by Daryl Banner
And right when you think you’re there, you hear your roommate yelling in the kitchen: “There is no humanly way to get a boner with everything smelling like pickles!”
Way to ruin my momentum, Brant.
After too much additional shouting passes, I frustratedly push out of bed, my boner halfway gone anyway, and rip open the door to find Brant and Eric squared off near the kitchen counter where nothing but an out-of-its-package unexplained condom rests.
“What the hell?” I call out to them, annoyed. “Can you two keep it down? I’m trying to sleep.”
Yeah. Sleep. Sure, Dmitri.
Eric stares at me from across the living room. The dull expression on his face and his half-lidded eyes say it all: I’m just his roommate and nothing more. Maybe I was always just a piece of meat to him. I’m just a guy he blew on a couch, and apparently there’s now some new boy who’s hanging around for more than just one night. Lucky Eric.
“It’s almost noon,” Brant retorts, his face wrinkling up.
I glare at him. “Exactly!”
I slam shut my door and twist the lock with vigor, then drop onto my bed and stare down at my gym shorts I slept in, which no longer sport a perky tent of my cock. After all that work chasing the perfect orgasm, I earn none.
The frustration of this morning might be the very reason for what happens next.
I had pulled a tab from a flyer a week ago to join this Wednesday night workshop where a bunch of creative writing majors get together with a professor in the intimate, half-lit lounge in the English building to discuss current works-in-progress. I haven’t gone before, but figured tonight was as good as any to start. Its members read each other’s pieces, sharing them with the group and offering feedback. Apparently we are also allowed to just attend and learn writing techniques if we want, or use the workshop to brainstorm and work through plot issues with other frustrated writers.
I show up right after the sun sets sometime after eight expecting to find twelve people with questionable hygiene who look like they get out of their writing cubbies twice a year. And that’s exactly what I get.
With the sole, staggering exception of her.
She is a sweet-faced blonde girl with cherry lips and creamy, smooth skin. She wears a cute white peasant top and jeans with boots, giving her a country girl vibe. Her eyes are on me the moment I arrive for the first Wednesday, and when we go around the table to introduce ourselves, I notice her playing with a lock of hair that comes down in front of her ear. When I meet her eyes, she smiles.
She’s making it really easy; I know she’s into me, and I know she’d make moves if I catch myself alone with her. Despite her daddy’s-good-girl vibe, there is something very animal about the hunger in her eyes.
Her name is Riley.
After two hours of sharing, reading, and critique, we break and call it a night, and she’s at my side at once. “I really liked your piece.”
I give her a polite smile, then shrug heavily. “It’s just a thing I’ve been working on. Totally unfinished, obviously.”
“I like the title. The Donor. It sounds so … ominous. But I think the story is very sweet.” She really tastes that last word, like it’s as sugary as the seemingly cherry taste of her lips promises to be.
“Thanks.”
She props her hands up on the table behind her, which does something pretty amazing to the little breasts she’s got pushed up by a tight bra, I presume. “I mean, where did you come up with that?” she asks softly. “A dead man comes back to life and searches for the person his heart was donated to because he wants it back. I mean, it’s creepy,” she adds with a deep Texan twang and a little giggle, “but I gotta say, now and then, I really go for the darker stuff. I … like it.” Her eyes scan down my body, sizing me up as her face straightens. “Gotta keep an open mind, right?”
I smile appreciatively again, then stuff my hands in my pockets like I’m trying to hide them. “An open mind lets in the creativity,” I mutter.
The hell did I just say? I sound like a daily motivation calendar.
She doesn’t seem to care, too busy tilting her head to the side cutely and letting her hair fall in just the right way to make me picture doing things to her. She smells good, too. I really should’ve gotten off this morning; I’m too pent up for my own good.
“So you’re not even done with it yet, huh?”
I shake my head. “Story needs an ending.”
She nods casually, her eyes drifting to my chest. Then, after a moment of thought, she asks, “Has someone gone and run off with your heart?”
I smirk, averting my gaze. Everyone else has left, and it’s just us. The lighting, which originally was just dim and moody, now seems to create a strangely intimate atmosphere, like a candlelit dinner for two or the hearth of a woodsy log cabin.
“I take that as a yes,” murmurs Riley thoughtfully. “That’s okay. We’re all allowed our secrets, aren’t we?”
I smile, thankful she isn’t pressing me for an answer. Besides, I’m not entirely sure I have one for her. “What’s yours?” I ask her, deciding to bite her baited hook.
“My secret? Oh, I have none. I’m a totally open book.” She hugs the binder from which she read a short story of her own earlier, a piece about a girl in the country and a farm hand she can’t keep her eyes off of. It was very simple, a romance, but didn’t carry a lot of depth to me. I wouldn’t tell her that, though. I have a hard time criticizing others’ work, especially when I feel so insecure about my own at times.
“Totally open book. Are we making writer puns?” I swing my backpack over my shoulder.
“I’m not really a fan of puns,” she admits. “But I am a fan of late night pasta.”
Random. “Ah. Nice. Some noodles to feed your … uh … noodle.” I give her a tiny smile, then nod at the door. “Well, I better get back. I’ve got an early class and … and some seriously annoying roommates to contend with.”
“Oh, okay.” Her voice carries a tinge of regret, her eyes retreating.
Unsure what else to say, I just nod at her, mumble, “See you next week,” and then head out the door.
When I’m home and Eric is cuddled up with that little sticks-and-bones kid who looks half his age on the couch, I completely ignore the pair of them and head straight to my room, then pull open the window and let the night breeze wash over my face as I pull out my notebook and start to write, old-school, with a pen to paper. The sound it makes hypnotizes me as I figure out how I want my story to end.
It only now occurs to me that I think Riley was casting out yet another fishing line at the end of our conversation. Pasta. She wanted me to ask her out for late night pasta. At least, I think that’s what she was doing. Maybe she isn’t as forward as I think and her skill begins and ends with flirting, but not with actually making the first move.
And do I want to make a move? My head spins on the daily where Eric’s concerned, and Sam is a universe away. Maybe a nice country girl like Riley is exactly what I need.
Even if I sorta picture her taking me to church in our future.
Keep an open mind. I wonder exactly how “open” a mind she figured herself to have. Is it open enough to accept my bisexuality, or would that be a big scary red flag to her?
I stop writing suddenly, my pen dropping to the notebook with a papery slap.
I never told Sam I’m bi.
She’d be okay with it, right? I mean, she’s Sam. She’s the coolest person in the world. She’d embrace every part of me.
And then I see her face that night at the theater when I kissed her and she pressed her body against mine, trying to resist me despite her continued efforts to unite our faces, lips and mouths and breath.
Then I hear her last words to me, saying we should just be friends.
It’s better for everyone. But is it?
There’s a soft knock at my door. My ass is on the windowsill with a leg folded up, my notebook in my lap as I write. “Come in,” I call out, flip
ping my notebook shut like I’m guarding company secrets.
Eric’s head pops in. His face looks oddly calm. “Hey, man. Don’t mean to bother you, but, uh …”
“Just writing,” I say, giving my notebook a wiggle.
“Good, good. Nice. Let the muses flow.” He presses his lips together into a straight line, then says, “So Brant kinda proposed I suck him off. In a word or two. With my friend on the couch.”
“Friend?” My voice betrays a bit of my inner judgment. It’s funny how that’s the thing I react to, and not Brant casually offering to be the recipient of Eric’s special brand of fellatio.
“Well, yeah.” Eric’s response is annoyingly light. “I mean, he’s kind of young. But he’s totally adorable and—”
“That’s good,” I say, returning my attention to the closed notebook in my lap.
Eric shifts his weight from one leg to the other as he leans against my doorframe, staring at the side of my head. After too long a time, he says, “Brant was jokingly offering it. Yes, this guy is just a friend, because who I really have my eyes set on is a guy with, like, the prettiest brown hair I’ve ever seen. Ugh, and his eyes. Beaming. Plus I came to ask you where you keep your lube.”
If I had any attraction to Eric, he is systematically setting fire to every fiber of it until there’s nothing left. “I don’t have any.”
“Don’t hold out on me. C’mon, mister masturbation fiend. I have a gay-mergency. My friend might put out. I don’t know yet.”
I frown and look up, tilting my head to get a look around Eric’s body toward the living room. “You know he can hear all this, right?”
“Nah, he’s in the bathroom. ‘Freshening up’ … and you know what that means. He’s checking his teeth and his breath and adjusting his undies and making sure he’s all perfect for when I take him all apart and suck his ding-dong off.”
“Or he’s taking a big dump,” I say right back, smiling daintily. “In which case, the Febreeze is under the sink by the half-empty bottle of bleach. Knock yourself out.”
“Thanks, jerk. I’ll ask Brant.” Eric hesitates. “On second thought, I’ll let him finish beating himself off. Listen, if you’re feeling lonely—”
“I’m not, thank you.”
“You got Brant right next door who might be willing to let you go down on him. Just saying.”
“Not interested.”
“Liar. Oh! Hi, Bailey,” Eric sings, greeting his little toy-friend who’s returned suddenly, then pulling the door shut on his way out.
I flip open the notebook and stare at the words I’ve put down. My donor wants to find his heart. He wants it back. But the person who’s got it needs it now, since it’s saving their life. He’s outside the person’s home, staring through the window and wondering why he still feels so empty when he looks on that person’s face, with his heart saving their life at the cost of his own.
Then, in staring at the person who has his heart, he starts to fall in love. But who is it? Sam? Eric? Riley? Someone else I haven’t met yet?
I can’t help but think of my life like a story, planned out the way one outlines a book. I imagine six hundred paths my life could take, and which one would fulfill me the most.
Maybe it’s a path between what feels good and what doesn’t.
Maybe it’s the grey, right in the middle of the two obvious choices, the black and white, the right and wrong, the gay and the straight.
I think of all the characters who’ve entered my life and changed me, and I wonder if Riley will be the next. Everyone is a story. My last chapter left me hungry. The next one is a big fat mystery, but I don’t know if I’m ready yet to turn the page. Everyone else has.
Chapter 16
Sam
The bracelet he gave me is made of leather, as in dead animal skin, and has two polished stones sewn in that stare up at me like eyeballs.
Like his eyeballs. Tomas is watching me no matter what I’m doing.
“I think Tomas doesn’t trust me,” I volunteer suddenly.
Chloe looks up from her honey-mustard-drenched salad. “Tomas? Trust you? Ugh. Boys.” She makes a weird spitting sound that’s not unlike a territorial cat staking her claim over a front porch. “Fucking horrible, all of them. I seriously wish I was a lesbian like my sister. Like, I’d eat so much pussy, my tongue could bench five-hundred pounds.”
Short of picturing a cartoon tongue doing just that, I sigh into my cup of water. “He hasn’t said he doesn’t. But I just get the feeling that he’s … watching me.” The leather bracelet earns a narrow-eyed glance from me. “Like, all the time.”
“Oh, did you hear from Dessie? I want her opinion on my costume design, whether I’ve gone too far with Puck or not. It’s a big deal to me,” she adds with half a frown. “With former costume guru Victoria being off on her adventure of self-discovery this year—Lord help her—I have a big burden on my shoulders and I’m breaking out in hives.”
Truth is, I haven’t spoken to Dessie since the end of the summer when she texted me pics of a piano at the bar in New York where she sang. “Made me think of you!” she wrote in the text, even being mindful enough to remember that my favorite piano is a Bösendorfer.
“No,” I answer Chloe. “No news from—”
“Dmitri!” Chloe shouts.
I flick my eyes up to her, startled. “Who?”
“Dmitri! Over here!” she calls out, waving.
It’s as if the air becomes a hand with that one name, forms five long invisible fingers, and tightens around my neck. I can’t close my mouth.
I turn, and there he is.
Dmitri Katz, wearing his signature shades of black and grey in the form of a fitted t-shirt and below-the-knee shorts. His eyes freeze me to the bone and set me on fire in the same instant with their severity and rich depth that seem to spear right through me with just a glance.
My pulse is so fast. My pits are sweating. I think I’m going blind in one eye. Is that normal? Should I dial 911 to give them a head start?
“Dmitri!” sings Chloe as he hovers near her side of the booth. Brant is next to him, who I’ve met on an occasion or two at the Throng when I went to support Dessie, but I can’t even tell you what Brant’s wearing because my whole world is Dmitri. Like, seriously, Brant could be missing his head and I wouldn’t know.
I wouldn’t care.
“Eric told me about your new story!” Chloe goes on excitedly with a level of enthusiasm that almost rings false, like the way a friend sweetly congratulates a friend they’re bitterly jealous of. “The one about the corpse organ donor lover who’s looking for his heart back. Such a beautiful, dark premise.”
When did she learn about his story? I wasn’t even aware that they talk until just now.
“Thanks, Chloe,” Dmitri says with a twitch of his full, inviting lips. Then he eyes me quickly, and a visible wave of discomfort rushes over his face, inspiring what I can only say is a very close cousin to a grimace. He nods at our table, his forehead scrunched up. “These seats aren’t taken? You sure?”
He wants Chloe to deny him. He wants to be turned away. I’m scaring him away. The last thing he wants is to sit with us.
“Nope,” chirps Chloe, helpful as ever, then scoots over to give him room on her side of the booth. Dmitri, with a skosh of reluctance, sits next to her and meekly smiles across the table at me.
I swallow hard. I don’t even notice Brant standing by my side of the table, though he hasn’t taken a seat yet. When I give him a glance—if anything but to just pull my eyes off of the sight that is Dmitri—I notice a certain discomfort in Brant’s eyes as well.
Oh yeah. Chloe and he dated a year ago. It didn’t end well.
Isn’t this the most delightfully awkward food court lunch ever?
We call this the table of broken dreams. Everyone who’s secretly or not-so-secretly hurting is totally invited. Let us all please make this as uncomfortable as possible.
Chloe is talking a lot, but I’m not h
earing any of the words. I just let my eyes drift to the table where I zero in on a single granule of salt. I suddenly imagine a score of tiny people approaching it. From their tiny eyes, the granule of salt looks like a great white mountain they must either climb or circumvent.
The tiniest of obstacles to me, the giant, Sam. It is a matter of life or death to my imaginary tiny people.
What do I do with Dmitri? Climb him? Or circumvent?
Climb him? That sounds fun.
“Hey, wait. I know you.”
The voice comes from Brant and he’s pointing right at me. I look up and blink, confused.
“You’re … no, no, don’t tell me.” Brant makes a scrunched up face, and then his eyes flash excitedly when it hits him, like this is all a game show. “You’re Dessie’s old roommate, right?”
I better try to act normal or whatever. “Yes, sir.”
“What was your name again?” he asks, squinting and extending a hand.
Dmitri stares at me from across the table. Act natural. Super natural.
“I’m Sam,” I answer over some snide remark Chloe mumbles to herself. I shake his hand, then remember another text Dessie sent me after the one with the sexy piano, which makes me add, “… antha. Ugh. Dessie wants me to use my full name. Ugh and a half.”
“I like just Sam,” says Dmitri.
I let go of Brant’s hand, my own dropping to the seat cushion with a leathery thump, and pull my eyes back onto Dmitri. His voice is just the same, and it does exactly what it always does to me: goosebumps and chills and tingles of electricity up my body.
My thighs squeeze together.
Stop it, Sam.
“I mean,” Dmitri goes on, “you seem the most comfortable with it, anyway.”
Yeah, I’m totally comfortable over here. “Thanks.” I squint at him. He wants to play smart? I can do that, too. “I like your glasses.”
Dmitri smiles at that. It’s good to see him smiling again.
“Dessie said I look better with contacts,” I hear myself adding, then drop my gaze back to the table. “My glasses are too thick and big. She also told me to just be myself. I don’t know. It’s all very confusing.”