Hold Tight by Christopher Bram Read Free Book Online Page B

first not to deny immediately that he was a homosexual. “You do understand the word, don’t you, Hank?”
    Fayette sighed impatiently. “Yeah, well, lots of people have been asking me that lately.”
    “We can forget about them. This is something completely different. Nothing you say goes outside this room, Hank. I promise you. It won’t be used against you. In fact, the sooner we learn all there is to know about such a unique fellow as yourself, the sooner we can get you back with your shipmates, Hank.”
    “Yeah? Really?”
    “Yes. So, Hank. You’ve had sexual relations with men?”
    “Yeah.” As if it were a matter of no importance and he was expecting more dangerous questions.
    Mason sat up, slowly, so as not to betray his excitement. He picked at Fayette’s sheaf of papers. “Uh, you’ve had sexual relations with more than one man?”
    “Yes, sir.”
    “Then you enjoy it?”
    Fayette looked blank for a moment, then broke into a grin, a big, imbecilic grin. “If I didn’t enjoy it, I wouldn’t do it. Sir.”
    The answer shocked Erich. And the grin. Maybe the man really was as ignorant as he seemed.
    Mason was smiling now, to keep Fayette talking. “You talk about it, Hank, as though you think there’s nothing wrong or strange about it.”
    “Well, I find nothing wrong with it. But I know other people do.”
    “That doesn’t bother you? That other people think it’s wrong?”
    “No. Some people think it’s wrong to drink liquor, but that doesn’t stop others from drinking it.”
    Erich decided the boy must be feebleminded, an idiot. Nobody with normal intelligence could be this innocent. And the commander had lied to the poor creature and was leading him on. It seemed unfair.
    “Hank? Have you ever wanted to dress up in women’s clothes?”
    “No, sir. Can’t say that I have.”
    “Hmmm. And your family? What do they say about this?”
    “I never had a reason to talk to them about it. Not something I had to talk about with anybody, until this stuff.”
    “Your officers never said anything?”
    “No. Why should they? I never wanted to do anything with them .” He laughed, glanced at Erich, then stopped laughing.
    Erich tried to relax, tried to hide what he was feeling. He was only a fly on the wall here. He should not let his presence affect what was happening.
    “But you did things with your fellow enlisted men?”
    “No, sir. Or nobody on my ship.”
    “Ah. Then with them you felt you had to keep your desires to yourself?”
    “No. Not really. They knew what I liked, my friends anyway. They just thought it was funny. I never did anything with them, so why should they care? I did it at boot camp a few times and can’t tell you what a mess that made. Some guys got upset, a couple got jealous, one guy got into a fight with me because I wouldn’t promise myself to him and nobody else. That taught me to keep my hands to myself, until I was off by my lonesome.”
    “Your shipmates only found it funny? Nobody ever taunted you or picked on you because of your desires?”
    “No, sir. They like me and I like them. They make jokes about it, but we all find each other funny. I mean, in my section we have me, a dago, a Jew-boy, and a mick. Also, I’m bigger than they are. They know I could flatten them, so they take me as I am.”
    The boy was definitely feebleminded. Erich cringed when he heard homosexualism put on the same level as being Italian or Jewish. More shocking was that the Navy had accepted such an obvious imbecile, regardless of his sexual misconduct. It wouldn’t matter to an imbecile whether he had sex with a woman, a man or an animal.
    Mason asked more questions about Fayette’s sex life. It was as though he too had recognized the man was a mental defective and unqualified for this project, but was mining him for pathological data. Fayette had his first sexual experience at fourteen, with a farmhand, outside Beaumont, Texas. Since then he’d had sex with truck drivers,