Chapter Thirteen

It was in October 1983 when I first had sex with a man. I was fourteen years old; he was thirty-six. I laugh when I think about it now. Aunt Helene so proud of her new beau, the neurologist. He was everything she had ever sought, a successful professional, an impeccable pedigree—undergraduate from Yale, medical school at Northwestern, and a residency at Johns Hopkins—a desirable address in Kenilworth, and single. Oh yes, so deliciously single. I doubt if one human being could satisfy the peculiar desires of this man. His name was David Long, and he was handsome in the way men of his standing are handsome. That is to say, he was tall, blessed with a thick crop of black hair graying at the temples, of course, cut short. His spectacles were round and rimless. I believe he wore them more for effect than out of any optical need. He would always show up dressed in a suit of some dark fabric, gabardine, wool, silk, in hues of navy, charcoal, black.

And he had his black side! And he was an expert at concealing that black side.

I wonder now why he, with his intelligence, grace, wit, and charm, went after me. After all, here I was, nephew to the kind of woman who could improve David’s social standing. A woman who would do all she could, selflessly, in helping make him into an even more respected member of the social elite. She had the right connections, she had old money, she had memberships to the most exclusive clubs on the North Shore.

What a risk I was. And yet perhaps that was part of my allure. “Too pretty to be a boy” was what they used to say about me, and I think that was never truer than when I was fourteen. My limbs were just lengthening, my hair still retained the towheaded silkiness of childhood, and when I looked in the mirror, a ten-year-old boy/girl looked back at me. Blue eyes, pale, framed in black lashes. My skin was the color of, excuse me the flight of fancy, alabaster, and easily as smooth. The only hair I had on my body was a small, sparse triangle of whitish-blond pubic hair and a fine white down that crowned my arms and legs. Aunt Helene let me wear my hair long, and it stopped at my shoulders.

David had taken notice of me the first time he brought Aunt Helene home. They had been to dinner downtown somewhere, and her face was flushed and she was laughing, giggling really, when the two seated themselves in the living room for cocktails.

I wandered in, wearing a T-shirt and cutoff shorts. I had been in my room, working with some watercolors, trying to paint a landscape: the rocky shore of Lake Michigan, complete with huge blue-gray waves and white sprays of water against a gray sky. I was pretty good then; at least all my teachers said so.

But I’m getting away from the real story. I came in to kiss Aunt Helene good night, and she introduced me to her new friend. He shook my hand, and it seemed his big palm engulfed mine, and it also seemed as if he held it a bit longer than the average handshake. I remember the smooth hardness of his palm against mine. I looked up at him, and he held my gaze, his deep brown eyes boring into mine. I could feel myself reddening, wondering what Aunt Helene would think. Of course, she thought nothing. The moment lasted only that long—a moment—and to the casual observer, nothing untoward passed between us.

But I knew. Years of experience as a professional homosexual have taught me the secret language of the eyes, and in retrospect, I can make the claim confidently that David found me more than a little interesting.

From that first date, Aunt Helene and David began to see a lot of one another. He tried his best to befriend me, and Aunt Helene was delighted with the interest he took in me, presumably to gain her favor.

I always knew there was more. The hand on the shoulder, the brotherly pats, all held a darker side. More than once I found his gaze lingering on me as we sat at dinner; more than once his hand would swat my bottom in that macho camaraderie no one would mistake for queer.

Except I guess David wasn’t queer. I think the right word is pedophile.

October of 1983. I was forced by Aunt Helene to join a bunch of “youngsters” my own age from her country club for a hayride and a teen dance. The whole evening was dreadful, with the girls giggling as I passed them and the other boys keeping their distance, not wanting to be associated with such a pitiful example of budding masculinity.

As I stood outside the Corinthian-columned façade of the building waiting for Aunt Helene, my thoughts were on one thing: getting away from these people with whom I had nothing in common and getting home to my bed, where I could read, masturbate, and fall asleep.

I was surprised, but a part of me fully expected it, when David pulled up in his cream-colored Mercedes. He tooted the horn and waved. I fell into the embrace of soft, glowing lights and the smell and feel of brown leather.

“How’s it goin’?” he said cheerfully. The car radio was tuned to a classical station and something by Dvorak was playing, low.

“Fine, now. I guess I’m glad to be getting home.”

“Didn’t you have a good time?”

“Not really.” I slumped in my seat and stared out the window. I could feel his gaze on me, and it was causing weird feelings to rise up within me. I felt sick to my stomach, but there was a certain delicious twinge at being next to him. I looked over at him, and he looked back, smiled.

He put his hand on my knee and squeezed. “Well, it’s over now.”

I noticed two things then. There was liquor on his breath—Courvoisier, if I knew David—and he didn’t take his hand away. An electric current pulsed from his palm to my knee. I was afraid to breathe, let alone move. Part of me wanted him to move his hand and the other part dreaded it.

We said nothing for a long time. David’s hand massaged my knee, and I’m sure he wanted to give the impression that it was absentminded as he concentrated on the road and hummed along to the radio.

Gradually I came to the realization that we were not on the way home. We were heading north, and the houses were becoming farther and farther apart as we traveled along, being replaced by copses of trees behind which an orange harvest moon glowed.

My body felt as if it were laced with wire. I sat stiffly, every muscle tight, unable to think of anything to say. Even as I tried to make conversation, my mind grew blanker with each passing moment.

Finally David, looking as casual as ever, signaled and turned off on a bumpy road. “This leads down to the lake,” he said, never once taking his eyes from the road. “It’s a very pretty spot. Very quiet. I like to come here and think.”

I still was unsure what was going on. Perhaps this was at Aunt Helene’s urging. Perhaps she wanted him to make more of an effort to get to know me. Was a marriage in the offing?

He pulled to the berm of the road and shut the car off. The quiet, absolute, surrounded us. From under the seat, David brought out a sterling silver flask and took a long pull from it. To my shock, he handed it to me. “Go on…” he urged. “Try it.”

The liquor almost made me choke, but it lit a fire in my belly, and the heat radiated up to warm my chest and face.

David stared out at the water, which reflected the moon in a brilliant swatch of silver. His hand moved to my knee once more and squeezed. When I didn’t resist, the hand moved up a little farther, snaking between my thighs to part them.

I took another swig of the liquor, unsure how I was supposed to respond. Maybe this was a test. Maybe Aunt Helene was trying to find out if I really was queer, if the rumors and the laughter at Loyola Academy were true. Was I supposed to react with some sort of macho bravado? I envisioned myself pushing his hand away, offended, saying something like, “Hey, pal, you got the wrong guy.” David would laugh and tell me I’d passed their little test.

His voice startled me. “You got a girlfriend, Tim?” No one called me Tim.

“No. I don’t seem to have much luck in that area.”

David laughed to himself. “You’ve got plenty of time for girls. Beat off much?”

The question virtually took my breath away. I reddened and stared out the window, then laughed nervously.

“It’s nothing to be ashamed of. When I was your age, I did it three, four times a day.” I didn’t look, but I heard a zipper and a rustling noise. “Still do, as a matter of fact.” When I didn’t look, he said, “You can check it out. Nothing to be ashamed of. It’s a guy thing.”

I looked. His penis was red and hard, a tiny pearl of clear liquid poised at the tip. I had never seen a grown man’s penis before, and it appeared huge. I wondered if Aunt Helene had ever seen it. He gave his penis a squeeze, which caused the drop to run down the shaft. It was quickly replaced by another.

“Ever fool around with any of your buddies?”

“No. Of course not.”

“Hey. It’s perfectly natural. Normal. You don’t have to be embarrassed.”

“But I haven’t.”

He took my hand then and wrapped my fingers around the shaft. He reached back and reclined his seat. “Just move your hand up and down.” I did what he told me and felt a bizarre mixture of warring emotions. Part of me felt sick to my stomach. The other part, the part I couldn’t deny because of the stiffening in my Levi’s, told me I enjoyed this.

“Why don’t you take yours out? Let me see what you’ve got.”

Before I had a chance to respond, he’d undone my pants and pulled them down to my ankles. He stared. “I have a feeling you like this.”

And then his head was buried in my lap, and I was overcome by the feel of his hot, wet mouth surrounding me and his tongue flicking at me.

It took only seconds for me to come. David stopped moving when that happened but didn’t take his mouth away. I saw the muscles in his throat move as he swallowed.

“Let’s take a walk,” he whispered. “Over by those pines.”

I said nothing. I pulled my pants up. I was trembling as he led me by the hand to the cluster of trees near the water’s edge. Wordlessly, he undid my pants once more and pushed them down. “Bend over,” he whispered in my ear, then licked it. I was too stunned to do anything but comply.

When he entered me, I screamed, feeling as if I was being ripped in two. David’s hand over my mouth was swift. The pain shot through me like white-hot electricity as he thrust into me over and over. It felt like hours. I tried to flee, but his grip around my waist was tight, and I could do nothing more than whimper into his sweaty palm.