Nathan is on the blue black couch drunk, his chest moving up and down quietly stirring in between restless grunts and muttered words. I’m sitting down in front of him, down on the thin dry carpet floor, head on the couch with a bottle of Heineken, my fifth one tonight. Mother would freak out if she knew I was drinking. I bring the bottle up to my face skin, feeling the cold green emerald glass reflecting a mute sheen in the soft tungsten light, the bubbly liquid inside swirling a froth of imitation green.

I look back at him. Nathan’s eyes are in moments of disagreement, opening and closing, struggling to keep himself awake, his breathing is a night of questioned winter. I wait for a couple of minutes before quietly moving my hand up to his lap, running it lightly over his blue gray pants, the thin cotton gauze feels like his own skin. I found it, nestling half limp between his legs. I take a deep breath, glancing up to Nathan’s face one last time before I give it a squeeze.

“Wait.” Nathan is awake, pushing my hand away. “We should get high first.”

I reply back with a slight nod, backing away from the couch as he tries to get up, reaching for the red Chinese box on the coffee table with pale hands. This is Nathan, and after tonight I am going to leave him.

“You want me to pack it ?” Nathan asks, retreating to the old couch, looking at me with his pair of brown eyes all fuzzy and beautiful.

Get high. With Nathan. “Yeah, sure.” I try to look excited, but he wasn’t paying attention to me. My eyes drop back down towards the red gold box. A girl in school gave it to him about a year ago. He wasn’t really interested in her, but he treasured the gift very much, a deep red polished wood with rolling clouds and serpent dragons painted in slashes of gold, flying between the clouds searching for their long-lost pearls. I try to think myself as one of them, searching eternally for something that is mine to keep as I ease my head further up the couch, looking up at the ceiling smoothed thickly with paint like the beach, the waves lapping the brown honey sand flat to a cement floor finish. There are pictures behind us, encased in lacquered frames of silver and coral blue scattered on the wall like migrating butterflies. I’m searching for Nathan smiling in one of them, or at least with a faint arched lips. I thought I saw him smiling once during summer when the sun had torched everything on the ground. We were at the park watching a ball game, sitting on the rusted bleachers watching little Danny making his little run as we cheered for him. I glanced at Nathan, his eyes fully fixed on his brother, gleaming with loving wonder but no, he wasn’t smiling, he was just wiping sweat off his face.

he living room is full of marauding clouds of smoke, newborn banshees floating endlessly towards the ceiling floor screaming a silent chorus with their liquid orifice. He takes another hit, eyes flutter and close as his chest expands, holding his breath trying not to cough at the sharp piercing smoke running into his lungs. A thin blanket of smoke slowly gathers before us, only to shatter into curling waves as Nathan slash it half with his left hand, sending the severed apparitions to the other side of the room, slowly then thinned by the fetid lifeless air.

“Come.” Nathan pats the empty space next to him. The glass pipe in his right hand.

“Huh?”

“Come up, and here.” Holding the pipe towards me. I sit next to him, close enough to feel his warm body to smell the smoke and soap skin. I take a hit, the pot glowing a fiery red like a smoldering volcano. I inhale the burning smoke deep, imagining the particles flying into my lungs and into my blood, seeping into each and every nerve endings. Everything starts to slow down, reeling in a burst of smoke clouds.

“This is your last night right?” There was hesitance in his voice. He says the words with his lips half closed. He is always cautious whenever he says something to me, as if any speak would betray him to the open, picturing his clasped mind and intentions. Nathan is always afraid of talking, especially to me, afraid that language would one day speak more than what he had mentioned to be. But these are the qualities that I adore. The cold stare the sudden affectionate touch, the hidden ample of emotion in his words. These are the moments that I treasure most. I look back at him, the light bathing his face in a soft golden glow, staring dead at the blank t.v screen at our reflection, fingers on his lap flicking imaginary ash as the night falls into a silent wait. I wondered, if I say no will he cup my face with his hands and kiss me. But then Nathan doesn’t kiss. He’s not into it.

“I guess so.” I give the pipe back to him, licking my lips. “You already asked me a million times today. Why?”

“You got everything ready for tomorrow?”

I nod.

“New York.” He mutters again. “That’s really far right?”

“It’s pretty much the other side of the country.”

“I know that.” He looks up at me. “I’m not that stupid.”

I laugh, or rather I chuckled back at him. There isn’t really much of anything in here, except for a four-tier cabinet that houses the television and electronics, rows of dvds and a dead cd-player. Right in front of the cabinet is Danny’s video game console, spat out on the floor, the gray white box mouthing a web chaotic cables trailing up back to the cabinet like twisted umbilical cords. I can barely see the tall green dresser, standing old near the kitchen’s door with a small figure of the Christian Jesus nailed above the arched entrance, the man staring down helplessly with his eyes bleeding blood. I never saw Nathan opening that dresser, a fading mountain green with stenciled red and white roses, vines sprouting generations of leaves and thorns. It stands there quietly keeping its own secret from me, like us keeping our own. Nathan’s mom would have once opened it, using it as a safe for her delicate china maybe, or for her husband’s belongings. He died five years ago, shot dead during a bank robbery. There are pictures of him here, among the celestial stationary moments on the wall looking at me with a frozen grin. I still want to see more. His mother is the only one that would talk about the man, eyes open like the sun as she speaks of him. I met Susan a couple of times since I became friends with Nathan. She makes me think about my own mother. Nathan’s mother is rarely at home, running between her two jobs at the center and the thrift store, picking Danny up at her parents house in Encino only to come back late after ten, dragging herself inside heavy as a mountain. They don’t have much to talk about other than arguing in their kitchen. Nathan told me that Susan is expecting too much of him. He already has a part time job, working at a video store down on Riverside stacked between the lemon grass smell and stir-fry bok-choys. He said he could get a full time there right after finishing school. He wants to go as far as that, but Susan thinks differently about it.

“My mom asked me if you ever going to visit us here.” He whispers between the smoke bleeding from his lips. “I told her to ask you herself.”

“Do you?”

He shrugs. “Up to you.” More spirits from his lips. “But you’ll write to me right?”

I remember Nathan had a big fight with his mother last November. It was one week before Thanksgiving, two weeks into the month of Ramadan with North Hollywood a bright red and polystyrene white. She called our house crying for me, her voice rushing through the earpiece like a loud burst of static. I found Nathan the next day sitting on a bench at the nearby park on Tujunga smoking a cigarette ten in the morning. He looked old for seventeen. He saw me as I walked towards him, his eyes dancing at me and it was until I got close enough I was able to see the cut under his chin.

“You want some?” He handed out his half smoked cigarette to me, the plastic white filter browned and yellowed. My eyes locked on the cut as I sat next to him, looking closely at the single line of deep red running down to his neck.

“How the hell did you get this?” I brought my hand to his chin, moving it left and right, running my fingers down his face for a better look. He seemed okay with it, sitting on the bench quietly like an obliging patient, not bothered by my questioning fingers. His face is all for me that morning, smell of smoke and dried blood, and we sat there for god knows how long with the 170 screaming loud behind us with my fingers tracing down his chin, as if I have a healing touch, moving his face slowly with my guiding hands.

“You need to clean this up Nathan.” I traced my fingers to the cut again. I started to scrape the caked blood off with my fingernail and suddenly he winced.

“Sorry.” I apologized. I always do.

“No. Go ahead.” But his eyes stayed away from mine.

I scraped more and the cut opened itself again, fresh blood filled the short gash, a bright liquid red over his white skin. I pulled back and looked at it, the blood gathering itself into a tiny droplet of red before falling down to his lap.

“There’s a little bit more of it.” Nathan nudges me on the shoulder and passes the pipe. I take a hit and the room spins slowly, sucking me deeper to a nameless pull. My joints moves slowly as I put the pipe on the table, skin kissed slowly into a dreamlike state, euphoric and floating. I lick my lips and it taste sweet like cotton candy.

“Nathan…” I wasn’t able to finish the sentence, instead my head slowly slumps down on his shoulder like a craning storm weathered tree, and I inhale the fabric of his shirt, his soap skin, feeling his hand slowly moving over to my neck, fingers down to my chest. I have mine down to his pants, trying to take the skin underneath with my heavy lips slowly towards his but he softly pushes my face away, standing up, looking down at me waiting.

“Wha-?” I look at him between the wisp of my eyes, before realizing that Nathan never does it himself. I have to do it. I always do.

“Where’s Danny by the way?” I reel the question out. My lips are numbed with the words vibrating back into my head like a million voices whispering.

“He’s with my mom, silly.” He is irritated with my weak resistance to pot, reeking out senseless words, smiling and slumping down on the couch like an idiot, giving him the slowest blow jobs ever. He blinks at me, bringing his crotch closer to my face and I readily reach for the zip, releasing his sweet smelling cock, already hard pointing accusingly at me. I open my mouth.

“Aki, take it all off.”

I stare up to his face. I see his nostrils. He looked funny from down here, standing before me like a towering giant, all ready and quiet with his cock jutting out from his body. I remember the first time we did it. We were at the park smoking on the wet bleachers with the moon a white glowing sickle. It was my first time with marijuana and it took only a single hit to send me flopped down to his lap, to the worn smell of his jeans, to the warmth of his hand over my shoulder, to the thin smell of smoke around us. It happened so quickly I can’t remember much of it, but the next day Nathan’s eyes were different, unseen arms reaching out for me, looking at me with his deep brown beautiful care. We know we’ll do it again, and we did. Over and over again. It’s a standard routine that we never talked about, and slowly I learn to love him more than just a best friend. But we never talked about it.

“Take it all off? Are you sure?” My heart leaps out. I’m about to see Nathan naked. I try to remember if I ever saw him without anything on.

“Yeah. Yours too. Stand up.” He pulls me up, our face closing towards each other I can feel his warm slow breath on my face. I wait for him to make a move but he did not, looking at me quietly as I stare at his thin red lips, wanting to kiss him. I creep in forward for another try but again he backs his face, guiding my hands instead to his buttoned shirt, bringing himself closer to me breathing smoke to my neck.

“Wait. I think I need to pee first.” I said between close lips. I felt bad. I knew it was a bad timing and I knew how much Nathan hates that, especially when he’s all hard and ready for it. He let out a sigh. Now he’s twice irritated, maybe I should say ‘please’ to him. I look into his eyes apologetically.

“Be quick with it.”

Blood rushing to my hands, warm liquid pumping through my veins with a thousand electric pulses rushing to the tip of my fingers nestling between the flesh and skin. I only get these vibes when I’m expecting for something to happen, something big like leaving this city, leaving Nathan. My reflection split into half, a long crack running down from the left side corner of the mirror to the other end, like a line chart, visually explaining the fall of numbers to me. I move my body left and right, amusing myself with the shift between the crack, feeling the slow and lightness of my body. The bathroom is a yellow glowing cube with the counter spilling with plastic containers and cosmetics, green blue gels in clear plastic tubes sit precariously on the tubs edge, a slick coat of brown slime gathered underneath them. I start to rummage through the shelves and cabinets, opening the mirror to a shelf of prescription medications and pain killers, all with Susan’s name printed clearly on it. I close it back, staring at my cracked reflection. I want more than this standard routine, I want Nathan to speak his heart out to me. The cold water touches my skin with an instant wake, a shot of awakening and I keep my face there dripping wet, thinking of the empty space in my room, the kitchen and the living room all now empty and dead, nothing but holes on the walls and furniture marks on the carpet floor. I think about leaving. Nathan to me is like walking into one of those revolving doors, the ones you can still find in fancy hotels in downtown, spinning around with him inside, the glass dividing us. Nathan is pushing the door fast keeping us both inside and I have no choice but to follow him. I want to tell him to stop and decide, come back inside or out to the streets. Either way we all need to decide.

I come out of the bathroom and Nathan is standing in the living room, stripped naked with his cock pointing out hard. His body glowing, head down staring at his lean chest with six beautiful squares underneath, a thin line of brown hair running down from his navel. I look at his face, his nipples a pinkish red. He has perfect shoulders. They remind me of the gymnast team at our school, their bodies moving in perfect mechanized order, magnificent spinning feats with precision and grace. If only Nathan could smile. If Nathan could kiss. If Nathan could love.

I asked him once at my house, him standing across the room flipping through my comics with his skin open to me, the warm afternoon light lathered him in the color of white golden snow, see every inch of his body moving, fingers running over the bind pages like a long lost transcript of ancient hieroglyphs.

“Nathan. Do you have a thing for me?”

“What are you talking about?”

“Love me. Do you love me?”

“I don’t know what you talking about.” Silence. He dug deeper into the pages, cloaking himself to be somewhere else, unscathed. It happened a lot, like the day when I asked him about his dad, as if a sensitive latch that activates itself pulling his anchor up and I slowly floated away from him.

“You know I’m not like, you know, normal?” Not having the right word to give to him that day, not the ones that mother hate most, ones that screamed hellfire in the Koran and prophetic words. Sometimes even I can say it. It burns sometimes, burns my lips, even though I try to say it with pride.

Nathan lifted the curtains and more light kissed his loved skin.

“Do you think you’re kinda, not like other people too?”

He grabbed the curtain’s end and played with it, folding the creases into waves, the hieroglyphs pages rolled to a glossed paper baton. “Aki. I don’t want to talk about this.”

I knew well not to push him too far, but I think I already did. I grabbed the edges of the bed deeper, holding to them as if they were my trusted words. “I love you. You know that?”

“Yeah. Whatever.” His eyes gazed outside the window, flicking in the soft light, looking for an exit.

“Whatever.”

Whatever. This was weeks ago.

“What are you waiting for? Take em’ off.” Eyes pointing at my shirt, he sits down back on the couch, leaning to one side, a young boy posing himself waiting to be painted. I snap back and quickly undress myself like any half-stoned sixteen year old would, blood rushing to my head in moments of blurred imperfections. Nathan is on the sofa looking at me, tracing the side of his body with his fingers, gently bringing them together towards his cock and running them through the small patch of hair. He licks his lips to a purple red dew. This is new to me. He never touches himself. I stumble with my shirt.

“Let me help you with that.” He says, and pulls my shirt up above my head. I can feel the warm glow of his body, the smell of pot clinging dearly to his skin. I want to kiss the skin, kiss the smoke smell away, peeling it off with my lips with my arms around him, smelling his soap skin leaking out like the cut underneath his chin. I bring my hands up to his face, searching for it, tilting his head above left and right, running my fingers for the scar.

“What are you looking for?”

“The cut.” I reply. Nathan’s hands are everywhere. Quietly he goes for mine, pausing me, and brought them down to his cock slowly pushing the rest of me downwards.

“Down there.”

My eyes are tracing his face. If I ask him again will he say it?

“Aki.”

I finally surrendered my tongue slowly down to his nipples and chest, planting circles all the way down with the sticky smooth taste of my spit on his skin, feeling the swirling brown hairs playfully brushing over my face like an artist brush painting my skin. I take him with a single gulp, the tip reaching down my engorged throat, the magnolia scent blooming in as my perfumed nectar. Nathan is moaning softly, his hands pushing my head back and forth, running through my hairs with twists and curls. I blow him slowly and long, enjoying his warm cock inside my mouth running my tongue over it, looking up at my golden effigy breathing deep, his eyes opens and closes at me.

His body is my geographic mesa. His chiseled body is mine to taste and tune. I know each muscle play every turn, every sound that he makes. I know him well, and I thought I did until Nathan starts to pound my face suddenly and pushes me down on the sofa, shoving his cock deeper down my throat choking me but I know I can handle this, I can take this. We’ve done this before. Nathan knows that too, but he keep on pushing me deeper into the couch as he pounds my face from above, my hands to his chest, feeling his heart like a hundred beating drums with every inch of him down my throat, all of him into me. You like that-you like that-you like that huh? He is a burst of possessed words between his short gasp and grunts as he pounds my face. I begin to have a hard time breathing for air. I gag, dripping saliva down my left cheek, trying to push him out of my mouth but he’s too much for me. I begin to panic, desperately pounding his chest, begging him to stop. I gag again, feeling my throat breathing out bubbles of spit, my eyes blurred with tears.

I want him to stop. My heart tells me to.

Suddenly he pulls out and grabs me by the side to his face so close I can hear him breathing hard, his body shaking as if he had just walked in from a winter world. I look at him and I wished for the calm stern face he always wears but instead I see a different one, a raging pain right across my face to his, our foreheads glued together with my hair bundled in his hands. Never thought that I could have so much hair, all that strands of black threads yanked taut by him. I coughed, wiping spit off my face. My eyes are moist wet.

“Nathan.”

“Tell me again Aki. Are you leaving me?” He finally asks with his lips almost brushing against mine, all that wet moist tender flesh, shaking me back and forth as if he were to crack it open and get the answer himself. I try again to break away from him but he quickly holds me back by my shoulders, nails biting deep into me sending a shot of piercing pain. This is not right. This is too much.

“Tell me Aki.” He’s shaking me closer, I can smell his breath, the smoke in his words. I want to pry his hands off my shoulder but I can’t. I try to push him away. I try to push his words away. “Tell me again.” He is saying these words between clenched teeth.

“Nathan. Please. You’re fucking hurting me.” I’m struggling to escape, to build an even space between us, pushing him away and he finally pushes me back on the couch. I’m about to ease myself up, gasping for relief when suddenly a rush of air swoops down on my left cheek, sending me toppling down back to the couch. I can barely hear Nathan’s voice, now shouting, something about you made me you made me do it. I have blood dripping from my nose, or lips, or face as the room spins into a maelstrom screaming a high pitch ring song, a blurry Nathan standing naked spitting words at me, blaming me for fucking up his life. I barely can hear most of it . I try to reach out for him, for his hands but my body is heavier than I thought. I try to hold the room still. I reach again for him.

“Fuck you.” He screams back, pushing my hands away.

I want to tell him I’m sorry but the words come out slow and painful, drowned by his barrage of shouts and faults. I’m trying to know him.

“I’m glad you’re leaving. Fucking glad.” He continues. I thought I hear him sobbing but he wasn’t, choking instead between his words and his spitting breath. A minute pass and the room finally steady itself. Nathan is quiet now, standing in front of me balling his hands. He then reaches down for my pants.

“Get out.” He says, clenching his teeth. “Get out of my house.”

I pretend that I didn’t hear that, try to block his last words from me, looking down at the hard carpet floor at him, picking my clothes he had thrown at me.

“You’re leaving tomorrow right? Take your stuff and leave.”

My right hand to my nose, I stagger up and the blood rushes back to my head. The room wobbles back in return. I try to walk but I stumble and fall towards Nathan, to his arms.

“Aki. Please.” His face is right back in front of me, with my bloodied hand over his shoulder and back, painting my red blood ink over his smooth skin paper.

“I’m sorry.” I turn my back to him, picking my clothes again, staring at the patches of red on the floor. My eyes are welling with tears. I’m still hoping that he would say it, taking me from behind and kiss my neck wiping the blood from my face.

“Go.”

I slowly put my clothes together. Slowly in front of him with tears and blood smudging down my face. The room is waiting for us, waiting for one of us to leave. But I don’t want to.

“I’m not like you Aki. I’m not like you.” He is staring down on the door. The pain still numbs me but I can walk, I can say it to him instead. My lips are trembling but he’s not looking at me but that’s okay, I can see his scar now from this side, a faint pink white mark underneath the chin, smooth showered and cleaned. It looked fresh to me, the cut. I try to remember what is it that makes him so appealing, what is that about him that makes me love him.

The room falls again to wait, Nathan standing a few feet away from me with his painted shoulders and paper smooth neck staring lost towards the door. He is now the Nathan that I know with the whites in his eyes and the purple red lips moving in a distant pause, his face streaming in a metallic glow. I ask him again.

“No. I don’t want to know.” His voice is faltering, juggling between his ambiguous talks and resolute. I reach again for his healed cut.

“Aki.” He whispers back my name. “I don’t want to.”

But I can tell he’s lying.

 

©2003 Irwan bin Iskak - Contributor's Bio