Defining Us: The Calvin & Eric Story (69 Bottles) Read Online Free
Author: Zoey Derrick
him. His moods will shift unexpectedly and sometimes I feel eggshells follow him like dirt.
Despite all that, the tone in his voice has my whole body humming with a need to reach out for him, to comfort him. Instead, I settle deeper into the bed I’m lying on. “I just want you to tell me what’s going on, but despite what I want from you, I’m not going to push you, Calvin, but you also need to be aware of the fact that no matter what, I’m here to listen, always. If it’s not me you want to talk to, let me find someone you can talk to, like Jess.”
He snorts a humorless laugh. “She’ll just turn around and tell you.”
I sigh. “No, we don’t work that way. We’re not a couple of gossip mongers, Cal, we don’t talk about stuff unless it affects one of us.”
“Well, this might affect you, more than you know…” He leaves the thought hanging in the air before he walks out of my line of sight. What the hell is that supposed to mean? I don’t ask the question out loud. It feels like prying and the opposite of what I just said I wouldn’t do.
I hear the bathroom door click shut.
There is a newfound hope that wells inside me at his words… a hope I have no business feeling, a hope that I know will shatter me and keep me hanging and stop me from moving on. Jess is right, maybe I need to find it somewhere within myself to let it go, move on, attempt to move on at least. Once this tour is over and we’re not cooped up together, it might be easier.
It’s with that thought that I drift off to sleep to the soothing sounds of the shower. The thought of him naked on the other side of a rather flimsy door brings back the loneliness as sleep takes me.
AFTER my shower, before crawling into bed, I couldn’t stop myself from watching Eric sleep. The soft snores, the steady rhythm of his breathing, the warmth and comfort found in watching him sleep. Loving Eric from afar, that’s the way this has to go. It won’t be easy, but in the end it’s going to be much better, for him.
I crawl into my bed facing him and click off the light. Plunging the room into darkness means I can no longer see him, but I can still hear him breathing softly. I shiver though I’m not cold. Loneliness creeps inside and I drift off to sleep.
“What now?” I ask Dr. V. as I call him.
“You’ve got to decide that for yourself, Calvin, no one else can do that for you. If he’s opening the door to listen to what you have to say, let him.”
“That’s easier said than done, Doc,” I say as I switch ears with my phone.
“Yes it is, it took you nearly three years to tell me everything and even then, I’m not entirely convinced I know it all.” I can hear his determination.
At one point in all of this, he cracked a joke, saying that maybe my revulsion to women was because I was really meant to be with men. That sent all kinds of wild thoughts and impulses through me that sent me running to the bathroom. Needless to say, he dropped that subject and while I was pleased he’d tried to sway me the other way, he felt guilty for igniting a reaction from me. Thereby allowing me to open up to him about everything. Since then, Dr. V, Vincent, has been working with me on my issues, helping me to overcome the fear of intimacy and helping to reverse the impulse of revulsion when it comes to orgasms in general and sex with women.
He was finally able to put a name to what they’d done to me. Conversion Therapy, they successfully converted my homosexual tendencies in an attempt to make me straight. But I still have an aversion to women or maybe it’s just orgasms in general, that was the crux of the joke at the time.
He thought that they’d turned me against sex period, but only to realize that homosexual thoughts and actions had more impact on me than women did, period.
I sigh, “You know more than enough and the stuff you haven’t been told is irrelevant to any form of treatment plan you can
Despite all that, the tone in his voice has my whole body humming with a need to reach out for him, to comfort him. Instead, I settle deeper into the bed I’m lying on. “I just want you to tell me what’s going on, but despite what I want from you, I’m not going to push you, Calvin, but you also need to be aware of the fact that no matter what, I’m here to listen, always. If it’s not me you want to talk to, let me find someone you can talk to, like Jess.”
He snorts a humorless laugh. “She’ll just turn around and tell you.”
I sigh. “No, we don’t work that way. We’re not a couple of gossip mongers, Cal, we don’t talk about stuff unless it affects one of us.”
“Well, this might affect you, more than you know…” He leaves the thought hanging in the air before he walks out of my line of sight. What the hell is that supposed to mean? I don’t ask the question out loud. It feels like prying and the opposite of what I just said I wouldn’t do.
I hear the bathroom door click shut.
There is a newfound hope that wells inside me at his words… a hope I have no business feeling, a hope that I know will shatter me and keep me hanging and stop me from moving on. Jess is right, maybe I need to find it somewhere within myself to let it go, move on, attempt to move on at least. Once this tour is over and we’re not cooped up together, it might be easier.
It’s with that thought that I drift off to sleep to the soothing sounds of the shower. The thought of him naked on the other side of a rather flimsy door brings back the loneliness as sleep takes me.
AFTER my shower, before crawling into bed, I couldn’t stop myself from watching Eric sleep. The soft snores, the steady rhythm of his breathing, the warmth and comfort found in watching him sleep. Loving Eric from afar, that’s the way this has to go. It won’t be easy, but in the end it’s going to be much better, for him.
I crawl into my bed facing him and click off the light. Plunging the room into darkness means I can no longer see him, but I can still hear him breathing softly. I shiver though I’m not cold. Loneliness creeps inside and I drift off to sleep.
“What now?” I ask Dr. V. as I call him.
“You’ve got to decide that for yourself, Calvin, no one else can do that for you. If he’s opening the door to listen to what you have to say, let him.”
“That’s easier said than done, Doc,” I say as I switch ears with my phone.
“Yes it is, it took you nearly three years to tell me everything and even then, I’m not entirely convinced I know it all.” I can hear his determination.
At one point in all of this, he cracked a joke, saying that maybe my revulsion to women was because I was really meant to be with men. That sent all kinds of wild thoughts and impulses through me that sent me running to the bathroom. Needless to say, he dropped that subject and while I was pleased he’d tried to sway me the other way, he felt guilty for igniting a reaction from me. Thereby allowing me to open up to him about everything. Since then, Dr. V, Vincent, has been working with me on my issues, helping me to overcome the fear of intimacy and helping to reverse the impulse of revulsion when it comes to orgasms in general and sex with women.
He was finally able to put a name to what they’d done to me. Conversion Therapy, they successfully converted my homosexual tendencies in an attempt to make me straight. But I still have an aversion to women or maybe it’s just orgasms in general, that was the crux of the joke at the time.
He thought that they’d turned me against sex period, but only to realize that homosexual thoughts and actions had more impact on me than women did, period.
I sigh, “You know more than enough and the stuff you haven’t been told is irrelevant to any form of treatment plan you can
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