Chapter Four - Asher #2
I say nothing and Paul says nothing as he walks along beside me, glancing over every so often while we look at booths of games, prizes, and food. There’s an announcement about the Miss Dogwood thing, and I decide I can live without it.
I’m vaguely excited. I loved these kinds of things when I was a kid.
One of my best memories of Jimmy—just the year before I fucked things up—was at the state fair.
He took responsibility for me, held my hand, and led me around.
We sat in these rickety wooden seats and watched this lady jump on a horse and leap from a high dive into a pool.
I thought they were hurt, but the horse and the lady came up out of the water and they were fine. She took a bow.
Nothing bad ever seemed to happen as long as Jimmy was looking out for me. I guess that’s where everything in my life went wrong.
And there’s no one to blame but me.
“You want to get a beer?”
Paul’s voice startles me, and I turn to him. He’s backlit by the carousel. There’s a breeze and it tousles some of his hair. It’s not a flutter anymore. It’s more like an ache.
I force out a laugh. “You lush.”
A smile grows slowly on his face, and we go get a couple of beers and some of the kettle corn.
He takes it easy with the alcohol and we just walk around for a bit.
It’s been forever since I’ve been to one of these things.
I’ve had a particular aversion to people over the last few years, and I start feeling sweaty as we weave around groups of teens and families.
It’s all so normal and so outside of me, it makes me feel like I’m a ghost observing the living.
There are some carnival rides at the back of the school in the parking lot. We take a walk back there, and Paul looks up at the Ferris wheel and then at me.
“You want to go up?” I ask him.
He lifts a shoulder. “I’ve never been on one.”
I look at him, incredulous. “Really?”
“Really.”
“Geez, pal. Everybody’s been on a Ferris wheel.”
“Guess I’m not everybody.”
I look at him until his eyes catch mine. “No. You’re definitely not.”
His eyes dart to my lips where they linger, and I want to reach out and run my fingers over his, but I realize where we are, and so we go over to the Ferris wheel, get in line, and wait. My heart is thudding when we get on, and I don’t know why.
We get into the swinging bucket and the thing takes off.
As we go around, high up enough to see the lights downtown, I look over at Paul and the grin on his face, the absolute joy there just gets me right in the gut.
And the ache inside me deepens, and I know I can’t get out of this now. Even if I wanted to.
And I don’t.
“So…you were listening to opera?”
The wheel goes around and around, and I like the breeze and all the lights down below. For a second, I feel almost as happy as Paul’s smile.
“Yeah.” I look over at him. “I was. Paulie .”
I can’t really tell, but I know his face is flushing. “She just calls me that because she’s my aunt.”
“Right.”
He leans his arms on the rail of the bucket seat and looks down. “So, why were you listening to it?”
“Why not?”
“I don’t know.” He looks over at me, pushes his glasses up. “I just didn’t expect that, I guess.”
I give him a half-smile. “And why’s that?”
He returns the half-smile. “Well, you know. The motorcycle. Working on cars, getting all greasy and stuff. Just seems…I don’t know.”
“What?” I say.
He laughs. “I don’t know. But it was kind of neato, you know? That you like that stuff, I mean.”
“Neato?”
“You know what I mean.” He sits back in the seat, making it swing.
“Is that what the kids say now?”
“I’m not a kid,” he says, pushing up his glasses. He fiddles with the edge of his shirt. “And you weren’t like embarrassed that someone would hear it?”
“No. Why would I be?”
He shrugs. “What did you call it?”
“ La Traviata .”
“Hmm.”
“Yeah, it’s about this dame that’s got TB and a courtesan in Paris.
” I pull out a cigarette and light it. “Her name’s Violetta and she meets this fella named Alfredo.
And so she gives up her whole life for this square and they go live in a country house.
And then Alfredo’s dad can’t mind his own business and gets Violetta to leave his son, saying she’s embarrassing the family and shit.
So she goes back to the courtesan thing, and she’s like all getting sicker from the TB, and Alfredo goes to a party that she’s at and throws money at her to embarrass her.
Then finally, the dad’s like ‘Oops, I guess I shouldn’t have done that.
I’m sending my son to tell you he’s sorry’ and she ends up dying in Alfredo’s arms.”
I look over to see that Paul has inched closer to me while I was babbling. He looks completely fascinated. “And that’s it?”
“Yep.” I take a drag.
“That’s really sad.”
Then the wheel slows to a stop with our bucket seat at the tippy-top. I lean over the rail, and take another drag, gazing out at the downtown lights. “Yeah, but she wasn’t alone at least.”
“No, but still. She died after all of that.”
“It’s Victorian. Everybody dies in those things.” I look over at him.
He gets thoughtful, his expression considering. He looks at the bucket seat in front of us and then turns his head to look behind us. As he does so, I feel his fingers on my thigh, shy. Careful.
I can only manage about a second of restraint before I bring down one of my hands and put mine over his.
I keep my gaze forward, toward the downtown lights as I feel his hand turn, fingers curling, rubbing against my palm in lazy strokes.
Blood rushes to my dick, and I take a long drag and exhale.
I thread my fingers through his, clutching his hand, and I squeeze. I hear his swift intake of breath.
I lose track of the time. All there is, is his hand in mine, fingers rubbing, squeezing, the warmth of it, then he wraps his fingers around my thumb and does a suggestive move that makes sweat breakout on my forehead.
Every thought disappears from my mind except for ones about him and that hand of his.
Next thing I know, we’re down on the ground and exiting the bucket seat.
As soon as we’re out, I light another cigarette, and turn to see him walking up behind me, hands in his pockets as if nothing just happened.
We stand there for a minute. It’s completely dark out now and there’s still a healthy crowd. I look around for an area with no lights and few people. I scan and scan. Until I see one.
Paul shuffles his feet. “I heard the Everly Brothers were supposed to be h —”
I grab his arm and pull him along. I toss my cigarette and take him over to an area where there’s just generators and then a dark field with some trees beyond that.
I get him up against a maple, hidden away from all the lights and people, a secret place, a dark place.
I lean over him, placing one hand on the tree beside his head.
He looks up at me, his breath quick, mouth open. I bring up my other hand, thumb stroking his bottom lip, feeling the soft, warm puffs of his breaths on my fingertip. I cradle his jaw and run my thumb over his cheek. It’s not a matter of if, but a matter of how. And he’s completely sober right now.
“I need you to say you want me to,” I whisper to him.
He takes off his glasses, putting them in his shirt pocket. “I want you to. Please.”
He looks at me with such longing, and I feel like something in what he just said is so familiar, but I’m done stalling, so I lean in. I lean over him and press my lips against his.
I do it slow at first, soft, easy. But then he tilts his head and opens his mouth, inviting.
I dip my tongue in and find his, making us both groan at the same time.
He tastes faintly of the beer from earlier and his breath is hot on my cheek.
I feel his hands slide up over my shoulders and around my neck, and I deepen the kiss, exploring, brushing his tongue with mine in long strokes.
And it’s like nothing else. Really. I can’t think of another kiss like this, and soon all other kisses I’ve ever had just vanish from existence from the intensity of this one.
He makes a sound in his throat, like a soft groan, and I slip my hand around his neck, rubbing, and slide my fingers into his hair.
He pulls me right up against him, and I feel the bulge in his pants as sure as he can feel mine.
He pulls away and begins kissing along my jaw, my neck, resting his lips at the base of my throat, breathing deep. A pause.
I wonder if he can feel the thud of my pulse or hear the scramble like radio static in my head. I feel dazed, like a signal that’s been knocked off the air.
I run my fingers through his hair, and he pulls away, pulls back, and looks up at me.
Those mossy-green eyes are hooded and dreamy.
He looks different without his glasses. My fingers rub the marks on either side of his nose.
His not-so-shy hand slides down my stomach to my fly.
His fingers glide over the zipper and the bulge of my cock.
I inhale sharply. “We should go.”
“Go where?”
“My place.”
He puts his glasses back on, and we have to go back out into the lights and people, but there’s fewer of them now, and we find my bike and get on.
And it’s all just a blur. The whole thing.
I might as well have blacked out and lost my memory.
Except for this time on the bike he puts his arms around me, so close his crotch is up against my ass, and I don’t even care what the people in the cars think that pass us, because his hard dick is rutting right up against me all the way back, and I want it so bad.
And, finally, we’re through the door, and I close it, and I turn to him, thinking we’re both so horned up we should just go to my bedroom.
But he’s just standing there, hands back in his pockets, looking down.
It’s like before. As if nothing’s just happened.
I step in front of him, tilt his chin up to meet my eyes just to see what I might see. I wonder if my suggestion to come back here scared him. But it’s not fear I see. It’s this earnestness, this transparency I’m not used to seeing in others. And certainly not in the mirror.
“You believe in things, don’t you?” It comes out of me impulsively. “The kinds of things people are supposed to believe in.”
He gives that some thought. “I don’t really care what other people believe in.” He takes a step toward me and he’s so close, I catch the scent of his soap. Something melony and fresh. He puts a hand on my chest.
I can’t take my eyes away from him. “I didn’t think you would.”
“But I guess I believe in stuff. Some stuff. Stuff I can see.”
“Like what?”
His tongue grazes his lower lip. He leans in, arms sliding around my neck, and his lips are against mine.
I think the Soviets could drop the big one and it wouldn’t tear me away.
I think I wouldn’t even notice. Piece by piece our surroundings disappear and we’re just floating in nothing.
It’s not as hot or hungry or hard like before.
It’s like we’re speaking to each other in a language that only exists right now.
We just made it up. My tongue slides against his, and his tongue slides against mine, and it’s back and forth, a discussion, telling a secret.
Anybody else, I’d want to stop this. Anybody else, I’d want to get him in bed. Get a naked body under me and get my dick inside him.
But it’s true what I said.
He’s not just anybody.
“You asleep?”
“No.”
I tilt his chin up. We’re lying side by side on the sofa, his head laying on my shoulder. We just sort of ended up here. I don’t even know when or how.
I ask, “Do you want to be asleep?”
“Nah.”
I smile and he slips a hand under my T-shirt. I haven’t turned on a single light. But there’s a streetlight that comes in through the window. I hadn’t even thought to pull down the shades.
I stroke the side of his face and he slides a leg in between my legs, his blue jeans rubbing against the creases on mine. My mind feels empty, calm even. It’s peaceful, it’s nice, with him lying here beside me.
He puts an arm around me. “Do you want me to go?”
“Not if you don’t want to.” I reach for my smokes on the coffee table and the lighter. I take a long, hard-won drag.
He props his chin up on my chest and looks at me. I have a filthy desire to see his face when he comes, his eyes. Not tonight, though. Maybe next time. The thought gets me hard.
“What did my aunt say to you?” he asks.
“Hm?”
“Earlier. What did she say to you?”
I flick ash off my cigarette into the ashtray. “She just asked me to look out for you.” I brush a finger over his lips. “I said I would.”
He gives me a long stare, then says, “She didn’t say anything else? Like, why I was there?”
“She said you had some trouble. A couple months ago.” I try to stifle a yawn, and I can’t see the clock from where I’m lying. “Nothing else.”
He presses his lips together, his expression faltering. “I got into a fight. With my father.”
I take a drag and sit up a little. “Like a fight fight?”
“Yeah, I mean...” He glances down and back to my face. “My mother died last year. So, it’s been hard. On both of us.”
I sit up all the way and he does too. “What happened?”
“She had cancer. Her liver.” He looks away. “That’s all I’d rather say about it right now.” His eyes flicker to me. “Okay?”
I put an arm around him. “Okay.”
He lays his head on my shoulder, and I’m bewildered and kind of shocked.
“So, that’s why you’re here,” I say. “You can’t stay with your old man?”
He nods against my neck.
I put my cigarette out and rub his shoulder. There’s so much I want to ask, but I decide to save it. But at least I know now, sort of, why he’s staying at his aunt’s.
A vague, half-formed thought enters my mind. One about how much longer he’ll stay there. And what will happen when he leaves. I don’t let that thought become fully formed.
“Well, for the record, I’m glad you came here.” I place a kiss on the top of his head.
He looks up at me, his eyes so dreamy and adoring, I can’t stand it. “For the record, I am too.” He places a kiss, softly, on my lips.