Chapter 8 Hard
Hard
I’m used to getting random boners throughout the day.
(Supposedly, it happens less when you get older.
I hope this is true.) So I know how to handle them.
If you’re sitting, stay seated until it passes.
If you’re standing or walking, move your backpack in front of your pants.
If you don’t have anything you can use to block your crotch, then say, “I gotta take a piss,” and run to the restroom and hide in a stall.
But this boner right here and now, beneath this white bath towel, in front of Emma: it’s too late to do anything. I didn’t even know that I had a boner until I noticed Emma with a look of utter confusion (and despair?) on her face.
I can’t deny what’s happened, which means I have to provide an explanation, one that doesn’t reveal that I got sexually excited watching Shawn Mendes sing seductively into the camera.
Did my dick stand at attention as soon as Emma started the music video? Have I been hard this whole time? Or did I just get this erection right now? If it did just happen, then there’s a way out of this.
A few seconds ago, when Shawn Mendes laid down on the bed in the video, there was an actress/model next to him. She’ll be my excuse.
“Sorry!” I exclaim, my hand still pressing down on my dick. “You got me thinking about sex. And then I saw that model lying there, and you can see her bare stomach, and it made me think of me and you in bed together.”
Is it working? Does she buy it? Please work. Please buy it.
But even if she does believe me, believe that some girl in a music video got me instantly horny, will she then be jealous? Emma doesn’t really seem to be the type who gets jealous easily. (But it’s not like I’ve given her anything to be jealous about so far.)
I mean, I don’t look at other girls around campus or around town, the way my friend Oscar does.
He’ll be at the mall with his girlfriend, Blanca, and he’ll try to secretly check out some girl’s butt, but his girlfriend always catches him and gets super mad.
She’ll smack him on the back of the head and scream something like, “You a dog, Oscar! Don’t make me cut you! ”
I don’t have that problem.
Emma smiles. “You don’t have to apologize. You’re a guy. I know guys are always thinking about sex.”
She sounds sincere. My lie worked. But in order for my lie to stick, I’m going to have to fuck her.
After putting on shorts, a T-shirt, and flip-flops, I rejoin Emma on the couch.
We watch random videos on her phone for about an hour: stand-up comedy clips (we love John Mulaney), scare pranks (clowns coming after people), funny cats (Maru over and over again).
We’re snuggling next to each other, Emma stroking my bare thigh.
Every few minutes, her fingers inch higher and higher up that thigh, underneath my shorts, closer to my boxer briefs, getting dangerously near my balls.
I know this physical contact is soon going to escalate to the point of extreme discomfort, and I’m honestly kind of terrified.
During a video of Maru the cat sliding into a box, which we’ve seen dozens of times, her fingers creep under my boxer briefs, and she starts gently pulling at my dick, while I keep my eyes on the screen. But no matter what direction she pulls and no matter how long she does this, I remain soft.
I can tell by the look on her face that this is beginning to alarm her.
I turn to her, put my hand on her arm, and say, with a knowing smirk, “Let’s go up to my room.”
It works. She takes her hand off of me.
I slide my hand down to hers, and we get up off the couch.
While we walk up the stairs, with me leading the way, I start thinking about Shawn Mendes.
I have to, if I want to get hard. But no matter how much I mentally undress him in my mind, I can’t get it back up.
Damn it. I need a new strategy. I picture a bunch of different guys: my best friend, Oscar; the gaysian dude, Andrew; Victor Chaviano; even that weird guy, Liam. But I’m still soft. Double damn it.
Then: I think about Nash’s clothes, Nash’s underwear . . . Nash.
“Wow,” says Emma. “You’re really excited about this.”
I look down, and I now have a very visible erection inside my shorts.
Standing just outside my bedroom door, still not having crossed that threshold of no return, I wonder: how do I abort mission? Pretend I’m sick? Say Jesus is talking to me in my head and telling me to stop? Just run out the front door and keep on running until I fall into the ocean?
Or maybe—just maybe—I should just come out of the closet, this stupid closet, right here and now. It’s the most direct way to stop this crazy night.
But I’m not ready. Will I ever be ready?
Why am I so scared? What am I afraid of?
Dear God, why did you make me this way? And dear God, if you did make me this way, why did you make me so frightened of being who I really am on the inside?
Emma grabs my still-hard dick. “I knew you would be into this. Blanca is so full of shit.”
“What?” I ask. “What about Blanca?”
Emma starts laughing. “Blanca thinks she has like gaydar or something. She keeps telling me you’re gay. She’s an idiot.”
Immediate reflex forces this out of me: “I’m not gay!” It’s maybe a little bit too loud.
“Okay, Hunter, calm down. Jesus. That’s what I told her.”
Fuck Blanca. I wonder who else talks behind my back. I wonder what rumors they’re spreading. I wonder what lies they’re telling.
Okay, okay, what they think about me might be the truth. But this truth, my truth, it belongs to me. I’ll tell it when I want to tell it. And if I never want to tell it, then that’s my choice. No one else’s.
Maybe I’m being punished. I’ve always known that recording Nash and posting his jerk-off videos is wrong. Maybe this is justified karma for what I’ve done. I violate his privacy, my privacy gets violated in return.
Dear God, I told you: I’m going to remove the camera, take down my brother’s videos, repent, repent, repent. Just don’t expose my secret just yet. I need more time to figure it out. Please. Dear God, please.
“I know you’re not gay,” says Emma. “That would be gross.”
Wait a minute. What? What does she mean by that? Like, it’s gross that I’ve been dating her, knowing that I’m gay? Or like, she finds gay people gross?
I’ve always thought that Emma would be accepting of me if I ever did come out, but now I’m not so sure.
Her parents are evangelical Christians, super conservative, so I’m pretty sure they don’t like gays.
But Emma is like me—she only goes to church because her parents force her to. What does she believe?
I decide to not ask for an explanation. Using this moment to ask her for her opinions about homosexuality would only raise red flags. I need more time. I need to keep on acting.
Emma, Blanca, Oscar, whoever else: they want proof that I’m straight? Well, having sex with Emma, making her feel things she’s never felt before, treating her like she’s my girl and I’m her guy: it’s all the proof I need. I’m about to give her the best night of her life.
As soon as we’re in my bedroom, Emma takes off her clothes. It’s like lightning fast. I mean, by the time I reach the bed, she’s already completely naked. I’ve never thought of her as someone this bold, this comfortable with her body.
She’s in amazing shape, and every straight guy at school would kill to be in the situation I’m in right now. I mean, her beautiful face, her firm breasts, her perfectly proportioned figure: she could really be a model.
Emma falls back onto the bed and looks at me seductively. She says, bluntly, “Fuck me.”
I’m kind of surprised once again by her directness.
I strip down. My penis, which was at full attention a few seconds ago, is starting to go down. Damn it. I’d better hurry this up before I completely lose it.
I crawl onto the bed until I’m hovering over Emma. She grabs the back of my head and pushes down until my lips touch hers. We make out, and the more we do the softer my dick gets.
I close my eyes as we continue to kiss. I think: Shawn Mendes, Oscar, Andrew, Victor, Liam. Nothing. Then: Nash, Nash, Nash. Okay, here we go, we’re back in business.
Let’s get this over with.
“Do you have a condom?” Emma asks.
I grab a condom package from my nightstand. (I stole it from my brother’s room.) I rip it open nervously. I unroll the condom onto my hard dick. (Thank God for that one assembly where that old woman put a condom on a banana.)
I reach down to guide my penis. I brush the head against her, exploring, searching, ready to penetrate, do the deed, and be done with it.
I can feel myself starting to lose my erection again. If I’m going to do this, I have to move fast.
So I slide it in.
Immediately, Emma screams an ear-shattering scream. “WRONG HOLE! WRONG HOLE!”
I immediately pull out, but with such force that I tumble off the bed, the back of my head slamming against my nightstand. The table lamp falls off and crashes on the floor, shattering the light bulb.
My entire head is now throbbing in pain. I turn slightly to my right and see, through blurred vision, Emma curled up in a ball on the bed, moaning in apparent agony, waiting for her pain to subside.
“You shoved your dick in my ass,“ Emma whimpers. She might even be crying.
Before I can be totally filled with both embarrassment and horror, I pass out.