Tenting Tonight, chapter 19
My Paul’s father had a slight stroke late in November of 1982, and Paul flew out to Oregon to be with his family. His mother took it very hard, and for 10 days it was unclear whether or not Paul’s dad would be able to speak, continue to work, or would have to retire. He’d made a full recovery by Christmas, and when Paul phoned me later, he said that he’d wept, quietly, seeing his dad, looking frail but healthier, struggle his way to his pulpit to deliver a Christmas sermon.
Just before Paul’s dad got sick, we’d spent a night with Liam and Russlan. Russlan had been glued to the television, because Leonid Brezhnev, for almost 20 years the de facto ruler of the USSR, had died. The gray men around him had kept him going, with his slurred speech and his slow motion gait, but his time was up. Russlan had lain on the couch, on his belly, and he instructed us to fuck him as much as possible (he never wanted less), but to not to interrupt the news. Someone, my Paul or I, I can’t honestly remember, fucked Russlan slowly and lazily, while the others lounged around. We had no idea, as we watched, that the USSR had fewer than 9 years to exist.
What I can tell you is that we were enjoying something unique in my experience. I have never known another group as free of jealousy or rivalry as our circle of friends. We were so comfortable with each other that Russlan thought nothing of inviting any of us to fuck him and the others to watch, and neither had any of us any compunction about taking him up on his offer. We stroked ourselves hard, or got others to get us hard with hand or mouth, we positioned ourselves and thrust home, all without any modesty or reticence. We were full of affection and desire, each of us for each of the others. When I get into bed at night, if I am in the mood, I can still remember the feel of each different hardon, each guy’s unique style of making love, the taste of each guy on my lips, the scent of each man when I nuzzled his crotch or his taint as a prelude to out and out sex. Each of us offered himself wholly to the group. Each ass, each cock, each mouth, each hand - all - were available to any other one of us, at all times. We had no idea, in this arena as well, that all this would vanish overnight.
At this point, in the fall of 1982, almost any story about gay men in the US becomes a story about AIDS. The disease had come to public attention in the summer of 1981, and rumors about “gay cancer” were rife all through gay circles. People had strange theories as to what the disease was. One story, for instance, held that semen could trigger a reaction in some people, and that perhaps gay men had triggered an extreme reaction by ingesting too much cum. Conspiracy theories, always a popular sport in the US, grew by leaps and bounds. The non-gay public was entirely unconcerned, because it seemed at first that this new disease or syndrome was confined to gay men.
A gay friend of mine, Tim, a tall drama student with black hair and flashing blue eyes, with whom I would surely have slept had Paul and I not become lovers early in our
Freshmen year, became my first friend to perish, in March of 1982. There would be many more. But as the suspicion grew that promiscuity and number of sexual contacts might have something to do with the disease, that there must be an infectious agent, rather than something intrinsic about sex itself (such as the theory about cum ingestion), our circle of friends had agreed to confine our sexual contacts to each other and no one else. That promise, which seemed so strange at the time, probably saved most of our lives.
By chance, this new disease appeared on the scene at the beginning of a new administration in the US. The Reagan administration had no interest in taking any action concerning a disease that affected gay men. The Republican establishment had gotten into bed with the Christian Right a decade earlier, an outgrowth of Nixon’s Southern Strategy to sever the last ties between the Democratic Party and the Old South. Televangelists and celebrities had wrapped themselves in a cloak of piety that led to Anita Bryant’s 15 minutes of fame. The alliance was intensely seductive to people like CIA director George Bush, who would run against Ronald Reagan, denounce his kindergarten-level tax views as “voodoo economics,” and then abandon his own views to suck at the government teat as Reagan’s vice president.
Nominally, the VP was the head of a committee to come up with a government response to the new illness. In fact, government insiders referred to “George Bush and the giggle factor,” because the VP would begin giggling at the idea that a government committee was talking about anal sex. The committee took to meeting only when Bush was off at some important VP function, like the funeral of the Saudi king’s fourth wife’s sister’s husband. It didn’t matter. The Reagan administration had no intention of setting a policy. Neither, in turn, did Bush’s own administration.
I need to jump around a bit in terms of time, so that this story remains consistent and coherent. Leonid Brezhnev (and I do believe this is his first appearance in gay fiction) died November 10, 1982. Yuri Andropov took power, although he was in poor health. Andropov (another gay fiction virgin) was a former had of the KGB, a hard liner. Russlan, watching in horror as the TV news said that Andropov would be the next head of the Communist Party to replace Brezhnev, had told us that he now feared for his family more than ever. “Andropov KGB. He never forget. He is remembering Russlan, one red-haired boy in Boston who did not come back on time. You shall see.”
Russlan had always spent some time with other Russian expatriates, which we thought was natural. However, he did not trust all of them. He told us that someone among them must be an informer, that to have as many Soviet students as there were at the technical colleges and universities around Boston was too obvious a way to gain knowledge, and that someone must be running some of the students as agents. “Not big big spy, just little fish, very small. But worth effort. Not even small fish. Caviar. Worth effort.” Soon after, Russlan told us that he had given up visiting with other Russian students or Russian immigrants to the US. And then he began avoiding them like the plague.
In October of 1983, Russlan startled us by coming home to Lindoro’s with his head shaven. When he stripped, after dinner, we were even more astonished to see that his red pubic hair and body hair were all gone. When his hair began to grow, he dyed it, first blond, then black (which didn’t look natural) and finally, chestnut brown. Each time, we asked him why, but he would only say, “Andropov.”
At some point during the months preceding his shaving his head, Russlan had gotten some kind of communication from his mother in Novosibirsk. He had only told us that she said things were serious. She told him to be careful, and that like any mother, she hoped her little red bird would fly home soon to Rodina, Motherland. Russlan had then checked the windows, making sure all curtains were shut, and he had turned on the television to play loudly and a transistor radio to play simultaneously. We thought his actions weird, but Paul L had advised us to let Russlan do what he thought he needed to do for his own safety.
Russlan was certain that Andropov would be sending someone to find him. “You not understand. He KGB. He have record. He know red-hair Russlan boy study Boston.” Russlan’s English had never improved that much, but when he was stressed, it became even harder to make out what he was saying. “I think, “ Paul L told us, “that he shaved his head because he thinks he is visible to someone. I just don’t know who.”
We tried to get Russlan to calm down, but he only insisted that we didin’t understand. Paul L was able to calm him down a bit more, and Russlan spent as much time at Lindoro’s as he could, not attending any classes he could afford to miss. Finally, one evening, Liam confronted him about his behavior. Russlan asked that all of us, Liam10, Ze’ev, and Frank gather. We thought he would explain something, but he told us there was something he needed to do first. He began to remove his clothing, which we didn’t consider strange in itself, and he was wearing a snug, Bike jockstrap. He place himself on his belly and said that he needed to be fucked hard in order to be able to talk. Liam took him first, and he fucked him as hard as I’d ever seen, pounding on him, slapping his abs against Russlan’s upturned butt. It makes me hard just to picture the two of them going at it, Russlan slapping his ass upward and Liam throwing himself into the fucking with a frenzy.
Russlan’s ass had to be sore, if only from friction, but he continued to beg, almost order, more, more, more, and to say he would explain nothing until he had been fucked raw by everyone. An hour later, with some of us sore from the friction, Russlan finally turned over and pulled down his jock. His cock was bandaged. He had had himself circumcised.
To say we were astonished was putting it mildly. We could only imagine what kind of pain he must be in. Only the day before, he had stretched his foreskin over my tongue and urged Paul to fuck him hard, and he had shot so much cum in my mouth that I thought I’d drown. The glorious folds of foreskin were gone, and his cock looked small and damaged. He was bandaged all around, with only a bit of his cock visible, so that he could pee through it. We all wanted to know why he had done it.
“He wants to be someone else,” Paul L said, cryptically. Russlan had appeared ready to speak, but then he collapsed backward onto the sofa, and Paul L had ordered up a bottle of vodka. Russlan said not a word more. He simply drank long pulls of vodka until he passed out. Why had he wanted to be fucked so violently? Why did he seem to want to be hurt? Why had he had himself circumcised?
We pressed Paul L for more information, since he seemed to know something. Paul L said only that there was nothing he could share, and that we had to trust him and agree not to ask questions. He told us that he would give us more information when it was possible.
And then, just after New Years, on January 3, 1984, when we had planned a group party for just our lot, Russlan never showed up. His belongings, meager as they were, were in his bedroom. He had attended class that morning, had completed a mathematics exam early, handed in his exam, and left the room to use the bathroom. His knapsack and his books were in the classroom. No one had seen him after that.
Liam was devastated. Paul L told us to be especially careful about leaving Liam alone, but we knew that Russlan had been a kind of lifeline for him after Bobby’s death. Russlan had been Bobby’s lover before he was Liam’s, and we all liked him a great deal. But Liam had become attached to him emotionally because of the tie to Bobby. Did Liam consider Russlan his lover? Were we his lovers? I think it was a little bit of each, but that in his heart of hearts, he was deeply in love with my Paul. I never minded. There was room in my heart for both Paul and Liam.
Paul’s security staff began to make inquiries, official and unofficial. When the correct amount of time had elapsed, a missing person report was filed. We were ready to put up posters, but Paul L insisted that we let him handle things. Liam wanted to do something himself, but again Paul L begged him not to do anything that would attract public attention. Despite his instincts, Liam had a healthy respect for Paul L’s views.
In February of 1984, Yuri Andropov died. The Chernobyl accident in 1986 began a series of events that led to the collapse of the USSR. During all this time, Paul L. continued to search for any trace of Russlan. It wasn’t until 1992 that we learned a bit more, but we never stopped looking for our Russlan.
Events began to pull our tight-knit group apart. Ze’ev, who achieved his goal of becoming a medical doctor, returned to Israel at the time of the first Gulf War, early in 1991. Frank decided to retire to Florida, where he now heads security for an all gay resort. (He invites us there every year, and apparently his descriptions of a few of us to his friends has meant that our imaginary reputations precede us. Who could ever live up to the expectations Frank’s stories about us raised? No one.) Ze’ev stayed in touch, and we still see him occasionally, when he comes to the US for a medical conference or a vacation. He invites us to Israel all the time, and one of these days, we’ll go. In recent years, the porn star Michael Lucas has made some gay porn in Israel that has turned quite a few heads. But we already knew something about gay life in Israel. A close friend of mine (someone you haven’t met, a fellow student) was diagnosed with AIDS in the 1990s and became the most prominent AIDS educator and activist in Israel. He’s defied all odds and recovered some of his health, with the help of newer drugs. But he’s determined to see a cure and a vaccine, and we do everything we can to make sure those are found.
Paul L was able to get Liam10 permanent resident status in the US. Liam10 already lived with Paul L, but only a few years ago, when Massachusetts instituted gay marriage, they were the first people I knew who tied the knot. Paul is older, grayer, but still sexy as hell. Liam10 has grown into one of those quirky Celtic British faces that make some British actors so devastatingly sexy to audiences worldwide. Not only do the two of them make an adorable couple, but I still enjoy watching them fuck whenever we get together at Lindoro’s.
Our Liam graduated college with a degree in theater and a minor in dance, and with Paul L’s encouragement, he took a two year MFA degree, concentrating not on dance but on stage acting. You had to see him script in hand, reading or reciting Shakespeare or Wilde or Tennessee Williams while his lower half pound away at my Paul’s butt. My Paul says that he always knew what Liam was rehearsing, based on his individualization of hip movements to correspond to characters in a play he did or characters in a stage musical. We sometimes called studying like this, while fucking each other, “Theater in the Butt.”
Our Liam was cast as Claudio in Much Ado About Nothing in a local, semi-professional production, and he would have been very good, except that the production’s original Benedick got appendicitis and had to withdraw. Liam had made such an impression on the director (without fucking him) that Liam found himself in the plum role of Benedick shortly thereafter. The cast were cuties, including lovely women and very, very hot men. Our circle went to the play as a group, and we supported our Liam every way we could. We even kidded him that he gave a whole new meaning to the play by putting the “dick” in “Benedick!” Liam got very good notices, and he began to attract the attention of directors. Within weeks, he had invitations to audition for serious acting companies as close as Boston and as far afield as Virginia and Minnesota. The critics sang the praises of his acting, his subtlety, his charm. Local TV critics proclaimed him “a ladykiller,” much to his amusement. Liam had very cordial, correct, and friendly relationships with women... but... you know!
In the spring of 1988, Liam applied to a special program at RADA, the Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts. He was accepted, but he did not know how to pay for the program. Paul L, as always a mentor and benefactor, paid for the entire program without giving Liam a chance to object. Liam knew that Paul did this as a surrogate parent, and he knew what joy it gave Paul L to see him succeed, so the next time we all got together for sex, Liam made sure to work his special brand of magic on Paul L’s face, his ass, his cock... Liam was excited at the prospect of exploring England, of getting over to Europe. We kind of wondered whether part of the lure was all the hot guys he would meet, but Liam swore to us that he was content to wait and have sex with us, if we could visit him, or until Christmastime, when he planned to come back for a month between his sessions.
Liam left, full of spice and vinegar - some sort of mixed metaphor. but apt for our Lingam. For three weeks before his departure, he insisted that we all have sex with him daily “so I can store up your special sauces.” With all of the carnage and anguish all around us, our mutual but exclusive sex life as a refuge for us, keeping us safe, as long as we trusted each other. For about 10 days, he took Russlan’s place as the bottom for everyone, and then Liam was gone. We all accompanied Liam to Logan Airport, where contrary to all public protocol, he gave each of us a deep tongue kiss before boarding his plane. We got some stares, but we simply stared back, stared them down.
Russlan was still missing from our beds and our presence, an aching void now years old, but fresh to us, and we still hoped a miracle might restore him to us. No one seemed to have a clue whether he was alive, or if so, where he was or how he could have dropped off the edge of the planet. But with Liam off studying in London, and from all we heard, making a name for himself, the absence of Russlan also left my Paul with a hunger for redheads. I knew that, and I almost dyed my own hair red before I came to my senses. Paul was missing the people, not the hair. And what kept him sane was that he had me, he had Paul L, he had Liam10, and he had letters and aerogrammes from Liam the Red.
In late October, Liam wrote to us excitedly that he had been cast in a RADA special benefit production of Marat/Sade, a show that in the 1960s had been considered very avant-garde for its raising the question of who was in the asylum and who was sane. He was playing - predictably - a young inmate who, obsessed with the devil, tears his clothes off and acts a full scene in the nude. We almost bought tickets to go as a group, but then Paul, of all people, said, “It’s nothing we haven’t seen him do before. Let the Londoners enjoy his fine, white ass; they won’t enjoy him as we do. Liam will do wonders on the stage, turning on every woman and every gay man who sees the show, and by Christmas, he’ll be ours again. And I know what he’ll find under his tree,” grasping his hardon.
November brought cold comfort. Our governor, Mike Dukakis, an honest man to his core, had misjudged badly the snake he ran against, and George Bush, Mr. Giggles himself, had been elected president to replace Reagan. Reagan had only, finally used the word, “AIDS,” in public, about a year earlier. Each of us knew someone who had died, or was dying. Paul L had created a special service for AIDS patients, sending out about 900 meals per day, the same fare that Lindoro’s served, delivered to AIDS patients. It was something, but what might have been an outbreak was by now a pandemic, at least in part due to malign neglect by the Republican administration that in its show of pious scorn for gay men had sentenced them to death. How could things get worse? We had 4 years of Bush to look forward to. “And I don’t like bush in the best of circumstances,” my Paul told our circle at dinner on e evening.
That night, I reminded him that his statement didn’t used to be true. I asked Paul if he’d heard anything from Darice. I thought I knew the answer, but I wanted to raise the question.
“Well, yes,” Paul said to my surprise.
“You never told me whether you were the father of Darice’s baby.”
“I didn’t, did I?”
“Oh my God. You are the father.”
“I didn’t say that.”
“Then...”
“Darice gave the baby up for adoption, when she realized that having a baby meant that she couldn’t have any kind of a college life of the kind she imagined. She listed me as the father, but I signed a sealed letter disputing her claim. That means that I’m not the father on the birth certificate.”
“Doesn’t that mean that someday...”
“No, it doesn’t. What no one but my parents and I know is that there is a second set of papers drawn up between Darice’s family and mine. In that paper, she agrees to hold me completely free of any obligation, because she acknowledges that Tommy was the father of her baby. The fucker got in there and got her pregnant.”
“But then why did...”
“Why did she list me as the father? Women are permitted to speculate in some degree, if there is any uncertainty. Darice’s family was pretty torn up when they learned the truth, and her parents came to me and apologized for anything they had said about me... I didn’t ask any questions. I wanted Darice to suffer the least amount of harm. No one benefits by knowing that Tommy wanted me AND fucked his sister. The only way the baby will ever find out is if there is any question of testing for genetic disorders.”
“How can they be sure the baby...”
“We can only see so far ahead of ourselves into the future, Pete.”
“I suppose.”
“Pete, I did what I did to be good to Darice. She was an important part of my past. Darice is the past tense. You and Lingam are the present and the future. You are my life. You and Lingam.”
My eyes always brimmed over when Paul talked like this. That night was no exception. I kissed him on the lips, and we held each other all night. In the morning, Paul said that he wanted our separation from Liam to end. He said we needed to find a way that we could always be together. We agreed that we would surprise Liam at the airport when he arrived from London, now only a matter of a few weeks away. Paul spoke with Paul L about recreating our first meal together at Lindoro’s, and Paul L was touched by the gesture and began searching for a case of grandjo, which had become harder to find.
The days moved by quickly, as our plans for a reunion grew more real daily. We could scarcely wait. On Wednesday morning, Dec. 21, an excited Liam phoned us from Heathrow to tell us that he was soon going to board his plane and would see us soon. It was already late afternoon in London. He sounded wonderful, and I could see that his voice was making Paul’s pants fit more tightly. Mine too, when I thought of the sweet love we would make with our Lingam that night.
We were already at Logan Airport in Boston with balloons and flowers when we heard that there was a delay. Then we heard that Liam’s plane hadn’t landed in New York at all. It had come down in a little town that was as yet unknown. Lockerbie, Scotland.
