by Tom Cardamone
(12/14/05)

I want a boyfriend who smokes.

None of these boys smoke. Freshman year Algebra, I sit in the back of the class and think about leaving during the break. The boys sitting in front of me are all obscenely healthy, all have roughly the same haircut, wear the same t-shirts emblazoned with the scrawled monikers of similar bands and they all like the prettiest girl in class, who won't date any of them.

I can't imagine dating one of them either; they move in packs and leave the same smell whenever too many of them are in the same room without decent ventilation: a broth of meaty breath and fresh deodorant.

During the break, I bolt. I want to be somewhere darker, colder than the classroom. A matinee. I walk off campus and down Main Street. Our school is a not-so-ancient institution trying to look ancient via jumbles of ivory and faux-gothic architecture. Town is a few blocks away and consists of only a few blocks itself. The old movie theater and the courthouse and the church are the only buildings on Main Street over two stories tall.

Two movies are playing at the lone theater, some classic film from the '30s and a new horror movie. I don't like black and white films. They shouldn't be called black and white films; they're gray, gray as worn highways. My favorite movie as a child was Day of the Triffids, where giant plants start growing all over the earth, wildly, rapidly expanding, filling cities, killing everyone. Everyone struck blind by a meteor, a supernova, something too bright, I forget what.

Though I want a boyfriend, I have never actually kissed another boy. I've thought about it, but which boy? The boys at the dorm are either dull or madly animal, boys following any hunger or thirst to its brutal conclusion. I've never kissed a boy but I've kissed myself, for practice. Kissing my knees felt funny, my shoulder like kisses mom dispensed for goodnights and good luck before big tests. Kissing my own hand felt courtly. A dual knight, split at the waist, embracing awkwardly. For now, my desired boyfriend is more a dragon. I list the qualities I wish for, but I don't know what a boyfriend really is. How much is smoke, how much fire?

At the dorm, I wake up every morning early to shower. In part I'm embarrassed at how thin I am. My thin arms seem made to fit inside the arms of other boys; an extra skeleton for them to use. I wouldn't mind. Someone please put me inside.

Mostly I don't want to see the other guys naked. They intuit my glances and turn more toward me, to mock me, the waterfall off their tan stomachs rippling away into a forest of steam my eyes cannot penetrate unless I move in for a closer look. I won't allow myself that move, a move toward a boy who moves away, smug in the allure, powerful, now that he can name me, calling out to the other boys just what I am. I can't even write that word in my journal yet. I practiced it, the other day in Algebra class, over and over, in the reddest ink. Then I ripped up the paper into tiny shreds.

The only senior on our hall, Brett, the R.A.'s roommate, he moves closer. I sense he has changed his schedule to accommodate my averted gaze. His morning jogs come earlier now, placing us more and more in alignment. He lingers, his charged body casual against the shower wall, rivers of blonde hair fingering his brow under pressure of the white spray, always facing me, legs apart; the water rushing between them molds to the firm, handsome barrel of new flesh stationed there. He stands there as if he was waiting, waiting for me, and that frightens me more. When I shower, I stand with my back to him, directly beneath the showerhead as if it were an umbrella shielding me from his storm.

I have time to kill before the matinee, so I head over to the one dusty record store in town. I have been at school three months now and the owner of the record store is the only person I've really talked to; he lets me sit behind the counter and read his "New Music Express." Some days, I don't buy lunch so I'll have money to buy tapes. The owner's not in today: it's the surly girl with too much mascara. I buy the new Cure cassette and leave.

The movie theater has one of those old, broad marquees. The movie titles are in all capitals, like a declaration of something grand, more truth than title. The Baptist church down the street has a white peeling steeple and a sign smaller than the theater's, with moveable letters, too, wheeled out to face the infrequent traffic. SIN WILL FIND YOU OUT. Well, I am still waiting.

I buy a ticket for the horror movie, a sequel to one I haven't seen, and push against the heavy glass door. Mercifully the guy behind the counter doesn't ask for I.D. Tired of getting ID'd for cigarettes, I buy them out of vending machines at the Denny's near campus.

I've been old enough to see 'R' rated films for a year now but I look much younger than I am. Not just skinny, I'm short for my age as well. At theaters any boy my age or younger is cocked to card me; they do so with wide grins, looking down at me through the scratched glass of the ticket booth then back at my driver's license, always in some variation of ill-fitting shirt and clip-on bowtie; all movie theater employees are dressed like the harried members of a dispersed wedding party.

In matinees, old men with baseball caps tend to sit next to me. I rush past the concession stand and into the first row. No one sits next to me if I take the first row, not enough cover. As the screen flickers to life, I push my bangs out of my eyes.

After dull previews, the movie begins. I recognize the mask of the killer; I did see the first film, loved it, in fact. The killer terrorized a hospital last time. Now he is resurrected by lightning at the mortuary and terrorizes a sorority across the street. He walks slowly and methodically down the hall as the girls run, full sprint. The killer somehow catches the hems of their pink nightgowns or ponytails and chops away.

I think about my future boyfriend. I want him to be foreign, with an accent and thick, curly hair. His fingers will taste like nicotine. He will approach me outside class to bum a cigarette. When he asks if I have a cigarette, I'll say, "No, but I have a light." I can't make up my mind if that sounds ridiculous or seductive, or if the difference between the ridiculous and the seductive lies only in the response. Anyway, I like the idea of my boyfriend having curly hair, plus pouty lips. Next semester maybe I'll take French.

The movie ends before I realize it; only the blaring, bad heavy metal title song playing again alerts me that the film is over. The credits are rolling: Girl #4, Girl #5, Girl Doing Laundry, Girl in Library. Is this how the names of the girls they've fucked, want to fuck, said they'd fucked, roll across the eyes of the boys in the dorm? I don't have or want any such numbers to put in columns, add or subtract, carve into statistics. I've wondered why they just don't make shirts, baseball jerseys to best display their prowess. I've listened to all their stories in silence; what I want doesn't seem as singular as anything that could reach a total, form in the ammonia stench of the faceless shower room. My boy will stand naked in my room in the middle of the night, taller than the darkness, leaning over me, kissing my open mouth. Hair falls onto my face and winds into my own hair, tightens, pulling him closer as his thumbs press into my chest, spreading my skin roughly, so hard it burns.

The theater lights go on. An usher walks to the front of the screen and stands, bored, hands-behind-his back, waiting for me to leave.

After ten o'clock curfew, I smoke a clove cigarette in my room; we're not allowed to smoke but I begged my parents to pay extra so I could have a private room. I keep the window open and push towels up under the door so I won't get in trouble with the R.A.

Someone knocks on the door and I freeze. I'm glad the tape I was playing had already stopped, that the lights are out. I like to smoke in the dark. Another knock.

"Theo? Open up. It's me, Brett."

I'm silent, knees pulled to my chest, additional cushion to my thumping heart. Then a whisper, "Theo, I smell smoke."

I get up and unlock the door and peer out. Brett is shuffling his feet, wearing nothing but boxers, holding a towel. He's never visited my room before. We have never spoken. I'm surprised he knows my name. I open the door wider, saying "Hey."

Rushing back to my bed, I clutch the pillow and pull my knees back up to my chest. Brett stands in the doorway, pauses, looks over his shoulder then quickly enters. He locks the door behind him and sits at my desk. He calmly fills the room but I sense a natural hunger as he surveys the posters on my wall. He's looking for something.

"No worries, Theo. I thought I smelled a clove cigarette. Can I bum one?"

I point to the pack there on the desk; he pulls one out and puts it in his mouth. It hangs there like a comma; a silence grows as he relaxes into the chair, pushing it back to face me.

"Nice that you get to live alone. I mean, I like my roommate and all, but since he's the R.A., someone's always knocking at our door. No privacy, you know what I mean?" He spreads his legs slightly -- in the darkness I can discern large ripples across his boxers. I have seen this pair on him before, loose and well worn, probably washed a thousand times. They look as soft as clouds.

"Do you got a light?" He wags the cigarette between his lips.

I take the lighter from the nightstand and lean across the bed to light his cigarette. In that quick illumination of instant flame I look hard at his crotch, willfully searching out the mass coiled behind threadbare cotton. His wide blonde thighs open before me. With deep inhalation, fire catches the cigarette.

As the lighter flickers out, I look up at his face to see that he was watching me with approval. The room darkens and then grows lighter as our eyes adjust. He exhales and relaxes into the chair. Legs together, he seems to adjust his crotch and leans back, legs now wide apart. It is too dark for me to really discern his midriff and below. An idea catches in my throat. Swallowing nervously I pause, trying to make my voice sound even, calm. "Do you want to hear the new Cure album?"

Brett exhales, his profile strong in a halo of smoke. "Sure."

Fumbling with the case, I insert the cassette into the small, battered stereo on my cluttered nightstand. As music sputters like a dying candle the tiny stereo light casts a blue glow about the room.

Brett is naked.

A velvet froth of black hair and his cock full and long, basking like a crocodile on the sandy beach of his thigh, turned just so, to expose the pulsing ridge of fine vein and taunt foreskin. I can see everything, hand behind the pillow catching my crotch.

"This sounds good," and he shifts, his golden crocodile slowly withdrawing into the river of darkness between open legs, to hover, a menace below the surface, before emerging again, sharp and hard, expanding, a sapphire tear of pre-cum forming at the slit.

Brett takes another drag. Behind my pillow, I push my jeans down to my knees. My erection stabs the pillow. I finger the tip to taste the salt of my own tears. The music builds a dark bridge between us. I kick the jeans off from around my ankles and lay the pillow by my side.

Brett exhales and shifts, examining me in the blue light: T-shirt high up on my hairless chest; thin, bony waist; the brief ebony cut of pubic hair; and my thin cock hard, white, held aloft by my thumb. He strokes himself. I stare hard, emboldened by my own exposure, rapt over his girth, the cuff of his foreskin. I want to move in but I don't.

The next song begins as Brett stabs the cigarette out into the ashtray on the desk; the exploding cherry illuminates the spike of his nipple. His chest is broad, the striking indenture between his pectorals sacrosanct, perfectly curved and pointed as a temple's crest. Smoke hangs over him like a budding rain cloud. He straightens one leg and rests it on my bed, the sole of his large foot touching mine, towering over my small foot. His warmth is incredible, engulfing, electrifying. My whole body shakes. I can hear Brett's breathing grow shallow. He stops stroking himself and withdraws his foot. Putting his hands on his knees, he stands.

Startled, I reach for my jeans but he calms me with a soothing hand on my ankle. He then squats by my bed, his open mouth close to mine. We kiss. Our teeth knock in a jarring moment quickly forgotten as he lightly bites my bottom lip, then places his open mouth over mine. Tongue grappling with tongue, the spice from his clove cigarette floods my mouth. His hand engulfing my cock, I fumble for his, surprised at its strength and softness, fingering the silk of his foreskin, rubbing the salt of his pre-cum across the head with my thumb. He groans; my eyes are open, his closed, his long, blonde lashes sweeping my cheeks.

I feel a tremor in his cock and wonder about my own impending explosion. Deftly, he leaps on top of the bed, his weight crushing me, his body heat igniting me. I cum. My pelvis twitches under him, shooting ribbons now ground into my smooth stomach by his rigid one. Lubing his hot cock in my sticky white molasses, he increases his friction. Overwhelmed I can barely breathe, his Adam's Apple grates my parted lips; I'm desperate for air.

Brett spreads his arms and rises as if he were doing a push-up only to pause, the quivering heat above my stomach mounting as his body tenses. I feel a surge from his shins resting atop my knees as his lightning strikes my chest. Brett exhales with a shudder and rolls off, collapsing on the bed beside me. I notice he is sweaty but clean, while I am splattered with the resin of our encounter.

The tape ends. Brett sits up. I think he is going to leave but he stands, reaches for his underwear from the floor. He seems to consider something, lets the boxers drop and takes another cigarette from the desk. Cautiously, up on one elbow, I flip the tape and pull my T-shirt off, to mop up my chest and stomach. Brett settles down beside me, also on one elbow, cigarette hanging off his lips.

He is waiting for me to give him a light.

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