Our legs lay on the carpet, and our necks were braced against the bottom of the couch. His chest rose and fell.
“What if she’s not into it?”
I nodded. “Well, some people say that if you’re careful and look real close at her body language, you’ll always know. Other people say, well, you only go like ninety percent of the way and let her meet you the rest of the way. But, I don’t know, this is real life, Dave. People are drunk. They don’t know what they want. It’s just a fucking kiss. If you get it wrong, she turns away, or she goes really still, and, I don’t know, I don’t know, I don’t know, you feel so terrible—I mean—like—every single time I’ve tried to kiss somebody, my heart’s been beating so fast that I could hardly breathe, much less think.”
“So . . .” He gulped. “You just go for it.”
“Yeah.”
We held there for a split second, breathing in sync, and then I touched my lips to his.
His eyes widened, and I had a split-second thought—Okay, so this is really happening—before I came close to gagging on the slimy tongue that invaded my mouth. But I held on to that thought, This is happening, this is happening, this is happening, and the tongue kept moving around, like some deep-sea tentacle was foraging inside my mouth.
After a few minutes, his hand twisted back and around to go into my pants, and he said, “Is . . . is this okay?”
“We don’t have to.”
“But I want to.”
I wasn’t feeling turned on at all, so I tried thinking sexy thoughts, but it was like he was mashing a baked potato down there, so instead I redirected his attention by unzipping his own pants, and I bent down over him.
All through the experience, I kept thinking the weirdest stuff like, Oh, this is actually not easy and What do you do with your teeth? and Hmm, this is an interesting experience. I’d expected Dave to be as turned off as me, but he gasped and moaned, and I was like, Wait, okay, he’s enjoying this. Or maybe he’s faking it, because I’ve definitely done that with Avani. God, she was terrible. So many teeth. Wait, where are my teeth? And then it was over and I went to the bathroom and used a fair bit of mouthwash.
When I came back, I was afraid he’d want more, but he was sprawled out like a Roman emperor, enthroned on cushions and blankets, and he took my hand with a happy smile. We lay together for a long time.
“That was incredible,” he said.
“Yeah,” I said. “It was definitely something.”
My hand ran along his belly, playing with the little bit of fat around his waist, and he kissed me on the forehead. It was all just very funny, but I didn’t laugh.
“You’ve never done that before?” I said.
“Like that? No. What about you?”
He was still wearing his glasses, and I plucked them off and put them on the table.
“Umm, no,” I said. “With girls, I guess, but you’re my first guy. It was good, though. Really interesting.”
“I, uhh . . .” He rubbed a hand across my chest. “You were awesome.”
The oddness overpowered me, and I thought, Hmm, I’m going to remember this forever. This is actual personal history, being created right here.
“You don’t need to, umm, return the favor.” I pointed to myself. “There’s no way I could get it up. I’m way too drunk.”
“Oh, umm . . .” He smiled. “But . . . maybe some other time?”
“Wow, you’re acting just like I used to act after Avani went down on me. That’s what’s so funny.”
He laughed. “I feel really good.”
“Well, yeah. I mean, if you didn’t, I’d be offended.”
We chatted back and forth, talking about sex, going round and round. He had never come close to being with someone else. Never even kissed anyone. And I almost said, Well, we could keep hooking up if you want, but instead I yawned. “You can stay the night—my mom won’t suspect anything.”
And something about that word—“suspect”—broke our trance. He pulled away, sorted out his clothes, and after that we didn’t touch each other. He stayed for another hour, but our conversation was awkward and slow, and when he left we did not kiss goodbye.
4
THAT NIGHT I KEPT REMEMBERING his tongue rooting around in my mouth and the oddly similar feeling of spongy foreignness when I’d gone down on him.
In bed I masturbated to the idea of the two of us lying naked on the floor, touching each other, and I was like, Hmm, so maybe I am the tiniest bit gay. The night had passed so quickly that I didn’t even have a conscious image of his penis to work with, and that actually disappointed me.
Morning announced itself with a headache. My room was windowless and cold—big enough for just a set of shelves and my bed. Originally my mom was gonna sleep there and give me the master bedroom so I’d have more room to study, but one night while she was at the hospital—she’s a night nurse in the ICU—I moved all my stuff into this room and wouldn’t move out. She earned the money; she deserved the bigger bedroom.
Rolling over, I saw a message.
Dave: Hey, should we talk about last night?
A boundless self-loathing unfurled inside me. I didn’t hate what I’d done so much as how awkwardly I’d done it. The thought that his brain held the mental image of me dancing and flipping my hair made me want to delete his number and never speak to him again.
My mom rapped on the door for lunch, and when I came out she’d already heated two TV dinners from the Indian store. They have an incredible microwaved tamarind rice that’s like two dollars: it’s insane. We sat in front of the TV, watching reruns of a popular cop show as we ate.
“Are you ready to start school?”
“Yeah.”
“How was your weekend?”
“Great.”
“Did you see that girl?”
“No, Mom.”
“You’re not bringing her here when I’m gone, are you?”
“No.”
My mom squinted at me. It’d been a while since her last dye job, so she had a dramatic hint of white that was most visible right at the crown. Her legs were gathered under her, and, for an entirely new level of grossness, her body was swathed in the blanket that Dave and I had lain on.
This was her day off, and she wanted to hang out and catch up—when I was little we used to stay up late, eating popcorn and ice cream and watching TV while she pumped me for gossip about school. Back then I was an outsider, and I didn’t really know anything. But at some point last year the gossip got too real—every time we talked, she would get worried—so I’d stopped being honest.
In my room I sent a slew of texts. To Pothan, to Carrie, to Ken. What’s going on tonight? Every weekend, I relied on them to know what was happening, and I passed the news in turn to people like Dave. Maybe somewhere he had a little Dave of his own who waited on him for crumbs of news.
My heart had quieted. I looked at the rest of the messages from Dave.
Dave: I had a good time.
Dave: Are you gonna text me? Are things weird now?
Each message shot a pang through my stomach.
Me: Hey, no need to talk. That was something I’d sort of wanted to do—I mean to someone, not necessarily to you!—for a little while. So it’s totally fine.