The Long Run, page 17
I lay down next to him. We stared at the ceiling. “They believe you?”
“Nah. I had no clue though. They said it was something you only call people you hate. And I felt bad. I didn’t hate Pete. He was my friend.”
“People you hate.”
“Yuuuuuup.”
Bash took a long pull. A lot to unpack there. Before I could try, Bash let out an incredible belch. Lasted six whole seconds with key changes and everything. He wrapped up and graciously bowed.
“Wow. That’s considered an art form in the Miceli house.”
“Your mom let’s that shit slide?”
“Nah. Ma woulda smacked the shit outta you for that. But my brothers would love it.”
“Damn. She smack y’all a lot?”
“Like she has the time.”
“Just wondering. They sound like smacky people.”
“They?”
“Your fam. I mean, just off what you’ve told me, the violence barometer in the Miceli household sounds a little broken.”
I shrugged. He wasn’t wrong, I just didn’t want to get into it. We were supposed to be having fun. “Look...if you’re asking if my parents hit me, no. I mean, they’ve hit me but like head slaps and shit. It’s not like I’m getting punched in the face or nothing. We’re just a physical family. It’s normal. Like my dad once threw this jewelry box at my head.”
“What the fuck? Sandro.”
I didn’t mean for it to sound that harsh. Because the story’s not, like, this “I survived” trauma. I shook my head. “It’s not a big deal. We were clearing out the garage and I saw this box marked Halloween and I wanted to see if we still had my Goku costume. But when I was reaching for it, I knocked this bigger box over and all this paint spilled on the cement floor. Dad happened to be holding a jewelry box my ma never used and, bing bang bong, now I got this.”
I pointed to this little white mark that runs through my left eyebrow. It’s small and you wouldn’t even notice it unless you were really looking but, yeah, I guess I’d been maimed.
Bash squinted. “Oh, shit. Hold up, lemme see.”
He got really close to me. Closest he’d been in months. In two months, five days to be exact.
“Damn. Almost got your eye. It’s kinda cool though. Some people do that intentionally. Shave a gap.”
“Welp. Lucky me.”
He stared at me. The guy was always staring. And I thought he might touch me then. Finally touch me. I thought he might finally be ready.
But it was me who turned away this time. I didn’t give him the invite. I didn’t like him looking at me like that.
Because Bash was looking at me carefully. With care. And that made me uncomfortable. Why would that make me uncomfortable? Someone caring about me? And for a second, I remembered sitting in the van as a kid. It was night and I was cold. I’d just thrown up and Ma was crying. She wouldn’t look at me. But I didn’t want to think about that. I wanted someone to care.
I did my best to meet his eyes. “...Do you think we’re gonna be fucked-up?”
“I think we’re already fucked-up.”
“Seriously.”
“What do you mean fucked-up? Like are we gonna become serial killers?”
“No. Like...how we came up. The way we are. It can’t be ideal, right?”
Bash rubbed his stomach. “Do you think you’re fucked-up?”
“Kinda. I get too angry. And I cry a lot.”
“I mean, same. But that’s normal. Right?”
“I don’t know. Maybe it’s just normal for us.”
“It’s not like we’re all that different from other people though. It’s really just...”
“Just the big things.”
We were silent for a little. The ceiling fan clicked above us. Around and around.
Click, click, click.
“Things could be better.”
“A lot could be better.”
Click, click, click.
“Maybe if my mom were here.”
“If my ma talked to me.”
“And if I knew my dad.”
“If I liked my dad. And if I weren’t...”
Bash took a long breath.
“If we weren’t.”
Click, click, click.
He smiled, kinda sad, and laughed. “But people out there got it a lot worse than us.”
We stared at the fan and wondered if that should make us feel any better.
Click. Click. Click.
Click. Click. Click.
Click. Click.
“I don’t think you’re fucked-up, Sandro.”
I turned to him and he was close again. Looking at me again. Less careful. More curious. Then he touched me. He put his fingers on my jaw like it was no big deal and moved my face toward the light.
“What are you doing?”
“You said you had brown eyes.”
“I wasn’t lying, I swear.”
“Nah. They’re like...golden? Didn’t know that was an option.”
“I paid extra at the hospital.”
He kept moving my face around at different angles, trying to catch the light. I felt like Silly Putty and I didn’t know what to do. Then he stopped. Held my face in place. Catching the light.
“There. Yeah. Golden. You just gotta know how to look at them.”
“Yeah. It’s... Yeah.”
Bash was looking at my eyes but not making eye contact. He was just taking them in. Then I felt his thumb rubbing against the stubble on my cheek. It was faint, barely moving, but he was feeling my face. Then eye contact.
“What’s that look, B?”
“I’m just... I’m touching you.”
“Really? I don’t know if you are.”
He swallowed and his touch got heavier. More intentional. The tips of his fingers along the rough of my cheek.
“Is... This is okay?”
I nodded against his touch. His fingertips landed in my hair and his palm rested against my jaw. Like his hand found a comfortable place to sleep. And Bash smiled. His hand on my jaw, his eyes on my eyes. He just smiled.
“This is okay?”
And I had to roll my eyes. Because, really?
“Bash.”
“What?”
“I just...”
He chuckled. “What?”
I smiled back up at him. “...Do it or don’t.”
He got it. He understood. We were on the same page there. Whatever rule, for whoever’s sake, that was gone. Or altered. I didn’t know for sure and, honestly, I didn’t care.
Bash nodded and he kissed me. It was light. More like he was resting his lips on mine. I think he was nervous. I felt a shake in his shoulders come and go. I thought it’d help to lighten the mood. Ease in. So, when he finally took his lips off mine, I cracked up and howled. “FAAAAAAAAAAAG.”
We laughed and he hit my chest. “Shut the fuck up.”
Then the real kiss. The deep one. The kind of kiss that started all this. Passionate. I could feel his warmth, his skin, finally on me. His care. His hand was in my hand and he was touching me.
Bash was touching me.
I pulled his body onto mine and heard the candy bowl fall to the floor.
bash
nov. 1
tails
So.
So so so so so.
Soooooooooooooooooooooo.
So, I had sex with a dude.
I don’t wanna get into too much detail, but I will say this:
1. Sandro is proportionate. Apparently everywhere.
2. Sandro is loud. Apparently everywhere.
3. Senior year, on the whole, is not what I expected.
Okay, whatever, I guess I do want to get into detail.
Viewer discretion advised.
From the top, let me say this. Sandro smells amazing. Which was surprising because males, in my history of locker rooms and middle school, smell like ass. But not him. When I got close to Sandro, he smelled like skin. Like sweat, but good sweat. The guy smelled like the ocean. Salt in the air. All I could think about at first was how good Sandro smelled. Well, when I wasn’t otherwise preoccupied.
We made out for a while and it was A+. It’s all I was planning on doing that night, really. Just some good ol’-fashioned necking and maybe some bumping and grinding if we were feeling it. But as soon as he pulled me onto him... I don’t know, man. You forget how big a guy is until he picks you up. I liked it. Him picking me up. Moving me like that.
And God bless Sandro. It was his first time on the field, but he played like a pro. Dove right into my crotch, headfirst, no parachute. He was worried at first because I wasn’t making noise. A complaint I’ve received in the past. Apparently, my lack of moaning and groaning when receiving a blowjob is “confusing” and “unmotivating.” It’s not like I wasn’t enjoying myself, and Sandro was doing some gold-star work. I’m just an internal person. Knowing what I know now, I feel like an asshole for never giving girls audio clues before. Because if Sandro wasn’t the loudest, most sensitive motherfucker in South Jersey, I would’ve been similarly lost down there.
Three takeaways from my time in the Miceli trenches. First, don’t touch Sandro’s balls. Just don’t. He doesn’t like it and thinks they’re “too sensitive,” which, I mean, sort of the whole point but whatever. Second, I could tell I was doing a good job when Sandro was making noise. I could tell I was doing my best work when he stopped making noise altogether. Once I got a handle on things and got into a good rhythm, his voice just cut out and his back arched. It was hot as fuck. Last takeaway: I want to get really good at giving head. I think, with some practice, I could crush it next time.
I don’t know when we got naked but at some point I noticed all our clothes in a heap, along with Dro’s boot. I couldn’t remember taking them off but there they were. The shorts I drove to AC for. The boxers I bought for cross-country season. The socks with the holes in the heel. I became so suddenly aware of how naked we both were. It was all a big, surreal blur. Because I’ve been naked with loads of guys before, but I’d never seen them at those angles. In those positions. In such proximity. All these new ways to see a person. But I couldn’t get a clean look. In the blink of an eye, everything was moving so fast and the images wouldn’t stay still. All these new parts. All these things I never let myself think about. The image of Sandro there in my room and my bed and my arms overwhelmed me and I needed to find control. That’s why the waltz started.
We did this little dance, Sandro and I, of who was kissing who. He’d be on top of me, pressing my hand against the bed then STEP 1, 2, I’d turn him over and get on top. I’d be feeling his chest, his hips, his shoulders then, before I knew it, STEP 3, 4, I’d be on my back again. It was this unspoken argument. This need to find control. And somewhere in the squeezing and pressing and the lips peppering my chest, I realized the argument was my own. An argument I felt a need to win. And maybe it’s the competitor in me but at some point the argument just got too loud. Too heated. Two voices shouting their loudest.
One Bash cheering: You’re gonna fuck him!
The other screaming: YOU’RE GONNA FUCK HIM?!
Sandro’s sweat was mixing with my own and I didn’t know if I could handle all that heat. I could feel the guy poking at my hip and I realized that I’d never been poked before. The sensation was entirely new to me. The only other time I’d even made contact with another man’s junk was the time Doug Parson teabagged me at a group sleepover and that ended with me breaking a broom across his back. And Del would kill me if I broke our broom, it’s a great broom. And maybe it was the thought of my stepdad or sleepovers or Doug Parson’s nuts on my forehead, but the poking was becoming too much. The heat. The theme from Space Jam started up on the randomized Jock Jams playlist I had going on my speaker and I needed to stop.
“Time-out.”
I pulled back. Sandro’s fingers paused their exploration of my balls. “Oh. Not good?”
“Just...gimme a second.” I rolled away from him and looked anywhere else. The Space Jam theme played on, for no one.
“Hey. You okay?”
I stared at our pile of clothes on my bedroom carpet. Both our outfits, mixed up together. I thought that would be the hard part but I didn’t even notice them go. This is the part I thought was going to be easy, but there I was in my head. I was drunk on this feeling two seconds ago and then poof. The feeling ran out of me and left me sitting on the edge of my bed, fully nude, making a big show of fiddling with my speaker. “I’m fine. Just...yeah. Just fixing this.”
“The speaker?”
“The...song.”
While I mindlessly scrolled for something less pep rally, Dro was silent. Catching his breath. I guess I was too. I heard him pull one of my pillows closer to him and knew he was covering himself up. Sandro has a thing with his stomach. I think it’s tied to his thing about people touching him. Anytime he sits, nine times out of ten, if there’s a pillow handy he’ll sort of cuddle with it. He says he just likes having something to do with his hands but I know it’s because of his stomach. What he’d call a gut. That’s Dro though. Something I’ve learned about the guy these last few months. The guy loves to cover up. The pillow. A smile. Anywho.
“Bash?” His hand was on my back then. Like he might be able to feel whatever it was that stopped our rhythm. “I do something wrong?”
I looked back at him before the question could linger. “No, Sandro. No.” I didn’t want him thinking like that. Because it wasn’t his hang-up. It rarely is. “I just needed...a breather.”
“A time-out?”
“Yeah. I just needed to stop.”
His hand stayed on my back. Feeling my breath. “...You wanna stop?”
I shook my head. And I told myself to start kissing him again. I told myself to stop overthinking things, to stop arguing with myself.
You wanted this.
C’mon, you want this.
Right?
What do you fucking want, man?
“Dro?”
“Yeah?”
“Can...” After a quiet moment, I pointed across my bedroom. Right over to my desk. “Can you go over there?”
“Huh?”
I looked back at Sandro and smiled a little. “It’s okay. Just for a second. I don’t wanna stop, just... I don’t know. Humor me.”
He gave me a sort of look. Like he wanted to question me but didn’t know where to start. But he rolled off my bed and hopped up, a little stumbly without his boot on. He stood a few feet away from me, in all his nude glory. Well. Almost nude.
I held a hand out. “Pillow?”
Sandro sighed and tossed his cuddling pillow at my face. I put it back on my headboard and looked at him. He kept a hand on his junk. Not enough to fully cover up, he didn’t want to show his nerves that obviously, but I could tell he felt a little insecure.
“What, uh...is this? Cavity search?”
I didn’t want him feeling insecure so I got up too. Right across from him. I put the length of my bedroom carpet between us and just took him in. He got a little giggly.
“What’s that look?”
“Whatchu mean?”
“What are you looking at?”
“You.” I smiled. “Can I just...look at you a little, Dro?”
“What?”
I motioned at his body. All of it. Hairy head to hairy toes. “I wanna look at you. All of you.”
“Oh.” He thought about it for half a second. Then he grabbed at his crotch a little. “You know, I usually charge by the minute.”
He tried a smile. I didn’t smile back. “I’m not joking around, man.”
I took a moment to get my words together. Because I wanted to do this. Whatever we were about to do, I wanted it. And I know he did too. But the second I kissed him, the moment he pulled my body onto his, the night had become a blur. I didn’t want a blur. I wanted to take my time. I wanted to see the man I was about to be with.
“I never look. Ever. All my life. And whenever I wanted to, I felt... I felt so shit about it. I never let myself look.” I shrugged. “I just wanna look at you, Sandro. And I want you to look at me.”
Sandro smiled. He moved his hands to his sides, off his stomach and himself, and brought his shoulders back. “Okay.”
“Okay?”
“Yeah, okay. Look at me.”
He nodded. So, I looked.
Sandro’s feet are huge. Thirteens in the gym, fourteens for comfort. They’ve got hair on the knuckles and very little nail. He’s got this shiny purplish scar on his right shin that always peeks out when he wears tube socks. Says he got it walking into a table back in July. And his arms. Dude’s got these super long arms that a swimmer or pterodactyl would pay good money for. Reach all the way down past his hips with these big-ass hands to match.
“Can you grip a basketball?”
“I can.”
“Damn. Lucky.”
“I know, so lucky, it’s so useful.”
“Shut up. It’s cool.”
His chest is a scouring pad of dark black hair. It’s thick. Like armor almost. I’d only been under Sandro for a few minutes but I could still feel the friction of that patch rubbing against me even then. You can hardly see the skin underneath at points. Just hair. And his chain. And his nipples.
“What are you looking at?”
“Your chain.”
“What about it?”
“I mean...your nipples.”
“Oh. What about’m?”
“Nothing. You just...have nipples.”
“WHAT?!”
I cracked up. He did too. After we settled, I pointed at them. Two pink reminders that there was a person under all that hair. “They’re nice. Very pronounced.”
“Gotta be. They grew up in a rough neighborhood.”
“Low-key jealous of the hair. I can’t grow shit.”
