"All right," Hyde said as I followed him downstairs into the basement. "Now I can give you your real present."
"Wait." I caught up to him at the bottom of the stairs and wrapped my arms around his shoulders from behind. "Are you saying the socks weren't my real present?"
He turned around in my arms, wearing an adorable smirk. "Nah. I just needed something I could give you in front of your parents." He kissed me quickly on the lips, then headed for his room. I followed, curious. It couldn't be another hemp plant; he knew I had nowhere to keep one.
He rummaged under his pile of dirty laundry, and came up with a lumpy package wrapped in red-and-green paper. He tossed it to me; when I caught it, I discovered it was squishy. I ripped open the paper.
It was a teddy bear. An old one, with worn-out fur. I looked up at Hyde. He was standing with his arms crossed, watching me intently.
I was confused for a moment. After he'd said he couldn't give it to me in front of my parents, I'd been expecting something naughty, or possibly illegal. Not an old teddy bear. Old...."This used to be yours," I guessed.
"Had it long as I can remember." He half-shrugged, keeping his tone casual. "Kept it hidden since I was eight."
I let the wrapping paper fall to the floor and cradled the teddy bear gently in my hands, getting a sense of the significance of this gift. I remembered the time he gave Jackie, for her birthday, his own favorite Led Zeppelin T-shirt. And the Christmas he gave Donna the old photo of himself and her that he'd saved for years. I remembered being pissed off at him that time, because even though his present didn't cost anything, it was so much better than the thing I bought her. Other people buy things. Hyde, when it's really important, gives away pieces of himself.
The bear looked up at me with big brown eyes and a lopsided grin. Hyde trusted me with his teddy bear. Wow. "This is the best Christmas present anyone's ever given me," I said, and I hoped he could tell I meant it.
"It's not-" He stopped, clearing his throat. "I just wanted you to have it." He shrugged, and went over to the record player to put on the new AC/DC album, which had been my Christmas present to him.
I carefully set the bear on the shelf, and when Hyde came back over I pulled him close and showed him how I felt with kisses.
I felt so easy and comfortable with him now. The sex last night had somehow erased all the lingering awkwardness I'd felt at touching a guy gently and lovingly. It's funny, I remembered it being just the opposite after the first time I did it with Donna - for the first day afterwards, I'd felt a little nervous around her, not sure how to touch her or where to look or what to say.
After a little while Hyde had to stop kissing so he could go blow his nose. I guess the cold medicine he took in the morning was wearing off. Mom had totally fussed over him all morning, which he'd accepted with his usual uneasy mix of brushing it off and lapping it up. The weird thing was, I'd wanted to fuss over him too, but I couldn't. I wanted to be the one bringing him orange juice and making him put on a sweater, but I was too afraid of doing anything that my family would see as unusual. At one point, when Laurie was unwrapping her present from Dad and Hyde must've thought everyone was watching her, I'd seen him take off his sunglasses and rub his eyes. He'd looked so tired and beaten down in that moment, Jesus, I'd just wanted to go over and make him lie down with his head in my lap so I could watch over him and let him sleep. But yeah, that kind of thing wasn't going to happen in this universe. Not even long ago in a far away galaxy. Instead, we'd kept each other at a safe distance all morning with sarcasm and minor insults.
Hyde came back over. "You look so serious, man," he said, lightly punching me in the arm as he sat down beside me on the throw rug. There was nowhere else to sit, with the cot still upstairs in my room. "What are you thinking about?" he asked.
"Wishing we didn't have to hide this from everyone."
"It's a hassle, yeah."
"It's more than that! Being with you is so good, and I think it's fucked-up that I can never tell anyone about it. I mean, shouldn't our friends be happy for us when something this good happens?"
He shrugged. "Donna is."
"Well, yeah. None of this could have happened if it wasn't for Donna." I reached over to pick up the teddy bear again. Thinking about hiding our love from everyone for the rest of our lives was getting me down, and there was something comforting about holding the bear. It was tangible proof that Hyde loved me back.
"It didn't start with Donna," Hyde said. "It started when you kissed me the first time." He said it quietly, looking at me sideways from behind his sunglasses with a wry kind of smile.
Suddenly I remembered him saying that before: 'I fell in love with you the first time you kissed me.' He'd said it that awful night I'd brought him home drunk and freezing from the reservoir - just before he found out that I was still getting beat up by guys who thought I was a fag, just before we decided that we could never be together. Afterwards, I'd made myself forget about it all, because it hurt too much. Now I wondered: was Hyde telling me he'd been in love with me since we were eleven?
I couldn't ask it straight out. "When did you realize you could fall in love with a boy?" I asked instead.
Hyde shrugged. "I always knew I was gay. But after Stu it scared the hell outta me."
My hands tightened around the teddy bear and I stared at Hyde, forgetting to breathe for a moment. He'd never voluntarily mentioned Stu before. And what did he mean, 'I always knew I was gay'?
Before I could say anything, he sneezed. He went to get another Kleenex. When he came back, bringing the box with him this time, I said "I didn't always know."
"Know what?"
"I really thought I was straight. I mean, I liked girls, and I really loved Donna. But then things kept happening with you..." I put my hand over one of his, curling my fingers lightly around his palm. His hand felt cold. "I never let myself think about it, you know? Before Donna told me she was gay, it just seemed impossible." I watched his face as I spoke, trying to figure out how he was taking all this. We were kind of back on the same topic we'd fought about before, when he'd accused me of still being in love with Donna. As usual, his sunglasses made it a hell of a lot harder to read him. In a sudden rush of boldness, I reached over and gently pulled them off his face. "What about Jackie?" I asked as he blinked at me in surprise. "Did you really love her?"
He didn't say anything about the sunglasses, just took them from me and set them over on the shelf. "Jackie was different. We fit together....She needed me. That was nice for a change."
"I don't think you fit together," I said, feeling a little jealous. I knew I wasn't being fair - he hadn't said a word when I talked about loving Donna a moment ago - but I didn't feel quite secure enough to be fair. "She's a total bitch."
His eyes narrowed slightly, and I thought he was going to chew me out for insulting Jackie, but after a second he just laughed. "Yeah, and I'm a complete asshole, so like I said, we fit together."
"You are not an asshole." I kissed him. "I know you better than that."
"Whatever." I guess he'd had enough talking, because when he kissed me back he pushed me down onto the mat, and we started seriously making out.
I loved the feel of his lips on mine, and the weight of his body pressing down on me. I loved the smell of his hair, without knowing why - it smelled like the same cheap shampoo I used, and a hint of reefer. I snuck my hands under his sweater and T-shirt, so I could press them against the warm, bare skin of his back and hold him even closer.
He must have liked the feel of my hands against his skin, because he sat up and pulled his T-shirt and sweater off. "It's too cold for that," I protested without a lot of conviction, watching the way his abs moved as he reached his arms up over his head to get his clothes off. There was a thin shadow of dark hair running down from his belly button to the top of his jeans, and I felt myself get harder as I imagined undoing his fly and tracing that path the rest of the way down.
"Shut up, Forman," Hyde said with a wicked hint of a smile, undoing the top button of my shirt. "Help me out here."
My fingers flew over the buttons and in a moment I was bare-chested too, shivering once as the cold basement air touched my skin. We lay down together again, kissing and touching playfully. The chilliness made our nipples stood out hard. He tweaked mine with his fingers, and I moaned against his mouth and kissed him harder.
Suddenly I heard the door to the basement fly open, and I heard Jackie call out in a frantic, high-pitched tone "Steven, I need-" And then she shrieked.
Oh fuck. Hyde was frozen, his pale blue eyes open wide. I sprang to my feet and grabbed Jackie, wrapping one arm around her to keep her from leaving and clapping my other hand over her mouth. She stopped screaming, and her eyes darted back and forth frantically between me and Hyde.
"What's going on down there?" Red called from the top of the stairs. He couldn't see us from up there, of course.
"Jackie thought she saw a mouse," I yelled up.
"You know where the mousetraps are," he called back down to me. I held my breath, hoping he wouldn't come down the stairs. "You kids better not be dropping crumbs of food down there!"
"No sir!"
That seemed to satisfy Red, so I turned my attention back to the bigger problem.
Jackie's eyes were filling with tears, and she looked like she was about to start sobbing. Hyde was sitting up now. "Jackie, I'm sorry-" he started to say.
Jackie suddenly spun in my grasp and kicked me in the shin. "Get off me!" She broke away and ran out into the basement.
"Fuck!" I swore. I ran out after her, the sharp pain in my shin dulled by the surge of adrenaline rushing through me. She had enough of a lead that she made it out the door to the driveway ahead of me. I followed, running out into the snow in my sock feet. I caught her at the foot of the driveway, grabbing her arm in both my hands. "Jackie, wait! Come back in and let us explain!" Explain what? Why I'd been making out on the floor with her half-naked ex-boyfriend? God, I didn't even know what I was saying, I just had to stop her from telling anyone about this.
Jackie tried to twist out of my grasp again, but I was holding on tighter this time. "Eric, let me go right now or I swear to God I'll scream loud enough the whole neighborhood will hear," she snapped, her voice trembling.
"Let her go, Eric," Hyde said right behind me, in a low, intense voice. I turned around, startled. It was the first time he'd ever called me 'Eric' in front of one of our friends. I wondered if he'd done it on purpose.
Jackie broke out of my loosened grasp and ran away down the street, in the direction that could take her to Kelso's house, or Fez's. "Damn it, Jackie, wait!" I yelled, and tried to run after her again, but Hyde stopped me with a hand on my shoulder.
"Let her go," he repeated.
"Are you crazy?" I spun around to face him. "She's going to tell everyone!"
"Yeah, and how were you going to stop her? Tie her up and leave her in the basement? Face it, Eric, we're busted."
I had to admit, he had a point.
He let go of my shoulder and turned away from me, coughing. It suddenly dawned on me that we were standing knee-deep in a snowdrift in our sock feet, wearing no shirts. All my skin was pulled tight in goose bumps. I gave up all hope of catching Jackie again, and said "Let's go inside, it's freezing out here."
He followed me back down into the basement. I sat down on the floor to pull off my snowy socks while he pulled the door shut behind us. I looked up and saw him still standing facing the closed door, with his shoulders kind of hunched up. He had a few snowflakes caught in his hair. Suddenly, "Fuck!" he burst out, slamming his fist into the concrete wall beside the door. "Fuck!"
I froze with one sock half off, watching him beat the hell out of the wall, transfixed and frightened by the violence of his anger. With his shirt off, I could see the muscles working in his arms and back as he pounded at the wall, swearing. Then he stopped, leaning his forehead against the wall and breathing hard. He started coughing again.
"Hyde?" I got up and approached him cautiously, worried he might start hitting things again, worried I might get in the way. I was used to quiet rages from him, not this. I had to bring him back, make him look at me, unclench his fists. I put my hand on his back, and I could feel him trembling. "Come on, let's get dressed."
He shook his head and blinked like he was waking up. "Yeah, sure."
We went into his room and put our shirts back on, put on dry socks. Then he sat down on the mat, his face set like stone, and said "Why don't you get out of here, Forman."
"What?"
He wasn't looking at me, he was looking down at his hands. I saw his knuckles were scraped raw, and oozing blood. "Get the hell out of here," he said.
"Uh, no." I took a deep breath. I felt like I should be panicking at this point about who Jackie was talking to and what she was saying - but since Hyde seemed to be dealing with this even worse than I was, I had to stay in control. "We're in this together, and I'm not leaving you." I thought I saw him shiver again, so I took the blanket that was crumpled by his laundry pile, and wrapped it around his shoulders.
Just then I heard the door to the driveway open. Hyde looked up too.
"Eric? Hyde?" It was Donna.
I stepped out into the basement. Donna was standing just inside the doorway, looking windblown with her coat undone and her boots untied. When she saw me, she said quickly "Have you seen Jackie?"
"Uh, why?" I asked.
Donna glanced up at the basement stairs, and lowered her voice to a frantic whisper. "A couple minutes ago she came into the bedroom without knocking and she caught me and Naomi making out! She ran away before I could say anything. I thought she might've come over here."
"She did," Hyde said behind me. I looked around - he'd followed me out, with the blanket still hanging over his shoulders. "And she burst into my room without knocking, and guess what she saw?"
"Oh....fuck," Donna said with feeling. "Tell me you're kidding."
Hyde shook his head, and I felt a desperate giggle welling up in my throat. "Maybe after this she'll learn to knock," I said. They both glared at me.
"What happened?" Donna said to Hyde.
"She completely freaked, of course," Hyde said darkly. "She screamed and ran away." Something in the way he said it made me wonder whether he was angry at her, like I'd been thinking, or if he was angry at himself. He made it sound like it made sense for her to scream at us like she'd caught us murdering babies, after she'd burst in on us in his room.
"Oh God." Donna put her hand on her forehead, her eyes wide with worry. "Any idea where she went?"
"Maybe Fez's or Kelso's place," I said.
"OK, we have to call and see if we can find her."
We went up to the kitchen, and Donna did the calling. Fez answered at his place. He hadn't seen Jackie, and he obviously hadn't heard anything. Donna didn't tell him anything, either. Then she tried Kelso's place. His mom answered, and said that Jackie'd just come over. She was with Michael in his room.
I was watching Hyde when Donna repeated what Mrs.. Kelso had said, so I saw that his first reaction was relief. I wasn't sure why - Jackie talking to Kelso was not a good thing.
"So she's OK," Hyde said. Donna nodded. I suddenly realized that both of them had been worried about Jackie.
Maybe I was a jerk, but I was more worried about us.
Then Donna noticed Hyde's bloody knuckles for the first time. "Holy shit, Hyde, what happened to your hands?"
"Fell on the steps," he said without hesitating. He didn't catch my eye, either. "Guess I'd better wash them."
Back in the basement after Hyde cleaned his wounds, we found Naomi looking for Donna. The four of us shut ourselves into Hyde's room to talk.
"God, I could use a joint right now," Naomi said, rubbing her arms with a worried expression.
"Me too," Hyde said. "I'll roll one."
"Uh, no." I grabbed his arm to stop him from going for his stash. "We have to figure out what we're going to do."
"Right," Donna said. "The cat's out of the bag, people. Jackie's telling Kelso, and they'll probably tell Fez."
"What do you think they'll do?" Naomi asked.
"Jackie's really hurt and angry right now. She could do anything," Donna said.
"Oh my God, she could tell our parents," I realized.
Hyde nodded slowly. "She might."
"Not to scare you or anything, but I think we should pack our bags," Naomi said, rubbing her hand absently across her short, fuzzy hair and biting her lip a little. "In case we have to leave in a hurry."
"Um, OK for you two, but we're not just visiting. Hyde and I live here," I pointed out.
"I meant you, too." Naomi looked grim. "You'd better pack a bag, too - in case you have to leave."
My knees suddenly felt kind of weak. "Leave?" Jesus, I'd wanted to move out of here, but not like this. "It's...it's Christmas."
"It might not come to that, but it's better to be ready," Naomi said, starting to sound more upbeat. Easy for her - she had a lot less at stake here than the rest of us. "And look, if you need someplace to go, you can stay at my place for a while."
After that, there wasn't much else to say. Donna and Naomi went back to the Pinciottis' to pack, and I went upstairs to do the same.
I took the teddy bear with me. Even if I didn't manage to bring anything else out of this house when I went, I was bringing that bear.
I felt weird and sad and scared while I packed. I didn't have a suitcase I could use - all our suitcases were stored in my parents' closet - so I packed my schoolbag with underwear, socks, and one change of clothes. And the teddy bear.
Nothing happened at dinner. Mom and Red obviously hadn't heard anything unusual. Hyde and I were quiet, so Laurie filled all the air time.
After dinner, I was moping in the kitchen eating nuts and waiting for the axe to fall when Hyde came through carrying the cot.
"Where do you think you're going, young man?" Mom asked, turning around at the sink with a soapy plate in her hands.
He stopped, looking slightly guilty. Mom has that effect on people. "Uh, back to my room?"
"No you are not," Mom said, emphasizing each word with perky iron will. "That cold you have is getting worse, and I'm not going to have you sleeping down in that dank basement and catching pneumonia. You'll stay upstairs until you're all better, mister."
"Yes Mrs.. Forman," Hyde replied meekly, and turned around to take his cot back upstairs. I followed him up.
In my room, Hyde let the cot snap open and fall to the floor. He looked down at it for a minute, then sighed. "I thought it'd be safer to not be sleeping together when they find out about us."
"I'd rather have you here with me, no matter what," I said. I tried to kiss him, but he brushed me away. "Dammit, Hyde, what's wrong?"
"This is fucked up, man." He sounded angry and tired. "I'm going to get you kicked out of your house."
Was he serious? "You know what they say, it takes two to tango..."
He cracked a bitter smile. "You said yourself, you never even thought you were gay. You were attracted to girls, except for me. If I wasn't around-"
I grabbed his hand and squeezed it tight to stop him talking, before he could say something terrible and stupid about me being better off without him. "If you weren't around I would've felt like something huge and important was missing from my life and I never would've known what it was." Wow, I couldn't believe I'd just said something that sappy and sweet. And meant it. And he didn't even cheer up. "Come on, I know we're potentially in serious shit here, but don't you have some kind of Zen mind control to help us out here?"
"You're thinking of the Jedi," he said, finally laughing a bit. The laugh turned into a cough. Mom was right - he did sound worse than yesterday. Maybe that's why he was acting so defeated - he was just sick and tired.
Working on that theory, I insisted it was time to go to bed, even though it was just past nine. We were both on the early shift at the hotel tomorrow anyway. We'd get lots of sleep, and things would look better in the morning.
Of course, once we were lying side-by-side in my bed with the lights off and the chair propped under the doorknob for privacy, I realized I wasn't sleepy yet.
"Are you asleep?" I whispered.
"No. We just went to bed ten seconds ago." He sounded slightly annoyed.
"Right..." I was having a little disagreement inside my brain. Would I lie quietly and go to sleep, or would I try to tempt Hyde into having sex again? Sex was nice. Sex was relaxing. Sex made everything feel better.
OK, that was the plan, then. Sex.
I rolled over on my side and kissed his cheek. He didn't open his eyes, but he smiled a little. "Last night was nice, wasn't it?" I asked.
"Hell yeah."
I propped myself up on my elbows to kiss him on the lips. "I'd like to do it again."
He opened his eyes. "I dunno, man. I'm really tired..."
"I'll do all the work this time," I promised, making my voice all soft and cajoling. "I'll do what you did to me last night."
He smiled finally. "Sure. That'd be cool."
I started by taking his pajamas off, a bit at a time, kissing him. He didn't do much back to me, and his occasional sniffling and coughing reminded me that he was sick, and I had to take good care of him. When we were naked I pulled the blankets back up over us to keep us warm.
I remembered what he'd done last night, with his fingers and the lube. I remembered how tight I'd felt when he'd finally entered me, how it had almost-but-not-quite hurt, and I figured maybe he'd started with fingers to get me ready for it. So I did the same thing.
As soon as I started, his whole body went tense for a moment. "Is it OK, Steven?" I whispered against his lips, ready to stop if anything was wrong. I didn't want anything bad to ever happen to him while he was with me.
"Yeah. Just strange," he whispered.
"I know, that's what I thought, too. It gets really good, though."
He nipped my lip with his teeth, grinning. "So keep going."
I went slowly - slower than he had last night, I think. I was a bit nervous, desperately not wanting to hurt him. Finally he grabbed my wrist and pulled my hand away, and said in a husky tone, "Eric, damn it, fuck me."
When I entered him, I gasped at the perfection of the feeling. The best part, though, was watching his face. The moonlight highlighted every nuance of his expression. I noticed how dark his lips looked in this light, and his eyes - even though they were pale blue, in this light they looked almost black. They were slitted now, and his breathing was uneven. "God, Eric," he whispered like a prayer.
I started moving, bracing myself on my elbows so that my face wasn't far above his and I could watch every twitch of his lips and eyebrows. I remembered how I'd felt last night, the feeling like fire that had built somewhere deep inside every time he drove into me. Now, what I felt was more like times I'd had sex with Donna - but it was different with Hyde under me, the tang of his sweat in my nose and his wiry chest hair under my fingers. The noises he made were different, barely noises at all, just his breathing getting harsher and occasionally breaking into an audible gasp.
Then his breath caught, and his eyes squeezed shut, and his mouth opened but he didn't make a sound. I let myself move as fast as I wanted to, bringing myself almost instantly over the edge. I wanted to cry out with the ecstasy of it, but I clenched my teeth and swallowed back the sounds.
I felt warm and tingly all over, and good.
We put our pajamas back on, and when we went back to bed I lay with my cheek resting against his shoulder.
I still couldn't sleep. After a while I thought he was asleep, but then he coughed and I knew he wasn't.
"So you've been attracted to other guys?" I whispered out of nowhere.
"Huh?" He turned his head towards me. "Yeah, sure. Why, are you jealous?"
I shrugged. "Just...curious. I hadn't really thought of it before. I don't think I ever was. Just girls."
"What about now?" he asked.
"Huh?"
"Could you find another guy attractive now?"
"Hell no." I squeezed him with the arm that was draped over his chest. "I'm with you."
I felt him shake a little, laughing without making a noise. "You're real sweet, Forman."
I thought a little more about it. Did it make sense that I could be attracted to Hyde, but never to any other guys? If not, did that mean I'd been attracted to guys all along, but just kind of ignoring it?
The only thing I could be sure of was that I was in love with him now. The rest was just confusing.
I reached up to stroke his hair. He'd said today he'd always known he was gay. So apparently he wasn't struggling with the same questions I was. But, damn, what did he mean by that? He knew he was gay back when we were eleven, when I kissed him and he punched me in the stomach? When we were seventeen, competing over Donna? When he had the measles and we slept side-by-side for a week without touching each other, and he then he dared me to kiss him and I didn't, even though I wanted to?
"Are you asleep yet?" I whispered.
"Nah." He opened his eyes again. "What?"
"I was wondering..." I said slowly, stroking his springy hair, "whether you ever were in love with another guy."
"Why the hell do you want to know that?"
"I won't be jealous, I promise." I twirled his hair around my finger, stopping when I saw him wince. "Sorry, didn't mean to pull...."
He still didn't answer. That probably meant the answer was 'yes.'
"It just makes sense that you would be. In love with another guy besides me, I mean. If you knew all along you were gay...." I was still trying to understand that.
"OK, whatever. I was in love with another guy once." He said it fast, then rolled away from me to cough.
No fair. I needed to know more. "Did anything happen with him?"
"No. I never said anything to him. It was junior high, man. He was straight."
"What happened? How'd it end?"
"Shut the fuck up, Eric." He pushed my hand away from his hair. "Go to sleep."
He wasn't just pissed off with me for asking questions instead of letting him sleep. From his tone when he told me to fuck off, I knew he was hiding something - one more secret hurt. Damn it, how was I supposed to make him happy when he hid everything from me? "Something bad happened, didn't it?"
"A lot of bad things happened," Hyde said tightly.
"I wish you'd talk to me about it." I stroked his cheek with my thumb, and he didn't push my hand away again.
There was silence for a while, and I'd about given up, thinking he'd actually fallen asleep, when he sighed and said "I already did, man."
"Huh?"
"I already told you all about him."
I frowned. "I'm pretty sure I'd remember something like that..."
"I just didn't tell you I used to be in love with him."
"Who is it?"
He didn't answer at first. I wondered whether he was going to tell me at all, or just leave me with this unnerving puzzle. Then he cleared his throat and said out loud, "Randy."
"Oh God," I said softly. Randy. "Oh God, Steven, I'm sorry." Randy, whose funeral we went to two days before I asked Hyde for another chance with him.
He didn't say anything else, but he didn't resist when I wrapped my arms around him and pulled him towards me, so his head was cradled on my chest.
Honestly, from what I knew of Randy, I found it hard to believe anyone could have liked him, let alone love. But Hyde had known him differently than I did, and I had enough sense now not to ask any more questions. I just held on to him, feeling his solid warmth, full of awe and wonder at the trust he gave me now. I promised myself then: I would never betray that trust.