by E. Lockhart
Naked, except for argyle socks.
Now, this Hugh has an extremely fine body. He's a pretty coffee-with-milk color, and he's got a small waist and muscles rippling across his chest and back.
Seeing him naked, I feel a jolt of what I can only describe as lust.
I don't think I've felt lust before. Not like this.
If you'd asked me, I would have said I had—but now I think I hadn't.
Like with Shane: I was excited, I was into it and everything, and however far we went I was glad to go there—
but that was all in the context of us making out. I felt it when stuff got hot. Especially that time in the back of the movie theater. But I wasn't shot through with an urge to pounce on him when he was in the middle of doing something else. I didn't want to throw him on the tiles of the locker room,
and stick my tongue down his throat,
and run my hands across his chest,
and rip off my shirt.
But that's how I feel now, when Hugh gets naked.
It's like he's suddenly this lust object to me, not a person at all. And I'm now this person who can look at other people like objects—not objects to draw, but objects to have my way with.
Which is a new feeling.
But then I remember that I am not a human girl. And even if I were, Hugh would never look at me—probably doesn't even know who I am. He goes out with people like Dawn: tall confident girls with some junk in the trunk.
And besides, don't I actually find him an annoying poseur? Don't I actually think he's an airheaded slickster who doesn't care about anyone but his crew of tough seniors and the babes who follow them around? What am I doing lusting after someone I don't even think is a nice person?
Or is that the nature of lust? It's like an urge that disregards all the stuff that your brain knows you actually think.
I wonder if guys feel like this all the time. Or maybe if everyone feels like this all the time—everyone besides me—and that's why people act like such half-wits.
Anyway, although it sucks that I can't have my way with Hugh, at least I can buzz over and check out the goods in some detail.
Really, the only undressed man I've ever seen is my dad, and he stopped letting me in the bathroom with him about ten years ago. Since then, I've seen not one fully naked guy—although I have seen:
the movie The Full Monty, where you see a lot of guys in their underpants but never see the actual Monty itself, if you know what I mean,
several movies in which Ashton Kutcher or Josh Hartnett or some other star takes off his shirt,
lots of Greek and Roman sculptures with fig leaves covering their gherkins,
people at the beach, including one European guy whose bathing suit was so small it looked like nothing more than a little orange hammock for his package,
swimmers and divers on television, who are nice to look at but you can never look for long before they hurtle themselves into the water,
black-and-white illustrations in our biology textbook from last semester, which showed the gherkin circumcised and not, plus one of it being erect, which surprised me since I had figured it would stick out perpendicular to the body but really it turns out to point upward at like an eighty-degree angle,
and
Shane with his shirt off last fall, but nothing showing below the belt.
Oh, and we sometimes have models for drawing class, but because we're underage they always keep most of their clothes on.
I fly down to have a closer look at Hugh, who is taking off the argyles. I'm ashamed of myself, but I go in for close-up gherkin-information-gathering right away. I mean, I don't consider Hugh's privacy at all.
I'm a total Peeping Tom. Or Peeping Sally. Whatever.
Hm.
It's a blob of skin and hair.
It looks floppy and kind of humorous, actually.
You know how there are all these phallic symbols? Like giant skyscrapers and cannons and swords and things that are big and macho and shaped like a gherkin, supposedly, and they're symbols of masculine power?
Well, the actual gherkin doesn't look anything like a phallic symbol. Honestly, the idea that Spider-Man and Orlando Bloom and the president of the United States all have these blobs of skin and hair flopping off their midsections underneath their clothes and bouncing around when they walk—it's actually funny. Worse than biscuits; those bounce a bit when I run but it's really not a problem. Honestly, if I had what Hugh has got between my legs, I don't know how I'd ever even sit down or pull on a pair of pants, much less play dodgeball.
It's a major liability.
I think he's medium-size, though I don't have anything to compare it to. It's floppy and even shrively-looking. Like in this state, at least, none of those words people use seems to fit.
My sword,
my torpedo,
my pink trombone,
my rocket,
my Longfellow,
my voodoo stick,
my staff of life.
It's nothing like what you'd think when guys are bragging about being well hung, or sticking it in some girl, or some crap like that. I mean, it's got a kind of magnetism about it, like it's ugly and good-looking at the same time.
But not what I had imagined.
It's more human, I guess.
Hugh swats at me vaguely as I buzz around his midsection. I fly up to the top of the lockers and keep staring at him.
It is interesting to see a boy's body up close. My own body has a thousand imperfections; I mean, my human body did, when I had one. Fuzzy-looking eyebrows, no muscle definition, thickish ankles, bitten fingernails—but I never gave any thought to the idea that a popular guy like Hugh would have imperfections, too. I mean, overall he has a great physique. Girls look at him all the time. But he's got a spray of zits across his shoulders,
and his belly hangs over his waistband when he bends over,
and his butt has curly black hairs on it, like they didn't know they were supposed to stop at the top of his legs,
and one of his nipples is pierced, which is not my thing, but I guess he must like it,
and his feet are bony and have hairy knuckles,
and his skin looks dry in patches, here and there,
and his legs are kind of thin in proportion to his top half. None of the Greek statues ever has legs like that.
So it's like I simultaneously have this lust thing going on and this objective evaluation of his flaws.
You wouldn't think you could do both at the same time, but you can. I can.
I must still be at least partly human, or he wouldn't make me hot and bothered the way he does.
Hugh is nearly dressed and the clock reads 7:50 when the door slams open again and I can hear shouts in the hallway and a horde of senior boys comes into the locker room and starts changing clothes for gym class. Some of them are groggy and carry paper cups of coffee from the deli across the street from school, or cans of Coke. Others are boisterous, socking each other on the arms. They invade the space, throwing off their jackets, dropping their pants, whizzing through the combinations on their minilockers.
The boys are wearing boxers and briefs; they're skinny and fat; they're black, white, Latin, Asian. They're all seniors, so some are hairy in all kinds of ways I hadn't really imagined; hairy like the men I see on the beach at Coney Island—some with hair that goes across their collarbones, some with a big stripe of hair down the middle of their abdomens, some with hair on their lower backs, or on the backs of their upper arms. One guy has nipples that poof out a bit in a girly way. Another guy, a quiet boy who everyone knows already had an exhibition of his paintings at a downtown gallery, has a surgery scar across his stomach. A third has a series of tiny white scars crisscrossing his forearms. I think he must have made them himself, with a razor.
They're being macho, most of them, trading insults and laughing loudly. A number of them pee in the urinals. At first it's overwhelming, this stampede of half-naked half-manhood, but they're
not all as fine as Hugh, so pretty soon I get ahold of myself and buzz down to inspect more gherkins.
Some are quite pink, while others are surprisingly brown, and it doesn't seem to follow directly from the skin color on the rest of the guy's body. And lots of boys are circumcised—but not everybody. I saw two that still had the foreskin attached, looking like the drawings in the biology textbook.
Also, I had always thought of the gherkin part as the main event, but if you see one that's peeing, or hanging around not doing anything, it's only part of a larger package. By which I mean, the balls are there—and they're nearly as big as the actual gherkin.
This, too: when you see men's booties in the movies, I think they must be waxing because so many of these boys have hair back there or roundabout.
None of the guys checks each other out in the goods department. When they are peeing they all stare straight ahead like there's something fascinating on the wall.
Eventually, there's no more information to be gathered and the guys are mainly in their sweats and shorts anyway, and I hear Sanchez blow his whistle, sharp from the other side of the gymnasium double doors.
The boys slam their lockers and run into the gym. I try to follow them, but the doors are swinging, and I can't time it right, and when I'm flying I don't seem to have a whole lot of precision. I mean, I can go in a general direction but I can't steer exactly through a door above someone's head at just the right second.
I also try landing on a particular person and riding through the doors on him, but the first guy bats me off, and the second one, though he doesn't notice me at all, dislodges me as soon as he starts moving. My legs aren't strong enough to hold on to a moving object like that, and I'm compelled to let go of his sweatshirt. I try again anyhow, but the third one tries to kill me, slamming his hand hard onto his own arm—and I barely escape.
I fly back to my perch on the window and sit there for fortyfive minutes by the locker room clock, listening to what sounds like basketball practice in the gym. Then the seniors troop back in and shower.
The whole shower scene is funny. A few of them are quiet, like I am when I have to shower in public, scooting in and out of the water as fast as they can and wrapping themselves quickly in towels. But a lot of them are horsing around, throwing soap at each other and laughing, having conversations, being rowdy.
The girls never do that.
The bell rings, and the few remaining seniors throw on their clothes and run out. Then a swarm of freshmen come in.
It's the same drill—only, compared to the seniors they look like little boys. They're smaller, slighter, less hairy. Their voices haven't all changed, and the din they make sounds more like playground noise than manly banter.
Then third period is African dance elective. Only two boys come in.
I don't know either of them, and they're shrimpy and scrawny—but African dance is just for juniors and seniors, so they must be at least sixteen. They're probably geeks, since even in artsy Ma-Ha, dance class is only taken by boys who are so far down the social totem pole that they might as well take it if they feel like it. Everyone will think they're losers for taking dance— but everyone already thinks that anyway.
One boy is Latino, with short hair shaved up the sides. He's not more than five foot three, and he's wearing a new-looking orange pocket T-shirt that no doubt his mama bought him, and jeans that hang too high on his hips.
The other boy is only slightly taller, but gangly like a puppy. He's African American, with tight braids across his skull, black Clark Kent glasses and a shirt that reads UP YOURS. They change into sweatpants, leaving their feet bare.
Orange: “You see G this morning?”
Up Yours: “Nah.”
Orange: “Me neither. I actually waited for her out on the steps.”
Up Yours laughs. “You're gone, boy.”
Orange: “Whaddya think she's drawing all the time?”
Up Yours: “How should I know?”
Orange: “She's so intense.”
Up Yours: “You should talk to her. You can't be going on like this forever. She was sitting alone in the lunchroom, I saw her last week.”
Orange: “Yeah, but she likes it that way.” He makes what is meant to be a glamour face: “I vant to be aloooone.” He reverts to normal. “She's not like a regular girl where you can ask if she wants potato chips. She'd like, bite my head off.”
Up Yours: “Whatever. But you're gone. You gotta do something about it or switch over to some other girl.”
The boy in orange doesn't answer this; he's rooting around in his backpack for a combination lock.
Up Yours continues: “But she is hot. I give you that. Even I noticed she looked smokin' on Friday.”
Orange: “That tiny tank top? She was workin' that milkshake.”
Up Yours: “Red shirt like her hair.”
They are talking about me.
About me.
I think.
I mean, G is for Gretchen. And I've got red hair. And I sit alone in the lunchroom. And I draw sitting on the steps in the morning.
And I wore a red camisole shirt on Friday, when it was so warm. I can wear them easily 'cause I've got almost nothing on top, so it doesn't matter.
Except maybe it does. At least, these guys were looking. And seeing something.
A milkshake.
I never think people are looking at me. Are people looking at me?
The boy in orange thought I was working the milkshake.
Could I be working it and not even know I'm working it? Have I got anything to work?
I've never even seen these guys before. Never even seen them, and they know who I am and where I like to sit, and what I was wearing last Friday. Like they've got crushes on me, or one of them does. “You see G this morning?”
Someone has a crush on me. Short Orange with the geek pants.
I never thought anyone would have a crush on me. I never thought anyone would like me more than I liked him.
I mean, I don't exist, not next to girls like Cammie and Taffy. I'm the girl who doesn't exist to other people.
The boys head off for class, and I listen to the sound of drumbeats coming from the gym. Afterward, as Orange and Up Yours are standing by their lockers, some of the junior boys start to trickle in for fourth period. And for no reason that I can tell, this guy named Gunther thwaps Up Yours on the butt with a towel. He has a thuggy-looking nose. “How's the dancing lesson, ladies?” he asks.
“Fine,” mutters Orange, pulling off his T-shirt and throwing on a clean one without even taking a shower. (The new shirt is also orange, but an older, softer-looking one with ORANGE CRUSH written across the back.)
“Wanna show me some moves?” asks Gunther. “Some twirly twirls?”
“No thanks,” whispers Orange, like he's been invited to drink tea.
“It's African dance, you tool,” says Up Yours. “It's not some ballet crap.” He splashes water on his face at the sink, but doesn't shower either. Like the two of them are trying to get out of there before the situation gets any worse.
“Aw, just one little twirly, Tinker Bell,” teases Gunther. “I'm not asking for much. Why are you giving me such a hard time?”
“It's called a contraction, the move we mainly do,” says Orange, quietly. “Not a twirly. You contract your abdomen, like from the center of your body.”
“Carlo, don't explain him anything,” says Up Yours, taking his glasses out of his locker. “He doesn't want to know.”
“Oh, I'm very interested!” sneers Gunther. “A contraction: is that like in childbirth?” He's bigger than they are, looming over.
“Not like that,” says Carlo (Orange).
“You would be doing contractions, you ladies.”
“Just fuck off!” yells Up Yours, losing his crap. “Why can't you leave us alone?”
BANG. Gunther slams him into a locker. “You telling me to fuck off, you Mary Poppins faggot little smart-mouth?”
“Ow!”
/>
“Is that what I heard you saying? That I should fuck off?”
“You heard me.”
“Tell me your name, fag.”
“Don't touch me.”
“What's your name, you little ballet dancer?”
Up Yours is silent. Gunther grabs his ear and twists it, hard. “I said, what's your name?”
He squeaks it out. “Xavier, okay? Xavier.”
“Xavier what?”
Nothing.
“I said, Xavier what?”
“Xavier Briggs.”
“Well, Miss Xavier Briggs,” growls Gunther, “repeat after me. I am a…”
“I am a…” Xavier is trembling as Gunther leans over him.
“…ballet-dancing faggot.”
“…ballet-dancing faggot,” Xavier repeats.
“Now mind your step, Mary Poppins,” says Gunther, straightening up. “You're being watched from now on. You understand?”
Xavier (Up Yours) swallows hard. “Yeah.” He squirms from under the heavy paw Gunther has placed on his shoulder, and as soon as he's free, he and Carlo grab their packs and run for the door.
They're gone.
I buzz down and circle Gunther's head, just because I want to do something, anything. But he claps his hands so quickly he almost squashes me between them, and I zip back up to the top of the lockers before he can try it again.
So much for my superpowers.
It's not long before I'm distracted from thinking about Carlo and Xavier's persecution. A major wave of junior boys rushes into the locker room, yelling and stripping off their clothes. Two of them are tossing a ball around, shirtless. Another isn't wearing any underwear when he pulls down his shorts.
Some of these boys are really fine.
That guy in the red boxers has a great booty. Round and hard like a ball. Like it's begging someone to squeeze it.
Ooh, and this guy over here with the mohawk. He's, um… well endowed. You'd never know to look at him—thin and dressed in black, with a lot of piercings. Dyed blue hair and blue eyes. Not a standout physical specimen just walking down the hallway, but without his clothes he's…
