Timeless

IF I had known just how thoroughly it would turn my world upside down, I would never have kissed Andy in that damned banquet room.

I would have kissed him a hell of a lot sooner.


ANDY and I had been best friends since high school. Given our widely divergent personalities, you would not have thought our paths would ever cross, much less intertwine so closely. He was outgoing, personable, and popular. I was a nerd.

"You're too bookish, Nathan." It was my grandmother's favorite complaint.

I was tutoring English after school, trying to earn extra credit one dismally gray February day in my senior year when the door opened, and Adonis walked in. Had to be Adonis, because this guy was too gorgeous to be anything but a god. Honey-gold curls framed his square-jawed, boyish face.

I had been explaining the difference between an adverb and an adjective for what felt like the hundredth time to a sophomore named Kelly, who spent most of her time sighing and writing the name "Joseph" in the margins of her notebook when I wasn't actually hovering over her shoulder. I kinda felt sorry for the guy, whoever he was.

"Hi. You're doing the English thing, right?"

"I'm Mr. Barclay's student aide, yes." I tried to be nonchalant. I really did. The words were right, at least, but the glazed look that had to be on my face stole whatever detached professionalism I had been hoping to achieve.

"Cool. You're supposed to help me graduate, I guess." He handed me a slip of paper. I looked at it, noted the counselor's name at the top, Barclay's name at the bottom, and general notes in between.

"Uh, sure. No problem. Grab a seat, and I'll be right with you."

"'kay." He grinned, and dimples, which were as deep as wells, pierced his cheeks. I think my heart actually stopped right then. He flopped into a chair opposite my sophomore, stretching his long legs out into the aisle.

I turned back to Kelly and knew right away that Joseph was ancient history. By the way he was looking back at her, I also knew it would be me doing the sighing from then on.

Why are all the cute ones straight?

With the help of his coach, several teachers, one counselor—who had developed a pronounced facial tic by the time we were through—and me, Andy graduated with a GPA high enough to get into State, as long as his parents' pockets were deep enough. I went with him on a partial academic scholarship. By then we'd become best friends.

My chief attraction to him, aside from his killer good looks, was his unconditional acceptance of my sexuality. It couldn't have been easy for him, and it certainly wasn't easy for me, but I had been out of the closet since I was a freshman in high school, and I had no intention of crawling back in, even though that made for some remarkably unhappy times for the next few years. I know kids teased him, but he settled the worst of them with affable mayhem and remained loyal throughout. Though I never needed him to fight my battles, most of which were long since won or lost by the time we met, I was always grateful for his uncomplicated, unwavering support.

Once when we were standing around during the dress rehearsal for graduation, I asked him why he had put up with all the crap over the past year. Andy said nothing. Instead he reached to adjust the zipper of my gown. When I looked down, he tagged my nose and gave me that patented, golden-dimpled grin. Marginally funny, but it didn't answer my question. When I pressed, he shrugged his varsity-sized shoulders and told me I was "just too cool." I never asked again.

Andy and I slogged our way through college; we partied way too much, helped each other with courses, and even roomed together during our senior year. Naturally, we observed the time-honored tradition of hanging an article of clothing off the doorknob whenever we brought a date home.

"Yuck. Is that a jock strap?" It was more gray than white and had obviously seen better days.

"Yeah. It means Andy's got a girl in there," I said, doing my best to suck a hickey on Alex's neck as we stood outside my dorm room. We were both hammered. "I told you we should have left sooner."

"Shit."

"Yeah, I know. Come on. We can go back to your car, and you can fuck me into the floorboards." I decided to try for a second hickey on the other side as encouragement. Alex stared at the filthy thing, bleary-eyed and stoned, while I made wet, smacking noises. When I finally stuck my tongue into his ear, he shook all over and dragged me down the hall. It wasn't until we were sloppy and sated and smoking a joint in the backseat of his El Dorado that Alex bit at my nose and said, "A jock strap?"

"Yeah. That's Andy."

Give him one thing: he's original.


BY the time we'd graduated, I was on general staff for a small newspaper, writing a variety of articles. By small, I mean severely understaffed, which meant the traditional divisions between freelancers', clerks', and reporters' regular duties were more than a little blurred. Since I was the newest, which I found out later meant I was least likely to complain, I covered the local "activities and events" and handled obituaries. It was mind-numbingly boring, but what else was I going to do with all that English under my belt? Even then I wasn't angst-ridden enough to be a writer.

Since Andy and I stayed local, we had more than one occasion to cross paths, and we always kept close tabs. He called me one Friday night from a bar, by the sound of it, and shouted over the noise.

"Nate, buddy! Grab your cutie and get your ass over to the Square. I wanna celebrate!"

"What are we celebrating?" I asked, chewing on my bottom lip and trying to think of a synonym for supercilious that didn't sound so… supercilious. I was writing a piece on street crime, and if my editor approved it, I might finally be able to crawl out from under the never-ending stream of dog shows, weddings, and dead people.

"I signed the deal with Direct, man. Ain't that great?"

Like everyone else at the time, Andy had wracked his brain over how to take advantage of the burgeoning growth of the Internet. He had decided that rather than adding to the mess, he would jump on the search engine bandwagon. With one of his math geek buddies and pestering me about things like lexicon, syntax, and structure, he had developed a unique approach to cataloging the ever-increasing, multi-tentacled monster known as "Web content." The site became popular enough to be noticed by others with similar goals, and he had been approached by Direct with a buyout option. Andy wanted to buy in, however, and had begun earnest negotiations to take the purchase price for his concept as stock in the company.

"Andy, that's great! You've been working on that deal for months!"

"No shit. Now get your cute butt down here and help us party, will ya?"

"Is Monica with you?"

"Of course. Where else would the finest lady in town be but right beside me?"

I heard a scuffle, a shriek, and then lots of feminine laughter. I rolled my eyes.

"Uh, I don't know, man. I'm right in the middle of a story, and I don't want to lose my steam."

I had met Monica once before, and we didn't exactly hit it off. As we used to say when we were kids, "The vibe just wasn't there."

"Oh, hey, you gotta come, Nate. Wouldn't be the same without you, buddy. Please?"

The last word was spoken in a high-pitched wheedling whine that was impossible to resist. Especially when he combined it with big, sad puppy-dog eyes. Adonis begging for a cookie. Even over the phone I could picture his face, and I grinned in spite of myself.

That whining "please" had gotten us into more damned trouble….

"Okay, bro. I'll be there in a half-hour."

"Are you still seeing Tony?"

"Oh yes." Tony. Just thinking about him made my butt sweat.

"Cool. Bring him along! We'll make a night of it."

I laughed and said I'd call him. Tony agreed to come. We were new enough together that we really couldn't keep our hands off each other anyway, so I didn't have to beg too hard. Especially after I tendered a few promises involving chocolate, lots of lube, and a certain double-ended, glow-in-the-dark dildo with batteries after we got home.


ITS full name was "Square Peg," which was about the worst name for a bar you could imagine until you understood that it served a wide variety of tastes and sexualities. It also had an unofficial "Don't show, won't tell" policy and lots of dark corners. I had no doubt in my mind that Andy chose the place for my sake.

Tony and I arrived twenty minutes late, somewhat breathless and more than a little disheveled.

"What took you so long?" Andy said, lifting Monica out of his lap to stand and give each of us a hug. She laughed, but I thought I caught a glint in her eye.

"Sorry, man. We had a slight, um, electrical problem," I said, giving Monica a hug which she returned perfunctorily; then I introduced her to Tony.

"Rule of thumb. Always keep fresh batteries in the house," Tony said as his opening gambit, and he began making cow eyes at Monica. She looked a bit startled. Tony was an equal-opportunity flirt, which is how I met him. It didn't bother me in the least, as long as it was a girl on the receiving end of those long, batting eyelashes.

"Batteries?" She looked more than a little confused.

"Trust me; you don't want to know," Andy said, giving Tony a hairy eyeball and pulling Monica closer. Tony and I looked at each other and laughed like loons. Monica bit her lip, obviously trying to decide if she were the brunt of a joke.

Andy kissed her scowl into submission. "Don't worry about it, baby. My boy here is an outright perv."

"Well, I already knew that!" Monica replied, getting into the swing of things.

We laughed and grabbed a booth for the four of us, abandoning the little table that Andy and Monica had occupied while waiting for us to arrive.

Tony bought us a couple rounds of shooters right off, saying he wanted to make sure I was well-oiled, and fast.

I rolled my eyes and grabbed his crotch under the table. He jolted, and his knees hit the underside, making the glasses jump.

"I guess they're both pervs," Andy said amiably. Monica stared, wide-eyed, but when Tony had the grace to blush, her face softened.

We danced for what seemed like hours, alternately cuddling and grinding depending on the music that pounded out of the speakers. During one of the slower numbers, Tony surfaced from a particularly thorough expedition charting the inner recesses of my mouth and throat.

Damn, the man could kiss.

"They make a good couple, don't they?"

I nodded, pressing my hard-on against Tony's, making his eyes go all wild and glittery.

"Yeah. He really likes her a lot," I said, watching my best friend and his girl slow-grinding each other on the dance floor. He had his arms around her waist, and his hands were caressing her ass. His face was buried in her neck, and he seemed content to stay that way for a thousand years. Her arms were around his neck in that odd, locked-elbow thing girls sometimes do when they want to seem delicate and demure. The disparity sort of creeped me out.

"Not half as much as I like you."

Tony's dick made an earnest effort to rub its way through my chinos, and I forgot about everything except getting that boy into a dark corner and teaching him all about the meaning of the word "Hoover." As if he didn't already know.

Andy was right. We were a couple of pervs.


"SO, can you believe it? Direct! We're gonna be huge!" Andy beamed, although he looked a little glassy-eyed. We had just surfaced from our respective corners of the booth after another round of serious face-sucking. Not to mention the other things that feel best only when performed in dark corners with lots of strangers around. None of us were feeling any pain.

"That's just aces, bro. Congratulations again." I was genuinely happy for him. The world didn't always treat Andy as well as he treated it, and he'd had more than his share of bumps in the road.

"What about that other place?" Monica asked. Her lipstick was all but smeared off her face. "That one with the eyes?"

"Google? Naw. I think it's trying too hard to be hip and cool. It'll fall on its face before the year is up. I'm betting on it."

The trouble was, he had bet everything on it. Only I didn't know it at the time.

Andy's shoulders moved, a fair indication that his hands were getting into mischief. Monica's face flushed, which was an even better indication, and anything else she might have had to say was lost as her eyes went all soft and round and she began to kiss him thoroughly.

Tony winked at me, and I grinned, and then we went back to groping and fondling each other. His back was against my chest with his head turned to mine so we could kiss. His butt was rubbing against my cock, which was so hard I thought it would break. Every time he wiggled against me I could feel a few more brain cells explode. I had one hand under his shirt and the other in his pants, doing my level best to make sure he kept wiggling by rubbing him off and squeezing his dick hard each time his eyes started to go all soft and round. I was just about ready to drag him into the bathroom when Monica shouted, "Why don't you two faggots get a room?"

It was a pretty stupid thing to say considering the place was just about equally mixed between gay and straight. Thank God the music was loud.

I was so startled by her outburst, and at the worst possible time, that I jerked instead of squeezed, and hot sticky cum gushed all over my hand. Tony looked sheepish and tried not to twitch as his orgasm short-circuited his nervous system. I blushed furiously. It had to be obvious even in the dim lighting if the heat in my face was any indicator.

"Honestly, Andy. How can you stand to be around this guy?"

Jeez. I had no idea girls got so bitchy when they came. Kinda makes me glad I'm gay.

Poor Andy. He was sitting bolt upright like he'd been hit by a cattle prod. His face was utterly still, and even under the table, I knew his fists were clenched, knuckles white. It was a reaction thing with him. His hands always clenched when he was startled.

I hoped to God the stupid cow had sense enough to have waited until his hands were out from under her dress. Or at least, I hoped she was shaved. A nice Brazilian would be safe enough. Maybe.

"What did you just say?" Andy's voice was deadly calm, quiet like the eye of a tornado even in the midst of all that racket.

"I mean it, Andy. How can you tolerate that kind of behavior? Do you know what they were doing over there?"

"Pretty much the same thing we were doing over here," he said, his voice still quiet. His shoulder jerked, and she gave a little squeak. I was reasonably certain I had only imagined that wet "pop." Reasonably.

"Pretty much what half the rest of the people in this place are still doing," he added. Needlessly, I thought.

"But isn't he supposed to be your friend?"

Andy slid her off his lap. Not hard, but not exactly gently either.

I wondered what the hell that was supposed to mean. "Hey, Andy. It's okay, really. We've all had a few too many. It's cool."

Andy looked at me for a long time. I met his eye, trying to tell him not to sweat it. Just the booze talking.

"No. It's not okay, Nathan."

Crap. He only ever called me Nathan when he was pissed.

"I know you are just saying that, but it's not okay. Not at all."

"Um, Nate?"

Christ. I forgot all about Tony.

"Yeah, baby. I know. Let's go take a walk, shall we?" I pulled my hand out of his pants, leaving most of the mess behind, I'm sorry to say. There wasn't much room to move around in there, even with his fly undone.

Tony stood up, tugged his shirt down, and took my cum-covered hand in his to help me up.

"Monica, it was a real pleasure to meet you. I'd shake your hand and all, but you know how it is." He lifted our clasped hands higher. I caught the drip with a napkin.

"Besides, I've got much more important things to do," he added before he kissed me.


WE broke up years ago, Tony and me. We still send e-mails back and forth, but even though we rarely see each other anymore, I will love him forever, for that one simple gesture.