Without You: A Memoir of Love, Loss, and the Musical Rent (20 page)

The thing was, a couple of weeks prior to this get-together, during another hangout at Ricky’s house (no Spin the Bottle that day), I wound up alone in Ricky’s room, listening to The Smiths, when Ricky walked in and closed the door. I was lying on my back on his bed, propped up on my elbows, in red-and-white-striped shorts and a Meat Is Murder T-shirt. Everyone else was with Ricky’s mom in the living room watching TV. The Smiths tape was almost over; I had been in there a while.

“Hey, what’s going on?” Ricky said to me.

“Not much,” I said. Suddenly the tape that was playing stopped with a click that felt more like a bang.

And without another word, Ricky sat down on the bed next to me and started to run his hand through my hair. I froze and felt my shorts tighten around my groin. Before this moment, I hadn’t had any sexual thoughts about Ricky. I didn’t find him attractive; he was too flamboyant and edgy for me, although most people would probably think he was handsome, with his mature, five-o’clock-shadowed square jaw and intense eyes and dark hair. But now there he was, with his hand resting tenderly on my head, and my heart started to race and my face started to heat up, and in that moment I definitely wanted him to do more to me than just run his fingers through my hair. But I said nothing.

He gently eased me down all the way onto my back, sitting next to me, and let his hand travel down from my head to my chest and then onto my stomach—I had never felt those spasms in my belly before, little jolts, when his fingers lightly brushed their way down—and finally his hand found its way into my shorts.
This
was what I wanted him to do, but at the same time I wasn’t sure why he was doing it, I was so young, and small for my age, and I barely knew him. But then again it was just sex after all, it didn’t mean anything anyway, and he obviously wanted to do it, so if he wanted to, that was all right. I stared at his fake-stucco ceiling, concentrating on my breath moving in and out. He pulled my shorts down and kissed my stomach, and there were much bigger jolts,
much
bigger, and then he put me in his mouth.

The lights in his room were on, and at any time, someone could have walked in. But I didn’t stop him. I stopped staring at the ceiling and started to watch him as he went down on me. Without stopping, he looked up at me. I was motionless and didn’t make a sound; neither did he. I started to feel raunchy, and for a brief second considered stopping him, but the silence in the room was so complete that I didn’t want to break it by saying anything. I could imagine that this wasn’t really happening. I could step outside myself and watch myself lying there like that, Ricky over me, his head moving rhythmically up and down, up and down, and from there I could still feel the incredible, delicious sensations of having his mouth on me, and it didn’t mean anything, it really, really didn’t—it didn’t mean I was
gay
or anything like that, it was just a blow job, after all—and I didn’t want to touch him, I just wanted him to touch me, the way that he was, that was all that we had to do, I hoped that was all he wanted to do, and it felt
so
good, it felt so
good,
and I felt and felt and felt and
felt
and I was going to come soon, I was going to come soon…

It didn’t take long, and when I was done, he smiled at me, pulled my shorts back up, and left the room, just like that, closing the door behind him. I lay there on my back for a very long time. I felt myself sinking into the bed. It wasn’t a pleasant sinking; it was more like the beginning of drowning. I didn’t know why I hadn’t stopped him. I started to think that I should have stopped him, I should have, but then I started to think no, it was harmless, what had just happened was harmless, it didn’t mean anything, and no matter what, it had felt good, anyway. But it was so weird that neither of us had
said
anything. At least when I had fooled around with my friends Christopher and Stephen, masturbating together and occasionally going down on each other, we had talked before and after, and sometimes during. Although I always felt silly talking during. Christopher, Stephen, and I had all been good friends first, and we all knew each other really well. We trusted one another. Our fooling around together didn’t really mean anything anyway; at least I thought so. It was just the result of our desire to experiment, to get our rocks off. It was our little secret, and we told ourselves and each other that we only did it because we were horny teenagers who didn’t have girlfriends.

But as I sat in Ricky’s room staring at his ceiling, thinking about what had just happened, I couldn’t remember why I had started hanging out with him; he and I had barely talked to each other in school. And now I didn’t know what he was going to say about me to his friends, or when he might try something with me again. I didn’t want anything more to happen. Already it was complicated. For all I knew, the entire school was going to hear tomorrow about the blow job Ricky D’Angelo gave me. I never should have let him do that to me. It was a mistake. Really, a
mistake.

I sat up and shook my head vigorously to get my brain to stop spinning. I sat there, staring at my hands in my lap, and eventually, my brain spun down just enough, and I left the room and rejoined the group, tucking away the experience I’d just had, trying not to think any more about it.

Ricky hadn’t spread the story around after all, as far as I could tell, and he and I had not spoken of it since, but now, two weeks later, there he was, pointedly eyeing me as he sloppily and hungrily kissed Bryan, and Bryan sloppily and hungrily kissed him back.

I adjusted my position so no one would notice the stirring happening down in my crotch. A nice buzz was also starting to flit its way through my head, and I was determined to get it going stronger. I gulped down some more wine cooler.

At last, Bryan and Ricky broke apart.
“WHOOO!”
Andy yelped. “That was
EXCELLENT!”
Ricky kept watching me. He even gave me a silent-movie star one-eyebrow raise as he drank a little more beer. And, in spite of myself, I held his gaze.

We all joined in for the song’s big finish, messily shout-singing over Gordon’s screechy whine.

There were more rounds of Spin the Bottle, and I got picked once, by Frances.

“Give Doreen ear sex,” she said.

So there it was, this ear sex thing. Not the most appealing activity in the world, and with Doreen to boot, not the most appealing recipient imaginable. I was now drunker than I’d ever been, and the room itself, not just the bottle, spun a little, as I crawled on over to Doreen and brought my face up to her ear. The utterly unpleasant, synthetic odor of Aqua Net practically leaped off her hair into my nostrils and stayed there. A few prized blackheads poked out of the tight, shiny skin of her ear. I took a deep breath, and plunged in.

Well, the scent of Aqua Net was terrible enough, but it was nothing compared to the taste, a revolting combination of glue and metal. The spray had also left a sticky sheen all over her ear, stiffening even the tiny hairs that lined her ear’s upper edges. There was nothing soft or inviting about licking her lobe or sending my tongue into her ear’s recesses. I had to keep myself from gagging, but Doreen was giggling and squirming with what I assumed was pleasure. I was glad one of us was enjoying it.

I finished as quickly as I could, took a giant swig of my wine cooler, swishing it around in my mouth before swallowing, and tried to hide just how unpleasant that experience had been.

“Woo-hoo!” Doreen said. “That was gooooood!”

“Thanks,” I muttered, embarrassed.

“Go Anthony!” Andy shouted. Ricky made eyes at me, a be-mused smirk on his face. I rolled my eyes and spun the bottle. It hit Laura.

“Grab Ricky’s crotch,” I said, still trying to force the Aqua Net out of my taste buds forever. Ricky smiled at me and Laura laughed, and then she went right on over to him and grabbed. She even threw in a kiss for effect. Ricky kept his eyes on me the whole time.

Then Laura spun, and it hit Ricky.

“Okay, Ricky,” Laura said. And she looked at me. Had he told her anything? “It’s about time Anthony got some ear sex.”

Ricky could not have looked more delighted. He grinned an enormous grin at me. My heart was now a thundering crazy creature trying to break free of my chest. If I had been blushing before, I must have looked like a giant blond-headed strawberry at this moment. The others’ faces faded into the background; only Ricky filled my field of vision. And then there he was, next to me, and then there his tongue was, squirming around and around and in and over my ear, louder than I would have thought—but of course it was loud, it was in my
ear—
but it was warm, too, hot, actually, from his breath, and soft, and moist, and absolutely thrilling. So
this
was what people were talking about, ah, yes, this was nice, this was very very very nice, and what he was doing with his hand, rubbing my inner thigh (did anyone see that?), was also very nice, and before I knew it I was opening my neck up for him to kiss, and kiss it he did, and I was grabbing the back of his neck, and pushing his mouth into my neck, and into my ear, and he was grabbing my head and pushing my neck and ear into his mouth, and this was going on for what felt like an eternity, and soon I realized I was laughing uncontrollably, and kicking my legs out like a spastic puppy, and I saw and heard Andy whooping and clapping, and I saw Laura smugly taking a drag on her Marlboro Light, and Ricky’s tongue was all over my ear, and he was kissing kissing kissing my neck, and then all of a sudden, he stopped and pulled away, giving my lobe one last quick lick.

“YEAAAAAAHHHHH!”
Andy screamed. Since when had he become a crazed frat boy, anyway? “That was so
HOT!”
And he cackled, holding his hands to his mouth the way he did when he couldn’t stop himself from laughing.

I was dizzy. I gulped more of my wine cooler, and suddenly felt bolder than I had ever felt. Like I could do anything with anybody, right then and there, never mind any consequences—nothing mattered, nothing at all. If Ricky wanted to have sex with me, I would have sex with him, so what if I barely knew him, so what if I didn’t really want him, I wanted
somebody,
and he was there, and he seemed to want me, I didn’t know why—I was so young and scrawny, no one ever seemed to want me—but he did, and that was way, way,
way
more than enough for me.

Sometime later, we all found ourselves in the driveway. It was dark and cool, and I was spectacularly drunk, feeling heated and slightly manic from the fuzz in my brain. I had already arranged with my mom that I was going to spend the night at Andy’s house, and as I was getting ready to cram myself into his canary yellow Honda, Ricky came up to us.

“I’m coming over, too,” he said. I felt my face flush and I looked away. I’d been hoping he’d say something like that.

“No problem with me,” Andy replied, flashing me a goofy, scheming smile, and we took off, Ricky in the back seat, me in the front, my stomach quietly but persistently flip-flopping at what I was about to do. Andy drove like a crazed monkey as usual, always the performer, screeching his tires and abruptly slamming on the brakes for no reason, then squealing away and swerving back and forth down the dark and silent suburban streets as if he were traversing the world’s looniest obstacle course. I loved every second of taking these rides with Andy; I never felt unsafe, just absolutely entertained, and I guffawed the whole way.

In the short drive to Andy’s house, Ricky’s hand found its way onto my shoulder, giving it a squeeze and a rub, which I didn’t acknowledge, but which I also didn’t stop him from doing.

Later, Ricky and I were tangled in blankets on the floor of Andy’s living room, moonlight spilling in through the glass patio doors. We were naked and fumbling (well, I was fumbling; Ricky was pretty adept) and Ricky was insistent and relentless. I followed his lead and went right along with him, dozing occasionally, to wake up who knew how much later to find his mouth on me somewhere. I’d start in with him again, touching him in ways I’d never touched anyone, with more abandon, ecstatic and spinning and drunk drunk drunk the whole time.

I had only kissed two boys before Ricky. It had always felt like a forbidden act with boys (never with girls), and even though my friend Stephen and I had touched each other and touched ourselves in each other’s presence, we had only kissed once, when we were thirteen. Standing and facing each other in the dark of his bedroom, both of us naked, his soft, pale skin almost glowing, he reached out for me and brought his mouth to mine. We kissed for a minute or so, his tongue awkwardly probing its way into my mouth, both of his hands cradling my face, and then we stopped and pulled away, both of us flushed and breathing heavily and embarrassed. We jerked off and came on our own at a safe distance, and never kissed again and never spoke about it.