Early July 26th
Could things be any stranger and any more wonderful than they are at this very moment?
It started late this afternoon after you left work with Sunny to meet up with Stacey. The three of you go over to Justin's to be entertained by Justin and Kristy playing lacrosse. You don't know a lot about sports, but from the little you do know, Kristy is getting really good.
"Ahhhh," Stacey says, holding out a bottle of water. "Ducky, it's too hot to watch them play sports. I know it's fun watching Justin run around in his sweatiness, but we can't take it."
"It's too much," Sunny agrees.
"They've been doing this all morning," you say. "At some point they'll stop and we can all do something."
"Why don't you and Justin go out by yourselves?" Stacey asks.
"Because we happen to enjoy hanging out with our friends."
Sunny rolls her eyes. "I do too, but if I'm out with a guy, I want to be out with that guy. I don't want to have a million tag a longs."
"Well, maybe I just don't see you as a tag a long," you reply.
She sticks her tongue out at you.
But as you predict, Kristy and Justin are done within ten minutes of the conversation.
"No more!" Justin says. "It's too hot for this."
"Waaaater!" Kristy cries. She snatches the bottle from Stacey's hand and downs the rest of it.
"Hey!" Stacey says.
"So what are we doing?" Justin puts an arm around your shoulders, and then pulls away. "I didn't meant to sweat all over you."
"It's okay," you reply.
"Well, Stacey and Kristy are spending the night at my house," Sunny declares. It's obvious that this is the first that Stacey and Kristy have heard of this, but Stacey agrees right away.
"Yup," she said. "I think Mary Anne, Claudia, and Dawn are coming too. But you know how these sleepovers go. No boys allowed."
Justin looks to you. "Then it looks like we're on our own tonight."
You give Sunny a bit of a glare and she grins at you. You turn to Justin. "So what do you want to do?"
Justin shrugs. "You know, you're over at my house all the time. Let's hang out at yours."
"Sounds good," you reply. However calm your voice is, you can't help but feel the panic rise up inside of you. What if Ted is there? He'll suspect something. You take a deep breath and smile. Ted probably won't be there. He's hardly ever home. Just enough to make it okay for you to stay there alone.
Justin takes your hand and smiles. "Fantastic."
Sunny grins even wider.
You and Justin go and rent some movies after Justin's taken a shower and you've taken the girls safely back to Sunny's house. You pick out an old Hitchcock movie. He picks The Matrix.
"We have some serious issues going on here, don't we?" Justin says. "This is a clashing of genres."
"I can watch the Matrix," you say. "I don't have issues with macho action movies."
"The Matrix is not just any macho action movie. It was the biggest groundbreaker in action films in god only knows how long. This movie changed action movies. Action films haven't been the same since then."
"Mmm," you reply.
"Ha. Ha."
You rent the movies and go back to your house. You watch The Matrix first, but you're hardly paying attention. You're much more preoccupied with the way Justin is lazily taking up two seats on the couch, his arm resting on your leg. How his head is leaning against your torso.
You don't know how Justin can be so relaxed about these things. Perhaps it comes from being in relationships before. You've never been with girls before like he has. Justin is your age, but you wonder then if he's a virgin, like you are. You're certain he's never been with a guy, but there's the other half the population. You kissed girls and felt nothing. You've certainly never gone past first base.
What IS first base? Do you just know if you've gotten there?
You wonder if you should touch him. You want to touch him. Even since you've kissed, every time, he's the one who has initiated every single one of them. You're too nervous. What if he rejects you? What if it's not the right time?
Gingerly, you raise a hand. Justin doesn't notice, he's absorbed in the movie. Carefully, you slide your fingers through his hair. He sort of jumps, but he doesn't react any other way. His hair is pretty soft, but you can feel traces of gel.
"Mmmm," Justin says.
The movie is almost over, and Justin has seen it before, so you take your new boldness to the next level. You lean down and kiss him. It's a short peck, hardly even qualifying as a kiss.
Justin looks up and smiles. "Do that again."
You can't help but grin and kiss him again, this time longer. He grasps your hair, I guess to keep you there. You try to get a better position, because stretching this way is killing your back. In the end? You and Justin both fall off the couch in a heap.
Justin starts laughing. So do you. He kisses you softly.
"Chris," he says in this low, throaty voice. "Oh, god, I want you."
Your eyes widen, but, strangely, you're not nervous. You kiss him, opening your mouth and letting his tongue inside. Justin pushes you gently down onto the floor and you don't resist. He straddles your hips and unbuttons your shirt and puts his hands on either side of your stomach.
You help Justin take off his shirt and then he leans further down and kisses your neck, tracing across your collarbone and down your chest.
"Ohhhh," you moan.
"I love you," Justin mumbles.
You sit up part way, propping yourself up on your elbows. "What?"
Justin looks at you. "I... I love you."
You look into his eyes and see nothing but sincerity. And you realize... "I love you too."
After a second of staring, Justin grins. He practically tackles you, kissing you on the mouth. You wrap your arms around him and feel like holding him forever.
You suddenly lose control of your hands and unbutton Justin's pants. His eyes widen at you. "Are you sure about this, Chris?"
You think, and you realize that you haven't ever been sure about anything in your life. You've always second guessed yourself. You smile and find that you've never wanted anything more in your life.
"Yes," you say, "I'm very sure."
He grins and laughs. "Well, then. Let's... let's do this." He sheds his pants and settles himself again on your hips. He slides a hand down your stomach, causing an outbreak of goosebumps. He unhooks the button of your jeans and slowly pulls down the tab of the zipper.
The thought of sex always gave you a horrible pit in your stomach. But then again, those thoughts were always with girls. This with Justin felt natural. It felt very real and normal. But then again, would you really want to have sex when it didn't feel normal and natural?
"What are you thinking about?" Justin asked, touching your face.
"I... I don't know."
His shoulders shake with a little laugh and he leans down and kisses your stomach.
And then... and then...
"WHAT. THE. HELL?"
Your eyes that had been lazily closing shoot open and you turn your head and see an upside down Ted staring down at you and Justin with a shocked, disgusted expression on his face.
You sit up and Justin is off your lap in a second. You turn around. "Hey. Ted."
"Christopher. This is like some... no, I can't figure it out."
You give him a shaky smile. "This is Justin."
"Justin."
"My boyfriend."
Ted's eyes widen and the disgust in his face grows. "Boyfriend. You're... gay? A fag. My brother is a fag."
"Something like that," you reply, not meeting his eyes. "Um, Justin, this is my brother, Ted."
"Nice to meet you," Justin says.
"Are you sure you're gay?" Ted asks. "Is this some kind of screwed up experimenting. Because I did that once in high school. Tits for me, thanks."
"No, it's, it's not experimenting, and, um, thanks for telling me about that moment in your life. But, uh, we've been together for almost a month," you say. You try to forget the image in your head of Ted with some guy.
"Well, Jesus, Christopher, don't have sex on the living room carpet!" Ted exclaims. "At least go in your room! That's why it has a door."
You blink a couple of times and then you start laughing. A potentially horrible situation is averted.
"I thought you were with that blonde girl. The hot one." Ted says.
You sort of wishing that you could button your jeans and your shirt, but that seems like it would call attention to everything that just happened. At the moment you think this, Justin, who is sitting behind you with an arm around your middle, just in his boxers, hisses in your ear, "Can, um, I get dressed?"
"I'm not with Stacey. Stacey's leaving at the end of the week, so it doesn't really matter. And, um, anyway, Justin is great. That's all there is to it. I wouldn't want to be with her anyway. Because of Justin." You're babbling now as if you've lost control of your mouth.
"Okay," Ted says. "I get it. You're a fag- gay. Can I say that?"
The fact that Ted even cared to stop himself from using an offensive word (which, hearing it so often has kinda of desensitized you, even though it shouldn't, because that's... giving in or something) really means something to you. It meant that he was already accepting it.
"Yeah, gay works," you say. "I don't know all the details on it, really." You meant the details on you being gay, since that seems like too strong a word for how you feel, and that it's simply Justin, and maybe not guys in general, but it seemed too difficult to explain.
Ted went into his room and Justin got dressed.
"I'm sorry about that," you say, buttoning your jeans. "I guess I should have told him."
"It's okay," Justin says, pulling on his shirt. "Maybe it was just as well. It's harder to resist in the moment, you know."
"Yeah... I sort of hate all this resisting, though."
"Me too." Justin pulls your face close to his and kisses you.
And then you and Justin didn't resist. However, this time it's in your room behind a locked door.
Now, Justin is asleep in your bed and you've been writing away in your journal. You don't know what this new level in your and Justin's relationship means, but you're finally feeling ready to face it. Because this time, you're not facing it alone.