A Suite Life Love Story of Imad and Cody A Love Story
By Imad and Tim (To Imad, with thanks; the flaws in the story are, as always, completely mine)
Chapter 1
The facts about me are cleanly and specifically stated: I am 15. I have light blond hair. I am 5'7''. I have an athletic build. I have chin length hair. I have brown eyes. I have a story to tell. It's about Cody and me. And here it is.
Stated boldly, I found love for true and sure, in the eyes of my forever love. His name is Cody. And suddenly, the rush of students in the dimly lit hallways and kids falling all over each other and sneaking smooches in the corners or right in front of class before the teacher walks in and the droning of the teachers and the slamming of doors and the lockers being banged open and closed, and the rotten egg smell of science class and the headachy Math problems on the slate boards and the smell of the chalk and the coughing when the dust gets too close to my face, all of it made a very good reason to be. For it all led me up to Cody. Everything that seemed illogical was another stair step on my way to him.
It was yesterday in our English class, when Miss McCoy handed out assignments, and partnered each of us up on them--she put me with Cody. And I looked at him and he looked at me. And he smiled and it made my heart half-crazy. It was the end of class, so Cody and I decided to talk in study hall. Which was today at one. Our assignment was about comparing Walt Whitman and Herman Melville-"The Beauty of Individualism and the Great Heart of the Whale." Oh yawn. But who cares the topic???
It was to be done over the winter break, which, without Cody, would be a huge and unfair bummer--but with him! THANK YOU MISS MCCOY--AND THE HAPPIEST CHRISTMAS OF YOUR LIFE, PLEASE! I just felt so dancy inside and could not sleep last night for the world. But there I was, walking into study hall, and there was Cody at the first table to the right, his huge bright white smile, as he waved at me.
I was so excited to sit beside him as he patted the chair he had pulled out. I was so close I could feel his body heat. Our heads would be together, I just knew, studying for hours and hours over the next two weeks of break, and we would have to get sleepy. What better thing than to let our heads lie on the side of the other and drift off, closer and closer we go?
Later on, after we did indeed become lovers, I asked Cody what he thought when he saw me, when he really liked me. He was serious and he looked his most wonderful and sexiest then, and he said, it was in late Autumn, about a week before Thanksgiving. That he had always wondered why he could attract girls, though not as many as Zac, who was always lording it over him and telling Cody it was because he was clumsy and smart and who needs that?, but it was just difficult to be with them--he thought it was because he was still way young, but--well, he got a Playgirl magazine from the Tilton Hotel lobby newsstand when no one was looking, after making sure the exact cost including tax was left by the cash register, and put the magazine up under his shirt and took it upstairs, to look at later on. And he knew. All the hot pictures. And he cried, he said, because it made him happy there were pictures at least to look at.
I held Cody in my arms that night later on, when he talked about this. There had been a boy here and there that he kind of followed around like a puppy dog--but when he saw me, really saw me that time before Thanksgiving, something said it was me he wanted and that I had good eyes--strong eyes--the kind that don't look away in the bad times-- and it looked like I wouldn't make fun of him. Course he also said, not to mention, Imad, you are very very hot--with a hot bod to boot and then we tickled each other. Yep, that's me, very hot blooded. I had had a couple of boy friends earlier, but it was not really fun for me. Oh it was fun, but it seemed they were kind of wasting my time, if you know what I mean. They were shy and I had to show them what I knew way back then. It was kind of fun being their teacher but a little of a drag too.
This was my first year at Bunkner Middle High. My first year in Boston at all.
I was pretty nervous about it, at first, but here it was almost winter break, and snowing beautifully this afternoon. Boston is supposed to be like all huge cities. Soulless. Friendless. Lonely in a huge crowd wherever you went. Where no body knows anyone. Well...it's not so here. I make friends easily. I always have. I am kind and attentive and very concerned with the people around me. And yet--there was that loss that I had felt for a long time now. For a long time, really without knowing it. When I had my first boyfriend, we just jacked and stuff and it was cool enough, first time. But now, today, as I sit by Cody as he has the outline for the report, all typed up already and is so seriously going through it point by point with his pen, his head bent down close to the paper, I see the truth. Totally.
Today, I found out. Today, I realized what it was and what it will forever be. Cody has sunny blond hair. How I would love to kiss it. Feel its warmth. My hair is blond too. And that is another sign of fate. He is 15, too. He has freckles and he smiled such a kind happy in the dull lights of the study hall as he waved me so happily over. He is wearing a white over-shirt that reads I'D RATHER BE SKATEBOARDING. Yes. I'd love that too. With Cody. He has a tan jacket over it. His jeans are the coolest. Not the baggy stuff most boys wear, sinking even past the top of their underwear. His are tight and like molded to him. His feet encased in fluorescent Nike Air-Tops. He wears his wraparound sunglasses on a cord round his thin neck. His face is slightly rounded. His cheeks are just so adorable. His teeth are so white and his lips so kissable. His body is cuddly and thin and warm and happy and Cody.
Not that yesterday, I just noticed him, but yesterday, I just noticed him, if you get what I mean. I'm pretty hot, emotion-wise and I get some juicy boners and dreams and things, it's important that is understood, but a man's gotta size up the territory before he starts getting comfortable enough to let someone get close, you know.
Sometimes he and his brother Zac wear preppy clothes and at first I kind of had a not good opinion of them for that, because I thought they were showing off and stuff. But I knew I was wrong, quickly. They were so friendly, and Cody helped other students in the library and home room, with their homework and tests and stuff--Cody doesn't have an athletic body like I do, but it's a nice one, a firm one. Oh how I wish I were in one of the brothers' P.E. classes. God, thinking of it, seeing them strip down and shower after gym, oh god, I would simply sprout the biggest hard on in the world and would not care who saw it.
Cody has dreamy lips, boy lips, pale pink and I would love to kiss him and taste him. I am so close to him now as he shows me his meticulously planned outline. Hope he doesn't get the paper written tonight. We gotta work on this together. It's gotta take time for us to work on it. Lots and lots of time. Slow down, Cody, already.
My lips are right at his right ear and I find breathing suspended for me for a moment or two, like I'm afraid to damage a great work of art. I've never kissed anyone before, in love I mean. I mean the usual stuff of kissing mother and grandmother and all the usual relatives. I've done sex, remember please, but love comes in its own time. And the boys I was with would have gone freaky if I had done that. Jacking each other off is okay. But kissing was disgusting? Go figure.
At the end of English class yesterday, he came over to talk about getting together on the project. He just stuck out his hand and said, "Hey, seen you tomorrow, man. We have study hall together and can talk about the project. Oh, my name's Cody." Yeah, like that name wasn't burned on my brain. Before I could think about it and be afraid to do it--well, not afraid--hesitant--there are ways to treat people and I wanted to do it right--I put my hand in his and said, "Hey, man, I'm Imad. Nice to finally meet you." We shook hands and gave a kind of retro-vague high five and laughed. His voice is not reedy or thin. It has a man's voice in it on the bridge with still a boy's voice. I wondered what color his pubic hair was. And how thick. And did he shave it. I blushed and pulled my mind away from that.
He talked to me, yesterday afternoon after we were told our English assignment, at my locker before our last class, and I tried to lean nonchalantly against the dinted pocked green metal, just looking at his face. God, his freckles were beautiful--connect the dots, a game I would love to play with them-- and those eyes lit up with electric sparks and those cheeks I longed to touch. I know. I know. We're too young to be in love. We don't know what it means. We don't know what we're doing. Actions have consequences yackadayackadayackada--well, I knew what love was. And as Cody, put his hand on my shoulder and made me realize I am a real person and I am truly alive and truly me, I think, hope, pray, that he experienced love that moment too.
The bell rang, yesterday, breaking us up for last period. Cody said, "Tomorrow, man." And before I could say anything, he was running down the hall. Cool jeans. Slender legs. Nice, nice butt. And his name is Cody and we will be friends and someday soon we will be lovers and my heart is singing. I will never be alone again. Cody. Say it. Cody. What a splendid name. Got great game that name. I dazed to class. Was sent to Principal's Mac's for a tardy slip and just was on magic carpet dreams the whole way through that and through the rest of the day.
It just hit me. A person is like a country. Each individual. Each their own personal territory. Each a series of places to touch, to look, to see, to imagine. Cody is the country where I wish to live. And I hope he will feel the same about me.
Cody just asked me, here, in study hall, turned his face to mine, and snapped me out of my memories and dreams, and asked where I lived. My heart through all of this, the first hello yesterday and all, was not beating hard, like I guess I thought it would. Maybe because Cody was a person to trust. To not let me down. I told him my apt. address. After school, he introduced Zac who was cute and sexy too, and looked a whole lot like his bro--in fact, Zac who is really very very outgoing, a real boy's boy, said he and Cody were mistaken for each other a lot. And they played jokes on people with that confusion. Cody though always had a book in his hand.
Always knew the answers to teacher's questions. And was like his bro, but in his own Cody way--alive--breaking into dance steps, coming out with corny jokes and when you think the world is as sad as a world could get, Cody comes running into your heart and does something so ultra-stupid that your whole freakin' body starts to laugh and you're so damned happy to be alive, you don't think you can stand it.
But Cody was not Zac and Cody is the one for me. Cody said they lived at the Tipton, where their mother works as a singer, and since I lived close by, would I like to walk home with them. I said, ever so offhandedly, YES THANKS THAT WOULD BE--ah--great.
I don't know of a more magical day in my life. Walking home with them. They in their heavy fleece jackets and wraparound shades. Me in the middle, Malcolm. All of us in our fleece lined jackets. Our hands in our jeans pockets. Snow falling heavily and on our hair, all of us blond. Boston decked out for Christmas. The stores and the Christmas music and winter break just a little ways ahead. I wanted to hold Cody's hand. It brushed mine. I had touched for the first time. My Cody. And we're walking goofily and laughing and shooting the bull and being crazy and bumping into each other and running round lampposts.
Ok, look, I'm not sappy or mushy, not at all. But I figure a guy falls in love, he can be a little of those things inside where no one can down him for them. It's allowed. And us in a giant snowball of city, in the huge tunnels of heavy cold winds, with shoppers rushing round with their packages, three Santas taking up money on street corners--how do we know who the money as for though, I ask you? --And two great looking boys and I am not exactly chopped liver you knowJ) and I walking through this entire wonderland. Zac talked of sports and girls. Cody talked of books and movies. Zac wanted to be a football player, this week anyway. Cody wanted to be a scientist, this week anyway.
Zac had those cute freckles too. And I don't mean to say he was not hot. Cause he definitely was. It was just I was in love with Cody.. And yes, for the questions about me boner-wise--let's say from the first handshake to this moment, there is a giraffe in my pants.
When Zac shook hands with me, these are the shaking hands-iest twins in the world I think, his hand was cool and soft like Cody's and somehow warm at the same time. I never knew how another hand felt before Cody's. And in feeling his hand, I felt for the first time, my own. Before the snow turns ugly with the grime of the city, it is wonderful. To see it fall on Cody's shoulders and his head--I know now what real magic is. This then is real magic.
We got to the Tipton. Man, what a beautiful, impressive hotel. They both invited me in to play in the hotel's game room, and to their apartment where their mom would get us hot chocolate and I could see their room and stay for dinner if I liked in the hotel's dining room, and then we could go see their mom's act in the hotel club.
Cody and Zac were like snow bunnies, so radically sexual like who could not see this? They brushed snow off their wraparounds. Cody whipped out his cell and said I could call home and say I'd be late if I liked. Oh I liked. But I thought, no, it's gone so beautifully, like a leaf blown off a tree in Autumn, free and happy and rustling, in perfect precision and poetry, down a golden street, so I should leave it like this for now, and not rush anything or do anything dumb, so I said I had to get home. Zac said, sure, catch you later and went to the revolving doors of the hotel and then in.
Cody looked a little downcast as he stood on the sidewalk in the snow with me. He said, softly, will I see you tomorrow, Imad? And I felt kind of badly, didn't really know what to do, and wondered did Cody really have that many friends? He had lots of people to talk to. But that doesn't necessarily mean he had friends. The real and true kind. Like me. I told him, sure, Cody, we gotta be spending lots of time working on that assignment. Cody sunbeamed at that. It made me so happy.
Then I added, could I come to the Tipton's game room tomorrow afternoon? Those eyes came alive again, and he smiled a really sweet chipmunky kind of smile, and I just want to say whoever created Cody and sent him my way, my deepest thanks. How I wanted to kiss him, but knew I had to be respectful of him. It's what love and friendship are. You respect each other. And you care for each other. And you give each other time and space and a shoulder to lean on, if they want to. This wasn't someone just to dork around with, a buddy, like. This was Cody. And there, Robert Frost, is all the difference.
He went to the revolving doors, turned round to me, waved his hand, said smiling bright, see ya! And I waved my hand and said see ya, Cody. And he went inside, past the doorman, who greeted him as he had Zac. Past the bustling guests coming out, with the doorman hailing cabs for them, those guests leaving or returning or checking in for the first time, and the doorman holding an umbrella over the guests' heads, welcoming, endlessly welcoming. Into that tall impressive glass and steel hotel, that was so hugely tall, and all Christmasy and everything. What a nice place it looked to be. And I stood there for a minute and then, as fast as I could on the slippery sidewalk, I ran for home, and now it's close to eleven at night as I'm remembering all this, and I'm in bed and can't wait for tomorrow.
I snuggle down in my covers and kiss the air as I hug my pillow. And as I drift into sleep, I think, "Cody and me, forever be."