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Beauty still walketh on the earth and air,
Our present sunsets are as rich in gold
As ere the Iliad’s music was out-roll’d;
The roses of the Spring are ever fair,
‘Mong branches green still ring-doves coo and pair,
And the deep sea still foams its music old.
So, if we are at all divinely soul’d,
This beauty will unloose our bonds of care.
‘Tis pleasant, when blue skies are o’er us bending
Within old starry-gated Poesy,
To meet a soul set to no worldly tune,
Like thine, sweet Friend! Oh, dearer this to me
Than are the dewy trees, the sun, the moon,
Or noble music with a golden ending.
– “Beauty” by Alexander Smith
“Who is Patroclus?” Ernst asks as Hanschen walks him home. “Achilles I’ve heard of, of course, but not him.”
“Not surprising,” says Hanschen. “But I think you can probably guess.”
He’s not wrong. Ernst thinks he does have a fairly good idea. On the way out of the classroom, when Hanschen offered to join him – to huddle over the Homer – there was something in his voice that seemed to drip with implication, and then he’d met his eyes and there was something glinting there that left little doubt as to what was being implied.
Hanschen and Ernst have always been friendly enough, growing up, and in the last year or so there’s been an undercurrent of something forming between them. Ernst’s heart never races so fast as when he’s around Hanschen, and he’s having more and more trouble convincing himself that it’s only nerves. Especially since a month ago, when they caught each other staring at Bobby Maler in the showers after gymnastics. Better than anyone else catching either of them, certainly, but mortifying nonetheless. Yet that moment of recognition was also – after the spike of panic – a relief. Confirmation that Ernst isn’t the only one to feel these kinds of… stirrings.
Since then, they absolutely have not discussed any of it head on, and it makes Ernst sweat to even think about doing so, but Hanschen has been dancing right around it.
“He was Achilles’… friend?”
“That’s a word for it.”
They walk a bit farther in silence, arms brushing sometimes. Hanschen stops to climb a tree, apparently just because he feels like it, something he does sometimes that Ernst has tried and failed not to be charmed by. Peering up at him from the ground, Ernst asks, “Should you have mentioned that… friendship in public? In relation to… us?”
“A little caution is never a bad thing, you’re right, but Herr Sonnenstich was gone, and no one else was paying attention.”
Ernst nods, still a little unsettled, and sits down at the base of the tree to wait for Hanschen to finish communing with nature or feeling tall or whatever it is he’s doing up in the branches.
Running a finger along the bark of an exposed root, he decides to change the subject. “You know how to play guitar, don’t you?”
“I do.”
“How did you learn?”
“From my governess, mostly.”
“The same governess who –” He clears his throat, unable to make himself finish the question he’d blurted out. Some subject change.
“Who taught me about sex?” Hanschen prompts, and Ernst gulps. “You heard about that, hmm? Yeah, that’s the one. But…” There’s a rustling of leaves and Ernst looks up to see him leaning over the branch he’s settled on to look down at him. “Can I tell you a secret?”
Ernst blinks. “Of course.”
“I lied about that.”
“What?”
“My governess told me a few things, or at least hinted at them, and so did my older brother, but mostly I got everything I know from books, same as Melchior. I just wanted to sound… I don’t know, more… worldly, than him.”
“Really?”
“Really.”
Scrambling for the right follow-up question, Ernst somehow lands on, “Which books?”
Hanschen laughs. “Looking for recommendations?”
“I, uh.”
“I can make you a list.” He sees the look on Ernst’s face at that – oh God, the thought of what his parents would say if they found a list like that in his belongings, let alone an actual obscene text – and laughs again. “I’m just teasing you, Ernst.”
“You’re always teasing me.”
“I don’t mean anything bad by it, you must know that.” He carefully drops down out of the tree and lowers himself to the ground, close beside Ernst. “And if there’s anything you want to know, you can ask. That I do mean.”
“We’re not supposed to talk about these kinds of things.”
“I won’t tell anyone.”
Ernst shakes his head, casts his eyes down towards his knees, pressed nervously together, his hands twisting in his lap.
“Too shy?” Hanschen interprets. “That’s all right.”
For an utterly paralyzing moment, Ernst is sure that he’s going to offer an alternative to talking about it. That he’ll smirk and suggest a more practical, hands-on demonstration.
And, oh. Ernst can’t bear the thought of having to say yes or no to such a proposition. But surely Hanschen knows that, so maybe he wouldn’t even ask. Maybe he would just reach out and do it, take the choice right out of Ernst’s hands, show him exactly what it is to be touched in the ways that adults won’t tell them about, teach him how a man can find pleasure.
Ernst – wants him to. He wants it. He just doesn’t know how to make that desire be stronger than the desire to run away from it, which has his body tensed up so tightly, ready to jolt away right now if Hanschen grants him the lightest touch.
Hanschen is thinking about it too. He has to be. Ernst knows this isn’t all in his head, and when he drags his eyes back to Hanschen’s face he sees his eyes flicking all over Ernst, so he must be considering –
But then he just sighs, the air hitting Ernst’s cheek, and asks, “Why did you ask? About me learning to play guitar?”
“Oh, um.” He shakes his head, collecting his scrambled thoughts. “I’ve just gotten one. A guitar. It belonged to that uncle of mine who died last month, and no one else wanted it. I don’t know what I’m going to do with it, though. I’ve never played, and I don’t think I have time or money for a tutor.”
“I can teach you,” Hanschen says, “If you want.”
Ernst’s stomach lurches, the sentence he was just anticipating with such dread and hope coming a few moments late and in a different context. “You – really?”
“Sure, why not? We can pick up your instrument and go on to my house.”
“What, now?”
“No time like the present.”
“I… don’t know, Hanschen. We have so much schoolwork, and you know I’m already near the bottom of the class…”
“So we’ll take breaks to study.” He stands and extends a hand to help him up. “Well?”
Ernst swallows hard and takes his hand.
Hanschen’s family is all out of the house, so no one sees them come in, which Ernst is glad for, even though it’s not as if anyone would have any reason to suspect anything queer happening behind the closed door of Hanschen’s bedroom. Classmates visit each other all the time. They’re friends. They’re here to study. It’s fine. It’s normal.
Ernst tries to focus, on the lesson and not on Hanschen’s bed right there, and as it turns out, Hanschen’s not a bad instructor. He guides Ernst through the basic fingerings with patience and minimal innuendo, and when he sticks to his word and transitions into quizzing him about their assignments, he manages to make even trigonometry almost make sense to him.
“Your posture is still a bit off,” Hanschen remarks when they shift back into guitar exercises. “Your hand placement. Can you – no, that’s worse. Here, let me show you?”
Ernst looks up, expecting him to demonstrate on his own guitar, but he’s setting the instrument aside.
“What –” Ernst starts to ask, but then Hanschen steps in behind him, the whole front of his body pressed against his back, his arms sliding around him to hold the guitar with him, and Ernst – stops breathing.
“Relax,” Hanschen says lowly, not without amusement, like he knows exactly what he’s doing, and Ernst shudders.
“Hanschen, I –”
“Shh.” He puts his left hand over Ernst’s and guides his positioning. “You hold it here, like this,” he purrs in his ear. “You see?”
“I – yes, um, I think so.”
Hanschen removes his hand torturously slowly, letting his fingers drag along, down to his wrist to make another small adjustment before coming back up to lightly grasp the neck of the guitar next to where Ernst is holding it. With his other hand, he manipulates Ernst’s right arm around – and surely so much stroking and squeezing isn’t quite necessary just to get him to shift his elbow a little bit? – and when he’s satisfied, leaves it resting on his upper arm.
“That’s better,” he says. “Keep your back nice and straight like that, too. Now try running through those chords again?”
Ernst thinks that every note he’s just learned to play may have just flown right out of his head, but he nods. Closes his eyes for a moment and tries to compose himself. Opens them and haltingly starts to play.
And Hanschen just… stays there, touching him.
Now and then he murmurs some encouragement – good, or just like that, or there, that’s it – and oh, there’s something roiling in Ernst’s belly, something deep down but rising up, something that might be setting him on fire from the inside, but somehow, somehow he does find himself relaxing more. His body slowly loosens up, and he’s not sure exactly what his face is doing in response to Hanschen’s instructions and praise but he thinks it must look more like a normal smile now and less like abject terror, even when Hanschen’s hand drops from Ernst’s arm to his hip.
“Strum a little lower down,” Hanschen murmurs at one point, and Ernst could swear that his hand starts to inch further around his leg, closer to – to – to –
Ernst’s fingers slip on the strings, producing a loud discordant twang that makes them both freeze.
“Well,” says Hanschen, “Mm, so, not quite like that,” and Ernst giggles and meets his eyes over his shoulder.
“That wasn’t the sound we were going for?”
“Ernst Robel,” he drawls, grinning, “I like you sarcastic.”
He ducks his head, feeling flushed, and picks out the correct sequence of notes again. “How’s that?”
“Beautiful.”
Hanschen hasn’t looked away from the side of Ernst’s face, Ernst can see him out of the corner of his eye. He bites his bottom lip and pretends not to see him watching the movement.
“When your governess taught you,” Ernst whispers, “Was this how she did it?”
“No,” Hanschen says, letting his left hand shift a fraction so his fingers caress Ernst’s. “It wasn’t.”
Lying in bed late that night, Ernst’s mind keeps circling back to the feeling of Hanschen holding him, replaying his words in his ear. And he imagines the buffer, the plausible deniability, of the guitar gone, leaving just two boys with their arms around each other. He imagines what might have happened if they were both just a little braver, imagines Hanschen letting his hands wander more, all over his body, maybe slipping under his uniform, imagines leaning back against Hanschen’s chest and giving in to the touch, imagines finding his voice… just like that… now lower down…
“Oh, my god,” he gasps out loud as arousal pulses through him.
Oh, he’s fucked.
“Who knew that being tutored in music could be so… stimulating?” Ernst muses absently in response to Georg going on about Fraulein Grossebustenhalter again a few weeks later when a few of the boys are gathered at Otto’s house to study together, and he just about swallows his tongue when he realizes what he’s said.
Across the room, Hanschen looks up from his book, eyebrows raised and lips slightly parted.
Luckily Georg doesn’t seem to register Ernst’s comment as commiseration, since he just laughs and says, “Well, of course you wouldn’t know, Ernst, since you’re stuck with just Hanschen.”
“Haha,” Ernst says, not meeting anyone’s eyes, “Right, no, obviously I wouldn’t feel, um, anything, from. That.”
“Excuse you, Georg, I am a delight,” Hanschen protests blithely.
“Yeah, sure, talk to me when you grow some nice big breasts.”
“Thank you for that horrifying mental image,” Otto mutters, still scribbling in his notes.
“Anyway!” chokes Ernst, “What are we supposed to be getting out of this history reading?”
Everyone groans, but it does the trick of changing the subject, and he’s able to relax as everyone seems to forget about his comment.
Everyone but Hanschen, that is.
“Up to some guitar practice?” he asks as the two of them walk back to Ernst’s house later, “Or would that be too stimulating?”
“You’re insufferable,” says Ernst, and Hanschen laughs.
They’ve had a few lessons now. None have been quite so charged as the first, and Hanschen has mostly kept his hands to himself, but there is a distinct sense of possibility. Ernst only mentioned to the others that Hanschen is teaching him because it provides a convenient reason if anyone were ever to think it odd that they spend so much time together. In truth, sometimes when they meet up, they don’t play at all or even do schoolwork but just talk. It’s the oddest thing, what being around Hanschen does to him, because at times he feels absolutely free to speak for hours on end about things he’s never shared with anyone, and then the next moment he’ll turn into a stammering mess. He thinks both sides of it have something to do with how Hanschen just makes him feel so seen. His gaze just flays him open.
Something so terrifying has no right to feel so good.
“I’d like to hear your progress on that Mertz piece,” Hanschen says.
“Oh, yes, I think I’ve almost got it.”
They walk a little further, and Hanschen asks, “Something else on your mind?”
“No, not really,” Ernst says. Then, “What did you do to the girls?”
“That depends who’s asking. If you’re talking to my parents or the teachers, I’ve never so much as thought about a woman. If you’re talking to Georg, I’ve participated in all sorts of debaucheries.”
“Hanschen.”
“Sorry. What do you mean?”
“I was taking a walk the other day, and a few girls went running by towards the bridge – they didn’t notice me – and as they went I overheard one of them – Thea, I think, you know her? – saying that the last one there would have to hold hands with you, and they all laughed and shrieked.”
Hanschen raises his eyebrows. “That’s rather offensive.”
“And now you’ll tell me it’s unprovoked?”
“Well, I can’t think of anything specific. Hmm, did you happen to see who lost?”
“I don’t know, I got to the bridge after they had already gone by.”
“Ah, so you were the last one there,” Hanschen says brightly, and he’s reached over and grabbed Ernst’s hand before Ernst can process it.
“What are you –”
“Rules are rules.”
Face burning, Ernst asks, “Since when do you hold any regard for rules?”
“I hold very little regard for most rules,” Hanschen agrees, “But I almost always follow them.”
That’s true, Ernst supposes. Hanschen hardly ever gets in trouble for anything, and when he does it’s usually just because the teachers are in a particularly petty mood and eager to jump on the smallest slip-up. He’s constantly obsequious to authority figures and laughs along with them when they pick on other students, and somehow carries himself in such a way that no one thinks to resent him for it.
“Technically I don’t think I was included, so I’m not sure the rules really require this,” Ernst says quietly, but he finds the courage to tighten his grip when Hanschen starts to pull his hand away, and Hanschen smiles.
“Thea has always been a bit of a gossip,” he says after a few moments. “I tried to hold hands with her at a party once a few years ago, and I used to get sweaty palms sometimes. She was disgusted at the time, and she’s probably told her friends about it.”
“Oh. That’s… underwhelming.”
“What, you were hoping I was some sort of predator?”
“What – no, obviously not, I just – I – you’re teasing again.”
“A little.” He swings their joined hands between them. “Maybe I’ve flirted a bit with those girls now and then, but nothing came of it, and I didn’t get the sense that it bothered them that much. I’ve never done anything to or with any of them, truthfully. I kissed a girl named Minna from my brother’s year a couple times. And Max von Trenk once, before – before. That’s about the extent of my… experience.” He leers. “Outside of my imagination, of course.”
“Imagination doesn’t count.”
Hanschen’s grin sharpens. “Why, what have you been imagining, Ernst?”
“I – uh.”
He glances around and lowers his voice. “Have you touched yourself?”
“Hanschen,” he hisses. “What a question!”
Just this past Sunday, the sermon at church took a detour into a diatribe against the evils of onanism. The pastor hadn’t entirely defined his terms, presumably to keep anyone who didn’t already know what he was talking about from getting any ideas, but Ernst had gotten the gist.
“I don’t believe there’s anything wrong with it,” Hanschen says, which almost certainly means that he’s done it himself, which Ernst really didn’t need to know.
“That doesn’t mean you can talk about it!”
“You’re so easily scandalized.”
“Not more so than anyone else, I don’t think. You’re just shameless.”
“I know what I am,” he says quietly, and Ernst can’t for the life of him tell whether that’s an agreement or a rebuttal.
They’ve been walking in an unpopulated area, but they approach houses now, and silently drop their hands at the same moment.
“Your hands weren’t sweaty,” Ernst offers under his breath.
Hanschen chuckles. “I appreciate that. Neither were yours.”
“The answer to your earlier question is yes, by the way,” says Ernst, and lets that hang for a beat before finishing, “You can come over to help with my guitar.”
“Oh, who’s a tease now?” Hanschen says, sounding a little impressed. “No, that’s great. I promise I’ll stop harassing you about your masturbatory habits.”
“I don’t have a habit,” he protests, then sighs when he sees the twitch of Hanschen’s mouth. “I walked into that.”
“You did.”
They stop in front of Ernst’s house. “If I open this door, are you going to behave?”
“I am a paragon of innocence,” Hanschen says, all wide eyes, and Ernst snorts and lets him in.
As the weeks go on, things get more hectic, first with exams and then with the shock – though perhaps it shouldn’t have been a shock – of Moritz’s suicide, and then the funeral. Ernst and Hanschen see each other plenty during this time, but flirtation, or whatever it is they’ve been doing, can’t be so much on their minds.
A few days after the funeral the children are all gathered by the teachers, who seem to want to make an example of Melchior Gabor for something. Most of the students spend most of the assembly on their phones, and Hanschen, sharing a bench with Ernst, keeps leaning in to whisper to him, but they both go momentarily still and exchange a glance when it’s revealed exactly what Melchior is accused of writing for Moritz – an “obscene” and “morally corrupting” essay and drawings titled “The Art of Sleeping With.”
“Well,” says Hanschen as he and Ernst walk home afterwards, “I guess it’s for the best that I never gave you that list.”
“God,” Ernst says, “Don’t even joke.”
“Not that I think either of us would be stupid enough to get caught with it, but even so.”
“I think Moritz had other things on his mind.”
“Clearly.”
“You don’t think that was why – I mean, that seems to be what the headmaster was getting at, but – you don’t think –?”
“Do I think that Melchior drew a penis and the sight of it was enough to drive Moritz to suicide? No, Ernst, I don’t. I mean, come on, you are easily flustered by talks of sex, but you must see that it’s not that frightening. Maybe it was one factor adding to his being overwhelmed lately, but I’d imagine failing out of school would be more significant. The school officials know that too, they’re just trying to save face.”
“No, I’m sure you’re right.”
“What would you have done,” Hanschen asks a few minutes later, “If you’d been the one to fail?”
“I don’t know,” Ernst says. “I’ve thought about it, of course, even before Moritz – but I really don’t know. Found a profession, I suppose. One that wouldn’t care about my grades. I wouldn’t kill myself, I don’t think. What about – I suppose you would never be in that situation, you’re too good a student. But if you did fail, what would you do?”
Hanschen takes a long moment to answer, his face unusually solemn. “I don’t know.”
On an impulse, Ernst checks that the coast is clear and takes his hand.
“I’ve missed you lately,” he admits.
“I’ve been right here.”
“No, I know, but – you know what I mean, don’t you? We haven’t had as many chances to really talk.”
“True.” He squeezes his hand and suggests, “After gymnastics on Friday. Wait for me after everyone leaves. We’ll talk then.”
When Friday comes, they linger in the locker room, feigning casualness, as their classmates filter out. When Ernst got out of the shower, Hanschen was standing between him and his clothes, and he felt a little paranoid that passing so close to him when they were both undressed would somehow give something away to anyone observing them, so he just wrapped his towel around himself and sat down on a bench to wait and has been trying to look like he was just distracted by something on his phone.
Nearly everyone has gone now – it’s just Hanschen and Bobby Maler left, Hanschen lounging two benches over and Bobby getting dressed right between them.
Not wanting to watch him, Ernst keeps his eyes on his screen and opens a message.
Those bells, he texts Hanschen as he hears the tolling from the church in the distance, …so peaceful.
He feels stupid texting him from maybe two meters away, but Hanschen’s reply – I know – is almost immediate, like he already had their chat open.
Bolstered by this, Ernst types something about the future he’s been finding himself thinking about lately, him as a pastor with all that entails.
You can’t be serious, Hanschen texts back, and Ernst looks up from his phone in consternation.
Hanschen makes that face he makes when he can’t decide whether to apologize for making light of things or really lean into laughing at him, but Bobby is clearly almost ready to go, so he waits to say anything.
Slinging his towel over one shoulder and his bag over the other, Bobby nods coolly at them and Hanschen nods back as Ernst looks at the floor.
“Really, Ernst, you’re such a sentimentalist!” Hanschen says after Bobby has sauntered out, and Ernst stares at him. He shrugs. “The pious, serene faces you see on the clergy, it’s all an act – to hide their envy. Trust me,” he adds, tapping the bench beside him in a beckoning sort of way, “There are only three ways a man can go.”
Clutching his towel to make sure it stays securely around his waist, Ernst hesitantly moves over to sit next to him.
“He can let the status quo defeat him,” Hanschen elaborates, “Like Moritz. He can rock the boat, like Melchior, and be expelled. Or… he can bide his time, and let the system work for him. Like me.”
He stands and rounds the back of the bench, smoothly pulling the towel from around his hips and draping it over his shoulder, and oh, God. He was wearing his underpants underneath, at least, but they leave very little to the imagination, which of course means that Ernst will be Imagining.
“Think of the future,” Hanschen says, stepping close behind Ernst and setting his hands on either side of the base of his neck, “As a pail of whole milk.” The skin-to-skin contact makes Ernst a little dizzy, but he tries to listen to him, ideally while breathing at the same time. “One man sweats and stirs, churning it into butter – like Otto, for example. Another man frets, and spills his milk, and cries all night, like Georg. But me –” Shifting a bit to one side, he uses one finger to tilt Ernst’s chin up so they can see each other’s faces, and there’s no way Ernst’s yearning isn’t clear in his eyes as he stares up at him. Eyes flickering between Ernst’s eyes and lips, Hanschen concludes, “Well, I’m like a… pussycat. I just… skim off the cream.”
Ernst swallows hard and echoes faintly, “Just skim off the cream?”
“Right.”
Jolting out of Hanschen’s grasp, he blurts, “But what about the history test?!” He can’t even really blame Hanschen for laughing at him for that one, but he still complains, “You’re laughing. What –? Hanschen –”
He goes silent as Hanschen reaches for him again. “We shouldn’t be afraid of pleasure,” Hanschen murmurs, pulling him back against his warm chest, and Ernst can’t help it, he leans into him. “Forget about school, just for a little while. Forget about family, forget about the church. For now, the only word you should listen to is the word of your own body.” Moving around him, trailing a hand along his shoulders, he lifts Ernst’s head again. “For now, let us focus on feeling.”
And then he bends down and presses their lips firmly together.
So there it is – what they’ve been circling towards. The kiss only lasts a moment before the panic rises back up in Ernst’s chest and he pulls away, but that moment is long enough for something to click into place inside of him. This is what he wants, what he has wanted. This is who he is underneath the cloak of expectations. He doesn’t know how to deny it anymore.
“Oh God,” he gasps.
“Mmm, I know,” Hanschen says a little too lightly. Ernst looks at him ruefully, and he smiles, a bit softer. “When we look back thirty years from now, tonight will seem unbelievably… beautiful.”
“And in the meantime?” Ernst asks quietly.
Hanschen cards his fingers through Ernst’s hair. “Why not?”
He kisses him again, and this time Ernst tentatively kisses back, and lets it go longer before drawing back. When he does, it’s not because he wants to, but because he could see this going further and he can’t forget that they’re in a public place. God, he never thought they’d actually cross this line, but he certainly didn’t expect it to happen here.
“On my way here this afternoon,” he says, “I thought perhaps we’d only talk.”
Dropping his hands and taking a small step back, Hanschen asks, “So are you sorry we –?”
“Oh. No. No, I – I love you, Hanschen, as I’ve never loved anyone.”
A little embarrassing, to say it so soon – he hadn’t really meant to say it – but he does mean it, so he doesn’t try to take it back.
Hearing it makes Hanschen actually look a bit startled, Hanschen, who usually seems so unruffled by everything, and he sits down on the bench.
“And so you should.”
It’s a very glib response, even for him, and Ernst feels a rush of indignation. He was hardly expecting Hanschen to say “I love you” back, at least not right away, but surely it wouldn’t have been unreasonable to expect him not to be an ass about it. Of all the self-centered things to say – and even if the words could be interpreted differently, like some kind of assurance that these feelings are normal, it’s hard to imagine that’s what he meant when his tone of voice was so thoughtless and smug –
But that’s the tone of voice Hanschen uses when he’s trying not to feel vulnerable.
Maybe Ernst isn’t the only one afraid here. Maybe there are things Hanschen can’t bring himself to say out loud yet, and he’s filling the silence the only way he knows how.
Oh, they have the potential to really hurt each other.
As if in an unspoken agreement to put those worries out of mind, they both reach out, cautious hands dancing over torsos and arms in a chaste but startlingly intimate form of exploration.
Resting a hand over Hanschen’s heart and tipping forward to press their foreheads together, Ernst points out, “We shouldn’t be doing this here.”
“No,” Hanschen sighs. “No, I know, you’re right, it’s too risky.” Dipping his head to press his lips to Ernst’s neck, he asks, “Are you going to run away from me again once we leave this room, or will you come home with me so we can continue this… conversation?”
“I’ve never run away from you.”
“Not literally. But you’ve shied away from starting something like this before, you know you have.”
Ernst tilts his head. “I’m not now.”
“Good.”
They get dressed quickly and walk to Hanschen’s house in a jittery kind of silence that doesn’t dissipate once they’re in his room.
It’s Hanschen who breaks the awkwardness, of course, flopping dramatically onto his bed and propping himself up on one elbow with his chin on his fist, smirking up at Ernst, who genuinely can’t tell if he thinks he’s being seductive or if he’s satirizing himself. Either way, it makes him laugh, and Hanschen follows suit.
“Come sit with me,” Hanschen says. Ernst is still a little frozen, and he furrows his brow. “Ernst, I’m not going to eat you alive.”
“No, I know. I know.” He clamors onto the bed, settling stiffly against the headboard. “I’m sorry, I’m not trying to shy away from this, I swear, I just–”
“You’re nervous. I know. It’s all right.”
He shifts around so he’s lying with his head in Ernst’s lap like he really is a pussycat, and Ernst slowly rests a hand on him, stroking his hair when he makes an encouraging noise in the back of his throat.
“I don’t understand how you balance it,” Ernst confesses.
“Hmm?”
“What you were talking about earlier. Biding your time within the system, and skimming off the cream, they seem like they should be two different things.”
“Not really. Going along with how society wants us to be when people are looking is exactly what affords the freedom to do as we like when they turn their backs. They don’t turn their backs on people who act out.” He catches Ernst’s free hand in his. “The trick I’ve found is acting confident. Not so confident as to come across as insubordinate and get in trouble for that, but confident enough that people assume I know what I’m doing and that it’s the right thing and leave me alone.”
Ernst squeezes his hand. “I’m not sure I’ll ever be able to manage confident.”
“Well, being unassuming is just as good.” He rolls from his side onto his back, dislodging Ernst’s hand from his hair but frowning until he goes back to petting him. “You and Moritz were right there at the bottom of the class together,” he points out. “You both worked hard, but you both struggled all the same. Neither of you more or less than the other, I don’t think. But Moritz caught the teachers’ attention in a way that made them worry about the reputation of the school, so they were determined to get rid of him, all while they scarcely gave you a second glance. That’s a gift, really.”
“I don’t want to get by at the expense of others.”
“Of course no one wants that. But if that’s the way the world is, then we may as well make the best of it. Fit happiness in wherever we can, and try not to think too hard about the cost. That’s all I’m saying.”
They sit with that for a bit. “You do realize,” Ernst says eventually, “That nothing you’ve said this evening actually really contradicts what I was saying.”
Hanschen’s eyelids had drifted closed; they blink slowly open now. “What, your thing about becoming a pastor?”
“My thing about continuing to conduct myself in a way that’s expected of me and finding my way to a position that would grant me freedoms and privileges in society and some measure of peace and happiness? Yeah. How is that not biding my time and letting the system work for me?”
“I see your point,” Hanschen admits. “But Ernst, country pastors with red-cheeked wives don’t run around kissing men.”
“How do you know?”
Hanschen laughs. “All right, I’ll give you that.”
“And even if no one ever has, who’s to say that I can’t?”
He sits up, but shuffles in close, cupping a hand around Ernst’s cheek. “I do love this sudden reckless streak, darling, but I don’t want you to forget that people do pay quite a lot of attention to the clergy. There’s a particularly high expectation of their idea of virtue, and any small slip could lead to a much greater fall.”
He’s right, of course, though it’s not as if Ernst hasn’t known. It’s played no small part in why he’s been so hesitant to cross these lines with Hanschen. He knows that in the long run, he will probably not be able to keep both these dreams, love or security, and he knows that giving up on either one will cost him. But he just shakes his head and asks, “What do you plan to be, then?”
“Oh, I don’t know,” Hanschen says languidly. He falls back onto the mattress, pulling Ernst down on top of him, and Ernst lets himself be maneuvered. “An artist, probably. A certain level of scandal is almost expected, but if you manage your connections right and create good enough work you can still maintain enough respectability that no one much cares what you’re getting up to behind the scenes.”
“And it gives you an excuse to look at people in the nude?”
“Well, that doesn't hurt.”
Ernst dips his head to kiss him. “You’re incorrigible.”
Hanschen kisses him back, deeper and longer than they’ve kissed before. “Let’s not talk about the future any more tonight,” he pants in between kisses.
“It’s a long way off yet,” Ernst agrees, and they both lean in again.
Ernst hadn’t quite thought about the potential involvement of tongues in kissing, and he thinks distantly that it should be sort of disgusting, but really it’s very – well, nice is the wrong word for it, but he likes it. He likes it a lot. He loses himself in the kiss for a while, or maybe finds himself and loses track of time.
“Where are you going,” Hanschen grumbles when he finally pulls away.
Laughing, Ernst says, “I have to breathe.”
Hanschen huffs. “Boring.”
“It doesn’t have to be,” Ernst says, and he pulls off his shirt.
“My god,” Hanschen says, gaping at him even as he doesn’t hesitate to sit up enough to get his own shirt off, “Who are you and what have you done with my bashful Ernst Robel?”
Ernst blushes. “I don’t know, I – I just want to… touch.”
“Then we’re in agreement,” Hanschen breathes, reaching for him, and they collide again, hands wandering now, and something quickly shifts, turning more heated.
All of the blood in Ernst’s body – all of it that’s not burning in his face – seems to have coursed down between his legs. He’s experienced hardness before, of course – waking up from certain sorts of dreams, and thinking a little too intently about boys, and sometimes just triggered in random moments by nothing in particular – but it’s never been like this before, this intense and targeted desire that is all the more powerful for the knowledge that he’s actually going to do something about it.
Desperate for something, for friction, he reflexively grinds against Hanschen and gasps when he’s met with an answering bulge. Hanschen moans a little theatrically and rolls his hips up to increase the pressure, hand slipping down to squeeze Ernst’s bottom; Ernst squeaks but lets him pull him closer.
“Hanschen,” he whispers between semi-frantic kisses. “I don’t know how this is supposed to go.”
“However we want it to.”
“Right, but – I mean, I more or less know the – the mechanics of how it is with a man and a woman – the – penetration – but is there something comparable between men?”
“Yes,” Hanschen tells him, looking like he’s working very hard not to make a joke about his hypothetical book list. “There can be. But we can work our way up to that. Do you trust me?”
“Yes.”
“Good.” Giving him just enough warning with his motions that he could probably stop him if he really wanted to, he flips them over, and Ernst stares up at him, a little dazed. “All right?”
Ernst swallows hard and nods.
He nods back and skims a hand down Ernst’s chest and stomach, stopping to toy with the button of his khakis. “May I?”
“Yes,” Ernst whispers, and Hanschen gets them open and carefully wraps his hand around his penis, keeping his eyes on his face and grasping him a little more firmly when he doesn’t protest, and – “Oh,” Ernst gasps. “Oh.”
Hanschen had asked, before, if Ernst has touched himself. If he had continued to push, Ernst didn’t know how he would have answered, whether or not what he’s done would count.
In the most literal sense, of course he’s touched it. When bathing, or urinating, or adjusting his clothing. He knows, though, that the real question was whether he has touched himself with intent, for pleasure.
He hasn’t shied away from such a thing entirely. On those nights when he’s found himself lying there aroused, certainly there have been times when he was too afraid of feeling and just fisted his hands in his sheets and willed it to go away. But there have also been times when he sank into his fantasies and allowed instinct to guide his hand between his legs. Sometimes it was a light, tentative wandering of his fingers, just enough stimulation to have him trembling; sometimes he dared to hold his erection more fully, learning the shape and weight of it.
But even then he never really stroked himself, not more than an idle up and down motion to see what it felt like. He never pulled himself to the climax he understands tends to be the goal of sex and masturbation. It wasn’t exactly that he was actively avoiding it, but actively pursuing it somehow seemed like a step too far. So his touches were always thrilling, but never at full intensity. He would explore himself until he felt himself nearing some sort of precipice, and then he would ease his hand off and think about things that were pleasant but didn’t make his heart beat so fast until he fell asleep.
All of which to say he’s utterly unprepared for the feeling of another person’s hand – Hanschen’s hand – touching him there, squeezing gently, sliding along the shaft, brushing a thumb over the tip.
“Hanschen,” he says desperately, overwhelmed by so much sensation, and loving it, “Hanschen, oh my god.”
“I know,” Hanschen replies. “I know, darling. I’ve got you. Just let me show you how good you can feel.”
“Please, please.”
“I’ve got you,” Hanschen repeats, and he sets to thoroughly demonstrating his point.
Afterward, they lie together, catching their breath and enjoying the closeness. Hanschen’s expression is as soft and open as Ernst has ever seen it, and after a pleasant period of quiet, Ernst murmurs, “You were in my dream last night.”
“Really.”
Ernst elbows him. “Not like that,” he says, although there have been dreams that were more like that and will surely be more now that he knows what it’s like. “We were dancing.”
“Oh.” Hanschen takes his hand. “That sounds nice.”
“It was.”
They’d been at some sort of harvest celebration, he thinks, in a barn that looked something like the Gabor family’s, but the dancing wasn’t one of the variety of group dances that are common at that sort of gathering, where people change partners around and if there’s an uneven number of boys and girls it may be acceptable match up with folks of the same gender. Ernst and Hanschen have participated in dances like that before, and they can be fun. But what they were doing in the dream was something different, one-on-one, intimate, romantically charged. They’d been one of at least three pairs dancing – he remembers seeing a girl and a boy, but also two of the girls together – and no one had batted an eye at any of them. He’s never felt so shameless and free in his entire life.
He’d woken up wanting it so badly he really could have wept.
Hanschen kisses him. “Let’s not be sad.”
“I’m not sad.”
He smiles in a way that suggests he’s not convinced, then a flash of conviction crosses his face and he hops up from the bed, tugging Ernst with him.
“What are you doing?” Ernst asks, stumbling into his chest.
“Let’s dance.”
“Hanschen –”
“Why not?” Hanschen insists. “Why shouldn’t we?”
Ernst lets him guide him into position for something like a waltz, and can’t help but smile. “Is this skimming off the cream too, then?”
“Exactly.”
He starts to hum a tune, and after a moment Ernst recognizes one of the pieces of music they’ve been learning together, and they grin at each other and dance, spinning inelegant circles around the room.
The sun is beginning to set, golden beams streaming in through Hanschen’s window. Hanschen’s parents will be home soon, and Ernst’s will expect him for dinner before long, and when this moment breaks, perhaps all the anxieties Hanschen has told him to forget about will creep back in. When tomorrow comes, they’ll still be hiding, still be expected to fit into roles that don’t quite fit, still be facing a future with little space for joy like this.
But every place they’re touching is warm and intimate, and Ernst chooses to focus on enjoying it. He can’t – won’t – bring himself to look ahead to the end. He chooses to see the sunset not as a symbol of something coming to a close, but rather as a symbol of something changing, or maybe simply as something beautiful.
Hanschen twirls him, and they both laugh, and Ernst feels nothing but hope.