Elio stared vacantly at the ceiling as he absently ran his hands through my thick, wavy hair.

“Are you okay?” I asked, turning to look him in the eyes.

Without returning my gaze, Elio slowly replied, “That was my first time being… the bottom, I guess.” He squirmed around and his face crinkled, indicating that he was experiencing the residual physical effects of our sexual encounter.

“So, am I your first?” I asked with a mixture of surprise and delight.

Elio thought about this for a long moment. “Well, you’re the first guy I’ve ever had sex with. I mean, I’ve done stuff with guys before, just never had sex with any of them.” He re-thought this statement. “Well, really, I shouldn’t say guys, because there was actually only one."

I waited patiently for Elio to continue his story, but he still stared into space, seemingly reliving his life experiences as though they were a film being projected for only him to see. “So, who was this guy?” I prompted as I took my paraphernalia from the drawer of my bedside table and began packing a bowl.

“He was my best friend!” Elio blurted out. “Or at least he was a good friend." His voice lowered to a whisper. "Certainly a close friend.”

Elio’s eyes became misted with tears. “His name was Mason,” he said in a tone that sounded remote, yet emotionally charged. “I didn’t understand how I felt when I first met him. And I don’t think he understood either, if he ever understood at all.” Elio’s eyes darted wildly back and forth as his vision turned inward and he began to relive his distant, and seemingly painful, memories. “I mean, I liked Mason…a lot! I’d like to say it was just as a friend, but I think I always knew it was more than that.” He let out a sigh and muttered, “It sure seemed like everyone else knew it was more than that.”

He licked his lips and ran his hand along his chin. “I denied it, of course. To my friends, to my family, to myself. I pretended that I didn’t have feelings for Mason because I was convinced he didn’t have feelings for me.” Elio brushed the tears from his eyes, then continued. “One night, we got drunk…really drunk! Well, he was really drunk. I was drunk but still able to handle myself. Because of weight differences, I guess.” I passed Elio the pipe and he took a quick few puffs before passing it back to me. He began to cough uncontrollably, and tears streamed down his cheeks as his body began to spasm and great gulps of pot smoke were expelled from his mouth.

I began to rub my hand along his shoulders and asked repeatedly if he was okay. “I’m good, I’m good!” he said as he finally settled down and his coughing had ceased. “Where was I?” Elio asked as he lit a cigarette.

“The two of you were drunk,” I reminded him, struggling to disguise my eagerness to hear the rest of this tantalizing story.

“Right!” Elio’s eyes took on a look of extreme clarity. “So, yeah, we were drunk, and sitting beside each other on the couch in his mother’s basement, watching some stupid comedy show, when Mason reached over, grabbed my face in both his hands and began moaning. Loudly! I tried to stop him, but he just clutched my hoodie and slid off the couch, pulling me down to the floor with him. He wrapped his right hand around my head and forced my lips against his as he slid his left hand down my pants and began playing with me.”

Elio’s body began to shake, and his eyes filled with tears again. I felt that I should stop him, but he just kept recounting his story. “Things were starting to happen between us, which I was both happy about and afraid of. Then his brother Shawn showed up and ruined everything!” Elio’s tone and facial expression turned angry. “I pretended I didn’t want anything to do with the whole situation, and I think Shawn believed me. Or at least, I hoped he believed me.” Elio pinched the bridge of his nose between his thumb and index finger. “Honestly though, I don’t think Shawn actually believed me. I mean, the whole time I was trying to convince him that nothing was going on, Mason kept moaning, grabbing my face, and trying to pull me closer to him. I kept my hand pressed against Mason’s chest with my arm fully extended to keep a convincing distance between us, so it wouldn’t seem that what was going on was something sexual. Shawn looked concerned, so I just kept telling him it was nothing and he didn’t need to worry. Finally, he reluctantly went to bed. So, I picked Mason up off the floor, forced him into his bedroom, and told him to wait while I cleaned up all the booze and weed we had left sprawled across the basement table. I had barely finished when Mason came stumbling out of his room with his pants off, still moaning, and wrapped his arms around me. We kissed and I grew hard, which terrified me. So, I pushed Mason away, dragged him back to his room, and made him lie down on his bed. He kept moaning, louder this time, and grabbing uncontrollably at my face and hoodie. I was afraid Shawn would hear and become suspicious, so I laid down and started kissing Mason. Reluctantly at first, then passionately. I buried my tongue in Mason’s mouth and ran my fingers through his hair, the whole time fighting the urge to let it become more than just a drunken make-out session.”

“Why?” I asked out of curiosity, and not to pass judgement.

Without missing a beat, Elio replied, “Because I didn’t want it to go down like that! The two of us drunk. Him so drunk he could barely stand! It seemed wrong, you know? What if he regretted it? What if I regretted it? It just…it just couldn’t go down like that. Not for our first time."

“That’s fair,” I said as I nodded my head.

“Yeah, well…thanks.” Elio took a deep breath and began picking nervously at his fingernails. “Anyway, the next day, when Mason woke up, he claimed he didn’t remember anything about the night before. I lied and said I didn’t remember anything either. I was crushed, but I convinced myself it was for the best that Mason not remember. Because what if he did remember and it terrified him, and he stopped talking to me? What then?” Elio closed his eyes and shook his head. “No! I couldn’t let that happen. I didn’t let that happen. Because I kept quiet and tried the best I could not to mention the whole incident to either Mason or to anyone else.”

Elio sat up, propped his back against the headboard, and turned to look at me with his eyebrows pointed together. “Can we smoke another bowl?” he asked. “I really want to smoke another bowl.”

“Sure!” I replied as I quickly packed a pipe and handed it to him to light. He took a long puff and thanked me as he exhaled a huge cloud of smoke.

He squinted and tilted his head towards the ceiling. “More stuff happened after that,” Elio said as his eyes began to study the rough texture of the plaster design that hovered over us. “Always while we were drunk. And the next day, Mason always claimed he didn’t remember anything that happened the night before. And I didn’t have the courage to call him on it.”

“Did you think Mason was lying?” I asked as I puffed on the pipe and passed it back to Elio.

“I don’t know,” he said as he took the pipe from my hand. “Maybe.”

The colour drained from his face so that his skin glowed unnaturally white while his cheeks blushed bright red. “He told me he loved me. And I believed him! I even told him I loved him too! Then he told me he didn’t remember anything about that night either.” Tears began to drip down Elio’s cheeks. “Pathetic, isn’t it?”

“No!” I said as I began to reassuringly rub his shoulders. “It’s sweet and it’s sad, but it’s not pathetic!”

“Thanks,” Elio said with a smile, the tears beginning to dry and the redness slowly sinking away from his face.

“So, what happened between you two?” I asked after a long silence where I tapped out the contents of the pipe and we each lit cigarettes.

“This went on for a few years, until I finally confronted Mason one night during a camping trip.” Elio’s eyes began to fill with tears again and his voice became a quiet, forced whisper. “I had spent the whole day drinking nothing but Everclear, while Mason had spent nearly eight straight hours drinking whatever he could get his hands on. So, we were both right pissed.” Elio paused to clear his throat, then continued. “Even though we hadn’t paid for a single bundle of firewood, we had a fire burning for the entirety of the trip.” He smiled a devious smile that suggested there was more to this story than he was revealing. “At one point, Mason and I found ourselves sitting alone around the campfire. It felt like there was something going on between us. Something deep, something meaningful. I knew in that moment I had to tell Mason about my feelings. So, I told him. I told him about everything that had happened between us. I told him how I felt. I told him how I thought he felt. I told him we could start a relationship. I told him we could keep that relationship a secret, and that no one needed to know about it except us.” The smile that had crossed Elio’s face now faded to a cold, bitter frown as he declared, “But Mason was having none of it. He had decided he didn’t want to remember and that was the end of the conversation.” Elio raised his chin upwards in an effort to stave off crying. That effort proved futile.

“I gathered myself together as best I could. I reached my hand out to Mason in a sign of solidarity. But he obviously misunderstood because he furiously brushed it away and left me crushed.” Elio raised his hand to temper his quivering lips. “I remember Mason walking away as I grabbed his arm, and I begged him to remember! To remember the times where we expressed ourselves, both physically and emotionally. The times where we declared our feelings for each other. The times where we demonstrated our feelings for each other. The times where we believed…where I believed…that there was someone out there for me!” Elio rubbed his hand anxiously along his forehead. “But Mason pulled away, and just stood with his back to me. So, I broke down and began babbling incoherent declarations of servitude to him, which he dismissed with a sneer. I mean, he turned to glare at me as though I were shit on his shoe and I would never be anything better.” Elio let out a low, phlegm-filled cough that made me cringe. “I watched Mason disappear into our shared tent and I lost it. Like, I really lost it! I ran to the edge of the nearby lake, hung my head over the water, and cried until there was no liquid left in my tear ducts. I thought about drowning myself, I really did! And if there hadn’t been other campers on the beach that night, I definitely would have.”

A long, awkward pause passed between us as Elio seemed to absorb the power of that night's campfire, which he then reflected back to illuminate our current situation with its damaged, darkened light. I knew this was a painful, pivotal moment that I needed to react to. I chose, instead, to offer no reaction at all. I simply waited for Elio to continue his story.

“I forced myself back up the hill to our tent, got in my sleeping bag, and did everything I could to forget the whole experience had ever happened.” Elio shut his eyes and began to open and close his mouth in an effort to speak, but each time he found himself reluctantly retreating into silence. Finally, after inhaling a deep breath, he calmly declared, “But I couldn’t forget. I just kept staring at Mason, expecting him to wake up, look me in the eyes with an apologetic expression, then dig his tongue deep into my mouth. But no matter how much I wished for that to happen, it never did. Mason just laid there, sleeping, as my mind became overwhelmed by the love-infused fantasies I had long entertained of my potential relationship with him. Only now, those fantasies were being tainted by the harsh, dark reality that they would only ever be fantasies.”

Elio placed his hand across the corner of his mouth, so his voice was muffled. “I lost it again. I mean, really, something in my mind just snapped and I realized I couldn’t spend another second in that tent with him.” He grimaced as though he had just swallowed his own vomit. “What happened next is imprinted on my mind as an adrenaline induced blur. I remember grabbing my bags, a two-six of whisky, and a couple six-packs of beer, and throwing them into the trunk of my car. I remember the sound of dirt and gravel grinding beneath the car wheels as I skidded away from the campsite, still drunk and barely paying attention to how or where I was driving. It wasn't until I felt the smooth feeling of pavement that I was assured I was heading as far away from Mason as I could get.”