Chapter 28: April 27th, 1992
Mark stormed into his bedroom, accidentally launching his backpack across the room. He’d aimed for his bed and missed. He hoped he didn’t leave anything important in there, but there wasn’t time to stop and check. After their fun little rendezvous earlier that morning in the locker room, things happened that Cesar needed to be warned about. He dropped down hard into his desk chair and started dialing Cesar’s number. The promise was to call at five-thirty, but whatever. Mark didn’t care. Cesar was definitely home—Mark just got back from dropping him off—and he knew the desperate creep he was in love with wouldn’t balk at a change of plans.
This couldn’t end well. It was Mark’s fault. Again. Whatever verbal lashing he was about to get, it was deserved and he’d have to take it. He took a deep breath as the receiver clicked and Cesar’s elated voice came through from the other end.
“Mark?”
Mark wished he could be as equally excited. “Yeah. It’s me.”
“You kept your promise! And you’re early!” He was laughing and happy, giddy as a schoolgirl. As much as it made Mark happy to hear him happy, it hurt to know that good mood wasn’t going to last.
“Hey, so listen, those lube bottles you keep in your bag? Whatever you do, don’t bring that to school tomorrow.”
“Huh? Why?”
“Didn’t you hear? About what happened after we left the locker room?”
Cesar paused for a moment, thinking, trying to remember if he actually did hear but forgot. “Uh, no, I guess not. What didn’t I hear?”
Mark ran his hand down his face. How to break the news gently? “Oh Jesus, uh… listen, try not to get mad. But they found that empty bottle of lube in the showers.”
There were a few moments that would be silent, though he could hear the gears turning in Cesar’s head. “...Shit, that’s right. You threw it on the floor, didn’t you?”
He was preparing for the worst. Was Cesar going to blow up again? Of course he felt he deserved it this time, but it never made him happy to see Cesar angry. “Yeah. Sorry. I fucked up real bad.”
“We both forgot about it,” he said, and Mark was surprised at Cesar’s calmness. “Does anyone suspect anything?”
“Don’t think so, but they’re checking bags and lockers tomorrow for sure.”
“Got it. Thanks for the warning.” Mark could make out the sounds of Cesar rustling through his bag or, more accurately, what sounded like him flipping it upside-down and dumping everything out onto the floor. “So anyway, who’d you hear it from?”
“Easton.”
The rummaging on the other side of the phone stopped. “That guy? Why would he tell you? Oh, I think he’s onto us.”
“No, he told everyone, pretty much. The guy’s a loudmouth. I think we’re fine as long as they don’t find anything on you tomorrow. You probably shouldn’t bring that stuff again, actually. They might do searches without warning us first.”
“Whaaaat?” he whined. “No more surprise sexytimes?”
Mark couldn’t hold back a chuckle. “No, Cesar. No more surprise sexytimes.”
“Not any that require lube, at least.”
“Stop it. Come on, doing that stuff at school’s a terrible idea anyway.”
Cesar lowered his voice. “But I am still a little hungry for it. Maybe I could come over…”
Mark leaned back against the wall. He let out a long exhale and smiled, fidgeting with the phone cord. Anyone else would be annoyed with this guy. To an extent, maybe he was. But Cesar made it all too fun for him. Cat-and-mouse at times, a deviant game of chicken at others. He’s even gone and turned him into a delinquent who has sex in public. Yet Mark was also responsible for giving him a taste for it to start with. “Can’t. I have an essay to write.”
“You and your essays,” he mocked, but his voice softened. “Go do your essay. Call me back when you’re done?”
“Oh, no,I forgot… I also have three pages of homework for algebra, a lab report for chemistry… and a written letter of apology for kicking a hole in the wall in algebra, at least thousand words—”
“Mark!”
“Yes, I’ll call you! God, next you’ll be breaking into my house at night. While I sleep. And I’ll wake up with that collar around my neck again.”
“Don’t give me ideas. But you have to let me know how you feel about that Duran Duran album I loaned you, okay?”
“I will. Love you, Ces.”
“Love you too, bye,” he said in a quick whisper, followed by a few kissy sounds that were soon replaced by a bleak and lonely dial tone. It didn’t take long for him to miss the distraction, even if he did only call Cesar to warn him about the locker searches.
He wondered what Cesar was doing with his free time. No way was he doing anything productive. Those Latin worksheets Mark finished yesterday were going to fall victim to Cesar’s grabby hands first thing in the morning so he could copy them. No, more likely than not, he was too busy going through some magazines he conned off the theater kids. Probably something pushed out by the former MTV, which shut down its television channel almost as soon as it started. He wasn’t sure what else theater kids read, or if he wanted to know. It was tempting to ask him if it was fruity stuff, though he’d never say that out loud. Not like that. He knew damn well that talking with those kinds of words around Cesar could only end one way: with Mark buried in a box six feet under. Cesar was funny like that, with odd priorities around certain words. He could probably jokingly call him a fag and get away with only getting the same treatment back. Use the word “fruit” and “Cesar” in the same sentence though, and the local body bag manufacturer goes up a tax bracket.
If Cesar was going to be distracted anyway, he wished he’d taken up his offer to let him come over. Just not for that kind of fun, or not right away. Wouldn’t it be nice for him to be in his company while he worked on things? He got to thinking of how he could sit on the floor in front of the coffee table with Cesar sprawled across his lap, writing with his left hand and idly brushing fingers through Cesar’s hair with his right. The one thing he craved above all else wasn’t sex; it was the constant reminder of Cesar’s presence. It just so happened that the sex was the most obvious reminder that he was there. It was a convenient pastime that kept him as close to Cesar as possible. An excuse to see and touch and smell him as much as he wanted. Mark knew he wasn’t going to fool anyone, not even himself, that his hormones weren’t a raging ocean of nonstop lust. But he wasn’t being dishonest in also telling himself that it didn’t actually matter what they were doing. It didn’t matter how boring it was. As long as they were doing something together, or at least sharing the same space as they went about their separate business. If only he and Cesar could live together full-time. Then they could—
Crack.
He didn’t realize until too late that he’d been pressing the tip of his pencil against the paper until it gave way. He leaned back in his chair and let the pencil drop onto the desk. It started to roll away and off the desk, but he ignored it. If Mark could go back in time and tell his younger self that the thought of a domestic life with another man would get to him like this, his younger self would probably call him a colorful array of slurs—a level of viciousness that Mark could only ever reserve for himself, never another—while silently shuffling away, huffs of feigned denial of what he’d become that he would hide behind to cover the silent acceptance that it would all be for Cesar in the end. He’d spare his younger self the knowledge of the exploration process, the discovery, and the gay porno mags.
He got up to find the handheld sharpener in his bag, only to find the cheap plastic decimated from the impact earlier. Shavings had fallen out and filled the entire front pocket where he’d kept it. He had a few extras, but cleaning that out was going to be a pain in the ass if he ever got around to doing it. Before he went to grab a new one, he decided now would be a good time to put on that CD that Cesar had loaned him. He could listen to that while he finished up his essay, and it would take less time for him to get back to listening to a deviously angelic voice far more alluring. He just hoped that Cesar wasn’t torturing him with hot garbage again.
