Paul and Adam

Thank everyone for their feedback on part 1. I really do like to hear from my readers, and I respond to everyone who writes me. My email address is geekwriter143@yahoo.com

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As for copyright, the story's mine. The characters are mine. Blah, blah, blah. You know the drill.

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So, now that we're done with that, on to part two of Paul & Adam.

I'm curled up under the covers in my bed and my sleep is dreamless. I'm completely unaware of anything at all until I feel a hand shaking me. "Earth to Paul," Caroline says close to my ear. "Get up, Paulie."

I open my eyes slowly. They're puffy and it feels like I have sand under my eyelids. I feel better, though, and I'm a little embarrassed that I'd wanted to kill myself earlier.

"So, are you coming to the party or what?" Caroline asks, sitting on the edge of my bed. Her long dark hair is up in a sleek ponytail and her lips are the color of crushed berries.

"You look nice," I manage to say.

"Yeah, well you look like shit. Are you coming down with something? Adam came by earlier and you were so comatose Mom couldn't even wake you."

I sit up. "Adam came by?"

Caroline purses her lips. I guess the desperation is obvious in my voice. "You wanna talk about it?" she asks softly.

I shake my head.

"Then hop in the shower and get ready. Mitch will be here in half an hour to pick us up."

"I don't want to go."

Caroline sighs, then grabs me by the arm and drags me out of bed. She pulls me down the stairs and pushes me into the bathroom and starts the water. "Shower," she says firmly. "And brush your teeth. Your breath stinks."

When Caroline shuts the door behind her I pull off the boxers and t-shirt I'd put on after I'd cried myself exhausted. I step into the shower and wash myself slowly. My arms feel heavy and my fingers feel thick. I stand with my face under the spray for a long time and rub my eyes. They feel better after I get out of the shower. I wrap a towel around my waist and brush my teeth and when I get back to my room Caroline has my closet open and is picking out my clothes.

"You're really a pain in the ass," I tell her.

"I know," she chirps. She holds up two shirts in her hands. "Black v-neck or navy with orange stripe?" she asks. I take the navy t-shirt from her and shoo her out of my room. I get dressed and comb my damp hair and when I open my door Caroline's sitting on the top step right outside my bedroom door.

"Mitch here yet?" I ask.

She shakes her head and looks at me with kind eyes. I hate those eyes. It means that she knows something's wrong.

I sigh and sit down next to her. "I kissed Adam," I say finally.

"Oh, Paulie," she says. She can't hide the disappointment in her voice.

"Look, I know, OK? It was fucking stupid and I wish I hadn't done it, but I did."

"What did he do?"

I shrug. "Nothing. He pulled away. I didn't give him the chance to do anything else. I just ran. Did he seem mad when he came over?"

Caroline shrugs. "I don't know. I didn't see him. Mom just told me that he came over and she couldn't wake you." She squeezes my hand gently. "You don't have to come to the party if you don't want to. I just thought you were pining again."

"He's probably told everyone that I'm a faggot by now," I say.

Caroline pinches me. She hates it when I use that word. "If he says one word to anyone I'll destroy him," she says, and I can tell by the gleam in her eyes that she's serious. I know that if she wanted to she could destroy the life of anyone we went to school with. I've seen her do it before.

"You don't have to do that," I say, rubbing my arm where she pinched me. I sigh and look down the steps. I consider telling her that my first reaction was to kill myself, but I know that will only upset her more. "Let's just go to the party and see what happens," I say finally.

I stand up and head down the stairs to the ground floor. Our mother is sitting in the living room, reading, pretending that she's not waiting to tell us to be careful. As soon as Caroline comes down the steps my mother puts her book down. She stands up and smoothes down her light brown hair.

"You two will be careful tonight?" she asks.

"Of course, Mom," Caroline says.

Mom reaches out and brushes the tip of my nose with her finger. "No drinking unless you have a designated driver," she says.

"Promise," I say.

"Promise," says Caroline.

"And no drugs." Mom looks from Caroline, to me, and back again. "And be careful with your hearts." It's her way of telling us not to have sex unless we're absolutely sure it's the right time.

"Always," Caroline says.

Mitch's car pulls into the driveway and he honks the horn. My mother and Caroline both sigh. One of these days Mitch will remember that he has to come to the door.

Finally, Mitch comes to the door. He's cute enough, I guess, for a hairy lug. He's polite and he wipes his feet before he comes in. He calls my mom Miss Johansen no matter how many times she tells him to call her Delphine, which amuses her.

"You know," Caroline says once we're all in the car, "technically, if you want to be polite, her name is Dr. Johansen, not Miss Johansen."

"She's a doctor?" Mitch asks.

I stare out the window in the back seat and watch the lights speed past as Caroline explains that our mother has doctorates in both French and English literature.

The party is actually near the college where Mom teaches, though it's not a college party. Tamara Blake is a senior and resents that Caroline's more popular than she is. I doubt she wants Caroline there.

The air becomes charged with electricity as we enter the party. It's typical when Caroline enters a room. She doesn't even seem to notice. She strolls in with Mitch on her arm, her head held high and a haughty smile on her face.

I don't immediately see any of my friends, but as soon as I walk in Mandy Timmons, a girl in my class, comes up to me and offers me a sip of her jungle juice.

"Tamara wants to kick your sister's ass," Mandy slurs, sliding her arm around my shoulders. "She said she'd totally do it if Caroline had the balls to show up."

I grin. "Well, Caroline does have balls." I'm not worried about it. I finish Mandy's red plastic cup full of jungle juice and we head through the party to get some more.

Half an hour into the party I'm already drunk. I'm sitting on a couch with Mandy and her friends Kara and Natalie. I know that girls think I'm cute. I can tell by the way they act around me, the way they crowd around me.

Kara has become the most aggressive and she has her arms around my neck as she talks to me about something stupid like cheerleading or her favorite color. I see Adam out of the corner of my eye. He's standing against the wall nursing a cup of beer, looking at me. I pretend I don't see him and instead lean closer to Kara to listen to her story that I'm actually not listening to at all.

"You know what I think is totally sexy?" Kara asks, smiling up at me.

"What?" I ask.

"French," she whispers. "Say something in French."

"Je suis un parapluie," I say in a low voice. I am an umbrella. Kara smiles. Natalie must speak French because she's laughing.

"Say something else," Kara says. "Say...say that you want to kiss me."

I don't say it. I just kiss her instead. Kissing girls is weird. It's not that I have that much experience either way, but as I part my lips and touch my tongue to Kara's I know that I definitely like kissing guys more. I crack open one of my eyes to see if Adam's watching me, but he's not. He's not standing against the wall where he was before. I pull away from Kara and look around the room but Adam's nowhere to be found. "I have to go," I say and get up off the couch and stumble through the crowd.

"Whoa there, cowboy," Mitch says as I crash into him. "You had a little too much?"

"Little bit," I admit. The room is spinning in one direction, the floor in another. "What's in that jungle juice, anyway?"

"Everclear," Mitch says. He hooks his arm around my waist and helps me outside into the cool summer air. He leads me to a picnic bench in Tamara's backyard and sits me down. "Stay there," he says. "I'm gonna go get you some coffee."

I watch him return to the house and I can see why Caroline likes him so much. He really is a nice guy. I lay my head down on the picnic table but it doesn't help the spinning.

"I see the turtles didn't get you," Mark says, sitting down hard on the bench next to me. He lights a cigarette. "Seriously, it's not safe out there in the middle of the quarry. My mom says it all the time."

I lift my head and look at him. There are two, then three, then eight of him. I shake my head but eight Marks remain.

"Want a smoke?" Mark offers.

"Gotta puke," I say. I get up and stumble to the bushes and proceed to vomit up everything in my stomach.

I feel considerably better as I straighten up a few minutes later and head back to the picnic table. Mark's watching me with a grin on his face. "You're such a fucking lightweight," he says.

"You have three glasses of jungle juice in twenty minutes and see how you feel," I tell him. I belch, then rub my stomach. I decide that I definitely prefer the three cups of jungle juice in the bushes and not in my stomach. "Oh, and thanks for putting all that shit in my shoes, fucker," I say.

Mark laughs. "Serves you two homos right."

My spine stiffens and I feel panic flutter in my stomach for a moment. Could he have seen us? Then I realize that he's just teasing and I punch his arm.

Mitch comes out of the house with a mug held gingerly in his hands. "All I could find was instant," he says, handing the mug to me.

It's lukewarm and it tastes terrible, but I drink it anyway. "You sure that was Everclear and not grain alcohol?" I ask Mitch.

He laughs softly. "I'm pretty sure you'd be having seizures right now if it had been grain alcohol."

"Does uncontrollable ralphing count as a seizure?" Mark asks with a grin. He proceeds to make loud puking sounds that don't help my stomach at all.

"Maybe you just need to walk it off."

I jerk my head up at the sound of Adam's voice. He's standing in the shadows beneath an oak tree. I don't know how long he's been there, but I suspect it's been a long time. He pushes out against the trunk of the tree and walks towards the picnic table. "Come on, lightweight," he says to me. "Let's get you moving."

"Thanks, little bro," Mitch says to him. It surprises me when they slap hands until I remember that Mitch is on the swim team, too. I wonder if he has to shave his back for meets.

"On your feet," Adam says, reaching for me. I let him pull me up and follow him away from the party without an objection. Even though I know it's stupid, I wonder if he's leading me away from everyone just so he can kick my ass in private.

We've walked maybe three or four blocks before Adam says anything. "You remember last summer when we told Mark that if he put a 9-volt battery to his braces he'd get high?"

I laugh. "He did, kind of. Three feet into the air."

Adam laughs, too. "That, uh, that was the same day I slept with Laci."

I'm silent as I follow him into East Park. It's deserted and we walk along the creek as the yellow streetlights illuminate the swing sets and slides and iron barbeque grills. I'm not worried about him hurting me anymore.

Laci Petron had been Adam's girlfriend all through middle school. They broke up right before freshman year--right after they slept together.

"So, uh," Adam jumps the creek and I follow him, "the next day you know I told everybody, like an asshole."

We walk between the edge of the creek and the edge of the woods and finally around a turn in the creek, hidden from view of the park, Adam sits down.

I remember Adam telling us that he'd had sex with Laci. It had been me and Mark and our friends Jason and Jimmy. It figured that Adam would be the first of us to do it, since he was the first at everything else-first to have a girlfriend, first to dive off the cliffs at the far side of the quarry, first at everything in school and in sports.

"You know that's why she dumped me," Adam says. He pulls a cigarette from behind his ear and lights it, which surprises me because he doesn't usually smoke.

"I didn't know," I say.

"Yeah." He takes a deep drag on the cigarette, then offers it to me. I shake my head. "Here we'd been dating for years, she was practically my best friend, and I go and brag about it like she wasn't anything more than a fuck. That really hurt her. I deserved to get dumped."

I don't know why he's telling me this, except maybe to prove to me how straight he is. We're both sitting cross-legged next to the creek, our knees almost touching.

"That day when I told you guys, I saw it in your face," Adam says. "All the other guys were congratulating me, and you did, too, but I could see in your face that it hurt you. At first I thought it was because you liked Laci, but that didn't make any sense because you'd never really paid any attention to her. So that's when I figured out how you felt about me."

I'm stunned and embarrassed. I don't know what to say. He'd known? He'd known all this time? "You knew?" is all I can manage to say.

Adam nods. "Yeah." He turns towards me. "It's OK, Paul. It's not a big deal."

I take a deep breath. It's not a big deal? How the hell can he say that it's not a big deal? I can't look at him. I'm going to cry, and I refuse to cry in front of him. I'd rather drown myself in the two-foot deep creek than cry in front of him.

"Paul," Adam whispers. He reaches out to touch my cheek and before I know it his mouth is against mine. He doesn't taste like cinnamon, he tastes like cigarettes, but I don't mind.

"What was that for?" I ask as he pulls away from me.

"I don't know," he admits. He takes a drag on his cigarette. "I'm not gay," he tells me.

"I never thought you were."

He laughs softly. "How was Kara?"

I shrug. "Not as good as you. I only kissed her because you were watching me."

"I figured."

We sit there in silence as he finishes his cigarette. We've always been good at that, at being able to be around each other without having to talk all the time to fill things up.

Adam flicks his cigarette across the creek, making sparks fly. He lays back and tucks his arms behind his head, looking up at the sky. I do the same thing. The moon is nearly full, a lopsided circle just above the treetops.

"My mom's leaving for Denver tomorrow," he says, finally.

"So soon?" The old panic grips me.

"Just to close on her condo. She'll be back, though not for long."

"When do you have to decide?" I try to keep the desperation out of my voice. Even though he knows I'm in love with him I don't want to sound desperate.

"By the end of the month. I don't think I'm going, though."

I close my eyes and sigh. I don't know when I've ever been so relieved.

"Everything I know is here, you know? And it's not like it matters which one I go with. They're both the same. I figure it's really more about whether I want to stay here or leave, and I don't want to leave."

Thank God. I don't know either one of Adam's parents very well, but they both seem about the same to me, too. They're always at work, and when they're home they're usually on the phone to someone at work and shouting about something. Either that or they're shouting at each other. It occurs to me that I don't know what either one of them does for a living.

"My dad's dating his assistant," Adam says.

I prop myself up on my elbow and look over at him. "Really?"

"Yeah. They think I don't know, but I'm not deaf. I can hear every word they say to each other."

"My parents didn't fight before they split up," I say. "One day my dad just wasn't there anymore. I don't know which way's worse."

Adam thinks about it for a while. "I think it's worse the way your dad left," he says. "At least with my parents screaming all the time, I had time to prepare myself for it."

I flop back down and look up at the stars. I was eight when my father left. I didn't believe that he wasn't coming back, even though my mother was sobbing when she told Caroline and me. He'd left a lot of supplies in his studio and I knew he'd be back for them. I crept up there every night and slept on the studio floor so that I'd be there when he came to get his things. He never came back, but I never stopped sleeping in his studio, which is how it became my bedroom.

I turn onto my side and gaze at Adam. His eyes are closed and he's breathing softly, though he's not asleep. The moonlight hits his features at an angle, casting shadows on his face, making him seem like he's made out of marble. I smile at the thought. He should be made out of marble, like a Greek statue, beautiful and perfect. I wonder if I can get Mrs. Brecht, my art teacher, to show me how to carve marble. Then I can sculpt Adam in all his perfection, from each curl on his head down to the scar on his big toe, the one he got when he stepped on glass in the second grade.

The love I feel for him makes me ache inside. He's so beautiful it hurts to look at him. And he knows. He knows that I'm in love with him and he doesn't care. That hurts even more. I wish he'd hate me-at least then he wouldn't be indifferent. How can he know how I feel and do nothing? He just lays there, drowsy with beer and with the night air and I'm so close to him. Doesn't he know that it's killing me to be so close to him?

I reach out and touch his stomach. His t-shirt has ridden up and there's a tiny sliver of skin between the hem of his t-shirt and the waist of his khaki shorts. I touch the smooth sliver of skin with my fingertips, stroke his stomach gently. I feel his entire body tense beneath my touch.

I slide my fingers beneath the hem of his t-shirt, push it up exposing his belly to the moonlight. It's a shallow bowl beneath his ribs, covered in fine blonde hair. He has an outie bellybutton, which I've always thought was adorable. I lean to kiss it and Adam sighs. His body relaxes as I continue to kiss his stomach.

Adam's hand comes to rest lightly on the back of my head. He slides his fingers through my hair, then pushes my head gently downward. It surprises me. I lift my head and look and see his hard-on tenting his khakis. I understand, suddenly, what he wants, and who am I to refuse him?

My hands are shaky as I unbuckle his belt. I unbutton his khakis, tug the zipper down, spread his fly open. He's wearing boxers and I can see his cock outlined against the thin fabric. I lean down and tongue it through the cotton, and Adam gasps. I reach up to pull his shorts and boxers down, and Adam lifts his hips, letting me pull them down his thighs.

His cock bobs in the air. It's not completely hard, yet, but close. And it's perfect-of course it is. I reach up to grasp it in my hand and I stroke it slowly. Adam lets out a deep breath.

The head of his cock is thick, like a mushroom, and it's dark red. Every time I squeeze his shaft the head of his cock gets darker, nearly purple, and when I let go it fades back to red. My cock doesn't do that, and I'm fascinated by it. Maybe it's because he's cut and I'm not.

There's an iridescent drop of precum blossoming on the tip of his dick, and I lean to lick it off. I roll the taste on my tongue. It tastes different than mine, saltier, but good. I part my lips and press them against the tip of his cock and slide down. I've never done it before, but I've fantasized about it so much that I know what to do.

I know to wrap my lips over my teeth, to flick my tongue against the sensitive underside of his cockhead, to use a lot of saliva. But even in my fantasies I didn't imagine how good he'd taste, how I'd be able to feel the heat of it in my mouth.

I bob my head up and down slowly, and Adam's hand is back on my head but he's not directing me, just playing with my hair, stroking it. I look up at him and I can see his hollow belly, his chest heaving, then his gorgeous face, his eyes closed and his lips parted. I watch him as I suck his cock and feel pride spread through me as he bites his lower lip and arches his neck back. I'm pleasing him. I'm making him feel good, and that's all I've ever wanted to do.

I turn my full attention back to his cock. My own cock is hard and straining against the front of my jeans but I don't even reach down to squeeze it. This is about Adam, not me, and I slide down as far as I can, taking about four inches of him into my mouth before I have to stop. It's more than half, and I slide back up and do it again. I want to take all of him into me, but I can't. His cockhead brushes the back of my throat and I have to pull up to keep from gagging.

I wrap my hand around the base of his cock and stroke him in rhythm with my mouth. He shudders and I expect him to come, but he doesn't. I reach down with my other hand and feel his balls. They're larger than I expected, and pulled up slightly but not tight against him. I squeeze them gently and he shudders again.

He's rocking his hips up against me and I continue sucking him, one hand stroking the few inches of cock my mouth can't take, the other one gently squeezing and releasing his balls. I use the rocking of his hips to time my strokes, and as he speeds up so do I. Every time he shudders I feel pride again, because I know that waves of pleasure are shooting through him and that I'm the one that's giving them to him.

His balls are pulling up tighter against his body. I can hear him breathing now, hear his ragged breath as his hips rock faster, as he lifts them up and shoves my head down with his hand, thrusting his cock deeper into my mouth. I gag but I keep going.

I let go of his balls, reach down and unbutton the top few buttons on my jeans. It feels so good to finally touch my cock.

Adam's gripping my head with both hands, shoving his cock up into my mouth and I let him. I'm jerking my cock fast, so close to coming.

Finally, Adam's body freezes and his hips jerk up one last time and I feel the come shooting through his cock before it spurts into my mouth. It hits the back of my throat and I swallow on instinct, try to swallow it all but it fills my mouth and spills out the side and drips down my chin.

He stops spurting into my mouth but I keep sucking him, stroking my cock faster. I know I'm only seconds away from coming. I let his cock fall out of my mouth and I lean to lick up the cum that has dripped down onto his stomach and I come hard, feeling it erupt and flow over my fingers like lava.

Adam sits up and moves away from me. I don't want him to, I want him to stay close to me now that the glow of orgasm is spreading through my body. I want to hold him close to me and kiss him and tell him how much I love him, but I can't because he stands up and turns his back to me as he pulls up his shorts and refastens everything.

I wipe my cummy fingers in the grass and tuck my cock back into my jeans and button up. I can feel his cum on my chin and I wipe it away with the back of my hand. I don't feel like I expected to feel. I feel a little dirty and ashamed, though I'm not sure if it's because of what I did or because of how Adam's not looking at me anymore.

"We, uh," he clears his throat. He standing near the creek and he's still not looking at me. "We should probably get back to the party. Mark's probably wondering where we are. He might come looking."

That's complete bullshit, and he knows it. Mark's not doing anything but getting drunk and trying to feel girls up.

"Adam," I whisper.

"Don't." His voice is rough. He sighs. "Just..." his voice is softer. "Just don't, Paul, OK?"

I want to cry again, but I grit my teeth so I don't. Adam starts walking back along the creek, and finally I get up and follow him. I catch up to him and grab his arm. "Look at me," I hiss.

He jerks away from me like my touch burned him.

"Fucking look at me, Adam," I demand. The tears are so close.

He sighs, shifts his weight from one foot to the other. His back is to me and he rubs his face with his hands. Finally, he turns. His eyes are wild and they only glance at me, then look to the ground.

"You can't even look at me," I say. I don't feel like crying anymore. I suddenly feel very calm.

Adam's breath hitches, his chest jerking.

"You wanted me to do it." My voice is soft but very steady. "Don't act like you didn't want me to do it because you did."

"I know." He finally looks at me. "I'm sorry. I wasn't thinking. I shouldn't have let you."

"You pushed my head down. I wasn't even going to do it until you pushed my head down."

He wraps his arms around his waist and turns away from me again. "I was horny, OK?"

It feels like he's slapped me. "You don't feel anything for me?"

Adam sighs. "You're my best friend."

"That's it?"

He looks at me again, and I see pity in his eyes and I hate it. "That's it," he says evenly. "And I'm a shitty best friend because of what I just let you do." He shakes his head.

"I love you," I say. I never thought I'd say it to him, but it's too late to pretend that it's not true.

"Don't."

"I'm in love with you, Adam." I step closer to him. "You knew that, and you wanted me to...and you don't feel anything?"

"I feel like an asshole, OK?" he says. "Let's just forget it ever happened and go back to the party."

He starts walking again and I wait a long time before following him. I don't even watch to see where he goes once we get back to the party. Caroline's in the front room, drunk and dancing with her friends.

"Oh, Paulie!" she cries, wrapping her arms around me. "Oh, Paulie, my beautiful little brother. I love you so much. You're the best little brother in the world." She pulls back from me. "Isn't he the best little brother in the world?" she asks her friends.

"I wanna go," I tell her.

"Look at him," she slurs. "He's got eyelashes! He's got the longest fucking eyelashes!"

Her friends agree with her.

"And his ears, oh his little ears." She cradles my ears in her hands. "His ears are like little seashells! How could you have a brother like Paulie and not absolutely adore him?"

"Caroline," I say sharply. "I want to go. I don't feel good."

Her face falls and she rubs my shoulder. "Aw, Paulie, you feel bad? My little brother feels bad. We have to find Mitch." She looks around wildly. "You stay here," she whispers as if it's the most important thing in the world, "and I will find Mitch. Stay here. Stay here."

I move over to the side of the crowded room. I see Mark on the couch making out with Kara Stanton. When I look to the side I almost laugh when I see that I'm standing next to Laci Petron. I don't say anything to her, though. I never knew her very well, even when she and Adam were dating.

Finally Caroline comes back, leading Mitch by the hand, and I'm thankful that he doesn't drink so that he can drive me home.

"You sure you don't wanna come to Sonic with us and get something to eat?" Caroline asks, turning around in her seat as Mitch takes off.

"Put your seatbelt on," Mitch tells her.

Caroline shoots him a dirty look. "Come on, Paulie, we'll get shakes and really greasy hamburgers. We'll go to the drive-up where you get the waitresses on roller skates. It'll be fun."

I lean my head against the window and look out at the world passing by. "You guys go ahead. Just drop me off at home."

They do, and I slip in the front door quietly. My mother's asleep on the couch, a blanket pulled over her and a book on postmodern literature open on the coffee table.

I go up to my room and my first thought is to call Adam. I don't know why. Maybe because he's the person I'd call if it wasn't him I was fucked up about. I don't call him. I know he's not home, and I could leave a message on his machine but I have no idea what I'd say.

I crash on my bed and stare up at my slanted ceiling and decide that maybe in the morning I'll know just what the fuck had happened. I don't cry. I've cried too much already and I don't want to give Adam any more tears. I just close my eyes and eventually drift to sleep.