Glades and Playgrounds

“So… What do you wanna do today?” Gerard asked and smiled mischievously at me over his bowl of cereals. I shrugged and just continued watching him eat. Gerard is a slow-eater, I had already finished two bowls of cereals and he wasn’t even done with his first. “It’s too bad that Mikey left...”

“Yeah?”

“Mhm… He’s always good to have around when you’re bored. Just kick his arse for a few minutes, and voilá, you’re occupied…”

I decided not to comment on how he keeps himself occupied and instead just smiled.

“Seriously, is there anything you wanna do today? Because I got nothing…” he said and swirled around the milk in his bowl with his spoon.

“Uhm… No.”

“You’re not very talkative in the mornings, are you?”

I smiled apologetically, shook my head and got up from my chair to put my empty bowl in the dishwasher.

“Mom and dad left me, I mean, me and Mikey 100 bucks if we wanted to do something fun, and since Mikey’s gone… we can spend’em!”

“You’re an asshole, do you know that?” I laughed and took his bowl and put it in the sink.

“Hey, what the fuck? I wasn’t done eating!”

“You’ve been eating for half an hour now.”

“I didn’t know there was a fuckin’ time limit,” he muttered, then realized what I had said, “Did you just call me an asshole?”

“No?”

“You did too,” he got up and walked over to the sink, took his bowl and put it in the dishwasher, just like I had done with mine, “And if I’m an asshole, you’re a cunt…”

“You don’t get to call me a cunt,” I said and licked my lips, “Asshole.”

“Cunt.”

“Asshole,” I wrapped my arms around is neck and licked my lips again. He finally got the message and leaned in to kiss me but I jerked my head to the side so he’d kiss my cheek instead. A groan fell from his lips and I smiled, “Am I a cunt?”

“No…” he mumbled and brought a hand up and very softly caressed my cheek, “No, you’re not…,” and then he leaned in to kiss me again, though a bit more forcefully in case I’d turn away again. I didn’t, and instead just allowed his hot tongue to completely shut off my brain and take over my mouth. Not that my brain was telling me anything other than to kiss back… And somewhere in the kiss, I found it hilarious that I could make him give up a so-called fight just by licking my lips.

I tilted my head to the side and worked my lips passionately against his. His hand crept up from my waist and caressed my cheek gently before he placed it on the side of my head.

I pulled away when I felt that he was getting too eager with his tongue. God, how I loved to keep him on a short leash. He let a slightly pathetic, yet totally adorable whimper spill from his lips and his eyes suddenly seemed bigger and sadder than before, like a puppy’s.

“It’s doesn’t have to end,” he whispered, leaning in to kiss the corner of my lips. “It doesn’t, Frank… We can… We can- just… Frank…”

I knew very well what his intentions were, and I also knew what I wanted, and what I wanted didn’t match his needs, not now, not here in his sunny kitchen. It wasn’t supposed to happen at 1pm that Saturday afternoon, I just knew that. It’s too bad that my body doesn’t seem to be able to take orders. At least not immediately. So I let him kiss me again. I let his hands touch me, and I let him press me into the counter behind me, and I fucking loved it. I knew how much he wanted me, I wanted him just as much, but the time hadn’t come for us, so after several seconds of being completely brain-dead, my brain woke up and I smiled into his lips. He had crossed the line, and I had to keep the leash short, as always.

“There’s a carnival in town,” I whispered, moving my lips so I’d speak into his ear and his hands stopped with the torture they were putting me through, the torture of having to say no, to deny the both of us what we wanted. “Do you wanna go?”

“No,” he whined, “Carnivals are boring and expensive.”

“Cheap old tart…” I mumbled, low enough for him not to hear. “Let me guess, you wanna stay home, sit on the couch and watch a movie?”

“And gain weight,” he grinned and opened one of the wooden cupboards to his left. He pulled out two bags of chips, chocolate bars and then a big bottle of Coca Cola Zero out of the fridge.

“Ew, ew, ew.”

“What?” he gave me a short glance before opening one of the bags of chips.

“You just ate breakfast!” I cried, both slightly sickened and amused by his food manners. “That’s ew!”

“So?” he asked carelessly and ate a chips, “What movie do you wanna see?”

I couldn’t really recall accepting his idea of how we were gonna spend the day, so slightly taken aback, I said, “I don’t know?”

“So I get to decide?”

“What? No!” but he was already out of the kitchen, “Gerard!”

I gave the unhealthy food that I adored so much, except in the mornings, a long look before chasing after him. His feet were drumming against the floor upstairs, so I raced up there, finding him in his bedroom in front of the DVD’s.

“Disturbia or It?” he asked, holding up two movies for me to see the covers. I strode over to him, forced him down on the floor and straddled his stomach.

“This is what we’ll do,” I began and understood from the flickering of his eyes that he was amused by having my crotch pressed against his body, “Get dressed, carnival, get home, movie.”

I convinced mom to drive us to the carnival. It was just outside of Jersey, we could’ve taken the bus or a cab but the more money we saved, the more fun we could have. Though once we were in the car, I was pretty sure Gerard would’ve wanted to take a cab. Mom is, sadly, a huge Mariah Carey fan and tends to make the passengers sing along to whatever Mariah Carey song that’s blasting out of the car stereo.
She dropped us off just outside and told us to call when we wanted her to come and pick us up. We said our good bye’s, and a few minutes later, we were walking around on scattered popcorns and balloons.

“What do you wanna do first?” I asked and took his hand in mine. He had been in this mocked bad mood ever since we’d left, so I figured I’d let him decide. I doubted it was because I had forced him to come with me to the carnival. No, I think it was because mom had made the both of us sing along to her Mariah Carey CD in the car.

“I dunno’…” he mumbled, scanning the surrounding and then lit up, “Come on!”

What he had spotted was a death machine. You know, one of those so called amusement rides that’ll slung you back and forth until you spew your guts out.

“Wanna go for a ride?” he asked and held his hand out for me, and I gave him a hell no-face. “Oh, come on!”

“No fucking way,” I said, shaking my head, “Have fun. I’ll go ride the carrousel.”

“Fine…” he gave in, but instead of getting in line by himself, he just followed me as I made my way away from it. “What about that one?”

He pointed at a similar ride, though with a longer queue and I quickly shook my head.

“Don’t tell me you’re afraid of fast rides…” he sighed, “If so, why on earth did we go here?!”

“I dunno… To eat popcorn?” I suggested, grinning goofily at him and he sighed again.

“What about the rollercoaster?”

“Meh…” I groaned, but I knew I was being completely and utterly boring, so I shrugged, “Alright, but just once!”

“We’ll see ‘bout that, sweetheart…” he laughed and took a hold of my arm, dragging me along with him, his face expressing nothing but eagerness. “Come on!”

“I’m on my way for god’s sake,” I muttered and cursed myself for suggesting that we’d go to a fucking amusement park. “I’ll throw up on you.”

“Be my guest,” he said and after standing in line for a few minutes he handed over to tickets and dragged me into a small carriage that was painted red with lots of golden glitter on the sides. “You okay?”

“No. I hate you.”

He laughed and kissed my cheek before making sure his seatbelt was properly attached. The carriage slowly started moving forward and I gripped Gerard’s hand and scooted closer to him.

Now, let me just tell you. The following two minutes were filled with fear from my side and excitement from Gerard’s side. My legs were like jell-o once I got out, and Gerard was just laughing his ass off.

“That was awesome!” he shouted, then laughed when he saw my face, “Dude, your face is like… white.”

I gave him the middle finger, doubled over and threw up. Gerard froze for just a second, but then reacted and quickly led me to a flowerbed where he started rubbing my back. After a few stomach heaves, the cereals I’d had for breakfast was in the flowerbed, looking not to appetising anymore and Gerard was laughing his ass off. Again.

“You’re a total wimp, you know that?!” he kissed my forehead, “Stay here. I’ll be back in a sec.”

Confused, I watched him disappear into the mass of people and busied myself with spitting out the last remains of puke. I got a few angry glances from old ladies, but also some sympathetic looks from parents.

Five minutes later, Gerard was back with a glass of water and a couple of napkins, and I was seriously on my way of kissing him for being so adorable. I didn’t though, that would’ve probably made him throw up.

“Thank you,” I mewed and took a gulp of the water, swirled it around inside of my mouth and spat it out.

“You’re welcome,” he smiled and gently pecked my now clean lips, “And I’m sorry about making you-“

But I cut him off, “Don’t worry. I did it so you’d be happy… and so we could do something I wanted to do later!”

“And what do you wanna do then?” he smirked, suddenly looking like he was talking to Mikey, “Go ride the kiddy-carousel?”

“Shut up,” I moaned, “You just made me fuckin’ throw up; have some sympathy.”

“You’re right,” he said and put an arm around me, “Wanna go and sit down?”

I nodded and was quick to put my hand down his back pocket; it was quite a task thanks to the tightness of his jeans.

“Do you want something to eat?” he asked as we sat down on a meterhigh brick wall. I cocked an eyebrow at him, “I know that you just threw up, but my mom says that- uhm… nevermind…”

I laughed and felt a bit surprised that he had actually taken in and remembered something his mother had told him.

“You’re so beautiful when you laugh, do you know that?”

If I wouldn’t’ve seen his lips move, I would’ve thought I just imagined his words.

“You’re a cheesy bastard, do you know that?” I said back and tried to ignore the compliment, though much to my irritation I felt a blush creep up on my cheeks.

“And you’re blushing,” he said and looked seemingly happy about it. He laid down on his back on the brick wall, his head in my lap and looked up at me and then at the sky. “It’s already getting dark.”

“Yeah… Do you wanna go home?”

“We got here half an hour go!” he laughed and I couldn’t help but let my index finger touch his bottom lip, tracing out its contours. His laugh died out, and instead he smiled, letting me mess around with my finger across his face. “May I ask what you’re doing?”

“Shh…” My palm caressed his cold cheek and he smiled, showing his small teeth and his thin lips stretching out as wide as they could.

*

“French fries for the pansy!” Gerard announced and sat down on the brickwall with two paper plates with golden french fries. “I only bought a small to you, wasn’t sure whether you could eat too much…”

“Thanks,” I accepted the smallest one of the plates and immediately started eating, shoving too many fries in my mouth. Gerard looked at me, face blank.

“Maybe I should’ve bought a larger one…” he mumbled and started eating on his own. The dark was setting around us, sky black, amusement ride-lights were lighting up our surroundings. Red, yellow, blue and green lights flashed and blinked everywhere, and carousel-songs and laughter became a comfortable background-sound. Gerard looked at his watch while chewing.

“We should really go; Mikey will be home any minute.”

“Can’t he be home alone?” I asked as I got up. Not that I wanted to stay any longer.

“Uhm…” Gerard’s lips twitched, “He doesn’t have his keys…”

I sighed at Gerard, whose enjoyment shown through pretty clear at the thought of pissing Mikey off by not being home to let him in. “Should I call Linda, or are we gonna take a cab?”

“Cab,” Gerard said quickly and I’m pretty sure I heard him mutter something about Mariah Carey.