Two Thousand Pounds Per Square Inch (The Russel Middlebrook Series Book 5) Read Free Page B

sex doesn't make anyone a man. But it was still true.
    Otto moaned again. He liked being fucked, in a way he hadn't expected either. I liked that he liked it. Somehow—and this part isn't a cliché—that made me think of Otto as more of a man too.
    I kept fucking him. The condom felt strange, but good. I liked what it meant, that this was about more than just getting off—that I cared about Otto, and that together we cared about the future.
     
    "So those are the facts," Brent was saying. "But those are just facts. That's not really what safer sex is all about."
    "It's not?" I said.
    "We live in a strange time. The gay community is still right in the middle of this really big epidemic of a really serious disease. But it involves sex, which is both exciting and embarrassing, so a lot of people have decided they don't want to talk about it anymore. I guess it's just easier to pretend it's not happening. A lot of straight people couldn’t care less about us—they don't care that schools are ignoring their gay students, or openly lying to them in health classes, saying that condoms don't work. I think their attitude is if a gay guy has sex, he deserves to get sick—he deserves to be punished. And a lot of gay guys don't seem to care either. They're tired of talking about AIDS, and using condoms, or maybe they're worried about offending their friends. Or maybe people are just being selfish, only caring about getting themselves off. I think the producers of gay porn are just being greedy and irresponsible, because whether they like it or not, most gay guys get most of their sex education from porn. But not very many people seem to care. So those of us who think this isn't right are left feeling like we're nagging everyone else—or that we're somehow against sex or fun or personal choice. But that's just crazy. This is a health issue, and the facts are still the facts whether they're trendy or not."
    Suddenly, there was a knock on the door. Brent answered, and someone gave him a sheet of paper. He closed the door again, read it, and then said, "Congratulations, you're HIV-negative." He smiled. "Or, more accurately, you were HIV-negative three months ago."
    "Oh," I said. I'd almost forgotten that's why I'd come here in the first place. But I was still relieved, even though I now knew it was probably stupid to have been that worried in the first place.
    Brent took his seat again.
    "Wait," I said. "What's it all about?"
    "What?" Brent said.
    "Before. You said that the facts aren't what safe sex is all about. So what is it all about?" I felt like Charlie Brown asking Linus for the true meaning of Christmas.
    Brent smiled again. "Well, there are two ways to look at safer sex," he said. "One way is to think about the amount of risk you're comfortable with, and then decide exactly what you will and won't do with any guy. Then safer sex becomes about sticking to those decisions, and keeping yourself away from situations where you break your word with yourself."
    I thought about this. That's what I'd thought I'd been doing with Web—deciding what I would and wouldn't do with a guy. But Web hadn't followed the script. And even if I'd regretted it afterwards, I'd kind of enjoyed it at the time.
    "What's the other way?" I said.
    "The other way is to think of safe sex as information that helps you make choices," Brent said. "You know what sex acts are riskier and what aren't. And you might do different things with different guys in different situations. If it's some guy you just met on Grindr, you might not suck his dick without a condom or let that guy cum in your mouth. But if it's a guy you're dating, and you've been together more than three months and you've both been tested and are both HIV-negative, you might make a different decision."
    I thought about this. I'd done things with Otto that I hadn't wanted to do with Web. And if I ever had another boyfriend, I'd probably want to do those things again, and maybe other things