I didn’t like my voice. —Let’s. Go. Home.
The street was filthy, after a storm. My mind smelled of it. I had not, exactly, agreed exactly to do this, but now, wasn’t it, it was done. Neither of us got sick, not enough drunk even to be sick in our homes when we separated to stumble the rest of the way. But we were, weren’t we, sick, both of us, sick creatures with our tricks.
Courtney, I thought, unshowered in bed, sticky and too quivery inside to sleep. Sickened the most by Grisaille’s murmur in my ear, as slippery as the rest of her all night, next time it’s mine. The next turn, such a terrible whisper, belongs to me. I felt blacked out but I didn’t black out. I know every detail, I’m sorry, forever with every other dirty thing rolled up and riled in my brain and cock. Are we good? Just because I’m not listing it, just because—Alec in my head—I’m not telling every detail, doesn’t mean I wasn’t there thrilled and queasy fucking her for all of it.
So, thirteen now, is the number.
—Can we talk about it?
—What part?
I make my fingers stop twitching over the keys. The part I didn’t like, I want to tell her. The part making me pace around with loud music. But I just ask if I can come over and I run there sweaty and hard to do it quick leaving me still thirsty, or something. Rattly. Sad. What rope can you lower to get me out of here?
—And if I fucked another boy?
She’s still straddling me. In a second my cock will wilt up and slip out of her like a water balloon. —What other boy are we talking about?
She laughs. We drop it. Thank God.
—Is something bothering you?
This is my mother saying this. I slam off. —Yes.
It’s like drinking, I want to tell someone. I am running because there’s no one to tell. You drink too much sometimes, learning to do it right, the way you want. Courtney, it’s the same with how you learn to fuck. Until you figure it out, you’re going to be sick some mornings.
—It’s not fair, Cole, but OK.
—I just didn’t like it.
The window rattles. It’s late. —But you fucked her anyway, right? So why can’t—
—You can’t. I don’t. Please don’t. Please won’t you—
and I’m quiet but still saying it out loud in my skull. I knew, I told myself and I told myself. I knew you weren’t safe.
Like lightning in my spine it’s that sudden. I’m midsentence in the overflowing kitchen.
—What?
I shake my head, gesture to Jeremy like a wall fell down in front of my face. My beer tastes strange, bad, and I move sweaty, like I already know it. I don’t even ask anyone as I scowl around the living room, but Alec’s eyes are on me, very black, very bright. I think later he must have known right then, but right then I tell myself I don’t know anything. Up the stairs and the landing and the other stairs. Fling open one wrong door, the bathroom, the closet, door after door, too stupid and too frantic. I don’t like the sounds I’m either hearing or making. And the stripe of light rectangles onto Grisaille on the older brother’s bed. Jack has his pants off and she’s kissing his neck until they turn around to face me. Her face is a bright, a little sweaty, a little shame. But her hand doesn’t move from around his thick cock.
—I thought it was sexy.
—Yeah, obviously.
—Cole. Like a game. Like with the first-year.
My voice is so spitty I hate it myself. —We don’t even call it that in America.
—Cole.
—
—Cole. I’m leaving anyway. At the end of the semester.
I’m choking something up. —Did he feel better than me?
—How do I know how he felt?
—Was it better?
She kicks the ground. Her hands are clenched and I can’t stop seeing them around his cock. Bigger than mine. —I just thought it was fun.
She had her hand on another guy’s cock, I have a sick zigzag in my head of it like I’m typing it all out. To be honest, I keep typing, it turns me on sometimes, a flicker in my ankles and my mouth, churned up thinking about the details, disgusted and cold and erect. I’m not typing this to anyone, there’s no one to do it to. I’m not even typing it out loud.
Raging awake, pacing so loud my mom makes sure I’m OK. Sure, I’m OK. Her hand around his cock like that. Try to come, just to get some sleep, but every cock on the screen is his. Watch the girl-to-girl stuff, gets it done.
—End of the semester I’m leaving, so,
—Stop saying that. You don’t get to fuck people over just because you used to live in Cairo and then pack up and get on a plane.
—Make this quick, Cole. Can you get over this?
I’m letting her cup my face. I can feel my cheeks squinting furious. Are we good, is what she’s asking.
—Can we just have a few more weeks having fun and—
—You were jacking him off.
I wish anything, anything was hacking at me except for this. Feeling stupid and not smart enough to stop it. A teacher is repeating himself and still I do not, will not fucking listen to what it is he is saying, I can only hear what is getting at me. A girl, I want to tell him, a girlfriend, surely even this lousy ugly man knows the drill of how much it is drilling in me, and will leave me alone while I shiver it out at my desk.
—You were fucking jacking him off.
—I’m not, I’m not going to deny it or something.
—My girlfriend!
—Remember, Cole, we said it could be anything. We said, we both did, that we could call it— —You’re my girlfriend, that’s what it’s called, that’s what anybody would call it— —Yes but then, but the other night,
—I didn’t give you permission.
—Permission?
She is furious behind her glasses, the glare of the streetlight. In the mirror that time, naked except for those glasses blinking and fucking. Her hand on his cock back at the party.
—Permission?
There’s cheating, I say on a run alone and cold, and there’s sleeping with a lot of people. There’s another girl at a party when I go along with it, and another guy at a party when I don’t. I am, it’s like, glaring at two equations on a blackboard having their different operations pointed out when I do not fucking care about either, any of them.
We are monsters with it. Told you, told you. I am saying this to myself. Are we good, no we are fucking not.
Another, though, to deal with that river-god of the blood: hidden, guilty.
—Don’t say that, Cole. Take it back right now or, don’t you dare,
—Slut.
—Fuck you! You? You with every girl you have been inside all over this school warning me. And you say, —It’s different.
—Cole, you know what slut is? There isn’t one for boy. It’s a punishing, it’s a fucked-up word for a girl, only, who likes sex. There’s no guy word for it.
—Guy. Is the word.
—Don’t talk to me.
—You mean now or like ever?
—
—Grisaille did you get my last message?
—
—OK just say if you got it.
—
Robin knows. Gus knows. Janie knows. Word spreads, it’s in the air like something I can’t breathe.