The Skin of Things

CADE

I am lying. I suppose I lie everyday. Many of us do. But right now I am conscious of really and truly and frequently not telling the truth. If you think about it, lying is like editing. Everything that happens is everything that happens, but to make it into a story, to make it into the proper story, one must edit. One has to leave out. To protect people you love you had better leave out. I’m going to say something else that’s going to sound crazy. To let people see the you that you truly are, you had better leave out.

My very first real true I’m-in-love-with-you-boyfriend used to tell me shit that would break my heart. He would watch my face change, and then he would say, “I’m being honest. Don’t you want us to be honest? Would you rather I lie to you? “

I’m old enough to see he didn’t really love anyone, but I do, and so I lie. When Donovan asks me what it’s like living with Simon after we’ve broken up, I say it’s the same except for no drugs and no sex. He never asked, but to not say it would have been to leave the question hanging in the air. I think. The truth is after I came back to the apartment, after my summer trip. After Don and I decided starting over as friends and rebuilding our relationship was what mattered, I went back home. It was my apartment. I did pay rent on it, and I moved my stuff into the spare room. Me and Simon fought, but not about what you think. He said I should keep our old room, I said no. At last he said, “Well, at least take the bed.” So we put the bed in my room, and that was that.

We lived awkwardly for a week or so. Courteous separate lives. Friday night he came home depressed, but with cocaine and we spent the night drinking and snorting. When I went to bed, Simon came with me. It all happened about once a week. I never talked about it with anyone else, certainly not with Don. Every time me and Simon had sex I knew I didn’t love him. I knew I wanted to be touched. I knew I wanted someone who was safe and I knew I wanted that for him, that I cared about him, but it wasn’t the same as being in love.

So I know things have to change. I edit the truth again when I get back to the hotel.

In the official version of the story, Andrew and I have civilized coffee.

“I have a friend waiting for me.”

“A he friend or a she friend.”

“A he friend.”

“Like a boyfriend?” Andrew raised his eyebrow.

“A friend who is very important to me.”

“Well,” Andrew said. “Yeah. So… No crazy sex parties.”

“I’m afraid not.”

Andrew lifted his coffee and took another sip.

“We’re going to keep being friends, right? Talking?”

“Yeah!” Cade said. “Definitely.”

“I gotta ask you this. I will regret not asking.”

“Okay.”

“I get you don’t want a sex party and all that. But…. What about something else?”

I’m wearing thin jersey shorts with no underwear, and if I get up the whole world will see I have a tremendous boner. I touch Andrew’s foot with my toe, then open my legs and Andrew scoots his chair back to look under the table.

I take off my ball cap and put it over my lap, walking along the little outdoor café, back into the combination of lights and darkness that is this street with its shops at night The air smells like the lake and like seaweed, and the moist heat is coming back up. Only a moment later, Andrew is there. He turns his ball cap backward and gets down on his knees, and in the alley, he pulls down my shorts and starts sucking me off. I haven’t been with Simon in over a week, and Simon doesn’t go down on me often. It isn’t long before I come in Andrew’s mouth, and he gags a little bit then spits my nut out in the alley.

“Thanks,” Andrew says.

“Thank you.” I reply.

We hug awkwardly in the alley and I say, “Have a good time tonight.”

I’m still hard. I wish I was going to the sex party, but am afraid, and I wish I had fucked Andrew, but I am weirded out by the fact that I just let him blow me in the alley. I don’t know how I feel about myself or anything. This is why I strip when I get to the water. Why I just want to get back to Donovan and the hotel room. I never feel confused when I’m with him.

I say, “Don, I hooked up with that guy.”

He looks at me, and I say, “I need you to tell me if you care or if you don’t care, because here’s the thing. I do care. See, this summer I was silly. I should have stayed, but I left and I did things. Hooked up with guys, and I’ve been being this way for a long time.”

Donovan looked away. He was talking to the sand, not looking at me when he said, “Why are you telling me this?”

“Cause you’re telling me about this great guy, this guy you’re kind of sad about and I’m telling you, if you want to you should strike shit up with him again. Cause he does sound great and I sound… really fucked up. I’m fucked up Don. I am fucked up and I’ve been fucked up by other people, and I’ve… paid that forward. I am a screwed up man, Donovan Shorter, but, I am a man who loves you.”

Don looked up a him.

“No one’s going to love you more,” I told him. “I love you.”

We are still looking out on the water and Donovan says, “What in the…?”

He stops. He is pointing to something past the pier, and my eyes follow his.

Neither one of us says anything as it comes up from the water, first like a woman who has dived in later at night, except for, no one saw her go in.. And then, where legs should be… there are none. We look. I don’t dare describe. We cannot take our eyes away.

Donovan looks away first.

“I feel like it’s bad luck to look on too long.”

I nod my head. After all the little lies I’ve told here is this amazing truth than no one would believe.

“I always thought I would be afraid if I saw something like that,” Donovan said, “Feel stranger. Like in the movies.”

I can’t even speak.

“What a long tail,” Donovan says. “And who would have thought it would be brown? Like a trout? Who would have thought?”

DONOVAN

That night when Cade came home at the end of summer, of course I had no idea he was coming. He was gone, and I didn’t even get his letters until a little bit later. I knew when he returned I would love him, though what that love would look like I couldn’t say. And I knew I was a little angry. When he came, I didn’t know if it was love or anger… no… petulance, that would win.

That was the night when Calypso came over. I never learned his real name. Does it matter? What’s in a name. We talked and talked about art and finally, in those moments before I knew he was about to talk about being tired and go to sleep, I put my hand on his corduroyed thigh, and then raised my hand up it, unzipped his pants and went on my knees for him.

And I admit it wasn’t for him. He was there, and I wanted sex. I always feel like there is no point in coming out and telling the world how gay you are if you are not actually having sex with men. I feel like it’s harder and harder to fuck, not because I’m older or uglier, but because people are afraid. For one brief shining moment people have the courage to fuck, but men want to be men, and society wants to be society. We are afraid of orgasms. I won’t let Calypso be. I feel like in one half hour of conversation I’ve gleened a great deal about him and will be fine with never seeing him again, but the feel of this soft skin, the muscle under rounded ass, smooth back, the play of blue tattoo over white skin, the peppermint taste of his mouth, the soft hair of his pubis, the firm globe of balls, the fullness of cock, I will not be okay with not experiencing. The mutual giving of ourselves; if that doesn’t happen, I will not be alright.

I am still in the afterglow of the sex we had, lying on the couch naked. They say that once you’ve had sex you’re sated, but I don’t know who they is. Sometimes they are right. There is some sex that is almost ruinous, that leaves you not sure you want to be with anyone else again, or leaves you determined to go out and find a new experience. And there is some sex that is only like a primer, which immediately makes you ready.

I am just dressing again, flimsy tee shirt, old shorts, when Cade comes in with the key I gave him. The living room still smells of the cigarette I just finished. He is so tall. He is right there, and there is something in his face, almost as if both of us are not sure if we want each other, if we are happy with each other. I put my hands to his bearded cheeks and kiss him, and we hold each other. We don’t speak. We undress quickly and silently. That night, on that sofa, in the living room, never having reached the bed, knowing that the words of I’m sorry, where have you been, what did you do, who were you with, are too much, we give ourselves to each other. That’s too poetic a term for fucking, but it’s the truth because the real fucking is giving everything, giving everything including dignity. It’s laying face down while he holds you down and pushes his face into your back growling “I love you. I love you. I love you so much.” It’s being bent over the sofa or bending him over and thrusting while weeping, gathering as much of your lover’s body as you can, and the declarations of love turning into swears and curses and staggering groans. It’s the orgasm that is almost like weeping, that is a surrender that is a defeat and a victory because the great victory is to be loved and to be accepted in all of your weakness, and lying in each others arms, wet and weakened and strengthening each other, crumpled and wet like old paper towels, but, like old paper towels, used up, as was your purpose.

“I stood at the top of a mountain,” kiss, “and I saw a sunset but my heart hurt because I could only think of you.”

“I was walking down the street, looking at the full moon, and wanted to turn to you, but you weren’t there. I pretended you were and murmured a little conversation, so the other crazy people on the street stayed away.”

“Your ear is like a little wet shell.”

“Your breath is like milk.”

“I… missed you so much. You… are my best friend.”

“Stop talking,” hand to face, “Look at me and just let me look at you.”

Donovan asks himself if he believes Cade has been sleeping alone all this summer. He doesn’t know, and he doesn’t ask. Those first few weeks, when he was in love with Cade, his love for this man ruined his chances of getting laid anywhere else. And then there came the time when he and Cade were having furious sex, and after Cade left to find himself, Don decided he was too old to be a pining virgin. Things happened. That was the best way to put it. But when Brian came, that old love that was such a good love, he was primed. The truth was, far from good sex sating you, it only made you want more.

“Right now,” Cade stated, “I want us to sort of just rediscover what it was to be friends. See if we can live that way.”

Part of Donovan wondered if Cade could smell the sex in this house, knew he’d been naked with Calypso an hour ago.

What Donovan said was, “That’s a good idea.”