The Box - 12. Chapter 12

August 28, 1942

“Did you have a nice birthday?” I asked Aaron as I gazed down at him. His cum was splattered all over his chest, forced from his body by the animalistic fuck I’d just given him.

“Yeah, I did,” he said, grinning back at me. “So far.” I pulled out of him and moved my mouth down to his dick, sucking the last drops of cum out of it, then moved up his abdomen, licking up his essence as I went until I got to his mouth. I kissed him so he could taste himself. We’d had an idyllic week up here at the cabin, just goofing around and enjoying each other. And having lots of sex. It seems like every time we fucked, it got even more intense. “You’re pretty amazing,” he said.

“Ya think?” I joked. “It’s all you, big guy.”

“That’s not true and you know it,” he said with a grin. There was a twinkle in his beautiful lavender eyes, and then he suddenly got sad.

“What’s the matter?” He’d done this a few times this week. We’d be enjoying the afterglow of a great fuck, and he’d get all somber.

“Nothing,” he said, which was the same thing he said last time this happened, and the time before that, and the time before that…

“You say that, only I don’t believe you. One minute you’re happy and smiling, the next you’re all sad and somber. So either something’s bothering you, or you need shock therapy.”

“I might. Will shock therapy make you so you’re not queer?” he asked me. He was trying to make it a joke, but it wasn’t, and we both knew it. If I had any doubts, they were erased when a tear slid down his cheek.

“I don’t think so. I don’t want you to try it, anyway.”

“You want me to be queer?” he asked, challenging me. It was like I’d told him to go to hell.

“Well yeah, at least partway. Otherwise we wouldn’t be like this,” I said. I wasn’t sure how to handle this, but I was conscious of the fact that we were playing with fire.

“So you think I’m a punk?” he demanded belligerently.

“Doesn’t really matter what I think anyway, does it? Even if you are, you’re still my best friend, and I still love you,” I’d said. Only I let the “L” word slip out again, and that kind of freaked me out. I was hoping he’d just write it off to me loving him as a friend. I didn’t have to worry. He ignored me like he did last time. I felt the depression and sadness start to sweep over my body until he dropped a bombshell on me.

“I’m going to join the Marines tomorrow,” he announced.

“What?!” I was stunned. “Aren’t we supposed to do this together after we graduate?” That had been the plan, the agreement, and even though I knew he’d probably want to go sooner, I didn’t think he meant now.

“I want to go fight,” he said assertively. I was going to get all pissed off and argue, but I just looked at him instead, forcing him to explain himself. It was a pretty safe bet, since he couldn’t run away. We were in the middle of nowhere, and we’d taken my car. I kept looking into his eyes, trying to read them, but they were opaque. He was blocking me out.

The whole situation, the wall he was putting up between us and his determination to join the Marines tomorrow, really started to rip at my core. I just collapsed onto him, my head buried in the crevice of his armpit. He lay there for a long time and didn’t respond, and then I finally felt his hand on my back, gently moving up and down, from my shoulders to my ass. “We can’t do this together,” he said softly, almost as if he didn’t want me to hear him.

“Why not?” I asked him. I was so frayed and upset, I just didn’t get it. We’d just had great sex which made me love him more than ever and then he drops this on me. On an emotional level he was ripping my guts out and eating them. “I don’t want to do this without you. I want to be with you.”

“I want to be with you too,” he said. “Too much.”

“I don’t get it,” I told him honestly.

“God damn it, Steve, are you going to make me spell this out for you?”

“Yes I’m going to make you fucking spell it out for me,” I snapped at him. It kind of shocked him. “I’m not doing this to piss you off; I just don’t understand where you’re coming from.” No one had ever boggled my mind like he did.

“How do you feel about me?” he asked. What the fuck was that, anyway? This was like a conversation he’d have with a doll. Besides, I’d already told him and he’d ignored me.

“How do you feel about me?” I shot back. I wasn’t brave enough to risk him trampling my feelings again. Besides, I’d just told him that I loved him not more than five minutes ago.

“I asked you first,” he said, playing that bullshit game.

“I told you before and you ignored me, made it a big joke,” I said way too bitterly.

“Do you still feel that way about me?” he asked. So he did remember, so he hadn’t just ignored it. He’d pretended I didn’t mean it instead. I’d always wondered if he’d taken me seriously, if he’d known that I meant it like I meant it, and not just as really good friends. So here I was at the chasm, staring down at the abyss. Do I tell him the truth, or do I lie?

I thought about it, making him wait, but I figured that was just fine, since he’d played me on this before. Part of me wanted to lie, to tell him I loved him as a friend, to make sure that nothing damaged what we had, but he was enlisting tomorrow, so what we had was gone anyway. He’d be an entirely different person when the war was over, and so would I. I didn’t really have anything to lose. “Yeah,” I muttered.

I looked down, avoiding eye contact, but he put his hand on my chin and forced me to look up at him. “I love you too.” I stared at him for a minute, almost not believing, not comprehending his words. He loved me?

I couldn’t stop the grin. “You do?” Then I got kind of nervous. “Not just as a friend?”

“Yeah, I do. And not just as a friend,” he said. “I have for a really long time.”

“Why didn’t you tell me? All this time I thought you didn’t, I thought I loved you and you didn’t love me back.” More emotional bullshit, as I let my bitterness show. I couldn’t even enjoy the moment. I just didn’t understand why he’d put me through all this agony.

“Because I didn’t want to admit I was queer,” he said sadly. “If I love you, it means I’m a punk.”

I wasn’t so sure about that. I loved him, but I liked Barbie too. “So. You can be queer with me, and normal to the rest of the world,” I said, smiling. He smiled back at me.

“Yeah, I guess I can.”

“So why can’t we do this together? I want to be with you, no matter what. Here, over there, I don’t care, I want to be with you,” I told him earnestly, pouring my deepest feelings out to him.

“If people find out about us and we’re in the service, we’ll go to prison and our lives will be over,” he said.

“No one will find out about us,” I told him.

“I think they might figure it out,” he said, as his hand moved down my back and grabbed my ass in a sensual way.

“You love me so much you can’t hide it?” I asked in a cheeky way, teasing him.

“Yeah,” he said, only he was serious. And it all started to become clear to me. This guy loved me as much, maybe more than I loved him, although I’m not sure that’s possible. He’d been holding back, but the signs had been there. I just hadn’t looked for them. I’d taken everything at face value. All of his actions, the way he reacted when I first fucked Barbie, when I went out with her, it all made sense now. That must have hurt him badly. I didn’t really feel guilty about it, because I’m not a psychic. I mean, I should have read him better, but he could have told me. Still, I felt bad for hurting him, bad that he’d felt the pain. Suddenly the thought of being in school with him gone, of living in Claremont without him around, sounded like being in jail.

“I don’t want to finish school without you,” I whined. I sounded annoying, even to me.

“There’s another thing,” he said cautiously.

“What?”

“It’s going to be dangerous, really fucking dangerous,” he said. When he said ‘fuck’, I knew he was serious. Neither one of us used that word very often. “I don’t think I could stand it if something happened to you. I can’t be there with you. If you were hurt, there’s no way I could watch that happen. No way.”

“If it did, I’d want you there, I’d want your face to be the last thing I saw on this earth, whether I get knocked off in battle or die of old age,” I told him. He gave me a slight smile to acknowledge what I’d said, but then his mood got severe again.

“What if we’re storming some beach together? I’ll be more worried about you than storming the beach. I know I will. You mean everything to me,” he told me. I just stared at him. I was euphoric that he loved me, and upset because he didn’t want me with him, all at the same time. I decided to put my emotions on hold and let my hormones take over, so I kissed him. Last time, I’d fucked him hard, this time, he made love to me. He made me lie on my back, with my left leg propped up, and he lay next to me on his side, kissing me, while he pushed his big dick into me. It was so intimate, so meaningful, it was surreal. To feel him moving inside me, to feel him so completely committed to me, to feel the love flowing from him, was simply overwhelming. I just lay there, responding to him, letting him drive the show, until my body flew apart in a magnificent orgasm. It was so intense I almost didn’t remember it when I was done. After that, I just held him tightly; both of us shaking from the bliss we’d given each other and the bond we shared.

I guess we’d fallen asleep after that, because he woke me up later with his growling stomach. I chuckled. “That mean you’re hungry?”

“Guess so,” he said. We got up, threw on our swimsuits, and made dinner. Cheeseburgers, not the most gourmet thing, but they’re great when you’re camping.

“We don’t really have to be back home until next Saturday,” I said as we ate.

“They’re expecting us tomorrow.”

“Yeah, but I was thinking that we could drive up to that little store and buy some more food and call my mom,” I said, outlining a plan.

“You want to stay here until next Saturday?”

“Yeah,” I told him. “I get it, I get why you don’t want me with you when you go off to fight.” I could see where he was coming from. I would spend all my time worrying about him, and he’d do the same thing. And we’d end up getting ourselves killed. “There’s another thing. Even if we sign up together, there’s no guarantee we’ll end up together.”

“I never thought about that,” he said. “I guess they could send me to England and you to Hawaii.” We kind of paused for a bit after that, and I don’t know what he was thinking, but I knew what I was thinking. I was thinking that that revelation showed how little control we really had over our own destinies. We were going to go fight, and we were going to go where they sent us.

“So if you’re going away, I want to enjoy some more time with you first. I just found out that you love me back. We may be fighting in this war for a long time before we see each other again.” I didn’t say what we were both thinking: ‘if we see each other again.’

“Alright,” he said, and grinned at me. We went up to the store and called my mom, who wasn’t happy, but I wasn’t afraid of her. Besides, it’s not like she was going to waste her gas ration to come out here and drag us back home. I got some film for my camera and took a bunch of goofy pictures of us, but mostly of Aaron. I get a week with him. I’m so excited. I’m writing this while he’s sleeping, and he looks so peaceful, but his dick is getting hard, so I’m going to go blow him until he wakes up.

September 7, 1942

I don’t think I’ve ever been this miserable in my entire life. I’m trying to decide if every good thing has an equally bad thing, if that’s how the world works. My grandfather talks about karma, some Hindu thing or something, and I wonder if that’s true, if there’s a balance like that. I think there is, because I sure have experienced it over these past few days.

First the good. Aaron and I stayed up at the cabin and had a blast. We didn’t really do anything special; we just goofed around and made love. And that was the difference. We didn’t fuck, we made love. All this time we’ve been friends, and all this time we’ve been fucking around, I always wanted him to love me, I always wanted him to admit it. I told myself that it was no big deal, that it was just a four letter word, and that being all goofy about it was just going to fuck up our friendship.

But I was wrong. Now that I knew he loved me, it was like I was able to let out all the stops, to totally surrender to him. I sound like some doll losing her cherry, but I’m dead serious. There was no holding back at all. So when we made love, I just completely lost control of my body, and he lost control of his, so they merged together into this being that had a mind of its own. It’s really hard to describe, but that’s how it was.

Unfortunately, time doesn’t stand still, and when we got into the car to drive home, I had a really strange feeling, like the closeness and the euphoria we’d experienced at the cabin would never happen again. I waited until we were about half-way home before I raised the issue on both of our minds.

“Aaron, we don’t have to join up together. Hell, you join the Marines, I’ll join the army. But can’t you wait until we graduate?” I heard the plea in my voice and it made me sound pathetic.

“Look Steve, I love you, I really do, but I have to do this. Every time I bring it up, you try and shoot it down, but I’m going. So can we just quit arguing about it? I want to do this with your blessing and your support.” He was pleading in his own way, and it was just as pathetic.

I had all these thoughts running through my brain, like a bunch of threads trying to get together and sew themselves into a sweater. I pulled over to the side of the road and stopped. “OK, I get that. But I want you to hear me out, then you do what you want to do, and we’ll go from there.”

“Alright,” he said reluctantly.

“I’m wondering why it’s so important for you to get away from me. I mean, these last two weeks have been the best, the absolute best time of my life. Nothing is better than being with you. Not even this Dillinger Packard.” He chuckled at that. “So here’s what I see. I see that we have about nine months of school left, and then we pretty much have to go unless we want to be punks like Jim.”

“You think he’ll chicken out and not go?” he asked.

“Don’t change the subject,” I snapped. “So nine months of school, nine months together, then we both have to go. To me, that seems like the best gift ever, the best time ever.”

“You done?” he asked me with a really callous tone. I nodded. “I can’t explain this, I can’t give you a specific reason, I just know that this is something I have to do. It’s like how when I see you and my dick gets hard. It’s a natural reaction, a natural urge, and I can’t fight it anymore.”

He must have seen the sadness on my face, but instead of being nice and comforting, he was really raw and harsh. “Look, I told you this is how I am, what I have to do, and all you’re doing now is trying to make me feel like shit and you’re succeeding. I told you that I loved you, I proved it to you a whole bunch of times too.” He actually grinned at me about that. “I don’t know what I can do to convince you that I love you.”

I swallowed hard, and said what I really thought. “I’m worried that you’re joining up now to get away from me. I’m worried that you’re doing this so you won’t be around me, and then you won’t think you’re queer.”

His mouth dropped, then closed, then his eyebrows furrowed as he got really angry. But then a really strange thing happened. His anger seemed to fade almost as fast as it appeared. “If I’m queer, it’s not because of you. Yeah, I love you, and yeah, you’re my world, but I think I’ll like having sex with guys no matter what.”

I tried to digest that statement. Part of me was pissed off, mostly at the thought that he considered fucking around with other guys. I recognized that ugly beast pretty fast: jealousy. I forced my mind to work that to the side so I could think more calmly, and it started to make more sense. He loved me, but it wasn’t my fault he was queer. And then it dawned on me that he was basically admitting it, formally, for the first time. But the green monster wouldn’t be beaten down. “So you going to go off and find some other guy to replace me?” I don’t know where that came from, but it was like I kept puking up my deepest insecurities.

“If I fucked someone else, it wouldn’t mean anything. You’ll fuck other people. I’ll fuck other people. But I love you.” He knew me so well I was worried that he knew me better than I knew him. I was worried that he was playing me along, saying what I wanted to hear, whether it was true or not. In the end, I decided to just believe him. It was easier that way, and a lot less painful. I started the car and got back on the road.

We got back home and I didn’t even call Barbie. My mom was there to chew me out for staying an extra week, but she seemed to sense my mood in the end, and let it go pretty quickly. The next morning, after we made love, he took a shower and got ready to go home.

“Can you spend the night again?” I asked him. I sounded so fucking pathetic.

“I need to spend some time at home with my parents and my brothers tonight,” he said. I nodded. “I need to get them to sign off on my enlistment form too.”

“How do you think they’ll react?” I asked. His parents were nice people. I could see them supporting him, being proud of him.

“I think they’ll be alright with it,” he said nervously. “At least my mom will.” He shook that off. “But I gotta go.” So he left, and I’d never felt so alone in all my life. I really didn’t have anything to do. I didn’t want to go see Barbie. It seemed like I’d be cheating on Aaron if I did. But I did call her, and made plans to go out next weekend. Next weekend, after Aaron was gone. I spent the morning in my room, crying like a punk. Then I went swimming with JP and Billy in the afternoon, and splashed them so much they damn near drowned. I have no idea why they like goofing around with me in the pool when all I do is torture them.

Aaron came back this morning, looking really somber. “What’s wrong?” I asked as soon as I was able to drag him up to my room.

“I told my parents that I wanted to join the Marines and my dad snapped a cap. He was really mad. Told me I’d get myself killed, told me that I should wait until I was done with high school.”

“Wow. I didn’t really expect that,” I said honestly.

“I told him that I’d be able to save up my money during the war and go to college when I got back. I mean, they can’t afford to send us to college or anything, so that’s about the only way it’s going to happen.”

I could see that, but it made me feel like an idiot. I’m so spoiled, that I never have to worry about how to pay for stuff like that. I know, though, that if Aaron wanted to go to college and didn’t have the money, my parents would make it happen. “Did that change his mind?”

“No. He got really mad, ranted and raved, and then went down to the tavern. Didn’t get home until really late, and then he was shit-faced.”

“That doesn’t happen very often,” I observed. His dad wasn’t much of a drinker.

“While he was gone, I talked to my mom and told her that I really wanted to do this. I basically begged her to sign the form for me, and she did. So I’m going down to enlist, and I just have to say that my dad was out of town or something.”

“He’s gonna be real mad at her for that,” I told him. I would be. In fact, I was kind of mad at her for doing that too.

“He’s never gonna know,” he assured me.

“When are you going to tell my parents?” I asked. He shrugged, like it was no big deal, but he was as afraid of my mom as everyone else was. I think I was the only one in town who wasn’t terrified of her.

“Tonight, maybe at dinner?”

“You want to mess up a good meal?” I teased. “Waste a bunch of ration coupons for nothing?”

“Nah, because if they’re too snapped to eat, that means there’s more for us,” he joked. We’d spent the day swimming and hanging around, enjoying the Labor Day holiday. There weren’t fireworks for Labor Day, unless you counted the fireworks at dinner.

We were about halfway through dinner, a pleasant meal if you ruled out the tension that Aaron and I felt, when he dropped his bombshell. “Thanks for inviting me over for dinner.”

“You are always welcome,” my mother said.

“It’s a good opportunity for me to say goodbye,” he said nervously. “I’m joining the Marines tomorrow.”

“You’re what?!” she demanded. She’d gone from nice to pissed in no-time flat.

“I’m joining the Marines. I’m going to go fight for my country,” he said proudly, if a bit artificially.

“Before you finish school? What’s wrong with you? You only have nine months left, and then when you get back you can go straight to college!” She was pretty worked up, but I could tell she was just getting started.

“I need to do this. Besides, if I join the Marines and save my money, I’ll be able to pay for college when I get home.”

“And how are you going to go to college if you haven’t even finished high school?” Her logic was pretty good.

“I’ll have to do that first,” he said matter-of-factly.

Her expression changed. “If you wait and finish high school and then join up, we’ll pay for you to go to college when you get back.” I just stared at her, my mouth gaping in surprise. I looked to my father, expecting to see him freaking out. He was such a tightwad sometimes, but he just nodded in agreement.

I looked at Aaron, and he looked shocked. A tear fell down his cheek, and that really blew us all away. “That’s the nicest thing anyone’s offered to do for me.” He paused to get his voice under control. “But I have to do this. I have to join up.”

“If this is something he has to do, we should support him,” my grandfather said calmly.

“Support him? Are you nuts?” my mom shrieked. “We’re sitting here talking about this amazing young man, and all we want him to do is wait nine months before he leaves so his future is bright when he gets back, and you act like that’s asking him to never go at all!”

“It’s his choice, it’s his life,” my grandfather said. Wow. He was really backing Aaron up, and doing it against my mom. None of us expected that.

“Look, it’s bad enough you all talked me into doing nothing when they started rounding up those poor Japanese-Americans, but this is about my family.” She turned to Aaron. “I love you too much, you’re like my own son, to let you go off and do something stupid.”

My turn to jump into the battle. “I’m not happy about him leaving either, Mom, but it’s his decision, not yours and not mine.”

She ignored me. “How are you going to join? Did your parents consent?”

I wondered if he’d tell her the truth. “My mom did. My dad didn’t.”

“Then you can’t join up,” she said authoritatively.

“They won’t ask about that,” he said. “It will be alright if I have her signature.”

“No it won’t be alright. I’m going down there and I’m going to tell them you can’t go,” she declared.

“You think you’re tougher than the Marines?” my dad teased, trying to lighten the mood. She just glared at him. “Maybe,” he said, and we all chuckled.

“You wouldn’t do that to me,” Aaron said to her.

“I will if you’re going to throw your future, your whole life away,” she said.

“No you’re not,” I told her definitively.

“What?!” she demanded, looking at me. It was amusing to note how the whole atmosphere had changed after that. Before, everyone had been tense and nervous. Now, it was more relaxed, since it was the two of us squaring off against each other, and that was nothing new. But I knew it would come to this. Of all the people at the table that night, I was really the only one who was a match for her.

“I said you’re not going to do that. We’re going to have a nice dinner tonight, Aaron’s staying over to spend time with me, and then I’m taking him down to join up in the morning.” Aaron looked at me, the smile in his eyes even if he was afraid to show it on his face.

“So you think this is a good idea? You’re going to help him do it?” she demanded.

“No, I think it’s a bad idea, but he’s my best friend, and it’s his life. If this is what he wants to do, I’m going to help him out. It’s that simple. And you’re not standing in his way.”

“Who’s going to stop me?” she challenged.

“I am,” I said, throwing down the gauntlet. “You cause him any problems, and he won’t be the only one enlisting.”

“You are finishing up high school before you join up,” she ordered.

“Then we have a deal,” I said, taking the wind out of her sails. Everyone looked at her, and she just sat there, trapped and blackmailed. She stood up, threw her napkin down on her plate, and stormed out of the room.

About five minutes later, she came back, all composed. She walked up to Aaron and leaned down and kissed him and gave him a big hug. “I love you. I think this is a huge mistake. But Steven is right. If you do this, if you go, you will go with all our love and support.”

Aaron hugged her back, crying, and then we all broke down. It was sad, very sad. My father was the one who brought us out of it, turning it into a celebration and toasting Aaron, and his courage.

We came up to my room and made love, and then he fell asleep. The poor guy is probably exhausted from all this emotional bullshit. So I’m sitting here, writing in my diary while I stare at his handsome face, at his amazing body, trying to visualize my life without him, and I can’t.

July 6, 1999

“Look at this,” I told them, pointing to the diary. “There are marks here.”

“Those are water marks. Probably from tears,” JP said. And then I felt my own tears form, tears of sadness for my father and the pain this must have caused him.