I should have stolen her napkin from the bar when I had the
chance, to bring home with the imprint of her lips on it, to keep contained
until in desperate need for the real thing I could not get later, letting artificial
lips kiss me in all the places I need most, while I pretend it is the real
thing, how soft I recall those real lips being as I move the napkin up and down
me as I lay in bed, like a dream comes true but only coming true when, well,
you know, this little bit of lips preserved and used when the real her is no
longer available, pressing these lips against my lips as I imagine us hip to
hop, this all done in the dead of night until I can no longer hold back, giving
into it, into those artificial lips.
Kevin was the younger brother of a boy I graduated with from
grammar school.
He was a year behind me in junior high and I sometimes saw
him wandering the halls
I knew his brother Joesph better than I knew him, but this
did not stop Kevin from greeting me as an old friend when he caught me waiting
for a bus in downtown Paterson.
Although had the same brown hair as his brother, that’s
where the similarities stop. Joseph was a sport star destined for a career in
professional sports. Kevin often got mistaken for a girl.
Kevin still lived ion his parents house and insisted I come
to have supper with him, even if it meant taking a bus in the opposite
direction from my house.
I recalled how pretty his older sister was, a cheer leader
in high school I had a crush on, and who he assured me also still lived at home
with their parents. I agreed to accompany him, despite his living on the opposite
side of town, and would take me three buses to be back home from later.
Kevin’s parents were nice, respectable people, straight out
of Leave it to Beaver, and welcomed me to their supper table, even going as far
as to say Grace. Joseph and his sister share the meal as well, but to my
disappointment, the sister had to hurry out for some practice. Joseph had
something to go to as well, though promised to be back soon.
For a while, Kevin and I sat the living room watching TV,
when I finally realized it had gotten late. Kevin, telling me I might not make
the bus connections at that time of night, begged his parents to let me stay until
morning. His parents agreed.
Their house was small, something built for returning veterans
after World War II. There were no spare rooms. While Kevin’s sister got a room
of her own, Joseph and Kevin had to share a very cramped room that could have
been mistaken for a closet, and since I was spending the night, I had to stay
there, too, sleeping with Kevin in his bed.
It felt silly. I was 16; Kevin 15, and we both giggled as if
we were half our age, pretending we were camping out of doors. When the lights
went out, Kevin got scared, telling me he heard beasts that would eat us. He kept
clinging to me as I tried to fall asleep. When I told him to stop, he asked if
I wanted to kiss him.
“Of course not,” I said. “We’re both boys.”
He pouted, then asked can he sleep pressed up against me like
he sometimes did with his brother (who had not yet returned). Kevin was so persistent
I eventually caved in. I felt his warm breath on the back of my neck, as he wrapped
his arms around my chest. I also felt something much more disturbing.
“Do you have hard on?” I asked in a horrified whisper.
“Yes,” he said. “Do you want to see it?”
“Why would I want to see your hard on?” I asked, unable to
untangle myself from him.
“I would like to see yours,” he said, then reached down a tugged
at me.
“I don’t have a hard on,” I said, pushing his hand away.
“Yes, you do,” he said. “I felt it.”
“That’s because you’re poking at me dick,” I said.
“So, you like me after all,” he said.
“Go to sleep,” I said.
But he only persisted.
“I’ll show you mine if you show me yours.”
“Stop it!” I said, almost shouting, which – if any louder-
might have brough his parent down, and the last thing I wanted was for them to
see us both with hard-ons.
“Please!” he whined.
“I’m not going to show me my
dick,” I said.
“Just a quick peek,” Kevin
said. “We can look at our dicks under covers. I have a flash light.”
“No, and that’s final.”
“Just one look and then I won’t
bother you any more.”
Realizing that Kevin was
capable of annoying me the whole night like this, I agree.
“One quick look and we go to
sleep.”
“Anything you say,” Kevin
said and giggled.
We both ducked under the
covers. Kevin turned on the flashlight. I couldn’t really see much to my relief.
Then, we settled back up top for sleep. But I made him turn around so that he
faced away from me and I slept against his back.
“Why?” he asked.
“I don’t want that thing of
yours poking me all night,” I said. “Now go to sleep.”
But this was easier said than
done. Kevin pushed his put against me so now I poked him.
“Stop that!” I said.
“Stop what?”
“You know what.”
“Do you want to put yours in
me?” Kevin asked.
I was about to ask him what he
meant by than when the horrible though struck me.
“Go to sleep!” I said firmly.
“You wouldn’t have to put it
all the way in,” Kevin said.
“Go to sleep.”
“What if you just lie it
against my butt crack,” he whispered, and at that moment I realized his had
pulled down his PJ bottoms, exposing his naked butt, his fingers prying at the
bottoms of the PJs I had borrowed from his brother.
I grabbed his hand, or rather,
his wrist. It was like grabbing the leg of a bird, it felt so frail. I was infuriated,
but I didn’t want to hurt him.
“Pull up your pants,” I said.
Begrudgingly, he did.
Then he said, he wanted a kiss.
“I’m not going to fucking
kiss you!” I said.
“My mother always does before
I go to sleep.”
It was like talking to a
child. Nothing I said made any sense to Kevin, and nothing Kevin said could be
taken at face value.
But I knew if I didn’t kiss
him, I wouldn’t get to sleep, so I gave him a peck on the cheek.
“Not like that!” Kevin grumbled,
throwing off the covers and turning to face me, his puffy lips pouting. “Let me
show you.”
And suddenly, he threw his
arms around me, and planted those puffy lips squarely on mine, his tongue pushing
through my lips until he found mine. I tried to push him away, but he was
determined and the kiss didn’t end until he decided it should,and we both fell back breathless.
“I bet you have a real big
hard-on now,” Kevin said, giggling “Can I see it.”
“No,” I said, trying to make
sense of the whole thing.
“Can I touch it?”
“NO!”
“Just once,” he said. “I just
want to know how if feels.”
“Touch your own,” I said.
“It’s not the same.”
“Go to sleep!” I said, this
time my voice clearly too loud.
A long silence followed, and though
as was perturbed I eventually fell to sleep.
I woke to sunlight. Kevin was
not to be found. When I threw back the covers, I felt wetness, and for a moment
wondered if one of us had wet the bed. Someone had yanked down my PJ bottoms as
I slept.I touched my dick. It felt
sticky.
It drips through my fingers, the color of melted wax, warm,
not hot, cooling rapidly as my beathing slows and I do my best to clean up the
mess before sleep overtakes me, her face, a fading vision I hope I will meet
again shortly when I dream, and there it won’t me my hands that caused the wax
to ml, nor my fingers there to catch it. At this moment, when I hold back
sleep, I feel her present move acutely, kissing lips not really there, hold her
in my arms, cupping her in my palms, feeling the tightness as I squeeze, an
illusion, yet enough to keep melting the wax, night after night
I always confused the two each time, when I know they are
not the same, the act as opposed to the emotion, always a train wreck waiting
to happen when both run towards each other on the same track, this need for me for
this to be that, the act that inspires me when in fact it is not the thing you
think it is, something else as significant, perhaps, not significant at all, as
with the man (men) you bring home, not at all on the same track, just an act,
to feel good, for a moment when it all fades awa, when the train moves on,
while I need for it to be something more, to have it mean more than just an act
that we forget about once the door closes and I stumble down all those flights
of stairs to the street, my train rushing on tracks in a dark and empty tunnel,
from which I later emerge, thinking it was something that it was not
I hold it in my hands
at night, not quite aware of what I should do with it, to expose it to the night
air or not, to rub it until it become erect, desperately needing you to inspire
it, someone on the receiving end to acknowledge what I do, and my reason for
doing it.
In the absence I
linger, fingers clutching something I ought to stroke, still needing you to
help me, to make the whole thing worthwhile, to consume it when I do, to accept
this as an offering I hold up in the dark, to inspire, conspire, to make it all
become real as I hold it, yet now, all this time later, I am inspired by memory
of what once inspired me as real, and so I cling to it, as yet not aware of
what comes next
I don’t see her face in the clouds as often as I used to,
time having cleansed my senses to allow me to see the broader spectrum, when
back then I was nearly blind, although on occasions, after a long night tossing
and turning or thick with the visions of vibrant dreams, I see her face,
floating aloft, wishful thinking inspired by wish-filled dreams, sometimes,
seeing only bits and pieces, her hair on the head of a person I see on the train,
her eyes peering over a book in the local library, though I have set to see a
pair of lips like hers, as potent and promising, an odd slant as if inviting a kiss,
and at these times I sometimes see my own reflection in the glass, a lost soul desperate
to find a way back to what once was.
