Page 68 of Like a Love Story
“No, you’re not,” Art says. “You’re scared and you won’t let me...”
“Art,” I look at him meaningfully. “Please.”
I try to leave, but Art pulls me back in and hooks his arms around me, locking his hands at my rumbling belly. I squirm, but he doesn’t let me go. “I tell Stephen everything, so he already knows what we’ve done, but more importantly what we haven’t done. Let him give you the birds and the bees talk, Reza. He’s good at it.”
“Why is it called birds and bees?” I ask, hoping we can discuss language instead of intercourse.
“Because parents were too afraid to speak to their kids about human sex,” Stephen explains. “So they relied on metaphors about bird and bee reproduction.”
“Oh,” I say. “I’m so fascinated by idioms. There are so many interesting Persian ones that make no sense in English. Like we don’t say ‘I miss you.’ We say ‘My heart has become tight for you.’ And when we truly love someone, we say, ‘I will eat your liver.’”
“Reza,” Art says, exasperated, “you’re working overtime to change the subject.”
“I’m gonna give you the good news about sex first,” Stephen says.
“This is how he started with me too,” Art says.
“The good news is that when you’re gay, you can’t get pregnant. No babies. No unwanted pregnancies. No trips to the abortion clinic.”
Am I supposed to be happy about this? I want children someday. I want to hold a baby in my arms, and feel needed, and know that whatever began with me doesn’t end with me. I want to prove that I can be a better father than my father.
“And the bad news is that when you’re gay, you can die from sex,” I say, a hint of anger in my voice.
“Sex has always been dangerous,” Stephen says. “Look up how many women die in childbirth every year. But yes, let’s be real here. The bad news is there’s a virus out there infecting gay men disproportionately. You want more good news though?”
I say nothing. The last time he gave me good news, it was that I would never become a father.
“Condoms!” he says with a lilt, waving his hand across the aisle like he’s Vanna White. An old lady with white hair and a basket full of hair dyes gives us a glare. I am mortified, but Stephen shrugs her off. “Condoms work,” he says. “They do their job well. All you need to do is use them right. If you want a tutorial, we can go home and practice with bananas.”
“Or Persian cucumbers!” Art says. I blush and tryto push away from him, but his arms are still locked around me.
“Condom advice,” Stephen says. “Always check the expiration date. They do expire.”
“Unlike Persian cucumbers,” Art says. “Those get better with age, like a fine wine.”
“And never keep them anywhere hot. If you put one in your pocket for the night, use it that night or dump it. You don’t want the condom to break.”
This is something I will no doubt have nightmares about. Condoms breaking. Like a faulty dam.
“Make sure your lube is condom-compatible. Not all lube is.”
“Lube is lubricant,” Art explains. “Men need it, because we don’t naturally get wet down there.”
I feel my face burning from embarrassment.
“The jury is out on whether oral sex is safe or not,” Stephen says. “But my advice is to use a condom for that too. Experiment with flavors if you want, though I think the flavored ones are gross. I don’t want sex to taste like pineapple.”
Does sex have a taste? Does it taste the same with different people? Am I supposed to be asking these questions out loud?
“And here’s something important,” Stephen says. “The straight world has defined losing your virginity as intercourse. That’stheirthing. But we get to define it for ourselves. And you never, ever have to do anything you don’t want to do. As far as I’m concerned, sex is justintimacy between two people. You can define what that looks like for you, and what losing your virginity looks like for you. We’re queer. We make our own rules.”
“Oh, and don’t feel like you have to buy into that tops and bottoms bullshit,” Jimmy adds. He’s just joined us, a prescription in his hand. “If you’re a top, fine. If you’re a bottom, fine. But you can be both, or you can be a top on Monday and a bottom on Tuesday.”
“Who has sex on Monday and Tuesday?” Art asks.
Jimmy laughs. “Honey, before this disease, some of us had sex seven days a week.”
That’s what I want. To have sex seven days a week. With Art. Only with Art. Seven days of Art.
