by John Inman
When his cock slipped from me completely, it took all my willpower not to weep at the emptiness it left behind. But I twisted in his arms and, facing him now, pressed my mouth to his throat and let his heat against my face and his weight atop my body replace the joy of having his cock buried deep inside me.
We lay like that for either countless hours or a handful of seconds. I didn’t know which. Time was a mirage.
“Malcolm,” he said on a stuttering breath, as if he’d finally found his voice.
But that’s all he said.
That’s all I needed him to say.
Chapter Eleven
AFTER THE birthday party, after that incredible first fuck, came a hailstorm of snippets from our not-so-everyday lives. They flooded over us like a tsunami. Moments of discovery between Cory and me. Moments when we were together. Moments when we were apart. Moments of heart-stuttering importance, and other moments that were almost inconsequential, or so they seemed at the time. Moments when the stage lights came up downstage center on our merry dance, then darkened and lit our lives up elsewhere—upstage right, maybe, or backstage in the wings, but always blossoming under a spotlight somewhere.
Every scene, every line of dialog, bringing us closer. Always closer.
WHILE BETH railed at customers in the drive-thru window at Jack in the Box miles away in another part of the city on a rainy Saturday, Cory and I cowered under umbrellas and dodged puddles as Rosemary dragged us through Balboa Park. High above our heads, the iron bell at the top of the California Tower bonged out the noon hour as we passed the steps of the Museum of Man down below. I imagined the great booming knell carrying halfway across the city, lifting heads, stirring memories, making smiles. But we were the first to hear it. We were closest to the bell’s song. On this particular day, we had the only front-row seats to its wonderful music.
“So are you glad you left Missouri?” I asked after the echo of the bells faded away in the distance. I spoke loudly to be heard over the staccato patter of raindrops on our umbrellas. “Are you glad you came to California?”
Cory had been quiet the past few days. Pensive once again. Only in moments of sweet intimacy or in the tumultuous throes of hot passion did he completely let himself go. He turned his face to me, peering out from beneath his dripping umbrella. Even through a torrential downpour, I still melted when his green eyes fell on me.
“Coming here was the best thing I’ve ever done,” he said. “You know that.”
“Are you happy? I mean with your job?”
Cory still worked at the supermarket. For some reason a call never came for him from the zoo. I hoped it had nothing to do with the fact that I was still refusing to bed the head ape guy, and I had only partially bedded the head bird guy before throwing him out of my apartment unejaculated, the jerk. Cory had listed me as a reference on his application form, after all. Who knows what all the supervisors talk about among themselves when they are sitting in the employees’ lounge scrubbing animal shit off their boots?
“The supermarket job closed out of town,” he said, eyes twinkling, the embryo of a smile teasing his lips. “But the rest of my life is boffo.”
“Jesus, Cory. What’d you do? Run across a beginner’s dictionary of archaic vaudeville lingo? Nobody in show business talks like that anymore. Nobody anywhere talks like that anymore.”
Cory didn’t seem to care. He eased closer and took my hand as we walked. As always my hand felt lost inside his humongous paw. Lost and warm and safe. I loved the way his skin felt. On my hands. On my body. Buried deep inside me, throbbing and hungry.
“Were you talking about me?” I asked quietly.
“You know I was.”
“I’m making your life boffo?”
“You know you are. A boffo, socko, SRO blockbuster. It’s like playing the Palace, you and me.”
“Jesus, stop it.”
Our attention was grabbed by Rosemary straining at her leash at the sight of a squirrel sitting on the sidewalk up ahead. Cory looked around. There was no one nearby, everyone hunkered behind walls, avoiding the rain. He reached down and unsnapped the leash holding Rosemary back. She took off like a shot. We laughed when the squirrel evaded Rosemary’s slavering jaws by simply strolling up a tree trunk until he was out of reach, then jabbering down at Rosemary from above, cussing her up one side and down the other. Boy, that squirrel really had a mouth on him.
While Rosemary threw herself at the tree, barking and growling and whining and cussing back like an insane beast, Cory’s eyes drifted to me once again.
“What are we exactly?” he asked. He gazed down at the leash in his hand, then back to me. “Are we having an affair, or is this just a friends-with-benefits scenario? Are there feelings involved, or are we simply in it for the sex? I’d kind of like to know.”
I felt a squeezing in my heart. I wasn’t sure why. “What do you want it to be, Cory?”
His face fell. The light in his green eyes faded. “You don’t know?”
THE MOVIE would start in about an hour. Beth and Cory were ready to go, but I was late getting home from work. I had just enough time to shower. It was two days after Beth’s birthday. The three of us had consumed an entire birthday cake for the occasion, and I was beginning to suspect most of those calories had burrowed in for the duration.
I felt fat. Cory was all muscle. I didn’t like feeling fat while Cory was all muscle. I’d been aching to weigh myself all day. I was actually beginning to obsess over the whole thing. Which seemed odd. Even for me. Well, maybe it didn’t.
With the bathroom door locked securely behind me, I threw off my clothes and did everything I could think of to lessen my weight before stepping on the scales.
I flossed my teeth to get those weighty food particles out of there.
I brushed any existing or imaginary dandruff out of my hair that might add infinitesimal grams of poundage.
I peed, gave my dick extra shakes, then actually managed to pee again.
I pooped.
I blew my nose and checked for boogers.
I dug the earwax out of my ears.
I popped a pimple on my shoulder.
I trimmed my toenails.
I chewed off a hangnail.
I shaved. Twice.
I expelled every ounce of air in my lungs.
I spit.
Since I didn’t know how to cut my own hair and I wasn’t quite ready to come again, I stepped on the scales.
I was right. I’d gained two pounds. Fucking cake.
MY MOTHER handed me a brownie. “Try one,” she said, so having learned absolutely nothing from Beth’s birthday cake fiasco, I tried one.
The brownie had a funny aftertaste, but since, as far as I knew, this brownie marked my mother’s first foray into the fascinating world of creative baking, I decided not to mention it. I can be politic when the need arises. I’m not always a wiseass.
“I’m glad to see you happy,” she said.
“How do you know I’m happy?”
“A mother knows. At least this one does. And if she doesn’t know, she’s got her crystal ball to tell her. Plus you’re flitting. You always flit when you’re happy.”
“I don’t flit.”
“You’re in love, aren’t you?”
“I don’t flit.” I coughed up an exasperated sigh. “You are so strange.”
“Where’s your friend? The pretty one.”
“Cory? He’s at work. Where’s Gerald? You two are back together again, I hear.”
“He’s laid up. He had penis enlargement surgery, and he hasn’t entirely healed yet.”
“So now he’s more of a dick than he always was?”
“Clever wordplay, but cruel. And the answer is yes. Hopefully.” She blessed me with a grin.
For some reason I had the uncontrollable urge to giggle. I stifled the urge and reached for another brownie.
She tilted her head and studied me as I sat there opposite her at her kitchen table. She was nibbling a
brownie too. “Cory is wondering about you right now, you know. Wondering what you’re doing. Wondering if you’re thinking about him. Remembering you in his arms.”
“Don’t be silly. He’s packing groceries and wishing he had a better job and probably waiting for his break so he can take a piss and eat the Ho Hos he swiped from aisle seven.”
“No. You’re all that fills his mind, Malcolm. It’s very romantic. He’s in love with you, you know. Hasn’t he told you yet?”
“No.”
“He will. Just wait.”
Again I felt an urge to giggle. “I’ve decided I’m pretty much unlovable, Mother.”
“Oh, so that’s what you’ve decided, is it? Have another brownie.”
I had another brownie. This time I didn’t just have the urge to giggle, I actually giggled.
When I did, my mother giggled with me.
I looked at the brownie, then back at her. “These brownies taste funny,” I said.
“I guess that’s why you’re giggling. They taste funny.”
For some reason, I thought that was the most hilarious thing I’d ever heard. I threw my head back and howled, almost falling off my chair. Then I righted myself, blinked a couple of times, and stared down at the half-eaten brownie in my hand.
“Oh shit, Mother, you didn’t.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“You put marijuana in these brownies. How am I supposed to drive home?”
“You aren’t.” With that, she snatched my car keys off the table and dropped them in that bottomless well between her tits. I hate it when she does that.
We stared at each other in shock for a second, and then both of us howled with laughter when I grabbed another brownie.
Squirting happy tears from her eyes, she sputtered, “Answer your phone.”
I screamed in glee, “It’s not ringing!”
She slapped my hand, jarring the brownie, which rolled off the table and landed on the floor. We stared at it for one horrified moment, then burst into laughter again.
“Give it a minute,” she said. “It’ll ring. Cory is calling to see how you are. He misses you.”
“I never thought I’d say this to my own mother, but your brain has been addled by too much sex. You have no idea what you’re talking about half the time. You’re senile. You imagine things. You’re out of control. You’ve screwed yourself into early dementia. You’re loony as a magpie.”
My phone rang.
It was Cory.
ROSEMARY WAS at her favorite tree, tormenting her favorite squirrel. Cory and I lay in the grass by the horseshoe court in Balboa Park. Funny. I’d lived in San Diego all my life but had never once seen anyone playing horseshoes.
Cory lay flat on his back staring up at the sky. He had a blade of grass poking out of his mouth. Farmer John. I was lying at his side, my hand on his stomach, my head on his arm. Cuddling. I was thinking about my mother.
“Matricide is the only option,” I mumbled.
Cory tilted his head down to look at me. “You want to murder your mattress?” Cory’s vocabulary needed work. Or maybe he was joking.
“No,” I said. “My mother. I want to murder my mother.”
“Oh. Well, that makes more sense. What did she do now? She sent me your baby pictures, you know.”
“That’s why I want to kill her.”
“I love the one with your little bare bottom sticking up. Who knew that butt would grow up to be so talented.”
“You think my butt is talented?”
“I think your butt is a veritable slice of heaven.”
“Hmm. Maybe I won’t kill her after all.”
I WAS washing dishes. Cory was at the vet with Leonard. He thought Leonard appeared logy. Since Leonard did nothing but lie around and swallow rats, I had asked him how he could tell. Cory had told me he hoped nothing was seriously wrong. I had asked him if Leonard died, could I have the body to make a belt. Cory had told me to fuck off.
Beth sat at the table by the window, bitching about the way I rinsed the dishes.
“I tasted soap in my milk glass the other day,” she said.
“That must have been disconcerting.”
“It was. Malcolm, look at me. This is serious.”
I grabbed the dish towel and a plate and turned to her in surprise. “My inept rinsing of the dishes is serious?”
“No. But your affair with Cory is.”
“We’re not having an affair. We’re just friends.”
“Friends don’t clatter headboards ’til three in the morning.”
“Sorry about that,” I said while a blush crept up the back of my neck. I wasn’t embarrassed that we were clattering the headboard ’til three in the morning. I was blushing because I suddenly remembered how much fun we’d had doing it.
Beth didn’t look angry; she merely looked worried. She glanced out the window at a finch roosting on the sill cleaning its feathers. Then she turned her attention back to me. “Promise me you won’t break his heart, Malcolm.”
“I told you. We’re just friends.”
I was still swiping at a dinner plate with my dish towel, although it was already dry.
Beth cocked an eyebrow. “What would you say if I told you Cory was thinking about moving back to Missouri?”
The plate tumbled from my hand and crashed to the floor. Shards of thrift-store china flew everywhere. Suddenly I couldn’t breathe. I clutched my throat. Then I clutched my heart. Then I clutched the kitchen sink so I wouldn’t fall over.
Beth sat there with a malicious smile on her face. “Tell me again,” she said, “how the two of you are just friends. And stop hyperventilating. I was kidding.”
“He’s not leaving?”
“No, Malcolm. He’s not leaving.”
“That was mean,” I said.
“Yes,” she answered. “And very telling. You’re in Cory’s heart now, Malcolm. And he is obviously in yours. I can see it even if you can’t. Never say again that you two are just friends. And for Pete’s sake, never, never, never say it in front of Cory.”
“I-I won’t. But you’re wrong. We’re just friends.”
“Your mother’s right, Malcolm. You’re an idiot.”
I ROLLED over in my sleep and pressed my face into Cory’s armpit. It was one of my favorite destinations on the Cory tour. The intoxicating smell of his skin dragged me awake, just as it had done countless times before. The armpit hairs tickling my nose helped drag me awake too. I loved Cory’s armpit hair tickling my nose. It was almost as good as his pubic hair tickling my nose. Well, no, it wasn’t. I sleepily pressed a kiss to his rib cage. He was all sleep-warm and toasty, and I was completely under the covers from the heels of my feet to the top of my head, thoroughly enjoying his heat. It was a cool night. Warm bodies are great on cool nights.
Still sound asleep, he turned and gathered me into his arms, like he was four and I was his favorite teddy bear. Suddenly my face was against his chest. His mouth was in my hair. His cock lay half-hard and welcoming against my belly. He was snoring like a locomotive.
His cock moved. I smiled against his chest. Maybe he wasn’t asleep after all.
“Baby,” I mumbled against his sternum. He snored all the louder.
His cock apparently had a life of its own. It slid upward across my stomach. It felt cold.
“Cory?”
I felt a little tickling sensation around my belly button. Sort of like a teeny-tiny tongue.
I screamed and flew straight up into the air like Apollo 11. Pillows and bedclothes flew. The telephone on the nightstand crashed to the floor. A picture tumbled from the wall. The next thing I knew, Cory was flying out of the bed too. He didn’t scream, but that’s only because he’s butcher than I am.
We both stumbled to our feet on opposite sides of the bed, shaking ourselves awake, trying to get our bearings and regain our equilibrium. Cory flicked the light switch, and we stared down at the bed in horror. Well, I stared down at
the bed in horror. Cory merely appeared confused.
Leonard lay twisting and coiling in the warm blankets, looking all comfy and relaxed, like I had been doing just a few minutes earlier before my heart blew a gasket.
“How did he get out of his terrarium?” Cory asked.
I tried to stifle the scream building up in my throat. “Who gives a shit? There’s a snake in our bed!”
“It’s only Leonard.”
“It’s only Leonard? It’s only Leonard?”
Cory tutted. I hate being tutted when I’m having an emotional episode. I stood there sucking in oxygen and trying not to pee down my leg while Cory scooped Leonard into his arms and carried him through the bedroom door, headed, I presumed, to the terrarium, which was currently residing in Beth’s room, but from this point on, if I had anything to say about it, would be parked outside on the fucking lawn.
A few minutes later, still chuckling, Cory climbed back into bed and pulled me in beside him. Without chatting about it or asking permission or anything, he scooped me into another teddy bear hug, laying both his broad hands across my back to hold me in place.
“Your heart is pounding. Really hard,” he whispered in my ear. “Maybe you should have it checked.”
I bit his shoulder. Really hard.
IN LATE September, in our fifth month of acquaintance and our fourth month of having sex every time we turned around, a call went out for auditions at the San Diego Mile of Cars for an auto dealer commercial.
Cory and I both blew off work and showed up at Charlie Devlon’s Dodge Dealership two hours early, before any other starving actors arrived. Charlie Devlon was a big old cowboy in a big old cowboy hat with a reeking cigar clamped between his teeth that smelled like a possum that had been dead for three weeks. He had four-hundred-dollar Tony Lama boots on his feet and a belt buckle the size of a minipizza holding his prodigious beer belly in place. His handlebar mustache was so long I was afraid it would poke my eye out if he got too close.