1:41 p.m. - February 08, 2003
These are the consequences to actions made long ago
Just off the phone with Spec who will arrive Thursday for a weeks� worth of training in the area and he asked if he could stay with me, said he misses me and wants to see me and I hardened my heart, willed myself to be cold, to resist. I ached because I miss him and yearn to cuddle and feel whole, to look in his eyes and not have to say anything, to know he�s thinking the same I am. It hurts, a veritable ache, because I can�t have the good without the bad and there is no such thing as a fairy tale where everybody is kind and gentle and I do not believe him when he says he�s changed/changing/sorry. When he tried to be sweet and remind me of the good times, the camping trips, our endless walks on the beaches, the picnics in my secret spot I couldn�t help it and I was harsh and reminded him of the also-ran he conveniently overlooks, the times he would blithely slap my face if I wasn�t paying attention, the bloody noses, the fat lips, the black eye, the bruises. He was quiet and listened and I said he has a problem and I do not ever want to be around him again and I lied, because despite it all I want us to be together again, I want to wrestle with him and put my head on his chest and watch him sleep, to laugh and talk, to let go and be sexual with him. And he knows I want this, he knows me better than I know myself, he knows all he has to do is appear on my doorstep and I will melt and before I realize it, it�ll be what was all over again. And as I was cold and said there was nothing left he scoffed and said Jason, you and I are supposed to be together, but you just don�t know it yet and I got scared in the pit of my stomach not because I think he�s psychotic and will hurt me worse, but because I believe that too and I despise myself for being so damn weak.
He has this power over me that manifested from my uncertainties, my insecurities and he knows how to play them against me. He�s the alpha male, I�m the beta, he�s the tough macho one, I�m the quiet loner, he doesn�t let himself be hurt and I�m the needy one. He knows that I trust him still and it�s true, despite his problem I implicitly trust him, feel protected by him and when I denied this he said Don�t lie, I know with that omniscient quality of voice that always irked me and he reminded me again of how he trusts me, trusted me, allowed me to top him and I called him on his secret, his fear of not being a real man, said he loved riding my dick and that he�s a faggot and to simply leave me alone, and he was quiet again and said The more you push, the more patience I have and I�m not going away. I don�t know what to make of him. He angers me, I don�t understand where his confidence comes from, the stark assurance that despite my rejection he will come into my house because I won�t be able to say no when I see him. I don�t know myself when I�m around him, I relinquish control; from day one I found myself talking non-stop when around him, me, the guy who never says much at all, and I liked it, and when I�d feel self-conscious he�s say No, I love listening to you talk and I could open up and tell him all the things I�ve never said to anybody, me, the guy who holds everything in. I think I despised him for being him; does that make any sense?
When we first met at Stanford I was intimidated by him, the way I am by all good-looking people and that sophomoric fluttery feeling in my stomach betrayed my nonchalance and I was confused by the sensation. He was at Stanford for a year, going to school and doing his training (he works for the feds) in the building next to mine and he started appearing at my desk at lunch time and we�d sit in the sun in the courtyard and talk, and eventually he admitted that he had seen me teaching a colleague Amazing Grace one day and I blushed as I always do when paid a compliment, looked away, and he asked me to teach him a few signs and it became our lunch-time routine. And all along I was confused by how nervous I would become around him, how I looked forward to seeing him, how I�d steal glances when he wore a tank top and I was turned on. Then one day I was staring off into space and he took my chin in his hand and said Look at me and he said You have beautiful green eyes and I jumped back and felt exposed, betrayed, nasty, and I left. I avoided him for over a week and then he appeared in my office, closed the door, and apologized, told me he was gay and thought I was, too. I could only shake my head and feel disgusted, emphasized I have a girlfriend, I have a serious girlfriend and he looked at me and my eyes betrayed me; he saw something there and I knew something had been exposed. I asked him once long after that day what it was exactly and he said my smile drew him, a mixture of sadness and happiness when nobody else was around, my hands, the way I blush frequently. My na�vet�, how I walk slowly and look around, see what there is to see. My smile. And remembering how sweet and gentle he was then makes me feel awful now, though not as bad as I felt after we had sex for the first time, when I was angry at him; I think, What did I do to cause him to change? I didn�t weather the transition well, I had too many uncertainties, repulsed by being gay one moment, didn�t care the next, and it frustrated him. I remember well the day I first saw him naked and we jacked off together, watching each other, and I thought there was something wrong, this must be a joke, this beautiful man wanting to do this with me, a guy who doesn�t rate high on the attractiveness-scale. And he was gentle yet pushy, we began to jack each other off and I drew the line there but I couldn�t help running my tongue over his chest, flicking his nipples, tracing his tattoo, kissing his biceps and I wanted him, acknowledged I was not his equal, said the words he wanted me to say, accepted the words he said to me. And I liked it, all of it.
Where did we go wrong? I try to pinpoint the dissolution and I come to two instances, the first when we were driving in West Virginia last summer and I was driving and wouldn�t pull over to get directions, convinced the exit was up ahead, when he backhanded me and gave me a fat lip and I had to swallow my blood and then he lost control and started punching and wailing on me. He had been physical like that often before, but the ferocity this time literally scared me; I know well the diametric difference between his biceps and mine and matched up, we would never be a fair fight. I pulled over and my right shoulder and arm were swelling, my lip was purple and bleeding, and he laughed and I sat there thinking What just happened? And he grabbed me by the neck and told me to repeat a phrase and I refused, and then he took me in a headlock and choked me and I was afraid and said the words he liked me to say I�m sorry, daddy and he let me go and said Don�t be like this again. And I acquiesced, I gave up, I was humiliated. And when I�d cry he�d cry and ask me why I make him do this and I couldn�t answer. He reminded me that he arranged to be in Washington, D.C. just to be with me because he didn�t want to be apart, didn�t I realize how much he loved me, how he doesn�t like hitting me but he has to, to get me to focus? And then in September, when we went to Florida and he gave me the black eye the night before I was to address the state foreign language teacher�s association when during sex I told him to stop he laughed and said Not until I�m done and I panicked, and had one of those flashbacks and tried kicking him out of me, and he put his arm over my throat and told me to calm down and I was disgusted because he was excited, then started to cry because that look in his eye made me think of when I was young and I couldn�t do anything other than slap him, and that�s when he punched me and I calmed down and closed my eyes. Later he ordered a pizza and we fought, a literal fist-fight and I threw Sprite� cans at him and he had me up against the wall choking me and asking if this was an invitation to get fucked again and he had me suck him off and we slept in separate beds; he crawled into mine late at night and I told him I never wanted him to touch me again. In the morning I went downstairs and gave the address to all those people and I just didn�t know what to do, everything had spun away from me.
I think I didn�t take the job in Seattle because deep down I didn�t want to be near him; after Florida I became afraid of him. Literally afraid. Sometimes when I think about it I wonder if we gave it another shot would I be different, less prone to the ups and downs that frustrated him, would I be more comfortable being gay and giving him the sex he wanted as often as he did, instead of me frustrating him due to my reticence one day and my zeal the next, when I�d jump on top of him and couldn�t get enough. We never used condoms, we�ve swallowed each other�s jizz, we made each other feel safe and secure. He was patient with my nightmares and he�d hold me and I was never ashamed, never regretting our actions but the longer we were together the more physical he became and the more I withdrew. But I miss him, far more than I ever thought I�d miss anybody. That�s where I made the fatal mistake of opening up. Once the lock is broken you become a grab-bag, a communal refrigerator and over time, the fresh vegetables wilt and the fruit rots and nothing�s the same.
I want to see Spec again, I miss him, I miss those beautiful days when we�d play and laugh and picnic and he�d read to me, I�d read to him, we�d watch movies and I�d distract him and we�d have sex, when we�d steal kisses in public, when I didn�t feel self-conscious about my body. These are all externalities; I miss feeling the air rush as I fell, so much better than the dry and predictable, the control I had over everything once.
