Tampa (6 page)

Hearing the first acts of
Romeo and Juliet
read aloud for the fifth time that day, my head began to slump back in my chair. The AC was icing down my scalp but failing to cool the incessant tingle that caused me to cross and uncross and recross my legs again and again. At times, I wished that my genitals were prosthetic, something I could slip out of. They were a constant drone of stimulation; their requests hummed aloud throughout my life like a never-ending soundtrack. And everywhere I looked there were young male
bodies
. I had to watch their fingers idly drum on desktops, their nascent biceps flex as they raised a hand to their ear for a scratch, the pink buds of their tongues emerge to wet the corners of their mouths. By the end of the day, the stink of pheromones clung to the walls of the classroom like wet paint and made me dizzy.

But despite the pleasant view, I saw few real options.
Goody-goodies
like Frank would deny me, and the overly confident type would find it impossible not to brag. There was only Jack—my second choice, Trevor Bodin, had a vast assortment of
imperfections
; deciding between the two of them was like being asked to pick a dance partner and given the option of a trained
choreographer
or an epileptic with a wooden leg. Trevor was an artsy sort whose hair was a wiggish crop of curls. A pensive journaler, he’d already asked if I’d look at some of his poetry. Since he walked home from school and didn’t have to rush to catch a bus, he often came up to talk books and writing with me after class. But he had a girlfriend; most of his poetry was devoted to professing his love for her—Abby Fischer in my second period, memorable for her
chunk of dyed purple hair. Being the romantic type, if Trevor ever did stray, he’d undoubtedly confess to her minutes after the act, likely through a series of frantic text messages that peppered
statements
of regret with frown-faced emoticons. He also came off as clingy, which could prove to be downright toxic. Trevor seemed like the type who would be ever more demanding, who would
accept
nothing less than symbiosis. Plus, based on his clothing, his parents were extremely lenient. He had no fear of authority, which meant he wouldn’t be worried enough about getting caught and wouldn’t act with the necessary level of caution. Trevor was too outspoken, tried too hard to impress. But he kept tempting me—he loved staying to talk to me alone in the classroom after everyone else had left. That afternoon as soon as the final bell rang, he came straight up to my desk. I suppose it took a while to get my
attention
; I was looking through a slit in the window blinds, seeing if I could identify Jack amidst the horde of students pouring from the main building out to the bus lot. As they kept coming it seemed like they were multiplying, splitting off and begetting others in a mass act of asexual reproduction.

“Mrs. Price?”

I answered but didn’t break my gaze out the window. “Go ahead, Trevor, I’m listening.”

“Don’t you think
Romeo and Juliet
is unrealistic? I mean, how they kill themselves? Why would they kill themselves if they’re
actually
in love?”

Suddenly I spied two boys beginning to wrestle on the lawn in front of the bus line. They clenched one another’s waists until one finally began to reach around and take the other in a hold,
pulling
his shirt up above his ribs; I could make out the movements of his bare chest panting with exertion. I brought my lips closer to the window, feeling the sun’s intensified heat through the glass. Wasn’t it possible, as their fighting escalated, that they might remove their shirts entirely? My mind began to entertain the fantasy that they weren’t on the grass of the school grounds at all but the dirt floor of a Roman coliseum, fighting to the death so I could copulate with the winner.

“I doubt they’re really in love anyway. I mean, they hardly know each other, right?” Trevor mussed his cropped hair, awaiting a
response
that lauded his insight and maturity.

“Probably not, Trevor.” I had a brief urge to suggest to Trevor that he and I play a copycat game of sorts, watching the boys’
movements
, then repeating them. If I lunged at Trevor and wrapped my arms around his waist, would I be able to stop myself from going further once I felt his sides contract in a fit of nervous giggling?

In a matter of seconds the outdoor scuffle turned from
light-hearted
to serious; the two had toppled over in the grass. The boy on top was trying to pin down the other’s arms; kids on the
nearest
bus were now hanging out its opened windows and cheering them on. I had to get myself in the middle of their brawl—I’d be able to touch the hot, moist skin of the top student’s arm as I pulled at him in a phony attempt to stop the fight, to smell the boys’ pungent musk of hormones, and possibly more. Anything could happen—I could get pulled to the ground and sandwiched between their squirming torsos; my clothes might be ripped from my body in the fray.

“Two guys out there are going at one another like idiots,” I said,
turning to reach for my purse. I hurried toward the door as Trevor followed alongside me in a running walk.

“Hey!” I called out to them as loudly as I could while still sounding friendly. The top boy looked over and the bottom boy took advantage of his hesitation, lunging upright and managing to grab the kid’s neck. “Okay, guys, enough already.” I ran up and grabbed both arms of the choker, letting my hands roam upward into the damp pits of his T-shirt.

I expected them to pull me into their mix of interlocking limbs and continue fighting but they didn’t—the choked student backed away and stood immediately, rubbing his neck. Perhaps he feared
getting
suspended. “We weren’t fighting for real,” he explained,
catching
his breath. His friend began to stand as well, twisting too soon from my grasp.
No!
I wanted to hiss at them,
Don’t stop touching each other!
When it became clear that there would be no further physical contact between any of us, my disappointment was so intense that I experienced it as a shift in gravity; I squatted down to the grass for a moment to catch my breath.

“Yeah,” the second boy added, his voice slightly deeper. “We were just messing around.” There was a tense pause of silence as I closed my eyes and raised a steadying hand to my forehead; the feel of the boys’ eyes looking down upon me was as intense as the
sunlight
on my neck. “Are you okay?”

I nodded and cautiously took my time standing back up. I looked over the body of each one with a longing for what might’ve been if I’d had to insert myself between them as they rolled together on the ground—the sharp chin of the top boy could’ve painfully buried itself in my shoulder; the flexed hand of the other could’ve slid across my ass in a feverish search for leverage as he tried to
escape
.
“I get it,” I said, placing my hand along the red exposed skin of the choked boy’s upper shoulder. The collar of his T-shirt had been stretched out. My fingers drifted a few inches across his slick skin until they felt sufficiently wet; I hoped the wind wouldn’t dry them before I had a chance to take a quick taste. “Now get out of here before the AP sees you.”

“Yes, ma’am,” they answered in unison, grabbing their bags and jogging just beyond the buses before slowing to a walk. I turned to find Trevor still there waiting a few feet behind me, his black T-shirt and jean shorts making him sweat profusely in the sunlight.

“Jerks,” Trevor said, trying to give me a knowing smile. I squinted, reconsidering everything about him. His cheeks were rosy with heat, his hair almost entirely dampened. I’d gotten myself worked up in the hopes of a three-way wrestling match that hadn’t developed—was it so improbable that the universe was now giving me Trevor as a consolation prize? He was surely too hot in those clothes; shedding them would feel divine.

But I reminded myself of all the ways he was likely dangerous—I tried to imagine that the glossy sweat covering his body was actually venom. “I’ll see you tomorrow, Trevor.” I gave him a
perfunctory
smile, then turned and started walking toward the
parking
lot, but my voice wasn’t entirely dismissive. I suppose I wanted to see if he’d follow me to my car, and was pleased when he did indeed bound along up beside me.

“I saw this TV program … I mean it was on TV but it really happened in real life … these kids were forbidden by the girl’s parents to see each other, so she and her boyfriend killed her mom and dad.” Trevor nearly whispered this, trying to infuse the story with the excitement of a secret.

“Attraction creates powerful feelings,” I mumbled. “It overrules intellect.”

“Yeah,” he agreed. “I guess that’s, like, the point of the play, right?”

“You could argue that’s one of the themes.” When we reached the yellow line marking the edge of the faculty parking lot, I spotted AP Rosen moving alongside the string of buses with his
walkie-talkie
. I couldn’t lead Trevor to my car in front of other faculty members, no matter how badly I wanted to see what might happen if I did. He was like a puppy dog that needed an invisible fence, and I had to train him that this was the edge of his yard.

“Last question.” He smiled. “Is
Romeo and Juliet
your favorite Shakespeare play?”

I laughed far louder than I meant to. When I glanced up to see if any of the leaving faculty were staring over at Trevor and me, no one seemed to be looking. “No. My favorite’s
Hamlet
. It’s the most realistic.”

His hand shooed away a buzzing insect that had come to
inspect
the salt and oil pouring off his face. If we were alone, I might have offered to wipe down his sweat with my hair. From certain angles Trevor was indeed very cute, but I had to resist him—he was low-hanging fruit. With a dull roar, the buses began rolling by and my eyes followed them like I was watching a shell game at a
carnival
: all of them looked identical, but one had a prize inside. Which bus was Jack’s?

“Doesn’t
Hamlet
start out with a ghost? How is it the most
realistic
?” Trevor wouldn’t shut up. I badly wanted to reach out and place a finger against his lips just to see what he’d do—would he simply quit talking? Or would his lips then part just a little, letting
my finger slide between his teeth and move across his tongue?

“Because everyone acts disingenuous,” I said. “And then they all die.” Trevor continued talking even though the tandem sounds of bus engines drowned out his words. My eyes switched back and forth between his mouth and the hovering exhaust smoke from each bus. The haze was gathering together to create a singular black cloud that I hoped Jack might appear from like in a magic trick.

I had to admit that Trevor was all wrong for my purposes. But the roar and the stink of the passing buses made me feel like Trevor and I had been placed inside a dangerous war zone together and needed one another to survive—I was impressed by the way his lips managed to look pristine, like inner meat, despite the smog filling in around us. I could feel the growing wetness between my thighs in the wind. The way Trevor was looking at me now, his wry smile, made it seem like he was reading my mind. Perhaps we were
sending
one another chemical signals. His growing body surely smelled upon me the dank catalyst of experience that could take him from theory to practice.

“Good-bye, Trevor,” I whispered. I could feel the start of tears stinging my chest; it was hard to turn down such certain pleasure. How easy it would be to stand and chat with him just a bit longer until the parking lot emptied out, then offer him a ride. He’d sit a bit awkwardly in the car at first, his legs bent up too far as he tried to avoid touching the tender skin behind his knee against the seat’s hot leather. After two blocks, we’d be on one of the main roads
leaving
town; after ten minutes we’d be outside of town completely,
surrounded
by the undeveloped grass expanse of land fenced off for future suburbs. Then I would turn down the radio and tell him to pull off his shorts, stressing that I was serious. At the first rural stop
sign we came to, I’d instruct him to say my name when he saw a car coming from any direction. Then I would turn the radio back up and bend over into his lap, filling my mouth with him until I felt his tentative fingers brush my head, heard his voice say,
Mrs. Price
—quietly at first, a conflicted admission, and then again more loudly with panic,
Mrs. Price, I see a car
.

“Mrs. Price?” Trevor had his cell phone out; he was trying to show me something on the screen I couldn’t see in the bright glare of the day. I pretended he was trying to show me a photo he’d taken of his penis held up against the length of a ruler and gave him a smile filled with gratitude.

“Till tomorrow, Trevor.” I turned toward my car and didn’t look back. The rage of lust was like an IV drip in my veins; I felt it beginning to spread inside me with the helpless awareness of
someone
realizing she’s been slipped a drug. I tried to gain some release by pounding my heels into the asphalt as hard as I could. I felt like I might rip my car’s metal door off its hinges if I wasn’t careful.
Inside
, I lifted my hair up into a quick bun and let the seat burn at the back of my neck. With a shaking hand, I reached up to the rearview mirror and turned it to face me directly. “You will go home and snort a small amount of the cocaine you keep in the Altoids tin in your pajama drawer. You will robotically fuck your husband until your box feels like a gaping wound. You will be so aggressive that he will be frightened, and his fear will keep you from being completely repulsed by him. You will get this bothersome spark out of your system for long enough to buy you a little more time with Jack. Jack needs to know you before he can trust you. Jack needs to trust you before you can trust him. You need to trust him before you can fuck him. The end.”