Becoming Andy Hunsinger Read online

  Travis’ gaze met mine while I caught my breath.

  And then we both smiled at each other.

  ***

  Travis and I slept together spoon-style, with Travis’ back pressed to my chest, and my arm wrapped about his slender waist. I fell asleep moments after we hit the mattress, right after our shower. I felt exhausted by all that had happened that day.

  When I woke, early morning sunshine poured into the bedroom through the eastern windows, and a scent of pine needles wafted through the screens. In a nearby tree, a squirrel barked. I checked the clock on the nightstand. Shit. I was due at Capital City in an hour.

  Travis had changed position during the night. His cheek rested on my sternum, his arm draped my waist, and one of his legs crossed over one of mine. I studied the contours of his face while his breath swept my skin. Sunlight reflected in his dark hair; it fanned out across my chest and his shoulder. We lay beneath a thin cotton bed sheet. On the window sill, my box fan hummed, fluttering leaves on a corn plant in one corner of the room

  I found myself wondering whether the previous night’s events had truly occurred. Had it all been a dream? But Travis was here, in my bed. I felt the warmth of his skin, listened to his soft snoring, watched the rise and fall of his chest. His pulse throbbed in his temple that lay upon my chest.

  It’s real. He’s here.

  Now, it’s your job to make sure he stays for good.

  I smooched the crown of Travis’ head -- his hair smelled like rainwater -- and then I spoke in a whisper.

  “Time to wake up.”

  Travis chugged his knees. His eyelids fluttered open, and then he yawned.

  “Hey, Andy.”

  “Good morning,” I said. “How’d you sleep?”

  He kissed my chest. Then he returned his cheek to my sternum. “Better than I have in years. Why is that? Because your bed’s more comfortable than mine?”

  I chuckled, deep in my throat.

  “I think you know,” I said.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  A few days after Travis moved in with me, Biff Schultz phoned.

  “How’s the love nest?” he asked. “Are you two cocksuckers getting along?”

  “Everything’s fine,” I said. “I’m not a fatalist, but I think Travis and I are meant to be together; it just took us a while to get here.”

  Biff snorted. “You know, you have me to thank for all this.”

  I crinkled my forehead. “How so?”

  “Remember when I first asked you to run with us? It wasn’t long after your Anita Bryant thing.”

  “Sure, I remember.”

  “Well, once I learned you were queer, I knew you’d be perfect for Travis.”

  “What?”

  Biff hissed.

  “Hunsinger, sometimes you’re so dense. Why do you think I invited you to the track?”

  ***

  It seemed Travis’ relationship with his family, following their Labor Day blowup, wasn’t quite as dire as he’d thought. Days after he moved in with me, his mother sent him a check to cover Travis’ fall quarter expenses.

  “Your father doesn’t know about this,” she wrote, “and let’s keep it that way until he cools down. He still loves you. Give him time, and he’ll come around.”

  “Good old Mom,” Travis said, shaking his head.

  “I don’t understand?” I said. “Where did she get the money?”

  Travis shrugged. “Her grandparents left her a small trust fund; it’s hers to spend as she pleases.”

  So, Travis studied his pre-med courses, while I faced the challenge of law school. Each weekday morning, Travis and I showered and shaved. We packed brown bag lunches and shared a hasty breakfast. We kissed each other goodbye, and then we were off to school on our bikes.

  Chilly weather came early that year. The morning air reddened our cheeks as we pedaled through neighborhoods where smoke rose from chimneys. We both wore flannel shirts and blue jeans, and yet we rarely broke a sweat on our journeys toward campus. I always hated the moment when I turned west, onto Call Street, and Travis continued northward toward FSU’s main campus. We always waved goodbye. Travis might blow me a kiss, and then a lonely feeling would wash over me, as though I’d lost something special.

  Travis’ clothing and shoes occupied my bureau and closet. His underwear and socks commingled with mine in a drawer. His collection of plants gave the apartment a jungle-like appearance. On shelving we’d created with concrete blocks and plywood, Travis’ multitude of Biology books stood next to my law texts.

  Okay, the place was overcrowded, but I didn’t care.

  I wasn’t alone anymore.

  Each afternoon, before we prepared dinner, we made love in my bed, and our passion for each other seemed unlike any I’d experienced before. I found Travis sensual in a way I hadn’t found Jeff, Dexter, or even Aaron to be. Just kissing Travis seemed like a visit to a deeply erotic place.

  Of course, we had our issues.

  Travis was a nervous sleeper; he thrashed about between the sheets; he talked gibberish that often woke me, and then I’d lie awake for an hour or more, staring at the ceiling. He also had a habit of drinking from a glass of water, and then leaving the half-empty glass wherever he’d set it down. One afternoon, I collected eight glasses from various places in our apartment: the top of the toilet tank, the nightstand, Travis’ desk, and so on. Afterward, when I confronted him about the situation, he only shrugged.

  “It’s important to stay hydrated,” he told me.

  But these were small quirks of his personality I could easily overlook. His pluses, as they say, far outweighed his minuses.

  Every Sunday morning, before he left for church, Travis washed my feet in our little bathroom, using the basin, the lavender-scented soap, and the fluffy towel he’d used when ministering to Biff and Austin. And every evening, before joining me in bed, he knelt on the floor to pray, bathed in the glow from a candle he kept on our dresser. Travis kept a King James Bible in our bedroom, and most every day he read from it for an hour or so.

  I, of course, did not attend church with Travis, nor did I join him in prayer. I tried to respect his religious beliefs, and he tried to accept my lack of faith. We had an unspoken understanding between us: we would not let our divergent views on religious matters interfere with the love we felt for each other.

  We dealt with sexual issues, too. At first Travis resisted anal intercourse. “It seems unnatural,” he told me. But finally, he acceded. I let him take me on my back, with my legs slung over his shoulders. He had never looked as beautiful as he did right then: his brow sweaty, his dark hair fluttering about his shoulders, his mouth agape while he thrust inside me. Every muscle in his upper body was visible under his milky skin.

  When it was over, Travis whispered in my ear, “That was incredible, Andy.”

  And all I could think was, Incredible’s an understatement.

  Then, one afternoon in late September, while we made love in our bedroom, Travis stroked my cheek with his thumb. He whispered so quietly I barely heard him over the din of traffic passing on Franklin Street.

  “I shouldn’t always be on top, Andy. I think it’s time I felt you inside me.”

  What followed was the most memorable sexual experience of my life, eclipsing even my first time with Jeff Dellinger. I will never forget the details. Afternoon sunshine slanted into the bedroom, casting bars of light onto Travis’ milky skin. Veins in Travis’ neck swelled, and then his jaw clenched when I entered him. The scents of sex and our sweat filled the room. Travis’ cries bounced off the bedroom walls while I thrust inside him. More than once, he called my name -- and then Jesus’, too -- when he came. My orgasm shook my body like I’d been shot with a stun gun. My vision blurred and my chest heaved. I shouted like a lunatic, and then I collapsed on top of Travis: sweaty, spent, and thoroughly satiated.

  As each day passed, I grew more comfortable with Travis’ presence in my life. Beneath the stony exterior he showed the w
orld dwelt a gentle soul who’d suffered greatly, who needed my love and attention -- as much as I could give -- and I didn’t hold back. We spent most of our evenings on our living room sofa, studying in our underwear. Travis lay with his head in my lap, and every so often I ran a hand through his hair; I stroked the hairs on the back of his forearm, or sometimes I raised his hand to my lips and kissed his knuckles.

  Living with Travis and knowing he was there for me each day brought wholeness to my life, a kind I had never experienced before. Finally, I belonged to someone, and he belonged to me. Despite his peculiarities and the differences in our world views, we fit together as well as any two people could, I thought.

  For me, Travis became the missing piece in the jigsaw puzzle of my life.

  Weekdays, once I reached school, I attended three hours of class. In between lectures, I studied at a carrel I’d reserved on the library’s second floor, next to a window with a view of the law school’s green, an emerald expanse rimmed by ancient live oaks and long leaf pines. I read case law, studied the rules of court, and memorized various forms of real property ownership: fee simple, life estate, tenancy in common, joint tenancy with rights of survivorship, and so forth. I memorized The Rule in Shelley’s Case and the Rule Against Perpetuities, knowing these would surely appear in my Real Property final exam.

  Each day, after my last class ended at three P.M, I visited the law library, to make copies of my notes from the day’s lectures. Then I met up with my classmate, Spencer, someplace outdoors if the weather was good. We exchanged copies of our notes, and then we reviewed the material covered in class that day. Our daily exchanges helped us both a good deal, I think. We bounced observations back and forth, critiqued the other guy’s notes, and then compared material we’d underlined in our texts. Okay, studying law was hard work, but I found it stimulating and far more challenging than my undergraduate classes. Already I knew I’d made the right decision when I chose law as my career.

  Each weekday, I arrived home a little past five P.M., for my daily lovemaking session with Travis. This was our special time. We’d lock the front door and wouldn’t let anything interrupt us, not the phone, not people knocking. As weeks passed, Travis seemed to become more comfortable with himself and our life together. When I introduced him to Fergal as “my boyfriend”, Travis didn’t even blush. He looked Fergal in the eye and shook Fergal’s hand.

  “I hope we’ll be friends,” he told Fergal.

  Fergal looked at me, then Travis. “If Andy likes you, mate, I’m sure I will, too.”

  On a Sunday night, after much coaxing on my part, Travis attended a Gay Rap Group session with me. While there, he rarely spoke unless someone asked him a question, and the same held true when we visited The Pastime tavern, after the meeting. He cracked peanuts or sipped from his beer glass, just listening to other guys talk. Afterward, while we drove home in my Vega, I stopped at a red light. Then I looked at Travis.

  “You certainly were quiet tonight, how come?”

  Travis pulled a handful of hair from his forehead, tucked it behind an ear. “This is all new to me, appearing in public as your boyfriend, declaring myself as gay to people I don’t know. It’ll take me a while to adjust, I guess.”

  “Am I pushing you too fast? Am I making you uncomfortable?”

  He shook his head. “On the contrary, you’re far too easy on me.” Then he placed a hand on the back of my neck and squeezed.

  “That’s why I love you, Andy.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  On a Saturday night in late October, we gathered in a circle about a campfire: Travis and I, Biff Schultz and his girlfriend Carol, Fergal and his girl Gina. Jerry Justus joined us as well; he was now a first year student at Tallahassee Community College. We had pitched four tents among the dunes at St. George Island State Park.

  The weather was unusually warm. We all wore shorts and T-shirts, excepting Biff, who strode about the campsite naked with his cock wobbling and his ass cheeks twitching. We passed a jug of cheap Chablis -- the kind that burns the back of your throat on the first swallow -- and each of us took swigs. Already, my brain had fuzzed and my limbs were relaxed.

  How good it felt to escape the world of case law, statutes, and the rules of court procedure.

  The terrain around me looked much as it had two hundred years before: pristine and unsullied by civilization. Above us, stars twinkled in the night sky; they looked like loose diamonds scattered across a jeweler’s cloth. To the east, a fingernail moon rose. Waves smacked the shore, making slushy noises. A light breeze stirred an expanse of sea oats; they grew among the dunes, looking much like a wheat field.

  Travis and I sat on a straw mat with our arms about each other’s shoulders. Firelight reflected in Travis’ dark eyes. Because he hadn’t shaved in a few days, stubble blued his chin and cheeks.

  My thoughts turned to a moment, only a half hour before, when Travis had tuned his guitar. We sang a duet, Travis and I, the same we’d performed in Biff’s back yard, so many months before: the Beatles’ song, Blackbird. I sang the melody, Travis the harmony, and our sweet sound resonated off nearby dunes.

  While we sang, the fire’s glow illuminated my friends’ faces; the flames reflected in their eyes while they listened to the words we sang.

  Our moment had arrived -- Travis’ and mine -- and I think if Dr. Seuss had seen us just then, he would have been proud of us.

  I truly do.

  --The End--

  If you enjoyed this, try these other books from Jere Fishback and Prizm Books!

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  For years, Tyler has ignored his attraction to other boys. But with Devin in the house, Tyler can’t deny his urges any longer. He falls hopelessly in love with his miscreant half-brother, and with the sport of basketball, once Devin teaches Tyler the finer points of the game. In a time when love between men was forbidden, even criminalized, can Tyler find the love he needs from another boy? And is Devin a person to be trusted? Is he truly clairvoyant, or simply a con artist playing Tyler and others for fools? What does Devin really know about a local murder? And can Tyler trust his own psychic twinges?

  Josef Jaeger

  Josef Jaeger turns thirteen when Adolf Hitler is appointed Germany’s new Chancellor. When his mother dies, Josef is sent to Munich to live with his uncle, Ernst Roehm, the openly-homosexual chief of the Nazi brown shirts. Josef thinks he’s found a father-figure in his uncle and a mentor in his uncle’s lover, streetwise Rudy, and when Roehm’s political connections land Josef a role in a propaganda movie, Josef’s sure he’s found the life he’s always wanted. But while living in Berlin during the film’s production, Josef falls in love with a Jewish boy, David, and Josef begins questioning his uncle’s beliefs.

  Complications arise when an old friend of his mother’s tells Josef that his mother was secretly murdered by the SS due to her political beliefs, possibly on Roehm’s order. Josef confides in his Hitler Youth leader, Max Klieg. Klieg admits he knows a few things, but he won’t share them with Josef till the boy proves himself worthy of a confidence.

  Conflicting beliefs war within Josef until he must decide where his true loyalties lie, and what he really believes in.

 

 

 
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