by Lori L. Otto
Sunscreen, Will. Sunscreen would have been appropriate.
Sliding in the booth across from Peron, I pick up the paper menu and listen to my stomach growl. “I could eat one of everything.”
“Sex’ll do that.”
“I didn’t fuck her, Per,” I reiterate softly, staring at him.
We don’t continue our conversation until the waitress leaves after taking our order.
“The idea of spending seven months with four single guys while my girlfriend waits for me back home gets less and less appealing every second,” he tells me.
“Tavo’s got a girl.”
“Sorry, three single guys and one unfaithful dick-of-a-boyfriend.”
“That’s better. Look, I’m sorry that Brooke’s got you on this short leash and shit. Damon and I have been single since the day you met us. You knew it was gonna be like this.”
“No, Will,” he says, clearly pissed. “You singled me out and asked me to help you make changes in your life. You sold me on this idea that going on tour would get you to break your old habits, but you were just lying to yourself, to me…”
“I wasn’t. I’m not,” I argue, reaching for my hair. He knocks my elbow out from under me before my hand touches a strand. “I’m just weak. Willpower? What a joke. Willpower is one hell of a misnomer. I have none. Obviously. Day one. I can’t make it through six hours without a woman. Fuck, two women.”
“Is this really what you want, Will?”
I look down at my fingertips, running my thumbnail over the callous of my middle finger, watching the way it cuts into the skin. Probably not the best time to ask me that question.
A lot of people can define years of their lives by the relationships they maintained, but not me. That stopped when I was sixteen. It stopped with Laila, the first and only love of my life. I met her when my mom took me and Max to live in Utah the year she finally sobered up. Jon was at Columbia, so my aunt welcomed the three of us into her home. I spent a year and a half in Provo. Laila and I went on our first date just before our Sophomore year. The next nine months were euphoric for both of us. We were definitely in love, and we genuinely liked one another, too. We had great conversations with each other. Everything was sweet; I don’t know how else to put it. We were innocent. I was naïve.
When Mom told me we were moving back to New York at the end of the year, a part of me was happy. I was a fish out of water in Utah. The pace was slower, and I wanted back the rush of the city. The teachers didn’t give me as much freedom to stray from the lessons like they did in New York. Even though we’d come with transcripts in hand and recommendations from my school counselor, they couldn’t adequately accommodate my advanced course requirements. I didn’t get behind, though. It just meant I soaked up more at the library after hours. I would look forward to being back in an environment that welcomed more diversity.
What I thought I would miss were the friends I’d made. At my school in Upper Manhattan, I was bullied relentlessly for being smart–and small. Laila started going out with me when I was five-foot-four. She was almost my height. When I moved away, I was five-eight. My best friend at the time was a kid named Landry. The rest of my classmates were nice and accepting of me as a new kid in their school. I always had something to do or somewhere to go on the weekends when I lived in Utah.
I didn’t end up missing anyone, though. Betrayal has a funny way of making that happen.
After my Sophomore year, Mom, Max and I moved into Livvy’s loft for a few months while Mom looked for a place for us to live. Laila and I talked every day, counting down the days until I would get to see her one last time in July. It was a birthday present from my mom.
I got there, and everything happened as planned. I’d snuck out of my aunt’s house one night, took her car, and drove Laila up to a secluded hill under the stars where I finally lost my virginity. To this day, I’m only ninety-percent certain that Laila was still a virgin at the time, too. The actual percentage is probably lower, but my pride likes to say ninety-percent.
The next morning, my fuckwad-of-a-best-friend had come over to make sure there were no bad feelings between us. Laila and Landry had been seeing each other over the summer. He said he’d assumed Laila had told me, but I think he honestly just wanted to rub the news in my face.
I one-upped him, though. I told him I fucked his girlfriend the night before. Then I busted his lip, and I never talked to him again.
It sounds like a pretty traumatic trip, but I got my first guitar on the way back home from Utah, which was one of the best things that ever happened to me. If all that shit had to happen for me to get where I am today, fuck it. Fine by me.
And as it turns out, I didn’t need those friends. I made new ones fast when we moved to Queens. Once I had my guitar, I had confidence. Once I had confidence, I had friends. Funny how that works. My first real friend there was–of course–a girl. Her name was Irene, but I kept her at arm’s length. She was fucking awesome. An incredibly talented violinist, plus she could hold her own against me in our math and science classes. She was pretty much the female version of me, except her heart was wide open for love and mine was dead to the world. She stayed at a distance because I knew I’d hurt her. I eventually did, anyway.
I had an easy time finding easy girls in high school. The ones that didn’t care so much about love. Once Damon and I started hanging out, we were kind of magnets for them. Jon had warned me before Laila and I hooked up. He’d told me, “Once you have a taste for sex, kid, you’re going to want it again. Often.” Never before or since have truer words ever been spoken. Again and often. I never had a girlfriend. Just hookups. There were a few girls who I would go back to on occasion, but they knew where they stood with me, and they understood there was nothing more that I could offer. I was probably overly blunt with my reiterations of this, too.
After learning the truth about me–which I tried to hide from her, but people talked–Irene stopped hanging out with me entirely. It sucked, but I was glad I’d never let myself get too close, or I would have been more hurt by her absence, too.
But having sex–again and often–has been my way of life for the past eight years. Being somewhat of a savant with math and numbers, you’d think I’d know how many women I’d been with, but I lost count long ago. It was better that way, because I dreaded having to answer that question someday to someone that had the potential to break through the wall. An honest answer would undoubtedly have her flagging down the nearest mason to build that barrier back up to keep her safe from the damage I’d cause her.
As it stands, I’m not sure “too many to count” is such a great answer, either, but at least that response leaves the number open to interpretation.
It’s been a great arrangement for me, really. In college, my head was in my studies all day. After I graduated, I was one-hundred percent focused on work and research. If I went home, I couldn’t turn my brain off. I’ve never been able to. To escape, I’d read more books. Learn more things. There’s never been an off switch. But on the nights I play gigs with Damon, I can slip away into the music and transcend… my presence. My being. It’s like I’m a part of something on another level of existence. It makes me feel infinitesimal and astronomical at the same time. A certain calm and numbness takes over. After shows, I’m on an endorphin high, feeling completely relaxed and focused on extending the sensation. That’s where the women come in. I meet a beautiful girl. She strokes my ego. We have a little fun, no strings attached. She gets her release, and I get mine. It puts me into a deep sleep. The post-gig-sex-sleep is the only restful sleep I get. Regular sleep doesn’t erase the day; doesn’t stop my brain.
Regular sleep is all I have to look forward to on this tour if I go through with this new Will bullshit. Is this what I want?
“I’ll just assume from your silence that you aren’t really sold on this idea,” Peron says.
“I didn’t say that.”
“No, you didn’t say anything. Silence.”
&nb
sp; “You know how I work, Peron. Without this, silence will be a thing of the past for me.”
“Music.” I wait for him to say more. I motion for him to continue.
“Music what?”
“You have to replace it with music.”
“I’ve tried,” I say, frustrated, leaning back against the bench so I can tug at my hair without my friend’s physical discouragement. “If that worked, I would have been healed of this affliction long ago.”
“But you never really had to do it. You’ve had your sexual crutch and you’ve used it often. Pretend it’s not there anymore.”
“Pretend my dick isn’t there,” I say with a straight face.
“Yeah,” he says right back to me.
I look briefly at my lap and then back up at him. “That one. The one that reminds me fifty times a day that he’s feeling frisky and wants some action?”
“Yeah. What, you think yours is special?”
“Well, yeah, I kinda do.”
“It’s not.”
“Ask any of the girls I’ve been with.”
“I wouldn’t even know how to find them. I guess we could put up posters or something…”
“Fuck you,” I tell him, moving out of the way to let our waitress set down our plates of food.
“Were you talking to me?” she asks.
“Oh, no! I’m sorry, no, I was…” I start, looking up to her apologetically until I realize she’s flirting with me, not accusing me of being rude. I like older women, but there’s a distinction between older women and old women. This woman’s just… old. “I was talking to him.” I point to my friend and smile sheepishly, not wanting to offend her. I take a drink of the Coke I’ve been nursing.
“My buddy here is, uh… fucked out for the night.” I choke out the drink onto my plate and Peron’s. When I recover, I stare wide-eyed at him, disbelieving what I heard. For one thing, Peron rarely curses. And another, did he really just tell our waitress I’m fucked out? Like I’m coked out? Or played out?
The waitress doesn’t stick around any longer.
“That’s not a thing, Peron. And if it were, it’s not true. I didn’t have sex with Julia…”
“I just saved you from making another mistake. Did your special dick twitch for her, too?”
“No,” I say with a bit of a laugh. “God, you’re an asshole sometimes.”
“I’m just trying to help you.” He takes a bite of his food, not paying attention to the droplets of soda on his eggs. “Like you asked me to.”
“I think you just kissed Julia by proxy. I spit on your eggs and you just ate them.”
“I’ll take whatever I can get,” he says, purposefully unfazed by my taunting.
“Brooke would hate that.”
“Not as much as she hates you…”
“You never should have told her about me. My sex life is none of her business.”
“You hit on her after a show.”
“I didn’t know who she was! It was the first time we’d met, Peron! She was just pissed I turned her away when she failed my test, anyway,” I tease him. “I don’t take drunk girls home. And man, was she drunk!”
“She has social anxiety. She was nervous to meet everyone.”
“Yes, I know she’s as fucking neurotic as you. That’s why you’re perfect for one another.”
We both focus on our food, shifting the conversation to our joint love of bacon. Their strips are so crispy here, they fall apart when you bite them. My favorite kind of bacon.
After I finish eating, I finally glance around the restaurant and see a few pairs of eyes staring in my direction. I decide to look away instead of inviting their attention with the smile.
“Listen, Will,” Peron says, leaning over the table and talking softly. “I don’t want to have to listen to what may or may not be you doing it with a girl every other night three feet away from me on the bus. I don’t want that from Damon or Tavo, either, and I don’t think they’d do that–nor would they get away with it. We all know you have your issues, right? Add that to the fact that you’re probably at least forty-percent of the draw to these shows, and you get more forgiveness than you probably should.
“But it’s gonna get old quick. So you gotta figure it out.”
“I know.”
“All right.”
“Can I get you two anything else?” our waitress asks, her question less than friendly. She clears our plates hurriedly.
My bandmate and I look at one another. I know it’s too soon to go back to the bus. “Yeah. Coffee. Decaf, please.”
“Make it two.”
“Sure,” she responds to us.
“Maybe this is it,” I suggest. “Me and you, staying up all night talking.”
“You have to sleep, Will. I definitely have to sleep.”
“We should have brought my acoustic,” I say thoughtfully. “Next time, we’ll do that.”
“I’m not sure the patrons of this establishment would be into that.”
“It’s a nice night. We could write outside.”
“Yeah,” he agrees.
Our coffee is poured for us, and a carafe is set in the middle of the table. As the waitress turns to leave, she sets down our tab and tosses a pack of cigarettes on top of it.
My grin spreads slowly. “What the fuck is that?”
“Do we smell like the bus?” He sniffs his shirt. “I don’t smell.”
“I’m wondering if it’s related to your fucked out comment. Like this is her way of saying, ‘Here, enjoy some postcoital cancer sticks on me. Now pay up, get out of my restaurant, and–while you’re at it–die.’”
“Shit, we’ll have to tip extra for her niceties.”
“She probably spent her tip on this little jab. Worth it? I think not.”
“Well, we’ll let her keep them. Maybe she does it to all the sexy rockers.”
“Please don’t ever call me that again, Per. It makes me sound like grandma’s old chair that’s been spruced up with leather and studs.” We both start laughing at an inopportune time, because the waitress just happens to walk by at that second. “Shit,” I mumble in between breaths.
“We’re gonna have to find somewhere else to eat later. The cooks are gonna have our pictures in the back with specific instructions from her.”
“No kidding. And the bacon was so good,” I whine.
After an hour, both of us are starting to nod off at the table. The girls’ limo is still parked next to the bus, so we decide we’ll just put headphones in and do our best to ignore our surroundings once we’re back inside. After we settle our tab, I open up the cigarettes and scatter them all out on the table.
“What are you doing?”
“I don’t want them to go to waste.” I quickly do the calculation in my head after counting out the twenty sticks in the package. I grin, pouring the last of the coffee into my mug, filling it up.
“What…”
“Just wait.”
In ten seconds, my message is composed entirely of cigarettes and a coffee cup: a simple “THANK YOU” to our waitress. The mug makes a perfect O.
“Oh, that’s so sweet,” Peron says as he snaps a picture of it.
“Yeah, I thought so, too. Let’s get out of here.” Before we leave, we stop by a cashier stand by the door that sells ready-made pies. “Can I exchange this for a roll of quarters?” I ask her, flashing a twenty. She nods and makes change for me. “Thanks.”
Back on the bus, Peron and I weave our way through the mess of bodies in the main section. Everyone looks relaxed–or drunk out of their minds, which is more likely the case when I see the shot glasses and empty bottles around them. Damon stands up, a little shaky on his legs, and hugs me and Peron as if he hasn’t seen us in days. He makes his way to the sink for some water after that.
“Hey, Will,” Julia says, drawing my attention to her.
“Hey.” I keep walking to the back, where I find Ben watching TV on his bare mattress. I hand him the roll of
quarters. “There’s a laundromat a block north,” I tell him.
“Good. Everything’s in that basket for you to take in the morning.”
“I’m not doing your laundry, Ben,” I tell him as I turn around and leave his room.
“He’s not doing your laundry!” Damon concurs. Ben doesn’t pursue it any longer.
“But these quarters aren’t gonna pay for my Hugo Boss,” he says loud enough for me to hear.
I look back in his direction to respond. “Start making us a profit. Then we’ll talk.” When I turn back around, Julia’s right next to me with her hand on the zipper of my shorts. “Whoa, whoa, whoa.” I move her hand away. “What’re you doing there?”
“I thought we’d finish what we started earlier…” she tells me.
I shake my head. “Uhhh… and that would be…”
“I wanna take care of you,” she whispers very loudly. I glance up at Peron, who definitely heard. I shake my head again, this time at him, until her fingers reach between my legs and awaken that proverbial itch that wants to be scratched.
I close my eyes and lean into her, taking a deep breath, sighing at the conflict taking place inside my head. I take another breath, this one much shallower. Then another.
“Julia… it kind of looks like you’ve hit the tequila a bit since I left. Smells like it, too.”
“Maybe a little,” she says, blinking up at me with cute puppy dog eyes.
“Ohhh, Julia. I’d hate to think you had to get drunk to make this a good idea. I’m gonna have to politely decline the offer, but thanks.” I see Peron’s arms fly in the air in a sign of victory.
“No, Will, I want to. I wanted to before.”
“I appreciate it, but no.” I turn away from her to start to climb into my bunk to escape her, but she stops me, pulling my arm.
“Will,” she says desperately. “Let me!”
