Chapter Fourteen
The next morning Elroy, pretending to be Mike, climbed on top of Ricky and straddled his waist. There was no foreplay this time. Elroy grabbed a condom from the nightstand, covered Ricky, and rode it for the next half hour. They came within seconds of each other, with Ricky shouting the name Mike aloud.
After that, they fell asleep for two more hours. When they woke up again and saw it was after eleven o'clock, they jumped into the shower and Elroy gave Ricky a blow job that caused Ricky's knees to bend.
When Ricky checked out of the bed-and-breakfast, he walked Elroy to the street and said, "I had fun." Then he put his arms around him and kissed him in front of two middle-aged women in plaid flannel shirts walking a large gray poodle.
This kiss shocked Elroy because it wasn't just a simple kiss goodbye. This was the kind of kiss where two people can't get enough of each other. When it was over, Elroy stepped back and asked, "Are we going to keep in touch?" He hesitated for a moment before he asked this question. He knew this was when men like them typically parted in different directions without looking back. Though he had no strong emotional connection to Ricky, the sexual energy they shared was far too exciting to ignore.
Ricky rubbed his jaw and looked down at the sidewalk. "Do you want to?"
Elroy shrugged and said, "I don't see how it can hurt."
So they exchanged phone numbers and went in different directions. Elroy normally would have given out a fake phone number to a man he'd just met in a bar. This time he decided to take a chance and give out his real number. The sex they'd shared had been so intense he wanted to know there might be more in the future. He suspected Ricky was married, either to a man or a woman, and it occurred to him that Ricky might have given him a fake phone number just to get rid of him. Elroy had experienced this before with other men. It was how he'd learned how to do it. So he decided to play it safe and not call Ricky first. He would let Ricky take control of this situation, and if Ricky wanted to see him again he would have to make the first phone call.
When Elroy returned to his room at Harvard, he found Kyle in bed reading a math book. It was late afternoon and he hadn't eaten anything all day and his stomach was rumbling.
Kyle looked up from his book and said, "So, there you are. I almost started to worry."
Elroy plopped into his back and asked, "Did you miss me?" He didn't ask about the party. It still bothered him he hadn't been invited and he didn't want to know the details.
Kyle glanced down at his book and rolled his eyes. "I couldn't sleep, eat, or think straight the entire time you were gone. You're all I think about every waking moment of the day."
Elroy ignored his sarcasm. "I think I'm in lust."
"You're in love."
"Not in love," Elroy said. "I'm in lust with a guy I met in Provincetown last night."
Kyle set the book down this time and sat up in bed. "You went all the way to P'town last night?"
Elroy shrugged. "It's not that far. And I needed to do something different. Turns out I made a good choice, too. I met a guy who knows how to rock the world. I'm not kidding, man. If you saw what this guy did to me you'd drop dead."
If Elroy had been paying attention to Kyle's serious expression he would have seen Kyle turn away and make a face. But Elroy never paid attention to anyone's feelings. He continued to talk about the sexual energy and how Ricky had done things to him no one had ever done.
At one point, right before Elroy started to talk about the way Ricky had fucked him, Kyle lifted both arms and said, "I don't want to hear any more. Too much information. I don't need graphic details, thank you."
Elroy sat up in his bed and smiled. He wanted Kyle to know all about the passionate night he'd spent with Ricky. But he didn't want to piss him off totally. "I'm just not sure I'm going to see him again."
"I'm in shock," Kyle said. "It sounds like you two were made for each other. You can spend the rest of your lives having unemotional sex, living from moment to moment as if nothing else matters but getting off."
That time Elroy was paying attention to what Kyle said. He detected either sarcasm or bitterness in his tone and he wasn't sure why. "Don't give me attitude, buddy. You've had plenty of chances to be with me and you've turned me down."
When Elroy said this, Kyle jumped out of bed and threw a pillow at him. "Don't give me your arrogant bullshit, Elroy. And don't be such a smug asshole. You know damn well how I feel about having sex with people I don't love. I need emotion, not one-night stands. And I have no regrets about anything I've said to you."
His voice sounded a little shaky, and Elroy didn't want to freak him out too much. So he got out of bed and said, "Let's get something to eat. I'm starved." He felt bad now. Kyle was standing near the window with a serious expression that made him look adorable. Elroy had to stop doing this. The amusement he found in Kyle's distress had become addictive.
"I'm not hungry," Kyle said.
Elroy stood up and crossed to the window. He knew how to deal with Kyle. He put his arm around him and gave him a hug. Then he kissed him on the cheek and spoke in a low, sultry voice. "You know you love me. Don't get mad. Let's get something to eat."
"I'd rather not, thank you."
It took Elroy a few more minutes to convince him to go. He had to rub his back a few times and tell him how good he looked with his new contact lenses. In less than fifteen minutes, he brought Kyle to the point where he knew he could have persuaded him to do anything. Almost anything.
* * * * When Elroy's phone rang the following Friday afternoon, he'd just come from a History of Film class, where he'd spent the entire two hours curled up on the back row, sound asleep. If he'd only been able to sleep that well at night his life would have been perfect. He was walking through Harvard Yard with Kyle, wondering what to do that weekend. He hadn't heard from Ricky and figured he'd probably never hear from him. He knew he could have called, but it would have been too painful if Ricky had given him a fake phone number.
Elroy answered and heard Ricky's voice. He grabbed Kyle's jacket and covered the phone so Ricky wouldn't hear him. "It's him, Ricky, the guy I met last weekend."
Kyle rolled his eyes and shook his head, as if he didn't care. Elroy turned and held the phone to his ear. "Hey, man." "You wanna hook up tonight, Mike?" Ricky asked. This time Elroy took control. He wanted to meet him, but not
in a grungy hotel with bath sheets and dirty towels. Even he had limits. So he thought quickly, then told Ricky to meet him at one of the finest hotels in Boston. "I'll take care of everything," Elroy said. "I'll see you in the lobby at nine o'clock tonight."
When Elroy turned off the phone, he sent Kyle a friendly glance and said, "Looks like you're on your own tonight, buddy. I probably won't be back at all tonight." Few things in life made Elroy smile more than knowing he'd succeeded in something. Ricky calling him this way meant Ricky had not been able to stop thinking about him all week. Even though Elroy knew deep down it was more about his ego than meeting a guy he truly cared about, he craved this kind of attention in ways he'd never been able to control.
Kyle didn't sound excited for him. He started walking and said, "I hope you know what you're doing. This guy doesn't call all week, and when he does you're ready to shell out hundreds of dollars on him."
"I know what I'm doing," Elroy said. "I don't care about money. Besides, he doesn't even know my real name."
Kyle stopped and gaped at him. "What?"
Elroy laughed. "I never give my real name out to guys I just meet. He thinks my name is Mike."
"That's creepy."
"Men do it all the time," Elroy said.
"I don't do it," Kyle said.
"You're the exception to the rule," Elroy said. Then, in order to shock Kyle even more, Elroy said, "He's wearing a wedding ring, too." He hadn't planned on saying this, but after seeing the stunned expression on Kyle's face after he told him about the fake name he couldn't help himself.
"You're sleeping with a married man?" Kyle said.
"He didn't say he was married. But he didn't hide the ring."
Kyle turned and started walking in the opposite direction. "I have to admit one thing."
"What's that?"
"Just when I think you've hit bottom, you continue to amaze me," Kyle said. "Or, does this get worse? Nothing would surprise me after this. Are you sleeping with a married man whose wife is dying of cancer?"
Elroy didn't think he'd done anything wrong. "I know nothing about his wife, or his husband, for that matter. I don't ask and I'm not out to break up his home. Lighten up, man. Everybody does it. It's not like I'm going to freaking marry this dude. I'm only having a little fun with him. You wanna come with me? We'll have a threeway. You should see the way this guy moves. It will blow your mind."
With that remark Kyle shoved his hands into his pockets and walked faster. "No, thank you. That's not something I'm interested in doing. Meeting nice, decent people is the only thing that blows my mind. I just hope you're using condoms, you goddman asshole."
Elroy ran up behind him and grabbed his ass. "Hey, don't get mad. You look too adorable when you're mad and it makes me think all kinds of dirty things about you." Though he sounded as if he were joking, he really did mean this.