Afterparty, 12:42 AM by Thomas Lu (17, Illinois)

[Content warning: implicit sexual content and alcohol]

It’s an oldie, you say, oldie of oldies. You don’t wait for him to respond, just put the vinyl on the turntable, run a hand through your hair before you turn to look at him.
​
Dim moonlight shines into your basement, illuminates drifting dust. The air is so thick
and hot it’s suspended there, sparkling like sweat. You’re nervous. You’re not ready and you’re
soft--and keenly aware of it. He’s leaning on a wooden bookshelf that wobbles and you want to
tell him to stop in case it falls but you won’t, or can’t. No one saw us, did they, you say, and your
words waver between a question and a statement. He shakes his head, gives the basement
another once-over. You hope desperately it’s not too messy, too clean, too fancy.

---

The music starts. You barely recognize it, chose the first thing you saw. You want to shut
it off because it reminds you of mom’s music, mom visiting Kate up in Wellesley for summer
break. Then you think, give it a moment, and you watch his face for a reaction.

There’s a mole on his jaw you didn’t notice earlier in the car. You gave him the keys
because you were dizzy. When he drove, the moonlight cast one side of his face in shadow.
Sitting beside him on the passenger’s side, you studied his eyelashes and his jawline, and you got
hard, and you could smell the booze on your breath turning sour. What did you talk about again,
beneath the strobing lights? Something excited you, drew you in, electric. You can’t remember.

And you almost forget the music is on. You can barely hear it over how he’s looking at
you, until he begins walking toward you on beat. He’s not dancing, but something close to it, and
that is the joke and you laugh and he grins. Wanna? he says, and suddenly your hands are in his.
There is barely time to realize the calluses on his thumbs before you are moving body to body.
You go faster, there’s beer on his breath or maybe yours, and you might be drunk. And then you’re dizzy again, collapsing into his chest, and then there is his smell, clean hard glycerin soap
and deodorant in your nose, and then he can’t hold your weight and you’re both on the ground. It
happens so fast that you’re dazed, unable to react, your eyes closed. But beside you he’s
laughing. The music’s stopped. Fuck, he says, we’re awful.

Did his voice sound like that the whole time? You reach over to where he is to touch him
and your hand meets the bare sweaty skin of his stomach where his shirt’s lifted up, and you
don’t know what to do so you linger there.

His hand is over yours and you keep your eyes closed. He’s guiding it down and you
know what’s going to happen except now you don’t know if you want it to. You’re already there,
though, holding his heat in your palm through his jeans.

​You want to? he asks. It’s so casual you can tell it’s forced. And now that he’s said it you
start thinking and you can’t stop. You open your eyes to the bare ceiling and you can suddenly
hear the night crickets chirping outside the window. You’re too aware of the warmth beneath
your palm, the sweat of his hand on yours, your arm outstretched, the carpet beneath you. He
exhales beside you--was it a sigh? You get the sense that he is waiting and you are waiting and
the room is hanging still on a string. But you couldn’t move if you wanted to. Your head is glued
to the carpet and you close your eyes again and you realize you’ve been holding your breath and
you let it out. Outside, the night crickets are chirping, and you think, I’ll never be completely
ready. You think, I really like this guy. And you remember your hand and you just start moving,
moving, moving.