Making love to Richard was different. Sure, I’d been with guys before, but there was something special about him. Maybe being his first made it different, but the way he looked at me, the way he responded to me, it did something crazy to my heart.

When we were done, I made sure he was okay. I pulled the sleeping bag over us and, facing him, held his hand. “How do you feel?”

“Good,” he answered. “I mean, fine. A little sore maybe, but not as bad as what I was thinking it might be.”

I brought his hand up to my lips and kissed his knuckles. “And apart from the physical difference?”

He chuckled and ducked his head a bit. “I feel like… I feel like me. Like the real me, for the first time ever.” His gaze shot to mine, and even in the darkness I could see the seriousness in them. “I don’t know if I’ll ever be able to thank you.”

“Thank me?”

“For giving me this. I might not ever have this again.”

“Yes, you will,” I answered. “I’m certain of it.”

“How can you know that?” he asked quietly. “I might not even come back from Vietnam.”

I pulled him in close. “Don’t say that. You’ll be fine. You’ll come back, and you can live your true life. The life you want, not the life you feel obligated to live.”

He snuggled into my chest. “You sound so sure.”

I pulled the sleeping bag up and settled in, kissing his forehead. “I am sure.”

The next day, it rained. And then it rained some more, and the field that had been lush grass was soon a mudslide. Yet everyone was happy, and the only word I could use to describe it was peaceful. We danced, laughed, talked, met new friends. Richard hadn’t stopped smiling yet.

Even though the weather was terrible and no bands could take the stage, spirits were high, kindness and generosity were everywhere.

So were alcohol and drugs. I wasn’t strictly opposed to taking drugs; I’d done my share at college parties. And Richard had smoked some weed the day before, but when the group Pauly had befriended offered Richard a tiny square of parchment paper doused with LSD, I intervened.

“Maybe half,” I suggested. “They can be pretty strong.”

Richard looked up at me. “Should I?”

“If you want to try everything…,” I said. “I’ll stay sober and look after you. But only take a half.”

He nodded and did as I suggested. And half an hour later, it hit him. Creedence Clearwater Revival, Janis Joplin, and The Who played, hundreds of thousands of people began to sing and dance and cheer, and Richard stood there, dancing in slow motion. His arms were raised, his eyes closed, and he swayed. He was completely free. All his inhibitions were gone.

He had stubble now, blond like his hair, his clothes were muddy and wet like the rest of us, and he was the most handsome guy I’d ever seen.

Lyman nudged me with his elbow. I hadn’t noticed him and he was quick to smile. “Soldier boy’s caught your eye,” he said. Lyman and Kathryn knew I liked men, so it was no surprise.

I kept watching Richard, like I said I would. He was high as a kite and I was thankful he’d only had a half. “He’s… not like anyone I’ve ever met.”

“He’s a cog in the war machine,” he started. There was no malice in his tone, but I didn’t care for what he was saying.

“He’s not. His reasons aren’t what you think.”

“So innocent people need to die because he has reasons?”

I sighed. “That’s not fair.”

“The government agenda—”

“Spare me the lecture, Ly.” He hated being called that. “You know my views on the war and the government. But Richard’s not like them.”

“He’ll have a gun in his hand soon enough and—”

“Gary,” Richard called. He had a goofy smile and glassy eyes. He held his hands out, palms up, and looked up at the sky. “The rain will wet the rabbits.”

I snorted. “Rabbits?”

He grinned. “They’re so fluffy.”

I laughed, and as the rain began to fall, I considered telling him to stop dancing, but he took his shirt off and raised it to the sky. His eyes were closed, and he danced some swaying prayer to the rain gods, and I’d never seen anything so beautiful.

“Dance with me,” he said.

So I did. I took off my shirt too, left in only jeans, and for as long as the rain fell, we danced.

By the time the sun was going down, the entire field was a quagmire. People were lying in the mud, sliding, laughing. The conditions were horrendous, yet no one argued, no one fought. But with the state of us, there was no way we could try to sleep. We were soaking wet, covered in mud, and Richard was still a little high. So, like a few hundred other people, he thought stripping off and skinny-dipping in the farmer’s pond was the logical thing to do.

And because of the rain delays, the bands played well past midnight. The darkness was lit by the stage and lanterns burned sporadically, and from where we were on the top of the hill, it looked like a sea lit by fireflies and the warm glow made Richard look like an angel.

“Have you ever seen anything so beautiful?” he asked.

I shook my head slowly, not taking my eyes off him. “No.”

“I’m starting to feel not so good,” he said, still smiling. I’d wondered when he would come down.

“Here,” Pauly said, having heard him. “Have a toke of this.”

Without questioning, without hesitation, Richard took the pipe and inhaled deeply. He kind of coughed a little bit, but then he laughed and handed it to me. “Come on, Gary,” he said. “Join in the fun.”

I took the pipe and gave Pauly a glance. “Do I wanna know what’s in this?”

Pauly just laughed and said, “Idealism and the intangible vanguard of the new revolution.”

Richard stared at him, slow blinked, then roared with laughter. Laughing too, I drew back on the pipe. Then we danced and sang and took pills around breakfast time so we could dance and sing some more.

And around mid-morning on Sunday, when there was a break in the rain, the humidity ratcheted up, and Richard came down.

“You’re exhausted,” I said. “I could sleep for a bit, if you want me to put the tent up. Out of the way of the people.”

He put his hand to his head like he had to hold it up. “I don’t want to miss a thing.”

“A few hours is all,” I suggested.

“Gary, I gotta get to New York City.” He scanned the massive crowd. “Somehow.”

“Today?”

“This afternoon. This evening at the latest, if I can find a bus that’ll get me there by morning.”

My stomach fell to my feet. “I’m not ready to say goodbye to you.”

He stared at me, his tired eyes and a slow but sad smile. “Me either. I can’t tell you how much this means to me. What it has meant to me to be here, to see this. To meet you. I never knew I could… I never thought I’d ever find…” He licked his lips and looked away.

I stepped in closer and whispered so only he could hear. “This isn’t the end of us,” I said. “No way, no how.”

“How can it not be?” he asked, shaking his head. His eyes were glassy again, this time from tears.

“We’ll write when you’re away,” I replied. “And when you get back, you’ll find me, or I’ll find you. And we’ll meet again, just you wait and see.”

His bottom lip trembled. “What if I… what if I don’t make it back?”

“No,” I said, pulling him into my arms, not caring who saw or who might take issue with it. This, he, was more important. “Don’t even think it. You’ll be better than fine. And when you get back, we’ll get to do this right.”

He held onto me tight and pressed the side of his head to my chest. “I think we kind of did it just right this time.”

I rubbed his back. “Me too.”

“I’m tired, Gary.”

“Me too.”

“Can we sleep a bit?”

“’Course we can.”

“I wish we had one more night,” he murmured.

“Come on, let’s go set the tent up. Somewhere out of the way.”

He nodded, snuffling his head on my chest. “Yes, please.”

We took the tent and our bags and moved to the fringes the best we could. It was muddy everywhere, and the road in was nothing but a parking lot; seemingly endless jagged lines of cars and vans parked at all angles. “Do you think anyone would mind if we set up camp between the cars?” Richard asked.

I snorted. “There are four hundred thousand people here who’ve shared everything from water to beds, food and clothes. No one will mind at all.”

It was a stroke of genius, really. We found a gridlock of parked cars and pitched the tent on the embankment side. It was on a bit of a slant but it was private enough, and we’d no sooner crawled in, laid down, than Richard put his head on my chest, and he was asleep.

I tightened my arm around him and closed my eyes.

The sound of music, laughter, singing, and constant chatter became white noise, and the lack of sleep and use of drugs had sleep dragging me under.

The sound of a bullhorn and laughter close by woke us up, and Richard jolted away from me, startled and frightened, no doubt, that he’d be caught lying with a man. “Hey,” I crooned. “It’s okay. No one can see us inside the tent.”

He let out a breath and sagged but lay back down, his head on my chest. “Do you know what time it is?”

I checked my watch. “Just after three.”

“I’ll have to go soon.”

“I don’t want you to.”

He let out a shaky breath. “I don’t want to go. Four days ago, I was glad to be going. I’d had all the lectures from my father that I could stand, and in a way, I kind of agreed with him. That maybe if I didn’t come back from Vietnam, it’d be a blessing. I didn’t want to live a lie but couldn’t ever be myself either. It was killing me inside,” he whispered. I gave him a squeeze and let him get all this off his chest. “And my dad was adamant that I’d come back when my tour of duty was done, and I’d find a girl and settle down. That’s what real men did, he said. They got married and didn’t shame their parents. None of that sissying around like those hell-bound homosexuals.” He imitated a voice I assumed was his father’s.

“Oh, Richard,” I murmured. “You know that’s not true. We’re not bound for hell any more than anyone else. I bet your dad preaches the commandment thou shall not judge, yet he does an awful amount of judging of others.” I tapped his arm. “Look at me, Richard,” I whispered, and I waited till he propped his head up and met my gaze. “You not coming back from war is not a blessing, you hear me? You have to come back. We’ve got unfinished business, you and me.”

He almost smiled. “What do you mean, unfinished business?”

“Well, a real first date for starters. Where I buy you dinner and maybe we see a movie. A real cliché burger joint, then maybe a drive-in.”

He smiled more genuinely now.

“And a second date, and a third. And by then I’m hoping we’d get past third base.”

He barked out a laugh. “I think we’re well past that.”

“But I’d do it right. In a bed, in a bedroom, with the lights down low and music playing.”

“Well, we had a flashlight and some band called Arlo Guthrie.”

Now it was me who laughed. “And we can go hiking on weekends, and you can cook me dinner when I’m studying, then I’ll cook when you work, and then you can distract me from studying in all the ways you can think of.”

He sighed happily and put his head back to my chest. “You make it sound like a fairy tale.”

“It can be a reality if you want,” I said. “You just need to come back from Vietnam, okay?”

He hummed. “Well, now I have a reason to.”

“How long will you be gone for?” I asked.

“Twelve months. And I don’t know where they’ll send me after that. I signed up for four years.”

I frowned. “That’s such a long time.”

“Having second thoughts already,” he said, trying for a joke, but there was a question in his tone.

“Not at all,” I answered. “We’ll get through Vietnam first, then deal with the rest later. You’ll be away for your birthday and Christmas, so we’ll have to make up for it next year.”

He whispered, “If only I’d met you before I decided to join.”

“I know. But I mean it. We’ll stay in touch, okay?”

He was quiet, staring at the side of the tent. “I don’t regret anything we did, I want you to know that. I actually want to thank you for asking me to come here with you. I wasn’t going to. I mean, it was ridiculous for me to get in a van with four complete strangers and go to a music festival, but I’ve had, without a doubt, the best weekend of my life. I’ve known you for a handful of days, but you know me better than anyone else in my life.”

“Well, just so you know, I don’t normally walk up to strangers in diners and ask them to come with me. But as soon as I saw you, something in my bones told me to go to you.”

“I’m so glad you did. I had no idea, Gary,” he whispered. “No idea that this was even possible for a guy like me.”

“You said you wanted to do everything,” I murmured. “Anything else you want to do before you go?”

“If last week someone had told me that I’d meet a guy, a hippie no less, and I’d lose my virginity, take drugs, dance in the rain, and swim naked in front of thousands of people, I would’ve thought they’d gone and lost their mind.” I sighed again. “And we could’ve spent my last few hours here doing all sorts of ungodly things, but I can honestly say, just lying here with you like this, me listening to your heart and your arm around my shoulder, well that’s kind of perfect too… Or what did you call it? A gasser.”

Chuckling, I gave him a squeeze. “It is. Though we could give you a goodbye with a certain happy ending, if you know what I mean. Something for you to remember when you’re in some jungle over there and need some happy thoughts to get you through.”

He bit his bottom lip. “What do you have in mind?”

“Well, I’d really like to feel you in my hand and watch your face when you come.”

He scoffed out a laugh and his face burned. “You can’t just say stuff like that to me!”

I laughed. “But you want me to do it, right?”

He glanced at me, then looked away like he was too embarrassed. But he nodded real quick. “Yes.”

“Then kiss me.”

His breath caught and he stared at my mouth and leaned up and crushed his lips to mine. It was a hard and desperate kiss, full of all his emotions. I could taste them on his tongue.

I found his jeans fly and popped the button, and his kiss faltered. When I slid my hand into his briefs and took hold of his cock, he shuddered and I smiled against his mouth.

“You’re so hard,” I whispered.

He moaned, like it was all he was capable of.

“Do you want to touch me?” I asked.

He nodded and ducked his head to my shoulder. I rolled us onto our sides, facing each other, and he could use my arm as a pillow.

He fumbled with my button, but when he finally took hold of me, he groaned.

“Feel how hard you make me?” I asked.

His eyes flashed to mine, so uncertain.

I began to stroke him, long and hard. “You feel amazing,” I murmured.

He slid my dick in his fist and he was thrusting into my hand. I kissed him, all lips and tongue, and he made a whining noise that sounded like a plea.

So I pumped him a little harder, kissed him a little deeper, and he began to tremble. His ministrations on my cock became harder; he squeezed and I bucked into his fist. “Fuck yeah,” I ground out. “You’re gonna make me come.”

His cock pulsed in my hand, swelling hot and impossibly hard before he went rigid. He bucked one final time and came, his face a mask of ecstasy as his orgasm took hold of him.

The sight of him and the smell of sex was all it took for me. He still had my cock in his hand but he was too blissed out to finish me off, so I slid my hand over his and we did it together. Just a few pumps was all it took, and when my senses came back to me, Richard was staring at me, looking at my face, my cock in our joined hands, and where my come had shot onto his belly.

He was so fucking hot. I couldn’t help it. I rolled us over, me on top of him, and kissed him for all he was worth.

Our cocks were pressed together, spent and sensitive, and he opened his legs and rolled his hips. He gripped my back and angled his head so I could kiss him deeper, and we stayed like that until we needed to breathe. When he pulled his mouth from mine, he rolled us back onto our sides and he snuggled into my neck.

“Thank you,” he whispered.

“Thank you, Richard,” I replied, kissing the side of his head. “You can recall that anytime you need when you’re over there.”

“I’ll recall every second with you.”

We were silent for a while. We knew goodbyes were coming, and I was pretty sure neither one of us wanted to say it.

I’d almost dozed off again when he pulled away and sat up. “I gotta get going,” he whispered.

I scrubbed my hands over my face and sat up too. We were a mess. No real shower in three days, covered in dried spunk and ingrained dirt and mud. We redressed the best we could. “My clothes are a mess. They’re gonna take one look at me and have me report to the drill sergeant.”

I wasn’t sure if that was a joke or not. “Can you grab a shower somewhere?”

He shrugged. “I’ll figure it out. I might need to find a Laundromat while I’m at it.” Then he looked at me and grinned. “I ain’t ever been this dirty in my whole life.”

I chuckled. “Pretty great, huh?”

“Wouldn’t change a thing,” he said. Then he frowned. “Except the whole leaving part.”

I grabbed my rucksack and rummaged through it for some paper and a pen. I knew I had a notebook in there, and when I found it, I scribbled down my address and our dorm contact phone number, ripped it out, and handed it to him. “Here. Please take this. Write to me, as often as you want. Every day if you can. And be sure to let me know how I can write back, or how I can send it to you. I won’t be able to reply if you don’t.”

He took the piece of paper and stared at the writing before he swallowed hard. “You don’t know how much this means to me.”

“Promise me you’ll write.”

He nodded. “I promise.”

I smiled. “Good. And I’ll keep my promise to you. That when you get back, we’ll finish what we started.”

He smiled, kinda sadly. Like he didn’t want to dare believe me. So I handed him the notebook. “Take this, and the pen,” I said, handing that over too. “Now you got no excuses not to write. I’ll need you to let me know you’re okay, or I’ll go crazy with worry.”

He smiled a little more genuinely now and shoved the notepad and pen into his bag. He made sure he was somewhat respectable, and we crawled out of the tent.

There were people leaving now, a steady stream of folks walking toward the gates, and cars trying to leave. I guessed they all needed to get back to real life on Monday morning, and I wondered if anyone else was leaving to go fight in a war they didn’t believe in. Or if it was just Richard. I wondered who else, how many other young lives might be cut short because of government discourse. But I didn’t say that.

I spotted Kathryn, and we made our way over to where she was talking to a group of people. They were laughing, so it looked pleasant enough. “Richard’s leaving now,” I said.

She turned to him and tried to smile. “Be safe over there.”

He swallowed thickly. “I will.”

Then she turned to one of the guys she’d been talking to. “Hey, take some photographs of my friends,” she said. She stood beside me and we faced the photographer. “Stand in nice and close,” she instructed us, so the three of us each had our arms around each other’s backs. Then she stepped away and said, “Now just you two.” And I knew what she was doing. She’d orchestrated a way for Richard and me to have our photograph taken together.

The photographer snapped away, and Kat gave me a knowing smile. She could be a driven political force when she wanted to be, but there was a reason why she was my friend.

“Okay then,” she said. “Richard, you take care.”

He gave a nod, and then it was just us two and a goodbye that felt unbearable to say. We walked with the departing crowd for a bit, and I heard someone mention a bus. “Hey, are there buses leaving?” I asked.

“Yeah,” she replied. “From Bethel.”

“To New York City?” I asked.

She smiled and nodded. “I think so. Pretty sure that’s what they said. They brought in special buses.”

A car was passing us, not much faster than walking pace, filled on the inside, and there were two guys sitting on the trunk. “Hey, we’re going to Bethel if you want to jump on,” one said. He was clearly still stoned, talking slow and smiling wide. “We’re all beautiful people.”

Richard looked at me, unsure. He needed to leave, and a lift was better than walking the whole way. “Go,” I said.

He froze for a bit, then hugged me, so hard, for the longest few seconds. “I’m scared,” he whispered.

“Don’t be. I want your first letter to be a list of all the things we’re gonna do when you get back, okay?”

He nodded against me, then without a goodbye, he ran after the car and jumped up on the trunk. He sat facing me, his bag in his lap, and I stood there and watched him until the car was so far away I couldn’t see him anymore while Joe Cocker sang about getting by with a little help from his friends.

I raised my hand to wave goodbye, and then, like the universe felt the ache in my heart, it began to rain.