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"The year was 1633. I was the same age then as you are now."

I could hear his voice grow whistful and plaintive with each word.

"I was living in the newly-founded colony of Massachusetts, where I was a normal teenager growing into manhood. But with one striking difference."

"You were gay," I answered.

Gregory nodded. "That spring, I began to develop an attraction to another boy, also my age. His name was Thomas. He was a fine specimen, if I may digress; his light brown hair, the shimmering green eyes, the ever-so-lightly tanned skin. I could tell that he was questioning his own sexuality, as he showed as tepid an interest in the females of our town as I did. It was only a matter of time before the two of us would end up in the same place, together, alone.

"It started innocently, of course. We only touched each other the way we had seen our parents touch. But soon enough, those caresses became bolder and more intimate, until one night we engaged in a mutual act of stroking each other to climax. I'll never forget the look on Thomas' face when I saw him shoot his essence onto himself; it was a look of total rapture, the kind that we were all striving to reach with such Puritanical fervor. We managed to keep the charade up for several months after that, going out into the woods for some release, and experimenting with our bodies in the way teenagers are known to do. But then..."

"Then you got caught," I reasoned.

"I don't know if anyone was suspicious, or if someone just wasn't sleeping as soundly as we thought. Because one night during another late-night meeting with Thomas in one of our neighbor's barns, we were in the middle of love-making, when the door swung open. Andrew Fletcher, one of the oldest and most pious men in town, caught us in the act. We were immediately labeled as witches, and after the obligatory show trials, we were both sentenced to being burned at the stake.

"I had never been so scared as I was the day the two of us were to be killed. Two large pillars were set up in the center of town, piles of kindling surrounding them both. We were led to the stakes, assorted villagers throwing food and stones at both of us, until we reached the stakes themselves. And that was when it happened."

"What?"

"Thomas began screaming deliriously. He shouted curses at anyone whose names he could recall, casting plagues on every person that had crossed him in the past, carrying on and on. It was enough of a distraction that I managed to slip out of the ropes binding my hands without being noticed. Once I was free from the ropes, I ran. I was lucky and fast enough that nobody was able to catch me."

"And Thomas?"

Gregory shook his head in disappointment. "All I know is, the last words I heard him say were..." He swallowed hard as his voice began to waver. "They were... 'Gregory, I love you'."

A moment of silence hung between us both.

"I couldn't say anything back. I was so frightened, running so hard, that I had neither the time nor the breath to reply to him. By the time I stopped running, I was miles away from town."

I looked at Gregory's face. His eyes had gone glassy, and a single tear began to streak down his nose.

"I was such a coward..."

With that, Gregory burst into tears.

I had never heard Gregory cry before. In the months that I'd known him, he was always so sure-footed, so mild in his emotions. But that night, all of the pain and sorrow that he had bottled up for so long came out in one amazingly strong outpouring of tears. He practically jumped into my arms, resting his head on my right shoulder.

"It's OK," I whispered in his ear, knowing the only remedy for his ailment. "Let it out."

Gregory continued to cry. I was intimately familiar with the act; they were the kind of tears that I used to cry before he came into my life. Tears of devastation and grief, borne out of being so powerless, so incapable of stopping what was unfolding before you. I stroked his back tenderly, cooing to him as if I were a mother calming a son who'd seen his greatest aspiration crushed in front of him. "Shh..." I said quietly, as Gregory choked and wailed. "I'm here, Gregory. I'm here."

Gregory couldn't say anything for a while. He was physically unable to do it, as the combination of tears in his throat and spasmic breathing kept him from talking. All he could do was cry, and all I could do was let him.

It took several minutes for his sobbing to die down. Once he managed to regain enough composure, he continued the story - as if he had never had the emotional episode.

"I traveled for as long as I could through the dense woods of the nearby wilderness, not knowing where I was going, or even what I intended to do when I got there. I had never been on my own before, and knew little about where to find food and water. Sure enough, I grew more and more exhausted with each passing hour, and by the second day I just about collapsed in dehydration. I barely had the strength left to haul myself beside a tree, and I sat against it, breathlessly waiting for death to come for me. Instead, I was discovered by an Algonquin tracker. Seeing me in my deteriorating health, he quickly took me to his tribe nearby.

"It was there that I encountered their shaman, who tended to my condition and helped me regain my strength. In gratitude, I pledged myself to his service, and was freed from the pressures of Puritanical life; in fact, I have no trouble admitting that a few of the 'services' that I performed for him were similar to those I shared with Thomas. I lived with him for several months, learning the ways and language of the Algonquins during my stay. It was one fateful night, during the harvest moon, that he revealed to me a secret that was kept closely guarded within the small tribe. He told me that he was a werewolf - a skinwalker, as his people called them - and that he had been living with the tribe for centuries.

"He had told me how weary he had become of life in the village, and how he wished he could join his ancestors in the afterlife. It was then that he offered to share his two powers - that of being a werewolf, and that of being immortal - with me, on the condition that I use them in the way that he did, as a protector and guide for others. With the memories of Thomas still fresh in my mind, not wanting to abandon someone in need ever again, I readily agreed. He shifted in front of me into his spirit form, and I changed in turn. Then, in a flash, the shaman disappeared."

"But..." I interrupted. "If he made you immortal and a werewolf at the same time, does that mean I'm...?"

"No, Nick. The gift of lycanthropy is one that can be freely shared, but immortality can only be transferred. To make you immortal would rob me of my own immortality, thus killing me. And to be honest, having lived on this Earth for so long, it is not the luxury many expect it to be. People have been taught to think that being a werewolf is a curse, and being immortal a blessing. In truth, it's the other way around. Not only does it become increasingly difficult to keep your identity a secret and blend into a society that is ever more reliant on computer records and identification cards and Social Security Numbers, but you are also forced to watch as the ones you love waste away and die, with no way to stop it from happening. If I were merely immortal without the power of the wolf to go with it, I would've been driven insane long ago."

I nodded slowly, still trying to process all the information. At the very least, now I understood why Gregory was so protective of me at the start, and so reluctant to reveal everything now.

Suddenly, Gregory's mood perked up. "Let's go back to the dance."

When we returned to the gym, the playlist for the dance was no longer high-energy rock songs or R&B, but were more evocative and slower tempo. We made it back onto the dance floor just as the familiar bassline of an old song by Ben E. King began to play.

I looked up at Gregory. "May I have this dance?"

Gregory smiled warmly. "It would be my pleasure."

Our hands clasped, our bodies pressed, and I felt his head lean up against my shoulder as the lyrics to the song started.

_When the night has come

And the land is dark

And the moon is the only light we'll see

Girl I won't be afraid

No I won't be afraid

Just as long as you stand, stand by me_

I closed my eyes, swaying idly to the beat of the music. All the memories of the past three months played through my mind like a movie stuck on fast forward.

And darlin, darlin', stand by me...

The prank with the T-shirt. The running away. The lonely first night in the ravine.

Oh, stand by me...

The rainstorm. The lecture from my parents. The suicide attempt.

Oh stand, stand by me, stand by me

Meeting Gregory. Standing up to Robbie for the first time. The night I changed.

I felt myself holding onto him tightly, as if I was afraid this was all some elaborate dream and I was going to have it all taken away in a moment. As the song ended, the two of us looked into one another's eyes, and kissed like we'd never have another chance to do it.

Little did I know how right I'd be.