madeline perett

We Used To Be Friends

My dick is a little hard. I just remembered the dream I had last night about Mr. Figueroa and all of a sudden it rose to attention. I'm in Mr. Fig's class right now. He teaches algebra and is also the basketball coach. I'm on the basketball team. We were both naked in the dream, and he was on top of me, grinding me. It's weird because he's married and I'm not gay. It made me feel sick and good at the same time.

I'm trying really hard to concentrate on the stuff on the board instead of Mr. Fig's soft brown hand writing the stuff on the board. I look down at my textbook and pinch my thigh really hard but that actually gets me more excited. I look at the numbers on the page and try to do equations in my head. Sure enough that does the trick.

Mr. Fig tells us to work by ourselves on the equations on page 57. I ask for a hall pass. I want to go to the bathroom to jerk off really quick. I make sure the bathroom is empty then go into a stall. I don't want to take too long. Maybe someone will notice how long I'm gone and think I'm taking a dump. I think about my last girlfriend, Denise, and how big her tits are and how soft and squeezable her ass is but that doesn't do it for me. My brain wants to go back to that dream. I hate that that's what gets me off. I'm pulling on it really hard and I'm trying to finish quick but I'm also listening for anyone coming in to the bathroom. I come and then I catch my breath and I wash my hands and I go back to class. I keep my eyes on my book for the rest of class. I can't look Mr. Fig in the eyes.

Once Algebra is over, I'm in a rush to leave and I bump into Charlie Harris on the way out. I tell him to watch out and he says, "Dick," under his breath. I grab my balls and tell him to suck it. That would be nice actually. Charlie is the only queer in the school. I don't think he's actually come out but it's pretty obvious. He's kind of effeminate and he has lots of girlfriends. I mean, girl space friends. We used to be friends, back in second grade. I think people already knew then how different he was. One day, they sang the kissing song about us—"Charlie and Michael sitting in a tree." I went home and cried about it. After that, I stayed away from him and he started hanging out with the girls. And I made fun of him with everybody else.

I catch him looking at me sometimes. Like he knows a secret about me. I just give him a look that says, "What the fuck are you looking at?" and he goes back to whatever he was doing.

We have Chemistry together, the class, not, you know, "chemistry." One day, I was looking at Charlie, who sits in the front of the class, and he turned his head towards me. Maybe he could feel me staring or maybe he just wanted to look out the windows because I sit right next to them. He caught my eyes and smiled a little. I gave him a look that said, "You're disgusting," and his face fell and he looked forward.

I have U.S. History with my best friend Brendan Doyle. We sit in the back and today he's telling me about the girl he was with last night and how she let him go all the way. He's talking about how perfect her tits were and how tight her pussy was and he's talking loud enough for Jared and Nick and Matt, who sit in the desks around us, to hear and eventually they turn to listen and they're all smiling. And we're all like, "Yeah, nice."

When class starts, me and Brendan don't even pay attention. I hate history. Brendan is trying really hard to draw a naked woman in his notebook. When he's finished he shows it to me. She has mittens as hands and no feet. Her arms are almost as long as her legs and she has big lumpy hips. The breasts are actually perfect. They're big and round and the nipples look like they're in the right place. Another time when Brendan was trying to draw the perfect rack he turned to me with the drawing and asked if the nipples looked right. That time they were lopsided and too high on the breasts.

Mr. Goodman comes out of no where and rips the page out of the notebook and crumples it up. He puts it in his pocket. He's probably going to un-crumple it later and jerk off to it.

Me and Brendan pay attention for a little while or at least pretend to. I take some notes. Civil rights, MLK, buses. I see Brendan writing stuff down then he hands me a note that says, "Did you hear Charlie Harris was caught sucking some freshman's dick in the bathroom?"

I don't believe that. I don't know Charlie very well anymore but I know he's always been shy and quiet, and he always gets straight A's. I write down anyway, "No way gross!" and pass it back to Brendan when Mr. Goodman turns around to write something on the board. Then I write down what's on the board: "Read Chapter 6." I'm not going to do that.

***

Me and Charlie used to live in the same neighborhood. It's kind of the poor part of town now. Charlie still lives there but I live in the nicer part of town.

We used to hang out a lot, sometimes with the other kids on the block and sometimes just the two of us. We'd race to the end of the street, or play hide and seek, or we'd make up our own game, or play pretend. We were really close. I guess we were best friends.

One day, I cornered him in my garage. I wanted him to show me his dick. He didn't want to. I was just curious. He put his hands over his crotch and put his head down and closed his eyes and cried. I took mine out and wagged it at him. He looked at it and took his out. I touched his and he backed away and put it back in his pants. I moved closer to him with my dick still hanging out. I got real close and he looked kind of scared. His eyes were big and red. I got as close as I could—I had him against the wall—then I kissed him. I really just mashed my face into his because I didn't really know how to kiss yet.

When I pulled away we just stared at each other for a minute. Then I tucked my dick back into my pants and ran inside the house. We avoided each other for a little while, but eventually started hanging out again. He would be really weird though. I think he wanted to kiss again. But I was trying to forget about it. He kept trying to go to the garage, like, "Let's play this game in the garage," and I'd be like, "Nah, let's go to Ross Park."

Then people at school sang that kissing song and I thought, "How do they know? Did Charlie tell someone?" Later that day, I found Charlie and brought him to the garage. He was really excited, probably thinking I'd kiss him again. But I yelled at him, "Why did you tell?" and punched him really hard in his stomach. He leaned over, covering his stomach, and cried, "I didn't tell anyone anything." I pushed him and he fell back into some shovels and rakes, and he cried even harder. I ran inside my house and watched out the window until he left the garage. He looked towards the window that I was in then looked back down at the ground. I watched him walk down the street to his home. I could see him wiping his face with the back of his arm. I saw him look towards my house again before he went inside.

When people ask me about my first kiss, I lie and say it was Ashley Burns, who was the second person I kissed but the first girl.

***

I wake up with a tent over my crotch. I don't remember what I was dreaming about. I jerk off. Sometimes my mom wakes me up in the morning. Thank God she didn't today.

I get ready for school and go downstairs. My parents are at the kitchen table reading the newspaper. My dad is reading the sports and my mom is reading the Metro section. I sit down with a bowl of cereal and my mom says, "You're up early." I just grunt.

My dad says, "Fag" and for some reason I get really scared that he's saying it to me but then he says, "You hear about this basketball player who came out?" He laughs a little and says, "Fucking queer," and I say, "Yeah, queer" and laugh too. My mom shakes her head at me.

During basketball practice, Brendan falls on top of me and I can feel his dick through his shorts. We fell in a really awkward way so I'm kind of cupping his dick in my hand. He's warm and he breathes a hot breath into my neck. I wouldn't mind staying like this but he's up fast and he's mad.

"Come on, Mike. Get your head out of your ass."

I've been dragging all day. I fell asleep in my first period, English. Ms. Livingston didn't even wake me up until class ended. I love the shit I can get away with. Last semester, I skipped half of my classes and still got straight B-minuses, except in Mr. Fig's class—I got a C-minus. He won't put up with my shit. He says I have potential, not just on the court but in the classroom. He thinks I'm smarter than I let on. He thinks I could get into a good college, says if I keep up with basketball and get okay grades I could get a basketball scholarship. I don't know if I want to keep playing this game out of high school.