Chapter 3 - Falling.

Why me? What did I ever do that was so bad it would justify the treatment I’ve been subjected to? I know I’ve been selfish and stupid, but I never meant to hurt anyone. All I ever wanted to do was find someone who could love me. Is that so bad?

Or maybe that’s the reason behind all this; the mere fact that I was so desperate for love.

I can see how my longing for attention would make me particularly vulnerable to someone like Ethan. I’ve always been the sensitive, kind, dedicated type. I was the kid who would bring injured animals to my mother, begging her to make them well. I was the youth who would always step up and be the first one to make friends with the new kid in school. I was the young man who continued to love his disapproving father even after the man turned his back on me. I’ve always had this bottomless capacity for love but struggled to find something or someone to return my sentiments.

So I guess it’s no wonder that I would make a perfect target for somebody looking to capitalize on a particular type of prey.

I think that’s one of the reasons that I let things get so out of hand. My need to find love made me easy to manipulate. It made me willing to turn myself into an emotional pretzel if that’s what I had to do to please my lover. It made me stay with him for longer than was good for me, because I kept thinking that if I just tried harder, acted differently, or bettered myself, he would come around. I wanted his love so much that I would do anything to keep the relationship from falling apart.

I would even forgive him for what, looking back, now seems unforgiveable - the fact that he’s taken from me my sense of self.

Maybe I’m just not meant for this cruel world. Maybe I’m too kind, too sympathetic, too loving. Maybe I care too much. If I were harder-hearted I’d be much better equipped to handle all the disappointments I’ve faced.

But, then again, if I weren’t me, I wouldn’t have fallen for this man in the first place.

Things moved pretty fast after that first night I went to Ethan. He seemed to turn up everywhere I went. As an experienced stalker, I probably should’ve seen the signs, but in my naïveté I passed it all off as merely Ethan‘s own excitement and desire to be with me. I basically couldn’t go anywhere on campus without him dogging my steps. The cafeteria, the library, the computer lab, even the student studio spaces; everywhere I looked, there he was. But in the first blush of a new romance, I found it endearing rather than creepy.

Granted, I wasn’t exactly telling him to leave me alone. In fact, we were all over each other anytime we met. And even though I tried to keep our new relationship on the down low, that didn’t stop us from sneaking off into any available dark corner or closet to make out, and occasionally even have a quick fuck. What can I say, I was nineteen and horny. Having sex everywhere and anywhere I could sounded like a great idea at the time. It only became problematic when Ethan insisted repeatedly that I come back to his apartment with him for more extensive play times.

That’s when my conscience would bother me the most. That’s when it would strike home exactly how wrong my actions were. Because every time I let myself be towed into Ethan’s bed, I would see Brian‘s image in my mind, watching us, wearing a hurt expression. But when I tried to say no, tried to make excuses for why I shouldn’t agree to Ethan‘s importuning, he’d get the exact same hurt look in his dark brown eyes. I felt like I was being forced to choose which man I would hurt the most. And, soft-hearted me, I was absolutely unable to make that choice. What I didn’t realize until later was that I was the one who would end up being the most hurt of all.

In the beginning, though, I managed to tamp down that underlying guilt and my trysts with Ethan were both exciting and enjoyable. He was an attentive lover, although not nearly as skilled as Brian. Sex with Ethan was always tender and gentle. Maybe even a little tame compared to what I was used to, but not bad. To be honest, I’ve always actually preferred a more robust - sometimes even aggressive - fuck, at least most of the time. Brian always seemed to know when my mood was trending that way and would indulge me. Ethan, though, didn’t want to go there. The few times I tried to spice things up a little with Ethan did not go over very well. He always managed to bring things down to the level he was comfortable with, petting and stroking me into quiescence.

That, by the way, was the one worrisome thing that I noted right from the start - the fact that Ethan ALWAYS had to be in charge when we were having sex. And I don’t mean just that he always insisted on topping. It was more than that. He had to control the whole situation from start to finish. He would resist any and all advances I made, brushing me off until he was ready, then simply take over. He would arrange the scene, almost as if he were staging a play, laying me out on the bed just so, placing pillows around me in a decorative fashion, and adjusting the ambience of the room accordingly. He also had to be the one in charge of deciding which position we fucked in. And if I tried to take back any control at all, even something as small as adjusting our pace or rhythm, he’d get annoyed.

I was used to being with a forceful lover, but even though Brian liked to be in control much of the time, he never subjugated me during sex in the same way Ethan would. Brian preferred his lovers to be active partners. He liked the fact that I gave as good as I took. Sex with Brian was always something of a game, a half-joking battle for dominance, that he often times let me win. Making love with Brian was a joyful experience, whereas, every time with Ethan was treated as some solemn, spiritual event, to be performed with intense seriousness. This difference definitely contributed to my slightly negative assessment of Ethan’s prowess. Not that I ever dared mention that to him.

If the sexual control thing bothered me at the beginning, though, I resolutely brushed aside my worries. I told myself it was unfair to compare my two, very different, lovers. I also, I suppose, thought that there’d be time later, if I continued this affair with Ethan, to explore a more versatile sex life. Not that I was planning on the thing with Ethan going anywhere in particular. I really wasn’t. I was still deeply in love with Brian, even though I was angry with him, and I had no intention of breaking off our relationship. I told myself my fling with Ethan was just for fun, and as soon as I got it out of my system I would confess my sins to Brian and make it all up to him. In the meantime, I just tried to accept things as they were, live in the moment, and enjoy my clandestine escapades for what they were.

Which wasn’t hard, seeing as Ethan gave me everything I thought I needed at the time. He gave me the romance I longed for, the over the top flattery, the intense attention, the emotionality, and the spice of the forbidden. Besides, Brian was so busy with his own life right then, it was easy for me to justify all the time I spent away from him. I wasn’t even sure he noticed I was gone most of the time. And it was several weeks before I got even the first tiny indication that Brian had noticed something wasn’t quite right.

That night I’d stayed later than I should have at Ethan’s place. We’d made love at least twice, but Ethan still seemed reluctant to let me leave. He kept pulling me back into bed when I’d try to get up, his hands all over me, groping at me possessively.

“You know, you make love like you play your violin,” I teased, trying to distract him before he started yet another round of sex.

“How? With an accompanist in front of a cheering audience. Or on the street corner for cash?” he asked, playing along as he drew little love runes on my skin and traced my lips and jaw with his index finger.

“Like you’re in a trance,” I explained, describing what I’d witnessed just a few minutes earlier. “With your eyes closed . . .”

“And you’re my instrument,” he insisted, kissing me and letting his left hand drift lower under the sheets till he’d reached something to hold onto. “First I tune you.” He stroked my half-hard dick, causing me to squirm since I was still oversensitive after our last go round. “And then I stroke you with my bow.” I tried to roll away but he circled me with his arms and held me against his chest. “And then I make beautiful sounds pour out of you.” He ended by kissing my cheek again, then relaxed, letting his head fall against my shoulder with a dramatic and well-calculated sigh.

I took advantage of this momentary pause in his attention to make my escape. “I have to go,” I reiterated, twisting my shoulders around so I could look up at him, letting him see how serious I was this time.

I could tell by the way he was laying there, propped up on one elbow, a frown on his face as he regarded me from beneath his lowered brows, that he was NOT happy with me. It was ridiculous that he was jealous, seeing as he was the one trying to steal me away from Brian. I’d never lied to him; he'd known about my other relationship from day one. But I got the distinct impression that Ethan was pissed off at me for choosing Brian over him.

As I was walking away towards the door, he spoke up again, trying one more time. “You know, if you stayed sometime, we could wake up together. Watch the sunrise. It makes everything red and gold . . .” Then he gave me his best sexy, simmering, sybarite look.

But I couldn’t stay. I was already late getting back to the loft and I still had to stop by the copy center to pick up the Rage posters I’d ordered. So I merely sighed, tried but failed to smile at him, and turned away without another word.

As late as it was, it wasn’t a big surprise to find Brian waiting for me when I got home. What did surprise me was the way Brian broke out of character to question me about where I’d been. He’d always insisted that there were no locks on our doors. Both of us were free to come and go as we pleased. If anything, he’d always encouraged me to go out and get my needs met, if that’s what I wanted. I must have been a lot more obvious than I’d thought if Brian had noticed my abrupt change in attitude.

“Where have you been?” he asked almost before I was in the door.

“Studying. And I had to get these.” I unrolled one of the Rage posters as my alibi. “What do you think?”

“My own little advertising genius.” I chuckled and he added, “I told you I’d help.”

I took back my poster and rolled it up as I tried to shoulder past his desk. “You were too busy.”

“Come here.” Brian grabbed hold of the hem of my shirt and pulled me closer,

“I have to shower. I stink,” I blurted out without thinking.

Brian let ME go but not the subject. “From studying?”

I chuckled nervously as I scrambled to explain my blunder. “I was sweating over a project,” I explained, groaning inside at how utterly lame that sounded.

Then I practically ran up the steps to the bathroom before Brian could question me more. I’d only been in the shower a minute or so, though, when the door clicked open again, the sound startling me. I hadn’t expected Brian to join me - he’d looked like he was busy with whatever work he’d been doing. Now here he was, following on my heels and pushing his way into the shower before I’d even finished scrubbing the dried dribbles of Ethan’s cum off my thighs. Brian was intent on his own purposes though, immediately enveloping me in his arms, taking the soap out of my hands, and pulling me into his chest as he claimed my lips with an uncharacteristic insistence.

There was something in that kiss that I’d never sensed in Brian before. A resoluteness combined with a question? Maybe it was just my guilty conscience, but it felt like he was asking me for reassurance with every touch, every caress, every single kiss. Brian always was much better at showing me how he felt than telling me with words. I could feel uncertainty and doubt in his very stance. And for a brief moment, I almost confessed everything to him.

I stood there, the warm shower water raining down on my face as I looked up at Brian, the acknowledgment of my sins waiting on the tip of my tongue. “Brian . . .”

He became perfectly still. Perfectly silent. His eyes never left my face as he waited for me to speak. It was like he already knew what I was going to tell him and was only awaiting confirmation.

But when I tried to speak, I didn’t know what to say. In the space of thirty seconds I ran through a dozen different sentences in my head but none of them seemed right.

‘I need to tell you something, Brian. I broke our rules. I’ve been fucking around on you behind your back’, sounded too blunt and at the same time incomplete. ‘I’m sorry’, would only earn me his contempt along with the standard complaint that ‘sorry’s bullshit’. ‘I didn’t mean for it to happen’, was far too trite. But begging him to, ‘please love me’, although that was what I wanted to say more than anything, would get me nowhere.

And so my nascent confession died on my lips unvoiced. I knew Brian knew I was hiding something from him, but he let me. I covered up my moment of indecision by pulling his face down for a kiss, but even that felt tentative and unfamiliar. It was a guilty kiss. It left me even more disconcerted than before. I couldn’t face Brian any longer and covered up by turning my back to him.

Brian chose to interpret my actions as an opportunity to engage in our usual showertime activities, and he proceeded to push me against the glass of the shower surround as he picked a condom out of the soap dish. I was glad that he couldn’t see my face because I knew I didn’t have my expression or my emotions under control. It was easier to let him have his way while I collected myself. He didn’t waste any time, either. He didn’t bother opening me - was that his way of intimating that he knew it would be unnecessary, seeing as I’d just come from another’s bed, who knows - but simply pressed his way inside me from behind. He didn’t say a single word as he claimed me. There was no playfulness, no joy, it was all desperation hidden behind a thin veneer of lust.

And even our kisses felt like a prelude to the end.

Two days later, when Michael and I were out postering Gayopolis with our Rage flyers, Ethan once again turned up out of the blue. I really was being stalked, it seemed; I’d never before seen Ethan out on Liberty Avenue, yet there he was. But rather than be creeped out by it, I was thrilled that he’d go to such lengths to be with me. Plus, I was bored - Michael and I had already been at the postering thing for a couple of hours by that point - so Ethan was a more than welcome distraction. I quickly made an excuse to Michael and trotted off down the street, following the sound of Ethan’s violin, till I came to a rest with the others listening to the performance.

Only this meeting was different from all our prior meetings. Back at school, my secret had been relatively safe; none of my friends would be any the wiser if I was messing around with someone at PIFA. This was Liberty Avenue. I was known here, and so was Brian. This was a much more aggressive act on Ethan’s part than anything he’d pressed for earlier. Of course I was blind to the risks, driven by lust to throw caution to the wind, and I stupidly trusted to luck that nobody would notice.

Ethan pretended to be surprised by my appearance and asked what I was doing there - as if the stack of Rage posters I was holding wasn’t a dead giveaway. I don’t know why I let him get away with such an obvious lie. Maybe it was because I was already lying to myself about what was going on, so what was a little more pretending? Whatever. It didn’t seem important enough to call him on it.

We chatted a little and he tried to pull we away, suggesting we go get a cup of coffee together - which I knew was code for getting me off alone so we could fuck - but I declined. I knew that I wouldn’t be able to shake Michael that easily, not when I’d already put him off the day before and promised him that we’d get these posters up that afternoon. When I told Ethan I couldn’t go get a latte with him, he covered up his disappointment pretty well, but used that moment to press me for something else that I’d been avoiding . . . an official date.

“Well, maybe this weekend we can go see a movie,” Ethan suggested casually. “You like French films?”

I’d successfully brushed off previous suggestions of the sort, but this time I felt caught. I didn’t want to take whatever this thing with Ethan was to the next level. I didn’t want to start making PLANS with him. Up till then we’d just been messing around. Up till then it had all been spontaneous and unplanned. I suppose it was easier for me to justify what I was doing if I could tell myself that it was all just a whim. But if I accepted his invitation to the movies, our fling would no longer be just a random thing. It would mean that I was consciously making a choice to be with him. And I was NOT ready for that.

I tried to nonchalantly demur without seeming like I was making a real choice. “I’ve never been to one,” I answered, referring to French films in general.

“Never been? You peasant,” Ethan replied, making it sound like he was teasing although his flippant insult still hurt a little.

I laughed it off, though, while he explained about the film he wanted to go see, pressing his case for the date he wanted to rope me into.

“They’re showing ‘Jules et Jim’,” he explained. “A story about two men in love with the same woman. Only, if you’ll notice, her name’s not in the title. Which leads me to believe that they’re secretly in love with each other.”

“It’s hard enough loving one person,” I blurted out before I could censor my words.

“But, if you’re the one the other two are in love with,” Ethan reasoned blithely as he laid a full-on guilt trip at my feet, “then you can break both their hearts.”

What the hell was I supposed to say to that? I just stood there, stunned that he’d put me on the spot like that. It was cruel to point out the predicament I was in. Especially when he was the one that was the proximate cause of our little love triangle. Ethan was the one pursuing me - unrelentingly - following me around, always pushing his way in, and now pressuring me to agree to this date. And yet he managed to make ME feel like I was the only one at fault. That I was the one causing all the hurt while he was blameless.

And I was gullible enough to accept that blame.

When I still said nothing, merely standing there locked in confusion and guilt, Ethan swooped in and asserted his position even more strongly by stealing a kiss. At first I resisted, not really kissing back. The thought that I shouldn’t be doing this here, in broad daylight, in the middle of Liberty Avenue, flittered through my mind. But he was insistent. He pressed his lips harder against mine and demanded entry with his tongue. I should have pulled away. I should have left. But that’s not my nature, I guess. Instead I let him take control of the kiss and eventually began kissing back. He only relented when it was clear that he had won - again - and then I was allowed to break off the kiss.

I pulled away from him, a little dazed and feeling like I’d somehow given away more than just a kiss. “I’ll call you about the weekend,” I muttered as I stepped away from him, trying to gain not only space but time to think.

“Sure. That’s cool,” Ethan acquiesced, having already won this round.

I quickly waved goodbye, moving off towards the building down the block where I was supposed to be hanging my posters. Ethan didn’t even really look at me. He seemed to be staring at something or someone across the street, but I was too flustered to think about it at the time. I was too busy trying to work out in my head where that conversation had gone so wrong and what the fuck I was doing with my life.

I suppose I should have known that things couldn’t go on the way they had been for much longer. I should have known I couldn’t get away with hiding my double life. I should have known that my lies would catch up with me.

I should have known that somebody who knew me might have seen that kiss . . .