Page 5 of Jealous Guy

“What’s the matter? You jealous?”

As the words left my mouth, my spine stiffened in horror. There was something off about my voice when I spoke. Something sweet and syrupy had been poured into it and shaken around. It was something I’d never done before, but I recognized it all the same. I’d heard other people talking like that. I’d seen it in movies and on TV. I’d heard men speaking to attractive women like that. Boys talking to girls they liked.

Dread rushed through my veins with sickening speed. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Mark’s lips form a small, tight circle. Inside me, entire systems shut down and rebooted. My brain went offline and came back with a panicked sense of urgency—I had to undo what I’d done. I had to unsay it or go back in time and erase it.

The problem was, I didn’t know how to do either of those things.

Instead, I sat, mouth agape, as I waited for Jordan’s reaction. I knew it would be bad. I accepted that. I didn’t even blame him, really. I would have reacted badly if a boy flirted with me back then too. No boy in their right mind would put up with that kind of thing.

For reasons I can only put down to the hand of God, or an act of fate, what I said, or at least the way I said it, went straight over Jordan’s head. It sailed clear over him without landing and flew out the nearest window. It must have because there was no repulsion in his reaction. No anger. No confusion either. Just a boundless enthusiasm for life and an unwavering certainty that boys flirted with girls, not with other boys.

He leaned down, slinging his arm over my shoulder and curling it most of the way around my neck. He laughed like he had before. Like it didn’t cost him a thing.

“You got me, bruh,” he said with an easy smile. “I’m a jealous guy.”

3

Orion

Iextend the headband of my headphones and duck my head as I place the ear cups over my ears, adjusting them carefully to ensure a good seal. The cacophony of apartment sounds is sucked into a vortex. The hum of the fridge falls away and the clank of the AC evaporates as I’m enveloped in a lovely cocoon of silence.

It’s great. Just what I need. Peace and quiet, and some time alone to enjoy a little medicinal pornography. I flip open my laptop and dive into incognito mode, quickly calling up my favorite site. There was a time, a long time, when this simple action was enough to make me break out in hives. My hands shook—literally quivered—the first time I typed the words gay porn into a search bar. I felt so bad about it afterward that I made myself watch an hour of straight porn in an attempt to cancel it out.

I’ve stopped doing that now, thank God.

I still delete my search history with borderline religious zeal, but I think that’s normal. I don’t think anyone wants others knowing what they watch with their hands in their pants. We’re all a lot more pervy than we’d like to admit. That’s just a fact.

Technically, I’m still a total closet case, but I know who I am now, and that’s something. It’s been really hard getting here, but I think I’ve almost accepted my queerness. I just don’t want other people knowing about it yet. I’m at the point now where I sometimes think about coming out, about what it will mean for me and how it will change my life. Recently, it only scares me enough that I feel like I’m going to pass out, not like I’m going to throw up.

It doesn’t sound like much, but believe me, it’s progress.

All I need to do is get over my little blip with Jordan, and I’ll be in a much better place to think about things like coming out. It won’t be long either because, like I said, I’m almost completely over him.

Take now, for example. He’s next door, naked, and I’m not thinking about it. He’s in his room without any clothes on. There’s music playing, and he has his bedside lamp on. I know that because he likes keeping the light on when he fucks. He’s told me so many times. He says he feels things harder when the lights are on and he can see what’s happening. I’d love to not know all that, but Jordan’s a massive oversharer.

Luckily, I also don’t get stuck on the things he overshares as much as I used to.

I know he’s in his room naked with the light on, and that’s fine. It’s warm tonight, so he probably isn’t under the covers. He’s never mentioned his covers preference, so it’s not something I know for sure. That’s just me using my power of deduction.

He’s probably sweating from the weather and from what he’s doing. Not a lot, as he hasn’t been in there all that long yet, but his skin is probably glistening a little. It’s probably warm all over.

It’s probably glowing where the light hits it.

It was hot last weekend, and we went to the beach on Sunday. Jordan spent most of the day without a shirt on and got a lot of sun. His cheeks and nose were burned when we got home. There’s probably a tan line on his lower back. A clear visual boundary that separates sun-kissed skin from the pale parts of him most people never get to see.

He’s probably holding himself up on his hands and elbows right now, his biceps engaged. His head is probably thrown back, his hair pasted to his forehead.

I bet his eyes are screwed shut and he’s biting his bottom lip. He does that when he’s exerting himself. He does it all the time at the gym, and he did it when we first moved in and had to build bookshelves for our rooms. He wasn’t wearing a shirt then either. His nipples are so small and so pink, and I almost managed to convince myself he wouldn’t notice if I leaned in and bit one.

Okay.

Wait.

Whoops.

I seem to have gone off course, but it’s fine. It’s all good. It’s me-time, and I’m horny because my dick knows I’m about to watch porn. It’s getting ahead of itself, that’s all. I’m going to find myself something nice and filthy to watch that has nothing to do with Jordan. I’ll empty my balls and then be back on track.

I click on a couple of clips, but they don’t really do it for me. The first top is too built for my taste, and the second has too much ink. I can’t get into either of them, so I click into a few subcategories, but the algo is fucking with me tonight. I can’t find what I’m looking for there either.