Resonance

Chapter 11. Raft

  On Thursday morning at about ten we swam out to the raft. I took the sunscreen and my shades and Shep's shades and two socks in a zip-top plastic bag, not that it kept anything really dry but it was easier to carry everything that way. We had put on sunscreen before we left the cabin, and it's supposed to be waterproof, but I really didn't want a sunburned ass, so I put some more on before I lay down.

  I lay there on my stomach, getting into the moment. I had slept really well the night before. We'd had French toast and sausage for breakfast. The sun was shining out of a cloudless sky, and I could feel my skin beginning to prickle as the lake water dried on it. I could hear the little waves sloshing faintly against the raft, and an occasional bird sound from the woods. There was a nice soft breeze on the water, so the raft slid and dipped just enough so you knew you weren't on land. It was great.

  I might have dropped off for a minute or two. The prickling was stronger, and when I poked my arm it left a lighter spot for a moment.

  "Shep?" I said. "Time is it?" He has this diving watch that he loves, partly because it looks cool and partly because he can leave it on all the time, including in the shower and also of course swimming.

  "Twenty-two minutes on the A-side," he said. "Time to flip."

  I turned over, put on my shades, and put one of the socks, which were perfectly dry by now, over my dick. No way do I want a sunburn there. Shep was doing the same as I lay back down.

  "Did you know," he started—he was talking really slow, almost drawling, as if he was really relaxed, but there was something a little tight in his voice—"that when you were two months old, I sucked your little dick?"

  Holy wow. I didn't say anything for a moment. I mean, what a concept. "But," I finally said, "that would make you, what, a month old?"

  "About six weeks." His voice was a little easier now. "Remember the laundry basket?"

  "Yeah." I did. It was a big wicker job, oval, with a handle at each end. My mom had made a foam mattress that fit into it, and fitted sheets, and the first summer after Shep and I were born, the moms would put us in it out under a tree in the yard at the lake. They covered it with an old sheer net curtain to keep the flies and mosquitoes off us. That way we could all be outside—we could have our naps, and they could watch us.

  "You were very susceptible to diaper rash, buddy," Shep went on. "So Mona put you in there bare-ass, to air out your little butt. Mom peeked in to see how we were doing, and she thought we were all cuddled up together. 'Isn't that cute,' she said to Mona, and Mona came to look just as Mom realized what I was doing. So she was all 'Eek!' but Mona—your mom is so cool—she said, 'Just leave them, Jean. Baby William is obviously very happy to have something to suck on, and look at Mitchell—he's really enjoying it.' You were moaning like a virgin at her first orgy or something. So they did."

  While I was lying there on my back, taking this in, I suddenly felt the sock being pulled off my dick, and while I was saying "Hey!" and reaching down, Shep put his mouth over it.

  My cock went from limp to wood in a nanosecond. I gasped, and then I didn't say anything. After that first second, it was too late, I couldn't ask him to stop because it felt so good, it felt really fantastic, better even than I had imagined when I thought of somebody giving me a blow job.

  But at the same time I was so incredibly sad, I could have cried, really, because it was a guy giving me my first blow job and not a girl.

  And at the same time as that, I was suddenly wondering whether Shep was gay, and whether maybe I was gay.

  But mainly it felt so good, better than anything.

  I was getting toward the edge when he stopped.

  "I'm not going to make you come," he said. His voice was kind of breathless. "I know you too well, buddy, and if I make you come, you'll get totally weirded out with guilt and remorse and stuff. But I have an urgent date with Freddy Fist, right now, and you should feel free to join us."

  I lifted my head, and Shep was lying back, jacking off. His head was pointing to the opposite end of the raft from mine, and he had his eyes shut, so I went ahead and joined him. When I was done, I took off my shades and rolled over into the lake.

  I took a deep breath and did a duck dive down to the bottom. I opened my eyes and swam along above the weeds, watching them wave in the eddies and not thinking about anything. There was a little cairn of stones, gravel, at one spot on the bottom, and I scooped up a handful.

  When I really, really had to breathe again I popped up, shook the water out of my eyes, and headed back to the raft. Shep was sitting up with his arms around his knees, looking off into the distance, as I pulled myself up onto it.

  "So, are you weirded out?" he asked softly, not looking at me.

  "Maybe a little," I said. I sat down parallel to him but facing the other way, so we weren't looking at each other.

  He didn't say anything.

  I tossed one of my little stones into the water—they were too round to skip—and it went plunk. I watched the ripples spread out from it in a circle. I thought that life was like that—you dropped into the world, and when you were a baby, your world was tiny, and then it started spreading out around you.

  Before the circles were all gone, I tossed in another stone, and another one. The circles spread and intersected each other, like the people that impinge on your life, that you interact with.

  "Are you gay?" I finally asked.

  He didn't answer for a while. I tossed the rest of the stones in all at once, and they made a crazy chaos where it was hard to see any individual pattern. That was like life too, I thought.

  "Not sure," Shep said eventually. "The—the thought of a girl's body, you know, tits and ass and, uh, private parts, that turns me on. But the thought of a guy's body does too. And I'm, you know, more familiar. With the parts. How they work.

  "And you—you know I love you, buddy. Always have. And you've got a, well, a really nice body. And when my mom told me that story—"

  "Yeah, how did that come up?" I asked.

  "She'd had a little to drink," he said. "You know, the usual. And she got kind of maudlin, about how much she loved your mom, about how close the two of them are. 'It's a precious gift,' she said. 'The two of us are so different, and yet so close. I would do anything in the world for Mona, and I know she would for me.' And how glad she was that you and I were so close, such good friends, how that kind of friendship sometimes doesn't go on into the second generation, but in our case it did. And then she told me."

  "What did you say?" I asked.

  "She ended by saying, 'It was so sweet, William—wasn't it sweet?' So I just said, 'Yeah, really sweet.' Then she fell asleep." Shep sort of snorted. If you listened really closely and knew him really well, you might think it was a sob. I reached over and squeezed his arm. It was automatic. He was right—we were really close, always had been, and I did love him.

  "So," he said after a minute. "Are we okay?"

  "Well," I said, thinking about it. "Depends. Were you planning—did you think we—are you—"

  "No," he said, laughing a little bit. "I do not expect any payback. And I don't expect to—continue. Not expect. I sort of thought, if you felt like, you know, some exploration, experimentation in this area, in the interests of science and self-knowledge and personal fulfillment, that that could be accommodated. But no, no expectations."

  "Jesus, Shep." I sighed.

  "You are weirded out." His voice sounded a little sad.

  "No. Well, maybe a little." I stopped and tried to sort out my feelings. I decided that I owed it to him to be as honest as possible.

  "Look," I finally said. "I don't know how I feel about it at this point. I—I, well, I uh love you too, Shep, you know that. And it would be really easy to, to go along. Just because it—feels so good. At the same time, I really don't want to. Not now. Not until I—get it sorted out. So, let's go home."

  "Oh, shit!" he said, kind of hopelessly.

  "Hey," I said persuasively. "It's a
lready Thursday. We'd probably be going home tomorrow anyway. And—look, it's not that I'm afraid you're going to jump me or anything. Maybe it's that I'm a little bit afraid that I might, you know, want to jump you. Either way, I'm going to feel kind of awkward for a little while. So let's go home."

  I looked over at him. He was still holding his knees, only now he was kind of hunched over. He looked pretty miserable.

  I scootched over and put my arms around him and gave him a hug. "I'm not scared of you. I know you're the same person I've been hanging out with up here all week—hanging out with my whole life. I love you, whatever, however you might have changed. If you are gay, that won't change how I feel. You just have to give me some time."

  "We better get back to the cabin," he said. "We're going to burn, and our moms will kill us. And we need to pack." He turned and hugged me back.

  So we drove—correction, started to drive home.