Kyle continued to caress his head. "You'll feel better once you get it out. I'm here for you, you poor thing."
Elroy lifted his head to Kyle's chest again and said, "The wife ran to a dresser and pulled a small handgun out of the bottom drawer. It all happened so fast I still get confused thinking about it. At the exact moment my boyfriend came, she shot him in the back six times and he fell on top of me, dead."
As Kyle held him tighter, Elroy put his arms around Kyle and he started to sob.
A minute later, Kyle kissed the top of his head and said, "What happened after that?"
"The wife must have phoned the police," Elroy said. "Or maybe one of the neighbors called them. I'm not sure. Two big, strong policemen came and they put a jacket around my shoulders and took me to the police station."
"They took you to the police station in his wife's negligee? While you were wearing high heels, a wig, and lipstick?"
Elroy nodded. "They insisted I go that way."
"I can't even imagine how horrible that must have been."
Elroy wiped more tears from his face and said, "When we arrived at the police station, the three big cops locked me in a cell and they took turns fucking me."
"Huh?"
"They all fucked me senseless."
"Oh my God, no," Kyle screamed in horror this time.
"Then they brought in more cops and they all took turns fucking me." Though Elroy tried to hold back, he couldn't keep a straight face. He stopped crying and started laughing so hard his stomach hurt. When he said, "Then the cops made me suck them off," his body fell sideways and he rolled around on the floor, laughing, landing in a fetal position.
At first, Kyle sat there gaping at Elroy with a terrified expression. When he realized Elroy had made up the entire story, he stood up and threw the bottle of Southern Comfort across the room. "I can't believe you just did that and I fell for it. I thought we were sharing a warm tender moment together. I thought we'd finally reached a new level of friendship and all the time you were making a fool out of me."
Elroy stood up fast. Although he still couldn't stop laughing, he grabbed Kyle's shoulders and said, "But we did reach a new level of friendship tonight. I wasn't making a fool out of you. I was just having a little fun. Seriously, man, think about it. I haven't had this much fun talking to a guy in years. And we were wearing our clothes the entire time."
For a moment, Kyle let a smile slip. But he caught it in time and said, "Why do you have to be such an asshole all the time?"
Elroy stopped laughing. He stood in the middle of the room and stared at Kyle for a moment. Then he said, "You're so trusting. Do you really think I'd dress up in drag and let some married guy fuck me in high heels? You make it so simple for me sometimes I can't help myself." It sounded more like a question than a statement. But it was the best he could do.
They were both so drunk by then, they fell into Elroy's bed fully clothed. Elroy wrapped his arms around Kyle and they went to sleep in a spoon position without as much as a kiss goodnight. Elroy would one day look back on that night in amazement. It was the first time he'd ever slept with a man and he didn't have sex.
* * * * After the night they spent getting drunk, they bonded in a way Elroy hadn't expected. He wondered if Kyle felt the same way, but he didn't ask. Elroy found out something interesting about himself he'd never known before. He discovered it was possible to spend the night with a man, and sleep in the same bed with a man, and not have sex with him. Although he still wanted to get into Kyle's pants in the worst way, he also found he enjoyed being with him and not having sex. Elroy had many acquaintances and he always got invited to parties. But he'd never had any true friends, male or female. He'd always been a loner and he'd never expected that to change-until he met Kyle. There was something about that quirky guy with bad clothes and thick glasses and that made him feel as if he was experiencing life for the first time.
Elroy also felt Kyle needed help in the most fundamental ways. He seemed to be more of a loner than Elroy because he didn't even have acquaintances. It never took Elroy long to make superficial friends and by October he knew more people at Harvard than most seniors who had been there for four years. People tended to gravitate to him and he didn't have to try hard for this to happen. Men and women laughed at his jokes, listened to his opinions (even when he said nothing of great significance), and often tried to mimic his style. If Elroy wore a white scarf with a black leather jacket, within days he would see other people on campus wearing white scarves with black leather jackets. Once, just to see what would happen, he wore a bright orange knitted ski cap to a party and the following week he counted more than three dozen people on campus wearing orange ski caps.