Man In Motion - 11. AIDS

June 22, 1985

Escorial

Palo Alto, CA

I lay in my room, killing time until dinner. I should say our room. We'd re-configured our space, so we had a bedroom and a study. Since we slept together, it seemed like a good use of space. We’d spent the day shopping for furniture for our two rooms, and ended up with a new king-size bed. It wouldn't be delivered until next week, when I was gone, but I was pretty excited about that. For graduation, Mom and Dad had given Ace and me our own, dedicated rooms at the beach house. The symbolism, that we effectively owned part of it, was pretty cool. So Ace and I were excited to go to Santa Cruz next week and transform our spaces. Claire and Jack were thinking about coming too. The thought of people shopping without her was enough to drive Claire nuts. As if by thinking about her I had summoned her, she appeared at my door.

“Can I come in?” she asked.

“Sure,” I said, and sat up, making room on the bed for her. Robbie was down in the gym with Ace, so it was just the two of us.

“Jack and I are going to announce our engagement tonight at dinner. We were thinking of inviting the Hobarts over. Do you think that would be OK?” The Hobarts were Jack's parents. Jack's family owned a local supermarket chain, or a chunk of it anyway, and they were very wealthy. Having Jack marry Claire must seem to them like a dynastic alliance, I thought with a smile. They were really nice people. They'd learned that JP was gay and Roger was his partner, and they knew about me as well, and that hadn’t seemed to bother them at all. They were good family friends, and they'd been at Roger's funeral.

“Claire, I really don't know. Dinner is Dad's deal. You'll have to ask him.”

“Do you know what it's about?” she asked.

“I can't talk about it,” I said. I couldn't lie to her.

“Not even to me?” she asked, pouting.

“You know I love you. You know how much you mean to me. I can't talk about it.” I was being firm, and she got it.

“Is Dad positive?” she asked, point-blank.

“Ask him,” I said. She nodded. And started crying. Fuck. “Claire, don't cry, OK? Just go with the flow, will you?” I begged.

“I can't lose him, Brad. I can't.” I felt a tear roll down my face. I just held her tight while she cried. But she wasn't JP's daughter for nothing. She recovered her composure quickly enough. “I think that it's not the best night to invite the Hobarts over. Maybe tomorrow night.”

“That might be better,” I said. “But you can still share your news. A happy ending?”

“Oh, that would be great. My big announcement linked to my father telling all of us that he's positive.”

“You told her! When you promised you wouldn't?” Robbie said, pissed off, as he stood in the door.

Claire got up, glaring at him, walked over and got in his face. He was significantly cowed by that. “You are saying I didn’t have a right to know?”

“No, Claire. I'm sorry. He just made us promise. He made us swear.” Robbie stammered.

“Well, I didn't know for sure until you just told me,” she said, turning the tables on him. He blanched.

“She guessed Robbie. She asked me point-blank, and I couldn’t lie to her, but I didn’t tell her.” He nodded.

She patted Robbie's cheek affectionately, and then turned to me. “He told me his secret, so you can tell him mine.” And then she headed to her room.

“What secret?” he asked.

“You stink,” I told him.

“Fucking tell me,” he said, frustrated.

“Tell you what?” I teased.

“Goddamn it, Brad. What's her secret?”

“Shower with me and I'll tell you,” I taunted. He smiled and shook his head, following me into the bathroom. “She and Jack were going to announce their engagement tonight.” He smiled big.

“That's cool as shit. That means that Jack will be my brother in law.”

I laughed. “Sort of. But you still can't fuck him.”

“But I can fuck you, right?”

“Absolutely,” I said. So he did.

We sat down for dinner in our normal places. Robbie was next to me on one side, Jack on the other. Mouse and Ace were across from me. Claire was on the other side of Jack, so I couldn't see her face. I knew, though, that it would be blank. Claire was as good at hiding her feelings as I was.

“It has been a tough week,” JP said, as we started to eat. “I cannot tell you how lonely it is for me without Roger.” We all nodded reassuringly. “And it's about to get tougher. I got tested, and I'm HIV-positive.” I looked over at Ace and watched the emotions play across his face. Jack gasped next to me. Evidently Claire hadn't told him; she probably didn't have a chance. Stef sat there, ready to support JP. Isidore and Tonto started crying. Frank looked devastated. Mouse didn't seem to be surprised at all. He seemed remarkably oblivious.

“You have AIDS?” Tonto demanded, horrified.

“I have HIV, not AIDS. My T-cell count is high, and that means I'm OK. This could gestate for years, or it could hit tomorrow. But the doctors think that I'm going to be OK for a while.” His eyes darted to the side when he said that. He was lying. The doctors had no clue.

“JP, I can't imagine life without you,” Tonto said, sobbing now.

“Tonto, I'm glad to hear you say that. I'm willing to bet I outlive you. What do you say? A million dollars?” he said, trying to tease her.

“You taunt me with chump change,” she shot back, making us all laugh. Then we remembered the topic, and got somber again.

“Robbie and Brad are studying in Paris this fall, and I plan to go with them. There are some things I want to do, to see there, before, well, while I still have the time.”

“You cannot just leave,” Mother said loudly. “What if something happens over there?!”

“I will have some able young men there to keep an eye on me. I am doing this last thing for myself, to be a bit selfish.” He could see the protests rising, and I watched Stef get ready to jump into the fray, but I gave him a small shake of the head. “Today is my 49th birthday. I have devoted myself to this family, to all of you. Which one of you thinks I have done so little for you that you can deprive me of spending four months of my life in a city that I cherish, doing research, an activity that I love?” That shut everyone up.

He paused, getting a grip. “I will be here, or at the beach, all summer. Then I will be in Paris until the end of the year. After that, I will be back here, fighting with Tonto to last longer than she does.” He looked around the table, waiting for opposition. “I know this is sad news for you. I know that you all love me. I'm not trying to be cruel. I just want to lay things out for you so you know what's going on. I'll keep you posted about this, about my condition. I promise to be completely open about my health, and I'll update you after every doctor's appointment. But I need a favor from you.”

“What do you need, Dad?” Ace asked, ready to do anything. This was killing him. My heart went out to him.

“I need us not to dwell on the negative. I need us to be positive and happy.”

“How can you expect us to be happy when you have this disease?” Stef asked.

“Because if you are unhappy and sad, you will make me unhappy and sad. And I do not want to be sad. I have been sadder this week than I thought I could ever be. I do not want to live in a grim environment, where you are all watching me, waiting for me to die. I want to live in an environment where I can enjoy the time I have with you, and see your lives develop. Is that so unreasonable?”

“I was planning to go to Paris this fall as well. Will it be OK if I accompany you?” Mouse asked.

“That would be wonderful, Mouse,” JP said, smiling.

“And we can track our T-cell levels together,” he said. And then it hit us. Mouse was positive too.

“Please tell me that no one else has this disease?” Tonto shrieked.

“The rest of us are fine so far Tonto,” I said calmly. “How long have you known, Mouse?”

“I found out today,” he said. “And I feel just like you do, JP. I don't want to dwell on the negative. My goal, in what time I have left, is to create the best art that I can.”

“It would be nice to have some good news,” Tonto groused, as she blew her nose into her tissue.

Jack stood up, looking as handsome as ever. Everyone stared at him, wondering what he was doing, but he said nothing for about 10 seconds until he had everyone’s full attention. “Dr. Crampton, I'd like to ask you, in front of your whole family, for your permission to marry your daughter.”

“Are you people trying to give me a heart attack?” Tonto asked.

JP ignored her. “Jack, I love you as if you were my own son. I would be honored to have you as part of the family. As long as Claire agrees, of course.”

I looked at Claire and I could tell that she had no clue Jack was going to do this, to do things the old-fashioned way. My mother was beaming. Jack turned to face Claire and I moved his chair away, anticipating his next move. He knelt on the stone floor and took her hand. He pulled a small box from his pocket. I noticed his hand was shaking a bit as he did it.

“Claire, I fell in love with you when I was still a boy, but as I've grown into a man, my love for you has only gotten stronger and deeper. We've been together for over five years now. Will you be with me for the rest of my life? Will you be my partner? Will you marry me?” I felt a tear run down my cheek. We were all crying.

“Yes, Jackson Hobart, I will marry you, and I will be your partner for the rest of my life.” I glanced at JP and tears were flowing down his face too. He wasn't expecting this. It was at a time like this that you got to see his real emotions. Jack pulled out the ring and it was monstrous. A beautiful diamond, it must have been at least three carats, with an emerald cut, and two beautiful sapphires flanking it on either side.

“To Jack and Claire,” I said, standing up and raising my glass. Everyone stood up and toasted, and then of course everyone had to hug everyone else.

“I must say, your family dinners are very interesting,” Bianca observed, cracking us up. Then dinner became dinner, and there was animated conversation on all sides. It had started as the most horrible dinner in the world, and ended up as one of the most positive.

We had a birthday cake for JP, sang Happy Birthday, and gave him small presents. It was bittersweet.

Dinner was emotionally exhausting, so it was no surprise that I didn't want to go out. I was happy at home with Robbie, and my family. I was about to follow Stef and JP out and smoke a joint when Jack pulled me aside.

“Can I talk to you privately?” he asked. I pulled him into JP's study.

“You finally willing to take me up on one of my offers before you marry my sister?” I asked, teasing him.

“No, I'll wait until after I'm married and not getting any,” he joked. Then he got serious. “Um, I was wondering if you'd be my best man.” I was stunned. I just stared at him, dumbfounded. “Is that a no?” he asked.

“No, I mean yes, I'd be honored, Jack. I'm just surprised. I mean, you are so popular; you have so many friends. I just didn't expect that you'd pick me.”

“You don't think we're close enough?” he asked. He was teasing me.

“We can get as close as you want to,” I teased back, and he just shook his head. “We're close. You're like another brother to me. I guess I'm overwhelmed by the compliment.”

“Don't be. You've always been there for us; you’ve always in our corner. If I was ever in trouble or needed help, you'd be the guy I'd go to.” I felt my eyes tearing up again. Fuck. I gave him a huge hug, a long hug. “Alright, I've got to run and spring this on my parents. They'll be thrilled!”

I almost skipped out to the patio. It was a bigger crowd than normal: Isidore and Frank, Stef, JP, Mouse, and Robbie. They handed me the joint as soon as I sat down. I took a hit.

“What did Jack want?” Robbie asked.

“He wants me to be his best man,” I said. He raised an eyebrow. “They want someone handsome. Maybe you can be a bridesmaid?” I said, teasing him.

“So we will need to go to Paris and find a place for you to live. I have always wanted to have my own place there. You must let me go along,” Stef said, changing the subject.

“We're not going anywhere for at least a couple of weeks. I'm going to the beach, damn it,” I told them. The crowd faded away, until it was just Robbie, Stef, JP, Mouse, and I.

“I'm going to bed,” Robbie said, winking at me.

“I'll be there soon,” I said, winking back. I was going to drill him tonight, I thought with a smile.

“I am going to head home,” Stef said.

“You are leaving? Now?” I asked.

“Of course. What good is having my own plane if I cannot come and go as I please? Besides, I already said goodbye to Tonto.” He gave me a hug and a kiss. “I will see you next week.” Then he was gone.

“We seem to be driving everyone away,” I said to JP as he lit up another joint.

“I thought our company was quite charming,” he said, laughing. I took a few more hits.

“I should head to bed,” I said.

“Me too,” Mouse said. “Do you have room?” he asked, looking at JP.

“Room?” he questioned.

“In your bed. I don't want to sleep alone.” Mouse was hitting on JP? Holy shit.

“Mouse, I'm 49 years old, and you're 21. And you want to sleep with me?” JP asked, amazed.

“You look like you're 30. And who cares how old you are. We are both positive. Do you want to be alone? I don't. I want to still have someone to snuggle up with. Maybe more,” he said, leering at JP.

“Dad, I think that being positive trumps age here. Mouse isn't asking you to marry him. He just wants you to fuck him,” I said, joking. JP rolled his eyes, while Mouse giggled.

“Unless you don't find me attractive?” Mouse said, looking sad. “Which would be really sad, because I find you attractive. Really attractive.” Mouse got up and hugged JP, molding his body to him. “Can you feel how much you turn me on?” Mouse said, thrusting his groin against JP.

I put my arm around both of them and guided them to JP's room. “Now, you both like to get fucked, so you're going to have to take turns. Play nice,” I teased, as I pushed them into JP's bedroom and shut the door behind them. I was chuckling the whole way back to our room.

“What are you grinning at?” Robbie asked when I walked in.

“There's a new couple in town,” I said.

“Who?” he asked.

“Claire and Bianca. They decided that they're lesbians.” He looked at me for a minute, and then laughed.

“Very funny. Kind of hot though.”

“You like women?” I asked.

“No, I like you, and you're changing the subject.”

“JP and Mouse.”

“You're kidding?” he said. “Shit. JP's almost 30 years older than Mouse.”

“So? He's a successful, handsome man. If he were straight, and had a 21-year-old girlfriend, what would people say?”

Robbie smiled. “They'd call him a horny old man, but they'd be jealous.”

“They're both positive. Mouse was so cute, the way he seduced him.”

Robbie stretched seductively, pushing the sheet down to expose the top of his pubes. “Speaking of seducing...”

June 23, 1985

Santa Cruz, CA

I was in front of the wave, building momentum, but I knew it was going to dump me. Sure enough, a few yards after I was vertical, the wave broke early, sending me tumbling into the water and scrambling to get back on my board. I didn't give a shit. I was back in the water, back in the ocean, where both my legal and biological fathers had been killed and where Armand had been buried. The ocean may fuck around with me, but it was my friend. It was part of me.

I saw someone waving at me from the cliff near the house, so I caught the next wave in and headed up for the day. I'd spent the entire day in the water, while everyone else went shopping.

The someone who was waving turned out to be Robbie. He was waiting to greet me when I got out of the water. “How were the waves?” Robbie asked.

“They sucked, but I loved it.” He listened patiently while I recounted my surfing experience, all while I put my board away and we walked up to the house. “How was shopping?”

“We couldn't decide what to buy,” Robbie said. “We didn't know how to configure it.”

I had been given the room that I’d used before, along with the connecting room and bathroom. I’d gotten the better room, probably because I spent more time here than Ace. This room had a view of the ocean, while his looked more up the coast. “It's simple. Add on,” I told him. “We can get the work done while we're in Paris, and then when we come back and we're here next summer, it will be unbelievable. It just needs a bigger bathroom, bigger closets, access to the outside, and a deck.”

“That’s a great idea,” Claire said. I could see her visually planning it out in her head.

“I’m going to take a shower,” I announced, and led Robbie back to our room.

“All that work is going to cost a lot of money,” Robbie said nervously.

“Good thing I've got a lot of it,” I said flippantly.

“Yeah, but I don't want you to have to get money from your parents, or from Stef.”

“I don't. I get an allowance from my trust funds.” He looked at me funny. “Stef and Tonto set them up for all of us. Because Stef and I are so close, though, he's been a little more generous with me.”

“How generous?” I looked at him strangely. He'd never asked me about money before. It had never been an issue, and now, all of a sudden, he wanted to see my balance sheet and income statement? That made me really uncomfortable.

“You want a detailed listing of my net worth?” I asked, slightly irritated. If I was slightly irritated, he was pissed off.

“You talk about being partners, and then you talk about throwing money around, and I don't know what we have or don't have, so it makes me nervous. And then when I ask you, you make me feel like a gold digger,” he said, and started to walk out of the room.

“Robbie, come back,” I called. I saw him stop. “Please.”

He turned and came back in, pouting. “You treat me like a kid.”

“You're pouting like one. Like a really cute one,” I said, trying to tease him. It didn't work. He acted like he was going to walk out again, so I wrapped my arms around him. “I'm sorry. Forgive me?”

“I thought we were a couple. Partners. Remember? We talked about spending our lives together! If we're partners, I want to know what our parameters are. So when you start spending $10,000 on furniture, like you did a few days ago, I want to know what that means for our budget next month.”

“Like married people do, right?” I asked rhetorically. “Well, cut me some slack. This is my first marriage.” I took his hand and led him to the bed and grabbed a notepad from my desk. “I get an allowance of $100,000 every six months.” His eyes bulged. “I've been getting that for about five years now, and I don't spend much of it, so I've got about $700,000 that I can get my hands on pretty easily.” He stared at me, dumbfounded. He had no idea that I had that much money. “So after we go and buy you a new car, we'll still have a chunk of change left.”

“So you're worth $700,000?”

I smiled. “No, I'm worth a lot more than that. That's the spending money. You know what that means?” He shook his head. “It means we don't have to worry about money. We'll expand these rooms. We'll probably want to get a little house near campus when we get to Berkeley. And you need something to drive. ” Talking about cars was incredibly irritating, but I hid it. He'd given his Jeep, the Jeep I'd given him, to Neil.

“I'm sorry about the Jeep,” he said, reading my mind. “He made me sign it over to him when we were, you know.”

“It's OK, baby; it's OK.” I could feel his tension and guilt. And I knew what he wanted, but we couldn't do it. “It was over six years old. It wasn't worth that much, anyway.” He smiled at me, a fake smile.

I ran my hand across his ass. “You thought about that, about what he did, and you wanted me to do it to you, didn't you? You wanted my hand in your ass, making you feel good, not bad like he did?” That's not what he was thinking at all, but I was trying to feed him an idea.

“Yeah. I want that so bad.”

“Well, we can't do that. Remember? But we can do the next best thing,” I said, tracing his ass crack through his pants with my fingers.

“You mean with your fingers?” he said, smiling big.

“Yeah. Let me play with you. Can I do that? I love exploring your body.” I had him riled up now. He slid his pants off while I grabbed the lube. I began probing him with one finger, then two.

He grunted. He was tighter. “Oh man, you are getting tighter and tighter. I can't wait to feel your ass wrapped around my cock,” I told him. His mind was on fire, and his body was catching up. I worked my three fingers in and played with him as I did before, teasing him, flicking his prostate, massaging it, while I did the same thing to his cock with my mouth.

I moved my dick up so it was near his chest. “Put a condom on me,” I told him. “I want to fuck you like I did last time.” He moaned.

“Do it now, Brad. Fuck me now.”

“Not yet. You don't want me bad enough yet,” I said, taunting him with my voice as well. I sucked on his dick for a minute and then blew on it.

“Please. Come on. I want you so bad,” he whimpered. I pulled my fingers out, and then I entered him. Only unlike last time, I did it slowly, and locked our eyes the entire time that I penetrated him. Then I slowly moved in and out of him. He was so keyed up that any variation in speed was amplified, so by the time I got up to a “normal” thrust and speed, to him it must have felt like I was slamming into him.

It was amazing. It was like we were synced. I was dragging him with me to a massive orgasm, and he was right there with me. I saw his mouth make that “o” shape, and his eyes rolled back, and then watched in amazement as his cock shot out streams of cum like a rocket. I felt that familiar vibrating in his ass, that same thing that I'd felt before when he’d been tighter, and that set me off too. We finished exploding together, our bodies working in rhythm, smashing together, not violently, but earnestly. Then it was over and we were both satisfied, neither one of us gave a shit about the Jeep, Neil or Neil’s fist.

June 28, 1985

Foster City, CA

“Welcome, Brad. It's nice to meet you. Robbie has told me all about you. It is obvious to me that he really loves you,” David Sizemore said in a friendly way as he ushered us into his office.

I smiled at him and shook his hand. “Thank you Dr. Sizemore. I love him too.” I was uncomfortable, and he sensed that.

“Call me David. It must be strange for you, being here with Robbie's psychologist. I hope you will try and relax. I just wanted to involve you in a couple of our sessions.”

“No problem Dr., er, I mean David.” He smiled. He was in his early 30s and pretty cute. “I'd do anything for him.” Robbie beamed at me and put his arm around me.

We chatted for a while. He asked me about my past, and my family. Then he got to the point. “You know, Brad, that I asked Robbie to avoid fisting, at least for a while. How does that make you feel?”

“I'm fine with that,” I said honestly. I glanced at Robbie, and he looked concerned. David was watching him too: he was talking to me but watching Robbie.

“I asked Robbie to stop because I don't think it's about sexual pleasure; I think it's about him punishing and debasing himself.” He paused while he watched Robbie's reaction. I said nothing. I'd told Robbie as much myself. “When Robbie asks you to fist him, do you like it?”

“It's OK. I'd rather make love; I like that best of all, when we bond together.” The thought of being with him was making me hard, but I ignored it. “But he likes it, and I really like making him happy. He really goes nuts when he, uh, ejaculates. It's pretty cool.”

David smiled. He was a pretty cool guy. “I know what you mean. Giving your partner amazing pleasure is an incredible feeling.” He looked at Robbie. “If I told you that you needed to give it up, that it wasn't healthy for you, how would you feel about it?”

Robbie was quiet. He looked at me, then at David. “I'd be disappointed.”

“Why?” David was trying to get Robbie to open up in front of me, but he was reluctant.

“I like it. I like the way it makes me feel. It makes me feel completely vulnerable; it requires me to completely trust Brad.”

“Don't you completely trust Brad anyway?”

“I guess.”

“And if Brad told you that your relationship was over, walked out right now, how would you feel?” David asked. He looked at me, asking me not to say anything.

“I'd be devastated. My world would end.” Aw. He was so adorable.

“Then wouldn't you say you're vulnerable already?” Robbie thought about that, and I sat there, admiring David's skill. Robbie nodded.

“He's gentle and loving,” Robbie said. Unlike Neil, which was unspoken.

“So you're doing this because when Brad does fist you, he proves to you that he loves and cares for you?”

“I know that he loves me,” he said defiantly. David let it pass.

“Brad, how would you feel if you couldn't fist Robbie anymore?”

I hesitated. I didn't want to upset Robbie, but I didn't want to lie either. “I'd be fine with that.” Robbie looked at me, kind of hurt. “Sex with Robbie is unbelievable. He totally satisfies me. He's amazing, David. He'll do whatever it takes to make me happy. And I'll do the same for him.” That seemed to make Robbie happier.

“Robbie, does Brad satisfy you sexually?”

“Hell yeah,” he said.

“So tell me again why you think it's important for Brad to stick his fist in your ass?” Robbie was quiet. He said nothing. He wasn't going to say anything.

“Well, our time is up for today. Brad, thank you so much for coming. I may ask you to join us again from time to time. Would that be alright?”

“David, I will do anything for Robbie. If that means coming here, I'll do it. Anything.”

“Good. I want you guys to still avoid the fisting for the time being. Until it is a healthy activity for you, Robbie. Alright?”

“Sure,” he said, resigned.

“Sure,” I said, relieved.