Creak.
Ziggy turns, startled. “Uh, yeah?”
“Hi.” She’s clicking the door shut behind her. “Those are pictures of Jim,” she says, and tiptoes over to Ziggy. “I used to love him. Then I figured out he was a fascist from talking to my psychiatrist. And Jim is one, I know, but now I miss him again so I put these back up. You’d hate him.”
Ziggy nods hurriedly. “’Cos of his politics?”
“That. And for how he treats me. You, well, mm . . .” Her hazel eyes sort of sizzle his, like they’re car headlights and his burnt-out sockets are tunnels. “People don’t matter that much to artistic types,” she continues, a very slight warp in her lips. “I mean as individuals. So they don’t treat girls differently than they treat boys, which is cool. I tend to be interested in artistic types because I’m an artist.”
“Really?” Ziggy asks, feeling relatively lost. Her beauty—specifically those blinding eyeballs, turned-up nose, and shadowed lips, not to mention that hair—is sort of erasing his senses a little. Uncle Ken had just explained the other day how that happens with beauty. “Well, there are definitely people I like and don’t like,” he admits.
“What about with people you fuck?” She’s looking off at the Polaroids or their reflection or all three. “Do you miss them afterwards? Or do you wish you never fucked them? Or . . .” She squints. “. . . neither?”
“Yeah, yeah, I know what you mean, uh . . .” Ziggy scrunches his face up, trying to mentally rewatch TV shows where scenes like this one occur. “See, I have all these reasons for doing things, uh . . . Can we sit down?” He lurches toward the bed, but she knows a little shortcut, beats him there, cannonballing some stuffed bears, sock monkeys, Raggedy Andys, etc., crowded up against a vast if haphazardly carved, uh . . . Indonesian-style headboard? Ziggy stops at the foot of the bed, tensed, pondering his options, then sits cross-legged on the neatly folded blue comforter. “There, okay,” he continues, settling. “Uh, that’s a hard question.” He glances at her, but his eyes keep getting snagged by stuffed animals’ stares. “I’m sort of bisexual so far. When I do it with guys—not that I have very much—it’s, well . . . love, I guess. Uh . . .” All the toys’ fake attention is weirding him out, so he checks his lap, legs. “And, uh, I have to be positive with guys that I don’t get emotional, ’cos I’m so . . . I hate words like this, but the school therapist tells me I’m ‘needy,’ okay?” He tries Nicole’s face again. She looks . . . a little too interested maybe. “With girls, though, it’s just . . . I don’t know . . . fun? So guys and girls are, like, different situations, and I don’t know which I like better yet.”
Nicole frowns like she understands his dilemma.
“Hey, did you ever know this guy Calhoun?” he adds. “I mentioned him before. He was a senior last year?”
She squints. “Maybe.” Her squint gets more wrinkly. “Didn’t he turn into a junkie?”
“Yeah, exactly. Well, in a perfect world, he and I would be boyfriends. ’Cos I like him more than anybody—we’re best friends, right?—and, you know, he likes me tremendously too, I think. But, anyway, he’s even straighter than me, so . . . so . . .” And Ziggy makes a squishy noise with his mouth. “But then again . . .” He grins really forcibly. “. . . probably what makes us so close is that we don’t sleep together. And, you know, it’s great the way it is now. And I’m probably not gay either, like I said. It’s like we’re brothers, I guess. I don’t know.” He shrugs. “So . . .” Ziggy looks at his thumb, which he raises slightly and turns like it’s a diamond that’s caught the light, trying to make his eyes look bedazzled. “That’s my story. What’s your thinking about sexual stuff?”
“Mm.” Nicole rolls over onto her back, squints at the ceiling. Ziggy recalls noticing a mobile up there, but he refuses to seem imitative and check, though it’s hard to keep pretending his thumb’s interesting. After ten, fifteen seconds, she grins at whatever’s up there or in her mind, and says—whispers, actually—“It’s fun.” Ziggy’s still pretend-studying his thumb, deconstructing her answer, when, whoosh, she bursts out of the stuffed animal heap and flops down on her stomach, squeak, squeak, very near his left kneecap, eyeing him from below, uh, well, erotically, he’s almost sure. “Maybe we should . . . sleep,” she adds. Nicole folds her hands, bounces them two or three times off her puffy lips. “I don’t know how else to say it.”
Ziggy grins insanely. “No, no, no, that’d be great.” His facial skin’s so taut it probably looks like those nylon stocking masks people wear when they try to rob banks. Luckily Nicole has risen up on her haunches, unknotting the belt of her robe. “So I’ll . . . uh, undress too, I guess.” He cocks an eyebrow, like, roguishly?
“Mm,” she says, fiddling.
“So, uh, okay. Cool.” Ziggy slides off the bed, winces, hunched up, a mildly deformed mannequin with body odor from hell, fingers stuck to his Hüsker Dü T-shirt. “Come on, man,” he mumbles, not loud enough for her to hear. He throws off his jacket, whips the T-shirt up over his head, P.U., unsnaps, yanks down the rest of his outfit, then sits sort of demurely on bed’s edge, realizing his feet smell like Indian food. Keep armpits shut, he thinks. What else . . .? Behind him she’s already naked, lying crookedly across the bed like a thick spill of something that’s so comfortable it’s just waiting to evaporate. Shit. Ziggy turns away, looks forlornly at the out-of-focus door, contemplating escape, elbows dug into his knees, chin in palms, positive he’s too skinny. He can’t not imagine a spine, ribs, etc., rising garishly from the pimpled flesh of his back like . . . whatever, the Loch Ness monster, and, three feet behind him, Nicole’s eyes—no, her whole perfect face—studying that stretch of his anatomy with a look of, uh . . . horror?
But when he bites his lip, turns around, she’s still as calm as a spill, eyes far, far away but not angry, reflecting the color if not the actual, physical look of the mobile, whose dozens of dangling white pieces—Ziggy takes a quick peek—are obviously supposed to make one think of a drifting cloud bank.
Ziggy scoots toward Nicole, first a couple of inches. Deep breath. Then he splays one damp hand on the blanket, leans sideways, makes absolutely sure her eyes are warm. Yeah. Raising up on his knees, Ziggy crawls over, straddles her, flops. Nicole’s breasts sort of flatten between their rib cages, which looks terrifying, like they’re about to, uh, rupture, but feels . . . transcendental? Like every girl Ziggy’s had sex with, she hugs him, maybe a little too limply in this case. Still, he starts kissing her face, neck, licks a zigzaggy trail to those breasts, which have really bounced back, sort of slurping their nipples for several minutes at least, blissed out. Nicole’s smell, especially here for some reason, is so fucking faint, unlike his own body’s pointless pollution. It’s more, like, uh . . . flowers, as boring as that idea is, mixed with something less obvious. . . . With his favorite meal maybe, whatever that is. Probably some Mexican item. Burritos? Is that too . . . insulting? Ouch, says Nicole’s voice. “What?” A hand slides beneath his face, lifting it off the breasts. Must be his chin stubble, such as it is. “Sorry,” he whispers, and peers at her crumpled visage. It nods, crumpling even more. Then Ziggy licks cautiously, on tongue tip, toward her lips, which are so much more open than his that his pucker falls way down inside like a little bucket. Ouch. He sips some fizzy saliva, face all steamed by her breath, if that’s possible. Puff, puff, puff . . . Most girls he’s fucked have unraveled their hugs about this point in time to mean, Lick farther down, give me head—that’s a guess—but, if anything, Nicole’s hug’s grown . . . artistic or something, like her fingers are spelling out words on his shoulders and back. If so, they’re in some other language. Anyway, she’s okay. “Nicole?” he asks croakily, raising up. Her throat makes a whirring noise. “Can I fuck you? Uh . . . sorry to be so . . .” Same whirring noise, but centered more in her mouth. “Thanks,” he squeaks. “Be right back.” Ziggy pries himself loose, scrambles off the bed, digs around inside his jeans jacket pocket, comes up with a condom, pops it free o
f its silvery package, and lassoes his cock, which is intensely hard, thank God. Unrolling the condom, Ziggy slides back on top of Nicole, who not only hugs him again, but sort of crushes her face against his. “Okay,” he mumbles, pinching his shrink-wrapped hard-on between a thumb and forefinger. He stabs it around in her pubic hair. Thud, thud . . . “Oh, shit.” It sinks into the ragged, soaked . . . bull’s-eye? “Sorry.” Wow, unbelievable. His body’s spontaneously combusting or whatever. “Shi-i-i-it, Nicole.” He rears back, looks down into her eyes, which are foggy slices, panting, bucking his hips. “Yes, yes, ye-e-e-ess . . .” Ziggy comes. His vision bleaches. He’s collapsing on top of her, arms straight out, sort of like a malfunctioning plane on a do-it-yourself landing strip. His ass knots, unknots for about half a minute. Nicole’s sort of gone into pillow mode, letting whatever happens happen, seemingly cool about everything. Ziggy’s condom—cock too, naturally—starts shriveling up in her cunt. It flops out, getting goo, etc., on them both, but especially her, thanks to gravity. His face is smashed all to shit on her throat, which she’s clearing occasionally. One of those grumbles is particularly loud. That’s when he realizes she’s not hugging him anymore. Shit. Nicole’s arms departed his torso somewhere down the line. He’s just sort of sprawled on her body like someone protecting someone else from an imminent explosion. So he peels himself off, causing this subtle rip sound, and drops onto his side, almost matching her crumply pose about two or so feet to the left. He can’t look back, so he fastens his eyes to the lame-o mobile overhead. But it holds so little interest he can’t help spacing out into somewhere where everything—Nicole included—is just another cloud or not even around or whatever.
It’s weird, he decides after a second, how the girl experience is almost, like, oppositional to the man experience, at least based on going to bed with Brice, with Uncle Ken that one time, and from watching porn videos, plus gay scenes in novels he’s skimmed, uh . . . And sort of how passionate he feels about Calhoun, if that counts. Whereas with Nicole, make that with every girl so far, sex ends up being so . . . planned in advance, not by him obviously, but by history or whatever. So no matter how wild sex gets, he’s still following this preset, like, outline, point by point, and when an experience is over, such as now with Nicole, it sort of gradually dilutes into a zillion other people’s identical experiences, until Ziggy feels . . . used in a way? Or maybe it’s just his rebelliousness problem. Still, gay sex seems to have this great scariness quotient, whereby no two situations are ever alike, as far as he can tell. So even though Ziggy feels basically the same about girls pre– and post–getting laid, as opposed to a lot more or less deep emotion for guys, he thinks he may end up straight, period, assuming he has a choice. Remember, remember, he thinks, to compare this Nicole experience to whatever Roger does to his body, uh . . . day after tomorrow? No, shit, tomorrow. “Uh, Nicole, what time is it?” he asks, peering cautiously in her direction.
“Almost showering time.” She turns her head, studies his crotch. “For me at least.” Those mind-boggling eyes burst into his stupid orbs for a second.
“Oh, uh, ha ha ha.” Ziggy immediately feels stiff head to toe, like a corpse might if it was alive or just mentally aware or whatever. “So, that was nice.”
“Yeah.” She looks away, which makes it seem like she doesn’t in fact mean she enjoyed it. “But . . .” And she squints at something over his shoulder. “. . . do you always have sex fast like that?”
“No, why?” he asks. Her face looks the least friendly he’s ever seen it. “Oh, God, I’m sorry. I’m nervous, I guess. Don’t take it personally. You’re great, you’re beautiful. I’m just . . . weird.”
“Well . . . it was sort of . . . hyper,” she says distractedly. Maybe she’s spotted the mirror, uh, yeah, and is comparing their sex to her experiences with Jim, because her face looks uncertain now, or, like . . . respectful, but, overall, just too attractive to gauge. “And . . . you’re kind of hyper in general,” she continues after a few moments. “So I should have known. But now I wish that we’d waited, or that I’d waited anyway.” She smiles at . . . the mirror again? “Or that you’d brought along some pot after all.”
“Yeah, pot would’ve helped,” Ziggy says. “It really does in situations like this, yeah, yeah, ’cos I’m so sped up. If I get too stoned, you know, it’s hard in another way though, ha ha. With guys it isn’t that big a deal because they always find something to do with me, no matter what, but with girls there’s this weird line you have to, like, walk between fucked up and sober, and I don’t walk it very well, I guess.”
“It’s not that,” she says. “I was just ready for it to take longer.” Then she refocuses on him, still smiling. Weird. “That’s a compliment, Ziggy.”
I was watching Osamu spear, transfer forkfuls of scrambled eggs from the plate to his mouth, chew, then swallow, his shiny cheeks flexing and rippling in nervous bunches. When he noticed the strange intensity of my gaze, he’d halt midchew and squint, at which points I’d shake myself out of some rapturous daydream and smile amiably, which reassured my young guest, or so it appeared, since he would fixate on chewing again.
Osamu’s head was a grayish brown oval, with narrow, murky eyes that seemed three-quarters surface yet bottomless. Wee nose. Fat, purple lips. Squarish ears bracketed by a virtual haystack of black hair that flip-flopped along with his gesticulations. His voice, while pitched high and even squeaky at times, had already attained a mannered evenness of phrasing that spoke of adultlike aplomb, creating the illusion that one could converse with him satisfactorily on any subject. Still, the strain of having to appear knowledgeable about certain topics wore away at his composure at times; he would sulk or seem distracted, while I reverted to a soothing, fatherly condescension.
Osamu had just cleaned his plate when I began to explain my dilemma. Speaking to teenagers, especially when I was bent on seduction, could be arduous, as I was required to convey my desire—a desire I couldn’t possibly expect teens to fathom—while downgrading my vocabulary to meet teens’ semideveloped mentalities partway. This was definitely a problem regarding Osamu, since he had the spacy demeanor endemic to dancers. So, as I outlined my impending trip West, and how it might include sex with a certain exquisite young someone, I made clear to Osamu, in relatively straightforward sentences, that if I found this someone as enticing postsex as I did at that moment, it might mean never seeing my young guest again, for certain complicated-to-explain reasons. But perhaps, I said, if Osamu could offer a sexual encounter himself, say right then, I might reevaluate our future together.
Osamu listened, trying to hide his more than obvious distress. When I paused for a moment, he voiced this confusion, and I offered comfort, in theory at least, by comparing the formal structure and properties of the sex act to dancing. That made him laugh, which I considered a small victory. Then I queried him until we’d boiled his concern down to terror of contracting AIDS, in light of which I reassured him my test came back negative, cajoled, changed the subject, etc., and, in no time at all, he’d agreed to this “project.”
As I’d expected, Osamu’s nude body was perfectly formed, as unpored as tinted cellophane, at least from a few feet away—sleek, shimmering, and packed full of neatly shaped, well-hidden bones and eye-tickling musculature, the latter made more garish still by the nervous, balletic-style poses he struck while he stripped. Something had already stiffened his rather too purplish prick, which, not so surprisingly, encouraged yours truly to nod toward the bed.
Calhoun’s squatting in front of a toilet, the bowl and rim marbled with urine drops, most dried to scabs, some embedded with pubic hairs. The entirety’s unfocused, a skinny oval of . . . threatening clouds. Or maybe it’s . . . almost . . . an old-fashioned frame around his distorted reflection—elongated face and throat blurred with pale vomit. He’s empty. His stomach’s still scrunching up every few seconds. Groans, etc., boom through the room, loud as breaks in the sound barrier. They’re weirdly comforting, as are the twi
sts in the skin of his waist where those megataxed insides freak out in their mysterious ways. His face is the ugliest it’s ever been, not just because of the gross-smelling mirror. Partially it’s the angle. But mostly it’s how uncontrolled he looks now. His features are so narrow and grayish they could be an ax blade, a few chunks knocked out here and there. That’s the opposite of how he wants them to read, whatever that opposite is. Maybe angelic, but masculine too, not a fashion model’s exactly, not fake. It’s just that people should wonder what’s in here, mentally he means. If Ziggy’s right he’s a genius of some sort. That’s thinking too loftily, of course. Or is it? Is he really up there with Rimbaud, as some teachers once hinted? Is Ziggy’s huge admiration a preview of what’s way out there in the future? Calhoun rocks back on his heels, blinking ferociously at the raised toilet lid, in which he doesn’t reflect in the slightest. “Hm.” By now the nausea’s waning. He eases up to his feet, struggling ten or so steps to the right, and looks into his bathroom’s real mirror, balancing his hands on the basin’s raised, filthy white border. His unkempt blond hair, trumpet ears, fine lips, big nose, startled greenish blue eyes are composed, even now, although he’s technically drugged out and worthless to anyone else, he supposes. So . . . whatever whoever decides or can’t decide about him is extraneous. That’s excellent news, if . . . depressing too. “Hm.” Depressing . . . how? Okay, let’s eliminate Ziggy’s opinion. He’s obviously in love, which undermines his assessment. Done. Fine. Who cares? All alone in the world, Calhoun pushes his worn-out face close to the mirror and tells himself, “No one appreciates you,” then smiles as sympathetically as possible. But, at least in reflection, it looks like a grimace.
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