Tom watched Cordo tearfully try to hide his face.
“That’s bullshit. I know you.”
“Something fucking happened!”
“What?”
Cordo shook his head, lip trembling as he tried to think.
“I woke up one night and…she was on me…”
“Who?”
“I don’t…I thought it was Lourdes but…it was so real.”
Tom firmed his jaw.
“The paternity test came back negative.”
“I know but…”
Cordo covered his face.
“It was a dream,” Tom said staunchly. “A fucking dream.”
“Then who’s the fucking father?”
Tom had no answer.
“Maybe it doesn’t matter,” he finally said. “We would have noticed if she’d been raped, which means it was consensual. She may only be 13 but she’s wiser than most who are legal. She wanted to do it. And if she doesn’t see fit to have the father in the picture, maybe that’s for the best.”
Cordo ran his hands through his hair, sighed sadly.
“God, what would Lourdes say?”
Tom thought.
“I don’t know.”
That was it. Cordo changed, brushed his teeth, then went out with Tom to his car. Cordo and Amelia, in the front seat, caught each other’s eyes but said nothing as he got in behind her. Tom drove them to his house in Arlington, where Cordo and Amelia stayed for a while. Cordo called into the office the next morning, saying he needed some time off.
Tom removed all the drugs—prescription and over-the-counter—from his house, as well as all the alcohol, despite Cordo’s oath not to try again.
Cordo let Margaret know the change in their living arrangement but said they would need her again when Amelia’s baby was born. Margaret was excited for that.
Cordo and Amelia slept in separate rooms upstairs, Tom’s room downstairs off the living room. For the first few days at Tom’s, Cordo slept straight through, being there alone. He soon made it out to the kitchen and made some coffee. In a few more days, he went out onto the back porch and sat out in the grass under the rain. The breaths he took out there might have felt like the first real breaths he’d taken in a long time.
He called his doctor to get more pills. He had stopped taking the fluoxetine, he said, wanted to go back on sertraline. The doctor agreed, wrote him a prescription, recommended a psychologist, with whom Cordo met once a week, in the beginning taking a bus to Everett to get his car and then going into Seattle.
One night at the start of summer, he and Tom were drinking tea on the couch, Amelia already upstairs. They’d been talking about the sessions, how Cordo was feeling, yes he’d told the psychologist about the attempt, told him no he wasn’t considering another attempt. After so much of this, they were quiet.
“I never should have been a father,” Cordo eventually said.
“Don’t say that.”
“It’s true.”
“It’s not. If Lourdes was destined to be a mother, then you were destined to be a father.”
“Maybe it was a mistake she and I ever met.”
“You don’t mean that.”
“I’d have been spared all the pain.”
“And all the pleasure. Would you really wanna change that?”
Cordo rubbed his temples.
“You should do something that gives you pleasure. Something to focus your mind on.”
“Like what?”
Tom shrugged. Cordo drank his tea.
“I used to write,” Cordo said.
“Fiction?”
“Yeah.”
“Really?”
“All journalists are failed novelists. Right after I met Lourdes, I started something. Wrote it really fast. She was…my muse.”
“You ever do anything with it?”
Cordo shook his head.
“No, got swamped with work.”
“Maybe you should take it up again—fiction writing.”
“It did give me pleasure. And escape.”
“From what?”
Cordo smirked.
“Life. Loneliness. Before Lourdes the last person I dated was a girl in sophomore year of high school.”
“Five years you didn’t date?”
“No. Didn’t have friends either. All I did was write.”
Tom was quiet.
“Then I saw Lourdes…” Cordo went on, “…a parting of black fucking clouds.”
Tom smiled.
“What attracted you to her?”
Cordo thought.
“A lot of things. I guess…you could tell she had had bad things happen in her life, a lot of sadness. But she still managed to be…happy, optimistic. She was so ambitious, energetic. I’ve never been able to be that way.”
Tom nodded. Cordo sighed.
“I’m sorry about Mark,” Cordo added.
“Me too. But…”
He didn’t know but what.
“What did he say?” Cordo asked. “After everything?”
Tom looked down, smiled.
“He asked me…if I was in love with you.”
Cordo raised his eyebrows.
“Not a bad question. Are you?”
Tom sighed, looked up, spoke softly, faltering, wavering.
“If I thought there was any chance…yes.”
Cordo smiled.
“I used to think about it a lot—whether I was,” Cordo said. “Thought about it so much at one point, I just got sick of it, said, ‘Fuck it, I’m asexual until further notice.’”
“You must have watched porn though.”
“Sure—gay and straight.”
Tom was surprised at this.
“OK, so bring in Kinsey’s scale. You’re sexually attracted to both but you obviously only perceive any meaningful emotional relationship with women.”
Cordo thought, shook his head.
“You can’t be picky about love. At least I can’t. I don’t know why I’ve only pursued women…But if there’s somebody who cares about you, gives a shit that you’re alive, and you feel the same way, it doesn’t fucking matter what gender they are.”
Tom smiled, nodded.
“Did you ever experiment?” he asked.
Cordo chuckled.
“Not really. Did you with women?”
“Yeah. That’s what made me know for sure.”
“Yeah. I made out with a guy at a party in college. We were drunk.”
“Was he gay?”
“Yeah.”
“And?”
“Just made out. Wasn’t different from with a woman.”
Tom smiled toothily.
“You ever think about doing it again?” he asked.
Cordo smiled back at him.
“Yeah.”
“What’s stopped you?”
“…Maybe I don’t mean what I say. I don’t wanna lead someone on if I can’t commit.”
“Maybe someone’s not looking for commitment.”
“So what is someone looking for?” Cordo asked.
Tom took a deep shuddering breath.
“We’ve got tonight,” he said.
Neither breathed for a moment. Then Cordo took Tom’s mug of tea from where he held it on his knee and placed both mugs on the coffee table. He slid slowly in the dark closer to Tom on the couch and they fell into a gentle kiss—which quickly tightened and intensified. Their lips nervously trembled but stayed locked.
Tom put his hands to Cordo’s neck and Cordo caressed Tom’s side and stroked his hair.
They did this for a few minutes. Then they slowly parted and Tom skimmed Cordo’s cheek with his palm. Then he stood, taking Cordo’s hand, and Cordo stood. He followed into Tom’s bedroom.
He faintly shut and locked the door, then he and Tom were back in each other’s arms and to each other’s lips beside the bed. Tom was four years older but Cordo was four or five inches taller.
As though peeling the petals from a rose, t
hey removed each other’s clothes. When they were out of their shirts, Cordo’s courage faltered and Tom sensed this, brought his hands up from Cordo’s zipper and instead grabbed his waist and lowered his face to Cordo’s chest, kissing amid the curly underbrush of black hair.
Cordo swallowed, looking up at the ceiling. The blood pumping through his carotid artery felt as though it were going to burst.
Tom kissed down his stomach and Cordo’s legs wobbled. Tom eased him back and sat him down on the messy bed, going up to kiss him again, cupping his face, and Cordo was back in the moment. He wrapped his arms around Tom’s back, feeling the contorting muscles and shoulder blades and the intense warmth.
He kissed Tom’s neck, going up behind his ear, and Tom moaned into Cordo’s ear. Cordo fell back, taking Tom on top of him, and they continued kissing as they moved to the center of the bed. Then Tom moved swiftly down Cordo’s body, pulled down his jeans and boxers and put Cordo’s already-hard penis in his mouth.
Cordo groaned, writhed, swimming in that familiar feeling of drunkenness while completely sober. Tom took him all the way down, pulled on his scrotum. After minutes Cordo stopped him. Tom sat up, as did Cordo, kissing again, then Cordo went down Tom’s chest of dirty blond hair, kissed his nipples, felt Tom’s rapid heartbeat against his forehead, looking like some woebegone soul clinging to a holy effigy.
As though performing a wrestling move, Cordo flipped Tom onto his back and got on top of him all at once. His hands went to pull down Tom’s pants but froze in midair, started shaking.
Tom unbuttoned and unzipped himself and then Cordo could move again. He pulled down Tom’s pants and underwear and his erect penis sprung out. It was about Cordo’s size, circumcised.
Cordo grabbed it around the base, like a lead pipe wrapped in Play-Doh, so hot it felt as though it should be exuding smoke. Cordo lowered his face to it, feeling Tom’s warmth radiate up into his face like a pot of hot water exhaling steam to open the pores before a makeover. Cordo smelled him—antibacterial soap and sweat and the musk of masculinity, testosterone.
He looked up and saw Tom looking down his body at him anxiously, almost desperately.
Cordo opened his mouth and Tom’s head fell back as he felt the heat of Cordo’s breath strike his frenulum and then Cordo took him in, lips closing delicately over the head. Tom groaned.
Cordo pulled his lips up and down just on the head, swiping his tongue against the underside with all the apprehension of the first time you ever licked a nine-volt battery to see if it would actually shock you.
He heard Tom breathing meditatively. Tom put his hands on Cordo’s shoulders and rubbed them, found Cordo’s other hand lying beside them on the bed. He took this and pulled it up to his neck, opening the hand and placing it over his throat, and Cordo got the idea and clutched his hand a little, applying just enough pressure to make breathing a bit difficult for Tom, who groaned even deeper.
Tom put one hand, then the other on Cordo’s head, took handfuls of his hair. Then he gently pushed down Cordo’s head. Cordo resisted for only a second, realizing what was happening, then went farther down Tom’s penis, past the circumcision scar where he gagged and pulled up an inch.
He caught his breath, went down again, opening his throat more, focusing. His tongue circled all around it like the sword of Damocles, going up and down faster.
He grabbed Tom’s scrotum, squeezed and pulled, and Tom’s hands started pushing his head down faster, as though he were dribbling Cordo’s head, faster and faster and Cordo’s neck and shoulders and jaw were aching but the slick warmth of Tom’s penis between his lips was magnetic, it tingled every nerve ending in Cordo’s own body, his own penis erect, though he’d not touched it all night, and Tom’s breathing got light and rapid like machine gunfire and he fought back, groaning as though in agony but in truth it was pleasure, for fear of making too much noise, so he pulled Cordo’s mouth off of him and pulled Cordo’s face, chin glistening, up to him and they kissed as though that were the only thing keeping them both alive and corporeal. Tom lay back, both arms around Cordo’s neck, bringing him down on top, and after some more kissing, their erections swinging over each other like fencing foils striking and bending around each other, or perhaps even better like two snakes in a strange aerial-ground mating dance, Tom turned over onto his stomach.
“There’s some lube in the nightstand.”
Cordo didn’t move, thinking.
“Are you OK?” Tom asked.
Cordo nodded stiffly. Tom sat up, touched his cheek.
“Do you want to?”
Cordo forced down the shaking in his core, nodded.
“Yeah,” he kissed Tom, who rolled back over, and Cordo kissed the back of his neck while he reached into the nightstand drawer and got out a bottle of lube and a new pack of condoms.
As he was struggling with tearing off the box’s plastic wrap, Tom looked up at it and pushed Cordo’s hand back to the nightstand.
“No, not you.”
Cordo dropped the unopened box back in the drawer, opened the lube, coated his penis and Tom’s anus with it.
“Do I just…?” Cordo asked.
“Go slow.”
Tom got upon his knees, arching his back, and Cordo lined up behind him with the head of his penis at Tom’s opening and then pushed in. Tom gasped with each inch Cordo gained inside of him and Cordo closed his eyes and breathed rhythmically, else the warmth and viscosity and singular tightness make him cum too soon.
He soon had all of himself inside Tom and Cordo grabbed onto Tom’s hips, pulled him close, then withdrew centimeter by centimeter. Just before the head plopped out wetly, Cordo plunged back inside fully and Tom cried out.
Cordo bent over him, beside his ear:
“Are you OK?”
“Yeah,” quiet chuckling. “Wasn’t expecting that. Keep goin’.”
Cordo worked in and almost out of Tom a few more times, then Tom shiveringly put his face down in the bed, his spine sloping from his arched butt. With his hands back around Tom’s hips, Cordo started thrusting regularly, at first fast but the slap of their flesh was like a giant alarm, so he changed the rhythm so that he thrust just as fast but pulled back right before their thighs could meet and create a ruckus, their scrotums swung like beige pendulums, hitting each other in their crotches, where sweat dripped amid the scraggly hair coating their skin.
Cordo’s hair flew all over his face and stuck sweatily to it and he pushed Tom down evenly upon the bed and changed his position so that when he thrust, his penis curved into Tom like a pipe cleaner and Tom buried his face in the sheets to project his loudening groans into the mattress.
“I’m gonna cum!” Cordo gasped.
“Inside me!”
He did, his body convulsing with each expulsion of semen, and he pulled out and fell on top of Tom, kissing his protruding shoulder blades, wetting his lips with Tom’s sweat.
Tom was breathing heavily, head spinning.
“Do me,” Cordo whispered.
Tom looked over his shoulder at him, saw Cordo’s exhausted but lustful face. They kissed over Tom’s shoulder and then Cordo moved onto his stomach on the bed but Tom caught his hips and turned him over onto his back. They watched each other with nervous excitement as Tom got the lube, applied some to his finger, worked it into Cordo’s anus while Tom masturbated, keeping his erection—sparkling with precum—hard.
Once he had a finger inside Cordo, he slipped it in and out many times, then put in a second finger, watching Cordo’s face as he explored deeper and stretched him. Cordo bit his bottom lip and let the feeling surge through him like a spell.
After 10 minutes Tom judged Cordo was sufficiently stretched. He got upon the bed again, put Cordo’s legs around his waist. Cordo pulled back his now-flaccid penis and scrotum so Tom could see as he inserted himself into Cordo, going even slower than Cordo had.
When the head was just inside, Tom leaned over, resting on his forearms on the bed, looking Cordo in his
fearfully open eyes, he wasn’t breathing, turning red in the moonlight.
“Breathe,” Tom instructed, “breathe and relax.”
He didn’t force himself deeper. He inhaled, exhaled again and again until Cordo obeyed him, in, out, in, out and his muscles relaxed and Tom felt the wall of tissue recede and so he continued inward.
“Keep breathing.”
Cordo did, though his legs tightened around Tom’s waist like a lobster cracker and seeing the pain not easing on his face, Tom got more lube and started masturbating Cordo. Then his pain was tempered with pleasure, Tom’s fist tantalizingly sliding up and down Cordo’s soon-erect-again penis with sticky-slick noises and Tom was able to go all the way in now.
“I’m in.”
“Really?” Cordo asked dreamily, then felt Tom’s scrotum touching his buttocks.
Tom pulled out, like pulling a spoon out of a bowl of cake mix, pushed back in, like pressing down the filter on a French press—carefully, for the best outcome.
“Are you OK?” Tom asked, still stroking Cordo, who was nearly delirious with pleasure.
“Yeah, don’t stop.”
Tom didn’t. He kept thrusting and stroking as though he were some carnival performer with a niche-talent and as he went faster, Cordo was driven crazier until he threw off Tom’s hand from his penis, which then wobbled like a buoy in a turbulent ocean.
“Harder.”
Tom bent over Cordo now, using one hand to hold him under the butt for leverage, the other to caress the back of his head, and then Tom nestled down beside Cordo’s neck and thrust madly, precisely, and Cordo’s face tightened in agony and ecstasy. He uttered hoarse groans, wrapping his legs and arms around Tom and putting his mouth tightly against his shoulder, alternately biting and kissing to stifle himself.
Tom made himself last, feeling the undulations of Cordo’s pleasure in his body, Cordo’s breath down Tom’s back, Cordo’s fingernails scraping the flesh of his butt.
“Make me cum!” Cordo hissed.
Tom raised himself up, continued thrusting while resuming his stimulation of Cordo’s hard penis, still maintaining his speed, stroking faster and Cordo lasted only seconds. He gasped as it neared—louder, closer-louder, closer—
“Oh fuck!”
Tom’s frenzied stroking of Cordo’s swollen purple organ unleashed a flurry of semen blasting up onto the wall behind the bed, the bed pillows, Cordo’s own face.
Most Unnatural Page 13
