Virg or Non-Virg?

“Are you ready for the big question?”
“That depends,” I said tentatively. “What’s the big question?”
“Virg or non-virg?”
The bath water sloshed violently around me as I kicked away the brush and withdrew my foot. I was relieved, though, that that’s all he wanted to ask; the ‘V’ question. For a second I thought he was going to ask if he could get into the tub with me.
“Stop! You’ll ruin the polish! Give me back your foot!”
I made him wait for a minute, wondering if I’d taken offense to his question, before sliding my foot up onto the ledge again and settling back into the water.
A brief silence returned to the scene as he started in on the big toe once more.
“Well,” he finally said, “are you going to answer?”
I smiled privately, suddenly feeling flirty. “You first.”
I don’t know what I expected to happen next — that maybe he’d lie the way most boys do and suggest he’d a lot more experience than was realistic to believe at our age — but what did happen was far more than I could’ve ever imagined.
Taking me up on the challenge, Evan didn’t exaggerate or give some sort of stock answer to the question. Instead, he told me the story about the first boy he’d ever loved; the boy who made him realize he was gay in the first place. It was when his family was still down in Virginia, and the boy was the son of a highly ranked officer in the military. They were living on an army base and everyday Evan would go down to the athletic fields to watch the boy play soccer.
“The frustrating part,” he said, working his way across my toenails, “is that he looked just like that fool Channing Peat.”
“You’re kidding.”
“It’s like I can’t escape him.”
“So,” I said, feeling as though I were holding my breath, “what happened? Did you and this boy…?”
“No. Alas, the answer is no. I’m still a virg.”
“Oh,” I managed to get out, somehow disappointed.
“But I knew he knew that I was watching him. How could he not know? I’m sure it was pathetically obvious, the way I’d follow him with my eyes like a dog with its tongue hanging out. And I think he liked it, too; liked having an admirer.”
“Was he…?”
“Probably not. He was probably straight. But you’d be surprised how many straight guys like to be looked at by fags. I don’t know. I guess it gives them a feeling of power or something. I just remember how he’d look back over his shoulder sometime to check that I was there, that I was watching. And sometimes, when he took his shirt off, it was like he was teasing me. Giving a glimpse at the thing I could never have. Not mean or anything. More like it was the most he could offer as a reward for all my silent admiration.”
Suddenly I realized that the nail polish brush was hovering over my fourth toe, wavering. I slowly pulled myself to a sitting position, careful not to tip my left foot into the water, and pushed back the curtain slightly so that I could see his face.
A tear was slowly making its way down his cheek, but his eyes were focused on the boy back in Virginia, still looking over his shoulder to see that he was there. Finally he turned away from the memory and met my eyes with the saddest look of resignation on his face.
“I’ll never get what I want, will I?”