When I got back to my room after classes and dinner, it was already dark.
There was a paper cup outside my room. Parts of the bottom were torn out.
There were a few words that had been scribbled on the side with a purple marker.
I sighed, picked it up, and carried it with me to my desk.
I rubbed my eyes as I sat down on my bed. There was some sort of string snaking out of the hole in the wall, which seemed as big, if not bigger, than ever. There was a note strung along it.
I smiled, rolled my eyes, and looped the string into the frayed bottom of the cup. I slowly brought it to my ear.
"You are surprisingly obedient," Duke said. I could hear his voice echoing along the string.
I put my mouth to the cup. "Are you ever going to fix the hole?" I whispered, my voice bending weakly.
There was a silence as I put it to my ear, waiting for his response. The entire conversation took place with that kind of—suspense. No pun intended.
I wasn't really one for jokes.
"No," Duke finally said. "You know you like it."
I sighed. "Do you ever have anything original to say?"
Pause.
"How about, `I wish my dick was smaller?'"
"What the hell?" I said, laughing.
Pause.
"How big is your dick?" He asked.
"I hardly see how that is—"
"Just answer or I'll assume it is tiny."
I sighed.
"Five inches hard," I said, my lips creasing.
Pause.
"That's not that bad," Duke said.
"Not that bad? It's average."
Pause.
"Whatever you say, Holden," Duke whispered. The cup felt warm on my ear.
"You are full of it, you know that?" I said.
Pause.
"Today, I thought I was going to score. I had a girl in my man cave, and she started taking off my clothes. Then, when she pulled out my hard-on, her eyes bugged out and she got all stiff. I convinced her to let me enter her pussy—and then she started crying and whimpering that it was too big and yelling to take it out and stuff. So she left me here with these blue balls and an aching hard cock."
I felt a pang of anger thinking about Duke putting his cock in some random girl. I closed my eyes and breathed. Duke was not my friend. I did not have to worry about him being a slut. But I seemed more than worried. I seemed—livid.
What was wrong with me?
I needed to calm down. I needed to masturbate. I pulled out my dick, which was already hard, and started stroking.
"Why are you telling me this?" I whispered into the cup. I tried to hold it so he couldn't hear my shallow breathing.
"You wanted something original. Everyone originates in sex, right? So in a pure sense, sex is original, right?"
"Is that supposed to be a pun?" I asked.
Pause.
"Yep."
I snorted. "Sorry, Duke. I'm not sure you are even using the word right," I said. "Plus, you are out of luck--people tell me I don't really have a sense of humor."
Pause.
"But you do have a boner."
I tried to mask my breathing as I pulled on my dick.
Pause.
"Holden, are you gay?" he asked.
"Yes," I whispered.
"I bet you take cock better than some stupid girl."
"I have a boyfriend, Duke," I said.
"Then what are you doing right now?"
I blushed. "Being a tease, I guess," I said softly. "Don't hate me."
Pause.
"Fuck you," he said, loud enough to be audible without moving the cup to my ear. I went quiet and let the cup fall.
It was easier to fall asleep than I thought it would be.
Over the next few weeks, Duke and I repeated that ritual every few nights. We would talk back and forth into the cup, as I jacked off, trying to hide my breathing—and failing. Sometimes a groan or whimper would escape and he would pounce on it. I pushed the limits of what I felt okay with—and yet, somehow—it was more exciting than uncomfortable. I felt a little dirty, but also a little alive.
I didn't know I could feel that.
And I hadn't a clue what to think about it.
I visited Joey on most of my weekends.
I couldn't quite pin down my thoughts. Joey and I had always planned things so meticulously. We met toward the end of high school, choosing colleges on the opposite side of the city so that we could commute easily. The matter-of-fact way we laid things out had always seemed so sensible. It underscored the pragmatic element of our personalities that we had in common, and it worked for us—it worked for things in general. But something about him just made me feel so restless recently. I couldn't figure out what it was for the life of me.
One time, on Sunday night, after visiting my parents, I decided on a whim to swing by his place and surprise him.
"I wish you had called," Joey said, opening his door. "I have a quiz tomorrow over something I don't understand. This just isn't a good time."
I shrugged. "I guess I just felt like doing something spontaneous."
Joey's eyes narrowed.
"What?" I asked.
"Oh, it's just--" Joey said. "Just that you are the least spontaneous person I know—or at least you were a few weeks ago."
I shrugged. "It's good to have some surprises in life."
I smirked and brought Joey's hand to my shoulder, but he waved it off.
"God, can you stop thinking about sex for two seconds? I told you, I have an exam tomorrow. You should just go."
"Go? You are kicking me out? Seriously?"
He looked at me, the light fading in his eyes. "You just seem so different recently. College hasn't been treating you well. I never took you for one of those fools who has to go crazy the second they leave home in order to feel free or powerful or whatever. I mean, talking with a cup on a string? Seriously? You are regressing into a child. Not to mention that you still haven't gotten that bully to fix the hole, or reported him, which is a problem in and of itself..."
"College has been treating me fine! Exploring yourself in new ways isn't childish—it's part of growing up. And Duke's not a bully. Not really. Talking through the cup has been—I don't know—fun. And he gives me these little notes sometimes. It is sweet."
I felt my eyes twinkling and I wrinkled my lips.
"Are you serious?" Joey said. "Have you lost your mind? Do you know what you sound like? This guy is a total douchebag. Everything that he does--he does it because he is a whore."
"Oh, lighten up."
"Since when do you say, `lighten up?'" Joey asked, his eyes creasing. "What's happening to you?"
"Don't you want to find out together?" I said, raising my eyebrows. "Just a little bit?"
A tear rolled down his cheek. "I just want to study, Holden."
"That's fine," I said, putting my hand on his shoulder again. I just meant to reassure him, but he interpreted it differently.
"I already said I'm not in the mood!" he snarled, batting my hand away.
"I just meant to comfort you," I said.
"Just leave me alone," he said.
I walked out of his apartment, turning back when I was just past the door. "Should I come back next weekend? When do you want to see me again?"
He slammed the door on me.
I went home in a huff. When I opened my dorm room door, I stumbled inside, flicked on my bedside lamp, and reached into the hole. My hand pulled back at the touch of cold. The space was packed with ice, which magnified the hole even more. I felt my mouth gape. Then I saw, at the core of the ice, something orange. Slowly, I started digging at it. I shook my head when I realized that while I was gone, shavings of ice had fallen out of the hole and melted, staining my carpet. After clawing for a minute, I finally was able to pull the orange object out.
It was a Popsicle. It was homemade.
On the side of it was a thin strand of paper, inch marks labeled on it.
Apparently, the Popsicle was ten inches long. I didn't know what the significance of that was, other than it would take me a long time to suck the Popsicle stick dry and that I wouldn't be able to fit the whole thing in my mouth.
I nursed that orange-flavored pole until the cream center melted in my mouth. Slowly, I pulled out the slimy wooden stick.
There was some sort of riddle or pun on it, written in purple marker.
<What's the difference between a two-by-four and Holden?>
I flipped the Popsicle stick over.
<One gets pounded and hammered all day, and the other is a piece of wood.>
It wasn't very clever.
As I was about to fall asleep, I noticed a beam of a purple laser pointer light dancing around my room. The source was, naturally, the hole in the wall—the ice was now all gone. I kept one eye open as I scowled. Eventually, the laser beam stopped on the cup on the ground. I snatched it up.
"What?" I asked into the cup, my voice a deep growl.
"Aren't you going to talk me to sleep like you did last night?" Duke whispered.
"Joey and I had a huge fight. I don't feel much like talking."
"Oh okay."
I sighed. "Thanks for the popsicle."
"Of course," he said.
"The one thing I wondered," I said, my lip quivering, "is why you measured it?"
Pause.
"Curiosity," he said softly. "Why did you measure yours?"
It took me a while to understand what he meant.
My breathing grew sharper.
"No fucking way!" I said, dropping the cup. My voice was now loud enough that the cup wasn't needed.
The light flicked on in Holden's room and my eye moved to the hole. He was standing there—naked. I withheld a gasp looking at his body. His feet were soft and pure--he probably coated them in some sort of salve; his thighs were shaped like diamonds—and shined like them too; his perfect abs were hilly and faultless—I knew he must have applied some sort of formulae; his hairless chest upheld pectoral muscles that made my mouth water—clearly his nipples were dying to be milked. His eyes were piercing blue crystals; his pale lips were glimmering like something out of the sky; his silky brown hair was unnaturally wavy where he had washed the spikes out of it. His arms weren't bulky—but the muscles were dense and defined, yet impossibly smooth. His body, as a whole, was so—creamy. I just wanted to drink it in.
This all avoids the reason he turned on the light. The center of attention.
It pulsed with energy as he stood. Though it was erect, it weighed too much to point upwards, and instead stuck straight out from his body and even bent down slightly at the head due to the weight. It was thick—it was the only part of him that was veiny or bulging. It was long—I did not doubt his measurements. And it was crowned with a rounded head, that, just like his lips, glimmered like a harvest moon.
I whimpered.
"That's like—that's like—"
"Twice as long as your dick?" he said helpfully.
"Hey, I'm normal. You are the freak who scares away all the girls before he can fuck them."
"Shut up," he said. He pulled on some jeans. I noticed he hadn't put on underwear. He hadn't put on a shirt either, and that was more apparent.
It took me a minute to tear my eyes off him—a minute Duke seemed happy to allow.
I heard Joey echo in my mind.
Everything he does—he does it because he is a whore.
My face fell.
"What's wrong?" Duke asked.
"I—I don't think I can talk to you anymore, if that's alright."
"You mean tonight?"
"I mean—at all," I whispered.
"No it's not alright!" Duke snarled.
"Goodnight," I said turning away and closing my eyes.
In the next few minutes, he woke me up three more times with the laser pointer. On the third time, I sighed, got out of bed, and started getting dressed.
"What are you doing?" Duke asked.
"Seeing if I can switch rooms so I don't have to deal with this anymore," I said, my voice breaking.
"Holden! HOLDEN!" he yelled. I ignored him, finished getting dressed, and left the room.
--
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