Memorizing You (24 page)

Thereafter, whenever bad things happened, or I came face-to-face with things that were difficult, I’d always tell myself I was being pushed into a better direction. Ryan made me believe…made me know…good things could be made to happen. You just $k auphad to take a positive action. Bad things should not be simply accepted.

Ryan had his own method of dealing with his father’s shenanigans. I believe it was because of his level of contempt for the man, that the only positive outlet he had left…was humor. Albeit, very dark humor.

Our time was the night while his dad was ‘otherwise engaged’, when his mom was spending quality time with her scrapbooking sister, sampling vintages from California. We were getting to know each other down to the molecular level. And our escapades grew more creative over the weeks. We got the football player and coach one out of the way earlier on, only because of the uniform availability. Burglar and unsuspecting homeowner. Hotel guest and room service. Well, you get the idea. They all ended the same way. Sweaty and sticky with a room smelling potently of sex.

I saw the note his dad had left stuck to the refrigerator with a Flintstone magnet. It’s what had set him off. He’d hired tutors for him for the upcoming summer. He wouldn’t be allowed to study with anyone other than them. I was surprised he hadn’t taken it down and torn it to shreds. But he made me a PB and J sandwich, looking at the note every time he opened and closed the refrigerator door. His expression was implacable. But I knew there were things stirring behind those eyes. I wouldn’t ask. I knew what the note was saying in the unwritten text. He was finding another way to write me out of the picture.

He informed me that tonight we were playing ‘stripper and customer’. I was in for the lap-dance of my life.

I headed for his bedroom. He grasped my hand, guided me down the hall. To his father’s den. The man’s private sanctuary. His dad practically lived in it since he quit sleeping with his mom.

“What’re you doing?” I asked, as he pulled me through the door and into the forbidden zone.

“You know what’s the worst thing you can do to a place a dog has marked as his own territory?” His face looked sly. “Piss in it!”

I’m sure my expression was horrified.

“Figuratively speaking,” he added, realizing my interpretation had been a bit more literal.

The den was as predictable as the man. Dark paneled walls. Big desk to make someone look important. Wingback chair. Dark leather sofa. Television built into a bookcase. Hi-Fi and a large selection of records. Nice bar. All the good stuff in it. Ryan poured us a drink from a decanter that looked to be the best in the bar. It was scotch. I hated it. It made me cringe. But he made me finish it.

He sat me on the sofa, put on a Herb Alpert and the Tijuana Brass album. And the striptease began.

He had a rhythm in his hips I’d never seen before. Gyrating them in front of me, slowly turning. Tugging his shirt’s hem, gradually peeling it upward and off. He dropped it in my lap. I picked it up and sniffed it. His scent. I watched his torso slither in front of me like a snake.

I couldn’t stop grinning. It was silly…and sexy. I was enjoying every second of it.

He lifted each leg up one at a time, set his foot in my lap to remove the shoes and socks. He used his toes to stroke the front of my jeans. He got the reaction he wanted from me. He turned his back to me, lowering himself to my lap, hovering just high enough to graze it, rubbing back and forth. I was definitely testing the endurance of my zipper.

He undulated himself out of his jeans. He unsnapped them, unzipped them, and then rotated his hips until he coaxed them, inch by inch, down his legs to the floor. Then he stepped out of them, kicked them up to the sofa next to me. I could see by the contour of his underwear he was experiencing a little self-control malfunction himself.

Kneeling over me, his face breezed a hair above my own. His eyelashes brushed my own, tickled me. His whiskers scraped my cheek. His tongue found its way under my chin and tasted a trail upward and between my lips. My palms found the meat of his thighs crouching over me. The soft hair bristled between my fingertips. We were kissing in tempo with the music.
The Lonely Bull
. It was an electrifying feeling to feel the tempo thrumming like blood through the both of us. We let the album play through. Each song became a theme for a progression in our lovemaking.

I fell asleep in his arms on the dark leather sofa. I awoke with his breath on the back of my head, his arms around my waist. We were both naked. Sunlight was already in the window frame.$k aup

That was when I heard the front door open. Ryan’s mom had been right. I could smell the cheap perfume the minute his dad entered. I could hear his footsteps in the hallway. Then on the stairs.

I shook Ryan. “Ryan, wake up!”

He protested. I shook him again. “Sleeping,” he said, grumpily.

“Your dad’s home,” I whispered, voice gripped with panic.

His head popped up. He listened to the footsteps on the stairs. There was no way for either of us to get back to Ryan’s room which was the first one at the top of the stairs. The door to the study was still open. He jumped over me, grabbed my clothes, bunched them up, and shoved them at me. He looked around the room, then pointed for me to get behind the desk chair. I scampered behind it, still naked, clutching my clothes. My heart thumped wildly. I didn’t have time nor room to dress. It was pointless to try to come up with an explanation if we were caught.

Ryan managed to yank on his underwear and shirt as the footfalls started down the hallway toward us. He lay down on the couch, pretending to sleep. His eyes popped open again. He jumped back up. My ball shoes were still on the floor next to his. He tossed them to me, and I added them to the cargo in my arms. He fell back down on the sofa, and closed his eyes as the shadow of his dad crossed the open door. The footfalls stopped.

“Ryan, what are you doing in here?” I heard his dad ask.

I watched Ryan pretend to wake up, rub the sleep from his eyes. Yawn. “Dad. What’s up?”

“I asked, what are you doing in my study?” his voice sounded irritable. “You know this is off limits.”

Ryan sat up, grabbed for his jeans. He stood, slipped them on. “Sorry. I know. Had trouble sleeping last night. Workouts been pretty rough. Thought I’d watch some TV. Must have fallen asleep.”

I heard his father step into the room. “I don’t like people invading my privacy. You know that.” His voice had grown more stern.

“I know.”

A footstep deeper into the room. I could see Ryan look at me out of the corner of his eye, then back to his dad. I crouched deeper behind the chair.

“Jeez, Dad. Did you accidentally put on mom’s perfume or something this morning?” Ryan was holding his nose, and waving a hand through the air. “The smell is everywhere. That’ll drive the cockroaches out for sure.”

The footfalls retreated back to the hall. “Yes, well. Small mistake,” he was saying, as I heard the voice trail ever backward. “Was on the way to the shower. Just…um…get your things and clear out of my room. And don’t come back in, do you hear?”

I heard him trudge down to the bathroom, the door shut behind him. Ryan was doing a jig. Laughing under his breath. I was doing my own dance to get back into my clothing. A clumsy one.

He seemed to be having a hysterical fit.

“What’s so funny?” I was mystified that he found a terrible predicament so humorous.

“You’re kidding?” he looked at me with watery eyes. “We just made love in my dad’s private study. We just did it on his precious couch. And you were right there in all your nakedness behind his desk chair. The guy he’s trying to keep away from me. That’s funny stuff!”

That was humorous. “Yeah, we did it to his Tijuana Brass album.”

“If he ever plays that again, I’ll have to explain why it gives me a hard-on.” He was beset with a new bout of laughter. “And the urge to take off my clothes. God. I hope he doesn’t play it at a family function. Could be embarrassing.”

We could hear the shower running behind the bathroom door$ make y fy as we left the study. I was walking on tiptoe, but Ryan grabbed me and pinned me to the wall next to the door. He kissed me hard. Then knocked on the door. Three taps.

“What do you want?” his dad’s agitated voice came back.

“Need to brush my teeth,” Ryan called back.

I looked at him, perplexed. “What’re you doing?”

That coy look caught his features again as he put a finger to his lips, opened the door and then pulled me into the room. I tried to pull back, he yanked harder. He stood me in front of the sink. Put toothpaste on a toothbrush. Then, standing behind me, reached over my shoulder and began brushing my teeth.

“You got my note about the tutors?” his dad inquired, still behind the shower curtain. The room still smelled of the awful perfume.

“Sure did.” Ryan replied, as he filled a glass with water, gave me a sip, and had me spit in the sink.

“Now that we have things under my control, we’ll make certain things run the right way. I run a tight ship. That’s the only way to be successful. I know it’s hard. But it’s for your own good. I think, in the end, you’ll realize that, and thank me.”

Ryan put mouthwash in the glass, and then made motions with his hands for me to gargle. I did.

“You bet,” he said, while I was still gargling.

We saw his dad’s shadow pause in motion. “What did you say?”

“Said, we’re gonna do it your way, Dad.”

The shadow moved behind the curtain. “Good. Glad you’re being smart about this. I know what’s best for you, son.”Z a aup

“Always,” Ryan replied, wiping my mouth with a towel, checking my face in the mirror.

We crept back out of the bathroom. Shut the door. Ryan skipped down the hall in front of me. I slipped back into my socks and shoes. He was still in a brazen glow as I stepped onto the porch.

“Why the hell did you do that?” I wanted to know. There was a fine line between comedy and foolhardiness.

“Because the best revenge is served on a plate right under their nose,” he stated, emphatically.

“What would you have done if he caught us?” I asked.

“Probably CPR.” His face scrunched in a doubtful expression. “But that’s a hard call.”

CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

The school year reeled in on us. At the end, my grades were all right, except for math again. I passed it. But barely. My mind just wouldn’t work with numbers. No matter how much Rosemary attempted to help me. My brain would simply shut down and not accept the information.

Rosemary, of course, was the honor student. She was astonishingly brilliant. It was almost as if school was actually holding her back.

Ryan had passed all his classes but with a ‘C’ average. He was incredibly smart, but it seemed he had trouble concentrating. Small things could distract him and it seemed to require double the effort for him to retain what he read. I’d seen it myself when I’d been helping him study. His mind would just wander away.

It was a bit of a let-down when school was over. It had been gratifying to have so many people go out of their way to be friends with me. Thanks to Ryan, we’d turned a corner, and our popularity had taken off. It made go$">reGming to school an enjoyable thing.

I’d been packing up a year’s worth of junk from my locker, when Monica, Connor’s latest, stopped to chat. I think she was amused by the amount of pointless artifacts I’d collected and stored for no reason. Especially my Bazooka Joe comic collection from the bubble gum. I don’t know why, but since meeting Ryan, I kept every one of them for their ‘fortunes’. I didn’t have an explanation for the empty Twinkie wrappers.

“Starting your own time capsule, are you there, David?” she said, peering into the narrow, metal abyss.

I was embarrassed for her to look into the veritable pig-sty. “Yeah. It got a little out of control. Was always on the run.”

“There’s waste cans at every corner of the hall,” she pointed out.

I had no answer after that.

“Anyway, what I came for was to tell you we’re having an end of school party at Connor’s brother’s house, and we wanted you and Ryan to come,” she said, reaching into her pocket for a slip of paper. “Here’s the details and stuff. Phone number. Address.”

I took it, feeling hesitant. We were being invited to a ‘regular’ party. Ryan and myself. Together.

“Wow,” was as much speech my mouth could muster.

“We’re all hoping you guys can come,” she added. “I hope you’ll come.”

“I’ll have to ask Ryan. I don’t know if…”

“We’ll be there!” Ryan’s voice came from behind my shoulder. He’d walked up from the corner and overheard the conversation “It’s time to have a good party!”

As utterly flattered as I was that we had been invited to the party, I was just as anxious.

“What’s your problem with it?” Ryan was curious to know after Monica departed.

I looked at him like he hadn’t caught on to the obvious. “Um…we’re the only two guys…couple…only gay couple that will be at this party,” I reminded him.

His shoulders shrugged. “So?”

“Don’t you feel weird about that?” I knew I felt a little spun off my axis.

“They invited us, David. They’re very aware of who and what we are.” It was his turn to look at me like I was out of touch. “It’s kinda weird for you to make us out like misfits who don’t belong. Don’t you think? I’ve never heard of self-discrimination.”

The strange smile of his reappeared.

“I know. It’s just a new experience.”

He slapped my back. “It’s a good experience. Do you know why? We didn’t have to change. They did.”

There was no question Ryan saw life through a different set of eyes. I marveled at his perspective and how it continually seemed to reshape my own. That leadership didn’t require someone telling you what to do, but rather making you realize what you had to do. That change was not something you could dictate, but was merely seen as the natural course. As determined as he could be about things, it was never at the expense of violating another.

I don’t have to tell you it made me love him more. It’s a trait we look for in everyone; in ourselves. He had the same resentments as all of us. For a family that was dysfunctional, for unfair treatment. He had the same angers. He just processed it all differently.