10
VINCENT
“More tongue,” Valentina instructed. “Swirl it around. Yeah, like that. Now take it in deep. Deeper.”
My jaw ached something fierce, but my eyes remained glued to the screen, trying to mimic the actor’s motions. Valentina was giving me lessons on how to give head by practicing on cucumbers. We were parked in the McDonalds parking lot, using their free WiFi to stream porn because their bandwidth was good enough.
Valentina was determined to lose her virginity before we graduated high school. I just wanted to be able to nosh a guy without making him bleed out. But even with Valentina’s guidance and a video tutorial, my cucumber looked like it was on its way to being julienned by the time I’d finished with it.
“How does that even fit in there?” I asked. The couple had transitioned to anal, and the top was freakishly huge. “What if it gets stuck?”
“That’s a trip to the emergency room,” Valentina said. “Think it’s covered by workman’s comp?”
I snickered. Then something on-screen caught my eye. “What isthat?”
“What?” Her head had been turned. How could she look away?
I backed up the video and pointed at the screen.
“I think that’s a cock ring,” she said.
“Awhat?Pause it.”
Knowing the drill by now, Valentina went straight to Google. She relayed to me its uses, then explained to me the medical conditions of priapism and penile gangrene.
“Stop. I don’t want to hear anymore.” I shut the laptop, done for the night. That was the problem with getting our sex education from watching porn. It was not enough and way too much.
A couple of days later, I broke down and asked you if our bodies’ regenerative process included genitalia. You only smiled knowingly and assured me it did.
After that I became briefly fascinated with Priapus, the god of fertility who was known for having an incredibly large peen. Like obscenely huge. I asked Mater if she knew anything about him, and she said just as Medusa is the matron of the bloodborns, Priapus is the patron to the beastborns. And when I asked whatthatmeant, she said they were the offspring of demons and beasts. Then she shrugged like it was no big deal. Ummm… come again?
My conclusion was that gods were freaks.
Point is, I was good at getting answers. If Papa wouldn’t tell me, I went to you, and if you didn’t know, I asked Mater. Dad was a last resort. There was always someone I could go to if I had questions, and the internet was a great standby.
But on the subject of Orlando, I got very little. Dad told me to talk to Papa. Papa said the subject for you, was like a scab, and I needed to leave it alone and let you heal. Mater said in her typically shady way, “Every man is entitled to his secrets, however deep and dark they may be.”
Of course, that only made me more curious.
One night when Valentina’s parents were out of town, and we were kicking it in her backyard, I started thinking about Orlando and the pain in your eyes when you spoke of him. The strange connection I felt to him. I’d been drinking and was feeling pretty sentimental—Valentina called me a weepy drunk—and I couldn’t stop talking to her about you.
“You should call him,” she said. She knew I was moony over you. Or something. She didn’t know we were brothers. We didn’t really talk about it as a family. I’d always assumed it was because of Mater and our bloodline. Just another aspect of my identity I needed to keep hidden. To everyone else, you were a family friend, though Valentina had commented more than once that it was weird how much time we spent together. Was it weird?
“Right now?” I asked her. It was pretty late, probably past your bedtime.
“Yeah, why not? You keep talking about him. Just give him a call. Say what’s up.”
Like most things when I was tipsy, it seemed like a good idea at the time. You answered immediately, and the roughness of your voice made it sound like you’d been sleeping.Naked?I scolded myself for thinking about you like that. What the hell?
“Vincent,” you said. “Is everything all right?”
“Yeah, yeah, I just…”Just what?Wanted to hear your voice, wanted a hug, wanted to crawl into your lap and have you hold me. I was too old for that, though, wasn’t I? Why did I crave your affection so badly? Why did your smile and laugh make me happy like nothing else? My obsession with you… it wasn’t normal.
“I wanted to make sure we were still on for tomorrow,” I said.
“Yes, of course. Do you need to adjust our plans?” You sounded worried. You never cancelled on me, and you were very punctual, even with Miami traffic.
“No, I was just…”Missing you.I used to be able to say it so easily. Why were those words getting caught in my throat now? “I was just looking at the weather, and there might be some thunderstorms coming in from the east. Because of the tropical depression forming in the Caribbean. They haven’t named it yet, which is good. I love summer but I really hate hurricane season.”
