Read Swell for Free Online

know that.
    “Ah, I see. Remember, 10 is the curfew.”
    “I know,” I said, smiling and leading Jenna down the hall. My room, my haven for art projects and privacy. My parents left my room alone most of the time, only peeking in to make sure I had a pathway through the crap on the floor. An easel sat in the corner, my oil paints laid out on a piece of glass that was covered with plastic wrap. The other corner held my twin bed, covered with clean laundry.
    After closing the door and putting on some music, I popped the screen out of my window and hung out to grab the beer. My hands couldn’t reach.
    “Let me,” said Jenna, pushing me aside so she could lean her long frame out of the window. She reached the sack with ease and put it on my bed while I fiddled with the screen. By the time I’d gotten it back in, Jenna had two beers open and ready for us.
    “Cheers, you pimp.” She clinked her can with mine. And then I started, the beer flowing down my throat with such ease. Without even waiting for the first one to take effect, I was already on my second. Halfway through that one, my body accepted the permission to relax under the alcohol’s effect. It was brilliant.
    I had already finished my second while Jenna nursed her first. “You drink fast, Beck. Where’d you learn to do that?”
    “Christian,” I burped. True, he had set the precedent for me with his own lightning quick way of making beer and wine disappear. Although he’d never pressured me to drink fast, I wanted to match his pace.
    I recalled when Christian told me that pressure was the reason he drank, and thought it was odd that the pressure to drink was what I felt when I was around him. Whenever he’d be in one of his moods — dark, non-communicative, passive-aggressive — he’d hand me a cup of something to drink. It was like I’d gotten on his nerves and he needed me to mellow out so we could tolerate each other. Even after a mere five weeks of dating, we were already having weird moments.
    I originally thought that Christian was pissed that I hadn’t slept with him. We’d spent hours talking about sex, who had done what with whom, and what it would be like to do it with each other. Then we would practice with our clothes on and our hands sometimes under them.
    One night he was on top of me on his living room couch, cramming his tongue down my throat, rubbing his hands up and down my sides. I responded by grabbing his back and moving my hands near his butt, pulling his hips closer to mine. Really, it was just instinctive, but Christian took it as a sign that I was teasing him and leaped off, crossing the room to sit at his piano.
    “What is it, Christian?” I asked, sitting up with a head rush. He had his head down against his chest, hands clasped and thumbs rubbing together. It took a million years for him to speak, and when he did it felt like we were finished before we’d even begun.
    “I’m afraid of hurting you… if we do it. I don’t want to ruin what we have, but we’ve gotta do something sooner or later… or… I just can’t handle this.” It was string of words that contradicted one another, confusing the hell out of me and diminishing whatever horniness I had developed on the couch.
    “You’re saying you want to have sex with me, but that you’re afraid if we do, we’ll break up? Or do you mean if we don’t have sex that the same thing will happen?” It was damned if you do, damned if you don’t, but Christian just shook his head.
    “I need a drink.” He stood up, making a beeline for his parents’ liquor cabinet. Yes, they actually had one like you saw in the movies, with mirrored panels, a padded leather bar, a wine chiller and crystal goblets hanging upside down under a light.
    Dr. Rusch must be a drinker, to have that much in his liquor cabinet. Or he kept it around for kicks and giggles, like when he entertained people at Christmas and New Year’s. Or, maybe it was his wife who was the drinker. Christian