The birthday candles warmed the corner of the kitchen and the crowd of tipsy college students slurred out the opening lines of “Happy Birthday.” For the first time that night the keg sat unattended in the middle of the room. The slurp of flip-flopped feet sticking to the beer-covered linoleum floor-like wrappers to wet lollipops-kept an uneven beat to the out-of-tune melody.
As the song ended the birthday boy rolled into a laugh, and the crowd joined in. It was a happy moment jammed into the end of the school year. Looming finals and impending graduations slipped from minds for one fleeting moment, and the students just laughed, together.
As everyone else focused on the cake, the song and the laughter, John, in the shadow of the back of the kitchen, saw an opportunity to shove Jill against the wall and rip down her turquoise spaghetti-strapped tank top. Her exposed pale breasts caught the soft light of the candles as she struggled to push his arms away. But like a heavy door, John used the momentum of being pushed away to swing back to Jill with more force.
As the sweet smell of extinguished birthday-candle smoke floated to the ceiling and the lights popped on, John let Jill go. She covered herself. Nothing had happened.
In the light, the two looked like any college couple making out in the corner of a party. No one noticed that he was still pressing her into the wall, and no one did anything when he shoved his hand down the front of her tight jeans and chuckled as she whispered “Stop,” and then, “That hurts.”
As platefuls of cake spread across the room, John grabbed Jill’s hand and rubbed it across the crotch of his cargo shorts. Then, with a dulled look, she leaned in to kiss him.
—–
“Well, how was it?”
With that question, Jake’s foundation crumpled like a napkin. Ian sat across from him at the gray cafeteria table and smiled, waiting for an answer.
“It was fun,” Jake said coolly. There was no sense in denying what had happened—Ian already knew, obviously. And only Matt could have told him.
The night had started simply enough, an invitation to a party from his new friend, Matt. Jake was a first year, so receiving an invitation to a party-and from a senior, no less-was something about which Jake had been excited, even proud.
Jake didn’t drink in high school, so he didn’t quite understand how alcohol worked: Were six shots a lot? He stayed by Matt’s side for most of the night, too intimidated to mingle with strangers and too self-aware to dance.
He retreated to a low Ikea futon in the back of the dark living room and watched the writhing bodies, felt the thick pungent air. The music and the alcohol pulsed together through his body. He felt disconnected as he watched the girls in black booty pants rubbing their asses against the guys and the group of jocks on the back porch tipping back their red plastic cups.
Squeezing onto the couch next to him, Matt broke Jake’s trance. Matt’s leg rubbed against Jake’s leg, and his arm flopped around Jake’s shoulder. And Jake leaned into him, because he was tired, because he was drunk and because it felt good to feel close to someone in this foreign place.
Sitting in the cafeteria, memories of the rest of night came in blips and flashes: his head on Matt’s shoulder; a hug and lips pressed against his forehead; streetlights pulsing on a walk back to Matt’s place; the sound of the door closing; the unfamiliar feeling of standing in an unfamiliar room in the dark; fumbling with belts; tumbling onto a small dormitory bed. And waking to a new sensation: a headache and an arm pressed tightly to his chest. And he remembered the kiss, how rough it felt. A little stubble can change a lot.
And now Ian knew, and if he knew, others knew, and if others knew, everyone would soon find out: his roommate, the kid from his high school who lived down the hall, his Great Aunt Phyllis. (That’s just how these things work.)
So for the first time in his life, he let down his guard, and he told the truth: “It was fun.”
To Ian it felt normal enough. Two friends eating Saturday brunch talking about last night’s adventures.
But to Jake it was rapturous: as the words left his mouth, he felt the mortar oozing out from between the bricks he had placed inside so meticulously and methodically. The wall came down.
Before this point, he had left nothing unscripted: He was just a nice boy with good hygiene who didn’t want to make out with his girlfriend of a year because he “respected her too much.”
But it wasn’t the truth, and now he knew it. He had felt that in his racing pulse the night before.
Splinters of uncertainty now pierced his skin and relieved him of the burden of not feeling at all.
—–
She reached for the box of saran wrap and read the back. Microwavable. “This won’t work,” she said. She wore a pair of white, oversized, thick-framed sunglasses, a suede jacket and jeans. He, a blue Northface vest, green cargo pants and Birkenstocks.
They weren’t in Safeway looking for baking products.
She had been through this before, but never with a guy she was about to have sex with. It was better this way, less alienating. And that’s how it should be, she thought. She had done her research, and she knew that the majority of sexually active adults have HPV, just most don’t know, and many don’t care.
He had done his research, too, but for different reasons. He wasn’t worried about it. He just wanted to make her comfortable, to show that he cared. He placed his hand on the small of her back as she pushed the cart down the aisle, back to the pharmacy to pick out condoms.
He remembered when he used to meander past the condoms aisle when he was a kid. Who was he kidding? That was only two years ago. He wondered then what a real relationship would be like, what it would be like to finally lose his virginity.
This memory filled him with the same pride he had felt when he had moved from being an unpaid intern to a salaried assistant.
She wondered if the saran wrap she picked would work. What if it broke? What if they broke up, and he passed it to his next girlfriend? The comfort she had felt was backfiring. Getting too comfortable had led to this, a grocery trip among Georgetown’s grandmas and a new boyfriend getting prepared to wrap saran wrap around her crotch. Cervical cancer is hard to catch, but almost always lethal, she thought. Maybe she wasn’t cut out for sex anymore.
If only she had known how to keep herself safer. She had learned how to get off, but that wasn’t enough. No, she thought, she certainly hadn’t focused on the right stuff.
