(damaged boys) 22

There were five of them in the row of townhouses, and underneath the sheen of public normalcy and personal success lived the gaping damage within.
the degrees of separation
They were scattered about the country as if God had thrown them like dice. And, it seemed, for awhile, as if none of them would ever find home again.
a few degrees of Marcus…
Connecticut Avenue sprawled out for blocks in front of him, as it did every night on his walk home from work. He’d take the metro to the Dupont Circle stop, and he’d walk the rest of the way. Tonight, the stars were sprinkled across the winter sky, brilliant and winking. He’d thought it strange to see the stars so well in the city. He couldn’t ever remember seeing them here. But, there were many things he hadn’t noticed in the months since he’d moved there, in the months his brother had been found dead in Los Angeles, a victim of depression, asphyxiated.

Matthew had completed law school, passed the bar and was already working for a prestigious L.A. firm when the depression deleted him from the world. Outwardly, there was nothing to notice, except for the success and the drive and his accomplishments. He’d worked hard all the way through his undergraduate at Wake Forest and at Stanford, completing his law degree. His family was supportive, but never knew the whole truth. They never understood him…completely. Everything had seemed fine until the phone call at 4am from his “roommate” Thom, explaining the horrific details, collapsed their world into oblivion.
Matthew was a good soul. He inherited his father’s sense of duty and mission to those less fortunate. He took special care of those ailing and afflicted by HIV and even spent a summer on the African subcontinent assisting in clinics, if only to offer moral support, or a hug or a smile. There, he’d met Thom who was a direct services manager for UNICEF, stationed in Addis-Ababa, Ethiopia for a year.
By the time Matthew had finished his summer, they were madly in love with each other and dreading the enormous distance between them. They vowed to remain in touch. And they did. So, when Thom finished his tour of duty, he’d relocated to the west coast to be with Matthew. It was there that Matthew first began his life as a gay man, living with the person he’d loved more than anyone else, ever. It was there that he’d begun his terrifying and lonesome battle with depression, a battle he’d lost one night in November.
Michael was living at the opposite side of the States, having moved to D.C. from New York, where he’d worked in the Embassy of France. He’d been transferred to the Office of Economic and Commercial Affairs in September, before Matthew’s final, wild descent into suicide. It was more complicated than he could imagine, not that he’d ever wanted to imagine his brother dead. More than that, Matthew was his twin, a part of him, and he was terrified that whatever got to Matthew would be quick on its heels to devour him as well. It made for fitful sleep and worrisome days. And, he was tired of talking about it. Tired of explaining it over and over. Exhausted from the grief, sleepy from the late night and endless tossing and turning, haunted by his brother…never knowing if it was real or imagined. He’d thought of happier times, simpler times, when there was life and love…when there was Marcus.
His walk down Connecticut Avenue seemed refreshing and different. Something had changed within him, and it was indeed welcome. There was a sense of emerging, a sense of regaining himself and his life. If only the pieces could come back together as quickly as they’d fallen apart. There was the challenge. And, truth be told, Michael was not good at all with puzzles. But, one thing seemed clear, it was time to reach out to Marcus, to at least try to find him. Even if Marcus didn’t want to talk to him, he would at least try.
—
a few degrees of Ben…
Adam had managed to find his way to Miami, seemingly, by chance. He’d always claimed Seasonal Affective Disorder, but Ben knew better. Adam was always dissatisfied with the way things were, with the status quo. If he was in Cleveland, it was the weather or Midwestern mentality. If he was living on the West Coast it was complaints about the cost of living or the accumulation of freaks. When he lived on the East Coast, there was nothing but disdain for the attitude and the verbal sniping.
Somehow, he’d managed to find a sense of peace and belonging in Miami. Maybe it was the club drugs. Maybe it was the clearly defined sense of purpose: his medical residency or maybe it was truly the one place there was nothing wrong. Ben suspected that it was a matter of time until there was something wrong with Miami, but for now, Adam was content. And that was no small matter, indeed. It was Miami where Adam seemed to do a lot of growing. He’d made realizations about his past choices, about his past life and relationships. And more, he’d shared these revelations with Ben.
Maybe they were supposed to be together after all. Maybe it was just one big waiting game, speckled with failed relationships. Both of them regarded their years together as the best overall, and it always went unsaid what seemed to be obvious to Ben.
There were ten years and four different cities between them, and maybe fifteen different lives. There was no one who had remained so regularly in his life, no one who had ever loved him like Adam. More and more, he was convinced he’d met, lost and then become almost a brother to the great love of his life. Nothing seemed clear. There were no obvious choices to be made. No bold steps to be taken. So Ben did what he knew best…he waited.
Adam doubted he would ever have the pure and total love of someone like he’d had with Ben. There were too many failures since then. He and Ben were wildly different people than the boys they were ten years ago. Adam had believed in true love, and at 22, had found it in Ben. But, it was ever elusive. He thought he’d collided with it once or twice since, but there was no doubt from this present perspective that it wasn’t even close. Oh, he’d wanted it to be…maybe even willed it to be, but it wasn’t, and it vanished each time like being startled out of a long, sleepy dream. In Miami, he’d managed to find a bit of himself, and looking back, didn’t like everything he saw. But, that was the way it was; there was nothing he could do to change the past. He could only look ahead toward some distant horizon, out where the cruise ships and sail boats fell out of view and off of the planet. He wondered about things. He thought of Ben up north and smiled.
He thought back to the early days of their relationship, the intensity and sexual energy that enveloped them. They fucked with abandon every day. Hell, they had the energy back then. They couldn’t keep their hands off of each other, and every night there was wild, hot sex. Adam writhed underneath Ben as he penetrated Adams tight, hot hole. He’d gasp a little, sucking in the air sharply as Ben slid his cock into the hilt and held it there until Adam adjusted to its size. He loved when Ben pushed in and out slowly at first, then sped up, bringing them both close to orgasm.
Adam would always make him slow down, then stop and switch it up. He’d lay on his back and let Ben sit on his cock, and then slowly start fucking him from underneath. This drove Ben wild, and he’d moan a little as his cock flopped against his flat stomach.
Adam loved the feeling of being inside Ben, fucking the man of his dreams and listening to Ben react to having his cock inside. Faster and faster, Adam would fuck Ben until neither of them could hold out any longer. Adam would shoot his load deep inside Ben, jerking and spasming. Ben would shoot his load all over Adam’s chest in 6 or 7 ropy lines of cum before collapsing forward and kissing Adam full on the lips, lingering.
Adam snapped back to the present as he walked up the front steps of his condo. The memory of it made him rock hard, a situation he was going to remedy right away during a long, hot shower. But not before looking up Ben’s address and phone number. It had been too long…he owed Ben a call.