Boy Midflight

by Charlie David

  A ripe pear spilling juice out the corners of my mouth.

  I feel Ferni’s strong hands pulling me in tighter, our chests and stomachs pressed together. My hands travel up his back and hold tight. Damn, he is a really good kisser. He slips a knee between my thighs, and the sensation of our naked legs touching makes me vocalize my appreciation. “Mmmmm…,” I say as his tongue whips around my mouth. I sink a little and sit resting on his knee, turning my face up so as not to lose his lips.

  He gives me a little squeeze, signaling we’ll end it now, and I bite his lower lip. Holding it there between my teeth, I can’t help but smile as I open my eyes. He smiles too and I release him. We start laughing, and I push my weight on him, causing him to fall backward onto the bed. I lean in to his ear and whisper, “Pretty good for a straight boy!”

  I rise and sit on the edge of the bed where Tony brings me my robe. Ferni is soon seated by my side. “So, was that weird for you?” I ask.

  “What?”

  “Kissing me?”

  “Not really, I said I’ve done it before, right? No big deal, it’s been a while, though.”

  I laugh at his offhandedness. “Thanks for coming. You wanna grab a beer after we’re done here?”

  “Love to, Ashley, but I’m meeting Chelsea tonight. She’s driving up from San Diego to spend a couple days. You’re welcome to hang out with us, though.”

  “No thanks. You get your groove on, buddy,” I say, focusing my attention on kicking the sand.

  “I bet someone else would love to spend the evening with you.” Fernando bumps my shoulder.

  “Who’s that?”

  “Mikal. Look, I know he kind of freaked out today, but that wasn’t about you. I’m sure of it. He loves you, man. He looks at you like there’s nothing more important in the whole world. Don’t you see that?”

  “That wasn’t exactly the message I got this afternoon.” I look out at the dark blue water.

  “He’s nervous, that’s all. Ashley, you’re a really confident guy with a lot going for you. It can be intimidating. People can be scared of that.”

  “Are you joking? I’m a mess! And it’s not like I’m in the company of anyone who should feel intimidated anyway. Look at you: gorgeous, funny, amazing with women. Look at Mikal: a Greek god and so smart and kind…,” I say, my heart breaking just thinking about him. “Ferni, how come you don’t care? You’re not embarrassed to be with guys, but you’re straight. How does that work?”

  “Well, it’s not like I think guys are disgusting. I think most people get curious at some point in their life. I tried it. Found it’s not too bad at all if the person you’re with knows what they’re doing. I just like girls better. I’m not ashamed of having been with guys, though. In the end I think love is love, doesn’t matter between who.”

  SEXUAL PREFERENCE is a weird thing. To me now girls are just too soft and pretty and unpredictable. I can appreciate their beauty but I don’t really want to be naked around them. Actually, they kind of freak me out. When girls get too close, I get scared. Hugging is one thing, but as soon as they start tickling my back or rubbing against me or flirting I start to bug out. I think it’s partly just that I don’t really know how to deal with it. Like am I supposed to stop and say, “Hold that thought, I’m gay.” I usually just wiggle my way out of those situations, which probably leaves them thinking, “He must be gay.”

  Whatever, I don’t care. Just as long as they keep their eyes away. Girls’ eyes make my skin crawl when they look flirtatiously at me. Makes me want to run. Kind of like on Roger Rabbit when “Crazy Jessica Rabbit” chases the detective all around Toon Town. Like that. With her googly eyes and sloppy lips flappin’ in the wind.

  But give me a man, strong with a bristly jaw, and I melt. Give me a man who looks like he could beat me up. To each their own.

  “So does this mean I can grab your ass and you’ll be giving me good night kisses from now on, Ferni?” I ask as I close the door to the trailer behind us.

  “Not if you want to walk tomorrow. After me your ass would be sore for weeks,” he says, laughing as he slips the robe off his shoulders, letting it fall on one of the director chairs. I remove mine and throw it on top, crossing to the fruit basket.

  “Here, play with these,” I say, tossing two plums and a banana at Ferni. He catches them and starts to juggle, the banana twisting in eccentric loops as it is caught and tossed. “Nice, I knew you had practice.”

  “Wait! Watch this!” With that devilish grin plastered across his face, he tosses one plum up and holds open the front of his boxer briefs. As the plum descends, he throws the second up. Plop! Plop! With some fancy hip maneuvers, the plums land in his drawers. Shoving the banana in front like an engorged phallus, he starts to dance around like a Chippendales boy. He flexes his biceps and turns his back to me, shaking his ass. He shimmies over to the fruit basket and grabs a pineapple. “Blue twenty-two. Green seventy-eight. Red seventeen! Hut hut!” He dekes left and right, looking far out over the imaginary football field with the pineapple held over one shoulder. “Go long, Ashley, go long!”

  I mock run to the back of the trailer, and the pineapple spirals out of Ferni’s hand in slow motion. I catch the spiky fruit, cradling it into my bare chest. Ferni is on me, now taking on the role of the defensive.

  “Ahhh!” he yells as he slams his shoulder into my waist, sending me flying onto my back on the bed of the trailer. The pineapple rolls out of my grasp across the bedspread and plops on the floor. Fernando pounces on top of me, pinning me down with his weight by sitting on my hips with the banana and plums squishing against my stomach. Grabbing my wrists, he swats my own hands against my face. “Stop hitting yourself! Stop hitting yourself!” he taunts like a bullying twelve-year-old.

  “Let me go!” I yell, thrashing around, trying to dislodge him. Stronger than me, Ferni just continues laughing as he pins my wrists to the pillow over my head.

  “Are you ticklish?” he asks, one hand with dancing fingers poised in the air. I bet he was a demon to his siblings. His hand plunges to my armpits and stomach with terrifying intensity.

  “Don’t, Ferni! Don’t! A-ha-ha. Ha!’ The tears start rolling down my face, and he pushes his weight harder onto me, driving his banana phallus against my stomach. I feel wet there, the plums discharging their sticky juice on my legs. It drips down the inside of my thighs. Fernando is relentless in his tickling, his face a mask of pure glee.

  “You want the real thing, don’t you, Ashley?” he growls throatily in my ear. Shades of Jeremy. He drives his hips against me. One pump. Two. Then reaches into his shorts and grabs the plums. He crushes them in his right fist and then slams them against my chest. Rubbing them down over my stomach and up through my armpit to my wrist, leaving a sticky trail behind them.

  “Ferni, enough. Get off of me,” I plead. Tossing the plums to the ground, he leans back slightly, his left arm still holding mine to the mattress, and pulls the elastic of his underwear open, revealing the banana emerging from a tuft of dark curls beside his own engorged member.

  “You wanna play with it?” Ferni asks, this time laying the real McCoy against my stomach. “Come on, Mikal will never know. Just two buddies fooling around, that’s all.”

  “Ferni, we’ve fooled around enough. Let me go!”

  “What if I don’t? What if I flip you over right now and give you what you know you want?” Ferni says, sitting back on me.

  “Fernando, get off. Now.” My voice is low and with conviction this time. Lifting his left leg over me, he flops down next to me, propping himself up with one arm.

  “Ashley, I was just fuckin’ with you. Just rubbing sticks together.”

  “Yeah, rubbing sticks causes fire, Ferni,” I say, seeing him return to his jocular self, the gleam faded from his dark eyes. Resting his head on a crooked arm, he studies me.

  “What are you afraid of?”

  “What do you mean?” I ask, turning on my side to face him. His voice so gentle and eyes i
mploring like a best friend whispering across the pillow at a sleepover.

  “What do you run to and away from? My grandma used to say more people are running from hell than towards heaven.”

  “I guess I’m scared of being alone, that I’ll never find the One. That I’m trying so hard to grow up fast that I’ll miss meeting him on the way. And I’m afraid of what I like,” I say, searching his eyes for understanding.

  “What do you mean?” Ferni asks, pulling his pillow closer in conspiracy.

  “I mean I’m scared of my sexuality. I think I’ve felt bad about sex all growing up, especially when I allowed myself to imagine sex with a guy. I see it like a big black hole I’m scared to fall into because I could never climb out.”

  “Ashley, it’s okay to be sexual. It’s okay to want to have sex, even with a man. It’s not weird or anything to be ashamed of.”

  “I know. I keep trying to tell myself that. I just don’t know how to fit this lifestyle into the one I always imagined, complete with a picket fence.”

  “Number one—it doesn’t fit and neither do you. So mourn it, grieve it, whatever you need to do, but move on. You can’t tell me you’d be truly happy in that situation anyway. You belong in a flat in New York or a home in the Hollywood Hills. You make your own destiny and it is what you create. Color it with your own brush strokes, not someone else’s.”

  I sigh and contemplate his words. He’s right. A life without adventure and uniqueness would drive me nuts. “Tell me about your first time,” I say, meeting Fernando’s eyes, searching to understand him. Ferni smiles, rolls onto his back, and sighs. He just looks at the trailer’s roof for a while as if the story he’s about to share is being written there.

  “I WAS fourteen, growing up in Puerto Rico. My family is pretty well off. Even though there’s a middle class, it seems like everyone gets divided into being thought of as either rich or poor. As a boy I loved to race home after school, hoping each day might be the one my dad arrived home from one of his extended business trips. At that time, I didn’t even know what he did, only that he was away more than not.

  “Our housekeeper, Valentina, would always have warm flatbread with cinnamon and brown sugar waiting for me when I ran through the door. It was with Valentina that I did my homework and shared the highlights of my day. My mother couldn’t be bothered. If she weren’t accompanying my father on his trips, she would go into bed for days on account of ‘exhaustion.’ Glenlivet and aspirin set on the bed trays of food I carried with such deliberate care up the spiral staircase to her room. She’d pat my right cheek twice, saying, ‘You’re such a good boy.’ Then she’d push the eggs or soup to the far end of the tray and reach for the glass of amber liquid. This was often the extent of our conversations. That day was different.

  “‘Fernando, here, take this money and go with Ricki into town. Buy more bougainvillea for the hanging pots on the back patios.’ My mother, a girl saved from poverty by my father, now treated her own people like common thieves. She felt it foolish to hand money unattended to a common gardener like Ricki. I stuffed the bills in my pocket and bounded down the stairs, through the kitchen, waving to Valentina, and out the back door to the garden. The grass was deep and green, shimmering from a recent drink from the timed sprinklers. The roses were in full bloom and hung heavily on their stems.

  “The tool shed was across the far lawn and seemed disguised as part of the garden itself. Morning Glories climbed clear up to the roof, and white latticework leaned against its walls. In the spring I had sat patiently for twenty minutes as the Morning Glory slowly wrapped a tendril around my outstretched pinky finger. Like a python, slowly squeezing.

  “The ‘shed’ served a dual purpose. It housed the garden tools and machines, including the ride-on mower, leaf blower, and power washer as well as Ricki, the sixteen-year-old gardener. The shed was split in two halves by a drywall-covered plywood wall. Ricki lived in the left side and our gardening tools were stored in the right. I don’t remember when he came to work or started living back there, but I do recall him bent over the roses, his bronzed back glistening with a light sheen of sweat.

  “I walked up to the door of the shed to knock. It was open so I went inside. Tools were hung neatly on C hooks lining the walls. My soccer ball lay on a workbench on top of some gloves, the fingers black with soil. I turned to the door to my left. I’d never been on that side of the shed before. I knocked on the door lightly. ‘Ricki?’

  “No answer.

  “A burning curiosity rose in me. I placed my hand on the doorknob and turned, pushing it open slowly, entering with my eyes first. Releasing my hand, I turned it over to see it blackened slightly. Greased fingerprints dulled the light spilling onto the faux brass knob. A twin bed was pushed against the far wall with a blue comforter. The bed was neatly made, and above it was a bookshelf fashioned from a two-foot piece of two-by-six lumber and little wire hangers. Seven well-worn paperbacks stood against the wall, looking lonely even on the two-foot shelf. A pair of boots sat facing me on a crate by the bed. A cloth and some black Kiwi polish were strewn in front on the floor. A thin blue woven rag mat covered the center of the room, and its edges met the clean concrete floor.

  “No windows.

  “And no dresser. Clothes were folded neatly along the wall adjacent to the bed. Some T-shirts, shorts, two pairs of jeans, a gray dress shirt with a purple tie lying on top. That was all.

  “‘Fernando? What are you doing in here?’

  “I’m sure I visibly shook. His voice startled me, and I was trespassing in his bedroom. ‘I came to get you. I—we’re supposed to go to town to get bougainvillea.’

  “Ricki stood in the doorway in dirty cut-off jeans. His dark eyes perused me, scolding and curious at once. I reached into my pocket to feel for the money my mother had given me, and I felt myself getting hard. I was staring at his stomach and the trail of dark curly hair that rose out of his jeans and spread itself thinly across his chest. He closed the door behind him and crossed to where I was standing by his bed. Placing his hand on my shoulder, he said, ‘You know, you left your soccer ball in the roses yesterday.’

  “‘Yeah, I saw it on the work bench,’ I stammered, smelling his deodorant working overtime against the heat.

  “‘Just let me change and then we’ll go to town, okay, Fernando?’ He said it so casually as he stood right there in front of me and unzipped the jean shorts. His thick flaccid cock fell out as he started to pull them down. That’s what was missing from the piles of folded clothes. Underwear, he didn’t wear any. I think he smiled at me, but I didn’t notice. I was staring unashamed at Ricki’s cock. It was a man’s. I had already grown hair on my own, but this was a full-grown man’s. As I stared it started to swell, lengthen, and stand up straight. Fully doubling itself in size. ‘Come here,’ he said, and I obeyed. He pulled me to him and put gentle pressure on my shoulders, forcing me to my knees. He took himself in one hand and slapped it against my face. With his free hand, he grabbed the back of my head and he forced the head of his penis against my lips. I didn’t resist. Strange feeling in my stomach, rising and falling.

  “Ricki would suck me and take me and once even let me take him. Looking back, I don’t know who was more at fault. I kept going back day after day after school to spend time in that little shed. This went on for almost a year or so it seemed, and the whole time I never came. I didn’t know you were supposed to because he never did either. Then one day I had my pants around my ankles and was lying on top of him on his bed. I was humping his butt, not entering, just between the cheeks. Suddenly I felt this heat rising in my stomach, this feeling like I’d never felt before. I yelled out because with every pump I reached a new level of ecstasy. He reached behind and grabbed the back of my thighs. That was it. A force from my bottom shot through me, and sticky liquid stuck between my chest and his back, and some rested on the bottom of my chin.

  “‘What the hell? I’m so sorry, I think I pissed on you.’ I got up, totally embarra
ssed and unsure what was covering my chest. Ricki turned and laughed at me. Rising, he grabbed my face in both hands and sucked my chin, the bristle of his young beard scratching my cheek. He kissed me deep, pushing his tongue into my mouth.

  “‘That was cum, Fernando. Man juice. Welcome to manhood. Kneel down.’ I obeyed and he started pulling himself and slapping it against my face. When he was really hard he shoved it in my mouth, down my throat. I gagged. He wrapped his hands around my neck and pulsed his hips. His fingers slowly tightening like the tendrils of the Morning Glory. He hit the roof of my mouth and pierced my throat repeatedly as my nose was buried in the deep curls of his pubic hair. His hands continued to tighten dangerously around my throat, crushing my Adam’s apple. I lifted my eyes to see him tighten his chest and grit his teeth. He moaned and hot, thick liquid spilled into my mouth, pushed unwillingly down my throat by his shaft.

  “Salty. Like the little rivulets of salt water spilling down my face. I couldn’t breathe. He was filling my mouth and the Morning Glories squeezed my neck. I tried to inhale through my nose buried against his groin. Salty. He pulled out and traced his cock across my cheek, leaving a smear of cum.

  “‘Fuck you.’ I spit, still choking on his seed as I bolted out of the shed.”

  CROSSING HIS left hand over his chest, clenching his shoulder, Fernando turns from me, facing the wall. I reach over and rub his arm. “Ferni, I’m sorry.” He doesn’t say anything in response, just nods. I move in close and hug him from behind. No words are needed, just comfort. His back is warm against my chest as I run my fingers through his hair. “It’s okay, it wasn’t your fault.”

  He rolls over slowly and faces me, his eyes a little wet. “Ashley, I’m sorry for earlier. I don’t know what I was doing. Sometimes I don’t know how to express what I’m feeling so I fuck it up.”

  “It’s okay. We’re lucky to have each other as friends here. Let’s keep it that way, huh?” I say, continuing to run my hand through his hair.