Chapter 2

Coming. Without even a touch, I feel several hot splashes on my shoulder, my chest, and my stomach. The intensity moves down quickly and we are out of breath. You roll off of me and the cold rushes in once more. You grope in the nightstand drawer for a towel and hand it to me without a word. I long for a smile from you, but you only turn once more to grope on the surface of the nightstand for your Marlboro Reds. You light up, the acrid smell of the match and freshly lit cigarette stinging my nose. I wipe away the cum with the towel, then fling it to the floor to mingle with the heaps of dirty clothes there.

The room seems to have grown even colder and I think this is due not to a drop in temperature, but to the absence of your body atop mine. I do not pull the covers over me, as I might do if this were a romantic comedy or a love story, but rise to dress. This is a porno. You lie and watch. I try not to dwell on the grime of the room, noticing instead the drawing table in one corner, a riot of brushes, pastel crayons, papers in different sizes. So, you are some kind of artist. It might have been nice to know, along with your name…and if I was good enough. I feel nauseous and want to cry, but I don’t. I never have. You sit up, offer to drive me home. At least there’s a smidgen of grace in you, some kindness.

The car smells of cigarettes and its exhaust tells a tale of old age and imminent obsolescence. The heat doesn’t work and I burrow down into my shearling coat, pull the hood up over my head, obscuring my face. The engine complains, taking several turns of the key before it finally turns over. I try to find purchase with my feet on a floor littered with fast food wrappers and textbooks. We do not speak. I ask you to drop me off at the library.

We drive through the dark autumn night. I stare out the window, taking in the red brick campus buildings as if I’m seeing them for the first time. They have never looked more fascinating. I try to avoid my own face reflected back in the glass of the passenger window, but it’s impossible. Part of me wants to laugh at the frowning face I see looking back at me, a lower lip sticking out as if on the verge of tears. But there’s no humor here.

Only guilt. Only remorse.

I get out without speaking, and take my time going inside. The colder air outside the car feels good, fresh. I suck it in, as if this simple act will cleanse me. I think of the paper I have yet to write on The Master and Margarita by Mikhail Bulgakov. Magical realism. Is there some irony here?

“Hey, thanks, man,” you grunt from the seat of the stuttering and ticking car. “See you around.” You light up another Red, dismissing me.

I do not look back. The lights of the library are bright…it’s a clean, well-lighted place and I wonder if I belong here. Resolutely, I shift my backpack more securely over my shoulder and press in through the bank of doors, where hundreds of bright-eyed, preppy collegians swarm around me. And not a single one knows who I am.

* * * *

Gregory closes his journal, places it beneath his beach towel, and grasps a handful of pebbles, letting them trickle through his fingers like water. The sun beats down on his back and he knows that he is wearing one of those far-away gazes like in a romance novel. He laughs, but there’s no mirth in it, and whispers, “Ain’t nothin’ romantic about that.” His legs, long and lean, are stretched out before him, catching the summer sun, deepening the bronze of his skin. They are a deep golden brown, matching the rest of him. He knows his hair is lighter from the summer’s sun, too, a mixture of straw and wheat, needing a trim. His face is stubbly and unshaven, framing full lips and bright blue eyes. Beyond his toes lie the surface of the small lake, greenish-brown and still, its glassy surface betraying not even a ripple on this still, humid August day. The other side of the lake is thick with trees, causing Gregory to think of the darkness and cool that wait on the other side. He could lose himself in that darkness. He could hike into the trees, making himself one with the birds, forest creatures, and insects that live out their whole lives there. He could disappear.