One of the worst things about being a fuckboy is that it can make you fall into a rut.
You're stuck suspended somewhere between being a god and being an asshole, and everyone wants a piece of you even though their envy makes them loathe you. And saying things like that gets you accused of being an egomaniac, even though you're just stating facts.
But the part I was starting to hate the most is how it makes people expect certain things of you. If you date a different girl every weekend, then they're going to wonder what the problem is if you suddenly stop dating anyone at all. And their wondering leads to questions that you don't necessarily want to have to answer.
So that's why I was still planning to go out with a girl from my school tonight even though the guilt I felt over it was enough to make me want to disembowel myself.
Most people assume that I use girls as a Kleenex and then wad them up and throw them away whenever I'm done having my fun with them. That's not true. My girlfriends and I mutually use each other as Kleenexes, and then we always part on friendly terms, having agreed beforehand that we were never planning to get serious with each other anyway. Even then, I always made sure they got what they had cum for, and that they always left with their expectations exceeded. I never date more than one girl at a time, and I try to make whoever I'm with feel like the only person in my world, no matter how short our time together is going to be.
And now that the only person who occupied my thoughts day and night was my best friend, Alexis, that meant that I couldn't give the girls I was with my undivided attention the way they deserved. What kind of person only has sex with a girl so he can image her as someone else? An asshole, that's who.
So exactly the type of person everyone already saw me as.
I didn't want to be an asshole, but I also didn't know how to stop going out with girls. For one thing, it's not like I can just make my dreams come true and ask Alexis out, because we're never going to happen. Our friendship has lasted too long and is too important to both of us for me to ruin it by trying to turn it romantic. What if things didn't work out and we ended up destroying everything that had taken us fifteen years to build?
Another obstacle is the fact that we're both guys. It's difficult trying to hook up with another dude whenever you've already earned a reputation as the most heterosexual man on earth. Besides, I don't even know what Alexis is into. He comes from a strict family who doesn't allow him to date to make sure he meets their high standards of academic success, so it's not like I can look to a list of past partners to find out what he likes. Did he like guys? Girls? Both? Neither? At this point I was too afraid to ask, because I didn't want a potentially disappointing answer to shatter the carefully constructed daydreams I was holding on to.
Alexis didn't have these kinds of problems. He didn't have to wonder who I was into, because he always heard all about it whether he wanted to or not, starting as far back as when I got my first girlfriend in seventh grade. Sometimes I got the feeling that he leaned more towards not wanting to hear about it, but that didn't keep him from letting me drone on to him, sometimes for hours, and he didn't hesitate to be the one to bring it up first whenever he knew it was going to be inevitable anyway.
"Who are you going out with this weekend, again?" he asked me late one Friday afternoon, while he kept me company as I got ready for that evening's date.
"Her name is Marybeth," I answered, my back to him as I leaned in towards my mirror to make sure my hair swoop was perfectly in place.
"I could have sworn you said it was Marissa?"
"I dated Marissa last Saturday. I'm taking out Marybeth tonight."
Alexis sighed. "I don't know how you keep track of them all."
"I can't. You see, the trick is to not call out any names at all." My chest clenched when I looked at his reflection in the mirror and saw his grimace, but I kept my Blissfully Ignorant™ face on. I'm not sure how much I truly disgust him and how much he's just pretending to be shocked. But at least I've never said or done anything that's scared him away permanently. So far, anyway.
"So, you're planning to be out all night?"
"Not all night. We'll probably come back here pretty early in the evening."
My mom worked full time during the day as a secretary for a real-estate agency across town, and at night she took the late shift as a cashier at the 7-11, so she was almost never home from around 8 in the morning until almost 12 at night. I didn't have a dad or any siblings. That meant I basically had my own place to bring girls back to after a date so we could blow each other's minds and other body parts for a few hours, and I'd then take them home without anyone ever having to get hurt sneaking out of a window.
I twisted my head to look at him over my shoulder. "Thanks for getting the bed warm for us. Aha."
This time he made an audible sound of distaste, but didn't bother getting up from where he had been sitting on my bed, either.
"You're on the highway to hell, Erik."
"Hey, at least I'm going through heaven first," I said, not because I meant it, but because it's what I was expected to say. "You know, I can always ask if she has a friend who's free tonight. Then you can come along, too."
This was a weekly ritual between the two of us: I'd tell him I could find someone to go out with him even though I knew he wasn't allowed to date, and he'd say he wasn't interested in going anyway, and I'd tell him he was a freak of nature and needed to learn to appreciate my hobbies. I obviously never told him that the real reason I was always trying to convince him to come along with me was because if he and I went on a double date, then that meant we'd get to spend more time together.
"Thanks, but no thanks," he said, right on cue. "I'm still not interested." His tone never held any contempt or exasperation in it. If anything, he always sounded amused just because it was the same old script week after week.
"I don't think that's healthy for a guy your age. One day you'll learn to appreciate my hobbies and you'll beg me for forgiveness for having wasted so much precious time," I recited my lines just like clockwork. If it turned out that he was asexual, I was going to have to throw myself into the ocean to atone for saying that to him so much.
A few seconds of silence elapsed, and each one made me feel like I had a massive blood pressure cuff around my chest, squeezing tighter with each tick of the clock.
"Why'd you ask?" I said, just to keep the conversation flowing.
"Ask what?"
"If I planned to be out all night."
"No reason, really. I just wondered if you planned to do the rest of your homework tomorrow morning, or if you thought you'd be too exhausted and have to save it for Sunday."
I looked up at him through my mirror again. He was looking over the homework I'd left partially finished on my desk, making concerned noises while he read the single page of a book report I had started writing yesterday and then abandoned.
"Are you offering to help me with it?" I asked, not worried about the hopeful tone that crept into my voice because I knew he'd just read it as me hoping he'd do all the hard work for me rather than picking up on how much I wanted to spend time with him.
"I don't know if anyone can help you with this," he teased. "Macbeth is about a lot more than three witches, you know."
"I planned to finish reading the Cliff's Notes tomorrow," I insisted. "Besides, all you ever notice is the homework I suck at. What about my French assignments?"
The only homework I'd ever bother to do all of was for French class. Since I already spoke it fluently, it was the only class I never struggled with. My French skills also only added another layer of charm whenever I wanted to impress someone. Panties vaporized out of existence the second I whispered sweet nothings in French, and if I dared to speak full, fluent phrases, I risked causing massive cardiac events. So Alexis didn't think anything of it whenever I turned around and began practicing some of those phrases on him.
"Je suis fou de toi. Je pense à toi jour et nuit. Je t'aime de toute mon âme," I recited, trying to sound as if I were rehearsing the lines I planned to say to my date later. "Think she'll be impressed?"
"She'll implode under the force of your charisma, as usual," he said, giving me an A-Okay sign with his thumb and forefinger.
He couldn't speak French at all, and so had no idea I had just admitted to him that I loved him with my very soul.
I unbuttoned my school uniform shirt that I was still wearing and slipped it off so I could change into a t-shirt, not turning away from him while I did it. "And my abs? Still devastating even six months after dropping the swim team?" I asked, waiting for him to assess my naked torso.
He barely gave me a fleeting glance. "Breathtaking," he said, his monotone as impassive as the look in his eyes.
My spirits fell even lower as I went to slip a fresh shirt over my head. Then I turned back to my mirror to make sure I hadn't mussed my hair out of place.
"Je t'aimerai jusqu'à mon dernier souffle," I continued to ramble to his reflection as I carried on with my pre-date preparations.
"I understood 'souffle'", he said, like he was proud of himself. "And I also still remember you teaching me 'voulez-vous coucher avec moi ce soir'."
Hearing those words come out of his mouth made my heart palpitate so hard I saw black spots. I twirled around to face him in person and found that he had flopped backwards onto my bed, his arms and legs carelessly sprawled out like he was about to make a snow angel. Or like he was waiting for someone to come along and tie his hands and feet to the bedposts. He looked so innocently oblivious, and yet at the same time...so...HNNNNG. And that pose! And the fact that he was doing it on my bed.
Shit.
"I'm almost done, I've just got a few finishing touches to take care of. I'll be right back, okay?" I hurried to my bathroom and shut the door, pretty sure I had gotten away before my interest in him had become physically visible.
"Shiiiiit."
I had already jacked off over Alexis dozens of times (...that week...) but I had never, ever done it while he was at my house, let alone while he was five feet away and we only had two inches of cheap particle board between us. But there was no way I could go back out there without taking care of this first.
"Shit, shit, shit."
I opened the door a crack and peeked out to make sure he was still on my bed. It made me jump when he opened his eyes and shifted slightly to look at me. I cracked a nervous smile and said, "My mom bought a pallet of Cup-o-Noodles at Costco this week. Want to go get some to take home with you?"
"Nah, I'm fine."
"Goldfish. Crackers. Then?" I ground out through clenched teeth.
"I'm good. My family's having dinner in like an hour."
Dammit Alexis, throw me a bone here. Although I suppose he already had, which was why I was in this predicament in the first place.
I muttered something incoherent in reply and shut the door again, resigning myself to the fact that there was no other way out of this.
I turned to my sink and gripped either side of the basin for support as I tried to come up with a plan. I needed to be fast—and quiet. I glanced up at my reflection in the mirror inches away from my face and was appalled at the radiant glow surrounding me. I mean, my flawless bronze skin and golden blond hair usually produced an otherworldly halo around me anyway, but this went beyond that, and it was obviously because Alexis had ignited a feverish passion inside me.
"Get a grip, Erik," I whispered to my mirror image. And I did.
I unzipped slowly so I wouldn't make any tell-tale sounds and got to work with the vivid picture of him lounging around on my bed fresh in my mind. It was absurd how ridiculously good-looking he could be and not even realize it. I bet he even tastes good. His mouth, I mean. Probably like fruit. He likes fruit. Oranges are his favorite, I mean you can give him a single wedge and he'll suck on it for an hour, even after all the pulp is gone. Unfortunately, if you give him a banana he cuts it into smaller pieces, so I never get to see him fellating one.
I involuntarily let out a whimper and instantly froze. It probably hadn't been loud enough for him to hear, but I turned the faucet on full blast anyway to try to cover up any other noises that might escape. I gripped the counter with my other hand to steady myself and got back to work, realizing that Alexis might figure out what was going on if I didn't hurry up. It only took a few more strokes before I came into the basin of the sink, knowing that images of Alexis molesting fruit would be staying with me over the next few days. After I caught my breath, I hurried to clean up the sink and myself before I stepped back out into my bedroom, looking cool as a cucumber to Alexis, who didn't think I had been gone for very long at all.
.:.
Later that night, when I was in the throes of physical ecstasy, I decided to take on a vow of celibacy.
Every moment of my date with Marybeth made me despise myself. She was roughly the same size as Alexis, so when I was on top of her, it made it even easier for me to fantasize about him. Afterwards, while we lay panting in each other's arms, the moonlight shone through the slats of the blinds over the window beside my bed and fell on her milky skin and pale hair, and all I could see was Alexis's milky skin and pale hair. I felt like shit and was torn between going ahead and continuing to pretend she was Alexis because what difference did it make at that point, or having her put her dress back on so I could take her to the bus stop and we could part ways before I was tempted to use her as an object again.
I took her to the bus stop. I made my choice to swear off women, so I had to go back home and resolve my unsatisfied thoughts of Alexis by myself. I'm getting soft, but not in the way I need to be.