Chapter 38 Justin
JUSTIN
Six months later
“If you want, you can just crash here tonight,” I suggested.
Tate and I were chilling in my backyard, sitting at my picnic table that I had set up.
It faced what used to be Ava’s vegetable garden.
Tate and I had been spending a lot more time together.
After that horrible argument, we had a long talk, and I explained to him how it made me feel when he’d side with Ava and he apologized.
Ever since, he had been more supportive of what I was going through.
If I had a doctor’s appointment and he was off of work, he’d come along with me.
We were learning about my virus together, and I appreciated him for that.
He was getting firsthand knowledge of what I was going through right alongside of me.
I was in the first phase of the virus, and after having the sex talk with my doctor, I felt more comfortable knowing that as long as I wore protection, I didn’t have to worry about spreading it.
Shortly after that, Tate and I started our sexual relationship again.
Something that I never expected would happen.
He was either at my house or I was at his.
I believed we were soulmates because there was no denying the bond and connection that we had to one another.
We had gone through some very tough moments over the years together and always found our way back to each other.
Our families had no idea that Tate and I were in a sexual relationship.
Whenever they would come around, they never questioned us being together all the time because they knew we were best friends.
They had no reason to think that we were engaging in sex.
I never thought that Tate would be open to taking our relationship to the next level again, but once he heard my doctor explain how to practice safe sex with someone that had HIV, something in him changed and we’d been inseparable ever since.
Today, we were hanging out at my house, and one thing led to another, and we started kissing.
Kissing was something that we never used to do.
But now that we had reconnected, this time around our relationship was very passionate and sexual, and kissing was something that we did quite often.
As the foreplay increased, we went from the backyard to my bedroom.
It was crazy how we were able to play it cool whenever we were around people and always thought that no one noticed… until today.
“I know you got damn lyin’ TAH ME!” my father’s voice boomed throughout my room.
Nearly giving me a heart attack, I jumped out of bed when I realized my dad was standing in my bedroom doorway.
Feeling a drift of wind, I panicked and snatched the sheets off the bed to cover my naked body.
Forgetting that Tate was in my bed lying next to me just as naked as I was, my father clutched his chest as his eyes bucked.
“What the FUCK is going on in here?” my dad’s voice bellowed as Tate jumped out of the bed with a look of fear on his face, his flaccid dick was just bouncing up and down.
My dad and his father were friends, and no one in our family knew about our secret except for my mom.
I thought back to the day when Tate and I were teenagers and he had spent the night at my house, and my mom caught him going down on me.
Our relationship changed from that point on.
We weren’t as close as we used to be, but at the end of the day, I still loved and respected her because she was my mom.
Even though we didn’t talk or see each other often, whenever I was going through a hard time, I’d call and talk to her.
Even though she didn’t care for my lifestyle choices, she never shut me out of her life.
Because of that, no matter how distant she would be sometimes, I still respected and needed her opinion.
My mom was the only person that came and helped me out when I first got home from the hospital following hip surgery.
My mom also came and spent time with me when I hit my lowest point after my divorce a few months ago.
When I hit rock bottom, I called her, and she came running right to me.
I remember when she first got to my house and I had to explain to her why Ava divorced me.
I told her about everything, including my HIV status.
I knew her heart broke because as soon as the words left my mouth, she put her head in her hands and wept.
I made her promise me that she wouldn’t tell my dad, and before she left, she told me that I was placing too much of a burden on her heart, and she couldn’t promise if she could keep it a secret.
I begged and pleaded and told her to let me be the one to tell him, and she said she would; clearly, she didn’t.
This unexpected visit he just paid me let me know that she went home and told him that I was bisexual, and that I had contracted the virus.
I guess my secret was too much of a burden for her to bear.
What sucked the most was that he caught me in bed with Tate, both of us naked with his own two eyes, and there was nothing that I could say.
Both of us were about to get our grown asses kicked by our daddies.
I won’t even get started and get into all the toys, condoms, butt plugs, and lubricants that were tossed throughout the room.
“I was really hoping the rumor I heard was a fucking lie!” my dad bellowed, looking at Tate as he rushed to put his clothes on with a look of disgust on his face.
“I just knew that my boy wasn’t out here catching shit and laying up with no damn man!
And yo ass!” He pointed in Tate’s direction.
“Wait ‘til I get your damn daddy on the line!”
“I’m sorry, sir,” Tate began, but my dad cut him off.
“Ah, nah! Don’t fucking be sorry now! Wait ‘til yo daddy hear this shit!” my dad shouted. “Do you have the virus, too?”
When my dad asked Tate if he had the virus, I could have died right where I was standing. I could not believe the words that had just left his mouth. I knew without a doubt that my mom had told my dad everything, but why?
“Wow! I can’t believe she actually told you,” I muttered, and that was what made my dad lose it.
Charging me like a bull, he somehow made it from the door to across the room where I was standing in less than two seconds.
When he hit me, I flipped over the bed, and when I looked up, Tate had his shoes in his hands and was hauling ass out of my room.
That was the second time he had left me hanging while I was being attacked. I didn’t get that shit at all!
When I turned toward my bed, I braced myself as I watched my dad run across it toward me.
Before I could react, he was on top of me whoopin’ my ass with his leather belt.
When I looked in his eyes it was a mixture of hurt and anger.
I wanted to flip toss his old ass, but I let him go ahead and take his anger out on me.
“You gotdamn right she was going to tell me, boy! When she got back from seeing you the last time, she was worried sick about you. Her blood pressure has been high and everything. She always walkin’ around lookin’ like she lost her best friend, and she been havin’ migraines back-to-back.
You can’t put that type of pressure on your mama like that!
” he said as he continued to hit me with the belt.
“Because of you, your mama had a mild stroke!” When he said that my heart sunk.
Now, I understood why he was here putting this whipping on me.
“You better be lucky I didn’t lose her! If that would have happened, this ass whoopin’ is nothing compared to what I’d do to your ass!
” I just laid there and let him continue to swing until he was done.
“I’m sorry, Dad. Is Mom okay?” I asked once he was finished after he walked all over me.
“Yeah, she’s okay, but it scared me half to death. I thought I was about to lose her! All over this foolishness you got goin’ on over here! Boy, you just don’t know.”
Getting up off the floor then sitting on the edge of my bed, I covered the lower half of my body with the comforter.
I felt like shit listening to my dad snap about my mom having a mild stroke.
I never thought that her health was being affected that much by holding a secret from him for me.
I felt horrible for that because in that moment, it made me look like a selfish ass nigga. No wonder she told him.
“Just so we clear,” my dad continued, looking at me with a disappointed expression on his face, “I whooped your ass because I almost lost your mama over the bullshit you got goin’ on in your life.
If you want to continue to run around doing all that nasty shit, do you!
That’s yo ass if you wanna catch all types of shit but do me a favor!
Don’t call your mama stressin’ her over NONE OF IT! ”
“This is the reason why I didn’t call you. I know you don’t approve of my lifestyle. You want me to be able to come talk to you but look how you just reacted,” I defended.
“Boy, please don’t make me!” He flinched like he was about to swing the belt on me again.
“I DO NOT APPROVE of you being with no damn man! It breaks my heart that you had to learn life the hard way by losing your beautiful wife. Now, you done caught a virus that could kill yo ass! To see that what you doin’ is not natural, but it’s your life to live, not mine.
Had you stayed with Ava and lived life the way it was intended to be lived you wouldn’t be in the predicament that you’re in!
But that’s your issue, not mine and damn sure not your mother’s!
” he yelled before he stormed out of my room.
A few seconds later, I heard the front door slam, letting me know that he left. I couldn’t believe I had just gotten my ass beat by my dad like a fucking kid. What shocked me more than that was that he caught me in bed with Tate of all people. I couldn’t imagine what Tate was thinking right now.
As angry as I was because he didn’t even attempt to help me, just like that night at the restaurant when we ran into Ava, I was still very concerned about him.
His dad felt the same about gay men that my father felt and as pissed off as my dad was, I knew the moment he left my house that he had called Tate’s dad and told him about everything.
Then the fact that my dad thought that Tate had the virus also…
I knew that was about to be a serious problem for him.
That was going to push Tate into a corner where he was going to have to tell his pops about everything that had been going on.
Going downstairs to lock my front door, I stopped in the kitchen to grab the bottle of Merlot that was in the fridge.
Not bothering to get a wine glass, I opened it and drank straight from the bottle.
Taking it upstairs with me, I went into my bathroom so that I could shower and get dressed.
I wanted to give Tate some time to see if he was going to reach out to me.
Being that he saw me get attacked by my dad, I was hoping he would have called to check on me by now.
I figured if I didn’t hear from him soon then his dad probably got ahold of him.
By the time I got dressed, I checked my phone and saw that he still hadn’t called or texted me, so I waited for another thirty minutes then called him.
When he didn’t answer, I called him right back, and he sent the call straight to voicemail again.
Seconds later, I got a text from him that said he was on the line with his dad.
I felt fucked up because once again, my bullshit had not only caught up to me, but it affected Tate also.
He wasn’t ready to come out to his family just yet, and neither was I.
Even though I understood why my mom told my dad, I still wished she would have let me be the one to come out.
It was like everything and everyone around me was falling apart.
It made me feel cursed, and I was at my wit’s end. I couldn’t take much more.