Free Message of Love by Jim Provenzano Page A

was providing some extra money for me to save up for school. But as late in the summer as it was, I spent more time piling up bags of wood chips and shelving pottery.
    “You still visit Ev on the weekends, right?”
    “Oh, yeah,” I smiled at Everett.
    “Fun in the big city. Hey, I oughtta come with. You guys could show me around.”
    “Sure!” Everett said, a bit too enthusiastically.
    I considered a drive to Pittsburgh in Kevin’s Camaro, our odd relationship, and what might happen. Kevin’s offer seemed innocent enough, but I didn’t agree to any specific plans. Back in high school, being alone with Kevin led to our unbalanced sexual connection. With all this joking flirtation, I wasn’t quite sure that link had been broken.
    “We only have two more weeks until we drive back to Philly, and I’m tryin’ to get as many hours as I can, so I’m not sure when …”
    “Sure, whenever,” Kevin said, a bit dismissively, as he sauntered across the room, ending his macho dance.
    Once we were comfortable enough to feign sobriety, Everett drove the van back to my house where he and I managed to dodge any parental interrogations. It was still early evening, but we retreated to my room, having called out to Mom that we’d already eaten.
    “He seems happy,” Everett said as we undressed and got settled on my bed. I made sure my door was locked. The pot had made me a little amorous; that and Kevin’s company.
    As if reading my mind, which became a more frequent occurrence with Everett, he broke our first embrace with a question.
    “Would you have, if Kevin had wanted to?”
    “What?”
    “You know; a return engagement.”
    “With him? That was just… I was miserable then. I thought you were gone for good.”
    “No, I mean, if I were with you, and him.”
    “What?” I pretended to be shocked, but actually the idea had occurred to me, if Kevin’s brother hadn’t been there. “I don’t…think so. Besides, he’s not… I mean, big dick and all, he’s not very good at it.”
    “But if he was.”
    “Are you–?”
    “Forget it. Just horny stoned thoughts. Come ‘ere. I prefer your big dick anyway.”
    Although he seemed to have dismissed it, as we fumbled about on my bed, quietly, with music playing more to cover our sounds than inspire us, I began to wonder if I wanted such a situation.
    Did I need sex with an able-bodied guy? I’d grown used to the difference, helping Everett move his legs as we adjusted our bodies, focusing on his chest, on kissing and caressing the more toned muscles in his shoulders and back, and letting him explore my body with increasing ease.
    Once again Everett kept the sex fairly one-sided, him eventually pleasing me, and unable or uninterested in getting an erection or reaching an orgasm, or even a ‘back-ejac,’ as he enthusiastically persisted in giving his attentions to me.
    He must have thought he wanted to share an opportunity, something that could possibly strengthen our connection. But it instead left me with a lingering doubt.
    Halting his insistent clutch to my hips, I rearranged myself and did the same to him, for a long time, stroking him to a rigidity that surprised him. I shifted upward to face him, plant our lips together as I humped him, groin to leg, thrusting between his legs, occasionally poking behind and into him, until I finally got a few spasming bucks of relief out of him and myself. But I kept kissing him, licking and caressing under his arm, longing to cover every inch of his skin with my own, until he shivered and begged me to stop.
    After cleaning ourselves up and cuddling close for the night, I slept well, having convinced myself, having proven that I was enough for him, that we were enough for each other.

 
    Chapter 9
    September 1980
     
    “Did you know…?”
    “Not another ‘Did You Know.’”
    As Everett sat at his desk, I lay on the carpeted floor, stretching, since I’d decided to jog across town after taking the Broad Street line from