The Long Run, page 26
Here are my main concerns in no particular order.
SANDRO MICELI’S TOP FIVE REASONS NOT TO LOSE YOUR BUTT VIRGINITY IN THE WOODS
1. My Ass is a Minefield
I knew the day would come. I mean, it’s homosexuality’s big-ticket item, right? You tell someone you’re gay and their first, second, or third thought is:
“Oh, so he’s cool getting a dick in the ass?”
Growing up the way I did, I was inundated with the idea that all gay guys do is gasp over brunch and sit on some cock. Which sounded like a nice Sunday. The concept of butt stuff was never unattractive to me, given the right guy, and I’ll admit my fingers have gone spelunking during the occasional long shower. But I know me. I know my body. I have lived with my ass for nearly eighteen years and he is not a friendly neighbor. My ass is the old man from Up. Selfish, loud, and comfortable living a solitary life. But much like the old man from Up, my ass would need to open up and learn to let that special someone inside.
So, after spending an entire morning washing my war zone obsessively, Bash picked me up and we drove Birdie two or so hours upstate to a camping area Del recommended. It was a really nice spot. It was like the Sticks but more alive somehow.
That’s sort of how I’d been feeling about everything lately. Since that day on the roof, everything felt new.
We hiked all afternoon, mainly for the hell of it, and Bash held my hand the entire time. At the top of our trek, we realized we’d never actually held hands before and Bash was very eager to right that wrong. Making up for lost time.
Three hours and two sweaty palms later, we found a good stopping point under some trees and set up Del’s tent near this amazing lake we’d stumbled onto. I didn’t tell Bash all the big plans I had for my ass, but I think he could tell I had something up my sleeve. We were arguing over the best way to start a fire, neither one of us wanting to admit that we didn’t know the first thing about it, when he kissed me. He keeps doing that. Just out of nowhere. We’ll be talking or sometimes just doing nothing, and I’ll see a change in his face. Like he suddenly remembers he’s allowed to kiss me. It’s nice. And the exact opposite of what I needed right then.
Because even with my morning of cheek-scrubbing, I hadn’t accounted for the two-hour drive, three-hour hike, and (God’s greatest prank) the sudden recurrence of early spring humidity. All this to say, a refresher in that lake was looking mighty fine right about then. It’s not like I’d crapped myself but this was a big step so forgive me if I was feeling a bit anal.*
*(Feeling a Bit Anal was the original title of this list)
2. Bears
Self-explanatory.
3. The Eggplant
We were alone in the woods and, my God, did I want to fuck. We hadn’t gone that far since December and I could feel us both wanting it. But I suggested skinny-dipping first because why the hell not? We stripped naked and Bash immediately folded our clothes. He’s weird like that. I was watching him fold my boxers into a neat little square when, staring down the barrel of it, I remembered just how big his dick is.
Goddamn it.
Allow me one quick sidebar.
I am not a picky eater. Even as a little boy, I was always a big “try anything once” kind of kid. But somewhere between the original American Idol getting canceled and the new American Idol getting rebooted, my mom went on this big health kick. Suddenly all my favorite meals of hers were getting converted into whatever veggie-forward, carb-free, no-cheese recipe Ma ripped off the internet that week.
So, innocent Lil’ Sandro was understandably upset when he bit into WHAT HE WAS TOLD to be his all-time fave, chicken parm, only to find a stringy, wet imposter swimming in his marinara. Eggplant Parmesan. “Just as good as the original, and only half the calories!”
NO.
DECEPTION.
Baby Sandro just about threw that fucking plate across the table. Don’t get me wrong, I love vegetables. When they’re honest. When they’re not gallivanting around, pretending to be something they aren’t. Because chicken parm is my ultimate comfort food. And part of that comfort is expectation. In knowing what you’re getting into. I know what will make me comfortable. Stay in your lane, aubergine.
Okay. Sidebar complete.
Now, this seems like an incredibly long road to get to my point but, believe me, it is the best way to describe what I was looking at by the lake. A familiar feeling of surprise. Because in sex ed, they had us put condoms on bananas. I was ready for a banana. I had mentally prepared myself for the concept of a banana in my future. I knew what I’d be getting into. But Bash had an eggplant. Bigger, thicker, and harder to handle than what I expected on my plate.
4. Jason Voorhees
All I’m saying is those movies have to get their ideas from somewhere.
You don’t know.
5. I AM NOT A REAL ATHLETE
The thing you never consider when you visualize the loss of your virginity is the positioning. The body rolls and leg cramps. The hold on’s and the oh, sorry’s. But, aside from some pain in the beginning, the sailing was pretty smooth on Halloween. We were lucky. But I have literally studied the odds of lightning striking twice.
After our swim, we were naked in the tent and drying off under a quilt. The lake was pretty cold so our bodies were tense and, how you say, shrunken. Bash was talking about going exploring in the morning but all I could think about was my legs. In our short career as bed partners, Bash has experimented with a great many positions. He’s a real completionist so, those first couple of goes, he never stayed in the same position twice. A true D1 athlete. But I’m not like Bash. I’ve been stuck in a cast for most of the year and can’t be folded into a pretzel so easily.
Being frozen in a tent only hampered my mobility further. If you haven’t gathered, I am not a small person. My legs alone are taller than most elementary schoolers. For both of our safety, it was best that my tree trunks stay out of the air and, if necessary, be strapped to the ground. This limited me to basically one position. As the old masters once wrote:
Face down, ass up.
Not exactly the most dignified of positions but decidedly more than the “baby on a diaper-changing table” position the internet recommended for first-time drivers.
At the end of the day, I just didn’t want to look stupid. I really didn’t want to look stupid for Bash. I just got him back. Things have been going so fucking well and I didn’t want my giant legs or hairy gut or uncooperative ass to get in the way of what was supposed to be a really special night.
That’s just five of the hundreds of reasons that ran through my head that night. That’s my problem. It’s kind of both our problems. We spend all this time living in our heads, watching and observing and thinking of all the reasons something could go wrong. But when we were lying there in the tent, trying to get warm, I couldn’t think of that list. I left all my reasons to worry in that lake and I could only think of one thing.
SANDRO MICELI’S TOP REASON
TO TRY SOMETHING NEW
1. I Love Bash
Hey, big surprise, I love the guy. I really do. And he said he loved me too. He actually said it first which is wild. So, yeah. I guess we’re in love.
Ta-daaaaaa.
I cannot begin to express how wild that is. Like he’s said it a couple of times now, that he loves me, and every time I just start laughing. Like he just told me he saw a dog mowing the lawn. Like I don’t believe it but wouldn’t that be awesome? I mean, obviously, I believe him. He’s my best friend. He wouldn’t lie about something like that. I guess I just don’t believe that it happened to me. That I would find someone like him and he’d see whatever he sees in me.
The sun had officially set and Bash was holding me. It wasn’t our usual MO but it helped with the cold. He’s always so damn warm. Like he just hopped out of the dryer. I could feel all that heat against me and thought, Eh, fuck it.
Our Songs to Be Nude To playlist was going on the speaker, “U Got It Bad” had just started, and my hips did this sort of shaking/rubbing thing to the beat. Something Bash has done before to me to let me know what he wants. I thought it was time to return the favor.
“Oh. Really?”
“Sure.”
“We’re in the woods.”
“I am aware.”
“Bigfoot could be watching.”
“...Let him.”
Bash laughed and pulled me closer to him. He nuzzled my neck and kissed it like he did that first night in the ditch. And I wasn’t so cold anymore.
After a few hours of tests and lube and failures and lube and successes, I snuck off to the lake to clean up. I took a minute in the water to laugh at the surreality of the situation. I was buck-ass naked, washing myself in a lake, having just had earth-shattering sex with a boy who loved me. In North Jersey of all places.
“Jesus.”
I kissed my chain and thanked God I decided to go to the Beer Olympics that night.
When I got back, he was asleep. Bash once told me he could never fall asleep anywhere but his bed. Especially in public. It probably meant something that he could sleep so soundly now but I was too tired to decipher it. My body had been pushed to the edge. I was done for the night. So, instead, I got under our blankets and held him. Warmed myself up again. Traced messages into his chest and listened to him breathe.
Bash mumbled something nonsensical about hats. I didn’t know he talked in his sleep. I stored that fact away in the newly reopened Bash Villeda Database and made a note to ask him about it later. It felt good to be learning more about Bash again. Even with all this data I’ve collected so far, I’m still learning more and more every day. Day after day. Days and days and days.
I heard the number in my head.
One hundred and forty-three.
I looked at Bash’s watch. It was after midnight.
One hundred and forty-two.
That number’s the real reason I worry. Why I needed the night to go well. Why I laugh when Bash says he loves me. Because our time is running out. Already. Every day, a little less.
It’s not fair. To get something so great, so late. I just want more time with him.
I traced RUTGERS into his chest and tried to go to sleep.
bash
apr. 16
family
We rolled up to the B-Town drive-through and I had to cover Lucy’s mouth to hear the speaker box.
“Welcome to Burger Town, can I take your order?”
Sandro was in the back seat, yelling. “Bullshit! BULL. SHIT.”
I tried to get their attention, but Lucy argued through my fingers. “It is NOT bullshit. Mayonnaise is DISGUSTING and I WILL NOT—”
“But how can you say that if you’ve literally never—”
The speaker crackled and I rested my head on my seat belt. I was regretting my suggestion to spend a Saturday together, just the three of us. It had been twelve straight hours of arguing. Over what? Couldn’t tell you.
Lucy whipped around to face her opponent. “Have you tasted shit?”
“Okay.”
“Okay, but you know you don’t want to eat it?”
“That’s not the—”
“THAT IS THE ENTIRE POINT, YOU BIG BITCH. Seb, come get your friend.”
“Back me up, B.”
The two people I love most in the world were looking at me, waiting to see whose banner I supported. So, I turned to the speaker box.
“Yeah, can I get a Number Three, extra cheese, no onion, and a small Sprite, a Double Chicken with B-Sauce, large curly fries, and a root beer, and I’ll get a Number Seven combo with sweet potato fries and a Diet Dr Pepper.”
I sunk back into my seat. They were still looking at me. Lucy smiled. “Awwww. He knows our orders.”
“I’m a good waiter.”
Sandro rubbed my shoulders from the back seat. “...Sweet potato fries are fucking nasty, bubs.”
Lucy shot him another dirty look. “You have terrible taste.”
Sandro just snorted and rubbed my head. “Eh. I’d argue we got the same taste.”
Thankfully, that got a laugh out of my ex. I smiled at the worker in the pickup window as Lucy and Sandro fought over napkins. I handed them their food and listened to my best friends go. B-Town got our order wrong and we ate in the parking lot, but it was the best dinner I’d had in a long, long time.
On a less tender note, Sandro just about puked up that burger the next day. Since track season started, it’s been my personal mission to get my workout buddy excited about running. It’s not that Sandro’s a bad runner. It’s just that he’s not good at it. He runs how I’d imagine an unmotivated T. rex would. Head forward, arms tucked up, and making weird noises throughout. On this particular run, he bailed after one loop around my block. My warm-up, mind you. We passed the duplex and he veered straight into my front lawn. Fell face-first into the grass and pretended to die. I jogged circles around his corpse.
“Come on! One more block.”
“My foot hurts.”
“You have no stamina.” He mumbled something presumably dirty into the ground and laughed at his own joke. I stopped. “No wonder you only throw things.”
“I also wrestled for a minute.” He grabbed my ankle and tripped me with his shoulder. Before I had time to cuss him out, he was sitting on my chest. “Plus, two older brothers.”
He slapped my cheeks. I had the instinct to give his giant ass my lunch money then I heard a door close.
“Kinky.”
I looked up to find Lucy on her porch. I tapped out and Dro rolled off me. We both jumped up, at attention, like we’d been caught throwing a football in the house. She told us to cool it and I invited her to dinner at ours. Del wanted to congratulate us all for getting into our first-choice colleges and I’d insisted on a Cajun theme. My mom grew up in Louisiana so I was raised on a steady diet of peppers, okra, and shrimp.
“But y’all can’t be bickering the whole time, okay? Del’s sensitive.”
Lucy rolled her eyes and linked arms with Sandro. “We don’t bicker, Sebastian. Bickering implies both parties are incorrect.”
Sandro agreed, happy to let Lucy save him from finishing his run.
I’ll give it to them, they kept it civil for the rest of the evening. Just to be safe, though, Del and I handled most of the cooking. We thought it best to keep Punch and Judy away from knives and fire.
After some superb fried okra, some okay catfish, and a banging gumbo, we took a break to digest. Del and I got to our usual dishwashing routine while Lucy and Dro ate ice cream in the living room. They weren’t bickering, but we would pick up the occasional outburst.
“Get off the floor! What are you doing? Sandro.”
Sandro does this thing when he’s full where he lies on the ground like a starfish. Got the idea from Ms. Parente’s class terrarium. Apparently, lizards rest on hot stones after big meals. Helps with the digestion.
Del laughed and passed me a plate. “They seem to be hitting it off.”
“I know. It’s scary.”
“Worlds collide.”
We paused to hear their argument boiling up.
“You’re wrong. You’re very wrong.”
“No, gelato’s just cream. Custard has egg, Froyo has milk, but gelato’s ALL cream. That’s the dif—”
“You are so wrong and I don’t know why you won’t admit it.”
I laughed and shook my head. I knew it was a mistake leaving them alone with that ice cream. I put the dry plate away and Del handed me another. “They’re both wrong and both right at different moments. Funny.”
“It’s been like this all week. They’re both wildly stubborn about food.”
I almost dropped the plate when they started yelling.
“BOY! YOU ARE ITALIAN! YOU SHOULD KNOW ABOUT GELAT—”
“I AM ITALIAN SO TRUST ME WHEN I TELL YOU—”
I had to smile. Because by all accounts, Sandro and Lucy’s only real connection is a gym class they shared in eighth grade but, somehow, they act like they’ve known each other for ages. Like brother and sister. They had a rhythm. Maybe that’s just how it is with the right people. All that groundwork just appears.
I’m glad it was easy for Dro. I know how hard it’s been for him to make friends. He caught me up on how the whole Ronny/Phil situation blew up in his face. It’s tragic really ’cause, even if you strip away the sex and the love I feel for him, Dro’s still the best friend I’ve ever had. And it sucks that the world doesn’t see that. Everyone could use a friend like Sandro.
My train of thought slowed my drying and, of course, Del was watching me. “I swear to God if you keep staring at me...”
Del laughed and shook his head. Got back to washing. “They’re showing my uncle’s cabin up in Maine soon. I thought we could visit before it sells. Go fish or swim or whatever. If you want.”
Maine. Del’s family. The last leg in this relay we seemed to be running together. We still hadn’t talked about how I couldn’t bring myself to go to his uncle’s funeral. How I’d rather let him go mourn alone than come along as Del’s Dead Wife’s Kid.
So, I took the baton and set my sights on the finish line. “Will your family be there?”
Del nodded. “Brett should be.”
He said the name like he’d mentioned Brett a thousand times. It killed me that I didn’t know who he was. There was so much about Del I didn’t know. This man who raised me when my own dad couldn’t bother. Who held me when I cried and never pushed me when I pushed him away. He was my family. It was time to know my family.
“Which one’s Brett?”
Del smiled. “Older brother.”
“Oh. How many brothers do you have?”
