Selected excerpts from:    DIFFERENT SLOPES
     Bisexual Man's Novel by        BILL  LEE

     The afternoon was hot and still, the sun a mirror that threatened to burn holes in my khaki shorts. The grape vines on the slope of the hill nearby sucked up concealed moisture from the baking soil and concentrated sugar inside the skins of their fruit for the ultimate sacrifice they would make for the vintners in the big houses at the head of the valley. Labor Day weekend in the Napa Valley was usually like this, once the luncheon cook fire was quenched and last year's rejected wine was consumed. Wine that wouldn't sell, that was too tart for the snooty tasters in San Francisco, was always saved for the public festivals. There were a few clusters of elders playing the usual games and the picnic grounds were strewn with somnolent bodies, old and young, to me all neighborly and familiar – except for one...
     The picnic table ahead was occupied. I recognized the curly brown hair of the stranger I had seen earlier. He was stretched out on the table, his hands under his head, a smile on his face, but he wasn't alone. Sueann stood next to the table, fascinated by the object in her hand. For some reason I slid behind a tree before they realized I was there and watched from my concealment. His flesh was thick and rigid, standing almost exactly vertical, and both Sueann's hands, one above the other, did not completely conceal it... It became a struggle to the finish. Sueann began to move up and down and he followed erratically. I could see his white flesh in flashes as they moved; my envy knew no bounds...
     While I would have gladly changed places with the handsome man from the other side of the hill, it was Sueann's role that I had really coveted. I didn't understand it, but there it was.
     About 8:30 the next night a lone headlight groped its way into our driveway. I met Craig at the motorcycle. This time we were both dressed in Levis, boots, and leather jackets, and Craig had a helmet for me to wear if I wanted to. I noticed that he wasn't wearing one, so also demurred. Of course we all lived and worked in Levis, but I never saw anybody look so sexy in them before, and the leather jacket seemed to add something; I didn't know what it was.
     It didn't take that long to reach Guerneville, and then we turned off on a dirt road, finally turning in at a log house set back in a grove of redwoods along the shore of the river. There were already several cars and motorcycles there, and we could hear music through the open doors. The party seemed to be in full swing. I was almost reluctant to release him from my arms, but he didn't seem to notice...
     Later, as we sat side by side on a log on the river bank, his hand found mine and the warmth of his touch urged me on. I suddenly felt free and unburdened, and there was nothing wrong in just being myself; I began to think and respond based on what was truth and what was uppermost in my mind, I guess, rather than preconceptions. I focused again on his lips. "I'd like to – that is, if you think it's OK – I mean, your lips are so – may I kiss you?" For the first time, a trace of uncertainty entered his eyes, and he stiffened slightly. "Now, wait a minute – are you sure, I mean, really sure you – " He released my hand, and I felt lost for a moment. "You don't have to – you know – do anything just because the others are –" "I know," I broke in, moving toward him, but he moved away on the log. "I want to. I, uh, want you!" There, I'd said it, only vaguely recognizing what the statement portended.
     Craig rose to his feet, staring at me. "Now wait a minute," he repeated, "You don't know what you're asking – I mean saying – " I jumped up with a cry, "Yes, I do!" but he was moving away, looking back at me uncertainly. I went after him, and we began to circle the log with me almost chasing him, insisting that I knew what I was doing and he shaking his head as if cornered. Then he made a dash for the house, and I darted after him.
     As I reached the door through which he had disappeared, my way was abruptly blocked by the "bear," a sloshing beer can in his paw. I vaguely noticed that the inadequate shorts had been left behind somewhere, but his hairy belly was enough to completely block the door. "Whoa," he rumbled as we almost collided. "You chasing somebody?" I nodded. "Anybody I know?" His face wore what may have passed as a frown, but was even more intimidating because of his broken nose. "Yes, I'm after Craig," I answered impatiently, trying to get around him, first on one side and then the other. "I want to kiss him." The huge shape moved back courteously with a belly-quaking chuckle, bowing and waving me on. "Sounds like an eminently reasonable idea to me. Go get him!"
     As I returned to the hall, I came face to face with Craig as he left the bathroom. We were both startled, but before he could escape I gripped him by the shoulders and plastered him against the wall, pressing my lips to his triumphantly. He was sweet and masculine – and trembling, almost as much as I. I could feel first his instinctive withdrawal and then gradual acceptance, followed more quickly with a warming passion that soon swept us both into a muscle-snapping embrace. Our tongues prodded and probed, tasting deeply, demanding, welcoming invasion of innermost secrets. When we broke the contact, breathless, we both slumped to the floor in the hall, and started all over again. Gradually he took the lead and stretched me out on the carpet, possessing me with his lips while his hands roamed over my body. We ended up somehow on the floor in a walk-in closet. I learned that night that many of my past fantasies could be realized, and even some that I had never entertained, but it was better if scattered shoes on the floor were cleared away first...
      One Sunday afternoon Craig introduced me to his girl friend; the afternoon was composed of ambiguities, opposites attracted and compared. At first I was confused but gradually understood sexual complexities that I had never even considered before. Craig was naturally a leader, strong, firm, outreaching and positive. Daisy was recessive, tender, soft, rounded, and inward directed. The burgeoning erection that symbolised Craig, and in essence most men, had its counterpart in Daisy's vagina, but the differences merely called for modifications of approaches to them rather than rejections of either. The actual mechanisms of relating to people sexually must differ according to the object of the sexual feeling, but I felt no guilt for either direction of expression, nor was one more satisfying than the other in general.
There had been an overnight rain, but the skies were clearing rapidly that February morning when the families gathered to see me off for the Army. Mist was still wrapped around the scrub oak in the low lands when I drove the shiny Merc to the bus station. There was not enough breeze to clear the air of bus exhaust fumes from the loading lanes at the little depot...
     I had seen Burt around the base and after chatting for a while at the bar was impressed with his friendly sophistication. He was a tall, rangy Irishman with characteristic black hair and dancing blue eyes. He had a trace of an accent, since his parents had brought him to the U.S. when he was a youngster. He said he was from Noe Valley, and it was some time before I learned that that was a neighborhood in San Francisco near Mission Street. He was attending an engineering school at the base. Picking up girls had been a hobby of his for several years, apparently, but he said he preferred dark-haired Latinas of a type rare in the region of the base. He danced at least once with every girl in the place...
     Our search for sex partners was simpler after that night. When one of us would seem to find a worthy partner, and assuming the girl was agreeable (most were), it would be a three-way at the hotel. During sex the following week, I managed to share him surreptitiously with a girl while he was occupied. She was startled by my trickery, but then smiled as a collaborator in my little secret. After she had gone we went to bed. I always looked forward to going to sleep with him, our butts touching as if by accident. I closed my eyes and was drifting off but I was startled awake when Burt murmured, "That was you down there for awhile tonight, wasn't it?" "Yep." A moment of silence. "Want to try it again?" "Yep."...
Today we are celebrating the one-year anniversary of my discharge from the U.S. Army. It is also the anniversary of the atomic bombing of Nagasaki, but no one celebrates that. It may have played a role in obtaining clearance for Gerard that day in Washington, however.
     Craig still enters my thoughts occasionally when I catch sight of his/my son, Paul, his dark eyes brightening in some unique thought understood only by a four-year old. Craig would have been as proud of him as I am. Everyone has forgotten that he is not my biological son and no one mentions the circumstances of his birth and orphan status. Someday I'll tell him the whole story, but not soon.
     We joke with each other that we are all cripples of a sort: Daisy was crippled, traumatized by the lecherous priest, but seems to have forgotten those events; Gerard's faint scars from his brutal torture are largely haunting memories, but there are still nightmares; and my strong legs still bear the scars from the German Captain's irrational jealousy. Paul's trauma is hidden at the present, but may appear sometime in the future. We can deal with that, as a family. We are hopeful that we can prevent such trauma to our new child, but perhaps that is not totally realistic.
     Trauma is not always totally destructive. Grapes must be crushed to become wine, their spirit, their life reappearing as sweet–tart bouquet for the palate. The ancients felt that wine was life-affirming and in its use there remains a connection, a continuum to the present; we as a family are nurtured by a valley that makes the grapes that make the wines. We know well the influence that the setting for growth of the grapes has upon its ultimate delicacy. The slant of the sun, the warmth of the breeze, the time of the frost on our slope of the hill combine to create a characteristic vintage. Another slope of the same valley produces different wines. They are not necessarily inferior or superior, only different.
     Some people may never understand us, a committed ménage à trois. They may not understand that love is not limited to the standard formula of husband and wife, or even same-sex lovers. It is not necessary that they understand us; they may be native to another slope where the sun strikes at a different angle and the fruit ripens differently, and the wine is – wine from a different slope.

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