Jamie Brodie 02 - Hoarded to Death

give and take in the bedroom."
    He didn't say anything for a minute. I started again. "Pete..."
    He said, "Will you leave me because of that?"
    "No. I won’t. But I’m still hoping to change your mind one of these days."
    He was quiet again. I couldn't clearly see his facial expression in the dark room. Third time's the charm. "Pete, I am so sorry for what I said. I can't apologize enough. That was completely uncalled for. Will you forgive me? Please?"
    He was still quiet for a moment, then he said, "Yeah."
    Relief washed through me. I whispered, "Thank you."
    He said quietly, "I can't do that."
    That? Oh. "You never have?"
    More silence for a minute. Then, "Once. I didn't like it."
    "Okay." I paused. Should I try? Maybe not, but I did anyway. "I think I could make it good for you."
    He said, "You have a lot more experience than me."
    That took me aback. Pete was five years older than me. "I do?"
    "Yeah."
    "How do you figure that?"
    "You've had more relationships than I have. I've only dated you and Luke. I was single for a long time, and I didn't...I didn't look for or get much action when I was single."
    "You weren't out. You were afraid of getting caught."
    "Yeah. That was part of it."
    Hmm . "Was it Luke that...was it him you didn't like it with?"
    "No." Abruptly.
    Well, okay. Clearly no more was forthcoming in that line of questioning. "So he was fine with only bottoming."
    "Yeah. We didn’t do it that often."
    Great . I sighed inwardly.
    He hadn't been looking at me this whole time, but now I sensed more , than saw Pete's head turn toward me. "You're not fine with it."
    I shrugged, although I doubted he could see it. " No, but if it's the price of admission, then I'll pay it."
    "Admission to what?"
    "Admission to a relationship with you. That's a Dan Savage term. He says that most of us will never meet a person who's truly the one. Most people will be a .75 or a .85 and we'll have to round up to one. The amount you have to round up, the other .25 or .15 or whatever, is the price of admission. It's what you have to do, or to give up, to round that person up to one and be in a relationship with him."
    "Huh." He looked up at the ceiling again. "How much are you having to round up?"
    Oh, jeez . "I don't know. I guess .10 is about right."
    Pete said quietly, "I'm sorry."
    "You don't have to apologize. It's just who you are. I'm sure as hell not perfect. I know you're having to round up to one, too."
    He turned his head toward me again. "Not really."
    Shit. Put the pressure on me, why dontcha? "Yeah, you are. You just haven't figured out how yet."
    He huffed a soft laugh. "Maybe."
    "Definitely. One of these days when we're in our fifties or sixties, you'll say to me, 'You know, I've always hated the way you...' and then we'll know."
    " Heh. If you say so." His voice got softer. "I like thinking that we'll still be together in our fifties and sixties."
    "That's the plan, right?"
    He sighed. "Yeah. That's the plan."
    "Okay." I lay back down, on my right side facing Pete, and put my hand on his chest. He reached out and pulled me closer, tucking my head under his chin.
    Neither one of us said anything more. But neither one of us fell asleep for a while.

    As well as I knew Pete, I didn't know a lot about his past. It just never seemed to come up. I did know that he'd grown up in the desert, in that enormous dry space east of the San Gabriel Mountains from LA. He said it was one of the reasons he liked living close to the ocean. He'd been born and raised in Barstow. His parents had divorced when he was ten, and his dad had moved to Lancaster, on the opposite side of the vast Edwards Air Force Base from Barstow. Pete and his brother and sister had remained with their mother until Pete was 14. At that point Pete and his brother had moved in with their dad; mom and sis stayed in Barstow. Pete had never talked much about why that had happened, but I got the impression that it had something to do with his being gay.
    Pete wasn't as close to his dad and brother as I was to mine, but they got along okay and talked on the phone occasionally. I'd met Pete's dad a few times; he was a tall, thin, laconic guy, quiet but watchful. I could easily imagine him as a cowboy in a previous era. Pete's brother, Steve, was two years older than Pete, divorced, and living in Alamogordo, New Mexico. He'd graduated from Cal Tech and did something mysterious for the federal government.
    Pete had no contact with his mother or sister at all. I