by Alex Sanchez
“Yeah . . . ,” Sergio replied and started to dance again. “Would you?”
“Yeah,” Lance said, sitting up in bed. They agreed on a date for dinner Saturday, and both were able to relax a little. After that they talked for a while about dancing, swimming, and working out. As soon as they got off the phone, Lance speed-dialed Allie and told her about the call.
“Super!” she exclaimed. “I knew you could do it.”
“Yeah, but if he and I are going to keep dating, I think we should agree to be exclusive. Don’t you think?”
“Babe, this is only your second date.”
“But this feels so weird. If he wants to go out with other people, then I don’t want to date him. He’s got to decide on one or the other.”
“Hmm . . .” Allie thought about that while she painted her toenails. “ . . . The danger with an ultimatum like that is: What if he says no? Then what do you do?”
“Well, then I won’t go out with him.”
“Really?” Allie asked.
“I don’t know,” Lance admitted. “Why does dating have to be so complicated?”
Later that night when he took Rufus out for his bedtime walk, Lance’s mind wandered back to thoughts of Sergio. Hopefully one day he’d be able to dance with him.
“I need the car for Saturday,” Sergio told his parents at dinner the following night.
“Are you going out with Serena again?” his mom asked eagerly. “When do we get to meet her?”
“No, things didn’t work out with her,” Sergio said, slicing into his pork chop. “I’m going out with Lance instead.”
His mom and dad stared across the table at each other, obviously wondering if he meant going out as friends or on a date. He decided to let them wonder.
Whether they figured it out or not, on Saturday his mom didn’t give him any churros to take to Lance, and his dad didn’t slip him a twenty.
“I wish my folks could be more like yours,” he told Lance when he picked him up. Once again Lance’s parents had invited Sergio to sit and chat. It felt so great to be treated as if dating a guy was the most natural thing in the world.
When Lance climbed into Sergio’s car, he handed Sergio a bag of jelly beans tied to a little white teddy bear. “Here. I got this for you.”
“Wow. Thanks, man.” Sergio stared at the unexpected gift, recalling when Zelda had given him a teddy bear—a little brown one. After their breakup he’d buried the little bear inside his closet, along with a ukulele and the love notes she’d given him. He now propped Lance’s bear onto the gearshift console between them and opened the jelly bean bag. “Want some?”
“Sure.” Lance held out his hand but instead he got a jelly bean pressed into his mouth. “Thanks! So where are we going?”
“It’s a surprise,” Sergio said and drove to a nearby strip mall that Lance had never paid much attention to.
“Have you eaten here before?” Lance asked when they parked and walked toward a storefront restaurant called Zanzibar.
“Nope. A chick was handing out half-price coupons at the mall. It’s Ethiopian. Where the hell is Ethiopia anyway?”
“Um, Africa.” Lance had never eaten African food.
Inside, the restaurant had an herby spicy smell. Exotic music played over the speakers: drums, bells, flutes, and horns. . . . A tall dark-skinned waitress in a white sequined gown led them to a low, round woven-basket table. The place had no chairs; they had to sit on floor cushions.
“Are you okay?” Sergio asked, watching Lance shift and wobble on the floor cushion, trying to get comfortable. His long legs made it difficult.
“I’m good,” Lance said, not wanting to be a spoilsport. He pointed at the trophy animal heads of antelope, oryx, gazelle, and ibex mounted on the walls. “Is that what we’ll be eating?”
“Yeah.” Sergio gave a laugh.
When the waitress returned to take their order, she recommended the “Sampler for Two” entrée and brought them a basin of water for washing their hands.
That’s weird, Lance thought until he realized there wasn’t any silverware. This was nothing like any restaurant he’d ever experienced before, not something he would’ve ever tried on his own.
The food arrived on a huge plate—a tray, really—that fit into the round tabletop. A big pancake-type thing was piled with six different-colored baby food–like mounds. A side plate contained more pancake thingies folded like napkins. The waitress explained how to tear off a piece of the spongy injera flatbread, grab some food with it, and pop it into their mouths.
“You can feed each other, too,” she told them. “It’s a tradition called gursha. We believe that those who eat from the same plate will never betray each other.”
Sergio scooped up some food, leaned forward, and plopped it into Lance’s mouth. His fingertips brushed Lance’s lips. And as the waitress strode away, he licked his fingers one by one, grinning at Lance.
Lance blushed and glanced around to make sure nobody was watching. Sergio laughed.
Lance wasn’t sure what he was eating, but maybe that was a good thing. Some of the food tasted sweet, some salty, and some was really spicy, but it all tasted delicious.
As they ate, Lance worked up his nerve for what he’d planned to talk to Sergio about. “So, um, I’ve been thinking . . .”
“Uh-oh,” Sergio said, smiling out of one side of his mouth.
“If we’re going to keep dating,” Lance continued, trying to maintain his momentum, “I think it would be a good idea for us to be exclusive. You know: so that we don’t have to worry about running into each other like at the movie theater and stuff. So, what do you think?”
Sergio thought for a moment. Although he liked Lance a lot, after Zelda, he wasn’t ready to commit to anything serious so fast.
“This is only our second date, man. I’m not ready to be a couple.”
Lance stared across the table, recalling what Allie had said about the danger of an ultimatum. So . . . now what? He didn’t want to give up seeing Sergio. He enjoyed hanging out with him, he liked how Sergio got him to try new things, and it totally turned him on to watch him lick his fingers. He felt stupid for having brought this up. He wished he’d listened to Allie.
“Well, um, when do you think you’ll be ready?” Lance asked.
“I don’t know,” Sergio said. “Can’t we just chill and see how it goes?”
Lance shifted uncomfortably on the cushion, frustrated with the conversation, with Sergio, and most of all, with himself. “Okay,” he said meekly.
“Great,” Sergio said and hand-fed Lance another bite of some sweet orange goop.
Even though it felt hugely sexy to be fed like that, it also made Lance feel even more like a kid.
“Do you want to go somewhere?” Sergio asked when they went back outside to the car.
“Sure,” Lance replied, still trying to sort out his jumbled feelings. “Like where?”
“I know a place,” Sergio said. He drove them to a little poplar-lined lane he knew of alongside a nearby golf course. It was the make-out spot where Zelda had taken him to fool around. And as he now pulled beside the curb he wondered: How far would Lance be willing to go tonight?
He’d found that one difference between dating girls and guys was that a girl usually adjusted the speed of the relationship—pumping the brakes, shifting into neutral, or moving faster. But without a girl on the scene, it seemed like guys could go from zero to warp speed in seconds—almost as if on a dare as to who could get into whose pants faster.
Sergio shut the engine off and Lance glanced out the car windows.
It was Lance’s first time to actually park in a lovers’ lane. The scene seemed perfect: a latticework of tree branches blocked out the street lamps; the fairway stretched beyond them, still and quiet; and in the distance the moon shone nearly full. Without being aware of it, he began to hum “The Man in the Moon” from Mame and then caught himself. “Whoops. Sorry.”
“I like it,” S
ergio said. Through the darkness, their gazes met and held. Sergio leaned across, and within seconds they were making out as feverishly as last time, lips pressing tight, tongues probing, hands moving across shoulders, sliding onto chests. . . .
As much as Sergio loved to explore the curvy softness of a girl, he loved just as much to touch the lean firmness of a guy. He ran his hands over Lance’s abs, picturing the little bricks in the online photo, while Lance let his own hands grasp and squeeze Sergio’s pecs. Sergio wasn’t as built as Darrell, but he was definitely toned from working out. Lance’s hands moved hungrily across his torso, wanting to feel every part of him. And sensing his desire, Sergio took hold of Lance’s hand and moved it down from his chest to his zipper, giving him permission to explore there, too.
Lance’s pulse throbbed in his temples. He was thrilled Sergio was letting him go there, but it was feeling too fast again, too soon. He forced himself to pull his hand away.
“Can we just stick to kissing tonight?”
“Sorry.” Sergio backed off, feeling shot down. This isn’t going to work, he thought. He’s just too inexperienced. I knew it wasn’t going to work.
Seeing Sergio’s hurt look, Lance wished he hadn’t stopped him. But he knew if he gave in to Sergio, he’d feel bad. And yet by not giving in to him, they both felt bad. Again he felt like he’d screwed up. He wished Allie were here to tell him what to do.
“I’m sorry,” Lance mumbled. “It’s just that . . . you’re so much more experienced than me. . . . It kind of scares me.”
“I didn’t mean to scare you,” Sergio said and remembered Kimiko telling him to go slow. “I just don’t have as much self-control as you do.”
“Well, I don’t mean scared-scared,” Lance explained. “I mean: I’m just not ready to do more yet.”
“You’re right,” Sergio said. It wouldn’t be a total hardship to stick to only kissing. Lance kissed better than any other guy Sergio had ever made out with, and as good as Zelda, if not better. “We should take things slow.”
“You mean it?” Lance asked, trying to read Sergio’s mood. “I mean: I know sometimes I can be too controlling. Allie can tell you that.”
Sergio’s feet bumped into something on the floor. During their passion the little bear had gotten knocked off the console between them. He picked it up now, brushed it off, and set it on the dashboard.
“Can we at least make out some more?”
“I’d like that,” Lance said, relieved that Sergio wasn’t dumping him for being an immature dweeb.
Then they were kissing again, but differently: calmer . . . more gently . . . each putting aside his cares about the future and just enjoying the moment.
On his drive toward home after dropping off Lance, Sergio phoned Kimiko and recapped the evening, telling her about the teddy bear: “No guy ever gave me anything like that before.”
“Dude, I hear your defenses cracking.”
“Whatever,” Sergio mumbled. “Hey, remember how you said I should go slow? Well, I’ve decided you’re right. I’m going to say no to sex for now—even if he throws himself at me.”
“You really think you can do that?” Kimiko asked.
Her skepticism made him suddenly have second thoughts. “Well, like how long do you think I’ll have to wait? And don’t tell me till I’m married.”
“No, just till you both feel ready. Since he’s less experienced, let him set the pace. He obviously likes you. If you need to wait a month or two—”
“A month or two?” Sergio interrupted. “My balls will explode by then!”
“I doubt that,” Kimiko said.
“You’ve got no idea how hard it is to be a guy,” Sergio insisted. “You know how you sometimes complain about your little brother bossing you around and getting in your way? Imagine him living inside your pants twenty-four seven!”
Kimiko cringed. “Is it that bad?”
“Worse, man. At least you can get away from him.”
Kimiko pondered that. For the moment at least, she was glad she wasn’t a guy.
When Sergio got home, he brushed his teeth, undressed, and climbed into bed, bringing the little bear with him and wishing it were Lance between the sheets.
“You were right,” Lance told Allie on their drive to church next morning. “I shouldn’t have given him an ultimatum. He says he’s not ready to be exclusive, so I’m stuck.”
“You’re not stuck,” Allie argued. “If being exclusive is that important to you, then maybe he’s not the right guy.”
Lance thought about that for a second. “Guess what? I almost got into his pants! Actually, he almost put me into them. We came this close—” Lance gestured with his fingers “—but then I chickened out. I think it might’ve hurt his feelings. But we sort of talked about it. Why am I such a sex wuss?”
“You’re not a sex wuss!” Allie reached across the car seat and squeezed his shoulder. “It’s good to take things slow. How did he like the teddy bear?”
“I think he liked it.” Lance told her about the Ethiopian restaurant and the rest of the date, circling back to almost getting into Sergio’s pants. “But what if he gets bored waiting?”
“Well, if he can’t wait, then he’s not worth it.”
“This is so mega-stressful,” Lance said as they pulled into the church parking lot. Thank God he could get his nervous energy out by singing.
On Wednesday evening, Kimiko struggled with her math homework and tried to work up the courage to ask Allie for help.
“I’m too embarrassed,” she told Sergio, “for her to find out how dense I am when it comes to numbers.”
“Just call her,” Sergio said, until finally she did.
“Hi,” Allie answered. “How’s it going?”
“Not so good—wrestling with math.”
“Well, let me help,” Allie offered. “Can you read me the problem?”
“Okay, but I need to warn you: I really, really suck seriously with numbers.”
“Well, we can’t all be good at everything. I could never write a poem like you. Let’s hear the problem.”
Kimiko read it to her and Allie walked her through the homework step by step.
“It seems like you’re not sure of some basic stuff,” Allie said. “If you want to hang out this weekend, I can go over it with you.”
“That would be awesome,” Kimiko replied, and they agreed to Friday night.
“Yee-hah!” Sergio cheered at lunch the next day when Kimiko told him about Allie’s invitation. “Kimiko’s got a da—”
She clapped her hand across his mouth. “It’s not a date! She’s going to help me with math. The dude is a mathlete.”
But when she removed her hand, he persisted: “Well, you know the saying. Sex is like math: Add the bed, subtract the clothes, divide the legs, and hope you don’t mult—”
She clamped her hand over his mouth again. “Can we change the subject, please?”
He nodded yes. But when she removed her hand, he revealed his crossed fingers. “So now pay attention to her body language. If she touches your hand that means she wants to be close friends. If she touches your arm that means she wants to be more than friends. And if she touches your thigh . . .”
“Paging new subject!” Kimiko stuffed her fingers in her ears, not wanting to hear any more of his goofy theories. “New subject, please pick up white courtesy phone!”
But Sergio leaned into her ear, his voice low and husky: “. . . It means she wants to get between your legs.”
“Thanks a lot!” Kimiko said, pulling her fingers out of her ears. “As if I’m not already a nervous wreck.”
“Oh, you’ll be fine,” Sergio said and laid his arm across her shoulder. “Hey, listen, I want to ask you: Would you mind if we made the homecoming dance a group thing and I asked Lance to go?” He’d previously asked Kimiko to go with him as friends.
“I don’t mind,” Kimiko said. She didn’t particularly like to dance anyway.
“I’m n
ot sure, though,” Sergio continued. “He’ll probably think it means we’re engaged. . . . You want to know the strange thing? Even though I told him I’m not ready to be a couple, I don’t really want to date anybody else. Isn’t that weird?”
“No, dude. It sounds like you’re going slow.”
“I’m trying,” he said with a sigh.
After school that day, they went together to the mall so she could help him pick out new shoes for the dance. Plus, he wanted to get an eyebrow piercing.
At the tattoo and piercing shop, the attendant had just about every appendage pierced, including both her ears (several times), nose, bottom lip, tongue, and right eyebrow.
“We have a twofer special today,” she told Sergio. “Do you want to get something else done along with your eyebrow? Or your friend can get one too.”
“Yeah, yeah!” he told Kimiko. “Do it! Do it!”
“No way,” Kimiko said, recalling when she’d gotten her third and fourth ear piercings: Her mom had nearly had a heart attack. “My mom would completely kill me.”
“Oh, come on,” Sergio coaxed. “It’ll look totally, completely, absolutely, hugely, orgasmically butch.”
That convinced her. Afterward, Sergio draped his arm across her shoulder in front of the mirror while they each admired their shiny chrome eyebrow rings. She thought hers looked awesome; her mom was sure to have a meltdown.
Arriving at home, Kimiko pulled her cap down low over her forehead and hurried to her room, postponing the inevitable. When dinnertime came, she steeled herself with several karate punches before heading downstairs. The house rule was that for meals she had to take her cap off.
“You got a ring on your eyebrow!” her brother announced the instant she pulled off her cap.
Her dad barely glanced at her and passed the broiled whitefish, but her mom’s tone turned icy. “What have you done?”
Even though Kimiko didn’t dare look at her, she could feel her mom’s stare drilling into her.
“It’s bad enough,” her mom continued, “that you make yourself look like a boy. And now you make yourself even uglier?”