Page 98 of The Build-a-Boyfriend Project

He wants Peter to be pissed at him, annoyed that he’d make out with another man and follow him to the bathroom in the hopes of getting laid. If Peter gets angry enough, he might end this. Cut this all off for him, take the reins for once and decide that he’s had enough of Eli for no real reason at all.

“Yeah, when he wasn’t wearing a mask, at least.”

“A mask?” That’s what gets an actual response from Peter, his head whipping around.

“It was a Halloween party, remember?”

“Right, right,” Peter says, standing up straight. Eli watches him carefully as he walks to the head of the bed, taking a spot with his back against the bare wall.

“My friends wanted to go out, and I thought maybe, just maybe, I could get laid or something.”

“What happened?”

Eli swallows, wondering how Peter might react if he told him the truth. At least, one of the truths. “I just wasn’t feeling it. He didn’t want to go back to his place, he just pulled me into the bathroom.”

“Really?”

Eli nods. “It’s whatever, I can go back to my apartment and dig around in my toy box until I find something.”

“Your toy box?” Peter smiles. “Why would you call it that?”

Eli can’t hold back the cackle that escapes, holding his hand over his own mouth as tight as he can, but it doesn’t work. “I mean, that’s what it is!”

“But it’s so . . .” Peter shudders. “Wrong.” The two of them laugh together, but the sound dies quickly, their gazes meeting before Eli darts his away.

“Can I ask . . .” Eli rests his back on the wall. “Have you had sex with anyone since Mark?”

Peter shakes his head. “Like, I’ve masturbated, but yeah . . . with Mark, that’s it. Sometimes I wonder about that inexperience, just like everything else I haven’t done before, and if I’ll know how to do it right again when the time comes.”

Eli lets his head fall against the wall. “I get it. I mean, when you think about it, sex is really weird. There’s so much preparation that goes into something that should be so simple.”

“Right.” Peter turns away, hiding his blush.

“I mean, is sex something that you’re interested in?” Eli prompts. “You know, not everyone is; sometimes people are repulsed by just the idea of it, or totally indifferent.”

“I am interested,” Peter admits. “I get . . . aroused is the right word, I guess. And, like, I want to have sex with people. I’m just . . . I guess I’m scared, and what if I’m not good at it, you know? What if . . . what if I’m bad, and it turns someone off from me? I think that’s been a whole other layer to . . . this.”

Peter motions to himself.

“I’ve heard so many stories about sex and being intimate with someone going wrong. And the last time I had sex, I was sixteen, and I know it wasn’t good. Neither of us knew what we were doing.”

Eli doesn’t like how his brain goes right to how good those details will be in his articles. That’s not what this is about.

He hesitates for the briefest of moments before he decides to go for it. “You know,” Eli starts to say, “the second time I had sex with Keith, I threw up on his dick.”

Peter turns to him in surprise. “Are you lying?”

“God, I wish I was.” Eli feels the heat along his cheeks. “I was on my knees, giving him a blowjob, and he got a little too into the face fucking, triggered my gag reflex after a bit. I’m grateful that it was just spit and slobber.”

“What did he do?”

“Made sure I was okay, apologized, and then we both just sat there on the bathroom floor and laughed about it. We watched TV in bed after.”

“I guess that’s good.”

“Keith would never let me live it down.” Eli’s own words haunt him, and he can’t escape the bitterness that rushes through him, even if it’s one of the happier memories he still has. “That’s important with someone you get intimate with. To be able to laugh, to appreciate the awkwardness that can happen instead of letting it hinder the experience.”

“I guess things just seem so serious in the porn I watch.”