Free Defining Us: The Calvin & Eric Story (69 Bottles) by Zoey Derrick Page B

to kiss me in Orlando, everything has changed between us. Now it is going to change between us forever. He will walk out of this house and sometime over the course of the next few days, he will find it in himself to get over it and we will go back to the way things were between us. Back to being Mouse and Peacock. Right? Right.  
    "Thanks," I tell him as I wipe down the counter one last time.  
    He turns around and leans against the sink. "You're welcome." He cocks his head at me, desperate to read my expression and I watch as his fingers twitch like he's aching to do something, to touch me, or something. Then he licks his lips and my mouth goes dry and my breath catches in my throat.  
    He takes a step toward me, then another, and I know where this is going. "Don't," I whisper.  
    "Why?" he counters in a voice equal parts soft and hurt.  
    I lean back against the counter, looking at the floor, my body tense. "Because, dinner was good, we need to talk, and I don't want to ruin it by throwing up all over everything."  
    He freezes. "Do I repulse you that much?" he asks, his voice laced with emotion.  
    "No, Eric. I want nothing more than for you to kiss me, to hold me, to show me that you love me, but you can't, I can't."  
    "But I can, I want to, you want me to. What's so wrong with giving into what you want?"  
    "Because what I want is buried deep inside my brain, hiding behind concrete walls so thick that it would take the Hulk a hundred years to even put a dent in it."  
    "Cal, I don't understand."  
    I raise my eyes to his, holding him in my gaze. "Because," a single tear escapes my eye, "Because I've been raped, beaten and tortured for being gay."

CALVIN’S words knock the wind right out of me and I stumble backwards. “Because I was shown unimaginable images, forced into believing that being gay is a sin, that being gay is the highest form of blasphemy, that being gay is an abomination.”  
    I can barely breathe, but I reach for my scotch and down the entire glass, feeling the burn slide down my throat. I look at him and there’s pain in his eyes, unimaginable pain. “I was first beaten by my father, more than a few times, when he caught me with a couple guys. He’d break bones, including my cheekbone.” I watch as he rubs at his left cheekbone. “When my father realized that beating me on a regular basis wasn’t going to be enough to make me change who I was, he institutionalized me in a nut house. One that specialized in conditional therapy.”  
    “I don’t under…” I can’t breathe enough to talk, let alone think.  
    Calvin sighs deeply. “You know that movie, that one where they force the rapist to watch movies of people being raped?”  
    “Jesus fucking Christ…that shit’s real?” I finally manage.
    He nods. “Well, it was fifteen years ago and where I’m from,” he shrugs, “I never believed that it really worked, not until I got into the outside world and tried to have sexual thoughts about men.”  
    “I need to sit down,” I manage to say before pushing away from the counter. I go around him to the alcohol and fill my glass full of scotch before downing half of it. “Fuck me,” I groan as the burn slides its way into my stomach.  
    “I wish I could,” Calvin says and my eyes snap to him and my cock stirs involuntarily in my jeans. “I fucking love you, Eric. I’ve been in love with you since that morning you came to my dorm to pick up my last baggie. I fell in love with you along that entire ordeal, but I didn’t realize it until I was free of the coke.” He leans into the counter and I manage to fall into his chair from dinner. “I’m pretty sure I did it long before then. In fact, I like to believe that it happened the first time I saw you. But at that time I was completely and totally incapable of looking at any man long enough to feel anything for them.”  
    “You…you love me?” My brain is hung up on what he’s said to me. I’m struggling to