by Eli Easton
Some asshole left used condoms in my locker. The thought of him trying to push them in through the vent with his fingers was actually sort of hilarious, even though they were disgusting and made a mess. Maybe he finally figured out that he was getting the worse end of the prank, because he stopped doing it.
I didn’t tell Owen about the condoms or any of the stuff people said. It wasn’t worth having him confronting the jerks, and he would have. He was like my own personal bodyguard. He stuck closer to me in the halls for a few weeks, until it became clear it wasn’t necessary.
He seemed kind of stiff and worried for a while. I hoped he wasn’t pulling away because he was ashamed of me or, even worse, of what we’d done. But he always seemed to know when I was worried about that, and he’d give me a warm smile or a ding on the arm or bump against my leg to let me know things hadn’t changed between us.
After a while, it just became the norm, like so-and-so is pregnant and so-and-so has rich parents and Jordan Carson is gay.
I noticed that Owen was even more touchy-feely and kissy-face with Emily than usual. It made me feel like puking, so I tried not to look. I told myself it didn’t matter. He was with her, not me, so the degree of “withness” was irrelevant. And anyway, I knew my coming out had probably put pressure on him. I couldn’t blame him.
Wrestling season came, and Emily and I went to all the matches. We wore our crazy team jerseys, painted our faces and screamed. Some of the wrestlers glared up at me in the stands once in a while, as if to say What are you looking at, faggot?, like I was so hot for their bodies. But at least they didn’t seem to give Owen a hard time. He was more focused and fierce than ever. He was on fire. He won almost all his bouts. By the time February rolled around, he was number one in individual rankings in his class in the state, again. But that year he came in first overall in rankings in our division—all grades, all weight classes. That was seriously major. Only one more year of high school wrestling to go. It didn’t seem like anything could stop his dreams now, and I was happy for him.
As for me, the “for sale” sign was in the window. It wasn’t like I was flooded with offers or anything, but there was a guy in my art class named Matt who started smiling at me a lot more.
Hey, he was no Owen Nelson, but then, nobody was. I smiled back.
Senior Year
Owen
We were finally seniors, Emily, Jordan, and me. Things were crazy busy. Jordy and I were studying to take the SATs in October. Emily had done hers early and scored super high, so we teased her that we were going to beat her, even though neither one of us thought we had a prayer of doing that.
Jordy and I visited UW Madison in August and got the campus tour. I was pretty familiar with the campus from visiting my brother Charlie, but seeing the behind-the-scenes stuff was different. The wrestling coach met us personally and took us through the sports facility. He was a really nice guy. He’d been to three of my matches, as had coaches from a lot of other schools. He was already talking as if I were on the team, which made me feel great. I wasn’t too worried about getting offered a scholarship, but nothing’s for certain until it happens, right? I still had my senior year of wrestling to get through. Jordy and I were applying to three schools, just to be safe, all of which had top wrestling teams.
We also toured the art department. They didn’t have the exact program Jordy wanted, comic book art or cartooning, but the professor who talked to us assured him they could slant the program that way on the graphic arts degree. He was really impressed with Jordy’s portfolio. Of course he was. Jordy is brilliant. Some of the work he was doing now on Pin Man and Pencil Boy was as good as a lot of the DC and Marvel comics we bought. People on tumblr loved him. He’d done some fan art for Teen Wolf, too, and it was insanely good.
We found out that Jordy and I could room together in the freshman dorm if we put the request in early enough. I was really happy about that. The idea of the two of us being on our own away from our parents was so fan-freaking-tastic. I couldn’t wait.
Emily had no interest in UW Madison. She wanted to go to Smith, a highly ranked women’s college in Massachusetts. A lot of her heroes had gone there, and she wanted to double major in government and gender studies. Her goal eventually was to go to law school and be a human rights advocate. Yeah, that was heavy stuff for the girlfriend of a wrestling jock from Jefferson, Wisconsin. But Emily was scary smart, and she’d always been her own person. That was one of the reasons why I liked her.
Emily and I didn’t talk a lot about what that move would mean for us. There was some loose talk like “Well, I’ll be home at Christmas” or “Next summer we could….” but I think we both knew that our time was running down. We’d been great friends, all three of us, but Emily had her own life to live, and it clearly was on a different path than mine.
Which was why she really blindsided me when she gave me her ultimatum. We’d gone to see a movie, and I was dropping her off at her house when she pulled something out of her purse. She handed it to me.
It was a pack of birth control pills. I just looked at her. I had no idea what to say so I settled for the ever brilliant, “Oh.”
“By the tenth I’ll have been on them a month, and I’ll be completely safe.”
I looked at the pack in my hand. There was a fluttery feeling low in my stomach that felt like one part arousal and two parts panic.
“But these things aren’t 100 percent, right?” I said.
She dug something else out of her purse. It was the information sheet that came with the pills, and she’d highlighted the facts about how this pill was 99.9 percent effective when taken correctly—no kidding, with a highlighter.
Advantage, Emily.
“Ah,” I said.
“I hope you’re not worried that I would deliberately not take them and get pregnant? Because if you think my goal in life is to have a baby at eighteen and lose my chance to go to law school—” She was working herself up a serious snarkfest.
“No. I don’t think that.” And I didn’t.
She studied me. “Owen, we’ve been dating for two years. It’s simple, really. I want you. Either you want me or you don’t. If you don’t, then what the hell are we doing?”
“I do,” I said quickly. “Of course I do. This is great.”
I hugged her.
I knew my time to waffle had run out. Either I went along with it, or Emily would dump me. She was tired of my excuses. I couldn’t blame her; so was I. And if Emily dumped me, I’d have to find another girlfriend fast. I thought my chances of finding another girl who would put up with Jordy hanging around us all the time was pretty slim. Besides, Emily was clever and funny—she was amazing.
I’d been so confused about sex ever since that thing had happened between Jordy and me last Halloween. For a long time, I felt ashamed of what we’d done, especially since I knew it had hurt Jordy. But part of me wanted to do it again. It had been the hottest thing that had ever happened to me by about a million miles. I looked at other guys, trying to figure out if I was gay, but none of them did anything for me. It wasn’t like I’d be in the locker room and see some naked guy walk by and think, “Yeah, I want me some of that.” Only Jordy.
Which was a fricking relief, because there was no way I could be gay.
But things with Emily were definitely not what they should be. I got hard when we made out, sure, but my heart wasn’t totally in it. I guess I liked Emily more as a friend by now, and it was a little like making out with my sister. I thought about other girls, hot ones at school, but it never seemed worth the hassle of breaking up with Emily and all that would screw up. I needed to stay focused on wrestling and academics. I didn’t have time for a soap opera.
The worst, though, was when I found myself with Emily and I thought about Jordan, his mouth on me, the way he’d touched me, the way he’d looked. A few times when Emily had gone down on me, that’s exactly what had happened.
I was seriously messed up, but at least all of that
was in my head. And it wasn’t going anywhere else if I could help it. It couldn’t. Eye on the prize.
I figured once we got to college there’d be a new girl, hopefully one that I found really sexy, one that I would be excited to be with. In the meanwhile, I had plenty of other things to think about. Sex was just one thing in life, right? It wasn’t everything.
Jordan
Senior year was kind of a breeze for me. I’d already finished up a lot of the ugly requirements, like math, and so I had three full periods of elective art—major Snoopy dance. After we took the SATs in September and filled out all the college apps, which were a total pain in the ass, it felt a little like coasting.
Not so much for Owen, though. This was his senior year of wrestling, and it was a huge deal. By now, people came from all over just to watch him wrestle in the flesh—I mean, people who had nothing to do with our team or the away team. The gym was always packed to the gills. There were TV people there, too, filming for the eleven o’clock news. And there were always coaches from one college or another there scouting. They’d want to take Owen out afterward for a bite to eat, so he rarely stayed over at my place on wrestling nights anymore.
Emily and I still went to all the matches together. But it felt sad walking home by myself. Our sleepovers had become such a tradition. But then, a lot of things were changing.
When Owen and I did hang out together, usually to study, he seemed tired and depressed. He was under a lot of pressure. He got into this thing where he wanted to hug me, just arms around the shoulders, hips as far away from mine as possible, with his face on my shoulder. It was completely nonsexual, but weirdly needy. I hugged him when he wanted me to, for as long as he needed it, even though it had a way of fucking with my head, making me hope for things that were never going to happen. I figured it was his way of trying to stay connected when everything else was moving so fast.
Sometimes I wanted that, too—to stay connected. And sometimes, I really didn’t.
I’d been desperately trying to get some space. There was a guy in the art department, Matt. He was thin, like me, with red hair and a soft face. We’d had a thing last year. He wasn’t my type, but when you’re starving you don’t turn down hamburger and hold out for filet mignon. We’d messed around—hand jobs and blowjobs. But Matt always had one eye looking out for someone else even while he was talking to me. I suppose I wasn’t his idea of filet mignon either. I never trusted Matt. Plus, I was still hung up on Owen. We decided to just be friends—friends with benefits when one of us was particularly desperate. At least he was another gay guy I could talk to. And what Matt wanted to talk about, mostly, was finding men to have sex with.
Owen disliked Matt with a passion. He thought Matt was using me, said I deserved better.
Yeah. Well, what else is new? In the immortal words of Mick Jagger, we can’t always get what we want. But I was determined to get what I needed. For the first time in my life, there were things I was keeping from Owen. Big things.
Owen was at my house on a rainy Saturday in March. Wrestling season was over, and he finally had a little free time again. We were working on Pin Man and Pencil Boy—trying to finish up the issue we’d been dinking around with since September. He went into my desk drawer to get a fresh pad of Post-its, and he went all still. Damn.
“What’s this?” he asked, taking it out of the drawer.
“Um… laminated plastic over a piece of paper?”
He looked at me, puzzled. “Why do you need a fake ID? And where did you get it?”
I sighed. I hadn’t intended to tell Owen about it. I knew he wouldn’t approve. But then, I wasn’t looking for his approval.
“Matt knows a guy who can get them.”
“And what’s it for?”
I looked him in the eye. “For hitting a gay club in Madison.”
He blinked, and his jaw got tight. I knew the look, and I mentally battened down the hatches. I stuck out my chin. He wasn’t the only one who could be tenacious.
“Jordy, that’s a really stupid idea.”
“Then congratulate yourself for not thinking of it. Well done, you.”
“And you didn’t tell me, why? Obviously because it’s such a great plan.”
“I am telling you.”
“Because I found your fake ID.”
I shrugged. “It’s not a big deal, Owen.”
“It is a big deal! Jordy, you’re seventeen. The guys at clubs like that…. It’s not safe.”
“How do you know what kinds of guys are at clubs like that?” I yelled, getting annoyed. Maybe I felt a little guilty for hiding it, but I didn’t have to answer to Owen for everything.
“Guys at a club like that want a quick fuck and have probably already had lots of them,” Owen said bitterly. “You walk in there looking… like you do, so young and… and innocent. You’re going to be like a slab of meat in a tiger cage. Is that really what you want?”
“God, you make it sound like I’m going to prison! No one’s going to force me into anything. I just want to get laid, alright?”
Owen looked stricken. “Fine. I get it. But why can’t you find somebody your own age?”
I snorted. “Who? I know every gay kid in school who’s out, and twice as many who aren’t, and that makes for, like, ten people in total. And no, I don’t want to sleep with any of them!”
Owen just stared at me for a long minute. I could see him calculating moves in his head like he was strategizing a match. “Let me go with you,” he finally said.
“No.” I was firm on that one.
“Why not? It’ll be a fun night out. If you meet someone, and he seems nice, get his phone number. What’s the big deal?”
I laughed bitterly. “Are you high? Owen Nelson risk being seen in a gay bar in Madison? Can you imagine that on the evening news?”
Owen blushed.
“Besides, what’s the point? Are you my mother now, holding my hand at a gay club, making sure I meet a nice boy?”
“You don’t need to resort to places like that, Jordy. You deserve better.”
I deserve better. I was so, so sick of hearing that from Owen. But I knew how stubborn he could be. Arguing with him straight on once he’d locked his teeth into something was like trying to play chess with the Incredible Hulk. I slumped.
“Look, please don’t worry about it. I’ll take my cell phone. I’ll call you if there’s any trouble, and I promise I won’t leave the bar to go home with someone, okay? I’ll stay there, where I’ll be safe in the crowd. Besides, Matt will be with me.”
Owen snorted. “Matt will take off and leave you the first time a guy crooks his little finger.”
Well, Owen was right about that.
“I’ll be fine,” I said.
Owen came over and put both hands on my shoulder. He made me look at him. His face was so serious. “Tell me you won’t go, Jordy. Come on.”
What could I do? For the first time in my life, I lied to Owen.
Owen
I knew Jordan was going to go to that club with Matt. I could see it in the way he wouldn’t completely look at me when we talked about our weekend plans. I asked if he wanted to go to the movies on Saturday, but he said he was getting together with some people in the art department. Then he changed the subject.
I was really disappointed that he felt the need to lie to me. But I guess he was determined to meet someone. I didn’t think there was a prayer he’d meet someone worthwhile at a place like that, but when Jordy didn’t want to hear something, he wouldn’t hear it.
I figured the only thing I could do was to follow him and keep an eye out, for my own peace of mind if nothing else. The thought of some random guy, some big butch construction worker or something, hurting Jordy drove me batty.
I was parked in my truck down the street when Jordy and Matt left Jordy’s house. I followed.
In Madison, they parked in a parking garage and went to a place called Gorgons. There was a line to get in. I circled the street an
d found a parking place. I approached the club on foot. I had a plain gray hoodie on with the hood up, hoping no one would recognize me.
I knew what I was doing was ridiculous, but I couldn’t see any alternative other than giving up and going home, and I wasn’t going to leave Jordan like that. I didn’t dare go inside. Besides, I didn’t have a fake ID, so I found a doorway across the street and hung out there. I just wanted to make sure Jordan came out in one piece and with Matt. If he came out with some guy, I’d have to stop him. No way was I going to let him go to some stranger’s house and get drugged or raped or God knows what.
My hands were clenched so hard in my pockets I could feel the bite of my nails in my palm. The thought of Jordy dancing with, kissing, a strange man inside that club, maybe going into the bathroom with him, the image of a lot of older men staring at him, drooling all over him…. It honestly made me want to throw up. At least physical pain was something I could deal with. I dug my nails in harder and watched the door.
Jordan
Matt and I were on the dance floor. I’d had a couple of drinks, but I was so nervous that I really wasn’t feeling them. Matt was in twink heaven, dancing with three other guys who were all, simultaneously, trying to rub up against him. A lot of men were looking at me, but they were quite a bit older, and some of them were creepy, and it was all a little overwhelming. Honestly, I was looking around the room for a quiet corner where I could sit down for a few minutes.
Matt was swept away by his groupies, but another guy was in front of me in a heartbeat. He was muscular in that gym bunny way, and he wore a tight black T-shirt. He looked like he was in his midtwenties. His hair was buzzed short, and he had a quarter-inch beard and blue eyes. He was pretty hot.
“How you doing?” he screamed in my ear, trying to be heard over the music.
