When Bill Ryan looked into Marco Ferriera’s eyes, his heart lurched and he knew he was no one without Marco. The feeling sickened him. No one had had to say it, but to be a queer was so far beyond the pale of Eden Plains, he was sure it would be better to be dead than to be that thing. More than once, he had considered steering his car into a tree or going off into the woods around the lake house with his dad’s shotgun and blowing his head off. But he hadn’t because apparently, he was a coward as well as a queer. Instead, Bill had tried to solve his problem by pushing Marco away when he grabbed him but Marco would not be deterred and, with his greater strength, he invariably pulled Bill into a roughhouse embrace. Only—and this is what really confused Bill—those embraces often seemed more like hugs than assaults, more affectionate than aggressive. It seemed to Bill, or was he only imagining it, that when they wrestled now, Marco pressed his body against Bill’s a moment longer than he needed to and Marco’s breath glanced his neck like a kiss. And once, when Bill dared to return the pressure of the embrace and look into Marco’s eyes, he thought he saw an answering tenderness.

He thought he saw that tenderness now as he met Marco’s eyes. The taunt— Suck my dick—which maybe wasn’t a taunt after all, hung in the air between them, waiting for Bill to give the ritual reply, You’d like that wouldn’t you, fag? But Bill had lost the power of speech as he gazed helplessly at Marco’s olive-colored chest and his red gym shorts and his hairy legs and big, smelly feet. Say something! he told himself, his heart pounding in his chest, the air in the room suddenly thick and close. Then, as if in a dream, Bill took a tentative step closer to the bed, then another, until he was standing between Marco’s splayed legs, so close to the other boy, he could feel the heat radiating from his skin. He dropped his gaze from Marco’s eyes and waited for Marco to push him away but instead Marco closed his thighs around Bill’s legs, skin against skin.

Bill met Marco’s eyes. He saw fear and hope, heard Marco’s anxious, stuttering breath, felt his warm flesh pressing his legs.

Then Marco whispered, “Go on Billy, do it. Suck my dick. Please.”

It was the please, gentle, almost pleading, that convinced Bill Marco was serious. Still, he hesitated until Marco raised his hand, brushed it against Bill’s arm and said, “It’s okay, Billy. Don’t be afraid. I won’t tell anyone.”