Boy Love Part 2

Continued from part 1.

Hmm... W's comment got me to read back over this old post. I realize I never finished it. So here's an attempt to recap what ended up happening.

After that incident in his office, I was off-balance for the rest of that day. But eventually, I forced myself to disregard the incident and I finished the work.

However, I never saw my boss the same way again. I didn't give him the benefit of a doubt whenever he complimented me on anything remotely physical. Eventually, he noticed the change. I wasn't as open anymore. I wasn't as forthcoming or cheerful around him. I didn't ask for advice with the same frequency or genuine curiosity.

In short, my view of him had deteriorated. This man that I came to love for his character, was suddenly no longer the ethical pillar I had made him up to be. No matter how many different ways I played them in my head, I couldn't interpret the events of that early afternoon as anything but attraction. I was still somewhat in the closet, and had so much to learn about anything gay or about the so-called "gaydar". So, I felt like I was either going crazy, or my boss might be attracted to me. Neither was good news.

So routine afternoon, he brought it up--my change that is. "How are you, Tino?", he asked. It was odd. We had already greeted each other. But he asked with genuine curiosity. He cared, and I could tell. I was angry however. Angry at working for a guy who I loved and would've thrown myself at, but who was completely unavailable. In childish habit, I even questioned his motives for keeping me around.

"I'm good," I replied with a hint of forcefulness. My intent was to preempt any probing. I sensed his approach. I expected that he would bring the issue up, banking on the fact that I would never be fully candid, and so I would be forced to either deny the change in my demeanor or conjure up an alternative explanation. Either way, he was covered because he would just either express empathy, or wash his hands by having explicitly "cared". I was being such a woman:p

I never considered that he might have gotten something out of our friendship, and that he might have genuinely missed our conversations. I didn't consider that the weight of that might precipitate an honesty and vulnerability in him of which I had never seen the likes of in older professional men.

He didn't accept my "good" answer, and he continued to probe. "Really?" he asked, very gently. I would've been offended had his tone not been so gentle.

"Uhhmm... yeah," I replied evidencing my bewilderment at his persistence. That's when I gave in, and after a pause I said, "Why... do you ask?"

That last question opened the gates to a conversation I can never forget. He went there. "I've noticed you've been a bit different these past few days...." He went into detail. Point by point, he had noticed exactly how I had changed. I was floored and cornered. Clearly, he wasn't playing the game I thought he was. He wouldn't settle for neither a fake reply nor an alternative excuse. As he continued, I started to sweat internally and to somehow find a way to lead the conversation to that afternoon. I would have to let him take it all the way home.

When he finally completed his observations of me, I just sat there. Probably like a deer in headlights. Stunned, I just sat there and absorbed the moment, allowing my reaction to speak for me. There sitting in one of the many leather chairs that stood along the walls of his board-room like office, I never turned away. Face to face with him, I proceeded to collect myself, allowing him to see on my face the impact of his interest in me (something I NEVER do with people).

"Do you remember that time you called me in, when I was at the gym?", I slowly began. The same tension that had gripped him then, immediately returned. His posture became rigged, and his head rose like an officer at attention. But the gentleness, never wavered.

His eyes widened as he heard those words, and immediately he said, "Yes... Yes... I do." He wasn't going to deny the event. He could've at that point. "You came in, and you were still in your gym clothes," he said.

Whoa... here goes nothing. "There was a particular moment. Perhaps, a quick reaction," I continued.

"When your shirt rode up," he said---fuck, he went there. Now I knew he was a man. All at once, all the tension and questioning that had tormented me up until that point broke into a cold sense of weightlessness and near-ecstasy. My eyes widened.

"I saw your arms for the first time... I was surprised," he said. "I didn't expect you to look like that." I went red, and I became noticeably aware of my cock. The tension between the arousal and the fear seemed capable of splitting me in two.

"Are you attracted to me?" I asked point blank. I couldn't evade the burning question on my mind. Of course, I was developmentally speaking in terms of romantic relationships an infant. Attraction means nothing, but I didn't know that yet.

"I can't respond to that," he replied, looking at me intently. Both of our shoulders were squared and aligned with each other as we had assumed very upright postures.

"Why?", I demanded.... feeling the intense, nearly enraged, need for affirmation. His affirmation.

"Because you work for me."

OMG, I must have lost it at that point. I knew exactly what he meant.

"I can't treat my employees like that," he said.

"Like how?" I retorted.

"Your question would require me to think of you in a sexual way in order for me to answer," he stated. I was good at coming up with questions that forced revealing answers, and he knew so.

Bullshit, I thought. Attraction occurs in a split second. It, for the most part, precedes thought.

So, I did the impossible, and I came up with a hypothetical. A loop hole that would allow him to answer the question, evade any employment uncomeliness, and ascertain my intentions.

The air in the room was already dense... with courage. So I went with it. I slowly said, "If you were to have met me, before.... before you hired me, before you were married... Would you have then been attracted to me?"

He was taken aback by the hypothetical and by the room he suddenly became aware of within the space of abstraction. His head moved back, as if from a jolt produced by the failure to expect such an approach. His reaction might have also been in part to the fact that I referred to his marriage.

He took a deep breathe, and he let it out slowly. He was processing. After he exhaled, he just looked at me with intensity.

"Yes... definitely... automatically."

I hadn't expected those adverbs. They hit me almost as hard as the word 'yes'.

So then, I reeled back, as if recovering from whiplash. I breathed in, and exhaled slowly. Fuck, I was just like a mimicking child.

I radiated happiness, and almost immediately was overtaken by grief, because after all it was a hypothetical.

From there on out, the conversation flowed. He was married, and very happily so. Yes, he had been attracted to men, but he didn't admit it to himself until after he was married. It didn't matter though, because his love for his wife had never been a charade, and in that sense, his marriage was real and therefore still worthy of his vows.

We finished the conversation by thanking each other for our honesty. Implicitly, the term was coming to an end. He said that my work was amazing. He said he was a better professional as a result of having me on board. I was floored, but after the onslaught that had just occurred, I was really relatively unphased.

I of course reciprocated and told him how much I valued everything from the job to the conversations, and the friendship. I didn't hold back, so I told him that I loved him. He said that he knew that he should love me. Everything about me made that certain. However, he said, he didn't know why he didn't love me.

I was a wreck. A total wreck. It was the worst let-down quite possibly ever. That's when I decided to come out to myself without doubts. I had to. I had to go back to campus and finally pay attention to all those bois who I knew had been trying to flirt with me, but whom I had ignored. I had to play with them---to assuage what I felt inside.

My job eventually ended. It had a predetermined length. But, I couldn't say good bye. So I planned my last set of hours during a period when I knew that my boss wouldn't be in the office. So I left without saying goodbye.

He e-mailed me. He had of course noted my evasive departure. He said he would've like to have had an exit interview, but that he nonetheless "hoped good things for me" and asked that I stay in touch "over e-mail."

I became very jaded for a long time afterwards. I told myself that I was played. But I wasn't. He could've taken advantage of the situation. I would've been more than willing. But he didn't. Instead, he fessed up to the reality, didn't waiver in acknowledging his part in it, and clearly stated his convictions. I couldn't have expected anything more from a bigger man.

I haven't spoken to him since, but I recently e-mailed him to schedule a conversation. I'm apologizing for my reaction and for having left without saying thank you for the experience of the job. I wrote in the message that I knew end of year was rough and that if we had to talk in 08, that it would be fine. He wrote back, "I'm not so busy that I can't talk to you."

Fuck. So I'll be talking to him soon, and perhaps, now as a grown up, I can be at peace with what happened as well as with him. Perhaps, we can even be friends.