Chapter 16

Ididn't like myself when I was younger. It became apparent when I was maybe twelve years old. My pops had been reading me for a couple of years, trying to make sure I didn't become one of those people that had been pushed into certain zip codes of the city—the gay ghettos. Those people that I'd only heard of, only seen in grainy news footage. Those people that were one and the same.

My friends and I used to ride our bikes around town after school let out, hang out at the basketball courts or the arcade or the movies or whatever teenage wasteland would have us. The group members varied from day to day, the activities alternated, but the four of us were usually together. Most of the time, I didn't care where we hung out or what we did. Blending in was my specialty. I was happy to let Donny lead the group. Ricky, Corey, and I would typically fall in if Donny recommended we do something.

"Let's hit up the courts, see if any girls are there," he'd suggest. It never really mattered. We were middle-of-the-road kids. We were average. We got into trouble if trouble was around, but we didn't really start it. Not until we were older, anyway. Not until our boredom got the best of us.

They always seemed like they were having a blast, my friends: talking about girls without having any real experience, shooting hoops at the park until two minutes before we were supposed to be home and inevitably arriving three minutes late, telling embellished stories about trips into the city with our folks and all the crazy shit we'd seen. I joined in, riffing and laughing along with them, but their moods always seemed more genuine, their words holding more authenticity than mine.

I had fun, but there was always something else on my mind: why my voice was cracking so much, why out of nowhere I'd started growing hair under my arms and around the base of my cock, and why that shit wasn't happening to any of them yet. But most of all, why I liked hanging out with Ricky so much more than I liked hanging out with Donny or Corey. They all seemed perfectly content to come and go with the wind, hang out even if one of us was missing, on a trip with his family or grounded for staying out too late. I always hung out, but if Ricky wasn't there, it wasn't as much fun. When Ricky was around, I felt good. I liked Ricky's hair. It was almost jet black, like mine, but his was grown out a little in the back, sort of feathered, as was the style at the time. His eyes were green, like a four-leaf clover. It felt nice when he put his arm around my shoulder when we posed for a picture, nicer than when Donny or Corey did the same thing.

Standing outside and looking in was how I would later describe how I felt when hanging around those guys after a certain age. Until a few years later when we started getting high and partying, anyway. The drugs and the music brought me back into the moment. But as we stood around in our adolescence talking shit about anything and everything, I felt fifteen feet removed, hovering somewhere above the group, looking down and examining and picking apart the stances and words of my friends. My hovering self would then relay those postures and phrases to me in a way that made me understand that that was how a normal boy should stand and act. I would then mimic their movements and tones and voices to make sure I looked and sounded as masculine as they did, as rough-and-tumble, as easy and casual, as unrehearsed. I tried to look comfortable in my own skin. I tried to look cool. We tried to present ourselves as older than we were. But those detached instances during which I floated above or stood back and watched the group through another's eyes, they disconnected me from the moment, too worried about what I looked like and sounded like to really experience whatever conversation we were having, whatever game we were playing.

At home in my bed at night when I was supposed to be asleep, my clock radio would play music quietly as I thought about how different I felt. The guys all seemed so happy and carefree, more well-adjusted than I'd ever felt. I was fine. I wasn't depressed. I wasn't suicidal. But something was off. I felt average but so far from it. Vanilla, but with sprinkles.

1988

Ricky invited me to join his family at their cottage in the Catskills for a week over the summer. It was a small place—only two bedrooms—that they'd bought for quick mountain getaways. Ricky's family wasn't any more well off than mine, at least not that I knew of, but his parents weren't as cheap as mine either. They actually left town sometimes, and not just to go shopping at the Sunrise Mall a few towns over.

Their cottage was situated just off a country road outside Tannersville, down a steep gravel driveway that quickly sloped off the road and ended in a flat basin with just enough room to park a couple of cars. The cottage itself sat on the side of a hill, somehow elevated in the valley, so the views from the back deck were nice. Opposite the driveway, there was a small yard off to the side of the house, big enough to kick around a soccer ball or play tag. We did all that while we were there, and some hiking.

At night, since the bedroom Ricky and his brother normally used only had two twin beds, Ricky and I slept on the sleeper sofa in the living room. It worked out for everyone; Ricky's brother got a room to himself, and Ricky and I had privacy after everyone went to bed. We could shoot the shit without his little brother complaining that we were being too loud or that we wouldn't let him join in. It was also the first and only time that Ricky touched my dick, and I touched his.

It was happenstance, an event that hadn't been planned, innocent in its premeditation. We had stayed up late—later than we were supposed to—talking about girls. A girl in our class had captured Ricky's attention during the school year, while an eighth grader had caught mine. Not that I understood then, but I didn't think about her in a sexual way. Instead, I was drawn to her style: dark hair, leather jacket, combat boots. She wore bright red lipstick, and the crease of her cleavage was visible when she wore a tank top under her jacket, seemingly too developed for a girl her age.

Maybe I just wanted to be her. She was mysterious, and instead of friends, she had self-confidence and an attitude. She kicked over one of those old steel barrel garbage cans in the hallway once and then shot a half-smile my way as the clanging sound of the lid bouncing on the tiled floor echoed off the lockers, somehow finding me in the crowd of a hundred kids that were passing between classrooms. I don't know why she kicked over the garbage can. Maybe she was exerting her dominance over one of the other eighth-grade girls who liked to fight. Maybe she was just bored. Her arrogance and unpredictable behavior combined with her biker gang aesthetic placed an incorrigible seal on the neo-punk face she clearly wanted to show the world. I guess I looked up to her for being able to do and say whatever she wanted. She wasn't scared of anything, at least not that I could see.

But I was. My fear about who I might become had caused me to withdraw from my friends, my surroundings, my own life. Except for Ricky. When it was just the two of us, I felt comfortable enough in my own skin that putting on a front wasn't necessary, not entirely. And as we talked about girls, the conversation took a turn, and Ricky brought up the fact that he'd started jerking off when thinking about Erin. I think that was her name. It was such a long time ago. It was nothing new for us to talk about masturbating, but that topic was usually reserved for the group and only discussed in the most mocking, derogatory manner. It was a joke, and none of us would ever admit to doing it. He then asked me if I'd ever done it.

"Yeah," I laughed, lying on my back under the blankets, my hands tucked behind my head on the pillow. I didn't want to make him feel bad, but my nerves got the best of me.

"You ever think about Stephanie when you do it?" he asked, lying on his side, facing me.

Honestly, I hadn't. I didn't normally think about anything when I did it. The lights in my room would be off, and the only noise would be the faint sound of that clock radio playing music from whatever station in the city was playing club music at that point. With my eyes shut tight, I would focus on the music—the rhythm and the melody—as I explored myself tucked underneath the covers. The music was probably a distraction. Maybe I understood that my mind might wander to places I didn't want it to—places for those people—in the middle of an act that was already embarrassing enough. So, I lied. "Yeah. Sure."

"You thinking about her right now?"

"I wasn't. But now I am."

"I think I really like Erin," he continued, shoving his hands under the covers and turning onto his back. Out of the corner of my eye, I could see his hand moving slowly around his midsection. The blanket shifted back and forth and up and down with the movement of his hand. All the lights in the cottage were off. It was dark, but I recognized what I saw.

"Dude," I whispered. "What are you doing?"

"Shut up and think about Stephanie."

I hesitated. Was I supposed to jerk off with him? And what would that mean? Ricky was my friend. I felt comfortable with him, but the suggestion was confusing—questionable, and the outcome loaded with volatility. If I did it, would I be labeled a fag? If I didn't, would I be ostracized for my inhibition, my innocence? Had he jerked off with Donny before? With Corey? Had I been left out of their preteen circle jerks? At once, I was jealous and nervous and horny, and I wanted to jerk off with my friend.

Slowly, with calculated precision, I removed my hands from the back of my head and tucked them under the covers, pulling down the waistband of my shorts to expose myself. My dick was already hard, as it usually was, so I grabbed it and started jerking. The both of us lay there in silence, the only noise in the house the soft sound of goal-oriented adolescent knuckles mercilessly rubbing against the bedsheet.

My eyes were closed, and there was no music to keep me distracted, so my mind wandered swiftly from girl to girl in our class, never landing on one in particular. Images shuffled through my head like a deck of playing cards. Eventually, my subconscious won, and I found myself thinking about my friends playing basketball at the park. Donny and Corey were usually skins. Ricky and I were shirts, and occasionally, Ricky would lift the bottom of his shirt to wipe the sweat from his brow, revealing a flat stomach and smooth olive skin.

Get it together, Brandon. He's your friend, I had to tell myself. But as I did, Ricky's hand crept over and pushed my hand away from my dick, palming the shaft and taking over where I left off. Holy shit. I wasn't sure what was happening, so I simply decided to take it as a cue for me to drape my arm over his and grab his cock.

My fist softly pulled at his hardness. He moaned, trying to stay as quiet as possible. His touch felt good to me, so warm, so natural. It was the first time anyone had touched me in a sexual way, and it sent pulses of excitement through my stomach and up into my chest. I moaned back, Ricky's rhythm matching mine, our hands in sync, our breathing heavier by the second.

Then, we came. At almost the same time. I felt his wetness on my fingers and my own on my belly. I liked it, but it was over. We pulled our hands away from each other, trying to clean up what we could with the sheet and our T-shirts.

"Thanks," I said, wiping at the excess fluid on my body as I glanced in his direction. Was that the right thing to say at such a time, after such an experience?

"You too," he replied blankly, never looking my way as he cleaned himself up, simply turning his back to me and falling asleep.

We never spoke about that night again.

I tried, a few months later, to initiate something, to repeat what had transpired between us that night at the cottage. I wanted it so badly I could taste it, the sensation of someone's hand on my privates, the excess of release by another. I could hardly think about anything else after that night.

During a sleepover at Ricky's house, one of our last, we again lay on our backs in his full bed, as we always had, talking, shooting the breeze. The subject of girls was again broached, and we slipped into the same cadence, a dialogue guided by the desire of physical assets. I was hard. We both were. I reached over and touched him, placed my hand on top of his shorts, the warmth of his erection intoxicating.

"What are you doing?" he snapped, pushing me away. His tone was friendly but dismissive, playing off my advance as though it were a joke.

I retreated, humiliated and hurt, forced to bottle those feelings and pretend the contact was a razz at his expense, an action meant to convey derision for his overzealous chatter about the girls in our class and their physical appearances, about Erin and what he'd like to do to her. I didn't understand why it was okay for Ricky to initiate such a game months before but not okay for me to continue it. In my mind, the game hadn't ended. We could pick up where we left off.

The subject was changed to basketball or a new tape about to be released or something else that didn't matter to me at that moment. Ricky became guarded around me at school, like I had hurt him, like he couldn't trust me. But he had hurt me. Deeply. It didn't last. The normal, easy dynamic of our friendship returned within weeks, the events of the past forgotten, swept under the rug, pushed into a closet.

1992

On a chilly Friday night in October, my friends and I—all newly sixteen and bubbling with energy and an almost comical sense of false confidence—drove to our first legal rave, a regular party that took place at a warehouse in the next town over. Caffeine, it was called. The place was supposedly eighteen and up, but our fake IDs got us in without issue. Anyway, Donny knew somebody who knew somebody who worked the door, so we had a backup plan in case we needed one.

The music inside was loud and seemed to vibrate the walls. The crowd was younger than I had expected, mostly kids that didn't look that much older than us, different than the patrons of the clubs in the city. Most were dressed like we were: baggy jeans, oversized T-shirts, sneakers, and baseball caps. A flannel and toboggan here and there. The more outrageous apparel, the teddy bear backpacks and armfuls of multicolored plastic bracelets and Day-Glo sweatbands, weren't as common as they'd soon become. Some of the kids walked around with pacifiers in their mouths and backpacks full of Vicks, and the people on the dance floor waved glow sticks in each other's faces.

It was a different world than most of Long Island, far removed from Babylon just three miles down the road, but I wasn't na?ve. We were well versed in illegal parties by then, understanding the lengths one went to heighten the effects of an Ecstasy tablet. I'd dropped my first pill the year before at a warehouse party somewhere near Avenue Y by the train yard in Gravesend. Donny's older brother, Joey, was meeting some friends, so he let us tag along, supplying us with party favors. He'd carry them by the bagful, sewn into the inside of his jacket.

The scene at Caffeine was kind of messy, but to us, it was a utopian paradise for lost kids. There were no scuffles, no fights, no drama. Mostly because we felt too good to start anything with anyone, leaving our bravado at the door as we started to come up. We wandered around aimlessly at first, exploring our surroundings, figuring out where everything was, where everyone wanted to be. We were so uptight while we waited for the chemicals to take hold, no weed in our systems, no beers imbibed. We were simply nervous teenagers trying to fit in with a new crowd.

As we took up residence along the back wall, not really knowing where to hang out first, two guys who were clearly more familiar with the place than we were walked by. They appeared to be a couple of years older, and both wore oversized white tees, one displaying a giant yellow happy face that looked like it was melting, and the other, the word Acid in big, bold, vibrating letters. The guy in the Acid shirt noticed me as he passed, sailing a warm smile my way, reaching out his arm as if to say, "Come dance with us!" The way he floated was soothing, an air of contentment surrounding his movements. I figured it was the X rushing through his veins and didn't think much about it.

Everyone seemed chill, even if the atmosphere was agitated and jumpy. It wasn't the people or the fashions that drew me in at Caffeine though. It was the music, the loud, repetitive percussion and the rolling bass lines and the stabs of wobbly synthesizer chords and the occasional uplifting piano or vocal break that worked its way in. That's what grabbed my attention, wrapping me around its spirited little finger. And my pill was just starting to kick in.

We'd dropped at Donny's house before heading out. Corey supplied the transportation in the form of a used 1988 Bonneville his parents had given him for his sixteenth birthday. From then on, he carted us all around, to Caffeine or into the city to hit up NASA or spots like Tunnel and Limelight or other underground parties we found out about. But that night at Caffeine, that was the night I figured out why I had become so detached from my friends, so sober when they were anything but.

Acid guy was on the dance floor, effortlessly bouncing up and down to the driving beat of whatever techno record the DJ played. He drew me in with his dark eyes and the bright blue spikes of overly gelled hair poking out through the top of the visor he wore. His hands rolled around one another in a way that almost made it look like he was calling me over—throwing shapes, I'd later learn it was called. My friends seemed anxious, looking around the room, trying to be cool, eventually deciding to head to the game room while they waited to come up.

"I'll catch up with you in a minute," I shouted over the music, saying I needed to hit the bathroom to take a piss first. "Who's got gum?"

Ricky handed me a stick of spearmint that I immediately unwrapped and popped into my mouth, allowing the flavor to seep out for a second before folding it in half with my tongue and beginning to chew. Gum would be necessary. I'd end up chewing my face off if I didn't have it to focus on. But I didn't need to pee. I just didn't want my friends to see me approaching the Acid guy on the dance floor.

A warm wave washed over me as I drifted across the room in his direction. The happy-face guy was nearby in his bucket hat, and a few other people danced around them. But Acid guy danced with himself.

When I got close to him, he noticed me and smiled again, that same warm smile that had been so inviting moments earlier it nearly made me melt. Maybe it was the Ecstasy, but a tingle ran down my spine and into my fingertips. My inhibitions had all but disappeared, so I smiled back. We danced next to each other, not too close and not too suggestive. The music didn't call for that. We just danced, the movements of my arms and legs shifting the warm sensations around in my body. I felt good, and even though the music was kind of dark, my smile wouldn't dissipate. Most everyone else was smiling too, albeit through clenched jaws and grinding teeth.

We didn't speak, me and Acid guy. We just vibed near one another, lost in the music, aware of the sensations coursing through each other's bodies, the euphoria flooding one another's brains. He seemed happy to have me near him, somewhere in his orbit. Some sort of agreement was made between us, a mental contract signed, one that would glue us together for the evening. Maybe words would be spoken, and maybe they wouldn't. They didn't matter just then.

Thirty minutes of dancing passed, and we decided to take a break and head to the bar. I hadn't seen my friends, but they'd surely come up by then. We'd dropped at the same time, and I was rushing headfirst into no-man's-land, completely in love with everyone and everything around me. Giggling to myself as we approached the bar, I pictured them getting into some arcade game with flashing lights, becoming utterly consumed by it. I still remember getting home late the first couple of times we took Ecstasy and staring at the red LED display of the digital clock in my room, getting completely lost in the numbers vibrating to the beat that was stuck in my head.

"I'm Neil," Acid guy finally announced, still half dancing as we waited on the line.

"Brandon," I offered, my inability to keep myself from moving coming into clear focus. I wiggled the tips of my fingers, tapped my foot on the ground, rolled my head around on my shoulders. I wanted to move—to dance—but I didn't want to leave Neil's side.

"You should be my friend tonight," he suggested.

Sure, I thought. Why not? I could have been anyone's friend, could have been everyone's friend that night.

"I like your shirt," I said.

"Thanks." He smiled before offering me a story about his first time dropping LSD, how the colors and the shapes moved with the music, how they were accentuated by the sounds. I'd never done acid, but I wanted to after hearing Neil talk about it. He spoke to me about peace and love and unity, the laws of the land in this new world I'd found. He indulged himself in speaking about respect for others, his words an attempt to quell the need to move as much as they were meant to draw me in, to impart knowledge, a shared ethos within the walls of these loud, darkened, pulsating spaces.

His enthusiasm made me laugh, but I loved his message. I loved how he said words. I loved… everything. Fucking everything. God, I felt good. Another warm wave crashed into me, overtaking my existence and enveloping me in a blanket of millions of tiny little twinkling stars. The neon lights dancing around the club zoomed past me like laser beams. I was there. I was in the moment for the first time in years, distracted only by outside stimuli, the sights and sounds of the night that surrounded me. But I was in my body, not hovering around it some distance away.

Before I knew it, I held a plastic water bottle, foregoing the energy drink a lot of the other kids seemed to be throwing back, and Neil and I were smiling our way through the crowd that had grown in size since I'd started dancing. Back on the dance floor, we enjoyed each other's company for the next hour, maybe two, through a DJ change that shifted the direction of the music to a more progressive, trancelike destination. I had no idea what hour it was, only a vague concept of time and place.

Beads of sweat appeared on my brow and began their race down my temples and nose, my T-shirt serving as a sweat rag from that point forward.

Neil's movements were jumpy yet fluid, the rhythm of the music leading him in a dance that looked natural and instinctive while the music was twitchy and urgent. Thin but fit, his oversized shirt hung from his frame, somehow hugging his lanky body at the same time. His forearms were soft but sinewy. I could have counted the veins that traversed beneath his flesh. His jawline was sharp with skin the color of honey. Maybe his ancestors had landed here from some Mediterranean wild long ago, like some of mine had. He was an enigma, some kind of riddle that captivated my mind.

"Should we take another break?" Neil shouted in my direction, shaking me from my thoughts.

"Yeah. I could use some water."

We grabbed more water from the bar and headed to the deck outside, pushing and squeezing our way through the hot, stuffy club. Neil led, and I followed, like a lost puppy. Maybe ten other people congregated on the deck, chatting and smoking and touching each other's skin, heightening the sensations of the Ecstasy. The air was crisp but felt nice against my warm flesh. Wisps of wind against my skin reignited the chemicals in my system and made everything in my body ripple playfully.

Neil pulled a pack of cigarettes and a lighter from the back pocket of his oversized jeans, offering one to me. I hadn't made a habit of smoking, but I rarely turned down a cigarette when I was out. At the raves, a cigarette break was a bonding experience, an easy way to meet new acquaintances, to forge new friendships over nicotine and ash.

Neil's fingers grazed the bottom of my chin as he leaned in to light my cigarette. The menthol hit the back of my throat hard, but the inhale went down easy. Weakness found my knees, and a tremble found my heart, his fingers so close to my lips, his face so close to my face. He smelled of patchouli and something else, something sweet I didn't recognize.

"This your first time here?" he asked, a twinkle in his eye and a playful smile bridging his prominent cheekbones. He seemed to be smiling always, friendly and childlike, but under the surface, there was a contemplative, even meditative energy about him.

"Yeah. I came with my friends. I'm surprised I haven't seen 'em around."

"It's a big place. People tend to fall in with new groups when they're here. Y'know… all loved up."

"Like me, I guess."

"Like you," he laughed. "And me."

Our eyes lingered on one another, an extended gaze deep into the soul, it seemed.

"You wanna go look for 'em?" he asked, just to be nice, but I think he would have accompanied me had I wanted to.

"Nah. I'm sure they're fine."

"You're not like them, y'know?"

"What do you mean?"

"I saw you with 'em earlier. They're hard, Brandon. They're guidos. Joeys."

"C'mon, they're alright."

"I'm sure they are. That's not what I meant. But you're different," Neil continued, taking another drag from his cigarette. "Not that you look it, but you're softer. Your aura is lighter, even though it's got a dark cloud around it."

"I don't know what you're talking about," I defensively snapped back.

"It's not a bad thing. It just means you're more open than they are: open to life, to different people, to new experiences. Not everything is black-and-white to you."

I wasn't sure how to respond. I think he was trying to pay me a compliment, but it sounded like he was accusing me of being soft in front of all those people, none of whom paid attention to us as we spoke.

"What are you, some kind of psychic?"

"You know I'm right, don't you?" he asked.

"So?"

"So, do you want to experience something new with me?"

"Sure," I answered after a short pause to pretend I was thinking about it. Subconsciously, I had decided I would follow him wherever he wanted to go the minute I laid eyes on him. He was interesting and attractive in a way I didn't understand. We had barely spoken for most of the night, but I felt a connection with him that I couldn't explain, an influence that sought to awaken me, to free me from some invisible prison cell.

"Cool." He smiled, tossing his cigarette over the railing. I finished mine as well before he grabbed my hand, softly weaving his fingers between mine, pulling me down the steps and across the expansive parking lot, which was full of cars and a few random people hanging out on top of said cars. The deep, quaking bass from the speakers inside the club faded the further away we walked, but aside from that reverberating thump-thump-thump, the surroundings were quiet and the night still. A few towering light poles dotted the office park around us, the pinnacles of each like north stars magnified a thousand times. Neil's pupils were the size of saucers. I'm sure mine were too.

Eventually, we turned and found a private area behind a fence, brimming with litter and untamed brush, no one else around. I should have been, but I wasn't afraid. Somehow, I knew Neil wasn't there to hurt me, to rob me, to assault me. Anyone rolling as hard as we were couldn't possess such a mindset.

Playfully pinning me against the fence, Neil turned his visor around and smiled at me once again. "Can I kiss you?"

Kiss me? What did he mean? I wasn't an idiot. We had just met and already spent half the night with one another. We walked hand in hand to a secluded spot. We were on Ecstasy but not dancing. We had nothing else to do with our restless bodies and idle hands. But outside of Ricky and I jerking each other off all those years ago, I had never done anything with another guy. My mind occasionally drifted to thoughts of it, but I'd quickly learned to shut those moments down by distracting myself with something else, anything else: thoughts of baseball and cold showers and quantum physics. I didn't want to do that just then though. After he looked into my soul and apparently liked what he saw, I wanted Neil to kiss me.

I could only communicate nonverbally, nervously licking my lips, giving him an approving nod, turning my ball cap around. Neil leaned in close and pressed his lips against mine, softly pushing my lips apart with his tongue so we could experience each other's mouths more intricately. Aside from the lingering effect of the cigarette, his breath was fresh, a fortuitous result of all the chewing gum. Our tongues innocently wrestled as every nerve ending in my body ignited with electrical impulses. He grabbed the back of my neck, and I grabbed his waist as our foreplay grew more aggressive with each passing moment. My dick lengthened in my jeans as we stepped closer to one another, and our hips connected.

It was then that I could feel his hardness too. I wanted him in my mouth immediately, but I didn't know how to initiate something like that, let alone how to properly do it. Fortunately, Neil took charge as he reluctantly broke our kiss, peeling himself away from me, if only slightly.

"I want to make you feel good. Is that okay?" he asked between stunted breaths.

"Yeah." I didn't need to think or pretend to weigh my options that time. I spoke with confidence, fully intending to finish what had just been started.

Neil removed his hands from the back of my neck, landing them on my belt buckle to unwrap me. As he did, he looked me in the eyes, grinning once again. His gesture put me at ease, not that I needed it to. I had reached a point of abandonment, my inhibitions depleted, my curiosity level higher than the both of us. Leaning against the fence, I looked up into the clear night sky as Neil slid my jeans down my thighs and pushed my T-shirt up my stomach. The stars danced as the cool air hit my cock, again sending shivers through my body. Soon enough, those shivers were replaced by other heady sensations as he steadied my length with his free hand and wrapped his mouth around me.

"Fuck," I breathed out, his warm mouth massaging my cock, his tongue expertly snaking its way back and forth across the head. At that moment in my sixteen-year-old life—seemingly a blip of time on the radar now—I felt like I could have died and been alright with it. Everything I was feeling just then—the cool air, the musical high, the chemicals in my system, the mouth of a cute boy on my desperate teenage cock—all of it made me feel like I was flying. It was the ultimate dream, a superpower that was out of reach by any stretch of the imagination, yet there I was, soaring. It couldn't have taken more than a few minutes for me to get off, but I was on cloud nine.

We laughed as Neil pushed off his knees and faced me, my mostly hard cock still swinging in the breeze, a pearl of fluid still clinging to the head. I then zipped back up and returned the favor, bringing Neil to orgasm using the same techniques he had used on me. His cock was slightly thicker than mine but nearly identical in length. Having him in my mouth was an eye-opening experience: enjoyable, erotic, oddly satisfying. I liked that I could make him moan. I took pride in the fact that I could get him off, and he thanked me for my service afterward, a timely joke that conjured more laughter. His come tasted salty, almost bitter, but not unpleasant. I hadn't yet been able to bring myself to taste my own, but I knew I would after that night, simply out of curiosity.

"I gotta piss," I announced, aimlessly standing there as Neil pulled his pants up, still reeling from having gotten and given my first blowjob, unsure of why I felt the need to say anything in that moment. He found nothing awkward though. Everything was either a fact of life or an adventure to him, facts sometimes being malleable and adventures sometimes taking the form of the mundane.

"Me too."

We both turned to the fence and stepped closer, unbuckling and unzipping again, relieving ourselves of all of the water we'd ingested.

"Did you have fun?" he asked, turning his face to me as he continued his release.

"Yeah." I smiled.

"Cool. Was it your first time?"

"With a guy? Yeah," I admitted, revealing the fact that I had indeed messed around with girls… before. Those few times weren't necessarily unpleasant, but they never gave me anything to look forward to, not like the experience with Neil had just given me. I suddenly saw possibilities paving the road ahead of me, a freedom to do something that felt more natural, something that felt right. Maybe I would still mess around with girls. It was what a teenage boy was supposed to do. But now I knew that it wasn't my only option. Something in me had relaxed. "How did you know?"

"That cloud that was surrounding you before?" he asked, not waiting for me to reply. "I don't see it anymore."

"Maybe it's just the pill you're on."

"Yeah," he laughed. "Maybe."

"I take it that wasn't your first time?" I asked as my stream tapered off.

"Nah. I've had some experience."

"Ever with girls?"

"Mostly with girls, but I've been with guys before too," Neil effortlessly explained. "We're all human, y'know? I'm attracted to humans."

"Yeah," I agreed as though I understood his ease with discussing a topic I would have never been emboldened to converse about with my friends, let alone someone I had just met. I felt like I had stepped into a new world, one where boundaries around sex and gender and norms were kind of fluid. It was confusing but comfortable.

I shook the last drops from my softening dick and zipped back up, turning to walk back toward the party.

Neil did the same, following me, only half-heartedly trying to catch up. "You're not a lost boy, Brandon," he announced. I turned back to face him. "You're just finding your way. We all are. Don't let anyone else dictate the path you choose to follow."

It was probably the most profound thing I'd ever heard anyone say, and it came from some nineteen-year-old kid who was high out of his mind. When I think about it now, it's funny. But I took that advice to heart for a while. I wanted to introduce Neil to my friends, but I didn't know if they'd really get him and his laissez-faire attitude.

As we traversed the parking lot, Neil grabbed my hand, once again reigniting the effects of the pill that was reaching its peak, another wave crashing into me, causing shivers to race through my body.

"Back there," I started, a well of lovely emotion bubbling up within me. "Did that mean anything to you?"

He laughed. "It always means something, Brandon. Just remember it doesn't have to."

Stopping, I turned to look at him. "What does that mean?"

"It means I had fun back there. I think you're an amazing person, and I'm glad that I met you. But our parents and our grandparents got it all wrong, y'know? They follow the rules. They love the rules. So, they fuck the same person day in and day out for the rest of their lives, and they're all so unhappy. They fight, and they disengage, and they suffer in silence. It's so depressing. We aren't meant to be with the same person forever. It's not natural."

He got really worked up about it, and I couldn't help but laugh at him. Other than shouting over the music, he hadn't raised his voice since I met him. Boxing him into telling me that he wanted to date me or that he loved me had not been my intention. But it was my first time with a guy, and I really didn't know how guys handled that kind of thing. With the girls I had been with, the boundaries had been clear, the rules set. Those rules didn't seem to apply here.

He softened his tone as we turned and walked again. "You'll see, Boy."

"Boy?" I asked with a wide grin and a chuckle, unable to control my amusement. Damn, this wave was hitting me hard. "Now you're treating me like I am a Lost Boy, Wendy. Maybe your pill is wearing off."

"I took another half about an hour ago. It'll hit me soon." He smiled.

I took the opportunity to lean over and kiss him on the cheek, a gesture that created sensations that appeared to make him melt. I was familiar with the feeling. "I think it just did," I laughed.

"C'mon," he snickered, pulling me along behind him as he skipped across the parking lot.

It was almost three o'clock in the morning when I finally ran into Donny and Corey on my way back to the dance floor, two more bottles of water in hand.

"Yo! Where the fuck you been, B?" Donny crowed through a cheese-eating grin, pulling me into a hug, Corey grabbing my shoulders from behind. Both were covered in sweat, clearly rolling hard, embracing me far longer than a sober friend would.

"Been dancin'," I half shouted to make sure they could hear me over the music. "I'm so fuckin' high I just had to move, y'know? I came up hard after I broke off from you guys. Where the hell have you been? Where's Ricky?"

"Oh, fuck, dude. We met up with these candy girls in the game room after you split off. So fuckin' hot. We been dancin' with 'em and lookin' for you all night. Was on our way to get some Jolt and try to find you again. Ricky's still over there in the corner with 'em. They're all loved up in a cuddle puddle. You gotta come meet 'em, bro!"

It was the last thing I wanted to do, even though I was happy to finally find my friends. Hardly anything sounded like such a bad idea. By that time, Corey's head was on my back between my shoulder blades, and I could feel him giggling for no reason at all while he massaged me. I did my best to wriggle away from them. "Alright, yeah. Just give me a minute. I'll come find you."

"Cool," Donny replied effortlessly, not a care on his mind. Corey wrapped his arm around Donny's shoulder, and they turned to walk back to where they left Ricky.

"Hey!" I shouted at them. They turned back to face me. "Go get some water. You're gonna fuckin' dehydrate!"

They both laughed, realizing they'd forgotten what in the hell they got up for. I shook my head and appreciated the fact that I called them my friends before turning toward the dance floor, where Neil had reacquainted with his friend in the happy-face shirt. The fingers of one hand were wrapped around a neon green glow stick and the fingers of the other around a blue one. He quickly and fluidly moved them around in front of Neil's face. A long trail of color followed each hand as I approached, forming this swirling ball of blue and green that almost became its own object in my altered state of mind. Neil's smile grew bigger when he saw me, and I handed him a bottle of water. He continued dancing.

"Thanks. You found your friends?" he asked, his voice reaching a volume that could permeate the bass and the kick and the stabbing acid crunch of the song that blasted from the speakers at an unhealthy volume, the bass bins surrounding the dance floor vibrating.

"How did you know?"

"I must be psychic." He grinned.

Just then, I felt an arm wrap around my shoulder. Startled, I turned around to see Donny and Corey on either side of me, both palming a bottle of water, condensation dripping onto the floor. I must have been watching Neil's friend swirl his glow sticks around for longer than I thought.

"Who's this?" Donny asked, his friendly tone fueled with Ecstasy.

"Just somebody I met," I spilled, an unease stifling the words. I turned so I stood between my friends and Neil, better able to address them both. "This is Neil, and…" I trailed off, not having gotten his friend's name.

"Mickey," he shouted over his neon ball of color. The three of us nodded in acknowledgment.

"Donny and Corey," I announced, using my thumb to signal to them. "They're the friends I came with. Ricky's somewhere over there in the corner."

"Nice to meet you guys," Neil replied, addressing my friends. Donny and Corey leaned in and gave Neil a bro hug, grabbing his fist, then leaning in to put an arm around his shoulder.

"You comin'?" Corey asked as he and Donny turned to head back to Ricky and the candy girls.

I shifted to face Neil, and he pulled me in for the same type of bro hug my friends had given him. "I had fun tonight. Don't be a stranger, alright, Boy?"

"You either, Wendy." I grinned. It was probably one of the most genuine connections I'd ever had with someone. Our initial meeting lasted a few hours, and I'd learned more about myself in that time than I had in the twenty-four years since.

"Don't let anyone else dictate your path," Neil offered. "It's yours, Brandon."

Smiling, I turned and skipped to meet up with my friends, spending the next hour with them and the candy girls, dancing and bullshitting with them with a renewed sense of self, a confidence that could only be achieved by accepting oneself without exception, by finding one's own path, by being introduced to a world of possibilities one never knew existed.

Going back to Caffeine week after week, I soon discovered that Neil found a new friend almost every night, whatever boy or girl he thought looked beautiful at that moment in time. It didn't bother me. He introduced me to myself. I only hoped everyone felt that way about Neil, though I'm sure they didn't. I'm sure some thought he was a player or a heartbreaker. But for me, Neil was my guiding light. He was my blanket of millions of tiny little stars, twinkling every time I saw him out.

"Hey, Boy," he'd say when he saw me, and I would reply with, "Hey, Wendy," and we would share a hug or a story, or we would simply go our own ways, following our own paths.

1996

I yawned and rubbed my eyes after startling awake to a finger poke in the ribs from the stranger next to me. "What time is it?"

I was thrilled to discover I was in my own bed. I'd been in the city for school for a little over a year, my major in business and my minor undeclared. I hadn't done a great job of keeping in touch with my friends. After graduation, Ricky got accepted to the University of Michigan, and Corey ended up in Rochester at the Institute of Technology. Donny stayed in Babylon, working with his brother at the auto shop and selling pills to clubbers on the weekends. I'd call him up when I needed a refill on a particular under-the-counter prescription, but Ricky and Corey, I rarely saw them unless they trekked into the city when they were home visiting their folks. It's a familiar story; after school, our paths diverged, our interests changed, our priorities readjusted themselves.

New friendships had been forged via work, fostered by classes. We found our niche in the city, my new friends and me. It involved dragging ourselves bleary-eyed through the week to emerge as twenty-four-hour party people at the weekend. How could it not? So much was happening after midnight in New York City. One had to do no more than head to Chelsea to find parties that didn't end until the sun shone bright. Even at the ungodliest of hours, the streets brimmed with people, and mile-long lines formed outside of nightclubs, the music from which could be heard halfway down the block.

The muffled thump-thump-thump of the bass radiated from inside former factories, punching its way through the brick walls of old warehouses long repurposed to house the most indulgent dance floors. As soon as one turned the corner onto Twenty-Seventh Street, clubbers mobbed the sidewalks and taxis gridlocked traffic. We were lions and tigers lining up for the circus.

"It's almost two," the stranger in bed next to me answered.

"Fuck. I didn't mean to sleep so late."

"I've been up for an hour, but you looked so peaceful I didn't want to wake you," the stranger admitted before pausing. "Do you have to work today?"

"Nah. Tomorrow. But I gotta finish a paper about market structures for my Econ class."

"Sounds interesting," he joked, turning to face me, holding himself up in my bed with an elbow. "Tell me more."

Normally, I would have found such banter tolerable, even charming when coming from such a hottie, but I couldn't remember much about the night before, and I really did have a paper due later that week.

"Sorry," I started, trying to think of the nicest possible way to phrase the question I was about to ask. "What's your name again?"

"Kenny," he answered without trepidation, without taking offense, as if it wasn't the first time he'd been asked. "And you're Brandon, right?"

"Yeah." I paused, glancing at my bedside table, looking for an empty condom wrapper before the panic set in and I asked the question that needed to be asked. "Did we?"

"Yes. We used protection. The evidence is in the trash can in the bathroom."

"Cool," I sighed with relief before nervous laughter escaped me. "I don't remember much. Weren't you behind me and my friends on the line at Twilo?"

"Yeah. Me and Rich. We were looking for X, and you thought I was cute, so you hooked us up." He smiled, some weird, nauseating sort of pride in his eyes.

"Oh, yeah. Your friend was kind of a prick. He acted like he was above it all."

"I hear that a lot. I guess he's that type. But he's always been nice to me."

Kenny, the naked stranger next to me in bed, was compact and fit. The kind of guy who seemed to spend a healthy amount of time at the gym. The definition of his biceps was visible as his body twisted under my bunched-up bedsheets. His skin was smooth, a dark, tawny complexion to it. What was he? Thai? Filipino, maybe? It was hard to focus without a drop of coffee pushing its way through my veins. I'm not sure why I cared. Maybe it was a natural reaction to waking up with a random guy in my bed.

My head pounded, and my memories were foggy. I must have had a few too many drinks. Kenny seemed alert, like a fully functioning human, whereas I was more of a shell. His hair was buzzed close to his scalp, fading up nicely. I vaguely remembered running a hand over the back of his head the night before, liking the way the soft bristles of his hair felt brushing against my palm.

"Don't you go to NYU?" I asked, a memory of our conversation rushing back to me.

"Yeah. I'm prelaw."

Whatever that meant.

"Why did we come all the way up to Harlem? Why didn't we just go to your place?"

"You said you needed to go home. You were cute, so I tagged along."

As bright as he seemed, Kenny's decision-making skills dabbled in vapidity. Still, his response made me chuckle. He smiled, and I suddenly remembered the details of the night. A couple of work friends and I had closed the store, heading out around eleven, back to my apartment to clean up and have a drink. We wanted to go out, to dance, to forget about the day, the demanding customers and the kids trying to shoplift and the messes they all left behind for us to fold and refold.

It was nearly two when we approached Twilo. I'd paid Donny a visit earlier in the week to re-up. He'd gotten a new batch of pills in, blue ones with dolphins. We dropped before we ever got on the train, the downtown A that put us in the heart of it all.

Before we queued up, I walked to the door to see who was working. It was a guy I didn't know, maybe new, so we waited rather than pissing him off by trying to jump the line. We fell in behind the orange-and-white roadblocks they used to contain the line. A couple of guys walked up behind us, one of them a stout muscle queen in a white tank top and leather jacket, too cool for school. The other was Kenny, a cute, seemingly normal guy in a bright blue tank top with no jacket. The fall weather had set in, lending a briskness to the night that would have hardened anyone's nipples. Kenny hugged himself, rubbing his hands up and down his arms to warm his skin, to deflect the gooseflesh.

"Hey," I said, addressing Gooseflesh and ignoring his friend, who rolled his eyes and turned away as more people lined up behind them. Steam raced down the street with the wind, surrounding the cars and opaquing the industrial buildings that lined the block, giving that part of the neighborhood an even grittier feel than usual. The reverberating sound of the bass got louder and clearer every time the club's door opened and more people filtered in. My friends were busy yammering on about something that had happened at work. I didn't care about that anymore. Gooseflesh had captured my attention.

He responded, "Hey."

"You look cold."

"I'll be fine once we get inside. It's always so fucking hot in there."

"Yeah. But the music is worth it."

"I just wish we had some refreshments. I haven't been able to find Stacy all week."

"Maybe you're in luck," I responded, tapping the pocket of my blue jeans. I always brought backup.

"Yeah?" he asked, eyes lighting up. "How much?"

I glanced at Leather Jacket, whose attention had been summoned, his expression softer than before, almost congenial. I then looked back at Gooseflesh, whose eyes were so sweet, the kind of sweet that predators use to draw in their prey. I didn't care.

"Tonight? On the house," I offered, pulling a couple of pills from the glassine baggie bunched up at the bottom of my pocket, quickly dropping them into his open palm, my eyes shifting to scan our surroundings for cops. He smiled wide before leaning in to kiss me on the cheek.

"Thanks! I'm Kenny," Gooseflesh said before thumbing at Leather Jacket, handing him one of the pills. "This is Rich."

"Robbie and Damian," I replied, motioning to my friends. "And I'm Brandon."

Pleasantries were exchanged as Kenny and Rich popped their pills, washing them down with swigs of water from the plastic bottles they carried with them.

Once inside, the night was a blur. I remember the music, Junior—I assumed—stretching the records to their limits, using multiple copies and dubs to draw out the tracks, sometimes twelve, fifteen minutes in length. The disco ball sat squarely in the middle of that warehouse-like space, white pillars lining either side of the dance floor, giving the queens something to grab onto, use as props when voguing, use to stabilize their bodies when they found themselves on the verge of falling out. We danced to a song with driving cowbells that wouldn't let up, the bass line creeping up and down. Junior went back and forth between two songs, the current one and the next, layering a vocal on top of the cowbells, teasing the crowd before landing on a song that got everyone worked up. "Runway as a house, runway as a house," it went, repeating, commanding, "Butch queen voguing like a femme queen, butch queen voguing femme." It was dark and fun and brought out the sashay in everyone. They all took turns walking and voguing and showing off their runway skills as the crowd parted for them. The night was alive.

I don't know what put me in bed with Kenny. I don't remember what led us to date for the next eight months. Time passed easily when I was with him, wasted away in the sheets. I thought I loved him. He was fun to be around. But Kenny only knew how to love himself. Pinning him down was difficult. There was a void there, something missing from his presence. He could be sweet but only danced on the surface of emotional maturity. He was flighty but fulfilling, entertaining but empty.

The span of his attention grew narrower with each passing day, and with each passing day, my bond with him desired to grow deeper. I couldn't explain it. I was drawn to his energy and pulled into his circle. He was as downtown in mindset as he was in geography, a child of the scene, of opulent dining and gallery openings and what would have been Fire Island excursions had we lasted. I couldn't dream of the brand of luxury his trust fund afforded him, but I was drawn to him. Maybe I just wanted a taste of his life, his wealth, to not give two thoughts to how dinner might be paid for. A swipe of a card would suffice. Someone somewhere paid the bill. Where I had student loans, he had champagne for breakfast, a splash of orange juice to cut the shame. He didn't show off his money. He didn't have to.

We had a lot of fun, Kenny and I, Saturday nights and Sunday mornings at Twilo and the Roxy. Had we managed a friendship instead of pushing for something more, we would have been better situated for success. We lived on opposite ends of the island, a schlep by New York standards, an odyssey with the added inconvenience of busy schedules.

Kenny drifted. He needed a lot of attention, attention that my work schedule wouldn't allow me to give, that my class roster wouldn't permit.

On the cusp of finals, I wanted to surprise him, to get his nose out of the books for a while. One night, after work, I popped by his apartment on Bleecker with a bottle of cheap champagne and some flowers I picked up from a bodega down the block. Maybe we'd grab a slice and go for a walk. I approached the front door of his building and buzzed his apartment. There was no response, so I tried again. He had to be there. When I called him earlier that day, he told me he'd be home studying. Ten seconds later, a familiar voice sounded over the intercom.

"Hello?" It was Kenny. He was out of breath.

"It's Brandon. You workin' out in your livin' room or somethin'?" I joked.

"Oh. Hey, babe," he continued, seeming a little surprised to hear from me. "What are you doing here?"

"I came by to celebrate. The semester's almost over. Buzz me up."

"Oh," he stammered. "Give me a minute."

I focused on the sounds of the city around me as I waited: a car engine idling at the stop sign, the chatter of bar patrons, the footsteps of students on their way home from class, shielding my mind from the harsh buzzing of more sinister thoughts, thoughts about why a minute was necessary.

A full minute elapsed before I heard a buzz, then the lock clicking as the door gave way. It would take me thirty seconds, exactly half a minute, to ascend the stairs and reach his apartment. On the second-floor landing, I breezed by someone, a guy our age, kind of disheveled as he descended the stairs, tucking in his shirt, his sneakers untied. Sweat beaded on his forehead, and his face was red and flushed. We met eyes as we shifted to push past one another. His were wide and nervous, guilty about something.

"Hey," I said. I don't know why.

He jogged down the last flight of stairs, increasing his pace.

I climbed two more flights to Kenny's floor. He stood barefoot in the doorway of his apartment, sweaty, panting, his T-shirt rumpled. The look on his face resembled the look I'd just seen on the guy I'd passed in the stairwell. I kissed him, and he half kissed me back, shifting his eyes as our lips disconnected. His mouth tasted like vodka. I smelled a lingering essence of the cologne the guy in the stairwell had been wearing.

Maybe he lives on Kenny's floor, I reasoned. Maybe he was leaving his girlfriend's apartment.

"I thought you could take a break, and we could head to Washington Square Park," I suggested, holding up the bottle of champagne. "Kinda seems like you're already celebrating though."

"What do you mean, babe?" he asked, regaining his composure, finally looking me in the eye. "No. I was just doing crunches, and my air conditioner has been acting up all day. Sorry. You just surprised me. Let's go celebrate. I'll grab some cups."

He turned to head back inside, letting the door swing shut behind him. I caught it with my foot and waited outside while he grabbed some plastic cups from the kitchen and put on some shoes. I didn't want to go inside. I was afraid I might discover something I didn't want to see. Instead, I stood in the hallway like a jerk, holding the door for Kenny with my foot, the condensation from the bottle running down my fingers and dripping onto the floor.

Over the next couple of weeks, I found myself showing up at his apartment unannounced more often than not. A sneaking suspicion pervaded me, a need-to-know that consumed parts of me I hadn't been aware of before I met him. I had grown sweet on him. I thought of him as my first love, an infatuation whose presence in my life had grown intense. The idea of it not being there weighed heavier on my heart than his suspected infidelity did on my brain. His indiscretions amplified my insecurities, but his kisses tasted like honey, and his touch felt like a rain shower in June. I didn't want to bear the thought of losing him. I couldn't process the idea that I already had.

On a Thursday, the week of finals, I squeezed into his building as someone else exited, knocking on his door, unsure what I would find but unable to withstand the weight of possibility. Kenny stood in front of me in his underwear, expecting the delivery guy with his Chinese food.

TheirChinese food.

The look on Kenny's face when he saw it was me was one of shock, of fear, of a guilty conscience bleeding its way to the surface. Another guy stood behind him, appearing from the doorway of Kenny's bedroom, topless, bottomless, the ripples of muscle on his body tightening when he noticed me. Perhaps he'd seen my likeness in a photo, one that stood framed on Kenny's bedside table, one in which we embraced.

Blaming Kenny for his infidelity wasn't instinctual, not at first. I remembered what Neil had said to me the night I met him at Caffeine. "We aren't meant to be with the same person forever. It's not natural."

Jealousy raged in me, anger crashed like symphony cymbals, my nerves pinched inside. I'd need to get tested. I was hurt. But the blame for those emotions lay at my feet. Neil had warned me. I shouldn't have gotten so invested.

I was diplomatic about the whole thing, rationalizing Kenny's behavior with an open mind. With textbook precision. I felt enlightened in the way college students typically do, academically and without experience. I hadn't meant much to him. It was a blow to my self-esteem. But people change. People leave. It's what we do. I'd take my learnings and run screaming with them into the night, scissors in hand. What a world of illusion this was. What a world of magic and abandonment.