The Rules of Attraction (Page 26)

“Come here,” I urged.

He started moving toward the bed, slowly.

“Um,” he started nervously. “What do you think about … nuclear weapons? Nuclear war?”

“Here.” I moved over so there was room but not too much.

Something romantic was on the tape. I forget what it was exactly, maybe Echo and the Bunnymen or “Save a Prayer” but it was something that sounded lush and slow and appropriate. He sat down next to me. And I looked at him and said, “You’re no different. You’re just like me, right?” I was still shaking. So was he. My voice trembled. He didn’t say anything.

“You’re no different,” I said again. It wasn’t a question anymore. I leaned closer. He smelled like pot and beer and his eyes were watery and bloodshot. He looked at his boot, turned to me, then looked down again. Our faces were almost touching and then I kissed the side of his mouth and pulled back, waiting for a reaction. He was still looking at his boots. I touched his leg. He was breathing hard. Our eyes met for something like five seconds. The music seemed to be getting louder. My face felt hot and red. I moved my hand up. He spread his legs slightly and he looked at me, daring. I kissed him again. His eyes closed.

“Don’t pretend we’re not doing this,” I told him.

I moved my hand up the denim, unsure if it was at his knee or thigh or close to his crotch. I leaned over slowly. “Come here,” I said. I tried to kiss him again. He moved back. I moved closer. He moved his head a little towards me, eyes on the ground. And then his mouth was on mine. He stopped and breathed in and then kissed harder this time. Then we both leaned back, flat, on the bed, him slightly on top of me. We kept kissing. I could hear a toilet flushing, then footsteps padding down the hallway. I raised one of my legs carefully, then reached down and unbuttoned his jeans, then pushed my hand underneath his shirt. His body was thin and tight and he was moving on top of me. His pants and underwear pulled halfway down, mine also, rubbing against each other, our hands interrupting occasionally, hands we had licked or spit on. The springs in the mattress squeaked rhythmically as our bodies moved together in the darkness. I kissed his hair, the top of his head. The springs and our breathing, which came in hard sighs and gasps, were the only sounds in the room once the tape clicked off. We came together, or close enough, and lay like that for a long time, barely moving.

SEAN Go to Denton’s room. We drink some cold ones and smoke some pot and talk but I can’t deal with the friend’s death story and the Duran Duran music and his weirdo stares so we talk a little while longer and I get wasted. Then I leave and wander around campus. There’s a keg in Stokes, since the party in Booth died. See some graffiti written about myself in the bathroom and make an attempt to remember if it’s true. The guy from L.A. is standing in the hallway wearing shorts and sunglasses and a Polo shirt. He doesn’t smile when I pass him by, just says, “Hey dude.” One of the girls I scored for earlier, who has short spiked hair and who wears a lot of black kohl and who’s holding her pet snake named Brian Eno, leaning against a lava lamp, calls me over, and we talk about the snake. Her friends join us, all on Ecstasy, but they don’t have any left. I’m too wasted to complain. Getch is there radically stoned and tells me that kids who die of crib death are the smart ones, since they have an intuition of how terrible life is and choose this option out. I ask him who passed this info his way. The music’s really loud and I’m not sure whether he tells me it was Freud or Tony. I leave, walk around campus, look for cigarettes, look for Deidre, for Candice, even Susan. Then I’m in Marc’s room, but he’s left, gone, history, vapor.

LAUREN Laying in bed. Franklin’s room. He’s asleep. Not a good idea. Judy could enter any second. I should leave before g*y roommate comes back and I can’t stop thinking about you Victor. Dear, dear Victor, I’m in the arms of someone else tonight. I remember a night last term. It was a Wednesday and there you were sitting in your room, writing your silly paper for a silly class, and I was sorry about being the cause of a delay in your essay. Oh Victor, life is weird. I was typing in your room and I was misspelling so many words but I didn’t want to interrupt and annoy you with correcting things over each other. Oh my God. That sounds like a profundity to me! Life is like a typographical error: we’re constantly writing and rewriting things over each other. Are you the same here as when you’re in Europe? I wonder. Last summer you told me you would be. It would upset me terribly if you weren’t; if I was there with you and you were off on some other planet somewhere. That would not be good. You wanted to get pizza and not go to the Wet Wednesday party in Welling that night, because you wanted to catch “Dynasty” and the Letterman show. I remember that night very well. I kept staring at your Diva poster. I should have never gotten semi-drunk halfway. It was a bummer. I really liked the song that was playing. That was really wonderful that you were listening to that tape I made for you all on your own, of bands from Paris, but remembering that song depresses me, especially since there is a Frenchman somewhere in Booth who’s in love with me. Oh Victor, I miss you. That night last term when you didn’t want to go to the party and I did because there was a boy there I was in love with and still seeing and you said he was a fag so it didn’t count and you were half-right but I didn’t care. I smoked cigarettes instead.