Astrid Amara (10 page)

Matthew laughed.

“Was it?” my mother shook her head. “I always get those two confused.”

At this I laughed as well, but my mother scowled. “It’s good to know a little art. Jonah,

you should study art.”

“Yes, Mother. I’ll work on the art history as soon as I’m finished with med school.”

“This art historian career. Are there nice ladies involved?” my mother asked.

Matthew shrugged. “The curator is a woman. She specialized in early nineteenth-

century neoclassicism, and I focused on postimpressionism, but we find common ground.”

My mother raised her eyebrows at me, as if saying, “See? Another potential bride

missed by your lack of interest in art history.”

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Matthew gave Aunt Goldie a necklace for her gift, although I noted with curiosity that

it wasn’t wrapped in blue-and-white paper. So which present of his used the paper he took

from the closet? Was he planning on us being snowed in for the entirety of the holiday?

I gave my parents my expensive earphones for their gift. At this rate, I would be out all

of my own valued possessions. On the other hand, my only other choice at present was a

half-consumed bag of gummy bears and small packets of airplane crackers.

My present from my parents consisted of two identical sweaters, one in green and one

in blue.

“Thanks,” I said.

“Your father said green made you look nauseated,” my mother informed me. “But I

think blue makes you look gaunt, like you have a fatal illness.”

“Thanks.”

“So we decided to get you both of them because we just couldn’t choose. You are so

hard to shop for, Jonah. You’re worse than Mrs. Mandelbaum’s stepdaughter Lisa. Remember

her? She spends a fortune every month on clothes, and she still looks like a mop.”

“Thanks.”

“If you don’t like them, we can return them,” she added.

“I love them.”

“Even though it will take me hours to find the receipt. And the ladies at the store are

obnoxious when you return things.”

“That’s fine.”

“And it takes hours to get customer service. Absolutely hours. It’s a nightmare, that

store. I wouldn’t set foot in it again if I didn’t have to.”

“I won’t make you.”

“But it’s the only store for men like you, you know. Thin men.”

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I imagined that the store was called “Small and Gaunt” and visualized the line of

mothers all tsking their way down the aisles with especially bulky sweaters.

We were all unusually quiet by the time the menorah candles burned down. No one

felt like talking anymore. With all the silence, I was certain someone could hear my heart

beating, because the sound deafened me. I stole glances to Ethan, who never looked back. He

helped my mother and cracked jokes with my father but gave no outward sign that anything

had changed between the two of us.

I cautioned myself. I shouldn’t be disappointed. I didn’t want to have too much hope.

Hope hurt. Hope kicked you in the face and then took your money. And even if you had no

money it took your driver’s license and you had to wait three hours at the DMV for a new

one. Hope was like that -- crushing things randomly for the hell of it.

So Ethan and I had fooled around. He said he liked me. Big deal. That didn’t mean

anything. If there had been any consistency in Ethan’s character over the years I had known

him, it was that he could be heartless and cruel at the drop of a hat. Did we ever truly change

from the people we were back in high school? What was the likelihood that Ethan had truly

evolved? And, for that matter, how likely was it that I was any different from that anxious,

self-conscious boy in the ill-fitting trousers?

My heart was making a mighty attempt to depart out my throat by the time we all

turned in for the night and I stepped through the doorway of my old room.

I shut the door and Ethan immediately pushed me against the wall and kissed me, hard.

My lips felt bruised from the previous night. I didn’t care. His fumbling, hungry

strength was exactly the thing I needed after a night of polite frustration and self-doubt. My

heart still beat wildly, but lost its interest in escaping.

I yanked his shirt off his shoulders. The frigid air broke Ethan’s skin out into goose

bumps.

“Let’s get under the covers,” I gasped, breaking from his kiss.

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“No. I want to fuck you against the wall,” Ethan whispered.

My head hit the wall and I groaned. I imagined it -- the sound, the sensation, Ethan

ramming hard, his cock stiff and warm, filling me, as I stood pinned and open to his assault.

He kissed me again and my head hit the wall once more.

“What are you doing in there?” My uncle cried out from the sewing room next door.

“You can’t hide your treasure in the walls, I’ll find it!” he rasped. It sounded like he was still

asleep.

Ethan laughed into my shoulder.

“For fuck’s sake,” I whispered back. “It never ends with this guy.”

Ethan grabbed the front of my shirt and turned me around, pushing me down onto the

bed, which thankfully didn’t squeak.

“Real quiet, then,” he whispered to me. He loomed over me, reaching down to

unbutton my trousers.

He undressed me efficiently, and for a moment I felt like a patient in the ER. Ethan’s

expression was hard to read by candlelight, but his dark and dilated eyes watched me as if I

were about to do something dangerous.

Naked from the waist down, I felt exposed, my knees up in the air, ass on display

before him. My cock wept at the cold but stayed stiff, looking for some nearby source of heat

to plunge into.

Ethan, still a gentleman, accommodated me.

He opened his mouth and swallowed my cock with hungry enthusiasm. I fisted the

blankets, writhing in delight. I watched, unbelieving, as Ethan Rosenberg, the Ethan

Rosenberg, lay between my spread legs, one palm urging my legs wider, another caressing

my balls, as his tongue swiped across the tip and lapped up the drop of moisture building

there, before taking me deep inside.

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I tightened my ass and lifted my hips up, pushing myself into his mouth. I had to claw

the bedsheets to keep from shouting. A coil of pleasure wound tighter and tighter within me,

ready to spring, but then he slowed his pace and pulled back slightly. He sucked each testicle

into his mouth.

“Oh shit!” I whispered.

He pulled back. “What’s wrong?”

“Nothing. Don’t stop. So good.”

Ethan laughed, and then pulled me back into his mouth, tonguing my slit and then

swiping over the crown.

He took me deep into his throat and I let go, pumping repeatedly, ecstasy coursing

through me like some mythical power. I could do anything. I was beyond this world.

Ethan caught his breath, his face in my crotch, smiling happily. He took deep breaths.

“You smell fantastic.”

“Yeah?” I tugged on his arm. “Let me see.” I cradled his face and sniffed along his lips.

He smelled like cum and musk and Ethan. I kissed him.

He ground his hips down against mine. His long cock bulged through his trousers.

“Take off your pants and come up here,” I said huskily. He quickly complied. He knelt

with a knee on each side of my head. His balls and his cock hung over my face. I reached up

and rubbed them, and then pulled his cock toward my lips to lick the tip.

“Jonah,” he whispered achingly. His voice caught. “That’s so good.”

I began to move my mouth over his cock, sliding him into me. One hand held him to

me, the other caressed his legs and thighs.

The deeper I took him, the more his balls dropped onto my face, and for a moment I

felt suffocated with him, surrounded by him, and the heavy weight of his sac and smell of

him got me hard again. I sped up my rhythm, taken by my own mounting desire.

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Ethan came with a little gasp of surprise and then I had to swallow repeatedly as his

thick climax spurt down my throat.

Ethan silently climbed off of me and reached down for the comforter, which he pulled

over both of us. He kissed me, and then gave me one of those pure, heartfelt smiles that used

to break my heart back in high school.

“Amazing,” he said, and then he yawned.

I laughed. “Glad you liked it.” My heart subsided into a normal rhythm. It felt large and

stuffed full of treacherous hope.

I was too tired to convince it otherwise, and fell asleep instead.

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On the fourth morning of Hanukkah, I awoke shortly before dawn, probably because

Ethan had stolen all the covers in the middle of the night and I verged on hypothermia. I

added this to Ethan’s growing list of endearing “flaws” and took advantage of my early rising

by making everyone breakfast.

I was halfway through scrambling the last of the eggs in a pan over the backpacking

stove when my mother entered the kitchen, still in her housecoat and blue feathery slippers.

She frowned at me. I looked down instinctively to see if I had spilled something on

myself. I wore my new green sweater, grateful for the warmth and less worried about its

unattractive kimono sleeves.

“So what’s wrong with the blue sweater then?” she asked.

“I can’t win with you, can I?” I said, exasperated. I turned back to my eggs, feeling

frustrated at the prospect of another day in this house.

My mother peered over my shoulder. “You’re making eggs?”

I nodded.

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“If you find any that look suspicious, give them to your Uncle Al, he’s driving me

crazy.” She shuffled over to the counter, sniffed, and noticed that I had already made coffee.

Her expression changed slightly.

“That’s nice of you,” she said. I waited for the requisite rebuttal to follow, but instead,

all I heard was her pouring herself a cup. “There’s powdered creamer in the cupboard if you

want any.”

“I thought Dad refused to use that stuff,” I said.

“Well, when you brought that jar over last time you visited it stayed around until we

ran out of milk and he finally used it. Now he secretly buys it so he doesn’t have to admit he

likes it.”

That was so like my family. Better to keep the things we care about secret than risk

exposing them to ridicule.

The thought sent a surge of sickness through me. I was the one holding back the

greatest secret.

“Are you still in that apartment with the mold?” my mother asked.

“In Seattle? No, I moved to a much nicer place. It has a guest room. You could come

and stay if you’d like.” As soon as the words were out I wanted to kick myself.

“We wouldn’t want to invade your privacy,” my mother said. She looked at me and I

swear there was a glimmer of something there -- something almost like pride. “I know you

are a very private man, Jonah. I don’t want to get in the way of that.”

I stared at her.

“The eggs are burning,” she reminded me.

I stirred.

“You know, your father and I worry about you,” she continued, “but we don’t want to

bother you.”

I swallowed. “I know that.”

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“We just want you to be safe and happy.”

“Well, I am. Both.”

“That’s all I want,” she said.

“Well, that may be all I can provide,” I answered, laughing nervously.

“Your father and I were arguing about whether you were all right, when you came

home.”

“You were?” I asked.

She nodded. “Just as the power went out. We were in the kitchen here with Goldie.

Your father said you looked unhappy. I said you were just tired from all that travel. I’m glad

to hear that your father was wrong once again.” She gave a little laugh.

I was intrigued by the fact that she had just placed herself, my father, and my Aunt

Goldie in the kitchen when the power went out. That meant that none of them could have

been in the living room, stealing the pushke. It seemed like the kind of evidence Ethan

would get excited about.

As I thought of Ethan, it suddenly occurred to me that there could be a way to easily

transition to my orientation if I could bring up the topic of Ethan’s homosexuality.

“So do you know if Ethan’s seeing anybody?” I asked casually. I flipped the scrambled

eggs into a bowl I had covered with a towel to keep them warm, and cracked three more into

the pan.

My mother started chopping tomatoes. “Should we put these in the scrambled eggs or

serve them on the side?”

“On the side,” I said, “you know Dad doesn’t like tomatoes.” I turned back to my eggs.

“You could be a little less obvious in not answering my question, you know.”

“The last I heard, he was single,” she said after another pause.

“Have you met any of his dates before?” I asked neutrally.

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“No, but his mother thought he had good taste.” My mother handed me two more eggs.

This talking around the issue drove me mad. “You know he’s gay, right?” I asked

quietly.