Page 74 of Creatures Like Us
“I didn’t think you did.”
He flashes a grin. “It could be nice though—fucking you while I’m high. It’s awesome enough when we’re sober; who knows how it’ll feel if we’re—”
“We’re not doing drugs together, Asher.”
He rolls his eyes. “Fine. You’re so boring, just like these books.” He snatches one from the foot of the bed and throws it into a corner.
“Hey.” I try to sound reprimanding, but my voice comes out subdued, still affected by the imagery of us in the grocery store, by the thought of Asher realizing what we are and hating it?…
“I need to do something.” He pulls at his fingers, agitated. “It’s really fucking cold in here today. Don’t you think so?”
“I don’t know. Maybe.” It is; the outside temperature has plunged, and the basement reflects it.
Asher rises from the bed, looks around for a few moments, and puts on the radio. It crackles and sparks before he finds a channel that sounds right, and when he does, he starts to dance.
He sways his hips, bobbing his head from side to side, tentatively at first, feeling the beats of the song, before his movements get more animated. Now that his wrist is free, he moves without restrictions, and I watch him from my prime view on the bed, unable to take my eyes off him.
“Come on!” He holds his hands out to me. “Dance with me, Noah.” He stomps his feet on the floor, waving his arms, purposefully silly.
I’ve never danced in my life, and I don’t feel a big connection with music to begin with, so I just smile and shake my head, but when Asher has set his mind on something he wants me to do, it’s hard to resist.
“Come on.” He grabs my hands and pulls me upright.
I stand frozen in place, my awkwardly tall body looming over him. I’ve never had a sense of rhythm, never even tried dancing that I can remember. Auntie used to put on music sometimes and urge me to dance, but for once, I declined her. I don’t know how to let loose or move my body to the beats of music, and I feel awkward when I try, like the world is watching me. But Asher is the only one watching me now, and he takes my hands impatiently in his.
“Come on, just move to the music.”
“I?…?I can’t.”
“Of course you can. Don’t think. Just move. Just enjoy it.”
I try, but my movements are so stilted, so awkward, and I feel watched, as if my middle school bullies are in the same room,watching me embarrass myself. Dancing is the type of thing normal people do—people with social skills, people who go out to clubs and bars and “hang out.” I’ve never done that. I don’t know how it’s done.
Sensing my discomfort, Asher takes my hands again and sways them from side to side. “Come on,” he says, smiling up at me. “It’s fun. Let’s have fun together.”
We have fun together in other ways. Ways I much prefer.
“No one is watching us in here,” he continues. “We can just do whatever we want.”
I glance at the blacked-out window. He’s right. The outside world can’t touch us here. We’re safe from its prying eyes.
I try to do as he tells me, and just move my body to the music, try to enjoy it, but nothing works right, nothing feels right, and I give up.
“I’d rather just watch you,” I tell Asher, who’s swirling around in pirouettes to an old Motown song.
“No, come here.” He takes my hands and tries again, swaying our arms from side to side and stepping back and forth in some forgotten version of some bastardized dance move.
I try to keep up with him, but we end up falling all over each other, collapsing in a heap on the floor with me on top, Asher laughing so hard he tears up.
“What?” I ask.
“You should’ve seen yourself. You looked so funny.” He giggles, stroking the hair out of my face.
“Yeah?” To shut him up, and also just because I want to, I capture his mouth with mine, and his giggles quickly turn to moans as he wraps his arms around my shoulders.
I suppose it’s the closest to drunk I’ve ever felt. Instead of on any sort of substance, I’m just drunk on him and the feeling of his lips moving against mine. I shift my legs between his thighs,and he wraps his legs around my hips, his mouth hungry and open, taking my tongue and sucking it between his lips.
As I press our groins together, I realize there is one thing we still haven’t tried. A simple thing, but it fills me with want: the thought of having him in my mouth, and having him surrender his pleasure to me like I did to him in the kitchen, on the day that now feels so long ago. I stroke him there with my hand, still kissing him with an almost violent fervor, and he parts his legs wider, groaning into my mouth.
