0's and 1's: CBDT - 10. Chapter 9

Chapter 9

(Hunter Douglas, Code Name: Verne)

It’s been another week, another new hell in my life. I’m starting to think the universe has turned against me; if there is a God, he probably enjoys torturing me. Just when I can lift my head above water, a tidal wave washes over me. On Monday, just as I had guessed, a large conflagration began to grow. It’s been 30 years since HIV and AIDS were identified in San Francisco; 30 years since we left the initial fears of our community behind. Yet, how little does that matter in an age of information and disinformation.

Evan and the twins, Adam and Aaron, were the first to be questioned and tested with positive results. There was self-denial, anger, and hatred for Jeremy’s actions that had crippled their lives, which was swiftly followed by several civil lawsuits from their families against Jeremy. Everything was kept private and I thought I could probably keep it that way, maybe even pay for their treatments as a type of atonement. Then the news broke across Twitter and Facebook; someone released the legal letters and the HIV tests that went along with them.

Preventing them from stealing patient medical records was merely a formality, legal records in private law firms are not held to the same requirements as hospitals in terms of data management. Another loophole with the HIPAA regulations, legal cases usually will require medical records and tests. Lawyers would be treated as “business associates” under contract. However, they do not have any type of governmental audit of their security protocols, so it is an honor system. It’s sad how badly managed and dysfunctional data security is.

Once the information was released, the rumors began to spread about everyone who had known Jeremy. Some of them were probably true, considering his sexual habits, but there were many Red Herrings. I took the initiative on Wednesday to get myself, Benji, and Kevin tested, which we came out negative on initial testing. That didn’t settle it, because Wednesday night a stunning revelation was released by a guy named Mason Cameron, a 17 year old asshole, who I knew from a short list of homophobes at our high school. The cyber-attackers must have given him the background detail of HIV subtype Jeremy was infected by. Subtype-P is an uncategorized version of HIV-1, which usually only appears in areas like West Africa. Several variants are incredibly deadly, undetectable without extensive testing, unaffected by treatments, and have a rapid progression into full blown AIDS within months. For gay teens that had taken the test to prove their HIV status like I did, it became a moot point. If anything, it fueled additional fears that the people who got tested were infected.

For the first time in my life, I witnessed long friendships breaking apart, boyfriends separating, and a deep unsettling truth rising in my gut. If Ryan were here, he’d be able to use his good humor and nature to keep everyone together, his voice of reason would counter the fear, and his love would keep me steady. The worst thing about all of this was that it could be repeated over and over again, not just in this city, but across the country with the wide net of people they had gathered under their banner. While I was doing a test of concept for my team; these assholes had been doing a test of concept on all of us. We fucking passed with flying colors; at this rate, I wouldn’t be surprised if kids started getting violent with each other, even the gay kids, because fear urges action.

By Thursday night, I heard the last bit of bitter news I could take, Jeremy’s record deal had been cancelled and his promoters were demanding he “repay” them for all the possible liability costs from the claims of infection. There was no way out for Jeremy; I wouldn’t blame him if he just ended it, maybe he could find enough morphine in the hospital to make it painless. I’m nearing that point myself, which I think Mom and Dad could tell. Everything I wanted for my friends, my life, and the world I lived in was collapsing under an impossible weight. I told my parents I didn’t want to go to school on Friday and I would spend my weekend at “the Lab”. Mom fiercely objected, she probably knew what I was thinking, but I left the house without hearing her arguments. When I got to my fortress of solitude, I turned on the “blackout zone” system and crawled into bed. Only a few weeks ago, Jeremy slept here and he showed me the care and kindness I had longed for, but could not accept after Ryan had died. Now, I was left emptier than before.

For most of Friday, I was in my bed. I did not know what time it was when I woke, how long I slept. All the normal human tasks of the day: hunger, thirst, personal needs, was all a blur to me. It didn’t matter anymore; I didn’t matter. When the sun had gone down, I heard knocks against my bedroom door, then a door knob turning.

A shrill combative voice screamed at me, “Get you self-pitying ass out of bed!”

As Kevin forcibly dragged me to my feet, a splatter of piss began to hit the floor. I did not care what he thought of me at that moment; I did not care if he ran away in shock at how disgusting and low I had become. I am merely an animal to those people, who wanted to rid the world of homosexuality, they have their wish. There was no reason to fight anymore, I had been beaten.

Instead of running out of the room, Kevin kissed me, it was a forceful kiss demanding I reciprocate and my tongue accepted. There was something there that I found familiar; something that was hidden from me that did not get lost in the suffering. Hope.

(Kevin Driscoll, Code Name: Shelley)

Motherfucking Christian fundamentalists! First they killed Ryan, then they gave Jeremy a deadly version of HIV virus, and now they’ve reduced the guy who I have been in love with for years into a bedwetting 2 year old. He reeks like piss and shit, but fuck, he’s a lot cleaner in spirit than these god damn “holy” assholes. What gives them the right to be master, judge, and executioner?

When Hunter didn’t show up for classes on Friday, I knew something was up. The other guys were whispering horrible rumors about him, like Jeremy had fucked him at a party while he was passed out and he’s been hiding the fact that he was positive to save face, or Ryan had been infected by him and that’s why he committed suicide. It wasn’t just the homophobes and gossip girls saying this. Some of our best friends for years on the soccer team were whispering the same thing. The gay kids at school were scared to be around each other and perpetuated even more rumors to get the heat off of them. It was disgusting how people were behaving out of paranoia and fear here.

Benji said this was probably all planned out from the beginning, because it was so perfectly symmetric. I thought the same thing. For the last 30 years, what unified gay people was the AIDS epidemic and our presence in popular culture. Musicians like Elton John were the first wave to bring us out into the public as normal human beings, maybe a little more feminine due to the guys coming out at the time, but we weren’t the faceless pedophiles and killers that media had made us out to be. AIDS awareness brought a whole new generation into the fold and we gained widespread sympathy for how outrageous religious conservatives were treating the dying patients. This was their reply to 30 years of progress and change.

Using Jeremy, a rising musician, as the carrier of a deadly strain of HIV, breaking down our community by removing key individuals, and doing all of this without direct involvement, they have mastered the perfect sneak attack in a poetic response. Even if we reveal all we know to everyone right now, it would only cause more chaos and fear. We thought we were winning this fight a week ago and now we’re all realizing we were just playing checkers, while they were playing chess. I knew at the outset we were up against massive odds and Hunter was only one boy fighting a two thousand year old establishment. This is not an online gay fiction story, where gay kids can beat the evil Christian bigots quickly with a flash of inspiration and a miracle of plot twists. We’re in this fight for the long haul and it might be none of us survives it.

Despite all of that, I am not going to give up. Seeing Hunter completely broken has only made my resolve that much stronger. I love this guy for who he is, not his mountain tech money, not his intelligence that surpasses my own, nor his hot body, which is currently covered in crap. Hunter is the ideal of what we all want to become: a decent human being. He wouldn’t be so unhinged if he were not so decent and honorable.

After school, I visited the hospital to see Benji and visit Jeremy, who did not want any visitors at all. I went over to Dr. Douglas, Hunter’s mom, and asked her for the spare key to Hunter’s loft. One thing Hunter never knew despite his masterful control of information, his mom had made a spare set of keys when he and Ryan had bought the place. I knew about it, because Ryan told me one time. She had planned to visit Hunter after work, but I begged her to let me talk to him. She was circumspect, but undemanding and offered me her keys, saying “Bring him back Kevin”. Then I saw the wreck of the boy I knew and I had no choice except to kiss him.

I never thought I would kiss him like this; never thought I would be able to express my love for him. The setting is less than romantic, the mood more suicidal than loving, but his tongue reacted by forcing its way back into my mouth. After the kiss, he was still a mess, but I saw a little light in his eyes at least. He needed a hot shower immediately. Stripping him down to nothing, I should be aroused right now. It has been my dream for years; my first wet dream in fact was his naked body. Yet, I didn’t care about sex, because Hunter needed me as his friend, not a potential partner. While he stood naked in the middle of his urinal bedroom, I tossed his soiled clothes into a giant trash bag, along with bed sheets and covers. I know there might be sentimental value from Ryan with those things, but screw it; he needed to get rid of that. I dragged him into the bathroom and forced him into the shower stall.

He looked childlike in his lack of movement as I turned on the water and said, “Hunter, I’m going to turn the water on now.”

He did not move, nor motioned to wash himself, “Hunter, get your fucking hands on a bar of soap!”

No response, I knew I had to do this myself; I stripped off my clothes and began to lather him up. To be honest, I was starting to get aroused; it took a lot less for me and Benji, but there is something special about cleaning another guy that you love. I could feel his stiff shoulders starting to unwind as my hands began to move down his spine towards the offending asshole with streaks of brown shit. I’ve heard about golden showers and scatology, but that was never my fetish of choice.

As my fingers moved around his ass, I knew I would have to open him up for a quick cleaning, so I lathered up more soap and used both hands to clean between his butt cheeks. It felt kind of weird, but wasn’t bad and I avoided the sphincter as much as I could.

After his ass, I took as much soap as I could handle to clean my fingers, then began another lather to wash his torso, pinching his nipples slightly to get a reaction of pain and joy. His pubes and cock were a bigger challenge, literally. He was grunting wildly as my fingers moved around his scrotum and foreskin. I wanted to bring him to climax, but worried about harming him anymore psychologically if he thought I was attempting to rape him.

When were done with the shower, we were both hard as rocks, but I could tell he was out of his depressed state. We looked at each other, then at our cocks, and then at each other in several sequences before either of us could speak.

Hunter spoke with a hoarse voice, probably from a night of long wailing, “I am sorry you had to do that for me.”

I clasped my hand with his, “I wanted to do something for you, because...”

Hunter cut me off, “I know, but I just…”

I cut him off, “You don’t need to accept me or my feelings, just know they’re there for you.”

Hunter stared into the ceiling, “I don’t deserve your love; I don’t deserve your admiration or friendship.”

“Bullshit, just because we lost one battle, doesn’t mean we lost the war.”

“This isn’t soccer; the odds are universally against us. I thought secrecy could protect my friends, but in the end it didn’t.”

“If you revealed all of this to the world, we’d never break their data mining operation.”

“They had other ways to gain more information we never anticipated. We knew they were going after Jeremy, but could not know they had infected him with a potent subtype of the HIV virus.”

I thought about what decisions we made weeks back and answered clearly, “We did the right thing. We only have really one real advantage over them; we know who they are and how they operate. We can identify their attacks, although maybe not their intent or details of their plans.”

“That could have been enough to save Jeremy.”

I shook my head, “We will never know when he got infected, and maybe it was before they began to mine his data, maybe after. One thing you and I always had in common was our love for history; do you remember the urban legend about the Coventry Raid in World War II?”

“I’m not Churchill, I…”

I cut him quickly before he slipped into self-deprecation again, “The story goes that after Alan Turing and his team broke the German codes, Churchill was warned a German air raid would occur against the city of Coventry. If he warned people about the raid, they would have fled, and the Germans would have known their greatest codes were broken. It could have costs the Allies the entire war as the secrets codes would have been changed. Sometimes, out of necessity, we have no choice except to sacrifice good innocent people in order to stop evil itself.”

Hunter stared at me in disbelief. Hell, I am surprised I made that connection. “I wasn’t looking for war; I wanted justice for Ryan and everyone else they took. I didn’t think they would go so far, didn’t imagine how extreme the world has become.”

I nodded, “We live in dangerous times, maybe on the surface, everyone is at peace, but beneath it, we are still in a struggle. You said it right, when you made the pitch to me and Benji; we’ve progressed very far in a very short time. While our enemies cannot attack us openly, they can come after us with other means. We must engage them in the new battlefields of information.”

“Kevin, I don’t think we can fight anymore; between Jesse and Mom knowing, I doubt secrecy is going to be maintained for long.”

I didn’t know about Mrs. Douglas, but that explains the circumspection, “They won’t say a word. Jesse wants to protect you and probably is out for blood; he would rather die than say a word. Your mom can see what’s happening and knows what’s at stake; she seems like a reasonable woman. Even if our secret is revealed, you made this into an organization to counter our opponents. We can have more members and more failsafe in case one group of us is ever compromised. Terrorists and spies both operate in cells; we can do the same.”

I knew my years of gaming and reading Tom Clancy novels would pay off, Hunter smiled for the first time, “I don’t deserve a…friend like you.”

Still hard and naked, I grabbed him in for a bear hug, “You don’t need to, because I love you.”