By the time we were finished we were both exhausted, and we flopped down together on my bed, letting our body heat dry each other. “I was miserable last night,” Mike said. “I wanted to see you. But it scared the shit out of me, thinking about going around to those bars with you, worrying that somebody would see us together.”
“We don’t have to go out if you don’t want to.” I held my hand up. “No, I don’t mean it like that. I mean we can have dinner, and go to the movies, and go for bike rides or roller blades or stuff, and as long as we don’t hold hands or kiss in public nobody has to know what else goes on between us. Hey, do you surf?”
He shrugged. “I have in the past. I’m not real good.”
“I can teach you. And then afterwards we can come back here, or go to your place, and we can have fun in private.”
“My place could be a little problem.”
I sat bolt upright in the bed. “Shit, you’re married, aren’t you?”
He laughed. “No, I’m not that fucked up. It’s just-well, I kind of live with my parents.”
“Jesus! You’re over thirty and you still live with your parents? What kind of messed up case are you?”
“I don’t actually live with them. We own a duplex together. They live in one half, I live in the other.”
“And you never thought that maybe, being gay, you might want to be able to bring a guy home now and then without your mother looking out the window to see who’s with you?”
He sat up and brought his legs up to his chest. I loved the way he was so comfortable in his nakedness. “In some strange, fucked up way, it was a way of keeping myself from doing anything. You know, if I had the freedom, maybe I’d act on it, and that would be scary.”
“For a guy who’s willing to go into burning buildings you’re kind of a chicken.”
“And I know how much you like chicken.”
“You’re never going to let me forget that the first time you saw me I was carrying the stinking remains of a dead chicken.”
“It’s what first attracted you to me.”
“Go on.” I pushed at his shoulder, loving the silky feel of the dark hair there. “So how’d you get involved in this duplex anyway?”
“My parents have lived in their half for years. When I came home from college I moved back in with them while I figured out what I wanted to do. Even though my dad’s a doctor, he works at Tripler, with all the security you get from working for Uncle Sam.”
He shrugged. “I’m an only child, so I guess my parents spoiled me. You combine that with the whole sexual orientation thing, and I was kind of a fuck up in college. I drank a lot, never studied, just made it through on good looks and native intelligence. There was no way I was going to medical school, not even to nursing school like my mom.”
It was a lot like my story. I’d fooled around myself in college, concentrating more on surfing than on English literature, which was my major, and the only way I’d graduated was that I loved to read, and I could write papers in my sleep. Now that I look back on it, I realize that a lot of my ambivalence about a career had to do with my unwillingness to face my sexuality.
I wondered how many more kids were out there like Mike and me, failing to realize all their potential because of their internal conflicts. It made me see how important my work at the Gay Teen Center was, not just providing a safe haven and a solid role model, but helping those kids come to term with their lives.
“Earth to Kimo,” Mike said. He turned on his side, facing me, and his semi-hard dick flopped sideways.
“Sorry. Guess I drifted off.”
“I didn’t realize my life story was so boring.”
“Go on. You were a fuck up in college, your parents didn’t know what to do with you.”
He frowned at me. “My dad wanted me to get a government job, you know, so secure and all. I finally decided to become a fire fighter, and I kept on living with them while I went through training. Then when I was making money, and I wanted to move out, the people in the other half of the house were ready to sell.”
He relaxed and let his long legs stretch to the edge of the bed. I started tickling my hand around his groin and watched his dick react.
“You know how expensive it is to buy anyplace these days. We knew everything about the house already, and because we did the deal direct I even saved on the real estate commission.”
“What a bargain.” I leaned down and took his dick in my mouth. His whole body shook.
We fooled around for an hour or more, kissing and hugging and rolling around on the bed. Mike got up to go to the bathroom, and while he was in there I called Harry and asked him to see what he could dig up on the Whites and the Church of Adam and Eve.
“Sounds like fun,” he said. “I love a good puzzle. Arleen just took Brandon home, so I’ll see what I can find.”
I felt guilty that I wasn’t busy figuring out who bombed the Marriage Project, so when Mike came out of the bathroom I said, “Can we talk about the bombing?”
Mike stretched, flexing his back muscles. I couldn’t help staring at how great his body was, from his ropy calves and thighs to his flat abs and muscular arms. The dick peeking out from a nest of pubic hair wasn’t bad, either.
He pulled on his briefs, which I realized were a Ginch Gonch design with fire trucks on them. Man, I thought, was this guy gay or what, and I laughed.
He looked at me funny and said, “Sure. Got any new ideas?”
I told him about my conversation with Terri the day before, trying to understand the motivation of the bomber. “So you think it’s some closeted guy?” he asked. “Maybe even married?”
I nodded. “I know I did some stupid things before I finally gave up hiding. That pressure can make you crazy.”
There was something on Mike’s face that I couldn’t read. Finally I realized, and I said, “You want to talk about it?”
“It’s nothing. Just thinking about the dumb things I’ve done.”
“Not…” I looked over at the bed.
He smiled. “Not you. I’m not regretting anything we’ve done. Or we’re going to do.” He was quiet for a minute. “I was at this conference in San Francisco last year,” he said. “Arson investigators. Guys I’ve known for years, from all over the country. I should have just stayed in my room, but it was San Francisco, you know?”
I knew. I’d been to San Francisco just a few months before, doing a favor for a guy who ended up making a big donation to the Gay Teen Center. And I’d been indiscreet, with an incredible guy I’d met on the street. But I was already out of the closet by then.
“You get arrested?” I asked.
The surprise showed on his face, and then he laughed. “Nope. Probably could have, though. I went to this sex club, and I just went kind of crazy. I mean, I did stuff there I’d never even thought of. I staggered back to the hotel, feeling miserable. My ass hurt and my skin was scraped raw in places. Some guy’d twisted my balls around and it took a day before they stopped aching.”
He looked at me. “But the worst part was how I felt inside. Just miserable. Like I’d disappointed myself, like I’d… I don’t know… given something away that I shouldn’t have.”
“I know. I’ve done my share of that kind of stuff, too. The closet’s a lousy place. Makes you do that kind of stuff. Maybe even makes you try to hurt other people.”
As soon as I’d said it, I wished I could take it back. I didn’t mean that about Mike; I didn’t think he was the kind of guy who could ever hurt someone, no matter how much pressure you put on him. The kind of guy who’d let it all build up inside him.
Shit, that was just the kind of guy our bomber probably was. I could see the hurt in Mike’s eyes, though, so I changed the subject. “I went to the Church of Adam and Eve this morning with my boss’s daughter,” I said.