“My brother. He… raised me. He protected me from them. We didn’t know it was panic disorder until later. He helped me. To learn to breathe.” Amongst other things.
“And breathing helps?” Charlie asks.
“Breathing is the hardest thing. When it hits.”
“But you’re a genius,” Paul says.
“Well, yeah.”
“Then why can’t you figure out a way to breathe? Seems to me the body does it on its own. You just have to trust it knows what to do. It’s not physical. It’s all in your head.”
“That’s the part I can’t get over.”
“Why not?”
“My brain is wired… differently.”
Paul laughs. “Not so differently that you can’t kick its ass. Look, I’m not talking about the power of positive thinking, and I’m not saying the cure for you is some kind of magical dick, because that won’t work. You need to fix yourself. It’s that easy. And if you’re as smart as everyone touts you to be, then it should be simple. You got to find what the blockage is, then blow it the fuck up.”
“It’s not that….” It’s not that easy? Since when? And why the fuck shouldn’t it be? “Holy sweat balls,” I say. I might be the smartest twenty-year-old full-blown ecoterrorist on the planet, but apparently I’m pretty goddamn slow on the uptake.
“Aha!” Paul says. “Now he gets it. Paul saves the day yet again.”
“I don’t think I get it,” Charlie says.
“I don’t either,” Paul admits. “But the twink does. You can see it in his eyes. Tyson, if I could tell you one thing—and remember, I’m fat, I blab too much, I think too hard, and I don’t know what I’m talking about half the time—it would be that no matter what, you thank your lucky stars every single goddamn day that you’re alive and that someone loves you as much as they do. I didn’t know that for the longest time.” He looks down at Vince, and the love that fills his eyes knocks the breath from my chest, but in a good way. “I may be a new convert, and it’s cheesy as all fucking hell, and I swear to God, if you tell anyone I said this, I’m going to bury you in the desert, but love conquers all. It’s cliché. It’s sappy. It sounds awful. But love
fucking conquers all. And until you let it conquer you, you don’t know shit. Stop being a fucking dumbass and open your fucking eyes.”
“I’m so proud of you, boy,” Charlie says. “Who knew you had it in you?”
“Oh, for fuck’s sake,” Paul says, throwing his hands over his head. “Can we please stop being big soppy vaginas and go back to being snarky assholes?”
But I can’t answer him. Because Dom is all I see.
And he doesn’t look away.
SAGE THE Fourth:
Kori pulls me down to the floor right before the show comes on, telling me it’s imperative that I be in the front row to witness the glory that is Helena Handbasket. I find myself sandwiched between her and Dom. Vince stands on Dom’s other side. They seem to have hit it off, which makes me weirdly happy and not even remotely the least bit jealous at all. (The glances I try and sneak might suggest otherwise—apparently I’m not very subtle, because Kori is snickering at me and elbowing me in the side. Jerk.) It really doesn’t help that people are crowding in around us, and I’m practically plastered up against Dom, and every now and then, I feel his large hand at the base of my spine, just a touch, but the electricity that shoots through my skin is like I’ve been struck by lightning, and I don’t dare try and move toward it. Or away. I’m paradoxical. And a chickenshit.
And then she enters the world.
There’s a flash of light. The crowd sighs. A nasty beat kicks up from the speakers all around us, and the spotlight zeroes in on the stage. The beat intensifies and thrums through me. A hand appears from behind the curtain, the nails long and sharp and bright red. People scream around me. The hand curls up and one finger extends and curls, telling us all, Come here. Come here and let’s get dirty.
The song explodes and the curtains part and Helena Handbasket writhes onto the stage, hair huge, costume glittery and tight and almost nonexistent (and from a purely scientific standpoint, I wonder just how it’s possible to create the illusion that you don’t have a dick, because that costume shows absolutely everything and reveals absolutely nothing). The lyrics start, a woman with a rough voice singing about fucking and touching and doing all those things you could only dream about. It’s obscene. It’s so wrong. And it’s absolutely magnificent.
Maybe I should see what happens with Minerva Fox, after all. But I don’t know if I’d be capable of tucking my dick that far back. I like it right where it’s at.
Helena moves amongst the crowd, gyrating up and down on pretty much everyone within reach. People hand her ones and tens and twenties, and she gives them sticky kisses on the cheek before reaching down and goosing them.
She goes on from one to the next, and how she can see anything is beyond me, with the spotlight on her face and the strobe lights flashing. She reaches the back wall, where a large man is standing, his face hidden in shadow. Her movements become stiff and jerky as she steps closer, and as the light slides up the wall, I see it’s Darren, the Homo Jock King, standing alone in the dark. He’s smiling quietly to himself, but then, as if he’s forgotten his place and who he is, a scowl quickly forms as Helena approaches him. She trails her hand along his arm, but there’s nothing sexual about this. He doesn’t give her money. She moves on.
And before the shadows cover him again, that quiet smile returns as he follows her every move. She doesn’t see it, of course.
But I do.
I pull on Dom’s arm to get his attention. He bends over, my mouth near his ear. That hand comes to my back again. I can smell him. Spicy. Warm. His cheek brushes against mine. Accidental. Maybe. I don’t know. Apparently I don’t know a lot of things. “I’ll be right back,” I say.