Freckles: Chapter Nineteen

[PG-13:  Please be advised that this chapter contains an explicit description of a sexual encounter and is not suitable for readers under the age of thirteen]

I awoke later in the night, still laying up against Evan.  I could feel the dampness of sweat forming as I pulled away from him.  I didn’t want to lay outside the blanket, but at the same time it was too hot to stay under it and fully clothed at the same time.  In this midst of being half-asleep I caved to Evan’s dress-code and tossed the shirt and shorts he had given me, to the foot of the bed, further awkwardness be damned at this point.  He was in his underwear already anyway, it was too late to feel prudent.

I drifted in and out of sleep for what felt like hours until I awoke once more, but this time to the dawn light glaring through the bedroom window at the foot of the bed.  Its warmth flickering on my face and in my eyes as I tried to open them.  I felt engulfed in heat all around and it registered that not only was I under the warmth of a blanket, but also the warmth of Evan.

He had once again encapsulated me with his lanky body, throwing himself over me at some point during the night while I laid on my back.  From my chest to my ankles I could feel the heat of the body contact between us.  His forehead was pressed up against my jaw and his right arm reached over me to the other side of the bed.  I remembered the events of the night before and began looking for his left arm to see if the bandages had stayed in place.

As I tried to move my arms I realized that my right arm was pinned under his left side and that I wasn’t gonna be able to move it without waking him up.  Lifting the blanket with my left hand I looked for his left arm, it was laying behind him along the edge of the mattress, the bandage still secured and in place.  With his hand facing palm-up, I could see the stains of the blood that leached through during the night.

I let the blanket fall back down and the gust of air moved Evan’s hair.  I reached for my phone to see what time it was, it read Saturday 9:12 AM.  I still felt so exhausted, but not just from physical tiredness, but emotional and mental exhaustion too.  I felt like my whole life was flipped upside down, some things were happening at a viscous pace while other things were evolving at break-neck speeds.

Freckles was laying in a hospital bed where he’s been in a coma for the past month and here I lay in bed with his little brother who had revealed to me an immense amount of personal pain, anguish, and vulnerability, what a bizarre twist of fate this was.

Was it wrong?  Was this situation wrong?  Was I wrong for allowing myself into this situation?  As I contemplated this paradox, I became more self-aware of myself and this very physical situation I was in.  I found myself contemplating Evan and how in 12 hours or so we became incredibly close, connecting in a way few other human beings ever get the chance to.  And possibly in ways they’d rather not.

As my awareness shifted from my connection to Evan, I became fully aware that the emotional roller-coaster of night that I experienced, hadn’t kept me from waking up at full mast, or in other words from having morning wood.  In a slight panic I lifted the blanket again, but this time much higher to see where my body was in proportion to Evan’s and was horrified to see that my waistline disappeared beneath his own.  Essentially my morning wood was smashed up against him by his own body weight.

“This is not okay, this is not okay,” I faintly whispered to myself, equal parts mortified and oddly turned on by the predicament.  Do I move?  Do I push him off me?  Do I wake him up?  I decided to think about something that was gross, something that disgusted me, in the hopes it would eliminate my state of arousal.  So I thought about Damien’s ex-girlfriend, that bitch Megan.  “Ugh, I hate her so much, that cunt, I never met her but she hurt Damien, so by extension she also hurt me.”  I grumbled to myself softly.

My angry curses at her didn’t seem to be helping and I also must have been louder than I thought because Evan began to stir and move, and slowly he slid himself further on to me.  I froze in a panic as I felt something brush up against my body and I fell into further erotic peril with the knowledge that he also was greeting the morning with an erection.

I must have had a thousand voices in my head screaming at me, one bunch yelling at me to just push him off and get out of the bed, while the other half insisted that it was fine, I was fine, the whole situation was fine, completely innocent situation that would only be inappropriate if I woke him up and tried to seduce him while he was sad, lonely, and aroused.

As I lay there staring up at the ceiling contemplating the morality of my potential choices, Evan continued to stir from time to time, pressing and rubbing himself against me ever-so-lightly until I just couldn’t take it anymore.

“Dude, you gotta wake up!”  I shouted, as though the house were on fire, half-startling myself.

“Hhhuuuuhhh?”  Evan answered in a slow groggy tone, refusing to open his eyes and barely awake enough to put together a word, let alone a sentence.

“I know it’s early, but for the sake of us both and for the love of all things sacred, you have got to wake up.”  I clarified.

“Why, what’s going on?”  He asked innocently, wiping his eyes and then looking up at me.

“Body-awareness, bro.”  I said in response.

He stared at me for a few moments as though I had just spoken another language.  So I shifted slightly underneath him, in the hopes he would feel it and get what I was too ashamed to say out-loud.

Evan’s eyes grew huge as he apparently realized what I was trying to tell him.  Using his arms he quickly raised up his upper body and looked down at our waists and then looked up at me.

“Bro, your clothes!  Our boners are touching!!”  He shouted in a mix of hysteria and laughter.

In confusion and shock, I had no response, completely unsure of what to say as he so blatantly pointed out the source of my embarrassment, as he still laid there on top of me in his pot leaf underwear, glaring in my eyes and giggling about our near nudity and clashed swords.

“Oh fuck this is so gay bro!”  He shouted with the same hysterical laughter as before.

“Yeah so maybe you should get off me now, cause it’s super awkward.”  I confessed.

“Is it?”  He questioned.

I looked up at his face trying to determine if he was being serious or if he was screwing around with me.  Was he testing me, was this some sort of trick?  He cannot be serious right now, how could this situation not be inappropriate to him, to anyone?

“Do you really want me to get off you?”  He posed with a devilish mischievousness.

Stunned at the proposition of that question my heart began to race.  I’m a man, I have needs, I can be seduced the same as any other, but this can’t be okay this can’t be reasonable to accept and allow.  I mean, sure, people who are emotional and mentally struggling can sometimes act in ways that are not typical for them, stress and anxiety can make a person do irrational things sometimes.  And perhaps the biggest questions of all, does he like this?  Does he actually want this, is he into this sort of thing?

“I don’t know what’s happening right now and I don’t know what to think or feel.”  I responded honestly.

“Maybe you shouldn’t try to think or feel anything and just let it happen.”  He said while laying back down on top of me and pressing himself against me harder.

“But wait I thought you were into girls?”  I frantically asked.

“I am.”  He quickly replied.

“But yet you want to mess around with another guy?”  I asked, feeling as though I was interrogating him.

Evan took a long deep breath and exhaled on the side of my neck.  He stopped moving and laid there on top of me for what felt like several minutes, just breathing slowly.

“I’m sorry, it’s just that I can’t tell if you’ve been flirting with me or teasing me ever since last night, but it kind of feels that way and I’m just really confused and I don’t know what’s happening.”  I confessed.

Evan rolled off of me and sat up on the side of the bed.  “Wow, just kill the moment why don’t ya.”  He mumbled while putting his head in his hands.

“Truly I’m sorry, but I confessed my love to your brother right before he went into a coma, can you imagine his reaction if he knew about this unfolding situation, I mean I think he’d punch us both in the face.”  I said.

Evan didn’t respond and so I sat up in the bed and slid over to the side and sat next to him, hoping that he would say something in response.  He looked up over at me and looked into my eyes for a few seconds as if to judge the sincerity or honesty in my words.

“I’m not trying to date you bro.”  He said, turning his line of sight back to the floor.

“Then what are you doing?”  I asked, pressing him for more details.

“I don’t know, I’m just lonely I think, and when I feel lonely I get horny, hahaha!”  He answered with a laugh.

“But that doesn’t explain the gender situation, I’m a guy, not a girl.”  I stated as though it wasn’t obvious.

“Yeah man, I know, but sometimes desire or having wants and needs has nothing to do with gender.  Sometimes it’s just about human connection and you seemed like a really cool person and I saw how much love you had for Damien and how deep you are and kind, I just felt drawn to that.”  He confessed.

Evan continued, “I have absolutely no interest in dating another guy, I don’t want to kiss another dude, be romantic with one, I just don’t have those feelings for you or any other guy.  But that doesn’t mean that I’m somehow insecure or delusional about human contact.”

“Can you explain what you mean by human contact?”  I asked.

“Have you ever had dogs?  Like adopt two?  Even if they don’t come from the same litter, they will cuddle up and lay together, even if they’re the same gender.  You don’t see dogs call each other gay or people going around accusing two male dogs of being gay just cause they’re napping together.  That’s what I mean.”  Evan tried to explain.

“What if those two male dogs do the dirty?”  I asked half-jokingly.

Evan burst out laughing, “Damn dude, I don’t know maybe depends on what you mean by the dirty, if we’re talking full-on gay sex then maybe that makes them gay, or if we’re talking about licking each other here or there then maybe it just means they’re horny and can’t find no bitches!  Get it, bitches?”

“Yeah, you’re a real comedian.”  I playfully admitted.

“So, no I’m not gay and I’m not bisexual either, I’m just lonely.”  Evan declared, paraphrasing himself.

I sat there for a bit, absorbing what he had just told me, unsure if I should continue to ask questions or just let the subject be dropped.  I could fully understand his difficulty in explaining why he felt the way he did and why he probably felt like he shouldn’t have to explain himself or his feelings.

There were plenty of times in my own life when straight people just didn’t understand me, people who wanted me to fit perfectly in the box labeled “gay” that they had created in order to understand others like me, and then became upset when I didn’t fit neatly in their box or under the label they had created.  Not everyone can be pigeonholed and maybe Evan was one of those people, he just happened to have been coming at it from a very different direction than me.

If there can be a great variance in gay or bisexual people, it would only stand to reason that there would also be a great variance in straight people, and the lines that separate us all are probably quite blurry.  Less about black and white distinction and more about a long scale of many shades of grey.

“Where do we go from here?”  I asked hesitantly.

“I don’t know about you but I’m gonna need a little more sleep so I’m gonna lay down for like another hour.”  Evan answered.

He proceeded to crawl back to the middle of the bed and under the covers.  He laid there for a bit, facing the wall on the other side of the room and quietly asked, “Will you cuddle with me?”

I didn’t answer him right away, instead I sat there thinking about Freckles and I asked myself what he would do if he was in this situation.  What if I had been in a coma and one of my siblings invited him over to their house?  How would I feel if I could somehow find out that one of my siblings asked him to cuddle with them, knowing that the situation could turn sexual in some way or another?  Would I be angry, would I feel betrayed, would I be understanding as I lay there dead to the outside world?

I think my response might be dependent upon the possibility of my return to the world of the living or if I would forever stay in a comatose state.  If I had the chance of waking up and returning to the life I left behind, then I would be upset and feel betrayed, but if I never awoke I would want Damien to be with someone who saw him in the same wonderful light that I did, who perceived his value, I would want him to be with someone I knew and trusted and loved.  Is this how Damien would feel about Evan and I?

Is it possible to love someone deeply and yet also be willing or able to give some degree of love to another person, even if that love was more about compassion and less about passion?  Can you love someone passionately, while also loving someone else compassionately?  Is there a difference?  Is love even the right word here?  If Evan is to be believed, then this has absolutely nothing to do with any kind of love, but about solace, comfort, healing, support, and presence.

Is this what people who engage in polygamy experience or is that completely different than this?  Is this what it’s like to be in an open relationship?  I guess not, since Damien has no idea this is happening.  Should I tell him?  They say that people in a coma can sometimes hear what’s happening around them, would it break his heart?  Would he give up fighting and let go of life if he knew I had some weird platonic thing with his brother?

“Evan, are you home?!?!”  A woman’s voice shouted, breaking the silence.

“Whoa, is that your mom?”  I asked feeling startled.

“No, that’s my sister.”  Evan said, slowly sitting up in bed.

“We’re in here!”  He yelled back to her, sliding his bandaged arm under the covers.

I could hear her footsteps coming up the stairs as I quickly grabbed my shirt and shorts and slipped them on before kicking the gauze from last night’s medical situation under the bed.  I had never been around their sister outside of the hospital, she always seemed so controlled and disciplined, collected and confident.  She reached the door and my heartbeat hastened as the door knob turned and the door began to open.

“Who’s the ‘we’ you’re talking about?”  Claire asked as she opened up the door.

“Oh, Dominic, I didn’t know you were here.”  She said acting surprised.

Even though nothing had happened, I felt awkwardly guilty, as though me just being in Evan’s bedroom was somehow inappropriate and that I needed to apologize for it.  I hadn’t brushed my hair so I was certain that it was wild and messy, like after-sex kind of messy.

“When did you get here?”  She asked nonchalantly.

“Um…”  I began to mutter.

“He’s been here since last night.”  Evan quickly answered, making me blush for no legitimate reason.

“Oh, well okay.  You boys hungry?”  She asked with the concern of a true mother.

I smiled and nodded my head while Evan exclaimed that he was always hungry.

“I’ll head downstairs and see what mom has on hand, take your time getting up, I’ll let you know when it’s ready.”  Claire said as she gently closed the door behind her.

“Your sister seems nicer than your brother led me to believe.”  I advised Evan.

He laid back down in bed, “Don’t let her fool you, she can be a real hard-ass sometimes.”

I turned back and looked at him laying there facing the wall, still unsure with what to do.  He turned back around and looked up at me, as though he was awaiting my answer to his earlier question.  His dark brown eyes once again absorbing the sunlight as it was coming into his bedroom, flickering across his face.  Like two black-holes the light fell into them without escape.  Their depth and power so incredibly seductive and commanding, nothing that approached them closely enough could possibly resist.

I felt drawn in as well, trapped somewhere between my empathy for his loneliness and my own desire for physical human contact.  Sure I could visit Freckles and talk to him, but he never responded, never moved at all.  He was alive, but lifeless and as awful as it sounds, visiting Damien at the hospital was like visiting his corpse at the cemetery.  Evan on the other hand was everything that Damien couldn’t be right now.

Evan reached out and pulled me towards him and flipped me over to the other side of the bed.  He pulled the covers out from underneath me and flung them up over top of us both.  He pulled me in close to him until there was no open space between us, he threw his right arm around me and pressed himself against me from behind.

It didn’t take long for the heat in the bed to become near unbearable and I began to accumulate sweat.  He slid his hand up my arm and turned me over until I was laying on my back and then slid himself up on top of me, making sure to go slow so that I felt every bit of it.  He laid his head down next to mine, his chin resting on my right shoulder.  He brought his hands up next to my rib-cage on either side and slid them down to my waistline, my body trembling in response.

He held them there for a while and I could feel his finger tips toying with my waistbands, suddenly he grabbed at my shorts from both sides and began pulling them down.  I reached down and grabbed at his hands as if to stop him, but I put up no real resistance and he overpowered me, sliding them all the way down and off.  Coming back up he pulled at the bottom hem of my shirt, motioning to pull it up and off of me, which I allowed him to do.  He then laid back down completely on top of me, now only in our underwear our bodies were fully aligned.  Slowly he slid his whole body back and forth and up and down, rubbing and pressing himself up against me.  There was no hiding his arousal, nor mine.

Once more while laying on top of me he slid his hands down the sides of the bare skin of my rib-cage, our skin-to-skin touch feeling borderline electric.  This time he stopped at the waistband of the underwear he had borrowed me, pausing their momentarily to toy around with the fabric.  We did not make eye contact this entire time, as if to do so would somehow admonish us of the lack in morality of the behavior unfolding.  With his head still next to mine and his chin on my shoulder he lifted himself off me just slightly and began to slowly move his hands to the inside of my thighs.  My body trembled again and as he approached my cock, my body twitched as if in defiance of the presence of his hands.

Before I could do or say anything, his hands were there, on me, holding me, touching me, embracing me in an electrifying force exploding in my brain and what little resistance I had to his seduction was obliterated.  That primal part of my brain lit up like the Griswold house at Christmas.  I flipped him up and over in the bed and pounced on top of him like a jaguar, I pressed my head against his, forcing him to face the wall and I bit his ear, sliding my hand from his chest down to his waistline, he too began to tremble.  I slipped my fingers beneath the waistband of his pot leaf underwear and felt their dampness.  He released an audible exhale in anticipation and voiced a soft moan as my finger tips reached his wet cock.

“Boys!  Breakfast is ready!”  Claire yelled from the hallway.

Evan and I launched ourselves out of bed like two spooked cats.  I hurriedly pulled on my clothes and tucked myself up under my waistband as Evan scurried about his room looking for clothes to put on.

Claire knocked at the door, “Boys, you can eat now!”

“Thanks! We’ll be right down!”  Evan said, his voice cracking halfway through his response, in terror that his sister would just come walking in.

I could hear her step away from the door and return to the stairs that led down to the kitchen.  I looked over at Evan as he flailed about trying to get his clothes on that he had collected from somewhere in his room.  I didn’t know whether to laugh at us or feel guilty and ashamed, or perhaps both.  What had unfolded was clearly not okay and should not have happened, our fear of getting caught by his sister was proof enough of that.  Regardless, it had happened and there was no undoing it.  Our deep emotional connection created last night, culminated in this brief sexual encounter, but it cannot go any further.

“Dude,” Evan said looking up at me, “We can’t tell anyone about this.”

“Not even Damien?”  I asked sincerely.

“What?!?!  Fuck no, especially not Damien!”  Evan proclaimed.

“A long time ago I swore to myself that I would never take Damien for granted, that no matter what I would be honest with him, even when the truth hurt.  We made a mistake here and he deserves to know.”  I said with conviction.

“Tell him when he’s awake, but don’t you dare utter a word to him while he’s still in a coma.  I don’t know if he can hear us or not, but it would break his heart to hear that you fucked around with me.”  Evan made clear to me.

“Why’d you say it like that?  WE fucked around together, even though you started it.”  I assured him.

“You’re the gay one, you’re the reason this happened, if you’d been straight nothing would’ve happened.”  Evan said with a degree of frustration.

“Whoa, what the hell is that supposed to mean?  You seduced me, remember?”  I said with my voice raised.

With those words Evan swung at me and barely missed, he came at me again and I pushed him back, reminding him that his sister was downstairs waiting for us and that neither of us could walk down their with a bloody lip or black eye.  Shit was already weird enough.

“Please stop it bro, this is getting out of hand.”  I advised him, practically begging him to listen.

“Me?  You’re the one threatening to tell my family about my secrets!”  He shouted, nearly loud enough for his sister to hear.

“Your secrets?  I’m not trying to out you!”  I shouted back, nearly as loud.

“I’m not gay!”  Evan snapped at me, becoming red in the face.

“I didn’t say you were!”  I responded.

We both stepped back away from each other, things were getting way too heated.  I tried to choose my next words carefully.  Clearly, he felt threatened by me mentioning anything to Damien about our sexual encounter, it seems he was not ready for anyone to know that he wasn’t afraid to explore and experiment.  Even if it was just out of loneliness, as he stated.

“I won’t say anything to Damien or anyone else about what happened in here, is that what you want?”  I asked hesitantly.

“I don’t want anyone saying shit to my family about me without me being there.”  He answered.

“It’s not like I’m going to lie about anything, I was going to tell him exactly what happened.”  I tried to reassure him.

“No, that’s exactly the problem, you’re going to make me out to be some kind of fag.”  Evan said half-crying.

“Using that word was not cool bro.  For a guy who claims to be open-minded and believes in the hippie lifestyle, you’re really turning into a jackass right now.”  I pointed out.

Evan walked past me and into his bathroom, closing the door behind himself.  I wanted to scream, cry, and yell all at the same time, and honestly punch him in the face.  What a torrent of emotional hell this has been, what more could possibly go wrong?  I could hear Evan inside the bathroom sobbing uncontrollably.  I reached for the knob, but it wouldn’t budge, he had locked the door from the inside.  I returned to his bedside, sat down and waited for him to come back out.

Once again I could hear footsteps coming up the stairs, Claire was coming to see what was going on and why we still had not come down to eat.  I felt as though the situation was about to rise to another level of awkward as Evan was still audibly crying in the bathroom.

“Hey, what’s going on why are you guys still up here?”  Claire asked inquisitively.

“Um…”  I started out saying.

“Is that Evan in there, why is he crying?”  Claire asked with heightened concern.

She approached the door and knocked, “Evan, what’s going on, why are you crying?”

Evan didn’t answered, but could still be heard sobbing.  Claire looked back at me for answers.

“I don’t think it’s my place to tell you what exactly is going on here, Evan wouldn’t want me to say anything.”  I conceded.

“I don’t care what he would want, I don’t need to complete my PhD in psychology to know something is going on here.  I want answers.”  She demanded.

She continued knocking on the door, this time louder and more aggressively, yelling at Evan to open up.  My anxiety was so high at this point, I felt like just collapsing to the floor, utterly paralyzed by everything happening around me.  This was truly all my fault, Evan was right about it, if I had been straight, none of this would have ever happened.  A lot of things wouldn’t have happened if I had never got involved with anyone in this family.  It was my fault Freckles crashed, I distracted him, he was in that coma because of me, and now I’ve betrayed him and I’ve caused his brother to fall into a psychological breakdown.  I was a terrible human being.

The tears began welling in my own eyes and my knees gave way, I collapsed to the floor, crumbling from the guilt and shame that consumed me.  Claire stood there looking at me and listening to Evan sob in the bathroom, probably so perplexed by the unfolding scene before her that if she hadn’t been studying to be a mental health professional she might have thought us both possessed by demons.

“Whatever is happening here is not going to be resolved until we talk through it.  Evan, so help me god you better open this door or I’m gonna kick it in!”  She shouted, banging heavily on the bathroom door.

With a click from the release of the door’s locking mechanism, Evan emerged from the bathroom.  I got up from the bedroom floor and sat down on the bed, per the instructions of his sister.  She plopped Evan down next to me on the bed, and then she knelt down in front of us.

“Please, explain to me what is going on here.”  She demanded.

Evan spoke first through most of his sister’s inquiry, leaving out the erotic details of our encounter that would have done little but distract from the serious nature of his mental health status.  He explained to her why I was there, some of the events of the night before, he showed her his cuts and scars, expressed his feelings of abandonment, loneliness, depression, and hopelessness about Damien’s condition.  I did little more than validate his statements when she asked, but decided it best that I not speak more than necessary.

By the end of Claire’s intervention, the whole situation felt deflated, all the pressure had been released and we resigned ourselves to not dwelling on everything that had taken place.  Evan and I’s encounter and our short-lived skirmish were brushed aside as we made our way down to the kitchen.

Though we didn’t sit side-by-side like the night before, we did sit across from one another at the kitchen’s island as we ate breakfast.  I’d be lying if I said it wasn’t awkward, but I had hope that this awkwardness would fade in time and that Evan and I could get back on track to becoming close friends.  I really did appreciate and respect him as a person, he was different, but I firmly believed that being different is what makes a person interesting.  I had no idea how Damien would respond to what unfolded, but I never doubted for a second that he would want Evan and I to continue to be friends.

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