Chapter Eight
When we stopped our crazy journey to the land of pleasure, I couldn't even move. Shocked and pleased at once… I never imagined going through an experience as such. And I never imagined how good it was.
We haven't bothered to turn on the lights; now we were lying together, staring at the glowing stars covered ceiling, adjusting to new feelings of being with each other physically. It felt amazing, being like that, when the darkness was our blanket, and we weren't ashamed of our nudity, or our words, or our whatsoever. It felt natural - like Adam and Eve.
"It maybe not the most appropriate time to ask, but I have been wondering… This girl, Enid, is she your girlfriend or was it just a fling?" He suddenly asked.
"Gosh… Girlfriend. It's a painful subject now. I'm trapped in the middle."
"The best way to handle those trappings is to choose."
"What choices have I got?"
"To tell her or not to tell her."
"Oh, yeah, sure. Here I am, her devoted boyfriend of a year and a half, telling her I have made out with somebody else, who also happens to be a guy, three years older than me. Boy, am I screwed up or what!"
"Do you regret what had just happened?" Leaning on his arm, he was now a bit above me and looking down on my face, questioning.
"There is no single bit of regret in my body. It's just that if I tell her, what a nice tale it is."
"Life is not only about fairytales and Princes, who never upset their Princesses. There is… You know what? Drop that subject. The worst thing is thinking of how you're going to explain that sexual thing to others, ten minutes after you've finished. Don't eat yourself."
"How is it that you're so calm all the time?"
"What is there to make me mad right now? You're too hot-tempered, Zac. You need to learn how to cool your spirits down. You need to learn many things about life at that point. You're a kid, even if your body is a man's body. There is a little, confused boy in here," he touched my chest, "and this boy needs to grow up and face the world. He needs to learn so many things."
"Why won't you teach me?"
"Some things I cannot teach you. Nobody can. There is no guidance book for cases of growing up. You don't learn it in school and your mama cannot explain you this. You go through all this process, stumbling, falling, getting up, climbing hills and falling to ditches, loving, hating, disappointing, rising above many things and reaching down to even more. All by yourself. I can only watch from the side."
"you've finished the process, obviously."
"It is a never-ending one. You, Zac, resemble me the Cupid. You have the looks, if ignoring the color of your eyes that is not blue; and you're just as naive. But at the same time, you're just as smart and able to learn. You shouldn't worry about anything. Eventually, things fall at their places and there is peace and quiet in the universe."
"Chris… Is there any meaning to what we've done?"
"Every thing we do has a meaning. The question is, what meaning? How much we cherish the memories of the past, or the hopes for the future, or even the minutes in present?"
"That depends on how do you feel about it. And you know, when you look back, colors dim a little bit. You know, you look at something that happened a year ago, and back then it was such a tragedy, or such a wonderful thing; now, it's not that bad or amazing. The colors are less bright or dark now; it's not black or white, it's gray."
"But at the same time, it's more dear to your heart. It's gone now, and what you've got is the memories, what your brain - or heart - still holds inside. And the second something is being erased, it's eternally lost; so we hold on the precious memories, of every thing we had, be it failure or success. The past is the most valuable thing a man has."
"But if you live in the past, you're lost."
"You have to live the present. The moment. Enjoy it to its very end. Then shove it to the stack of your memories from the past and move on. There is no future, if you really think. You don't really think about what will be. Only very rarely. You live the 'now', not the 'tomorrow'. So, basically, does future exist for an individual?"
"Sure it does. Don't you plan things for, say, a month from now? A year from now?"
"Planning is a different thing. It's actually, hoping. If everything's fine, I'll be that and that ten years from now, or I'll be there and there five weeks from now. It's just that we never say the 'if everything's fine' part."
"Where did you dig all that from?"
"It is everything I came up with on that time, when I used to sit in my room and fear to come close to anybody, because I felt so different from them. I kept thinking how different I was because of my being gay, so there was this period of time I didn't go anywhere, even not talking to my parents. And I also avoided the thoughts about what's gonna be with me. I thought, what about my future - what does it hold on stock for me? And I couldn't answer it. So I thought, what is future anyway? And what is past? And where do we live, is it the past, present or the future? I got all philosophical."
"What else did you think about?"
"Anything. Just about every little thing in our world, except myself and my sexuality. Then, when I was tired of understanding the ways of nature and the rules of our world, I stood up, spit outside the window, came down the stairs and called most of my friends to come over. And I stood in front of them, the seventeen years old guy that I was then, and said, nonchalantly - I didn't care any longer about anything, - that I was gay. They said, 'cool'. The day after that, I came down the stairs when my parents were home and told them. They said, 'it's your life, and it's your way to live it'."
"So basically, you developed your own theories about the universe, and only then you had the guts to come out of the closet?"
"I can't say I had the guts. I can only assume, that I was already too worn off and didn't quite give a damn about anything."
"Did you have relationships since then?"
"One."
"Can you tell me about it?"
"I can; but not now."
"When?"
"Whenever the time is right."
I didn't question him more than that. It felt so wonderful, just lying in the dark and talk about those things we talked about, and analyzing the world. It felt as if I were floating on my back on the quiet waves of a river, silently whispering to me words of wisdom and love for myself, and almost putting me to sleep with all that quiet peace of mind. But I haven't fall asleep, although the thought of sleeping together with Chris, cuddled together, was so tempting. I had to go home; it was close to midnight.
He kissed me when I climbed out the window on the tree. That was the best way to enter and exit; given the circumstances, his parents might think I was his new boyfriend. It wasn't correct - we weren't a couple. We simply talked and kissed. I wouldn't want to start with the definitions at that point. He kissed me, almost wanting to talk me into spending the night and continue our talks and kisses… But we couldn't do it. So we decided to see what the next day - our present holds for us. I can't believe how odd it was, thinking 'our' and meaning me and Chris. We were already in the vocabulary section that held words, such as "we", "us", "our", "together" and many more.