Chapter 6 Connor #2
I wasn’t scorned when Dane told me to fuck off.
I deserved it. Told him I wanted to see him play in person, which was true, but it seemed a waste to watch without documenting.
Naturally, I focused on Dane. After all, he might be the most interesting person I’ve ever met, and the camera loves him as much as he usually loves being on the lens-end of it.
All I did was document what everyone on the bleachers that day witnessed, but somehow, what I had done was worse than looking. I didn’t realize it when I took the shots, but I realized it when Dane came storming out of the team locker room with as much fire in his eyes as misery.
“Did you get it?” he’d asked.
Yeah…I got it.
I find the thumbnail and maximize it. I don’t pretend to know Dane well, but I’ve experienced enough of him that it rattles me to see him on his knees, vulnerable and defeated, staring at that goal beam as if it was an instrument of cruelty.
“Hey, you,” Margot’s airy voice shakes me from my thoughts. I look sideways in time for her to plop down at the portal beside me. She’s all smiles, just like always.
“Hey.” I fidget straighter and consider hitting the minimize button on Dane’s likeness, but Margot’s already looking at my screen.
“Wow,” she breathes, scrutinizing my work without invitation. I rarely mind a second set of eyes, but now, it feels a little too much like sharing another one of Dane’s secrets. “What happened? The goalie get decapitated or something?”
“Worse. He missed his shot.”
Margot snorts and reclines in her swivel chair, crossing one fishnet leg over the other. “Boys and their balls.”
With her watching, I click through the album. As embarrassing as it is that most of my photos are of a gay dude, Margot is the one who suggested making Dane my model in the first place.
The photo of Lyle attempting to console Dane on the field is almost as affecting as Dane’s moment of solo despair.
I remember when my former captain, Rowan, would put his hands on my shoulders and talk some blunt sense into me when I was floundering, so I know how easy it is to reject consolation, even from those we respect.
Leaning toward Margot, I whisper, “You have gay friends, right?”
“Better than that, I have gay roommates. Why?”
After a quick glance around to make sure no one’s eavesdropping, I ask, “What does insatiable bottom mean?”
She slaps a hand over her mouth. “Why are you asking?” she whispers through her fingers.
“‘Cause I’m too scared to Google it, in case there’re pictures.”
She lowers her palm and laughs silently. Leaning in until we’re inches apart, she asks, “Do you know what a bottom is?”
“It’s a gay thing, right?”
“Assuming we’re talking about men here, the bottom would be the guy taking the dick as opposed to the top who gives the dick.”
Shit, I shouldn’t have asked. Taking and giving… Thinking about it makes knots out of my insides, and I’m not sure I’ll survive a deeper explanation. But I don’t stop Margot when she continues.
“An insatiable bottom would be a bottom who isn’t satisfied with just one round. He needs to keep taking and taking for multiple rounds until, I guess, he or the top come so many times they, like, pass out or something.”
Multiple rounds?! Dane was gone until after I fell asleep! How many freaking times can that dude fuck in half of a whole day?!
“The look on your face right now is priceless,” Margot chortles. “Where did you hear that term anyway?”
I fidget some more and tug on my pants in a way I hope isn’t telling. I can’t help it. It’s not the gay part that’s making me hard. It’s the multiple rounds thing. What sort of dude would want to take a dick for multiple rounds?!
Nodding to Dane’s photo on my screen, I admit, “He told me the guy he hooked up with on Saturday is an insatiable bottom.”
“Damn.” Staring at my screen again, Margot fans her neck with an open palm. “You think he’s one-hundred percent gay, or is there some wiggle room there?”
“I dunno,” I exhale, too busy trying to think of anything other than sex before I tent my jeans. Clearly, it’s been too long since I’ve gotten laid. Multiple rounds sound great and all, but I’d settle for one round.
One round with Thalia, obviously.
My shameful boners notwithstanding, Thalia’s the one I want.
She’s gorgeous, she’s fun, and she makes sense.
She’s the exact sort of person I used to fantasize about getting with, staying with, and marrying one day.
A dream girl, in the flesh, and I still don’t know why she said yes when I asked her out.
I should feel like the luckiest man in the world, but I’ve grown used to the routine of Thalia being gone all day and too exhausted at night.
Now, it’s like my body is latching onto the first shiny object it sees, and I can’t stop thinking about the two on Dane’s chest.
But it’s not just the nipple rings. It’s all of his sharp edges, straight lines, and flat surfaces. It’s his long legs now that the hair has grown back, and his long arms with enough muscle to pull me out of a whirlpool—enough to hold me down if he wants to.
Margot’s voice tickles my right ear, spilling classroom gossip and whatever else, but my mind is too warped to hear anything more than a jumble of random words.
What is wrong with me? I don’t want to fuck dudes, and I definitely don’t want to be fucked by dudes, so why can’t I stop thinking about Dane playing the insatiable top to another dude’s insatiable bottom?
This is fucked. I moved here to stay with Thalia, not to become a casualty of Dane’s overbearing…gayness.
“I gotta go.” I interrupt Margot’s ramblings to say. “Sorry. Staring at this monitor is giving me a migraine. I think I’m gonna head home.”
“Oh. Okay. Anything I can do?” Margot asks kindly. That’s what I need more of in my life. Kind people. Not brash, crude, arrogant, hilarious, misunderstood, handsome men.
“No, no. I’ll be good. See you in class tomorrow.” I grab my stuff, and as soon as I’m in open air, my lungs breathe a little easier. The cool breeze helps temper the erection in my jeans, too, but it does little to quell my overactive mind.
Googling my feelings on my way to the student parking lot is a mistake. Half the results tell me I’m homophobic, but how the hell can that be? I’m homophobic just because I don’t want to have sexual thoughts about a man?
The other results suggest that I’m gay, which is laughably untrue.
The most I can concede to is being overly curious and too pent up to control my imagination.
Sure, I think Dane is attractive, but anyone with eyes would agree with me on that.
But I’m not gay. Gay people don’t just think about men having sex, they want to actually have sex with them.
And why would I want to do something that makes me ill just to think about?
By the time I get home, the only course of action that makes sense is to swallow my sickness down as much as possible and hope it passes. Once winter break rolls around, I’ll spend more time with Thalia and less time with her gay brother, and that should sort it all out.
Saturday morning, I wake up early to be at the SDSU pitch in time for Dane’s match. I ask Thalia if she wants to come and am met with an emphatic hell no, which isn’t a surprise.
“He’s not your friend,” she says. “You don’t need to be there for him.”
“We are friends,” I answer with my whole chest, despite the ambiguity. Despite my feelings.
I catalogue her displeasure to stew on at a later time, like when I’m sitting in the stands, watching Dane’s coach sub him into the match against Santa Clara, and I decide to keep my camera in its case. Whether or not Dane considers us friends, I do, and I don’t want to wreck that.
All of Dane’s hard work these past weeks is clear in the way he plays, the way he moves, and the way he lasers in on the action while knowing his spot in the plays.
“Let’s go, Dane!” I holler, clapping like I’d do if I were sitting on that bench in Aztec colors. I wish I were. Why does there have to be a cap on college eligibility?
At half-time, Dane pops up to the railing and waves me down. Cautious about leaving my baby unattended, I hook my camera bag on my shoulder before meeting Dane on the platform. Condensation speckles his forehead, and he’s breathing hard from the minutes he played in the first half.
“‘Sup, man?” I ask.
He tips his chin. “Remember when we were cuddling on the sofa yesterday?”
“Uhh, you mean when we were watching Santa Clara’s game film, and you kept kicking me until I let you put your legs on my lap?”
“Semantics. What were you saying about the man-bun dude with the neck tattoo?”
“That his girlfriend dumped him for his cousin?”
“That’s it.” He clicks his tongue and shoots me with a finger gun.
“Dane, do not taunt a man with a neck tattoo.”
“Pshh! Anyone can get a neck tattoo. I got my nips pierced. No one’s suddenly afraid of me.
” Dane skips off to join his team’s half-time huddle, but switches around halfway, shouts my name, then lifts his hands up in front of his face as if to mime a camera.
His index finger hops like he’s hitting a shutter button, taking my pretend picture.
Clearance to let my baby out of its case.
Thankfully, the opposing coach subs out Neck Tattoo shortly into the second half, so I don’t have to worry about Dane getting his face caved in.
By the final minutes of the match, I’m too busy cheering to think about taking a picture, and when the clock winds down, the Aztecs have officially won their first match of the season.
“YES!” I shout, pumped to the heavens, like I’d won too.
The team celebrates, and all the raucous joy has my heart thumping wildly.