Test Your Strength

There were twenty inches between them in the back seat of Hank’s car. They both had their hands pressed down into the seat, trying to quell the atmosphere between them, the solid air, a fire that hadn’t yet lit. They pressed it down into the seat, feeling it in their fingers. The plasma rush echoed in the space between, freed itself and bounced into their thighs. It tingled. It itched. Their bodies buzzed like they were gripping a machine to test their strength. They held onto the handle. If they let go, if they crossed the naugahyde and crashed into each other, the machine would call them sissies, chide them with red lights and shut off, demanding another fifty cents. They held on, thrilled under the spell and begging for it to stop.



Joe’s mouth was open, as if there were some way to take this in, as if he could absorb Adam through his lungs. He breathed deep and imagined that he could, having read somewhere that your body really inhabits the air around it, having read in class that it stores heat in the space like a blanket, that when you smell someone, it’s actually little bits of them that are landing in your nose, that seventy percent of dust is skin cells, that billions of neutrinos are passing through your body and into the next person every second. He breathed deep and took in the bits of Adam, pressing his hand down into the seat to steady himself. He closed his eyes and pretended to be tired as he was sure he must be and imagined what they had already shared, imagined the tiny subatomia, whether they could take a message to him.



Adam rolled down the window and let the wind blow on his face, figuring the fresh air would do him nothing but good, that it would cool him, that his heart would stop beating so fast, trying to bring something that definitely wasn’t oxygen to his muscles, his blood redder than was really normal, his face pulsing with it. He could feel his clothes draw tight across him and wanted to loosen them, the first thing they tell you to do in first aid, loosen the victim’s clothes, lay them down, put something under their head, ask them questions. “Who’s the president of The United States? What’s your middle name? What year is it?” What year is it? He put his face right up to the open window, feeling like the wind was picking something up from it and was being absorbed just as quickly by Joe. He wanted him to have it. He had too much of it. He wanted to give Joe more than that, but waited for that feeling too to pass. He lowered the waistband of his jeans on his hips, easier to breathe, easier than the full bodily tumescence that would surely crush his lungs.



They’d been through this before, both of them, always after one of Hank’s parties, always on their way back to the dorm, always in the back seat with each other, always at the same time.

They did what they’d done before, fought over who would have the last word with Hank, hip-checking each other at the window, their arms too scared to touch, their feet connecting at the shoe, the metallic rattle of the old Volkswagen engine quietly observing. Whoever lost the battle, this time Adam, would hold the door open at the dorm, inhaling, telling himself he wouldn’t look this time, wouldn’t let his eyes drop as the other walked through.

Adam lost this battle too, and saw the curve of Joe’s right buttock, the tightening bulge before the drop at the thigh. He tried the opposite tack and exhaled hard, figuring it was his lungs that were taking up too much room in his torso, that whatever was hitting him this way was doing so because he’d never pushed it out. He hadn’t really exhaled it. He held as long as he could and didn’t breathe in again until the door had closed behind him, only to catch a whiff of Joe’s cologne. He was downwind of him, occupying the space Joe had just a moment before.



Joe figured a cigarette would help, would occupy his lips and hands for a few minutes, enough to change the subject at least, nothing like a substitute, but perhaps a distraction? He shook his head in the elevator, wanted to slap his own cheek, had been staring at Adam’s waistband, his thumb hooked into the side and sliding around it like it was getting the last of the frosting from the inside of the bowl. He watched the floors count up, a red light display calmly ticking off his pulse. His eyes blurred in the stare and they were a fuzzy glow, a warm reminder of his insides, also warm and red and climbing. Adam got off the elevator first and Joe stepped into his spot for a moment before exiting, seeing if the air was still warm there.



Adam opened the door to their room and asked Joe if he had to take a piss. He was taking a shower. Joe stepped around him without a touch and said no, he was fine. Tired, he said, probably too tired to sleep. Adam closed the door to the bathroom and turned the shower on, the handle all the way to the left and watched the cloud of steam escape around the shower curtain and over the mirror. He watched himself blur in it, taking his shoes off as his face disappeared, taking his shirt off as his chest disappeared, just catching a look at his erection, appearing as his jeans pulled down and then fuzzy in the mirror, a red patch in the steam. 



Joe paced outside of the bathroom door, trying to think of a viable reason for him to rush in there, press himself into Adam, feel his actual skin and flesh on him, his real body enveloping him. He leaned into the door, his hands on either side of it and listened, his eyes closing at the sound of Adam’s zipper, wondering how close he was. He listened to the white noise of the shower and imagined those drops taking parts of him, streaming down his body and carrying it into the drain. He imagined Adam’s eyes closed, his neck out, washing his hair, the soapy excess dripping down his back and over his ass. Joe undid his pants, knowing he had to walk away and change his clothes, but he stood there, his body falling into the door, his cheek against it. It was cold, but the air coming from the gap below was steam.



Adam lowered the toilet seat quietly and sat on it, a bottle of conditioner in his hand and imagined Joe in bed on the other side of the wall, facing him. He imagined lying down behind him and quietly undressing him, listening to him breathing, his warm skin like the steam around him. He imagined himself holding Joe’s cock, sticky and hot like his own in his hand. He imagined that he was making Joe feel what he was feeling, his leg twitching and his back arching. He imagined Joe’s face turning to him, his mouth open, waiting to taste his own, Joe’s wet mouth. Adam felt the droplets fall onto his lips and felt them as a kiss. His tongue swiped a taste of them.



Joe wondered how long he should linger there at the door, but figured he’d have enough time to jump into bed when he heard the water shut off. He wouldn’t be able to change in time, but he made a head start of it, stripping layers—shoes, socks, shirt, pants, underwear taken off and thrown onto the floor next to his bed. He kept his forehead to the door the entire time and when he was finished, pressed the rest of his body up to it, inching up by his toes in the carpet, the pile between them. His toes could feel the steam across them and he looked down at them, imagining they had some part of Adam to them. He saw his own cock, the red eye of it and gently pressed it too into the cold door. He turned his head and listened. His hands gripped the doorjamb tight. He heard a gasp. And another. He felt them as if they were his, or as if he had caused them. His lips opened again.



Adam’s left hand pressed into the wall between himself and Joe’s bed and seemed to fall into it, the sweat in his palm mixing with the now wet wallpaper. How close was his hand to Joe’s body? He lowered it to bed level and switched his rhythm. It was sugary syrup, his blood. His heart was working hard to move it. It gathered in spots, heavy parts of his body while others felt unnaturally light. In his mind, which seemed to get no blood at all except a sweet ephemeral vapor, Joe was somehow sucking him off and kissing his lips at the same time. Adam’s head turned in the yellow bathroom light, coming to rest on a towel rack. His knees clapped with every stroke.



Joe’s face wanted to sink through the door, wanted to fall into the room with Adam, wanted to land solid on top of Adam in the shower. He realized that his hips were moving, that he was humping the door. He licked his fingers and palm, rubbed the morsel of precome across it and encircled the tip of his cock, tremors in his shoulders and knees. He heard two more gasps from inside the bathroom and it was enough. His left hand gripped the doorjamb to keep him from slamming against the door and he pushed away, his come flying up and landing on his toes. He stood and exhaled hard, enough to empty his lungs and held there, not breathing again until he was flat in bed, wiping his feet with his shirt.



Adam heard the springs of the bed and imagined that he had just made Joe come, that Joe was tense in his arms, that he could smell him and somehow taste him, the little bit of Joe that he could taste. He made a fist on the wall and came, flying up and landing on his breastbone, his skin shivering between it and his heart. He waited a moment, the smell of Joe in his nose, and adjusted the shower a little colder before going in, aiming the showerhead at his chest.



The two men slept in separate beds, five feet between them and each hugged a pillow against their chest, imagining it was the other man.