by Todd Gregory
BRANDON It’s happening my God it’s happening he’s riding me, he’s on top of me and if I don’t stop him he’ll make it happen too fast I want this to last I want this to be kind and loving and soft, not raw and animal the way it usually is, and so I flip him down to his back and I am on top of him and his eyes are wild and crazed and I know he wants me to just pound him, he is sweating and so am I, but I am going to take it slow and easy and make him crazy, I want this to be something special this first time because I do care about him, what is wrong with me I don’t ever feel anything for anyone, but he’s different he’s nothing like Phil and I have to stop thinking about Phil and I have to be careful here, but I do feel something, I’ve not felt about anyone like this ever before, and I am kissing him again and he tastes like pot and Diet Coke but somehow it’s delicious I can’t get enough of him, his skin feels like satin it’s firm and yet soft to the touch and he’s whispering he loves me and I like hearing it, I want to say it back but I think I already did once and it doesn’t matter if I do, so I say it again and I can feel him tensing up and I know he’s close and I’m close and so I keep moving slowing down to make him want it even more—
DYLAN Oh my God I’m going to come and I don’t want to because I don’t want this to stop ever oh my God I love you Brandon I love you I love you I love OH MY GOD…
RICKY When I knocked on Brandon’s door he didn’t answer.
I try not to sulk about it, but I wonder why he’s not there. Did he forget that I was coming by, or does he not want me to come by anymore, or what the hell is going on here and why do I care so much anyway? It’s just sex, and I know that’s the truth and I’ve always been fine with it, so why is this eating at me? I knock on Kenny’s door and he’s not there, either.
Where is everyone?
I text them both and stare at the screen. No answer.
Nothing.
WHERE IS EVERYONE?
PHIL Someone pounding on my door wakes me. I look at my alarm clock. Seriously? Seven in the morning?
I walk through the office and open the door. Brandon is standing there, grinning at me, holding one of those cardboard trays from Starbucks. He’s grinning at me.
“What are you doing up this early?” I take one of the cups. It’s a latte and it’s hot and really good even if I don’t want to be awake this early. Drinking it means I won’t be able to go back to sleep.
Oh, well, there’s things I can do, and I can get high and take a nap later.
He sits down on my bed and is still grinning at me.
“What?” I finally say.
He pats the bed beside him. “I’m here to collect on my bet. I won.”
I’m not sure what he’s talking about at first, and then after a moment the ridiculous grin on his face sinks in to my sleep-addled brain. “You fucked Dylan last night.” I’m too sleepy and groggy to be as irritated as I should be. After that chat we had last night, I was pretty sure Dylan would never fuck Brandon.
And he’s going to be insufferable about it.
He starts telling me all about it, about how he ran into Dylan in the hall and he was wasted, and he helped him to bed and didn’t try anything, just got into bed with him and dozed off with him and how later Dylan woke up sober and initiated it, it was all from Dylan, and the way he’s talking—
I cut him off. “It sounds like you—you have feelings for him.” I raise an eyebrow. An interesting if infuriating wrinkle.
His smile fades and he narrows his eyes, thinking. “No.”
“You do.” I start to laugh. He hates being laughed at, I know that from years of experience dealing with his massive ego. “If you didn’t, you wouldn’t have had to think first. You’re falling in love with that little prude.”
“No.”
“I can see it on your face.” I’m wide awake now, and a fury is building inside me. In love with Dylan Parrish? It’s like a slap in my face. “You are in love with him.”
He pats the bed again. “What difference does that make? You lost the bet, and I’m here to collect.”
“You can’t be serious.” I force myself to laugh again. “I’m not going to fuck you when you’re in love with someone else, when you have feelings for someone else.”
His smile fades. “I told you I don’t have feelings for him.”
“Oh, but you do,” I tease him. “You need to break his heart now, you need to tell him it’s all over, that you don’t care about him and you were wrong.”
“Why?”
“Why don’t you want to?” Now my laughter isn’t forced. “The whole point of fucking him was to make a mockery of his monogamy bullshit, wasn’t it? To show him he’s no better than anyone else, right? Knock him off his purity platform? So, no, you haven’t really finished the job, Brandon.”
A muscle in his jaw is twitching. “That wasn’t the bet.”
“Well, what would I have won if you hadn’t?” I fold my arms. “Some bet. All I won would be not having to sleep with you. Well, it’s been years and we’ve long agreed that we’re not ever going to do that again, remember? We both agreed that we wouldn’t work as a couple and we were better off as friends, remember? Your exact words were ‘I wonder which one of us would cheat first.’”
I can hear the words as clearly as if he had just said them.
They weren’t what I was expecting. We’d just spent a wonderful weekend together after a flirtation of about a month, and when he told me that he wasn’t ready for a relationship yet and that he knew I wasn’t the type either and his reputation would ruin any chances I might have for holding office in the house, it was like being slapped across the face and I just smiled back at him and said, “Of course you’re right,” and he kissed me and said, “I wonder which one of us would cheat first?” and I should have won an Oscar for laughing when I felt so embarrassed and humiliated, and even though I knew he was right I also had been thinking that whole weekend how much I liked him and how happy we would make each other and had actually bought into the whole happily-ever-after thing like I had before and I was never ever going to do that again, I was never going to let another man make me feel like that again.
I’d been waiting for years to say that back to him.
He flinches and stands up. “All right,” he says heavily. “I’ll do it.”
“And be cruel.”
He slams the door behind him so hard that one of my frames falls off the wall.
The bathroom door opens.
“Can I come out now?” Kenny asks.
I hold out my hands to him and nod. “How much of that did you hear?”
“Did he really bet you he could get Dylan to—”
I nod. “You know he’s also been fucking Ricky?”
His face reddens.
BRANDON He opens the door and throws himself into my arms.
“When I woke up and you weren’t there, I—almost started crying,” he says, holding on to me for dear life right there in the hallway where anyone can see. He obviously doesn’t care anymore who sees or knows about what he has done, and I know, looking down into his eyes, that even though I’ve convinced him that sex and love aren’t the same thing, they still are in his mind, and he wouldn’t have let me spend the night with him if he didn’t love me.
I don’t want to be loved. I don’t want to love anyone.
I gently push him back inside his room and close the door. He is kissing my neck and grabbing my ass, and I take his hands off me and push him back and smile at him sadly. “Dylan, stop,” I say.
He looks confused. “I—I don’t understand.”
“We have to pretend like last night never happened. It was a mistake.”
“A mistake?” He doesn’t understand, and I have never hated myself more than I do right now.
“I thought I—you know, I thought there was something there between us, and now that we’ve actually been together”—I can’t bring myself to say fucked, even though I know that’s the word I should use that would hurt him th
e most—“I know now that I don’t feel that way about you. It was wrong.”
He’s crying now, an ugly cry with tears running down his face and snot dripping out of his nose and he’s hitting me, not hard, not fighting me, but he’s babbling between the sobs about how everyone was right about me and he was a fool, and I let him hit me until he isn’t crying anymore and is just standing there looking at me all hurt and betrayed and I feel like I’m an idiot, an absolute idiot. Why did I let Phil do this to me, why did I let Phil make me do this? There was nothing worth it, and then I hear him laughing again and I know this is the right thing to do anyway, if I really care about Dylan the best thing to do is end this now and let him go back to his fiancé and make things right, back away, and I say good-bye and close the door behind me and walk back down the hallway and I am so angry now, I am going to make Phil pay for making me hurt him this way, and when I get to the stairs Kenny is standing there and he is angry and he shoves me into the wall and I don’t know what this is about and he swings at me and I duck away from him and I don’t understand and I say, “Kenny what’s wrong?” and he says, “I know all about you and Ricky,” and he is shouting and doors in the hallway are opening and I know it was Phil, I know Phil was the one who told him and I reach into my pocket and get out my phone and say, “I’m not the bad guy here,” and I hand him my phone and he pushes me again and I say, “Check my phone, read the texts between me and Phil,” and he’s angry and he pushes me again and I’ve moved and I’m at the top of the stairs and I lose my balance—
KENNY And he falls all the way down the stairs, not rolling but straight down, and there’s a loud crack when his head hits the floor at the bottom of the steps and I’m just staring down at him, and I’m aware there are other people around me, and the carpet—that’s blood down there and he isn’t moving.
Oh my God he isn’t moving.
And the office door opens and Phil starts screaming.
PHIL Noooooooooooooooo!
RICKY Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with thee, blessed art thou among women…
DYLAN No, no, no, no!
PHIL Somehow I made it through the funeral and the police and everything, and the police have ruled it an unfortunate accident and I can’t believe I’m never going to see Brandon again, I can’t believe he’s dead and I can never say I’m sorry, I can never make it up to him.
And I know people are talking inside the house.
No one really wants to talk to me, no one will look me in the eyes.
Somehow they know, they are blaming me, but it wasn’t my fault.
There’s a knock on the door, and I go out and open the office door.
Kenny and Ricky and Dylan are standing there, and in Kenny’s hand is Brandon’s cell phone.
And I know.
They push past me into the office.
And close the door.
Kenny puts the phone down on the desk. “You need to resign the presidency today and move out. We don’t care what excuse you give the brothers, you don’t have to leave school or San Felice, but you are finished at Beta Kappa.”
“It’s your fault he’s dead.” Dylan sneers at me. “But as long as you go peacefully, don’t put up a fight, we won’t tell anyone what you really are.”
They’re taking turns, and there’s a roaring in my ears and I know I am going to have to go, give up everything I’ve worked so long and so hard for, and they are saying terrible things to me and I just nod, and finally they go and take the phone with them.
I sit down at the computer and start to cry as I open the new Word document and start to type.
About the Author
Todd Gregory is a New Orleans–based writer and editor who survived Hurricane Katrina and its aftermath with the help of prescription medication. He has edited the anthologies Rough Trade, Blood Sacraments, Wings, Raising Hell, Sweat, and Anything for a Dollar. He has also published three novels and a collection of his short stories, Promises in Every Star and Other Stories. Todd has published short stories in numerous anthologies, and his works have been translated into German.
Books Available From Bold Strokes Books
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Funny Bone by Daniel W. Kelly. Sometimes sex feels so good you just gotta giggle! (978-1-62639-683-8)
The Thassos Confabulation by Sam Sommer. With the inheritance of a great deal of money, David and Chris also inherit a nondescript brown paper parcel and a strange and perplexing letter that sends David on a quest to understand its meaning. (978-1-62639-665-4)
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