Like a Love Story(68)

He takes his T-shirt off before putting the new one on. Time stops when I see that jolt of skin. So much skin. I inhale it all, every beauty mark, every hair on his body, the contours of his torso and his shoulders and his nipples. And then time starts again when he puts the new T-shirt on and throws our old T-shirts into his book bag.

We have the same T-shirt on now, the same whistle around our necks. We are becoming one, or perhaps I am becoming him. I long to be him, to escape myself and crawl into the safety of his skin. The clink-clink of his camera against the whistle sounds like a metronome and reminds me how different we are. He is an artist. He has a voice. I am still finding mine. The whistles also remind me of those fish pins Judy and I wore, and how much it bothered Art. Judy has not spoken to me for months. She hates me, and with reason. I miss her. She was my friend. The only one I have ever had.

We walk with Stephen and Jimmy after the meeting. They have begun spending all their time together. They are not a couple in the romantic sense, but they have become companions to each other. They hold hands. Art tries to hold my hand, but I pull away. We could run into my mother. We could run into Darryl Lorde. We could be seen. I sometimes have moments when I look at my life from above and wonder how I arrived here. This is one of those moments. Who is this Iranian kid in a Keith Haring T-shirt holding the hand of a boy with rainbow nails and a ponytail walking next to two men on the verge of death? Is it me? When did I become this person? When did I become so . . . lucky?

“I need to run into the drugstore,” Jimmy says.

“Our second home,” Stephen jokes.

We follow Jimmy into Duane Reade, and he heads toward the pharmacy counter to pick up a prescription.

We linger in one of the aisles with Stephen. Condoms line the shelves. Regular and jumbo. Ribbed. Yellow boxes. Black boxes. Latex and nonlatex. Flavors. Flavors?

“I think I’ll wait outside,” I say. “I hate air-conditioning.”

“Reza,” Stephen says, “if there’s something you want to ask me about, you know, sex . . .”

“I am okay,” I say.

“No, you’re not,” Art says. “You’re scared and you won’t let me . . .”

“Art,” I look at him meaningfully. “Please.”

I try to leave, but Art pulls me back in and hooks his arms around me, locking his hands at my rumbling belly. I squirm, but he doesn’t let me go. “I tell Stephen everything, so he already knows what we’ve done, but more importantly what we haven’t done. Let him give you the birds and the bees talk, Reza. He’s good at it.”

“Why is it called birds and bees?” I ask, hoping we can discuss language instead of intercourse.

“Because parents were too afraid to speak to their kids about human sex,” Stephen explains. “So they relied on metaphors about bird and bee reproduction.”

“Oh,” I say. “I’m so fascinated by idioms. There are so many interesting Persian ones that make no sense in English. Like we don’t say ‘I miss you.’ We say ‘My heart has become tight for you.’ And when we truly love someone, we say, ‘I will eat your liver.’”

“Reza,” Art says, exasperated, “you’re working overtime to change the subject.”

“I’m gonna give you the good news about sex first,” Stephen says.

“This is how he started with me too,” Art says.

“The good news is that when you’re gay, you can’t get pregnant. No babies. No unwanted pregnancies. No trips to the abortion clinic.”

Am I supposed to be happy about this? I want children someday. I want to hold a baby in my arms, and feel needed, and know that whatever began with me doesn’t end with me. I want to prove that I can be a better father than my father.

“And the bad news is that when you’re gay, you can die from sex,” I say, a hint of anger in my voice.

“Sex has always been dangerous,” Stephen says. “Look up how many women die in childbirth every year. But yes, let’s be real here. The bad news is there’s a virus out there infecting gay men disproportionately. You want more good news though?”

I say nothing. The last time he gave me good news, it was that I would never become a father.

“Condoms!” he says with a lilt, waving his hand across the aisle like he’s Vanna White. An old lady with white hair and a basket full of hair dyes gives us a glare. I am mortified, but Stephen shrugs her off. “Condoms work,” he says. “They do their job well. All you need to do is use them right. If you want a tutorial, we can go home and practice with bananas.”

“Or Persian cucumbers!” Art says. I blush and try to push away from him, but his arms are still locked around me.

“Condom advice,” Stephen says. “Always check the expiration date. They do expire.”

“Unlike Persian cucumbers,” Art says. “Those get better with age, like a fine wine.”

“And never keep them anywhere hot. If you put one in your pocket for the night, use it that night or dump it. You don’t want the condom to break.”

This is something I will no doubt have nightmares about. Condoms breaking. Like a faulty dam.

“Make sure your lube is condom-compatible. Not all lube is.”

“Lube is lubricant,” Art explains. “Men need it, because we don’t naturally get wet down there.”