AN: I recently watched the film Judas Kiss and fell in love with the character, Danny Reyes. I loved him so much, I borrowed him from Carlos (the writer of Judas Kiss is Carlos Pedraza and he knows I have borrowed his character; that's him cocking his eyebrow over there). If you haven't yet seen Judas Kiss, YOU MUST! It is simply wonderful! Hands down the best gay film to come out of the US in forever. The acting is extraordinary and the special effects are something you wouldn't expect in an Indie film. Look for Carlos' next film, Something like Summer, coming very soon. And yeah, Carlos, I will probably wind up borrowing someone from there as well. If you quit creating such wonderful characters, I will quit stealing them. :D

In which Ivo meets Danny. And falls madly in love.

Photograph

They'd met when Danny was his student. He was a first year, struggling through an Intro to Geology course to fulfill his science requirement. He'd gone to Ivo's office for help - he'd been failing his homework and tests. For all his surly looks, he was actually quite well-mannered and outgoing - always interested in what other people were doing. That was part of being a director - finding things of interest in other people's activities. I should have done that as a writer but I was too focused on myself.

He was loquacious and easy to get to know. He loved the dinosaur models in Ivo's office, the paintings and fossil rubbings. He was passionate about dinosaurs, had had a large collection as a child. He wanted to make a movie about dinosaurs. Ivo showed him some of the sketches he'd done of the ones recently discovered - what they thought they might have looked like. They'd just learned that many species had feathers. Danny nearly died laughing. Ivo said it was all very Dr. Seuss and they fell in love with one another on the spot, though neither one knew it at the time. They were just very happy in one another's company, the way love makes you happy - silly and excited and new and shiny. The way love makes you special to somebody else.

Ivo had been on the verge of flunking him for the year but he was so charmed by the boy's enthusiasm for his own profession that he took it upon himself to tutor him so that he might pass. At any rate, that was how it started - Danny in Ivo's office every day for office hours where they chatted about any number of things, once in a great moon the subject matter of the class. I rather suspect that Danny didn't pass, that Ivo just doctored the test results to get him through. But maybe I'm wrong. Maybe Danny was so interested in Ivo he managed to master inroductory geology.

It was another month after that before they became lovers. By then, Danny was a fixture in Ivo's life; he called him by his first name and went out for beer with him. He didn't go to Ivo's house though. Not yet. They began to think of one another as "friends", which was already quite daring for a student/professor relationship. Danny had his phone number. All of the students had Ivo's phone number for emergency purposes but Danny had his phone number. I think at that point it must have been clear to both of them which direction the relationship was heading. Ivo just needed to get Danny out of his class so that he wasn't breaking any rules. But Hailfax came first.

Ivo used to go to Seaview Park in Halifax for sex. Gay cruising was quite common and the location was known to be cop free. He'd drive there sometimes after his evening lecture. On Friday night, he often went up and booked a hotel room in the city for the weekend. That way he could leisurely find someone in the park to keep him company and forget the stress of his academic life for a few days. The shock of finding Danny in the park nearly finished him off. He'd seen the back of him and smiled because the boy reminded him of Danny because his build was so similar. He actually thought he might pick him up. The horror of finding himself face-to-face with his student made him run away. Of course he'd known Danny was gay - gay men can sense one another like cats in heat - and had already planned to get closer to him after finals were over. But seeing him out in the open like that - Ivo said he felt like he had been caught with his pants down. Which was more or less the case.

So Ivo fled. And Danny followed, in hot pursuit I imagine. When he caught up to him, he was blunt - he had wanted Ivo from the very beginning, he didn't want to wait any longer. He threw himself at him. Ivo said he tried to resist and I believe him; he would have been worried about propriety, about repercussions to his career. He was still very much in the closet though his closest friends probably suspected he was gay given the total absence of women in his life. Ivo was never one to be open about anything, most certainly not his sexual preferences. And whatever ideas he had about Danny in the back of his mind, most certainly they did not include an encounter in Seaview Park. But as in all things, Danny was persistent. He had him cornered; no way would he let him go.

They spent the weekend in the hotel room, not even bothering to get out of bed. Ivo ordered room service when they were hungry. Danny was of that wonderfully young age that he was perpetually hard and no matter how many times Ivo fucked him, it was never enough. He'd be begging it for it again not one hour later. Ivo said it was the best sex he'd ever had. That should have hurt me but I learned the story much later. That Ivo should fall head over heels for a hot young thing in his class seemed perfectly rational to me. I could imagine that Danny left him shaking and panting and desperate for more.

Ivo drove him back to the city and broached the unpleasant topic that they had to keep their affair clandestine until Danny finished out the semester. Danny gave him that look that said 'I'm not stupid, you know," and Ivo dropped him off at his dorm room. Class the next day was agonizing and it was all he could do to remember his lecture. He was suddenly very self-conscious of being in front of an audience. He let them go early. Danny followed him to his office and he hissed at him, telling him to go away but Danny pointed out that a change in routine would be far more suspicious.

Ivo fucked him in his office, appalled that he could so easily abandon his professional discipline. It was just that Danny naked and bending over his desk was too much temptation. Ivo was very much human, very much a man. How many men could resist something that was literally thrown in their path? Danny came to his house later that night. Ivo wanted to send him away but wanted him to stay even more. So he let him in. The feel of Danny in his bed was wonderful. He'd never had a boyfriend, he'd moved around too much as a child and a young professional. Waking up with Danny in the morning was the most beautiful feeling in the world. He never wanted him to leave.

Danny actually moved in before the semester was over though they were discreet about it. Even after that, they kept the lid on their relationship. Wolfeville was a large town but there was no point rocking the boat. Ivo wasn't sure how it would be received and he wasn't tenured. Danny could care less what they did so long as he had Ivo. Unlike me, he readily agreed to whatever Ivo wanted and over time Ivo grew bolder and began to take him places - to conferences and conventions. He never introduced Danny as his boyfriend but it was quite obvious to everyone who met him, the young boy with no scientific education accompanying Ivo. Danny was accepted and liked simply for being Ivo's. Still there was something magnetic about him - something that drew people to him.

I looked at the photograph of him - his black disheveled hair spilling over his forehead. His young face gaunt and pale. His lips full but tucked, as if too easily hurt. His eyes inscrutable. I wondered. Was it all just a show? Did he muster that bravado simply to get through a life he found otherwise unendurable? How much of him was real? And how much a face he showed the world?

Even Ivo didn't seem to know.