Defining Us: The Calvin & Eric Story (69 Bottles) (13 page)

His questions make me stop pacing, and though I can’t look at him, I’m hearing everything he’s saying.
 

“Have you ever watched a gay porn? Or seen examples of real relationships?”
 

“Talon and Kyle.”
 

I see him shake his head. “That’s a little different. But when you see them together, how does that make you feel? Do you think that what happened to you happens with them?”
 

“I try not to pay much attention to them. I guess I’ve never really tried and I can't imagine that what happened to me is happening between the two of them.”
 

“Okay, so what if we positively reinforce the nature of two men being together? What if we…I don’t know, what if you let me show you that it’s not like that, at all.”
 

I shrug. “I’ve never considered that before.” Which is the truth.
 

“You’ve never had anyone to help you consider that before. It’s like I said, you had women to help you get over some of your fears, your issues with orgasms, things like that, but you’ve never had a man to help guide you, to show you what it can and really is like.”
 

“Have you?” I counter.
 

“No, but I know how to treat people. I know the things that I want from a relationship and I know how I want to be treated. The foundations of relationships are all the same, Cal, whether it is with the same or opposite sex. Love is love, no matter what body parts we have.”
 

I take a seat on the couch across from him, my desire to pace fades away as my mind wanders into the things that he’s talking about. About how it shouldn’t matter to me, physically or mentally, who I’m with. Then Dr. V’s words about mind over matter come back into focus and how if I apply myself to this idea, I can change it, I can make it work for me. “This won’t be easy, Eric.”
 

I look at him and he gives me a reassuring smile. “I just want the chance to try, Calvin, I want the chance to help turn this around for you, to redefine you. And I honestly think that we need to start with Dr. V. We need to go to him, separately or together, or both. I know that I am nowhere near capable of handling this by myself. I need to know what I can and can’t push with you, how I can push things, when to push things.” He runs his hand over his hair. “My biggest fear right now is pushing you too far too fast. Like earlier, my attempt to help you turned disastrous and I need to know how to avoid that happening in the future.”
 

“I don’t know how you can help me,” I whisper.
 

“That’s why we need Dr. V. If you’re truly ready and willing to commit to this, to working through this, I am here. But the bottom line in everything is that you have to be willing to do this for yourself. You have to want to make these changes. Until you know that, without a doubt, that you’re committed to better yourself, we can’t go further than we are right now.”
 

“Jesus, when did you become so fucking psychological?”

He snorts a laugh, “Good question. I don’t know, but I do know that I want you, I want to be with you, in every way.”
 

“I’m not worth it,” I breathe.
 

He smiles at me and states, “I beg to differ.”
 

“You’ll see, Eric. You’ll see that I’m not worth the headache of trying to fix.”

His smile grows a little bigger. “That is something I don’t believe to be true.”
 

“You’ll see, I promise, you will change your mind about all this,” I tell him, though the confidence in the statement is gone, thereby negating its intended reaction.
 

“I’ve had eight years to get to the point that no matter what you told me, it wouldn’t change how I feel about you.”

I don’t say anything, what can I say to that? If the deepest, darkest part of who I am isn’t enough to scare this man away from me, then I should have nothing to fear, but yet I am shaking because I’m petrified. “I’m scared,” I admit so softly that I’m not sure he’s heard me until he stands up and skirts the table to kneel in front of me.
 

He captures my eyes with his and that lost and found feeling returns with a vengeance. “I will do everything I can to protect you.” His hand comes to rest on my thigh. A comforting touch that I welcome. “The hardest part of all this, right now, for me?”
 

“What?”
 

“That I desperately want to kiss you.” My body tenses under his gentle touch because of the words that he’s spoken. “But I know that I shouldn’t.”
 

“I can’t.”
 

“You can, and you have, but see the part where I’ve failed in that scenario is that I’ve been the one to lead that charge, not you. I think that is something you have to do for yourself.”
 

“I don’t know how.”

“You do. It’s no different than kissing anyone else, Calvin. Just because it’s me shouldn’t change your capability of doing something,” he says softly.
 

“But it does.”
 

He gives me a small, sad smile. “I know.”
 

Hesitantly and with shaking fingers, I reach for his cheek, pushing a limit. Just because I have to see how it feels. See what his skin feels like under my touch. The warmth, the stubble of his beard against my palm. He doesn’t move, he waits patiently until my hands finally connect. I let out a rush of breath as my fingers slide along his cheek until my palm rests under his jaw, his face in my hands. There is electricity flowing between us, a passion igniting within me that is starting to take over my body, amplified when he leans into my touch and closes his eyes.
 

“I’ve waited so long for this,” he whispers as he snuggles further into my touch. His hand comes up to cover mine, holding me to him. I don’t want to let him go and for the first time ever, I don’t have to let him go and that idea scares me enough that I pull my hand away. “What’s the matter? What’s wrong?” he asks quickly, his eyes flying open to assess me.
 

“Nothing.” I squint my eyes in thought. I can touch him. I touched him. I held him in a way that wasn’t friendly, but romantic. “I…I don’t know how to describe it.”
 

“Are you in pain?” he asks somberly.
 

I look at him, our eyes meet, my face relaxes, my mind finds peace and quiet for the first time since I can remember and I shake my head slightly. “As a matter of fact, I…Eric, I just touched you and…and I didn’t get sick, I didn’t…nothing happened. I’m sorry, but I’m in shock. I’ve never…” I swallow hard, “I’ve never touched anyone like that before…I’ve never felt anything like that before.”
 

“Like what?” His voice is soft but excited.
 

I smile. “Desire,” I breathe.
 

His answering smile could light up a room darker than hell and for the first time in my life, I actually fight my urge to kiss him. I fight… “I have a feeling I’m going to regret this,” I say hastily as I cup his face between my hands, and without thinking about it, I bring my lips to his, hard and desperate. I feel the recoil in my body, but I fight to ignore it, sliding my hands down his neck, onto his shoulders as he moves his lips against mine.
 

Electricity, desire, repulsion, confusion, hope…it’s all there in the taste of his lips, the brush of his lips against my own.
 

My body starts to shake against my will and I shudder as confusion, excitement and repulsion play war inside my mind, my body. My hands tighten on his shoulders and he grunts in pain. I push him back and pull away. “Shit, shit…I’m sorry.” I pull my hands from his shoulders as I take in his face, contorted in pain.
 

“No, no…don’t be. Don’t…damn it, I wish you hadn’t stopped,” he finally manages to say.
 

“I was hurting you.”
 

He smiles. “A pain I will gladly take any day if it means I can kiss you like that again.” I feel his hand gently squeeze my thigh, letting me know that he’s still there, he’s still with me. “I don’t want to ruin this moment, but…I’m afraid to go much further. I don’t want to push you beyond what you can handle, I don’t want to ruin this moment between us.”
 

He stands up and I can’t help but notice the bulge in his pants and sadness washes over me as I realize my kissing him turned him on, again. And once again, I find myself soft as ever.
 

“What is it, Cal?” I can’t meet his eyes. I can’t find it in myself to look at him.
 

“You should probably go,” I tell him.
 

He doesn’t say anything, he doesn’t have to. I can feel his frustration filling the air between us. “Not until you tell me what’s wrong.”
 

“I’ve told you so much tonight, Eric, I don’t know if I can tell you this. Can we please just drop it?”
 

He sits back down on the coffee table. “No, we can’t. Talk to me.”

I contemplate the consequences of telling him versus not. By not telling him I’m protecting him from something that will become a very real topic of discussion. Telling him may be the straw that breaks the camel’s back and my last chance to push him away completely. Despite how I feel about him, I haven't wrapped my head around the idea that he wants to help me, that regardless of what I’ve told him, he’s still here. Jesus, he hasn’t run screaming for the hills.
 

“Cal?” I hear him, but I can’t answer him.
 

Fuck, he’s…damn it, I can’t…I want to fucking cry in frustration right now. I don’t know what to do.
 

“Calvin.”
 

“What?” I snap and look at him.
 

“Whoa, come on, you checked out on me. What’s wrong?”
 

Because I can’t say it out loud I stand up in front of him, and it’s enough to draw his attention downward, then back up to my eyes. “That’s what,” I say before stepping away from him.
 

“I’m confused.” he says, “Please just tell me.”
 

“I kissed you, I fucking kissed you and for the first time in my life the desire and hope I felt outweighed the revulsion, the instinct I have to throw up all over the place and yet it still wasn’t enough.”
 

“Calvin, I’m confused.”
 

“It wasn’t enough to get me hard,” I say through gritted teeth and he looks down at his own crotch and back up.
 

“Shit, Cal, I…fuck, I can’t help it.”
 

I grab two fists full of my hair in frustration. “Argh. I know that. I know you can’t help it, I know I turn you on, I know that you want me and I…I can’t even get a goddamn erection from it. I can’t even…please, just go. I can’t do this anymore tonight.”
 

His face falls, defeat all over it and in his body language. “We’re not done. I won’t let this come between us. You didn’t get hard? So what, Calvin. I was half hard when you kissed me because I was so fucking excited that you actually put your lips on me, a thousand times more excited because you didn’t throw up all over me. I cannot help that I got hard when the person I’ve longed to kiss for years was finally kissing me. So what if you didn’t get a damn hard-on, Calvin, this is not a goddamn race here. I don’t fucking expect you to turn off all the shit you’ve been through in one night. I don’t expect you to just fall to your knees and start sucking my cock and I certainly do not expect this to just magically happen between us. It doesn’t work that way. But damn it, you cannot get pissed off at me because I got a hard-on from kissing you. If you do that, this will never work between us.”
 

“Please leave,” I breathe.
 

“No.” He shakes his head.

"I'M not leaving." His voice is unyielding.
 

My entire body is trembling, but I can't tell what is winning out, fear and nerves or excitement. "I'm not worth all this trouble."
 

I watch as his hands fist once again and he slowly rises to his feet. The phrase ‘if looks could kill' comes to mind. "Do not ever say that to me again."