Page 96 of Pioneer Summer

“Then let them, if that’s what helps. I spent a lot of time on this and found out a little about how it’s treated. And there’s nothing bad about it. They just show you pictures of men ... well, like the ones you saw in that magazine ... and give you a shot that makes you nauseous. They do this many times, and eventually you’re supposed to develop an automatic gag reflex. But that’s not what got my attention. They also do hypnosis! They can instill interest in girls. They can use it to make you forget about these feelings.”

The glittering sheath of ice crawled up Yurka’s legs, past his waist, encasing his stomach and chest.

“Have you lost your mind? You’re ready to be locked up in a ward with a bunch of psychopaths? You’re normal! Living with them will make you go crazy for real!”

“I’m not normal! I want to be free of this, once and for all; it’s messing me up! It’s not letting me live in peace, Yura! I want to forget everything.”

“You want to forget ... me?! Just like that?! Simply put it all out of your mind, and you’re done?!”

“It’s not simple, Yur ...”

“Why are you ... but you ...” Yurka felt betrayed. “I ... I have no idea what’s happening here. Why are you telling me all this? So I stay away?”

Yurka leaped to his feet and ran over to the doorway, but Volodya ran after him and grabbed his hand: “Wait! Yur, please, you have to understand, this is all for real ... it’s serious, really serious ... Please, hear me out. You’ll probably leave once you hear the truth, but please at least hear me out.”

Yurka went completely still. More than once, Yurka had felt something between them—a sort of veil of things left unsaid. Things that kept them from growing even closer. Things Volodya knew but wasn’t telling Yurka. Or that he mentioned but didn’t fully explain. Many times, Yurka had thought about asking, but whatever was there, he was afraid it would hurt even more, and then he’d regret the lifting of that veil.

While Yurka was thinking about this, Volodya cleared his throat and began in a whisper: “It’s complicated because we were never just friends. You and I had just met, but then everything started moving so fast that I didn’t even recognize it when it happened.” His voice went hoarse. In that kindof absolute darkness, there was no way Volodya could see Yurka’s face, but evidently he didn’t even want to look in Yurka’s direction, because he turned away and said, loud and clear: “I fell in love with you.”

Those words stupefied Yurka. He could hear Volodya’s words just fine, but he wasn’t able to wrap his brain around them. In love. Did Volodya mean it? “Fell in love”?

But then the frost started melting. The warmth started inside Yurka but then moved outward. Meanwhile, Volodya was still talking, his voice husky, but with every word, his whisper grew hotter: “The way I fell in love with you is the way you’re supposed to fall in love with girls! And this whole time I’ve been wanting from you what a normal guy would want from a girl: little sweet nothings, and kisses, and ... and ... and all the rest of it.” He looked distraught. “I’m a dangerous person! I’m a danger to myself, but I’m especially dangerous for you!”

“All the rest of it ...” Yurka had also fantasized about “the rest of it” when he was alone. But he figured that didn’t concern anyone but himself, because it was his own body, and Yurka knew a way to solve that problem that didn’t involve Volodya at all. Sure, Volodya was an object of desire, but that didn’t mean Yurka was going to go act on his feeling. Yurka had known for a long time now, obviously, that people could do “the rest of it” not for procreation but just because it felt good. And after seeing the magazine, he had guessed that there were ways to do it other than the traditional way. Recently, he’d realized that might even mean it was possible to do it with people other than girls. But for him and Volodya to do it? No. No, that was too much. Yurka could deal with his problems himself. And to tell the truth, he didn’t even think of it as a problem at all!

But evidently Volodya did. And he was so desperate, he was even ready to go to a doctor—anything to forget. To forget it all. Which meant to forget Yurka, too. But Yurka couldn’t allow that! What was he supposed to do? Volodya was terribly afraid of his own desires, but wasn’t that because he longed to fulfill them? Was that why he was telling Yurka all this: because subconsciously he actually wanted Yurka to push him to do “the rest of it”? Because he wanted Yurka to convince him that essentially there was nothing dangerous about “the rest of it”? That it was probably just the opposite: that happiness is entrusting yourself to a person who loves you?

And that was the biggest thing of all of it, for Yurka: Volodya had fallen in love with him! As he remembered it, his dark thoughts disappeared as though they had never been. Volodya loved him! Could anything in the whole world be more important than that? No! The future, all those fears, this “abnormality”—all of it was nonsense, none of it meant anything, none of it was worth worrying about if Volodya was in love with him. So what if a “normal” man would find this absurd? It made Yurka so happy that he wanted to laugh out loud—so much that he couldn’t hold back. He burst out laughing, grabbed Volodya’s arms, turned Volodya around to face him, pushed him back on the pile of newspapers, and jumped on top of him, chortling, “What am I supposed to be afraid of you for? What are you going to do, hold me so tight, you squeeze me to death? Go ahead, please, hold me as tight as you want.”

“It’s not what I’m going to do—I’m not going to do anything to you. It’s what I want to do ... I’m like a maniac or something ...”

Volodya made a pretty poor maniac. It was impossible to take his threats seriously when he was sitting on the floor, squashed into submission by a Yurka who was holding him down.

“And what do you want to do, exactly?” Yurka knew already, but he wanted Volodya to admit it out loud.

“That’s not important. None of it’s going to happen anyway.” But Volodya was only protesting verbally; physically, he wasn’t moving a muscle.

“Yes, itisimportant! Tell me! What?”

“I don’t want to do anything that’ll harm you! And I won’t! Yurka, it’s harmful! It is! It’s an abomination, it’s vile desecration! I wouldn’t do that to you for—”

“But what is ‘it’? This?” Yurka put his hand under Volodya’s shirt.

“Yurka, stop!”

Volodya roughly snatched Yurka’s hand away and pushed him off, then knelt on the floor and hid his face in his hands. Yurka had been soaring with happiness—Volodya was in love with him!—but the sight of Volodya, ready to weep, cooled his ardor. Yurka tried to peer between Volodya’s fingers to look into his eyes but could only catch sight of Volodya’s furrowed brow.

“Come on, why are you acting like this, Volod ...”

He stroked Volodya’s hair, but instead of calming down, Volodya flinched and burst out angrily, “Can you really not understand this? Can you really not conceive of where this might lead? You’re not like me. You’ve liked girls before. You haven’t lost everything yet!” Volodya lowered his hands from his face and looked Yurka right in the eye. “Yurka, promise me, not for show but for real: Swear me an oath you’ll never break. Promise me that I’ll be the only one. Promise that as soon as you get home, you’ll get your act together and fall in love with a good girl ... a musician ... That you won’t be like me. That you’ll never look at any other guy the way you look at me! I don’t want you to be that way! It’s bitter, and it’s scary ... You have no idea how scary it is!”

“Can you really hate yourself this much?” whispered Yurka, dismayed.

“Can you really pretend you don’t care? Because I’m sick! I’m a freak!”

Yurka itched to slap him so he’d come back to his senses and stop insulting himself. But instead he said, “I do. I do care. And you know something? When you’re a nobody like I am, when you’ve got nothing to lose, all these terrible thoughts just go away. And I can think clearly. Because, look, what if everyone’s wrong?”

“That’s stupid! Everyone can’t be wrong!”

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