“American,” I answered in a flat tone.
“No, what else are you?”
“Japanese.”
She nodded with satisfaction. I’d been bullied so much as a kid that I never knew how to respond to compliments about my appearance. There was also a fine line between flattery and fetishizing. I asked Sasha how many piercings she had to shift the conversation away from me, and she detailed all of them—where they were on her body, how old she was when she got them, and who she was with at the time. Then she lifted her shirt and pulled down her bra to show me her twin nipple piercings, a silver hoop in one and a barbell in the other.
“Didn’t that hurt?” I asked, instinctively shielding my own nipples, both fearful and fascinated. Needles made me nervous.
“Yeah, but even that feels good sometimes too, doesn’t it?” She winked like it was a shared secret between us. “I know a guy if you’re interested.”
Then Jeannie started complaining about Mitchell, which felt slightly awkward since I considered Mitchell a friend. Still, I offered a sympathetic ear. The gist of her grievance was that they’d been dating for about two years and were supposed to graduate in the spring. Jeannie was planning to go to cosmetology school and wanted Mitchell to find a job that paid more than working at Sunoco.
“I mean, if you want to make it big in music, there are worse places to be, but with Skull Necklace breaking up…” Jeannie turned to me. “You were there, weren’t you? Do you know what happened? Mitchell never talks to me about band business.”
I didn’t know how to respond. Perhaps because my parents were so career-oriented, it never occurred to me that Skull Necklace was anything more than a fun diversion. To learn that Seth and Mitchell were planning to make it their post-high school career seemed slightly naïve to me.
Or maybe I lacked commitment as an artist.
“I think the band is going in a different direction,” I said noncommittally. It seemed as if Seth hadn’t said anything about my contribution to the band breaking up, and I preferred it that way. I was saved then by the guys returning to tell us camp was made. I shielded my eyes from the sun’s glare to look up at them. Seth shifted a little so that he was blocking the sun, and it created a full-body halo effect. His eyes roved over me, and he licked his lips in a wicked way. The effect on me was pretty much instantaneous.
“Hiroku and I will catch up,” Seth said to the others. Sasha and Jeannie exchanged a knowing look, which made me feel a bit like a tool, to think this was something Seth did on the regular. How many other pretty boys had Seth lured into nature, revved up on the adrenaline of cliff jumping, and then later deflowered? At the same time, I couldn’t help but be aroused by the thought of it. My body had absolutely no reservations.
My conversation with the girls was front and center in my mind as I followed Seth along a trail into the woods. They’d welcomed me and made me feel like part of their pack, but if I was just Seth’s latest fuckboy, I kind of wanted to know it up front so I didn’t get too emotionally invested.
As if reading my mind, Seth said, “You and the girls talk about anything interesting?”
Somehow Seth knew my faith in him was wavering. He could sense my insecurities like a bloodhound picking up a scent trail. “Sasha’s thinking of dyeing her hair again,” I said.
“What color?”
“Red. Not a cherry red, more like a dark auburn.”
Seth nodded. “I can picture it.”
“Jeannie offered to do it for her. She said she’d do mine too. Her suggestion for my hair was purple.” I was stalling. Hair dye was much easier to talk about than what was really on my mind.
Seth turned back to eye me. “Light purple, like a vintage violet more so than a plum.”
I’d never before entertained the idea of dyeing my hair, but suddenly I was.
Seth led me to a thicket of trees that was several yards away from the trail, secluded and private. I knew he’d brought me there for a reason—the tension between us had been building all day, in his sly smiles, his hands lingering a beat too long on my bare skin, a slow caress along the slope of my back.
I wanted to be used by him, but I didn’t want to be discarded.
“Is there anything you want to talk about?” Seth asked as he trailed his hand down my arm, all the way to the tip of my index finger, which he hooked with his.
There were so many things I wanted to talk about, but I decided to start with something easy. “Are you gay?”
Seth shook his head with a rueful smile. “Sasha, right?” He sighed and looked past me. “I’m… omnivorous.”
I assumed that meant bisexual or pansexual. His orientation wasn’t really that important to me, but it was a start to understanding his end game.
“Are you seeing someone?” I asked.
His eyes widened, and he looked offended. “I’m seeing you, I thought.”
I took that as a positive sign, “Anyone else?”
