“You’re not funny,” I said.
“I’m hilarious,” he said. “Drop your phone, did you?”
“Slipped from my hand. Had nothing to do with our conversation.”
“Sure it didn’t. Your turn.”
“Or maybe you can just tell me why you called.”
“Where’s the fun in that?”
“In your delay tactics?”
“Probably.”
“Is it that bad?”
“Probably.”
I sighed. “This was such a stupid idea.”
“And yet, here we are.”
“Yeah, with you and your pedophile teacher.”
“Hey, it could have been real love, you don’t know. He was hot. Had this whole daddy thing going on. I had this fantasy about him that I’d get a B on a test and need to stay after for extra credit. Dirty extra credit.”
“We’re going to hell for even having this conversation.”
“Nah, this won’t be the thing that sends us there,” he said. “We were probably on our way a long time ago. Your turn. Think you can beat me?”
Oh, what an amateur little boy, thinking he can go up against a queen. His naïveté was almost precious. “When I was seventeen,” I said, “I was living with Paul and his parents. I wanted to have sex, but I wasn’t sure I was ready to do that with a person. So I stole Nana’s credit card, went online, bought a twelve-inch dildo because I really wasn’t sure what to get. I ingenuously thought it was the bigger the better.”
“You still think that, don’t even front. Size queen.”
“Shut up. Anyway. I got it delivered, pretended to be sick one day on a family outing, stayed home by myself, lubed it up, and sat on it. Long story short, I had forgotten to completely remove my shorts and underwear, and the end of the dildo got tangled up in my clothes and stuck in my ass.”
Darren started coughing roughly.
“You okay?”
“Fine,” he managed to say.
“Should I continue?”
“There’s more?”
“Three hours later, I still hadn’t gotten the dildo out of my ass, and everyone came home. I shouted for Paul to come save me, because I was getting fucked to death by a big green cock. He ran into the room, followed by Matty, Larry, and of
course, Nana, who started screaming that I had been fisted by the Hulk and wouldn’t someone please save her step-grandbaby.”
“I don’t know that I’ve ever been happier than I’ve been right now,” Darren gasped. “This moment… it’s just wonderful.”
“So Paul did what he did best and burst into tears, saying that he didn’t want me to die, that he would do his best to save me. So he untangled the dildo from out of my clothes, wrapped both hands around it, counted to three, and pulled so hard that he fell backward. Since I’d poured three bottles of lube on it to try and slick it up to pull it loose, it slipped from his fingers, went over his head, and broke the window in my bedroom. He told me later he felt like Arthur pulling Excalibur from the stone. He wondered if that made him a king or something, given the strength it took to pull the dildo from my anus.”
I thought it was quite possible that Darren was dying on the other end of the line. I didn’t know why I was telling him this, nor why I thought his laugh was one of the nicest sounds I’d heard in a long time. It wasn’t forced or controlled or done in contempt; it was an honest, free sound that was a little manic and it was the best I’d ever heard him.
“That’s not the end,” I said. “It happened in the February. Do you know what happens in the February, Darren?”