Tuesday (part 3)

Goddamn Brandon and all his sappiness, hurry up and get to the sex!

—Oh, yeah, hi, I'm Arie Chang, naked in school, and I'm getting horny.

The crazy thing was, this was a new development. Though not an unexplainable development. I stay out of people's way, I spend lunches and passing periods and breaks in out-of-the-way places so that people won't talk to me. The less people there are around you, the less chance there is of you getting pasted with a reasonable request. Though I haven't yet visited the computer lab this week; God only knows what those geeks will have for me. How many of them have actually seen a naked girl in the flesh? Damn good question. I should ask.

But this wasn't the computer lab; this was the choir and the orchestra, the music program, and after I had flang Meredith and Brandon together—What? Flang. It's the past-perfect tense of 'fling.' I fling, she flung, he had flang. I'm all for the regulation of verb conjugations. Anyway. After I had flang Brandon and Meredith together, a bunch of guys banded together with a bunch of reasonable requests. As Brandon said later, "Maybe they finally noticed you're a perfectly respectable hunk of womanflesh." Gotta love that Brandon; the soul of tact, he is. Anyway, I'm surprised Bran and Meri didn't notice all the whooping and yelling, 'cause this was right in the middle of the choir room, and basically anyone who wasn't at their instruments was watching and cheering. And I won't tell you what they did, but let's just leave it at: when we resumed, I was eyeing my bow and wondering just how bowstrings would react to pussy juices. Brandon was going to be hit by a raw animal. I needed sex!

Except that, Brandon didn't notice. He was over the moon. He and Meredith didn't make out, they didn't kiss, they barely touched—and he calls it the really important thing that happened that afternoon. That man. Sometimes. I swear. Anyway.

He stopped with his shirt half-on, and said, "You know, I'm not so sure we should do this."

Oh, for the love of all that was slippery!

"I mean, I feel like... God, I dunno, I feel like I'm slipping off with a whore or something."

Excuse me! "What," I said, dangerously close to lodging a foot in his balls, "are you saying I'm a whore?"

"NO, " he said, "I'm saying that I feel like I'm being compensated or something. It feels dirty."

"Sex is supposed to feel dirty," I retorted, "come on."

"Would you stop joking around for a minute!" he said. "I'm serious!"

"And so am I," I said. Though, not really. I just wanted him to stop arguing and get on with it. Get it on. Whatever. "Look," I said, "I'm already on birth control—I've been getting The Shot since last year. I don't have any diseases. Hell, there are no diseases. There's no harm in it. We're just friends. It'll be fun. Why not?"

I was glad I'd put my pants on first, because it allowed me to sidle up to him and let him feel my breasts pressed against him. And he with his shirt half over his head, too. "There's nothing to worry about," I cooed. "Just take me home, and let me... Thank you."

And I was glad he'd put on his shirt first, because it was quite obvious how much the idea was working on his glands. And we looked down at that thing bobbing to attention in front of us, and I knew I'd won.

Brandon's car was clearly only a few years old. Both of my parents's cars are on the verge of disintegrating, and here was Brandon, driving this silver SUV thing. The car was surprising. It looks like an SUV, sure—but it's not; it's more like a large, lumpy station wagon. You stamp the pedal to the floor, you're not gonna go skyrocketing off like a sports car. It's not flighty. It's not half as tall as most SUVs, either, nor half as large, nor half as gas-intensive, because it doesn't have two or three extra cylinders. It's not really that flashy, once you get used to it. It's very solid. It's dependable. I see why Brandon likes it.

He drove me back to his house. It was a pretty long commute—fifteen, twenty minutes, a lot of them on the freeway. He wasn't kidding about his parents pulling strings to put him in Mount Hill; from the looks of things, he ought to have been at Westport.

I wondered what my mom was doing, and I laughed.

"What's so funny," he asked.

"I wonder what my mom's doing," I said. "She comes to the north parking lot," right near the music building, "to pick up me and my sister." Trina's also in the orchestra, over in the woodwinds section with her flute.

Brandon's eyebrows bobbed. "And you just walked off with me" (to the south lot, get our clothes and then his car) "without saying a word to either of them."

I giggled. "Yeah. Mom's gonna have such a cow."

"You know, I've always wondered," he said. "When people say, 'have a cow, ' do they mean it in the same way as 'have a baby?' 'cause the saying actually makes sense that way. I mean, I wouldn't want to give birth to a cow."

I laughed—everything was funny to me right then—but I think he was dead serious. Which really just tells you about Brandon, doesn't it.

Red Plains is rich-person country. People don't have houses there, they have estates, and Brandon's was no exception. Unless, by exception, you mean, 'Even bigger than average.' Because it was that too. It must've been like a mile between the front gate and the house, over a manmade version of the Great Plains—grass, endless, endless grass. My face was pasted to the window, and my nose left a smudge.

"I have never seen this much open space before," I said.

"Wait until you see the backyard," he said, with a cynical grimace.

The house was just as he'd described it: a sprawling, thousand-roomed complex in straight, austere lines and white paint and red shingle roofs. It was the largest single-family dwelling I'd ever seen in my life. They had garage space for six cars.

"Do you want something to eat, something to drink?" he said, and he lead me through a myriad of rooms and hallways. Quickly I was lost. The kitchen alone was practically half the size of my entire house. I probably could've gotten lost in there.

He gestured. "Dining room's through there, though my family normally eats here—" Waving haphazardly at a smaller table. "—when they're here at all, at least. Down the hall past the dining room is our TV room, if you wanna take a look. All the way down the hall. Lots of multimedia equipment."

I did. It took a couple of minutes to walk all the way down, but it was well worth the walk: a huge entertainment center, all the latest in visual entertainment. My male cousins would love this. (I'd say my brother would too, but I don't have one, just a younger sister.) It was practically a tiny, twenty-person movie theatre. All this equipment must've cost a fortune.

I stood in the middle of the room and twirled on my toes. I would've given my left leg to live in this house. I should talk Brandon into marrying me. Look at all this! So much room, so much space, so much money... It's everyone's dream!

But on the way back, I met the downside to having a large house.

It was... Well, frankly, I don't know what room it was. But it was large. And strangely shaped, too, in sort of a quarter-circle, though more of an eighth—it was as if someone had cut a smaller circle into a large one, removed a quarter, and then removed the quarter of the inner circle, the resulting shape resembling something like half of a letter 'C.' A large, wide, tall room with nothing in it but marble floors and white sheetrock walls and curtained windows, through which filtered the last light of a dusking evening. The hallway I'd taken lead straight through this room, but I detoured a little, wondering what was in here.

Nothing was in here.

I stood with nothing between me and the cold floor but my socks, listening to the faint echoes of my feet as I moved around the room. It was cold in here, despite being only September; I saw heating vents high on the walls, but they didn't seem to be helping. Aside from my own breathing, the silence was complete; I couldn't even hear Brandon puttering about in the kitchen.

It was alien in there. Cold and stark white and not a soul in sight. Frigid floor, walls, ceiling, totally unmarked, and curtains that sat absolutely still. The wind moaned past the window, and it was as if the room sighed with loneliness.

"Not so impressed with the TV," Brandon asked, looking up from his tray, which now contained two soda cans and some dishes of snack food.

"Not so impressed with the lack of people to watch it," I said, shivering.

Brandon gave me a speculative glance, but handed my Coke to me without a word.

It was then that everything started to come crashing down.

It was just looking at Brandon, reddened by a sun most of the way down the sky; the shape of his eyes, the total seriousness in them; the steady hand offering me that glass with its payload of syrup and clinking ice; the cold, frigid inhospitability of this entire house, warmed only by his presence, his movement within its bowels. This was not a place for my frivolity. This was not a place for my headstrong delirium. This was not a place for me.

For a moment I stared at nothing, overwhelmed by the magnitude of the sin I was contemplating.

Then there was rebellion. There was rationalizing, there was argument, there was whining, and most of it was subconscious; all I had to play with was a sourceless but beating, undeniable fear. What won was, mostly, a backwards sort of logic. I had come here to seduce Brandon, to have my way with him as much as I could—and it would be a complete mistake to do so. I could see that now. But the realization so depressed me that I knew I had to take immediate action, do something to counter my downfall. Preferably something uplifting, something fun. Something like sex. Screw the wrongness—maybe we could make it rightness. Maybe it'd be so good that it'd turn out to be right. Maybe it might be the rope I'd need to climb out o this hole.

All this was subconscious. All I had was a searing panic and then an increased resolve to get into his pants.

And all of this occurred in the two seconds it took to transfer the glass of Coke from his hand to mine, and then from my hand to my mouth.

"Would you like to sit down," he asked.

No, actually, I'd like to yank your pants off and ravish you over the kitchen counter. "Sure," I croaked.

We ended up facing each other on this recessed window seat thing—a section of the wall pushed out, with a padded bench built into it and windows facing. Outside was a rolling eternity of lawns, tilted gold in the light of the sun. Brandon put the snack tray between us.

"I've been meaning to ask you," he said. "Where'd you go after Psychology class? I saw you talking with Dr. Schlemmer."

"Yeah, he played therapist for me."

"Oh." He sounded impressed by that. "How did that go?"

Urgh. Talk. Yuck. "About what I expected. Which wasn't much."

"I thought you hadn't been in therapy before."

Urgh. Thinking. Yuck. "My online friends have. None of them are really enthusiastic about it."

"What did Dr. Schlemmer say."

Urgh. Remembering! Yuck! This guy better be worth it in the sack... "Uh... Something about... Well, we mostly talked about my parents. He said something about perception versus reality, uh... He said that, uh, who I am, and who my parents see when they look at me, are two different people. Which, actually, was a really good point. Because it's true."

He gave me a bemused, cynical look. "Yeah, they don't see all those slices on your arms."

"And, uh... He said I should try to correct that."

Brandon's eyes changed, looking past me.

"He's saying you should confront them," he said in a distant voice. "That you should tell them."

"Yeah," I said. That was about what I expected him to say. It wasn't good advice, as far as I was concerned. My parents would never listen. Well, maybe my dad would, but he's completely and totally whipped. He doesn't take a piss without my mom's say-so. And my mom... Well, what Meredith said. To her, belief is more important than the truth. She's self-delusional, basically.

I'm supposed to stand up to them? To a completely-cowed father and a mother who will only listen to what she wants to hear?

"It's a good idea," Brandon said.

Okay, I've never known what it feels like to have your mouth just completely fall open. And I still don't, because when he said that, I think everything fell open. My jaw tumbled to the cushioned bench and then to the floor and my arms and legs fell off and my guts and lungs and heart dripped out of my chest and my eyes and eyelids and hair flaked off. For a scant second I was a bizarre caricature of a human, in perpetual agape at this truly perplexing comment.

Then I said, "What??"

"It's a good idea," Brandon said again, fixing me with a direct gaze. "You said it yourself. Your parents are the ones who are screwing you up. Even if they could put you on meds, it wouldn't help much, because the real problem is the way your parents treat you. So, you need to get them to change."

What??

"Uh, Brandon," I said. "My mom is the most delusional woman on the face of the earth. She thinks she knows everything, regardless of what's actually the truth. And changing her mind is a long, painful and tiring process. Do you have any idea what you're proposing?"

"No," he said evenly, "I don't. I only know what has to be done."

"How do you know what has to be done? You barely know me!"

"That's true," Brandon said. "I only know what you've told me. Have you told me truly, Arie? Have your words been true? Or has it all been lies."

"It's been true," I said sulkily.

"Then my response is valid. Either you can wait for two years until you're going to college and use that time to break their hold on you... Or you can do it now."

The thought of living like this for another two years—in secret, blood seeping down my arms, hiding in corners to cry—made me feel extremely tired. But the alternative... Well, that made me feel tired too. There just didn't seem to be any good choices.

"I dunno," I said.

He gave me an odd look, but said nothing. And there didn't seem to be much for me to say either, so I said nothing.

"I mean, seriously," he said finally. "Arie, you need help—and I'm not saying that as an insult, I'm saying that as a fact. Isn't there some law that you have to be stuffed into the hospital if a teacher notices that you're harming yourself? Everyone thinks you need help. You think you need help. If nothing else, you need to confront your parents so that you can stop things from getting worse."

Damn him and his logic. Damn him and his ever-fucking logic. "It's not exactly easy, you know."

He shrugged. "You just march up to them and say, 'Excuse me, Mom-and-Dad, stop fucking me up.' What exactly do they do, anyway?"

"They..." I paused in mid-motion, words halfway out my mouth. What did they do? "I..."

He raised an eyebrow.

"I don't know," I said. "I'm just... Used to it." Remember what I was saying earlier, about how depressed people sometimes forget what made them that way? Well, in my case... "Whatever it is, they've been doing it for ages. This isn't, like, new, it's just a case of continual pile-up."

"Straws across the camel's back," Brandon murmured to himself. That's where I got that description.

"Yeah, I guess. I think..."

"Well," he said. "Think about it. Figure out what they do. And then, once you've figured it out, you can ask them to stop. And, if they won't, you can show them the cuts on your arm."

"You're so mean," I said. "Just sitting there with your, your fucking soda, telling me what to do. It's like, 'Oh, it's easy, it's all just a matter of... ' And it's not, it's hard. Don't you have feelings? don't you care?"

I swiped at my eyes. Damn. Didn't mean to cry.

He looked at me with his distant, expressionless face—so cold, that face, so frigid in its immobility—and something changed there, like a lock had been removed and he could show emotion again. "Yes," he said. "I do care. I wouldn't be telling you if not." He sighed. "Arie, you're a friend. I don't like seeing friends in pain like you are. Yeah, maybe it'll be more pain to change something, but... Isn't that worth it? A few moments of a lot of pain, traded for, God, I dunno, years and years of not-pain? Isn't that worth something?"

And when he got no answer aside from the tears trickling down my cheeks, he came and sat beside me and took me into his arms. His arms were warm and strong, and I could feel the warmth of his body. I put my head on his shoulder and cried.

"You make me feel horrible," I said eventually. He started to protest, but I kept going. "Because you're right. But I can't. It's too hard. It's just too hard. Except that I probably could, if I wanted to... So I guess I don't want to. And that makes me feel horrible."

"It's just being depressed," he said, his hand moving up and down my arm. "It makes you feel... It makes everything look bad." I could hear the wry smile light his voice. "Let that be extra incentive to break out of it."

I didn't say anything. I didn't agree. Looking back, it seems the height of insanity—but also totally, completely typical of my experience with depression. Because Brandon was right, I did need help... But here I was, refusing? A man hiking on a mountain has broken his leg. The helicopter comes up to rescue him, and he says, "No, go away!" The newspaper reports the next day: Insane Hiker Left To Die On Mountain. And then the caption, He Was Depressed.

And then below the title, as newspapers do it, the face of the hiker, in full color on the front page. My face.

And, looking back, I'm so glad that my friends (Brandon, though later there would be others) continued to have faith in me. Because if they hadn't, I'm not sure where I'd be today.

There wasn't a whole lot of talk after that; we just sat there, and he held me, and I was glad to be held. We trade a lot of hugs on the Internet, but (don't tell anybody this) that just makes it worse—it makes you realize just how few "IRL" (in-real-life) hugs you get. But it also makes you appreciate it when you do get one. As I was getting from Brandon, now.

Brandon might've kept talking. But I was clinging to him, close to him, feeling the thin play of muscle beneath his skin, his wiry arms, the beat of his heart, and realizing that, if I really wanted to make a move on him, this would be the time to do it.

So I moved.

"So we're still heading for that," he said. I tried to kiss him again—I did kiss him again—but it didn't take. He wasn't responding. He just sort of sat there and let me mash my lips against his.

"Is there somewhere else we could go," I asked, "as opposed to this little seat?" It was all of five feet wide and only two or three deep; it was simply not going to do. Brandon rose and gestured for me to follow.

I was gambling on a long distance between his room (where else would he be leading me?) and the kitchen, and luck was with me. The real trick was ditching my clothes without him noticing. Fortunately, since it was a balmy September, I wasn't wearing much. Though I'll never recommend walking around on cold marble without shoes or socks on. At least the cold air helped raise some goosebumps... And some other things. I needed a reaction from him. I needed him to react. I needed to get him turned on.

When Brandon turned to usher me into his room, he stopped and stared for a moment, taken completely unawares. I tried to give him my most innocent smile, but only (purposefully) managed to look guilty.

Then he chuckled. "You're something else, you know that." And he pulled me into his arms again, still smiling.

"I try," I said cheerfully, desperately striving for that same irreverent energy that had possessed me in the morning. I needed that. I needed that! Though, in substitute, I'd take his touch, his hands, his mouth instead... Ooh, I'm starting to warm up!

But was he?

"So, mister," I said, once he had let go. "Now you've got me. What do you plan to do with me?" I twined my hands at the back of his neck, lifting my breasts up, to prove my point.

"I dunno," he said, clearly playing hard-to-get. (God, what a reversal, I'm chasing him!) "What would you like me to do?"

"Oh," I said, "I dunno..." A step closer, letting my breasts begin to brush against him. "Maybe... We could get you out of these clothes..." Plucking at his shirt. "And you could help me conduct some in-depth investigations of human sexuality."

There was a mischievous twinkle in his eye. "How deep did you want to go?"

I stepped again closer. My body was practically wrapped against his, my nose hovered an inch from his. (I was on my tiptoes.) "As deep as it'll go."

Somebody was happy to see me. I could feel even through his jeans.

Of course, I was kind of playing with him. I wasn't going to have sex with him. That would be ridiculous. I blow him, he eat me... That'd be the end of it. And it'd be fun. At least, assuming he was any good. I dismissed that thought entirely. Everyone's had sex by the time they're sixteen. It's fun, it's enjoyable—why wouldn't you do it?

(Of course, I knew that wasn't true. Intellectually. But in my heart, I didn't really believe it. Even Jane, who by all accounts is a strait-laced prude—she's waiting for someone special, right? Well, what would be the point if she didn't know what it was she was delaying? If she seriously is holding out without knowing, then she's just an idiot.)

(... Had Brandon had sex? He never got any from Jane, I think we're clear on that, and I don't know if he ever dated anyone else. Of course, by now, he's probably gotten it on with... But that's getting ahead of myself.)

I helped Brandon out of his clothes. Or maybe just hurried him on. If you've never tried it before, undressing is really not a two-person activity. You trip over each other. But about as fast as humanly possible, he had nothing on either. And it was pretty clear that, now, he was into it. The old soldier was standing up and ready to march.

Just looking at that made my mouth water.

"Oooh, what's that," I said, forcing some sort of cheerfulness out of my voice. (It's a true fact: if you're unhappy but you force yourself to smile, you'll actually feel better.) I sank to my knees and gaped at his penis in feigned curiosity. "I've never seen one of these before! What does it do?"

I've used that line several times. Most of the time, its owner says, Girls. Brandon said, in a dry voice, "It's called a trouser snake. It likes girls. When there's a pretty one nearby, it stands up to take a look." (Sadly enough, that's pretty accurate.)

"So it thinks I'm pretty," I asked, all solemn innocence.

"It seems to, yes," Brandon said, still in that dry tone. Later I found out what was going through his mind, but didn't come out of his mouth: Except that sometimes it gets fooled when naked girls throw themselves at me. That, as Brandon put it, was one of the revolving points upon which our lives turned. If he had said it, things would've been... Well, I don't know if things would've been worse. Or if they'd've been better either. Arguably, his silence set into motion the events of the rest of the week, and I will never, ever regret those. But the point is, if he hadn't stayed silent, things would not be as they are today. And that's just simple fact.

But in the meanwhile, I was on my knees on the carpet of Brandon's room, and his trouser snake was standing up to say hello. And it had given me quite a compliment! I must repay such generosity. "Well, that's very nice of it! Hello, Mr. Trouser Snake, I think you're pretty too!" (And that too seems symbolic of the insanity of the times.) "How would you like me to kiss you."

And then, while Brandon twitched in alarm, I did just that.

I've always liked dicks. They're warm, and tasty, and their skin is really soft even though the rest of them is hard. Don't ask me to describe their flavor, I can't do it, it tastes like all skin—except, maybe a little saltier, maybe a little warmer, maybe a little better. What comes out of them is fun. And how the guy reacts when you lick them... That's the most fun of all.

Within a few seconds, kissing turned into full-on swallowing, and his head was in my mouth, that spongy mushroom helmet, while I ran my tongue over it. Brandon was being vocally appreciative in a way I doubt I could explain. Then I took him deeper, caressing his shaft with my tongue, running over and over the ridge at the bottom. According to the WWW—World Wide (bathroom) Wall—that's one of a man's most sensitive places; and by the noises Brandon was making, he was no exception.

I moved up and down his shaft slowly, savoring the unique experience of having this half-squishy, half-hard, wholly-yummy thing in my mouth. Then I focused my lips around him and sucked. Brandon stiffened, his hips jolting upwards, and I followed him, not losing him for an instant. My tongue ran across his shaft in swift, short movements, and I began to move up and down his shaft again, now maintaining the suction for all I was worth.

Brandon found words from somewhere. "Uh, Arie, watch out, I'm gonna—"

And then it was gushing out of him, into my mouth, across my tongue, splashing the back of my throat—his cum, pouring uncontrolled from his cock as he twitched and groaned and whispered and I swallowed and swallowed and swallowed.

"Oh man," Brandon breathed, "Oh Jesus."

"What do you want with him," I asked. He didn't just blow him off.

"Oh man," Brandon said again.

"Was that your first," I asked, standing for the advantage of height.

He shook his head, and I remained silent, hoping he'd elaborate. But he said nothing more. Maybe he was simply beyond speech at this point.

"It's been a long time, though," he said finally.

"Nothing out of Jane, I suppose."

"Chuh," he said. "Jane. Let's not talk about her." His eyes focused on me, suddenly and shockingly. "Let's talk about you instead."

"Uh?"

"You, Ms. Arie Chang," he said, moving forward, a predatory gleam in his eye. I backed up. "You have just given my arguably the best blowjob I will ever receive. It seems... Only polite, you understand... To return the favor."

"Uh," I said, slightly unnerved. I had never seen him this... Focused. "What did you have in mind?"

Then—and I have no idea how he did this—I was on my back across his bed, my legs dangling overside, and he was leaning over me, an almost crazed look on his face. "To do just... Exactly what you did to me," he said.

Then there were hands between my legs, and I jumped.

Now, the thing is, I was already wet. Hell, if he wanted to hop on, I was pretty much ready to go. I've had men in there when I've been less turned-on. What startled me was how intent he was, how focused. How aggressive. Ten minutes ago, if you'd asked me if Brandon Chambers could be aggressive, I'd've laughed. He's just not like that. He'll stand up for himself, sure, he's determined and he's got guts, but he doesn't attack like that. He talks. He reasons. He bargains. Aggressive just isn't in his emotional vocabulary.

... Or, so I thought.

I'd tell you what happened next, only... I'm not entirely sure. Um. It felt really good, though! See, first there was just his hand down there, cupping my sex and getting pretty damp—I was turned on, remember—and then he spread my lips and began running a finger up and down my slit, which felt really good, and then he noticed my clit, and then... Well, that's about when I lost track of what was going on. He was clumsy, not quite accustomed to finding his way around a girl's nether regions, but he was determined to make a good showing, and it was working. At some point my nipple got involved, and at some point his mouth got involved too, but I only figured all this out in retrospect. The rest of the time, my eyes were clamped closed, and I was moaning and howling and whimpering, and the touch of his hands and tongue and mouth and lips were driving me mad, rashes of pleasure spiraling across my body, up and down like ripples in a pond, leaving every nerve tingling and screaming, until the pressure built and built and then burst, and I cried out, pressing up to him, as everything exploded into showers of pleasure.