Manties in a Twist

by J. A. Rock

  I picked at the throw cushion. “I would come back. If I moved, I’d visit all the time. But I have to do some things that are just for me. I know you guys care about me, but you also— You all have this idea of me that’s, like, outdated. I know I’m hard to take seriously, but I am growing up, and I’m trying to have a relationship, and a career, and—and nobody thinks it’s weird for Miles to want those things, but it’s like you still expect me to be Kamen from high school.”

  Dave didn’t answer. I wasn’t trying to make him cry, but, like, he was an emotional little fucker, and he’d probably feel better if he cried, honestly. He stared at me. “I don’t mean to do that.”

  “You’re like, ‘Just stand at the kink fair and look pretty, Kamen, because you can’t handle actual responsibilities.’ ‘You don’t really want to move to Cleveland, Kamen, because you couldn’t possibly know anything about moving or Cleveland or wanting things.’ Well, fuck you.” I didn’t say it angrily—more like kinda tired and a little bit, like, trying to let him know I loved him even when he was being a dick.

  He was gripping the Styrofoam head hard enough to leave some serious dents. “That’s not how I feel.”

  “It’s okay,” I told him. “It’s okay to let us all make our own mistakes, or let us, you know, succeed outside of the group. You’re allowed to focus on your relationship with D, and on going to school, and not always worry about other people.”

  He looked down.

  I went on. “Nothing terrible’s gonna happen just because you can’t keep an eye on us all the time.” I waited until he was looking up, then smiled a little. “I’m a big boy. A hobo’s not gonna steal my sandwich.”

  He took a deep breath, but then swallowed and nodded instead of talking.

  “Ryan was right. And I know you don’t like when he’s right, but he was. If we’re gonna make this group work—and I don’t mean the Subs Club, I mean us, our family—then it can’t just be the easy stuff and the group hugs. It’s got to be everything. The—the tough issues and the disagreeing and the trying to see all the sides.”

  “Okay,” he said quietly.

  “We got through Hal. We did. All of us, together. Anything else . . . We can do it. Right? Piece of cake?”

  “Uh-huh.” He tried to smile, but then a single tear fell. And, Jesus Christ, no one can resist a single tear.

  “Do you want a hug?” I asked.

  He shook his head, but I called bullshit. Dude was a hug-whore.

  I stood. He tried to back up so I couldn’t reach him, but I grabbed him. Murdered him a little, slowly, with my arms, and also with all the love in the world. After a few seconds of resistance, his hands came up and clutched my shoulders.

  “I know,” he whispered against my shoulder. “I know all the things you’re telling me, and I still act like this, and I’m sorry.”

  “It’s okay.”

  “It’s not. I hate losing people. I hate it. And you . . . You’ve always been the one who makes everyone feel better. About everything. If you’re not around, like, what’s even the point?”

  “I’m gonna be around. No matter where I am, I’m gonna be around.”

  I felt him nod.

  Gould came in with a large paper bag in his arms. Stopped when he saw us hugging. Raised his eyebrows at me. I gave him a thumbs-up.

  Dave took a step back and looked at Gould. “Hey.”

  “Hey.” Gould held up a carton of milkshakes. “I got three.”

  Ryan was still up when Gould dropped me off that night. He was drawing in the living room. I was a little drunk. Collingsworth started to lumber to the door to greet me, then face-planted.

  “We need to talk,” I told Ryan.

  He looked up and nodded.

  I got down on my knees in front of the couch and waited until the room stopped blurring. “I’ve done a really dumb job of being a friend and a boyfriend at the same time. I know I’m really close with my friends, and it’s a little weird, but we’ve just got to find a way to deal with that. Because I love them.”

  He nodded.

  I put my hand on his knee, then stared at it. “And I do respect what you want. That’s an important thing that I want you to know. I can compromise. But . . . I don’t know if I’m ready to move to Cleveland yet. I shouldn’t have told you I wanted to if it wasn’t true. And I shouldn’t have implied that you didn’t really want it just to make me feel better about being a douche. So can we maybe stay here for at least a couple of years, and then reconsider?”

  He sighed and leaned back. Set the drawing tablet aside. “I don’t need to move to Cleveland either. I just . . . I’m exactly like my parents said. I suck at holding still. I suck at being satisfied. You—us—this is the first time I’ve felt content. And I think it’s freaking me out. Because I keep expecting to feel like I need to be doing something different. And I don’t feel that.”

  I squeezed his knee and got a little fascinated watching my fingers move. “But what if you do want other things, and I’m holding you back?”

  He shook his head. “If we want other things someday, we can have other things someday. But honestly, I’m really fucking happy right now.”

  I smiled a little. “Me too.”

  He rubbed his face. “I can’t even tell you how relieved I was when you said you didn’t want to move. It was like I didn’t even realize until right then that the stuff I’d been telling myself about what I wanted was mostly bullshit.”

  “I’m sorry I said the thing about your parents.”

  “I’m sorry I said the thing about your friends.”

  I climbed up to sit beside him. “I want you to like them. My friends, I mean. I don’t want you to think they dictate my life.”

  “I guess I feel a little threatened by them.”

  “But why? They’re such dork skillets.”

  “They’re awesome. It’s just sometimes—and I can’t even figure out why—I get so scared that I can’t live up to . . . what they are to you, I guess?”

  I leaned against him. “You’re already everything. I mean, seriously—anything I could want, you are that.”

  “You’re right. I wasn’t there.”

  “It’s okay. I’m glad you weren’t.”

  We were quiet awhile.

  “I love you,” he said. “Frealz.”

  I hugged him. Wanted to keep hugging him forever. I finally got the grunt of agony out of him that marks a successful Kamen hug. “Can we, um, try something tonight?”

  He leaned back to look at me. “Sure.”

  “Not, um, underwear or anything. I was thinking maybe we could talk?”

  “Okay.”

  “I mean, we talk a lot. But sometimes I think because we gelled so well right from the beginning, maybe we never talked about really important stuff?”

  He tilted his head. “Like what?”

  “Like we have a billion inside jokes, but I didn’t know until recently, like, what you talked about in your advocate group in San Francisco. Or that you wanted to be an artist, but your dad made you think you couldn’t be creative.” I swallowed. “I think maybe we talk so much about what’s going on in the moment that we forget to talk about who we were before there was an ‘us.’ Does that sound like a thing that . . . might have happened?”

  He nodded slowly. Kissed me. Knocked his forehead lightly against mine, then sat up.

  “Okay. So where should we start?”

  We went to the bedroom. And we started pretty much with our births and went up to now. We talked about a lot of random things—first day of middle school. How deep the deep ends were at our community pools when we were kids. The first time Ryan dommed someone. We were still going at 3 a.m. And then beyond.

  When I woke up, we were still in our clothes, spooning on the bed. Collingsworth was snoring on the floor. I got up, careful not to wake Ryan, and went to make breakfast. Took a brief trip to the hall to look at the well-dressed hare.

  “Adulting,” I whispered to that smug, pu
ffy-sleeved fucker. “Pretty sure I’m crushing it.”

  The Girl Scout camp was tricked out. As we got onto the grounds, I could see a bunch of tents and little fenced areas. Food carts, trailers, water stations. There were a lot of people here already, and I was torn between being, like, new Star Wars excited, and what-if-you-woke-up-and-everyone-around-you-had-been-replaced-with-robots terrified.

  Ryan glanced over at me. “You all right?”

  “Uh, yeah. Just wondering what I got myself into.”

  He reached over and patted my thigh. “You’re my pony.”

  I smiled at him, and didn’t even care about the corniness, because it was true. “Yeah. I’m your fucking pony.” I checked the backseat again to make sure our duffel bag was still there. We’d been in kind of a rush this morning, and we’d been practicing in the apartment until late last night. But Ryan swore all the stuff we needed was in the bag. We’d put together a whole emergency toiletries kit too, with lots of wipes in case I got dirt on me before the grooming competition, and a toothbrush and stuff in case I got food in my teeth before dressage.

  We pulled up to the wooden office building, which had a huge banner on the side reading WELCOME TO PETPLAYFEST, with little silhouettes of a cat, dog, horse, and rabbit. Ryan got out first and then came around and opened the door for me. I was still wearing my street clothes, but we’d decided he’d do the talking when we signed in, so that I could start getting in the pony headspace. I climbed out of the car and stood there, looking around.

  There was madness all over. Ponies pulling carts. Pups sniffing each other and pretending to pee on trees.

  One dog nearby—huge and barrel-chested, with a rottweiler hood that even had a fake tongue sticking out—was scratching his face with his back foot. How such a big guy could bend his leg like that was impressive. His owner was tall and lanky, with dark hair and a goatee and sunglasses. He was shifting around like he was impatient.

  A van pulled into the lot. A woman in a long black vinyl jacket got out. She was thin with short hair, large black earrings. She opened the back door and leaned into the vehicle, emerging a moment later with a smaller woman in her arms. The other woman was a cat, I realized, looking at the small, pointed ears attached to a headband and the long tail sewn to the back of the woman’s leggings.

  Nearby, the dog went rigid. A growl started low in his throat.

  “Goddamn it, Glazer!” The dog’s owner yelled. “Yes, it’s a cat. We’ve seen a million cats here. Shut up.”

  Glazer lunged against his harness and barked. The woman put the cat on the ground, and the cat immediately hid behind her legs, back arched.

  “Easy. Eaaaa-sy,” Glazer’s owner warned. Glazer turned and started humping the guy’s leg. The man kicked him off. “Jesus fucking Christ, Glazer, really?”

  “Oh my God,” I whispered to Ryan. “These people are really good at acting like animals.”

  A truck pulled up dragging a small trailer. The driver, a big-bellied man, handsome in a goofy way, got out and unloaded the ponies. The first one walked easily beside him and stood quietly. The second snorted and stomped her way down the ramp, tossing her head and pulling on the lead rope.

  The skittish pony turned toward the field and let out a whinny. From across the lawn came an answering neigh. I looked.

  The pony standing a few feet away was tall and wore a brown bodysuit, long brown vinyl gloves, and brown knee-high boots. Her long, silky tail was red to match her hair, which was in a French braid. A purple and silver plume was attached to the crownpiece of her bridle.

  Cinnamon.

  “There she is,” I muttered.

  Ryan stopped “Oh. Wow.”

  “She looks good.” I was more than a little freaked.

  “Not as good as you.” Ryan patted me firmly. “Don’t you ever forget it.”

  Cinnamon started backing up, and Stan followed, giving sharp tugs on the lead rope. He spoke soothingly, and Cinnamon calmed. She caught my eye and gave me a little smirk.

  “She smirked at me,” I whispered. “Did you see that? She just smirked at me. She always smirks at me.”

  Ryan slowly stroked my shoulder. “It’s okay. Thunder Canyon? You ready?”

  I was about to reply I’d been born ready, when I heard a shout, and then a joyous bark. I looked over, and Glazer was barreling toward us, his leash trailing.

  “Holy shit.” I tried to retreat, but even on all fours, this puppy-man was fast. He jumped up on me, wagging his butt, and almost knocked me over.

  Then he started to hump the air right next to my leg.

  I pushed at him. “Ew! Ew, dude, no!”

  “Glazer!” The owner shouted, hurrying toward us. “For the love of all the fucking fucks.”

  Glazer crouched, looking guilty.

  The guy reached us and grabbed Glazer’s harness. “We’re putting your shock collar on. You hear me?”

  Glazer was slinking back and forth, his belly close to the ground, his butt still wagging. The guy clipped a collar with a black box on it around Glazer’s thigh.

  The guy pulled Glazer away. “Gonna get you neutered. That what you want? You want to get ’em cut off?”

  I looked at Ryan, who raised his eyebrows at me.

  But the next time I turned around, the guy was petting Glazer’s face. “Who’s my boy? Who’s my good boy?” He looked up at us. “Sorry about that. This is Glazer. One fucking guess why we called him that. He’s harmless, except for the goddamn humping.”

  “It’s, uh, fine,” Ryan said.

  The man turned back to Glazer, who was trying to get his head between the man’s legs. “Take your hump toy!” he shouted, thrusting a stuffed rabbit into Glazer’s leather jaws. Glazer carefully set the rabbit on the ground and started to hump it.

  “We need to go inside,” I whispered to Ryan. “Now.”

  The sign-in desk woman was super friendly. She gave us a handbook, a program, a gift bag, and my competitor number. Then she assigned us a stall and pointed us toward the barn. “The official PPF grooms will be around the stables to help out with water runs, questions, calming down nervous ponies—whatever you need.”

  “Cool,” I said, trying not to sound like a nervous pony.

  When we got back outside, Glazer and his owner were gone. So was Cinnamon. Ryan and I headed for the barn.

  Ryan checked the schedule as we walked. “Meet ’n’ greet at nine. Grooming competition at ten. Then you don’t have anything until bobbing for apples at eleven thirty. Lunch break at noon. Cart race at one. Dressage at two fifteen. Balloon pop at three. Awards ceremony at four.”

  I nodded. “I’m nervous.”

  “Aww.” He leaned against me. “Don’t be. I’m the one in charge. All you have to do is what I say.”

  That was kinda comforting. But Ryan couldn’t make me prance beautifully, or remember how to tempi. Only I could do that. All I knew was that over the past week, our dressage routine had sort of come together. Our cart race times had improved. And my friends and I were planning a giant cookout next weekend to say good-bye to summer. So even if I made a fool out of myself today, there was still grilling to look forward to.

  The barn was actually a picnic shelter partitioned into stalls. There were cross ties on the walls of each, and a narrow wooden bench.

  I removed my shorts and the pair of navy panties I was wearing underneath, and started to pull up the leather pony pants. Paused as I attempted to put my dick through the crotch hole.

  “Ryan! I missed a spot on my balls. Look.”

  He leaned down. “Your balls look fine.”

  “Look at that hair patch.” I pointed.

  “No one’s gonna notice.”

  “Fix it for me. Please?”

  He looked at me. “You want me to shave your balls? Here? Now?”

  I nodded. “We have the toiletry kit.”

  He started to shake his head, but it was like he was too appalled to even do that. “Nobody is going to see your balls.”<
br />
  “I’m wearing the Pegasus Sheath! My balls are gonna show. And my balls are huge. You can’t tell me people aren’t gonna look.”

  “I really think ball hair is fine.”

  “I won’t feel like a real horse unless you shave my balls.”

  “Oh my God. Kamen! There are so many things wrong with that sentence I don’t know where to start. First of all, horses have hair everywhere.”

  I lifted my balls in one hand. “I just don’t like the inconsistency of smooth and then hair patch.”

  Ryan sighed. “Why do I have to do it?”

  “Because I have to mentally start becoming a pony.”

  He rolled his eyes.

  “Please? I’ll let you sit on my shoulders so you can see during the awards ce— Ow!” He’d slapped my thigh.

  “Watch yourself, Thunder Canyon.” He got out the toiletry kit. “Okay. Because I love you and your balls, and want you to feel like a horse.” He squirted a little shaving gel onto his finger and rubbed it onto the hairy ball. I started getting hard. He looked up at me, shaking his head but fighting a smile. “Now how are you gonna get your Pegasus Sheath on?”

  I horse-snorted on him.

  He shaved my ball carefully, then wiped away the gel. We got my junk through the crotch hole and fastened the leather pants. He helped me sheath up.

  “Do I look like a Friesian with a huge dick?” I asked.

  “You’re getting there.”

  Dave texted to say they were at the front gate. We told them where to find us, and a few minutes later, Dave, Gould, Miles, and D stood in a cluster in our stall, looking both confused and impressed by their surroundings.

  Okay, Dave looked terrified. But that was to be expected.

  “Is this as bad as you thought?” I asked him.

  He shrugged, tight-lipped.

  “Remember. They’re not furries. And even if they were, you should still respect them.”

  He nodded, a little pale, as a woman in bunny ears hopped by the shelter.

  Gould was staring at my sheath. “That’s a very large . . .”

  “Horse cock,” I supplied.

  He nodded.

  Miles was reading the program. “Ooh, a pretzel stand. And a hot dog cart that’s hosting hot-dog eating contests for pets and humans throughout the day.”