by Daryl Banner
“Don’t call me pretty.”
“You were missed when you ran off to college for those one and a half tiny years,” he goes on as if he didn’t hear me. “You, Trent and whoever else thought they could climb outta this hellhole. Welcome back to hell.” He gives himself an air-kiss in the mirror.
“What do you mean I was missed?”
“Here, you notice every tiny change. Also all the hundreds of things that never change. Loneliness is real, girl, and it sucks hard. And not in the below-the-waist way.” He squints at me. “Are you really happy here?”
“Yeah,” I answer a bit quickly, not really giving it an honest consideration.
He snorts, as if calling me out, then heads to the farthest urinal, unzips his pants. “I’ll tell you something,” he says as he starts to pee. I look away, rolling my eyes. “It sucks being me in this town. High school was easier when I was pretending to be someone else.”
“What the fuck makes you think I care?”
“No one does,” he says, finishing and zipping up. The already stuffy room fills with the uproar of a flush. He pushes up next to me to wash his hands. I back out of the way, but only an inch or two. “You pretty boys think you have it all, with your pretty girl dates and your pretty wives and your gym memberships. And really,”—he shuts off the faucet, wipes his hands on his thighs—“you kinda do.”
With that, he leaves the bathroom.
It takes me a full minute to gather my resolve and get the hell out of the bathroom. The noise of chatter and thumping country music assaults me, and when I reach my table, the bitch is gone. She left a note on top of my half-eaten burger, scribbled across a napkin: Thanks for a great time, asshole. I’m also pretty sure she spit in my drink.
Great. Stranded at my favorite bar in the world, no ride, no date, no nothing. I pull out a twenty, bothered to all hell, and fling it on the table. With one last smirk at the empty dance floor and the idiots guffawing at the bar, I make my leave of Kegs.
Outside in the nearly pitch-dark lot, I pull out my phone and call Trent. Goes straight to voicemail. I call him again, sighing. Again, no answer from fuckface. I imagine him doing things to that probably-underage wonder girl … things I wish he’d do to me. It pisses me off so much, thinking about the simple things I long for—a cuddle, a kiss, holding hands, being told something nice—and the things I get instead: ditched by my date, sassed by the town homo in the bathroom, and then getting stranded. I could go for an all-nighter with Trent on the X-Box right about now.
I’m about to call him again when I hear the scuffling of shoes against pavement. I turn to see shadows dancing around the bend of the building, somewhere near the dumpsters. At once I assume some sort of mugging or raping or crime is happening and, to my shame, my first instinct is to run away or leap back into the building. For some insane reason, I pursue the noise, coming around the corner.
It’s Charlie, pinned against the wall by two flannel-wearing men in cowboy hats. One of them is threatening Charlie verbally, the other one scowling and looking mighty red-faced, even in the dark. What’s interesting is the expression on Charlie’s face. For being accosted—or robbed or beat up or whatever—by these two considerably larger men, Charlie looks almost … bored.
“What’s going on?” I say loudly.
Only the two men turn their heads to look at me. I recognize one of them: Steve’s his name, a jock I knew back in high school. He had an infestation of crabs and had to miss two days of school. He had the “flu”, he kept insisting; his ex let everyone know otherwise. “Go away, Benny,” he barks, annoyed. “I’m taking care of business.”
“What kinda business?” I throw back.
“Taking out the trash,” the angry one says to Charlie’s face, then spits in it.
Charlie, as unbothered as a snail on the wall, simply smirks and closes one eye, the saliva crawling down his cheek.
Seeing as they’re doing this barehanded and without weaponry involved, I dare to take a few steps toward them.
“For two grown men, you sure are taking your time,” I remark.
Shouldn’t have said that. Incensed by my quip, he throws a fist into Charlie’s belly. Charlie rasps, his eyes going wide. Then Steve throws another right into his abdomen, folding Charlie in half.
I come up next to them. “Go home, dude. You’re drunk. I’ll finish off the fag.”
“When the fuck am I not drunk?” Steve snorts at me, then massages his knuckles as if the punch hurt his hand more than Charlie. “This fucker tried to grab my buddy’s junk at the bar.”
“Yeah,” I say, watching as Charlie rises back up, that same bored expression taking his face as he stares at Steve, daring him. “He was checking me out in the bathroom too. Let me take care of him.”
Steve, the red rage burning in his eyes, finally backs off, stepping away. His buddy seems to have lost all interest, slumping off toward the parking lot.
When Steve looks at me, he says, “Give him hell. Let him know his kind ain’t welcome here. Boy gotta learn to respect, know what I mean? Fuckin’ queers think they can touch anything they want.”
“I got this.”
“Nah. Fuck him up. I wanna watch.”
“You’re still on probation, aren’t you? For that bar fight last month? You don’t wanna get caught up in this.” I stare at Steve, hard. “Like I said, I got this. Go.”
Steve snorts, curling and uncurling his fingers several times before finally leaving. I stand in front of Charlie now, my bright eyes locked onto his dark, daring ones. I listen as the two cowboys walk away. I hear the roar of a truck like some mighty dragon in the dark, and then it slithers away into the night.
When there is only silence, in a quiet, calm voice, I say, “What the heck were you doing grabbin’ some guy’s junk, Charlie?”
“I didn’t grab nothin’,” he says tiredly with half-open eyelids. “Only thing I’m guilty of is being a queer. Oops, sue me.” He smirks and looks away, tired of it all.
I don’t really believe him, to be honest. I’m pretty sure he did something at the bar, considering how forward he was with me in the damn bathroom. Pretty boy this, pretty boy that. Part of me wants to say he asked for this, what with the way he was acting.
I’m not sure what the other part of me feels. “You alright otherwise?”
“Dandy.”
I look him over. “You … got a car?”
He looks at me, suspicious. “Yes. Why? You gonna try and take it from me?”
“No. I need a ride home.”
“And … that’s my problem, how?”
“I just saved you from getting your ass kicked,” I retort, feeling my breath go all over his face. He blinks it away. “You owe me.”
“I got gut-punched. Twice. I could’ve handled them myself. I owe you nothin’ but a swift kick in the balls,” he says, then looks down my body, reconsidering. “Or a swift lick of your balls, whichever you’d allow.”
I feel my cock jump in my pants, hearing that. “Neither.”
“I could’a taken them both,” he insists again. “Steve and his wannabe cowboy.”
“In the ass?”
He smiles suddenly, impressed by my wit, I guess. Then, looking smart, he says, “I’ll give you that ride. And I promise to keep my hands to myself, so long as you let me blast whatever I want on the radio.”
Car ride of gay hell, party of two. “Deal.”
[ 4 ]
When we pull up to the apartment, I have to listen to Charlie complaining about a cramp in his stomach. I tell him to sleep it off but he insists on drinking it off, as I made the mistake of telling him that I didn’t like my roommate’s choice of beer—which happens to be Charlie’s favorite too, apparently. “Please,” he begs me, then fakes a pain in his belly. “Ugh. Please. I need some healing. The beer’s gonna do my body and my mind good, please, please.”
I might have more than one reason for saying yes. And I do.
When the door shuts behind him,
he seems to forget all about the beer and walks around my place, looking at everything. It bothers me, the way he looks at everything. “Is this you?” he asks stupidly, picking up a framed graduation photo.
“No, that’s my gay twin.” I swing open the fridge, poking around leftover Chinese and half-empty sauce bottles looking for the beer.
“Well, your gay twin is hot.” He sets the picture back down, keeps drifting around the room. “Where’s your roomie?”
“He’s busy statutorily raping a girl for the weekend.” I’d finally gotten ahold of Trent on the car ride here. He wanted to hear all about the date I had. Then, after I told him, he wanted to know why I was such a prick to such a perfectly nice girl like … what’s-her-name. I ignored the lecture and told him he could stay there for the weekend; I wouldn’t be needing the car. To say he sounded relieved is an understatement.
Maybe I should’ve lied and said I needed the car. Thinking about what he’s doing to that girl—things he should be doing to me—makes my face red and my cock stir.
An hour later, the TV hums with the applause of a game show, the air conditioning unit grumbles tiredly at the window, and I’m doing the last thing on Earth I’d expect to be doing: throwing back beers with Charlie.
“Oooh my,” he sings after guffawing at something I said about a girl we both knew in high school. “That bitch crazy, tellin’ ya. Did I mention she tried to sell me popsicles?”
“No. Hmm, I like popsicles.”
“So do I,” he says, his eyes going big. “I’m pretty sure it was on a grape creamsicle that I learned how to suck my first cock.”
I laugh hard. Too hard. For some reason, I sorta want him to think I’m drunker than I really am. The couch can sit about four people, yet Charlie and I are puddled in the middle of it, much in the same way Trent and I usually sit. It’s a mind-fuck, really, that tonight I’m sitting by someone I could make a move on.
But for all my bravery, I’m just not that brave. “This is why no one talks to you,” I say after I’m done laughing, hoping my words sound naturally slurred. I’ve kicked back three beers; I need at least eight more in me before I’m actually drunk. “All you talk about is sex. You’re gross, Charlie.”
“And you ‘straight’ boys don’t talk about sex and pussy and how many ways you can bend a girl over a table? Puh-leeze.” He grabs another can, cracks it open, chugs, then says, “I’m downright tame compared to you horn dogs. What the hell am I guilty of? Dancing too much at the bar? I got life in me. This is my life. Fuck you for making me feel like I shouldn’t live it.” He chugs the rest, crushes the can in his fist, throws it over the back of the couch. “I should warn you, with regard to the amount of alcohol I’ve consumed tonight, I had a head start at the bar.” He hiccups.
I’ve been nursing the same can for the last thirty minutes. I don’t think he’s noticed. “It isn’t easy to just … be yourself in this town.”
“It isn’t possible,” says Charlie, like he’s correcting me. “You grow up being told what you gotta be by your parents, because they can’t just let you be what you are. Then you’re made fun of, beat up, shoved around by your peers in school. Then you meet some jackasses in high school who tell you who you are, then also proceed to beat you up for it, emotionally or physically, both count as bad. I should warn you I’m drunk.”
“You already did. But I never perceived you as a guy who … isn’t himself. You’ve always just been …” I try to think of a nice way to say it.
“The town fag, yeah, whatever. You think that’s not a role in itself? Half the time, I don’t even feel like I’m me. Are you ever really you, Benny? Even around your roommate? Or your buddies, or … or that sweet girl you totally failed to woo at Kegs?” His eyes go wide and his face takes a sudden yellowish color.
“Don’t vomit on my couch,” I request of him as politely as I can.
“Puh-leeze,” he manages to say, cocking his neck. “I’m a tank. I can rest the down of these. I can—I can down the rest of … What the fuck did I just say?”
Then he leans into me, his cheek pressed against my shoulder. I’m suddenly very aware of how fast my heart is beating. I feel the weight of his face on my shoulder, pressing into my side. I’ve never done anything with a guy before. I’ve never had a guy—especially a gay guy—this close to me, this close to doing something to me. All these years I’ve been waiting by Trent’s side like a sad puppy … and I might get my first break from Charlie. Is this really happening?
He burps, then wipes his mouth and sits back up. “Sorry,” he says, though I totally don’t want to accept his apology for anything. “Sorry. I’m clearly as think as I drunk I am, know what I’m sayin’? Heh, heh.” He reels his head, sighing.
Lean into me again. Please. Please lean into me. “You can crash here if you want.”
“Mmm,” he moans, seeming to consider. That is, if he heard me at all. He leans back into the cushions, shutting his eyes. The TV drones on and on, I’m not even paying attention.
At the beginning of the night, I was more annoyed about Charlie’s existence than I was about my forced date. Now, Charlie is suddenly the indubitable center of my focus and desires, the only person in the world who can supply what I’m demanding, the source of all my hidden thrills and secret needs and pent-up cravings, years-long in the making.
I shift my weight on the couch, then allow my shoulder to press into his when I lean back. As if by instinct, I spread my legs a bit, the crotch of my jeans out in the open. I’m hard, I know it, just with the anxious thought, with the excitement, with the anticipation, the possibility that I could be touched by another guy. I let the can rest in my hand on one side of my body, and let my other hand rest on my belly, out of the way.
Nothing there to stop Charlie from having his way with me.
After what seems like an eternity, he moans again, as if trying to form a word. Then I hear his head shift, as if he’s looking, as if he’s noticed what I put out in front of him, the temptation.
Please be tempted. I lick my lips too, just in case he’s looking at my face.
“I’m really drunk,” he murmurs, slurring. His voice is so close to my ear that I feel chills run down my body, goose bumps brought to life along my arms. He whispers something else that I can’t distinguish, and then he shifts his weight.
His hand drops onto my thigh.
I resist the gasp that tries to come out of my mouth. My heart is hammering so loudly it’s a wonder he can’t hear it … it’s a wonder it isn’t shaking the floorboards loose beneath my feet. I have never wanted something so badly. It isn’t even Trent. He’s not even Trent and yet my entire body is squirming beneath the skin, craving another man’s touch, craving the attention, craving the closeness.
Touch me, I’m begging him. Move your hand. Touch me.
His hand begins to slide. Slowly. Slowly. Glacially. It might take him an hour to make it from my thigh to my crotch. I will wait that entire hour, holding my breath. I don’t move an inch of my body. Not one muscle flinches, not even my bone-hard cock. It’s like a hunt, and any sudden movements can scare away my prey. Touch me. Grope me. Be inappropriate. Don’t be noble. Don’t be careful. Touch me.
Touch me.
He keeps sliding his hand. He reaches my inner thigh. I fight an urge to squirm. I fight another urge to moan. I struggle with all my might not to twitch or feel ticklish.
I wore my tight jeans today. Every graze of his fingertips is like touching my skin. I might as well be naked, thighs spread, with the misbehaving hand of Charlie tracing my leg and sliding ever-slowly between them.
Touch me.
Grope me.
His weight on the couch shifts more and I feel his shoulder digging into mine. Then, to my surprise, I feel his mouth on my chest. His mouth. The button-down blue plaid shirt I’m wearing clings to my skin, and when he puts his mouth on my pec, I feel his warm touch as though he were using tongue.
His lips move. My toes curl.
I’m so hard I’m leaking.
He moves his mouth again. I feel his chin graze my nipple. Is it safe yet to let out the gasp I’m swallowing? Is it safe to acknowledge what he’s doing to me?
His hand, which had stopped moving on my thigh, begins once again to slide, almost startling me. It draws closer to my crotch, up my inner thigh, drawing closer and closer while his mouth works on my chest, suckling my pec.
Charlie gets bolder. He brings his other hand to my chest and, slowly, carefully as if trying not to wake me, he undoes the top button of my shirt. Oh god. I feel the tightness of my shirt let go, just with that one button. He runs his wicked fingers down, releases the next button. The tightness drops again, my pecs closer to falling out. Oh god, it’s happening. My heart is pounding. My whole body is quaking, aching, and ready.
He moves his hand yet again, works off the next button, and my chest spills out. Fuck, fuck, fuck. His warm breath brushes across my pec, across my nipple, and I release the subtlest of sighs—I can’t help it. I’m suddenly not so sure I want to help it.
Maybe I should tell him … but what would I say? I crave my roommate? I’m only doing this with you because I can’t have who I really want? I’m straight by all definitions of lifestyle, yet hungry for a specific kind of intimacy that only another man can give?
When his mouth suckles my nipple, all my thoughts are lost, and I drop open my mouth, overcome. His tongue works my nipple so expertly that it feels like a blow job. It might as well be, for all the mind-blowing effect it’s having on my cock, which throbs and leaks in my tight jeans.
As if responding to said tightness, his hand moves again. This time, it reaches its long-awaited destination, the fingers running slowly across the bulge my cock is making in my jeans. Oh god. Fuck, fuck, fuck. It’s like he knows exactly where my cock is without even looking, as his face is pressed into my pec, his mouth latched to my nipple like a suction cup, and his tongue just won’t stop. His hand expertly traces my cock through the jeans, up one side, down the other, up one side, down the other.