Page 27 of Poetry On Ice

When it’s over, and I have the presence of mind to put my dick away and wipe my face with the back of myhand, he chuckles quietly and says, “See? Told you you like dick.”

The fog that invaded every part of my body and mind finally lifts and is quickly replaced by a damning sense of clarity. Clarity and a quick flash of fury.

“You think that bothers me?” I say, pushing myself up and hoping like hell my knees will stop knocking long enough to bear my weight. “You think I’m going to panic or spiral because you take pleasure in saying things like that to me? Well, the joke’s on you asshole. I’ve hadplentyof dicks in my mouth before.” Factually untrue, but I say it with such conviction I almost believe it myself.

With that, I stagger to my bed and get under the covers. I switch off the lights and turn my back on him before he has time to make his way to his bed.

The blissful mental peace and quiet is a thing of the past. My mind is racing, churning, regurgitating everything that happened over and over on repeat. I don’t fall asleep for a long time. The mix of emotions rages from regret, an overwhelming sense of what-the-actual-fuck, to a dark, all-encompassing sense of shock that I willingly let Decker treat me like that.

What the hell happened to me?

It’s like I saw Decker’s boner and everything else ceased to exist.

As minutes change to hours, emotions shift again. Decker’s breathing grows long and deep. A predictable in-and-out gust that strangely lulls me. It doesn’t relax me exactly. It’s more like it centers me. It brings me back to myself. It’s like practice the other day when it was just him and me on the ice, and I could feel where he was without looking at him. It’s like that but stronger. And weirder too.

I’m furious with him, obviously. The way he spoke to me was intended to annoy me, and it did. I’m almost as angry with him as I am with myself, yet here I am taking comfort in the fact he’s breathing near me.

I don’t know what to make of it.

When the gamut of my emotions has had their way with me, it’s still there: the sound of his breathing. Steady and even. A soft rasp of a saw blade wearing down wood that anchors me. Grounds me. Lets me know who and where I am.

For a long time, maybe an hour or more, that’s all it is. A soft sound in the dark that I cling to. I don’t know what time it is when it changes again. Probably the early hours of the morning. It finds me gradually, a gentle tap on the shoulder I wasn’t expecting. A nudge and thena light caress. It washes over me so slowly it takes me a while to register that something has changed, and when I do, it takes longer for me to understand what it is and what it means.

It’s relief.

It’s a long exhale of a breath I’ve been holding for years.

I did it.

I touched a man. I finally, finally did it, and holy shit, I loved it.

12

Ant Decker

If fucking around andfinding out were a person, he’d look exactly like me. Identical. Same mouth, same nose. Same body and face. Same pigheaded stupidity that will not learn a lesson to save his fucking life.

I’ve been here before. You needn’t think I haven’t. I know how this ends.

For the avoidance of doubt, it’s badly. Badly is how it ends. Badly is how it always ends. Getting myself tangled up with someone like McGuire is the worst possible scenario for me. Even if you could take the McGuire-ness of him out of the equation, which you obviously can’t, he’s my teammate. He’s one of twenty-odd guys I have to see almost every damn day for months on end. I can’t avoid him no matter what I do. We’re only four weeks into the season. We have months left to go. Practices, away games, home games, team events. It’s endless. A long, nightmarish minefield with no possible chance of escape.

I don’t know what I was thinking, messing with him. I need to have my head examined. That’s what I need. I need help. I need someone to forcibly stop me from being stupid. And while they’re at it, it might be nice if they could stop me from taking a torch to my entire life. Because that’s what I’m doing here. I’m jeopardizing clear lines and neat boundaries I’ve taken years to put into place.

It’s the worst thing that could possibly have happened.

You know what? No.

That’s too strong.

I’m catastrophizing and blowing this whole thing out of proportion. Clearly what happened isn’t ideal, but at the same time, I was fixating on McGuire. I was consumed by him. After I kissed him, I got him stuck on a loop in my mind, and it was going to drive me bat-shit crazy if I didn’t do something to stop it.

So yeah, that’s how I got here.

You know what, maybe it’s not so bad. Maybe in the long run, it’s best that this happened. Sometimes, the only way to get someone out of your system is to shove your dick in their mouth. It sounds crass, but it’s true. It’s true for me, at least, and I’m damn sure it will be true for McGuire.

He’ll probably hate my guts now, and that’s the best possible outcome. He’ll probably be mad as hell about how I talked to him, and he’ll never want to have anything to do with me again as long as he lives, and that’s exactly what I want, so all’s well that ends well.

He’s probably pretty upset about what happened. I was rough and nasty. He has every right to be furious with me. I was the aggressor, so I’m pretty sure what happened was mainly, if not all, my fault.