Something Like Winter (12 page)

“
Yeah,” Tim
said.

Mrs. Hewitt raised an
eyebrow. “Excuse me?”

“
Yes, ma’am.”

“
Good. You’ll report to
room 2W26 today after sixth period for your detention.”

“
Yes, ma’am.”

Tim slunk out of the room.
He may have pulled the wool over an adult’s eyes, but he felt
anything but victorious.

* * * * *

Tim opened the front door
before Ben could ring the bell, hobbling out to the front porch.
The afternoon was cooling off, the fresh air welcome after being
cooped up inside. Days like today made Tim feel like he could break
into a sprint, running past the neighborhoods, into the wild, and
away from the world he knew. Maybe he’d throw Ben over his shoulder
and bring him along. Of course with his ankle, he wouldn’t be
running anywhere just yet.

“
Take me for a walk,” he
said instead.

“
I left Wilford’s leash at
home,” Ben replied, “but I can run back and get it.”

“
Ha ha. Seriously. I need
some exercise.”

Ben looked him over. “You
sure?”

“
Yeah, doctor’s orders.”
The cast had come off last night, a removable plastic brace taking
its place. His ankle was a little stiff and the pain came and went,
but mostly he was okay walking on it.

“
Okay,” Ben said. “Where do
you want to go?”

Tim gazed at him. They
hadn’t had sex since those first tumbles on the couch. Since then,
Ben hadn’t made a move. Tim had been glad for that, but now he
wouldn’t mind a relapse. If you had to go to confession, you might
as well enjoy the sin.

“
Somewhere private,” Tim
suggested.

“
Ah!” Ben fought down a
smile. “Well, we could walk to my place.”

“
Are your parents
there?”

“
Yeah.”

Tim shook his head. “No
way.”

“
Okay—” Ben turned this way
and that, as if to get his bearings. “Follow me.”

Tim followed him down the
street and to one of the bike paths, enjoying the physical
exertion. He hoped he could start jogging again soon. He needed the
release, although Ben might have a different sort for him,
depending on where they were headed.

“
Think you can handle going
off road?” Ben asked.

The bike path ran ahead,
the backs of houses to the left and trees on the right. It wouldn’t
be easy, but Tim thought he could manage. He nodded, and Ben led
him into the woods. They walked a fair distance, following a small
winding dirt path before abandoning it. Not much farther ahead was
a tree with low branches, each thick and long, some burdened with a
wooden construct of some sort.

“
My tree house,” Ben
declared.

“
How many rooms does it
have?” Tim asked.

“
One,” Ben said
proudly.

“
More like a tree shack
then.”

Ben laughed, then scurried
up a couple of wooden boards hammered into the trunk to form a
ladder.

“
Unless you’re going to
carry me up there,” Tim said, “I don’t think I’ll be able to join
you.”

But he tried anyway, using
his good foot to get on the second rung and pulling himself up so
he could at least see over the edge. Forget tree shack! A hobo
would turn up his nose at this place. It didn’t even have a proper
floor, just a bunch of criss-crossed boards. What passed for a roof
strained where rain water had collected. Of Ben’s many talents,
carpentry wasn’t included.

“
Very nice,” he lied. Then
he lowered himself back down, his ankle twinging, so he took
pressure off it by sitting and stretching out on a bed of fallen
leaves.

“
I’ve gotten a lot of good
thinking done here,” Ben said, his legs dangling over the
edge.

“
Oh yeah?”

“
Yeah. This is where I
figured out I was gay.” Ben watched him from above, waiting for him
to ask more.

Tim bit. “How did you
know?”

“
I fell in love. Well, sort
of. I thought it was love at the time. Really it was probably just
a crush, but there were feelings nonetheless.”

“
Who was the lucky
guy?”

“
Kevin, a friend of mine.
When he moved away I was heartbroken. I was just twelve at the
time. I guess there had always been guys I liked, but with him, I
took it to a whole new level. I tried to catch a bus to Utah just
to see him, and when that failed, I wrote him a love
letter.”

“
So did you two ever hook
up?”

“
I was twelve!” Ben brushed
some leaves down on Tim’s head.

“
So? I lost my virginity
when I was thirteen.”

“
Why am I not surprised?”
Ben was quiet a moment. “You’re ruining my story.”

“
Sorry.”

“
So anyway, shortly
afterwards, a girl in school asked me out. Not like on a date, but
to be her boyfriend or whatever. That was the missing puzzle piece.
The idea of being with a girl that way, of being romantic, had
never occurred to me. I mean, it was fine for other people, just
not for me. But when I thought of Kevin, it felt right.”

Tim shook his head. “That’s
not me, Benjamin. I like girls. They turn me on.”

“
But you like guys too,”
Ben pointed out.

“
Maybe.”

Ben lowered himself over
the edge and hopped down. He got on the ground with Tim, crawling
over him like an animal, bringing their faces close together. He
was so damn ballsy! They hadn’t done a thing since last weekend,
and Ben acted certain Tim would still be willing. Of course he was
right. Ben kissed him, and Tim kissed back, reaching to stroke his
hair when Ben moved away.

“
Maybe?
” Ben said with a smirk. Then he sat back, pulling his legs up
in front of him.

Tim sat up too. “You sure
know how to make a point!”

Ben grinned. “What I’m
trying to say is that it’s not just physical. I’ve messed around
with a lot of straight guys before.”

“
What? How does that
work?”

“
Well, it was mostly in
junior high when guys are a little more experimental. Or desperate.
So there were a handful I would do stuff for.”

Tim wasn’t sure if he
should be turned on or jealous. “What sort of stuff?”

“
You know firsthand,” Ben
said pointedly. “Anyway, I thought there were a lot of other guys
like me. I’d already sat in this very tree and put a name to it. I
even said it out loud. ‘I’m gay.’ You have to come out to yourself
first, so I did. I thought these other guys hadn’t done that yet,
so I started talking to them about it.”

“
And?”

“
And it got around the
school. I lost all my friends except for Allison, and most of those
guys I thought were like me now have girlfriends.”

Tim watched Ben’s face
closely, trying to imagine how that must have felt. In Kansas, the
school had turned against Tim because of a lie. But for Ben, they
turned their backs because of who he was.

“
Sorry, man.” The words
were far from sufficient, but they were all Tim could
manage.

“
It’s okay. I keep getting
sidetracked, really. My point is that just because these guys
messed around with me, doesn’t make them gay. We all do crazy
things when we’re horny. So you sleeping with girls doesn’t mean
you’re straight.”

Tim stared at him. Then he
laughed. “You think I’m just a very experimental gay guy? I’ve had
sex with women enough times that it’s gone
way
past the experimental stage. Is
there an expert phase? Because that’s where I’m at.”

Ben tried a new tactic.
“Did you love any of them?”

That shut Tim up. The
longest relationship he ever had was with Carla, and half the time
they were together he didn’t even like her. But part of him cared
enough to stick with her. Sort of like he was doing with Krista. He
would never be her friend, but as a girlfriend it somehow
worked.

“
I’ve never been in love
with a guy either,” Tim said.

Ben shrugged. “So the jury
is still out. At least until you fall in love.”

Tim shook his head
ruefully. “Whatever makes you happy.” He glanced up at the tree.
“Speaking of love, who is A.C.?”

Ben looked embarrassed and
followed his gaze. Carved into the tree were two sets of initials.
The B.B. could only belong to Ben Bentley.

“
Allison Cross.”

“
So Benjamin
has
had a girlfriend
before?” Tim said with a cackle. “How experimental of
you!”

“
Shut up!” Ben laughed. “We
were young and dumb. Allison and I thought it would make a good
best friends oath. You know, like how people cut their thumbs and
press them together or whatever. We carved our initials on this
tree.”

“
And then carved a heart
around them,” Tim pointed out.

“
Young and dumb,” Ben
repeated. “Don’t tell me you’re jealous.”

“
Of her or the countless
straight guys you’ve toyed with?”

Ben’s face grew serious.
“It’s not like that.”

“
I was just
teasing.”

“
I know, but you’re
different.”

Tim wasn’t sure what that
meant. Was he different because Ben thought he was gay, or was he
different because Ben had feelings for him? Either way, the
intensity of that look had Tim interested in anything but more
conversation. “Kiss me.”

Ben came to him and did as
he was told. Tim started gently but then nibbled and gnawed on his
lips. He felt like he could eat Ben up, like some sort of cannibal
vampire. Kissing Ben drove Tim wild, maybe because he didn’t have
to be as cautious as he was with girls. He would have gladly spent
the rest of the day lying together in the leaves, but a twig
snapped and they both jumped. They froze, only their eyes moving as
they tried to detect more noise. When it didn’t come, they both
chuckled. Then Ben attempted to unbutton Tim’s shorts.

“
Not here!” Tim said,
sitting up and knocking his hand away. “Jesus, we’re out in the
open!”

Ben’s brow furrowed. “We’re
not exactly in public. No one ever comes out here.”

“
But they could,” Tim said.
“There are houses just over there.”

“
Fine.” Ben rolled his eyes
before a different idea occurred to him. Tim knew from his
expression that he was in trouble. “Come home with me. I’ll smuggle
you upstairs to my room, and you can stay the night.”

“
Like your parents wouldn’t
notice?”

“
My parents won’t care,”
Ben said. “Those are your choices. Whip it out here and now, or
come home with me.”

“
Or I can go home and jack
off,” Tim said.

Ben’s smile was way too
confident. “You can’t say no to me.”

Instead of arguing, Tim
proved him right.

* * * * *

True to his word, Ben
smuggled him inside the house and up the stairs undetected. Ben
lived only a few blocks over, in a neighborhood old enough to have
character. The houses were a little smaller than those in the new
subdivision where Tim lived, but still decidedly middle class. Once
they reached the safety of his room, Ben slipped out again to order
a pizza for dinner.

Ben’s room wasn’t quite
what Tim had expected. That is, it contained nothing conspicuously
gay. No posters of guys on the wall or rainbow bedspreads. Tim
couldn’t even say it was tastefully decorated, since it was all a
little eclectic. The wrinkled-up bed had probably been made in
haste. A coat rack in the corner held a jacket or two and a couple
of hats, and two identical CD shelves were maxed out. A small
writing desk against one wall held a laptop, and of course the
requisite stereo and TV finished the decor. All in all it was a
typical guy’s room, except maybe for the scented candles on the
windowsill.

Tim felt restless, sitting
on the edge of the bed briefly before rising again to check out a
collage of photos on the wall. Most were of Ben and a pretty black
girl—the fabled Allison, most likely. In one Ben had his hair dyed
black and Allison was pretending to smoke a pen like it was a
cigarette. In another they were younger and dressed for Halloween.
Allison was wearing a man’s suit, a false mustache, and
slicked-back hair. Ben was dressed up like a woman, wearing
make-up, a horrible wig, and a tank top stuffed with two oranges
for boobs. Tim leaned in, trying to decide if Ben as a girl did
anything for him when the bedroom door opened.

Ben walked in wearing a
hopeless expression, his mother close behind. She couldn’t be
anyone else, the family resemblance all too clear. Take Ben, make
him shorter and style that blond hair into a bob, and
voilá!

“
Sorry!” she said. “I don’t
mean to intrude. I’m June, Ben’s mom.”

“
Tim,” he said, accepting
her extended hand.