“Are you serious?” I said. “Is that your dare?”
“It doesn’t matter if I’m serious or not,” she said. “It’s not my turn.”
“But were you serious?” I asked. “Is that what you’re thinking about?”
“Jesus,” she said. “Is all you ever do ask questions?”
“No,” I said.
“You really want to know what I’m thinking about?” she asked. “Are you sure?”
“Yes,” I told her. “Yes, I’m sure.”
“Okay,” she said. “Do you know Chris Garrett?”
I did know him.
He was a tall guy, a runner on the cross-country team. He was my age. We used to play soccer together. What else was there to know?
“Of course I do,” I said. “He’s in my class.”
Lindy took her time.
“Yummy,” she said.
I didn’t get it. Chris Garrett was neither popular nor interesting by any means of calculation that I had access to. He had short brown hair that was often neatly combed. He was in a number of honors classes, held ludicrous posts like treasurer in our student government, and was a member of something called the Fellowship of Christian Athletes. Whenever the Perkins School hosted inspirational speakers during our common hour, some ex-athlete or recovered drug addict who asked us to close our eyes and pray to the Lord if we felt comfortable doing so, Chris Garrett closed his eyes and prayed to the Lord and looked comfortable. He was so pure, so harmless, that I’d never before thought to hate him.
Now, of course, I would have to.
“Why are you thinking about him?” I asked.
“I know,” Lindy said. “It’s weird, isn’t it? Something about him just makes me so . . . ugh. I can barely stand to look at him.”
“What do you mean?” I asked. “Makes you so what?”
“You know,” she whispered. “Wet.”
The thought of this was too much for me.
My stomach moved in strange knots, my chest tightened.
I must have made a noise, I’m not sure what, but Lindy knew my secret.
“Are you doing it, too?” she said.
I couldn’t answer. I didn’t need to.
“I do it at school sometimes,” Lindy said. “I can’t stop thinking about him. I did it under my sweatshirt in Spanish class when he was giving a presentation on bullfighting or some shit. He was like, ‘Does anybody have any questions?’ and I was like, ‘I do. Will you please fuck me right now?’”
“Lindy,” I said.
“God, his fucking body,” she moaned. “I just want to lick him all over. He probably thinks I’m some slut, though, doesn’t he? Do you think he’s a virgin? I bet he is. I bet he’s a fucking virgin.” And then Lindy was off on her own, revisiting some fantasy she’d apparently had hundreds of times before about Chris Garrett, perhaps, or about boys in general, about virgins. But this time, I also just happened to be there. She mumbled and whispered things I couldn’t understand and the noises became muffled as the receiver brushed roughly against her cheek. “Tell me,” I thought I heard her say. “Tell me you like me.”
“Lindy,” I said. “Of course I do.”
“Touch me,” she said. “I want to feel you.”
“Okay,” I said. “I want that, too.”
“Kiss me,” she said, “tell me,” and then Lindy began to gasp in tight bursts. The simple sound of this took me over the edge and I listened quietly as Lindy continued to buck hard against something invisible. “Tell me you want me,” she said again. “Tell me you like me.”
“Lindy,” I said.
“Chris,” she said.
And before I could say anything more, before I could correct her, I saw my reflection in the window. The sides of my head were shaved and the thin strands of hair on top stood around my face like I’d been shocked and it appeared to me, for the first time, as if I was wearing a wig. All the jabs my sister had made about my ill-fit appearance came bounding back to me as if obviously true and this unfortunate feeling multiplied. I reached around for something to clean myself off with and when I saw my own pale and skinny arms in the moonlight I clearly recognized that I was no athlete, no Chris Garrett, although there was a time in my life when I probably could have been. I wasn’t a good Christian, either, and ever since the death of my sister would not feel comfortable closing my eyes to pray around anyone. I was instead merely a manipulative boy who had somehow finagled his way into sharing an intimate moment with the girl he adored and I was not proud of this, even in those first moments. Yet as I listened to Lindy find pleasure, I still held out hope that we may have finally crossed whatever threshold it was that we needed to cross. A flickering part of me felt this may be the very thing to bring us closer.
On the other end of the line, Lindy’s breathing eventually became slow and exhausted. She was quiet and, I thought, content. I wondered if her thoughts were circling back to me, or if she now felt curious about my body, my sexuality, or my imagination, and I said nothing to interrupt this moment. I didn’t feel the need to. We had shared something private and atypical and tremendous that night and the real question for me became whether or not this would be a thing we did regularly in the years to come, at the end of a long day, perhaps, before drifting off to sleep. And so I listened for Lindy’s parting words to me on this occasion. A good night, perhaps. Maybe an I Love You.
After a while, she finally spoke.
“Sometimes,” she said, “I swear. I just want to blow my fucking brains out.”