“I know your folks are bringing you up old-world and whatnot but, I mean, you have Internet access, right?” Ethan asked, slowly, making sure not to do anything that could be vaguely construed or misconstrued as a laugh. “Why didn’t you just Xtube this shit?”
“I tried,” Alek confessed miserably. “But they put parental controls on all the computers in the house.”
“And you couldn’t get around them?”
“I don’t know what to tell you. My parents can’t format a résumé in Word or download a song on iTunes, but they have figured out how to make sure that neither of their sons ever downloads anything even vaguely salacious. And this useless piece of junk”—Alek held up his flip phone—“can’t even access the Internet, let alone the adult sites.”
“And what about the school library?”
“Those Internet controls are even stricter than my parents’!” Alek exclaimed. “And the screens are positioned so that everyone can see what you’re surfing!”
Ethan didn’t laugh. Not even a little. “No, I mean, couldn’t you find a book?
“Oh, yeah, I can just see how that would go. ‘Excuse me, Ms. Thompson, my name is Alek Khederian, and I’m a recently out student, but I only sort of think I know what it is when two guys engage in the act of intercourse. Is there a section that has tomes I might reference to illuminate myself? Ideally with highly detailed pictures? Maybe a flip book?’”
“Okay—that’s not fair—now you’re trying to make me laugh!” The corners of Ethan’s mouth cheated up as he struggled to keep a straight face.
“I just don’t understand how we’re supposed to learn these things. I thought about ordering something online, but my dad opens everything the moment it arrives,” Alek continued. “It’s like we’re expected to download information from the aether wild straight into our brains. ‘Happy birthday, here are the .zip files about sex. And don’t forget to download the attachments about STDs and protection. And, of course, the embedded videos will answer any other questions you may have.’”
“Yeah, I know, it’s all kinds of messed up.” Ethan gathered Alek up in his arms and hugged him close.
“The truth is, I’m sure I could’ve found a computer in an Internet café without those restrictions and googled ‘adult male homosexual intercourse’.” Alek leaned into Ethan’s embrace. “But both times the opportunity presented itself, I chickened out. I don’t know why. Maybe because that’s not really the way I wanted to learn what it was, you know? And it’s not like I’m totally clueless. I mean—I have some theories.”
“Which are?” Ethan asked.
“Why don’t you tell me what it actually is, oh wise one,” Alek negotiated. “And then I’ll tell you how close I was.”
Now it was Ethan’s turn to shift uncomfortably. “It’s hard to talk about it, you know?”
“I do know! I do know! But if you’re not going to tell me, who the hell in the world will?”
“Okay, dude, okay. It’s all good. Let me try it like this.” Ethan cleared his throat. “Every guy has … let’s call it a hot dog, okay?”
“A what?” Alek asked.
“A hot dog.”
“A hot dog?”
“A hot dog. A hot dog. Every guy has a hot dog!” Ethan repeated until Alek understood.
“Oh. Oh!” The blush rose into Alek’s face as the metaphor dawned on him. “Can we call it something else? My parents don’t approve of hot dogs. Too much processed meat.”
Ethan shook his head. “It doesn’t matter what we call it.”
“So let’s say kebab, okay? That’s like an Armenian hot dog, but it uses real meat and actual spices.”
“Okay. Kebab. Every guy has a kebab,” Ethan continued. “Some guys even name theirs.”
Alek’s head jutted forward as he did his best to keep his eyes from jumping out of his head. “Some guys name their kebabs?”
“Sure,” Ethan replied nonchalantly. “A bunch of my buddies did. ‘Smacker’s not getting any play this week ’cause Justine’s not talking to me anymore.’ Or ‘Baloney Pony’s been out riding all night.’ Or ‘Thomas the Tank Engine likes to go choo-choo but…’”
“I don’t think I’ll ever be able to forgive your so-called friends for how traumatized I will be every time I see a Thomas the Tank Engine from now on.” Alek shuddered. “Can we please go on in the hope that I’ll only need years and not decades of therapy after this conversation?”
“Hey, you’re the one who asked. And you’re the one who, let me add, is lucky enough to have an older boyfriend who actually knows this stuff.”
“Okay, Mr. Kebab.”
“You’re Mr. Kebab. I’m Mr. Hot Dog.”
“Whatever!”
“So every guy has a kebab, right?” Ethan searched for the right words. “And every guy has buns also, right?”
“Buns?” Alek asked.
“Come on! How much more obvious can we get? Buns! Like those jeans that we got at Housing Works before Thanksgiving. You know, the really tight ones that you spent like ten minutes admiring how they made your buns look?”
“Relax, Ethan.” Alek shifted, stretching out his legs. “That’s what I thought you meant. I just wanted to make sure. Why don’t we call that the pita?”
“Are you going to Armenianize every one of my euphemisms?”
“I’m the innocent virgin here, okay? Is it such a crime to use words that make me feel more comfortable?”
“Anything you want, innocent virgin.” Ethan, to his credit, was able to deliver the last two words with something resembling sincerity. “How are your theories holding up so far?”
“They’re in good shape, thank you for asking,” Alek responded. “So every guy has a kebab and every guy has a pita…”
“And when, you know…” Ethan stalled.
“Yes…?” Alek encouraged him.
“… when two guys, well…”
“Uh-huh…?”
“When they do it…”
“Yes?”
“… one puts his kebab in the other’s pita!”
Alek exhaled. “See—that’s what I thought!”
“Great!” Ethan responded, equally relieved.
“So now tell me—what’s the big deal? You just put your kebab on the other guy’s pita—and that’s sex?”
“Not on,” Ethan corrected him. “In.”
A puzzled silence descended as Alek tried to understand.
“You mean—like—vertically?” Alek used his fingers to illustrate.
“No no no. Not vertically,” Ethan answered. “Horizontally.”
Alek tried, and failed, to imagine that. “I don’t get it.”
“In. All the way in.” Ethan placed a hand on Alek’s, making a loop with the index finger and thumb. He inserted the index finger of the other hand in and out of the circle, withdrawing and reinserting it a few times, to make sure he was being clear. “Over and over and over again.”
“ARE YOU KIDDING ME?” Alek screamed.
“What is wrong with you?”
“Inside! Inside the hole where…”
“I don’t see what you’re freakin’ out about. It’s not so different than the straights, when a guy puts his kebab in a girl’s—”
“I get it! I get it!” Alek cut him off. “Please, let’s not add another item of food that I’ll never be able to look at again, let alone eat, okay?”
“What’s the big deal, Alek?” Ethan asked. “Sex is the most natural thing in the world.”
“Sure, that’s what they say, but…”
“But what…?”
“I assumed that when people said sex was the most natural thing in the world, they were talking about a guy and a girl having sex. You know. Because that’s how the human race procreates. So it has to be natural.”
“But you think it’s not when two guys do it? Or two girls, for that matter?”
“I don’t know…”
“I do know.” Ethan’s eyes narrowed, the way th
ey always did when he got really serious. “Lots of people have sex all the time for different reasons. But what makes sex natural is not the possibility of pregnancy.”
“Then what is it?”
A radiator in the corner of the room hissed to life, and Ethan adjusted the sheet covering him. “It’s one of the few things that everybody can do. Like breathing or eating or shitting. And it’s the purest expression of love between two people.”
“Wow.” Alek paused to take that in. “That’s really beautiful, Ethan.”
“It’s true. That’s the reason it’s important to do it with someone you lo—” Ethan stumbled for a moment before continuing. “You know.”
Alek did know. Alek had thought about using the L-word and almost had a few times with Ethan. But he had always backed away, the way Ethan did now.
“Is there anything…” Ethan changed the subject. “… I don’t know—is there anything I can do to help you? To make you feel ready?”
Alek blushed.
“Come on, man,” Ethan urged. “I’m not pressuring you. I’m asking you as a guy who knows more and wants to share his experience.”
“Okay, well, if we’re just chatting like two guys…”
“Exactly! Two normal guy buddies, just hanging out, shooting the shit…”
“Okay, bro…” Alek played along. “So what was your first time like?”
Ethan looked away. “I don’t want to talk about Remi now.”
“Oh, come on!” It was Alek’s turn to be exasperated. “You just said that we’re two bros hanging out. And since Remi’s the only guy you’ve been with…”
Ethan tensed up for a moment, like he was going to say something, but then he didn’t.
“He’s the only guy you’ve been with, right? Or is there something else you want to tell me? Because this would be a good time.”
Ethan barely paused before responding. “He’s the only guy, Alek. I promise.”
Alek exhaled. “All right, then I think hearing about your first time might help me. With mine. So…” Alek trailed off.
“Okay, so…” Ethan began begrudgingly. “We’d been together for like a month…”
“A month!” Alek exclaimed. “Just one month! And how old were you?”
“Fifteen.”
“Like me,” Alek said miserably. “Why is this making me feel even worse?”
“We don’t have to talk about it.”
“No no no. Go on.”
Ethan continued, slowly. “So we’d been together for like a month, and things were getting rather…”
“… steamy?” Alek offered.
“Yes! Steamy! Exactly! And then he pulled out some condoms and lube…”
“What’s the lube for?”
“It’s for…” Ethan trailed off, looking for the right words. “You know how hot dogs taste better with ketchup?”
“Lube makes you taste better?” Alek asked, confused. “I thought you put the kebab in…”
“No no no—let’s see, um … lube makes it easier to put the kebab into the pita,” Ethan explained before resuming his story. “So Remi pulled out some condoms and lube, and, well … He didn’t even know that it was my first time until I told him later. And that was that.”
Alek looked at Ethan in disbelief. “That was that?”
“Yuppers.” Ethan smiled in an unquestionable display of self-satisfaction.
“And did you know what sex was before you had it?”
“More than like you,” Ethan said. “I had an idea about what went where. But that’s about all I knew—if I’d had to take a test and write an essay about it, I’m pretty sure I would’ve failed, too. And then maybe I’d have to go to summer school, where maybe I’d meet the most handsome if oddly dressed Armenian boy who’d change my life.”
Alek snuggled into Ethan, savoring the warmth of his body. Alek had spent so much time marveling at how much Ethan had changed his own life—helping him come out, improving his wardrobe, introducing him to New York City—that it hadn’t occurred to him that he’d changed Ethan’s as well.
“Sex is funny like that, isn’t it?” Alek mused. “Nothing else lives in this weird nebulous world of knowing and not knowing. It’s the opposite of school. Like, take the quadratic formula. You’re in geometry, you learn that there’s a way to discover the variable in a quadratic equation and the mystery is both introduced and solved in one day. But with sex it’s like this thing that you know exists in the world, but it’s clouded in your brain, sort of taking form but mostly obscured behind clouds. I wonder how many people don’t even know what sex is before they have it.”
“Plenty, I’m sure, because plenty of people don’t have sexy older boyfriends like you do to help show them the path.”
Alek pulled away from Ethan and started getting dressed. “Ethan, I would give anything to be like you.”
“Wise beyond my years?”
“No—I just mean—to be able to make huge life-altering decisions in the spur of the moment. Not to torture myself by examining everything from every angle, obsessing about all the possible repercussions.” Alek had to stop himself from punching something—anything—in frustration. “Doesn’t it make you crazy, being with someone like me?”
Ethan laughed. “In some ways, sure. Like I’d love for you just to say what the hell, let’s do it, and we’d be making the beast with two backs all winter.”
A pit of misery formed in Alek’s stomach.
“But at the same time, the thing that’s made us work is that we’re different, you know?” Ethan said just the right thing, the way he always did.
“You really believe that?” Alek asked hopefully.
“I’d never say it otherwise.” Ethan scooted closer to Alek. “Can I ask you something?”
“Anything.”
“All right, then—does knowing what sex is make you feel any readier to have it?”
“The thing is, I think it sounds…”
“Yes?”
“… pretty gross,” Alek admitted.
“That’s because it is pretty gross! Sex is sticky and messy.”
“It is?”
“Sure!” Ethan exclaimed.
“So what if I don’t like it?”
“That’s okay, too—there are lots of ways to get off.”
“Okay, Ethan, I do have another question. About—you know—about it.”
“Shoot.”
Alek summoned his courage. “Does it hurt?”
Ethan gently laid his hand on Alek’s. “If you don’t take your time and do it right. Also, honestly, it depends which side you’re on.”
“What do you mean?
“Okay…” Ethan searched for the words. “Being the kebab is different than being the pita.”
“And I guess most couples switch back and forth, right? To be fair?”
Ethan laughed. “Some do, I’m sure. But some figure out which one each likes and they do that.”
“Which kind would we be?”
“You try both and see which one you like more. Remi said people usually have preferences. But for starters you can be the kebab. It’s easier.”
“Really?”
“Of course! All you have to do is thrust!” Ethan demonstrated, laughing.
“But some people prefer to be the pita to the kebab?”
“Sure. And some people prefer to be the kebab.”
“And do some people like being the pita and the kebab?”
“They do,” Ethan confirmed. “Just like some people like both guys and girls.”
“And does it feel very different?”
“Like night and day. This is one of the reasons that gays are the most fabulous creatures in the universe.”
“How do you mean?”
“In straight sex, the guy is the kebab and the girl is the pita, right? Each one of them only participates in half of the experience. But we can do both! We get to be both the yin and the yang. To be both sides of the coin!”
�
��The head and the tail, if you will?” Alek’s eyes twinkled.
“Oh, I most certainly will,” Ethan flirted back.
“Okay, so if it’s gross and messy and often painful, what’s the big deal about sex, anyway? Why for the history of the world have people risked pregnancy and disease and nations and God knows what else to have it?”
Ethan didn’t say anything, but his mind was clearly working in the silence. Alek had come to love these pauses in their conversations, when Ethan searched for the right words, gears turning in his head. Alek knew they meant that whatever came next would be extraordinary.
“Something happens during sex,” Ethan finally said. “An amazing thing.”
“And what is that?” Alek demanded to know.
“A unity. Like that Armenian word you taught me last summer, right after we got together.”
“Miasnut’yun.”
“For a moment, you stop being two individuals and you’re so close, so connected—literally inside each other—that the boundary between you disappears and you’re one cosmic creature. It’s holy.”
“Wow, Ethan.” Alek swallowed, surprised by how dry his mouth had suddenly become. “Is that what it was like with Remi?”
“Come on, Alek, do we have to talk about him now?”
“It’s just, he’s the only point of reference. Unless…”
“There’s no unless—I told you he’s the only guy I’ve ever been with.”
“So—was it like that with him every time?”
“No. Sometimes it was hot and heavy and sometimes it was fast and furious. And sometimes it was just okay. And sometimes it wasn’t even okay. But when it was great—yeah, that’s what it was like.”
“What if it’s not great with us?” Alek asked miserably. “What if I mess it up, or if it messes up our already-great relationship?”
“I guess that is within the realm of the possible. But relationships are like all living things—they need to evolve to survive. And if we try it and it’s not great the first time, well…” Ethan smiled. “We’ll just try and try again until we get it right.”
Alek swallowed again. “You know—I show great persistence and discipline when I put my mind to something.”
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