The Nonconformist
by Ken Cohen
Chapter 21
Alone
Alan phoned him Monday evening at home. He told Alan he couldn't see him until the weekend. He made up a reason. It was a lie.
The next day he called Sandi, Sandi had art people coming to his place to look at his sculptures. Not today.
He had plenty of odds and ends to get done. He called Dr. Margol's office and booked the next available appointment, two weeks. And Dr. Churchill for a physical. Renew Hart House membership, get to the registrar, promised Gray a basketball game this week. Go in to new job for the pro forma interview.
Alan called that evening. Danny asked his mother to take a message. "It was your friend Alan. You're to call him, nothing urgent."
"Okay, thanks."
He called Sandi Wednesday evening. Could he? Sandi said he'd be home. Okay, he'd be there by mid-day. Sandi told him where to go when he found the house.
Thursday morning he drove downtown to the university, parked. Got some errands done, library books to return. He had a busy life, he realized. He walked to the Hart House gym. Another warm, sunny spring day. He ran the track for 40 minutes to settle himself. In the shower he was half hard already, thinking about what was to come. He eyed a couple other shapely guys as he washed his hair. He preferred minimal body hair, especially disliked facial hair. Careful, he thought, no staring. He towelled himself dry, put the towel around his shoulders and sauntered naked down the centre of the large dressing room toward his locker. He loved walked naked past all the lockers and the eyes of a couple dozen guys who might find him interesting. Don't look anyone in the eye, let them chase you, was his fantasy that morning.
He dressed and drove across town, found the street, parked. Walked. Found the address. Sandi was on the third floor of an old Victorian semi a couple short blocks south of Alan and a block east of that. He followed a walkway around the side of the house to the rear, through an unlocked gate into the back yard, then up two flights of fire escape to a small black-painted iron framework balcony at the top. Interesting way to access his flat, Danny thought. Knocked on the door. Sandi's smiley face appeared through a small glass window in the door. He opened it.
Sandi. Same tight white jeans and tight cream T-shirt with a little alligator. Bare feet, pretty toes. His blond hair shone in the sunlight. Sandi all smiles.
"Hi Danny, come in."
The place was compact, no wasted space, most of it a single room about 15 by 25 feet with a modern four piece bathroom. The long outside wall had a large bright south-facing picture window with the exterior doorway next to it at one end. A tiny kitchen was built into the short wall at the opposite end.
Attractively decorated and furnished. Sculptures. Stand-alone sculpted flaccid penises displayed on small stands around the room, different shapes and colours. A couple life-sized, a few a little larger. Meticulously sculpted perfectly smooth shiny marble, gray, white, sand, black. One a pale orange-pink sort of colour. Another a medium skin tone. They didn't take his breath away, weren't sexually arousing either; rather, professionally finished, objective miniature display pieces that caught the eye, their perfection and direct frankness surprising at first glance. You could, maybe, have an intellectual conversation about them. He gazed around, nearly forgetting where he was and why he was there.
"You have talent and good taste. I like the sculptures."
Sandi's face at first looked like a question-mark, then softened into a smile. "I'm glad. Sometimes people get kind of shocked and become standoffish. You really like?"
After a few seconds, he answered, "Yeah, of course, how couldn't I? You have a lovely place. Your work is beautiful. Congratulations. I'm not sure I understand how you make a living from it but you said you also do some writing. They're all so soft and smooth. They flow. They're, uh, amazing. Sorry, I hate that word, it's so overused, but…"
Sandi moved forward, faced Danny, softly took his head in his hands and kissed him full and long on the lips. He repeated the kiss, but longer.
Danny said, "Last time, when we parted, you couldn't wait to kiss me."
Sandi's arms went around him. "Mmm, darling boy. You're luscious, you taste fantastic. I'm going to do much more to you than that."
Forty minutes later, spent, they lay together naked and glowing on Sandi's double Murphy bed.
"How long can you stay?"
"I have all day if you want."
"That's fine with me. God, you're a beautiful boy."
"When did you start doing sculpture?"
"I'm going to sculpt you. I began as a child. I saw a sculpture somewhere and told my parents I wanted to learn. I was ten. They sent me for classes every Saturday. I worked on it every day. I've done maybe a hundred over the years. The ones I did as a kid are still in my parents' basement."
"What are you working on now?"
"You can probably guess. I've just started. Beautifully shaped backsides. There's a female and a male model I share with a group of other artists. Once a week I go to a large studio downtown."
They talked about growing up in Toronto.
"From what I've seen," said Sandi, "you seem comfortable as a gay boy."
"I'm getting used to it. You know, I can make love to women too. There's no attraction for me until they touch me. When the clothes come off, I have no problem, um, you know, performing, and I can really get into it. But I only feel attracted to men. I don't look at beautiful women sexually the way I look at some men. I could live the conventional life, though. I have the choice. I'm lucky that way. Most of the gay guys I've met, that's just a few of course, but they're all interested only in men. Women do nothing for them."
"Do you have friends outside the gay world?"
"Oh yes, from school days, quite a few. I'm very close with a couple of them. Do a lot of sports with them. Basketball, football."
"Do any know about you?"
"One for sure, I've told him. A couple of the others I think have figured me out and are okay with it. What about you?"
"You know, Danny, I love your butt, it's scrumptious. Ever been spanked?"
Danny felt the hand lightly caressing his right buttock, then a sharp slap.
"Ah!"
"What did you feel from that?"
"Okay. Somehow makes me quiver with anticipation." Sandi's fingers burrowed around and into Danny's crotch and found his erection.
They wrestled, playfully but for dominance. Sandi ended atop, Danny wasn't about to argue. Danny face down under Sandi. Penetrated again, long and slow.
"It seems to have you going again."
He felt the cock withdraw. Tongue followed, licking up the taut plump left mound, then another hard slap.
"Ahhh…"
He felt the hand caressing, then both hands were massaging his shoulders. The cock slipped inside and out, then slowly slid in past his sphincter and penetrated deeply. Then a hard slap, two, three, more. They continued. There was a pause.
"You'll have to stop me if that's what you want," Sandi whispered in his ear.
"I like it."
"I see that."
There was more. They came harder. They stopped and without another word or further ado the cock withdrew and then slipped back deep inside him, paused, then withdrew half an inch at a time. Then back in all the way.
He reached over to his right into a night table drawer and extracted a tiny brown jar.
"Ever tried poppers?" he asked. "You just inhale and exhale, don't hold it in. Just do that, hold on to me and go for a short trip to sexual heaven and back. It's harmless and no, definitely not addictive. Don't let it scare you, it feels very strange and deep the first time. It's total, utter sexual submission. It's highly arousing. You use it with moderation like anything else. Don't be scared of it, just go with it. Here, try it. First one nostril, gently inhale and exhale, then the other nostril."
The top was unscrewed, it was under one nostril.
Obediently he inhaled with one nostril, then the other.
After a couple seconds a deep heat enfolded his face and head as he fell into a hidden world that demanded he be invaded so, held in place gasping and crying out he thrust his ass up at Sandi who plunged deep into him and began rhythmically fucking. Danny's inhibitions, if he had any left, no longer existed. He sighed loudly, cried out for more.
After a few minutes, the effect wore off. Sandi withdrew and they lay there together, playing with each other's erections. Then they both took sniffs. Sandi was back inside Danny, deep. Danny was screeching and screaming, wriggled and wrestled himself around, face-up still beneath Sandi with his legs on Sandi's shoulders letting Sandi whack away at him and fuck him. It took a few minutes for the effect to fade.
"I'm practically ready to cream just from putting you in your place, you're my little darlin'."
"I love this."
"Of course you do. Can I call you bad things? Like bad names?"
"Try."
So Sandi flipped over his willing subject and ran his dick back deep inside him. He slipped the little jar under Danny's nose, said, "sniff it, slut."
Danny obeyed, he fell deep, screamed "Sandi, fuck me," and they fucked like this for maybe ten more minutes until Danny reached a height of intensity shooting into the sheets, seconds later Sandi, intensely squeezed, ejaculated wildly into him, the two slowly receding together back to a quiet calm.
They lay in the soft flat light and silence of mid-day, surrounded by the city, alone, Sandi still hard inside him, Danny submissive. Slowly rousing themselves they did it again. Later, as they ate a light lunch, they talked.
"You know, I love doing what we're doing. You caught me by surprise the other day."
"Sweety, as long as this lights us both on fire, why not? You're not betrothed to Alan, are you? You made him any promise about him being the only one for you? Anything like that? Has he sworn faithfulness to you? I'll bet not—among other things, I happen to know at least one other guy my guess is he's been with in the last month, and not a one night stand, I'm talking about ongoing relationships.
"It's okay to have multiple relationships. An open sexual life is okay. Feel out Alan, how would he feel if you had another partner at the same time? Then you'd eventually be able to tell him you're having a relationship with me too. We could even try a threesome. In fact, if you want, we could do a threesome with a woman. I know a couple gals who would happily join us.
"With someone like me, who you can trust, we're both here because we want to be, we're both healthy meaning no diseases, neither of us wants to see the other guy hurt. As long as we're both willing, why not? It adds to our lives. We both feel needed, wanted, desired. And there's always the potential for a long-term relationship."
Danny eventually left and drove home, feeling wowed at first. As he drove on, he wondered, how does he really feel about me? I don't really know him. Where does this go? What about Alan? I feel guilty when I think of Alan. That chemical, wow, it was strange, the effect it had. I don't think it's good for me, I wonder how it affects my brain? I have a headache. Need some aspirin. Should just avoid that stuff from now on.
He spent Friday night at Alan's place. They made love, walked to a local restaurant for a quick meal, came back. Made love. Fell asleep. Around 4 a.m. they awoke and made love again. Saturday morning they ran miles together along the lakefront.
The rest of May passed quickly. He saw a lot of Alan. In between he saw Sandi a few times. Then it was June and he was at work. The weather warmed up, summer approaching. He was in bed one Friday night with Alan, when Alan said, "Danny, I have to say this. I'm in love with you. I told you once before."
Danny didn't want to hear it. He felt the guilt. He looked back and said "I know. I'm trying to figure this out. I have feelings for you, otherwise I wouldn't be here. But…"
"You're still thinking about Kenny, right? You've said a couple times that it's over."
"It's more than that. I… look, I just don't want to talk about it right now. Sorry, Alan, it's not the right time."
That night he ended up going home instead of sleeping over. He realized now just how far-reaching his actions had been. He'd been a fool. No amount of sexual escapades with Sandi could take the place of what he had with Alan. Yet, he still couldn't resist doing what he knew to be wrong. He wondered about the anger, some anger he didn't understand was driving him to Sandi.
A couple weeks passed. In mid-June, Danny left Sandi's home late one weekday evening. Walking back to his car, he passed two young men walking together one of whom looked vaguely familiar. Who is that guy again? he wondered, I've seen him around. A few seconds later, he remembered. Andrew, Drew as he called himself, the English prof's assistant. Saw him at the barbecue. I guess he didn't recognize me, didn't say hello. Nice guy, though, I like him.
Over the two years Alan had lived in Toronto, he had befriended several people in the area including Drew Stockton. He and Drew first met at a meet and greet party when both were entering fourth year as undergrads in late 1966. Drew completed his bachelor's degree majoring in English and was accepted into the master's program at the same time Alan graduated with honours in computer science. What they shared was their gay pedigree. Both had settled in Toronto by that time, intending to stay for the foreseeable future. Toronto was Canada's rising star at the time so there was nothing odd about their choices. Eventually they found each other again in the north beaches neighbourhood and soon also bumped each other at another party. There was no sexual attraction but they liked each other and stayed in touch, getting together regularly and participating in local sports tournaments as well.
One evening well into June, Drew called Alan. They chatted about different subjects for a while and then Drew broached the main reason for his call.
"Are you still seeing Danny?"
"Sure." Alan felt a little annoyed. What business was it of Drew or anyone else who he was seeing? "Why?"
"I wondered because I'm seeing him at Sandi's. I mean, I barely know that guy but everyone in the area seems to know who Sandi is. It's actually a couple times I've seen Danny on that street in the evening, once coming out of the gate to Sandi's back yard, the other he was just getting into that beige Plymouth of his. I'm sorry to sound like a gossip, but I know for a fact Sandi has ruined other relationships and I'd hate to see him get his claws into someone else. Danny is an undergrad student of my mentor prof. I bumped into him at school at the registrar's office last week and asked about Sandi, he said Sandi was 'doing fine' as he put it. Alan, I like you and don't want you to get hurt, so I took a chance and called just in case."
There was silence on the phone for a few seconds, then Alan said, "He hasn't said anything to me about this. Thanks for the call Drew, it's probably nothing but, um, thanks. I'll talk to you soon."
And he hung up.
Alan thought for some time about what Drew had said. He grew emotional. He cried for a few minutes. He felt as lonely at this moment as he'd ever felt. He waited until he calmed down, gave some thought to what he'd say to Danny. He'd never been in this position before. Danny's just a kid, he thought, he's not ready for the relationship I'm looking for. I'm just a kid, too, though.
I guess he was right, he's still a little immature. Better it happened now, it would be much tougher a year from now.
He phoned Danny, who was at home watching TV after a day at work downtown.
"Hi Danny, it's Alan."
"Hi Alan, how's it going?"
"Danny, are you seeing Sandi?"
"What?"
"Are you seeing Sandi?"
Danny sat down, gripping the receiver too hard as his face grew hot and he broke into a sweat. He was unprepared and speechless. The short silence spoke for itself. Before he could say anything, Alan continued.
"Sandi lured you, didn't he?"
"What do you mean?"
"What I mean is, somehow or other he sucked you into a trap. Or maybe he just propositioned you? And now he's fucking you. Am I right?"
Danny took a deep breath. He wasn't ready for this.
"Am I right?"
"Yes," Danny replied quietly.
"Did he lure you in?"
"You could put it that way."
"You see, Danny, he knew what he was doing when he hooked you. He's hated me since I asked him to leave my home. I—"
"You hate him? He was at the party you made."
"That was his party. I just did him a favour and let him use the place. He's, uh, insidious, he makes you, me, he knows how to manipulate people with words. I was doing him a favour I shouldn't have. I met him the day I was moving into my flat. He helped me move some stuff. I was so grateful to him that I made him dinner. He brought a couple bottles of wine and the two of us got pretty loaded. We fucked all night breaking in my new bed. He's very good at it.
"I was bewitched, I guess you could say. He took my virginity, and did it in such a way I thought I'd discovered sexual nirvana. I mean, the guy is really good at sex, he's an expert. The next two weeks before I started work was practically one long orgy, interrupted only by me painting my place whenever he had to go somewhere. Toward the end, someone in the area who knew him warned me about him. But I was so taken that I didn't believe them. I thought he loved me. Sandi actually told me he was in love with me.
"He lived with me for two weeks. I came home early one day to find him in bed with a teenage boy a good ten years younger than himself. That's when I woke up and told him to leave. It was a bitter breakup. He begged and pleaded. After he'd gone, some cash and gold jewelry was missing. I never found out if it was him or that kid he had here.
"You'd think I'd have learned my lesson, but he sweet-talked his way back into my life. I refused to have anything to do with him sexually but I said okay, we can be friends. He claimed the teenage boy must have stolen my stuff, he swore he didn't. That's probably true, he didn't really need it. So we were okay for a long time.
"After I met you, I made the mistake of telling him about you and how smitten I was with you. He'd asked me to help him host a barbecue for the people in the neighbourhood, I still hadn't met many people here after two years and he wanted to introduce me around. So fine, sounded good to me, I volunteered and promptly forgot about it until he reminded me the morning of the barbecue.
"I hadn't bought anything and neither did he, said he thought I would do the prep, after all I make a lot more money than he does and it was for my benefit and at my place, he was just the arranger really. So forgetting you were coming I ran out the door that morning to buy all the food and drink for the party leaving him here to get the place in shape and then you came knocking at the door expecting me.
"He invited you in and got you drunk, right? Then seduced you apparently. Did he actually do it with you there in my home? Or was it later? I mean, I don't know exactly how it happened, what he promised you, but it seems you ended up spending almost as much time at his place the last few weeks as you have here. I know how good he is, so I'm not surprised you kept coming back for more. Did he give you the little speech? About free love and all that… Drugs, did he use drugs with you too? I hope there was no coke involved, you wouldn't be so foolish as to do that, would you?
"You see, Danny, he'll be through with you soon. You told me last weekend in the middle of the night, remember we were talking, you were saying how much you had liked being at the barbecue, you felt like you were finally part of something here with all these gay guys around at the party and how you could see yourself becoming part of the community you hadn't even known about before that?
"Well, if you keep this up, you'll soon be jumping from bed to bed. Before you're through, every wolf in gay Toronto will have sampled you and spit you out or passed you on, and soon you'll be a leftover, used up, no one will want anything to do with you. You'll be in your mid-twenties by then, slowly aging and find yourself turning into a slut in the bars and parks and bathhouses and other places where lonely guys congregate to help each other get off in the course of their futile searches for love.
"Sandi used you to get back at me. It's my fault, I should have warned you, I meant to but Sandi moved too fast for me. I didn't anticipate he would do something like this, I knew better but… Sandi saw his chance to break us up, and used you to do it because he's still bitter about how I broke up with him.
"So you've broken my heart. You broke the heart of a man who was in love with you. You know how difficult that is to find? Whether you're gay or straight, it's a rare thing, finding genuine love. I had to try, I'd never felt that way about anyone. Love does not have to be a game. You may have learned otherwise as a child, but it doesn't have to be that way.
"Love can be deadly serious, perhaps a matter of life and death. And taken that way, when love is broken, and you're the one responsible, then you're at the centre and everyone will be looking at you. So as the poet said, ask not for whom the bell tolls, it tolls for thee. You're part of the human race, you too will die some day. You have to decide how you want to live your life. You can make a game of it or you can live it authentically with thought for the ones closest to you who will be there watching you and taking note of you, trusting and loving you when the time comes, when the bell tolls for you.
"If you can't do that, or if you're unlucky in love, then consider, at the end of your life, who will be there with you? Only the ones who love you, Danny. The rest won't be there, they won't much care. A last thought and a shrug is all they'll have for you. If you're alone at the end, you'll die alone and forgotten. No one will care. They'll hear about it and say things like, 'Oh, Danny, yeah I remember him, nice guy. Time for another cup of coffee' and never give you another thought.
"I was in love with you, Danny. I can and do forgive you for this, because I know you didn't know any better and were besotted and I missed my chance to warn you about the wolf at the door. But I'm warning you now about all the other wolves, because they're out there waiting to meet you, eat you up and spit you out. I've forgiven you and now I've warned you. What I can't do, though, is trust you any longer. You broke my heart. You've ruined what we had. I'm sorry, my darling. I loved you, I still love you. But it's over for us.
"Find someone to love and who loves you, and build a relationship that can last. Don't make the rounds. It's a lot of fun, there's an endless variety of kinky sex out there and it's a lot of fun but nothing more. There's no love waiting when you come home from work at night, unless you also work hard for that love and give up plenty to earn it. And even then, there's a lot of luck involved.
"Good luck, Danny, I wish you all the luck in the world. And I hope we meet again. Remember, Danny. We're still friends. I wish you the best. I hope you find what you're looking for. And I hope we meet again, keep in touch, please. You're welcome over here any time. For friendship.
"Good-bye, Danny."
He went to his bedroom and closed the door. The heat in his face was fading. He lay there thinking.
It was over. At this point, he didn't care as much as he thought he should. Eventually he would come to realize he had lost something irretrievable and rare. He liked Alan a lot, and felt very bad about having betrayed him. But he felt he needed what Sandi offered. The sex was pretty wild like he'd never even imagined. He hadn't known he could feel that way. The depth of the submissiveness was endless. He saw how it could go in the future. More and more of it. It would be a dead end.
Sooner than he realized, he would come to see that he had been tricked. He foresaw how he might eventually slide off the edge of the sane world into a gutter of drugs and whores and sexual extremes that would slip easily into some vast hellish endlessness. He would not find what he needed. Not there. Not in that direction. He'd have to remember Alan's advice.
He stopped to think. He recollected what he'd reflected on so long ago. What he sought. Stability. Order. A life of hard but sustaining and appealing work. Where he could indulge his multiple curiosities about the world, life, history, psychology and philosophy, within a place, a nest, where he and someone he loved could share their lives with peace and joy supported by sexual compatibility and mutual trust. He had that with Alan. Maybe it arrived too soon for him. Maybe he needed to see more of the world first.
The kind of ideal life he had in his head, something idealistic and very possibly, he had to admit, it was probably nothing more than a dream.
Most lives, he guessed, are lived out in a kind of disheartened drudgery, an anxious acceptance of the limitations imposed on us all by the ruthless realities of routine life and eventual death. Too pessimistic? he wondered. Maybe, but that's me.
His mind went back to their first meeting, as strangers in the park in the cold air of early evening last March. Their date at La Chaumiere, the police lights that blasted open the darkness as they walked home arm in arm. Their first night together. The days and weeks that followed. His acts of betrayal. The wrong he knew he'd done.
Where was his life going? He was alone now. Again. Going back to Sandi was out of the question. He couldn't stomach the idea. The sex had been pretty fantastic but now it meant nothing. What remained from Sandi were a few memories that left him feeling squalid.
He called Gray. Gray was out. He called John, John was out. Mike's in Buffalo. Kenny's in Vancouver living a new and better life without me. I'm alone tonight.
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