Scott Heim - Mysterious Skin

A thin layer of ice sheeted the pair of ponds that flanked the park. The golf course and basketball courts were empty. I lowered the stocking cap around my ears.

The johns didn’t take long to spot. Four or five different men drove back and forth, around and around, circling the park in outdated cars. The guy in the Toyota Corolla and the guy in the Impala-it was almost identical to Mom’s car, its color a shade darker-tapped their brakes when they passed my bicycle. I trudged alongside the park road, pretending not to notice. But I did notice. The idea of their wanting to pay for me rendered me breathless, thrilled, delirious, flustered… I glanced into their windows, searching for any scrap of attractiveness, any absorbing or aberrant facial feature that might lead to me enjoying the actual sex.

I lapped Carey Park for thirty minutes, then stopped the bike at a playground. I tried to remember everything Christopher had told me. “Look innocent, yet old enough to be legal.” “Empty the emotion from your face.” “Smile crooked-mouthed; you look cuter.”

I walked toward the brightly painted circus animals, the ones hooked to concrete blocks by heavy springs. I sat on an elephant, and the cold metal stung my ass. I watched clouds curl through the sky, and in seconds the Corolla parked. I squinted at the driver; saw his dark curly hair and mustache. A finger poked from a crack in the passenger seat window and motioned me over.

Bingo.

Already I’d scored. I wasn’t sure what to say, so I opted for the direct. “You’ve got cash?”

“I’ve paid fifty before, and I’ll go no higher,” he said. I must have looked like a pro. I nodded and opened the car door.

He said his name was Charlie. He’d been married, divorced, and had married again. Three kids-a boy and two girls. “I’m in Hutchinson on business,” he said in a gruff monotone, “and my business is marketing snack foods.” I took a good whiff of his car, and it smelled like those orange cheese crackers with the peanut butter filling. He must have predicted my thoughts, because he offered me a package. I grabbed it and chowed down, then looked Charlie over. He wore a green suit, a name tag, a Santa Claus tie. His hands fidgeted at his face, the fingers returning again and again to touch his chin, as if it might crumble. I slid closer to him, and he patted my knee and massaged it. He shifted into drive and watched the road like the eye of a needle.

“Cops patrol this place,” Charlie said. “Even when it’s freezing outside, they’ve got brains enough to know what’s up.” His hands were shaking. “Let’s get a room somewhere.”

That “somewhere” was the Sunflower Inn. Room 102’s welcome mat spelled hospitality with two ls. The bed was comfortable, but the room was creepy. An orange bedspread showed a fist-sized black stain; the TV hadn’t been dusted in what seemed decades. A draft from the window sucked the corner of an orange curtain in and out of the room like a massive lung.

I unlaced my shoes. “Go slow,” Charlie said, “we’ve got all hour.” I thought, one hour equals sixty minutes. Sixty divided into fifty equals about eighty-five cents per minute. I couldn’t help grinning at that, which Charlie no doubt took to mean sensual pleasure. He started massaging my back.

He set the pace. I hardly touched him until he unzipped my pants and wormed three fingers inside. Then I pinched at his nipples, tickled the hair over his belly, rubbed his crotch through his slacks. I’m good at this, I thought. He pushed me onto the bed. He knelt beside me and shoved his head in my lap, his head bobbing and zigzagging as if filled with fizz. His tongue darted around my balls. It felt as flat and cold as a Popsicle.

I naturally thought of Coach. Charlie paled in comparison. That summer was six years past. I’d fucked around with a few guys since, but they’d been in my age group, hadn’t enraptured me much. I traced the outline of Charlie’s ribs and wondered where Coach was now. I knew he’d moved from Hutchinson. At school, I’d heard a grapevine story about someone’s parents being suspicious, causing Coach to quit Little League. At that precise moment, he might have been lying on a bed in some other state with another kid like me. For all I knew, he could have been dead. That idea seemed incredibly romantic. If I’d been alone and high, my imagination would have roamed-me dressed in black, lumbering toward Coach’s open coffin, a tear on my cheek, to center a single white lily on his motionless and impeccable chest… Charlie’s grunt made my fantasy evaporate.

While Coach’s fingers had “caressed” me, Charlie’s merely “touched.” My mind drifted, and Charlie stopped blowing me. He lifted his head and stared at my dick. “Come on, kid, you’re losing your hard-on.” I apologized. His head plunged back in.

Charlie sucked, and I fidgeted on the bed. My watch’s minute hand moved from nine to ten to eleven. Coach’s mouth had felt so much warmer than this. He had massaged the backs of my legs, his entire hands fitting over the muscles in my thighs. My dick and both balls could disappear into his mouth, and I would feel the clamp of his lips around my entire sex, trails of saliva streaming to the knees I’d scuffed from sliding into home plate.

“I’m ready,” I told Charlie. He didn’t pull away. I said it again. This time, I shuddered. He sucked harder, scraping his teeth over the head of my dick. In those seconds, I couldn’t tell pleasure from pain. I tried to extricate myself, but he cupped his hands over my ass’s curves. I came, and he swallowed.

Charlie stood and cleared his throat. “I know what your expression’s saying,” he said. “That wasn’t safe. But this is Kansas, not some city full of disease. And you’re just a kid.” It was the first time I’d heard a man say that, but it wouldn’t be the last.

I lay back, already wanting to leave.

Charlie tiptoed to the bathroom and fastened the lock. He started whistling “Strangers in the Night.” I felt like slugging him, taping his mouth shut, anything. Water needled from the showerhead, and I leaped from the bed. I dressed, then ransacked his suitcase. His clothes were nicely folded. Every sock was white. I uncovered packages of snack crackers, bubble gum, plastic trash cans full of candy, and chewable wax “lips.” I found Vitamin Cs, magnesium tablets, and aspirin. I grabbed my coat and filled its pockets.

During the drive back to the park, we barely said a word. He stopped beside my bike. “Maybe I’ll see you sometime.” He didn’t look at me. His eyes focused on the kid’s toy that hung by a string from the rearview mirror. It was a stuffed bear, the expression on its face vaguely tragic, an expression I’d seen on kids on milk cartons. Its red shirt read DADDY.

He handed me two twenties and a ten. “Thanks,” I said. “It was nice.”

The temperature was dropping, so I dashed home. Mom had left a note: “Early Shift Tomorrow.” In the living room, she lay napping in a chair, the alarm clock at her elbow. For some reason, I wanted to hear her voice. The house was too quiet. I almost woke her, then decided against it. I shuffled to the bathroom and shelved the vitamins. The dusty mirror showed me as always: same bushy eyebrows, same square jaw, same zit on the same neck I needed to smear with alcohol. I walked out; locked myself in my room. My algebra homework remained on the bed, where I’d tossed it. The candy and the money fit perfectly in the bottom dresser drawer, next to the bag of pot I’d bought from Christopher. I wedged one of the twenties into my wallet, pocketed the weed and the trash can candy, then picked up the phone. Wendy answered. When I opened my mouth to speak, I tasted peanut butter. “You’ll never guess what I finally did.”