Curious

by Seth King

  “Fuck,” he says softly, his eyes radiating desire, as he watches in the mirror. “I’m balls deep in you, aren’t I?”

  “Mhmm,” I say, beyond words now.

  “Now get ready to get fucked.”

  Without warning he thrusts it out a little, then back in. I cry out so loud, the vacuum cleaner in the next room turns off, and I hear some chatter in Russian.

  “Looks like the housekeepers can hear,” he smiles. “Good.”

  He reaches around me and clutches me as he starts fucking me with the dildo harder. I moan and cry out again, even louder, as I feel it slide in and out of me. My mouth no longer belongs to me, and I don’t even know what I’m doing – I’m screaming like someone is hurting me. But it doesn’t hurt. It feels like heaven. And his eyes on mine, in this fucking mirror…

  Harder, harder, harder. More, more, more.

  Soon my legs are bending and my toes are curling and I’m feeling the heat and suddenly-

  I cry out once, rock my hips back, and then bust all over my abs. One, two, three squirts, and soon I’m almost covered in my own semen. He groans, grips his dick with his free hand, and pumps a few times until I feel him coming all over the small of my back, and then it drops warmly down to my ass.

  And just like that, it’s all over.

  “I don’t even know what the hell that was,” I laugh a minute later, “but I expect it again.”

  He looks at me in the mirror and gives me the cockiest smirk I’ve ever seen on him. It fits him, I must admit. “You got it, Pa.”

  “Pa?” I ask, and he just laughs.

  “Just roll with it. I guess I’m breaking all the rules now.”

  ~

  “Hey, do you remember the fight in my fort?”

  As we stumble back to the hotel room that evening, I laugh at his question. When we were about ten, we were playing in his tree house (known as The Fort) when we got into a tussle over who would play the captain of the war in our little game, and who would be the soldier. He pushed me down and I bit him in the arm, and we didn’t speak for a week.

  “Of course,” I say. “I think my butt still hurts from being pushed down onto that wooden floor.”

  “Ha. I’m going to ignore the obvious joke I could’ve made with the butt thing.”

  I laugh again.

  Quite simply, we had the perfect day today – after that explosive hookup with the dildo, we did our obligatory hangout session with the wedding crowd, and as soon as we could, we disappeared. We worked out together on the beach, doing free weights and sprinting drills, and now we’re returning to the room after a stop at the fancy hotel bar. A woman hit on him, and he shrugged her off immediately and just smiled at me. It made me feel rather good, if I can say so myself.

  “Oh,” Beau says, “and do you also remember when we went to that Christmas parade in middle school, and that drunk lady threw little bottles of liquor at us from the float, and we got drunk together for the first time in my garage?”

  “Ugh. I can still feel the nausea.”

  We take a shower together, but we’re not being sexual – just kind of cute and affectionate, like how we were earlier. I like it even better than sex, to be honest, and I hope I keep seeing this side of him. When we’re lounging in towels twenty minutes after the shower, I scroll my Twitter feed and look over at Beau.

  “Hey,” I say.

  “Yeah?”

  “So I was thinking…we should explore this thing a little more. We obviously both like guys, and we’re in one of the gayest towns in the country.”

  “It is?”

  “You mean you didn’t notice all the rainbow flags and gay couples? Key West is super gay-friendly.”

  He shrugs. “Honestly, no. I never noticed this stuff before or looked for it – I guess that hasn’t changed.”

  “Well, yeah, there are gays everywhere, actually.”

  He clams up. “Oh. I didn’t know you were looking.”

  “Stop. You know it’s not like that.”

  “What’s the point of this, then?”

  “I’m just…curious about all this. Let’s look into it a little. Hey, what’s the gayest thing you do right now?”

  He blushes. “Sometimes I watch Real Housewives.”

  “No!”

  “Yep. What about you?”

  “Well…I get two pedicures a month.”

  “Yep, that’s pretty gay,” he laughs.

  “But I want to learn more. I’ve been reading up online, and it’s only making me more curious. That’s why I almost want to…”

  “What?”

  “Okay, fine, we’re in the gayest town in Florida, and I wanna go to the gay bar. Are you down? I noticed one, like, two blocks away from here.”

  He raises an eyebrow. “Really?”

  “A lot of straight people go, too, actually.”

  He shrugs. “True. And I mean…I guess it can’t hurt anything. It’s not like Lane and his goons will be at any of them.” But then he gets more pensive. “But…what if we get hit on? How are we going to handle that side of everything? All we’ve done is hook up – we don’t know how to be gay, in the social sense…”

  “Chill,” I say with a frown. “And I don’t know. I’ll be fine with you talking to someone, if you want to. And I won’t be talking to anyone, so that’s irrelevant…”

  He bites his lip, and I can tell he’s not at 100% yet, regardless of his words. “Well, then, I trust you. Lane and them are boring the hell out of me, anyway. Let’s go to the gay bar!”

  Some pre-gaming ensues, and at ten PM we are stumbling to a gay bar on Duval Street, Key West’s main tourist drag. We pay a five-dollar cover charge in front of a big pink townhouse, then we walk through a beaded curtain into a dark, sparkly room. And then I discover an entire world I never even knew existed.

  Until a few years ago, I thought gay dudes pranced around and spoke with lisps – I will fully admit that I was fucking ignorant. Now I know that those guys exist, and that’s fine – but all types of other gay people exist, too. My main reference for gay life growing up was Brokeback Mountain, and not in a good way: I remember that for months after the movie came out, it was the joke everyone used with each other, all the time, when referring to gay issues. I only ever heard gay people being invoked to ridicule or mock or erase someone else – that’s so gay, you’re such a fag, you’re such a fairy, etcetera. It made me think the only thing a gay person could ever be was a punch line. And if gay people weren’t being made into jokes, they were simply being ignored – they weren’t anywhere. They were hidden from public life like they didn’t exist, when I’m learning more and more that they clearly do. Tens of millions of them, actually. Fifteen percent of the human population is said to be some shade of LGBT, according to that Scottish article I found, whether society wants to accept it and recognize it or not.

  I never found myself exposed to any kind of gay environment, so I guess I was expecting something cheesy and clichéd. But this club…this is so different. As soon as we walk in we are blinded by a stage decked out in curtains made of white and pink tinsel. Three go-go boys dance on a platform between the bar and the seating area, and thumping disco music provides it all with a thrilling, sort of sexy atmosphere. But there isn’t just one type of person – there are drag queens, but there are also straight girls, and men or every size and color, and people of unclear gender, too. You’d never find a variety like this anywhere else, actually, and especially not at a straight bar. I love it all immediately.

  “Cool, huh?” I ask Beau, and I see he’s just as enraptured as I am. We wait by the bar, since I don’t think either of us knows what to do with ourselves. As we both watch, studying things, a hand appears on the bar, followed by a deep and attractive voice.

  “Well hello there, stranger.”

  I look up and see a face I recognize instantly. Oh, shit – it’s Genaro! Of course he would be here in Key West – he’s good friends with the bride! I should’ve thought about the
rest of the wedding group showing up, now that the weekend is almost here…

  A friend from my freshman year of college, Genaro eventually “came out” as gay and quit my frat and never really came around again. Looking back, I can fully understand why he quit – those guys in the frat said terrible things, all the time. I’d quit, too, just because of Lane alone. I don’t think he’s ever insulted someone before, for any reason, without including the word “faggot” in there somewhere as a nice little kicker.

  Fuck. And I never realized how handsome Genaro was, either. He’s tall, probably so tall it stops all chatter when he walks into a room because it’s so noticeable. His nose has been broken a few times, but he has pillow lips and a huge black hairstyle like a 1950s teen idol. And he is suddenly looking at Beau like he has been lost in the Sahara and Beau is a pitcher of icy lemonade.

  I reach over to break the spell. I don’t hold it against him, though. I’m under that spell, too. It’s only natural to become spellbound by Beau Lindemann.

  “Um, Genaro. Hi. You were just talking to me, remember?”

  “Oh, hey!” he says, remembering I exist again. “I thought I’d come over and say hi, since I’m in town,” he says in his light Puerto Rican accent. “So…would you like to get a drink or something and catch up, or…?”

  Suddenly I realize this is the perfect chance to do what I’ve been craving – get an insight into the world of being gay, and maybe even get some advice on how to make it work with Beau. (If we can make it work at all.) And we’re still just friends right now, so why would Beau care if I left him alone for a minute? He wouldn’t care. He can fend for himself for a while.

  “Yes, but…let’s go somewhere else,” I tell Genaro. “Just for a minute, though. I need to talk, actually. Let’s go now?”

  “Cool, yeah. I was just on my way out. This place is lame.”

  I tell Beau to hold on, not even waiting to gauge his reaction, then head out the front door again with Genaro.

  “So…what’s going on?” he asks as we hit the sidewalk. “Why are you...um…”

  “At a gay bar?”

  He laughs and nods.

  “Long story,” I say. “Anyway, catch me up. What’s been going on?”

  Genaro goes on for a while about how he changed majors and had a breakup and various other things I can’t really pay attention to. Soon enough, he notices how distracted I am.

  Or should I say dick-stracted…

  “So…anything you want to talk about?” he asks soon. “You’re acting like you just saw a bald eagle roasting on a campfire.”

  “Oh, um, well the thing is…I need advice, and…well, it can only come from you.”

  “Tell me,” he says.

  “Well, first of all, I think I might want to date a guy.”

  I press my eyes closed for a moment, then open them – and he’s just smiling at me. He doesn’t look as shocked as I expected. This confuses me.

  “…And?” he asks.

  “What do you mean? Aren’t you…shocked?”

  He smiles harder.

  “What?” I ask.

  “I mean…should I be honest?”

  “Sure.”

  “No, I’m honestly not that shocked.”

  “Okay. Why not?”

  “Because you were a total womanizer when I knew you, and so was my Uncle Tom,” he says more casually. “He is now married to his husband Eric with two golden retrievers, by the way. Sometimes it just works out that way. Also…you can wear the fuck out of a suit, too. And aren’t you a big shopper? And a liberal, too?”

  “Okay, fine,” I sigh. “Maybe it’s not that far-fetched. I don’t think my family will react well, though. If I tell them, I mean. They have no idea.”

  “I understand...”

  “I need help,” I say, my words starting to tumble out of my mouth. “I have a plan to try it out, but…”

  “Don’t tell anyone about anything until you’re sure,” he says quickly, and with authority. “Let’s start there. It’ll change your whole life, and if you’re not actually gay or bisexual, it could lead to some complications.”

  “How do I know for sure what I am, then?”

  “I actually knew a guy who was curious,” he begins as we cross a street. “He came out as bi, then tried to date some guys – and he found he hated it. He didn’t even want to hook up with them. So before you make an announcement or anything, you need to…investigate. I cannot underscore how terrible the Deep South is to any man who is not straight. Like, we’re from South fucking Carolina, you know? So you need to be sure. You might be fluid, you might be straight, hell, you might be a huge flamer. But you don’t know yet.”

  “Flamer?” I ask, confused.

  “I’m a proud homo, I can use these terms. Anyway, the words mean nothing in the first place, to get technical. The term ‘straight’ isn’t even really a real thing to me, technically speaking – I think everyone feels, or has felt, certain things in the past, but our vicious little society forces them to hide it and push it down. Because of that, we have this weirdly rigid view of gender and sexuality, when really all that is much less black-and-white than anyone will admit. You’d be shocked by the guys I’ve seen on these hookup apps on late nights when they’ve had some drinks and want to get away from their girlfriends for some experimentation…”

  “Girlfriends?” I ask. He shakes his head.

  “Like I said, don’t ask. It’s all so complicated. That’s why I wasn’t surprised when you told me. I’ve grown to just not think so much about it, and take things as they come.” He takes a breath. “So who’s the guy? Can I guess?”

  I pause, then like lava from a burning mountain, I let it slip out in a hot desperate sentence: “Okay, yes, it’s obviously Beau. I’m seeing Beau. He was…sort of burnt-out on chicks. So was I.”

  “I’ll say.”

  “Hey. Don’t laugh at me. I’m scared. The guys on the trip are being weird about it, and I don’t know what to do…”

  “Don’t worry about those assholes,” he says. “And honestly, I always knew.”

  “You did?”

  “When I was in the frat, you two were always, like, weirdly…territorial with each other. That’s the word. If I hung out with one of you, the other one would always come sniffing around, asking a little too many questions, being a little too curious. I mean, frat boys are always a little homoerotic with each other – what kind of straight guys touch each other’s butts all the time, anyway? – but you two took the cake. And it was a very gay cake, with glitter and sparkler candles, too.”

  “Really?” I ask, dumbfounded that it was always so apparent to other people when it wasn’t even apparent to me.

  “Yep. You’re lost, I’m afraid. I saw it in your eyes the second you told me his name.”

  “Ugh. Fine. I’ll admit I am. But he’s still my best friend, and obviously if this doesn’t work out, it will completely change my life...”

  “And if it does work out, it will completely change your life, too, in a different way. A good way.”

  “I know,” I sigh. “That’s why I’m scared, G. And I’m not an idiot – I know the world still isn’t very kind to gay people, like you said. You guys couldn’t even get married until a few years ago, for God’s sake…”

  “Tell me about it,” he says. “Actually, no, don’t even get me started.”

  I sigh. “Ugh. Okay, well, thank you for talking. I’ll just…go with the flow, I guess, and hope it ends up well.”

  “Just keep it going – very quietly – until you get back to Charleston,” he says encouragingly. “Then regroup and reconsider. That’s my advice. That’ll be the big decider – if you can keep it going after you take that big leap.”

  “Gotcha,” I say, suddenly chilly.

  “But remember to be careful, too, in the meantime. Not sure if you know this, but, um…your friends are, well, they’re…”

  “A bunch of bigots? Yeah, I get that. Thanks for reminding me
, though,” I laugh.

  “Ha. Godspeed, good friend. At the very least, I hope this still gets you some amazing sex.”

  “Oh, don’t worry, it already did. And geez,” I add, “I forgot how funny you were. Why did I ever stop talking to you, again?”

  We share a moment of awkward eye contact. Shit. Of course I know why we stopped talking – my entire frat turned its back on him, and I went along with it without saying a word.

  “Look,” I say soon, “I’m sorry about all that. Those guys were-”

  “It’s fine. It was preferable, actually.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Nathan,” he laughs, “do you think that after I came out, I wanted to sit around for one second and listen to people like Lane say horrible shit about me all day? Please. And he didn’t just talk about gays, either. He made fun of women, and black people, and Hispanic people, and…”

  I shudder. “I know. You have a point. I’m already at the end of my rope with it, myself.”

  He appraises me, then smiles. “Well this is an interesting time for someone. Good luck, and have fun. And don’t underestimate what a big life change this can be.”

  “I know…”

  He looks away. “Um…I don’t think you do, though. I wouldn’t change anything about myself, but Nate…I can’t hold hands with the person I like in public. People would stare, and it would just be uncomfortable and awkward. So we don’t hold hands. Can you imagine what that’s like, though, to not be able to walk down the sidewalk and touch the person you love?”

  For a moment I try to compare this to what I’ve already dealt with. The way Lane and them are already looking at us strangely and skeptically, trying to figure out what’s going on. In fact, they’re looking at us like we’re garbage.

  But then I stop trying to understand at all. I can’t comprehend what Genaro’s life has been like at all, and it would be insulting for me to think I could. I’ve never dealt with it…yet.

  “I’m sorry,” I say soon. “I really mean that. I don’t understand why people are the way they are. If I could change them, I would.”

  “I appreciate you saying that,” he says warmly. “Like I said, I’m mostly fine with how I am. Oh, and by the way, go get your dude – now.”