Page 521 of Call Me Baby 2: Side B

You dumb motherfucker. Insult the one girl who’s got your pulse racin’. Maybe next you ask her to suck your dick. Women love that.

Thank fuck, she snaps back, “I don’t share my food, sweetheart. But some advice? If she’s grabbing your hair, that’s direction, not applause.”

His laugh rolls out, helpless. “That’s a lotta talk for someone still standin’ all the way over there.”

There’s no plan. None. There’s a wet cunt inches from his face, cum in his mouth, probably kneelin’ in back-alley piss with a rat somewhere nearby. And now this one girl—this one fuckin’ girl—thirty feet away has got his body doin’ some weird shit. Reactin’. And he can’t take his eyes off her.

Her hair’s everywhere, dark, wild, blowin’ across her face, whippin’ around her stomach. He can’t make out her face, but his gut’s screamin’, brown eyes. Gotta be. The burn-you-alive, killing kind. He don’t know how he knows, and he’d do anything—dead fuckin’ serious—to look into those eyes just once.

“Just sayin’, you look lost, bro,” she calls out. “If your heart’s not into it, walk away now. Before it gets embarrassing.”

Shit. He feels the goodbye comin’ before it happens.

He feels her fade as if it’s already done.

He feels himself feelin’, and it’s already hollowin’ him out.

She ain’t even gone yet, but it’s already all over his skin. The loss of it. Her leavin’ already cuts him up and brings him to his feet, as if standin’ might keep her longer. “Why don’t you c’mere, huh? Let me see that smart mouth of yours.”

She scoffs. “Please. I’d make you cry.”

Her friend grabs her arm, leans in close, mouth to ear. That telltale whisper that means let’s go.

His heart’s lodged in his throat, feet cemented to a piss-wet puddle.

“Wait—yo. Where the hell you goin’? That’s it?” He steps forward, then stops when the streetlight spears across her face.

For a split second, her eyes catch his.

One beat, that’s all it takes, when their eyes meet. Then he’s standing, flying, dropped down on his knees. All at the exact same time.

“Maybe next time,” she says, disappearin’ behind the buildin’.

“You just walkin’ away? For real?” He’s frozen in it, mouth open, heart jackhammerin’, tryin’ to decide whether to chase her through the city with pussy on his face or punch brick.

Oh, God, he thinks. Don’t do this to me.

Put that girl in front of him then take her away, like—here, asshole. Meet your girl. This’s the one I made for you, but you fucked shit up. Now watch her walk away.

He can’t move.

His pulse feels outside of him.

“Uh, hello? Clit’s gettin’ cold.”

It hits him, like wakin’ up from a dream, that strange, messed-up second where you snap your eyes open and the fog’s still fadin’. Ludlow Street rushes back in, neon bright, noise of the crowd, the cold September wind smackin’ him in the face to remind him he’s still standin’ in a puddle, trapped and hatin’ himself.

He’s never felt more twelve-years-old and pathetic.

He turns, chest heavin’, seein’ the brunette still glued to the brick.

All the shame rises up fast and nasty, the smell and taste hittin’ him hard—pussy, saliva, sweat, his own breath fogged with it.

It makes him sick.

Makes him disgusted with himself.

And all he can think is: what the hell am I doin’?