By the time Duncan kissed the girl outside the nightclub, by the time her hand inside his trousers frightened him with the proof that his body was ahead of his courage, he had already spent months becoming someone else, or rehearsing someone else, which is not the same thing, although at twenty it can look identical from the outside. The girl matters less than what she revealed. She was only the occasion. A brunette in a black dress, recently broken up, brought there by friends for the same reason he had been brought into that whole new life by men who mistook strategy for wisdom and appetite for strength.
A few earlier Duncan had still been the boy who hid inside loose clothes and politeness, who could speak well enough, be the life of the party, but just lacked that final striker moment. Then came Mike, his freshman-year roommate, who saw in every weakness a technical problem and in every woman a sequence of doors to be opened with the correct code. Mike taught him the gym first, because the body was simpler than the soul and more visible in results; then clothes, posture, tone of voice, the art of seeming decided before being decided. After Mike came Jack, who lived next door and possessed the opposite talent: not discipline but metamorphosis. Jack could become whatever a woman needed in the time it took to look at her. He lied as others breathed, not always maliciously, often just to enlarge himself. John and Marco belonged to the wider orbit, gym boys, party boys, boys to whom success seemed native, not because they were deeper or cleverer than Duncan but because doubt had either never visited them or had been taught to remain silent.
With them Duncan changed quickly, and because youth is vain and gullible he mistook change for revelation. Muscle came first, then confidence, then the little religion of men on screens explaining women to boys who had never really known either women or themselves. He listened, believed, repeated. He learned to read interest into courtesy, invitation into chance, victory into every exchange not ending in humiliation. He called it growth. Perhaps part of it was. He stood straighter, spent money on shirts that fit, stopped apologizing for entering rooms. But together with that came a harder thing, almost an anemia of the heart: conversation became tactic, attraction became proof, tenderness became risk, and whatever was uncertain in him was buried under formulas borrowed from louder men.
So that night at the club was less a beginning than an examination. Mike with his permanent girlfriend and permanent alternatives, typing excuses into his phone while pretending to laugh at jealousy. Jack conducting one of his soft-voiced seductions near the toilets. John and Marco already attached to girls whose names they would not remember. Duncan watching a woman across the room and deciding, because he had been instructed to decide, that hesitation was defeat. He approached her, spoke, kissed her, let her lead more than he could admit, and when the moment came to cross from possibility into action he discovered that the old Duncan had not died at all, only hidden, still timid, still moral, still afraid, still wishing not merely to touch but to deserve. That was the humiliation and perhaps the mercy of it.
Afterwards the others reduced the night to a missed chance, as men like them always do.
Chapter II - Erika
Duncan POV
The elevator doors opened and I stepped into the hallway dragging my feet as if they were made of lead—not in the pretty figurative sense people use to dramatize tiredness, no, actual lead, real weight, the weight of someone who spent four eleven-hour shifts staring at numbers until the numbers stopped being numbers and became smudges, little boxes, lines, cells with formulas flickering behind my eyes even when I closed them, and that was the most irritating part, the fact that I actually liked accounting. I really liked it. But there’s a difference between liking the logic and spending eleven hours a day stuck in a chair staring at Excel. A spiritual death.
Sophie.
She came to mind without me calling her. Something simple, light, somewhere between casual and regretful, without seeming regretful, of course, trying to salvage the wreckage of that night. But I hesitated. I hesitated because I’m not Jack, because I don’t have that obscene ability to manipulate tone, distance, the look, the right pause at the right moment, to make a girl feel exactly what he wants her to feel and then call it chemistry. And I’m also not the kind of man who takes a near one-night stand and turns it into a story. I might sound cynical, maybe even a bit of an asshole—call me macho, call me whatever you want—but I’ve always felt this: there are women to marry and women to have fun with, and she was ruined for me.
My phone vibrated in my pocket and I almost dropped it pulling it out, I was so worn out.
Erika: Are you alive?
I smiled. I smiled before I even thought about it, the kind of smile you don’t decide, it just happens. Erika. Of course. The only person in my life who knew me from before I learned to be here, from before the gym, before the job, before Jack and Mike, before the guy talk and the theories and all the layers we’d been piling on top of who we were. Really, if I thought about it, the only person who knew me.
Me: Barely. This job is trying to kill me.
The reply came instantly.
Erika: Coming to O’Malley’s? Everyone’s going to be there. Haven’t seen you in ages.
She was right. I’d been avoiding it for weeks, maybe longer, too tired from work to pretend I still had the capacity to be social, to laugh at the right moments, to listen to office stories, promotions, coworkers, petty betrayals, little egos in formation. Her new crowd, the friends from the firm, all newly hired by one of the Big Four where she’d started last year—pretty, polished, ambitious, the kind of women who immediately put me on alert and brought out my prejudices, which maybe said more about me than about them.
Me: Tonight? Erika, I’m completely dead. Can’t we do dinner tomorrow or something?
Erika: Stop being a baby. One drink. It’ll do you good.
Me: I’m not being a baby. I’m just being realistic about my ability to socialize today.
Erika: That’s what alcohol is for <3
I stared at the heart, that ridiculous, almost teenage symbol, but it never sounded ridiculous coming from her, and I felt something warm settle in my chest, something simple and dangerous at the same time, because I realized she really missed me, it wasn’t just talk, and I missed hers with the same clarity, only I had the stupid habit of pretending I didn’t. Too much time had passed. And God, we’d been through so much together that sometimes it seemed impossible to explain to anyone else the place she occupied in me without sounding melodramatic or like a liar.
I immediately thought of her parents’ divorce, that dragged-out, dirty, vicious process, two full years of lawyers picking apart a shared life as if they were dividing dishes, furniture, vacation days, and traumas on the same Excel sheet. I remember the night her mother put her father out of the house. I really remember. The screams carried across the yard, objects hitting, a door, another, and then Erika emerging from the dark and crossing the grass to my house, arms pressed tight against her chest as if holding herself together so she wouldn’t fall apart, tears running down her face without a shred of dignity, not even trying to hide them. I let her in without asking questions. My parents were out, it was just us. We went up to my room and she collapsed onto the bed, face down, burying her face in the pillow, crying like I’d never seen her cry, her whole body shaking with each sob, as if each one came from the bottom of her back. I sat beside her and stroked her back, once, twice, twenty times, however long it took, without asking anything, because some pains aren’t told, only endured. Then she turned, curled into me, her head on my chest, her hair smelling of shampoo and cold street, and we lay there like that as the house darkened around us, until she murmured, in that thick voice you get after crying a lot, “you’re the only stable thing in my life” and then “everyone ends up leaving, you don’t,” and I didn’t know what to say, of course I didn’t, I never knew how to answer the true things, I just held her tighter against me, feeling the warmth of her body, her breathing slowing gradually, the fragility, the trust. What I felt for her wasn’t romantic love, I’d always been sure of that, or thought I was, at least, but it was something, something deep, confused, without a useful name.
And then there was the broken legs episode in tenth grade, that heroic stupidity of trying to impress a girl whose name I don’t even remember with skateboarding, a misjudged trick, a fall, white absurd pain, exposed fracture, hospital, cast, crutches, the humiliation of depending on everyone for everything. Erika took care of me through all of it. She brought me food, kept me company when I was in a bad mood, helped me stand, sit, go to the bathroom, even take a shower.
It was on one of those days that I masturbated thinking about her. And the next night. And for weeks. She was the first person I did that to, the first real, close, specific person, not a diffuse fantasy, not an actress, not an invented body. Her.
The train slowed to a stop at my station and brought me back. I got out, climbed the stairs, reached the street. The cold air hit my face with enough violence to wake me up a little, and I pulled my coat tight against my chest. Almost home. My phone vibrated again.
Erika: Did you get home safe?
Me: Almost. Just got out of the metro.
Erika: The guys are there, aren’t they?
I let out a short laugh.
Me: Probably. They’re always there when it’s least convenient.
Erika: LOL. Tell them I said hi.
Me: I will. But seriously. Tomorrow, how is it? Your place or mine?
Erika: Yours. I’ll bring food.
Me: Deal.
I pushed the building door and climbed the four floors to the apartment, feeling fatigue hammering my thighs. The music was thumping inside before I even put the key in—clearly Jack’s choice. I opened the door and there they were in the living room, shirtless, muscular, tanned, oiled, all that was missing, already with empty beer bottles on the table and that typical early-night male vibe, half energy half theater. Besides Jack and Mike, who lived with me, Marco and John were already there too.
“There he is,” Jack announced, opening his arms. “Our favorite accountant. So, how was that shit? Your stupid girl boss still giving you hard time?”
“Alive. That’s already a victory.” I dropped my bag on the floor and collapsed onto the sofa. “But I’m wrecked. And I’m starting to think you’re right and she just needs a good fuck.”
Jack let out a thoroughly satisfied laugh with himself. “I’ve always told you. Middle-aged women don’t need therapy, they need a good dick.”
“Or a slap,” said Marco from across the room.
“Both. Sometimes both,” replied Jack, already opening another beer.
Mike didn’t even look up from his phone. “Coming tonight? Monica’s gonna meet up with us. I need to fix what I did last week.”
“What exactly did you do?” I asked, already grabbing a beer from the pack they’d left on the counter.
He shrugged, without a shred of shame. “Technically nothing. In practical terms, maybe I disappeared for two days after she had that crying scene in the car.”
John let out a whistle. “You’re a jewel of a man.”
“I know,” said Mike, and kept typing. “So, Duncan. You coming or not? Their’ll be girls.”
“There’ll be,” I corrected automatically.
“Fuck, are you still at work?” said Jack. “Don’t do that.”
“Tonight?” I rubbed my eyes. “I’m dead, Mike. Seriously. Haven’t slept more than five hours a night this week. Erika already told me, but I really can’t.”
“Sleep when you’re dead,” declared Jack, with the confidence of someone who’s never worked eleven hours straight in their life.
“Tonight I’m just going to conquer my bed,” I replied.
We stayed at it for another ten minutes, beer, banter, each of them trying to pull me out, but I held firm. I was really tired, and they knew it.
“Fine,” Mike finally said, grabbing his jacket. “Stay here and rot. We’ll have fun without you.”
“Have fun.” I gave them a lazy salute. “And try not to catch anything.”
“Jack’s already infected to start with,” said Marco.
“With charm,” he replied.
The door closed behind them and the apartment fell into that sudden silence that always seems bigger after loud music, a silence full of refrigerator, of pipes, of city in the background, and I went to the bedroom almost without thinking, collapsed onto the bed on my back, eyes closed, telling myself it was just a few minutes, just a few minutes and then I’d get up, eat something, take a shower, maybe sleep early for the first time in months.
My phone vibrated.
Erika: So? Did they convince you?
Me: They tried, but failed. I’m staying home.
Erika: Good. You need to rest.
Me: I do. But I’ll see you tomorrow, right?
Erika: Of course. Already looking forward to it.
I smiled again, tired, almost tender.
Another message came.
Erika: Look, while I’m at it… there’s a girl. I think you two would hit it off.
I stared at the screen. Another message arrived before I could respond.
Erika: Her name’s Allison. She’s perfect for you, Dunc. Seriously.
Allison. The name echoed in my head with an irritating strangeness. Who was she? And why was Erika so sure? This was new. In all these years, she’d never tried to set me up with anyone. She gave advice, sure. She encouraged me, told me to go out more, not to close myself off, not to idealize so much. But never this. Never an almost formal introduction, a setup, such direct insistence.
Me: Who is she?
Erika: You could meet her, if you came.
Me: Since when are you so interested in my romantic life?
She took a bit longer to respond, and I noticed that.
Erika: Because I want you to be happy, idiot.
Me: I have a job that pays the bills. I have friends who like me. I’m not dead. Doesn’t that already count as happiness?
Erika: You’re impossible.
Pause.
Erika: You’re alone.
That hurt more than it should have. Maybe because she was right.
Me: Maybe. But who isn’t? We’re twenty-three, Erika. We’re supposed to be figuring out our lives, not settling out of fear of being alone.
Erika: I’m not telling you to marry her, genius. I’m telling you to meet her. Give her a chance. See what happens.
Me: Fine. Some other time I’ll go. But if she’s weird, it’s on you.
Erika: Deal.
And then the heart.
Erika: ♥
I tossed the phone onto the bed and stared at the ceiling, thinking. Erika playing matchmaker. Erika, of all people. That was new. And that was what bothered me more than the idea of Allison itself. Why now? Why, after years of never doing it, was she suddenly so invested in my love life? Why did it sound less like genuine concern and more like displacement? I looked at the ceiling and let the incongruities of this change come to my mind one by one, not in order, never in order, but as important things come, by association, by warmth, by small old embarrassments that remained alive under the skin.
Freshman year in college. Erika’s room. The late afternoon light coming through the window and catching the posters that covered the walls almost to the ceiling, bands, movies, some stupid quotes she swore were ironic but weren’t. We were lying on her bed, supposedly studying for a History test, with textbooks open and highlighted passages and pens, but talking about everything but that. She was wearing an oversized t-shirt and short shorts, her legs stretched across the bed, one foot resting on my thigh, that kind of casual contact that between us always seemed allowed, natural, but which my body, at at the time, assigned an almost violent weight. I remember the heat of her skin through the fabric of my pants, the way her toes curled occasionally without her noticing, the fact that I could see inside the shorts whenever she moved.
“You’re looking at me,” she said, without lifting her eyes from the textbook.
“I’m not.”
“You are. You’ve been doing it all week.”
“So what?” I turned a page of the book without reading a single line. “A guy can’t look at his best friend?”
She slowly raised her eyes and just looked at me with that unbearable half-smile, a smile of someone who knows something I don’t know, or pretends to know. Then she stretched on purpose, arching her back slightly, and the t-shirt rose a bit, revealing a strip of pale skin above the shorts. I followed the movement with my eyes without being able to help it, and she noticed. Of course she noticed. And she smiled even more.
Her body was impressive, I’d known that for years. Tall, slender, long legs, but with strong thighs that always surprised, a full, balanced chest, and that red hair, vibrant, almost copper when it caught the sun, hair that made people turn their heads in the street. But the face. Always the face. I tried not to be superficial, seriously I tried, because that part disgusted me about myself, but I’d always had a ridiculous weakness for faces, for delicate features, for a certain harmony that disarms. Erika’s face was normal. Pretty, sometimes even very pretty from certain angles, when she laughed, when she was effortless, but normal. It wasn’t the kind of beauty that took my breath away.
“You really don’t get it, do you?” she said, lowering the textbook.
“Get what?”
“How good you look.” She sat up and the t-shirt fell back into place. “You’ve been working out, haven’t you?”
“A little.”
She reached out and touched my arm, just that, but I felt the contact like a shock. “It shows. Your arms, your chest… you’re looking really good.”
“Thanks.”
In the present I opened Instagram and started scrolling through saved posts, my fingers sliding over the glass, until I found it, the photograph saved there like a small secret, a hidden treasure among thousands of unimportant images. Erika in a bikini, the sun beating down on her skin with that generous cruelty of summer, the perfect body in every sense, the light accentuating curves, creating shadows where I wanted to place my hands, and I zoomed in on the photo, lingering on every centimeter, every curve, every shadow, as if it were a topography I had to memorize, understand, possess.
Her body was extraordinary, there was no doubt, an architecture of skin and bone that seemed designed by someone with too much time and too much love for detail. The full, firm, well-shaped chest sitting high like something that refuses to yield, and that red hair, vibrant, almost copper, that caught the light and made people turn their heads in the street, but at this moment even her face filled me, its normality, the slightly curved nose, as if imperfection were the only thing that made that desire possible, the possibility of possessing her, of having her like that, entire, with her small flaws, her humanities. The arousal grew, I’d done this hundreds of times, opening photos of her, touching myself while I watched her, imagining what it would be to be with her seriously, a recurring fantasy I fed in silence, alone in the room, like cultivating a plant that will never flower.
I undid my pants, lowering them enough to free my cock, hard and pointing at the ceiling, already aroused, and I wrapped my fingers around it, starting slow, with that ritual learned over years of solitude, I used my thumb, index and ring fingers, very slowly, just caressing it, like trying to start a fire that’s reluctant, that needs attention, patience, time. I thought about the moments we’d shared, the touches that seemed casual, the things said without words, the never-spoken tension, the way she was always there, so close, so available, and at the same time inaccessible, like an object placed in a display case where I didn’t have permission to enter.
I thought about her again, that Halloween freshman year of college, she showed up at my house, we’d gone for the weekend to our hometown, in a short black dress, fishnet stockings climbing her legs like spiderwebs, cat ears in her red hair, makeup that gave her a more intense, almost predatory look, and she was incredible, she was hot, simply that, and I opened the door and just looked, literally looked, for a good few seconds before I could speak, as if my mouth had forgotten the function of words.
“What?” She gave a little twirl, the dress opening slightly, revealing more skin, more leg, more of what I couldn’t have. “You like it?”
“You’re, wow.” I shook my head, trying to compose myself, feel human again. “You’re really incredible, Erika.”
She passed by me, her hand brushing my arm, a burning contact, and she stayed like that all night, touching me, leaning against me, finding reasons to be close, her hand on my thigh during the horror movie, the scare that made her put my hand near her heart, and I spent the night in a state of constant arousal, my body begging for release, screaming for something I didn’t know how to give it, how to ask her for.
Or another, the summer before college, the first after turning eighteen, free. The pool party at Sarah Longhorn’s house, and I remember it with an almost physical clarity, as if I could feel the heat on my skin again. The strong sun, crushing, the smell of chlorine and sunscreen, that particular summer smell, of days that drag on and seem to never end, girls in bikinis everywhere, semi-naked bodies moving like fish in an aquarium too small. I was already aroused as soon as I entered, and Erika wouldn’t stop teasing me, leaning over to pick things up, adjusting her bikini without any subtlety, touching me whenever she could, as if she knew exactly what she was doing, as if she enjoyed leaving me in that state.
Her bikini that day was… revealing, there was no doubt, small, black, tied at the hips and neck, leaving very little to the imagination, the full chest, pale skin, smooth stomach, well-defined hips, but it was the legs, those strong thighs that contrasted with the rest of her body, that perfect balance between delicacy and strength, and I spent the entire party trying not to look, trying to be normal, controlling my eyes like controlling a wild animal, without success, completely without success.
“Enjoying the view?” she asked, smiling when she caught me looking again, that smile that said everything, that knew everything, that held all the secrets.
“Don’t flatter yourself,” I replied.
Later that afternoon, I needed to get away from the heat, the people, the bodies, the constant arousal that seemed to stretch my skin to the limit, so I went to the pool bathroom, one of those white tile constructions that always seem dirty no matter how much you clean them, with two toilet stalls, showers, all that, this girl was really rich, she had those houses that looked like they came out of magazines I only saw at newsstands. I closed the door and leaned against the wall, trying to get my blood flowing to the right place, any man will tell you that a day at the pool, regardless of arousal, will leave us with difficulties getting the member to grow, the cold contracting things, making everything harder, smaller, more ridiculous.
I started slowly, focused, while from the other side of the door I heard laughter, music, water, life continuing outside as if I didn’t exist, I used my index and thumb, he was already hard, but the cold wouldn’t let him stay in that way that allows things to flow, still much smaller than would be normal, and worth noting, perhaps an important note, that this was always a bit of a “thing” of mine, not being particularly well-endowed, well I know women will say it doesn’t matter much, and they’re probably right, but for a young man without experience, and with more boastful friends, with stories of huge cocks and legendary performances, we can get a bit… reticent.
Suddenly, the door opened, and I heard a scream, a high-pitched shriek, like something breaking without warning, and I looked ahead, in shock, the world stopping for a second, as if someone had pressed the universe’s pause button. Erika was there, leaning against the door, her mouth open, probably also in shock, her eyes fixed on me, on my body, on my shame, and she stayed there a few more seconds, watching, I’d never felt so exposed, so naked, so seen, we were both in shock, like two animals caught in a trap they didn’t understand.
“Erika…” My voice came out unrecognizable, hoarse, weak, the voice of someone who isn’t the owner of their own words. “What are you doing here?”
She didn’t answer, then turned and ran out, as if fleeing a fire, and I was absolutely paralyzed, I was so ashamed I wanted to disappear, hide in some hole, deep, dark, where no one would ever find me, I stayed there god knows how long, but the more time passed, the longer the arousal took to fade, as if my body were in a moment of conflict, as if it didn’t know whether it felt more shame or more desire, the two things mixing, confusing, becoming indistinguishable.
Back in the present, I lived that moment as if it were today, as if time had folded over itself, I looked at my bedroom door as if it were the door of that bathroom, and Erika was there, looking at me, her mouth again open, shocked, but not leaving, not running, staying there, watching, observing, and on that day I grabbed my member and lasted thirty seconds, I came immediately, imagining Erika there watching me, that look burning my skin, marking me, and today I looked at it, but still felt that shame, that warm shame that runs through the body from head to toe, in the arms, legs, face, making us feel alive in a way we don’t want to be.
That day I got aroused again immediately. I simply couldn’t forget that moment, that look, that scream, that second when the world had opened. I touched myself again, thought about Erika, and ejaculated in less than a minute.
I cleaned up hurriedly, washed my hands, waited before going out, but when I entered the hallway, I heard laughter outside, in the garden, several girls gathered, whispering, looking in my direction. Erika was in the middle of them, as if nothing had happened, as if she hadn’t just seen my secret, my little shame.
I went through my day as if nothing were wrong, trying to avoid those fleeting glances—the thing we all do when we want to disappear, moving through life looking at the ground, as if the pavement holds all the answers. Then later, when we were in her car, I asked, because I had to ask, I had to know, I couldn’t stand the uncertainty anymore.
“What was that?”
“What?” she said, with an innocent look, as if she didn’t know, as if she hadn’t been there, hadn’t seen, hadn’t felt.
“What happened this afternoon?”
She blushed, deeply, the red rising up her neck like a tide, and sighed—that sigh of someone who’s tired, of someone who no longer wants to carry certain things.
“I didn’t say anything too bad. I swear.”
“Then why the whispers? The giggles?”
“Because they asked.” She sighed again, deeper. “They asked why I screamed.”
“And you told them?”
“No.” And she looked at me, not smiling, just pressing her lips together, as if holding back something that wanted to explode. “I mean, yes. I said I’d seen you in the bathroom naked. I had to say something because they wouldn’t leave me alone.”
I felt my face burning, as if I’d put it near a stove, as if my skin were melting.
“You told them that?”
“But I didn’t say what you were doing.” She tilted her head. “Just that I saw you.”
In the present, I imagined her looking at me, now sitting on my bed, watching me touch myself. I imagined her saying “shhhh” in a whisper that was almost tenderness, almost permission, and taking my cock, her hand replacing mine, warmer, softer, more real. That thought tore through my brain, making me feel things I didn’t know how to name, how to catalog, how to store without them consuming me from the inside.
“So the whispers were why?” I asked then, my voice trembling, certain I didn’t really want to know the answer, but needing to.
“Because they asked for details.” She looked ahead at the road stretching before us. “And you know how Sarah is. She loves that kind of gossip. But she’s an idiot, I know. And now you know too.”
I was speechless, my mouth opening and closing without sound, like a fish out of water. I put my hands to my face, feeling the heat of my palms against my skin. I was boiling with shame and rage, a mixture rising up my throat, tightening my chest, making me want to beat the steering wheel, scream, break something.
“Dunc, I’m sorry. I swear I didn’t mean it badly. And look, it’s better this way. She would’ve found out anyway and wouldn’t have liked you.”
I looked at her, and I’m sure I intimidated her because she focused back on the road again, her hands gripping the steering wheel, her knuckles white, and now completely furious, I shouted, the sound filling the small car, making the windows vibrate.
“What did you do? What did you say? Erika, I’d just come from the pool. Erika, you have to give that context.”
Erika’s eyes were red, in tears, but I knew her, I knew that in those moments she turned cold, that coldness that settles when everything else seems to collapse, when the ground disappears beneath your feet and the only thing left is the armor, the wall we build around ourselves so they can’t reach us.
In the present she wasn’t like that, she was more affectionate, but the words that came out were the same as that day. In the past, she was assertive, even though she felt her sadness, that sadness she guarded like a valuable object she showed no one.
“Dunc. First of all, I already apologized for that, don’t treat me like this.” Her voice came out calm, too calm. “You treat me badly constantly, rejecting me when you’re around those girls who don’t even like me. I tried to integrate, okay? I’m sorry.”
I shouted again—I couldn’t stop, the words coming out like projectiles—“Erika, you had no right”, but she interrupted me.
“Second of all. You can stop making excuses. I saw you. And what’s the problem? That’s the point. Do you want to end up with a girl like Sarah?”
Deep down she was right. If it was true, Sarah was an idiot. The drive home was silent, the sound of the engine filling everything, the silence thickening between us like drying cement. I was more ashamed than anything, shame eating me from the inside, gnawing at my insides. At some point we changed the subject, moving on to what was playing on the radio, something trivial, something that let us smile again, pretend the world still worked the way it was supposed to. I knew she had a massive crush on me, I knew it as surely as I know the sun rises in the east. That was something we never said out loud, but it was there, present in every glance, every silence, every touch that lasted a second longer than it should. But we already had that brother-sister dynamic, and probably she didn’t distinguish between the two feelings, that confusion between love and friendship, between desire and affection, between who we are and who we’d like to be. Besides, it even showed up in how we teased each other, that humor of ours, that way of saying things without saying them.
Feeling the mood lighter, she looked at me and said, in a teasing voice, with that childish tone used with mischievous kids, that tone that’s simultaneously tenderness and provocation, “Who has a tiny cute pee-pee? Who is it?” and I let out a grunt, that sound that comes from the throat when words fail, “rawwww Erika,” and that was all I could manage, all I had left, my dignity reduced to an animal noise.
In the present she was telling me “I want you to fuck me, Duncan. Fuck me,” revealing her breasts, which I’d never seen but imagined, that image that haunted me, that invaded my dreams, that made me wake up in the middle of the night with my body sweating, breath caught in my throat, skin electric with desire. In the past she replied, “Who has a very cute pee-pee? Who is it?”, me red as a pepper, my face burning, wanting to disappear, wanting to melt into the car seat, wanting to be anyone other than me, there, in that moment, exposed.
And she added, with a softness that took me by surprise, “You know? I know you actually came from the cold, and everything, but even if that’s what I saw… I wouldn’t want to know. That’s the point.”
I felt the pressure rising, the mix of the two memories, the overlap, the past and present colliding like cars at a poorly signaled intersection, the sound deafening, metal tearing. I picked up my phone, looked at another photo of Erika, and let myself come—strong jets streaming, warm and persistent, as if my body wanted to expel everything it had been storing. I still imagined Erika touching me, her making me cum, “Come to me”, and on the other side, “Who has a cute pee-pee?”, the two things mixing, and I let it all out.
I went to the bathroom, washed my face with cold water, felt the ice stinging my skin, waking my senses. I looked in the mirror, dark circles, messy hair.
“I have to meet this Allison.”
I changed into something simple that fit well. Dark jeans, fitted t-shirt, boots. I ran a hand through my hair, looked at myself once more, and picked up my phone.
Me: I’m heading over.
Erika: ❤️ See you soon.