“Where are you?” Stef said.
“I’m not sure.”
“Come on.”
“Virginia Beach.”
“Is it getting tiring?”
“Yes,” Jav said. “Living out of a suitcase is getting on my nerves. And I miss Roman.”
“Bet he misses you, too.”
“Nah, he’s getting spoiled up in Guelisten.”
“Speaking of which, the exhibition for the women’s shelter is coming up this weekend.”
“Shit,” Jav said. “I’ll be bummed to miss it.”
“Yeah, me too. But hopefully I’ll be doing others.”
“I just wish I could be there.”
“Me too.”
A beat. “What are you doing now?” Jav asked.
“Talking to you.”
“No shit.”
“What, you want the visual? I’m just sitting on the couch.”
The back of Jav’s neck burned. Quit trying so hard.
A long silence now. It spilled out of the phone and filled the room. He couldn’t think of anything to say. He was tired, but he didn’t want to hang up. He just wanted to hang.
Together alone.
“I can hear you thinking,” Stef said, sounding sleepy.
“Can you?”
“Mm. Unasked questions make a shit-ton of noise.”
“When did you know?” Jav asked.
“Know what?”
“About guys.”
“Oh, I think I was about fourteen when I realized looking at men’s underwear ads turned me on. You know, it was the era of Calvin Klein boytoy models. Sepia tones, perfect hair, pouting fuck-me expression. And those airbrushed pecs and abs and bulges. My mouth would literally start watering. Hands wanting to push through the pages and touch it.”
“What did you do?”
“Do? Nothing.”
“You didn’t hook up with anyone in high school?”
“Oh, shit no. Nineteen eighty-five on blue collar Roosevelt Island? Not an option. Besides, none of my buddies had that effect on me. It was crushing on rock stars and celebrities. I saw Real Genius eight times just so I could stare at Val Kilmer. Then About Last Night came out and I was jerking off to both Demi Moore and Rob Lowe.”
“It didn’t seem strange to you?”
“Well, you have to understand my background. My mom was a pioneer in the field of gender studies, so I hit puberty already knowing life wasn’t binary.”
Rory Finch’s papers and books on gender fluidity were renowned in the field of human sexuality studies. Stef learned at her knee by virtue of being a late child. He was simply with her all the time. Exposed to varied persuasions of people from all walks of life. This was the crux of most of his parents’ arguments.
“I’d hear my dad yell, ‘He’s the best and brightest of our kids, and you’re ruining him.’ Unfortunately, my brothers heard it, too.”
“Ouch,” Jav said.
It infuriated Kurt and Nilas on a personal level and enraged Rory on a professional one. And Stef, who crushed on girls and boys with ease, felt the ache of stretched loyalty. He knew he wasn’t gay, but knew he wasn’t entirely straight either. He had more tools and resources to deal with it than many other teens in his position. He had a font of useful information in Rory, as well as a formidable advocate. She had his back. She was often absent and abstracted by her work, but her love for him was unconditional. And when he asked for her time, she gave it.
“Her opinion had more value than my dad’s. Anyway, back to the point. I didn’t have any physical interaction with guys until I got to college.”
“Where?”
“Skidmore. It was still the eighties, you could count on two hands and a foot the number of people who were openly gay. Still, the world got bigger and the collective consciousness was a whole lot looser. Maybe sexual experimenting wasn’t going on openly, but it was definitely going on. You just had to be careful about sussing out who was in the game. First time a player jerked me off, I thought, That was the greatest hand job I’ve had in my life.”
Jav laughed.
“I mean, strictly from a technique perspective,” Stef said. “A guy knows what to do with a dick, end of story. So now I have it all framed out. I like fucking girls. But I like being jerked off by guys sometimes. I stare at shirtless men in magazine ads and I have a weird compulsion to lick Jon Bon Jovi. This is my life up until I’m twenty-one. Then I met Quinn.”
“He’s the one?”
“I don’t know about The One, but he got all the firsts. First guy to go past hand jobs, first guy I got totally naked with. First guy I gave a blow job to. The first— Sorry, is this too much information?”
“No, keep going. I’m listening.” Jav was also getting turned on, but that was beside the point.
“Not much else to tell. We met, we screwed, we parted ways.”
“Oh.”
“What about you?”
Jav lay back on the bed, letting his forearm flop over his face. “Well, when I was seventeen, my cousin Nesto and I stole a bottle of booze out of my kitchen. We got drunk on the roof. And started kissing.”
“Out of nowhere? I mean, no context?”
“Pretty much.”
“Were you freaked out?”
“No,” Jav said. “I was drunk, but I wasn’t outraged or shocked. It felt really fucking good so I kissed back. He put his hand down my jeans and that felt good. So I put my hand down his. And then my uncle caught us.”
“Oh shit.”
“It went downhill from there. Really fast and really bad.”
“And you left home because of it?”
“I did.”
“To the point where you never knew your sister had a baby.”
“Never saw any of them again.”
“I’m really sorry.”
Jav let Stef’s words rest on his chest. Burrow in and purr like three little kittens.
“Thanks,” he said softly.