I felt my face go red.
“Will, stop,” said Kristen, her eyes blazing. “You know that he’s not on his own turf.”
“I know,” Will said. “Sorry, Jim. As I said, I didn’t mean to embarrass you. I hope we remain good friends.”
“Um… me, too,” I answered.
The meal, of course, was excellent. To this day, when I am in that area, I look forward to eating at Legal Seafood—it has expanded from that one restaurant to a chain of them.
Will’s apartment in Cambridge was a little more than twice the current size of Kristen’s apartment back in Illinois. There were two bedrooms at opposite ends of the apartment, each with its own bathroom, and there was a living room, kitchen, and even a small dining room.
Will indicated that Kristen and I retire to the “guest room” on the side of the apartment near the dining room and kitchen. Kristen and I moved our luggage into the room.
“Will and Robert will be sharing a room tonight?” I asked.
“They share a room every night,” Kristen said.
Seeing my reaction, Kristen said, “Oh, shit. Yeah. Will is bisexual—bi, for short.”
“You mean…”
“Yes. They share a room just like us,” Kristen explained. “I think Robert is just a temporary fling, though. Will seems to think Robert is a bit of a flirt.”
“Oh.” I didn’t know what to say.
Kristen looked at me for a minute. “Jim, my brother’s lifestyle doesn’t bother you, does it?”
“Um, no…” I said quickly.
“He’s bisexual,” Kristen explained. “I can tell you that there’s nothing wrong with his plumbing as far as this female is concerned.”
“I just thought…”
Kristen frowned. “I’m really sorry. I was going to tell you a couple of months ago, when I told you about Will being adopted. I really think that I should have. It would have given you more time to deal with it.”
I nodded. My head was spinning from this new information.
Kristen added, “You know, last year, Will and I had a long talk about his sexuality. He knows that he doesn’t live a mainstream lifestyle, but he is who and what he is. As he put it, it’s not as if he doesn’t love girls. He does. He just also likes boys. Doesn’t that make him a much more loving person?”
“I don’t know.”
“Remember what Camille told us?” Kristen asked. “She said not to let things fester. Will is my brother, and he is, additionally, my friend. Talk with him. Tomorrow, we’ll be going to Sturbridge to have dinner at a place called the Publick House. It’s a great New England inn. We have reservations for dinner as well as two rooms nearby, if we decide to spend the night there. You’ll have plenty of time to talk with him. He’s the nicest guy this side of Chicago.” Kristen paused, and added, “At least, he was until you landed here!”
Kristen earned herself a kiss for that compliment.
“Oh, and Robert will be with his own folks tomorrow, so it will just be the three of us.”
I smiled, and watched Kristen unpack her bag. I opened one of my own bags and found a suit that I never saw before.
“A suit?” I asked.
“Thanksgiving is a nice day to dress up,” Kristen answered. She pulled out a ravishing evening gown from her own luggage. “Wouldn’t you like to put your Krissie doll into this?”
I gulped, as I saw the matching lingerie that she revealed when she picked the gown out of her suitcase.
Kristen saw my reaction and smiled. “Now hang that thing up before I have to iron it, and you know how I hate doing that sort of thing!”
I got the message and did as my Goddess requested.
That night, Kristen was a fireball in bed. We started with a sixty-nine position. To make things a bit different, I placed Kristen’s head on the pillows, with my head towards the foot of the bed. It was a king size bed, and there was plenty of room to rotate.
The next morning, we got into the car that Will rented for the weekend and drove the hour to Sturbridge. Our reservations were for a two o’clock seating for dinner, so we walked around the grounds. Kristen left Will and me alone.
“I see Kris told you my horrible secret,” Will said. I think it was his way of breaking the ice.
“I wouldn’t say ‘horrible,’” I answered. “I just didn’t know that about you.”
“Does it change your opinion of me?”
I hesitated. For some reason, my opinion did seem to change. I wondered why that was.
Will waited a few moments and then said, “You know that I love Kristen with every ounce of my being, Jim. I would never do anything to hurt her.”
“I understand that,” I said.
Will continued, “If I thought that my lifestyle would hurt her, I’d give it up in a heartbeat.”
“You would?”
“Yes,” Will assured me. “And if it hurts you, then it will hurt Kristen as well.”
I looked at the man who was telling me this. “I love Kristen with every breath that I take, Will. If you changed your lifestyle, it would probably hurt her as well. And I wouldn’t do anything to hurt her that way.”
Will looked at me for a long moment. “What are you trying to say?”
I sighed. “What I’m saying is that we both love Kristen. Neither one of us would want to hurt her. I just want you to understand that I didn’t have any real opportunity to think about this; I only found out last night. To tell you the truth, I cannot see any reason why it should make any difference to me.”
“Most homophobia is rooted in insecurity,” Will said.
“Homo-what?”
“Fear of homosexuals,” Will explained. “I’m not a homosexual, but I sometimes hang out with them. They’re people, too. They’re lovely people. They have to put up with a lot of hatred just to express their love.”
“I’ve never thought of it that way.”
Will said, “I love females. I also love males. I think it’s wonderful—I love everybody! Straight people—people like you, Jim—sometimes fear that if people such as my friends or I exist, then we may be some kind of threat to them.”
I thought about it for a few moments. “Kristen told me about you loving everybody. I think it’s an interesting way to put it, but something about the way you say it makes me think it’s a bit shallow.”
Will stopped walking and turned to me. “What do you mean, shallow?”
“I love Kristen,” I explained. “It’s an all-consuming love. If I felt that way toward everybody, though, I would never be able to have any friends, and I’ve found out recently how important and necessary friends are.”
Will pondered what I said. “Well, I didn’t mean that I have a physical relationship with everybody, Jim. I just meant that I don’t exclude half the human race just because they happen to be male.”
I nodded. “That makes more sense, Will, but I still see a difference. With Kristen, the two of us can raise a family.”
Will smiled at me. “Well, if I was to settle on one person, and that person happened to be male, then we might be able to adopt. As an adopted child myself, I can see the benefits. Of course, a male partner and I would not probably be able to adopt due to the two of us being male, and that’s another way that homophobia raises its ugly head. Nobody knows what the future will bring, though; maybe people will be more enlightened in the 1980s.”
I considered what Will said, and we resumed walking. “I wish you the best in the future, Will.”