Now that Jay’s house was empty, it held only a fraction of the fear that it held when there was a chance his parents could return to it at any moment. I walked down the hallway towards Jay’s parents’ room with my chest held out; I let my footsteps fall loudly, when normally, I would have moved as quietly as possible, listening for any sound. Toshi tiptoed behind me. Stella’s room called to me from the opposite direction; I would go there—alone—as soon as I could.
I half-expected the parents’ door to be locked—then our mission would be aborted and I could pursue my own course—but instead, the door stood open a few inches. Toshi crowded me as I pushed inside and flipped on the light.
The first thing I noticed was the bed, unmade, with the sheets and blankets twisted up. It shocked me that a bed a woman slept in could look so filthy. The comforter was printed with a confederate flag, and the sheets were stained. The room smelled dank and close, with undertones of hair gel and, probably, sex. This heady rush of déjà vu overtook me, but I couldn’t place it: I’d never been here before. It was probably just that I had imagined this room, or maybe it was the smell, the same mix of scents you might find in any couple’s room. Stella’s room would smell of sugar and coconut sunscreen.
Mounted on the wall over the bed was a rack holding three shotguns, and parallel to that a few knives were tacked up like photos of beloved ancestors. On a dresser, tilted among bottles of lotion, combs, deodorant, and oozing tubes, stood a framed picture of Jay’s parents on what must have been their wedding day. They both wore white; both of them had long, straight hair framing their long faces. The resemblance between Stella and her mom was strongest around the chin, which came to a pretty, narrow point in both women.
“Why do you think they don’t let anyone in here?” Toshi asked as he opened drawers in the bedside table. “Condoms, maybe? We should get some of those. Or sex toys?”
I was looking over Toshi’s shoulder when he lifted up a bible that was holding down a stash of porn magazines. Probably Jay’s dad only liked the bible for its quotes like “There were their breasts pressed, and there they bruised the teats of their virginity.” Or more likely he didn’t read it at all.
“Jackpot,” Toshi said. He eased out the bottommost magazine and dropped it into the plastic grocery bag that held our rations for the night. There were a few crumpled tissues in the drawer, too, and he plucked off one that had stuck to the corner of the magazine. “It’s probably covered in germs.” He headed into the master bathroom and began to wash his hands.
“You find any condoms?” I said. “Married people probably don’t use them, anyway.”
“Or they took them on vacation. People do it a lot when they’re on vacation.” Toshi, air drying his hands, pushed the bedside drawer closed with his foot. The noise of its slam should have been expected, but we both jumped. He bent to search under the bed. “Look what I found.” He held the little tube beneath my nose. “Lube!”
“Huh,” I said. My déjà vu had started to devolve into revulsion; the smell of sweat and aerosol choked me. I needed to get out of there. For some reason, I hated that room.
“I wonder if it makes dick taste like dick, or like strawberry.” He unscrewed the cap and sniffed.
My chest was being squeezed by a giant hand. “I’m going to go take a piss,” I said as Toshi touched a teardrop of lube to his tongue.
“Strawberry,” he said and laughed. “Chicks really do love that flavor.”
I zipped out of there and stood for a moment in the hallway, panting. Then I headed straight for Stella’s room. The door pushed open over a pile of skirts and tank tops, and I inhaled deeply, already feeling tingly. Posters of Nick Carter and kittens, both with lipstick marks on them, covered one wall, and a bulletin board crammed with junk like old invitations, dance flyers, and coupons covered another. No Doubt CDs were propped on the windowsill.
In the dirty clothes hamper, I dug down until I found a pair of purple underwear that kind of reminded me of the bikini Stella had been wearing when I’d seen her sunbathing. I stood here, in Stella’s room, where I’d always longed to be invited. The mirrored closet door perfectly reflected the twin bed, and I wondered if she watched herself while she did stuff on the mattress. Or maybe she watched whatever guy was with her—but no, her room was probably pure, because Jay’s dad would never let her have a guy in here.
I turned off the light so that no signal would show to Toshi from beneath the closed door. The room became patches of dark and less-dark, which made everything in it seem even more mysterious and important.
Sprawled out on Stella’s bed, I inhaled her purple panties. The experience was making me feel better than any porn I’d ever seen, including the internet stuff Toshi and Jay and I had found that first week after Toshi’s dad had bought a computer, before he figured out the parental controls.
I closed my eyes and projected images of Stella across their lids. Her bed seemed like the softest thing in the world, but I knew her skin would be softer. Her panties felt slippery against my lips and nose, and I started to get that throb that meant if I didn’t come soon, the semen would explode backwards inside of me and give me a bellyache. I unzipped.
When I heard the door groan open, I paused only for a moment in my stroking. Though I kept my eyes closed, I knew that Toshi had found me. Maybe if I didn’t look at him, he would go away. Maybe he couldn’t see me through the shadows. I’d never masturbated with anyone else in the room; I’d never done anything with another human being, and so it was a shock when he touched me, but it was also like I’d been teetering on the edge of a cliff for years and finally, finally, someone had pushed me off.
I was laid out on Stella’s sheets; I was with Stella; it was so easy to pretend that Toshi was her. Stella with her round tits and her high little butt and her soft, warm mouth that suddenly wrapped itself around my tip.
All five of my senses were hallucinating: I could smell Stella, I could feel her on me; I heard the brush of her beautiful hair and tasted her pussy. Behind my closed eyes, I saw her; it was her getting me off. My head pressed back into Stella’s pillow as the tingling sensation traveled down my thighs, up my torso, and through my brain in waves. It was fantastic, it was fucking Stella, it was bizarre as my penis grew and grew and took over the entire atmosphere, conducting the very air into vibrations of pleasure.
I think that Toshi was touching himself as he sucked me, and I think he swallowed my load, too, but like I said, I never looked at him, not once the whole time, so I wouldn’t know. After I finished, he stood up and then I heard him moving around downstairs. He must have left out the kitchen window, but I wanted to make sure he was gone before I did the same, so I jerked off two more times, but the feeling was more hungry and raw, not as all-encompassing as the first time.
I didn’t feel gay, not one bit, because I’d wanted it to be Stella doing those things to me; I’d pretended that it was Stella so hard that basically, it had been.
All this whacking off must have exhausted me, because I woke up in the morning in Stella’s bed. Toshi wasn’t around. I tried to think that I had dreamed the whole thing, and Toshi hadn’t been there at all, but it was impossible to trick myself that way. I knew that we’d never talk about what had happened between us.
I put everything back in its place—everything but Stella’s panties—so that no one would know we’d been there, and as soon as I closed the kitchen window behind me, I wished fiercely that I could burn that whole house to the ground.