Denton Little's Deathdate (8 page)

“Bye,” Taryn says quietly.

I want to yell, “Suck it, Ford!” as we pull away, but instead I just nod.

The old couch in Taryn's basement isn't quite big enough for both our bodies to lie down on, so my legs are draped off the side. Her legs extend out into the air as she lies on top of me. We are kissing. Passionate, sloppy, end-of-the-world kisses.

Taryn's parents are upstairs watching an NBA playoff game, and we know that they know what we're doing down here. It's not as good as “our spot”—where parents are not within a twenty-foot radius—but it'll do. Taryn's mom insisted we take down some ruffled potato chips and a bowl of onion dip, both of which sit untouched on the coffee table.

That unsettling run-in with Phil's grandfather certainly didn't help my attempts to clear Phil from my mind-palate. Taryn seemed genuinely shocked by the whole thing (“His grandpa always seemed so sweet…”), but my paranoid thoughts are running rampant. Did Phil sic his grandpa on
me? Was Taryn involved in setting me up? Or is GrandpaCop one of the people Brian Blum was warning me about?

“You okay?” Taryn says, lifting her face up away from mine. The welt I gave her earlier is almost gone, just a small raised pink circle.

“Yeah, of course, why?”

“You seem a little out of it. Should we not do this?”

“No, we should, we absolutely should.” I pull her face back into mine, but she resists.

“Dent. I really am sorry about Phil.” I can tell she means it.

“I know,” I say. “Let's not talk about it anymore.” And we're making out again.

In our messing around up till now, Taryn and I have pretty much done everything except for sex. But we were both in agreement that we didn't want my death to rush or pressure us into having sex early, that it should happen organically.

In retrospect, this seems really dumb.

We should have had sex, like, one week in, and then maybe we would have had time to get good at it and right now the prospect of doing it wouldn't seem so terrifying. Another plus to this idea is that I would have lost my virginity to Taryn and not to Veronica.

“Whoa,” Taryn says. She's just slid my pants off and is staring wide-eyed at my purple, dotted leg.

“Oh. Yeah. That's what I was telling Paolo about in the bathroom.”

“What…what is it?”

“I dunno. Maybe a blood disorder? I completely understand if you're turned off and don't want to—”

Taryn pushes me back down on the couch and kisses me harder than ever. I feel like that's partly to erase the image of my splotchy leg from her brain, but that's okay.

She takes my tie off as I unbutton and take off my shirt.

I help Taryn slide her dress up and over her head.

I run my fingers up her bare back.

We are nearly naked. I am once again in the present moment.

“Should we…,” I ask.

Taryn nods solemnly.

“Okay, let me just…” I grab my pants off the floor and dig around until I find my wallet. When I was twelve, I had a camp counselor named Eli who showed us how he always kept a condom in his wallet, and this struck me as the most badass thing ever. This guy was ready to have sex
whenever
. I later learned that it's usually the guys who don't have sex a lot who keep condoms in their wallets, but I could never quite erase from my brain the idea that this is an awesome thing to do.

However, the condom that's been in my wallet for months is no longer there. Because, duh, Denton, you probably used it last night. Feck.

“What are you getting from your wallet?” Taryn asks in a jokingly coy voice. She knows exactly what I'm getting (or trying to get), because she found it in there once, and it's become a running joke between us. Like “Why don't you take your wallet out?” or “Let's go inside and…have a look at your wallet.”

“I am getting…” Stall with a joke! “My school ID out. I'd like one student-priced ticket, please.”

Taryn laughs, even though I realize it sounds like I've made some weird prostitute joke.

“What
else
is in your wallet?”

“Well,” I say, “I…don't know. What else there is. I, ah, this sucks—I think I just threw out the condom last week because it had expired.”

“Oh,” Taryn says.

“Yeah.”

“What do you mean, you think?”

“No, I mean, I know. I threw it out, and I meant to buy a whole box of new ones to replace it, but then I…didn't.”

“It's the last night of your life, and you don't have a condom on you to have sex for the first time with your girlfriend?”

I make what I believe to be my most charming, adorable face. “No?”

“Denton,” Taryn says, and I think she's about to grill me on where that condom actually has gone. “You are incredibly lucky that I happen to have acquired a couple of condoms in case of an emergency not unlike this one.” She digs into her purse and pulls one out. “You're an idiot, but you're lucky.”

“That's…amazing,” I say. “Where did you get those?”

“The back of my dad's sock drawer.”

“Ew.”

“I know, let's not think about that.”

“How did you know where your dad keeps his condoms?”

“Eh. Accidentally found them when I was little. Same spot ever since.”

“Well.”

“Well.”

It takes me way too long to open the condom package, and even longer to figure out which side of the condom goes facedown (dickdown?), but four and a half minutes later, we have awkward, sloppy, stupid, extremely exciting (to me, at least) sex, me trying hard not to think about a lot of things, like the purple that consumes my entire right leg, down to and including my toes, and the fact that the prophylactic on my penis was intended to be used by Taryn's dad. Incidentally, I find that thinking about the latter is a wonderful antidote for those moments when I think the sex is on its way to ending too quickly.

It does end too quickly. But I think I've done better than most of the first-time teen dudes in every sex comedy ever, in that I've made it past the two-minute mark. Sweet.

Taryn and I sit side by side on the couch. Naked.

“Well.”

“Well.”

“That was pretty cool,” I say. “Right?”

“Yeah. Really cool, definitely.”

I want to ask if I was better than Phil, but that seems really stupid, and I think it would kill the mood.

“You wouldn't know that was your first time at all,” Taryn says.

“Oh, cool. Yeah. First time.”

SECOND TIME!

“You know, in French,” I say, “they call an orgasm
la petite mort
, which is ‘little death.' It'll be pretty great if my death feels like that.”

I am realizing that when I feel guilty, I start talking nonsense.

“Yeah…” Taryn picks up her underwear from the floor and starts getting dressed. I was hoping we'd get to sit naked on the couch a little longer; it's fun. Though maybe gross for the couch.

“So, did you…”

“What?”

“Well, did you, like, have a
petite mort
?”

“Oh. No, but I never do.” Taryn shrugs, and she slides her dress on over her head.

“What were all those noises you were making, then?”

“Noises?”

“No, I mean, the sounds you were making while we were doing it?”

“Oh, I dunno.” Taryn turns slightly red. “I didn't realize they were annoying you.”

“They weren't, they weren't. I just thought the sounds meant you were into it.”

“I was feeling into it; I just didn't orgasm. It's not a big deal.”

But it feels like a big deal, like we haven't done it properly.

“Let's try again,” I say. “I can do better.” If I really and truly satisfy her, maybe she'll never forget it. Maybe she'll never forget me.

“Denton, you did great, and you don't have time. You're supposed to meet up with Paolo.”

“No, no, he can wait, it's fine, really. Wanna do this again?”

Taryn plops down onto the couch next to me, fully
clothed. “I'm not really in the mood, Dent. I love you, but I don't just want to be some sex object so you can feel like you did it correctly.”

“That's not it at all. I wanna make you feel good.”

Taryn puts her hands on my face. “Denton, you made me feel so good. And you make me feel so good. And I…” She starts to cry.

“I know, I know, I won't be able to come to prom, I'm sorry.”

“Not that, you just…” Taryn wipes her nose with her hand. “You're…Oh.”

“I'm ‘oh'?”

But Taryn is looking at my lower half, transfixed. I want to believe it's because she's awed and astounded by my manhood, which has just rocked her world, but it's pretty clear that isn't the case.

The splotch is again spreading, across my waist, down my left leg, and even, yes, over my manhood.

“Aw, man, it's purpling my balls.”

We watch as the ink stain comes to a halt, having given me a strange pair of purple-skin pants. Taryn is a combination of scared, delighted, and grossed out. “This is so weird.”

“It's not a big deal. This always happens to me. It's this allergy thing I get in the springtime.”

“Really?”

“No!”

I am hyperventilating a little because this creeping discoloration is really freaky. And I'm not ready for it to kill me. I lean back against the couch, feeling the rough stripes of the fabric against my back.

“Well, I don't know,” Taryn says. “I thought you might have just put that together.”

“No,” I say. I'm starting to regain my normal breathing patterns when I look down and see something horrible. Once again, I find myself without words.

“What?” Taryn says, following my sight line down to her thigh.

She shrieks. And rightfully so. Because on her thigh is a reddish-bluish-purplish splotch just like mine.

I hide my nakedness behind the couch as Taryn talks up the basement stairs to her parents, who came to check on us when their only daughter started screaming like a lunatic.

“No, we're really okay. Denton played a joke on me, and it scared me more than he meant it to.”

Yeah, funny joke, right? I gave Taryn the splotch! Hilarious!

“Denton's okay?” Taryn's mom asks. “He's not…”

“Dead? No, he's doing fine.”

Attagirl, way to embrace the d-word.

“Don't be rude now, Taryn.”

“I'm not being rude, Mom! I'm just being realistic.”

But the basement door is already closed.

Taryn pops her head over the sofa, looking down on me in my naked crouch. “I don't know how I played it so cool, because this is really bad! What is this? Are we both dying?”

“No, I don't think so. I mean, you're not dying. Your deathdate isn't for decades—”

“SIX decades!”

“So there you go; you're not dying.”

“But don't you think it's a little weird that we had sex and I immediately got this splotch thing that you have?”

Yes. Yes, I do. I think it's very weird. I'm freaking out. I STDed you. I think I STDed you. “No, it's not that weird.”

“Do you think it's an STD?”

“No. I don't.”

If I were half a man, now would be the time to tell Taryn about Veronica. But I can't. I just can't. It's scummy and embarrassing and hurtful and what the hell did Veronica give me?

Taryn is meticulously examining her splotch, and I notice something.

“You don't have the dots.”

“What?” Taryn looks up, hair in her face.

“The little bright red dots that I have. You don't have those.”

We sit side by side on the couch and compare our purple skin. My network of electric red dots is bigger than ever, and one touch anywhere on my legs shifts the whole lot of them, still in perfect formation. But Taryn's splotch looks more like an ordinary rash.

“So mine is kinda different,” Taryn says.

“Yeah, definitely different.”

“Maybe it's just an allergic reaction.”

“I bet it is.”

Taryn takes two deep breaths, wipes away some tears, and looks at me. “Why are you still naked?”

“It's around here somewhere,” Paolo's mom mutters into the pantry.

I'm sitting at Paolo's kitchen table, feeling like I'm eight years old again, the morning after a Pow-Dent sleepover. I'd usually wake up first and pad out to the kitchen table to chat with Paolo's mom as she cooked mind-blowing chocolate chip pancakes.

Currently, though, she's sifting through shelves, looking for some anti-anxiety supplement thing she thinks might help me. (Apparently, I seem anxious. Who knew.) Paolo isn't home yet. He's off working on “a surprise” for me. A sweet gesture, but unless it's some kind of life-lengthening elixir, I don't think I'm interested.

“Aha!” she says. “Here it is.”

“So, it's like Xanax, or something?”

“Gosh, no, I wouldn't give you that garbage. This is herbal, from my homeopath.” Paolo's mom turns around, a proud smile on her face, unscrewing the lid on a white container. “Take two. They will absolutely make you feel better.”

“Okay, thanks,” I say, downing the pills with a swig of water. I do feel better, almost immediately.

“Right?” Paolo's mom says to me.

“Yeah, those are amazing.”

“Picture?” she asks as she grabs her digital camera off the counter. She hardly goes anywhere without her camera.

“Oh, ha-ha, sure.” I smile from my place at the kitchen table as the flash burns my retinas.

“It's a keeper,” she says, looking down at the screen.
She stares at it intently, and I see her tear up a little bit, which catches me off guard. I feign a sudden interest in the plaque above the sink that says
THE DIAZ FAMILY
.

“Mom, didn't we talk about this?” Paolo says as he appears in the kitchen, a big plastic bag in his hand. “How we're gonna limit the number of cries per day?”

“I know, I know.” Paolo's mom sniffles. “Just thinking about you two, how much fun you used to have…One quick picture, then I'll leave you boys alone.” She snaps a shot of me and Paolo smiling uncomfortably. “Denton, you are a gem. I'll see you at your Sitting.”

As she heads out of the kitchen, Veronica heads in, and my insides leap. Mother and daughter narrowly avoid bumping into each other before Veronica sees me in the kitchen and changes her direction.

“You can come in here,” I call out to her, but I know she won't.

“Don't mind her,” Paolo says, reaching down into his big bag. “She's been superweird since your funeral. I think she's gonna miss saying mean things to you.”

“Yeah, maybe.”

“That, or she's moping about being apart from her boyfriend.”

“Wait, Veronica's got a boyfriend?”

“You know, some college thing. Okay, so I have in this bag a final parting gift for you. Ready?” He unfolds this huge rectangular cloth canvas, which he's covered with photos and images and his signature awesome cartoon drawings. When I look closely, I see that it's got references to all these different moments and events in my life, to movies I love, to inside jokes we've had.

“Wow. This is amazing.”

“I know, right? It's for your coffin.”

“Oh. That's why it's shaped like that.”

“Yeah, yeah.”

I don't like thinking about my body underground in a coffin, even with this amazing me-collage on top of it. It's still preferable to cremation, though. Body burned into nothingness? No thanks!

“Thanks, Pow.”

“On to more important things: you and Taryn get nasty again?”

“We…did.” Unlike Paolo, who's pretty graphic in describing his sexual adventures, I'm not much of a kiss-and-teller. It makes me uncomfortable, like I'm exposing my most vulnerable self in casual conversation. Not to mention that Veronica could be overhearing everything we're saying. I should at least throw Paolo something. “And it was good.”

“Just good?”

“It was great, okay? But then…”

I tell Paolo about the splotch that was on Taryn, how freaked she was, and how—with an awkward kiss and a “See you at my Sitting”—I had to leave her mid-freak-out to come here.

“Holy crap, dude, that sucks.”

“I know.”

“She really did STD you!”

“Or maybe I gave something to her.” I sigh. I walk to the fridge, all nervous energy, and take inventory, hoping for some kind of cranberry juice.

“No, man, I mean—just finished the cran-apple this
morning, sorry, hombre—maybe she gave it to you yesterday!”

“Right. Look…Taryn and I didn't sleep together yesterday.”

“You didn't?”

“We didn't.”

“Did you have sex today?”

“We did.”

“But not yesterday.”

“Not yesterday.”

Paolo has plopped down at the kitchen table, thinking really hard about all this.

“You said you had sex yesterday, though.”

“Well…I did have sex yesterday.”

Paolo is thoughtful, then astounded. “Dude…” He is speaking very quietly. “Are you telling me you got yourself a prostitute?” He mouths the word
prostitute
.

“No! What? No!”

“You said you had sex that wasn't with Taryn, so I don't know!”

“Okay, okay, look, I wasn't gonna tell you this, but I had sex with…” I shake my head toward the kitchen door twice.

“Why are you jerking your head around like that? I can't understand what you're saying.”

“No, look at me, I had sex with…” And I again give my head two violent shakes toward the living room as I simultaneously point with my finger.

“No…,” Paolo mutters.

I shrug.

“You did it with my mom?” Paolo whispers.

I'm about to violently disagree when the door opens and Paolo's mom walks in.

“Sorry to interrupt again. Left some work stuff in here.”

Paolo is completely still as she rifles through a stack of papers near the phone. “Oh,” he says. “Cool. Yeah.”

He stares at me with a mixture of discomfort, disgust, and awe.

“Got it,” Paolo's mom says, holding a notebook. “So serious in here.”

She walks out.

“Wow,” Paolo says, shaking his head in wonder. “You could cut that sexual tension with a knife! Can't believe I never noticed it. I mean, it makes sense in a way. I could see myself doing it with your mom if she weren't married.”

“Whoa, whoa, stop, stop. Ew, man.”

“Oh, so you can do it with my mom”—Paolo realizes how loud he's being and reins it in—“but when I even
mention
returning the favor with yours, you get all squirmish.”

“
Squirmish
is not a word, and I absolutely did NOT do it with your mom. Geez, dude, give me some credit here.”

Question marks hover over Paolo's head. “You didn't do it with my mom?”

“No.”

“Oh, so what was all the—” Paolo stops short, looking as if he's just seen someone rub feces on his bike. “Veronica.”

I grimace.

“My pure sister, Veronica…”

“I'm sorry, dude.”

“Tainted. By you.”

“Okay, let's not—”

“Oh man…”

“Is this weird?”

“A little!” Paolo's eyes bug out for a second like a cartoon.

“Weirder than me doing your mom?”

“Uh, yeah. It's my sister!”

“Okay, well, your logic system is different than mine, but in any case, I'm sorry. To be completely honest, I don't even remember it happening.”

Which, I have to say, is quickly becoming one of the great tragedies of my life. I'm harboring all the guilt and shame of being a cheater without any of the awesome memories of the sex itself.