When My Heart Joins the Thousand Read online

  “Yeah, but this is different. We’re not two strangers hooking up in a bar.”

  “Yes or no.”

  Several times, he opens his mouth as if he’s about to say something, then closes it again. “Let me take you out to dinner,” he says at last.

  Dinner. That seems manageable. Slowly, cautiously, I nod. “Where.”

  “Is there anyplace you like? I don’t know too many nice restaurants, but I think there’s a French place around here that’s supposed to be good.”

  I’ve never had French food. There’s only one restaurant I go to, a small diner a few blocks from my apartment that serves pancakes twenty-four hours a day. “Buster’s.”

  “Really?”

  I nod.

  “Okay. Buster’s it is.”

  My Rubik’s Cube is still on the damp grass. I pick it up and clean it off on one edge of my hoodie. It’s just as well that we’re going out to eat, because I have some questions I need to ask him. I’m still not sure if this is going to happen. He hasn’t exactly said yes, but he hasn’t said no, either.

  CHAPTER NINE

  When Stanley and I arrive at Buster’s, we’re the only people in the restaurant, aside from an elderly couple sitting in a corner booth. A five-foot-tall sculpture of the restaurant’s mascot—a winking beaver in a chef’s hat, holding a stack of syrup-covered pancakes on a tray—stands next to the door.

  I order Swedish pancakes and Stanley orders eggs Benedict. The waitress fills our coffee cups.

  “If we’re going to do this,” I say, “I have a few conditions.”

  “Conditions?”

  I take a swig of my coffee. “First, I don’t like to be touched.”

  “But then, how can we . . .”

  I clarify: “When another person touches me, I find it very uncomfortable. But as long as I’m the one doing it, I’m generally fine. So I’ll have to be in control the entire time. Is that all right with you.”

  His brows knit together. “Why don’t you like to be touched?”

  I study the red-and-white-checkered tabletop. There’s a smear of dried, hardened ketchup on the wooden edge of the table. “No reason. I’ve always been this way.”

  He doesn’t reply, but I can feel his eyes on me.

  The food arrives. I take a bite of my Swedish pancakes. As I chew, I watch him. The fact that we’re talking about this indicates that he is, at the very least, seriously considering my proposition. My head buzzes oddly. Sights and sounds are all faintly distorted, as if I’m surrounded by a ball of water. I focus on breathing and chewing.

  Finally he speaks: “If that’s what you’re comfortable with, then that’s okay with me.”

  The muscles in my chest loosen, letting me breathe again. I nod. “Thank you.”

  He sips his coffee, and I notice a slight tremor in his hand. The fingers of his other hand drum rapidly against the table. He picks up his knife and fork and starts cutting his eggs Benedict.

  “Also,” I say through a mouthful of pancakes, “I want to know about your kinks.”

  His posture snaps upright. His fork stops halfway to his open mouth, and a piece of egg falls off. “My what?”

  I swallow, washing the pancakes down with another swig of coffee. “Kinks.” I speak as distinctly as possible. “Turn-ons.”

  Color floods his face. “You want me to tell you about my sexual fantasies?” he asks, the volume of his voice rising.

  At the other end of the restaurant, the elderly couple turns their heads toward us, frowning and peering over the rims of their spectacles.

  He glances at them, winces, and lowers his voice. “Do you always ask about this stuff on the first date?”

  I can’t answer that, because this is the only date I’ve ever been on. But I see no need to tell him that. “Aren’t you supposed to ask questions during a date.”

  “Questions like ‘What’s your favorite song?’ or ‘Are you a cat or a dog person?’ yeah.”

  “If we’re going to have sex, I need to know what does and doesn’t arouse you. I don’t like going into any situation blind.”

  “It’s just . . . I’m really not used to talking about stuff like this with, well, anyone.” He swallows. I notice that he hasn’t actually eaten any of his eggs; he just keeps cutting them into smaller and smaller pieces. They’re practically liquid on his plate. “We’re just going to do the usual thing, right?”

  “If by ‘the usual thing’ you mean intercourse, then yes.”

  On the other side of the restaurant, the plump silver-haired woman shakes her head and whispers something to her husband. Stanley glances at them again, then rests his elbows on the table, covers his face with his hands, and peers out at me between his splayed fingers. “I’m sorry,” he whispers. “I can’t talk about this. Not here.” He stops and takes a slow, deep breath. “I don’t think you really grasp how much this is messing with my head. I mean . . . look at me.”

  I look. I’m not sure what I’m supposed to see.

  He continues, the words spilling out in a stream: “Maybe in the back of my mind there was this tiny little hope that, if today went well, you might decide to see me again. And then if we kept seeing each other, maybe someday we could become more than friends. But I thought that even if you were willing to give me a chance, a lot of other things would happen before we even started talking about sex.”

  I study my pancakes, but suddenly I don’t feel hungry. The fork hurts my hand, and I realize I am gripping it too tightly.

  “Hey . . .” His voice softens, and his brows draw together. He starts to reach out, then stops. “May I?”

  I hesitate, then nod. He lays a hand over mine and squeezes. An electric current ripples through me, a thousand tiny painless pins pricking my skin, but after the initial shock, the sensation mellows into something . . . almost pleasant. Warm. I look at his long, pale fingers resting against mine.

  I wonder how I can contemplate having sex with him when the slightest touch is overwhelmingly intense. Maybe I’m deluding myself to think that this is possible.

  “Alvie? Breathe.”

  My lungs are aching. I exhale the breath of stale air in my lungs and draw in a fresh one. “Yes or no.”

  He doesn’t ask what I’m talking about. He doesn’t need to.

  He takes his hand off mine and bites his lip again. “I want to do this right.”

  The bubbles swirl slowly on the surface of my coffee, forming tiny galaxies. “What do you mean.”

  He squares his shoulders. “I want to court you.”

  Court. The word feels quaint and old-fashioned. It conjures an image of ladies in bonnets and white dresses, holding umbrellas, while men in suits bow to them and help them into horse-drawn carriages. Somehow I don’t think that’s what he has in mind. “Be more specific.”

  “Just stuff like this. Talking. Spending time together. Going out for dinner or movies or mini-golfing. Anything.”

  For a moment I find myself considering it. Except I know better. “That’s not possible.”

  “Why?”

  I lower my head. “I can’t explain.” I’m only going to do this once; I’ve decided as much. This isn’t about having a relationship. I just want to try it, to prove to myself that I can, and doing it with Stanley makes more sense than propositioning some random stranger on Craigslist. He’s young and male, so statistically speaking, he’s probably interested in sex. Last night, when I analyzed all the facts, it seemed like a win-win.

  “Look at me,” he says.

  I raise my head, and his eyes search mine. My scalp tingles, and a tiny chill trickles down my spine. He looks at me so intently. I don’t know what he sees there or what he expects to see. But I let him look.

  “Please . . . tell me the truth,” he says very softly. “Is this really what you want?”

  I don’t understand why he seems so unsure about that. It should be obvious, shouldn’t it? I’m the one who asked. “This is what I want.”

  For a long mo
ment, he says nothing. I don’t know what he’s thinking. He closes his eyes and breathes in slowly. “Then . . . yes.”

  Vertigo swims over me. Yes. He said yes. I’m going to have sex with Stanley Finkel. Tonight.

  “Do you still want to know about my turn-ons?” he asks.

  “I would appreciate the information, yes.” Remembering his reaction, I add, “But you don’t have to tell me.”

  He chews his lower lip. He keeps doing that. He’s going to make himself bleed if he’s not careful. “How about I answer one question?”

  I consider. “All right. Tell me one thing you like, then. One thing you find attractive.”

  “About you, or . . .”

  “Anything.”

  “I guess . . .” He fiddles with his silverware. “Ilikethosestockingsyou’rewearing.”

  The words come out in a rush. I have to pause to untangle them. “My stockings.” I frown and glance down at them—black-and-white striped and a bit too large so they bunch in folds around my ankles. There’s a hole in the left knee. I never thought of them as sexy. “Really.”

  “I just think they’re cute.”

  I nod. “I’ll keep them on, in that case.”

  He’s blushing again. He crosses his arms over his chest, and his fingers press into his biceps hard enough to whiten the skin around his nails. “The thing is . . . I’m . . .”

  I wait.

  “Never mind.” He smiles, a quick tightening of his facial muscles. “Is this the part where I say ‘my place or yours?’”

  I haven’t actually considered where we’re going to do this.

  I think about my apartment: the piles of clothes on the floor, the naked walls and balding carpet, the barren refrigerator with the moldy lump in the corner that was once a ham sandwich and which I haven’t thrown out yet because I’m afraid to touch it. I decide I don’t want him to see my apartment. But the idea of being in someone else’s place is even more overwhelming, like being in a foreign land where I don’t know the laws or the language. “Neither.”

  “Where, then?”

  “There’s a motel nearby. I can drive us there.”

  “We’re doing this like a real one-night stand, huh?”

  “I don’t know,” I say. “I don’t know how one-night stands usually happen. But I think a motel would work better.”

  He lowers his gaze. His smile has faded. “If you say so.”

  I wonder what he was about to say earlier, before he stopped. It must have been something. I think about asking. But then, if he didn’t bother to finish his sentence, it can’t have been that important.

  CHAPTER TEN

  Last night, in preparation for my time with Stanley, I downloaded about ten gigabytes of pornography. I already knew the biology of sex, but not the technique, the various positions and angles.

  In large doses, hard-core porn becomes boring very quickly. Once you fast-forward through the dialogue and mute the music, it comes down to watching two sweaty strangers endlessly pumping, thrusting, and sucking. There’s something mechanical about it.

  Through my viewing, I discovered that, with enough lubricant, you can fit almost anything anywhere, and apparently some women enjoy being spanked by a man in uniform. But in the end, I came away from it feeling like I hadn’t learned much at all.

  In the motel room, there are blue carnations on the wallpaper in bunches of twos and threes. Two-three. In ancient China, it was believed that certain numbers held sexual significance. Prime numbers were masculine, and twenty-three was considered especially potent because it’s the sum of three consecutive prime numbers. My age, seventeen, is also a prime number, and the sum of the first four primes.

  “Alvie?”

  My gaze jerks toward Stanley. He’s sitting on the edge of the bed, fiddling with his crutch. He clears his throat. “I, uh. I’m not sure how I’m going to do this without touching you. I mean, I’ll try not to. I’ll keep my hands on the bed. But—”

  “If it happens by accident, I’ll deal with it.” I trust him not to do it on purpose, which is more than I usually trust anyone. “Just be careful.”

  “I will.” His voice turns softer. “I promise.” He’s still fully dressed. Maybe he’s waiting for me.

  I start to peel off my shirt.

  “Wait,” he says. I stop.

  A flush creeps into his cheeks. “People usually kiss before they start taking off their clothes.”

  I tilt my head. “You want to kiss me.”

  His blush grows brighter. “I, uh—was that a question?”

  “Yes.”

  “Sorry. It’s hard to tell with you.” A pause. “Do you want to?”

  I think about this for a moment. When I see people kissing on TV, they always look like they’re trying to eat each other’s faces, and they make wet slurping sounds that remind me of a plunger sucking a blockage from a toilet. “I’m okay with just getting undressed.”

  He fidgets. “You know, maybe we should turn up the heat. It’s pretty cold in h—”

  I remove my shirt. Stanley clutches the edge of the bed like he’s about to fall off.

  My hands tremble slightly as I undo the clasp of my bra, and it drops to the floor. His pupils dilate, and his Adam’s apple bobs up and down as he swallows. “Wow.” His voice comes out soft and breathless. I’m not sure what’s so amazing. They’re just breasts. All girls have them.

  “They’re small,” I remark.

  He blinks. “Huh?”

  “My tits.”

  “They’re not. Small, I mean.”

  I look down. “It’s just a fact.”

  “No, they’re perfect. It’s just . . .” A short, nervous chuckle. “It’s a little surreal hearing you say ‘tits.’ It’s like hearing Mr. Spock say ‘motherfucker’ or something.”

  I shrug.

  “They’re beautiful.” His voice softens. “You’re beautiful.”

  The words make me uncomfortable, make me feel naked in a way that just taking off my bra didn’t. He shouldn’t say things like that.

  The air in the motel room is cool against my skin. Goose bumps rise on my arms and breasts, and my chest heaves as I struggle to control my breathing. I don’t know if I am aroused, exactly, but I am very aware of my body, even more than usual. I feel the roughness of the carpet under my stockinged feet, the weight of my bones, and the whisper of blood rushing through my brain, my heart. My breathing quickens, and pressure builds inside my chest.

  My hands are still trembling. Am I afraid?

  I’m not worried about the mechanics of it, which are fairly simple. I tried it with my fingers last night, and while there was some stinging, the pain was no worse than bumping into a chair in the darkness on the way to the bathroom. No—I’m afraid that I’ll say something or do something that will ruin this, and he’ll turn away from me in disgust. Or that I’ll panic.

  But I’m not going to change my mind. Not now.

  I stand there, naked from the waist up, and say, “Undress.”

  He fiddles with the first button of his shirt. Then he starts to reach for the lamp cord, to turn off the light.

  “Don’t,” I say.

  He freezes.

  “I need to see what I’m doing.”

  The muscles of his throat move as he swallows. “Okay.”

  Uncertainty steals over me, the network of wires and strings pulling tight inside my body, and I wonder—again—if he doesn’t want this, after all. Maybe he’s changed his mind. Maybe he’s disappointed by my boyishly flat chest or my knobby collarbones. I’ve never thought much about my body and whether someone might consider it attractive, but looking at it objectively, there isn’t much of interest.

  Then I look down at his pants and see the bulge straining against them.

  For a few seconds I just stare. A tremor runs through me. Not fear. Excitement.

  It’s proof. He’s not doing this just because I asked it of him, or because he feels sorry for me. He wants this. He wants me.
>
  My own breathing suddenly sounds very loud and unsteady.

  I notice him staring at my breasts. He notices me noticing and looks away. “You want to touch them,” I say.

  “Yeah.” His voice comes out thick and hoarse, like he has a sore throat.

  My head is buzzing. I’m suddenly very warm. “Go ahead.”

  “You’re sure?”

  I nod.

  He gulps, raises his hands. Lowers them. Then takes a deep breath and raises them again.

  The first touch is like jumping into a cold pool on a hot summer day. For a few seconds, it’s unbearable, and then the shock fades, and I’m floating. I watch, holding my breath, as his fingertips graze my breast. His thumb brushes over one nipple, then rubs in a slow circle, and there’s a pleasant flutter somewhere deep inside my body.

  I’m off-balance, my head spinning. Already, my nervous system is starting to overload. I need to pull back.

  I grip his wrists and push his hands down. He clutches the coverlet. I close my eyes and breathe in slowly, finding my center of control. The world steadies around me, and my eyes open.

  “Lie down,” I say, “on your back.”

  He stretches out on the bed and lies stiffly, arms at his sides, legs together. I put my hand on his crotch.

  His hips jerk, his mouth opens, and his eyes go soft and glassy. “Holy shit,” he blurts, then bites his lip. “Sorry.”

  I pull back. “Did I hurt you.”

  “No. Just surprised me. It—it felt good.”

  I reach for the top button of his shirt. Immediately he tenses up. He starts to lift his hands. “Hands on the bed,” I order, breathless. He clenches his fists on the sheets again. I undo another button.

  “Wait,” he blurts out. “I don’t have any condoms.”

  “I brought one.” I fumble through the pocket of my hoodie, which is draped over a chair, and pull out the small foil-wrapped packet that I purchased from a convenience store earlier. “You don’t have a latex allergy, do you.”

  He shakes his head.

  “Good.” I lay the packet on the coverlet and reach out to undo another button.

  “H-hang on. Let’s not rush this.”

  I freeze, not quite touching him. “What’s wrong,” I ask.