Two Boys Kissing (17 page)

He is relieved that it’s a one-stall bathroom, that he can lock the door and have privacy. He is embarrassed by his relief, uncomfortable with the fact that he’s so uncomfortable. Ryan
remains oblivious in the car. Avery envies that, and is also annoyed by it.

On the way out, the eyes are still there, the extra self-consciousness. Avery won’t let it change his actions, not anymore. But he can’t deny it’s there. It’s always there.

We didn’t lose our fear until we didn’t have anything left. But we still feel fear for other people.

When Avery gets back to the car, Ryan is texting with some of his friends.

“Everyone wants to meet you,” Ryan says. This fills Avery with another kind of anxiety.

“Everyone?” he asks.

“I may have told one or two or seven of my friends about you. I mean, they saw us dancing the other night. I had to keep them updated.”

Avery starts the car and asks, “Where to?”

“Do you want to meet some of my friends?”

The answer is yes, and the answer is no. The answer is that Avery wants to see more of Ryan’s life, for sure. And the answer is that he likes it just being the two of them for now.

“Maybe later?”

“Oh, definitely later. I just need to know whether to put them on standby or not. But we’ve got hours of us-time to spend before that.”

Avery likes the sound of this. But he still feels uneasy. Not because Ryan’s making him feel wrong. Maybe he’s just uneasy because nothing is easy. Unease is the natural state.

Cooper is driving his car around to recharge his phone’s battery. He wants to go back on the hunt, see if maybe he can find someone better than the guy from last night. One last chance. One last time.

He goes back to the Starbucks and sits in a corner so no one can see the screen. It’s just past noon on a Sunday, but the sex sites are full of people, full of come-ons. He’s got ten messages from last night, people he ignored while he was chatting with Antimatter.

It’s all so boring. He feels like he’s spent his life looking at these faces, even though he’s only had this app for a couple of months.

Twinkhunter’s the one who pushes him over the edge. He’s blocked this guy at least ten times. But the guy just creates a new profile and starts sending messages again.
You’re so cute. You’re so hot. I think we’d have a great time
. The guy looks like he works in a bank. He’s got a shirtless photo even though he’s too old to have a shirtless photo.

Before, Cooper’s just hit the block key. This time, though, he types back.

You’re disgusting
.

Twinkhunter responds:

You into that?

And Cooper doesn’t care anymore. Why the fuck does he have to be polite to people like this?

You are nothing more than a desperate, pathetic pedophile
.

Within ten seconds, Twinkhunter’s blocked him.

Cooper likes the way that feels. So he goes on.

He tells the guys who want “masculine only” that they’re
just as bad as homophobes, trying to make
masculine
into some macho gym ideal.

He tells the guys who say “whites only” that they’re racist scum.

He tells the sixty-year-olds who are looking for “under 18s” that they are pedophiles.

He tells the younger guys with naked pics that they should stop prostituting themselves.

You’re pathetic
, he writes.

You’re desperate
.

Are you afraid to show your face? Is that why you show your dick?

Does your boyfriend know you do this?

I think there’s something wrong with my screen. I can’t tell if that’s your ass or your face
.

You’re looking for a good time? Do you really think you’ll find it here?

They all start blocking him. Just like that, they disappear from his phone, disappear from his life. Antimatter isn’t on right now, but Cooper feels that if he were, he’d easily find a way to get blocked there, too.

There’s one guy, thirty-four, who says he’s
long-term-relationship oriented
. Cooper writes back,
How long-term do you think these relationships are? Two hours? Three? If you want to find a husband, maybe you should stop looking for someone to fuck
.

Cooper figures he’ll get blocked in record time. But the guy, whose screen name is TZ, writes back:

Why are you so angry?

Cooper responds,
I’m not angry. I’m just truthful
.

TZ doesn’t buy it.
Who hurt you?
he asks.
Do you need help?

Cooper blocks him right away. No way to undo it. Gone.

He takes down another Daddy looking for a Son, another Son looking for a Daddy, telling them this is no way to find family. He finds the guy from a week ago who suggested they meet in a park. He tells him to be there in fifteen minutes. Then, when the guy says he’s on his way, he blocks him. Let him wonder.

Cooper’s enjoying himself. Because every time he’s blocked, a new face appears. It’s like an endless source of desperate discontent. (Yes, there are some guys who look perfectly happy and have a sense of humor about the whole thing, but Cooper ignores them.) Five miles away. Fifteen miles away. Thirty.

He could go on for hours. But the app is on to him. There must be complaints. Because suddenly a message pops up telling him his account has been suspended. He’s been frozen. Shut out for bad behavior. On a sex site.

Fine
, he thinks. He deletes the account. Deletes the app.

It’s too easy. He heads over to another app and starts doing the same thing. They suspend him in a matter of minutes. He deletes his profile.

He heads to Facebook. Instead of his “friends,” he decides to go after pop stars and politicians. He posts links to gay porn on Justin Bieber’s page. He posts links to Nazi groups on the page for a Republican congressman who compared rape to bad weather. For Taylor Swift’s page, he finds a video of a sheep being decapitated.

It only takes two and a half minutes before his profile is killed. That part of his life is over.

He gets kicked out of every site he’s ever created a profile on.
A block on each and every one. Stacked up, these blocks make a wall. Him on one side. The rest of the world on the other. It might be his most successful barrier yet.

It only takes an hour in a Starbucks for him to abandon his virtual life. Which is, if he’s honest, most of his real life, too.

One by one he deletes his contacts, until his phone is blank.

What’s left?
he asks himself.

The answer is a satisfying
nothing
.

Craig thought at least his mother would come for the twenty-four-hour mark. But the fact that she’s not here means that maybe she’s not watching. Maybe she doesn’t know it’s been a full day. Or maybe she does, and has decided to stay away.

With a couple minutes left, Craig turns his thoughts back to Harry. Sweaty, sticky Harry. From the way he shifts and tenses, Craig knows he’s hurting. But he’s not going to back down, and Craig loves him for it. Genuinely loves him. At this point, he’s not even sure where Harry’s body ends and his own body begins. At this point, even their souls have become a Venn diagram, and the overlapping space grows and grows. Forget the togetherness of dating, the togetherness of sex. This is something higher. A piece of them has stopped being
together
and started to be
the same
.

The countdown begins. Craig wants Harry to know what he’s feeling. Craig wants to kiss him and mean it. They may be weary, they may be broken up, but he wants them to always have this. No matter what happens after, he wants them to be at one for
this. He kisses Harry as the numbers trickle down, as the second day begins. He feels so close to Harry, and then all of a sudden he can feel Harry slipping away. As the crowd goes crazy, Harry goes slack. Craig grabs him tighter, feels the edges of their lips separating, but keeps the middle there, keeps their lips together even as Harry isn’t responding. He squeezes harder, and Harry reacts. As a matter of instinct, Harry begins to turn his head, but Craig stays on top of him. Harry’s eyelids flutter open, and Craig, propping him up, makes the sign for water. Harry is burning up now. The crowd doesn’t understand; the crowd is still cheering. But Tariq knows. Smita knows. Harry’s parents know. Craig can see it in their eyes, in their rush to get Harry water.

Harry is back on his feet now, wincing. He drinks some water through a straw, as Craig’s lips seal their mouths shut. But Harry’s still too hot. He needs air. He starts pulling up his shirt, exposing his skin. But it’s a T-shirt. Stupidly, he wore a T-shirt. So there’s no way to get it off.

Mr. and Mrs. Ramirez are at his side, asking questions.

Is he all right?

He signals yes. Because he knows what will happen if he signals no.

Is he hot?

Yes
.

Does he need his shirt off?

Yes
.

Will he be okay without a shirt?

Yes
.

Mrs. Ramirez heads off for a second. The crowd has now realized that something’s going on. The cheering has stopped, and the jeering can be heard behind it.

Someone’s offering to get a fan, but Harry can’t wait. His mother comes back with a scissors and asks him if he’s sure.

Yes
.

She hands over the scissors and he awkwardly starts cutting the back of his shirt. Right down the middle. And when it’s been bisected, the two boys choreograph its delicate removal. For the first time in twenty-four hours, Craig’s hands must sit lifeless at his side. Their lips are their only point of contact. It makes Craig feel distant, fragile.

As soon as the shirt is off, Harry feels better. The fan, when it comes, brings more relief.

Craig returns his hands to Harry’s shoulders, his back. The heat of his skin, the slick of his sweat. Harry moves his arm around Craig, too. He moves his hand under the back of Craig’s shirt. Skin on skin. Dizzying.

For a moment there, Tariq thought it was over. Staring at the screen, he didn’t dare to breathe. As if holding his breath could prevent Harry’s lips from slipping from Craig’s. But we feel this connection all the time, don’t we? Our bodies don’t have to be touching to be connected to one another. Our heart races without contact. Our breath holds until the threat is gone.

“What is it?”

Neil walks into Peter’s bedroom and sees a deep look of concern on his face.

Peter gestures to the screen. “It looked for a second like Harry was going to pass out. Now they’re cutting off his shirt.”

“Who’s Harry?”

“From the kiss.” Peter now points to one of the boys on the screen. “Harry. Haven’t you been watching?”

“I’ve been doing other things.”

“Well, it’s getting pretty intense.”

Neil knows that this is the moment to tell Peter what happened with his family, how things feel a little different now. But Peter’s too focused on the boys on the screen, isn’t asking him how his morning was. And Neil is still piecing his reaction together—he doesn’t want Peter’s take on the situation until he has his own. Or at least that’s what he tells himself, to justify staying silent. The truth is, Peter will understand, but only up to a point. Peter has never had to have such a conversation with his parents. Peter has never felt like an outsider in his own house. He might claim there were moments he has. But he hasn’t really. Not from Neil’s point of view.

“It looks like he’s rallying,” Peter says. “It’s been twenty-four hours. Only eight more to go.”

Neil gets closer. He’s looking at the kiss, yes. But his eye naturally goes to Harry’s torso.

In 1992, when over two hundred thousand of us were infected and over ten thousand had died, Calvin Klein launched a new ad campaign with a white rapper named Marky Mark. If you are young and you are male, most conceptions you have of your
bodily ideal can be traced to those advertisements. Every Hollister model that calls out to you, every voice in your head that tells you that abs need “definition,” every ounce of the Abercrombie myth can be traced directly to Marky Mark. Whether you subscribe to these ideals or reject them, they are the unrealistic standard you must face. It’s what’s being sold to you.

Harry’s torso is not like this. It dares to be a regular body as it is broadcast out among all the ideals. He is neither fat nor thin. There is a line of hair from his chest to his jeans. His stomach is not taut. You cannot see his abs.

In other words, he reminds us of the way we were as teenagers, the way we were before the world set in.

Why is Marky Mark smiling in those ads? It’s not just that he has a perfect body. No, it’s as if he knows that soon enough, our bodies will be broadcast. Soon enough, our images will enter the ether. Everyone will want to look like him, because they will feel like they are being looked at all the time.

Harry, of course, knows he is being looked at. But what he looks like is the farthest thing from his mind. When your body starts to turn against you—when the surface value of the skin is nothing compared to the fireworks of pain in your muscles and your bones—the supposed truth of beauty falls away, because there are more important concerns to attend to.