—So,
but she stops. Her face is flushed a little. Her boyfriend, now finally, is walking up, that guy who has an actual beard and won third place in the whatever for I think chemistry. She doesn’t care now, not as much, about arguing with me, and suddenly the sex conversations are private. He makes her come, probably I’m sure, too early to give up her virginity but they get naked and afterwards I bet she giggles and clutches her clothes. Ancient times. Ancient times to her is when she was single and thought I was a sex monster.
—I guess you’re leaving now.
—Yeah, see ya, Cole.
I’m alone on the bench with this painting in this book. The lawn so green. And if we had a party like that they would send us all to jail.
We’re sitting closer, hands in each other’s boxers again. Don’t know why we keep them on, or what that’s about. Don’t know what any of it’s about. I won’t kiss him but I think he’s tried a couple of times. Leaned in so I could see a couple places he missed shaving. His face so very close up. Yes, I really don’t know what it is that is happening.
—We could try.
He says this just when I knew he would. Onscreen a girl is watching two guys touching. “Wife Turns Husband Bi.”
It’s more than a month since any girl has been around to do anything with. I’m just thinking. Prison, guys do it in prison in the same situation.
Alec has a nice body, I guess, I don’t even know what I’m saying or what I mean by that. Compared to that other guy, I guess, over there. Either of them. Boys, hello.
—You don’t have to.
His mouth was already on me, my hand trying to grab something of his. It seemed only fair.
—I’ll just do you.
OK, but wondering if I owed him.
When we were done, gradually it felt too cold, but pulling up a blanket over us felt too married and sweetheart and gay. Alec sat up suddenly and said the name of a two-player game, soldier partners blowing up zombies.
—Yeah. Let’s.
Kicked our pants on. Relieved it could be normal.
Look at it this way, I am theorizing to myself taking a run. It’s an experiment. Experimenting. And then like a science fair, the experiment will be over. Sweaty when the second mile’s over, knowing I could do the maybe half-mile to his house and that he, like not any other no way ever girl, would take me up to his room quick and hot without a shower. But that’s like a boyfriend move, I think. That’s not an experiment bored one single night, that’s something else. And I am running, I find myself realizing, down the last block, to his house.
The first Monday after the first time, I watch Alec watching what’s-her-name bend over to get something out of her bag on the floor. It’s a deep wide relief. Still into girls, me too, everything’s cool.
I move my hand up his leg and he makes a noise, then frowns and opens his eyes.
—What was that?
—What?
He’s looking at me. —That noise you made.
—You’re crazy.
—You made a noise—
—That was you, Alec.
But in a second I’m making it again.
I had five orgasms in a day and it was easy and not the first or last time. First straight out of a morning dream about a girl with whispering lips on all fours. Second in the shower, remembering to put the conditioner in first so it’s working on my hair while I do it. After school with Alec twice, I guess the phrase would be via mouth. Once more lounging around after homework with two girls on the screen helping out. And then I’m spacing out halfway hearing some interview guy saying he goes crazy if it doesn’t happen once a week and, once a week? I would have gone six, seven if they’d allowed it in Applied Econ.
One time, maybe it’s the beer he had, Alec and I are laughing so hard we have to stop. Heaving with it. Feeling better than coming, well almost, to get it out like this. Alec is sputtering on the floor trying to choke it out, slapping me lightly and laughing, laughing.
C-C-C-C- he tries. Cocksucker.
—Hang tonight?
I tell him yeah. —What are we going to do?
Three benches over, Alec just glances at me quick, and it’s enough to know. I knew anyway. He puts his phone in his pocket. What I mean is, I want it, and I want him not to say anything about it, and I’m getting them both.
He swallows it all and then, his eyes wide and laughy, slides off me leaving me pulsing and gleaming and laughing at him on his bedroom rug with his arms joking raised up like an athlete. Like a champ.
—We could try.
It’s late. Computer’s gone to some geometric design Alec set up, waving slow across the screen in the blue light. I’m trembling, wired and tired. He has half a bed sheet over him but I have refused it, just naked with boxers very handy if someone, they never would, walks in. He puts it a different way before I can say no.
—I would let you try.
—Condom.
It’s dark when he says this. The word sounds serious. It’s a real word, it makes the whole thing real even in the dark.
—What?
—Dude, don’t what. I know where you’ve been, Cole.
His voice has a muffle to it so for just one spooky second I think he’s crying. But his face, I realize then, is just buried in the pillow as he waits for me to put it on. He says it again.
—Condom.
—Ssh, yes.
He feels good. It feels good with him but also, half-curled up against him when it’s over, kids in the neighborhood shrieking around on bikes ringing little bells on the street out his window, he feels good. And, he says he feels good and I don’t like that. I don’t want to tell him, out of all the people I shouldn’t have to tell, that he should count on me like the rusty car across the street half-covered by a tarp in the neighbor’s driveway, for zero, for nothing, nothing at all. I don’t say this, can’t, me freaking out slowly next to him and my hands, his hands, moving and wanting it again.
We do it again. We keep doing it.
So it’s like with a girl, I guess. I’m running again, thinking it through. And like with a girl you don’t say, I don’t think I like you anywhere in the neighborhood of where you like me, but the sex is delicious and you’re also, yes you’re cool. But he’s a guy. And dude, Cole, a friend.
—We could try.
It’s the thing Alec keeps on saying. We are, I want to say back. I am. Trying, I’m trying it. But he means something else. I’m trying it like, you find a coin on the table and you spin it for no reason but to see it happen. He’s trying it like medical school, because maybe he’ll grow up to be a doctor.
—That,
Alec says it breathless.
—was the best.
My head is like a spider on a beach ball, trying to wrap around it that I basically used the same trick Ava taught me, the one I always used on girls. He is trembling.
—The best.
Then Kristen almost sniffs it out of me one sudden day.
—You haven’t had a girlfriend in how long? And you’re calm and not sleazy.
—Thanks.