by Daryl Banner
“What?” she blurts, annoyed.
“It smells like me down here.”
“So?”
“There’s a whole lot of me going on down here.”
“Dmitri, are you gonna do me or not? I have a class in an hour.”
Well, I’ve had worse sexual experiences, like that time I jerked so hard that my balls went numb.
I plummet in with abandon, my tongue darting out, running the flat of it up her pussy lips. She moans her approval up above, which encourages me despite the offputting taste. I grip her thighs for support, teasing her with my tongue.
“Good, good,” she moans. “Yes, mmm … yes.”
“Mmm,” I moan, casting deliberate vibrations into her.
Her muscles tense in response.
Then I get an idea. I jut out my tongue and start to fuck her with it, pushing and pulling with a deep, steady rhythm. Her whole body rocks with me, pushed and pulled by my strength.
I hear a bang, then a grunt. I hear another bang, another grunt.
“Fuck, Dmitri! Stop!”
I rise up from between her legs. “What?”
“My head! Fucking! Hit! Your headboard!”
“Sorry?”
“Just go back to fucking me, please.”
I climb back up from the abyss of Hell—er, I mean, her pussy—and I bring my semi-hard dick to it. I give it a few hearty strokes, trying to revive it back to a fully hard state.
“Seriously?” she murmurs, watching.
“Sorry. I got a lot on my mind. What with trying not to breathe. And with giving my girlfriend a concussion. And—”
Riley’s off the bed in the next instant, gripping her pants with fury and pulling them up so hard, I hear something tear. Then she pulls on her bra, her top, and tucks her shoes under an arm, heading for the door with vigor.
“Riley?” I call out. “Where are you—?”
I hear the door to the apartment slam shut with such force, the walls seem to shake.
To my utter dissatisfaction, I find Eric lying on the couch when I make it out of the bedroom. He has his earbuds in and he’s staring at a tablet, so presumably he didn’t hear anything. Oh, who am I kidding? Eric is a worm. He hears every damn thing that happens between these walls.
I attempt to ignore his existence and the too-tight maroon pants he’s wearing, ambling to the kitchen to make myself a snack before class. Staring at the pantry, I can’t think of a single thing I want to eat. I smack my lips, still tasting her on them, which ruins my appetite.
“Just end it already,” moans Eric.
I smirk and give him side-eye. “Riley and I are fine. She’s just … particular sometimes.”
“The bedroom isn’t a place for particularity.”
“Says the homo with the revolving door for a bedroom. Dude, get your sneakers off the couch, please,” I complain.
He ignores me, swiping something away on his tablet.
Just when I return to the pantry, he adds, “Riley adores me.”
I roll my eyes. “Of course she does. She’s like … a gay magnet. And I’m sure you adore her. She sends every gay guy she meets your way.”
“Jealous?”
“Hardly.” I decide on a cup of Easy Mac, then feel my stomach roil disagreeably.
Maybe the trouble is, my mind is so preoccupied with the fifty-thousand word short novel I’m supposed to finish by the end of my senior year that my own life is crumbling to pieces from neglect. That’s what happens when I’m trudging through the creative fire. Everything and everyone squats in a distant back burner position while my mind works and wrestles to create a world within my brain, a world I somehow have to convey with just words. Maybe Riley is acting out because she senses my withdrawal, not understanding that it isn’t her who’s causing my distance; it’s my agonizing writer’s block.
I think.
“You ever hear back from your sister?” Eric asks lazily. “Did she survive her first day?”
I’m still wondering if I’m going to survive my own.
“I suspect she did. She didn’t really message me back. I guess she’s got herself some new friends, or else she just doesn’t want to do lunch anymore.”
“You and I can do lunch. Just ‘cause I’m not a student anymore doesn’t mean we can’t still—”
“Nah.”
“You seriously need some help with Riley, dude. She kinda spilled all over me about you two on the way home.”
I stare at the back of his head on the couch, indignant at once. “Why would she talk to you about us? The fuck did she tell you?”
“Everything.”
I feel my insides harden. “And what did you tell her?”
Eric snorts, then twists his body to look up from the couch at me. “I already learned my mistake the first time about blabbing, so I pretty much just listened.”
“Oh, how noble,” I say, my eyes narrowing.
“But what I heard … oh, boy. She really doesn’t know that you’re bi, does she?”
I sigh and fold my arms. I don’t know if this part of me will ever be something that people can just accept. It’s always in the way. It’s always there. It’s always a part of me people must know or not know. Why can’t it be private, like the size of my cock, or whether I have loads of body hair under my clothes, or whether I have a third nipple? Can’t it just be my own business until I bother to take off my clothes and make it someone else’s?
“It’s never come up,” I tell him. “It literally makes no difference.”
“To you it doesn’t.”
“What’s your point, Eric?”
“Tell her. You know she’s got a big kinky streak in her. Maybe she’ll even be turned on by it. She loves gay guys. The more you lure the rebel out of her, the closer you two will get, guaranteed. Just lure it out.”
“Or she’ll leave me.”
“Just lure it right out, baby.”
“What did she say?” I press on, sick of Eric’s insufferably cocky and know-it-all demeanor. “About her and I?”
Eric’s eyes turn soft, and then he folds his arms and props them up on the back of the couch, facing me. “You used to be more romantic with her. You used to take her out, wine and dine her. She thinks you take her for granted now.”
“She said that to you?”
“You need to tickle her pickle. And you need to put on the glam. And tell her you’re a raging bisexual.” Eric winks, then rights himself on the couch and flips on the TV. Ambient noise from the cable fills the apartment for the first time in days.
I bite my lip, frustrated. Riley and I have a special day coming up, if she even remembers. It was a focal point of an argument we had, which almost seems like a faded dream by now. Maybe my history with Sam, secret number three, isn’t the thing I ought to worry on. Maybe it’s my unnamed secret number four, the fact that her new gay bestie Eric went down on me two Valentine’s ago and I enjoyed it more than just a straight frat guy getting a drunken bro-job in the dark.
Somehow, I doubt she’ll find that as kinky as Eric thinks.
Chapter 22
Sam
The cordless dorm phone rings on the desk in front of me. I barely hear it because of the glorious musical magic that’s coming from my boyfriend Tomas’s bassoon and his infinitely skillful fingers.
Just kidding. I’m dying a slow death. “Hello?” I answer the phone.
“Hey.”
It’s Dmitri. My insides sink with relief. “Hey, Dmitri.”
“How’re you doing?” he asks over a coarse C# that Tomas hits.
“I’m suffering in Hell,” I answer.
“What?”
“I said everything is swell.”
“Oh. Great, cool. Um … yeah. I’m sorta in a rut right now. I thought maybe you could help me sort through it.”
My posture straightens. I bite the inside of my cheek, listening.
“See,” he goes on, “Riley’s and my anniversary is coming up. And, like, I want to do
something really cool for her. The thing is … well, I mean, she’s just not a fan of anything. And everything I think of, I can already hear her complaining about it, or asking why I didn’t do something else, or—”
“Who’s that?” cuts in Tomas, stopping his bassoon-playing.
I press the phone to my chest. “It’s Dmitri. You can keep playing.”
I can’t believe I just told him to keep playing.
“Alright,” he grunts, then hits a low G that turns my stomach over.
“You’re probably busy,” mutters Dmitri. “I’d normally call Brant about this sort of stuff, or shoot Clayton some texts, but—”
“I wouldn’t recommend either of them for advice on peculiar women. What about Eric?” I suggest.
“Last person I’d want to ask is him,” moans Dmitri. “I really miss that Bailey guy. He was so sweet and laidback. Eric was such a better person around him. Why are gay guys so adored by women? Maybe Riley should just date him instead.”
“I know what you mean,” I say back. “You know about my two gay uncles. My guncles. Everyone adores them without question … except my grandma Lou, but it’s only because she caught Uncle Ty doing his husband in the laundry room. He loves telling that story at Christmas time if you get enough eggnog in him.”
“Remind me to spend Christmas with you,” teases Dmitri.
My heart flutters at that statement. Or maybe it’s the abhorrently long note Tomas is playing right now and my heart is trying to thump its way out of my chest to run away screaming.
“My sister, who was supposed to have lunch with me, apparently doesn’t need my companionship at all. She hasn’t texted me once since she moved into the dorms. I guess she’s too cool for me now.” Dmitri chuckles dryly. “Anyway. Wanna do lunch tomorrow or something?”
“Yes,” I say right away. “Can Tomas come along? He’s going to get crabby if I don’t invite him too.”
Tomas stops playing. “What?”
“I said we’re going to get crabs,” I tell him, cupping a hand over the phone. “Lunch tomorrow. Dmitri and I. Want to come?”
Tomas’s face recoils. “I’m allergic to shellfish.”
I know. “Oh.”
He returns to playing, his tiny lips wrapping around the end of the bassoon. His eyes squint and he blows out a B flat.
“So it’s just us?” Dmitri confirms.
“Yep. See you then. I’d better, uh … get to finishing up this thing I got before class tomorrow.”
“Sure. Thanks, Sam. Can always count on you.” Then, he hangs up.
I stare at the phone for a long while, considering my situation. I fight an urge to call Dessie, who is always the first person I try to get ahold of when I’m in any sort of mental fix. She never sounds annoyed or put off by my calls, but I feel like I’m annoying her nonetheless. I guess it’s my own insecurity.
I’m so absorbed in my thoughts, I don’t even realize Tomas stopped playing and he’s at the door saying something to me. “What?” I blurt.
“I’m going down to the cafeteria to get a bite. Hungry?”
I purse my lips in thought, then shake my head.
“Love you,” he says sweetly, then closes the door behind him.
I move from my desk and sit cross-legged in the middle of the room on the rough, ugly grey carpet. There is no music playing. There are no voices or instruments filling the air. There’s not even the stirring of the air conditioning, or the hum of a computer, or the buzz of a TV. I’m surrounded by brilliant, beautiful, wonderful silence.
And sometimes, in a rare moment, it’s just this kind of utter silence a musician like me needs to feel any true peace.
Until my boyfriend reenters the room abruptly, his face dour.
I look up. “Forget something?” I ask him.
“You didn’t say it back.”
I blink. “Say what?”
“I love you.”
Didn’t I say it? Or had I forgotten?
“Don’t say it,” he mutters suddenly, then makes to leave.
“Why?”
My one word stops him. He turns to look at me like a puppy who’s been denied a bone. His eyes seem to droop and he slouches, his whole demeanor changing from the perkiness of before.
And then he does something very unexpected.
I stare at his face as it melts in front of me. “Um, Tomas …?”
The tears won’t stop. He’s turning into water, melting away, and his lip quivers like a child’s.
I realize in this moment that I’ve never seen Tomas cry before.
I’m on my feet suddenly, pulling him into the room and letting the door close heavily. “What’s wrong?” I ask, leading him to my bed. The springs creak under his weight. “Is it, um … that assignment you were, uh, assigned? I told you we could do it together.”
“No, w-w-w-we can’t,” he gets out through his sobs.
I frown and rub his back. There’s a lot of space to cover, what with his tall shape and all; it’s an exhausting effort, truthfully, but I comfort him the best I can. Music assignments really stress Tomas out. When it comes to understanding music, Tomas is a pro. But when it comes to actually composing it, the talent does not seem to come naturally for him, I’ve been pained to observe. He does research for weeks before he even jots down the first note. It nearly drives him insane, the creative process.
I would never say this out loud, but I often wonder whether he’s a musician at all, in nearly every sense of the word. He hears no music; he only hears shapes and scales and techniques. He doesn’t tear up with joy when a song reaches its climax; he simply notes how effectively the chords resolved and whether or not it’s a direct influence from China’s Communist Revolution of 1949.
Does he employ this same sort of literalism to romance? Am I just his girlfriend because I fit a certain set of criteria that his brain finds acceptable? Will we ever hear the music … together?
Forgive my nauseating parallel.
It’s just that it’s so fitting. I have dreams where I’m conducting an orchestra playing my first symphony in London and Tomas is in the front row—with an enormous desk set up, a humming computer, and a buzzing printer spitting out numbers and figures that make no sense.
I’m losing sleep over this.
“Well, I don’t mean I’ll do the assignment for you,” I clarify sweetly. “I just meant that music is … sometimes easier with two sets of ears.”
“Not when the e-e-ears hear d-different things.” He wipes his eyes forcefully with the back of a wrist like a grumpy ogre, flecking my arm with his tears.
I stare at my arm where the tear landed. I can’t see anything. Maybe I imagined it.
“I don’t understand,” I murmur softly, soothingly.
“Yes you do,” he growls under his breath, utterly not soothed.
I give his back some more rubbing. “You think we hear differently? I guess I can see what you mean. Our composing styles clash at times, sure. I’m a bit more chaotic. You’re disciplined. But we can grow and really learn from that.” Suddenly, out of nowhere, I’m talking from my heart. This might be the most open I’ve been with Tomas. “I’ve … never truly heard a bassoon before. I’ve judged it all my life. But I also never knew the discipline, skill, and pacing that can be employed when you write music. I’ve learned from you. There’s something very … calming about knowing that my chords can always find a way to resolve. You showed me that. No matter how complicated the music gets, chords can find their way home. Even when my own songs get … well …”
“Complex as f-f-fuck,” he finishes for me.
I chuckle under my breath, rubbing his back some more. His tears have stopped. I suppose that’s a good sign. “You taught me how to resolve my chaos,” I conclude for him. “You changed me as a composer forever, Tomas.”
“But that’s all this—” He cuts himself off abruptly, his eyes shut.
I frown. My hand stills on his back. But that’s all this …? What was he ab
out to say?
“Are you creatively frustrated?” I ask him, fishing.
I’m so in denial, I can’t even appreciate it with my usual wit.
“No,” he moans.
“Are you overwhelmed with how many hours you have? I mean, our senior year’s only just begun. Maybe you need to drop a class?”
I’m actively avoiding where I think he’s going with this. I’ve never played dumb this much in my life, and I can’t explain why. I’m turning a cheek to the cold, angry elephant in the room, including its pointy, deadly tusks as they aim for my heart.
He sniffles really loudly, startling me, then says, “This … isn’t w-w-working for me …”
I blink. With my hand on his back, he won’t leave me. I’m sure of it. I’m keeping him perfectly in place with my light-as-a-marshmallow hand on his long, bony back. “My living arrangement?” I ask softly. “I wasn’t sure about rooming with Victoria at first, either, but she knew Dessie, and she took a year off of school, so I just thought that—”
“And it’s okay,” he states suddenly, continuing his sentence as if I’d never spoken. His eyes are trained on the wall across the room, wet and reddened by his tears. “It’s okay. It’s better, I think. And I do think. I’ve thought a lot about this.”
“A lot about … what?”
“This past summer.”
Tomas and I saw each other two or three times, tops. I was working at the movie theater forty-five hours a week in my new coveted position of “concession crew leader”. I had vest-and-bowtie-wearing sixteen-and-seventeen-year-old minions at my disposal for three solid months while I brought home fifty cents more an hour than I did the previous year.
He didn’t come stay with me like he did during the winter break. In fact, there was an eerie absence of him over the summer holidays. Many times, I caught myself forgetting I had a boyfriend at all. Is that awful? Even my mom stopped asking about him, like he was just going to pop in for dinner someday and stay for another week or two.
Klangburg seems to be the only glue that keeps us together. Classes. Music building. Compositions. Our little trysts in the piano rooms. Until now, I avoided seeing that very fact, thinking that perhaps this is how all relationships are. Maybe it’s just a series of meeting places and eating together and sleeping in the same bed.