again. I got some odd looks since I didn’t do that, but I’d been getting those from Tony’s family all week. It was such an outward sign that I didn’t really belong that I thought about doing it just to fit in, but then Tony and his mom would know I was faking it, and that would make me look totally lame. We’d just started scooping out food onto our plates when the door opened and two guys came in. One guy was about 5’ 11”, with a normal build and a handsome face. I knew he was Vinnie because he looked a little like Tony, and because I knew the guy who was with him. Standing there, looking as hot as he had when I’d first met him last summer, was Berto. He was Vinnie’s boyfriend!

Berto’s eyes met mine and I could see the alarm and panic in them, and I’m sure everyone else would have seen it too if they were paying attention. I smiled at him, trying to calm him down, and trying to let him know that I wasn’t going to make some big scene, and watched that register. He relaxed after that, and smiled back, that gorgeous smile that had captivated me last summer.

Vinnie greeted his mother, apologizing over and over to her even as they hugged, then turned to the rest of us. “Sorry we’re late,” Vinnie said. He came up and gave Tony’s mom a warm greeting, then Julia, then Tony.

“This is my friend Will, from America,” Tony said. I shook his hand warmly.

“I’ve heard all about you,” Vinnie said warmly, with a friendly smile. I wondered who had been talking about me.

“Good thing, since I’ve heard all about you as well,” I said, smiling back at him.

“This is my boyfriend, Berto,” Vinnie said, introducing him to Tony.

“Nice to meet you,” Tony said pleasantly, but forced himself to be more excited than he was, presumably to make his mother happy.

He went to introduce us, but I short-circuited his plan. “It’s good to see you again Berto. How have you been?”

Vinnie and Tony looked confused, and their confusion had attracted the attention of the other people at the table. “It is good to see you as well, Will,” Berto said formally. “I’ve been doing fine. You?”

“Fine,” I said, trying to say that with as upbeat a tone as I could.

We all took our seats and started eating. Vinnie and Berto paused long enough to pray, and then dug in with us. Berto was sitting next to me, with Vinnie on the other side of him. “You two know each other?” Vinnie asked me, leaning across Berto to do so.

“Berto bailed me out last year,” I said. “We were staying at the Westin, and my grandfather hired this horrible dude to be my guard. Berto was working there, and helped me with my bags. I talked my grandfather into letting him guard me instead.”

“You let that wimp guard you?” One of Tony’s uncles joked, since Berto had big muscles, and was pretty imposing.

“He did a great job. Showed me the city. Even took me surfing.”

“And Will is one amazing surfer,” Berto added.

“He is,” Tony said, even as he carefully watched our interaction. After that, the conversation became less formal, with people talking to those around them as they ate.

Berto looked at me sheepishly, probably because he’d totally dodged my calls and blown off my messages. “I didn’t know you were in Italy,” he finally said to me.

“That’s because you didn’t return my phone calls,” I said, but smiled to show him that I wasn’t busting his balls.

“I started going out with Vinnie,” Berto said. The conversation was between just the two of us now, with Vinnie and Tony busy talking to the people on their other sides. “I didn’t...”

“You were worried I’d be mad? Jealous?” I demanded.

“I have not always had the best of luck with guys I used to date,” he joked, reminding me of Rico, this asshole he’d been with and I’d had to deal with last year.

“This much is true,” I agreed, and we laughed. “You should know me better than that.”

“You got mad at me when I did not call you before, so I was not sure how you would react to the news that I’d fallen in love with someone else.” It was interesting to note that when he said he’d fallen in love with someone else, I felt that familiar twinge of jealousy, even though I didn’t want Berto at all. At least not when I had Tony.

“Give me some credit for growing up a little bit in the past year,” I said in a jocular manner, determined to keep our conversation light and fun.

“I did not mean to hurt you,” he said.

“Dude, you did not hurt me,” I said. “I care about you, I always will. But that’s all there is.” I looked beyond him and saw Vinnie looking at us, only he looked really pissed off. No, not pissed, jealous.

“So Berto showed you Rome last summer, eh?” Tony asked, drawing me back into his orbit.

“Berto did such a good job of showing me the city, he made me fall in love with Rome,” I said.

“Only Rome?” Vinnie asked me, but quietly, so only he, Tony, Berto and I could hear. Tony gave me an unpleasant look, but that was nothing compared to the irate expression on Vinnie’s face. Vinnie tried really hard to control himself, then stood up and spoke to his mother. “I left some wine in the car. I’ll be back,” he said to her. It was pretty obvious that he was just trying to escape before he lost it.

“I’ll go with you,” I said. He looked really annoyed at that, but he tried to hide it. “I could use some fresh air.”

“Don’t get your ass kicked again,” Tony whispered in my ear, making me giggle. No way Vinnie could take me; I was more than a match for him.

“Sounds good,” Vinnie said. He didn’t say anything else, but as soon as we were through the door, he turned on me, grabbed my shirt lapels, and pushed me into the wall of the hallway.

“You were with him!” he accused.

“What are you talking about?” I asked. I was tempted to push his hands away from my shirt, but I was determined to be calm about this.

“You were with him. You slept with him. You were lovers!” he accused, with an outrage that suggested there was something wrong with that.

“I was with him for about a week last summer,” I admitted. “We fucked constantly. It was a blast. We were lovers. So what? Why does that bother you?” That wasn’t what he was expecting. He expected me to dodge the issue, to deny everything.

“Because Berto doesn’t have guys he fucks, Berto has boyfriends. I already have to deal with the last two. Now I have to deal with you.”

And with that, he pissed me off enough that I did push his hands off my shirt, and pushed him away. “You don’t have shit to worry about with me. We had a vacation fling. As one of my friends said, it was really intense, really exciting, and once the plane took off, it was really over.” I was paraphrasing.

“But you still talk on the phone, and you e-mail.”

“Dude, we’re friends,” I said. “It’s cool to have such a tight connection with someone in Rome. When I talk to Berto, I can think about something besides my own problems.”

“Yeah, you cyber-fuck,” he accused.

“How long have you been dating?” I demanded. He started walking down the stairs, so I followed him. When he got to the bottom of the stairs and still hadn’t answered me, I grabbed his arm and spun him around. “How long?” I demanded more forcefully, and my obvious anger had a calming effect on him.

“About four months ago.”

“That’s about how long it’s been since Berto has responded to my phone calls or my e-mails,” I told him. It had actually been three months, but it was close enough.

“Really?”

“Yeah, really. We’re friends, or at least we were. That’s it.”

“You called him when you were coming to Rome. You wanted to see him,” Vinnie accused.

“Yeah,” I said, but it sounded more like ‘duh’. “He’s the only guy I know in Rome. I like him, and we had a fun time seeing the city. Of course I called him.”

“You would have fucked him.”

God, this guy was paranoid. “If you weren’t in the picture, I probably would have, but you are, so it’s not happening.” He looked at me dubiously. “Besides, even if I wanted to, Berto’s not like that. You know that.”

He nodded, and then smiled, remembering what a great guy Berto was, and remembering that Berto wouldn’t cheat on him. “I’m sorry. It has not been the easiest time to deal with his past boyfriends.”

“So you met Rico,” I said, chuckling as I did. That dude was a psycho. Vinnie smiled and nodded.

“He is insane.”

“Yes he is,” I agreed. We got to his car and he grabbed his wine, then we headed back to the apartment. We joked about Berto’s ex-boyfriend and his friends the entire way, so by the time we got back upstairs, we were laughing pretty hard.

We walked into the dining room, still chuckling, while everyone else just stared at us in silence. They must have been wondering if we’d gone outside to fight or something. It was pretty funny to see them all get nervous about the silence and start talking to each other frenetically.

I took my seat next to Berto and patted him on the shoulder in a friendly way. “I like your boyfriend.”

He grinned at me, and then gave Vinnie a loving look. “I like him too.”

Our festive spirit seemed to transform everyone’s mood, and dinner turned out to be a total blast. Berto loosened up and asked me about Stef and JP. I told him that Darius and Ella broke up, because they’d been here in Rome with me and he’d met them. He told me about his friends and what they were up to. Apparently Rico was still a total whore, but he’d managed to eradicate Rico from his life, so it was more of an interesting piece of gossip than any major pain. After dinner was over, and we got ready to leave, Berto gave me a friendly kiss and a nice hug, and even though the gesture was supervised in an obvious way by Vinnie, and in a less obvious way by Tony, it seemed to seal our friendship, and formally end our relationship as lovers.

“What a coincidence that you knew Berto!” Tony’s mother said as we rode back to the hotel in the cab.

“It was good to see him again,” I said, which seemed to be the safe thing. We got back to the hotel and Tony followed me back to our room. He didn’t say anything until we got back into the suite.

“If you get with him, Vinnie will really be upset,” he said to me.

“I don’t want to be with him,” I said, all pissed off. What the fuck? “There’s only one dude in this whole city that I want to be with. What makes you think you can’t trust me?”

He shrugged. “We don’t have anything that says we can’t be with other people.”

I walked up to him and put my arms around his neck, making him focus his eyes on mine. “It’s not about whether I can be with someone else, it’s that I don’t want to be with anyone else,” I said.

He gave me this goofy grin that reminded me of the one Robbie used to win his arguments with my dad, and I found that it worked just as well for Tony. “Sorry.” Then his hands were on my hips, pulling me closer, his lips were on mine, and our clothes all but flew off of us as we became desperate to physically unite. We all but ran to the bed, laughing, and then he made love to me, and it was as wonderful as it had been.

We lay there afterward, on our sides, just smiling at each other. “So you only were with him last summer, here?”

I realized that until Tony knew the whole story about Berto, this was going to bug him. “Do you remember when we first hung out how I told you that I was molested in Paris?”

“I remember,” he said, and moved onto his back and pulled me onto him, onto his chest, and wrapped his arms around me tightly. It was amazing how he sensed my need to be loved and protected and he instinctively did it.

“This dude made me blow him, made me fuck him, and he was going to fuck me but the gendarmes intervened just in time,” I said, giving him the brief version. “When I got to Rome, I was pretty fucked up. Berto helped me out with that. He helped me get over it. So for that, I owe him, and he’ll always be my friend.”

“Did he fuck you?” Tony asked jealously.

I nodded. “He was my first. I remember when he did it, when he fucked me; I had to remind him to talk to me so I’d remember it was him and not that French dude. But it was like I really needed him to do it, so I could cleanse the memory of that other guy from my mind.”

“Was it good?” he asked. He wanted to ask me if Berto was better than him.

“It really wasn’t,” I admitted. “Not because of Berto. I kept thinking that I should just lie there and let him enjoy it, and wondered what the big deal was all about. It didn’t hurt all that much, it just wasn’t fun.”

“So it didn’t hurt?” he asked, trying to joke about it. “He must not be very hung.”

“Actually, he’s not hung at all. Maybe that’s why I decided to give it up to him.” That cracked Tony up. “Do you remember the night that we first made love?”

“I remember,” he said wistfully, then got nervous. “Every time I think about that night I get so excited and happy, then I feel so bad about it, worse than anything, for the way I treated you the next morning...” he said, starting to babble. I paused for a split second to think about how Robbie did that too.

“That’s not what I think about,” I said. “I remember we were on the bed and I was sucking on your big dick, and you made me turn around so you could do me.” He grinned as he remembered too. “But you didn’t blow me, you started rimming me, and then you started playing with my ass.”

“It was the nicest, sweetest ass I’ve ever seen,” he said, making me giggle.

“And I remember blowing you, thinking that in just a minute, this big dick, thicker than anything I’d dealt with before, was probably going to be jammed up my ass.”

“Probably scared the shit out of you.”

“Nope, I kind of thought it would, but it didn’t scare me at all. I remember being really excited about it. And when I turned around and sat in your lap, and lowered myself down onto you, you asked me if it was OK. You were such a gentleman.”

“And you said you never wanted anything that much in your entire life,” he said. “As drunk as I was, I’ll never forget that, I’ll never forget making love to you.”

Remembering that first time had gotten us both horny as hell, so I moved over so I was lying on top of him, then lowered my ass back down on his throbbing cock. “Did you feel how easy you slid in me, baby?”

“Yeah,” he said, a guttural moan.

“It was almost that easy the first time,” I said as I started to slowly slide up and down on his pole. I spoke to him in that soft voice he loved. “And the only reason for that is because I love you so much, and I want you so much.”

“I love you too,” he said, as he thrust up into me.

“Before that night, before we had sex, I thought taking a dick in my ass was a chore. That night that we fucked, you took me to a whole new planet. I’d never cum like that before that, or with anyone else since then like I do with you.” I kissed him again, feeling the lust and love surging within him. “I’d never gotten off by having someone fuck me before then, but I did with you.”

“And before that night, I’d thought that fucking a dude would be kind of gross. I’d blown a dude, I’d jacked off a dude, but I’d never fucked a dude. But with you, it wasn’t gross, it was fucking beautiful, the most beautiful thing I ever experienced.”

I heard myself shriek as his words penetrated me as deeply as his big cock. And as good as it had been that night, on this night, when I knew that I loved him and I knew that he loved me, it was exponentially better.