We could hear the music from three blocks away. It started as a pulse, a vibration in the air. As we neared, more and more of the song made itself known through the night. The thudding, monotonous bass. The stabbing synths, then the voices chanting along to the melody. The trilling high notes came last, and not until we were close enough that the house loomed over us, glowing in the night. By then the beat had taken hold of my body from the inside. I could feel the pulse in my chest, in my throat. It shook my gut and made me want to wretch.
"This is awesome." Owen's voice was a whisper. The words weren't meant for me, his eyes still glued to the spectacle. He couldn't have expected me to hear him over the din, but his voice resonated at a frequency that my ears had been carefully calibrated to receive.
A girl clad in Doc Martens and dark makeup leaned against the porch railing, taking a drag from a pipe. She played with her hair and exhaled a slow, steady wisp of smoke. Her hooded eyes made her look bored. Friends or admirers had gathered a semicircle around her, waiting for their turn. She looked like she wanted to be here even less than I did.
Owen turned to face me and shouted over the noise of the party. "How do I look?"
I made eye contact with the girl with the bong. I looked away but I could feel her eyes linger on us as Owen straightened out his clothes and unabashedly presented himself for inspection. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw her mouth form the shape of a smile, a laugh, but the sound never made it through the music. Was she laughing at us?
I pushed her from my attention and turned back to Owen. He looked great. He always looked great. I gave a thumbs up and forced a smile. The look of relief on his face made me smile at his earnestness.
I was already tired and ready to go home. It was as though all of my energy had been drawn out of my body and pulled into the swirling vortex of the party. Owen, though, seemed to have found a way to feed off it. He was buzzing, glowing.
He grabbed my shoulders and looked into my eyes. He hadn't even needed to see my flagging spirit to know how I was feeling. He knew me that well.
"This is gonna be great," he said, reassuring. "We're gonna have fun."
Electricity sparked from his eyes and shot down my spine. He was excited and had done his usual task of reassuring me. So now it was my turn to rally and try my best to have a good time. Plus, the look he gave me was almost enough to make be believe it might be fun.
We stepped into the party, into the vortex.
The room was so tightly packed that no matter where you stood, your body was bumping up against someone else, linked to even the furthest reaches of the house through the physical contact, by the feeling of flesh on flesh. The only light was colored and strobing or the droning, persistent glow of a screen.
At some point, I was pressed into a guy I didn't know. He was shirtless, showing off his physique as he wound his hips into mine. We first locked eyes across the room not long after Owen and I were separated in the throng. As he prowled toward me with the quiet decisiveness of a big cat stalking its kill, a blankness loomed behind the sharp look in his eyes. His features seemed to disassemble as he approached. Pursed lips floating alongside a pierced earlobe under a head of glossy hair. Eyebrows so black you could look into them and see stars.
I was high. He had moved his body into mine, forming a perfect seal from knees to chest, without a saying a word. A white pill sat between his teeth as either a threat or an offering. I didn't know which, but I had come this far, so I opened my mouth and my body to accept him.
It was hard and dispassionate and it could hardly be described as dancing, but it felt like something magic. I felt the music thump through my body and knew everyone around me was feeling the same thing. It felt transcendent, like a blessed moment here in this party. It felt like walking through the city as the sunset reflects off the glass and bathes everything in orange. It felt like the buzzing of a forest teeming with life. I felt everything and nothing at the same time.
He hadn't looked directly at me since those first moments, the intensity in his eyes swept away by a glossy euphoria. The music had wrapped around us, creating a sonic haze that turned the rest of the party into a blur. All I could feel was the beat in my chest, the stick of his skin and the pressure of his pelvis on mine. I had long ago given up my wobbling attempts to stand on my own, instead letting my body collapse into his. We were holding each other up and weighing each other down, bobbing in an endless ocean of bodies and noise.
My blissfully foggy mind was slow to recognize the murmur as words. Something about the bathroom. An invitation. A proposition.
I hesitated, pretended like I didn't hear him. I could've stayed in the sensation of that moment forever, but he had pierced the veil and was asking to tear it open. Then, he was gone and I was alone, falling, floating.
It was a laugh that jerked me awake. My ears were still ringing from the music, but I heard the voices, muffled through the door.
"See, he's here. I told you." He brought home a girl. I pretended to be asleep, willing them to go away.
He shushed her. "Keep it down. You're going to wake him up."
I pressed my eyes closed, but when the door closed, blocking out the light from the hallway once again, two sets of footsteps were still in the room. I tried to decipher the rustling as I laid there. Jackets coming off? The jingle of keys? A belt buckle? A lip smack. A quiet moan.
"We can't," Owen said, the insincerity in his protest apparent even to me in the dark.
"Come on, he's asleep. We'll be quiet." I could feel him melting at her coos. I heard him moan as he worked him over with her hands. "I promise."
This time the belt buckle was unmistakable. Followed by the sound of jeans sliding through the floor. I froze, my heartbeat so loud I was sure they could hear it. Suddenly, I felt hollowed out. Like everything inside me had dropped away. There was nothing left but a gaping emptiness. I started to stiffen under the covers.
"Oh yeah, just like that." The clinking of a bracelet. The slick slipping of saliva. My friend letting out a quiet moan.
I was horrified by what was happening, and at the same time, I strained my ears to make out every sound.
More clothes hitting the floor. A smack of skin on skin. The creak of the bed frame under the weight of one body, and then two.
"Wow, you're good at that." I didn't have to see to picture Owen's self-satisfied wink in my head. My hand traveled between my legs. I felt the warmth of erection radiating through my underwear.
A giggle. A loud, sloppy kiss. Another moan, this time louder, from her.
It had been some time since I'd last jerked off to thoughts of Owen. It used to be a common occurrence when we were younger, before I'd decided to compartmentalize this friendship from that part of my life. Stolen glances in the locker room or at the beach would fuel furious masturbatory fantasies. I'd imagine him bending me over in the classroom and relentlessly fucking me on the teachers desk. Or going down on him in the passenger seat of his car. Or, most commonly, him taking me to bed late at night and sharing an intimate moment like the one he was having with the girl in the next bed.
I ran my fingers up and down my shaft, feeling it throbbing. I didn't dare do more than that for fear that I would give myself away, either through my movement or by cumming in my sheets.
A drawer sliding open. The papery rattle of a box, followed by the sound of a wrapper tearing. "Go slow."
One prominent recurring fantasy was that we'd stumble home together one night. Drunk or intoxicated, riding high from a great night out, one not unlike tonight. The house is dark and still, we're doing our best to keep keep quiet, but the thrill of the moment carries us upstairs in a hurry.
I closed my hand around my erection and squeezed, feeling the blood flowing through my rock-hard cock. My breath turned shallow as I fought to keep myself steady.
A small squeal. Light kisses. Heavy breathing.
He'd throw me onto the bed and press his body into mine. The feeling of his weight on top of me is crushing and oppressive, but I push myself back into it like a spot waiting to be stamped out.
Bedsprings. Grunting. Heavy breathing.
I started stroking myself. Slowly, barely moving, but the warm skin of my cock crawls under the featherlight touch.
"Oh god, you feel so good."
His hands are all over me, his lips trailing a third path. I can barely make out his silhouette in the moonlight, but my hands trace the lines of muscle carved across his body. He's firm under my touch, but his skin is like linen.
Knock, knock, knock, the bed frame against the wall. Bodies clapping together. Ever louder breathing.
When he would enter me, there'd be no pain, only bliss. It was a child's dream of sex, the way it's sold to you in movies. The physical manifestation of euphoria, like scratching an itch that was just out of reach. He'd fuck me for hours, his cock pistoning in and out of me like a machine built to take control. I'd run my hands up his stomach, his chest, feeling the power in his body.
"Yes, just like that. Don't stop."
He'd lean down and wrap me up in his arms as he fucked me. He'd bury his face in my neck. Our breathing would sync up. He'd whisper that he's getting close.
Knock, knock, knock, even faster. The breathing now shallow, irregular, effortful.
He'd cup my face in his hands and lock his eyes onto mine as he said it.
"I'm gonna cum."
He'd thrust into me one last time, as deep as he could go, and unload himself in my ass. His face would contort in ecstasy, but his eyes never close. I shoot into my hand and we share the moment together. It's like taking flight, leaving our bodies behind and seeing only each other and the sky. We float together. No one speaks, no one breathes, until--
"I love you."