Out of My Mind

by A. J. Truman

  “A literal mom-and-pop shop. Cool.”

  Mac nodded. “I don’t really speak to them, and they don’t really speak to me.” Saying it out loud made it sound ludicrous. These were his parents. And that was why Mac would rather people think what they want. It was better than the truth. “So I live with my Aunt Rita, and she’s the best.”

  Mac could tell Gideon was waiting for more, but he wasn’t going to push. When somebody dropped a bombshell, you couldn’t ask follow-up questions. And like a tightly controlled press conference, that was all Mac was going to say about that.

  He stood up and took their bowls and empty beer bottles from the coffee table. He looked at the time on his phone and dreaded his decision to take a 9 a.m. class. “I’ll wash these,” Mac said.

  “No, I’ll get them.” Gideon reached for them, and their fingers touched for a split second, but one of those moments that defied categorization of time. Mac felt a warm rush cascade down his spine and the backs of his legs.

  He wanted to gauge Gideon’s response, but Gideon was already walking into the kitchen and placing them in the sink. Gideon stared intently at the dishes. A little too intently, Mac thought. More like avoiding eye contact.

  “You’re washing them before putting them in the dishwasher?” Mac asked from the doorway.

  “Yeah. You don’t want large food particles in the…” Gideon checked Mac’s guilty face. He opened the dishwasher. It looked clean to Mac, but Gideon saw otherwise.

  “Sorry,” Mac said.

  “It’s okay. It’s a first step. Maybe next you can tackle the Jenga Tower of Junk on the sun porch.” Gideon said it with a laugh that obviously masked his strong desire for Mac to actually get his crap off the sun porch.

  “I will. One thing at a time. Davis was the tidy one.” Mac pictured his ex-boyfriend and a wave of sadness crashed inside his chest. “He would clean up my dorm room whenever he came over. My roommate never minded getting sexiled from the room because he knew he would come back to a tidier place.”

  These mourning moments hit Mac at the worst, most unexpected times. It was a reminder that things weren’t the same anymore. The break-up hit Mac especially hard for some reason. It chipped at the deep recesses that he didn’t want to disturb, somewhere in his mind where the memories of moving to Pittsburgh lived.

  Gideon held out a paper towel. “I feel it, too. The sudden emptiness. Like just in case things are going well, bam! Here’s a Beth memory.”

  “It sucks.”

  “Yep. Sure does.”

  They went to their separate rooms to get ready for bed a few minutes later. Mac stared at his reflection in the mirror as he brushed his teeth. He realized that he didn’t think Gideon was an asshole. He was that sweet, soulful guy he first met, before his stupid remarks.

  But for the sake of his living situation, Mac would keep those ideas to himself.

  Φ

  Mac loved the campus in the fall. Thickets of trees brimmed with orange, red, and yellow leaves. He was living in a canvas. It wasn’t dissimilar from fall in Pittsburgh, but he’d much rather spend it here.

  A few days later, he and Delia journeyed up north, past the tip of North campus, to the Barkley Miller Arena. They walked against the wind.

  “They have hot food there, right?” Delia asked, squinting to brave the gusts of air slamming their faces. “I’m skipping dinner to go to this.”

  “Yes. Full refreshments,” Mac said, though that was a wild guess. She’d have a good time once the game started. Well, he hoped.

  “I’m only going because basketball is slightly less objectifying than football. At least this is a sport women are allowed to play. You’re coming with me to a women’s basketball game next time.”

  “Sure thing.” Mac didn’t mind agreeing because he knew Delia would never follow through.

  They could hear the music pumping from the arena a block away. Mac’s fingers tingled with excitement. He tried going to a few basketball games each year. Unlike baseball and football, basketball games moved fast. There was constant motion.

  People handed out programs and hawked merchandise as a countdown clock to the game ticked away seconds in the center of the lobby. Anticipation rumbled through every inch of this place. He peeked in one of the section entrances and glimpsed the lit-up basketball court. It was bigger in person, an imposing stage.

  “We’re not there. We’re up.” Delia craned her neck back. “Way up.”

  They climbed up two ramps to the student section. Things calmed down at this level. Less hawking, more people finding their seats. They passed one concession stand after another as they circumnavigated the arena.

  “Did we go in a circle yet, or are the concession stands repeating themselves?” Delia asked.

  “They’re repeating.”

  “And of course there’s no healthy snack options, and it’s all wicked overpriced. Seven bucks for a hot dog?”

  “Can you save your latest protest for after the game?” Mac asked politely as they came upon their section.

  They moseyed down the steep steps to their section, which was behind one of the baskets. Their seats were on the aisle, which bummed Mac out slightly, knowing people would be walking back and forth the whole game.

  The basketball players warmed up, dribbling and shooting on the court. Mac leaned forward in his seat and watched everything, soaking it all in.

  “The game hasn’t started yet,” Delia said.

  “I know.”

  A few minutes later, she whacked him on the shoulder to get up so people could get by. Two guys shimmied down the aisle, one of whom looked miserable to be there, and the other one was Gideon.

  “Of all the aisles in all the student sections,” Gideon said to Mac, careful not to step on his or Delia’s shoes.

  Gideon and his friend plunked down next to Mac. Was it bad that Mac had begun to recognize Gideon’s outfits?

  “Small world,” Gideon said.

  “Well, it makes sense we’d both wind up in the student section.”

  “I guess.” Gideon tapped his friend on the shoulder. “Seth, this is Mac.”

  “Yeah, I’ve seen you around.” Seth held his hand out for a shake. He wore khakis and a tucked-in shirt.

  “And hello, Delia,” Gideon said. “Still want to hit me?”

  “All day every day,” Delia deadpanned.

  The announcer called out each starting member of the basketball team. Mac cheered loudly, cupping his hands to make a megaphone. He caught Gideon eyeing him with a grin that made Mac blush.

  “What?” Mac asked.

  “I didn’t know you were into basketball,” Gideon said.

  “Because I’m gay, I can’t be into sports?”

  “You’re putting stereotypes into my mouth. I never heard you mention it.”

  “That’s something that friends discuss, and we’re only roommates,” Mac said. Gideon seemed to take it in stride, smiling to himself.

  Gideon tossed a piece of gum in his mouth and offered one to Mac and Delia. “Seth doesn’t like chewing gum. He’s afraid of swallowing it.”

  “I swallowed a hunk of Bazooka when I was nine, and if you cut open my stomach, you’d find it still intact,” Seth yelled.

  “I can’t believe corporations are allowed to sell candy like that to little children,” Delia said. “This is why obesity rates are skyrocketing.”

  “Soda is the new smoking,” Seth said. “Have you seen—”

  “Fed Up?”

  “Yes!”

  “What an amazing documentary! Of course it got buried on Netflix. That’s what the food-industrial complex wants.”

  Delia and Seth were leaning over Mac and Gideon like they were chair arms.

  “I have to eat healthy,” Seth said. “I don’t have a choice because of my allergies.”

  “And do you wonder why suddenly all of these people have nut and gluten allergies? I wonder if it’s because we’ve been force-fed synthetic, GMO, high-fructose corn syru
p crap for decades.”

  “You think?” Seth scratched his head. Mind officially blown.

  “It’s possible.” Delia shrugged. “It’s better than the other b.s. explanations we’ve been given. I want to start a petition that replaces all the candy in the campus vending machines with healthier, organic options.”

  “I would love that!”

  The ref blew his whistle, and the players got into position for the tipoff.

  “I heard that there’s one organic concession stand in this place,” Seth said.

  “Really?” Delia asked. “Where?”

  “I don’t know. Want to go find it?”

  Seth and Delia nodded at each other and stood up just as Browerton’s player tipped the ball to his teammate. Seth climbed over the roommates, and rushed out with Delia.

  Gideon and Mac shared a look like What just happened?

  The ref blew his whistle. Players lined up for a foul shot. Gideon leaned over to Mac without taking his eyes off the court. “Tomorrow is October first. That means your two weeks are up,” he said. “And I think you passed the trial period.”

  Mac’s ears perked up. He turned to Gideon just in time to watch his face break out into a wide smile that lifted his cheeks and showed off his gleaming teeth. Mac’s beating heart was a little bit more noticeable in his chest.

  Gideon extended his hand for a shake. “Officially roommates?”

  Mac shook it. “Officially roommates.”

  And just officially roommates, he told himself.

  CHAPTER SIX

  Gideon

  Gideon couldn’t unsee it. He knew that. He tried not thinking about it, but that made him think about it even more. Think about what it could do.

  Where it would go.

  After two weeks of being officially roommates, he and Mac had found a groove. Mac had stopped leaving plates in the sink and clothes on the bathroom floor. Gideon had come home after class the other day to find Mac sweeping the kitchen floor. He had missed many of the hard-to-reach corners where most of the dirt and dust liked to hide, but Gideon applauded the effort. Gideon had been apprehensive about letting Mac be his permanent roommate, but he used some of his powerful white lies on himself, convincing himself that there was no awkwardness between them. Mac was a decent guy, and admitting there was awkwardness meant admitting that Gideon had something to feel awkward about, and he didn’t. So there.

  And then there were those special occasions like today where the awkwardness literally smacked Gideon in the face.

  It flashed into his mind. It. He couldn’t even use its actual name.

  Gideon let the warm water of his shower try and cleanse his mind. Droplets streamed down his face and criss-crossed through his stubble.

  He had tried to ignore the Jenga Tower of Junk on the sun porch. But his eye was drawn to it. Immediately. Every day.

  Mac was at class for the afternoon. Gideon stared down the tower. He could hear the Wild West duel music playing in his mind. One of us is leaving this room today, and it ain’t gonna be me.

  Cardboard boxes sunk into each other and leaned against crates with assorted flotsam and jetsam sticking out of their openings. Garbage bags stretched to their full capacity and wobbled at the top. The tower was playing chicken with gravity.

  Like in actual Jenga, he went for the easy moves first. He took away the boxes and a garbage bag that weren’t supporting the tower. He dropped them in Mac’s room, by his bed. The tower thinned. Gideon could see the wall behind it. Well, glimpses of it.

  He gripped a crate at the base that had the edge of a picture frame jutting out from its side. Gideon could make out Mac in a graduation robe with a woman with his same brown eyes and shiny hair. Aunt Rita. He could instantly tell from her smile that she was good people. He found a picture peeking out from under. It was pre-teen Mac sitting next to a cash register in what looked like his parents’ hardware store. His cheeks had more fat, but Gideon recognized Mac’s warm smile under there. He let it pull him in. Behind Mac were two older people, probably his parents. Gideon wondered if the picture held any answers to what happened there. He pulled out the crate to get a better view, forgetting that it was supporting the Jenga tower of junk.

  “Shit!”

  Bags and boxes rumbled above him, swaying back and forth. Gideon tried to reason with it telepathically why it shouldn’t budge. He attempted to hold the tower steady, but it had no base. Mac’s possessions tumbled forward. They splayed across the floor in a loud cacophony of clangs and smacks. The box at the top dumped right onto Gideon’s head, and that’s when he came into contact with it.

  A banana careened out of the bag and nailed Gideon square in the forehead. It knocked his glasses off his face. He didn’t realize what had hit him at first. Why was Mac keeping a banana in his stuff?

  Gideon squatted down and picked it up. But bananas shouldn’t be rubbery. And bananas weren’t this large. Gideon put on his glasses and realized he was gripping a thick, yellow dildo in his nice Jewish boy hand.

  He marveled at its weight and size and lifelike texture. But then he remembered he was holding another man’s sex toy.

  “Ahhhhhh!!” He threw it against the wall. It bounced off and landed on his feet. He screamed again. He kicked it into the heap of fallen junk like his life depended on it.

  And now here Gideon was, taking his longest shower to date, scrubbing his hands, his arms, his face until the skin began to wrinkle. He wanted to stop thinking about what he saw, and what he touched. But the more he attempted to steer his mind elsewhere, the more his mind refused. He thought about Mac using it on Davis, on other guys, shoving it all the way in like a missile locked and loaded. He imagined Mac using it on himself, jerking himself off while he slid it inside his tight ass late at night, gasping in pleasure. Gideon might’ve thought about that last one a little bit too long.

  His fingers pruned under the water. He didn’t feel sufficiently clean, but as close as he was going to get.

  He stepped out of the bathroom in a towel and found Mac in the hallway. He felt extra weird and extra naked.

  “Hey,” Gideon said.

  “Midday shower?” Mac asked.

  “Yeah.” Gideon wondered if Mac was looking at him. Ever since he, um, accidentally checked out Mac when he stripped in the kitchen, Gideon had been careful about keeping his eyes to himself.

  He raced into his bedroom and shut the door. He got dressed and took a few breaths. Gideon told himself he would forget what he saw eventually. Lots of people have sex toys. My mom probably has one.

  He smacked his forehead. He replaced one visual with an even worse one.

  Gideon kept his hand on the doorknob. He wondered if Mac would feel this uncomfortable if he found his stash of condoms. Probably not. Because people had sex. The earth was round. No big deal.

  Why was it different here? Would Mac think of me using condoms?

  Gideon opened the door. “Did class get out early?”

  He found Mac in the sun porch, examining the new organization of his possessions. Gideon had quickly reassembled the Jenga Tower of Junk so he could run into a shower.

  “Your shit was like a house of cards. It tumbled and fell. I figured I’d help by cleaning it up.”

  Mac rifled through a box in the middle of the tower. The box that had held it. Sweat beaded on Gideon’s forehead.

  “We still need to get you a dresser.”

  Mac turned around to face him. The non-banana was in his hands. Mac blushed. Gideon was right there with him.

  “That fell out, too,” Gideon said, straining through each word. He didn’t know the right way to talk to a friend about his giant, yellow dildo.

  “Oh, sorry.”

  Gideon noticed he handled it with care. “It’s not going to break.”

  “It was expensive, so…”

  “You want to take care of it.”

  Gideon had never seen him so red. Even though that toy attacked him, Gideon felt bad. Jewish guilt. Extend
ing to every aspect of his life now.

  “I thought it was an old banana,” Gideon said, breaking the tension suffocating the room. “It’s definitely not a banana.”

  “Thanks for cleaning up my stuff.” Mac checked the last of his toppled items.

  Gideon didn’t understand why he said what he said next. Either his brain was two steps ahead of him, or off on another planet. But when it came out, he didn’t completely regret asking the question because a part of him genuinely wanted to know the answer.

  “Does it hurt?”

  Mac held the dildo and looked at it to make sure that’s what Gideon meant. “Hurt is the wrong word.”

  “Obviously, you like it.”

  “There’s some discomfort at first, but it’s an exciting discomfort, like getting your ears pierced, I think. But you get used to it. Then it feels amazing, like you’re in the middle of a fireworks display.”

  “It looks like it would hurt.”

  “Well, I’d use lube, of course.”

  “Right,” Gideon said, as if he knew any of that. For all the sex he’d had, he felt like a neophyte. “It’s that amazing?”

  “Are you talking about this or the real thing?” Mac asked.

  Gideon gave some type of nod, and Mac seemed to get that meant the latter. He’d never been so tongue-tied. He didn’t want to speak, only listen.

  “Coming when someone’s inside you is one of the most intense things I’ve ever experienced. You just lose complete fucking control.” Mac put the dildo back into the crate and bolted into the kitchen. He poured himself a glass of water. “Wow, that was a huge overshare. I’m sorry.”

  Gideon wanted to be icked out, but he was intrigued. More intrigued than he should’ve been. By the actual sex act and the losing control part. He had some activity happening in his pants. He wanted to hear more, even though he knew he should leave it alone. “So are you, like, a bottom then?”

  “I like doing both.”