Clay's Way (18 page)

              “Anar’s sister is a nursing student,” I say to Clay.

              Clay raises his head, like a dog hearing an intruder.  “So?”

              I look at Anar.  “Clay’s girlfriend’s a nurse.” 

              Anar nods. 

              Here’s my chance to win this pathetic competition.  “Have you heard the story about that nurse at Honolulu Hospital?  She was going in at night when the hospital was almost empty and performing frontal lobotomies on male patients, then she’d make them fall in love with her.  I figure she was a real slut, that’s all.  The guys didn’t even know what hit them.  She made them into who she wanted them to be and they didn’t even remember who they were before they met her.  I saw a photo of her.  Real cheap looking.” 

              “What happened to her?”  Anar’s politely riveted. 

              “She gave her last lobotomy to this surfer and he felt obligated to sleep with her and put up with her, like all the others, but...”

              “Shut up, man.”  Clay sits up from his laid back position really fast. 

              “What’s your problem?”

              “You think I’m stupid?”

              I look at Anar, who looks confused.  “So, anyway, the surfer tried to enjoy himself every time he fucked her, but she was really horrible.  She didn’t even know how to give a good hand job.”

              “Shut the fuck up!”  Clay rubs his bicep.

              “Make me.”

              Anar looks back and forth between us, trying to figure out which one of us is the bad guy. 

              Clay stands up.  His intense glare is made stronger-looking from the flames reflecting in his eyes.  He walks over to me and stops so close that all I can see is the front of his shorts with a couple black hairs sticking out the top. 

              “Move.  You’re blocking my view, dumb ass.”

              He leans over in my face, stares at me with a look between being hurt angry, and pushes me backwards as hard as he can.

              I fall back into the sand and stare up at the black sky.

              The tornado has formed.  Through the corner of my eye, I see Clay grab his beer out of the sand.  He kicks sand in my face as he runs off.

              I don’t want to sit up and look away from the solace of the dark sky, but I have no choice.  I have to face Anar.  There’s no one else.

              He’s in shock.  He’s looking at me like he wants to rescue me but he’s not sure if I’m cool.  All he knows of Clay is a sweet cute surferboy who’s patient, strong and wants to get into playing bongos.  All he knows of me is a bitter, conniving, little prick of a boy who has huge inconsistencies in his personality and tries to act bigger than I am.  “What was that about?”  He sorta sounds like he’s taking my side.

              “His girlfriend, Tammy.  She doesn’t like me and I don’t like her.  I used to go out with her and he’s always been jealous.”  If I tell the truth, he’ll think I’m psychotic.

              Anar helps me up and sits down next to me.

              I can smell him.  I get a boner that looks obvious poking out the thin fabric of my shorts, but I don’t mind.  I hope he’ll notice, but I don’t know what I’ll do if he does. 

              He leans back on his arms, his leg touching mine.

              I concentrate on the point of contact and press my thigh into him as hard as I can without being totally blatant about it.  I don’t know if he’s queer or whatever, and if he’s not, I’m gonna feel really, really stupid.  Our faces are really close.   

              He moves his leg a little, squirming around my side.

              All my instincts tell me to touch Anar as much as I possibly can.  My brain says, 
no!
 of course, because I love Clay and want to be with him forever, but I’m worried that loving Clay is turning into a habit, rather than a desire.  I’m ready to never see him again, as painful as I think that will be.  I turn my head toward Anar.  The distance between us becomes more meaningful than just close.  It becomes intimate and visceral.  I feel heat radiating off him.  I hear his shallow breathing. 

              He slowly turns his face toward me.  “You all right?”  He barely has to whisper, we’re so close together. 

              I can feel his breath on my skin.  A smile comes across my face that I have no control over.  I want to hide it from him, but we’re so close, I can’t.  I can see his breathing making his rib cage delicately rise and fall under his skin.  I press my leg more obviously into his.  If he’s not into this, I’ve made a really big fool of myself now.  I’m pressing just hard enough to make my intentions pretty obvious, enough to feel stupid if he’s not into me or doesn’t like boys at all.

              He leaves his leg in the same place, not moving it away from mine.  Good sign. 

              I can hardly breathe and my hands are shaking.

              He slides his hand onto my arm.  It’s softer than Clay’s hand. 

              A torrent of dizzy happiness rings through my entire body and my boner surges.  I want to look at where his hand is on my arm to see if it looks cool, but I can’t escape from his calming gaze.  If I do, I’ll panic and start thinking about Clay’s face crying in the woods earlier today. 

              He was crying over me. 

              I look out into the black sea. 

              The waves are building.  Sets of eight footers are increasing.  Another hurricane is out at sea, waiting till we least expect it to wreck our tidy lives and houses and erode away the mountains slightly more, making them lose some of their familiarity.  The mountains elude us by seeming so permanent.  They can change as fast as we do.

              I need to change.  I want to feel every part of Anar.  I roll over on top of him and pull him close to me, my arms around him with my hands grasping together on his back.  I rub down to his butt, inside his shorts, then I slide my hands around to the front. 

              His dick feels hot on my skin.  He’s going to fall in love with me, I know it. 

              I’ll end up hurting him.  I want to be in his arms forever, but I know deep inside myself that the possibility isn’t here.  What will I do with myself, forever full of this new capability, to fall in love and act on it all in minutes?  I’ll never sleep as soundly.  I could blame Clay, but then, I’d be escaping like I accuse him of doing.  I kiss Anar and all these worries hide, buried underneath the present.

              His lips taste like salt and his tongue is wet and strong.  He kisses me back like he can’t get enough. 

              I grind my dick into his stomach, delving into his body and his soul, not clear on what I’ll find.  I smell his skin, tangy and moist.  I’m afraid to speak, afraid it will ruin the spell, but my senses tell me that we can’t do this on the beach, in front of the world.  “Let’s go in your tent,” I whisper in his ear. 

              We duck into the mildew scents of his tent.  The lantern is burning.  I find his sleeping bag because it smells like him.  One of his pubic hairs lies on the plaid interior lining, which makes him real, and I almost back out, but my body won’t allow me to deceive it. 

              He dims the light, which makes him seem experienced at this and makes me feel dumb, like I’m being taken by some hippie slut.  We pull our shorts down and wrap ourselves in each other’s bodies, our skinny legs poking each other by accident.

              I squirm down his body till I reach his dick.  It’s just like mine.  I hold it in my palm and he thrusts a little into my hand, which is pretty courageous of him, since we hardy know each other.  I jack him off and he comes in my hand and I shoot at the same time without even touching mine.  It’s weird.

              It smells like how Magnolia bushes smell when they’re blooming.

              Dread comes over me.  There’s evidence of Anar on my skin, my largest organ, as the teacher said in health class.  Sperm is swimming around my hand, sperm that I hardly know.  It’s like inviting some door-to-door salesman in for dinner, wine and all, and letting him use your bed and toothbrush.  Where have my boundaries gone?  I’ve turned into a hippie slut, too. 

              I almost jump up, scared at what I’ve become.  My head hits the top of the tent and the plastic support rods slip apart and the tent comes collapsing down on us. 

              He laughs, even though I tried to escape and failed, and rolls over beside me holding up the material around us. 

              He’s going to tell his rich ultra-liberal parents that my dad’s a conservative working against the Hawaii Natives Fund and they’ll force me to move in to escape the repression of my evil dad’s morals which are based on money and capitalism. 

              I’ll sleep in his room, and we’ll cuddle and come together every night under the safe roof of his parent’s house till we’re hippies no longer, till we’re normal and boring.  I love and hate the idea at the same time.  Mostly, I love it and I can’t help it.  I want to tell him all this, but I’m afraid.  What if he fooled me?  What if he doesn’t like me?  What, then, will I do?  Clay’s surf shorts that I was wearing are staring at me from the tent floor, looking useless and dirty.  I throw a blanket over them and notice stubble on Anar’s chin. 

              He looks wise. 

              I think he has some Japanese in him from generations ago.  I think I trust him.  I hold the plastic rod up and build a makeshift teepee out of the tent.

              A fire outside the tent is burning brightly.  I can see guys and girls standing around it by their shadows casting shapes like Indonesian shadow puppets on the orange tent wall.  Their heads are exaggerated because they stretch upwards on the pointy roof of the teepee.

              A shadowy figure approaches closely.  It looks like a huge monster.  It walks by the partly open door flap. 

              I see legs walk by.  I think it’s Clay.  I scramble to put on my shorts on under the plastic-feeling material. 

              “Where are you doing?”  Anar raises his head, looking concerned.

              “I’ll be right back.”  I duck out of the mess of tent, accidentally making the center rod fall again.

              Anar struggles to get it up, but then rolls over and lets the tent fall on him, letting the chaos win.

              Clay spots me right away.  “What’s up, Sam?”

              I look back at the fallen tent with Anar inside squirming like a larvae in a cocoon.  “Uh... nothing.  Hanging out with that kid.  Where’d you go?”

              Clay looks like he’s sleepwalking.  “Hung out with these dudes, drank a beer, smoked a J.”  He looks over at the fallen tent.

              “I think he’s sleeping.  Don’t bother him.”

              He leans down and pulls up the floppy material to see in his tent.  He drops the nylon and throws his beer down as hard as he can.  Beer foam splashes onto my chest. 

              “What’s wrong?”  I try to grab his upper arm, harness the dragon before it consumes me in its fiery breath, its razor claws.

              “Don’t touch me.”

“Clay.”  I put my hand on his shoulder.  My body resonates with a dull hum that feels like someone’s slipped me too many downers.  It’s humiliation.  If I were a Samurai, I’d get out my sword and kill myself without a moment’s delay.  Rid the world of my disgrace, dishonor, repulsion.

              He jerks his arm away from me.  “You fucking fraud!”   He’ll be relieved to forget about me.  He could easily slip back into the repetitious patterns of his dull, unfulfilling life and forever surf to escape and fantasize about a better life.  Maybe he could even find comfort and solace in the fact that he’ll never be satisfied.  Mediocre pleasure will fill the void that love should occupy.

              I have to resist an urge to run into Anar’s tent and hug him and listen to him say he loves me.

              Clay runs away from me down the beach, not looking back.

              “Wait!”  I have to tell him the truth.  I have to make him understand that I know I fucked up doing with Anar.   I thought he hated me.  I’m scared that all the time we spent together has been erased. 

              Anar took it all away from me.  He could have stopped me.  He knew what he was doing, that hippie boy slut.

              Clay disappears into the dark crooked shadows of cliffs.

              Anar puts the tent back together, from the inside, and turns up his kerosene lantern to high, providing a moon for himself. 

              The waves build in size and consistency and a breeze makes the lazy air expressive and vocal.

              Anar sticks his head out of his tent.  “Sam?”

              I don’t know what to do or say.  I wish he’d just fall asleep.  “Yeah?”

              “What are you doing?  Come back in.  It looks like the storm’s coming.”

              I duck inside.  “Yeah, it does.  I’m suspicious.” 

              This is hurricane season, but never since I can remember have storms come as often as this.  Nature is figuring me out and it’s spooky.  I’m dealing with a force that makes me as small as a particle of anti-matter in a universe that is so big it scares me to think about it.

              Anar looks confused.  “What do you mean?”

              “It’s out to get me.”

              “For what?”

              “I hardly know you.  I can’t tell you my secrets.”

              He looks down to his sandy feet and then back up to me.  “I’m not worthy of conversation, only a… forget it…” 

              Oh, fuck.  He’s vocalizing his thoughts.  I hate when people do that, which means I’ll be doing it soon.  I’m taking on all the worst traits of the people I love, without consciously being aware of it.  “I wouldn’t lie to you.  What good would it do?”  I feel even worse than before I started talking and trying to make him feel better.  I’m still being like Clay.  I’m a fraud and I can’t stop myself.  I lie to Anar to make the situation easier to deal with for me.  I beg for love and commitment from Clay, then I jerk off with this vacant hippie boy.