by Daryl Banner
The power I have with just a tongue, with just lips. If I knew I had this power before …
I go the full length of his cock, swallowing it all. I hear him moan. I HEAR HIM MOAN! Fighting my gag reflex, I twist my mouth up and down his cock slowly, the entire length of him. Little Trent, pulsing, throbbing in my eager mouth.
Suddenly his hand drops from the back of the couch, lands on my head. Is he awake? I can’t look up to see him, his hand now gripping the back of my head. Oh my god, I realize. He woke up and he’s guiding my head now. He’s guiding my head on his cock.
He wants it.
Inspired by his touch, high as a kite on the drug of want, I work his cock in my mouth with the commitment of an engine. He moans now, even louder. His breaths are raspy and quick. He’s getting close, he has to be.
Just when I think he’s going to shoot, something horrible and hard knocks me in the side of the head, and everything turns into dots and flashes and stars.
I’m on the floor, grabbing my head and looking up, the room spinning, confused.
“WHAT THE FUCK??” Trent screams, standing over me.
I blink away whatever it was that hit me, blink the world back into focus. “W-What?” I sound innocent. I sound confused. I sound hurt. “W-W-What happened?”
“WHAT THE FUCK!” he repeats. He doesn’t put away his cock, which drips with my saliva.
I’m lost for words. Did something happen? I’m completely confused and disoriented. The room spins, my lips are wet with drool and my roommate’s staring down at me with the fury of a volcano.
“I’m … I …” I sound so stupid. I form a sentence to say, then let it stick in my throat, terrified.
“You were sucking my dick,” he says, eerily calm suddenly. He points at it, as if it’s necessary to indicate what he’s talking about.
I shake my head, my first impulse being to deny it all. Then, mouth hanging open stupidly, I say, “I was confused. I’m still drunk. I … I was …” I slap a hand to my forehead, out of words.
He doesn’t say anything, frozen in place, a finger pointed at his still-hard, still-dripping dick. It still pokes out of his boxers like a middle finger, flicking me off. Even the way he’s pointing at it is like flicking me off.
Fuck you, Benny. That’s the message I feel like I’m getting. Fuck you.
“You knew what you were doing.” He says it so quietly, so unsettlingly. “You were blowing me.”
“I wasn’t.”
“You were sucking my dick.”
How many more times does he have to say it? My forehead’s breaking out in a sweat and my face burns redder and redder. Every time he says it, the reality of what I did becomes more real. Every time he says it, I’m more ashamed.
“I’m drunk.” Despite the room spinning, I get to my feet, staggering to the left, then the right. I bring a finger to my lip, bring it into view. “I’m bleeding.”
“I kneed you in the face,” he mutters, and he doesn’t quite sound proud of it.
Unable to meet his eyes, I stare at a thread in the couch, some thread that’s been coming lose for years, some piece of that couch that’s been unraveling before our eyes for years and neither of us noticed, neither of us bothered to fix it. To that thread, I say, “I’m sorry, Trent. I’m so sorry.”
He doesn’t say anything for a minute. I wonder if he’s still pointing at his dick. Why can’t he put it away? Does he want me to finish? I ask myself bitterly.
“So you been wantin’ to do this for a while or what?” he asks.
“Fuck you, Trent.”
“I’m serious, Benny.”
His voice suggests he’s also angry and has nothing kind to say to me right now, regardless of how I respond to his harsh interrogation.
He goes on: “You been looking at my dick when I sleep? You look at me like that?”
“No.”
“I think you’re lying.”
“Shut the fuck up,” I warn him, feeling the blood rise in my neck, the ugly blood, the kind that is not the stuff of passion.
“You been wantin’ my junk this whole time? Your own friend? You betray my trust and you—you—you—you take advantage of your best fucking friend when he’s asleep? So you can satisfy your sick perversions?”
“Shut … the fuck … up.” My tone suggests that it’s my last warning.
“You fucking do this to your friend? You want me?—Is that it, bitch?”
I lunge across the room so fast, he barely gets his hands up in time. My fist makes a sweet friendship with his cheek, knocking him over. Having gripped my shirt, he takes me with him as he falls.
On top of him, his still-exposed cock slapping my thighs, I grapple with him on the floor. Twice we roll over … my back slams to the floor, then his, then mine again, then his. Atop him, I throw another fist into his face just as he calls me a name.
The next punch sends a spray of blood across the floor, staining a rug my mom got us last Christmas.
When his hands come up not to attack me, but to shield his own face … that’s when I stop. I stare down at the boy I’ve loved for years, witnessing what I’ve done to him. His hands shake, ready to grab or deflect or otherwise stop the maiming my feral fists had planned. Breathing heavy, my teeth bared, I stare down at Trent, overcome, anger still billowing out of my ears, still burning my cheeks with the ugly blood.
Trent and I lock gazes, warily studying one another through sheens of tears in our quivering eyes. His blood still seasons my knuckles.
“I did,” my mouth finally says, and I’m not even sure exactly what I mean. I did want you this whole time. I did mean to suck your cock. I did take advantage of you.
I climb off of him, finished, sick with myself. Still dressed in just a tank and gym shorts, albeit a touch roughed-up and with a speck of blood staining the tank—whether his or mine, no one can tell—I let myself out.
He might’ve said something. He might’ve called out for me, but I don’t hear it.
I leave, walking down the empty street in the dead of night, joining the cacophony of crickets. A genuine wave of reluctance seizes me, threatening to turn me back home and not let me take another step, but I push through it, forcing myself recklessly into the dark.
I don’t know how much time passes with these thoughts tormenting me, but I find the brick wall of a building and, almost politely, I crouch down and retch anything that’s inside me. It isn’t much and the most I actually do is just dry heave and groan and spit at the wall.
“I’m so sorry,” I whisper to the bricks.
I half-fall, half-lean into the wall, deciding to keep my vomit company for a while, I guess. An uncharacteristic breeze wiggles down the street like a great invisible comb, sending dust into my eyes. I clench them shut and wrap my arms around my belly, hugging it tight. I better take good care of myself; I might be the only friend I got left.
After roughly half an hour of disoriented thoughts and numbness passes, I finally pull my phone out and look for my parent’s number. I find Charlie’s instead. When the hell did I acquire his number? Mr. Dancing Queen must’ve put it in there himself.
I bring the phone to my ear.
Click. “Hmmnh?”
“Ch-Charlie?” I clear my throat of phlegm or whatever the fuck builds up back there after an indeterminate amount of time spent crying and vomiting and gagging on the blood of a bleeding mouth. “Charlie?”
“Who da fuck?” I hear rustling, clothes or bed sheets or something. “Fuckin’ … 4 AM?”
“This is Benny. R-Remember me? We, umm … We went to school together. You gave me a ride home and … and I …”
“It’s four-the-fuck-A-M, honey. My ass needs ‘ta sleep.”
“C-Can I crash at your p-place tonight?”
There is a long silence. I pray he’s actually considering it. This is not a prank call, I want to tell him. I need your help. I hurt all over.
“Where you at?” he finally asks, his tone taking a slight change
for the concerned.
I have no idea. “A brick wall.”
“I’ll be right there.”
[ 8 ]
Charlie dresses a cut above my eyebrow, a scrape on my cheek, and a gash on my knuckle with a generous assortment of Rainbow Bright Band-Aids. He offers me a shirt, but I opt to sleep shirtless instead. I remember very little else before I lay myself down on his absurdly comfortable couch, waiting for him to get me a glass of water and an Ibuprofen.
That must’ve been when I fell asleep.
Morning throws a blanket of piss-yellow light over my head from a window draped in pink-and-blue polka-dot curtains.
“Mornin’, Sleeping Beauty,” he sings from a salmon-colored armchair in the corner of the room.
I blink the light out of my eyes and twist my head. The whole room seems to twist with it. “Fuck,” I groan, touching my head and discovering a puffy bandage there.
“Do I get the story now,” asks Charlie, “or do I gotta make you pancakes first?”
I squint at him. I feel so hungover, the room like an aquarium of syrupy light and diffused sound. I push myself into a sitting position, feeling aches in my muscles that certainly weren’t making themselves known last night, what with my rage and everything.
Rage. That’s when I remember what the fuck happened last night. Trent. His dick. My misbehaving mouth. The words we threw at each other. The fist I threw into his jaw … my best fucking friend.
“Pancakes first,” I groan.
Over artful yellow-and-red plates of eggs and pancakes and chopped-up cantaloupe, I tell Charlie the whole story. Trent and my friendship that grew into something more for me. The culmination of feelings that became my one hard and horny mistake last night. The whole story has Charlie so captivated, he doesn’t interrupt once and hardly touches even the one tiny pancake he served himself.
When I’m finished, the most intelligent response he has is: “Wait … you’re gay?”
“Yeah, whatever,” I confirm with a shrug.
“Wouldn’t have guessed. Shit.” He pokes his pancake, looking annoyed. “If I’d known that, way back in the day, phew … I would ‘a had my way with you, sweetheart. In the gym locker rooms. In first period and second period and every period, even my sister’s, honey, I’d have taken you everywhere and anywhere and anyway. She had a baby last year. Girl. I’m an uncle, did you know that? Gay uncle Charlie. The baby daddy moved to Hollyweird to do gay-for-pay to afford child support. I’m a sitcom. This shit writes itself, take notes.”
“Thanks for taking me in, Charlie.”
“Oh, sweetie, stay as long as you want. Move the fuck in. Be my best friend. You can suck my cock whenever the hell you want. Saves me the hell of going to Kegs and Dregs where you only find just that: the dregs. Ugh. That place is sin. Did you know the owner’s fucked every woman over forty in this town? He’s probably fathered a fifth of our senior class. Welcome to backwater incest fuck-twat hell, it’s what we live in, leave your shoes by the door, hey.” He slurps his coffee, watching me over the brim of the mug. “You a virge?”
I narrow my eyes questioningly. “Virge?”
“Virgin, babe, keep up. Have you done the hocus in your pocus yet? I won’t tell no one, pinky swear.”
“Uh … yeah, I guess I am.” I’ve swallowed every bite on my plate. I could eat three times the amount he gave me, but I suck it up and appreciate the breakfast deck I’ve been dealt.
“Which do you think you wanna do? You the pitcher, or the lemonade? You the hot, or the sauce? I’ll teach it all to you, babe.”
“I’m not sure I’m in the mood to be taught nothin’,” I murmur, trying not to sound too ungrateful. “Mind’s a bit preoccupied with—”
“Straight boys.” I nod. “Yeah, yeah. The fly in all our chardonnays. Trent’s a cutie, I’ll give him that. He’s got one of those get-the-fuck-over-here-and-let-me-pinch-you sort of faces. I always wondered what it was like to kiss a guy with a lip ring.” Charlie pushes his cheek into his fist, pondering exactly that. He puckers his lips, as if testing it with an imaginary volunteer before him.
“You’re fuckin’ weird,” I can’t help but blurt out, stifling a laugh.
“And really lonely.”
My face turns serious, studying him. He gets up suddenly, takes both our empty plates to the sink, dumps them in loudly with the care of a barmaid.
“Me too,” I say quietly.
“I’m so tired of waiting for some asshole to ride into my life to save me,” he complains to the sink, his back turned. “Why is it so hard to just … get up and take what we want? I mean, this is our fucking life. This is my life.” He turns suddenly, a dishtowel with tiny pink unicorns dangling from his hand. “This is your life, you dumb mother fucker. Who told you to be quiet and careful and not get in anyone’s way? What the fuck are you gonna do when you’re dead, Benny? Ask for another chance? This is your chance. You took it. You saw Trent on the couch and you … you sucked it. You sucked your chance, baby, and if ever the circumstance should again arrive, I say, fuck it and suck it too. Life is here for the sucking and the fucking of it, my friend. We are alive, so be alive.”
I imagine he’s waiting for the applause of an auditorium full of attendees to his self-help seminar, but all he’s got is me, and my reaction is a blank stare and an unsatisfied grumble in my stomach. That, or I gotta take my morning dump already.
“I gotta get to work soon,” he complains.
“Me too,” I confess. “But my clothes …”
“What is it you wear to work?—Dickies? Polo? Honey, I got it all, take your pick. I have three closets and every acceptable color of this season’s and last. Have a heyday. I’m bustin’ a move, bitch. Spare key’s under the black dog statue. Place is yours.” He leaves his mug on the counter and saunters off to the bedrooms.
He’s leaving me a way in, just like that? I call after him: “You’re letting me stay?”
“I’d be crazy not to. You kidding?” He stops at the hall, his butt looking tight as a rope in those jeans, his bright eyes flashing. “Didn’t I just get done saying I’m a lonely mother fucker?”
My hands resting in my lap, I smile lamely. “Thanks.”
“Aww, babe. Don’t mention it,” he says. “Like, literally, don’t. I don’t do sappy.” He disappears into his room, the door shutting heavily at his back.
I smile, looking around and taking in the environment of his home. It’s colorful and strangely inviting. I feel like I’m in some lost aunt’s house, or a whacky grandma’s cabin who makes rainbow-sprinkled cupcakes every Tuesday for no reason at all.
Reluctantly, I pull out my phone and look at the notifications. Trent called me an hour ago, apparently. Voicemail.
My belly somersaults. My breath goes all wrong and jagged. After steeling myself far too much, I clench my jaw and tap the button, then bring the phone to my ear, listening.
“H-Hey, uh … hey. Just … just calling to see where you’re at or whatever. You kinda just fuckin’ took off and … and …” He sighs loudly, a blast of static in the voicemail. “I think we should talk about this, Benny. I’d try and, like, check all your friends’ houses and find out where the fuck you are … but I know you don’t got no friends but me, so … and maybe that’s the other reason why I’m, well … why I’m fuckin’ worried, I guess. Like, for real, Benny, like … Where the f—” And the voicemail ends, cut off.
I stare at the phone, then shut my eyes.
“Spectacular,” sings Charlie as he emerges from his room in a white t-shirt and skin-tight maroon pants. Sunglasses nest in his hair. “You can take whatever you want. We look about the same size, I reckon. Well, my stuff will likely squeeze you to death, but hey, tight is the new loose so, whatevs. See you after six or so. I’m ordering Chinese later, hope you like moo shu pork and lettuce wraps.”
The next instant, Charlie is out the door and I’m left in a strange house with just the sound of my own unsettled digestive system for company.
I set my phone on the counter, as if afraid of it. “I’m sorry,” I tell it, maybe speaking to Trent, maybe speaking to myself. I don’t know anymore.
I just don’t know anything anymore.
[ 9 ]
My time with Charlie is surprisingly nice. We seem to have similar work hours, though I don’t quite know what he does and never bothered to ask. I like everything he orders to eat. He seems to always order delivery and never cooks. “I don’t believe in stoves,” he tells me. “My mother halfway cooked her boobs on one once, like in that scene in Mrs. Doubtfire. I’m literally afraid to bake my boobs. I don’t do toasters either because every time I try to use one, my shit gets burnt.”
Trent calls again Thursday afternoon.
“Aren’t you ever gonna answer it?” asks Charlie after I let the phone go to voicemail. “Your girlfriend Trent is obviously concerned as fuck about you. He’s probably posting missing persons fliers, like they do with lost puppies …”
“He knows where I work,” I say flatly. “If he really cares, he’ll find me at the store.”
“Oh, hey, look what I picked up.” He lifts a case of beer onto the counter with the might of a lumberjack. “Your roommate’s favorite. The brand I guzzled up that night I stayed at your place and almost molested you.”
“I still sorta wish you had.”
“That can be arranged.”
It’s all fun and games between us. I never know what to take seriously and what to laugh off as another of his countless jokes. But a handful of hours later when the sun’s gone down, we’re huddled on his couch watching reruns of Golden Girls and chugging beer after beer after beer. I’m squinting at the TV now and we’re laughing at each other’s slurring.
“You know you’re really not my type at all,” he tells me. “Handsome just doesn’t do it for me. Believe it or not, I did not ogle the football team, nor did I hump to thoughts of the soccer team … or the anything else team. The wrestling team, however …”
“I peeked into one of their afterschool practices once,” I confess, remembering. “The gym where they practiced was right across from my study hall, and they were all in this bent-over-backward bridge sort of position, each of them, their pelvises pointing up to the rafters. Their coach was punishing them, I think, threatening to make them hold that position for another thirty minutes if any of them fell or couldn’t hold it. The dude closest to the door, bent over in a bridge in his tight blue singlet, he was sporting the biggest hard-on I’d ever seen. It was like he was enjoying it, but couldn’t hide his enjoyment, no matter how he shifted his body or … or anything. It was just there, out in the open, his hard-on in plain view.”