by Lori L. Otto
6
Zaina
It feels like he’s pinching my skin–no, like he’s cutting it open. “Ow! Ow, ow, ow, please stop,” I say quickly, pushing him away. “It hurts so bad.”
“Okay,” he breathes, rolling off of me and onto his side as he gathers the sheets into his chest. I pull the edge of them toward me, too, protecting myself, feeling incredibly vulnerable. He scratches his head in confusion. “You’re not relaxing at all, Zai,” he tells me. “I think you need to stop thinking about the act and just start feeling… if that makes any sense.”
“I’m trying!” I practically yell.
“You were much more relaxed and… in the mood… when we got back from lunch. You’re so tense now.”
“I’m nervous,” I tell him honestly. “And it hurts a lot more than I thought it would.”
“It’s all right. We don’t have to do this now.” He sighs, but smiles at me reassuringly, reaching across the bed to grab his underwear. “Want yours?” I nod my head. As I slip my panties on under the covers, he goes into the bathroom to get dressed.
I stare into his eyes as he walks back toward me in just his briefs. He’s quiet as he crawls back into bed.
“What now?” I ask him.
“Wanna watch porn?”
I jerk my head to look at him, shocked at the suggestion.
“What? It could work.”
“Work to what?”
He shrugs. “Get you in the mood.”
I glare at him until he catches my gaze. “You just said we didn’t have to do it right now.”
“Or not… My God, Zaina, I don’t think I could be any more romantic if I was god damned Prince Charming himself riding in on a white fucking steed.”
“Stop it, Trey,” I say, admonishing him. I sense he’s growing more frustrated than I was.
“I’m sorry. You’re right. There’s no way in hell I’m pressuring you into this. I said I’d do whatever you wanted today. Do you want to go to the beach? Any excursion you haven’t done? Let’s stop pressuring ourselves. It’s going to happen naturally.”
“It will. I’ll be ready to try again tonight, I’m sure,” I assure him.
“It’s fine, Zai.”
I see his phone light up beside me. Before he has a chance to ask for it, I hand it to him, a little relieved for the distraction.
“Max is texting. He wants to know if I’m busy.”
“Well, no one’s gettin’ busy now,” I tease him lightheartedly. He chuckles.
“He wants me to go over there.”
“Why?”
“I don’t know. He says he needs me.”
My brows furrow in confusion. I’ve been his go-to person all week. “Why?” I ask, but Trey’s already pulling all of his nice clothes back on, getting ready to help his friend. “Want me to go with you?”
“No, stay here. It’s fine. Or maybe go get a massage or something.”
“I don’t want anyone else’s hands on me. Plus, are you going to be gone that long?”
“No idea… it was just a suggestion. How about… I’ll give you a nice massage when I get back?”
“I’d like that. It would be very relaxing.”
His eyes meet mine before he leaves, and he smiles. “It’s a date.”
As soon as he’s gone, I call my friend, Brinlee. Although she’s somewhere on the island, I suspect she’s been holed up with her new boyfriend the entire time, because no one has seen either of them since we checked in.
“Hey, Zaina!”
“Brin, I need your help. Do you have some time?”
“Bo?” The sound is muffled, as if she’s got her hand over the microphone. “Is it okay if I talk to Zaina for a few minutes?”
“I want you back in my arms in ten minutes,” I hear him say.
“I’ll be there. I promise. Okay, Zaina, I’m here. Sure, what’s up?”
“You have to ask for his permission?”
“I just want to be available to him.”
“You’re being overly-accommodating,” I tell her.
“Is that what you called to talk about?” she snips.
“No… I’m sorry. I need your advice about… sex.” I don’t know why I hesitate to say it, or nearly whisper the word when it comes out. I’m completely alone here.
“Did a condom break?”
“No, Brin… we haven’t gone all the way yet.”
“What?!”
“No. And I’m afraid we won’t. We just tried, and it hurt so badly that I had to stop him.”
“Hold on… Bo, I’m going to step outside for a second.” I wait in silence until she speaks again. “Is Trey really big?”
“I don’t know. I don’t have anything to compare him to.”
“Well… how many inches–”
“Brin, he’s not a freak show, okay?” I respond, cutting her off. “He assures me he should fit.”
“Of course, he’s going to say that. He wants in there.”
“You know him. He’s not like that.”
“You’re right. Well, were you using, like, lube?”
“Yes.”
“Were you turned on?”
“I think so.”
“You think so?”
“Well, yeah. I wanted him, and then everything just got really painful and that’s all I could concentrate on.”
“Maybe you just needed more foreplay.”
“We made out through half a movie… there was a lot of foreplay.”
“Did he, like, go down on you? That always makes me crazy.”
“I don’t like that.”
“Then he’s doing it wrong,” she says, laughing.
“I don’t want him doing it. It just seems… gross.”
“You don’t have to do it back to him. It’s not necessarily reciprocal… but giving head isn’t bad, and guys love it.”
“Uh, no, I’d never do it back to him, and the thought of him down there is just… why would anyone want to do that?”
“It’s… sexy. And if he wants to do that, it’s because he wants to do something that makes you feel good… that makes you feel adored. Callen never did it when we were dating. Should have been a huge warning sign that he wasn’t interested in me, or girls, or whatever. But Zaina, it’s amazing. It’s not weird or gross.”
“To you, maybe.”
“Really? You won’t even try it?”
“No way.”
“Okay… I never saw you as prudish.”
“I’m not a prude because I don’t want oral!” I say. “It seems unsanitary.”
“Okay, okay. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean it. Whatever. Ummm… you’ve just got to get out of your head, I guess. Maybe have some music playing. Something that gets you in the mood.”
“That’s a good idea. We just had that movie playing in the background.”
“And maybe, I don’t know… you could talk dirty to him. See if he bites. Not literally. Or literally… maybe kink’s your thing, I don’t know.”
“Biting?” I ask, afraid.
“There’s no judgment in sex. You’re being a little judgey. For the record, Trey Holland doesn’t seem like a biter to me. I imagine he’s pretty straight-laced in bed. He is the one who wanted to wait forever to lose his virginity like a saint. Still, I think he’ll be disappointed to never get a blowjob…”
“He’ll never know what he’s missing, right?”
“I guess… but guys talk. And his two best guy friends are gay lovers. You think he hasn’t heard about the merits of a good blowjob?”
“He’s never experienced it.”
“Well, when I was a virgin, it all sounded gross to me, too. So maybe you’ll think differently in a few months,” she says.
“I doubt it.”
“A drink or two may help, as well,” she suggests.
“That’s a sore subject. We’re not drinking anything.”
“It’d be less sore if you did…” she teases.
“Hey, Brin,” I hear
Bo in the background. “I need ya back.”
“I have to go, Zaina. Good luck. Let me know how it goes!”
“Thank you. I’m sure it’ll be fine.”
Music.
Flicking open my Music app, I start a playlist of all of my favorite songs.
7
Max
I lean onto my arm over the bathroom counter, trying to put as much pressure on the area above my wrist as possible. Trey finally knocks on the door. It seems like he took forever, but I’m pretty sure I’m unable to accurately measure time in the panicked state I’m in.
“Come in!” I yell loudly, having left the door slightly open after I called him. I wipe my cheeks on my shoulders, trying to remove any evidence of tears. “Hope I wasn’t interrupting anything,” I say to him, hearing my voice shake as I focus on the blood blossoming out onto the towel I’ve loosely draped over my hand.
“No, not at all… uh…. Max? What happened, man?”
“What?”
“Did you throw a bottle through the window? What the… there’s blood on the floor. Max?”
I sniffle and meet his eyes in the mirror as he walks toward me.
“What’s wrong?”
“I cut up my hand.” I turn around to show him the bloody towel and feel the flow of blood increase when I stand up fully.
“Oh, shit.” He stops abruptly and takes a few breaths. “How bad is it?”
“There’s glass in it. Blood. Lots of it.”
“Did you two get into a fight?” He diverts his attention, moving quickly to the dresser until he finds one of Callen’s soccer socks.
“He cheated on me,” I barely manage to choke out. “I saw him. In the men’s locker room.” I cry fully and easily with my best friend, my chest hurting where my heart used to beat strongly for Callen.
He stares, mouth agape, and shakes his head. Seconds later, he snaps out of it. “Here.” He ties the sock tightly around my arm just above my wrist and tosses Callen’s now-bloody swim shorts on the floor. He looks under the towel. “Ohhhh, shit. We need to get you to a hospital.”
I nod, beginning to feel lightheaded as I let him take control of the situation.
“It’s okay. It’s going to be okay.” He directs me to the bed, sensing my weakness. “Just a sec.” He calls Zaina and asks her to come to my room. She’s here almost immediately, acting only on the urgency in his voice because he didn’t tell her anything.
“Oh, my God! What happened?”
“Zai, I’m taking him to the ER. I need you to stay here and wait for Callen.”
“What’s going on?” She looks at me with sympathetic tears.
“He was with another guy, Zany,” I whisper weakly, putting my arm around Trey’s shoulder as he helps me up. “He doesn’t know I saw him… but I did.”
“That son of a… Max… where?”
“Zai, we don’t have time. We’ll figure this out later,” Trey says. “I’ll call you once we find an ER or something.”
“Right,” she says.
“Just let Callen know where we are… that he’ll be okay. If he walks into this bloody mess, I’m afraid he’ll think something much worse happened.”
“Okay.”
“Tell him…” I start. “Tell him…” Trey drags me out of the room before I can finish my thought. My thought didn’t have an ending, though. I have so much to say to him, and yet nothing to say to him at all.
“He’s pallid,” a nurse comments when we reach the hospital 40 minutes later. She begins to take my blood pressure on my good wrist. “BP’s low,” she calls back to another awaiting staff member. “Let’s take him back.”
“Can I come?” Trey asks.
“Are you family?”
“His brother-in-law,” he responds. Close enough.
They settle me in a wheelchair and Trey walks down the long hallway with us to a big room with about twenty beds, separated by curtains. The nurse and my friend both help me up onto one of the beds, and the woman removes the towel that I’d used to hide the grotesque wounds.
“Ouch,” she says. “How did this happen?”
“I fell into a window… fist-first.”
She smiles at me while another nurse puts on gloves and takes a pair of tweezers from a sanitary package. “American?” I nod. “Too much to drink?”
“Not a drop.”
“I need you to tell me the truth so I know what medicine I can give you.”
“He’s not your stereotypical 18-year-old American guy,” Trey asserts. “If he says he hasn’t had anything to drink, trust me. He hasn’t.”
“I had one drink yesterday,” I admit, watching as one of the larger pieces of glass is removed from the muscle between my pointer finger and thumb. “Shit…” I say under my breath, feeling the pain every millimeter of the way as it exits my skin.
“Okay, then,” she says to me. I glance back up to make sure she believes me as she turns back to my friend. “Are you Trey Holland?”
“Yeah.” His cheeks flush bright red.
“My daughter thinks you hung the moon.” I chuckle, alternating my attention between him and my hand.
He shakes his head, still blushing. “That’s sweet, but I did not.”
“How bad is it?” I interrupt.
“You’ve got some big pieces here… one or two smaller ones. We’ll want to do a CT scan when we’ve got everything out to look for damage to any tendons or nerves. You’re going to have quite a few stitches, though. I hope you weren’t planning on any more watersports while you were here.”
“I hope to go home, honestly,” I tell them. Trey puts his hand on my shoulder.
“There aren’t any commercial flights this late in the day,” he says to me.
“Can’t your dad do anything? I have to get off this island.”
“Let me go make some calls.”
I don’t see Trey again until I’m released by the doctors.
“Well?” he says, rising from the chair closest to the exit.
“Twenty-seven stitches. Nerve damage–the median one? And I fucked up two common digital arteries or something like that. I learned way more about the hand than I ever wanted to. Apparently, I’m going to need therapy, and I swear to God, if this hinders me from a surfing career, I will feed that motherfucker to the sharks.”
“Huh…” he chuckles.
“I may do that last part anyway.” I start to go up to the check-out station.
“You’re ready to go.”
“I have to pay or something.”
“I’ve got it covered. I talked to Jon. We worked it all out.”
“What about going home?” I ask.
“We can swing by the hotel, get your suitcase, and then there’s a jet waiting for you. You should be home by about two in the morning,” he says, putting his arm across my shoulders.
“Can we get my prescriptions first?”
“They filled them here,” he says, lifting a paper sack.
“My hero.” I pull him into a hug. “Thanks, Trey.”
“Anything for you.”
After getting into a cab, I close my eyes, feeling the effects of the pain killers they were pumping into my bloodstream.
“So, do you want to tell me what happened?”
I shrug my shoulders and sigh, keeping my eyelids shut. “I went looking for him… the last place I could think of was the gym. He wasn’t there, so I went in the locker room… and I heard him. Heard him laughing. I followed the sound… and then I heard them fucking.”
“You’re sure it’s what you heard?”
“I went back to the shower stall… their clothes were on the floor. Callen’s shorts were there, his phone… and then I’m pretty sure the other shorts were the ones the cabana bartenders wear. Same turquoise color with the white and blue edges.”
“Maybe they were, uh…”
“Checking each other’s moles? What?” I ask as I look over at him, angry. “What would two naked guys be doing alone in a shower
stall… two presumably naked gay guys?” I remember the other item on the ground. “I forgot to mention the condom wrapper. That might provide the missing link for you. He was cheating on me, Trey.”
“Yeah,” he says, resigned. “Okay. Max, I am so sorry. I don’t know why he would do this to you. Maybe he was drunk–”
“I don’t give a shit. It’s not an excuse.”
“It’s not, no. But he loves you, Max.”
“Don’t even fucking say that, Trey. People who love you don’t take fucking cleats to your heart, okay?”
“I’ll talk to him,” he pleads.
“I won’t,” I counter. “This will never be okay with me. All right?”
“Yeah.”
“If Zaina cheated, it would never be okay with you, would it?”
“No. It wouldn’t.”
“Then don’t waste your time on him. It’s over.”
“Oh, Max… shit. I’m just… I’m sorry. I wish I had been a better friend to both of you this trip. If I had realized I was being a jerk, I could have told him the same and we wouldn’t be in this situation.”
“This isn’t your fault. You’d never do this.” I pull my sunglasses down and shut my eyes again. “You and Callen McNare are not cut from the same cloth. I should have seen this coming. He cheated on Brinlee with me.”
“That’s different, and you know it, Max.”
“Is it?”
“It is.”
“It’s not.”
“It is, Max. You always told me he was able to be his true self with you, and that’s why it was different. He was living a lie with her. I bought into that idea, and I believe it to this day. You saved him.”
“And this is how he repays me? I save him.” I can’t hide the emotion in my voice when I say it. “He destroys me.”
My best friend’s arms are around me, and I cry on his shoulder until we reach the hotel.
Trey runs in to retrieve my bag from the front desk, and after one more hug, I’m off to the small airstrip to catch a plane back home.
