LIKE THIS
Ted finally had sex with me. First, he taught me how a man kisses. It was a firm tongue that wants to swallow you. Then, you must look into each other’s eyes. When I looked down, he lifted my gaze. I had no right to escape. When you squeeze each other, you do it with strength. His grip he learned from American football. He didn’t let you move. He was on top of you and stayed there as long as he wanted. And then, he didn’t do anything else until you asked him to. He told me that he knew I didn’t accept being homosexual and that I would soon try to escape. “That’s why I hold onto you, so you know you can’t escape from me,” he said.
Like a good macho, once he finished playing football with me, he would go shower and do his things.
But I wasn’t going to stay silent.
“Why do you have to leave?”
“I have many things to do.”
“Well, so do I, but I don’t run away from bed. I love having sex with you. You’re an expert. But you make up things to do. You can’t stand being pampe-red and having your hair and face caressed. Don’t give me excuses. You think it’s sissy stuff. You forget that it’s true that I don’t know much about sex, but I’m not stupid. Being innocent is not the same as being 121
foolish. Just as you grab me and don’t let me move, I’ll pull you back to bed and you’ll hear me.”
“Ted, I see the pictures of your family and I’m sure you have made up for what your father did to you with your children. You are an exemplary man. But there is a hole in your life just like mine. That black and deep hole is what leads you to drink too much and seek casual encounters in YMCA bathrooms. I know what you feel because I also have that fox in my head. Our fathers were shit. We lacked a man in our lives. And when you sleep with one, guilt kills you and you, like me, run away. But you like men and I like you more than I ever thought anyone would, and this time, I don’t feel like running away. Why don’t you think that the homosexuality you detest, and not the drinks you have when no one is watching, is precisely your true self? Only if you tame it, you can heal.
I want that energy that you waste living a double life for myself. Let’s take the risk together. Ted, I love you because you are the most handsome man in this whole Capitol and at the same time, the loneliest man in the world. I know your father never told you, but I will: there is nothing you must do for me to love you.
For the first time in front of me, the senator looks at himself in the mirror. I don’t know what he’s thinking or what he’s looking at. Is it that he finally sees how handsome he is? Well, I don’t believe it because I can’t see myself that way either. However, this time 122
he’s not going to run away, he stays and looks at me and says nothing. Is he going to kick me out?
“Jacob, you’re seventeen years old, you’re a brat, how the hell do you dare to say so many stupid things?
Who do you think you are? King Solomon? King David, who was the gayest king in the whole Bible?
Because I tell you with affection: you are the chosen people and the people with the gayest god of all.”
I finally leave to my university and a few hours later my phone rings.
“Jacob, my dear shitty Jew who talks like a parrot.
I’m calling to tell you that I’m in love with you.”
Immediately, he hung up the phone. These guys, I thought, have no remedy.