Curious

by Seth King

  Basically the question is this: where will our secrets go to hide when Key West becomes too small for us?

  Nathan Sykes

  Beau disappears and doesn’t text me for an hour. I spend the time watching Netflix on my iPad and scribbling in my notebook and texting random friends back home, but something is off. I’m bored and I can’t think about anything but his comments from today.

  When he returns early in the evening, sweaty and blotchy-faced and kind of beautiful, I turn away.

  “Hey,” he pants. “Is that really your journal? Damn, I can’t believe you still keep that. Every day since…what, like, fifth grade, right?”

  “About that long,” I say quietly, avoiding his eyes. Still, it’s so hard staying mad at him. And yes, I am one of the last people on the planet still hand-writing into a paper journal. It just helps me get my thoughts out, since my mind buzzes day and night. Sometimes I’ll even have these vivid dreams where I’ll start writing in my sleep, and I’ll have to get up and write it all down before I can fall asleep again. Writing is just sanity for me, I guess. “Grandma Collins said it was the best way to get my thoughts out, and I started that day and never stopped,” I tell him. “I’ve probably got buckets of pages back home, going back all that time.”

  “Nice, bro.”

  I frown. There it is – his “bro” bullshit again. He’s rubbing it in, the fact that we’re no longer rubbing against each other.

  “So,” he says, “it was funny, I was trying to do cardio, and I realized this older lady was – hey – what’s the problem?”

  “Nothing.”

  “Really, don’t be a dick. Why are you smirking at me like that?”

  I lower my voice and smirk. “Dick is what I want right now, not what I want to be.”

  He looks off at nothing. “It’s about that?”

  “It’s about nothing,” I say, then I angle myself away. Then I decide to test him. Why not fuck around with him, if he’s going to fuck around with me? If he’s already abandoned our agreement, that’s a pretty shitty move, even as a friend. Friends don’t take back promises. It doesn’t matter if he promised to fuck me or if he promised to lend me five dollars – you don’t just go back on your own word.

  So I wrap my arms around my knees and look over at him poutily. “Ugh. You know what? I’m so horny.”

  “Um. So?”

  “So…we made a pact.”

  “…And? What am I supposed to do about it?”

  In my fantasies, I get up close to him and stick my lubed-up finger inside him as he inhales and moans. I finger him harder and harder and harder. His leg muscles clench, his pecs bulge, and he finally blows, squirting all over himself.

  But none of that happens in reality. In reality, he’s just standing here, and he’s pretending like last night never happened. Like he never put himself inside my mouth…

  I sit back, trying to pretend I’m not hurt. “What’s the deal?” I ask jokingly. “Do you want girls already? Again?”

  “Hmmm. Maybe I do,” he says a little too casually, and my insides seem to fall a little.

  “Oh,” I say. “Maybe our little agreement wasn’t such a good idea?”

  He tears his eyes away again. “Maybe not.”

  “Ha.”

  “Why are you so bitter? Jealous, or something?”

  “I’m not bitter. I’ve never been in a better place.” I pause, then bound up on my feet. “You know what? Speaking of that, I’m actually heading over to the hotel bar right now. I still like girls, too. And I want one tonight.”

  “Really?” he asks, looking a little concerned.

  “Yep. I’m gonna look for one to hook up with tonight.”

  He turns away, exhales, and finally angles back to me and smiles. “You know what? I was doing the same thing.”

  “No you weren’t.”

  “Yep! I was!”

  “Well…have a great night! Maybe I’ll see you there?”

  “Maybe so!”

  I turn into the bathroom and slam the door so hard, a picture falls off the wall. Jesus Christ – two days in, and we’re already at each other’s throats. But it also feels strangely erotic, in a way. I don’t know whether I want to punch him or get on my knees for him. We are either going to kill each other this week or have the hottest sex of our lives – there seems to be no other options for us.

  Ready – set – go.

  Beau Lindemann

  Who the fuck does he think he is? I wonder as I change out of my clothes and put on something more appropriate for late-night. He’s going after girls? Fuck that. I can play that game, too. Not that I care, but this is about to be a fight till the end. So whatever we were, whatever agreement we made – it didn’t work out. So what? He can’t just flash chicks around like this. I will get him back for this…

  I find the hotel bar and get down to finding tonight’s target. Pretty soon I lock eyes with a girl a few people away – she doesn’t send a shiver down my back like Nate is starting to, but she’s good enough. She has dark blonde hair and brown eyes, big tits, and legs that could strangle someone. I always liked my women a little on the muscular side, which…

  Actually, I’m not even going to think about it. I like what I like. It doesn’t mean I’m attracted to masculine-looking people. Right?

  Whatever. Suddenly someone appears down the bar that makes the crowd go silent for a moment. It’s him. And there is fury in his eyes. But guess what? He’s about to get exactly what he signed up for – and then some. If he so obviously doesn’t want me anymore, he’s going to have to watch me with someone else.

  I try to focus, but then Nate does something terrifying. He glares at me, turns to a single girl at the bar, and starts flirting with her.

  But guess what? I can play that game, too. I can be just as childish and annoying. So I order a beer and shimmy way down the bar to the blonde, then use my tried-and-true pickup line. “Hey. Have we met?”

  She appraises me, then throws her head back in a way that tells me she’d be down for hanging out tonight…and possibly even letting me make her cum. You never know, right?

  “Sure we have,” she says. “Good line, by the way. Now buy me a drink, maybe?”

  “Sure I will. What’s your name?”

  “Birdie, like the animal that flies. My real name’s Catherine, but it’s an old nickname that stuck.”

  “Well hello there, Birdie. I’m Beau.”

  And so it begins. She seems attracted to me, but she’s not entirely an easy sell, though. She also seems kind of…bored with me. She keeps going on and on about her breakup drama, and only after she orders two more drinks does she start looking at me more closely and getting more serious.

  “Shit,” she says soon after I stretch, accidentally revealing my stomach. “Look at that body. What are you, a model or something?”

  “Nah,” I say. “Just here on…business.”

  “What’s your business, then? Porn?”

  This makes me twitch a little. Fuck. I really do love pussy – nothing Nathan says can change that. The way it smells, the way it feels against my face…at this point, nothing but his cock turns me on more. So what if I’d rather have my face buried in Nathan’s ass right now?

  Fuck, just thinking about him makes me want to…

  Stop that, a voice says. You are friends. You are nothing else. Accept it.

  I order shots for us, and soon I really get down to business. When I want something I am an expert at getting it, and before too long I know I’ve really won her over. Her giggles turn into her hands grabbing at my arms, and that turns into feels on my dick and around my ass. For a moment I close my eyes and wish it was Nate doing those things, but then I shake my head. I can’t be thinking like that – this didn’t work out for a reason, and now I’m straight again.

  So I lean into her neck. “Hey, this place is lame. Wanna head back to my porch, on the ocean? I’ve got some white wine, and an audio player…”

  She puts h
er hand on the bar. “I don’t want to go on your porch. Your bed would be better.”

  Within minutes I take her back to our room, but we get lost in the maze of the hotel for about ten minutes before we get our bearings. Aside from the Nate thing, I really am enjoying myself – I’m at a five-star resort in Florida, after all, and this girl is about to be a damned good lay.

  Finally we find my room. After some flirty kissing, I lay her out on the bed and prepare to distract myself with her vagina – but within seconds something throws me totally off course.

  It’s Nate’s messy suitcase in the corner, and the contents spilling out of it. Nate brings this little photo album everywhere he goes, and of course it’s fallen open to show a glimpse of the two of us together when we were barely six. Both of us have chubby little bellies and big clouds of light hair, and we look happier than any two kids ever looked together. It makes something wistful and nostalgic sink into me, and I smile and realize – I don’t want this. And I don’t want him to hook up with anyone else, either.

  I want Nate. I don’t want this girl at all.

  “I’m sorry,” I suddenly say. “I can’t do this.”

  I look down and realize she’s already undressed. She stops and looks up at me like I just drove over her foot. “What?”

  “I’m sorry. I really am. I can’t hook up with you. I just…can’t.”

  “Fuuck,” she finally says. “And here I thought I’d found a substitute for my vibrator and my Tumblr porn…” she adds under her breath. “Guess it’s back to my laptop again…”

  She starts kicking around, looking for her stuff.

  “I’m sorry. Can I walk you out? Do you need an Uber or something? Can I do anything?”

  “No, I’m at the hotel. And ugh, what a letdown,” she says as she starts to cover herself.

  “I know, I’m sorry.”

  “What’s the problem, anyway?” she asks soon, throwing me a vicious side-eye as she pulls on her heels.

  “What do you mean?”

  “Why can’t we do anything? Why did you just shut me down like that? Am I ugly or something?”

  “No, not at all. You’re beautiful, Bethany.”

  “Birdie.”

  “Yes, that. Sorry.” I smile and look away as my shoulders fall and a pair of hazel eyes fills my mind. “And the thing is…I think I might be falling in love with someone.”

  ~

  When she’s good and gone, I wrap myself up in the blanket, holding the photo album between my legs.

  “Goodnight,” I say to nobody, already exhausted with the knowledge that sleep will not be finding me anytime soon…not until he returns, at least…

  If he returns at all…

  Nathan Sykes

  I start back for the room, but I can’t focus – my heart is racing, and I feel fretful and nervous and tense. But what does that mean? What am I so conflicted about? Surely I enjoyed fucking women in the past – I got off every time, and previously I’d never even explored men, besides maybe a few wet dreams and curious glances in a locker room or whatever. What does it say about me that Beau is rewriting my sexual history in only a day?

  The thing I’ll never tell Beau, the thing that made me argue with the girl I met when we escaped to the pool and made out a little just now, was that I accidentally blurted out Beau’s name as soon as her lips hit my neck and she started exploring my skin. Clearly her name wasn’t Beau, so…yeah. It didn’t end well. Actually, I just cock-blocked myself. And now I’m more confused than I even was before.

  I slip back into the room, sighing happily when I see him curled up in his bed. I’m so glad he’s alone, so glad he’s not banging the guts out of that chick from the bar…

  I get in his bed and slide under his sheets, unsure of whether he’s fallen asleep or not. But soon his voice pierces the darkness.

  “Nate?”

  My spirits lift instantly. I place a hand on his shoulder, the shoulder of the person I really wanted to be with all night. “Yeah?”

  “Remember when we used to sleep on your trampoline together all the time?”

  I smile so hard, my cheeks get sore. On cooler nights, we’d wrap up our legs together and fall asleep together in my backyard under a blanket of stars. Perhaps that should’ve told me something was happening under the surface, even then…

  “Yeah. That was special, wasn’t it?”

  He pauses. “Let’s make more of those memories, can we?”

  And in that moment, I melt for him. But not in the way a friend melts for another friend, or a mother melts for her baby. I melt for him in a way that tells me he owns more of my heart than I ever thought possible.

  “Beau, of course.”

  “I’m sorry,” he says soon, and I repeat it back to him.

  “Let’s not do that again,” I say, and he nods and agrees.

  And that’s it – no more mentions of tonight allowed.

  Before long he lets himself rest against me, touching me more than he ever did on the trampoline, and I feel like I am being caressed for the first time in a million years. He makes warmth flow from my back, up my sides, across my face, and down to my toes. If this is what it feels like to be with him in this way, how will we ever go back?

  But soon a dark prospect slides into my mind – the prospect of a world without Beau. Tonight was a near-miss, but it could’ve been a lot worse. For a moment I see a world without my best friend, a world without our talks that calm and soothe and reassure me, a world without his easy, comfortable silence. A world without all the inside jokes we’ve accrued over the years, a world without the person who knows me better than my mirror does. What will all of those memories mean if I have no one to remember them with anymore? What will happen if this thing really pushes us apart this week? How will I ever handle that?

  When his breathing slows and he lets his whole leg fall against mine, my body is warmed from my legs to my ears, and I am struck by a beautiful and somewhat terrifying thought:

  If Beau Lindemann isn’t careful, he is going to make me fall for him this week – and that could possibly be the worst thing in the world, too. Because if he doesn’t end up reciprocating my feelings, I can already say with certainty that I will be leaving my heart – and my very best friendship in the world – on the sidewalks of Key West.

  now or never

  from the diary of Nathan Sykes

  my feelings for you are

  one ecstatic migraine of electric neon

  red, yellow, and orange, too

  swirling into an acid sunset

  threatening everything I hold dear

  and at the same time

  promising a heaven I’ve never even

  been brave enough

  to imagine

  baby, this thing is

  all or nothing,

  do-or-die

  now or never

  and every moment

  I’m just spinning faster

  and faster…

  but when I stop turning

  tell me:

  will you be there

  to greet me?

  or will I be

  alone again?

  Beau Lindemann

  In my dream that night, a routine vision of myself riding in a car on my favorite road is disrupted, and suddenly I am yanked into a very bizarre scene. I’m watching myself as I sit in Dr. Kepler’s office, our old family therapist, next to my mother – yes, my mother. I can’t recall seeing her in a dream in some time, and now here I am, observing us in some fantasy therapy session that never happened. She’s crying, and I look embarrassed and annoyed.

  That’s when Dr. Kepler leans over in those standard-issue therapist glasses, big ones with thick rims, and widens her eyes. “Tell me the problem again?”

  “He just can’t do this,” my mom says, shaking her head in that dramatic way she always used to do. “He knows how religious my sisters are, back home. He can’t be like this. He can’t choose this. It will be so much easier fo
r him if he chooses women…”

  “Ah, yes, about that,” Dr. Kepler says, and for a split-second I think I catch her throwing a wink at me. Then she smiles. “Tell me, Mrs. Lindemann – when did you ‘choose’ to make the ‘decision’ to fall in love with Beau’s father?”

  My mother gasps, and I reach out and touch her cheek. But before I can make contact with her skin, I am suddenly awake.

  I look over at Nate and banish the dream from my mind. It’s sometime after dawn, and the light is perfect. I leer at his body – his nearly shoulder-length dark blonde hair, his liquid-y eyes under those eyelids, his thick shoulders and torso that is somehow thin and muscled at the same time, his fat ass, his large legs…

  Shit – setting aside the drama from yesterday, he really is a handsome dude. I can appreciate that. Even sober. More handsome than I ever noticed, and I’m noticing it more and more every day. He’s about six feet tall, with long golden hair and darker facial hair. He’s thin but toned, with a happy trail disappearing down into that space between his legs that I’ve been admiring so much lately…

  In his sleep he paws at his dick a little, and it makes me want to jump out of my skin. Soon it gives me an idea. Hey, I’m horny now, so why not have some fun with his body while he wakes up, just to make up for all that stressful drama of last night? That was part of our pact – we were to be of use to each other. Why can’t I slurp him up right now? He’s supposed to essentially be my cum dumpster, right? So what if I’m wanting him a little earlier than I should…

  I lean down, uncover his dick, and find that he’s at half-mast. It’s just resting against is leg, and it’s seeping a clear liquid that makes me lurch a little inside. He even smells musky and male. Fuck, this sight really turns me on, even though I can’t believe it…

  I lean down and lightly kiss the tip. He’s definitely seeping, probably a little from a wet dream. Shit, this tastes so good…like man and sex and muscle…