Title:
Summer of a Boy
Author: cgb (luberluber@y...)
Web: http://appelsini.tripod.com/Christine
Category: Josh/ Sam
(yeah, it surprised me too...)
Disclaimer: I've got to
be direct, you're standing on
my neck.
Summary: " He
doesn't call summer lovers and he
definitely doesn't call
boys but he calls Sam"
Acknowledgements: At
the end.
Written for a
"first meeting" challenge at the Bordy.
Sam meets Josh. Or
rather Josh meets Sam.
*
So it is all about
this: a night in August and he's a
lot younger - young
enough to take risks. On this
night he is drinking a
Californian red in the wrong
glass and thinking that
Waterman is never going to
make it into the house
if he can't pronounce
"indigenous."
On this night it's the
launch of Senator Moyle's
successful campaign and
he's drinking and watching a
spinning room. Here
there is money and success and the
smell of power and he'd
appreciate it a lot more if he
could make sense of it.
The boy, because he
looks like a boy, is standing at
the top of the stairs
with his jacket slung over his
shoulder. He's dressed
like a man, and he's drinking
like a man, but he
sways like a boy who's had too much
to drink.
Josh finds he is moving
toward the boy. He is a good
Samaritan, a wiser man
coming to a younger man's aid,
but the boy is
attractive so whatever he tells himself
he's doing is probably
a lie, a ruse to lure his
better nature where his
body wants to go.
When he gets to the
boy's side he says, "are you all
right?" without
receiving an answer. Instead the boy
stares at Josh, his
eyes looking past him, looking
through him, and then
he's taking Josh's arm and
steering him out - out
past the glittering arrivals
waving to people in the
crowd, out past the waiters
with trays of glasses
and hors d'oeuvres, out into the
night, out into the
open.
Up close the boy is not
so young. His shoulders are
broad and he has
cufflinks in his sleeves.
He says, he is going to
be sick.
The boy lets go of his
arm and vomits in the rose
bushes. Josh says,
"wait here" and disappears inside
returning moments later
with water in his glass and a
blue paper napkin.
Later when they stop a
taxi, the boy turns to him and
says, "I'm Sam" and
this is how it begins.
Josh says, "you don't
look old enough to be drunk at a
Senator's party."
Sam says, "I'm
twenty-four."
Sam has a place that's
larger than his only it isn't
his: it belongs to a
friend of his father's or his
mother's because he's
not really paying attention.
He's thinking that this
is what people who pick people
up do and he's thinking
that he should probably have
an escape plan because
this never ends well for him.
Sam gives him a glass
of water and they kiss with
Sam's back against the
wall in the kitchen.
There's a lover for
every season under heaven, Josh
thinks, which is why
Michelle left him in April and
Sam is a warm Indian
summer in a room with a creaking
fan attached to the
ceiling, ice trailing down his
skin leaving a searing
trail. Sam tastes like sweat
and sun and salty air.
Sam is behind him, his
fingers at Josh's throat, his
hips against Josh's
buttocks and his breath in his
ear. "Say 'please'," he
says.
"Please."
*
Sam is a lover that
leaves him alone in the morning
with the smell of sex
on the sheets and expensive
aftershave wafting from
the bathroom.
And a note. It says,
"call me" and there is a number.
He doesn't call summer
lovers and he definitely
doesn't call boys but
he calls Sam because he can't
forget him and there
are bits of him scattered in
Josh's imagination that
he can't piece together.
And he tells himself
this is Washington, and he needs
allies rather than
enemies, and he tells himself he's
calling because he
never found out what Sam was doing
at Moyle's party.
And maybe the lies know
better than he does because
Sam becomes his ally
and his friend and his co-worker,
but never his lover.
Never again.
*
Lovers come and go and
they leave a trail of dry
musings in bars over
the meaning of life and love and
sex as a dangerous
weapon and he thinks that if this
is all there is, then
he could start and finish the
story on the same page
and not think about epilogues
and sequels.
Lovers come and go but
Sam is a friend and friends are
like driftwood, always
washing back on the shore, so
it's this story that
runs into volumes. He's building
a series on Sam.
*
He is waiting for Sam
as Sam finds his keys and they
spill into a summer
night in the capital. Sam's in a
funk and Josh tries to
alleviate his mood. Josh jokes,
parodies Ritchie, makes
fun of Toby, and tries his
best but he considers
that it's only twice in his life
that he's really made
Sam happy, and both times when
he thinks about it, Sam
deserved most of the credit.
And now he's seeing Sam
to his car and waving goodbye
and going home to his
girlfriend while Sam, his summer
lover, goes home alone.
It starts with a boy.
It ends here.
Fin
*
Acknowledgements:
Thanks to my very lovely wife,
Teanna. Darling, I'm
nothing without you.