“Told her maybe another night. She didn’t really appeal. Looked like she’s spent way too much time at Hot Topic.”
“What’ve you got against Hot Topic?”
He threw a wadded up piece of paper at me. “Dude, those goth chicks don’t do it for me.” Then he sat forward and said, “What about Jamie?”
“I already told you, she’s not my flavor.”
“You and me, bro, we need to start getting some action.”
“Guess so.”
“So, why don’t you nail her?”
“Same reason you didn’t get a blow job from that redhead? I just don’t like her. Too pushy.”
Tyler stood up and opened the bottom drawer of my dresser. “Guess you’ll have to be happy with these.” He threw a couple of my dirty magazines in my lap. He pointed a finger at me. “You are gonna go blind if you keep whacking off.”
I tackled him, and he fell back on his bed. “You better shut up unless you want me to break your precious guitar hands.”
“You wish. I’m shaking in my boots,” he said, laughing and shoving me off him. “Don’t make me hurt you. I might just break your right hand. Then you’ll have to use your left.”
From our room, I heard my mom open the front door, and next thing I knew, there was Rosalyn, standing in the doorway of our bedroom.
She said to me, “Are we still going surfing?” and then to Tyler, “Hey, sweetie.”
My face flushed with happiness just having her in the same room. Tyler looked from me to Rosalyn, then back to me, then back to Rosalyn, and when she wasn’t looking at him, mouthed, surfing? and smiled his mischievous smile.
I didn’t know we were planning on going surfing, but I followed her lead.
“Yeah, sure,” I said, springing off the bed. “Let me grab my board.”
As I headed toward the door, Tyler said in a loud stage whisper, “Don’t let her talk you into any bong hits.” I picked up a bar of surf wax from the dresser and threw it at his head. He ducked just in time.
When we got in her car, Rosalyn strapped in, barely looked at me, cranked up the Zeppelin and drove to Sunset Cliffs.
My body buzzed with anticipation as we whizzed by beach homes and palm trees. “I didn’t know you wanted to surf today,” I said. I hoped she wanted to go to her place after surfing, and well, maybe we could go a little further. “But I’m always down.”
She didn’t say anything until we got to the parking lot above the cliffs where she cut the engine.
“Be a sweetheart and grab my stuff out of the glove compartment, will you?”
I already knew the drill. She placed the joint between her lips while I struck the lighter. She inhaled deeply then went into a coughing fit. “Stuff’s strong.” She sucked in another toke, crushed the joint out, and said, “Jax, we need to talk.” Tears filled her eyes.
“What’s wrong?” I said, suddenly on high alert.
She faced me, putting her warm hand on my thigh. “Sweetheart … we can’t do this. It’s not going to work.”
“But Rosalyn—”
“No, honey, I’ve made up my mind. You know I care about you, but …” Her voice trailed off and she looked out the window toward the ocean. “It’s not right.”
“It is right,” I said.
She turned on me. “Jesus Christ, Jax. What if somebody finds out I’m messing around with a teenager? You think that’s going to go over well with Lydia? With your dad?”
I took a deep breath. “Can I tell you something? I’ve never actually had sex with a woman and I wanted you to be the first.”
She stared at me with wide eyes. “You’re a virgin?” Her hands rubbed her arms rapidly. “This is all the more reason we can’t let this go further.”
“Rosalyn,” I said, touching her arm, “Nobody’s going to find out.”
She yanked her hand away. She started crying and between sobs said, “Light my joint again, will you, babe?”
The wind blew a few pine needles onto the windshield of the car. The ocean boomed in the background. Black crows squawked overhead, their cries a death sentence.
“We’ve gone far enough already,” she said. “And you have got to keep your mouth shut about what’s happened. Understand?”
I told her that I understood, but I didn’t. I’d seen my parents’ love for each other, and that’s what I felt. The way my dad looked at my mom. Every time she walked into a room, his eyes followed her, like he couldn’t believe she was really his. The thought of kissing girls from school, or any of the girls that hung around Tyler’s band, left me cold. But sitting next to Rosalyn that day, I felt a rightness, the way I saw with my parents. Rosalyn didn’t see it that way.
“Can’t we just—”
“No, sweetheart, we cant.”
“I promise I won’t tell anybody.” I was frantic at the thought of losing her. “I’ll do my homework, and I’ll surf, and then I’ll come over your house. We don’t even have to be together much if you don’t want. Maybe only an hour every day.”
She pursed her lips and looked out the window. “No.”
“Please? Is it because I’ve been at your house too much? I can cut it down to every other day.”
“Honey, it’s not going to work.”
“It will work.”
“It won’t. Please don’t push me on this.”
“I’ll do anything. Rosalyn, you’re the only one I’ve ever felt this way about. When I’m with you it’s like everything’s right. You’re all I need.” She cried softly, her face buried in her hands. I had to convince her. “All those girls at school, they make me realize how right it is because they’re not like you. You’re the one I care about.”
“You’re Lydia’s son. Stop it.”
I turned my body to face her. “If you want to talk about my mom, she had Tyler when she was sixteen.” My breathing was coming fast. “If it’s good enough for her, it’s good enough for me. I care about you, dammit.”
“Stop it! Do you know how worried your mom is that you’ll make the same mistakes she did? I really screwed up by doing what we’ve done.”
“No, you haven’t screwed up.”
“Yes, I have. Now stop telling me that you care about me because you can’t know that.”
“But I do know it, Roz.”
“No! You can’t know that. And even if you do, you know what? I … don’t care about you. Not the way you care about me.”
It felt like somebody had thrown battery acid on me. “Please don’t say that.”
“Jesus Christ, I messed up bad. I don’t know what got into me. I’m so sorry I did this.”
“I’m not sorry.”
“Well, I’m happy for you, Jax. I really am. But you know what? We have to forget what’s happened.” Her fingers trembling, she reached for her joint, lit it, and sucked in.
I tried to touch her again, but she turned away. I said, “It’s not like we planned this thing. Sometimes things happen in life—”
“What do you know about life? You’re so young.”
“I know a lot more than you think. And I know that we’re good together.” I didn’t want to say I love you because I knew that would freak her out, so instead I said, “We’re friends, right?”
“Friends? Are you going to be my friend when your mother disowns me and puts a burning cross in my front yard?”
“Nobody’s going to find out.”
“They will, and I won’t allow it.” And then she dropped the bomb. “Do you know that you and I were within minutes of getting caught by your mom?”
“What?”
“She stopped by to tie-dye some sheets right after we … Oh, my God, what have I done? I’ve made up my mind. Jax, please don’t make this harder than it is.”
“We’ll be careful. We’ll make it work. I’ll do anything you ask, just let me—”
“You’ll do anything?”
“Of course I will.”
“Then you will leave me alone. We are done. I’m sor
ry, honey. It’s wrong. I shouldn’t have let it go this far.”
“Rosalyn, please?”
She faced me. “Here’s how this is going to work. I’m driving you home now, and you can never tell another soul what’s happened between us. We’ll have family dinners and be polite, and in time this whole thing will blow over.”
All the air left my body. I hung my head.
“I’m taking you home, and I don’t want you coming over my house anymore.”
She drove, her earsplitting music making conversation impossible, and when I got home, I sprinted into the bathroom, jumped into a hot shower, and cried where nobody could hear me.
Rosalyn had left me.
Rosalyn
I had done the right thing. So why did I feel so empty?
That afternoon, after I dropped off Jax, I went home and practiced yoga for two hours and spoke in front of the mirror. You are a powerful individual who does the right thing. You are able to draw boundaries when needed. You respectfully communicate your feelings. You are transforming into a better person when on your own. I stood on my head allowing life energy to course through my body. Then I walked to the beach, taking deep breaths of cleansing ocean air.
In the days after I broke things off with Jax, I started smoking even more pot. I smoked so much pot that I thought my lungs were going to collapse. I threw myself into work where I waited tables for horny old men who grabbed my ass.
I became involved in the Self Realization Fellowship at their temple in Encinitas, where I participated in silent meditation retreats. Browsing through their program offerings, I even considered the discipline that touted higher consciousness through celibacy. Want to reach your highest spiritual potential? Open your chakras, allow the kundalini energy to rise up your spine, and bloom in your crown chakra, the highest level of illumination. The brochure promised that for those serious about their spiritual growth, the only way to achieve true enlightenment was to bypass the root chakra at the base of the spine—the seat of all sexual troubles and things of the flesh—and move the energy upward, transcending all earthly desires. Life without sex would serve you right. After a few minutes of serious consideration, I’d slipped the pamphlet back into the rack and sprinted down the street to order a double espresso followed by a toke.
I cooked fresh vegetarian meals and drank wheatgrass, which was touted as a total body detoxifier. I signed up for a series of colonics. The hydrotherapist promised that this would cleanse my internal organs of toxins and my soul of all negativity. Then, I meditated some more.
But when I lay in bed at night, the moon hanging heavy outside my bedroom window, my eyes stung with tears at the thought of my friend. That’s what we were. I could be myself with Jax. He liked to play and be silly while still having a responsible side to him. He protected and loved me. The guy had grown on me, dammit. I’d lied to Jax when I told him I didn’t care about him. But, how could I have been so selfish as to get naked in front of him and do what I did?
I had done right by cutting things off.
I’d lay there on those lonely Point Loma nights in my lonely bed filled with a cold emptiness and tell myself I had done the right thing.
Jax
Those two months that Rosalyn and I were separated were the longest, loneliest period of my life. I threw myself into surfing, doing pushups, sit-ups, running, swimming—anything to not feel the pain.
“How come you haven’t been helping Rosalyn out lately?” Mom asked me one day as I sat in the living room flipping through Surfer magazine. “She says she hasn’t been surfing much.”
I cringed at the sound of Rosalyn’s name. “Maybe later, Mom. I’ve got homework, and there’s a big swell this week. It won’t be safe for her.”
Tyler said, “Yeah, how come you’re not surfing with Rosalyn?” His eyes were laser beams focusing on mine as my eyes filled. I swallowed hard and became extra interested in my magazine, but Tyler wouldn’t leave me alone. “You guys mad at each other?”
My voice was loud when I said, “Waves are too big right now! Okay?”
Mom said, “Don’t scream at your brother.”
“I wasn’t screaming.” I threw the magazine across the room.
Mom stood in front of me, hands on her hips, a worried look on her face. “What is the matter with you?”
I crossed my arms. “Nothing.”
“Young man, pick that magazine up this instant.”
I sat there and shook my head.
Tyler busied himself with the TV remote. The volume was so loud, it practically shattered my eardrums.
“Jesus Christ, Tyler! Turn the fucking volume down,” I said, turning on him, my face hot with anger.
“Jax, I will not have that language in my house. What has gotten into you? Apologize to your brother. Now. And then I want you to pick up this magazine. Just because you had a bad day, I will not have you taking it out on the rest of us.”
I mumbled sorry. How could I tell anyone what was going on? Not being able to see Rosalyn felt like something weird had happened to my heart. And it felt like I had the flu all the time. My throat was sore, my head hurt and instead of my stomach doing that funny flip-flop thing, I felt like I was going to throw up. The only thing that helped was being in the ocean, the cold water covering my head. I wanted to surf in Alaska or somewhere freaking freezing, just to feel numb.
When I rode my skateboard to the beach, my surfboard tucked under my arm, I made sure to choose a route that wouldn’t take me by Rosalyn’s house. The thing I wanted most was to see her. And it was also what I dreaded.
Jamie, the girl who’d been after me at school, always found me in the cafeteria. She’d cram onto the bench next to me with her over-perfumed clothing, then eat her salads with celery and carrot sticks, our legs touching. “Why so blue, Jax?” she asked one day, taking a red acrylic fingernail and touching me under the chin. “Want to go to the beach after school and maybe burn one? I haven’t seen you surf in awhile.” Her eyes with the green contact lenses and too much mascara looked at me without blinking as her hand moved to my thigh, her sharp fingernails tracing lines up my jeans.
I did not want to burn one or hang out with Jamie. “Maybe another time. Thanks, though.”
“Your loss, babe,” she said. “If you change your mind about hanging out, I’ll be at the mall this afternoon. They’re having a sale at Victoria’s Secret, and guess what?” She leaned in and whispered, her breath hot, “You might like to take one of those black Angel bras off of me. Maybe take a look at what’s underneath.”
The thought of seeing Jamie’s naked body did not appeal. I rubbed my sweaty palms on my jeans and smiled. “Thanks, Jamie. That sounds … fun. Maybe another time.”
She picked up her books, the latest issue of Cosmo magazine on top. Ten ways to have mind-blowing orgasms! said one of the blurbs on the glossy magazine cover, while a pouty brunette super-model smiled at me.
I did not want to know how to have mind-blowing orgasms with anyone other than Rosalyn. But mostly, I missed my friend, companion, and partner in crime.
Rosalyn
One morning, about two months after I’d had the talk with Jax, I woke up and could not get out of bed. I don’t mean that I was paralyzed or having a stroke, but that might have been better than the weariness I felt. Staring at the ceiling, I moved my heavy head sideways, glancing at the clock, which read 10:30. A weight pressed down on my chest, and although the sun streamed through my bedroom window, everything was flat and lacking luster. I attempted a deep breath and panicked because I couldn’t suck enough air into my lungs. Leo jumped on my chest and mewed, forcing me to take a pathetic breath.
It took every ounce of energy to haul myself out of bed and trudge into the kitchen. My eyes filled with tears when I saw Leo’s empty food bowl. How could I be so irresponsible? “Sorry, little buddy,” I said, reaching down and stroking his soft fur. I filled his bowl with kibble.
I had class that day, but I hadn’t completed my assi
gnments. Why bother? The floor felt like quicksand as I dragged myself into the bathroom and stepped over dirty clothes strewn on the tile floor. Splashing cold water on my face, I glanced into the smudged mirror. My hair hung in greasy curls, my skin looked grey. Rosalyn, you are a mess.
I had no interest in my morning bong hit. That was something I was better off without anyway. Wearing the same dirty T-shirt I’d worn to bed all week, I collapsed on my sofa, clicked on the TV and stared like a zombie as reruns of South Park played. I flipped through the channels and stopped on ESPN where footage of big wave surfing was being shown. When I saw the surfers, I burst into a fresh wave of sobs. Get a hold of yourself, Rosalyn. But I could not seem to get a grip. I wasn’t eating healthy, wasn’t meditating, and I was beginning to wonder what the point of life was. The coffee table was littered with fast food wrappers and empty cartons of ice cream.
God, I missed Jax. It was as if someone I cared deeply about had died, like part of me was gone too. All I wanted was for the world to disappear so that I could pull Jax into an embrace and kiss him. Then kiss him again, feel his body next to mine, and never stop kissing him. I wanted to look into his eyes and feel cared for again, the way he’d always made me feel.
But I’d broken things off, and it had been the right thing to do.
Maybe meditation would help me. Sitting cross legged on my ceremonial cushion, I closed my eyes and asked for guidance. When Jax’s face appeared in my vision, an electric shock rolled through my being.
No!
Just the thought of seeing him again made my heart swell with hope and happiness.
What would be the harm? Just see him, and then you’ll know if you really care.
I couldn’t stop myself. I picked up the phone to call Lydia, my heart pounding with anticipation. She answered, and I tried to keep the trembling out of my voice. “Hey Lyd’s. Can you send Jax over today? I need help with a broken door handle. He’s always so handy.”
“Sure thing. He left his lunch in the fridge, so I’ll ask him to come by after school when I run it to him.”
Pleasure Point: The Complete Series Page 17
