Clay's Way

by Mastbaum, Blair

  Clay comes running up holding his dick pointing at me. “Mai ha ho oku’i a ka halawai.”

  I’ve lost feeling in my body. “Fuck! You stupid fucker.” I feel like I got my breath knocked out of me.

  “I had to pee.” He ducks into the tent. “Night.” He’s evil. He knows he’s making me lose trust in humankind and he doesn’t care.

  The wind blows tiny sparks into the trees.

  I climb in the tent. “Asshole.” I imagine a huge forest fire caused by me and Clay. It would be a perfect expression of how I feel. I take off my clothes, damp from humidity and sweat, and climb into the tent. I try to relax with some stupid yoga breathing technique my dad does when his stocks plummet. I count my breaths. Five seconds in, five seconds hold, five seconds out. I watch the dwindling fire through the nylon wall of the tent. It dies out, then comes back to life, as if a spirit is tending it and supplying it with new wood.

  Clay springs up and flops on top of me. His weight pushes me into the ground.

  My elbows sink into the soft, damp dirt, making indentations under the tent’s flimsy floor. I can’t take a breath because my chest is constricted.

  He bites my bare chest, leaving warm wet spots on my skin.

  “Why are you doing this?”

  His dick presses into my stomach and he licks my chest and down my stomach. “Because I want to, little brah.”

  “Why couldn’t it be like this the whole night?”

  He jumps up and stands on his feet. “It was.” He raises his arms up over his head. He looks heroic with his chest stretched out and his armpits exposed. The tips of his fingers scrape the tent ceiling and nearly catch the support that’s holding it together. He throws down his underwear with one hand and flings them to the side with his leg. His dick is pointing up and hard. His teeth are easy to see even in this dim light.

  A white caution tag on the tent wall reads, Warning: If approached by wildlife, this tent does NOT offer adequate protection. What if the wildlife is in the tent?

  Strong rushes of doubt rise up in me. Something’s wrong. I feel taken. “Clay?”

  He sighs, like I’m annoying him.

  “Can we just talk? I wanna ask you something.”

  He shakes his head “no” and rolls me over with his head like a bear rolling over his prey. He jacks off, looking at me, then falls to his knees.

  I can feel heat on my stomach, radiating from his balls. My dick’s so hard it almost hurts, and at the same time feels like it could make my whole body melt like a strong narcotic.

  I feel more open than I ever have. I’m only sex, now, and I could rape if I always felt like this. I splay my legs open a little, and squeeze my butt, which thrusts my crotch up.

  He slides down and rips the cover off me like a magician. He pulls my underwear down to my ankles and starts licking my dick and massaging my balls.

  I want to thrust my dick forward to the end of all known space. I can’t hold back. I thrust into his mouth and he reacts by sucking me faster. It feels like pure adrenaline all directed into a positive direction. We will have happiness and a life-long bond. I reach up to his dick. There is warm pre-cum on the tip. I rub it in my fingers and taste it. It’s like sweat and nuts and aspirin combined. I grasp his thigh with one hand. It feels strong and hot. I hear smooth slippery sounds from our skin moving around on the nylon floor of the tent.

  He puts his hand on top of mine on his thigh and applies pressure and squeezes it while he sucks me off.

  I move my hand under his balls and squeeze them. They’re warm and damp. I smell my hand. The scent triggers my brain so much that I’m dizzy with lust. I have to make him come. I jerk him off.

  He thrusts into my hand. His face is halfway between pain and serene pleasure. He’s lit by the moon through an open flap on the top of the dome tent.

  The idea of Clay and me having sex without weirdness devours my mind and takes me over. I’m so happy. There’s no parent on the other side of the door, no friend of his lurking dangerously close to catching us, no macho punk rock attitude while driving down the road jerking off. I want this to last as long as possible. “Clay?”

  He thrusts into my hand extra hard with a moan. “Yeah?”

  “This is so great, I mean... we’re having so much fun with each other, and like, there’s nothing weird about it. This is so cool.”

  “Shut up.” He leans back, supported by his arms, and thrusts into my wet hands.

  “But, I just wanted you to know how much this means to me. You know what I mean?”

  He covers my mouth with his hand. His hand smells like his dick.

  “But, wait. Are you loving this?”

  He stops touching me and lies down beside me. The energy between us goes from manic craziness to dull in half a second. He sits up. His dick slips away from my hand. He lies still for a second and then starts jerking himself off. He comes on the floor of the tent. “Cool, brah. Night.” He lies down with his back to me.

  I want to hit him as hard as I can. I want to make his face bloody and his legs unable to move so he can’t escape me. Maybe then, he’ll know how strong my love is.

  Chapter 16

  Warm summer morning.

  No light thing being a man.

  Wind blowing steady.

  Clay is pissing out the door flap of the tent when I wake up. His butt is squeezed tightly, shooting his piss as far as he can, so it won’t drip down the side. He walks outside naked and picks a mountain apple off a tree.

  I watch him secretly.

  He takes a big crunchy bite and looks up at the sky, with a moaning yawn. He looks like primitive man.

  I wish I felt as comfortable naked as he does. I slide on my underwear and Clay’s faded black T-shirt, and walk out to see him.

  He leans over the stream and takes a messy gulp of water. He notices me behind him and cups his dick and balls with his hands. He ducks into the tent, shaking water off his face, and comes back out in boxer shorts with Hawaiian tiki drawings on them.

  I’m confused why he’s acting so modest after last night.

  We were naked together. He sucked my dick, but Clay’s not himself in the morning. He’s always grouchy when he wakes up. He says bad morning moods run in his family.

  I roll my eyes at him, wearing his silly boxer shorts.

  “What’s that look for?” He looks away and busies himself by packing up our shit in the backpacks.

  “Your underwear are hilarious.”

  “It’s a traditional tapa pattern,” he says rudely.

  “Sorry. God. I wish you were naked, that’s all.” My heart beats fast from saying something so truthful to him.

  He looks off, with his head tilted, like he doesn’t understand why I would say that. “Not now.” He begins pacing the perimeter of our site, like a guard dog.

  I feel my face turn red. I was dumb to think I could be affectionate without Clay trying to regulate my feelings for him.

  Daytime is back and he wants us to be serious, start talking in code, hide our emotions. He has to start worrying about what people think of him and how to pick the right part of himself to make each situation smooth.

  My defenses rise immediately to match his. I stand up straighter and stop mannerisms that could be considered un-masculine. I have to stop laughing casually about things I think are funny. That’s too girlish. Now’s the time to speak to him with lots of dude and brah and man added in.

  He distances himself from what he’s saying with those words, by sounding like every other stupid surfer in Hawaii. Talking like this works for him when he has to say something personal or deal with one of his personalities clashing. This is also when the dumb surferboy Clay comes in. He thinks he’s cool when he’s acting like a dumb ass. Too much passion of any kind, except for surfing, could come off as striving-for-something-you-haven’t-attained, and that’s a sign of weakness.

  “What do you wanna do today?”

  “Surf,” he snaps. “Think. Be alone. Motor out
of here.”

  My heart drops. I clench my teeth to stop from getting angry or sad. “I guess I’ll just walk back to town then.”

  “Fine, go. I don’t care.” He sits down and hides his face with his hands.

  “OK, I will.”

  He screams with his jaws clenched and jerks himself up. He runs up to a tree and hits the rough bark as hard as he can. His hand starts bleeding. He clutches his fist, like he’s trying to restrain the head of a poisonous snake. “Fuck! Look what you made me do!”

  “I didn’t do shit.”

  He wipes his head with his fist and smears blood across his forehead. He looks me in the eye. An obvious ploy for sympathy.

  I stare at him. “I’m not stupid, you know. I see what you’re doing.”

  He looks at me suspiciously and turns away and starts throwing rocks into the stream as hard as he can. Small drops of blood fly off his injured hand.

  I walk over and stand right in front of him, blocking the stream.

  Blood runs down his forearm. He leans down, picks up a rock, and throws it. It whizzes by my head and a string of blood splatters my face. He walks away.

  I follow him and stand up to him, inches from his face. “You’re not some tough guy. Why would you even want to be? Most of your friends are fucking dumb and you let them tell you how to act. You’re not like them.” “That’s bullshit.”

  “No it isn’t. You’re never yourself. You think people will make fun of you if you like me. You can’t bear the thought of life without everyone accepting you.”

  His chest is puffed out and his eyes look as furious as they can get. “What do you want from me?” His voice cracks, screaming so close to me, I can feel his breath on my face like fire.

  “You, that’s all, nothing else!”

  His eyes get watery, but he wipes them immediately, acting like a swarm of gnats flew in them and irritated them. He wants to say something mean, but doesn’t.

  “Just act like you. Don’t try to be tough and all that shit.”

  He stops throwing rocks and looks down to his feet. His head hangs low and his face contorts, like he’s going to cry. “Quit fucking with me.”

  “You’re fucking with yourself. I’m just telling you the truth.”

  He jumps up and hangs on a branch and does pull-ups, tapping his chin on the top of the swaying branch, over and over, with a determined look on his face. The veins in his neck pop out. He looks possessed by his confusion.

  “Clay? Stop it.”

  “Leave me alone, dude.” He jumps down and wipes the sweat off his forehead with his arm. He looks like he’s going to turn into a werewolf.

  “Fine. Fuck it. Be miserable.” I start to take down the tent.

  He puts his hand down the front of his shorts and rubs his balls, then smells his hand and walks away to the stream.

  I can see his reflection on the water’s surface, quivering in the currents.

  He dives into the water and stays under, holding his breath.

  “Fuck you.” I flip him off.

  If he’s too embarrassed to be real with me, fine. I hope he feels threatened. He doesn’t give a shit, anyway.

  I walk away, carrying more than my share of the stuff, so he knows I don’t need his help. I take one last look back.

  He’s floating like a corpse face down in the water. Some bubbles burst at the surface by his head.

  I hope he drowns. I stomp around a corner of a steep switchback trail and up a steep hill. I stop to take a breath. My eyes are drawn down the hill, following a bird’s plummet, where I have a perfect view of Clay.

  He rises up out of the water, gasping for air.

  I sit down, light a cigarette, and watch him. I taste his blood on my lips. It’s like iron. I make a gun with my hand and blow his brains out a couple times.

  He lies down on the ground, dripping wet, shiny in the sunlight. He leans up on his arms and his head is back, probably seeing everything upside down. He scratches his balls through his shorts and looks around in quick intervals, like he’s keeping watch. He starts maniacally doing sit ups, stopping every 20 or so to look at his flexed stomach muscles.

  Three bright yellow birds watch him from their perches on the branch that he used for pull-ups.

  The smoke from my cigarette drifts down the hillside, illuminated by beams of sunlight. I lie down on my stomach as low as I can get.

  His head falls back and thumps on the hollow-sounding earth. He bursts out crying. He kicks his legs around in frustration.

  I lose my breath. I’ve never made anyone react this strongly before, except making my parents utterly frustrated, and that’s normal. I watch him so intensely he goes out of focus.

  Maybe he cares. Maybe he really is confused. He rolls over, burying his face in his arms and screaming as loud as he can. His low-pitched moans echo off the valley walls. Scared birds take flight quickly, their wings slapping together.

  I feel like I shouldn’t be watching, but I’m fascinated because I caused this, and horrified that we have come to this. I can’t resist.

  He stops crying and stands up, then his face clenches up, and he falls over sobbing again. His fear has taken his physicality away. His body is convulsing and shaking, forgotten by his mind.

  I gotta take off. Think. Breathe.

  ***

  I reach the top of the hill perched over the ocean and white crescent beach of Kalalua. It’s outstanding and I’m numb seeing beautiful Hawaii places. The smell of salt and campfires mixes with the flowers of the forests. This beach has a reputation. Seeing this legendary place makes my heart beat faster. I think of a haiku, but a lame one. White sandy beach, aren’t you scared of, all these complicated humans?

  Susan talks about hanging out here. She used to come to this remote beach once a month in the late ‘60s before she got pregnant with Clay. She said some crazy shit used to happen here. “Spirits were raised,” she said, without much detail, “Strange things can happen outside the grasp of civilization.”

  A whole group of hippies lived here, off the land, naked and free, till hepatitis and typhoid infected their water supply and everyone got STDs.

  The ancient Hawaiians who lived near here were known for their love of celebration and ritual dances and the taking of an acid-like root to find their inner selves. They also performed human sacrifices.

  I see a fire burning with some people cooking over it. I imagine the rancid smell of a human body burning and melting, killed for Pele, the goddess of fire, the goddess that supposedly created these islands. I descend into the valley. A chill slivers up my back.

  Waterfalls plunge from the cliffs and smack into the pools at the bottom. The ocean churns with big waves that go from pastel blue to midnight blue the farther out you look. The cliffs are covered with moss and all shades of greens and browns and are eroded into sharp pyramids and cartoon-like cones and jags and caves.

  One of Clay’s goals since he was a little kid was to come here and experience this place. He’s says he want to feel the mana, the Hawaiian word for the kind of power a place holds. He’d be with me if he wasn’t such as asshole.

  I’d love to see his face looking out at this perfect beach. I’d see inside his head.

  He’d be real.

  Campsites are set up along the back of the beach. Tents flutter in the sea breeze like parachutes. People sit around in groups. They look drunk from the natural beauty and seclusion. A few surfboards rest against a weathered pine tree.

  Two naked blonde girls lie in the gentle surf, browned and caressed by the delicate sun. Their pubic hair’s shaved off. Their skin’s untanned where the hair used to be. The pale white skin makes their nakedness look obscene.

  I step on the sand at the bottom of the trail and the beauty of this place overtakes me. I get nervous. I feel like I’m losing control, being changed by the environment.

  A guy notices me walking onto the beach. I feel like he’s gonna scream, “Get outta here. This is my territory,” but he
turns around to watch a girl walk past.

  What if Clay doesn’t come?

  I’ll end up hiding in the tent till I can get out of here.

  These hippie beach people intimidate me. They all look so relaxed and confident.

  I find an open place at the end of the row of tents, the most isolated spot, yet close enough to the other tents not to feel alone. I plop down on the warm sand and take my shoes off and run my feet through the fine white powder. The sun is hot and pure. I feel my skin being tanned.

  A guy about my age, with a lanky, sinewy body, a shaved head, bright green eyes, and an air of intelligence about him, intensely writes in a journal. He looks like a younger Clay, with a similar tattoo and the same shaped head and bony hands but he’s skinnier and not nearly as tough-looking. He’s the hippie Clay.

  I set up our tent, which is a lot more confusing than taking it down. I keep glancing at the guy and thinking he’s Clay and almost talking to him. It’s a weird feeling, like people aren’t so hard to replace. I should know exactly what Clay looks like. He’s all I think about, but again, my eyes catch the boy for half a second and I think he’s Clay. I whisper to myself, “That’s not Clay. You don’t know that guy.”

  The boy notices me staring at him.

  I look away as quickly as I can, and try to seem involved in putting up the tent. I try to act all tough, handling our bags like I don’t give a shit about them.

  The boy’s stare is calm and relaxed. His eyes penetrate me and make me feel vulnerable. He doesn’t look away when I look at him.

  I guess he’s less self-conscious than I am.

  His stillness makes me feel inadequate. His calm, confident demeanor makes me more flighty and jumpy than ever. He’s working a spell on me. He’s evil.

  I’m getting sweaty. I’m standing all wrong. I don’t know what to do with my hands. Before, they were just there, and now they’re a hassle, another decision to make and inevitably get wrong and come off looking like a skittish dog. I’d like to move the tent, pick a different site, but that would project obvious rudeness. Plus, that would admit defeat in this stupid game of confidence.