Before I stood, I kissed two of my fingers and touched Rami’s forehead.
“I’ll see you after school. I love you, Rami,” I said.
“Go, Justinas,” Dominykas firmly said.
I raced to the living room, picked up my backpack and hurried out. I might see Mom on my way to my friend’s house, but there was no sign of her yet. I was pretty sure that once Mom got home, she’d either send Dominykas straight to school, or she’d have him stay home to help with Rami. Dominykas was only sixteen but almost out of school. It seemed that a lot of kids his age went to school less and helped out at home more or had jobs.
“Hey, Justinas!” Adomas called from his porch.
“Hey,” I said as we bumped fists.
“I started to wonder if you were coming by today.”
“Rami fell in the hallway this morning while Mom was out getting groceries.”
“Shit. Is she okay?”
“She was calming down when I left. Dominykas is staying home with her.”
“Did you do your homework last night?”
Fuck. My homework.
“Fuck. No.” I sighed.
My parents fought last night over bills, money, and Rami, and I couldn’t concentrate. While both of my parents encouraged my brother and me to get good grades, sometimes it wasn’t possible. The house was rarely quiet for us to study, and we often sat outside on our porch for some quiet time. But even when I was outside trying to study, I could hardly concentrate because every few minutes I’d to look up to see who was around or where the direction of the screams were coming from.
“I didn’t do mine either. Wanna ditch?” he asked as we both slowed our pace.
My mind was all over the place with worries about Rami, and I could use a day away from school shit being piled up on top. Besides, Adomas and I always had fun when we ditched. His father had a stack of banned adult books and magazines, and we would spend the day looking at them and jacking off.
“What would we do?” I asked, hoping that he’d mention the magazines.
“Uh, hello, read dirty magazines and jack off,” he said in a tone that meant I should know.
“Is your dad gone for the day?” I asked. Adomas’ mom wasn’t in the picture anymore, so he lived only with his dad.
“Yes.”
His father somehow had a small collection of tattered and torn magazines with only men in them. Anything surrounding same-sex engagement was incredibly frowned upon and not tolerated in Lithuania. Danger and aggression usually fell upon those involved in it as soon as others found out. Adomas wondered if his dad was gay since he had the magazines, but he begged me not to tell anyone. And I never did.
And I never thought of myself or Adomas as being such. He and I were both into girls, and I could honestly say that I had never even looked at a guy at school inthatway. But there was just something thrilling about looking at something I knew I shouldn’t. It was that feeling that made me come so hard.
With his father gone for the day, that meant we could even mess around a little. I also knew that weshouldn’tbe looking at these magazines or messing around. That kind of behavior was considered not only illegal but downright dangerous.
Not long ago, my parents found out my brother had been with a girl, but they weren’t too upset. But one day when they came home early from a medical appointment with Rami, they found him looking at one of the banned magazines, and they went off the rails. My mom and I kept Rami occupied in the kitchen coloring while my dad yelled at Dominykas behind a closed door.
Again, maybe it was for the thrill of it that Adomas and I even dared to mess around. But we were doing it in the safety of the house. Besides, we weren’t seriously doing anything. We were just looking at pictures. We hurried back to his house and went inside. Adomas went to get a stack of his dad’s magazines while I sat on the bean bag in his room. I leaned back and unbuttoned my pants so I’d be ready.
“These are the two new ones,” Adomas said as he came into the room and handed me one.
“Damn! These are in good condition. The pages aren’t even torn or crumpled,” I said.
All of the magazines I had seen up to this point were all in English. Thankfully, my parents started teaching my brother and me English a few years ago when the talk came up about moving to the U.S. But just because a magazine was in English didn’t mean it came from the U.S. More than likely, the stuff that ended up here came from the U.K., but the magazine he handed me was in Lithuanian. These were rare.
“I wonder where your dad got this? We’ve never seen them in Lithuanian,” I said.
“I know. These are great. They’re thinner than the English ones, but I could read and understand the stories now.”
