Boy Child

Keith’s parents were some of the richest motherfuckers I’d ever met. They hosted their only son’s high school graduation party in a ballroom at the Grand Hyatt Hotel in downtown Denver. It looked like a wedding, just filled with a bunch of teenagers and old relatives that couldn’t take the noise.

I said hello to my best friend, my fellow graduate, then looked around the room for the last third of my crew.

Dante was hovering over the punch bowl when I approached him. It must have been spiked. We didn't get past "Sup" and a fist bump before I felt hands suddenly covering my eyes. 

“Guess who?” Kayla asked.

Her high-pitched squeal was easy to recognize. I moved her hands away from my face and caught the tail end of Dante holding back a laugh. Kayla was the most popular girl in school. She had long blonde hair and enough booty to make a black girl jealous. She had a perfect face, a tight body, a tolerable personality, good grades, was head cheerleader, blah, blah, blah. Every girl hated her and every guy wanted her, but she was mine. We had been a “couple” for about six months now. According to her warped logic, as long as she kept swiping Daddy’s credit card and supplying more than half of my wardrobe, my heart and my penis belonged to her and only her. Boys will be boys and fools will be fools.

I turned and faced her.

“Hey, baby,” I said, kissing her on the lips.

“Where’ve you been? I tried calling you after your party.”

“With Denise,” would have been the wrong thing to say so I settled for, “just busy, sorry.”

“It’s okay. At least you’re here now.” She wrapped her arms around my neck, assuming her usual octopus positioning when we were around other people. Sometimes I swore she’d pee on me when other girls were around just to prove a point. 

“Mmm, you smell good,” she said. She buried her face in my neck and it felt good. My neck was my spot. Information she knew.

“Gotta smell good for you, baby, always for you.”

“Ok, love birds,” Dante interrupted, “I’ll see y’all later.”

“Bye!” Kayla chirped, bubbly as ever.

As I gave Dante a head nod, I noticed a girl just beyond his left shoulder. She had long, wavy hair and wore a tight, black dress that made her look like sex on legs. My favorite style. Her eyes were on mine and she smiled, gave me a wink. I wondered how long she was watching. I made a mental note of her gaze but gave her no physical response. I looked back down at Kayla before she followed my wandering eye.

“You want to get out of here?” she asked.

“I just got here.”

The girl in black moved towards Kayla and me. She stopped and started talking to this guy that I think was in my photography class.

“But, I have a surprise for you,” Kayla whined.

I tried to focus on the girl in front of me but, as fine as she was, new pussy always looked better than old pussy. Kayla took my left hand with her right, looked around the room, checking our limited level of privacy and slid my hand down her pants. I felt her silky smooth skin and nothing else, no granny panties, no boy shorts, no nothing.

“I shaved her clean for you, daddy,” she said, trying to whisper seductively but eventually having to speak up because the music was so loud.

Fuck. That felt good. I let my hand linger there, enjoying the fact that we could be spotted at any moment. I curled my middle finger up inside of her, making her moan before I pulled my hand out of her pants and back into my pocket.

“Damn, baby,” I exhaled, halfway speaking to her, halfway to myself. I was torn. Kayla had skills to say the least. She would do anything I asked her to do in or out of the bedroom. A week ago I told her that I wondered what she felt like completely shaved and now here she was, smooth as silk. But she was getting too clingy. A girl who would do anything for you eventually would want everything from you. I needed her to know that her pussy didn’t control me, that I wasn’t going to do whatever she wanted, whenever she wanted like she did for me. Besides, the less affected I acted, the more she needed to please me.

“She feels good,” I said, keeping my voice casual.

I bent down to give her a kiss and the girl in the black dress caught my eye again. The dude from photography class was talking her ear off. She was clearly uninterested as she kept her eyes on me. I kissed Kayla but kept my eyes, unlike Kayla’s, open. I stared at the girl in the black dress as I sucked on Kayla’s tongue that was already in the back of my throat. She was standing only about ten feet away from us and I felt like she was the one I was kissing. The girl in the black dress stared at me, stared at me and bit her bottom lip. She was bold. Anyone who had any sense and a good pair of contact lenses could see what she was doing but I guess she didn’t care. The more I kissed Kayla the more the girl in the black dress bit her bottom lip, licked her top lip, and slid her fingers up and down the middle of her dress. Holy shit, she was turning me on.

“Ouch!” Kayla screamed.

My eyes darted back to the girl in front of me. She was repeatedly touching her lip and drawing back fingers smeared with blood.

“Darren! What the hell? You bit me!”  

Keith, who happened to be walking by, gave me a Please, no drama look. I gave him a head nod, letting him know I wouldn’t disrespect him like that.

“I’m sorry,” I said to Kayla, trying to calm her down.

I didn’t even notice I bit her, didn’t feel my jaw clenching, my teeth closing down on her thin lip. I was way too lost in thought.

The girl in the black dress licked her lips one last time, turned her back to me and started walking out of the room, leaving that guy from my photography class standing alone, still rambling. She reached the doorway that led to the hotel’s main lobby, pivoted to give me one last look, then left. My eyes were glued to her body and this time I couldn’t hide it.

Kayla finally stopped touching her lip when she realized I was no longer engaged in our situation, realized my ‘I’m sorry’ was nowhere near sincere, realized I was checking out another girl. Now both Kayla and I were staring towards the exit. With all of my might I tore my gaze away from my next potential conquest and looked down at a girl who was obsessed with me. She had tears in her eyes. She said nothing, just stared deep into my eyes for a moment and then walked away.

I wasn’t fazed.

I got what I wanted without having to try. Kayla knew she was not the apple of my eye, that she could be replaced. That’s how I needed it. No commitments. No strings. She ran over to her friends that wrapped her in a blanket of pity, hugging her, stroking her hair, telling her it was okay, telling her I was an asshole, and giving me looks of death.

Once again, I went unfazed.

I turned away from that bullshit and headed for the exit. I hated to leave my boy’s party so soon but opportunities like this didn’t come up all the time. Well, they did, but still, the girl was fine...

A Dream

The leaves fell to my face and disintegrated before me. That’s how I knew it was a dream. No matter how much he tried to assure me that he was real, I knew it wasn’t real. I looked deep in his eyes and told myself to remember, knowing it wouldn’t last forever.

I was in my high school. There was an escalator and the bottom and top floors were filled with thousands of people, almost like a stadium. The first sign it was a dream. I went to a large high school but not that large, no schools are that large.

There was a drink in my hand and I couldn’t seem to hold onto the ice tea or lemonade or water or whatever it was and proceed up the escalator at the same time. I had no balance. Awkwardly, I held the cup and tried to sip from the plastic straw while gripping the ascending escalator railing with both hands. I crouched over the side, cup and railing in hands and tried to stand up straight and balance myself. I couldn’t. The top was approaching. I saw two boys that I did actually go to high school with descending casually next to me.They were beautiful, even more beautiful in this world.

I reached the top, nervously. How would I get off of this difficult ride? I stumbled, as I surely knew I would. Stumbling was a common occurrence in my dreams, usually in heels. There were no heels this time but a lack of balance all the same.

My body dropped slowly to the ground as the escalator spit me out onto the top floor of the school. Still gripping that damn cup that I just couldn’t seem to let go of, I let my body fall.

Then, he was there. I had a feeling he would be, simply because this was a highly embarrassing moment. That’s always when they appear, isn’t it?

Suddenly, my high school was no longer my high school. It was my college and the top floor of the high school was now one of the grassy fields filled with trees that covered my college campus. We were outside.

He took my hand and helped me up with a smile. I hated how beautiful his smile was. It was his smile that let me know it was a dream. I hated that beauty because I knew it would flee, when I least expected it.

“What are you doing here?” I asked him as we walked through the field.

“I knew you’d be here so I came,” he responded shyly, uncomfortable revealing that truth.

It was hard to believe him. Things that made me blush were always hard to believe.

We walked more and the sensation hit me even stronger. I was fully aware that this was a dream. How strongly you usually don’t know your dreams are fiction is how factually I knew that this would all disappear, that he would disappear. Instead of being sad I instantly told myself to just enjoy it while it lasts.

He knew what I was thinking. I didn’t have to tell him.

“You’re not dreaming. I’m real,” he said, smiling that beautiful, artificial smile, trying his best to reassure me.

His blonde hair was long and scruffy. It settled around his ears and framed his tan face nicely. He looked a bit dirty in his red shirt with white writing that advertised whatever company he worked for. The sleeves were cut off and I could tell he was working hard in the hot sun somewhere before coming to see me. His jeans and boots harbored some specks of color; maybe he was a painter.

In his left hand he held his motorcycle helmet but I didn’t see his bike.

Taking my advice I wrapped both of my arms around his right arm and nestled my face right below his shoulder. The sun glistened on his skin. I inhaled his scent and told myself to remember. Again he heard my thoughts and told me not to worry.

The despair in knowing the dream was a dream became too much weight for me to carry. Letting go of his arm, I dropped to the grassy ground, the sadness shrouding my body with me unable to stop it.

His simulated smile grew into a chuckle as he joined me on the ground, humoring what he perceived to be my dramatic folly.

My face was inches from the ground; the sadness was too heavy and almost pushed my entire head through the grass and dirt. It was too heavy. He stroked my hair and rescued me. I told myself to remember as my head gained some strength. I turned over and lied on my back. The heaviness was easier to bear that way.

He lied down on his back beside me and held my hand. I tried not to cry, tried to focus, tried to remember, store the thoughts for later memories while I was awake.

“What are we doing?” he asked, indulging in the silly fun of this “dream” adventure.

“We’re in the sky now. We’re lying in the sky and looking down on the ground, except, it’s not ground but water. We’re staring at the sea.”

The smiling face turned away from mine and looked up with me as I rolled to my side in order to see what he saw. The waves rippled slowly as a stranded man in a lifeboat washed past our line of sight. This is how I knew for sure that we were indeed in the sky, looking down at the sea. The waves kept passing and I wondered if he could see them, wondered if the sights were the same for him even though it was my dream alone.

“Okay,” he said.

He squeezed my hand and stroked my skin with his thumb.

I told myself to remember as I watched the waves roll by.

Again he read my thoughts and told me not to worry.

I told myself to remember.