Nephilim

If I said I didn’t want it, I would have been a liar.

No matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t bring myself to say it. In those moments, I could barely speak at all. Yeah, I knew it wasn’t okay, though even now I can’t fully understand why.

It must have been something drilled into me before I could comprehend the markings of right and wrong. Whatever it was, all I could say about it was that it was on some level of sinful. I mean, Christ, we both went to the same Catholic school. I may not have liked my AP Theology class, but I paid attention in it. Even though he would never take a class like that, he must have learned it somewhere too. It wasn’t like we couldn’t do such a thing, because we did. It still takes me a while to accept it, but, hell. We did it a lot. A hell of a lot. We weren’t kids or anything. We knew what we were doing. We weren’t what you’d call adults, but shit, we knew what was going on down there. I guess I should have been the one to stop it. People would have taken me seriously. I was in the valedictorian circle; I was graduating with honors. He was a lady’s man, and a party boy, but besides that, I could have spoken up anytime. But I didn’t. It wasn’t a matter of him keeping me hostage, rather, I was the only one stopping myself. I didn’t want it to stop for a while.

For a time, it was all I had to look forward to in life. It was a break. It was something that I could finally consider greater than a distraction. I did want it. I couldn’t say no, because I didn’t want it to end.

But I did know it was wrong.

A man shall not lie with another man.

---

“Brendon, those are the geekiest glasses. I swear.”

He peered over the black frames from his text book, eyes shining with a glare. “It’s not my fault I’m farsighted. I need them to read.” He took them off, placing them on his desk and standing. “But I don’t need them to kick your ass.” He chuckled and heaved a playful shove.

Ryan held up his arms, laughing as he braced himself from the push and quickly countered, throwing a gentle punch to Brendon’s arm. The exciting tension of their roughhousing eased into a soft glow of content as the boys laughed, hands in pockets, eyes shut while they smiled. Ryan grabbed Brendon’s chair, turning it so that the back was against his chest and his legs straddled the sides.

“Hey, Brendon, you know Keltie? The hot blonde-haired girl from my math class?”

Brendon looked about awkwardly for another chair before settling into a lean against his desk. “No, actually. You’re taking Transitions, remember?” He slipped a superior smirk and crossed his arms in front of his chest.

Ryan frowned, his expression holding more sarcasm than honest anger.

Brendon was in Honors Pre-Calculus, and was excelling in it. Ryan was still struggling with the mysterious and utterly confusing concept of the x. Though Brendon knew Ryan would not take his comment as a full-on insult, he understood that it would prove effective. It was one more thing that he was better at, and that couldn’t have made Ryan any madder. One more victory for Brendon in the constantly raging war of their boyhood lives. It was a simple and harmless battle, but their rivalry was a sturdy foundation that was set many years ago, emerging like a tablet of stone on the day they had met.

Ryan sighed, false annoyance obvious in his voice. “Ha-ha-ha, funny man. That was great. Anyway, I thought you just might like to know,” His tone changed into one low and dangerously sensual. It dripped with pride and vanity, sinful and lusty. Brendon felt it odd that his heart began to skip faster at his sounds. “I got to try some of that ‘oh-so-condescending-Transitions’ pussy that you care to deem unworthy.”

Ryan pretended to inspect his fingernails, but his eyes were drawn to their corners to watch Brendon’s expression change. Brendon blushed a deep red. His eyes averted to the floor as a reigned hand fumbled for his glasses. A few of his unsteady fingers pushed the lenses into place from the bridge of his nose, the roseate complexion unfading.

Ryan continued, cradling his head with his palms, elbows teetering on the edge of the chair’s back. “Y’know, I’ve always wondered why you haven’t attempted such a feat, Brendon.” His voice was becoming demeaning. For one reason or another, he was venturing beyond the safety zone of their childish play. He was mocking, and being very serious about it.

“Are you so scared that the awe-inspiring Brendon can’t cut it in this frontier? Or is it that the only girls left in your math class are ugly-ass band geeks? Or that they look pretty enough, but they’ve already gotten some from me?”

His arguments were making little sense, but they were cheap blows, swift and stinging. Suddenly, Ryan tossed in a savior, proclaiming all of his previous statements null and void. His final addition made everything he had said before a joke. His tone seemed lighter.

“Or maybe it’s ‘cause you’re a faggot.”

Brendon eased his tensed shoulders, releasing a gratefully pleasant smile. He kicked a leg of Ryan’s chair. “No, you’re the faggot.”

A laugh escaped.

Ryan jolted to a stand as the chair shook, face happy and playful. He still looked like such a child when he laughed. Brendon realized this, and his laughter became quieter. Ryan’s, however, grew. “You hear that? That’s the sound of no denial.”

He chuckled it out, walking closer with smooth and secure steps. He stopped a few inches away from Brendon, only a few centimeters shorter, his deep brown eyes fixated on Brendon’s. “You’d probably come in your pants if I were to kiss you, huh?” He smiled, confident and comical. Brendon’s grin began to fade, and the small hints of his blushing began to return.

“That was a fucked-up thing to say. You turn queer or something?” It came out as a pushed laugh. Brendon had tried not to sound curious, but what he had meant to sound joking came out as something hard and even a little bit frightened. No one had ever said something that raunchy to him before. Sure, Ryan had gotten pretty nasty and detailed as he recounted his weekend-night escapades, ultimately topping Brendon’s academic and physical skills, but never in a way that made Brendon wonder such things. He hadn’t even heard such a thing from a girl. Hell, he hadn’t heard anything like that from a girl. An uncomfortable silence grew between them, and Brendon felt the rhythm of Ryan’s hot breaths on his face. Ryan’s eyes looked downcast as they hid below his hood of chestnut hair.

Brendon’s arms uncrossed and fell to the corners of the desk. He gripped the edges, suddenly feeling very unsafe. Ryan took another step, flicking his long brown bangs away, his stare harsh and unfamiliar.

“You tell me, Brendon.”

Brendon felt the tickle of their hair intertwining first, before anything else. He saw it, the unnatural combination of Ryan’s brown strands forcing themselves into Brendon’s hair. It was like pouring dirt onto untouched platinum, defiling and dirty. He felt his own burning, then. There was a rush of color that left Brendon stunned in a swarm of black, eyes abandoned and blank. His face was on fire as Ryan’s cheek touched his own. He felt he was swimming in an ocean of red, red, red. There was so much, it clouded in ebony. He felt the slick moisture of Ryan’s lips, a pressure of wet heat upon his own, then a slip of hot tongue into his mouth. It tasted inhuman and foreign, a thing that is unwelcome, unwanted. It fought with Brendon’s, lifting it up with a forceful power that showed practice. He tasted like strangers. Many, many strangers. There was a brush of lashes upon Brendon’s eyelids, signaling their closure. There were hands upon his, a push on his chest, a lock-in of his legs.

The moments came so quickly, it was as if Ryan had been placed upon him. Brendon did not struggle. His mind was so empty, his body so stiff. There were no thoughts; there was silence save for the sound of their lips rolling upon one another.

One explosion of a word, blossoming darkly in his mind: Sinner.

Brendon clamped his eyes tighter, trying to fall backwards so that his mouth would pull away. It stayed too close, and when his shoulders hit the front of the desk, they were caged by Ryan’s arms. Their lips were still together, their tongues still moving to a beat that was startlingly slow. It was difficult to stop. Brendon felt his head would burst as his one thought multiplied into an echo of guilt. The lone word shadowed into a million pointing fingers, their sleeves black, their digits white.

Sinner, sinner, sinner, sinner...

The warning bell rang, loud and crisp, like a cut on an arm. The bloodline of its beeping was thick and menacing. Only one minute left before class started.

Ryan pulled away, eyes shaded with the darkness of his hair’s eclipse and the fullness of his lashes. He looked sleepy and full. Perhaps contented. His lips shone with the remains of Brendon’s saliva. His cheeks were heavy with the rich color of roses, but not embarrassed. Not at all.

His mouth lifted into one of his customary kid-like smiles. “Oops. Looks like I fell on ya, huh, buddy?”

Brendon nodded, breathless. “Y-yeah,” he mused, voice so quiet it was almost gone. His glasses were fogged, but he could still see the clouded outlines of things.

Ryan pulled away, lifting himself and straightening his shirt and tie before grasping the strap of his backpack. He looped his paper-boy style bag onto his hip, shaking his hair back into its bouncy waves. He looked back. Brendon was panting, face crimson, back still plastered onto the heated paneling of the desk. Ryan grinned. He looked...caring.

“You okay? I didn’t mean to trip on you.” His lie was like a bribe.

Brendon shot himself up with his arms, stumbling to straighten his glasses and lunge for his own backpack. “It’s okay, yeah, I’m fine, yeah.” He wiped his brow with the back of his hand and flicked the sweat away with a wave. “I’ll see you later, alright?”

Ryan shot a hand up, face still stronger. “Yeah.”

They walked away in separate directions, the outline of Brendon’s handprint still steamed onto the shining top of the desk, like a picture written on a frosty window. As Brendon walked away, he reached to wipe the sweat that had surely gathered upon his brow. He only felt the silky clamminess on his cool skin. The one word began to skate the outline of his stomach, making his head spiral, making his wan face turn fevered to the touch and color.

Sinner.