by David Connor
Concentrate, I told myself. Reach further—or should it be farther? The SATs were coming up, though that really wasn’t the time to think about them. I imagined a rocket strapped to my back. I thought I could feel it. I was certain the imagery was working. The make-believe boosters were propelling me along. I definitely picked up speed. Then I pictured something else, and I practically shot through the water, not even getting out of breath or feeling any burn.
“Yes!” I touched the wall and celebrated. “Whoo!” When I’d looked to the side, Mathias wasn’t there. I’d beaten him. “Yes!” We’d won!
“Nice race.”
Wait. Where had he come from? Up from the water, that was where, not up from behind. Son of a bitch! Mathias had gotten to the wall before I did. The Sharks hadn’t won after all. Mathias’s team had, which meant I’d made a total fool of myself celebrating second place—therefore, once more, last.
“Your time was good.” Coach Keller wasn’t placating. My time was amazing. If I could keep it up, I’d end up with more gold medals than Mark Spitz by the end of one school year. As I stood waiting for the two I’d be receiving that day, however, all I could think about were the ones I wasn’t getting, the ones the refs would hand over to him.
They read our names off in alphabetical order. I was always annoyed by alphabetical order, because I always came last. One day, back in fourth grade, I’d told Mrs. Smeckler she should start at the back end of the grade book every now and then instead of the front. She actually did, every other day. None of my other teachers ever would. Maybe old Smeckler wasn’t so bad after all.
Even though Mathias’s name was read after mine, that small victory was hollow. He had so much gold around his neck, when I begrudgingly shook his hand, I envisioned Mr. T. It really stuck in my craw, seeing him standing there in his sweat suit, the jacket unzipped almost to the crotch in order to show off all four—four, to my two. The handshaking was oh-so very civilized. We were being taught good manners and sportsmanship, groomed to become upstanding members of society, even as it was obvious we were a bunch of losers. I wanted to punch Mathias Webber in the face and then kiss the redness away and soothe the pain with a blowjob. At least I lived in my truth—in my head if not aloud.
“See you at the next one,” he said.
“Can’t wait.” My entire goal from that moment on was to beat Mathias Webber at everything we ever did together for the rest of my life—and then maybe do that blowjob thing.
3
CAL AND I rode back to Dover with Caryn rather than Coach Keller. Though I found it hard to believe when one of them mentioned it, their paths had never crossed. Chatty Caryn, a tiny blonde with a rather large rack and eyes the color of the morning glories my mother grew in summer, suddenly seemed so bashful and quiet. Cal openly flirted—boldly so—mentioning her giggle and her pretty necklace, which happened to be nestled in a canyon of cleavage. Caryn had a lot of cleavage. I wanted to punch Cal—or Calvin, as she seemed to prefer—as either a protective surrogate brother or a jealous horny homo.
Caryn was quick to depart once we arrived home, but I invited Cal to stay the night, so maybe I might discover which I was.
“Dinner’s in the oven,” my mother said as we entered through the kitchen door.
“Not hungry right now.” I didn’t stop, but bounded right up the back stairs.
“Don’t go too far,” she called after me. “Whether you eat or not, I’m fixin’ to need some help with these dishes.”
I came back down. “Okay.” Then I kissed her on the cheek.
My dad was a groundskeeper and janitor at Taconic Developmental Center, a compound for the developmentally disabled, and Mama worked in food service there. We lived in a tidy, modest home on a private acre of land they’d be paying on until they were old enough to retire—which wasn’t actually that far off. Devon and I slept in the “big” bedroom. Beth’s was now empty, since, just before baby Shemar arrived, Dad had fixed up part of the basement like a little apartment for her and Julius. Even though there were paint cans, the lawn mower, and garden tools just beyond their new oasis, Julius was happy for the move. “There was barely enough space in that bedroom to get a boner,” he had said. Don’t think that image hadn’t taken up residence in my mind.
Devon was supposed to have moved across the hall then, but he never had. I could tell he was kind of scared to switch rooms—to sleep alone—so I didn’t push the idea. I just left things the way they were. We all still shared one bathroom, though. All seven of us, which often meant waiting.
“God designed men right,” I heard Julius tell Devon one morning. Then they’d stepped out of a literal queue and went outside, something I’d done myself once or ten times. Dad promised the second toilet soon. All he needed was the time—and the money—to make it happen.
“Just let us know when the dishes are ready to be dried,” I told Mama, partway up the stairs again.
“Don’t worry,” Mama said. “I will.”
Truth was she might not. Sometimes she just dried them herself. I was good either way, though after that one night a couple years earlier when I’d said “hell” and stomped out like a baby, I mostly made sure to get there before she did.
Cal stopped outside my bedroom door. “No. Come here,” I told him, and I kept on going.
“Come where?” he asked.
I took his wrist and tugged him along. I peeked through the open door to Beth’s old, empty room as we passed. Sometimes Dev hung out in there during daylight hours. It was dark outside, though, and no one was there. That was good. I hadn’t seen my sister or Julius in the living room either. Maybe they’d gone out for a walk as a family. As long as they weren’t in the bathroom—and they weren’t—I was golden.
“I gotta pee too, Wats, but we ain’t doing it together.”
I hadn’t planned on pissing, but I had pulled Cal into the john. “Fine. Go pee. Let me know when you’re done.” I stepped into the hallway, and Cal closed the door behind me. I waited to hear him going.
“Can’t do it if you’re listening,” he called through white-painted wood.
I answered with a growly breath but then stepped away. My bedroom was empty as well, which turned out to be a good thing, since I’d left Beth’s old scrapbook sticking out from under my bed. “Shit.”
Famous Hot Hunks, that was what she had written in a variety of magic marker colors across the front. Everybody in the Watson household knew no magazine went in the recycling bin before Beth got to go through it to search for glossy photographs of athletes and Hollywood studs, often shirtless, to add to her collection. I found the whole thing completely moronic. Though something about the off-limits beefcake compendium also intrigued me, even at an early age, before I understood why.
We’d argued over Damon Wayans back when I’d wanted his picture for Mrs. Smeckler’s bulletin board. “I need him,” I’d said. “I’m going to be a TV star!”
“You can’t have him! He’s mine!” Beth had torn him from my grasp, ripping out my heart right along.
“Mama! Tell Beth to give it back,” I’d whined.
“Dad! Tell Reed to find something else,” Beth had shrieked.
“Stop fight-en-in!” Devon, at only five and a half, had hated when people yelled.
“If I can’t have him, no one shall!” Okay, I probably hadn’t said “shall,” but I had grabbed Damon back and then pretended I was going to rip him in half.
“Hand it over.” Beth had taken a step closer. “Or I’ll kick you in the nuts.”
I’d postured. Her foot came off the floor. Knowing full well she would do it—precedence said so—I’d tossed Damon Wayans to the green sculpted carpeting.
I envisioned him then, his shirt wide open, that beautiful smirk of his so sexy. Even though I had access to occasional full-frontal Internet nudity—it was 2011, not 1979, after all—exploring it was rare. Cal had a computer at his house, but I couldn’t really ask him to pull up gay porn, now could I? Even if I could, th
ere was something about that old scrapbook Beth had discarded long ago. She had Julius now. I had no one. Once in a while, it still came in handy.
Some of the guys in it were older has-beens by then. Whatever happened to Alfonso Ribeiro? I wondered as I flipped to his page. Will he ever make a comeback? I somehow doubted it as I quickly flung him beneath the bedspread’s overhang and pulled striped fabric down over him and all the others.
By the time Cal came out, I had to go. “Hold up,” I told him, and I left him alone in my room, somewhat worried he’d go under my bed for some reason and discover Corbin Bleu and Andrew Keegan all stuck together. Not that he’d be able to pull them apart to see either one. When I’d tried, the page started to tear. Maybe it was time to throw the thing away. We were getting a PC for Christmas. I’d overhead my parents talking about it, how I’d needed one for a while for school, how it would be better if I didn’t have to go to the library every time I had to print out an essay for class. By the end of 2011, the Watson family would be leaping into the late 1990s with the rest of America. I could look at all the shirtless guys I wanted to then. Pantsless ones too. When I hung out at Cal’s, all I got to see were boobs. When I hung out at Caryn’s, she got bored with naked guys pretty fast, which I couldn’t really complain about unless I was ready to out myself, which I wasn’t. Not quite yet.
Thinking about Andrew and Corbin all sealed together on top of one another by my stuff made the task at hand a bit slower than it should have been.
“Cal. Come here,” I called when finally done, hoping he hadn’t been keeping time.
“Took you long enough.”
Damn my digital bedroom clock.
“Playing with yourself?”
“Fuck you.”
“You wish.”
I somewhat did, but I kept that to myself. I had gotten my dad’s barber shears from under the cupboard after hollering out, and was holding them in my hand by the time he entered. Dad used to give me haircuts in the summer, almost down to the scalp. Throughout the school year we had it done by a pro, but come June—buzzzzz—Dad took matters into his own hands.
“What are those for?” Cal asked.
“The good of the team.” I plugged them in and handed them over. “Take it off.”
“You want me to shave myself bald?”
“No. I want you to shave me.” I pulled my jacket and the heather-gray T-shirt beneath it up over my head without unzipping. “Everywhere.”
“Wats….” The face Cal made was somewhere between grossed-out and eager. He’d immediately flipped the little switch, though, and as the hum of the clippers echoed off the tub and tile behind me, I told him to hurry up before I changed my mind.
“You’re sure?”
My hair wasn’t currently long, but it was wavy, kind of like the knife swoops my mother made in the chocolate icing on my birthday cakes, or fusilli, Devon’s favorite shape of pasta. “Positive.” I was also hungry.
As I watched my hair fall to the peach bathroom rug in clumps, I could smell Cal’s deodorant. Before he’d started cutting, he’d taken his jacket and undershirt off too, claiming he would be all itchy later on if my hair got under it. That didn’t make sense. Not really, but I went with it.
“Shaving off the fro, bro.”
“Pay attention,” I said.
My hair didn’t look all that different from Cal’s or my brother’s, not when it grew out. Cal was pretty thin. His skin was like the center of a black-eyed Susan, his nipples somehow lighter, a cross between milk chocolate and taupe. They blended in subtly, unlike mine.
“Damn.”
“What?”
“You’re blushing, freak. Your….” He pointed, back and forth from one to the other, rather than call them what they were. “They look like a couple of stoplights.”
I tended to turn a little red when nervous, embarrassed, working hard—or close to climax. My flesh was fair enough to do that. “Shut up.”
We were both wearing our sweatpants from the meet, and if I wasn’t mistaken, we both had stiffies. The act was quite intimate, even above the neck. Cal was working the nape of it now, and having him so close, parts of him brushing against me—some covered, some not—it was definitely h-o-m-o-e-r-o-t-i-c.
“There’s hair back here,” he said.
“On my back?”
“At the bottom.”
“Get rid of it,” I ordered.
“You’re the boss.”
The blade was kind of hot. When I reacted with a start, Cal nipped me a little. “Fuck!”
“Sorry, dude.”
“Keep going.”
God, he smelled good!
Once my head was nothing but fuzz and my back was presumably smooth, Cal turned off the clippers. “I think they need to cool down.”
“Naw. They’re good. You want to do my chest, or should I?”
“I don’t care.” He said it like all guys our age did. Usually, we did care, but that was the pat answer to anything from “Where do you want to eat?” to “The world is going to end in eight seconds, should we fight or go down with the ship?”
“I don’t care either.”
Cal licked his lips. “I can, then, I guess.”
His chest was mostly bare. There might have been one or two black hairs between his small pecs, but the rest was as stark as the desert, as bald as Mathias Webber’s. There was a line below Cal’s belly button, though. I had one too. Mine was thicker, or maybe it just looked that way because of the disparity in color between my not-so-dark flesh and raven furriness. I hated to lose that strip, but without even asking, Cal mowed it like my dad did the grass where he worked. I touched myself when he stepped back—my chest, my gut, and the prickly patch where there once had been a treasure trail.
“I prob’ly didn’t get it all.”
“What do you mean?” I asked.
“It goes down there.” He nodded toward my dick. It was soft again, but full. It wasn’t going to take much. And there it went. I flexed, and Cal, who’d been staring right at it, called me homo. He laughed when he said it, so I did too.
“You’re the one looking at my cock.”
“You’re the one who wants to suck mine.” As I was searching my brain for something better to say, he added, “I’ll let you… like we used to.”
At that I answered, “Huh?”
“I said… go ahead… if you want.”
“After you shave mine.” I figured he was joking. I figured I was. I also figured we were both kind of chickenshit, but the next thing I knew, I was pulling down my pants. “Legs,” I said, just in case. I hadn’t taken my underwear off, and I doubted he would. “Get the bulk of it, then I’ll use a razor if I have to.”
Cal made me turn around so he could start at the back. Maybe he made me turn around so he wouldn’t be tempted by my boner. Or maybe he thought my ass was nice too. I studied myself in the mirror, starting with the wet spot on the front of my light blue boxers where they came to a point at the fly. “Whoa.” I moved on from that quickly but stopped before I got to my face, which I still remembered Jeff Ackerman calling ugly. He hadn’t been the first—or the last.
“What?”
“My body.” I was used to seeing myself covered in hair. That had been the norm since around age fifteen, and it had only gotten thicker since. I looked weird without any, and it made me wonder. If I already had so much at not even eighteen, how much was I going to have when I was thirty? Coach Keller was as hairy as a prehistoric mastodon. Was I going to look like him when I got old?
“Oh. You want me stop?” He had. The shears still buzzed, but he held them away from my skin.
“Nope.” My skin was all red and splotchy from head to foot. Still, I told Cal, “Keep going.”
It tickled when he got up to the under-tuck, where my ass met my legs. Working up inside the leg hole of my underwear, he put his free hand on my left cheek—on fabric, of course. When I looked back to the mirror, I could see his face behind me. His tongue s
tuck out as he concentrated hard, and his eyes were all squinty, like he wanted to focus in real good.
“If this works,” I said, “I’m fixin’ to get some wax or something to keep it off longer.”
“Hmm.” That was all I got back from Cal, until he turned me around again and started in on the front, beginning at the ankles, working upward. His hand was on my leg at first, then my calf, my knee, and my thigh. There was no place left to rest it when he started trimming higher up. I was sure the next stop was going to my erection, forming a missile in my Fruit of the Looms. He bypassed that, however, and rested his palm on my gut just above it, where there used to be a plush strip but now was just a line of scratchy stubble.
“All right,” he eventually said, taking his hand away. “All done… I guess.” He took the pause just like that.
“Yeah. I can probably take care of myself after.”
We both knew damned well what I meant.
“So you won’t take care of me now?” he asked.
“Shave you?”
“You know fuck well what I mean.”
Oh, how we liked to work that word in, whether it really fit or not.
“You gay?” I asked him flat-out.
“No.” He pulled at the elastic where the brand name was written on my undershorts and let it snap back. “Maybe.” He shoved a hand down his pants. “Sometimes I think I like both.”
“Cool. I’m gay.”
“Are you?”
“Yes.”
I was hoping for more after that, a “That’s cool too,” or maybe “I never would have guessed.” Part of me had hoped my macho masculinity was hiding my inner feelings and coming out was something that would shock the hell out of people, even a guy whose dick I’d sucked. Naturally, I’d been called faggot a couple times in school too, maybe mostly on the bus. I assumed every male had been at least once, probably a lot of girls too. That never bugged me as much as ugly.