by Allie Castro
“Good, because it sounded like…”
Will assured him. “I’m not. I don’t think about that.”
Heather said to Kyle, “He’s mad.”
Kyle said, “Mad at me?”
Will said, “No…”
“He’s mad at me for some reason,” Heather said.
Kyle asked, “Because of that thing, because of the game we played?”
“I don’t want to talk about it,” Will said.
Kyle said, “You should talk about it, Will. You should work this out.”
Heather said, “We were trying. But he keeps—”
“I’m not keeping doing anything,” Will spat.
“—he keeps coming after me,” she finished.
Kyle said, “That’s cool, I get it.”
Will said, “Get what?”
“Yeah, it was funny and everything, but it’s kind of a dangerous trick to play...”
Heather said, “Dangerous how?”
“Well, feelings can get hurt.”
Will said, “My feelings weren’t hurt.”
They were all quiet, then Heather said, “His feelings were hurt.”
“That’s okay,” Kyle said. “I’m sorry it went that way. It was just some goofing around.”
“It was fine,” Will said.
“I don’t think you think it was fine,” Heather said.
Kyle said, “Will, you don’t have a small penis.”
Will jolted. “I didn’t... who said... I didn’t say that. Who said that?”
Heather’s eyes widened. Kyle put up hands in surrender, said, “If that’s what you’re worried about.”
“I’m not worried about that.”
“Good,” Kyle said, “because you shouldn’t. Penis size is comparative.”
Heather chewed her lower lip, staying quiet now, watching from Kyle’s face to Will’s.
Will said, “I do not even think about it.”
“A penis is a penis, dude. It’s not big or little until you put it next to another one.”
“I get it,” Will said drolly.
“You might’ve had the smallest penis out of all your friends, but you know—”
Heather interjected. “Will has the smallest penis?”
“What the fuck, Kyle,” Will said, “no, I don’t.”
“It’s not small. I’m just saying that out of all your friends, yours was the smallest. But that’s—you know, if I put you in a different room with different guys, you might have the biggest one...”
Heather laughed, said to Kyle, “Unless you’re in it.”
Will froze inside. Stomach dropping down right through his anus, plummeting at rocket speed to the earth’s molten core. “Fuck you, Heather,” he said.
“Hey, hey,” Kyle said to Will, “don’t say that to her...”
“Sorry,” Heather said, “I shouldn’t have said that.”
Kyle said, “Don’t say mean things like that to her, dude.”
“She just said that joke to you...”
“Exactly. She was joking, Will.”
“You don’t have to defend me,” Heather said. “I forget my jokes might have an impact on him.”
“I’m sorry,” Will said to Heather, meaning it. “But you were doing that thing again.”
Heather said, “Hurting your feelings.”
Kyle said, “Yeah, maybe you hurt his feelings. You weren’t trying to, right?”
“No. Absolutely not.”
Will shook his head, snorted. “So I guess you know it was Kyle.”
Heather said nothing, chewed the inside of her cheek.
“Know it was me what?”
“Whose penis she held.”
Kyle nodded. “Oh.”
More quiet. Uncomfortable. Awkward.
Will shifted. “I don’t have the smallest penis.”
“That’s what I’m saying. Those guys might be a little bit bigger, but not by much. You shouldn’t let it get to you.”
He whined, “Who even said it was getting to me?”
Heather said, “It’s getting to you, Will.”
“No, it’s not,” he said, defensive, his voice riled up.
Kyle reminded him, “We have to be quiet.”
“Can I just talk to Heather now?”
“Yeah, you should... It’s just…” He frowned, looked to Heather.
Heather said, “I’m safe with Will. He’s not going to do anything, he’s not like that.”
Will said, “What the hell’s going on here? Why would you even think that?”
Heather said, “I think he thinks he needs to protect me.”
“You don’t need to protect her, Kyle. We’ve been together a long time. We don’t even ever fight. Except for today.”
“That’s cool,” Kyle said, showing his palms again. “How long you guys been together?”
Heather said, “Eleven years.”
“Shoot, that is a long time,” Kyle said.
“We’ve been together a long time. Since before high school really.”
“You guys only ever been with each other then?”
“You mean dating?”
Kyle said, “Dating, or anything…”
Heather said, “Yeah.”
“Wow,” Kyle said.
Heather’s nose scrunched. “Is that bad?”
Kyle said, “No, not bad at all. Sweet. And that’s what works for you guys.”
“It works for us,” Will said.
“Well, good, and hey, Heather…?”
“What?”
“You really cool with what happened inside that tent?”
She looked down. “Yeah.”
“She’s cool with it,” Will said in a grim sarcastic tone.
Heather clucked her tongue.
“Don’t go after her, Will.”
“She’s fine with it. She said she’s fine with it.”
Kyle said to Heather, “I figured you were a good sport. I was banking on it. Spent the last couple days with you on the river, and you’re really cool. You’re a lot of fun. But it would be real shitty of me if you weren’t expecting that inside the cook tent.”
“I wasn’t expecting it.” Her eyes were still cast down, her fingers working together nervously.
“She sure wasn’t,” Will said.
Heather looked up to Kyle, said, “But it’s okay. Not bad or anything. I wasn’t expecting it to be... the way it was.”
“No, she’s not mad at all,” Will said in his shitty tone again.
Heather said, “Will, stop it.”
Kyle said, “You’re really not mad at me or anything?”
Heather said, “No.”
“You knew that I might be in the mix of guys?”
Heather nodded, ran her ponytail over her shoulder to hang behind her back. “Yeah, that’s what we thought. We thought you guys were going to do that even before you said it.”
Kyle laughed. “You girls were talking out there...”
“No, we weren’t.”
“Then how did you know they might do that?”
She smirked. “We were talking a little...”
“I know, you guys were cheating.”
Heather laughed. “We weren’t cheating.”
“Bunch of talkers out there, sharing information...”
“No way,” she said, “We honestly didn’t compare notes during the game. And, listen, I was okay with it, with you joining in. We thought the guys might get you to do that.”
Will said, “You did? You thought that we would ask Kyle to do that?”
“We thought it might happen.”
“And you came in anyway?”
Heather’s shoulders slumped; her mouth fell open. “Will, you have to stop, please. We were playing a game.”
“I know, I know.” But still he grumbled and shook his head.
Kyle agreed. “Will, you should let it go. It’s already done, you can’t punish her... Hey, how about you, were you really okay with me doing i
t?”
Will bit his tongue, looked away.
Heather said to Kyle, “Will said you could do that?”
“Yeah, not at first, he was really reluctant. But then the guys were coaxing him and, yeah, he said I could do it.”
Heather said, “See, Will?”
“Fine, yes.”
Kyle said, “Hey, it was cool, Will.”
Will rolled his eyes. “Yeah, I’m really cool.”
“No, really, dude. I was pretty impressed. None of those other guys would’ve done it.”
He nodded. “They thought it was hilarious for me to do it, let my girlfriend...”
Heather frowned. “Were they laughing at me?”
Kyle said, “No, they weren’t. They thought it was funny. They only really thought it was funny because...”
Will said, “They only thought it was funny because Kyle’s thing is...”
Heather waited; he didn’t finish. She said, “So big?”
“Hea-ther,” Will complained.
“I finished your sentence.”
“Yeah, you didn’t have to. I was letting it hang...”
Kyle smirked. Then Heather did too, catching the joke. Letting it hang.
“Jesus,” Will said. “It’s not funny...”
“See,” Heather said to Kyle, “his feelings are hurt.”
Kyle shrugged. “Well, Will, what you have isn’t small.”
“Why do you keep saying that?”
“Because I’m worried that you’re thinking about it, that’s why you’re mad at Heather.”
“I’m not mad at Heather, I said that, and I’m not thinking about it, about being small. Well, fuck, I’m thinking about it now…”
“His penis isn’t small,” Heather said.
“No, it’s not,” Kyle agreed.
Will looked up to his girlfriend. “Heather, I’m not small.”
“I know,” she said, “I’m agreeing with you...”
“They’re all different,” Kyle said, looking from Will to Heather, back to Will. “They’re all different, dude. Like I said, there’s not big and there’s not little. It’s only when you hold it up to another one.”
“God, you guys are killing me,” Will said, letting his head nod forward and closing his eyes.
Heather muttered, “None of the girls think any of you guys are big.”
Will’s head came up, and he leveled eyes at her. She wasn’t even looking his way, just staring at the floor. “None of the girls think their boyfriends are big?” Shit, and Kyle clearly said he was the smallest among them...
Heather looked up, knowing she was in trouble again. She said, “Will, come on. If we’re going to talk about this, we’re going to talk about it.”
“I don’t want to talk about this,” he said.
Kyle said. “You should. You really should, Will…”
“Whether you want to or not,” Heather added.
14
He looked at them, both of them against him now. “You guys are ganging up on me.”
“Hey,” Kyle said, “she’s supporting you. She wants to talk about this. It’s obviously weighing on you.”
“It’s not weighing on me,” he said, practically whining.
“You’re thinking about it,” Heather said.
“I’m not thinking about it.”
Heather said, “You’re being jealous. You’re mad at me even though I didn’t do anything wrong.”
“I’m not mad at you,” he said.
“Good.”
Kyle said, “See, this is great. Look how you guys are calming down. Don’t you feel little bit better, Will?”
“I’m not mad, Heather,” he said, ignoring Kyle and looking at his girlfriend.
Heather said, “It made me feel really bad, the way you talked to me...”
He grunted. “You made me feel bad too,” he said then corrected himself, taking a breath, saying calmly, “I mean, what happened made me feel bad.”
“See,” Kyle said, “this is good…”
Heather said, “Sorry. I didn’t know. But I see how you might get your feelings hurt.”
“That’s all,” Will said, “thank you.”
“We did it to her, Will, she was innocent.”
He wanted to argue, wanted to say Heather came in the tent knowing it could be one of the other guys putting their dick in her hand, she even knew it could be Kyle. And that was pissing him off. Because he hadn’t been jealous before, not when Kyle was just their river guide and the girls made flirty little comments to each other, seeing Kyle with his shirt off, tanned and lean. And the guy was capable, knowing all about the outdoors and how to steer the canoes, navigate rapids. It was cute the way the girls acted. It all changed when Kyle unzipped his pants and pulled out that thing. Now he couldn’t stop thinking about Heather going in there unconcerned that their river guide might put his penis in her hand.
But Heather changed the subject. Made it worse. She said, “It’s not the prank that’s bugging him. That’s not why I hurt his feelings.”
“Why did you hurt his feelings?” Kyle asked, his tone open and honest.
“He was mad because I wrote Definitely not my boyfriend on the paper.”
Kyle said, “Yeah. You underlined definitely.”
Will said, “See?”
Heather looked down. “I was just trying to be funny.”
Kyle asked, “Why did it hurt your feelings, Will?”
Will opened his mouth like he would answer, closed it again. They waited. He said no more.
Heather said, “Will thinks it meant like his wasn’t as good as the one I felt.”
Will clucked his tongue, rolled his eyes.
“No,” Kyle said, “Will, that’s good. You said that to her?”
“Yeah,” he said.
“That’s a real feeling. That’s how you really felt?”
“It is,” he said, enjoying being supported.
“Sorry,” Heather said.
Kyle gripped her forearm, his large veiny hand going around her thin graceful wrist. “No, it’s nice that you would say that. But you shouldn’t be sorry.”
“Why not?” Will asked.
“Sorry that your feelings were hurt, sure. But you really think she did anything wrong?”
“She made a joke at my expense.”
“Weren’t we all doing that? Matt put a hot dog in Rachel’s hand.”
“Yeah, and you put your thing in Heather’s.”
“Right. Heather didn’t intend to hurt your feelings. It was a joke.”
“I know,” he said.
“So it’s nice that she would say sorry to you.”
“It took her long enough.”
Kyle said, “Will, now you’re hurting her.”
“Sorry,” he said.
“It’s okay,” Heather said.
Kyle said to Heather, “So you’ve never been with anybody but Will?”
“No,” she said.
“And, Will, you’ve never been with anybody but Heather?”
“Right,” he said.
Kyle sat up, raising his eyebrows in contemplation. “That’s probably going to cause problems, maybe not, but given what happened tonight…”
“It’s not going to cause problems,” Will murmured. Heather said nothing. He flicked his eyes up at her, saw her watching Kyle to see what he would say next. Now his heart was beating faster again.
Heather said, “Cause problems how?”
“Jealousy. Like when you came out, Will, you saw me talking to Heather by the fire, how did you feel?”
He nodded. “Jealous.”
“But you trust Heather.”
“I trust her.”
Kyle said, “But you don’t have a lot of experience.”
“I have experience,” he said indignantly.
“Yeah,” Kyle said. “With Heather. And Heather with you.”
Heather seemed to see it. “So we get jealous when there’s the unknown.”
“Right. Like how Will was upset when you wrote definitely and underlined it.”
“Why’s that?” Will said, “what are you saying?”
Kyle said, “Because you’re bothered that your girlfriend was exposed to something you didn’t like.”
Heather asked, “What didn’t he like?”
Kyle made a funny expression like he didn’t want to say.
“What do you mean?” Will said, “because you’re...”
“Big,” Heather said, finishing his sentence again. He let her get away with it this time.
Kyle said, “And I’m saying that it’s no big deal. It’s only a big deal if you keep it inside and let it bother you.”
Will said, “Isn’t every guy bothered by that?”
“No, not every guy. Maybe every guy at first, but once you’ve been around...”
“That’s easy for you to say,” Will said.
“Will, I saw your penis. You’ve got nothing to be ashamed about.”
“Why do you keep saying that? I never said I was ashamed...”
“Then why are you so mad at Heather?”
“Because…” He didn’t even know anymore.
“Because,” Heather said, “I wrote definitely not my boyfriend.”
“Right,” Will said, his lips slimming.
“But she likes what you have, Will.” He asked Heather now, “You like what he has, right?”
“Yeah,” she said, and that bothered Will for whatever reason, although what did he expect?—she was going to jump up and down and shout Yes, of course I do, of course, of course!
He let that one go too.
“So everything’s cool. Some guys dicks are bigger than others. Don’t be mad because your girlfriend knows that.”
Heather said, “I knew that before…”
“Yeah, but you said you were never with anyone else.”
“No…”
“And what did you think?...”
Heather looked to Will.
Kyle said, “No, you, Heather, what did you think?”
“Of what?”
“What did you think when you held mine?”
15
A cramp pulled in Will’s stomach, and he hunched forward. He could feel himself streaming pre-come inside his pajamas right now. What the fuck was it about this that was making him so crazy?