Elroy wiped the come off his chest and tossed the wadded tissue onto Kyle's lap on purpose. He smiled and said, "Sometimes I think you enjoy what I do more than you're willing to admit." Elroy noticed Kyle hadn't turned off the overhead light a second time. He could have done that. He could have insisted they pull over. But he didn't. "Sometimes I think you love what I do. And I have a feeling you're not the prig everyone else thinks you are."
Kyle reached for the wadded tissue on his lap and held it in his hand. He didn't seem to mind the fact that Elroy's come was all over it. The car had a bleached smell that reminded Elroy of a swimming pool. Kyle turned toward Elroy and said, "I'm curious about something. How would you like it if I did the same things you do?"
This question threw Elroy. "Huh?"
"How would you like it if I took off all my clothes and jacked off for truckers and strange men in restrooms? What would you think of me?"
Elroy had to think about this for a moment. "It's a moot point because you'd never do that." This seemed a safe way to answer. With Kyle he could never be certain.
Kyle reached for a bag at his feet where he'd been putting all the trash from the junk food he'd been eating. He put the tissue in the bag and said, "I'm not saying I would do it. I'm only curious about how you'd feel if I did do it. There's a difference."
Elroy took a deep breath. He knew he had to put his clothes back on but it felt so good to be naked in the car. It would have been nice if Kyle had reached over to massage his nuts, but he didn't dare him to do it. "I guess I'm not sure how I'd feel," he said. Why did he always have to talk about feelings?
"Think about it," Kyle said.
A minute later, Elroy said, "Okay, I guess I wouldn't like it if you did it. But only because it would be so out of character for you, not because I would be judging you."
"Exactly," Kyle said. "If I started taking off my clothes on a whim for truckers, or if I started having sex with strange men in restrooms, you'd be disgusted with me."
Elroy rubbed his jaw. "Well, I wouldn't say disgusted. Don't put words in my mouth. I would be more disappointed in you. I would think you'd been lying to me all along and pretending to be someone you aren't."
Kyle leaned over the console and kissed him on the cheek.
Elroy smiled and asked, "What was that for? I thought you'd be mad at me for the rest of the way after what just happened."
Kyle sat back and said, "Don't get me wrong. I'm not at all thrilled with what you did. It was vulgar at best. But I think there's hope for you. I may or may not be the one to change you. But I do think there's hope."
This was new territory for Elroy. "I didn't think there was anything wrong with me. I didn't know I needed to be changed."
Kyle shrugged. "It's nothing serious. But you do have to work on a few small fundamental flaws. But I'm making progress."
"You make it sound like I'm an experiment or something," Elroy said. "I'm not sure I get that."
Kyle asked, "Are you bored now?"
"No, I'm not bored."
"That's interesting," Kyle said. "We've been talking for a long time and you said talking is boring earlier."
Elroy smiled. He had to learn to stop underestimating him. He reached for Kyle's hand and said, "I think I'll pull over now and let you drive. I'm getting a little tired. Do you mind?"
"I don't mind at all," Kyle said. "I enjoy driving. And you can put on your clothes."
"I think I'll stay naked for a while. I'll just climb over the seat when you get out. I'm comfortable. Maybe you could rub my stomach until I fall asleep."
Kyle squeezed his hand hard and flung him a look.
"Or I could put on my clothes," Elroy said. "God forbid I should be too comfortable."
Chapter Eighteen
The days between Thanksgiving weekend and Christmas passed so quickly that year Elroy found himself trying to figure out a way to get out of spending the holidays with his dreaded relatives sooner than he'd realized. He knew Kyle had to go home to spend Christmas Eve and Christmas Day with his family. Kyle had already mentioned he couldn't get out of it no matter how hard he tried. Kyle's mom had made this clear to him the week after Thanksgiving. Though Kyle pretended to be independent, Elroy suspected the mother was the controlling type.
It hadn't been an easy time either. Lev Godwin had been forgiven and he'd started studying again with Kyle. This made Elroy wonder about Kyle's motivations. Kyle had stated he didn't trust Lev and never would be able to trust Lev after he found him in bed with Elroy's foot in his mouth. Yet he started studying with him again. Talk about mixed signals. When Elroy found out about this he punched the table beside his bed and said, "I thought you said you didn't want Lev Godwin around here anymore, Kyle." Kyle shrugged and said, "He's redeemed himself. He swore to me he'd never try anything sexual with me as long as he lived. I don't have a right to judge him or to make him a sexual suspect in his own life."
Although this didn't even make sense to Elroy, he had no choice but to grin and deal with it. Kyle could be stubborn that way. Elroy thought about ways to get rid of Lev Godwin again, ways that would make him look repulsive to Kyle. But nothing he came up with was as repulsive as what he'd already done, so he gave up on that concept quickly.
After the Thanksgiving trip to Palm Beach, Elroy had hoped he would reach another level with Kyle. To Elroy's surprise, he'd had a wonderful time and they didn't have sex once. They went to a few of Elroy's favorite restaurants, they spent long days on the beach, and they shopped at stores where Kyle's jaw dropped when he saw the price tags. Money meant nothing to Elroy. He told Kyle he could have anything he wanted. But Kyle always declined and said, "It wouldn't be right. But thank you for offering."
When they returned to Harvard, Elroy suggested they start sleeping in the same bed all the time. "We slept together in Florida every night. I've never slept better. We might as well sleep together here," was how he'd put it.
"I don't think that's a good idea," Kyle had said. "I think it might be too distracting for you. And I'm not ready to have sex with anyone right now. If I have sex with you, you'll just wind up getting bored and dumping me. I have too much respect for myself to let that happen."
Elroy laughed and made a joke of this. "I promise I'll respect you in the morning."
But Kyle didn't reply.
Then, as if all that business with Lev Godwin studying again with Kyle hadn't been enough, that pain in the ass Lev Godwin went out and got himself run over by a goddman truck on his way to lab one morning in December. He'd been planning to meet Kyle early so they could study together. He'd been rushing and he didn't look both ways twice. That idiot Lev stepped off the sidewalk, stopped to glance down at his watch in the middle of the street, and he was run over by an exterminator's van that had a huge brown cockroach festooned to the roof.
After that, Elroy hardly saw Kyle at all. Kyle spent most of his free time at the hospital sitting by Lev Godwin's bedside studying. Lev had been knocked so hard by the cockroach truck he'd wound up in a coma, in a body cast, hooked up to all kinds of wires and tubes. It was all extremely annoying. Elroy had gone to visit Lev once for Kyle's sake. He knew how close Kyle was to Lev. But Elroy was not fond of hospitals and sick people and he only went that one time. That clinical alcohol smell in the hospital made Elroy's stomach turn. He had no patience for old people pushing walkers. In order to please Kyle, he donated a large sum of money for a new emergency wing in the same hospital where a large plaque with Lev Godwin's name would be hung in the waiting room.
Then Lev finally died and that only made things even worse for Elroy. He thought it would make things better, but not this time. Nothing Elroy did seemed to comfort Kyle. He tried buying him gifts, telling him jokes, and taking him out to dinner. But Kyle preferred to remain alone in their room, with his books and his studies. The only time Kyle did laugh was one evening when Elroy put on Kyle's Halloween drag costume and paraded around the room in high heels and wig. And that didn't last long. He laughed for a minute or two, then sighed and said, "Nothing ever upsets you, does it? Can't you see that I'm grieving for a friend?"
Elroy pulled off the wig and said, "I think you're taking this too seriously. Maybe you need to get interested in something else."
"I just lost a good friend," Kyle said. "How could I be taking it too seriously? You're heartless sometimes. Your problem is you lack empathy."
"Look at it this way," Elroy said. "He's better off dead. He's not suffering anymore." Elroy believed in moving forward, not looking back. That's how he'd handled the death of his parents after the accident, and nothing would ever be worse than that.
"Like I said, nothing ever upsets you, Elroy. You're an iceberg."
Elroy sat down on Kyle's bed and looked into his eyes. "The way you're acting upsets me. I hate to see you this way. It kills me to see you so depressed and there's nothing I wouldn't do to make it better. And just so you know, when you lose your family the way I did a few years ago, then you can tell me how to act when someone insignificant like Lev Godwin dies. Because once you've been through the ultimate losses in life, like mother, father, husband, or wife, the minor ones don't matter as much. And that's just a cold, hard fact of life, buddy. So buck up and let the little foot-sniffer rest in peace once and for all." Then he got up and left Kyle alone for the rest of the night. There was only so much drama he could take at one time.