Peace

Despite what everyone says, those parental amalgams, holding their children tightly against their chests, petting their downy hair in protective hands, it’s quite possible to surf the web without running into any sex at all. When in doubt, I’ve been going to websites specifically for children, smiling at new media for all those memories, the Sesame Street website, Fisher-Price, Nickelodeon. Believe it or not, some of them have got great games, enough to while away hours in wholesome family fun, just me, twenty-six years old, limp in the dick, in bed with my laptop.

The sight of lips, open, a stubbled beard barely holding my come around his mouth.

I’m in terrible pain, you see, and mysterious pain at that. Every day I wake up to a new and different joint wracked with soreness. One day, my right wrist, the next, my left knee. Never two. Never the same as yesterday. But the pain is what I imagine thumbscrews must feel like, or knee screws, or elbow screws, or whatever. The helpless, throbbing, inescapable cry, and I’ve cried on its behalf, begging, first thing in the morning, when I’ve realized that I’ve got to crawl to the bathroom again, begging invisible Conquistadores to stop! Stop! I confess!

I don’t have health insurance, so I let the doctors charge me for as much sickness as I can afford, and take their word for it. Their word, so far, has been a shrug. Take this drug. Take this one, but not that, and when you can’t walk, stay home. They don’t have any idea what’s wrong, and I’m sure at least one of them thinks I’m making it up. Self-diagnosis is all the rage, and if carefully navigated, also sex-free and on the internet. I’ve decided it’s an allergy, so I’ve been giving single things up for a couple of weeks. In the end, all that becomes is spiritual fasting. Soft drinks for fourteen days (caffeine), cigarettes another (crazy chemical additives), cleaning products (use boiling water and baking soda instead), plastic, alcohol, household plants. So far, nothing. My hopeful fasting has turned to atonement, some guilt left behind from my Jewish upbringing. I’ve given up masturbation for two weeks, and sit alone in my bed, the best sex toy I’ve ever had showing me only fart jokes and old, public domain movies.

The feel of my forearm straining against his waistband, the heat inside.

It’s my ankle today, so I’m staying home. No crying on the way to my hands and knees this morning, just a confused dog, nuzzling my face and barking, my toes high in the air. Later, a phone call to work, and much later, a phone call to Clement, the third time I’ve cancelled on him this month.

“I’m just going to go over there,” he says, all argument-proof and about to hang up before I can protest. There are no spaces in between his words now. “I’mcomingoverataroundseventhirtysoputsomepantsonandanswerthedoor.” Click. Pants? How am I going to get pants on?

It takes about five minutes to put pants on, but I time it so I’ll get them on with plenty of time to look normal if it brings on a crying fit, or yet another inappropriate erection, which have descended upon me like beestings during news broadcasts, tooth brushing, hanging a towel on a hook. I calculate the probability of the seam of my pants touching my balls and causing an erection at about sixty-five percent, and these hard ons take mental effort on the level of three of those spoon-bending kids from The Matrix to hose down.

Fingers, just the tips, testing my balls in soft underwear. He pushes them up and they separate, letting the weight of his hand rise to the base of my cock.

Aching. It aches. My entire body is swollen, the center of gravity is my dick, its borders stretching to my hips, my thighs, my shaking knees. I fall back on the bed and touch, just touch, in a moment of weakness. Pfffffffffffff. Noooooo.

I play Bejeweled until it subsides, my head truly empty except in strategy of making astounding, seven-gem matches. Even the ankle seems to take the argument. When the door buzzer rings I’m grey, sexless, subdued, hopping to the button on one leg.

Clement is pure buzz, though, his stout little body, slightly shorter than me, is lean and muscular, potent, though I’ve never really looked before. I think he said he was a diver or something in college. He offers his shoulder to me and hops me back to the couch while he talks.

“It’s the ankle, huh? Well, I brought booze. You’re drinking again, right? Good. Jesus, you were boring. This car outside? This guy? I think it was a guy, I didn’t look. This guy just about tore my nuts off with his bumper. I don’t think he ever saw me. Probably on the phone. I need six tickets to Tokyo. There you go. You’re having a drink now. I’ll make it. What’s with this wallpaper? I thought you swore it off?”

And so on. The contact with his shoulder was a little dicey, my skin found it unbelievable and nearly crawled off to the kitchen with him. He hands me the drink and I put it down, foot out and limp, on the floor. Clement has some trouble deciding where to sit and finally settles, sympathy for the sickie, on the chair right next to me. We both face the dark grey screen of the T.V.

“What are you giving up this week?”

“Television,” I lie.

He looks right into my pupils. I have no idea why he would suspect that I’m lying, but maybe that’s just part of his intensity, that stare, as if he expects me to expound. He turns his chair so he can face me, and I feel exposed.

“That’s fine. You’ve got the internet. How many times have you come today?”

Clement’s mouth, the way his bottom lip pushes out, open and wet, dropping into my lap, the drag of them across the skin of my cock.

I pick up the glass quickly and cover myself with it. The cold helps too. “Um, a bunch.”

He cocks his head, looks back at the blank T.V., back to me and says, “Hang on, you hate T.V.”

He leans in a little more, his glass perspiring, his lips, I don’t think I’d ever noticed them before, did he have a beard or something, just a little closer to me. They part. He says, “What did you really give up?”

“Orgasms.”

“Joel. That’s not healthy.”

“They’re not necessary to sustain life. They don’t send vibrators and fleshlights to impoverished war zones.”

“That’s alright. Your body’s probably doing it anyway.”

“Only one wet dream.”

“Joel, that’s ridiculous. Do it. My God, it’ll smell like mold or something, but do it.”

“I’m trying to work!”

“You’re feeling guilty, aren’t you? You’ve been out for half a decade and you still feel bad, right?”

“On the same level as soda.”

“There’s nothing wrong with it!”

“I know that consciously, but….”

“Did I ever tell you about my first time? It was my swim coach.”

“Oh, Jesus.”

“Oh no. It was fantastic.” He stops and waits for me to try to argue. I let him get it out. “I’m nineteen, slower than all the other swimmers, but he doesn’t want me to quit. He’s worked me into this slick new body, all the fat gone, burned away in the pool. Strong shoulders. I can’t believe it.” He shrugs his shoulders forward so I can see what he means. “But he talks about my body like a product, like I’m not in it, so I start to think of it that way. And then he asks me if I’m getting laid, if I’ve got a girlfriend. I tell him I don’t. He says I should get one. Well I don’t say anything, figuring he’s not gonna pursue it, right? But of course he knows why I’m not saying anything. This is his test.” He leans forward a little, as if he has to whisper. The glass covers nothing anymore. “So he starts checking things, takes the robe down over my shoulders and starts to give me a massage as he’s talking to me.” He takes my glass away, gives a piteous look at my self-evident predicament, returns to my eyes.

“Well, by this time I’ve got the biggest hard on of my little life, and I can’t hide it,” he looks briefly at mine and points his chin at my face, “because my arms have got to hang loose while he’s massaging them. I’m kind of waiting for him to see it and throw me off the team, but he’s gotten all the way down to my hands,” Clement takes mine and puts them down on my sides, “and he hasn’t said anything. And it’s not like those little Speedos hide anything. ‘You’re so tense,’ he says. ‘You can’t concentrate.’” My eyes close. It’s my only defense against his lips. “And before you know it, there are his fingers.” Clement’s hands remain on mine. I feel like bucking against the seam of my pants. Anything. “And I kinda just fell into him. The whole world, all this fighting I’d been doing, just went click! It was actually the first time I’d ever really been at peace.”

He pauses longer, so I open my eyes for a moment. “Peace, Joel. That’s sex for me, peace. Before I knew it, he had me on all fours on his desk, teaching me what it feels like to get my asshole licked. That’s how I came the first time. I didn’t even touch. And then I started staying late after every swim practice. That guy taught me everything.” He lets my hands go. “I’d let you give up food before I let you give up coming. Do it now.”

“No, that’s weird.”

He lets his fingers slide slowly across my cock through the pants. I’ve only got time to cringe before I come, my mind lost, my body flooded with liquid joy, its own medicine. My ankle feels fine. When my eyes open, he smiles, kisses the wet spot, and changes the subject to Dancing With the Stars.