Somehow Peaches and I ended up in my car. I had sobered up a bit by the time we ended our conversation, after Peaches had already texted Oliver and Griffin to tell them to head home without him. Instead of taking him home, though, we parked at the edge of a Whole Foods parking lot because we weren’t done talking and he didn’t want to go home yet.
As someone who tended to have fleeting sexual interactions with strangers, it was more exhilarating to have an emotional connection instead. To be fair, I had crossed over from “he’s cute” to “I want to fuck him” hours ago, but I could keep it in my pants. The dude had just broken up with his hot boyfriend. Even a slut like me didn’t think it was right to take advantage. Still, I wanted to take care of him, wanted to make him less sad, since making him happy wasn’t an option. As evidenced by my messy history with morally questionable men, I had a thing for guys with baggage. Maybe I was stuck in an archaic mindset of saving someone, of showing them what life and love could be like with someone like me. Maybe this was why it never worked out with Josh when we tried to date. Josh had no baggage. He had a supportive family, a happy past, a great sense of humor. He was only self-conscious about his weight, but I’d only learned that after months of friendship. Josh didn’t wear his heart on his sleeve. He just made jokes.
“Is there a word for it?” Peaches asked me as he leaned back in the seat he had reclined in order to stretch out.
“Femmesexual,” I joked before shrugging. “I don’t know, dude.”
“Do you have a preference?”
“Most of the guys I fuck are pretty masculine,” I said. I sat rested my elbows on my raised knees. I’d folded up my legs in order to fit sideways in the driver’s seat. “But it’s not a conscious choice. That’s just the type that hits on me. I can’t even count the number of supposedly ‘straight’ guys who come onto me. Maybe I’m less threatening to their sexuality or something.”
“Huh. See, ‘straight acting’ dudes, as I guess they’re called, do nothing for me. Oliver and Griffin and them? Ugh. They’re like my brothers.”
“You’ve never fantasized?”
“About Oliver? Ew, no.”
“I don’t believe you,” I replied, laughing. “He’s so hot.”
“Uuugh, no. Don’t say that. He’ll hear you, somehow, with his arrogant super powers. The last thing he needs is more people calling him hot.”
“Okay, Griffin’s hot.”
“He knows it, too, trust me. Those two are gross. No, I don’t think about my band members like that. Honestly, I’m not attracted to many people. I wondered if I was asexual for a while.”
“Really? Your tastes are that specific?”
“Sort of. They’re a little less so these days. Maybe I was dealing with so much trauma and shit that I didn’t focus on sex and sexual orientation. But fuck, the first time I saw Eddie…” His head fell back against the window and his gaze lifted toward the roof as he sank into the memory. “To be fair, I was starving and homeless, so anyone would have looked like an angel at that point. But you know what he looks like, and God, he was so fucking nice to me, nicer than anyone I’d ever met. He saved my life, and that’s no joke. My mind was in a really dark place and I…” He trailed off, biting his lip. When I didn’t butt in to save him from the silence, he continued. “I mean, I did have suicidal thoughts. I didn’t think anyone would care if I died, which was probably true at that point. And then he shows up wearing this ridiculous outfit… I still remember it, because it was around Christmas and he had on this… reindeer-print sweater and huge blinking Christmas tree earrings.”
I started laughing, and Peaches joined in. Once it subsided, he continued.
“I’m serious! He loves the kind of tacky shit you get at cheap gift parties. Anyway, he was volunteering at the homeless shelter, which is how I met him. When he learned I could play drums, he told me that this band he knew was looking for a drummer. Oliver let me move in with him and I got a job, which never would have happened without Eddie.” The joy in Peaches’s face bled away, revealing a deep, sucking sadness that I recognized because I’d felt it before. He covered his mouth with a fist to hide his reaction, but when he closed his eyes, he muttered, “God, I miss him.”
I reached out and put my hand on his knee, rubbing it gently. I expected Peaches to start crying, but instead he sucked in a deep breath and regained control of himself with impressive speed.
“I’m sorry,” he said, which he seemed to say a lot whenever he expressed any emotion.
“It’s fine. We’ve all been there.”
“I was hoping to avoid this topic altogether. Unfortunately, I find the task of dissecting my sexual orientation kind of fascinating, and it means talking about Eddie, because… well, he’s not everyone’s cup of tea, but he’s exactly mine.”
“Gorgeous genderqueer people with shitty fashion sense. Got it.”
Peaches cracked a smile, even if it was a sad one. “Yeah, pretty much.”
“That disqualifies me because I have great fashion sense.” I lifted a leg and straightened it, resting the heel of my cowboy boot on the dashboard. “I am also cisgender, though I admit I have a serious addiction to eye shadow.”
“It looks good on you.”
“It’s not too much? Lotta guys hate it.”
“I dated Eddie, so I’m fine with massive amounts of make-up. He really enjoyed putting it on, and I kind of enjoyed watching him do it. The process is magical. But do you go without it?”
“Sure. When I’m working I try to look as straight as possible, though obviously I’m not very good at that no matter what I do. But I love how I look with it. Plus I’ve still got acne and I look like a creature from the lagoon some days, so foundation helps. When I was little, I loved to put on my mom’s make-up. She thought it was cute.”
“It’s nice that she wasn’t upset.”
“Oh no, my faggotry is the one thing that hasn’t upset my mother.”
Peaches winced.
“I’m sorry. Not cool with the f-word?” I asked.
“You have the right to use it but… I just hate it.”
“I’ll take a note.” Guys who “passed” as straight seemed to hate the word more than queens like me, probably because they hadn’t had it hurled at them by every Tom, Dick, and Harry in the world. Not that Peaches hadn’t seen his share of bullying; he assured me foster care was hell. But these days he could enjoy a fucking drink and meal with friends without being laughed at by the table over. I didn’t have the luxury. The boys in summer school called me a faggot every day, but they also threatened to murder me and rape my mother, so after that, “faggot” didn’t seem like the most terrible insult a fuckwad mouthbreather could lob at me.
Eventually I had to take Peaches home. His “home” was actually an apartment he shared with Oliver and Griffin. In a normal situation, I would have asked if I could stay over, but my own damn morals held me back. I was into him, and I was pretty sure he was at least a little into me. Please. A guy who admitted and owned up to liking fem men? You could find a lot of “DL” guys on Craigslist who wouldn’t even offer a reach around because they were scared of penises, but most of them wouldn’t look you in the eye and say “hey, I like skinny ass limp-wristed boys” because society frowned on that sort of thing. Peaches was a breed of his own, and for once I wanted to fuck a guy who wasn’t ashamed about me the next day.
But I also wanted to be a good person and give the guy some space. We’d had our bonding moment, and I’d helped him get through a tough and emotional night. I’d done my duty, and now his healing process could begin while I went home and jacked off in the shower.
“We should hang out again,” Peaches suggested, which was news I liked to hear. I practically thrust my phone under his nose and asked that he put in his number. I did the same on his phone.
“I’m gonna need a picture for your number,” I told him when he handed the phone back.
“Why? My name not good enough?”
“I’ve got a couple other Peaches on my phone,” I joked. I knew I was flirting. I’d been flirting on and off all night, but I wasn’t sure if Peaches was picking up on it. “Gotta know which one it is.”
“I hate having my picture taken.”
“Boohoo, so does every other person on the planet outside of the Kardashians. Come on. Help me out. If you can’t smile, give me a smolder.”
Peaches instead looked annoyed, and so the picture I took was not the kind you’d take home and masturbate to. Oh well. At least I’d get to see his dorky face whenever he called me. Which he would, because if he didn’t, I’d be calling him.
Peaches said a final good-bye, waved, and headed toward the apartment building. I watched him walk away until he vanished inside, then sighed and sank deep into the driver’s seat. This was so typical for me—lusting after someone emotionally unavailable until our entire relationship collapsed under the weight of misunderstandings. It was wrong to want a friendship with someone for the sole hope that one day they’d want to bone you, but if Peaches never reached that point—if he just wanted to be friends—it wouldn’t be his fault. This was my own thing I needed to deal with, and as long as I acknowledged that, I convinced myself it was totally fine.
I shoved the car into gear and drove off into the night.
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