Page 67 of In This Iron Ground
“Can youpleasestop doing that and eat like a normal human being!”
“I feel like you’re legit victim-blaming me right now. You’re blaming me for my red dress.”
“Oh my God,” Gonzalo said, thumping his head against the table.
He stayed there until Damien finished the ice pop and threw the stick into the trash. Damien’s heart was thumping in his chest.
“All done,” Damien said, trying to project false confidence.
Gonzalo stayed hunched into himself for a while before slowly uncurling and turning his wheeled chair to face Damien, who was sitting crossed-legged on the bed. Gonzalo’s face was still flushed. The heat of the summer air was everywhere. Damien could feel it on his own cheeks too.
They looked at each other. Somebody walked down the sidewalk outside, talking on their phone. The fan whirred its head from side to side. Every time the air hit Gonzalo, his black hair would flutter.
There was a tension in Damien’s stomach he hadn’t ever really felt before. A strange, hot anticipation.
Gonzalo got out of his chair. Damien watched him, not moving a muscle, as he approached the bed. Gonzalo paused at its edge. His knee bent, pressing against the mattress, lowering himself towards Damien. He came close. Closer. He was an open parenthesis over Damien, about to reveal a hidden thought.
Damien tilted his chin up. His mind was blank and filled with noise. His eyes closed. The last thing he saw was Gonzalo. Then, in the darkness, a press of lips.
He was seventeen, and this was his first kiss. The one in the past didn’t count. It had been distorted by humiliation into a foreign shape.
The lips disappeared. When they reappeared they were softer, a little more open. He could feel the suggestion of breath.
Damien’s body uncurled itself. His knees unbent, his legs stretched. He was falling backwards slowly until his back hit the bed. His body was guided by instincts it had learnt before birth. Damien was grateful. He didn’t have enough space in his head for anything else.
Damien watched as Gonzalo moved over him. His knees were pressed to either side of Damien’s hips. Gonzalo had closed the parenthesis. Damien was caught in a thought.
The warmth of Gonzalo joined the summer heat. The next kiss was longer. Wetter. Uncoordinated. Damien’s body was trying to figure things out. It was trying to relearn what all its limbs were for. What this new movement of tongue meant. Why there was so much blood rushing around, so much heartbeat and breath. The world was trying to teach him something new about itself, and Damien’s body was trying to catch up.
The heat evaporated all of Damien’s thoughts. They created a thin, wet mist. He tried to squint past it, sometimes, but it was too thick.
Damien’s hands pressed lightly against Gonzalo’s clothed ribs. Everything was soft and rushing past.
When they parted, Gonzalo’s lips looked red and wet. Damien had never seen lips look like that, not in real life, so close. Curiously, he brushed his fingers over them. Gonzalo’s breath stuttered. Damien lowered his hand.
“Um…” Damien didn’t know what to say. Things were suddenly a little too much.
Gonzalo leaned away and then off Damien. He was breathing a little unevenly. Damien couldn’t quite believe he’d done that to another person. That Gonzalo’s flush and breath were for him.
“Um…is this, like…do you, like…like me, like me or is this, you know, like…casual?” Damien’s mouth was mounting a rebellion. It had tasted freedom and wanted more. It had usurped control over talking.
“It would be pretty sucky for me if I liked you, liked you. Seeing as you’re totally into Hakan,” Gonzalo said.
Few things could have shocked Damien more. To bring Hakan into that misty room, to cover his skin in the condensation of it, mixing what was and wasn’t there.
“How…I don’t…”
“It’s cool. I mean…it’s casual. If you want. Yeah?”
“Um…but how did you know? About…”
“Hakan? I guess I was just looking in the right places.” Which made no sense to Damien. “So. What do you say? If you want to keep doing this, casual…I’m down.”
Damien thought about the heat and the thrill and Gonzalo’s body instead of Hakan’s.
“Yeah. Yeah,” he said, a grin spreading across his face. Excitement buzzed in his chest.
“Okay,” Gonzalo said.
