Adam (29 page)

Adam had completely lost interest in the movie. Some witness on the stand was listing off reasons why a marine might receive a Code Red. Gillian lay down on her back on the futon, and Adam climbed on top of her. He pushed his tongue inside her mouth. Moved his hands all over her big round tits.

“Take my clothes off,” Gillian whispered.

Adam immediately unbuttoned Gillian's jeans and pulled them off, underwear and socks tugged along with them. Gillian took off her shirt and unhooked her bra. She lay utterly naked on the futon while Adam still had all his clothes on, even his shoes. As much as he wanted her to be able to touch him, there was something about this, him fully dressed, like he could get up and do anything he wanted at any moment, and her, pale white and vulnerable below him, that especially turned him on. He could tell it turned Gillian on too.

Gillian reached her hand down and spread her legs as she started rubbing her clit. She moved her middle finger up inside herself, then took it out and put it in her mouth.

“God, you make me so wet,” she said.

Adam shoved three fingers inside her. His hand was thick and grubby. He curved his fingers up and pressed against the slightly raised G spot on the top toward the back. He'd learned about it on a trans message board.

“Fuck. Yes,” said Gillian, breathing heavier. “Do it harder.”

Adam thrust his hand in and out, Gillian getting wetter and wider, his fingers pulsing up against the spot.

“Oh god,” said Gillian, “I wish you were packing—I want to feel your hard cock inside me.”

“Tell me how much you want it.”

“I want you to fuck me so bad, I'm such a slut, tell me what a whore I am for your big, hard dick.”

“You're just a whore, you're just a slut that wants a dick rammed up inside you—”

*BANG* *BANG*

Someone was at the front door.

“Who is that?!” said Gillian, bolting up.

“Fuck!” said Adam. “Brad?” He looked at his watch. “He's not supposed to be here!”

“Help me!” said Gillian, scrambling on the ground for her clothes. Adam handed Gillian her bra.

*BANG* *BANG*

“Just a minute!” Adam shouted.

Gillian pulled on her clothes and gave Adam an
OK
nod. She was still barefoot, and her face was flushed and glowing.
Just-been-fucked face
, thought Adam.

Adam walked over to the door. His heart was racing. In the past couple weeks, he'd gotten so comfortable with the trans lie around her, he'd forgotten the intense anxiety it could cause. Introducing Gillian and Brad was a bold-ass move. It felt like crisis perched on a ledge, but in a perverse way, he wanted that feeling. A singular adrenaline rush that nothing else could elicit.

Adam opened the door. Brad had an annoyed look on his face, but his expression shifted when he noticed Gillian, hovering behind Adam.

“Hey, uh, what's up?” Brad said, straightening his posture, lidding his eyes, trying to appear attractive. Brad glanced at Adam with a look that said,
You're fucking kidding me.
You
got
her
?

And in that instant Adam realized that his fantasy, the fantasy he'd had almost exactly two months ago on the first day they moved into the apartment, of Brad coming to visit and interrupting Adam having sex with his hot redheaded girlfriend, had come true. And with this realization came a shivering euphoria that the world was an indisputably magical place, possibly entirely crafted for and revolving around Adam. But there was also something almost scary about this revelation. Like God, with his bristly beard, was licking the back of Adam's neck.

“I thought you weren't coming till, like, five!” said Adam.

Brad trudged in and dropped his bags on the floor. “We got in early and I took a cab. I wasn't about to get on some AirTrain or whatever and five different subways. Why did you even tell me to do that? Freedman, making shit unnecessarily complicated since the second grade.”

Brad grinned at Gillian, trying to give her his man-meat-on-a-stick smirk, but Gillian just returned with a bored look. Adam could tell she thought nothing of him. He was a flea to her.
“I would never date a bio guy. I'm just not attracted to them.”

“I like unnecessarily complicated,” Gillian said. And gave Adam a kiss on the corner of his mouth.

The kiss made Adam blush, and Brad just stared at him. Brad stuck his pinkie finger in his ear like Adam knew he did when he was nervous.

“You guys should catch up,” Gillian said, sauntering over to the couch to put on her shoes. “But we should all get together tomorrow night or something.” And as she leaned over to do up her black Converse laces, her V-neck swooped down and her entire amazing rack was visible.

Adam and Brad watched, like neither of them could believe she was real.

***

After Gillian left, Adam and Brad walked over to Danny's Pizzeria on Bushwick to get slices.

“Damn, New York is dirty,” said Brad, looking around. “Is that human shit?” He pointed to an especially vile pile, wet with chunks.

“Uh, that's dog shit,” said Adam, “but I guess now I know what your shit looks like.”

They each got two sausage and pepperoni slices and giant ice-filled cups of Coke and sat down at one of the little tables inside.

“It's hot here, too,” said Brad. “Nasty hot. This city is giving me a rash on my balls.” He reached down and scratched himself.

Adam wished he'd taken off his ACE bandage before they'd left. He'd forgotten.

The two of them chewed in silence for a moment. Adam waited for Brad to ask him everything about Gillian.

“So Fletcher dumped Alice and is hooking up with Sandy now,” said Brad. “I knew he always wanted in on that. I figured I should fuck Alice, just to make it even, but I don't even want to. He told me she doesn't shave, so fuck that. I don't want some hairy- ass bush, you know what I'm saying? I'd let her give me head though . . .”

Adam watched Brad chewing and talking with his mouth open, pizza sauce smeared on his teeth.

“We're doing a guys-only camping trip when I get back,” continued Brad. He dropped his pizza crust in his soda and left it to soak. “Just me, Fletcher, Colin, and Stephen. Return-to-the-earth kind of shit. We might even try to kill some animals to eat.”

“How the fuck are you gonna kill some animals?” said Adam.

“We'll make spears and shit. And Stephen's dad knows how to make traps. Tahoe was fucking epic. One day all the guys got up super early and ditched the girls and went dirt biking by ourselves. Colin fell off and broke his arm. It was awesome.”

Brad removed his soggy pizza crust from the Coke and dangled it in front of Adam's face. He knew wet bread made Adam gag. “Waaaaaaaaant some?”

“Ugh. Fuck off.”

Brad retracted the mushy crust and slurped it up with relish.

Why wasn't Brad asking him about Gillian?
It was like Brad was trying to prove that even though Adam had a hot-as-shit girlfriend, he was still the odd man out. Still the loser with no guy friends, which is what apparently
really
mattered. Adam could hear his inevitable return to EBP like muffled voices screaming at him through plate-glass doors.

“So what have you been
doing
here?” said Brad. “Like, aside from the girl, who do you hang out with?”

Adam shifted his position. The ACE bandage was killing him.

“My roommate Ethan, he's, like, twenty-one.”

“Fag?”

“No! . . . And don't say ‘fag.'”

“You're a fag for telling me not to say ‘fag.' So is he gonna chill with us?”

Adam took out his cell phone. “Yeah, um, let me text him and see what he's up to.” Adam had never randomly texted Ethan before. So what? He could do it. It wouldn't be weird.
U around tonight? My dick friend is here. want 2 hang?

In the half minute it had taken Adam to text Ethan, Brad had already gotten involved in some text conversation of his own. Brad chuckled at the text, but Adam didn't ask what it said. Why did Brad hate him so much? Why wasn't he happy for Adam, telling him how amazing Gillian was, telling him how much he'd missed him this summer? Adam wanted to throw the table over, grab a chair, and wreck the entire pizza place. He could never win. He could never fucking win. His phone dinged in his pocket. It was Ethan.

can't. getting drinks with work people

“Well?” said Brad.

Ethan didn't give a shit about him.

“He has to work,” said Adam. He felt like crying. He felt like a fucking pussy. He felt five seconds away from reaching into his pants, pulling out the ACE bandage, and throwing it on the floor.
“Oh, that? Just some random shit that got stuck in my jeans in the dryer.”

Brad's phone dinged. He looked at the message and grinned. Started texting a response like Adam wasn't even there. Like he wasn't sitting directly across from him.

“So guess what, Casey was dating this guy that used to be a girl,” Adam found himself saying.

Brad looked up from his phone. “She what? Casey was dating a dude? I swore my dick would be the first that got in there.”

“Shut up, that's my sister. So this guy, like, took hormones and shit and got surgery to turn himself into a guy.”

“I don't get it.”

“Like, she-males, from the Internet, chicks with dicks, but reversed.”

“Huh?”

“That was Casey's boyfriend, this girl who took male hormones and got her tits cut off and now looks and acts like a guy.”

Brad grimaced. “That is fucked up. Your sister's a straight-up freak. Who would want to have sex with that?”

“She's, like, obsessed with anybody transsexual. Apparently the clit, like, grows into a kind of mini-penis . . .”

“Ugh! Freedman, you're gonna make me retch.”

Adam laughed. It was a sick, weird laugh, like his voice after sucking helium out of a balloon.

“Yeah, it's pretty nasty,” said Adam.

“Hey, remember that
Freaks
video we rented when we were, like, nine?” said Brad. “Peeeeeenheads!”

Now Adam was laughing for real. “We hid the cover and told your mom it was a kids' movie about the circus!”

“I had nightmares about the worm guy in the bag for, like, two weeks.”

“I know! You called me and you were like, ‘Adam, every time I close my eyes, I see the worm guy.'”

“Shut up! You were scared of him too!”

Brad reached into his cup and threw some ice at Adam, and Adam threw some ice back, both of them really laughing.

“So what are we doing now, anyway?” said Brad, the laughter subsiding.

“I don't know . . . wanna watch
A Few Good Men
?” said Adam.

“That movie sucks. Sure.”

They got up and walked back to the apartment.

***

Adam and Brad were sprawled on the futon, about halfway through the movie, when Ethan came home with two six-packs.

“I love this movie!” Ethan said. He dropped the beer—Coronas—on the coffee table and flopped down next to Brad. “What's up—I'm Ethan. You're Brad, right?”

Ethan slipped off the tie he wore to his job at Film Forum, tossed it over the arm of the futon, and undid the first few buttons of his shirt. He had stopped shaving recently, and the scruff around his face made him look cool and old. Ethan, returning from work, cracking open a beer. Adam could tell Brad was impressed, and he felt a rush of affection for Ethan. Ethan had blown off work friends. He had come for Adam.

Ethan handed Adam and Brad beers. “So, you just got in? What do you guys got planned? He's not gonna meet Gillian before I do, is he?”

“Yeah, I already met her,” said Brad. “She's hot.”

Adam took a slug of beer to hide his grin.

“Yeah, no shit,” said Ethan. “I've seen her picture. Adam sucks, right?”

“Yeah,” said Brad, laughing. “Fuck him.”

“Dick.”

“How'd you meet her, anyway?” said Brad.
Now he was interested.

“At this party.”

“She thinks Adam's twenty-two,” said Ethan, laughing and spilling foamed beer on himself, the way Adam always did.

Brad turned to Adam. “You told her you were twenty-two?”

“Yeah.”

“And she believed you? You look twelve.”

“Eat a dick.”

Brad turned to Ethan and said, “He looks twelve, right?”

“Adam has a youthful, boyish charm. But, yeah, I kind of see what you mean. Sorry, bro.”

“See!” said Brad.

Ethan and Brad chuckled at each other.

“Whatever,” said Adam. “She likes me.”

“Joke's on us, right?” said Ethan.

“Oh, and you're nineteen, by the way,” Adam said, knocking Brad with his beer.

“I'm only nineteen? Why do you get to be older than me?!”

“At least I made you older at all,” said Adam. “I could have just said you were some nerdy teenager I was nice to out of pity.” This was, essentially, what Adam had told Gillian.

“Fine, I'm nineteen. I can deal with that. So she got any hot friends?”

“Most of her friends are gay.”

Ethan busted out laughing.

“What?” said Brad. “Why?”

“I dunno, they just are. She mainly dated girls before. I'm the first guy she's really into.”

Brad's eyes bugged with jealousy.

“Dude, you look like you just dumped a load in your pants,” Ethan said, laughing.

Brad turned red.

“I think some of her friends are bi,” said Adam, “so you might get lucky. If you don't fuck up and start talking about your homeroom teacher or lunch period or something.”

“Well, what's my story? Come on, what's the lie I gotta tell?”

“This is rich,” said Ethan. “You're totally gonna fuck it up.”