by Cy Blanca
“How about over here?” He pointed to a two-person table only a few feet from the mini arcade each Cicis seemed to sport—games from the ’80s and early ’90s fighting for space with a sad-looking DDR machine silently playing J-pop and European techno cartoon videos. The lights on the makeshift stage blinked wearily, as if holding back tears from loneliness, the few diners deciding against stamping out the polyrhythmic beats of one of the tracks.
“Anything you want, babe.” Oh, Antony. The quintessential ’80s baby, always yearning for the memories of mega arcades and skating rinks. Curt loved how attached to all things 32-bit and 2-D Antony was. It was charming and never ceased to amuse him. Most importantly it made Antony happy. Whenever Antony was happy, his eyes shone so brilliantly that Curt had to write poetry about them. It was probably the reason he hadn’t been published in two years—too sappy. But why be Elliott Smith when you could be Jeff Buckley? Bright sounds and love songs dedicated to all the beautiful things in the world. Sure, Elliott was good for a crack in the soul, but Jeff was where you turned to fill it, to put words and voice to something that made you weep from its elegance.
And damn, was his Antony elegant.
Perfect skin—melanin glowing like the sun’s rays on damp soil—perfect lips—full like a robust wine with a heady scent—eyes, nose. His features were made of soft angles, but he had a jawline that could cut sapphires. Intelligent, goofy, yet so put-together it was almost regal. Omari Hardwick had nothing on the honey sweet of his man. Antony’s beauty had a way of taking everything inside of Curt and winding it tight. Antony’s entire molecular structure called to Curt, and every part of Curt just bristled with want.
He’d been so lost in his musings, he hadn’t noticed when Antony addressed him.
“Curtis Ramírez!”
“Huh… wha?” he spluttered, shaking his head to clear the images of dirty touches out of his mind.
“What’s going on, baby? What’s got you so distracted?”
“Oh,” Curt said, words chasing a sigh. “I just…. I….”
“Yeah?” Antony said, leaning in and giving Curt the privacy to confide in him. “Whatever it is, Ram, you can tell me. You know that.”
Curt lowered his eyes. Chilly nervousness raced through his body, and he didn’t quite know how to deal with it. “Yeah, I know. I just….”
“Baby”—Antony took Curt’s hand in his—“please talk to me. You’ve been antsy for the past two days, and you keep cutting yourself off. Like in the parking lot. You just stopped talking and got out the car.”
Curt still couldn’t meet Antony’s concerned gaze.
“Baby, what’s going on? Has something happened?”
Curt looked up at the pleading strain to Antony’s voice. “You,” he said quietly.
Antony jerked back, surprise morphing his features—wide eyes, raised eyebrows. “Me? What about me? What did I do?”
“Everything.” Curt placed his hand over Antony’s. “You just…. I haven’t been distracted. I’ve been trying to find a way to put words together, to—”
“You’re having trouble putting words together?” Antony scoffed.
“Please don’t make fun, Ant. I’m serious.”
The smirk was gone, the giggle dying almost as soon as Antony let it loose. “I’m sorry. I’m listening, really.”
Curt took a deep breath, then let it go slowly. “I’ve been having a really hard time the past couple months. With the kids, the lessons. My writing’s taken a hit. I’ve not been able to focus. At first I wasn’t sure what was going on with me. But then it hit me a few days ago.”
When Curt took another deep breath and his shoulders tensed, Antony rubbed Curt’s arm, the touch comforting him. “What?”
“First I need you to promise you won’t get mad at me, okay?”
“Why would I—”
“Just… please, Ant. Promise me.”
Antony nodded shortly. “Of course. I promise.”
Curt bobbed his head once, then continued. “I… can’t teach at PC anymore, nene. I think I’m going to hand in my resignation at the end of the year.” He lowered his head for a moment, letting the words rest on the table. When Antony hadn’t said anything for nearly a minute, Curt looked up again and began to search his eyes for a reaction.
Nothing.
“Antony?”
Still nothing.
“Antony? Ant? Babe, please don’t just sit there. I need—”
“Just….” Antony closed his eyes on a slow blink. “Just give me a second, Ram.”
“Okay.”
Another twenty seconds passed without either one saying a word. Antony leaned back in his seat, taking his hand with him. Curt curled his into a fist and warmed it with the other hand, the loss of touch bringing an uncomfortable chill to it and making his knuckles chafe under the skin.
“Okay,” Antony finally said. “Okay. Let’s look at this from all angles.”
Without him knowing it, a breath had nestled in Curt’s lungs, too afraid to escape for fear of being shoved right back down his throat. He exhaled heavily and blinked slowly once.
“The reason why you even started teaching was because the poetry wasn’t paying like we’d hoped. So now the question is, what are you going to do to help out?”
“Maybe I could try Highland Park again, see if they need any substitute English teachers. Or get an actual writing job—talk to Fox at the CJ, see if they’ve got anything. Trust me, nene, I’m not going to leave you hanging on the bills or anything. I’d never do that.”
“Yeah,” Antony said. He rolled his head, working out a bit of tension in his neck. “Listen, Ram. You know I love you. You know I’ll support anything you want to do.”
“Thank you, nene. I—”
“Let me finish.” Antony’s tone was serious, a slice of harshness demanding Curt’s silence. Curt pressed his lips together. “I’ll support you, Curt. In everything. I know teaching kids isn’t your thing. But you’ve only got two more months before the end of the year to plan for this grand exodus you want to make. So this is what I’m going to do.” Antony sat up straighter, and tension once again gathered at Curt’s shoulders. The severity of Antony’s words shone like razor blades in his gaze. “I’m going to give you five months after you leave PC to get and hold a steady job. If that’s a problem, then I have to take drastic measures.”
Curt’s heart leaped in his chest, causing him to choke on air. Oh God. He wanted to scream and cry and beg Antony to stay, but for the second time in less than half an hour, he couldn’t find enough words to put next to each other. The air turned solid in his throat, and just when he thought he was going to stop breathing, what Antony said next slapped him in the face.
“I’m calling your mother to move in with us.”
Never mind not breathing. In the same second, Curt’s balls shriveled to raisins and his gut lurched. He almost didn’t catch the vomit as it tried to claw its way out his mouth. So the “No” that escaped instead sounded wet and chunky.
Antony sat there, a smug smile tugging at his lips. He didn’t say anything, just let the threat hang in the air like a cloud pregnant with rainwater.
Curt’s mouth flapped open and closed, as if suddenly too many words were trying to hopscotch out at once. “Are you kidding me?” he finally said.
“Does it look like I’m kidding?”
Curt flinched. “But… Mama? Why couldn’t you just say you were going to leave me? Why drag Mama into this?”
Antony lifted an eyebrow. “Do you really think me leaving you would motivate you to actually find work? Please. You’d sit your ass on the couch, drowning in Dulce de Leche Ben & Jerry’s ice cream. Depressed poet isn’t cute, and it certainly isn’t productive.”
It was Curt’s turn to scowl, a scrunching of his nose and pouting of his lips that was proof of his being the baby of the family.
“Besides, do you think me walking out on you would be as effective as your mother going through the liquor cabinet, throug
h your books, through our dresser? Our closet? Need I remind you of the suitcase on the top shelf?”
And just like that, Curt’s raisined scrotum crawled back up inside his abdomen. “Jesus, Antony.”
“Five months, Curt. You go through with this, you either get employed, or you get to spend however long it takes you to get there with Mama Ramírez lighting candles of María de Altagracia and praying for your soul when she finds your stash of toys and lube.”
Curt sat back, shook his head, and snorted. “Damn. You sure know how to motivate a brother.”
“So now I’ve gotta ask. Why Cicis? You pick the restaurant I can’t stand the most to break the news?”
Curt smiled, breathing a bit easier now that Antony wasn’t going to leave him… or call his mother straightaway. Five months he could do. “I figured if things got heavy, I could distract you with Mortal Kombat and Galaga, and I’d at least be able to eat something I enjoy for my last meal.”
Antony smiled and rolled his eyes. “So is this whole quitting your job thing why you’ve been acting like a horny fifteen-year-old who’s left fantasizing about the quarterback every day after school?”
“You’ve already threatened me with Mama,” Curt said, annoyance coloring his voice. “No need to insult me and my raging libido. Besides, that has nothing to do with leaving PC. That has everything to do with not being able to have you any time I want. Imagine how good this will be for our sex life.”
“Ha!” Antony cackled. “And just imagine how bad it will be when your mother moves in and makes your office her bedroom.”
Curt shivered. “Fine, you’ve made your point. I’ll look into subbing again, starting tomorrow.”
“Good. Now with that off your chest, let’s hurry up and choke down some of this squishy faux-talian food so we can go home and consummate this new promise you’ve made to me.”
Curt’s mood lightened, his mind rife with mirth and mischief. He shot out of his seat before Antony could change his mind, then made his way to the buffet so he could scarf down his dinner and get that mischief managed.
IN THE hushed moments of early morning as they lay in bed, wrapped in sweat and sex-tousled sheets, Curt’s hands and lips became curious adventurers looking for new things on Antony’s body to discover: a dip in the skin from a childhood scar; a new twist of his fingers at his hip that caused him to shiver. Lovemaking was never just about penetration and release for them. It was an expedition, an exploration of caverns and mountain peaks, finding the deepest moan or the highest whine at the end of an expletive. And after each dig, they were spent, never fully satisfied but always willing to save more discoveries for another day.
“Mmm, baby,” Antony said, words more a lilt of breath than something solid.
“Yeah,” Curt said with a kiss to his sated lover’s neck.
“Give me some poetry.”
“Anything for you, nene.”
When it came down to it, this was who they were: a teacher and a poet. Two men with needs and wants and a taste for simple things: kisses, food, and words. Curt took a deep breath, bringing to mind the words of a poem he’d managed to squeeze out last week while listening to the time-space warp of Nujabes.
“I think about the flavor of time,” he began, eyes closed, head cocked slightly to the side and back, fingers painting the stanzas onto Antony’s skin. “Consider the taste of each second. I eat moments and let the molecules roll around on my tongue, let the bittersweet wine of it sink into my cheeks. The savory filaments stick between my teeth, causing gaps too wide for braces to fix.
“As time drips off my lips, I’m reminded of things that I’ve missed, those frosting-covered moments so sweet they become jagged at the back of my throat. How they stick to me and force me to acknowledge them even in night spaces, when time is dark, when I am meant to erase memory and crawl into black silence. They become sounds twisting in my mind, dancing as if caught in rain, giving the gauzy netting of my soul sorrows and regrets to hold on to.
“These times where you disappear, leaving watermarks of your face floating like plastic bags on the wind of imagination, I am left to wonder if you really exist, or did I make you out of watercolor: pastel and wet, like the length of a minute—stretched long when I miss you, clipped like a hangnail when I have you in my palm. I weep for lost stretches of time where I am careless, where kisses have turned cold and ‘I love you’ begins to sour and stink like rotten garbage. I forget to tell you things, forget to share my flavors, forget you are meant to be tasted and stick to me like red beans and rice.
“These moments are where I miss you the most. These moments I beg to hold you, taste your scent to my fingers, lick them clean and savor you forever. I think about the flavor of time, and you are the ticking that coats my throat and leaves me full.”
He leaned in close, breathing Antony in, and left kisses on his resting eyelids. “I starve without you.”
Antony’s breath was even and light, signs of his falling asleep listening to the warmth of Curt’s voice. Curt just smiled and shook his head, placed a delicate kiss on the swell of Antony’s cheek, and cuddled up behind him. Antony gripped Curt’s arm as it rested on his torso. With a kiss to his shoulder, Curt closed his eyes and released a final long sigh before falling asleep.
2
AT LUNCH the next day, Curt spotted Antony across the cafeteria. After taking a last look at the table of kids he was currently watching, he made his way over to his boyfriend, who was delightedly looking after a table of energetic first graders.
“Hello, Mr. James,” he said as he sidled up next to Antony.
“Mr. Ramírez. What can I do for you?”
Curt leaned in a reasonable distance so anyone looking would assume the two teachers were simply sharing a platonic conversation. “I’ve been missing you real bad, nene.”
Antony smirked. “Well, there’s still two hours left in the day. Not much I can do about that now.”
Curt leaned in closer, his whisper hot in Antony’s ear. “I could bend you over this table right now and fuck you into the floor. Don’t tease me, Ant.”
Antony’s tells were subtle, small tics only a lover would know: there was the slight widening of the eyes, a whisper-thin intake of breath, the stink of heat simmering under his clothes, an aroma Curt could scent standing this close and knowing Antony’s every taste, his flavor leaving a permanent coat on his tongue.
Antony could hide nothing from him. As the damp sin of Curt’s suggestion cooled on the patch of skin below Antony’s ear, he shivered, a small tremor no one else would notice. He turned his head and looked at Curt.
Without blinking, Antony said, “Afternoon recess. Meet me in the workroom. I’ll give you five minutes.” Leaning closer, he whispered, “If you’re late, I’ll start without you.” Curt lifted an eyebrow, surprised Antony would even make that suggestion. He was usually so responsible, always followed the rules. He was damn near teaching his first-grade class how to act like debutantes and beaus. This was a bit of kinkiness Curt never expected.
Antony turned away and continued to watch the kids at the table as they finished their lunches.
Why the hell not? Curt thought. He scoffed, then smirked. “I’ll be seeing you later, Mr. James.” He walked away to monitor another table whose students were becoming a bit unruly. His mind started unraveling plans for what he wanted to do to Antony, how he could take him to the edge in the fifteen minutes of alone time they had while their kids were at recess.
WHEN CURT opened the door to the workroom, he hesitated. He’d expected those teachers not on recess duty to be sitting around the tables, sipping the coffee Ms. Afua always brought on her off days, compliments of her mother, who was still living in Kumasi.
However, there wasn’t a single person in the workroom. Not at the microwave heating up lunch nor gathered around the radiator to gossip without being heard over the decades-old lump of coiled rust that moaned like an aging diva. In fact, the only person Curt saw as he stepped
over the threshold was his coy lover. He approached Antony quietly, hoping to surprise him with a pinch to his ticklish sides.
“Don’t even think about it, Curtis Ramírez.”
Curt stumbled. Antony’s perception always caught him off guard. But after all, teaching kids under the age of ten had a way of sharpening the senses. Instead of wasting time on the spluttering he probably would’ve done under different circumstances, he just reached out and wrapped his arms around Antony’s body.
“How’d you get everyone out of here, anyway?” Curt asked, then placed a small kiss to the collar of Antony’s shirt. Damn clothes and their getting in the way of tasting skin!
“Tiffany’s out sick, so Mr. Tumbler had to take her place on the playground. Ms. Afua decided to grade papers in the teachers’ lounge, and Cassie…. Well, I convinced her she’d rather spend the fifteen minutes making out with her boyfriend in her car. She suddenly decided she had to make her way over to Banjo’s and pay her man a visit.”
“You little muelero,” Curt said, hiding the snicker in Antony’s neck.
“Yeah, well, we only have fourteen minutes and forty-eight seconds,” Antony said as he loosened Curt’s grip on his waist and languidly turned to face him. “And you only had twelve seconds of that five minutes I so graciously gave you to get your ass here. I was just about to sneak off to the bathroom and put my hand down my pants.”
Curt scoffed. “Oh please, Ant. I may have a harder time hiding it, but I know you’re just as horned out as I am. I can smell it on you.”
Antony arched an eyebrow. “You can, huh?”
“In fact”—Curt leaned in closer, gripping Antony’s hip—“from the stink coming off you in the cafeteria, I’d say you’d been waiting all day for me to proposition you.” He rubbed a small circle on Antony’s side, then slowly tiptoed his fingers around the bend in Antony’s waist, intent on grabbing hold of a thick asscheek.
Antony stopped him.
“What’s wrong?”
“Look,” Antony began, “I know getting freaky in the teachers’ workroom was kind of my idea, but I don’t really fancy being caught if somebody suddenly decides to come in for a cup of coffee.”