“I came by bus. I didn’t think I would ever get here with all of the transfers, and the driver kept stopping for bathroom breaks every ten minutes.”
“If you think a bus is bad, try drivin’ all th’ way up from Florida. Ain’ nothin’ worse than bein’ cooped up in a mini van that smells like hot sauce an’ barbecue pork skins with a hollin’ two-year-old.”
“You have me beat,” Scott laughed. “What part of Florida?”
“Tallahassee. I figured it was time fo’ a changa scenery.”
“I thought I sensed a Southern accent.”
“So where you from?” I asked.
“Here, New York.”
“Manhattan?”
“Queens actually. Far Rockaway. My mother and brother live there. I was teaching in Connecticut before coming back here to get my PhD in economics.”
I lied and told Scott that I was a media communications major. It sounded more practical than creative writing. Scott and I didn’t wind down for bed until four that morning. The week had taken its pound of flesh out of the both of us with exhausting bus and car rides and the excitement of new digs. That first night Scott wore a wife-beater that showed off his freckled arms. It was the first time I’d slept in close proximity to someone else without sex involved.
Weeks passed. We were well into the semester before our relationship soured. Because of the demands of his classes, Scott was always stressed. He had grown mean, easily annoyed. So I started to avoid him. My classes met only Tuesday and Wednesday evenings. I job-hunted by day and hopped from bar to club most nights while Scott was cooped up with his nose in a book. I’d get home and he’d be asleep at his desk, drooling onto his reading material.
The place was a fucking wreck when I came in from class one night.
“What th’ hell is this? Wha’choo doin’?”
Scott never turned around to look at me, but remained motionless at his desk. “Excuse me?”
“You heard me, man. Why all your clothes out in tha floor like this?”
“I was looking for something.”
“Yeah, but damn, you ain’t have to tare up tha place.”
“I’ll clean it up.”
“No shit you go’n clean this up. What’s your problem?”
“I said I’ll clean it up!” Scott stormed past me in a rage, out the door. It was scary to see him act a fool like that. It took me the rest of that night to straighten up, to put shit back in order. I looked at the clock sitting on the sill of my window with its devastating view of Ground Zero—you could still smell the ashes. It was a little after four in the morning when he returned and undressed for bed. I watched with squinted eyes as he stripped. He was lean and lithe, his chest peppered with freckles, his shapely butt in boxers. My dick stiffened.
“Wherejoo go?”
“For a walk around the Seaport,” he said.
“You okay?”
“Yeah. Sorry about the mess.”
“Don’t worry ’bout it.”
That night we talked until our eyes ached for sleep—mostly about his mom, who was pretty sick, and who doted on his deadbeat brother but treated Scott as if he were invisible.
Scott eventually slept, oblivious to the clatter of battered, smoldering steel being hauled. I lay awake, settling my sleepy eyes on Scott’s brawny legs hanging limp off the side of his bunk. I longed to shrimp his perfect, pedicured toes, kiss the soft, pink heels of his feet, worship the arches. I slid my hands down into the warmth of my pajama bottoms imagining Scott’s dick between my lips. I studied him as he tossed and turned. I saw a single hand ease its way down into his underwear. I kept pace with him until I came.
That next morning, the sound of the shower woke me. Scott’s clothes were lying on his bunk. The dorm room smelled of freshly brewed coffee. There was a note attached to the fridge that read: Help yourself, with an arrow pointing to the coffee-maker. It wasn’t like him to do something nice. I figured he was apologizing for the mess he’d made of the place.
I poured myself some coffee and while it cooled I sat at my desk to proofread a couple of poems.
As I read my verse, I heard the sudden shutting off of the shower. Steam spirited out into the hallway. Scott came into the room soaked and wet with a beach towel wrapped around his waist. Pearls of water trickled down his legs, and a damp trail of red hair ran from his chest down his belly toward his pubes. He was even cuter without his glasses.
“Hey. Good morning.”
“Thanks for tha coffee.”
He held the towel tightly around himself with one hand as he fished out a pair of boxers and some socks. What happened next caused my blood to run white hot: an end of Scott’s towel dropped, exposing his bare butt and a side view of his dick. I drank in his stark nudity before he pulled the end of the towel back around his ass. My dick twitched and filled as Scott dressed, working his legs into clean boxers, then into starched jeans. I was so busy studying him I burned my mouth on the coffee.
“Are you all right?”
“Yeah. I jus’ burned my lip.”
“How is it?”
“Pretty good. It’s got an interestin’ taste. Wherejoo get this from?”
“A café in Chelsea called Big Cup. They have all kinds of blends.”
“Cool. I’ll check it out.”
“You have class tonight?” Scott asked.
“One. You?”
“No. But I was thinking about taking in a movie if I’m back in time. You want to join me?” It was the first time he’d offered to do something with me.
“Sure. Give me a call.” I gave him my cell number. “Where you headed?”
“Far Rockaway.”
“Is it your mom?”
“She called yesterday. Says she has a doctor’s appointment. She’s a diabetic on dialysis. She won’t go by herself and won’t take the train. Not since she got mugged a few years back. And she doesn’t trust taxis.”
“What about your brotha?”
“Can’t find him. I called the number my mom gave me, but all I get is voice mail. Wherever he is, he better stay there because I’m not going to have a brother when I do find him.”
“Does he have anything t’ do with yestaday?”
“Yeah. Juggling school and dealing with my brother’s shit on top of it is taking its toll, you know?”
“Lemme know if there’s anything I can do.”
“Thanks.” He grabbed his pack and headed toward the door.
I spent most of the day thinking about Scott and how he was faring with his mom. I understood his plight. I have uncles with alcohol and heroin addictions and I know how taxing that shit can be on family. Can’t help them unless they want to help themselves.
Everyone dug my poems in class that night. High on praise, I strolled through Tompkins Square Park on my way to this bar called Spain where I drank cheap booze and ate stale chicken wings. By the time I left, I only had two bucks to my name. Barely enough for a pack of Ramen. I hoped money from Ma was on the way ’cause I was getting down to saltine crackers and a can of sardines.
After my glimpse of Scott in his birthday suit that morning, I had walked around campus all day with the hard-on from hell. I detoured to the NYU tearooms; they made the food-court toilets and cruising parks back home look like convents, and the men of New York were gorgeous and freaky—unlike the trolls back home. The A-level toilet at Bobst was a smorgasbord of men sucking and receiving. I was happier than a fly on shit that I didn’t have another class for the rest of that week. I spent it applying for jobs as movie theater ushers and copy center techs. I would choose ten places a day to apply, and then it was off to the tearooms, where I spent three to five hours scavenging for college boys. Figured if I couldn’t be a student there because of shit grades and blue-collar parents, I might as well cruise the bathrooms, sucking West Village dick. I ended up fucking a saucy Blatino boy in a handicapped stall, then rode the A-train back to Fulton with cum on my breath.
Scott hadn’t called, and
the room was pitch black when I got in and he was dead to the world. His covers were kicked off, and one of his legs was dangling off the side of the bed again. Careful not to wake him, I set my backpack against the closet door. My bladder was bursting with appletinis. After I drained my dick, I went straight to bed.
That night something startled me out of my drunken slumber, and it wasn’t the goings-on of steel being hauled. I had grown accustomed, able to adapt to the New York noises. I looked to Scott asleep in his bunk. Without my glasses, he was but a blur. I grabbed them off the cover of the collected poetry of James Schuyler. Scott was at it again, tugging at his dick. I relaxed back into bed, hand under my cotton tent as I watched. He grunted lustfully across from me. He let loose a breathy sigh when he came. Through squinting eyes, I watched him climb out of his bunk. He unfurled some towels from the kitchen to wipe up his mess. Scott had quite the porno dick for a nerdy boy. Mine throbbed so under my comforter, I could have come without touching it. He discarded the stained paper towels and went back to bed. I turned away from him and tried to think of something other than his jack-off session. That next morning, he said nothing; not a word was uttered about the night before.
“So how did th’ trip t’ your mom’s go yestaday?”
“Not so good. She’s actually worse off than I thought. When I got there, the place looked like a landfill. I spent half the day cleaning up. I asked her where Joe was and all she could tell me was that he was working, when I know he hasn’t worked a legit job in months other than slinging dope.”
Scott made my dick ache as he walked the floor half-naked. All that skin, the alabaster muscles.
“So were you able t’ get’er th’ medicine she needed?”
“I told her I would take care of her prescriptions from now on.”
“It’ll work itself out. You jus’ gotta take it one day atta time.”
“Yeah, I guess. So what do you have planned today?”
“I gotta fin’ a job. U’m goin’ broke. I thought my financial aid would have come through by now, but nothin’. I checked with them Wednesday and they said it will probably be another three weeks.”
“You want me to lend you a couple of bucks to tide you over?”
“No, U’m good.”
“C’mon,” he said, fishing two twenties out of his wallet. “Here.”
“Scott I cain’t, man, really.”
“I insist.”
I took the cash reluctantly. “I’ll pay you back as soon as I get some money.”
“You seem like you’re good for it.” He went into the bathroom to shower.
The door was slightly ajar. I stared at the blur of his body through the sheer of the shower curtain, at the curve of his ass, his dick dripping with lather. I wanted to stay, but I needed to go job-hunting—though his dick was the only job I wanted.
I spent the day applying anywhere with a HELP WANTED sign in the window. All I could think about was Scott. So much so, I wrote his name on an application by mistake. By late afternoon, it was time to cruise. The security guard who usually gave me shit wasn’t on duty; instead, a fat gospel-singer of a woman with hoop earrings and a weave down to her ass, let me pass into the building.
The bathroom reeked of pee. Most stalls were occupied ’cept for the shitter at the end, the one with the larger glory holes. I glanced in at the cruiser next to me, studied what he was so frantically working between his legs. It was long and cut with a perfect set of balls. He was the dirty-blond punk I had sucked off a week before. I signaled him to stick it through. The belt from his shorts skimmed along the floor. I sucked him hard and steady. My muscles burned in my bent position, but the pain was worth it. The scent of musky crotch hair filled me. Spit trickled down his balls. I imagined that it was Scott. A few men that had been lingering at the urinals sauntered over. They beat off as they watched my actions. He didn’t give me much of a warning when he came. Just like a punk. I spat him into the toilet and wiped what was left with the sleeve of my shirt. I finished off a few more including Keerati, a computer aide in one of the labs on campus. My legs felt like rubber. I walked like a crippled old man back up the stairs. When I arrived back at the dorm, my favorite stud muffin of a guard was on duty.
“Wassup?” I asked, searching my pockets for my wallet.
“You cool. You up in Four-B right?”
“Yeah. ’Preciate it.”
I was surprised that Scott wasn’t home. I put away the groceries I’d bought with the money he lent. I was glad he wasn’t there. It gave me a chance to search for evidence that would shed some light on Scott’s sexual preference.
I rummaged through desk drawers of stationery and books, checked his closet full of pressed Oxfords, blazers and shoes lined in perfect rows, but nothing. No sign of videos, magazines, gay or straight. Not even so much as a Boy George album tucked away. I made sure I put everything back. Neither a shirt nor argyle sock was out of place.
I had popped a TV dinner in the microwave and gone over a few new poems I wanted to work on for the next workshop when I heard Scott outside the door. I felt like a wife waiting up for her husband to come home from a day hard at work. He was armed with plastic bags that read Szechuan Tasty House Chinese Restaurant in red lettering.
“Hey.” He sat the food on the kitchen counter.
“Oh, you’re already having dinner.”
“Yeah, but I always got room for Chinese. Wha’joo bring?” I grabbed some plates from the cabinet.
“I got some Chicken Chow Mien, Moo Goo Gai Pan, Shrimp with Lobster Sauce, and a coupla egg rolls.”
“Look like you cleaned ’em out.”
“Pretty much.”
“Di’ja get any fortune cookies?”
Scott held a few up out of the bag. “What’s Chinese food without fortune cookies?”
Wasn’t long before the entire apartment smelled of Chinese takeout. Scott and I filled our bellies with everything from Chicken Chow Mein to fried rice.
“Di’joo go see your mom?”
“Yeah, she’s doing much better.” Scott’s mouth was greasy from the food.
“I caught up with my brother, too.”
“How’s he?”
“Busy killing himself with that shit he’s putting in his arm. I gave him some money and told him to stop coming around, that he was only upsetting our mom.”
Scott was near tears. He turned his head toward his plate to keep me from witnessing his pain. I flipped the script of the conversation on to the cookies that held our fortunes.
“What does yours say?” Scott asked.
You have friends and you know it. I thought since the evening ended so well, it would be the perfect time to talk to Scott about what happened, but I decided against it. I didn’t want to add fuel to the fire of Scott’s situation.
That night I kept a close eye on him. Just as I was about to drift off to sleep, I heard that same rustling from the prior night. There he was again. I wanted to touch it, to lay my hands there, but I didn’t want to startle him awake. I kept my distance with my hand down in my drawers as I watched him under his snug tent. He pulled his covers over his actions. I went to the bathroom to finish up. I thought of Scott with each stroke, every caress until I came into the toilet water. I cleaned myself up and started for bed. I knew that something had to be said.
The next morning the sound of pots clattering and bacon sizzling woke me. I rubbed the sleep from my eyes and grabbed my glasses off the nightstand.
“Hope you’re hungry,” Scott said.
“Sure, yeah.”
The table was decorated with plates of bacon and eggs, a saucer of toast, juice and coffee. He knows, I thought, but he mentioned nothing all through breakfast. But it was now or never.
“That was good. Thank you.” Scott cleared the table. “Ain’ know you could cook,” I said.
“There’s a lot you don’t know.”
“Can we talk fo’ a minute?”
“What’s up?”
“I
t’s ‘bout las’ night. I saw you.”
“Saw me? Saw me what?”
“Never mine, um…”
“No. Spit it out. Saw me what?”
“Jackin’ off.”
“What?”
“In your bunk las’ night.”
“Bullshit.”
“Look, man, its cool. We all do that shit.”
“I was scratching my balls,” he said turning red.
I thought maybe he didn’t realize he was jacking off in his sleep.
“You know what? You wish I was jacking off. I see how you look at me, how you stare. And I saw your magazines.”
“You been goin’ through my shit?” I asked, checking my drawers.
“Just for the record, you would be the last guy I would fuck even if I were a fag.” Scott grabbed his things and stormed out the door. I sat there stunned; I couldn’t believe that he denied it. I searched the graduate building in hopes of running into him to apologize, but he was M.I.A. I couldn’t keep focused because of our fight. I got back to the dorm thinking that I shouldn’t have said anything. I ate some of the leftover Chinese, and went to bed. Scott didn’t come in until three that morning. I pretended I was asleep.
“Darryl, you awake?” he whispered. I felt his hand on my arm. “You asleep?”
“Wa’sup?”
“It’s my brother.” Scott started crying.
“What? Wha’s wrong?” I sat up in my bunk.
“They found him at some old abandoned apartment with a needle in his arm. He’s dead. They want me to come down and ID the body.”
“Oh god, man, U’m so sorry.”
“What am I going to do? How am I going to tell my mother?”
“You want me t’ go wi’choo tomorrow?”
“Would you?”
“Of course. We’ll go firs’ thing in th’ mornin’.”
“I’m sorry…about last night,” Scott cried.
“Hush. Forget about it. I was an asshole.”
Scott reminisced throughout the night about himself and his kid brother, how they fought over everything from Tonka trucks to girls in high school, but always made up after the dust settled.
That next morning, Scott was sullen. I practically had to dress him and push him into the elevator. He didn’t talk much on the train to Far Rockaway.
Best Gay Romance 2015 Page 14
